Boris Johnson, who is still the Prime Minister of the UK until he is replaced in a couple of days time by someone even worse has taken time out of his busy schedule of going on holiday to reassure the millions of citizens who are terrified about soaring energy bills. Don’t worry, poor people, the abandoned mattress of politics is here to share a few simple tricks and trips which can take the sting out of the crisis. Worried about your energy bills rising to an unaffordable £7500 a year? Why, all you need to do is buy yourself a brand new energy efficient kettle which could potentially save you a tenner a year, and at a stroke you could reduce your energy bill to a far more affordable £7490! Problem solved! Thanks, Tory Life hacks.
Johnson is reportedly planning a farewell tour to remind the public of his greatest achievements while he waits for Liz Truss’s government to implode in office and a desperate Conservative party come crawling back to beg him to return to Number 10. So he’ll be visiting a lot of graveyards full of victims of covid who died while he partied, sewage outfall pipes pumping raw excrement into the sea, queues of traffic at Dover, planting a Union flag on the summit of a mountain of luggage at a major airport because the baggage handlers have returned to the EU, and trying but failing to catch a train.
Apparently, according to Johnson, the blame for the current energy crisis lies with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, leaders of a party which has not been in power for twelve years. But if what Labour did all those years ago was indeed so terrible and left the UK’s energy supply so vulnerable, the Tories did bugger all about it at any point in the past twelve years, which merely demonstrates that Johnson and his cronies are unfit for office. And after all, the great sin of the Labour governments of Blair and Brown was that they did not undo the ideologically driven privatisations that the Conservatives had introduced, that does not absolve Boris Johnson and his party. Johnson blaming Brown and Blair is very much on brand, just one more fart blast of lies to issue from the Hell Mouth of the Conservative party. It will not be the last, we can expect more of the same from Liz Truss when she tells us that cutting taxes is the best way to deal with the energy crisis, because according to the warped logic of the Tories, putting more money in the pockets of those who are already comfortably off really is going to help families who don’t earn enough to pay tax find the money to keep the heating on. The Conservatism is not so much a political philosophy as it is a means of ensuring that the poor fund the lifestyles of the rich. Truss has refused to introduce a windfall tax on the bloated profits of the energy companies and refuses to discuss a freeze on energy bills.
Lying and dodging responsibility is what Johnson and his party do best, it’s just a pity that their gaslighting can’t be harnessed to provide heat and light for all the households who won’t be saved from freezing thanks to his tip about buying a new kettle.
The tedium-fest of the Conservative leadership contest might be drawing to a close, but the nightmare of this Conservative government is very far from over. His likely successor Truss has all the same political faults as Johnson, a refusal to accept responsibility, a complete lack of principles, and a burning personal ambition combined with a lack of talent, but she also has a stiff and robotic demeanour befitting the empathy free zone of her personality and an inability to see how she is perceived by others. All she cares about is advancing her ambition. She is a Conservative gaffmatic who will lurch from one embarrassing episode of foot in mouth disease to another. She has displayed no appreciable skill or ability in any of the posts she has held and will fail dismally to rise to the immense challenges which will land on her desk when she takes office. Any honeymoon period she might enjoy as a new Prime Minister will be brief and short lived despite the best efforts of the right wing press.
In order to distract from her manifest shortcomings, and to curry favour with her right wing base, Truss will pick fights with the European Union, the devolved governments, the trade unions and will enthusiastically stoke up the culture wars. Johnson was bad, partly because he didn’t really care to do his job, Truss will bring a demented enthusiasm and energy to the Conservative destruction of public services, democratic safeguards and the few remaining means left of holding the government to account.
A flavour of what we are in for came in the form of a question from a party member at the last leadership contest hustings this week. To applause from the audience the questioner wanted to know what the candidates would do to “suppress” Nicola Sturgeon. Irrespective of what you think about Nicola Sturgeon, she is the First Minister of Scotland, a position that she only holds because the people of Scotland saw fit to vote for her and her party and make them the largest party by far at Holyrood. The party of Liz Truss has not won an election in Scotland for almost seventy years, but the Conservatives still think that they have the right to impose their policies on Scotland anyway. Truss doubled down on her characterisation of the First Minister as an “attention seeker” to be ignored.
