Well I am back online again, thank you to everyone who helped. I have lost some data, my own fault for not backing everything up for a few weeks, but it’s nothing I can’t live without. The problem was that the SSD drive in the old laptop gave up the ghost. The old laptop froze just as I was about to start work on that day’s blog, and then would not boot back up again into Windows. I just got an error message saying “no bootable device”. These things are sent to try us.
But thanks to the wonderful readers of this blog I now have a lovely new laptop which I spent most of yesterday configuring and setting up. Luckily I was able to recover all of my log ins and passwords. I also plan to get a second refurbished laptop soon so that I always have a back up. Then if there are future technological disasters it won’t interrupt blogging and writing.
It seems that there were some interesting developments during my enforced absence. On Sunday we got the seventh poll in a row to show a majority for independence, this time by Panelbase for the Sunday Times. This confirms the pattern established since the massive own goal for British nationalism, the Supreme Court ruling that Scotland is too wee and too stupid to be allowed to decide for itself whether it wants another independence referendum. This poll puts support for independence on 52%. This categorically does not represent a slipping back in support for independence, as some of the frothing British nationalists on social media would like to believe. In recent years Panelbase has tended to place support for independence at a lower level than some of the other polling companies so to have majority support for independence in a Panelbase poll is very good news indeed.
Together this run of polls confirm that there has been a real shift in Scottish public opinion since the Supreme Court ruling. Far from killing off support for independence, all that the ruling did was to provoke Scotland’s famous “Aye, that WILL be right” reflex. The key now is to ensure that momentum is not lost in 2023.
With that in mind, the SNP has announced the date of its special conference to decide the strategy for using the next election as a de facto referendum. The polls seem to show some public hesitancy about this strategy, which hopefully should be alleviated once the details are made clear. For my own part I feel that there should be a two pronged strategy.
Any pro-independence MPs elected to Westminster in this de facto referendum should refuse to take their seats in the Commons if there is a Yes majority in the popular vote. Their only job is to force the British Government to negotiate independence. SNP MPs and all MSPs should form a Scottish National Convention to chart the country’s path to independence, forming a de facto Parliament for an independent Scotland. This convention should seek to reach out to the international community to put pressure on the British Government and bring it to the negotiating table. All MSPs from all parties should be invited to participate in the convention, because an independent Scotland will not belong just to those who voted Yes. Scotland cannot and must not repeat the arrogance of the Conservatives following the Brexit vote.
However if the SNP wins the election and trounces the British nationalist parties, but does not achieve a majority of the votes cast, this must be regarded as a mandate for another referendum and it should be the duty of the SNP to disrupt Westminster by all lawful means until the referendum takes place. The message from Scotland must be clear, the days of being ignored are over. Every arcane and obscure rule in the Westminster playbook must be utilised to bring the business of Westminster to a halt until Scotland’s demands are heeded. After all, if Keir Starmer believes that Labour can win a mandate for constitutional change on a minority of the popular vote then the SNP can win a mandate for another referendum on a minority of the vote too.
These are just my opinions. I am sure that SNP members and representatives have opinions of their own, but one thing must be clear, the current undemocratic constitutional log jam is intolerable and must be broken.
In other news while I was offline, the Scottish budget was announced. Feathers were spit by the usual suspects when John Swinney announced in the Scottish budget that the £20 million which had been set aside for the referendum will instead be used to help alleviate fuel poverty.
The first thing to make absolutely clear here is that this move has zero effect on the route to independence that we find ourselves on following the Supreme Court ruling. Sure, Scotland could have pressed ahead with an unlawful referendum anyway, but that would not deliver independence. Not only would the British parties boycott it, but neither the British state nor the international community would recognise the result. We would end up in the same situation as Catalonia, which you may have noticed, is still not independent. We are in yhe business of winning independence here, not making grand and futile gestures that risk setting us back for many years.
The £20 million was not set aside to campaign for independence, it was earmarked for paying for the practical and technical considerations of holding a vote. Democracy costs money. Those costs will now be subsumed in the costs of the next election. Assuming that is a UK General Election, the independence vote will be paid for by the British state. Westminster will then have to foot the bill for its own destruction in Scotland. Serves them right.
Importantly, the Scottish Government has confirmed that it will still be publishing its series of papers setting out the case for independence. The case for independence is still going to be articulated.
