The performance artiste with the stage name Boris Johnson who is treating the position of the Prime Minister of the UK as the world’s greatest improv gig does not currently have his troubles to seek. The fall out from his disastrously self serving decision to rip up independent oversight of Conservative MPs’ sleazebag side gigs had not abated when he compounded backbench anger with his toe curling, well let’s call it a speech, to the CBI, which contained more hums and haws and vroom vroom noises than actual words in the English language.
To make matters worse for Johnson, who got the position of leader of the Tory party in part because of his supposed skills as an orator, the meaningful words which the – are we still calling it a speech? – did contain were not strung together in any coherent fashion, and appeared to be mostly concerned with a visit to Peppa Pig land, which Johnson claimed was his kind of place. This must come as a surprise to those who have seen the programme in the company of some under fives and had failed to realise it was actually about a compulsively lying serial adulterer who tries to get a journalist beaten up and who would privatise the NHS if he thought he could get away with it.
Still it’s nice to know that even the supine jellyfish on the Conservative benches in the Commons do in fact have a limit to their toleration of Johnson’s appalling behaviour and manifest unsuitability for public office. However it speaks volumes about the lack of morality, or indeed basic human decency in the Parliamentary Conservative party that the limit was reached, not with a callous incompetence in handling the pandemic which has left the UK with one of the highest per capita death tolls in the world, not with one lie after another. It was not even reached with Johnson’s naked assault on the democratic norms of the UK which the Conservatives effect to be so proud of – up to and including lying to the Queen in order to unlawfully prorogue Parliament in an effort to evade Parliamentary scrutiny of his Brexit deal.
The Tories have been just fine with all of this, just as they have been fine with the corruption, the sleaze and the flouting of the lockdown rules which the rest of us must adhere to. Johnson once again flouted official requests to wear a mask as he watched a performance of Macbeth at a busy theatre in north London on Monday night, according to witnesses, just days after he refused to wear a mask on a visit to a hospital in the north of England.
No, what finally did it for the Tories was a stumbling and shambolic speech about Peppa Pig. The Tories knew exactly what they were getting with Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, they knew all about his total lack of concern for anyone other than himself, the fact that he occupies a principle and moral vacuum, his rank opportunism, and his laziness. But despite all that they chose him as leader anyway, because they cynically calculated that his carefully contrived shambolic “Boris” shtick with his deliberately rumpled appearance and purposely unkempt hair would appeal to a certain type of voter in England who would be swayed by the alleged charms of an upper class patrician type whose persona is based upon not giving a shit. A significant minority in class obsessed England confuse this act with authenticity, enough to give Johnson and the Conservatives the victory they craved in the General Election of December 2019.
Now however the novelty has well and truly worn off and the public in England is starting to show signs of tiring of the Boris performance. Even the robotic and bland Keir Starmer, who would make a bowl of unsalted and unbuttered mashed potatoes seem dangerously spicy by comparison is starting to make inroads into the Conservatives’ lead in the UK-wide opinion polls. As Leader of the Opposition Starmer is assiduous and energetic in attacking his political opponents. Luckily for Johnson and the Tories, the great political opponents of the Parliamentary Labour party are other parts of the Labour party.
There is now widespread disquiet on the Conservative benches as Tory MPs fear for their second jobs and start to doubt Johnson’s ability to get them re-elected. There are rumours of moves being made against him and even that some Tory MPs are sounding out their colleagues about a potential leadership challenge. Downing Street has been forced to go on the defensive, with Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, himself a selfish incompetence who owes his position entirely to Johnson’s patronage, asserting that Johnson’s speech to the CBI was an example of the prime minister being “ebullient”, in the process giving us yet another example of senior Conservatives using words in entirely novel and unexpected ways, such as when Michael Gove described the Conservatives by-passing the Scottish Parliament and intervening directly on devolved matters as “augmenting” devolution.
It is unlikely that Johnson will be unseated by his party in the short term, the anonymous briefings to the press from unhappy Tory MPs and the rumours of leadership challenges are more likely an attempt from within the party to deliver a shot across the bows of the Johnson ship of state in the hope of getting a few concessions.
However what recent developments within the Conservative party do signify is that for the time being we will not be hearing any more talk from the Conservatives and their allies about a snap General Election in the Spring in order to take advantage of the ineffectiveness of the Labour party. The Conservatives know that they need to get their own house in order first. Their problem is that what they are getting with Johnson is precisely what they should have expected they were going to get. He’s incapable of change and as such is a perfect figurehead for a corrupt and shambolic Westminster which is incapable of reform.
That means we are going to be stuck with Johnson for the time being. He’s possibly the best recruiting sergeant the Scottish independence movement could wish for and the longer he remains in office the more obvious the need for Scottish independence becomes to the undecided and the switherers.
Just to let you know, I am currently going through a phase of what my physiotherapist calls neurological hypersensitivity. Nerves and sensation are starting to reawaken on the left side of my body, however because my brain has had no input from the left for many months and because the relevant parts of the brain suffered damage in the stroke, the brain is interpreting these signals as pain. It’s uncomfortable and exhausting but it is a sign of progress and therefore is good news. Hopefully my brain will relearn what these signals really mean and the pain will diminish and I will have meaningful sensation. However in the meantime it’s causing a lot of fatigue and exhaustion as well as pain, so I may not blog every day until symptoms settle down.
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One poster in previous thread was quite astute/observant i.e. poster Legerwood….as he/she spotted this ‘performance’ and sleight of hand ‘performance’ re speech papers supposedly out of sync ….but were they ?….by Johnson at his speech to the CBI ….or was it tactical….but actually to the more intelligent among us a tactical failure from a supposed leader…..
Some have deducted this tired old usual referencing of fictional children’s characters, incoherent sentences and inappropriate imitation of the noise a car makes amounted to a totally undignified political ‘performance’ by a so called PM…a ‘performance’ that now dominates the media and public’s attention that was deployed to deflect from the Social care NOT LEVELLING UP bill that was voted on…..where the wealthier get to keep more of their money and less wealthier mugs do not……inheritance for YOUR children…..oh no not a chance……know your place….inheritance is for the wealthy to bestow upon their children………….Social care Bill in England….you vote Tory you GET Tory policies/Bills…..Blue wall…..should have went to Specsavers and read the small print…or at least remembered Thatcher’s legacy…..but Brexit means Brexit ……
Imagine for a moment, though I know tis not plausible, if one DRoss was FM of Scotland via a Tory majority ( or with a coalition with Lib Dems) how many English policies and bills would be consistent for Scotland to those passed in WM by a Tory majority government.
All Scottish Tories voted AYE to this Social Care Bill apart from DRoss who , as per, was exempted by permission from Tory HQ…to make him look good….reality is it does no such thing.
Yet Alba party think the SNP are NOT working for Scotland…..reality check please……the alternative is WE get the SAME or WORSE treatment than England……which with reserved policies is pretty much happening NOW.
The story oft told in family circles down here is that Johnson the undergraduate rarely (if ever ) prepared for tutorials in his chosen subject of Classics at Balliol College, Oxford.
When asked a question, he would produce a blank piece of paper and speak from that. Whether he made any sense of not is a moot question.
Source: My later father-in-law was the tutor of that particular group of tutees which Johnson belonged to.
I looked up Peppa Pig, the great British entrepreneurial success which, according to Johnston neither the BBC nor any civil servant could have created (really?). It was first broadcast by Channel 5 , owned by US company Viacom, then part sold to Entertainment One, now taken over by Hasbro Inc- a US conglomerate. One of the creators was Mark Baker who appears to have had a perfectly ordinary education via the state sector.
Perhaps he is courting them for donations to Tory funds with perhaps a seat in the HoL. Peppa Pig would make a perfect icon for the massed ranks of gammons who vote Tory.
… and as you alluded to before, with reference to the Herald cartoon Capella, “The troughs are that-a way!”
It wisnae me – maybe NMRN – but it’s a good one 🙂
I got my Legerwoods mixed up.
Apologies to all concerned! 🙂
Accepted 🙂
Sorry to digress, but Ledgerwood was the best goalkeeper the Jags ever had, Tommy even scored a goal against Hearts when he was injured and unable to keep goal. I was born and lived but a 10 minute walk to Firhill with my dad, who kept telling me that Tommy would make a wonderful PM for a free Scotland. Now I live in Australia and being closer to 80 than 70, I tell my children, grand children and my first little great granddaughter that Nicole will be a wonderful PM for Scotland in the near future. Once more sorry, ‘mox erit’.
Unless Scotland votes for Independence we will await the next Tory Piggy and the one after that, ad infinitum
Are some in Scotland waiting and hoping for a Labour party revival ? well it won’t happen and it wouldn’t matter would it because those who are waiting for that miracle must understand that Scotland is outvoted ten to one by England and those folk in that country are big fans of the Tories, so you can hope, you can pray, but there’s one thing that’s certainly guaranteed you can’t do and that’s make your vote count against an English electorate who decides to have anything they damn well want because Scotland is only a territory of the English Imperium
If you haven’t heard them say it then you’ve not been listening, Tory Labour Liberal Democrat all the same party with different names and Scotland is stuck with all three of them telling you something different except for one thing, England is in charge for all time and don’t you forget it
Coming shortly FM Nicola Sturgeon will ask for our authority to change all this, for goodness sake give her it, there are 27 countries of the EU waiting for us to make our minds up, there’s half the rest of the world on Scotlands side offering us memberships to join up with them, Independence and prosperity for Scotland is lying on a plate waiting for us to just stick a knife and fork in it and get munching
Scotland cannot lose
I don’t subscribe to the theory that Johnson was DELIBERATELY being an ass in his speech to the CBI . He is too enamoured of his own image to make himself look ( more of ) a clown than is usual .
That was the unvarnished leader of the UK doing his usual off-the-cuff speechifying – hence the ridiculous anecdotes , the bizarre analogies and the jokey presentation style which would be frowned on at a sixth year debate in High School .
No , the Great Orator was simply caught out by his own laziness in not learning his lines . One has to wonder why Johnson did not use the ubiquitous ( for most politicians ) the teleprompter but that would probably cramp his usual ”style” when speaking .
I’d agree. Johnson really does believe he’s the dug’s baws. Handsome, charming, witty, highly intelligent…. that’s how he sees himself. He lives in a fantasy land of his own greatness, imagining he’s Churchill etc. Reality is he’s spineless and deep down knows it, so is ready to u-turn in an instant of the popularity ratings fall.
In some ways, that makes him less dangerous than what will replace him. It is all but inevitable whoever comes next will be worse than what came before. Sunak for example scares me more than Bozo as he’s much cleverer. Sunak sees riches beyond his wildest dreams by landing the Top job; raw low tax Thatcherism unconstrained by the employment protections of the EU.
Sunak isn’t racist like Bozo, and he’ll be more than clever enough to know that the economic damage caused by the UK’s immigration stance will ruin it. However, he’s not remotely interested in making the UK a success; he simply wants to reduce his personal tax bill and open up and many post-politics nest feathering opportunities as he can while he can. He’s already fabulously rich, but it is never enough for people like him. He always needs more and will stab whoever he needs to stab to get it. But he knows how to do that with a sharp suit and a smile for the cameras.
The UK as an imperial state has been in continuous decline since the post war baby boom peak. With each passing year it has become ever more corrupt and feckless, with each successive leader being less competent and more pocket lining than the last, on average. We are now in a situation like the scene from the German movie ‘downfall’ with hitler and government in its final days in his bunker. They were moving imaginary armies around, while talking about the greatness of the Reich and throwing lavish parties right down to the point the Russians were at the end of the street. Around him, those sunaks, sorry rats with any sense were pocketing what loot they could while they still could before abandoning the sinking ship.
England has lost it’s mind. We have a major labour shortage which is getting worse every day as more and more skilled workers leave, yet the population and government want to mass deport the only people that actually do want to be British and are willing to risk their lives crossing the channel on lilos for that. There is no way a country which has lost the plot so spectacularly can possibly survive in its current constitutional form. The current path can only lead to collapse which will reset things, offering an opportunity for rebirth.
I remain of the opinion that England +/- Wales will re-join the EU/EEA having lost Britain.
Both You, scottish skier and James Mills make very sound and pertinent points …..however is it not quite incredible that tis even conceivable that his ‘presentation’ style when giving a speech, that consists of blunders, weak references and botch ups, could even be perceived as tactical and being used to endorse what some perceive as him yet again being seen as a supposed “lovable rogue”….”lovable rogue” in quotation marks as some people, who live among us, have stated this very thing.
Boris Johnson was presenting this speech to a Tory friendly audience who were not there to endorse Boris Johnson but there to support the Tory party vision for them as businesses…..where deregulation, tax concessions and maximum profit are usually guaranteed…..thus his personal performance was of no consequence to them as long as the party faithful and new Tory voters stay onboard with the Tory party…..with or without him at the helm…..the other side of the coin is of course the impact of Brexit on businesses……small businesses are suffering…..as to large corporations well that is outwith my competence as far as knowledge is concerned…..but the fact that large corporations still endorse and donate to the Tories surely demonstrates there is still something to be gained by them post Brexit …..especially from the Tory party.
Have a good evening both of you……
🙂
I think he does try to create the image you talk about, but the CBI speech was not that, it was a total farce from start to finish. Such rambling sh**e seems to me to be entirely genuine, and as time goes on, his laziness and lack of any acumen can’t be hidden. He was totally unprepared, tried to make it up as he went along as he always does, and failed completely.
Remember, Bozo is someone who had to pay ~50k a year (I understand) for extra tuition, small class sizes, the very best extra educational support and facilities available… to buy the same grades as many kids from a council estate in Scotland get entirely on their own merit, often in the face of considerable hardship, at a state school.
The guy is ‘educated way beyond his ability’ and it’s showing.
Good points and well said scottish skier…..
🙂
A now familiar pattern.