Truss will also double down on the erosion of the devolution settlement with the aim of rendering Holyrood toothless and turning it into a useless talking shop which is unable to ameliorate the ill effects of Conservative party policies that Scotland has consistently rejected at the polls. We are in for a cold hard winter in more ways than one.
I am sorry but this bout of post-stroke fatigue is proving very difficult to shift. New blog posts may be rather intermittent this week.
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Wee Ginger Dug 
You really need to take care of yourself, we need you and this site for clarity on the situation.
Think there are plenty of input from ourselves tokeep you amused.
Just thinking , I’ve ust bought a kettle, will I need to buy another to save the tenner.
The big buffoon is looking for a job with McDonalds, will you supersize that order?
The new nuclear station will be due to start commissioning in 2023, a pressurised water reactor right next to the seaside.
Take of care of yourself and rest up for now, if your exhausted.
The blogs can wait, your health should come 1st.
Top tip – when you are investigated for breaking your own law, hand pick a lawyer to say the charges are unfair.
Partygate probe is flawed and unfair, says lawyer advising Boris Johnson
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-62763975
While you’re at it, hand pick a police inspector to exonerate the person in charge of the MET during a catalogue of scandals.
Cressida Dick: Sadiq Khan wrongly ousted Met chief – report
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-62766240
More Life Hacks to follow…
Also:
Hone your credentials as ‘Leader’ (ahem!) of the Party of Law and Order by joining a police raid, so you can also cosplay as an arresting officer – although, you, yourself are bang to rights as a criminal.
https://www.rte.ie/news/uk/2022/0901/1320104-johnson-police-raid/
I know that even if it were the case Johnson will never be pursued for it but wasn’t that dress-up exercise actually illegal in and of itself? Inmean, that would count as impersonating a police officer, wouldn’t it?
He’s been impersonating a human being for years and no one has pulled him up for that !
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
As others have said, take it easy, there is no apology needed for what you are having to deal with.
I watched the clip of Johnson’s ludicrous “kettle” comment open mouthed in amazement that he or his gaggle of speechwriters thought this would come across to the public as anything other than a total disconnect to reality.
I’d almost posted to Capella’s comment in the prior thread on the National exposee on standing charges, but deferred it to here when you posted as it seemed even more pertinent given Johnson’s grasp of economics over a 20 quid kettle.
First, here in Romania there are no standing charges for power or gas, everything is based of power consumed, kWh.
Secondly, wherever you live in this vast country you pay precisely the same rate per kWh, only businesses have access to different rates for obvious reasons of bulk usage.
The 2000 introduction of differential area rates and standing charges by the then Labour government was bizarre, but 22 years later when the producer/consumer geographics have changed so completely, they still apply the same rules as laid down by Parliament to Ofgem ?
The abomination which is UK energy policy was laid out in a Richard Murphy post I’d linked to earlier, but thankfully somebody had already archived it, https://archive.ph/MBQuV
If you scroll down halfway you can read this these two quite revealing paragraphs –
“I should, however, add a twist. Many renewable energy producers are already subject to contracts that essentially fix their prices, with the government already taking the risk on price variation. See https://www.lowcarboncontracts.uk/.
Where these contracts exist, and where fixed price contracts guaranteed by the government exist with nuclear producers, the current excess electricity profits arising because prices are based on the cost of gas production already flow to the government, a little-known fact.”
Viz – It is not just the much vaunted “producers” promoted via the media who are making a killing from this wholly manufactured crisis, it is HM Treasury – Meanwhile HMG plead poverty of funds and inability to change the way markets run, the ultimate sting https://youtu.be/fPmruHc4S9Q
Whilst the EU are FINALLY addressing this stitchup where the highest cost producer gets to set the rate, do not expect PM Truss to give up willingly on ripping off the UK public.