£20 million is just a drop in the ocean when it comes to tackling fuel poverty, but it deprives the Conservatives of one of their attack lines. But Tories gotta Tory, and they have now switched from demanding that the Scottish Government do something about the health service to complaining that the Scottish Government is doing something about the health service. This is of course because the budget also contained the announcement that taxes in Scotland will rise, the extra funds raised will be used for the NHS. There is now a clear distinction in policy and outlook between Scotland and the rest of the UK. These distinctions will loom ever larger as that independence vote grows closer.
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Wee Ginger Dug 
You can take the old SSD drive out of the defunct laptop, and put it into a small portable casing, plenty on ebay. Then use it as you would a memory stick via a USB port. It is now operating as an external drive.
Since the SSD drive has no moving parts, there is a good chance that it will still function and your files on that drive should be accessible.
My other half tried that. He works in IT, but the SSD drive is dead.
Do it the other way round, Paul – put a new SSD in the old laptop. If you don’t have or can’t get rescue media for the previous system, install Linux (eg. Mint or Ubuntu) instead – another improvement!
Delighted to see you back on line and with a new laptop – may be worthwhile having an external drive either cables or wireless to maintain a regular backup of your important docs etc- certainly something I’ve learned the hard way too.
As for the polls they are certainly maintaining momentum, wonder how AJ is “feeling” now!!
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
It may be argued that the next UKGE, which may be as precipitous as May 2024, a mere 16 months away, is better described as a mutatis mutandis independence Referendum, rather than ‘de facto’.
We are playing WM’s FPTP game now.
There is a view that mutatis mutandis, perhaps better defines the approach which Pro Independence Parties should adopt when campaigning in the UKGE.
Rather than describe the UKGE as a ‘de facto’ plebiscite, which, in law frames the Self Determination UKGE campaign as ethically right, but legally unsound, giving the Brit Nats ammunition to dismiss even a landslide Pro Independence result as not legally significant, yet again, It may be prudent to incorporate mutatis mutandis into Pro Self Determination parties’ manifestos, now that the England SC has ruled that we Scots are not permitted to hold our own Referendum.
‘Mutatis mutandis’ translates to ‘all necessary changes having been made’ or ‘with the necessary changes’. The phrase mutatis mutandis indicates that whilst it may be necessary to make some changes to take account of different situations, the main point remains the same.”
So when Paul writes,
“Any pro-independence MPs elected to Westminster in this de facto referendum should refuse to take their seats in the Commons if there is a Yes majority in the popular vote. Their only job is to force the British Government to negotiate independence. SNP MPs and all MSPs should form a Scottish National Convention to chart the country’s path to independence, forming a de facto Parliament for an independent Scotland.”
I humbly postulate that ‘mutatis mutandis’ replace ‘de facto’ in all future reference to the UKGE plebiscite.
Any ‘landslide’ for Independence based on FPTP rules, therefore is a vote for Independence; On Day One we immediately begin dissolving the Union.
Thoughts, Duggers?
On John Swinney’s budget?
There are 32 Scottish LA Councils.
Yorkshire, with roughly the same population as Scotland, has 3 LA Councils.
So where we have 32 highly paid Education Chief execs, Health and Social Care Chief Execs, and so on, Yorkshire manages to get by on 3 of each?
What we need is a major Review and Reform of Scotland’s LA organisation..there must be plenty of fat to trim by economies of scale alone.
Oh yes, and COSLA, the TUS, the Dead Tree Scrolls, the Brit broadcasters, and the wee wummin doon the lane who’s been skelly ever since the Milanda boy hit her wi’ a bread board, are sceaming blue murder because Swinney has short changed them by £500 million, and there will be redundancies, services slahed, the world will grind to a halt..you know the script.
Well, they wanted more decision making devolved to local level, didn’t they?
They have the power to raise CT, don’t they?
I’ll readily pay 1p more to fund local services.
But they won’t will they?
Better to blame the Bad SNP for everything.
Reduce our 32 Councils to 5, with concomitant savings in Senior Management staff alone, economies of scale, and less meetings more doings in a trimmed down COSLA.
Dis cuss ted.