Speculation from Laura Keunssberg yesterday about Boris Johnston’s future as PM after his car crash speech to the CBI. So today, Laura Keunssberg creates the false news that FM Nicola Sturgeon is planning to step down as FM. https://twitter.com/msm_monitor/status/1463558147889680385?s=20
And the suspicion that this ‘story’ about the FM is yet another ploy to deflect from Johnson and his ship of fools
I thought Laura Toryberg would distance herself from the Boris gaffs. Just goes to show how up to her neck she is.
Surprise, surprise https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-59406430
The FM dismisses speculation about her future stated the bbc. Rumour started by the bbc. Why didn’t the FM ask Kuensberg about her future?
Personally if asked for an interview I would decline as I am watching “Tales of the Riverbank” (for oldies) Trumpton, The Herbs and the magic roundabout.
Yes Hamish and the nice wee pro Union project Fear piece after the interview…where Huw Edwards had one Sarah Smith in the studio…where Sarah highlighted independence case could not be made now or relied upon via Scotland’s oil with the decommissioning of offshore oil platforms………not so much a balanced perspective, as if, by the BBC but a 100% proof BT project fear argument rehashed to now support the new Green initiative future und the Union uber alles obvs…….where without oil…well Scotland apparently has nothing to sustain it as a well functioning prosperous country……is Sarah Smith also onboard as a member of Michael Gove’s Union Unit……as in part of the BBC division….a public broadcaster not presenting facts and information but instead promoting propaganda to diminish support for independence…..and indeed in Scotland itself while simultanously endorsing the Union.
Sarah obviously not wanting to promote the many advantages Scotland has to offer in the way of renewable energy a sector which is presented as THE future for all countries in the world….facts such as say….Wind power in Scotland is the fastest-growing renewable energy technology, with 9,347 MW of installed wind power capacity as of June 2020. This included 8,366 MW from onshore wind in Scotland and 981 MW of offshore wind generators…..
Or
Orkney’s tidal turbine work which its makers say is THE most powerful in the world but NOT being properly invested in enough by…guess who…correct the UK government…..The turbine’s superstructure floats on the surface of the water, with rotors attached to its legs which extract energy from the passing tidal flow. … Electricity is transferred from the turbine via a dynamic cable to the seabed and then through a static cable to the local onshore electricity network….as of July 2021 the turbine is producing enough electricity, according to Orbital Marine, to “meet the demand of around 2,000 UK homes and offset approximately 2,200 tonnes of CO2 production per year…with proper investment and management think how it, and other, renewable energy sources could be beneficial to an independent Scotland……now that’s news you are NOT getting where YOU are in Scotland courtesy of the BBC…..but sourced elsewhere…..as per.
There is other sources/places for projects from Scotland for renewable energy…..come Indy Ref 2 the new project Fear on the block will be…..Scotland running out of wind ( been tried already recently by guess who…..no prizes).
As to Carbon Capture betrayal THE most recent biggest betrayal in HER UK ……well for Sarah Smith that is so yesterday’s news and with the project now going to England …well for her it’s a win win for the Union..UK…England….well all the same thing really…..to Sarah Smith.
Renewables are way, way more significant for Scotland’s future economic wellbeing than oil ever was, and very especially the tidal power you mention. In worldwide technological predominance as well as in amount of “free” and everlasting energy produced.
Sarah Smith, on the other hand, is fundamentally insignificant for Scotland’s future, as she is proving on an almost daily basis through her own visibly-biased and ill-informed propaganda.
What kind of people and organisations continually strive to present their own country and people in the most relentlessly depressive of perspectives? (And hope somehow to prevail?)
I completely agree. Oil and gas, as finite, can/could only ever last for so long*. Renewable power is in principle infinite.
As the crap weather energy capital of Europe, a bright, sorry dreich with a hoolie blawin future awaits us. 🙂
—
*The crime here is the squandering of that resource.
{laugh}
Plus Scotland is still rising, geologically speaking, is it not…?
Posted THIS, on the wrong thread.
‘NMRN, is our proverbial ‘silk purse’, WS.
I’m thoroughly enjoying the banter, Duggers, finding the events of the past few weeks too ridiculous for words.
On the Martin and Dross Laugh-in on Sunday, Dross, mindful of St Peter’s thrice denial of Jesus, denied his support for Boris Bar-John twice, but admitted that he gave the Fat Fool his unequivocal backing when asked a third time. The cock did not crow.
(John 18:15-27 for the purists)
The Hon. Sarah Smith was on the six o’clock English BBC lying that the oil was running out, and without it Scotland was too poor to be an independent country.
But we are rich enough to bung Smith’s mother and sister, and Kezia Dudale and Baroness Ruth of Rape Clause money and wages to run their Be Polite to Politicians Think Tank?
Huw Edwards told his English audience that the English would not allow the Jocks to hold a referendum; so that’s it we are a militarily occupied colony of England. ProudWelsh But Uncle Dai?
Our only escape route is to take up arms and drive the English from our shores?
Really?
Idiots with mics.
It is all ‘too ridiculous for words’ now.
NO more words..action time.
For reference purposes.
Uncle Tam (Scot.) = Dic Sion Dafydd (Wal.) (i.e. Dick John David)
Noted, WS.
🙂
Hope you are well Jack…..aye another so called Think Tank….this one houses rejects from Holyrood……jobs for the Girls….makes a change usually jobs for the boys…but when you are a Unionist of any sex then there’s a job for life…..somewhere…or so it seems.
Q- How many Think Tanks are needed to change a lightbulb ……
A- Too many…..so better just being in the dark……cause you will never be enLIGHTened by a Think tank…….
Sorry that was rubbish…but hope you get my drift Jack……
Lol, NMRN.
How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
Two.
One to change the lightbulb, the other to make sure that the lightbulb really really wants to change.
Bed.
Yes indeed grizebard…in fact tis strange not strange for Sarah Smith to use the argument of oil, as a fossil fuel, being phased out, as now apparently (once again) being seen as a significant obstacle to Scotland’s future wealth as an independent country……fast forward to 2021 it’s You’ll no be able tae use yir oil noo……but significantly the omission of what ,via a Green future, will replace it…i.e. renewable energy via wind and tidal energy…..being abundant as natural resources in Scotland……but once again because Scotland is STILL in the UK…we as a country cannot benefit, manage independently or use fully this new source of renewable energy independently …….as the UK aka WM takes charge and determines policy on this……and they do this by investing MORE in England by awarding THEM say ….new green projects such as the Carbon capture and storage facility and also by NOT investing sufficiently in the Orkney Tidal turbine project within Scotland…..etc etc
Just before the 2014 Indy Ref oil was , according to the likes of Sarah Smith , a resource running out, subject to price volatility and not therefore to be considered by Scots as a reliable asset……it was however NOT viewed as a hindrance or indeed a unreliable asset to the many WM UK governments who exploited it as a source of income for many many years to fund much of their policies, projects and cities like London’s regeneration and Wars including illegal ones etc and they did this with 90% of the UK’s oil resources considered under Scottish jurisdiction…..not forgetting also the enrichment of the many oil companies who compared to say Norway did NOT pay sufficient taxes in the UK…. in 2019 the UK government took $1.72 (£1.24) in taxes per barrel of oil, while the Norwegian government took $21.35 (£15.44)…..the Norwegian oil fund had a value of NOK11. 67 trillion at June 30 2021……because Norwegian oil was , unlike Scotland’s oil NOT apparently subject to the same price volatility or indeed running out…lucky Norway with their special unique oil unlike stupid Scottish oil and all it’s unique problems …..see Scotland’s oil in an independent Scotland was always apparently to be seen as unique in that it HAD to be seen as a burden but when controlled by the UK well obvs it was an asset…..distinction with Norway being that the UK has squandered it by relying on it to maintain the pretence of the UK being a major player in the world……Norway on the other hand, as an independent country, is sitting pretty…….they managed their oil well by setting up an oil fund to maintain THEIR prosperity in the here and now and for the future……
“What kind of people and organisations continually strive to present their own country and people in the most relentlessly depressive of perspectives”?
Well funny you should ask that….but as you obviously know tis the kind of people who make their living via Scotland still being a part of THEIR Union by working in another part of the UK or in some cases FOR another part of the UK……I’m alright Jack types…Don’t rock the boat types …..and people who would probably Throw their grannies off the bus types to stay within THEIR Union aka UK…….that’s the kind of people they are……they know it’s sh*te but as long as they can make a career and money from living within this sh*te UK then hey what’s the problem Jock agitators for change…get with the program UKOK Ja.. …….they can be defined as selfish which is by definition seen as lacking consideration for other people; concerned chiefly with one’s own personal profit or pleasure…….fits the bill for churnalists like Sarah “Labour fan” Smith does it not.
I thought Sarah Smith was going away somewhere. Anyhow, did she not also mention that the seas will dry up within the next 5 billion years or so when the sun has become a red giant, so the future for Scotland’s tidal wave energy is very, very bleak indeed. By that time our ‘once in a lifetime’ chance of independence will be well and truly over and Sarah Smith will have moved on to a planet beyond the solar system where only Labour can survive the choking atmosphere, safe from the clutches of ThatEssEmmPee …….. but everyone will have titles like ‘The Honourable’, Baroness, Sir, Lord, Lady, Dame. Home from home.
Oh, priceless! I did enjoy that thought.
(Though, if we still haven’t managed to escape from this madness by then, I reckon Labour won’t have gone anywhere, and there’ll be a new Sarwar demanding of a new Nicola Sturgeon that she “do something about it”. {shudder})
Yes she is supposedly to be the BBC’s new North America Editor……..she’ll no like that …as in being the ‘North’ America Editor…..she would have preferred the ‘South’ nudge nudge wink wink Badum tish….
Yes her wee input tonight was some parting shots from soon to be nay mair-a Sarah…..in news from where YOU are….not really though.
.”Sarah Smith will have moved on to a planet beyond the solar system”…. fly her to the moon on a one way ticket…..the dark side so she feels at home…..a home from home….she might cause an eclipse…..because she certainly casts a dark shadow here in Scotland…..
In fact send the lot of them out into the solar system…..who do you think we should send to Uranus……clue…it is known for it’s dimness and slow orbit …….sure it could be known for not being what we think it is, as it was never recognised as a planet by ancient observers…..for current observers we have a PM who is also not recognised as a PM by a large chunk of the population of the countries he is supposedly PM for…..what a coincidence….seems like a match made in heaven….or made in the solar system……a rocket awaits you Boris J with Buzz Lightyear as the space ranger who will pilot the craft…especially for you as we know how much you love cartoon characters……he’s taking you to infinity and beyond……..hopefully Buzz will not bring him back down to Earth…..as down to Earth is something alien to him……with him being a posh boy.
Till aw the seas gang dry – true wit 😂
There is a story there – but regarding Kuennsberg’s future. Jon Sopel is stepping down from his U.S. correspondent’s post, so there will be a reshuffle which may involve la Smith, Laura Kuennsberg, Nick Robinson, Emily Maitlis and others of that ilk.
Times Panelbase on when an indyref should be held:
53% Within the next 5 years / parliamentary term
46% Not within the next few years
I want a poll that says “Soon” and “Never” as the only two options. 😀
These polling companies and their various options just water down the result, and give succour to naysayers.
We had a ‘poll’ in May, ‘statgeek’.
The Referendum shall be held within the first half of the current Holyrood parliamentary term.
It’s not an opinion poll, of course…it was ‘democratic will of the Scottish people’.
Sarah Smith and Laura Kuennsberg lied to the good citizens of England on BBC teatime news where they are last night…..
The BBC at its Establishment best…get the Scots to denigrate their country as entertainment for their English masters.
Yes, it is very easy to achieve quite different answers by asking the same question in slightly different ways.
In the case of the above post, was just looking through the panelbase tables for anything remotely interesting. This is actually very much a ‘no change on past answers’ finding, much like generally polling in Scotland right now.
That’s how the “personality profile analysis” questionnaires in job interviews work; questions worded slightly differently to elicit different answers.
Do you think the guy who lives in Bath for the past 30 years will still be shouting from the sidelines in another 30 whether we are independent or not?
I suppose the urge to be noticed by some runs deep.
He’ll be in a tent in his garden working for Bathy power doing mind reading tarot predictions, side bets a specialty
Johnson is actually doing the UK a service. He’s exposing the Tory party for what they are.
Other Tory leaders are just better at hiding it!
For reference purposes.
Uncle Tam (Scot.) = Dic Sion Dafydd (Wal.) (i.e. Dick John David)
Surely you don’t have many Dic Sion Daafydds now?
His biggest blunder was recently telling journalists that he had made a mistake marrying his current wife.
Oh dear,PMQ must seem like a holiday compared to what he must be getting at home.
And Laura Kuennsberg gets demoted to radio..mmm….
Just sayin’, like.
[…] Source […]
Sky News is now referring to the English Channel as the British Channel, they have no shame.
I believe the French call it “The Ditch” 😂
Europeans cry it ‘La Manche’, Alex.
As I do.
I am a European, not ‘Brenglish’.
France is my ally, as is Ireland and the other 25 fellow European nations.
England is my colonial oppressor, occupying my land by force and oppression.
I note scottish skier’s longish post on the reality of the Iron Heel’s hold on ‘territories’ on these tangled isles.
I will brook no argument made by English paid Fifth Columnists to keep their native land in servitude.
I ask no one’s ‘permission’ to breathe freely the air of Independent Scotland.
Glenn Campbell is a tired dour Brit Hack, old and worn out before his time, who will look down on the receding Glasgow skyline as the last helicopter leaves the abandoned offices at Plantation Quay, doubtless with a rueful glance to the West as he contemplates the death by Brexit of the shell fish industry on his native isle Islay.
For 20 years this wee man has fronted Brit Nat BBC politics..and may soon join the Hon Sarah Smith on the Yankee Beat.
Carjack Lawson’s, the Cinnabar Kid, Everlovin’ must stare across the breakfast table at the vermillion faced failed Car Dealer and wonder how her man was ousted and replaced by an even more ridiculous Blue Tory failure like Dross the Man Who Can be in Four Jobs at One Time, a scientific anomaly that even Martin Geissler failed to query on last week’s Sunday Martin and Dross Laugh-In.
