Just when you thought that the dysfunctional and chaotic theatre of cruelty that passes for the Conservative government could not stoop any lower, it still manages to shock with its performative sadism and its capacity to destroy the lives of thousands of law abiding and gainfully employed people purely for the sake of pandering to the rabidly frothing hate mongers of the extreme right media who increasingly are the true drivers of government policy.
Last week the new Home Secretary, the laughably misnamed James Cleverly, announced changes to the qualifying requirements for family visas, the visas that British citizens must apply for in order to bring their foreign spouses and dependent children to live with them in the UK.
Under the new rules, those wishing to bring their spouse to the UK will now have to earn £38,700 annually, more than double the previous figure of £18,600. The new price on love imposed by the Tories is significantly higher than the average UK annual salary of £35,464. Although the change is not retrospective, the government has confirmed that the new higher figure will apply to those already living here who seek to renew their visas.
On the initial application, only the income of the British citizen, the ‘visa sponsor’ is counted, any income earned by the foreign spouse is discounted, even in cases where they may be able to continue their employment in the UK. Joint household income is counted towards meeting the threshold only when the visa is due for renewal.
Thanks to changes introduced by Theresa ‘Hostile Environment’ May, the foreign spouses of UK citizens must apply for a renewal of their spouse visa at least once before becoming eligible to apply for permanent leave to remain in the UK. A spouse visa lasts for two and a half years, but a foreign spouse must have lived in the UK for five years before they can apply for indefinite leave to remain. On initially applying for the visa, and when renewing it, the applicant must pay visa and lawyer fees which can reach £2500 or more, (you don’t need an immigration lawyer to make the application, but given the complexity of the rules it’s strongly advised.) Additionally an NHS supplement of more than £1500 must be paid, £624 per year, working out at £1560 for a visa lasting two and a half years.
This NHS supplement must be paid both upon initially applying for the visa, and when renewing it, even if the visa holder has been employed and has paid UK taxes and National Insurance the entire time.
When the visa is granted, it comes on the condition that the visa holder has no recourse to public funds, no foreign spouse of a UK citizen here on a spouse visa is eligible to claim or receive any benefits irrespective of any changes to their household’s circumstances.
This has been the case for many years. The new increase in the required income level is categorically not about ensuring that “if you are bringing someone into the country you are able to support them,” as a spokeshypocrite for Downing Street claimed.
The existing rules already did that. These changes are about removing the right of thousands of British citizens to bring their foreign spouses to the UK. The changes mean that only those who have an income significantly greater than the average wage will be able to bring their foreign spouses to the UK.
However if an income of £38700 is now deemed to be the threshold for living a decent life in the UK, we can surely look forward to the government increasing the minimum wage to £19 per hour and significantly boosting pensions and benefits.
From now on, thanks to the Tories, marrying a foreigner becomes a privilege restricted to the better off. Don’t fall in love with a foreigner unless you earn significantly more than the average wage.
However the cruelest part of these changes is that they will apply to those renewing their visas. Having made the initial application and being granted a visa on the basis of an annual income of £18600, people who may have been residing in the UK for as long as five years will now find that their income is nowhere near sufficient for their visa to be renewed. This could see families long established in the UK being torn apart, and many others who had been hoping to bring their spouses to the UK having the rug pulled from underneath them and their plans left in tatters.
Additionally the NHS supplement is being raised by 66% to £1035 annually meaning that the typical spouse visa applicant will have to pay £5175 in additional fees before becoming eligible to apply for Indefinite leave to remain. Most of that will cover periods when the applicant is paying UK taxes and National Insurance. Foreign spouses get charged twice for using the NHS.
This is a piece of Tory nastiness which is totally out of line with spousal visa requirements in other nations and which will have devastating consequences for many families. In the UK, there is no right to a family life.
The irony is that these changes will not even affect the headline immigration figure that Sunak so obsesses over, as they will apply to foreign spouses who have already been residing legally in the UK for several years.
Naturally we can expect Keir Starmer’s Tory chasing right wing Labour party to protest vigorously against these egregiously cruel new rules and promise to reverse them the moment they gain power… Oh, right. Over the weekend Labour’s Liz Kendall said that Labour had been pushing the government to raise the income threshold for visa applicants.
Then Labour’s shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who has previously called for greater private sector involvement in the NHS, complained that the NHS always uses the pressures of winter to call for more money. Nothing will get any better under Labour, we will just get the same Tory nastiness with a different set of smug and supercilious faces telling us they are making ‘tough decisions’ for our own good, ‘tough decisions’ that we have to pay the price for, never them. No matter what happens at the next Westminster general election, the right wing party will win.
Sunak is now facing a rebellion on his back benches over his immigration policy, not because it’s cruel, vicious, and inhumane, but because it’s not cruel, vicious, and inhumane enough.
Some Tory MPs are now openly plotting to get rid of Sunak before the next general election in the hopes that a new leadership can rescue the party from being trounced at the polls. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but they are actually touting bringing back Boris Johnson and offering the deputy leadership to Nigel Farage. Sunak’s enemies on his own back benches have reportedly drawn up an advent calendar of shit aimed at destabilising the Prime Minister.
One suggestion, being touted by the Mail and Telegraph newspapers, is that a Johnson ally, such as former Home Secretary Priti Patel, could be installed as a caretaker Prime Minister, with Johnson standing for a safe seat at the Election, then returning to No 10. the rebels are also promoting the idea of giving Farage and Richard Tice, the leader of the far right Reform party, places in the Lords and key ministerial positions.
On the back of his appearance on I’m a Celebrity, Normalising Fascism the extreme right Farage is taking advantage of the platform repeatedly offered to him by the British media and is reportedly keen to return to politics. Farage can’t win a reality TV show competition any more than he can win at the ballot box, but he won’t stop whining about it and being enabled in his whining by the British media. A seat in the Lords is his only shot at political power. The Westminster system is so corrupt that this would be within the rules, rules that Keir Starmer has no intention of changing.
The plan is delusional, and has little chance of being put into place, far less of succeeding, but it is indicative of how dangerously unhinged and extreme right that the Tories have become that it is even being considered. The Tories have got so extreme and crazy that they think the solution to their cruel insanity is to become even even crueler and more insane.