I think you’ll find yourself in diametric opposition to Lesley Riddoch there, Jack. {grin} She argues, with some justification, that we need a more distributed democracy like the Nordic countries, not more concentrated top-down centralisation. (Not that she’s promoting lots more highly-paid local big cheeses either, mind you, for which you definitely have a point.) But I guess it’s hard to wean old-school socialists off well-ingrained habits… {laugh}
grizebard, I am well aware of the grip of the COSLA Nostra…
I am all for responsibility and acoountability being driven down to local level, in most things…
Here comes the ‘but’.
Last time I looked, which was a while ago, Glasgow Departmental Heads were on six figure salaries, with a juicy index linked final salary pension at 60.
Multiply that by 32 and it’s a lot of dosh to administer the welfare education and bin emptying of 5.4 million people.
Same number of ratepayers as Yorkshire with only 3 Heads of everything.
How did we get to the position that we are paying LA managers over £100 k and none of us cottoned on?
Text books, PC’s desks, and so on. Is their a central Procurement Agency buying all this stuff for all councils, or are there thirty two procurement departments fully staffed buying paper clips independently.
I am free to undertake a ‘root and branch’ scrutiny of our LA set up, with Reforms and Recommendations’
I guarantee that I, and a small team, would improve and streamline local government greatly.
I ask. are there 32 distinct energy bills…?
I’d have my rport and recommendations completed in 6 weeks.
Rocket science it ain’t.
I have 4 local councillors upon whom I can call for assistance, and help, one MSP, and an MP.
That#s enough ‘local’ for me.
For Paul, and anyone else who needs a complete disaster recovery solution for your PC or Laptop, you can use the following free software:
https://www.veeam.com/windows-endpoint-server-backup-free.html
You will also need an external USB hard drive to use with this software, a 1TB drive would be sufficient, and a USB flash drive. A 16GB flash drive will be sufficient.
When installing the software, you create a bootable operating system image on the USB flash drive. Keep this safe, as it is required to recover you PC/Laptop if the hard drive fails.
The software will use the external USB hard drive to store its backup on. It will do a full backup first time round, then every subsequent backup will just write any changes, so will be much faster.
You can recover any files from the backup if required, or in the case of a disaster recovery scenario, you can boot from the USB flash drive and completely recover your OS and files from the external hard drive.
As your husband works in IT, he should be able to set this up easily for you.
If anyone needs any help or advice, just post a comment and I will do my best to get back to you.
Glad to hear your technical difficulties are resolved, SSDs don’t have an NHS standing by for those heart stopping moments…
Your observations on Swinney’s budget are spot-on, the wailing and gnashing of teeth has never stopped since, with HMS James Cook in particular promoting the “Wur doomed and marooned” line to any who might listen, even fewer than Fraser in Dad’s army in the round, and his suit wasn’t bespoke unlike James Cook…
The 20M will barely make a dent in what is about to befall Scots, but the message sent shockwaves across England – Having already had negotiations with RMT, NHS etc., the wheels of the Tory (and Labour) bus are falling off, time and again you hear why can’t you do as SG has done.
England’s flounders are world renowned, such a pity they are elected to office, and stop laughing at the back Anas wi teeth, the Forres Gump, and the suit with the brolly Ach wotsisname, park yer bums…
Well at least you knew what to do. The experience is a good analogy for these times. The economy and political system could be compared to your hard drive – no matter how many times you tried to reboot, the same error message appears. At least you haven’t sat there trying to start it up again, time after time. You may have lost some work but you can start afresh.
If only governments could adopt the same philosophy – their laptop of an economy is seriously conflicted with the planet’s operating system and the idiots are still trying to reboot it and pretend everything will be ok once it starts up.
All the best for the festive period (ha!) and new year.
I like your analogy. What Scotland needs is evidently a reboot with a completely new system.
Yep, no argument there. They way things are unravelling it’ll need a miracle for the world to get back on some sort of honest journey. If Scotland could reboot under a new system, it might start a trend – as if that’s a word for saving the biosphere and avoiding collapse. I appreciate that dissonance is rife at Christmas, but hey, everything’s gonna be ok. Keep pressing the button.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2021/05/why-worry-about-collapse/
I have all my files on a USB stick which I use as the master. It’s way easier to do backups, including on another USB stick. That’s business files and personal ones. Occasionally, rarely as they don’t change much and can be downloaded from the server, I backup the websites on another external hard drive /USB. Photos are in 4 different places, including the laptop and desktop. It becomes second nature.