That Johnson survives, confirms what we all knew. Like the Oligarchy in England allowing the Idiot to remain as PM, the Jock Brits will let buffoons and chancers like Dross, Sarwar, and the Tailor’s Dummy Coal-Scuttle front their English Masters Up Here regardless of how completely useless they are, and on a daily basis, confirm their pointlessness, in set up interviews with the Glenns Martins and Garys of Brit Broadcast.
Not long now. They look more and more ridiculous with each passing day
And right on cue, Sarwar is on his pins waving the bloody babtgro again, and demanding that the FM sack Glasgow Health Board, consisting of mainly ‘It’s my turn’ careerists who were in post when Labour Ruled.
Just once, ‘Scottish Labour’ will use FMQ to turn their guns on Dross and the Blue Tories.
Dross is at FMQ, while his Home Secretary, Ugandan Asian Refugee, was on her pins in Westminster reading a statement on yesterday’s tragedy in La Manche.
Shouldn’t Dross have been in London? He’s getting paid to be Down There, surely?
But wait…
We are expected to mutely accept that this little weasal can claim as much money from public funds and football supporters subs to the SFA as he likes.
Sleaze, Anas.
Social Care in Tory England. Boris Johnson losing it in public….Your only chnace of overtaking the blue Tories in Scotland is to attack them puiblicly in Edinburgh.
No, holding Scotland fast as an occupied colony of England is more important to you?
Still, it will do as a ‘day job’, until you follow in your father’s footsteps when he retires.
I am madder than hell, and I won’t put up with it any more..
Ha ha ha – Glenn Campbell and BBC Scotland trudge on down this “Nicola Sturgeon says she will serve a full term after a record breaking election win only 6 months ago” route.
Now they are doorstepping opposition leaders to ask what they think of this shocking news!
Any chance of tackling the Tories on sleaze and corruption and their deadly policies on Covid, immigration, NHS Care and pensions?
Oh my Capella…talk about lack of self awareness…..Jackson Carlaw…..a bit of projection there Jackson….accuse the other side of that of which you are guilty via HQ’s broken manifesto pledges and policies…… I suppose with Jackson being ousted after his SHORT and hardly a term as leader was it… as Tory branch office manager he is still feeling a wee bit sore and needs to lash out at someone…..and being a Tory he naturally lashes out at the wrong target…..sad to see such bitterness in public life…..if it hadnae been fir those pesky SNP superior politicians I could have still been in a job as party leader.in the branch office….. well perhaps…. but he also would still have been surplus to requirement in Holyrood as a (non) functioning and (non) beneficial member……pretty much like his party’s current leaders at Holyrood and WM……
Reminds me of that Gif with the baby wailing…..actually they all do…Cole Hamilton, Sarwar, Dross and all the rest of them……Wah Wah Wah….etc etc…..in the name oh the wee man…Gies some peace purleeease……..I cannae take nae mair…..yir a joke Jackson…a joke.
Sad to see a man with NO pride….very very sad…….NOT
I thought this particular video on Indyref’s Youtube channel perfectly encapsulated the BBC Scotland and STV views – What should be versus what probably is important to Scottish viewers.
What’s next for the Glenn Campbell, flash the UJ underwear ? https://youtu.be/IBIrmaQIMOk
That must be the first time I have agreed with the car salesman. Scotland does need change before the next election, just not the change he wishes for.
The latest Yougov for the Times is another ‘no change’ and makes my average for 2021 50.14(-0.2)% Yes.
https://archive.md/CtEI5
We really seem to be in completely static territory
Some sat ratings:
+12% Sturgeon
-1% Anas Sarwar
-35% Kier Starmer
-62% Boris Johnson
Sturgeon remaining comfortably in positive territory, even with her moves towards indy as the pandemic wanes somewhat. Unionists always like her more when she doesn’t talk about indy.
Anyway, as I keep saying, Y/N polls, just like VI, only tell us what people are saying they’d do in a snap election / referendum held tomorrow. So they might influence party tactics in terms of ratings and e.g. Bozo mulling a snap GE, but they don’t tell us much about the proposed 2023 vote other than our ‘hardcore baseline, will vote Yes no questions asked’ is about 50%, and we have a good few % on top of that who have said yes at times, but don’t seem minded to right now.
My own belief is that the end of lockdown, return to some sense of normality, makes people feel in control again, and that causes Yes waves to recede somewhat. Remember, in 2020, loads of people were losing their jobs, there was utter panic for the future, and that made people want to do something to have more control. They don’t feel that right now. However, the UK is lurching from one crisis to the next and it is rapidly heading down the economic plughole. The next crisis is coming, and that desire to take control in the face of it will drive another Yes wave.
All the time, baseline ‘tomorrow’ Yes – driven by all but irreversible underlying factors reflected in generational attitudes – continues it’s slow upward decadal climb of around 1.4% (ex DK) per year.
Without more evidence, it’s hard to know how people are reacting at the moment. I think you’re right about a hardcore baseline for indy, but it’s just as likely that many others are putting any notion of independence on hold precisely because the pandemic is still very much with us and is still dominating their considerations. In times of crisis, whatever the origin, people tend to cleave to what they know, for whatever crumbs of security that may offer, and despite everything that has happened over the last few years, the UK is still apparently the “goto” for the unco unsure. Even BoJo the Clown can be dismissed as a blip in the minds of these people. It’s not even clear that blame for the growing deleterious effects of Brexit will be assigned to the real culprits.
Meanwhile, the BBC is working unashamedly full tilt at keeping them onside for its Union. Brexit is The Error That Must Not Be Named. The state broadcaster in Scotland failed at getting rid of Sturgeon for real, so now their next best ploy is to get rid of her in peoples’ imagination by inventing a pernicious rumour that she will quit, oh, and when that’s officially contradicted, reverting to the absurd tabloidesque ploy of “revealing” that stunning “news”.
It’s all about creating fear, uncertainty and doubt about Scotland’s future, because that’s all they have left, and just as in 2014, that helps keep the doubters passive.
Frankly, though, with a solid baseline where it is, I’m more than ready to go for a showdown as soon as the usual suspects can’t easily dismiss it as a “diversion from a failing handling of the pandemic”. (They’ll be lucky.) They will have to flip that instead into “we need to concentrate on recovery”. But the best recovery is the one we organise for ourselves.
Yes, it’s hard to know. I just don’t personally buy the theory put forward by some that the Yes peak we saw right in the middle of the initial outbreak / full lockdown was due to people thinking Sturgeon did good daily briefings.
I’ve never seen any polling evidence that people support indy ‘cos sturgeon/the SNP’. Hence me trying to understand why, at the very peak of the crisis, when we didn’t even know if vaccines were possible, people started backing indy in record numbers. At least temporarily. Hence the suggestion of a desire to somehow take control of a seemingly out of control situation.
That would tie in with the financial crisis being trigger that saw the SNP catapulted to their 2011 majority and iref1. Maybe.
Ultimately, indy is about more control. That’s all it does. It doesn’t necessarily make things better or worse. That depends on the decisions made with that more control! 🙂
Just a mention…but an important one on the poor people who recently died crossing the channel….totally appropriate time to grieve for any loss of any human life and totally inappropriate time to politicise and focus on blame game via which country i.e. France or England is responsible for the so called policing of the channel.
People exploited by criminals to try and escape their countries of origin, which via western participation in wars within their respective countries that has decimated their countries, thus they have to resort to try and seek a new life , in what they assume to be a better country…and in the case of Afghanistan , where they have been abandoned by the west, and thus left to the mercy of the Taliban.
I cannot imagine what it must be like to have to leave one’s own country and risk one’s own life to take such a perilous journey to supposed freedom and a better life……unfortunately it is people like Nigel Farage and others like him who dehumanise this to promote THEIR agenda in support of Brexit……..I hate people like Farage so much….hate is a strong word but they deserve contempt as they are the worst kind of humans…….people have died and that is the sad reality….I hate hate hate this ……..sometimes it just gets too much to think too deeply on things such as these tragic incidents because it hurts too much……as I think of how I would feel if it were my son, brother or any family member or friend who died in that situation…..it would be unbearable and I know many who write on this blog, including the person who owns this blog, would feel exactly as I do….empathy, sympathy and compassion should always be the first natural reaction any human should feel on these tragedies……
Sorry….. but I get really affected by these things….especially when I turn on the TV and the focus is dominated in part by the political aspect and not totally on the humane aspect…….or the bl*ody so called migrant watch obsessives.
Well we’ve had our share of forced departure, extended family that well never know, uncles, aunties, cousins that we’ve never met and never knew. North and South of the highland line cleared in a way that can only be described properly as ethnic cleansing. A population reduced from being one third of the UK total to barely 8.2% and only then because of those who have travelled from their own land and chosen to make Scotland their home.
Indeed, golfnut.
The refugees have one major fault. They are brown skinned.
Oh, and Muslim.
Up Here in certain,ahem, quartiers, they would be confronted by pitchfork and flaming torch wielding ‘locals’. and challenged to declare if they were Catholic or Protestant Muslims.
England’s Red Wall was breached using the Brexit racist battering ram.
Like Johnson openly declaring to a gathering of dutiful hacks in relation to his 3rd marriage, the red neck Labour British Jobs For British Workers racists across the North of White England, may be suffering from ‘buyer’s remorse’.
Will poverty, Heat or Eat dilemmas, and global isolation, triumph over inherent xenophobia and fascism?
I doubt it. Dunkirk spirit and all that, doncha know?
The riots in England’s cities and towns are not far off now.
They are brown skinned.
Oh, and Muslim.
It’s not even specifically that, but the fact they’re not white English/British.
My wife and family are not wanted, and they’re ‘white European Christian’, like e.g. Polish people. Problem is that Mrs SS is, to quote the English PM, one of those ‘French turds’.
A huge labour shortage is doing enormous damage to UK businesses as skilled workers flee the exit gates, and the English/British are turning back boats full of the only HGV drivers, care workers, chefs, front of house staff, farm workers, fish processers, warehouse staff…. that actually want to work in the UK.
England/Britain has lost the plot, consumed as it has become with hatred of the other.
Even we Scots are hated. It’s only the British in Scotland that are tolerated by the Brenglish brexiters.
Like you, scottish skier, I am married to a white skinned (alabaster, porcelain, beauty, he hastens to add lest she breaks the habit of a lifetime and accesses this excellent blog) ‘foreigner. She is Belfast born, with an Irish.EU passport.
Some WGD old stagers may recall my whimsical, but no less poignant, posts in the summer of ’16, when Farage Johnson and Gove were ‘taking back control’ of laws and borders, that when Brexit Got Done, and Freedom of Movement banned by Priti Patel, that the Light of My Life would be deported. I mused whimsically that I would miss her, and enquired where I could recruit a housekeeper at Polish plumber undercutting rates of pay.
Indeed, Brexit was more than the colour of incomers skin.
Oh, how they all laughed at Ploish plumbers’ jokes on HIGNFY, Mock The Week.
They spilt their sides laughing over Jocks’ fried mars bars, and meanness.
There is no case to remain held in colonial oppression
.
MY Everlovin can move freely throught 27 countries on my continent, as a European, can, live, holiday, buy a gite, without impediment, whereas I, a Fre Scot, cannot, because the English voted to become a third country, isolated from the rst of the continent.
It will not be long before the CTA is withdrawn and David Frost completely fucks up the GFA.
I
Logically, Dross Sarwar and Coal-Scuttle are offering no alternative to an armed uprising?
Maybe the Tory reaction to Johnson’s mention of a pig in his… “speech”(?) was actually due to it still being a bit of a sore point with the PR people after David Cameron… 😉
And yeah. The Tories should have known full well what they were voting for. Just as every Tory voter (and every “No” voter in 2014) should have known what they were getting.
Just hoping they think about that this time.
And yeah, also hoping Boris sticks around and keeps improving support for Indy. If the rest of the Tories do manage to rustle up enough of a spine between them to depose him, hopefully he’ll end up in the House of Lords, home of the unelectable, where he can continue to embarrass the opposition in epic style.
Gotta make the most of an opportunity like this when you get it…
Nice article Paul. Hope you feel better soon 🙂
(Also, nice use of the word “supine” there. Haven’t seen that one used often enough) 🙂
‘Vroom vroom’ still chucklin
Of course in Johnson’s Classics world, the ‘supine’ of the verb is a Latin verbal noun used only in the accusative and ablative cases, especially to denote purpose (e.g. mirabile dictu ‘wonderful to relate’).
Sent a cold 60 year old shudder of apprehension through this writer’s body too.
Lie back and think of England…
Or was that shudder not perhaps caused by the remembrance of learning Latin as it formerly was taught (very properly) in Scottish state schools? “Alea iacta est”, “Gallia est divisa in partes tres” and all that…
Ah, Caesar’s Gallic Wars, grizebard. Cicero’s address to the Senate and all that jazz. Oh, me miserum, ‘n’at…
One reason for the immediate and sudden BBC panic over Nicola Sturgeon and independence is thought to be the recent advice of Belgian politician Jan Jambon to prepare for Scottish goods being shipped directly to Europe after independence. he met the FM recently.
https://archive.fo/DqQTy
“Signs and portents”, eh…
(…which never appear on BBC Jokeland, of course.)
Oh, to have been the proverbial fly-on-the-wall at that conversation…
‘Jambon’ is of course French for ‘ham’, Capella.
Oh, the Peepa Pig irony in the week of the Boris Pig.
Let me ask you some hypothetical constitutional questions based on a yet to be determined date in the future that the government in England has stipulated you aren’t allowed to asked, oh and please be accurate in your answers
Eh oh erm “Rum and Raisin” ??
Until there’s one question and one date polling on this is page filling click bait propaganda
Nicola Sturgeon’s ratings are still light years ahead of Boris Johnston’s and also of the other party leaders. After 7 years in office this is quite an achievement although the BBC, parroting The Times has a “Sturgeon ratings plummet” headline. Bless.
On that graphic, Johnson’s score looks ‘off the page’, quite literally, Capella.