We had a scare over the weekend with my mum. The hospital called to say she was unresponsive and to ask the family to get there as soon as possible. She was assessed as just 3 on the 1 to 15 coma scale. Thankfully she came around after my sister and brother got there but for a while we feared that she was on her way out.
The doctors now tell us that they believe her poor condition is due to an adverse reaction to the immunotherapy. In a minority of patients immunotherapy can cause the inflammation of the organs and they believe she was suffering from encephalitis, which can lead to confusion and delirium, and the other symptoms she was experiencing, this led to her rapid physical and mental deterioration.
It has now been nine weeks since her last immunotherapy treatment and the doctors think the drugs are starting to leave her system. They are treating the encephalitis with steroids and she is showing a marked improvement. She has started to eat small amounts again and is far more aware and coherent.
They will not be restarting the immunotherapy as she will only have the same adverse reaction. Unfortunately this type of stage 4 cancer has no other realistic treatment options, and so the cancer will begin to spread again, it is particularly aggressive, but at least in the time she has left we can hope that my mum will be herself. Thank you for all the kind words you left in the comments section.
_______________________________________________
My Gaelic maps of Scotland are still available, a perfect gift for any Gaelic learner or just for anyone who likes maps. The maps cost £15 each plus £7 P&P within the UK. You can order by sending a PayPal payment of £22 to weegingerbook@yahoo.com (Please remember to include the postal address where you want the map sent to).
I am now writing the daily newsletter for The National, published every day from Monday to Friday in the late afternoon. So if you’d like a daily dose of dug you can subscribe to The National, Scotland’s only pro-independence newspaper, here: Subscriptions from The National
This is your reminder that the purpose of this blog is to promote Scottish independence. If the comment you want to make will not assist with that goal then don’t post it. If you want to mouth off about how much you dislike the SNP leadership there are other forums where you can do that. You’re not welcome to do it here.
You can help to support this blog with a PayPal donation. Please log into Paypal.com and send a payment to the email address weegingerbook@yahoo.com. Or alternatively click the donate button below. If you don’t have a PayPal account, just select “donate with card” after clicking the button. You can also donate by PayPal by using my PayPal.me link PayPal.Me/weegingerdug
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/weegingerdug
Wee Ginger Dug 
Hope your mum pulls through , Paul .
The Tory shift to even more Right is awful – but , sadly , not surprising . The Labour (sic ) shift to match them is appalling !
What choice is there for English voters – Far Right Tory or ‘Anything you can do , we can do better !’ Labour ?
Wes Streeting’s comments should have had him drummed out of the party – but he has to justify the monies that he collects as ”donations” from Private Health companies , like so many others in his ‘People’s Party ‘ .
Sir Kid Starver , the ceasefire denier , is now openly touting Tory Policies for Tory votes and betting on the voters’ fatigue with the real Tories not to look too closely at his credentials .
Scotland has a slight chance of escaping this nightmarish future with a vote for Independence – but not if independence supporters are led astray by those with an agenda to destroy the only party , like it or not , that has the remotest chance of taking us to independence .
As I said on other posts, this would have prevented my now wife and I moving in together (with free movement also ended) and the same for my wee bro and his missus. And we are all degree educated, i.e. who you might expect to be in a job that could meet the criteria and also the kind of folks you’d want to add to your workforce. My wee bro’s better half has a PhD, but England clearly doesn’t want such clever people coming to work here.
It’s utterly disgusting and all about keeping the British blood line pure. It was hard enough for me and my wife to do long distance when we first met (Erasmus, now done away with by England too), but to have England actually decide we could not live together in my own home? I feel so much anger towards these fascists when I read the stories of couples (that we once were) facing this. It’s particularly horrifying that the partners of Scots will soon be deported by England when visa renewal time comes, and it’s all down to racist hatred of these. Literally, England is going to come and take people’s BF/GF/spouses away in a van.
Let’s not sugar coat things. It’s what it is about: fascism. You can make arguments about the pros and cons of ‘economic migrants’ etc, but we don’t chose who we fall in love with, and if the government is choosing for us as the English one is, they have a red, white and black armband on.
OT
Well, that’s bye bye Greatest Hits Radio on AM, formerly Tay AM 😦
The times they are a-changing, not always for the better.
Glad you got to the hospital for your mum. Time is precious.
Talking of time…seems that WordPress has done away with the 24 hour clock and is touting imperial measures?
It’s good that the medics have figured out why your mum was so unwell and changed the medication. Much better to be comfortable and pain free.
As for the Tories – todays clown show is beyond satire. You don’t know whether to laugh or cry? Well I’m all for laughing at this shower of incompetents. The prospect of Boris Johnston and Nigel Farage becoming the Tory dream team is worthy of a special Xmas episode of Spitting Image.
Starmer’s promise to England is, now everybody sing “anything they can do I can do better, I can do anything better than them” no you can’t “yes I can yes I can yes I can”
Meanwhile here in the poverty stricken frozen north the media reports there are less polis than there were 16 years ago and they’re dealing with more mental health problems than they used to
Oh and btw the media still haven’t reported that England’s education bosses cheated on the PISA scores by only allowing just over 4% of England’s top schools being surveyed, 37% of Scotland’s schools were randomly selected
It turns out that yes following the pandemic some areas of education dipped but on balance Scotland’s education system is in fact still blowing away the other 3 nations of this benighted UK on positive destinations of university and employment
Tune in to Holyrood today for the education secretary statement on the facts and figures
[…] Source […]
Alba pure ragin as Nicola Sturgeon hailed as the reason world leaders support Scottish independence, and are saying so
What world leaders?
And tell us what they are saying, precisely.
Liz Lloyd in her National piece was remarkably discreet.
Whoops
The Times piece, reported in The National!
The UK Minister responsible for Climate Change and Net Zero has abandoned COP28 and taken a hugely polluting flight from Dubai to London to vote with the Tories on their Rwanda Bill. Everyone furious:
11.34 GMT
Fury as UK climate change minister leaves conference
Climate campaigners and politicians have reacted with fury to the news that the UK climate change minister, Graham Stuart, has returned to London from Cop28, my colleagues Fiona Harvey, Patrick Greenfield and Helena Horton tell me.
Rebecca Newsom, of Greenpeace, told the Guardian: “This is an outrageous dereliction of leadership at the most critical point during this conference. This is the moment when we need to see bold political commitments to unlock the gridlock on the text.
