Andrew Neil, the living embodiment of why hair transplants are a bad idea, has announced that he’s to leave the BBC and will head a new right wing broadcaster which is being touted as the British Fox News. The new channel is expected to give a home to the likes of that Waitrose Katie Hopkins, Julia Hartley-Brewer, and Nigel Farage – if he can get a visa to get out of his home in Kent now that the British Government is erecting a customs border around the county. I’m sure we’ll all love seeing how Nigel explains to the public how Kent, which voted 59% to leave the EU, is loving being turned into a French carpark.
Scotland is shocked, shocked and surprised to discover Andrew Neil’s true political leanings. We never noticed the Adam Smith Institute tie when Andrew was being impartial on the BBC. Who knew that Andrew was really a Tory eh? Well, just about everyone. Especially anyone who used to read the Scotsman before Andrew turned it into the Scottish Conservative fanzine that it is today as it struggles to survive. Andrew Neil is a representative and balanced BBC Question Time audience all by himself. It must be awful for right wing commentators only to have columns in the Spectator and the Telegraph and BBC Politics programmes to use to defend themselves from the mockery of left wing comedians.
We only have Brexit in the first place because the BBC decided to give Nigel Farage a platform. The BBC thought that “balance” meant giving equal time and credence to the batshit crazy claims of Brextremists. They stuffed their audiences with right wing Brexit supporters – which is how we got the ridiculous spectacle of Question Time from the left wing yes voting and overwhelmingly remain voting city of Dundee being, ahem, represented with an audience which was split 50-50 on the question of Brexit. None of us had ever realised that Dundee was so full of posh right wing Tories. A public broadcaster tells us that it’s its job to put the public right, by which they clearly mean to put the public right wing.
However even being given more than equal time isn’t enough for the right. So now they tell us that the UK is desperately in need of an even more right wing media outlet where they can zoom away unchallenged. This is because whereas the BBC and Sky News just chased after leaking inflatable boats stuffed full of desperate migrants trying to cross the Channel and shouted questions at them as they panicked as their inadequate vessels slowly filled with seawater, this new broadcaster’s reporters will shoot crossbow darts at them as well. If Sky News and the BBC aren’t right wing enough for you, this new channel is gong to be off the zoomer scale. It will be the channel for those guys in the supermarket who don’t wear a face mask and go around telling everyone in a loud voice that they don’t need to because of something that they read on Facebook. It won’t be so much Fox News as Forfuckssake News.
The UK media is already ridiculously skewed, this new channel will only skew it even further, and give yet more prominence to the kind of right wing voices who trashed any concept of honesty or decency in order to bring us Brexit. It will be the televisual equivalent of a right wing tabloid newspaper, and no doubt complete with the same fixation on WW2, bunting, military parades, and royal events. We’ll have right wing commentators going on about migrants. We’ll have Brextremists blaming the mess of Brexit on the EU and remainers. We’ll get James Delingpole on a maskless expedition to his local branch of Sainsburys. And we’ll have British nationalists slating Scottish independence and ranting about the evils of nationalism blissfully unaware of the nationalism that they represent themselves. Because they’ve stuck a union flag on it, which magically stops it from being nationalism.
What the new channel most certainly won’t do is to give a fair platform to those of us who seek an independent Scotland, struggling as we are with a media environment where despite there being a clear majority in all recent polling for yes, only one Scottish newspaper and its sunday edition supports the constitutional view backed by a majority of the population. Meanwhile the broadcasters are controlled and regulated from London, and we have a BBC which sees its job as being to bolster and boost Britishness, and a BBC Scotland which regards support for independence as an embarrassing aberration that has to be rooted out.
We now have the ludicrous spectacle of the Baroness’s sock puppet DRoss being given a right to reply after the First Minister has made a public health announcement. Opposition politicians are not given a right to reply to public health announcements in Wales where there is a Labour First Minister. It sure as hell doesn’t happen in London after the performance artiste with the stage name Boris – you can call me Al – Johnson has given an address to the UK. Can you imagine the outrage from the Tories if the BBC did? But BBC Scotland bowed to political pressure from the Conservatives and Labour who are terrified that Nicola Sturgeon’s competent and compassionate performance during her daily public health briefings are being compared favourably by the Scottish public with the shambling incompetence and confusion of the Conservatives. They can’t risk support for independence rising any more, so let’s confuse the health message instead.
Back in 2014 Scotland was told that it should stay in the UK in order to lead it from within. Instead what we’ve seen is a UK that is moving ever further away from Scottish sensibilities and the consensus of Scottish opinion. There is less and less representation of Scotland’s view in a media landscape which is growing ever more shrill, hostile, and right wing in its triumphalist British nationalism. When Andrew Neill announced the launch of this new right wing news channel saying that GB News would be aimed at the “vast number” who feel “underserved and unheard by their media” – it’s not the majority in Scotland that he had in mind.
If Scotland wants a media that represents it, we’ll only get one in an independent state. Meanwhile the media landscape of the UK is ranged against us. In order to achieve our independence we’re going to need every grassroots resource at our disposal. Meanwhile we’re at 55% support and rising.
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Wee Ginger Dug 
[…] Wee Ginger Dug Forfexake News Andrew Neil, the living embodiment of why hair transplants are a bad idea, has […]
What we want to know is when where and at what times will it be broadcasting in a Scotland England Ireland and Wales.
Will it broadcast the exact same programmes in each country on the same day at the same time.
We will see.
There’s no reason for a GB programme like this other than
England’s Westminster propaganda war against Scotland
Old Brillio aka Andrew Neil once took the huff when a English politicians on BBC2’s Politics show called him Scottish. Of course this new channel called GB, will undoubtably make the BBC and other British nationalist news outlets such as the Express newspaper and the Daily Mail appear almost Communist in nature.
It will do nothing for Scotland and Scottish independence, we should ignore it, and use its more than likely, anti independence rhetoric against the union.
No idea who James Delingpole is and wish I didn’t know who Andrew Neil is. I will not be patronising his channel.
What I would like is that all the online sources of news, comment, current affairs, education and comedy could be brought together in one portal. I listen to podcasts such as the Dughouse and Lesley Riddoch, Twa Auld Heids, watch Bruce Fummey, Richard Murphy, Gaelic with Jason (thx to whoever posted that link – he’s an excellent teacher), and many others. But they are scattered and it’s hard to keep up-to-date.
Stuart Cosgrove and Eamon O’Neill do a podcast now that they are kicked off the Media review on John Beattie’s lunchtime show. In fact, I think even John Beattie has been kicked off.
Is there no way of funding a Scottish channel which would broadcast stuff we are actually interested in…a public service broadcaster? They could even broadcast the daily covid briefings, FMQs and committee proceedings.
If you *really* wanna know whom JD is … read on and may you preserved from high blood pressure.
(Scotland: Know Your Enemies – An occasional series. Number 42955 b)
https://www.conservativehome.com/highlights/2014/03/interview-andrew-gimson-meets-james-delingpole-a-conservative-who-thinks-the-british-establishment-stinks.html
Gee thanks WS. I’m off to the vomitarium.
The folk in England think Andrew Neil is a broadcaster and interviewer, I wouldn’t worry about this new propaganda channel at all because when Andrew Neil feels himself free of constraints he’ll become the big giant mouthed Lord Haw Haw he’s always wanted to be, armbands salutes and all, plus if he populates his *programme* with the likes of the Faragists and the Francis’s and the Hopkins’s I have an idea he’ll get sussed pretty sharpish
I’ve no doubt that having the house band playing God save the Rule Britannia, a studio bedecked in Union flags and red white and blue furniture might give the game away if the goose stepping fails
It’ll have its audience though, but once again will show that Scotland’s government being forcibly unable to licence broadcasters of its own has to endure any decision England decides should be imposed upon us, particularly in political terms it’s an English government indoctrination one step further than the already disgraced BBC and given Andrew Neil and these others views it’s dangerous and deliberate, but America has it so we must have it too and that’s worked out really well for the Americans hasn’t it
They’ll have half of England demanding the right to bear arms within a month and holding phone ins so the maddies can give their opinions on sending the troops into Scotland to sort us out
And that worked out really well for them in Ireland too didn’t it
From the opening “Andrew Neil, the living embodiment of why hair transplants are a bad idea…” I laughed hard, bravo. Your tailend warning is justified, if PQ’ s publications are any guide, all hell is about to descend from Bitter Together, but oddly enough their “shock and awe” is landing with a dull squelch, so more “shockin? Naw”.
“Forfexake News” right enough.. Never had any respect for Neil with his condescending intellect, making millions out of it personally is no different to the de Pfeffel prostitution, and it would not surprise me if this is preparation for de Pfeffels imminent departure from #10 to carry on the grand snake oil crusade… It will be to maintain the Brexit mindset and that audience is not n Scotland..
Speaking of prostitution, Bob, maybe there will be a ‘where are they now?’ slot with an early guest Pamella Bordes, an old acquaintance of Brillo.. I wonder if she still has the Moulinex food mixer?
Oh, Google it, Duggers, and have a right laff.
Making the dinner. Later.
Found it Jack! How is Mrs C doing?
https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/special-report/story/19890415-pamella-bordes-sexual-escapades-with-high-and-mighty-rock-british-establishment-815974-1989-04-15
Molly ! I got a new phone and lost your email. Can you send it via Paul?
My Everlovin’ was delighted with your hand crafted card…
She sends her love.
She’s well on the way to mobility again…but still expects to be waited on hand and foot; so no change from the past 3 decades or so then.
Seriously, the NHS is just miraculous.
Hope you are all well in the wilds of Canada.
Look after each other. We ain’t gonna survive this long so that a pesky wee bug brings us down, eh?