(I knew he was off the wall, but …)
The poll ratings on Nicola Sturgeon appear to reflect her constitutional political support and opposition to her position rather than work rate success or lack of so I suspect pretty much the same thing could be applied to all of them
I fervently don’t believe any polls carried out in Scotland can be relied upon to produce anything other than noise now, the constitutional question rules all and as we know Unionists in Scotland would vigorously oppose the curing of cancer if it were attributed to Nicola Sturgeons efforts, if she negotiated a treaty with space aliens to save planet Earth from our stupidity that led to the saving of all mankind they’d still come up with a vile adjective for her and support Englands domination of Scotland for all time
The Johnson government have handed the voters of Scotland every reason to dump England and make our country a better place and still we have people living in our country who would maintain the status quo or even worse remove our parliament altogether over the most ridiculous invented reasons to do with the fear of dilution of their religion or loyalty to a historical monarchial system or just plain old English Nationalism, these groups cannot and will not be convinced of Independence for Scotland ever in any universe that could be conceived of
You’re right about the poll ratings, like pretty every other damn thing at the moment, it’s merely a reflection of constitutional (and tribal) positions. The curious and amazing thing is that once someone begins to get a glimmer of what independence is all about, “thatNiklaSturgin” changes overnight into “our respected FM”.
Given that, and after running a very difficult and demanding show for ~7 years, I would take 53:41 any day going in to a referendum campaign. And all her political and media enemies know it.
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
Just endured part of FMQs Ross was his usual shouty wee man and with the amount of sleezy actions of Tories towards woman he has a cheek to pretend to be defender of women. As for Sarwar he was talking about bullying of QEUH staff re infections but his agreesive delivery of questions to the FM today was verging on bullying (was he trying to impress his da). I am no fan of Greater Glasgow Health Board but you would think by his little speeches at FMQs infections in hospitals never existed prior to Snp becoming the government. It is desperately sad when people die of infections but I don’t see anyway they can ever be totally eradicated and I don’t see Bojo being held responsible for everything that happens in hospitals in England nor Labour when they were power in Scotland or UK
If Nicola Sturgeon just charged in and sacked an entire hospital board without due process she’d be receiving abuse from the same dumbass politicians for being a heavy handed out of control dictator, these are cheap shot populist politics as performed on a weekly basis by Jeremy Corbyn (remember him?) when he was in charge of the British Labour party, Sarwars faux indignation as he reads out the names of private citizens being hard done by by *the man* or in the FMs case *the woman* are low transparent and despicable
The Unionists know they can’t win a legitimate argument or debate with the FM so they avoid having them by personalising every word they say for full viewer shock and awe entertainment and BBC lobby discussion with the right wing media immediately following the exchanges
NHS GGC looking for 2 new members. Surely those criticising could volunteer. Current members:https://www.nhsggc.scot/about-us/nhs-board/meet-the-board/
O/T but I see that we are going to get a ‘Union Division’ in the army (National reporting).
Looks like they intend to hold us colonies by force of arms, then???
Red White and Blue berets? Spitfire shaped boots? Blue noses and Orange Sashes?
One wonders if the recruits to this unit would get the opportunity to decline the Brits invitation to be a part of such a, now what could we call it?
Redcoats or Blackshirts? So many choices.
Gove is morphing in to a modern Himmler leader The Great Leader’s Schutzstaffel
I thought exactly the same thing. An army is supposed to be completely apolitical. A ‘unionist division’ is deeply scary stuff.
Another step down the fascist road.
Nobody can say we didn’t warn them. They heard it first on WGD.
Isn’t a ‘Union Division’ an twisted oxymoron?
A unit dedcicated to dividing their precious Union?
Again you hears it first on WGd.
Quote:-
“Defence Secretary Ben Wallace explained in the House of Commons that as part of the “Future Soldier” project the Army will be reorganised as an “expeditionary fighting force” designed to be “deployable and lethal”.
Can there be more deluded evil language than this?
No more of this ‘peace keeping’ charade.
England’s SS is happening.
We did warn you.
The army has always been an expeditionary fighting force, so no change then. What he really means is he reducing the size.
Exactly. That’s the essence of it.
The nuke cookoo-in-the-nest swallows up virtually all the military funding so there’s little left to go round. Even the Navy, which probably now has more admirals than surface vessels to defend our shores. The military chiefs know it full well, but the nukes are politically untouchable.
Rebellious Scots to crush or a Union attempt to put the frighteners on Scotland before we get a chance to vote in the referendum England says they won’t allow Scotland to have
The as called *British* military at the moment swear allegiance to the Crown so what allegiance will this *division* be swearing to given that in Westminster right now there is a Union unit under the orders of Michael Gove specifically employed in finding ways to keep control of Scotland
No matter how they decide to dress this up as some sort of military structural redesigning for the deployment of rapid lethal force, the minute they plant it in Scotland the gemme’s a bogey as they say, are they expecting violent resistance in Scotland or are they preempting their own promotion of it by doing this? either way if they are and do expect an outbreak of such things, just by doing this they will encourage it and I have no doubt in my mind they’ll get it whether genuine or false flagged in order to support their position
The English governments of time immemorial have used these techniques to quell and pacify the unrest that they themselves have always created to then report endlessly to the voters of England of the horrors that the terrorist baddies of somewhere else have forced them to react to in the hope of bringing peace to a deeply troubled region
The Union division will win the war on terrorism in Scotland towards a newer brighter tomorrow with a democratic government at the helm, Heil Boris and God save King Charlie
They could garrison the Union Division in Norn Irn? No? Why ever not?
Well some folk in Norn Irn would just love nice clear identifying markers on the uniforms of the new shiny Union division, of course nowadays pretty much anybody can knock them down like at the shows from a mile away
I’ve just read that a Unit to be based in Scotland is to be called the Ranger Division.
Surely Shankill Raod would welcome this Future Soldier?
They’re beefing up the troops in Moray too.
You couldn’t make it up.
Christ on a bike it’ll be the bluenoses instead of the redcoats
Wonder if that ex-squaddie who is now the official spokesperson for Scottish hospitality industry will re-take the shilling – bringing in a few old mates from Aldershot, I bet.
One wonders if he’s been a sleeper (in plain sight) all along and was being primed and groomed by MoD and HMG.
Just a few passing thoughts.
One of the things the British army learned very early on was that Scots didn’t want to join it. Not unless they could join Scottish regiments alongside their own countrymen, proudly marching under the saltire to the sound of the pipes with kilt, sporrans etc. Scottish, not English/British. Scotland was part of Britain, like it or not, but Scots were still Scots.
It’s why we don’t have a ‘British’ army, but an army made up of regiments from the different home nations. Why would the welsh want to be English when fighting to defend wales?
I think we may be misinterpreting, at least in part, the purpose of the Union Division. Recruitment is proving difficult with some units undermanned by between 20 and 30%. Various reasons for this of course, a mass exodus at the end of the pandemic, stalled in 2020/21, because of the lack of employment opportunities. That situation has changed.
I doubt strongly that Scotland, Wales or NI are the fertile recruitment grounds they once were with at least half the population of Scotland favouring independence, a growing independence movement in Wales and an almost certain reunification of Ireland. However there are within each of these country’s a portion of the population who define themselves as British rather than Scot, Welsh or Irish, who may be tempted to join what might become in truth an English Foreign legion. A legion which might find itself stationed in the middle East which is the focus of future operational adventures for ” England “.
Or perhaps youngsters no longer want to risk being badly wounded and live most of their lives a amputees relying on charity for their income?
When independent, we shall have Defence Capability, and our young people will not be going to war for America’s oil. No ‘expeditionary forces’.
Peace and Love, man.
Absolutely Jack, and who could blame them, post service care is more dumped than grateful government.
yesindyref2 comment below is a fair summary.of were ‘ future’ military capability is heading, the USA has been nudging the UK in that direction for yrs.
“UJnion Division” – name’s a bit strange, but a good diversionary sleight of hand trick from Wallace. I haven’t made my mind up about him. Spreadsheet Phil pulled the Forces back from bankrupcy if you believe the hype and by and large I do. Fallon was a brainless numptie, Williamson was gung-ho but possibly quite popular as, because he was a PM contender at the time, managed to get a fair bit more money out of the Treasury and stopped some of the cuts. Mordaunt wasn’t in the job long enough. To get a measure of Wallace, look at him and the British Army through the eyes of our own Stuart Crawford of “A’ the Blue Bonnets” fame.
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/the-british-army-is-in-big-trouble/
And that’s the thing, the British Army wasn’t reforming itself, still bullying and misogyny, and no place for either in a modern army.
Remember Salmond and “save the regiments”? Sounds good and probably got YES votes at the time. But a total disaster economically for iScotland. A defence review found that bases were in terms of infrastructure, somewhere around Callanish or Stonehenge. Very draughty, underpowered and still working with pigeon post. Keeping all those bases would spend a large part of Scotland’s defence budget. And the Army itself is just so last century in kit and organisation.
So Wallace’s idea of “future soldier”, but slimming down the numbers, is in my first reactions, not only good for the British Army – but the Scottish one – SDF or whatever we want to call it. And clearly these days, armies need to be largely based around a runway and hangars to take transport planes – and support aircraft like helicopters.
So my first reaction is – that Wallace is doing us a favour, by making the hard decisions while we can gesture politically.
I’m now going to read up and see what others have to say, like UKDJ and its btl commenters – been busy the last couple of days and catching up.
Yougov for the Times
Westminster VI:
48% SNP
20% Con
18% Lab
6% Lib
3% Grn
2% RUK
2% Oth
Holyrood Constituency / List:
48% / 38% SNP
21% / 19% Con
19% / 19% Lab
7% / 7% Lib
2% / 11% Grn
2% / 1% other
0% / 1% Alb, UKIP, AfU
Should there be an independence referendum in the next 5 years?
46% Yes
41% No
So both panelbase and yougov can’t get voters to tell them they are against iref2 on the Scotgov’s timetable. Support for the vote is even up 2% in Yougov.
2% in isolation is probably just statistical noise, but I firmly believe that there is latent support beyond the ongoing solid baseline that can be tapped for indy during a campaign that connects well with this cohort. Basically the ~2/3 of people who when asked will say that they believe Scotland will be independent “one day”. The task is to convince them that the “one day” is “right now”, in order to achieve what underpins their feeling: full agency over our own affairs to put a stop to any further Union interference that damages our (and their) quality of life and economic well-being.
The poll I’ve seen had Aye on 47% and Naw on 53% (which could be 46 Naw / 41 Aye before DKs?).
Yes, it was 47(nc)% Aye; consistent with this years very static picture.
I wondered, if prior to his speach, he had been on the white stuff that Gove also partakes.
It would explain a lot!
England is of course the cocaine capital of Europe. I guess Gove wanted to fit in.
https://archive.md/ZRBjb
In Scotland, all addicts are British (for the purposes of statistical comparisons with other European countries), given drug control is a fully reserved matter.
By contrast, in England, addicts are (statistically) English as England has full control of its own drug laws.
How embarrassing. A scheme to attract Nobel prize laureates to the UK hasn’t had a single applicant.
https://archive.fo/O2vVm
Labours Monica Lennon leaves the front bench (did anybody know she was on it) under pressure for supporting democracy over Scotlands right to a referendum on Independence even though she personally doesn’t support Independence, however she does support fairness apparently and that as we all know disqualifies you from serving in any office of any British political party
So it looks like once again Sir Keir Starmer has put his foot down and poodle paws Sarwar the local union branch manager does what he’s told
Sarwar thanked her for her unwavering service to the party but failed to add that Starmer and his Daddy are in charge so please leave the building quietly with no talking except to say that he, Sarwar is all lovely and nice in real life and not at all the millionaire obsessed with his own image spoiled wee nark that he really is
In other news FM Nicola Sturgeon is starring in her own XBox adventure called *Endgame* where she has so far succeeded in collecting all the stumps from Bortix destroyer of worlds lawn and by clicking her fingers restores Scotland to nationhood without firing a shot, a game for all the family to enjoy
Interesting period of news, and some context…
Today I’ve been working away, and for chewing gum listening, I’ve had 1992 and 1997 election coverage in the background (such is a geek’s life).
Michael Portillo, being asked by Jeremy Paxman what his party’s biggest mistake was, said “We need to reflect on how our divisions were made public.”
They Tories have learned from this over the years. When they have a problem, it’s quite obvious now. They manufacture an identical problem happening in another party. They handle their divisions by not making them public, or making them less of a problem than someone’s else’s. When the RW press go after someone suddenly, switch it round and work out who they are trying to protect.
When they had a weak leader (May), they targeted Corbyn over his past links to something worse. With Cameron (not exactly a strong leader) they targeted Miliband’s eating a sandwich, and so on. Now when there’s division in the Tory party, they manufacture Labour party divisions (sometimes relating to Israel, sometimes around the left and right in the party).
Now that Boris must go, they need a new squirrel. Lo and behold, it’s Sturgeon that must go. She has to go before she can deliver that little thing they said she wouldn’t. 😀
It’s very childish, but for the Tory-voting electorate in England, and the uber-unionist fearties of change in Scotland, it works. Labour are delighted not to be the target, and will happily not target the Tories too much in Scotland in response.
They must be quite baffled by the resilience of the Scottish voter who takes a more objective view of reality, as is our historic habit. Why are these lying bastards lying to us? Is the sensible reaction to most of the rubbish that flows out of the maw of the MSM. We’ve had a 200 year education on the duplicity of Westminster.
Fun fact:
“The modern British Army traces back to 1707, with antecedents in the English Army and Scots Army that were created during the Restoration in 1660. The term British Army was adopted in 1707 after the Acts of Union between England and Scotland.[7][8] Members of the British Army swear allegiance to the monarch as their commander-in-chief,[9] but the Bill of Rights of 1689 and Claim of Right Act 1689 require parliamentary consent for the Crown to maintain a peacetime standing army.[10] Therefore, Parliament approves the army by passing an Armed Forces Act at least once every five years.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Army
This is due by the end of 2021 according the 2016 Act, so they’d better get a move on – the Armed Forces Act 2016 received Royal Assent on 12 May 2016, they’re taking their time.:
https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/2822
Anyways, it’s very interesting to see the Claim of Right 1689 mentioned, as in the Claim of Right Act 1689.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/aosp/1689/28
“By levying or Keeping on foot a standing army in tyme of Peace without Consent of Parliament which army did exact localitie free and dry quarters
…
That the Sending of ane army in ane hostile manner upon any pairt of the Kingdome in a peaceable tyme and Exacting of Locality and any manner of free quarters is Contrary to law.”