“Instead of fleeing Dubai, Stuart should be here to broker the compromises really needed to act upon developing countries’ urgent demands for more public finance to deliver a full fossil fuel phase-out. And he should be making clear that the UK, as a rich historically polluting country, is prepared to lead the way on delivering the renewable transition way from fossil fuels. The world is watching, and the Conservative government’s failure to lead at Cop28 is becoming increasingly obvious.”
Chris Skidmore, the Tory MP who wrote a review of the government’s net zero policies, said: “The decisions taken at this Cop are far more important and vital for the future of all nations than the outcome of a vote tonight that will have little or no impact in the long term. Politics is about priorities and our priorities should be demonstrating clear UK leadership on climate action, but you have to actually be in the room to lead.”
The Green MP Caroline Lucas said: “The government’s last shred of moral authority in tackling the climate emergency has been obliterated by this scandalous decision to leave Cop28 negotiations at the most critical moment. Adding insult to injury, if true that the minister is leaving the summit in order to vote in favour of the utterly immoral Rwanda deal, it shows that Rishi Sunak prioritises saving his own skin over saving the planet.”
Francesca Rhodes, of Care International UK, said: “If the reports are accurate, it is staggering that the UK government has no ministers attending the final critical days of Cop28. These negotiations will decide the fate of millions of people facing floods, fires and famine due to the climate crisis. The UK has played a productive role in the talks so far but leaving early is simply shameful. Time and again, wealthy countries have let down low-income countries. The latest text was deeply disappointing and does not keep 1.5C alive. When the UK should be standing up for marginalised communities, including women and girls, Rishi Sunak’s government has gone awol.”
This report is in the Guardian and it won’t archive which is why I posted the full text.
Perhaps Lord Cameron can take sanctions against him for demonstrating the incompetence of the UK government (unlike Humza Yousaf who played his diplomatic role with skill).
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/live/2023/dec/12/cop-28-live-latest-updates-climate-conference#top-of-blog
From the National@
https://www.thenational.scot/news/23984686.world-leaders-support-scottish-independence-reveals-ex-adviser/
“World leaders support Scottish independence, reveals ex adviser”
It’s Liz Lloyd so Unionists would say “She would say that”.
But the thing is world leaders don’t neccessarily care much about Scotland (where?), what they DO care about is stability, apart from the instability they want to create themselves.
So yes, they’d support Indy because from their point of view the sooner the (r)UK is stable once more, the better.
Sending a virtual hug to you and yours (((0))) my husband has stage 4 cancer .
Fascism is raising it’s ugly head in so many places..look at NZ with Te Reo Māori being banned and people with traditional tattoos being excluded from medical care and worse
Desperation. The Tories will not have time to implement it.
NHS funding is £150Billlion a year. Not enough. Not increased since 2015. The Tories are spending £1090Billion a year.
£270Billion was spent over two years on the pandemic. Scotland did not receive £27Billion for parity.
It’s funny watching England tell world leaders who they are allowed to talk to without its permission.
Not content with telling us Scots who we can live with… even talk to, it’s now telling the world’s politicians they need to get England’s permission + a minder before they can talk to who they like.
How far England’s governance has fallen. It is a nation on it’s knees, ranting drunkenly, swearing at concerned passers by about it’s greatness, while crying that its former partners wanting to leave it, even though it punched them black and & blue, locked them in the basement, and now won’t let them talk to anyone without its present.
Cameron’s letter sums up the abusive relationship our country is in.
Time to go. This has to end, for the benefit of both countries.
Pig Pokey Cameron was due to attend Holyrood and cancelled only days before he wrote that letter
Yet another cowardly Tory like Union Jack too feart to talk to people face to face
British Nationalists, what are they like
Well done Angus. The rebuttal service is operating.
Indeed well exposed Mr Robertson.
This scam began with not-so-Cleverly, who knew full well it could NOT work – There are only sufficient FO officials to support HMG Ministers, there has been no increase in their numbers.
Even if Cameron, Sunak, and Charlie boy had given FO officials a lift on their private jets to COP28 to bolster the numbers, it would still have been insufficient.
Bravo Angus
I hope all our comments are being read by the Scottish ministers who matter, and take Scotland and her people seriously.
This is an abomination of a ‘Union’.
Let’s get the hell out of it, sooner, rather than later when people become so undermined and downtrodden they have no will to vote.
I imagine other world figures / leaders would tell English politicians to f’off and let them speak to our FM in private if they want to.
Which what Liz Lloyd said happens, unsurprisingly.
This is the real cost of privatisation of essential services over the last 40 years. At least in the case of water it remains in public hands in Scotland.
Thames Water says it can’t pay back £190m loan
Senior management admitted the company did not have enough money to pay off a £190m loan due in April next year.
They also warned that if it was nationalised, taxpayers would face a hefty bill…
Thames, which serves 15 million households, and its parent company Kemble Water, owes a total of £18bn in debt…
The company has said it will need another £2.5bn of investment in the coming years but that is contingent in part on the regulator, Ofwat, agreeing to household bills increasing by 40% on top of inflation by 2030.
https://archive.ph/dHpVi
We were told that privatisation would lead to greater efficiencies and lower bills. I think they were lying.
Just look at the state of the electricity and gas markets, the slashing of bus services, the pathetic state of the railways and the cost of a ticket.
Not to mention the price of a 1st class stamp, vote Tory or Labour if you want to privatise the NHS. Vote for SNP and Independence because if you don’t, then you can be sure that the NHS will suffer the same fate as all the others. After all, somebody has to make some money out of it if it’s privatised, otherwise what would be the point?
“They also warned that if it was nationalised, taxpayers would face a hefty bill…”
The scam continues…
Use their own system of operation against them. No public money for shareholder support, shout it long and loud. No planning permission for diversification of the land. No hiking of the bills (Ofwat powers beefed up)
The banks and other creditors will force them into receivership.
Buy the fixed assets from the receiver and hire staff through an agency for the first year at least.
No acquisition of the failed company debts. no golden handshakes, or parachutes.
Continue to operate it as an NGO or take it fully back into public ownership.
There will be some disruption to services, but this can be managed with the right publicity campaign, (“they’ve been gouging you with their bills and squandering the money on share dividends, now they want us to pay of their debts, with money from your taxes, Not going to happen!!”)
All the other privatised companies will re-think their operations and either strive for efficient sensible operation or face the same fate.