She didn’t get thus far by intellectual prowess, but knowing who gets ripped off and who is best for her to side with… CHEESE
There seems to be a perverse wish right across the piece not to understand the fundamentals of what’s actually going on with energy supply in the UK. Too many shibboleths stand in the way, too many reputations to protect and political dogmas to defend, all evidently far more important than the legitimate needs of ordinary people.
All of which offers a juicy opportunity for fake “defenders of working people” like Katie Hopkins. Ultra-Brexiteer who thinks that we should all be gratefully basking in the warmth of her false freedom and never mind the resulting sinking exchange rate that adds a premium to our own energy bought in magic dollars on international markets.
You take care of yourself first and foremost.
The kettle thing is such a nonsense.
You pay, what, £20 for a new kettle to save £20 over 2 years – by which time the kettle may need replaced again.
I sometimes feel Johnson is positively deranged; his grip on reality is so non-existent; but I guess he’s just another narcissistic sociopath like the rest of the Tories.
That analogy was peculiar, even without making it a tad more relevant by adding that this fantastic super-dooper kettle bought today wouldn’t actually be delivered for another 20 years. Meanwhile…
The nuclear option is only being punted, of course, because England can’t be seen to be planning to be dependent on an energy source – no matter how plentiful or cheap – from a well-endowed renewable-powered Scotland that it expects will be sovereign and thus no longer be under its control.
The nuclear option – Sizewill – for which Boris Johnson announced Gov funding of £700 million for a project conservatively costed at £43 billion. You can see how that is going to work…not. They are just saying anything now. He even fluffed his lines about the kettle.
Johnson has spent the last 5 weeks (on the rare occasion when not on holiday) saying he cannot do anything about energy price increases because that would tie his successors hands. Suddenly a matter of days before he leaves office he signs of a multibillion Nuclear power deal for years to come what a bloody hypocrite.
Sunak now doesn’t believe in lockdown- no surprise since he got knocked for breaking it.
Truss – words fail me!
You might as well use the £20 to get around the 10kWHr of electricity to keep warm, today, rather than wait until next year to accumulate the tenner.
He might of course have been talking about a furred up element in the kettle, a problem that large areas of Scotland and the North of englandland don’t suffer.
Today the grid demand is 36GW from an installed capacity of 55 GW, on a warm day.
The trouble with the grid is that the CEGB was mandated with generating electricity and wouldn’t accept using the condensate to heat district heating schemes.
A turbo-alternator system is about 35% efficient, ie 65% of the energy is dumped into to atmosphere.
The combined cycle gas turbines are about 60% efficient as they are using their exhaust gases to power a steam turbine, using the energy to produce the efficiency gain.
The open cycle gas turbines are very poor in efficiency terms as they are used for peaks, much like using your vehicle to go to the local shops, then complaining about the poor mpg returns.
Truss, she’s a grifted politician, just slightly less sentient than the Maybot. Whereas Johnson was more like a character from ‘A Clockwork Orange’, devoid of any human empathy.
I think this is the only interview I can remember were the journalist didn’t have his head up Johnson’s backside. The rest seemed to be just fawning courtiers to his lies. It’s been quoted many a time but something to remember for his farewell tour, and hopefully gone for good.
Boris is correct regarding Labours energy failure. After the Central Electricity Generating Board was abolished private energy companies did nothing regarding new power generation meaning that the UK’s 30% spare capacity diminished. In the 90’s John Major put plans in place for nuclear and renewables. In the late 90’s Tony talked about needing 8 new nuclear stations several times during his premiership. So did Brown. Nothing happened nor did it after 2010 when Cameron came to power.
In several countries of the world that privatised energy this same problem occurred. California was really bad and still is.
Most of us are aware of the reasons for gas price increases. One is the 20% drop in the value of the Pound against the dollar due to Brexit. Energy, particularly oil is bought in dollars.
The failure we see now is the total incompetence of Westminster over 32 years.
France to its credit has state control of energy.