Bisous, cherie.
I just sent you an email Jack…if I don’t hear from you I will check this link …and add the info.
Hugs
😷🏴😷🏴😷
Sent a reply, Molly. Slowly but surely rebuilding my address book.
{; o )
🤣
A wee bit of sensationalism from the National newspaper here, Sturgeon doesn’t mention the word Cybernats in the article.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18751107.nicola-sturgeon-criticises-cybernats-run-2021-holyrood-election/#comments-anchor
She should have stuck at 3 tweets, or made the 4th without names:
“And on the subject of calling it out even when it’s on my own ‘side’, disagree with – ANYONE – as much as you like, but leave out the misogynistic abuse.”
That would have been even-handed instead of apparently one-sided and totally biased.
A certain conspiracy based website will be dining out for weeks on that one.
Haven’t you heard, it might be a very few weeks
And the biggest bullies of all, RoS, are those who use their influence online to manipulate their supporters into doing their dirty work for them, imo.
…………………………
”And we’ll have British nationalists slating Scottish independence and ranting about the evils of nationalism.”
Interesting that this will no doubt be up and running in the lead up to Indyref2. I also wonder who’s actually behind financing this, as I can’t see Brillo using his own £dough.
……………………….
”Neil Oliver has joined advisory board of Kevin Hague ‘These Islands’ group 🤔.” https://mobile.twitter.com/IndigoFast/status/1309653361877291010
………………………..
The latest Westminster botch-up.
Dr Philippa Whitford:- ”What is the point of it then? Surely idea is that App will let you know if you’ve been near someone who tests +ve. Can’t see how will work if no code when test +ve!
http://Protect.Scot App has already identified 800 contacts – sim proportion for England would be ~ 8,000!” https://mobile.twitter.com/Dr_PhilippaW/status/1309539091667615749
I made the mistake of looking at the comments on that subject and a couple of others in the National comments section tonight. The hatred towards the Snp and the FM in particular is pallible there. It is full of unionist trolls and ultra feminist bampots who say they are Indy supporters but all have an agenda against GRA legislation. I really don’t see what the point of the comments section is and I certainly object to paying for it as part of my subscribtion. I don’t think it encourages people to read the newspaper either. Not helpful for The National to use the word cybernat in that article when NS didn’t say that
Some strange ‘woman’? hogging the comments and being the most abusive.
Quite remarkable.
This is now well beyond a joke, not only are they ridding themselves of the senior civil servants, not only have they got rid of all the MP’s in their own party who were against Brexit. They say they will break International Law and who cares about the consequences, they say the will rip up the Scotland Act and the devolution settlement, they say they want to end h=judicial review and have the poweer to appoint judges to the Supreme Court.
Now this from Tim Shipman in the Times:
https://archive.vn/oV8TD (full article behind a paywall)
This is a coup taking place in plain sight, when will the rest of the media wake the fuck up. When will the people wake the fuck up. They cannot be allowed to get away with this. It is obscene but I’ll say this for No 10, they don’t give a fuck.
Supplementing Alex Clark – avoiding a paywall.
See Bella:
https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2020/09/26/breaking-right-wing-broadcasting-media-takeover/
[…]
Now, in a new development tonight it’s announced that Boris Johnson is ushering in a revolution at the top of British state broadcasting. Paul Dacre, the former editor of the Daily Mail, is the prime minister’s choice to become chairman of Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, and Lord Charles Moore, the former editor of the Daily Telegraph and biographer of Margaret Thatcher, has been asked by the prime minister to take up the post of BBC chairman.
This does indeed change the landscape of tv broadcasting in a quite astonishing way signalling patronage, state control and a lurch to the right. As we head into our No Deal Winter the idea of a progressive broadcast media is being destroyed.
This is copybook Trump (or indeed any US President) stuff.
See his eagerness to appoint the replacemen justice to the late Ruth Bader Ginsberg in the US Supreme Court.
The Heffalump in No. 10 Downing Street can’t – yet – appointment judges. But … Coming to a shamocracy near you, soon.
Someone agreeing with you Alex 😀.
The Churchill Project: – ”Dear Britain, we need to wake up.” https://mobile.twitter.com/WinstonCProject/status/1309431360420032517
………………………….
Paul:- ”We now have the ludicrous spectacle of the Baroness’s sock puppet DRoss being given a right to reply after the First Minister has made a public health announcement. Opposition politicians are not given a right to reply to public health announcements in Wales where there is a Labour First Minister. It sure as hell doesn’t happen in London”..
BBC Scotland News:- ”“The confusion and uncertainty continues.” Scottish Conservatives leader
@Douglas4Moray criticises the Scottish government’s response to the issues facing students due to coronavirus.”
Ooops the DRoss link. https://mobile.twitter.com/BBCScotlandNews/status/1309465436975763457
The thing is this, the BBC, as a supposed public service broadcaster paid for by a mandatory licence fee, should not be, nor should it – under every DG since the departure of Greg Dyke – have ever let itself become, a plaything of the UKGov of the day, whichever party is in power. It’s not the UKGov’s money, it’s OURS. The choice of DG should be in our hands, or at least that of some independent commission ultimately answerable to the public, not in BoJo’s sticky paws.
Even England is now begining to realise that the BBC has slowly but surely allowed itself, with nary a whimper, to have become a subservient PR arm of the state, and pliant vassal of a rampant unanswerable Tory Party.
Down with the Tory broadcasting poll tax!
The British state has become a parody in itself , it has become so right wing that Mussolini if he were alive would feel right at home. The party is a alive and well, controlling the media ,denouncing socialists, progressives and anyone who wants equality. The British state is a disgrace,.A border in Kent who would have voted for that, oh wait the yoonyon is wage with them,strong and stable …. The propaganda has been so strong and perverse that the yoonyonists can’t see that they have followed such a dark path, on step at a time you go from proud scot but to locking up your fellow Scots for daring to question the state propoganda. Very sad to see the 1930,s have returned
Here is the full article from the Times.
https://archive.vn/m18wm
(Alas that’s still behind a pay wall. But the picture couldn’t be any clearer anyway. This is what “taking back control” was really always intended to mean.)
Strange, I definetly archived and saved it after I read it? Oh well, sorry about that.
The Wayback Machine is somewhat odd in the way it “archives”, unlike others, it seems to rely a lot on forward linking to the original site where it (thinks it) can. As well as (obviously) saving space, maybe that’s intentional to prevent breaking paywalls, I dunno. I still haven’t a clue what algorithm it uses to actually save something in full itself.
With the other archive sites, you must have your own access to the full article before you can save it in full, I think.
Let them spout their English supremacist propaganda through andrew neil if they must its just gonna make the hole they dug themselves into even deeper.
Johnson will be on his way out of Downing Street soon, new Opinium poll for the Observer gives Labour a 42/39% lead over them and Starmer a 4% lead over Johnson.
https://archive.vn/yxa65
The men in grey suits from the 1922 committee will be sharpening their bayonets as I type, might not stab him the back until “Brexit is done” so as he can take the blame for that as well. Another 1% support for Independence in Scotland, we’re getting there.
You could be right about BoZo being the eventual fall guy, but he’s not really in charge anyway, is he? And it doesn’t matter if Labour go to 99% in the polls, the Tories are guaranteed to be in power in London for another four-odd years whatever.
Joanne Cherry made a reference in the latest “Any questions” to 10 years to independence. I hope we escape long before that, because if we wait till even the end of the current WM mandate we might never manage to break free. (And even if Starmer does eventually prevail in England, he won’t be any better for us anyway.)
WOW right enough 🤬.
Adam Wagner, Human Rights Barrister:- ”Wow, new government amendment to the Internal Market Bill will exclude regulations made under it from being challenged under the Human Rights Act. The government is piece by piece removing citizens’ ability to challenge its unlawful actions.” https://mobile.twitter.com/AdamWagner1/status/1309452119041245185
……………………………..
Check out Ann’s links on the Indyref2 site.
https://indyref2.space/forum/topic/links-saturday-26-september-2020/
Dear Scotland,
I believe your FM will be of the same opinion as Mark:
___________
Suspecting a deliberate attempt in Whitehall to ignore the Welsh Government
Mark Drakeford blames anti-devolution elements in Boris Johnson’s government for the lack of negotiations between the two leaders.
First Minister Mark Drakeford says he suspects that opposition to devolution within the British government is deliberately hindering negotiations between him and Boris Johnson.
He believes that there are “voices” within the Conservative government who do not like devolution and want all decisions to be made in Whitehall.
Speaking to LBC this morning, Mark Drakeford said that he wanted more regular and reliable contact with the British Prime Minister, instead of the occasional meetings that are currently taking place.
“Apart from a conversation I had on Monday and the Cobra meeting on Tuesday, the last time I spoke to Mr Johnson was in May,” he said.
“Those discussions have not been regular enough or reliable enough.
“What I don’t want are unannounced meetings, called in an emergency, and then weeks of silence.”
Asked why there are no regular discussions happening, he said:
“Taking the kind view, the Prime Minister is incredibly busy, has a wide range of responsibilities and we are all responding to very fast changing circumstances.
“I think there’s another explanation. Namely, there are some voices in the Conservative government that have discovered after 20 years that there is such a thing as devolution. They’ve found that they don’t like it, think it would be much better to turn the clock back 20 years and all decisions are made in Whitehall, and they would rather not spend their time talking to us.”
___________
Source: https://golwg.360.cymru/newyddion/cymru/2014963-amau-ymgais-fwriadol-whitehall-anwybyddu
Translation: GT + WS
For all of Mark Drakeford’s Labour allegiances he speaks as an honest Welshman foremost, with what used to be labour values second, an echo of what used to be in Scotland, bravo Drakeford,
a man of principles in an age where they’re notably absent.