Privatised utilities experiment over.
It showed promise but was ultimately a failure due to free market greed.
Conclusion
You cannot bond public utilities and free market capitalism they are diametrically opposed.
👍
Shocking rise in child poverty in the UK when you see it in a graph. Worst in 39 countries and by some distance. Data from UNICEF.
The most interesting thing about that graph is that of all those doing best most have made this progress after becoming full members of the EU in the last 20 years.
Some of the East European countries will have done well from the regional funding. But Canada, Korea, Japan and Ireland are up there too.
But oh dear – Better together UK has us at he bottom of the pile. Shameful.
The Ireland situation is why Sinn Fein are well out in front there, and set to win the next election, after they should have won the last (but didn’t stand enough candidates).
Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, both parties of the moderate centre-right historically, have drifted too much to the right. Way less right-authoritarian than the English Tories, but still heading in the wrong direction:
https://www.politicalcompass.org/ireland2011
https://www.politicalcompass.org/ireland2020
Meanwhile Sinn Fein, having renounced violence 2 decades ago, have increasingly adopted a moderate centre-left position, over a pretty strong left one historically. So they are now eating into the centre vote that FF and FG have left behind.
On this topic, I note that Poland had moved towards the centre / left along with Spain now. Donald Tusk to be PM.
The English press will need to add another 10 years to their ‘EU will be fascist in 10 years’ headlines. The reality is that England is moving to fascism and it’s just projecting this onto the EU.
Here is Starmer telling us about all the International leaders he has been talking to at Cop28 and around the world about the situation in Gaza.
What I want to know is if he is speaking for the UK and why he is not being chaperoned during these meetings with foreign leaders? Who knows. they might get the wrong idea and think that his views are actually Tory government policies.
Why is this tolerated?
I’m amazed that he is allowed to speak to all those foreign heads of state and discuss policy with them when he is not a Minister in HMG. Besides which, he is such a weasel worded shyster that I’m amazed any heads of state bothered to speak to him.
In reality Starmer represents absolutely no one except his local constituents and certainly not any country in the UK, he’s just a local MP in an opposition party, being the leader of that party amounts to nothing
No one would possibly mistake him for anything but a Tory spokesman ! No foreign Government thinks that he represents anything other than the UK status quo – nor does he !
Eh? What’s his game? Who does he think he is? He certainly does not speak for Scotland. Bloody cheek of an arse he is..ACTUALLY.
Reports that Mark Drakeford has resigned as FM of Wales.
Don’t have details yet
Sorry for BBC:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-67702232
We knew he was going before the next Senedd elections but this is big news now. Please follow on nation.cymru (I have to take my 98 y/o mum for a hospital scan later and I’ve just picked this up now.)
https://nation.cymru/news/drakeford-triggers-contest-to-replace-him-as-first-minister/
https://nation.cymru/news/mark-drakeford-to-step-down-as-first-minister-in-march/
Was he considered too independent of thought for New New Labour?
He has principles
Most likely hounded too. Wonder if there will be ‘blue tent’ in his garden, or some other slug trail for the media to feast on.
Prof Robertson is doing a sterling job of debunking the latest shock horror headlines of the Scottish media.
This article deals with the smearing of the teaching profession that the BBC indulges in and the lack of any defence coming from the EIS, their biggest union. Prof Robertson suggests a possible reason.
Another article today debunks the screaming headlines of the Daily Record claiming a 13% increase in drug deaths, leaving out the crucial word “suspected”. There is definitely something very suspect about the Scottish media which needs urgent remedial action.
Sorry about embedded articles – I have no idea why WordPress does that.
https://www.eis.org.uk/news/latest
Prof Robertson presumaby didn’t look for and find the EUS “Latest News” page, which has some relevant articles, including this one from the 5th December:
https://www.eis.org.uk/latest-news/pisaresults23
““This PISA test data, although limited in what it can say about the quality of learning within any education system, telling only a fraction of the story, reflects aspects of the hard of work and professional commitment of teachers amidst the most challenging of circumstances in the wake of the pandemic and continuing social inequality.
“Across the OECD, average scores in reading, maths and science are lower, this pointing to the detrimental impact of the Covid pandemic on learning and the shortcomings of governmental responses to education recovery.
“Scotland’s schools and teachers continue to strive to provide the best possible learning experiences for all young people but increasingly they are swimming against a tide of cuts, which threatens now to be a tidal wave unless the Scottish Government makes different decisions on spending and revenue raising to properly fund education.”
“We know that Scotland has amongst the largest average class size and highest teacher class-contact time commitments of countries within the OECD, and those are nettles that the Scottish Government will have to grasp if they are serious about delivering a better educational experience for Scotland’s young people, particularly in the wake of Covid disruption and the ongoing damage done by poverty and inequality.
“Employing more teachers in our schools would lead to smaller class sizes for pupils, and a reduction of the crippling workload demands on our teachers. This would be hugely beneficial for Scottish education, its learners and its teachers – but this requires a strong commitment and substantial additional funding from the Scottish Government if it is to meet the needs of all young people in our schools.””
There’s another couple of articles on that latest news page which show things in a different light altogether.
Unfortunately in Scotland you can still get class sizes as high as 35. AND with limited if any, classroom support. Present day teachers and classroom assistants (as opposed to ones who haven’t worked in schools for 10 or even 20 years), will tell you this is true.
Yes, he did find the latest news page, but clearly didn’t read any of the articles.
Yes Prof Robertson did read the EIS web page but he points out that they ignore the smear about teachers being too thick to assess pupil progress and instead they demand more funding for schools to employ more teachers without indicating where the Scottish Government might get those funds.
the EIS only demand more staff as if they accept the suggestion their staff fake the results or are too thick to be reliable assessors.
If you read down the article you will see he suggests a link to the Stirling University Labour cabal of the 70s for one explanation of why that might be the EIS/Labour Party/BBC constant theme.
Robertson is interested in the BBC and attacks the BBC. Good.
But why on earth should any Union share his obsession and attack the BBC rather than representing its members as a Union should?
Because the BBC are denigrating the hard work of the teaching profession?
Again from Prof Robertson, it seems a statistician, with no direct experience in education other than bean counting, is the BBC’s favoured “expert” on the performance of teachers in Scottish schools.
http://tinyurl.com/55herzc7
Shortened the URL to avoid embedding.