This in the news today re the pound v the dollar.
https://stocks.apple.com/AslvM8gGWS462xdUuJWATuw
The first time I went to the US in 1972 the exchange rate was $2.73 to one pound. How the mighty fall.
I believe Truss has been engineered to be the temporary replacement for Johnson to and say and do what the faceless fascists tell her to until they can engineer Johnson straight back in again, they’re trying it in the US with Trump, they’re the same people with the same agenda, Scotland Wales Northern Irelands people aren’t even part of the equation unless we make it so
The UK and the people who run it as it currently exists is an ideological disease inflicted upon millions and like Necrotising Fasciitis it’s eating its way through us
Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland cannot change anything in England because our voting system doesn’t allow us any power to do so and those in power in England don’t require our votes to win power over the UK
As a matter of immediate urgency Scotland must remove ourselves from this
See that Palin introduced a DeHonte voting system for Alaska.
It saw her lose her position to the Democrates.
We don’t like the listers in Hollyrood but there’s a result to ponder.
Wouldn’t it be strange if the raffle result for PM was 52% to 48% with 60% don’t know/ didn’t vote.
I’m still here , Duggers, speechless.
Look after yourself, Paul. You are needed more than ever.
I have just returned from a family wedding in Ireland. took the car ferry; nochecks on either side of the Irish sea, no customs as we breezed through Newry into the South. Belfast is booming…the Brexitless boom.
Their Health Service is sh1t in the North, I gather, but refreshingly, people are going about their business, looking after each other in these terrible times.
Truss is an aklarming aberration..clearly a dilot of a human being…gear up for a GE in the autumn, the de facto Referendum.
To Jack, Ross, Carmichael, Murray and the gaggle of ridiculously dull inferior Brit poodles in Edinburgh, I say this…your time is up.
I have barely watched any news or current affairs programmes in weeks now, since the ‘Hustings Games’ started.
It is all too ridiculous for words.
England, as I oft observe, is the Tribe That Lost Its Head.
Even as they face certain privation, starvation, and hyperthermia, tens of millions Down There would still vte for Liz Truss in an actual GE.
They have gone completely stark staring bonkers.
There shall be riots…
We shall be free in 23.
Stay safe and gather your nearest and dearest around you this terrible winter, Duggers.
I caught Kirsty Wark on Newsnight anchoring a discussion with a bunch of Blue Tory farts, praising Johnson’s record; he apparently got Brexit Done, conquered Covid with his vaccination programme, and led the Free World in supporting Ukraine seeing off Putin.
This is BBC today…
Later, mes braves.
Check out the typos.
The phoney war is over.
We can see the bloodstained whites of their eyes.
On fine form there Jack!
Still a bit fragile, in a good way, but.
Ireland will reunite soon.
My Everlovin’ has sneaked back a year’s supply of Tayto Cheese’n’ Onion.
Indigenous Irish; You can take them out of Belfast but you can’t take Belfast out of them.
SS, darkened room I need to lie down in comes to mind.
Free in ’23.
Two tidal schemes in Swansea and the Humber would cost £Billions less than nuclear. Produce much more clean energy. France has had tidal since the 1960’s. Rance tidal plant, Hydro power in Scotland at Pitlochry.
The world has rejected nuclear. Out of budget and over time. Far too dangerous and costly. Disaster in Japan still spewing out contaminated radioactive poison into the sea, 10 years later.
Feasible tidal schemes reneged on and rejected by the UK Gov. The Nuclear option is a desperate attempt by a totally discredited Westminster Gov. Devoid of any genuine policies on their last legs. They are about to be rejected by a dejected electorate.
An IndyRef coming soon to sweep away the cobwebs and the total embarrassing corruption of Westminster charlatans and psychopaths.
When the Erskine Bridge was just a project the alternative was a tidal barrage around Gourock to Dunoon, with a lock system to let shipping pass, a roadway on top that would have opened up the West Coast.
We got the bridge, positioned to get height to allow big ships to pass underneath.