Said it before. Scots need to disengage from the London media bubble. It doesn’t apply to them. It doesn’t server them. It doesn’t even refer to them when it says “The North”.
I have a concern, it is that almost everyone appears to be going around with their eyes and ears closed to what is going on with this Tory government. How in the hell are they being allowed to dismantle everything that once might have been argued was seen as good about the UK?
I’m talking of the welfare state, the trade union movement, the National Health Service, multitudes of industries that were there to serve the public good such as water, electricity and gas.
Now we are looking at a whole new level of dismantling, they are going the whole hog and taking apart piece by piece the civil service, the judiciary and the fecking BBC who already worship at their feet.
Not satisfied with that they are now putting their people in charge at Ofcom, the body that is supposed to oversee the BBC and all broadcasting as well as everything that is digital, you know like the internet! Just to make sure all bases are covered, they stick in a new Chairman as well who will do their bidding alongside the new Director General that they have already put in place.
Stick all that on top of the certainty of the rise in Covid cases and deaths that we unfortunately will see in the coming weeks, we can’t hide from that as the measures taken are unlikely to be good enough to prevent a rise in cases, add in Brexit as the cherry on the top and it really doesn’t look good from where I’m sitting.
I’m not wanting to alarm people but if you’re not worried then you should be. These are the actions of a fascist dictator, open your eyes folks, it looks like this ride is about to get pretty bumpy.
True Alex
But remember all that stuff won’t be coming with us when we pack our bags and leave
We will be getting our own
So they can dismantle all they want for all I care
My last response to your posting upthread and this one of cours might well have crossed, because I could hardly agree more. The BBC has of course been neutered, and the Dead Tree Scrolls are already in the hands of the Right, so how are most people to know?
I complained already to the BBC about a shallow equivalencing exercise last week or so where Kuenssberg seemed to think that the Internal Market Bill had no serious implications at all for Scotland, just (to paraphrase her) a little bit of give-and-take. I have no idea under what constraints she and her colleagues are labouring, but that kind of blinkered analysis is a serious abandonment of professional standards, since even a superficial reading of what’s in there can readily perceive that “here be dragons”. For England too, in other ways.
So yes, there are dangers ahead. Besides just all waking up, we might also have some hope that this radical-right UKGov will finally over-reach itself. Maybe even (and sadly) in England first. But we had better get that lifeboat ready to float.
The Internal Market Bill is indeed a sinister piece of legislation and in more ways than those already highlighted.
Gove, just a few days ago floated the rather bizarre threat that Scotland along with Cornwall would be the first to suffer food shortages. This is of course nonsense, Scotland has a food surplus along with an abundance of natural assets. We grow enough wheat to feed all of Scotland 5 times over to name just one example, so why would Scotland be the first to suffer food shortages. We already know the answer and I expect to hear more of this in the coming weeks. I expect our MP’s to be all over this.
And the Linesman Dross, ushered on to the TV / Radio channels and in the columns of the foreign owned Dead Tree Scrolls this week , threatened Scotland with 550,000 redundancies if we don’t bow down to his Imperial Masters in England and meekly accept the UK IM Bill, which breaks international law, and would lead to god knows what civil unrest and violence in NI, and completely destroy Scotland’s food and drinks industry, remove our HR and Employment rights, privatise our HHS, water, and who knows what else. (Pauses for breath.)
THis IM Bill will destroy Scotland’s Parliament; of this there can be no argument.
Ross’ Masters in London are attempting to reduce our democracy to a mere shadow of an administration, and are hell bent on flooding Scottish markets flooded with cheap Texas beef, Kentucky ‘Scatch’, and GM infected porridge.
I’m sorry, this little pipsqueak of a man has actually declared that England would refuse to trade with Scotland; he has actually threatened his own country with a trade embargo, and described a Scotland brought to its knees by his English Masters if we don’t do as we are told.
It is all nonsense of course, despite Glenn Campbell and BBC North Korea allowing this fascist nonsense free airtime, lending it gravitas by nodding sagely on cue as this Fascist brutish barrage of threats and starvation spill from the lips of this zombie nobody.
His Siamese twin, Andrew former RN (failed ..wiki this little mollusc ‘s cv) Sub Lieutenant Bowie was on his feet at PMQ giggling like a coke addict, inviting his hero, womaniser bigot Johnson to ‘agree’ with him that the illegal UKIM would save 550,000 Scottish jobs and the fish industry?
Ross and Bowie; Two sad little fleas off the same rancid dug.
God, how did the Blue Tory Party end up with people like this, and Jaimie Greene and the giant Bo Bo Doll, Miles Brigs, two unelected ListTory Boys, who are also granted unlimited airtime and column inches by the Fourth Estate Fifth Column of the Brit Media, to lie in our faces.
These little men threaten us with starvation and economic ruin, at the hands of the country to the South, a hostile bitter act of war, in a sense.
It is all lies of course.
England will be desperate for a trade deal with Scotland, as part of the reconstituted EU ’28’.
The Car Workers of Sunderland will be looking northwards hoping to emigrate to Free Scotland come January ’21; I doubt that the language and threats that this Brit Nat cohort would be allowed anywhere else in the so called Free World.
It is an act of treason to threaten your own country with harm by a foreign power.
IT is as basic as that. Dross will be at the vanguard of ProudScotsbut Brit Nat Judases killing Scots if we don’t bow down to his imperial masters.
The Red and Blue Tories are no better.
I can no longer stand by and allow this nonsense to go on.
They are threatening us with destruction.
Disengage from London .. ? fair enough
But first and foremost we the Scottish independence support need to stick together
It’s too late for a new leader the leader we have is in charge of the next Independence referendum
That’s it accept it
If she doesn’t deliver and I don’t just mean deliver a referendum I mean independence too
We choose a new leader and carry on
This thing doesn’t end until we have Scottish independence
Now all those Scottish independence supporters
who keep biting at the heels of the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon
need to get into line , right away, it’s getting close
This is not the time for infighting
We don’t have time for arguing amongst ourselves
The enemy is your foe and should be your target
Get on with it and do this properly
Or you’re going to actually help the other side and make our togetherness more difficult
Absolutely, spot on.
It seems at least one journalist at the Spectator where Johnson was one time editor has his doubts about putting Dacre in charge at Ofcom.
https://archive.vn/Cz4bL
The fact that they can get away with such brazen cronyism as this sickens me but does not surprise me when you can plainly see how billions have been wasted dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic and they still couldn’t even get their app right on it’s release.
Test and Trace is a shambles, PPE contracts awarded to companies with no capabilities or track record in supplying PPE, almost every decision results in a u-turn.
The corruption on show is astonishing, what has happened to the supposed watchdog “The National Audit Office” and their supposed oversight with public spending? They are missing in action.
It has to be all over now for the Union, we just need to get over the last couple of hurdles.
Scotland is now saying “Fuck that for a game of sodjers!” we’re taking oor baw back.
Just to be clear everything I above said is in relation to the behaviour of the Westminster government. The Scottish government have succeeded where they and their billions have failed. Our Test and Trace is run by the NHS and not and an accountancy firm Serco. Any failures in our system have been as a result of failures in the privatised system run by Deloitte.
All our PPE is now being sourced from Scottish companies who have contracts to manufacture the equipment in Scotland, this will prove to be important as the month’s pass.
Our app is up and running as of yesterday over 1,25 million have downloaded the app, that is 28% of the adult population and is at the very top with the best countries who’s public have responded in order to support combatting this virus.
Who says we are too wee, too poor and too stupid? Whoever does need to pay more attention.
My bets are that Brillo’s backer for his new propaganda channel is Murdoch aka the lizard of Oz. Murdoch owns Fox and his Australian channel Sky News Australia where Katie Hopkins has a regular slot reporting on UK stories. Murdoch hasn’t succeeded in controlling Sky UK as much as he’d like to but he has full control of Fox in the US and Sky in Australia. It stands to reason that he would have to create a clone of Fox and Sky Australia for his UK mouthpiece given his inability to control Sky UK. Hence GB News fronted by his trusted lieutenant Andrew Brillo.
Watch this for more background and try not to laugh…this is serious.
GB News is being backed by the Discovery Channel (owned by Disney). Murdock sold his global “entertainment” division out to Disney a few years ago, leaving him with a few outlets in the US such as Fox News (who would touch the toxic pile of shite?).
Murdock is reported to be considering his own, new, News channel in the UK. Perhaps he will fold this into the Discovery effort?https://www.ft.com/content/470cf7f4-59e6-47c1-9efa-ce634b7980d7
GB News will be on Freeview and will therefore come under Ofcom. In “normal” times regulation by Ofcom would mean a requirement to maintain a degree of editorial balance (by standards set by the English establishment (and we know what that means)). The Sunday papers are reporting that Paul Dacre, ex-editor of the Daily Telegraph (and still the Chief Exec. of the group) is being put up by Johnson / Cummings as the new Chair of Ofcom. This was reported in Private Eye (which went to press Tuesday), so why the delay?
Dacre’s politics are somewhere to the right of Joseph Goebbles. Dacre also has strong Scottish connections (he owns vast tracts of it!), expect an unrestricted, Unionist propaganda machine.
Not that this development should necessarily be considered a bad thing. We have achieved a 20% swing in opinion since 2014 with only one mainstream media outlet. Mainstream media outlets appear to preach to the converted. What appears to matter to folk and to determine their position regards Independence, is their lived experience. Perhaps a new “News” channel screeching right wing, English nationalists propaganda will have the opposite effect to that which Andrew Neil and his backers intend?