As someone previously said, I’m happy to keep you abreast of developments involving these latest developments:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/dec/19/ppe-medpro-uk-government-issues-breach-of-contract-proceedings
PPE Medpro: UK government launches action to recover £122m
DHSC also seeking to recover the costs of storing and disposing of gowns supplied by firm that Michelle Mone lobbied for
The UK government has commenced legal action to recover more than £100m from the company that was awarded two large PPE contracts after the Conservative peer Michelle Mone lobbied ministers.
[…]
Reports elsewhere that prisoners are being used to dismantle testing kits to allow destruction.
Best of luck to them recovering the money, seems the contracts were sold on to other foreign based companies,
I very much like this two-pronged approach. If more than 50% of those that turn out to vote support the manifestos of the Independence supporting parties then that is a clear mandate to demand Independence negotiations take place immediately.
If Independence supporting parties fail to win 50% of the vote but still trounce the Unionist supporting parties and return a huge majority of MP’s then it is a mandate to continue to demand that the voices of all Scots be heard in a referendum for Independence so as 16-17 year olds and EU citizens who are also citizens of Scotland be able to have their voice heard.
I don’t think the Unionists are going to like this approach very much.
Sad to hear that Derek Bateman has passed away after a short illness.
https://archive.vn/DoDIX
Oh, that is truly sad news. Another fine voice stilled far too early.
Just read the sad news on the BBC website. Derek Bateman was one of the few BBC Scotland broadcasters who made it worth listening to. Sadly, he had to leave the BBC much earlier than expected. I recall that during the run up to the 2014 referendum quite a few excellent people were elbowed out including his fellow anchors Isobel Fraser and Lesley Riddoch.
There’ll be no differing of opinions to that of the British state broadcaster or you’re surplus to requirements
Very sad to hear that, and what Capella says.
Scots are not allowed to work for the BBC. If you are discovered, you’ll be pushed out.
BBC still promoting from the 5th December if the Labour Party will revive in Scotland.
A full 2 weeks on -when does this become old news?
Recent polling missing from “their analysis”
Is there a news blackout? Any brave bbc journalist out there willing to whistleblow?
I don’t reckon there are any Labour supporters in Scotland anymore, there are just some Tories pretending to be Labour
Surely there’s not one single soul in Scotland who actually believes Anas Sarwar was ever Labour? or Jackie Baillie?!! I mean c’mon
I think you might be on to something.
Or even anyone “behind the scenes”. Surely at least some people managed to game the selection process and can see what’s going on?
Anyway, thankfully there are real journalists around who can see that the promo effort is trying to sell a long-expired parrot:
https://newsnet.scot/news-analysis/the-shadowy-elephant-in-the-room
Several opinion polls above 50% yes is encouraging news but this also happened in 2020 and look what happened in 2021 so no room for any assumption it will stay above 50%.
I have no doubt SC ruling that Holyrood (electorate in Scotland) needs permission from Westminster (electorate in England) is a big factor in recent rise in support. It is also something that can be referred to again and again as it will strike a chord with electorate up here.
However to reinforce this support and build it to 60% we need clear positive messages on economy and other key issues that we know No side will attack us on.
This is not impossible and requires all parts of Yes movement to work together but also acknowledge that the SNP (like them or not) by its volume of support amongst electorate has to be the leading political vehicle for delivering independence.
Ps – I am not and never have been a member of SNP and did not regularly vote for them until recently. I am merely trying to state the political facts of life as they have stood for last decade to all who want Scotland to be an independent country.
Here’s my latest.
After discussions with Yes2, I’ve made some adjustments, with these clearly explained.
Y/N iref VI data is for full Scottish polls where the sample was 16+, as it should be for this. That excludes just 2 polls out of 28 for the whole year. For UK election plebiscite (1 poll from FoN, specifically asked), 18+ is the age range as it should be. Since this is on the cards now as possible way to vote Yes, I have added it into the mix, albeit averaged with FoN’s normal recent iref poll.
Average for 2022 = 51.1% based on 26 polls (24 standard Y/N, I election plebiscite, 1 non-standard iref from Ipsos that should favour No as it used ‘leave the UK’).