No ships of any scale now sail up and down the clyde.
Talking up Scotland had an article on the ‘In 50 Years Scotland’s GDP will be mince’, forecasts of what things will be like in 10 years are mired with doubts, 50 years is like 5 generations, or one generation if your boss in westmonster determines.
The Awe barrage has two bulb turbines modelled on the French scheme that generate from river compensation water. About 600 kW was the designed output from the low head, built at the same time as the barrage and its fish ladder.
Dave, the report isn’t forecasting anything, they’re projections based on historical data on how Scotland’s economy and demographics might look. The trends of reduction to the Scottish budget and the loss of businesses and population due to brexit are current and tangible. As stated in the report the ability to maintain the level of current interventions by the SG are likely to be severely hampered, accentuated by the continued decline in the value of the pound will basically get you less bang for your buck. This report will give project fear 2 a run for its money although I don’t think they will tell us the oil is running out again.
Indeed, they’ve got themselves a problem with oil and gas now, they need it, they’ve admitted there’s still massive amounts of the stuff thus proving they were liars when all their experts claimed differently night after night on every available media outlet
They want to dig up more of it, again admitting every word they said was a lie and the media assisted them in their lies when they claimed Scotland couldn’t survive without it
So how does project fear work for them now? well they’ll work on the FMs words saying Scotland doesn’t want the stuff anyway so what are we complaining about? and she must’ve been wrong to say that so she’s wrong about everything else she says regarding economics, and the fascist faithful and their media will repeat every word of it as fact
Even today we have the English environmentalist scientists crawling about the Kintyre peninsula complaining about the terrible wind turbines murdering the birds and upsetting the locals who they insist don’t want them there because they’re an eyesore so much better would be nice clean nuclear reactors to not spoil the view
When technology improves the turbines will become smaller and more efficient and or be replaced with something even better, the trouble with nuclear is you can’t take it down, you can’t move it, you can’t do anything with it, you’re stuck with the damn stuff, it just becomes toxic junk
This mornings nimby *expert* was from East Anglia where there is a constant battle against any form of *dreadful unsightly windmills* because those folk want nice nuclear energy but preferably somewhere else of course
Will they have a new story for *Sir* Ian Wood to lie about now?
The media have already started the narrative that Nicola wants to shut the oil and gas industry down but I don’t think I’ve heard Nicola say that she wants to get rid of oil and gas rather that she wants to transition away from reliance on it, which of course is exactly what she’s doing. The Greens would like to see the whole industry shut down, that’s one of their key objectives. The wind turbines are majestic, to me anyway.
The 4 reactors at Hunterston will be there for 100 years.
The 4 at Dounreay the same, the DMTR is now over 60 years old and still awaits the decay to be safe to remove it.
Torness in due course the same.
Look at Inverkip, Kincardine and Longannet, all virtually completely removed or nearly.
Decay safe to remove. Give it a few hundred millenia !
A very low power reactor, DMTR, no electrical power, just testing materials.
It is still closed up by welding, a coat of paint now and again.
As you say it will be a long time before the core is safe but eventually the containment will rust away and it will have to be dealt with, it’s very close to the Pentland Firth and salt water.
A giant dust bin.
The units at Hunterston will be passed back from EDF to us to deal with, eventually, hope the records are well preserved as ‘WE’ will not be around.
I just hope that somebody is keeping track of all these long since self-contradicted scare stories, so if the likes of Wood dare to pop their heads up again next time with more mendacious doom-and-gloom, their former pronouncements will promptly reappear to confute them. A veritable bonfire of reputations.
No wonder these people are desperate to avoid a return match.
projections?
Maybe a bit better if they had included independence but who can say anything about 50 years hence.
Reminds me of the story from New York about horse droppings from horse drawn vehicles in the 1890s.
The research measured the speed of decay and the incidence.
By 1940s the incidence of horse drawn traffic was a virtual nil.
The SG are I believe creating a document that covers Scotland’s economy.