Is GB telly going to be free? Who’s funding it…
As above Arty. It’s Murdoch who else could it be. Brillo and the Lizard of Oz go back a long way. Brillo was the lizard’s man on the London times.
It’s just a public example of the Unionists preparing for battle. Some in public view such as Davidson’s ermine more hidden in the shadows with the dark money and the preparations of undermining blogs like these which are out with the likes of Murdochs and oligarchs control. Yet we have the miopic Fringe demanding for the FM to go, for the successful SNP to be disbanded ( accept its many faults) and somehow in the next 6 months to reinstate Salmond or bring on Cherry and co, let’s have even more parties to split our vote.
In this false panacea everything will work out fine.
Does anyone remember the TV programme Years and Years with Emma Thomson as the puppet PM – frighteningly close to today’s reality
OT – This clip perfectly demonstrates BBC Scotland’s “balance”, cutting away from the FM’s Covid Update directly before journalist questions, to invite DRoss to reinforce at length Pacific Quay’s latest “incontinent pigeon” creation, the students victimised by SG.
So that’s all the “political” hoohah has been about really, how to replace the live potentially political journalism with their own rehearsed version courtesy of a the most loathsome Tory MP (not MSP) in Scotland.
The Baronless must be pleased her pals have pulled it off…
Bob, see my rant at 8.56 above.
Andrew Kerr leading Dross in a 3 minute SNP Bad danse macabre.
What would the Blue Tories do differently, Kerr asks?
Test and trace the Scottish Government has not given clear guidance.. the poor wee souls and their parents have been let down by Nicola Sturgeon…
Aye, right.
The cream of our young crop can’t be bothered learning FACTS?
The ME millenniums.
When Dross is FM (no, don’t) their poor parents will bee paying £9000, £12000, £15000 a year plus ‘market forces’ soaring rents in the Northern Colony.
What a disgrace of a PB Channel BBC North Korea is.
Kerr just sits there andd lets this buffoon rave on.
To allow Dross to declare that students didn’t know what was expected of them at Uni under Covid is a fucking great big lie.
But it’s more than Kerr’s job’s worth to challenge and refute this nonsense of course.
He is a bought and paid for mouthpiece for England’s Elite.
Harsh? I’ve not even started on this lot.
We are well served by a legion of Brit propagandists at Plantation Quay right enough.
No sign of Baroness Rape Clause? Is she just wheeled out once a week at FMQ? At £1200 for seven minutes work a week; The Golden Ticket?
Can you imagine Davidson Rennie or ‘Lennon’ leading our fight against this virus?
The Brits are a defeated diminishing band of suicidal nobodies now.
They are willing to kill Scotland for their English bosses.
It is beyond this old clacker’s comprehension, to be frank.
Aye Jack, for DRoss and the Baronless the gloves may be off, but for Pacific Quay and the Tories the veil has been lifted for many more in the public domain.
The art of propaganda is subtlety, ram it down folk’s throats and they rebel, but hell mend them…
No, nor DRoss, and neither can the vast majority of Scotland either, however they have voted in the past. These excretions on the BBC are just window dressing that fools nobody.
I shared your earlier righteous anger. How any Scot can threaten his own people right now on behalf of the government of another country, as it would then be, merely in order to save his own miserable unrepresentative position, is beyond understanding, and almost beyond forgiveness. They are making their beds, these pathetic toom tabards, and we are going to make them lie in them. Starting next May.
I did turn over to Channel 9 for the remainder of the Daily Briefing as I fully knew what was coming with these BBC Scotland “balanced viewpoints”. From what little I saw of the D. Ross interview, it really did look “so” set up in advance.
As for Kerr, why did he ever spend his time at Uni in Media Studies for this as a career? He sits in a studio doing what his outline script has on it and that’s it!
I get more interviewing skills from the fake “Hello this is Microsoft Support” calls I get every few days.
Tories losing favour. Lost any lead. Neil ‘channel’ another abject failure. No one will view it. Thatcher henchman. The lying reports from the 1980’s still exist. Liars always get found out.
Murdoch can’t last much longer. Long pass the sell by date. His family are even deserting him. Self isolation.
I see brewer on the bbc talking to Deputy FM suggesting the election next year should be delayed.
Is this the preferred bbc Policy these days? To subvert a democratic vote?
Earlier a Tory on radio scotchland Concerns over using the same pencils in an election was mentioned which I the time I thought why mention that.
Now I realise there is a unionist party line on the election which the bbc parrots.
Vaccines are being manufactured in loads of countries right now just waiting for the go ahead to use them so if the BBC are hoping for Covid to be still a serious problem by next May I have a feeling they’re on to plums, well I hope they are
At the moment the British army are *backfilling* police office jobs in England so that more front line officers can be deployed on to the streets, remember when the BBC used to report a shortage of police in England, why don’t they do that anymore, why don’t they question the Tories about the shortage of police, they never mention it and never criticise the government anymore and yet in Scotland *pencils*? bloody *pencils*!
Is the British army going to move into Scotland to enforce the non touching of pencils, and you know if they did there’d be folk who’d fall for that much needed intervention as reported by the bloody BBC
I don’t even blame STV for their behaviour in this garbage, they’re just cowards afraid to lose their broadcasting licence as was threatened to channel 4 after the ice statue debacle, and folk still don’t seem to get it
Sir Kier Starmer’s Labour party have moved their Political position to Genghis Khan in order to look more left wing than the Tories position of Attila the Hun and still folk seem to think this is normal, Trump in America is more dictatorial than the Chinese Communist party and half of Americans think this is called freedom
And right here in lil old Scotland we have complete and utter nutcases working against Scottish Independence on the advice of another bitter head case in England with a personal grudge informing his followers that he definitely positively knows something they don’t know about something that he can’t tell them but should listen to him anyway because Nicola Sturgeon is offering the wrong kind of Independence that she won’t ever try to deliver anyway so don’t vote SNP and that’ll prove it
Is the world taking its brains out at night and forgetting to plug in their chargers
50,000 new English nurses, 20,000 more police, 50,000 customs officers, 40 new hospitals, oven ready Brexit by 15th October….
The madness that is England.
Yet we have to listen to idiots like Jack Mundell Ross Duguid Lamont and First Lieutenant Bowie talking absolute crap….
BY mid October, all hell will break loose.
who’s got a mobile advertising trailer, or similar kicking about their driveway or work place that isn’t in use.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18751285.scottish-independence-get-campaign-show-road-right-now/
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
Oo la la, our French speaking Canadian friends in Quebec, urge us to go for it, on the independence front.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18751340.quebec-yes-leader-urges-scots-press-ahead-indyref2/
I think OFCOM is a mostly captured body, however if this guy Paul Dacre, gets the job, Scotland will never win any complaints forwarded to it again.
https://archive.is/sQDn9#selection-671.42-671.52
Dacre, the self styled, Highland laird owns vast tracts of land in Scotland (courtesy of his years drawing an exorbitant salary at the Telegraph group). An excellent opportunity for the Scottish Government to troll the f*#$er with radical land reform bills.
If only I could believe that they would however, evidence suggests the Scottish government are very wary of taking on lairds in Scotland, you only have to look at our faunas persecutions by them, Hares, Raptors, Ravens, are slaughtered en masse without any real response from the government. Lately extra shooting licences for farmers to shoot Beavers have been issued.
Andy Wightman took them on over land reforms, and it almost bankrupted him, as the gentry (one of) took him to court, thankfully the judicial system came down in his favour. Land reforms in Scotland at present are really a bit of a pipe dream.
One of the Better Together weasels, who even stabbed his own sister in the back having to stepdown, no doubt they’ll be a place for him in Project Fear 2.
https://archive.is/kOqAN
The Anglo right wing clans are mustering, folks. Be alert.
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/laurence-fox-launching-political-party-193706010.html
Actor Laurence Fox is launching a political party to fight the culture wars after raising over £1 million, including substantial sums from former Tory donors, The Telegraph can disclose.
Fox hopes to stand dozens of candidates for his new party at the next general election to provide a political movement for people who are “tired of being told that we represent the very thing we have, in history, stood together against”.
His aims include reforming publicly funded institutions, likely to include the BBC, and celebrating Britain’s history and global contribution.
The new party (provisionally called “Reclaim”) could launch as soon as next month. The party’s name is subject to approval by the Electoral Commission. Papers are due to be submitted to the electoral regulator in the middle of this week.
That’ll be *Take back control* with *Reclaim*, we’ll be getting the *Kill the lefty scum* party coming along any minute
Who else but Farage has now jumped on the bandwagon with his idea of an anti-lockdown party.
https://archive.vn/wip/sjq1a
Give us strength!
No doubt both Fox and Farago have already booked their places chez Brillo’s new channel …
It’s evidently a further lurch into revisionism. England just can’t let go. They’ll be crowdfunding to build a new battleship fleet next.
I’ve never seen the point of whinging in public about past history, since what’s done is done, and the vast majority of people don’t especially care and it doesn’t influence their vote one way or the other anyway, but this is plain ridiculous. We’re looking forward to a better future for ourselves while they’re looking wistfully back at something that will (thankfully) never return.
Though what kind of reactionary neoVichy-ism their backers are hoping to smuggle in under that emotionalist cover is less ridiculous and likely rather more dangerous. We had better get free of it while we can.
Splitting the unionist vote? Fine with me.
Gloves coming off now!
Christopher McEleny:-”Scotland’s Choice on Scotland’s Future. Full Text of the Independence #PlanB motion that @AngusMacNeilSNP and myself will take forward to @theSNP conference to ensure that Scotland’s voice will be heard whether Westminster likes it or not.” https://mobile.twitter.com/ChrisMcEleny/status/1309821255542083584
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‘Firms plead for Brexit deal as coronavirus leaves industry reeling.’