I was driving today and had the radio on, it was the Jeremy Vine show that was on, normally I would change it right away as I think he is the pits especially his politics. Anyway I left it on because he had said they were going to talk about Mark Drakewood resigning as First Minister.
I needn’t have bothered it was worse than I could have possibly imagined, I heard just one caller with something positive to say but it was the texts/emails he read out that really took the biscuit. He read out dozens and I can’t recall hearing more than one or two that were positive towards him, it was just the usual Tory tripe and even Nicola Sturgeon get a mention as both FM’s just wanted to do everything the opposite of Westminster during Covid just because.
I don’t think I will ever listen to any of that show again, it is that bad. I doubt today’s views were representative of the people of Wales but were representative of the people who listen to the crap that Jeremey Vine talks every day. It seems that no matter how bad or corrupt the Tory party might get there will still be those who worship the ground they stand on, very sad.
Yet another perfect example of everything English is right and everybody else in the world is lesser and wrong
Today Stephen Flynn at PMQs “Why does the PM believe 153 countries are wrong and he’s right?”
The British/English sneer at every other country and person that’s not them
They conquer half the world, the world throws them out, they join the EU, they leave the EU because they can’t rule it
The pattern is clear, Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland must make the sacrifice to leave England and give them a chance at the life of solitude they so desperately crave without the burden of our useless nations holding them back
There is an army of trolls working hard to attack anyone who represents a threat to the status quo. I notice it on X as well as the radio phone ins which I never listen to for that reason.
R3 is better – classical music and short mostly factual news bulletins!
Which is why I left X s few weeks ago and only just managed to resist the temptation to send Ellon Musk an X message decrying what he has done to the platform and telling him where he could stick my X account
I have no objection to Elon Musk. In fact I was pleased he published the emails showing how the CIA manipulated the site under the previous owner. He does seem to want a free speech platform as far as that is possible anywhere.
However, armies of trolls have existed for a long time and infect all social media sites and corrupt Wikipedia and so on. I was going to post a Jamie Hepburn MSP post till I read the nasty replies beneath it. Best not to look.
There is a difference
between free speech and hate speech. Musk is quite happy to publish hate speech in droves He is an obnoxious human being who is good at picking investment opportunities that sometimes make money. Tesla one of his companies has allegedly never made any money and now has another recall of vehicles due to safety issues. Whilst I appreciate some of his Space X company acheivments in no way do I feel he is a fit and proper person to run a social media company. He got rid of most of the staff who worked on ensuring content safety to determine it was not riven with hate speech and now the platform is a den for fascists, racists etc to say what they like. It is losing loads of subscribers and advertising revenue. Chances are X will not survive much longer. I will feel sorry for the staff but not for him.
Depends what you call “hate speech”. It’s a meaningless phrase and overused IMO.
I have never seen any fascist content but I only follow people I’m interested in. Musk has said that anything illegal will not be allowed, depending on the territory.
The previous owner Jack Dorsey was pretty eccentric too.
Here’s another EIS news article, 12th December:
“Pupils and Teachers Deserve Praise over CfE Achievement- But Schools Need More Help”
https://www.eis.org.uk/latest-news/cfe-achievement
for instance:
“The Scottish Government has previously pledged to employ 3,500 additional teachers to ease the load on over-burdened teachers, and to enhance the educational experience of pupils in our schools.
“We are still waiting for this to be delivered – and imagine how much more could be achieved if the Scottish Government keeps its promise.”
Sorry to spoil the unjustified rants about a union trying to do its job for its members – teachers – who are under severe pressure, with many leaving or wanting to leave, the profession.
I see you are simply transferring your comments from Prof Robertson’s site to this site. But you miss the point.
If Unions are simply highjacked for Labour Party purposes then it is useful for people who support independence to know that. The Labour party is a unionist “Better Together” party and will use any means necessary to derail the independence movement. Larry Flanagan has now been replaced by a new General Secretary. Does she have the interests of her members at heart or the interests of the Labour Party, which means the Union, and even her own prospective career interests
“I see you are simply transferring your comments from Prof Robertson’s site to this site.”
Other way around, check the timestamps. I generally avoid Robertson’s blag completely. I prefer sifi.
EIS represents the interests of its members. Ask ANY teacher. Same as Unison represents support workers (classroom assistants, “dinner ladies” as some call them, janitors, etc.).
This hatred of Labour is killing Independence, and the resulting transference onto unions if they dare to represent their members and ask for something towards the cost of inflation. Their members, demographically, were more YES then NO.
Luckily it isn’t mainstream as most of us actually know present day teachers, classroom assistants, police, railway workers, etc – all just as much affected as we are by Tory austerity and cutting of the public sector and hence block grant, while giving their pals tens and even hundreds of Billions of Pounds Sterling.
This hatred of Labour is killing Independence
Labour voters are moving to indy:
9% rise in 2023 amongst Labour 2021. They are also warming to Yousaf, which is understandable given English Labour’s swing to the hard right.
“Labour voters are moving to indy:”
Yes, yes they are.
Odd how the original point raised was that the Union in question seems to immediately come to the defence of it’s members skills, reputations and abilities when there is an SNPBAddd slant to put on it, and fails do do so when a unionist, union supporter or organisation denigrates it’s members.
And here you are raking the embers.
or Have I got it totally wrong ????
Alan Brown MP posts his questioning of Alister Jack in the Scottish Affairs Committee about the “most powerful devolved government in the world” claim which is patently rubbish. The NI assembly has more powers.
Also the claim that the Scottish government has a record settlement.
That was brilliant, pity it can’t be seen in the MSM
Not can’t, won’t…
How others see England. From Euronews.
https://archive.is/Z3lV3
Anguish grows over ‘effective ban’ on most UK citizens marrying foreign nationals
“The government is willing to sacrifice the rights of British citizens who happen to fall in love across borders,” one rights advocate told Euronews.
“The whole thing has made me incredibly angry,” said Katharine Ward. “These are the most private things in people’s lives: Who you love, where you live… Then you have a government announcement pop up that removes all of those things from your control.”
“There’s absolutely no justification for it.”
I think we can safely assume that all pro-unionist people in Scotland affected by this, and their close family members, will now be moving to independence.