And if polling is to be believed, the unionist vote share will fall again, with pro-protocol parties romping home with an even bigger majority than last time.
https://archive.ph/KAzMn
Northern Ireland Secretary ‘will have to call election’ in October if Stormont not restored
The British government messing with the protocol / British parties trying to overturn election results and prevent the N. Ireland parliament from operating can only lead to one thing; increased support for the protocol and reunification.
—
Take care ae yersel Paul.
https://nation.cymru/news/liz-truss-plans-law-to-move-goal-posts-on-independence-referendum-requiring-nearer-60-to-vote-yes/
Liz Truss plans law to move goal posts on independence referendum – requiring nearer 60% to vote ‘yes’
03 Sep 2022 2 minute read
Liz Truss is considering moving the goalposts on independence referendums to require that a vote would need half the electorate to vote ‘yes’ to separation rather than just half the voters.
It would mean that, in cases where 85% of the electorate turned out as in 2014 Scottish independence referendum, nearer 60% would have to vote ‘yes’ before being allowed to leave the union.
The Sunday Times reports that Liz Truss plans to raise an additional barrier to independence, requiring that over 60% of the population want a referendum in the first place before it is allowed.
[…]
I always wondered why they had not done this before. Brexit was very low for leave so we could retaliate via the courts.
Perhaps they are not as certain as they would like us to believe that the SP ruling will go their way. A desperate move by an incompetent and corrupt government.
Yes, it’s revelatory of weakness, not strength. And every retreat from one “last ditch” position to another steadily erodes credibility in the public eye. On both sides of the border.
More and more people here begin to realise that actually, “we the people” are in full control, nobody else. And always have been. The ownership bluff is finally called. Then it’s game over, and all that’s left is to agree terms of separation.
If they want to start playing silly bugger then it’s time for us to look at the voting franchise, no non Scots born UK nationals, no non Scottish income tax payers to have a vote.
I don’t think stopping the SNP President and a number of SNP SMP’s from voting in a referendum is the answer to be honest !
Aside from that the story is nothing more than clickbate. If the SC rules that the Scot Gov has the powers to hold a indyref then the franchise will be as per the referendum act which has already passed. Liz Truss would have not abilty to change the franchise.
Yes, the Scottish government is responsible for setting the franchise for Scottish elections / votes.
They could have put in place a rule that >50% of the electorate would need to vote for the union for Scotland to continue being part of the UK, but that wouldn’t have been democratic, so they’ve gone for the same approach as last time.
This presumes that she will have any say whatever in the terms of the next referendum. (The one, recall, that she will never allow to happen anyway.)
Another false claim of ownership no less presumptuous and irrelevant than the previous one of “just saying no”.
This almost certainly won’t happen. While it’s the kind of idea that superficially solves all their problems from a distant imperialist viewpoint, it’s shelved the minute some civil servant or Scottish politician sits them down and explains that the foremost consequence to be expected is that unionist voter turnout in Scotland across the board may collapse. After all, they won’t need to “vote to stop independence/the snp” since independence is “impossible”.
Unionist voting relies upon a large deal of tactical coordination; they need voters of all three parties to prop up the constituency incumbents/candidates of each other. It risks creating a situation where the SNP gets nearly 60% of the FPTP vote anyway.
Yup. Giving unionist voters the impression that a Yes was just basically impossible would be monumentally stupid. It would reduce turnout for No while making sure every possible Yes voter got to the polling station.
It would be as stupid as getting unionist voters to boycott any form of free and fair referendum held in Scotland, even if England had declared this illegal.
See Catalonia. Spanish Supreme court ruled the referendum illegal and Spanish unionists were encouraged to boycott, yet still the federal boots had to be sent in to disrupt the vote by closing polling stations, beating up old ladies etc, to make sure it could not be free and fair.
Because making voting illegal and boycotting just doesn’t work. Not if the vote is free and fair on a decent turnout, ergo does represent the will of the people. If Catalonia had voted Yes on a decent turnout, that could not be ignored because like it or not, it would be the popular will until such time as Catalans might vote otherwise. Declining my expression of support for indepdence ‘illegal’ doesn’t make it go away.