Post UKSC = 53.3%.
Little doubt that 2022 was another baseline year, but again holding at 50% or greater as I come up with. The post UKSC polls have give a boost to the yearly average, which would have been just shy of the mark without them. I got 50.2% for 2021.
Of course we can pick and chose approaches to shave half a point here, add on there etc, but there’s no getting away from the decade+ pattern.
If all the polls showed 100% in favour of Scottish independence England would still say NO, they’re only using that latest nonsense as another can kicking denial delaying exercise
No reason, no excuse, no will of any people is going to make England do the democratic thing and say YES, No vote by or for the people will make a difference to England’s attitude
That’s why this is not about England anymore it’s about a demonstration to the rest of the civilized world to accept Scotland as a free democratic country and state on its own merit regardless of what England says or does
Scotland will have its freedom, but not by the grace of England’s benevolence, more even than the debacle of Brexit, England will kick scream and scratch all the way to the finish line and still refuse to admit they’re wrong
England’s behaviour in everything they say and do is self centred foot stamping tantrums on steroids
We’ve just seen them compare their 1966 word cup winning football team to Lionel Messi’s current Argentina world champions and concluded England would have beaten every other team in this world cup and lifted the trophy again
Another instance was SKY news interviewing workers about the cost of living in Ireland and asking them the question as to whether the postal strikes were badly affecting everyone there
The puzzled expression of the interviewers face was a picture of total confusion when the interviewee replied “We don’t have any postal strikes in Ireland”
England still doesn’t get the fact that they don’t still own that country too
Foreign diplomats and Ambassadors the world over know there’s little point trying to have meaningful conversations with England because they always end up with England insisting they know better than everyone else, that why they have every word of what they want to say written down translated into English and sent to them, and even then the world understands that will be returned to them changed because England will have redefined the words of the English language to mean something else, and they’ll just keep right on doing it
The world dubbed England as *Perfidious Albion* for a very good reason, it’s their “modus operandi”
[…] Source […]
Ive just emailed offgen asking them to justify why parts of England where they use over 50% gas, sometimes 80% in south of England and prices are going down. Whilst Scotland and especially north of Scotland are seeing prices rise.
And given that we hardly use any gas with today seeing 100% renewables generation in north of scotland, why are we in effect subsuding the south of England.
Perhaps more should complain and highlight this union energy dividend. Where Scotlands customers are penalised for having majority of energy from renewables, unlike England.
Can only agree but careful not to confuse, they are using gas to generate electricity in Gas Turbine driven alternators.
A third of whatever we pay for electricity goes to subsidise the London area.
We really need to push the idea of the subsidy to London, who get an increase in pay called the London Weighting.
Last evening we were exporting 5GW every hour, worth £2m an hour.
That should be on a billboard!
Just the evening exports would come to around £9 billion a year.
So much for the black hole in finance, that’s just electricity.
Throw in the Gas from the North Sea and West of Shetland fields.
Aye Dave, Scots are being fleeced rotten yet again and as @Capella said above, it should be on billboards.
Enough of the polite attempts in raising this in Westminster for the last 30+ years with no change – Winter bills landing on doormats will perhaps concentrate minds on the iniquity of our condition and it is overdue remedy despite the silence of Sarwar, ACH-him, the Forres Gump, and James Cook for purely political purpose.
It’s time we went full tonto on this 30+ year old nonsense and exposed both HMG and HMS James Cook’s silence to this ongoing farce ?
Perhaps BiS’s excellent data and graphics can be pressed into service and overtake Pacific Quay’s man in the suit ?
We have to do something !
Yes should have said in previous post i meant gas used for electricity generation.
Perhaps once independent we should have an export tax on electricity of .5 per kw. That would give quite a decent subsidy on our bills.
I thought this article by Hamish MacPherson on the famous Scottish surgeon Joseph Bell is worth reading. I recently listened to the Stephen Fry collection of Sherlock Holmes novels and he was completely unaware of Bell’s influence on Conan Doyle.
The Scots surgeon who played a role in the creation of Sherlock Holmes
https://archive.vn/7TQX3
Makes a change from the grubby Tory scandals still rolling on.
The National’s tribute to Derek Bateman.