Interestingly, the Bill of Rights [1688] has that first provision – but NOT the second one I extracted.
Which is why, of course, the 77th can not, by law, operate against anyone in Scotland. But it could in England 🙂
That is interesting and it’s the sort of thing that should be the case. Troops made up of ‘yer ane’ are much less likely to turn on the public. It’s why the Spanish right sent in federal troops from other areas of Spain to beat up Catalans. They knew they could not rely on the Catalan police to do this, as even though 50% of them must have been pro-union (statistically), they would be very resistant to overturning their own democratic processes, beating up their friends, neighbours etc.
Police Scotland would be the same. I can’t see them trying to stop a Scottish vote, even if Westminster passed a law on direct rule and declared any iref illegal. Nope, English Troops would be needed. this is why the English government lies to English people about Scotland and what’s going on here, telling folks there that Scotland is now an ‘anti-English one party state’. The idea is to de-humanise people in Scotland, and justify England ‘taking back control’ of the northern colony. It’s all straight out the colonial handbook. While there are no jackboots as yet, Bozo and co are doing all the same things the Spanish right did to Catalonia ahead of the crisis there. It was them rolling back devolution that catapulted the indy parties to power.
Certainly, any build up of non-Scottish or ‘unionist’ type divisions on Scottish soil against the will of the Scottish government would be a serious threat. British army troops should only ever be here at the discretion of Scottish people, and to protect is, including against attacks on our right to vote by a rogue UK government.
Certainly, as things stand, England currently presents the biggest democratic / security threat to Scotland. It’s not Putin saying he’ll try to overturn the outcome of May 2021 election using Russian courts. As far as I’m aware, it’s only the English government that want to take my vote away.
No, it’s not the nationality of the soldiers that count, it’s that the British Army is subject to the Armed Forces Act (2021 as will be). The Armed Forces Act is needed because of England’s Bill of Rights 1688, AND Scotland’s Claim of Right Act 1689. Therefore the British Army can not take arms against Scotland in times of peace, as the Claim of Right Act 1689 under which the Armed Forces Act is given Royal Assent, expressly forbids it.
We saw this when BoJo was forced to backtrack on his illegal long prorogation of the UK Parliament by the UKSC, because of the Claim of Right Act 1689 which is now part of UK Law.
They’re Wizard of Wishawed..
Ok, thanks, I get you. Understand better now.
But I feel my general point stands. If the UK government wanted to ‘Take the Spanish approach to Scotland, declare the result illegal and just ignore it!’, this would mean them needing to send in jackboots to take back control of Scotland, close down Holyrood, beat up voters etc. This would clearly need to be done with forces that were not ‘Scottish’ (self-identified as Scottish), which is going to discount most in Scottish regiments. Would have to be English troops as the Welsh would not be up for that; It might be Wales next.
As things stand at least. However, if they started recruiting ‘unionist brigades’ as per the fascist approach, i.e. people from Scotland who were ‘loyalists’, then these could be commanded to use force to suppress democracy here. This is the normal approach for fascists, i.e. to form brown shirts / black shirts units made up of their supporters, and turn these loose on the own communities.
Hence I’d be suspicious of anything looking like ‘unionist brigades’ of the British army.
But they can’t “send in jackboots”, whether Scottish or not makes no difference.
All I’d have to do is very quickly crowdfund a few thousand, get a solicitor ro get a QC to get the Court of Sessions to put up an interim interdict on the basis of the 1689 Claim of Right, and with or wihout court officers to help me I’d get the world press to acccompany me to, say, Sauciehall Street, stand in the middle of the road with my hand up in fromnt of the tanks and soldiers, possibly with a white flag for parley, wave my bit of paper and tell them to stand down and get back to barracks, or I’d have them arrested for breaking the law, and sent to prison for contempt of court.
I’m quite serious.
If Scotland is still part of the Union, then the UK Government must obey UK Law in all parts of it. And if Scotland is not part of the Union then foreign troops as they would be, would be invading my country in breach of international law.
If of course they killed me they could be done for murder by Police Scotland.
I repeat; the Armed Forces Act which makes a British standing army legal, is dependent on the Scottish Claim of Right 1689 as well as the English Bill of Rights, and if that standing army breaks the Claim of Right where it says:
“That the Sending of ane army in ane hostile manner upon any pairt of the Kingdome in a peaceable tyme and Exacting of Locality and any manner of free quarters is Contrary to law.”
then that standing army is illegal – in Scots Law (as well as UK Law).
So your scenario just can – not – legally – happen – whatever anything is called, it is a myth.
My own feeling is that the ‘ Union Division ‘ is more post Independence than recruiting a force to overrun and subdue Scotland. Much as the Nazi regime in Germany filled gaps in the German army by recruiting like-minded ( facists ) individuals from Denmark, France Belgium and Holland, other country’s as well of course, so too might England seek to recruit from RUK once we dump England.
That isn’t to say it’s future creation won’t be used in the propaganda war.
One other point, illegal use of force gives the recipient the legal right to defend themselves.
I guess such an arrangement would enable them to keep the Union Rag and continue to call their troops “The British Army”, no matter what. Now for what anticipated change would that be the preparation?
Meanwhile, is anyone else observing the continuing evolution in BoJo’s background? Chatting with that French bloke in Downing St. the other day, there was what can only be described as an English flag behind him. It didn’t look like a Rag carefully folded to hide the blue bits, it looked like an unashamed St. George. Are they perhaps getting the English public and the rest of the world prepared for what they already see as the inevitable…?
O/T but no really.
Heard the toadies at Pacific Quay droning on about a new variant of Covid 19. Not much is known about the variant but their expert said it may be more transmissable and crucially existing vaccines may be less effective against this variant. Now I heard about this vaccine (Valneva) which works differently from others and may well be more effective against variants.
This wee vaccine of course is made by a French company in Livingston Scotland.
Of course, as we all know, this is the vaccine that was cancelled by UK not OK government.
Another blunder by the Fat Owl of the Remove?
In writing the previous I noticed Fat Owl Of The Remove the acronym is FOOTR. Just thought that was appropriate for the big footering remit.
Coat’s been got
Remit? I typed “eejit”
Yes – read that the Valneva vaccine uses the whole virus to create immunity and not just the spike so could be more useful whatever the variant. maybe the Scottish Government can order a supply for us even though that is supposed to be the job of the UK government. But with a world-beating eejit in charge in Westminster we’ll have to do everything ourselves.
Capella: the word “mitigation” somehow comes to mind. Early days yet to see just what the nature of the virus is. But I’d be for SG stepping in if that was what’s required. No matter whether they are “allowed to or not.
Exactly. And by doing everything ourselves we could soon be doing EVERYTHING by and for ourselves.
Roll on the day….
The day is coming when the English Parliament, the BBC the Dead Tree Scrolls, and the wasters warming their bums at Holyrood will have no say, authority or power to ‘forbid’ us Scots living in our own beautiful free land.
That’s what independence means.
I shall inhale freedom before I shuffle off this mortal coil.
Just imagine..no Johnson, no Reporting Scotland, no Brucie’s QT.
No more Full English BBC breakfast of 3 1/4 hrs every morning of Cricket, Harry Kane and England’s Health Education and Law and Order woes flooding our airwaves.
Again, as in my youth, I shall wander nuclear free in the Gareloch.
It’s comin’ yet for a’ that.
Just think, England will be so much white noise come I Day.
Their opinions will no longer even be reported via Glenn and the Herald and the Hootsman as the recievers are appointed when the Dark Monet suddenly stops..
‘Dark Monet’?
Typo; there is of course no ‘dark’ side to Monet, pure genius that he was…is.
Dark Money will dry up, and the Brit Hacks will be applying for jobs selling advertising space in the Findo Gask Thunderer.
Two problems for the Scottish Government that can only be solved with independence. We have no Scottish agency to approve the use of new medicines, the MRHA is Westminster controlled, without the infrastructure to do the trials we cannot introduce anything. I suspect any government using unapproved drugs are leaving themselves open to legal proceedings from individuals.
Secondly Westminster has kept a tight control over the allocation of funding for Covid, for Scotland to go down this path would almost certainly require them to reduce the spending elsewhere, what do we cut.
There is only on answer and that’s to take total control of our systems way from Westminster, before Johnson has his stormtrooper (sorry union) division occupying Scotland.
There is a system for approving new drugs for use in Scotland – the Scottish Medicines Consortium.
“”We are the national source of advice on the clinical and cost-effectiveness of all new medicines for NHSScotland. Our aim is to ensure that people in Scotland have timely access to medicines that provide most benefit based on best available evidence.””
In addition there is a new framework in place
https://www.gov.scot/policies/primary-care-services/medicines/
The UK may be the licensing authority but the SG and NHS does have some say in the matter through various bodies.
That is good news. This might be the perfect time to exercise it. 🙂
From your link:
‘But the regulation of medicines, and in particular their licensing, safety and pricing, are the responsibility of the UK Government.’
They may have some say but if there are no clinical trials accepted by the MRHA then you cannot use the drug.
This looks to me as the decision to use which licenced medicines is a ScotGov decision, they can presumably ask for a drug approval but there is a pretty good chance the WM government will just ignore them.
Anyone who has adverse effects taking an unlicensed medicine administered by the ScotGov are almost certainly going to sue them. What politician is going to approve the use of an a drug without a licence, the MSM would have a field day, it would be pigeon droppings on steroids to them.
The EU has apparently ordered around 40-60 million doses recently which has helped guarantee the company’s future in Livingston.
Except I read somewhere the other day the company was considering moving production to Germany with the loss of 100 possible new jobs. (Think it was the National, or mebbe a BTL comment on WGD) Speculation that the real reason for UK not OK pulling out of the contract was that they had committed to financing extension of the facilities at Livingston. Imagine that! Johnson reneging on supportin a French company’s Scottish facilty. Wha wad hae thocht?
I had not seen that report but it would not surprise me given the difficulties Brexit has thrown up and the UK Gov’s treatment of the company. Visit it for a photo-OP then turn round and kick it in the teeth when the cameras have gone seems to be Johnson’s standard operating procedure.
More than half of Scotland is waiting for Independence, most of the MSPs in Scotland were elected on that manifesto, the polling maestro Sir John Curtice admits all the public opinion is set in that direction yet the BBC in Scotland still hostilely question Scotlands chosen political representatives as to the validity of all the evidence supporting the facts defending by one man in Westminster who can’t put four pages of text in order and read from them because he didn’t even write the words contained within them, loses his place and talks about cartoons to fill out the time before he makes his escape
The BBC in Scotland is incapable of doing the very simple job of factual reporting because they’re the *British Broadcasting Corp* If the powers that be in Westminster insisted the sky outside was coloured lime green and full of dancing monkeys on broomsticks the BBC would support that position with as few rapid eye movements as they could muster
The Prime Minister in Englands fondness for cartoon characters brings my favourite as a child to mind *Wile e Coyote* constantly ordering items from the ACME Explosives Corp
Do we have an ACME store in Argyll Street?
“Do we have an ACME store in Argyll Street” ?
I would say yes…but it DISNEY sell much…and what it does sell is mostly sent to 10 Downing Street….apparently the resident that lives there makes buses out of the boxes as well as plays with the contents that seem to inspire him so much…..in his CHURCHILLIAN speeches….oops sorry meant Looney Tunes speeches….Beep Beep
Got a phone call last night at about 4pm from Ipso Mori…..normally I say NO to them but thought ok I will play along and thus said yes.
Questions …political…to which I gave answers favouring Nicola Sturgeon, Yes to Independence, SNP as a party and support for their handling of Education, NHS and voted for them in last elections and would still vote for them etc, voted Remain in EU, Unsatisfied with Boris , Keir ( they never mentioned Ed Davey Lol)….and was also asked about my opinion as to whether satisfied or unsatisfied with all of the Scottish (in name only) branch office managers…. obvs I answered unsatisfied with, they also asked if I was satisfied with Lorna Slater and Patrick Harvie and I said yes satisfied….you get the drift.
Then she said her screen had frozen….could she call me back…I said yes you can call me back in about fifteen minutes or tomorrow morning….she said fine….so far no call back….it’s two minutes to 12 which constitutes ‘the morning after’……
Now IF she does not call me back then all of my answers will be NOT recorded in this ‘poll’…call me cynical but if I do not get a call back then I might start to think perhaps it was because I was giving the WRONG answers ……..as in a skewed poll……not another one.
Makes you wonder if this happens a lot thus why numbers/percentages in polls vary so much in support for Independence and support for Nicola and the SNP……just saying…I may be way off base in my perception and she could still call me back later today….if she does then I will post that fact….however if no call back then it’s a case of none of my answers being logged in this poll….as in the answers I gave that just so happened to be a pro Indy , pro Nicola and Pro SNP supporter . pro Remain in EU and anti Leave EU, anti Union and anti the Unionist politicians…….seems a bit strange does it not…to NOT follow up and complete questions in a ‘poll’ and thus one’s answers will NOT be recorded….via me, a person , who was willing to participate in your poll…………..just sayin….
I can BTW be contacted via the Scottish Conspiracy Theory Society…..so far we have 666 members….I did a poll on numbers so HAS to be right……
Could be they have to rush off to the next contact. . . . . . They will have a target of the “correct responses” they have to get in a given time. . . Just saying
“Makes you wonder if this happens a lot thus why numbers/percentages in polls vary so much in support for Independence and support for Nicola and the SNP……just saying…”
An interesting first-hand account, but your suspicions are probably correct – Polling companies, even Ipsos Mori, must be getting leaned on heavily to produce the poll results expected – They are no longer in the business of taking temperatures but inducing fevers, hence their proliferation of late.