..”As a crucial week of talks begins, more than three-quarters of businesses (77%) said they wanted a deal to be agreed, according to a survey by the Confederation of British Industry. Only 4% of businesses said they preferred a no-deal outcome. Support for a deal rises to 86% among distribution companies and 83% of manufacturers.”..
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/brexit/firms-plead-for-brexit-deal-as-coronavirus-leaves-industry-reeling/ar-BB19sZTg?ocid=msedgdhp
I see the attack on the FM has moved to her husband in earnest.
One difficulty as I see it many online who wish him to be suspended or removed have apparently cut up their snp membership cards thereby are neutered in fact, if not online.
The MacCaskill wing pro Salmond ( no longer a member of the snp) are putting out all stocks to undermine the FM during the current review of what happened with the allegations promoted from within the civil service and some in the snp.
They ignore the simple fact that Salmond is a marmite figure to the public ( I am a great fan of what he has done for independence but sorely disappointed of his behaviour out of hours while in government). Is macacaskill hoping to get kicked out so he can “ in all conscience” campaign against the snp? The “it left me argument.”
They also ignore that most of us don’t care – in the middle of a 2nd wave of a pandemic as to what happened X years ago. Some will will say that is terrible but that is my estimation. We have our own lives to read. Have they forgotten?
So we stand at 55% independence by the populous. The paid destructors and the unthinking few may destroy our only chance this decade.
Who will join them?
They will not be forgiven.
”Unthinking few?”
I like the image “putting out all stocks” 🙂 … whereby our opponents are laying out all means of imprisoning those they don’t like in order to throw rotten veggies at them.
Don’t take offence, Hamish100, but I think you actually meant, “pulling out all the stops”. (The expression comes from organ playing – pulling out all the stops on an organ makes for a louder noise from the instrument.)
Of course, if your original expression has currency in Scotland, I’ll bow to your superior knowledge and apologise.
Sion, yip – lol
Petra – a few compared to the millions who just wish independence over infighting.
It was the ”unthinking” part I was questioning Hamish 😉.
Some, though by no means all, of the people who are prominent in the independence movement are likely to be of much less significance (for various reasons) in an independent Scotland, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them know this.
Now if independence was the important thing, then they’d presumably be okay with this – they can slip out of the limelight, and have some time off. However if their ego was of more importance, then they might come to the conclusion that the best option *for them personally* was a Scotland which never quite achieved independence. That way they’d get to carry on being considered important!
As far as I know Nicola Sturgeon does not have a dog a cat or even a budgie. Probably just as well otherwise the pretendy Indy supporters aka trolls who clutter up the Nationals online comments as well as those who comment on the Bam from Baths page would be blaming them too for her not having an Indy ref date yet.
Lead not read.
SiU canny count 😀.
Dr Philippa Whitford:- ”Check your figures – 35+16= 51%! Poll by SiU – 42% voters LESS likely to vote #Indy if £ ditched, 35% say no difference & 16% more likely. Voters less likely to back Scottish independence if it means the pound is ditched for a new currency – Daily Record.” https://mobile.twitter.com/Dr_PhilippaW/status/1307428249811775488
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”If New Zealand can be independent, so can Scotland 🏴🤝🇳🇿 #ScottishIndependence #indyref2.” https://mobile.twitter.com/wearescotland1/status/1308494128775393280
Isn’t it funny how when the UK ditched the £ in 1971 and replaced it with the EU £ and called it decimalisation folk had to just get on with it, no one was offered a choice and no one ever thought they were going to get a choice, it just happened and some things doubled in price and look where we are now
Just a thought as to how a Scottish £ could be made to exist
”There’s lies, damned lies, and chancellor’s statements.”
Tommy Sheppard:-‘A message to you Rishi.’
..”As Sunak was speaking in parliament the small print was being dumped online. In fact, the government will only cover a maximum of 22% someone’s wages on his so-called job support scheme. And there’s a cash ceiling of £697 a month. Of course, had the chancellor said they’d pick up a less than a quarter that would have sounded miserly – which it is.
But the mendacity achieves its purpose of putting two thirds in the public domain and generally confusing things, so you have to work that much harder to discover just how little your UK government is prepared to do.”..
http://www.tommysheppardmp.scot/a-message-to-rishi/
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‘Sunak is going to trash our economy and our lives.’
..”As for the idea that he (Sunak) has stolen the German ‘Kurzarbeit’ (sort term working) scheme, that is a simple lie, although the Guardian puts it more politely. Actually the German scheme has:..
http://www.progressivepulse.org/economics/sunak-is-going-to-trash-our-economy-and-our-lives
The Tory version of ‘kurzarbeit’ is actually ‘arbeit macht frei’.
Now where did we hear that before?
I repeat, October will be the death knell of the Union.
Poor, wee, stupid Wales 😀.
“How would an independent Wales have paid for the furlough scheme?”
Adam Price:- ””Like every other independent country that faces a once in a lifetime global pandemic – you borrow! That’s what every other nation in the world has done.” https://mobile.twitter.com/Plaid_Cymru/status/1309583826205708294
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‘There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.’
”How the Herald sees the city it once represented. A story, it might once have told: The Covid-19 death rate in Greater Manchester is THREE times higher than in the Glasgow area.’
https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/09/27/there-are-eight-million-stories-in-the-naked-city-this-has-been-one-of-them/
Adam putting her in her Anglocentric parochial place. Nice!
English nationalism is on the rise and treacherous Scots like Neil are desperate to out-English the English. Scotland and England, however, continue to drift apart.
A little background reading on those behind GB News:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/09/26/gb-news-men-behind-new-challenge-bbc/
Well it’s good to see that the Brits continue to learn nothing as they go along. Neil’s news channel will hopefully further break the BBC monopoly on fake news. They will all be at each others throats at the very time when the proverbial hits the fan as a result of mass unemployment, people being evicted, losing their homes and literally having to turn to criminality just to survive. They will have much to report from their city streets and it won’t be pretty.
As to the Britnats responding to the covid updates by the FM, I hope they get plenty airtime. They have no understanding of how negatively their attacks on the FM will be received by the populace. The only people who will be impressed will be themselves – until it dawns on them that they are losing rather than gaining ground. Then they will decide that more of the same is what is needed. They are in a downward spiral.
As to fake independence supporters – and I do mean fake because no-one who actually supports independence would even remotely consider publicly attacking the SNP right now – they are an irrelevance. The fact that the Brit media embrace them is only what I would expect. It is also self defeating for both of them. Any Scot who has decided that independence could be the way forward has already sussed that the media are lying, so when the fake Indy supporters align with them the public will correctly tar them with the same brush.
Be cool folks. It’s all just grist to the mill.
Excellent assessment. I would also like to add that the replacement to furlough by adopting only some aspects of the German plan is not nearly as generous as the full German package and also not nearly as generous as indicated by Sunak people are quite rightly going to be very angry and will be another nail in the coffin of the credibility of the UK Gov and for the end of the union
”people are quite rightly going to be very angry”..
I just wonder what’s going to happen when hundreds of thousands of people are evicted from their homes. That anger could turn into riots, imo.
”An estimated 227,000 adult renters in England – around 3% of all private renters – have fallen into arrears since the start of the pandemic, putting them at risk of losing their homes from Monday. Despite the (prior) ban, more than 170,000 private tenants have been threatened with eviction by their landlord or letting agent since the start of the pandemic (Charity Shelter).
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‘The eviction ban is over – now we will see the terrible effect of Covid-19 on renters.’
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/eviction-ban-lifted-uk-over-effect-covid-19-renters-explained-655512
That article by Shelter applies only to England, the eviction ban in Scotland has been extended for a further 6 months, at least until March 2021.
Sunak, who seems to have emerged from nowhere now believes in his own importance, he is crediting with saving the UK with “his” furlough scheme which was of course just copying what most EU countries had already chosen to do.
Now he is sticking his oar into the decisions being made over which direction the government should be taking in the Covid restrictions and balancing those decisions between health and the economy.
https://archive.vn/wip/l5BHM
I reckon Rishi might regret having intervened to “save the day” when it all goes tits up next week and Johnson is forced to increase restrictions rather than start relaxing again.
That’s the problem with this UK government, they make up policy on the hoof, and because they don’t have a clue what they are doing they are forever having to make U-turns. Pathetic governance.
But this latest furlough scheme basically says that for October the government will refund the employer 60% of a persons wages but only if the employer pays the employee 20% of the employees wages.
The idea is that the employee will get 80% of their full time wages wages up to a maximum of about £1600
The employer will also have to pay the NI conts and Pension Conts for the employee the govt paid these in the past but that’s stopped.
Will smaller employers be able to do this ? We will see.
This new scheme will also apply pro rata to people who work part time
But to qualify an employee must work at least a third of the hours they normally work
Excellent, insightful post Arthur. I was annoyed when DRoss was given airtime to attack the FM. I reckoned that he would use the time to not only attempt to undermine her, and her crucial advice, but move from CV19 comments to Constitutional (poor, wee stupid Scotland). Then, like you, I realized that this will only highlight what a callous, ignorant erse he (and his party) is, how he is trying to sew doubt and confusion which could lead to loss of life, plus show him up when the facts and figures for Tory led England versus SNP led Scotland eventually emerge, as they do.
The points that you make about the fake independence supporters are spot on too. They are an irrelevance 🤡 😀 .
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Peter Bell:- ‘Is ‘Plan B’ the answer?’