Journalist and independence campaigner Derek Bateman dies aged 71
https://archive.vn/N0dV9
The BBC in contrast was a rather dry piece.
RIP Derek Bateman.
Generally speaking I stayed away from blogs during Indy Ref 1; my research was my own as were my opinions. But newsnetscotland.com was one I followed, having followed a link from the Grun, and I commented on it occasionally.
Even if you’d disagree with him, his views were at least sensible, moderate, and expressed without sweary words. Years ago he wrote for the Herald, I daresay cried the Glasgow Herald at the time – perhaps THE best newspaper around in its glory days. And not too bad during Indy Ref 1, its decline was after that.
He’ll be sorely missed.
He will be missed. It’s not as though journalists willing (and able!) to tell it straight are in plentiful supply around here at them moment.
Newsnet persists, though, after something of a fallow period, and can now be found at newsnet.scot. (And worth periodically returning to, even if – for me anyway – it’s a right struggle to see the pics.)
This is a very sad and disgusting story, where as often happens, small businesses lose out when disreputable large businesses lie to them about payments and go out of business, owing large amounts of money, to be sold off to “save the jobs”, while the many small businesses get kicked in the arse. Even HMRC is higher up the list.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/business_hq/23202979.paperchase-opens-new-glasgow-store-designers-speak/
The UK is unlikely to deal with it, and here’s why:
“bought over by the credit arm of a private equity firm”
The UK really is totally and venally corrupt.
My advice by the way, is to avoid the big business bloodsuckers, as much as possible, and never let them be your only customer, or basically, more than 25% of your turnover. They will screw you over.
Oh, and here’s the thing – don’t let them use you as a lending bank.
If they really want your goods they will pay with order. If it’s services. make sure you get paid regularly and on time – and make sure that’s in your contract and that if they don’t pay you can walk out and still be owed all the money.
No protection in law basically, for small businesses, perhaps that’s something iScotland could look at, the UK never will. There was a time, but long gone are those days with the greedy Tories running the show, and Labour these days just trotting after them.
Just for interest I looked up the Dover/Calais ferry timetables.
DFDS have 15 crossings a day
P&O 11/day
Irish 13/day
Question, why do they need inflatables?
I know of big company finance departments that use the ‘Missed’ our accountancy month.
The big supermarkets control the farmer’s income.
Vacuous to the max – Rishi Sunak refusing to agree to respect the Scottish Government if it does not consent to the repeal of the Human Rights Act. Joanna Cherry persists.
Sunak intends to treat Scotland and our parliament like Chipping on the Bottom county council
Liz Truss said it and Sunak is going to do it
They will Ignore Scotland as though we do not exist
Not for much longer , D Jim.
By hookor by crook, we are out of their precious union, de facto, now.
There’s a wee Christmas reminder on its way to Sunak
So it turns out Flynn is just a Westminster pussy cat, no dreamies for him – or us. “Holding the government to account” as though that actually means anything with the Tories having a 70 seat majority and not elected by Scotland. Flynn:
IT IS NOT OUR GOVERNMENT, OURS IS AT HOLYROOD
Just in case the 45 SNP MPs don’t understand, their job is not to play the Westminster game like Flippers looking for claps, their job is to get us the heck out of Dodge, Pronto.
The SNP MPs at Westminster have a responsibility to their constituents therefore holding the Westminster Gov to account when its actions impact on their constituents is very much in those MPs remit. Furthermore by doing so they demonstrate how Westminster is detrimental in so many ways to Scotland and thus add to the case for independence.
Legerwood, the reason many of us vote SNP for Westminster is for Independence, and for many, it’s the only reason.
If the SNP MPs aren’t going to do their best for Independence, including disruption of the Westminster system, after the UKSC denial, and the first attempt to get the Scotland Act being changed to get a Referendum, we might as well vote Labour to try to get the Tories out in the Union that we’re stuck in.
The difference between the two parties – is Independence. Otherwise SNP = Labour, and I and many others owe the SNP MPs, absolutely nothing. We lend them our votes, they have no entitlement.
Speaking for the entire nation then is it? or just the *many* others you claim to represent?
I don’t *lend* my vote to anyone, I give it to the people I wish to see representing me and my country on all issues, you on the other hand are a single issue floating undependable member of the public who only cares about one thing which if not carried out in the way you demand seem happy to *lend* your vote to anybody else who opposes those who won’t obey you, you should start your own party
“Speaking for the entire nation then is it? ”
Why make things up, I didn’t say that. I didn#t say “most” either, I asid “many”.