And remember in 1979 it was a devolution referendum organised by a UK government. What was on offer was not very appealing and the UK government was free to set the franchise. After all, devolution is a reserved matter. It can be taken away against the consent of Scots. However, self-determination means we should be free to vote for independence if we are not happy with that. Devolution requires rUK consent. Independence doesn’t.
‘Declaring my expression’. D-oh.
In any world the Tories attempt at redrawing the rules of referendums by demanding silly voting percentages just won’t fly, in essence what they’re trying is a non voter charter in which the opposition don’t even have to make their case at all, they just have to convince people not to take part thereby achieving their false referendum target of counting non voters as NO voters
Precedents are set worldwide for such things and they know it, it’s just more nonsense from people who know they’re going to lose legitimately so they’ve bought a set of loaded dice and are trying to con people into thinking the outcome should be stacked in their favour as they roll them
The British nationalists admit their impending defeat every time they try such stupidity, the only thing they have left is their go to problem solver
Violence
Well we know it’s what Lisa Nandy’s Labour party prefer
…and ”The People’s Party ” have shown in the past how ‘democratic’ they were by introducing the 40% rule in 1979 to undermine Devolution .
The party of Home Rule and Devo-Max are just as bad as the Blue Tories when it comes to democracy in Scotland .
If Starmer ever gets into No.10 then expect Ian Murray , wearing his Union Fleg suit , as Gauleiter .
It’s like watching a young child play with other young children, and attempt to change the rules, or the rest can go home early.
Like most children, they tend to learn that they have no friends quite quickly, when they do that.
The difference being, they don’t care if they have no friends in Scotland. They don’t need it.
If they have resorted to trying to stop us voting, it means there is no positive case for the union at all.
Tory and Labour pulled off their greatest con on Scotland between them in persuading Scotland to vote Labour to protect us from the Tories because they’re bad bad people, then when Labour got elected in England, which in Scotland is only by coincidence, they were no different to the Tories, while continually warning Scotland of a Tory return so keep voting Labour to keep them out, which was then and is now the greatest lie of all as no matter what Scotland votes for our votes are overturned by the voters who actually count, Englands voters
Still today there are folk in Scotland who will vote Labour under this mistaken belief that their votes count towards electing a UK government, they don’t !
The fact that Scotland voted Labour while England voted Tory cancelled out Scotlands votes for 60 years, take the last general election of an 80 seat Tory majority, even if Scotland had voted all 59 of our allotted MP share Labour still would have lost by a hefty margin, there is no way on earth Scotland can make a difference to whichever party is elected as UK government in England because our votes are outnumbered 10 to 1, so simple arithmetic tells us that there is no point whatsoever in thinking a comeback or major surprise can be effected by Scotlands voters, which should also signal loud and clear to anyone who can count that the Labour party do not and never have *needed* Scotlands votes to win UK power, they only *want* our votes to keep Scotland tied into their union which we can all see quite clearly is Englands Tory union with itself
The only difference between Putins Russia and the UK (apart from the bombs) is better and more successful propaganda by England over hundreds of years in conning Scotland and Wales into believing our countries were part of a union acting on behalf of us all, we’re not, we’re just work fodder a cash machine and a place to store nuclear weapons of mass destruction that England doesn’t want in their own gardens, just like they don’t want windmills that generate electricity because they can always syphon that power off to England when they want to
They want our country and what we have, they just don’t want the people in our country deciding what we want
They call themselves unionists, but if it’s so great being part of their union why did all the other countries in the empire want them out of theirs, and more to the point why do none of those countries who took their independence from them want to return to the great fold
England doesn’t build, they steal, England doesn’t negotiate, they lie, England doesn’t honour agreements, they use deceit to engineer conflict then claim aggrieved status as an excuse to break internationally recognised laws, England use the power of their control of media to convince the population that every other country is in the wrong as they wave a union flag, fly a Spitfire and invoke the patriotic Queen and country speech to back it all up
And England falls for it every single time, so sure, vote Labour, vote Tory, vote Liberal Democrat if you like, but what you’re really doing is voting England and their continued dynasty of dictatorship over Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland in perpetuity
Remember we’re only *allowed* to call ourselves Scots or Welsh but our passports say we’re something else, because England decided that too, what next do you want London England to decide
Polling doesn’t look good for the Tories in a snap GE. Unless, that is, they want to lose.