..”Some of you me be aware that I previously gave my support to the Plan B proposed by Chris McEleny and Angus MacNeil. You may be wondering why I appear to have changed my opinion. In fact, I haven’t. I never considered Plan B satisfactory. I always considered it totally unsatisfactory, for the reasons stated and probably a few that I have left out in the hope of achieving the brevity which I know to be readers’ preference.”..
https://ihavequestions.scot/2020/09/26/is-plan-b-the-answer/
Re Hootsmon’s post-Brillo years. Irvine Welsh got it perfect in The Blade Artist : “..the paper has decanted from its showcase, custom-built headquarters by the Scottish Parliament to a broom cupboard out at Orchard Brae…Sure enough, it has the shabby, beaten depressive tone and content of a publication on its last legs….Every article seems either half-hearted and ill-considered or desperately overreaching, as if the journal was drowning in is own pointlessness, occasionally gripped by sudden, panicky bouts of awareness.”
Also sounds rather like the Tories on the BBC, actually…
MSM_Monitor:- ”BBC Scotland is checking Scottish Govt interviews with respect to students, and presenting changes as ‘confusion’. This emulates Scottish Tory attacks. They aren’t checking UK Govt statements. By doing this they are effectively colluding with and protecting the Scottish Tories.” https://mobile.twitter.com/msm_monitor/status/1309860304327766017
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Stephen Reicher is a member of the Sage subcommittee advising on behavioural science, an adviser to the UK and Scottish governments on coronavirus and professor of social psychology at the University of St Andrews.
‘Johnson should learn from Sturgeon and treat the public as a partner, not a problem.’
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/johnson-should-learn-from-sturgeon-and-treat-the-public-as-a-partner-not-a-problem/ar-BB19pEKx
‘The SNP outpolled the LibDems across the UK – but does it matter?’
”The new Britain-wide poll from Opinium is a landmark in that it shows Labour ahead of the Tories for the first time since the 2019 General Election.
But perhaps of greater interest from a Scottish perspective is that it also shows the SNP ahead of the Liberal Democrats (by 6% to 5%) across the UK, which is quite an achievement when you consider that fewer than 10% of the poll’s respondents are even eligible to be SNP voters.”..
…”The fact that 6% is now even possible is testament to Nicola Sturgeon’s total dominance of the current political scene in Scotland.”..
http://www.thenational.scot/news/18752090.snp-outpolled-libdems-across-uk—matter/
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Check out Ann’s links on the Indyref2 site.
https://indyref2.space/forum/topic/links-sunday-27-september-2020/
Ironically Petra, Ed Davey, has reiterated that his party totally opposes Scottish independence, as for the question does it matter, not really Sturgeon could be polling fantastical figures in the rest of the UK, Westminster would still oppose Scottish independence, its Scotland’s voters we need onboard.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18752018.ed-davey-doubles-indyref2-libdems-fall-behind-snp-uk-poll/
The article just highlights that the Libdems are nonentities, RoS, and who knows by taking their current stance on the EU into account and the fact that they’re going nowhere (Tory / Labour … Labour / Tory) we may find that more and more Scottish Libdems will reconsider supporting Independence.
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‘Brexit: Lib Dems won’t campaign to rejoin EU, signals new leader Ed Davey.’
”The Liberal Democrats’ new leader has signalled that his party won’t campaign to rejoin the EU, dubbing the matter “for the birds”.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-liberal-democrats-eu-ed-davey-europe-b404557.html
Guardian reports that the Tories have banned schools from airing anti-capitalist views. Originally their headline said it was in UK schools but I see now they have amended it to England’s schools. Slowly and surely the penny is dropping.
Under these criteria English schools will have to ban Tory Government materials because of their endorsement of illegal activity.
https://archive.fo/uF4bF
Final paragraph:
The headline of this article was amended on 27 September 2020 because the Department for Education guidance applies to schools in England, not to schools in the UK as an earlier version mistakenly said.
But plenty of Google hits for previous ‘UK’ headline ..
Yes, the already archived version has “UK schools” preserved for posterity 😉
I don’t normally overwrite the archived version already there.
Not to mention increasingly-extreme insidious English right-wing agitprop…?
Capella.
Westminster, actually aided General Pinochet and the USA to overthrow Chile’s socialist president Allende by interfering in its election.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-09-22-exclusive-secret-cables-reveal-britain-interfered-with-elections-in-chile/
And on the same subject from Richard Murphy, Capella.
‘By their own standards our government is an extremist organisation.’
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2020/09/26/by-their-own-standards-our-government-is-an-extremist-organisation/
Good for RM, he gets it as ever 🙂
I find myself unable to get worked up about this. Perhaps it is simple outrage fatigue. So much stupid happening in one year. The field were I grow my fucks it seems, actually is barren.
It’s also so very predictable. I actually wonder why it didn’t happen earlier. That a channel that would actually have the brass balls to call it self “Great” would rear up like some floating turd in a backed up toilet, hasn’t actually come along sooner.
Then I am reminded that I quit my license and sent “British” telly to the sin bin along with all its silly news papers, so many years ago, that I actually have no fucks to give.
If it wasn’t for sites like this, I probably would have no idea whatsoever, of what the luke warm cup of piss that is the British media gets up to.
Ignorance is bliss it seems
The media keeps sticking on the president of the students union to complain that Nicola Sturgeon has *sold* students a bad experience over University
I’m wondering how she did that considering education in Scotland’s free for those who live here and you choose to go there or not, but those who are paying would be having the same experience in any other country’s Unis, pick a country any country
Global Pandemic must be hard difficult words for the student president to define through his age 14 and half beard brain
Universities (or more likely property developers charging a fortune) have built massive blocks of student accommodation for which the parents pay £400 – 500 per month. Most of the learning is now online – just like the Open University – so the parents want to know why the students have been called into uni at great expense only to be locked down.
A reasonable question.
Imagine, however, the outcry there would be if the FM had ordered unis to stop students from coming to campus and enjoying their freshers week experience. Hardly bears thinking about. The deprivation!
Of course, the BBC broadcasts the “confusion” message at every opportunity. Mental.
If the parents and students had done their homework beforehand then they would have known that any face-to-face teaching would be in small, socially distanced groups I e Tutorials and that lectures would be online. That information was on the Universities’ web sites.
Courses that required lab based sessions were/are organised so that numbers in each lab are reduced to allow social distancing and masks and goggles would be worn. Lectures are online. As back-up the labs were videoed over the summer so if any student could not make it to the lab they can catch up online. For example, some students may not be physically present at the uni for health reasons.
So they should have known what to expect – blended learning.
When it comes to the halls of residence then again they should have done their homework to find out the layout of the Halls then have a think about that in the context of a pandemic involving a highly contagious virus and the mixing of people from all over the globe.
Not rocket science.
True Legerwood – but following a course without being there is probably difficult for young people so the pressure to move to the Uni town will be very compelling.
John Swinney has now published further guidelines for students here:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-what-you-can-and-cannot-do/pages/students/
Capella,
Yes it will be difficult but for some they don’t have an option and for others this, for the time being, is the new normal.
Re the new guidelines. Reporting Scotland tonight had someone on, forget who, saying SG had promised an update this weekend and had not delivered. Wee bit premature methinks.
My elder daughter is an academic at a Scottish university, and she tells me that they have all been working their butts off through the summer getting ready to provide the best possible educational experience in the circumstances, and she recognises that as they deploy lectures etc. for real (including for students elsewhere in the world) instead of self-testing among themselves there will likely be teething troubles, despite their best efforts.
But what makes her very angry is that you never hear about any of that hard work, nor the very good feedback they have already received these last months from grateful postgrad students who do recognise that they truly are all in this together, but the only thing that appears in the usual media is denigration of universities’ worldwide reputation by a minority of grumblers who basically haven’t a clue.
And besides, what I heard from the grapevine via my mrs, but you likely won’t hear in the media because the universities don’t want to add fuel to the fire, is that recently, security was called to a university residence where there was a party going on, and when the partygoers refused to disperse, the police were called, at which point the self-entitled elite told the cops to f-off because they had no authority, the law not having been tightened at that point. I don’t know if that lot had any political motivation behind their jollifying. or whence they came, or anything else, but it’s actions like this by what is likely an extreme (in more sense than one) minority that harm everyone.
In difficult situations like this, though, it’s the universities, just like the SG, who are made to carry the can by a fifth-column media that is positively lusting to find fault wherever it can.
My daughter also lectures at a university and has spent an enormous amount of time over the summer moving her lectures online, long with tutorial support , essay and exam marking and appeals procedures. The miserable media are entirely ignorant about this. They don’t even ask the questions.
Capella,
I still have friends who are academics and they have been working virtually non-stop since the Unis closed at the start of lockdown and right over the summer to prepare for the start of this academic year.
It was not just lectures and tutorials but labs too since they are all science based academics. One of them managed 10 days off in that time but that was more than most did.
As you say little if any recognition of that from the media etc.
”My daughter also lectures at a university.”
Mine too 😀.
Your “property developers charging a fortune” undoubtedly played a significant part in the Unis being less than vocal, but the number of students screaming blue murder are probably a minority compared to the rest sticking it out to review later.
As with all “new actions” during this pandemic, I dare say Medical Officers were having kittens and expecting the worst from a sudden influx, but as you rightly highlighted, whatever SG had said or done the propaganda guns were primed whatever happened, it’s all they do.
Yet in this case, the overblown hype from PQ and DRoss compared to elsewhere has done neither any favours, blatant propaganda can’t be unseen. Teenagers and students being abused for political ends doesn’t sit well with people, and the abuser isn’t SG…
Indeed and far as I know, the reason property developers have been so keen to build student accommodation, ie, eyesore flats in the centre of our cities, is because they do not pay tax on the profits they make! Presume same re rents, and how much council tax do they pay they are not charities, are they?