Call me cynical if you wish, but I believe polls have become the battle-ground for swaying public opinion rather than gauging it in modern times.
Do I believe Scots have reduced in support for Indy given the farce of the past year ? Not a bit of it, yet that’s what polls show – London are terrified Scots will vote en masse to abandon the UK, and are throwing everything at preventing it.
Simples…
HI Bob spot on…..so far no call back from them …to ‘complete’ the ‘survey’…..funny that half way through answering questions on THEIR ‘survey’ that I agreed to participate in….her screen freezes…promised a call back…..call back NOT made…thus answers I gave …are now in da bin and not to be included in final poll figures…..consigned to my opinion not required/included….
I agree with you i.e. that it proves that opinion polls are there to INFLUENCE opinion and not to REFLECT opinion….well certainly proves it with my personal experience with this particular pollster………….the no call back being the give way to my conclusion…..poll NOT a poll when answers favour one ‘TYPE’ of opinion…..as in perhaps the wrong one….for them.
Some polling company….who asks if would you be willing to answer questions on this survey…..why yes I say….then they ask half the questions…..oops screen frozen…will call you back….but then not really call you back….will they then just move onto someone else’s ‘opinions’ to seek their special more important opinion…. as in different opinion type via their ‘answers’ ……and then NOT experience frozen screen syndrome…..Hmm my spidey senses tell me….yes…. if , as Clydebuilt stated above the next person gives the ‘correct answers’ nudge nudge…..
Think I will remain a member of the the Scottish Conspiracy Theory Society…as might be on to something…….
Have a nice evening Bob
Hopefully that makes the light of day as MORI don’t weight by 2014, giving us an insight into the effects of this.
Latest stats have 1/3 of a million skilled EU workers having now fled the UK.
Graph:
https://bit.ly/3lwn8qH
As predicted before the brexit referendum, they stopped coming the moment the result was announced. There was no need for tougher immigration rules, just as you’d expect. Simply saying ‘Go home, you are not wanted here!’ was enough.
Following right-wing nationalist English ‘independence day’, they’ve been streaming out of the UK in their hundreds of thousands, causing an every more acute labour shortage.
Meanwhile, the number of non-EU nationals from the rest of the world as barely changed in a decade.
The UK population is now in decline, and has been since brexit. That can only mean economic decline; the two come hand in hand.
Removing the sharp drop and recovery associated with covid, we can expect UKGDP to return to an underlying pattern long term decline following the peak that can be seen post brexit. GDP growth had stalled by 2019 due to the mass exodus of workers and businesses that had begun. So long as this continues, so GDP will continue falling. This is likely to result in a ‘death spiral’ where falling UK population causes increasing emigration, which in turn hits the economy forcing more to leave.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/chartimage?uri=/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/bulletins/gdpmonthlyestimateuk/september2021/300c63c8
Of course the main victims will be British people as the UK government has removed their right to freely leave to get a job elsewhere. For that, they must now rely on the charity of other countries as they become ‘economic migrants’.
By contrast, EU citizens can leave the UK for other EEA countries and would not be economic migrants, certainly no more so than English/Welsh/N. Irish people are in Scotland. If I travel to work in the EU, I’m just another EU citizen.
It’s a fitting irony that EU citizens with settled status in the EU now have vastly more rights and freedoms than the brits that didn’t want them here. French Mrs SS can of course work in the UK or EU freely, unlike brits.
Perhaps we Jocks can apply for political asylum in one of the 27 countries.
It is laughable that Ian Paisley Jnr has an Irish/EU passport.
England is grinding to an inevitable and catastrophic halt.
You and me Jack, we’ll get wee boats and row across to Ireland, they have to take us, well maybe a boat with an engine I’m getting too old to row that distance
Campbeltown to Ballycastle it is,then, Dr Jim?
‘settled status in the UK’. D-oh.
ONS numbers quite possibly the tip of the iceberg.
https://archive.md/olUC4#selection-2395.0-2403.32
Sumption explained that the ONS figures did not include the large population of short-term migrants in the UK, who may have also left in large numbers.
Jonathan Portes, professor of economics and public policy at King’s College in London, said net emigration of EU nationals was likely to be “considerably more than estimated by ONS”. He had previously calculated a larger exodus of EU nationals.
Okey-doke, With the media’s intention of dumbing down the news made available to Scotland, they highlighted the court case against the Scottish Government over the unexeplained wealth act by an American based charity (AVAAZ) which clearly has a vendetta against Trump, and wanted to force the ScotGov to spend years in court and multi-millions of our money in the pursuit of their meaningless political vendetta. Anyway, I digress. They haven’t given any article on the ruling made yesterday.
I got this via Aileen Mcharg, and from Jonathan Mitchell QC
“Judicial review of @scotgov refusal to seek Unexplained Wealth Orders against Trumps refused today. For the reasons why JR is refused, jump to paras 67-74 of decision. For future reference, para 77 is important; court leaves merits open for the future.“.
For me actually, para 67:
“[67] Ultimately, then, the power conferred on the Scottish Ministers in terms of POCA section 396A to apply to this Court for a UWO cannot properly be construed as a duty so to apply in any particular set of circumstances. Rather, decisions as to whether to apply for a UWO in any particular case, or to pursue one of the other investigatory mechanisms envisaged by POCA, or to take no relevant action, are matters for the Ministers in the exercise of a wide discretion”
That’s plenty! So basically, that vendetta infused anti-Trump rights charity can GTF with forcing us to waste our money for its fell purposes. Scotland is not part of the USA.
https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/docs/default-source/cos-general-docs/pdf-docs-for-opinions/2021csoh119 .pdf (remove space before .pdf)
And coming back to the migrant boats, it must be remembered that no country should have the right to stop the citizens of another country leaving unless they have committed an offence.
So France doesn’t have the right to stop people leaving it by boat. Not unless e.g. there are safety issues or the boat has been stolen. Likewise, France doesn’t have to arrest any of the migrants for being there ‘illegally’; that’s something they could maybe do, but why do that if the people want to leave France? So it’s not a case that they can simply arrest the migrants or stop them leaving; that would be detaining foreign citizens without charge.
It is ultimately the UK’s responsibly to protect it’s borders. It does have a right to stop people entering or to detain those who have entered ‘illegally’. It can even turn boats around, but not if those in the boat are in danger and/or trying to turn it around would put them in danger; that would breach international maritime law.
Of course the UK used to be part of the EU, and management of migration was a joint EU effort. But England said it didn’t want to part of this joint management any more, and signed on the dotted line to end mutual cooperation, including the Dublin Agreement, so here we are. It now has to deal with this alone in principle. People wanting to enter the UK is not something the French or anyone else have any obligations to help with, unless those trying to enter are French passport holders.
It would therefore be wise of England to be polite to the French if they want help with the channel migrants issue. Calling them racist terms like ‘French Turds’ and ordering them around on twitter is not how adults do diplomacy.
—-
And note I use the word migrants in a purely technical sense. For me, it’s not a pejorative word. My wife is a migrant to Scotland from France. 10% of Scotland’s population are migrants (mainly economic) from England. It’s only racists that use the term pejoratively.
Oh, here we go:
https://web.archive.org/web/20211126172809/https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/priti-patel-france-macron-letter-refugees-b1964728.html
…After all, the job of any country’s border force is to stop people getting in, not so much to prevent them from lawfully leaving. As Macron says, these people do not wish to live in France and he cannot make them.
Rather tellingly, the French explained that the British ideas are unacceptable because they violated the “sovereignty” of France
As noted, it is perfectly legal for people to leave France in a boat if they want. Assuming it’s their boat. It’s only if they were e.g. paying to be transported by an unlicensed ‘company’ with unsafe / stolen vessels or something that there’d be an issue. Even then, it would be the company owner that would be in trouble on H&S grounds; those on the boat have done no wrong. They could just get off and source another boat.
And English jackboots policing French soil? You what? Lots of French people are ‘brown’ in colour and e.g. Muslim. If they were on the beach for a family stroll, maybe taking out their boat for the afternoon, are the English stasi going to start asking them questions? Coopeation at Calais border posts is one thing, but English wandering freely on French soil? The reverse would have the brexiters apoplectic.
Imagine loads of migrants were trying to escape England to France. Do you think Farage would be out on the beaches forcing them to stay? While the growing labour shortage in the UK associated with the rise of fascism will likely lead to further restrictions* on people leaving the UK, we are not there yet.
England has lost it’s mind in electing these racist idiots.
—
*The right of brits to leave the UK has been significantly curtailed by the current government, as is standard for moves towards fascism. Free movement for brits has been brought to an end, making it much harder for them to leave to get a job elsewhere as discussed.
A bit O/T but an interesting and timely article on Newsnet about the risk to NHS Scotland due to the UK Gov’s privatisation by stealth of the NHS down south. Although it seems to becoming less stealthy with each passing day
https://newsnet.scot/news-analysis/scotlands-nhs-in-imminent-danger/
Well … and completely o/t … IF we beat Austria in the footie semi-final and IF you lot beat Ukraine in yours, then WE will meet in Caerdydd/Cardiff in the final to decide who gets to go to the World Cup!
Looking forward, already 🙂
Is it only one team go through or can we have a draw and both of us get to go?
As I understand it, it’s one or t’other, Dr Jim.
https://nation.cymru/sport/wales-to-play-austria-in-world-cup-playoff-semi-final/
I will of course, assuming both of us get that far, have to suspend my support for all things Scottish for 90 minutes. 🙂
No matter which one of is might be successful the thing to bear in mind is we’ll still have one thing in common we’ll be called a ……….”Home Nation” and laid claim to
…………. by the other nation that calls itself all the nations of the UK Great Britain and England
Brings back memories of Max Boyce in Embra. Night before the Rugby International. Told the audience in his best Scots accent “It’s nae loss whit a freen gets” Great sentiment. Hope we both get there!
A thought for all those on call today and tomorrow, particularly on the east coast. Those who have to drive to an incident regardless of trampolines hanging off trees.
Union of equals:
We will take 90% of your resources in exchange for 10% of our resources (that’s 90% of substantial resources compared to 10% of hardly any). It’s strange how they want to divide the assets by population, they didn’t seem to do this in India for some reason, rather than by geographical size. Using geography Scotland would receive a much higher proportion.
Scotland has 20% of the road network compared to England but is allocated 10% of England’s budget, it’s presented as a union dividend as opposed to a union fiddle where Scotland infrastructure receives less per mile than England. Even worse they will allocate infrastructure in England as UK and add it to Scotland costs.
Maybe 90% of our resources and we get 10% of their debt.
Whatever the state of covid the FM should commence the process of a referendum formally through our parliament early next year to meet the 2023 deadline and to deal with the tories delaying tactics. This will occur as soon as it is being processed.
As they oppose the democratic will of the people more undecideds will realise that this sham of a union is not durable and holds as back.
The problem may be that the new threatening Omicron will cause the excuse of not doing a referendum while it’s active. This could go on indefinitely…….?
Just to add …….re what Bob Lamont said at 3.51pm yesterday
“Do I believe Scots have reduced in support for Indy given the farce of the past year ? Not a bit of it, yet that’s what polls show – London are terrified Scots will vote en masse to abandon the UK, and are throwing everything at preventing it”
Remember the poll on support for the Union that David Lidington did when he was in Theresa May’s government…the poll was NOT released…..then we had the same type of poll via Michael Gove which again was also NOT released….BOTH refused to release the results of poll.
These polls by these two Tory ministers WOULD have been a real cross section of Scottish society and not weighted heavily in favour with biased Tory Unionist supporters because the Tories NEED to know the reality of how BAD it may actually be for the Union…not WANT to know but NEED to know …….the fact that neither of these two UK government ministers revealed the results of these polls MUST show that SUPPORT for the UNION has declined….and I suspect NOT by just a SMALL amount but perhaps MORE than recent polls are showing ( as in those done to INFLUENCE not REFECT public opinion)……after all why would you, as a government minister NOT reveal result of a poll if there was just a small percentage between support for Indy and support for the Union….
I know Tommy Sheppard has relentlessly tried to get Michael Gove’s poll to be disclosed to no avail…..but Gove must realise in not releasing it people will (correctly) surmise that it must reveal it is quite bad for the Union…….the fact he still declines to reveal it may also reveal just HOW bad it actually must be for the Union……………..funny how Laura Kuenssberg had the cheek to say to the FM the other night how polls , according to Laura K, were recently showing supposedly a 50/50 split for Union/Indy yet she is another one ignoring the poll(s) done by her party of preference i.e. the Tories…..not being released………and she’s doing it deliberately too…..another one.
Like Bob says…….”Do I believe Scots have reduced in support for Indy given the farce of the past year” ?……yeh exactly just look at the farce, many disasters, cruel policies and fiascos with a muppet like Johnson as PM and a stooge like Starmer as supposed leader of the official opposition also……. think of ALL that has happened since 2014, as in the OPPOSITE scenario that the BT side had promised Scots, if we voted to stay in THEIR, the UK’s , so called Union…. where not only have those promises that were made by the BT side NOT happened it has actually become worse for us within THEIR UK……and we are all supposed to believe tis credible that we , the people living in Scotland , STILL support by a majority in a poll percentage…to WANT to endure more of this by STILL remaining in THEIR Union/UK…….well we would indeed be considered THE biggest SIMPLETONS and most GULLIBLE FEART SIMPLETONS in the whole of THEIR UK and also very much considered SIMPLETONS by the whole world…….we’d never be able to sing, with a straight face Scotland the Brave again that’s for sure.
I see it has been revealed John Lamont is to take up a (new) role of private secretary under Liz Truss (Scots Tories always UNDER the important positions in Tory party never ABOVE in Tory party)….another one climbing up the Tory greasy ambition pole …or rather being rewarded as a Tory sycophant working FOR the party AND the Union to the detriment of his own supposed country that he actively works AGAINST…
Well it has finally payed off for Lamont….yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir……all the ‘Does the minister agree with me that Scotland is sh*te and the SNP are bad questions in the HOC’s…..now Lamont is the latest Scottish (in name only) Tory to get a wee pat on the head via a (consolation prize) position with the REAL bosses in the UK…..as in the overlords…..working for the Foreign secretary….foreign indeed…to Scotland that is….. as is Lamont whose status as a citizen is most definitely that of a citizen to the only country that he gives his allegiance to…..England.
ps. Alister Jack does not count as being ABOVE in the Tory party as his position is a oxymoron re HIS official title…for sure.