It’s not just England deciding who pro-union Scots can practically fall in love with, but also England deciding this for the children / grandchildren of the parents / grandparents of those affected. Then there is it happening to the best friends of unionists…
Unionist family wedding plans will be being cancelled etc, and all thanks to ‘family of nations’ partner England.
I am truly left mystified why Sunak has (re)employed the man that single handedly lost the EU referendum, after leading Scotland from a ‘no hope’ 30% to a ‘damn near’ 45% Yes to indy in 2014.
With Cameron back to save the union, how can we possibly fail this time? His trying to stop world leaders talking to Yousaf using threats to harm Scottish unionist businesses, is right up there with the 2-3 points he cost No with his threats to take the pound away from unionists / No voters if Scots voted Yes last time.
I get him trying to threaten Yes voters, but threatening unionists is madness. England has lost the plot it seems.
And one more I missed out:
“Behaviour in Scottish Schools Data Confirms Rise in Violence in the Classroom”
https://www.eis.org.uk/latest-news/dataviolenceclassroom
for instance:
“A major national survey of Scotland’s schools, published last week by the EIS, indicated that 83% of schools report incidents of violence and aggression every single week. 72% of EIS school branches indicated that incidences of violence and aggression have grown over the past four years, compared to levels prior to the Covid pandemic.”
From people I know in primary schools, this includes chairs being thrown at teachers, spat at, kicked, including a pregnant teacher taken to hospital fairly recently after being kicked in the stomach by a P1 child. Luckily she is OK.
There aren’t enough teachers, there aren’t enough support assistants, but schools are now “inclusive”, and it’s very hard to exclude any children, including totally disruptive and aggressive ones.
What is the purpose of this forum?
Is it to support Independence, or is it to:
Hate Labour
Hate Unions
Hate teachers
Hate school assistants
Hate the polis
…
Hate anyone who dares to stand up for themselves or others?
Such hostile comments reduce the effectiveness of good articles. No wonder Indy is stuck at 50%.
FOCUS
Should Scotland be an Independent Country?
YES
Labour voters (2019 and 2021) are moving to indy strongly this year. It’s a consistent pattern across all polling.
I think you need to provide evidence people on here are ‘hating unions, hating teachers, hating school assistants, hating the polis’ or readers will think you a liar, making this up. If you want to read comments to the effect you suggest, you’d need to read BTL comments on the English Daily Mail, Sun etc. People posting here are all moderate centre to left / liberal / green generally.
There are protests on the streets UK-wide against the leadership of the labour party aiding and abetting genocide. This isn’t something confined to Scotland. Labour in Wales are crashing in the polls. Labour’s own are attacking them. Neil Findlay recently used language as strong as voiced on here about Starmer and he is Labour.
I personally back the Labour left’s position on most policy issues, but as I am not English nor British unionist, they can never be an option for me.
“What is the purpose of this forum?” – To get to the truth of the matters in hand, why do you ask ?
The TuS article you dismiss is but the latest in a string of such articles from various authors on the site tearing lumps out of the media campaign to portray Scots as educationally failing, having fallen behind from some golden age which never existed any more than PISA did, yet all you can pick up on is the EiS reference and spend 10 posts banging on a peripheral reference…
This has been your party piece at the merest mention of Unions
“Is it to support Independence, or is it to:
Hate Labour
Hate Unions
Hate teachers
Hate school assistants
Hate the polis
Hate anyone who dares to stand up for themselves or others?
Such hostile comments reduce the effectiveness of good articles. No wonder Indy is stuck at 50%.”
And you have the temerity to shout “FOCUS” at everybody else ?
FFS take those blinkers off and take that giant chip off your shoulder, you might enjoy the daylight, where the rest of us ARE very much focussed…
My apologies to the moderators who will almost certainly have to bin this.
Hit a nerve there did I, Bob from Romania?
I live here, have family here, have neighbours, friends, acquaintances, customers, suppliers. And being sociable in the real world, I talk with them (not TO them).
These attacks will not convert any undecideds or soft NOes, though they’ll give the actual Unionists like Allister Jack and David Cameron a good belly-shaking laugh.
I trust you don’t talk to your customers and suppliers the way you address people on this blog.
Nobody on here hates any of the people you mention so to imply that we do is disingenuous. It is very rude to fling false allegations around.
I come here to share information and discuss politics and most people do the same which is interesting and even enlightening at times.
“I come here to share information and discuss politics and most people do the same which is interesting and even enlightening at times.”
I would hope that most people come here to discuss Independence, and how to achieve Independence. And if there are atually any lurkers left, maybe to be persuaded to vote YES.
Bad-mouthing the SNP leadership is not allowed, but there’s also this:
“This is your reminder that the purpose of this blog is to promote Scottish independence. If the comment you want to make will not assist with that goal then don’t post it.”
Do you seriously think attacking trades unions is going to “promote Scottish Independence”?
No !
But highlighting duplicity might.
Does anyone here hate the teachers, classroom assistants or Unions? Or even the polis come to that.
Labour oppose the SNP as a point of “Weir” principle and the antipathy is reciprocated, although personally I distrust the Tories a lot more.
The two comments from Robertson’s blag before I commented:
First: “would you want these teachers teaching your weans?”
Second: “IF NOT WHY NOT
THEY WERE VERY HAPPY TO GRAB THE HIGHER PAY INCREASE TO SCOTS TEACHERS
NOW THEY SIT WITH BEGGING BOWL
WITHOUT ATTACKING UNIONISTS”
Doesn’t that make you feel proud and happy inside?
Who is this a quote from?
I try not to name people posting on other blogs. Right to privacy – and context. Actually the full quote is this:
“On the basis of your piece John, I would ask: would you want these teachers teaching your weans?
It used to be said that in Scottish Education, the bad teachers were nearly all identified early in their careers – and shunted off into promoted posts, where they couldn’t do much damage by actually trying to teach.”
Which is actually worse.
You can link to the post with the comment so folks can have a look.
I assume it was not made by some interweb random, but someone of real importance, hence you quoting it?
This seems to be the “offending” article https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2023/12/13/is-the-largest-teacher-union-not-defending-its-own-members-against-bbc-accusations-of-amateurism-as-attainment-climbs-and-gaps-narrow-under-snp-taking-one-for-the-team-labour
There are 8 comments to the article, 3 of which are not from yesindyref2 which narrows down your search…
A yes, the post was made by someone nobody has ever heard of before anonymously on the interweb.