The Scotland share is maybe based on UK-wide polls. Average is 45% from Scottish polls in the past few months.
Suggestions of a decent rise in support for Plaid Cymru commensurate with the 25% fall in support for the union there since 2014.
From:
https://sotn.newstatesman.com/2022/06/britainpredicts/
Suggestions of a decent rise in support for Plaid Cymru commensurate with the 25% fall in support for the union there since 2014.
– Indeed, we usually stand around 10% usually in Westminster elections. And never had more than 4 MPs. This is more like Senedd %s.
The dialogue between Labour and PC in Wales has been helpful to both Labour and PC, but I’ve little doubt Mark Drakeford was shaken by Labour’s quite dramatic an rapid fall from grace in Scotland.
It really makes no difference whether MD’s motives are an abiding principle of democracy or seeking survival of Labour in Wales, the strategic differences could not be be more stark – Labour in Wales is not reduced to a singular MP, and a millionaire leader only trying to impress his dad and using the working class to achieve it, badly I might add.
The strength of Welsh public opinion over what is patently going so dreadfully wrong matters – Despite the Truss and Sunak “Kensington” disconnects so wonderfully exposed by their PR exercise, would any shake hands and not count fingers afterward let alone jewellery?
As Liz Truss’s advisers continue to refine the “Maggie” look and manner, I keep thinking “Magoo” – At least he had a sense of humour as well as myopia..
The “snap” GE was pencilled in for 5th October next year i.e. a fortnight before the proposed Scottish referendum. The Tories will never hold a GE with polling at 29%.
…but , ”The Plan ” is to allow Truss to f*ck up the UK even more than The Clown Prince of Parties did , then when the sh*t hits the fan ( assuming there is enough power to run it and enough money to pay for it) , there will be a groundswell of voices pleading for the King over the Water ( Johnson will be on another holiday in an oligarch’s Med villa – with or without current wife ) to come and save us !
Then ”The Nation” will rejoice as the Once and Future King returns on a chariot of fire with his handmaids ( Priti and Nadine ) by his side as he lays hands on the sick , raises the dead ( his new Cabinet ) , brings peace to the warring Ukraine , abolishes hunger and destitution – and all before his first Welcome Home Party in Downing Street .
🤣 A cracker..
The Tories know they are toast electorally despite Daily Depress and Heil pronouncements all is well.
I happened across the utterly awful Kuenssberg interviews with Truss and Sunak and was utterly appalled.
Of the 67.44 million people in this country this is the best the United Queendom has to offer, three am-dram queens and a host of support staff…
Fact of the day…
Only 46.8% of the Scottish electorate voted for Scotland to remain part of the UK in the 2014 referendum, meaning majority of the total electorate did not support continued union.
Here’s a thought, they have referendums all over the world on all sorts of things and nobody resigns if they’re on the losing side of the result of one, it’s not an election to be in or out of office as a politician so why resign? in the 70s we had two such referendums and I cannot remember anybody resigning over either of them
In 2014 Alex Salmond resigned as a consequence of losing that referendum, again why? it wasn’t a general election, David Cameron resigned following the Brexit referendum, of course that was a very different reason because he wanted no part of the mess of leaving the EU even though beforehand he’d promised to stay on in his job as PM regardless of the outcome, so in fact he didn’t have to resign either
Was there something in the agreement with Westminster that Alex Salmond should resign as FM if the proposition he presented lost? I don’t know if there was or wasn’t but I am curious to know if anybody else knows , or is there an obscure Westminster rule that only SNP leaders must resign if they don’t win everything?