Labour branch manager Anas Sarwar on instructions from Sir Keir Starmer got rid of MSP Monica Lennon from his front bench because she supported democracy on Scotlands people having the decision over an Independence referendum, now it turns out she also supported the SNP and Greens position on oil and gas
What next for Labour MSP Monica Lennon who doesn’t seem to agree with very much at all as to what Anas Sarwar and his party stands for
Sarwar and the Labour party appear to believe that a just transition from oil and gas is to keep digging more holes for the stuff then when it runs out all the workers can be employed in filling in the holes, or maybe he thinks as climate change gets worse and sea levels rise the holes will be filled up by sea water thus lowering the rising levels and that’s a good way of tackling the problem
New Labour slogan ………..*Make more holes in the sea bed to drain the sea*
“Make more holes in the sea bed to drain the sea”
Indeed well said ……also under Sarwar there are more HOLES in Labour’s (non) argument to remain a part of the UK/Union……and their support for NUCLEAR energy and weapons of MASS destruction BLOWS apart their support for the anti nuclear opinions of Scots…..working for/with the Union (more than ONE Union given the latest Glasgow so called Rat infestation manufactured fiasco during COP26)….
It must be intensely frustrating for genuine Labour supporters to see their party’s prospects continually damaged by the unashamedly unrepresentative and essentially anti-democratic dirigisme of its leadership. It is supposed to represent its membership, at least 40% of whom support independence, so one might expect it to be reasonably neutral on the matter, not intransigently following the same old failed policy of tribalism and negativity that has been pursued by one failed “leader” after another, each diminishing the party further than their predecessor, despite all the help it gets from its media fellow-travellers within the likes of the BBC.
One wonders just how long it will be before the membership rebel and find someone like Lennon to lead them from the swamp of blind oppositionalism to some kind of plausible higher ground. But they had better do it soon if their party is to survive. If it goes into the next referendum campaign in any kind of Unionist partnership with the Tories, however “arms-length”, that campaign will be its death-knell in Scotland. Whatever the referendum result.
Would Monica possibly reconsider her social Democratic position and leave the red tories?
But where would she go? Into the political wilderness on her own? Joining the SNP would likely backfire among Labour supporters unless there was a genuine mass split within the ranks to accompany her. It’s tough for people like her, so she has my sympathy.
Johnson has just announced in a press conference that because of the new Omicron Covid variant face masks in shops and public transport will now be put into force. Plan B for England then, wonder what Dross will have to say?
Oh, BBC Jockland will no doubt fall silent over “controversy”.
But BoJo isn’t going to introduce vaccine passports, it seems, so a “fast but weak” response down south, so DRoss will still have leeway.
BoJo is mostly all bluster yet again, dodges the heart of all the questions, and those two dummies that flank him are only there for decoration.
To have him standing there on a Saturday night so soon after the announcement of this new variant suggests to me that it is something that has to be taken very seriously. Patrick Vallance said there were “pockets of rapidly growing outbreaks” in South Africa.
Obviously, the real concern though is if this variant can be caught and spread by those already vaccinated.
Yes, lots of unknowns. But as Prof Susan Michie of indie SAGE was responding, where there are significant unknowns as here, you go in fast and hard to be ahead of the curve, not slow and weak as BoJo is doing, in contravention of the “Plan B” that SAGE itself had recommended back in September, in anticipation of such an event as now. Michie reckons it should instead be “Plan B+”. The current response is mostly to continue to rely on vaccines + boosters and just hope for the best. It’s limp. Another typical cowardly abdication of leadership with an eye to the rightwing base.
You have to wonder what is going throught the minds of the flanking professionals. Something akin to Fauci when Trump was extolling bleach, I suppose.
At least Johnson was flanked by two English St George flags…the Jack, The Right Wing English swastika.
The ‘UK’ is England and its ‘territories; hence the deliberate folding of the butcher’s apron.
It’s going to get very hairy indeed. I’d close the border with England Tonight.
Needed a quick loaf of bread and nipped into the coop.
Sad to find every paper pro unionist. One kindly lady helpfully pointed out that The Mail was in an aisle behind me. Although wearing her mask she couldn’t hide a smile when I thanked her to say I have enough toilet paper at home.
So no National. Just 10 papers pro unionist. Who bankrolls this “free impartial press”.
My Coop gets either 3 or 0 Nationals Often zero. If the National turns up it’s hidden from public display then a folded up Morning Star is put over the Paper. . . . .
Lastest from Cymru/Wales:
https://nation.cymru/news/plaid-cymru-conference-votes-in-favour-of-co-operation-agreement-with-welsh-government/
Plaid Cymru conference votes in favour of co-operation agreement with Welsh Government
27 Nov 2021 3 minute Read
Plaid Cymru members have overwhelmingly approved the Co-Operation Agreement with the Labour Welsh Government, with 94% voting in favour.
The party’s members had been given the opportunity to vote on the deal today during a special session of the party’s virtual annual conference.
Party leader Adam Price called it a “huge step forward” for Wales and its democracy.
[…]
From the Leader, Adam Price:
Today is a huge step forward for Wales as you, the Plaid Cymru membership have decided to vote overwhelmingly in favour of the Co-Operation Agreement with the Welsh Government.
All primary school children will now receive free school meals; there will be free childcare for all two-year-olds; and radical action to tackle the housing crisis.
There will be stability payments to support family farms; exploration of an accelerated pathway to net zero by 2035; the creation of Ynni Cymru – a company to expand community-owned renewable energy generation; and a new and reformed Senedd – bigger, more diverse, and gender balanced in law.
And none of it would be happening without Plaid Cymru.
You have done this. You, the members of Plaid Cymru, and the grassroots activists, who have campaigned so hard for change. Plaid Cymru is making a difference.
Because we are a party that, at our heart, works for the communities of Wales to make a tangible and lasting difference to people’s lives.
Dros Gymru,
Sounds like a great plan, well done Plaid Cymru and Labour in Wales.
O fcourse, you heard it first on WGD< Sveral years ago, when we we discussing 'What's In It For Me?' persuaders to sway soft No's to Yes, I postulated that any revamped Future Scotland paper in the lead up to Indyref 2 should set out plans to decentralise the nascent Scottish Civil Service, to avert the danger of creating a London like bloated Central Government in Edinburgh.
Even within the Devolution framework, Edinburgh has attracted more than its fair share of publicly funded organisations and a burgeoning Finance Sector, to name but a few examples.
I argued that Scotland would benefit by spreading Government Administration more evenly across our revived nation. Ag and Fish in Aberdeen, Industry in Glasgow, Energy in Dundee, Education in Inverness, Defence in Stirling, FO in Dumfries, soon to be Dumfries City?
Feel free to discuss, Duggers.
Similarly, our Dfence Personnel, should be barracked and berthed more widely throughout the land.
And when we ban blood sports and take back our land from the robber barons who stole them 300 years ago, New Towns should spring up across the land, and tower blocks consigned to history under the heading, 'Whit'
There are 5.4 million of us in a land roughly the same size as England with its 5.7 million souls crushed up against each other like commuters on Brighton to London trains
Future Scotland would see our land open up to us all..and grouse shooting psychos sent homewards to think again.
WE have a tremendous rich country, it's time to take it back from the Iron Heel Oligarchy.
England has of course 57 million souls, ten times the population of that of Scotland, on roughly the same land mass.
My ypographical terrors reflect my mood, as many know.
Ask yourself, why are we all crammed into totie wee plots of land, and a couple of hundred Nobles and Filthy Rich ‘own 4/5ths of our land?
Why do we let them away with it?
Again, Duggers, discuss.
When Brexit food shortages bite, who will protect the Landed Genrty’s turnips and carrots crops, as the Great Unwashed scour the countryside foraging for food.
Roots and berries won’t be the only target.
Ok, I’m enjoying myself now.
I look forward to the Dross and Martin Sunday Morning Laugh In where Dross assures Geissler that he was always in ffavour of masks and social distancing, even before the SA strain hit England.
Off now; a good old fashioned brain dump Western lined up.
Tweet below from Alex Cole Hamilton one of the insignificants from a political party yet not sufficiently enough a political party in that their MSP’s NOT given the same privileges as other recognised LARGER political parties…. as in some proper parties at Holyrood…he , Alex C H, who uses up precious oxygen in Holyrood to blow hot air …….and also the occasional raspberry at those other MSP’s who CAN form a proper party and thus actually be called a proper political party…..
“Our rich natural assets can be used to feed hungry children in Scotland,” – Finance Sec, Kate Forbes
This is economic fantasy. Our deficit nearly 3x that of U.K preC19 & that’s before capital flight that would follow independence.
You can’t eat a flag”.
No you can’t eat a flag Mr Alex double barrelled hyphenated surname(though one particular flag I am sure is very easily DIGESTED…..by you. )…… …
Also talking of EATING…. tis hard for many people to SWALLOW criticism from the likes Mr Alex double barrelled hyphenated surname as in one who is a member of a minority party not a party thus not seen as a real political force…yet again……indeed one’s reflex (REFLUX) action to Mr Alex double barrelled hyphenated surname snide comments is one where REGURGITATION occurs as opposed to CHEWING over his comments and then DIGESTING them…..I think many of us in Scotland have more refined TASTES when it comes to who and what we choose to SATE us politically….and unfortunately for Mr Alex double barrelled hyphenated surname we choose, in Scotland, not to indulge in the meagre OFFERINGS that both he and his party not a party are trying to force onto us by SHOVING the Union down our THROATS and constantly trying to force FEED us a selection of UNPALATBLE Unionist lies SERVED up as the only and best CHOICE on the constitutional MENU …..you see Mr Alex double barrelled hyphenated surname’s party not a party CATERS only for a specific CLIENTELE …..who are GLUTTONS for punishment…..but not sufficient enough in numbers to OVER INDULGE on his party.
Pass the SICK bag….Cole-Hamilton has started to WAFFLE…..like Boris Johnson Mr Alex double barrelled hyphenated surname likes to tweet out his divisive message(s) to his followers (all 4 of them) to give some SUSTENANCE to his followers to generate hate and division as he assumes they will all LAP it up ……..personally I think Alex double barrelled hyphenated surname is well past his SELL BY DATE…..indeed the only way the Lib Dems in Scotland could nominate for election another new leader from a MENU with only four choices would be by playing Eeny meeny miny moe…….a party not a party with 4 seats at Holyrood….so not really GOURMET on offer more really HUMBLE PIE on offer with the LIb Dems……….there’s the reality Alex double barrelled hyphenated surname…..so GORGE yourself on that !
Not worth starting on deficit nonsense……and “capital flight” ….aye just like the “Capital flight” from London to Dublin post Brexit………….Eat that up with your Union Flag…….Mr Alex double barrelled hyphenated surname………
There’ll be icicles on the Queensferry Crossing to tweet about, NMRN.
This Tailor’s Dummy has no mandate to speak on behalf of Scotland…he is just regurgitating (get it?) Project Fear One…cash would flee from Independent Scotland..we’d be eating road kill and potatoes rotting in the fields..and Russia would invade and Asda would put its prices up and we’d have to join a queue and wait 10 years to get back in to the EU, and we’d be ‘forced’ to adopt the Euro, and nobody would lend us money…in other words…Cole Hamilton, old Coal-Scuttle, is declaring that Scotland is Shite, a subsidy junkie, propped up by the largesse of his fellow English folk..
Stupid pointless poseur of a man…
Coal Scuttle, can scuttle off back to England if he can’t stomach the thought of Scotland Independent, rejoining the biggest trade bloc in the free world, and welcoming inward investment from our ‘friends and allies’, our fellow Europeans in France, Germany Spain Italy and the rest. Of course the price of Kendal Mint and Cumberland sausages may go up, but those are the only ‘bumps in the road’ this scribe foresees when we finally ditch the land of Coal- Scuttle’s birth once and for all.
He is the ‘leader’ of a party of 3..failed miserably at the ballot box…he is reduced to tweets because nobody is interested in his dying little clique any more.
Scotland will be awash with suitors, eager to invest in our wonderful country.
I’ll drive The Tailor’s Dummy to the airport as he joins the economic flight back to his Motherland.
This is so desperately sad to listen to.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-59443569
The description of the UK is so far from the truth.
The BBC doing its job for Doreen and Priti.
The land of milk and honey, and of course, cricket, but not so much in Yorkshire.
Indeed it is sad….
Isn’t it interesting or is it hypocritical that when the future of prestwick was being discussed the tories and labour attacked the SNP. Now the same thing has happened at Cardiff labour changes tack. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59434267
Andrew Marr reviewing the papers in Glasgow in a linoleum covered floor wee plastic chairs corridor at Plantation Quay with Catherine McArdle of the Herald and Catherine Salmond (related?) of teh Sunday Hootsman.
Two right wing hacks to tell England how crap Scotland is.
Scotland is the last oplace theese two dyed in the wool Brits will big up.
Marr lying through his teeth again asserting that ‘Sturgeon’s’ approach to Covid is not much different than his beloved adopted nation ‘the UK’.
Our NHS is NOT being privatised, Marr, despite thee ridiculous article by McArdle in today’s Dead Tree Scroll, but at least the panic mongering has been restricted to the few thousand souls who still buy this rag, and viewers in England /’the UK’, who have tuned into to watch Marr’s embarrassing death rattle.
Salmond even managed to get it a wee bit of Project Fear nostalgia muttering about ‘the oil and the currency’, and musing that ‘Sturgeon’ still has to convince the ‘vast majority’ of the scots citizenry that Independnec is a good thing. She even quoted Renta Poll Brit ‘Sir’ Professor John Curtice, their Go To Man when they know that the Union is Falling.