‘socratesmacsporran’
This person is the indy movement, and reflects posters on another blog! Facepalm.
Incidentally, if was a unionst, I’d adopt a name like this. ‘Mchaggis’, ‘tartanmcscot’ ‘staunchscot’ etc ‘cos that’s what the Scotch do right?’.
You miss the point –
By omitting “On the basis of your piece John, I would ask: ” the context was lost, which was exampled from MSM Monitor as “Kerr didn’t name the expert, nor did he include any response from teachers’ representatives.”
This was never about bashing Unions or hating anyone, it was about a scurrilous BBC led propaganda campaign over Scottish education, and lack of pushback.
Fair enough. I was just focussed on the comment and whether it was just from a random, which it was.
Ehm, not “a random”, actually quite familiar if you look for the Avatar on here… 😉
Aye, but wir aw randoms. I can safely say I neither speak for nor represent the indy movement in any way. I only speak for me; one voice in 5.4 million. I could even be a secret unionist! Such is the nature of the interweb. 🙂 Quoting BTL comments and berating the indy movement for them is once of the most nonsense things I’ve seen. It’s straight from the British nationalist handbook.
I’m begging you to stop saying interweb
I am definitely going to keep using the term then. 🙂
I was a member of a union for 23 years. I just left it as it was UCU, and I am no longer working for a university.
I would not have joined it if it was biased towards (‘affiliated with’) a political party. A union that promotes a particular party has a party political agenda, which will be reflected in what it does and how it favours the interests of some members over others, even if indirectly. I’d not wish to join a union that did not treat all members equally, especially as being a member costs money.
I thought you were talking about us. I haven’t read the blog you are talking about so can’t comment. However, you will see and hear comments like that from all political stripes, including Labour voters, and none. We live in an age where the likes of Gove tell us to ignore the experts.
Decent fella IMO, even though I cannot understand why he wants his country ruled by another.
But credit to him for supporting self-determination for all the home nations.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-67702232
Wales’ First Minister Mark Drakeford resigns
Suspect Sir Kid Starver (clue in his title) has told MD to go now if he wants a peerage, so that SKS can install a place’person’ in Wales, as he did in Scotland.
Look out for this one.
This was a puff piece written by a London-based hackette who knows nothing about Wales (what’s new?) before MD resigned. There’s barely a mention of Drakeford in the piece, and Gething had ‘a bad Covid’ as Health Minister, but this is glossed over.
The piece – despite it’s imploring you not to consider ‘the Black angle’ does nothing but present Gething in that light. Those of us in the know would suggest that Gething is highly-ambitious and would be ‘Starmer lite’ in Cymru. Not exactly what the country wants …
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/31/vaughan-gething-on-winning-votes-for-welsh-labour
I think you’ve picked the likely new leader who looks like a Starmer man. He’s announced he’s standing anyway.
https://nation.cymru/news/vaughan-gething-announces-welsh-labour-leadership-bid/
That was my initial point.
However, see the comments below the line in the article you reference. Perhaps he can destroy Labour from the inside and thereby Plaid will make in-roads. But plenty of time yet til Easter ’24 …
Less of this “you’ve picked”, though! I have *nothing* to do with the Labour Party, UK-wise or their pale shadow and imitators in Cymru or Scotland!
Anyways, for those with an interest in law and Constitutionality:
https://www.thenational.scot/news/23987547.top-scots-lawyer-rebukes-spectator-writer-joanna-cherry-claim/
“The post attracted the attention of Roddy Dunlop, a senior KC and the dean of the Faculty of Advocates in Scotland, who branded Barrett’s comments “nonsense”.”
Jings, Scots Law is starting the fightback. The dean no less.
A single word is the only response necessary to remind arrogant Anglos is ‘ Lockerbie ‘
Golfnut
Posted without comment.
You got there before me
Humza Yousaf doesn’t need to explain why he doesn’t want folk to die on any side, it’s self explanatory
Imagine getting paid six figures by the public to get drunk and post a bit of staunchery a few times a week, that’s literally your whole job and no one in the world can sack you. What a fantastic racket
I see Labour’s Lord Ffoukesake is in trouble *again* for his bigoted racist views of not only Humza Yousaf but his wife too
And Scotland’s compliant Brit/English media say nothing because their guardianship of Scottish voters truth and justice only applies to the ones that vote the right way
I had a look on Foulkes site to see the post above but couldn’t find it. Perhaps he sobered up and deleted it?
But dearie me, what a cesspit his X timeline is. He even reposts the notorious Bill Browder and seems to be in some sort plot to overthrow the President of Belarus in the interests of freedom and democracy. I think the booze may have addled the brain, or are they all swivel eyed loonies in the HoL?
He’s deleted it without apology, the sobering up part’s never gonna happen
people of Scotland of all political colours must put their differences aside and come together to first win Indy, then we can decide what direction the country should go.
To argue otherwise is putting the cart before the horse and is plainly mischief making.
The newly elected Chairman of the BBC, Samir Shah was “interviewed” today by SNP MP John Nicolson in his role as a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee at Westminster. He should have failed the interview in my opinion but as he was the only candidate…
Dr Shah is very much a political appointment and John Nicolson makes that clear towards the end of the clip, he says, “this interview is, really, ultimately a bit of a farce isn’t it. Because we can’t stop you getting this job, you’ve got it already…”
This is well worth a watch just to learn a bit more about the new chair of the BBC, who I saw as being nothing more than another weasel and Tory placeman who will do his masters bidding to have the BBC continue to spout their propaganda on behalf of a failing government.
https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/991419b8-de06-4ae4-a9b0-c9c79ed29168?in=11:19:27
I just find it amusing that the famous BBC even needs a chairman to decide policy when they claim to be absolutely impartial about everything
Isn’t impartiality supposed to be the actual single policy?
And there’s been some blowback from the BBC it seems.
Shah is indeed the latest Tory placeman…
The BBC has been losing credibility as an impartial broadcaster for some time in England, although it’s nowhere near the disdain BBC Scotland attracts…, yet…
The London mafia will not relinquish control no matter who is put in charge, the organisation is too valuable to them…
Robbie Gibb … He wouldn’t happen to be the same Robbie Gibb who is the brother of former UK Schools Minister, Nick Gibb, in the Conservative Government, would it?