Something stinks to high heaven about the opening up of student halls in particular…
Dr Jim,
Interesting on the early evening BBC news today that they led with the University outbreaks which ‘all the govs including the devolved govs’ were having to deal with. Then stated quite clearly that ‘Universities are autonomous’.
They are indeed so why have the University principals, highly paid principals at that, not been dragged in front of the cameras for questioning?
1,700 students in lockdown in Manchester alone. What’s DRoss, the wee Tory hypocrite, got to say about that?
..”Students at Manchester Metropolitan University who are currently under a Covid-19 lockdown have claimed they are being falsely imprisoned. At least 1,700 students at two accommodation blocks in the city have been told to self-isolate for 14 days.”..
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/manchester-students-false-imprisonment-claims-a4557336.html
…………………………….
Video:- ‘Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden defends university fees amid student lockdown.’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-54315805
John Robertson has already made comparisons on the DRoss/PQ hype v Elsewhere on BBC’s various websites, and Indyref Two posted a video of BBC England’s coverage on the Manchester outbreak for comparison with Propaganda Quay.
There are a lot of questions to be answered of the University bodies, but it is clear that SG would have gotten in the neck from PQ/DRoss/Leotard etc whatever the outcome was, since that’s all they are interested in, not actualities.
“The News where you are…” right enough…
On Friday Darshna Soni did a report on CH4 news about students in Nottingham and their freshers ‘celebrations’. Social distancing – naw.
https://www.channel4.com/news/britain-could-be-heading-for-second-lockdown-as-covid-cases-keep-rising
Yet from the papers and TV news where we are you might think, or might be led to think, it was only Scotland that had Covid-19 among students
Ciaran Jenkins of CH4 in the West End of Glasgow on Friday night reporting from Ashton Lane, maybe hoping to see masses of students out on the bevvie reported “there does seem to be overwhelming compliance” with the request for students not to visit pubs this weekend.
I don’t think he was too surprised and I think he might be coming around to seeing the point of view that Independence supporters have that decisions for Scotland are best made in Scotland.
https://www.channel4.com/news/students-at-scottish-universities-told-to-stay-away-from-pubs-and-restaurants-at-weekend
Yes. I noticed that as well. It was quite a contrast with Nottingham.
https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/09/27/covid-hospital-admissions-50-higher-in-england/
Prof Robertson’s site is a great resource for debunking MSM lies and mendacity. On GMS today they had all the Davids (Leask and Clegg) and Penny Taylor – health correspondent. David Clegg stated that Scotland’s performance over Covid 19 wasn’t significantly different to the UK (i.e. England). In fact, says he, the Scottish deaths in care homes is arguably worse.
But that is not true and nobody, including the so-called health correspondent Penny Taylor, who must have known better, corrected him.
On Talkingupscotland this article gives the true figures with sources:
https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/05/23/nine-ways-scotland-has-handled-covid-19-pandemic-better/
I honestly have no notion whether Penny Taylor does know better or not. In my experience as a listener, correspondents’ knowledge (at least as it is broadcast) often appears to be shockingly superficial.
BBC policy in these last years appears to be “never challenge the veracity of any statement”. (The last time I can recall any kind of challenge was Isabel Fraser’s famous response on TV to the vile bullying of Ian Davidson, an MP then before the electorate wisely threw him out.) The attitude now seems to be “let the listener decide”, however well- or ill- informed s/he may be. They certainly won’t get any wiser listening to the Beeb, just more confused.
I can’t help but unfavourably compare the BBC with the likes of CNN, whose presenters are willing to dissect every political statement and call it out for what it is as necessary. With chapter-and-verse. In comparison, the BBC is a craven wuss.
Ian Davidson Labout MP who after the 2014 referendum said all that was left was to bayonet the wounded, very similar to the Baroness’s attitude of putting the boot in
On another note isn’t it funny that all the right wing press and people who demanded Johnson *take back control* don’t like it when that control is applied to them, control was only ever meant to be over those who weren’t them, Johnson was a good guy hero when they wanted him to be doing something to the nasty furriners, but he’s a fascist when it’s themselves
How will Johnson react when Scotland’s FM relaxes the restrictions inside a month or two because Scotland’s people are doing what they need to do but he’s promised the people of England restrictions will last till happy Christmas time, and with Nigel Farage screaming at the public not to listen to Johnson will the press and media in England dump their orders of silence when English people begin their bad behaviour on the streets, because they will
Slight typo there, DrJ, you surely meant “layabout”, or was it just “lout”? (grin).
*Arguably worse* is a great phrase to use isn’t it, I’m arguably 6 feet tall but I’m actually 5foot eight
Schrodingers cat is arguably dead and alive
Deaths in English care homes are arguably around 35 thousand but those figures will never be released properly until a long time after this has died down then there’ll be a whole new set of Tories telling England it’ll never happen again under them and it was the EUs fault anyway
See what I was saying about Sunak regretting opening his mouth in “saving the day” in stopping Johnson doing a more severe lockdown, such as Scotland choose. Well, it might be worse.
Anyone know where “North Britain” is? Reuters quoting the Times.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-lockdown/british-ministers-prepare-for-social-lockdown-in-northern-britain-london-the-times-idUKKBN26I11X
Oh jeez, this is a news gathering organisation, FFS, you would expect them at least to get it right. Though I suppose in a way they did, since they were just quoting The Times. Which is also a news-gathering operation. (Of former but no longer great repute.) With an office in the London metropolitan bubble. (Where else?)
Will someone please inform both of them (to misquote Geo.V): “Bu**er Britain”.
Why are they so afraid to come right out during this crisis with the name-that-must-never-be-said?… the former name-that-was-to-be-endlessly-crowed-about… (ahem, whisper) “England”.
I think that they believe it demeans them to admit that when it comes to Public Health the British Government are only in charge of England. They don’t want to admit that to the wider world, so every decision they make is sold as being about “Britain”.
It’s the same for all the rest of their utterances about “Britain”, they won’t admit they are no longer in control of large parts of it.
It also exposes their longstanding lazy-ignorant conflation of England-Britain-UK. It’s only the occasional sheltered innocent now who comes on a news programme and blurts out an unguarded England and probably means it.
The Times article.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/emergency-lockdown-plan-to-ban-socialising-and-combat-second-wave-of-coronavirus-qlszg3sjq
The media are all over the place geographically and factually, #10 dictates what is reported, while the Scottish variety plough their lone furrow of SNP/SG mis-governance.
The story that Sunak threatened to quit if lockdown were re-imposed is a good example of the nonsense peddled to massage England’s public sympathy. None in this UK government are shelving ambition nor have a shred of decency or honesty to call on.
It’s been manipulation, smoke and mirrors via a willing or coerced media from the outset, all they do is increase the size of the heap for their lies, the dead, the sick, and the bankrupt. A twist on Weimar for the 21st century, making money and power out of chaos.
It isn’t rocket science to do as SG have done within their limited means, #10’s answer is to shut and shout them down while promoting the opposite strategy in the name of commerce.
Yet as lives and livelihoods disintegrate across greater England, Johnson & Co face public order breakdown unless they perform another U-turn, as ever with this shower, fiddling while Rome burns.
Last week Nicola Sturgeon, during questions by journalists when she announced no mixing indoors of households at all, said that she may have went further than closing pubs at 10pm if she had the financial powers that would prevent business closures and job losses.
I was paraphrasing but she was clearly stating that she would have shut the pubs down for a period but felt unable to do so without being able to compensate them somehow. That was my take anyway. Personally, I wouldn’t at this stage shut restaurants or cafe’s I think they have much less risk than pubs if served at the table and much less alcohol is involved, all these decisions are difficult.
There’s no doubt that the immediate future is going to be dire for all the hospitality business. We are heading into unknown territory and the Scottish government are powerless to influence events having no control in financing them or the borrowing powers to do so..
Have a look at Finland’s handling of this pandemic, it’s one of the best in the world. I’m not saying we could match them but we could have done so much better with less damage to our economy and especially the health of our people. Westminster have failed us, we need to bail out.
I thought at the time that it was very significant that Nicola came right out and said that she would have done more if only she had the economic freedom to protect more jobs. I suppose that previously she never wanted to publicly admit the enforced “dependence” for fear it diminished her devolved government’s standing, but given her enhanced public reputation in the crisis, I think she felt self-confident enough now to be more direct and clear, to “tell it like it is”.
As well she ought. It is really bringing home just how matters stand to the previously-unaware (possibly fooled by Rinkydink Leotard’s continual demands that she address matters that are reserved), and how much we are all being endangered in various ways by our current entanglement in the UK.
“I thought at the time that it was very significant that Nicola came right out and said that she would have done more if only she had the economic freedom to protect more jobs”
It would probably have been cited as “political” until now, showing business that she has their survival in mind when drastic action must be taken, just when Sunak et al are cutting the legs from under business could not have been more perfectly timed.
Political ? Yes. Valid. Yes. Whose problem? Downing Street.
Kirsten Oswald said there will be a referendum on Scottish Independence and Boris Johnson or anybody else will have no say in the matter
Excellent piece by George Kerevan on the new media landscape with GB funded by billionare American libertarians.
NORMALLY, I hit my laptop to write my National column on a Sunday morning raring to go, in combat against the latest Unionist incompetence, or to urge the indy movement onwards. Yesterday, however,… http://www.thenational.scot/news/18752310.andrew-neil-gb-news-brigade-will-try-bash-indy-every-step/?ref=appshr
As I scan the headlines of the Dead Tree Scrolls today there is an underlying theme.
We are doomed.
In the good old days when hacks could churn out any old pap and lies they liked, unchallenged, wars, tragedy, and Her Royal Maj and her Hangers On, used to sell millions of newspapers.