His interview with NS was the usual briefing document from Sarwar and Dross…300 deaths, Scotland’s HS is shite, and it’s all ‘Sturgeon’s’ fault.
He looked every inch a tired old man ready for the Brit Elephant’s graveyard.
One thing of note. Any english viewer tuning in would see for themselves that Scotland has a remarkable leader, as opposed tothe Fat Fool who appeared on their screens last night.
Andrew marr mused that Scotland and England were different countries but the same nation when it comes to the NHS Privatisation creep.
Lies by editorial bias…Scotland will thrive, Marr.
Last time |I tune in to this crap.
From Prof. John Robertson’s site
Great point!
2002. 4 out of 10 of the UK’s bottom ten, poorest constituencies. Were in Scotland (All of them with a Labour MP)
2021 never mind the bottom 10 poorest constituencies . . . Scotland doesn’t rank in the bottom 20 poorest Constituencies.
Perhaps Geissler should text Marr and invite the Tired Old Brit to watch his interview with Professor Linda Bauld which followed on from Marr’s lie that Scotland wasn’t doing much differently from his Blessed England/UK in tackling the virus.
Professor Bauld told it how it is Up Here in the Golden Goose colony. Geissler could hardly contian his frustration, and anguished over Christmas and a fed up Scottish public reneging against tighter restrictions…Bauld very gently slapped him down..
Geissler interviewed Ian Blackwood and was reduced to the schism in the SNP on GRA and quoting Kuennsberg’s assertion that there were rumblings in the WM group over a change of SNP Leadership. Blackford was able to assure him that all was well, and that we are on track for a referendum in the first half of the Parliament, and that ‘Sturgeon’ would be leading the SNP with the support of all her colleagues, including Joanna Cherry.
They are getting despearte. I doubt that Geissler could have got any Brit Jock politician to appear in public today after last week’s miserable events.
We just need to nip at their heels every time they print or broadcast this Scotland/SNP Shite garbage…
There shall be a plebiscite, of that there is no doubt.
It seems that a new industry has sprung up in this country in recent years – Manufacturing of News. It is reaching full output, managed by a foreign-controlled media, fuelled by a foreign Government and facilitated by ‘ex-pat’ (aka emigrant) Scots who chose the southern route because they knew they would be well rewarded and could safely conduct their activities from afar. Those Scots who chose to remain local and work for this News Factory can be trusted to attain maximum production levels as and when required. Some are known to be politically active, working on behalf of foreign-based political parties. This is known as sleeping with the enemy. In Scotland, it’s also about suffocating your own country on behalf of foreign vested interests because you lack the intelligence and foresight to want something better. Three hundred plus years of brainwashing, financial control and negativity has had a very profound effect on these people. There is no known cure.
They were at it again on the Home Service One-o’Clock news. Never mind what the SNP Conference was actually about, Naughtie just had to spend his time instead wondering about The (non-)Succession. They failed at getting rid of her through maxing on the Salmond Business because she had niftily avoided all the traps – so now the’re trying to get rid of her in their dreams, and thereby hoping to infect ours likewise. Which just proves to even the dimmest of wits just how much they fear her. I just pity listeners in England, who won’t have an earthly clue from all this BBC wishful thinking.
Rather oddly, Naughtie & Co seem to take perverse encouragement from the fact that BoJo + Brexit hasn’t moved more towards indy! Well, this is Scotland. It just takes time. But it’s comin’ for a’ that.
Indeed, Clydebuilt. Who can forget Mags Curran on the pavement in Shettleston Road with borded up shps and For Sale signs, urging the Unwashed to vote her back in so that she could carry on with her life’s work…reducing all her constituents to benefit scrounging slavery?
Then there was one…who is more Tory than the Tories.
Free social care free travel no tuition fees free prescriptions free dental care free school meals dumping Right to Buy, PFI contracts, toll fees on bridges and roads, scrap charity status of private schools no bedroom tax no Rape Clause no privatisation of our HS no Trident no Brexit and Sarwar is on his feet every week backing up Dross in declaring that Scotland is shite and it’s all the SNP’, strike that, Nicola Sturgeon’s fault.
For what does the Scottish Branch of English Labour stand?
Has anyone checked on Jamie Greene…….I believe he may be hiding in a Union bunker somewhere after HQ’s U turn on mask wearing…..a Union bunker used , it seems, by many of his Tory colleagues when HQ once again leaves them with Egg on their faces……it’s a regular occurrence indeed as regular as night follows day….no worries though cause they are confident the media will not seek them out to challenge them……but the public will know….as in know from the same media that promoted their original (opposing aka wrong) message …….so not a win win but once again they lose…..
One tweet of his stated on the 15 November of THIS year :
“Facemasks have served their purpose in our schools, but now it’s time they were scrapped.
Children deserve a return to normality”.
Perhaps he could pass his tweet onto Boris Johnson and Javid…..re facemasks having served their purpose…….and that they should be….scrapped…..the lack of insight is mind boggling as to the possibility of new variants and indeed the current variant…..also where all countries BAR England still endorsed the wearing of masks is, I am sure, the ONLY reason Jamie wanted masks scrapped…..but like all Tories he will adhere to HQ policy and either now stay silent on masks or herald the new rule ( u turn) on masks now being compulsory in England in certain public places…..as being the right thing which before , to him , was the WRONG thing to continue doing when in Scotland (Wales & Northern Ireland too)….confused…very much so…..Tories be like …yes but no but yes but no…. very much typical of both Tory policy and rhetoric…..
I hope when there is a Scottish Inquiry on Covid that the inquiry includes the politicisation of Covid from opposition MSP/MP’s in promoting mixed messages to confuse the public and undermine the Scottish government’s and indeed their expert advisors message and handling of the Covid pandemic….indeed also the MSM’s input or rather interference to muddy the waters as is their main and only role in Scotland on behalf of their Union. ( Noticed SOS churnalist said on Marr this morning “Sturgeon”…not Nicola Sturgeon or FM……just “Sturgeon”….kinda gives an indication of the real contempt she, and indeed her paper, has for FM)……and Marr said with a straight face that she, the churnlaist, wrote for a SCOTTISH newspaper……och aye the noo so she does but not the kind of SCOTTISH newspaper that should be available in SCOTLAND though….it’s more a tribute act to the English publications who hide behind the guise of being newspapers…..
BTW the inquiry should also include the input of a certain Mayor in England who tried, and failed, to also undermine and challenge the FM’s message on travel and the risks involved from possibly passing covid into the area you are travelling to and indeed bringing covid back to your area that you live in…..politicisation being his ONLY intention not health in his inappropriate (I want to be Labour leader) intervention…..the North against the North North…..this particular North Mayor is also occasionally, when tis also politically advantageous for him, against the South (of his country)….for clarification the North being North of England obvs….or as they like to call it ” the North of the country”……..
There’s another wierd piece of synchronicity. Re the eventual Covid inquiry, I was thinking exactly the same thing just yesterday, in my case specifically over the BBC’s frequent resort to Tory politicians’ use of “controversy” when the only controversy is self-generated, while among medical professionals the only doubt is whether the measures being proposed are strong enough. The Tabloid Toilet Papers are irredeemable, but I think BBC Jokeland will go down in the annals of infamy for the principal role it has played in the politicising and undermining of public health during the current pandemic.
The only criterion appears to be “absolutely no deviation from England”, despite the observable fact that we have consistently outperformed England in handling the current crisis. Then when England finally is forced by events to comply with Scotland’s more precautionary approach, the Tories and the BBC mysteriously fall silent and the “controversy” magically vanishes.
grizebard,
every piece of the Scottish Government’s legislation is deemed ‘controversial’ by the hacks at Planation Quay, ‘critics’ raise ‘concerns’ and the FM is ‘attacked’, ‘forced to defend’ any number of things if one wee Brit Nat cries ‘Bah sucks!’
‘There is growing concern’, translates as Sarwar Dross and Coal-Scuttle yelling ‘Bah sucks!’ in three part harmony.
News reporting 101.
I repeat, there is not one piece of social democratic policy that Sarwar The Millionaire could object to or oppose, yet he does, and sides with the Blue Tories in aimlessly screaming across the chamber, obviously oblivious to the fact that the Tories are their swoen enemies, excpet, of course in Aberdeen Council and Holyrood.
The Scotland Colony Branch of London Labour will never win back the electorate..they stand for nothing, a single issue party; keep Scotland as a milittarily occupied colony of England.
There can’t be many Red Yoons left now, surely?
About Aberdeen in particular, Labour there are going into the local elections next May on a record of intimate collaboration with the Tories as the Bitter Together Brothers, with the sole intention of keeping their self-aggrandising hold on power at any cost, to such an invidious extent that they were disowned and kept at arms’ length by the official party, yet never properly disciplined, and are now back in the fold for the coming election. What an insult to every honest Labour supporter there. Consorting intimately with the auld enemy, reactionary to the core, as symbolic an example as it is possible to find of the total vacuity and dead-end pointlessness of Northern Twig-not-Branch policy, festering in its own bitter tribalism, nothing to offer except continued fellow-travelling with the Tories at every level.
Dear Labour-supporting reader in Aberdeen, if you are reading this and (as I imagine) care for the future well-being of your city and of your party, you need to cleanse both of these renegade self-promoting parasites next May. Vote SNP just this once at least, and do everyone, of every political inclination and none, a big fat favour.
Indeed grizebard…and I am sure it has not gone unnoticed among the public that the main comparisons re Covid usually is between England & Scotland…..where Wales and Northern Ireland has pretty much been in sync with Scotland…tis England that has dithered & delayed and then eventually, via necessity, had to fall in line with other countries Covid measures/rules.
We also have Unionist MP’s/MSP’s of all colours demonising the Scottish government and highlighting issues which they seem to have identified in their uniquely biased way are issues UNIQUE to Scotland alone…..unfortunately for Unionists politicians we the public watch the English main news and some of us also read items on social media…..so know this is certainly NOT the case…indeed England under Bojo the clown and Matt Hancock were more concerned with appeasing MP’s in their party re NOT imposing Covid lockdown measures and also in handing out PPE contracts to Tory donors….
Ian Murray and Care homes is another example……with BBC Reporting Scotland happy for him and t’other Unionist politicians to pass the SNPBAD blame baton onto them…so that THEY can finish the job…the ‘job’ being discrediting the SNP and NIcola Sturgeon.
There should be a roll call of Unionist politicians via the inquiry on Covid in Scotland, with the HOL’s resident fool George Foulkes also being identified as a culprit…..
Indeed for the inquiry to NOT include outside Unionist politicians opposition and interference much of which was transmitted and published via the other culprits the MSM…well that would make one think it, as an inquiry, was only measuring and identifying factors in the handling via the Scottish Govt’s actions alone purely from a one sided perspective….where they, the Scottish Govt were up against more obstacles than just the virus itself………
It’s no secret why the BBC et al gives a total of UK daily figures on Covid as opposed to a daily breakdowns per each country within the UK…..
This is how Scotland ‘gets a strong voice at the world’s top tables as part of the UK’ right?
https://archive.md/rNNoc
EU ministers meet in Calais over Channel crisis but without UK
EU ministers are meeting in Calais on Sunday to discuss how to stop people crossing the Channel in small boats, but without the UK home secretary, Priti Patel, whose invitation was rescinded following a diplomatic row with France.
Indeed. Though one small mercy of that occasion is that if the UK isn’t invited, at least we here in Scotland can’t be ignored and misrepresented by it there.
“The First Minister denied” “The First Minister refused to rule out” “The First Minister indicated” “The First Minister looks certain to” “The First Minister has rowed back” “The First Minister has suggested” …..I could do this all day for a day then I’d get bored and stop, the BBC and the rest of the media do this every day after day after day without stopping and I get angry and want to stop them doing it to us
The media are mentally persecuting us with a form of torture, Guantanamo Bay would be proud of this, they can only subject people to dripping water on their heads for a week or two before folk lose their minds, well hold on a moment though I should be proud of us that no matter how severe the medias attempts are at mindnumbing us into submission has completely failed to work
They’ve been using this torture on us for years and nothing, the British government have been paying folk to undermine our confidence and that’s still not working, we’ve got pretendy breakaway Independence parties who vow to the hilt that they support Independence and yet they’re attacking us and the FM with the same words as the Tories to break our confidence and that’s not working either “Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t really want a referendum” 35 years of campaigning for it? Oops sorry not working “Nicola Sturgeon is dangling a carrot for votes” well she’s got the votes so sorry that’s definitely not working
So in reality what’s left for the opponents of Nicola Sturgeon and us to try to smash us down, what can they do next, no TV no newspapers no words of any kind seem to make a difference to those of us who want our country back
Meme sharing seems to go both ways. I’ve seen “career-building” calumnies popping-up against the FM in the BTL of supposed indy-supporting blogs for a good couple of years, sources unknown, but it’s only in the wake of the FM’s very successful presence at COP26 that Kuenssberg et al have started picking up on that one, albeit delivered with rather more subtlety and necessary attention paid to the legal niceties.
What they seem to have in common though is an evident implicit belief that anyone with the presence and ability of the FM has no business pursuing a career within Scotland and must necessarily need to find full expression of their talent furth of their native land. What a self-negating and impoverished outlook these false friends share.
I see These Islands just seceded from 16.6% of their membership, due to him being full mental jacket.
Are you referring to the latest ‘paean’ by the ‘floppy-haired one’? (As I typed that, I realised that there are at least two you could refer to by that name, so apologies for the confusion. I mean the Oliver’s latest contribution, of course.)
I had to see what the contributions (both above and below the line) about my home country were being presented. I probably shouldn’t have bothered. Seriously, people extol this … guff?
*Deep sigh and rolling of eyes*
I have the box set “A History of Scotland” narrated by Neil Oliver. It’s good, interesting stuff. Narrated in a flat boring uninterested voice and, of course, union biased.
I have the box set The Story of Wales narrated by Huw Edwards. It’s good interesting stuff. Narrated by someone with emotion who claims Wales was the centre of the universe, discovered America and half the planet, invented world trade shipping and navigation and was plundered of all its resources by England.
What a difference.