“or just the *many* others you claim to represent?”
I don’t “represent” anyone, but many others do indeed agree with me.
, outside this forum, and even in this forum.
As for the rest of your comment, yes, I support Independence, and THAT is the reason for voting SNP. And as far as that’s concerned, many others are the same.
Where the SNP should be concerned, is that up to now as a moderate, neither a top nor a tail, I have generally supported the steps taken towards Independence, but now they’re starting to take the proverbial.
The new fella is only started in the job and it’s coming up to a long-awaited holiday, but you want instant action? Take a break – sounds like you need it! – and let’s see what evolves in the New Year.
(That was a reply intended for yir2, BTW.)
Not me, it’s Flynn’s words:
“Our focus, I think, rightly needs to be on holding the UK Government to account and promoting the brilliant work of the Scottish Government where possible, but making that case for Scottish independence.
Now walking out of the chamber on a weekly basis will not achieve any of those aims. It just means there’s going to be nobody there to stand up for our constituents and to speak out for Scotland.”
https://www.thenational.scot/news/23204140.stephen-flynn-rejects-idea-regular-westminster-stunts-snp/
Here’s another quote from Flynn, who after a promising start is looking like a self-interested wimp:
“Of course my colleagues have a lot at stake in that regard. It’s us who will be on the frontline and I have no doubt our voices will be heard in relation to the up coming debate,“
Labour hasn’t been Labour for nigh on 40 yrs.
As far as constituency surgeries are concerned, I got great help from Brian Wilson. who gave me a contact in the DTI, and one in the appropriate embassy, putting me in a confident position to respond to a request for tender.
It wasn’t theeir fault it didn’t come off making me ultimately, a multi-millionaire instead of counting the pennies 🙂
That would be Brian Wilson who at various times did not support Scottish devolution let alone Independence. The man has more faces than Big Bens clock. Thank goodness he was never my Mp
He was a good MP Eilidh, did some good stuff for asbestosis and silicosis victims’ families in terms of their right to pursue claims after death. Also electrification of rail.
He was also chairman of the Labour vote NO to devolution in 1979; I voted for him even after that to get rid of the total useless crawler Tory John Corrie.
Politics is relative, not absolute, sadly.
Having voted labour since the early 1960’s to the 2010. With hindsight I have got to disagree with you golfnut. I would say it has not been labour since I started voting, it took me 50 years to accept it.
👍
The Tories will be out withina year. Into oblivion.
What they do and say matters less and less. How many more people will they kill before a GE.
More people who support Ibdependence should turnout at every election to vote out the opposition. Too low turnout at every election. Independence is for life not just for Christmas. A higher turnoutat every election will vote out the opposition. Instead of constantly criticising people, who support Independence should turnout and vote SNP/SNP. Vote for Independence. Too many Independence supporters sit on their hands. Do not vote SNP at every election and let in the opposition. A higher turnout. A higher support for the SNP. Voting out the opposition will support Independence, Simple and easy. Take another to vote as well. Instead of complaining all the time. Independence will come sooner than later if more people turnout out to vote every election. A higher turnout. A higher number of support. Less opposition.
The Tories are done. No chance of recovery, Labour/LibDem etc. Just as bad. Good bye and good riddance.
Merry Christmas and a happier New Year. Getting rid of the Tory/unionists. Towards a better, more prosperous,and equal
society. The power is in the people’s hands. Use it or lose it.
Labour, illegal wars, financial fraud, tax evasion. Ruined the world economy. ConDems ruined
the economy again. Brexit.
What a shower of total incompedents. Total chaos and mismanagement of Scottish revenues and resources. Since 1928 and before. Nearly 100 years of strife and wars. The Westmibster corrupt cabal will still not pay the essential workers. Killing people. Life expectancy going down in the south.,
I’m right behind your call for a Scottish National Convention but with all independence supporters included. It worked in 1997 and can work again in 2022. Also agree the Supreme Court ruling called out the fallacy of a voluntary union based on consent and boosted support for independence. Tories are doing great work in that direction. The burning question for me is who is still opposed or undecided and why?