Sex scandals,graft, bribery and corruption pieces practically wrote themselves.
A royal birth or wedding? Kerching !
Floods fire and pestilence? Hold the front page !
It’s wot these ‘professional’ journalists were taught at Hack School as they struggled to master Pitman shorthand ( introduced in 1837, and no, I don’t mean nearly twenty to seven at night.) back in the day before Sony Walkman and Microsoft.
As I hastily clicked on to the online versions this morning, there is no good news any more.
The theme is ‘Unclean, Unclean, Bring Out Your Dead!’
The unrelenting stream of Apocalypse Now ‘we’re doomed’ nonsense churned out by the modern town criers conjures up, in this humble writer anyway, the Holy Bible, Monty Python’s Holy Grail, and Daniel Defoe’s ‘A Journal of the Plague Year’. (London 1665)
From the mid 14th century, London has been ‘plagued’ with a series of ‘plagues’, the Black Death, the Bubonic Plague, and simply, The Plague.
In 1347 it killed nearly 40,000 Londoners, almost half the population.
It is said that the plague came from China, where 25 million died, and the disease brought back by Italian merchants via Constantinople to Europe. Sounds eerily familiar, eh?
Bodies were buried in mass graves, grass grew in the streets as nobody ventured forth, and the silver lining, because of the shortage of skilled labour, wages went up, and serfdom was virtually eliminated overnight.
No furlough in those days, mind, though, but.
Every 20 or 30 years thereafter the disease would flare up, and kill 20% of the population each time
I
n 1518, the city introduced regulations to curb the spread of the disease; Infected houses had to hang a bale of Hay on a pole outside for 40 days, while peop[le who lived there had carry a white stick when they went outside.
A white cross was painted on the doors of infected houses.
As England heads towards total shut down once more, perhaps Johnson and Hancock should research London’s Town Hall records from 1518 to get some pointers?
In 1563 another plague killed 24% of the city’s population. 100,000 citizens died.
The rich and royalty fled the city for the country of course.
Is Her Maj still at Windsor Castle?
Is Charlie still up in the Highlands killing dumb animals for fun?
‘Unclean, unclean, bring out your dead’.
It may be argued that Jason Leitch looked for inspiration in delivering his FACTS message to the Book of Leviticus.
Therein may be the first mention of face masks on record.
Leviticus 13:45 reads:
“The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ “
Cover your upper lip, and verily the hacks at the Dead Tree Scrolls shall cry ‘Unclean, unclean’, oft and loudly.
In Monty Python’s Holy Grail there is a scene where the Plague Death Cart is stopped by a man carrying the body of his grandfather across his shoulder. It is clear that the poor old wretch is still alive.
There is a dispute over whether the carter can take an old man who’s not quite dead? “I can’t take him like this,” says the carter. “It’s against regulations.
Care homes? The almost dead?
Was it ‘against regulations’ to shunt so many old folk into care homes?
It is said that the Python Team probably were inspired by an event in Defoe’s
‘A journal of the plague year’.
Defoe writes of a poor hapless drunk passed out is a doorstep next to a dead body. The lifeless wretch left there to be uplifted by the night time collection of the Death Cart.
The drunk was bundled unconscious onto the cart, and only escaped a horrible end by waking up as the cart’s pile of corpses was about to be tipped into a mass grave.
“…he called out, “Hey! where am I?” This frighted the fellow that attended about the work; but after some pause John Hayward, recovering himself, said, “Lord, bless us! There’s somebody in the cart not quite dead!” So another called to him and said, “Who are you?” The fellow answered, “I am the poor piper. Where am I?” “Where are you?” says Hayward. “Why, you are in the dead-cart, and we are going to bury you.” “But I an’t dead though, am I?” says the piper, which made them laugh a little though, as John said, they were heartily frighted at first; so they helped the poor fellow down, and he went about his business.”
In September 1666, the Great Fire of London destroyed 70,000 homes. A melted piece of pottery on display at the Museum of London found by archaeologists in Pudding Lane, where the fire started, shows that the temperature reached 1,250 °C .
It is argued hat this inferno ‘eliminated’ the plague once and for all.
Charles II ordered that the 89,000 homeless be moved from London for fear of rebellion.
Can’t imagine modern Government calling out the army to clear the streets, can you?
From the ruins of the Fire modern London was built.
I’ll stop now.
It’s drizzling outside.
A clammy damp smirr that goes right through you.
I had intended to begin the autumn clean up in the garden..hence the de’il making work for idle hands, and this rather whimsical take on Covid and Lessons Not Learned from History.
Stay safe everyone.
Will Londoners be required to hang a bale of hay from their doors, and carry a white stick if they reside in an infected house?
Don’t let Johnson or Cummings play with matches.
We shall beat this. We shall be independent.
Jack , did they not clear the streets of the homeless by royal decree prior to the many weddings??
Diablo, my interest in royal weddings is matched only by my interest in Wisden.
Less than zero.
I recall in the 70’s Prince Charles visiting Dumbarton to open a a ‘community centre’ which was basically a four-in-a-block Council house building in Brucehill knocked together a stuffed with table tennis, a big tea urn and Baby Belling cooker..
I was commuting to Dumbarton by train at the time.
The Royal Train was scheduled to arrive at Dumbarton Central station, and a Rolls Royce was parked exactly at the spot where his royal Presence was to embark and whisk him away to the event.
British Rail had painted a short stretch of the Waiting Room wall which the royal eyeballs might scan, and that section of the walls in the subterranean exit which might offend his royal sensibilities.
The rest of the station and the underground passageway were left sullied, dusty , and in need of a lick of something,
After all we were only the fare paying plebs.
My interest in them is extremely cursory but I do remember reading that the hapless homeless were given the bum’s rush prior to William’s wedding – after all they would ruin the look of the place for all the guests and tourists.
I think you’ll find the same applied for Harry and Meghan’s nups at Windsor.
https://time.com/5279252/windsor-homeless-royal-wedding/
This kind of deferential arse-licking stage-management has always annoyed the hell out of me. It’s absurd, unnecessary and utterly demeaning. I don’t know if the royals realise or not that it goes on, but they must surely have at least an inkling. Wherever they go, all those fresh-paint smells?! But if I were them and did know, I would pass the word that it should stop PDQ. I would want to see my real kingdom, warts and all, the one that everyone else knows and sees. To keep me well grounded, if nothing else.
I think you’ll find that the King, Edward III, passed a law prohibiting an increase of wages after the black death decimated the working population. Another uncanny coincidence. Ever the benevolent overlords eh:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Labourers_1351#:~:text=The%20Statute%20of%20Labourers%20was,in%20search%20of%20better%20conditions.
Capella, I learn something new every day.
Thanks for this. it’s chucking it down outside.
Perhaps I should fashion a message in Post Its on the window; a cry for help?
Just wolfed thew reains of a packet of peanut M&Ms. I’m a better person for that.
So Andrew Neil is to become the Lord haw haw of the 21st Century with his channel broadcasting right wing views.
Will he start his show, with England calling or Great Britain calling in a similar way to haw haws “Germany Calling”
I really hope it becomes a money pit for its owners. One of whom is the ultimate owner of Virgin Media.
No doubt he’ll have copious inputs from Tokyo Rose …. aka Tokyo Ruth, reminding us that the Imperial Johnson Empire is alive and well and winning the war … because they have total control of the Pacific (Quay building).
£Billions and £billions wasted by Westminster whilst they deny the ScotGov the economic flexibility to deal with this crisis and save lives.
‘Sectorisation, Narcissism and Delusions of Freedom.’
..”But if non-compliance does feel like a body-blow to collective action and any sense of the common good it may come as no surprise with the abject failure of leadership from Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings. They have after all eschewed personal responsibility, flouted the rules, lied, gone on holiday and sold-off dozens of key contracts and positions to their chums. In a time when political leadership was essential we’ve been met with elite disdain and contempt. The track record of failure and privatised out-sourcing in such a short time is astonishing: Randox Laboratories produced unsafe test kits at a cost of £133,000,000; Serco produced a broken tracing system costing £108,000,000; NHSX produced a n abandoned contact tracing app for £11,800,000; Ayanda Capital produced unsuitable face masks for £150,000,000, to name but a few. Councils, public authorities and the NHS has been by-passed as the government handed out huge dollops of public money, often without open and transparent tendering processes.”…
https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2020/09/27/sectorisation-narcissism-and-delusions-of-freedom/
………………………………..
‘Breaking – Right Wing Broadcasting Media Takeover.’
..”Founded by Andrew Cole and Mark Schneider, the channel is reported to be inspired by the likes of the far-right US Fox News. In a statement ripe with dark irony Mr Neil is quoted saying: “GB News is aimed at the vast number of British people who feel underserved and unheard by their media.”..
https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2020/09/26/breaking-right-wing-broadcasting-media-takeover/
I should have mentioned Broadcasting Scotland above, as a portal which does provide some of the content I mentioned.. It does keep us up to date about current important issues such as Corona virus and students atm. Older stuff is also interesting so worth a look. But lack of funding hinders the development of a full service. Something the SG could do something about?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYg_L1aQNds
Laurence Fox, an actor known for his role in the TV series Lewis, is to launch a political party, for next years elections. The party’s main dynamic to get voters onside is to celebrate Great British history, and the party will be called with the Electoral Commissions approval Reclaim. The party unsurprisingly has received over £1 million pounds in donations from Tory donors.
I suspect that this is a diversion by Fox from his rather fading acting. A pity perhaps, considering he comes from a distinguished thespian family. Somehow Fox’s political ambitions reminds me somehow of Ukip in Scotland, reduced to the likes of Count Dankula and Billy ‘Question Time’ Mitchell
fading acting career.