Shurely shome coincednsh?
And no, I don’t think the BeeGees are involved in this …
Reasons why Scottish VI polling is plain garbage right now #50.
As I’ve been saying, the Labour vote is falling in all its traditional bases. That Wales data doesn’t even include the latest Yougov, where their vote is down 8% on the last survey.
If this is happening in Wales and London, it’s happening here too. But we see it as more of a stall after the previous rise in Scotland due to the very low response rates amongst SNP/Yes voters right now.
I note the swing is mainly Lab to con, which is what will have Starmer ordering a load of ‘stop the boats’ and ‘British spouses for British workers’ mugs for the coming campaign trail.
English labour making its newest attack on Scottish Labour.
https://archive.is/rliNC
Labour would not repeal gender reform Section 35 block, MP says
SHADOW Scotland minister Michael Shanks has indicated a future Labour government would not repeal the Section 35 order blocking the gender reform bill – even though his party backed the legislation at Holyrood.
Vote Scottish Labour, get English Tory.
Devo was the baby of Scottish Labour. The Tories didn’t want it and still don’t. The same for the SNP; they want indy not devo, but will just take Labour’s devo off them – as they’ll do with Labour’s coveted seats in the English parliament – meantime.
Donald Dewar, who was an actual Scottish unionist, wanted it for Scotland. He came back to Scotland to be part of it. Now Starmer is joining the Tories in a full on assault on it and Scottish unionism. Amusingly, all on the back of wholly unreliable polling data. But that’s what you get for being a weather vane, where your policies are based on polling and not principles.
I suspect folks are going to be very surprised at how fast we will go from seemingly on the back foot, to suddenly in the position where support for the union has clearly collapsed, and irrevocably.
The incorrect polling is actually helping us. It’s giving England a false sense of security, causing it to arrogantly do enormous damage to the union in the false belief it’s winning. This is pushing Scottish unionists to the SNP and independence. What’s ironic, is that polling shows this if you just take the time to scratch beneath the surface.
The problem for Starmer’s Labour is clearly a shortage of Union Flags at their pressers and speeches .
At the most recent Labour propaganda events it has been evident that they are NOT displaying enough Red White and Blue in the background . So much so that viewers could easily think that they were watching a Tory broadcast rather than Starmer’s born-again Little-Englander Labour Party .
For want of a flag ( or ten ) the election may be lost !
For SS.
25% were undecided.
twitter.com/TRalphT/status/1735213347560149450?t=8PjS0tuXDlyN7PKvw4YmYw&s=19&fbclid=IwAR3Cw00u04oaMOOqlVniBY80RSpadnCoDuEmIpv3Z7H85WjTLMVh26zyF0w
Golfnut
Ha ha we could do with more of these polls 🙂
The London establishment are now openly pushing the narrative that Scotland ceased to exist after 1707 and that the UK is a single nation country.
During the 2014 referendum the UK establishment called this state,Greater England.
I don’t understand how the terms “union or unionist” can therefore be used since according to their masters in London,there is no such thing.
Well they’re not often right but they’re wrong again.
Don’t forget that London is a very remote place and news travels slowly to those benighted shores.
Four great nations, our precious union, north of the border, one nation, the whole country
These are people that think Darlington is in Scotland and Edinburgh’s in the North of Scotland
They couldnae find their own arses wae a torch and a map
SNP give Penny Mordaunt more rope to hang the Tories in her latest House of Commons rant
It’s odd how some of the readers comments in the National haven’t grasped any understanding of how politics works
You can’t make people in the English parliament stop saying whatever they like about Scotland and it’s people, but you can encourage them to go too far, and that’s how politics works, when the public see and hear it for themselves
Penny Mordaunt for PM
A link to the above:
https://nation.cymru/news/penny-mordaunt-launches-christmas-themed-attacks-on-welsh-and-scottish-governments/
Wiki’s latest updates has Labour continuing to show labour on the way down, with this seemingly accelerating.
Barely 3 points above where they were pre-mini budget. Lost almost 10 points since their spike from that.
Time for the anti-immigrant mugs and another attack on devolution Sir Kid Starver. Try to get those right wingers back on board.
David Cameron’s back, the Tories are going to win in England because that’s what England wants
Even if Labour got the above, that would be a huge rejection of their rule, with them having no democratic mandate.
In Scotland, super optimistically for Starmer, they are looking at 70% opposing Labour rule from England.
The National is reporting the discovery by Edinburgh scientists of a new substance supposedly harder than diamond .
The Labour Party have denied that Sir Kid Starver’s neck was the basis of their research
Is it not Begbie?
A post by Jamie Hepburn on how Britain isn’t working for Scotland with the average worker £10,000 worse of since 2008. The btl comments are pretty venomous which is why I didn’t post it earlier. However, the Resolution Foundation findings seem so stark it is probably worth looking into.
Scotland raises £87Billion in tax revenues. Spends £54Billion. Westminster spends the rest. The UK raise £731Billion. Spends £1090Billion. Scotland does not get £109Billion for parity. The rest of the UK borrows and spends £100Billion more. Pro rata for parity Scotland should be getting £10Billion more.
Westminster spends £150Billion on the NHS. Not increasing it since 2015. Westminster spent £270Billion funding Covid. Scotland did not get £27Billion for parity.
The lies about Scottish education continue. The ConDems cut education £6Billion a year from 2015. £48Billion. The Scottish Gov have to mitigate the cuts. The highest number in the world pro rata go to university in Scotland. 30% from school. 25% mature students. 7% EU student was 15% before Brexit. Foreign students paying the full cost. 15 universities 5.4 million pop. The highest ration in the world. Colleges and apprenticeships. Canada is next 56%.
The unionist councils waste £Billion on project of no value, instead of essential services. Shops and offices lying empty but building more. Instead of building affirdabke houses and schools etc.
Scotland get lower wages but accommodation costs are less than London S/E and the south. Leaves the same disposable income. Westminster is taking monies from Scotland and wasting it. £Billions wasted on HS2, Hickley Point, Trident, illegal wars etc. Scotlands funds are wasted on things Scotland does not need and not spent on the things that are needed.
Westminster corruption and mismanagement. Brexit has cost Scotland £Billions and put up the cost of living. Electricity is half the cost in Spain. Spanish/foreign companies make excess profits in the UK. Scotland 25% in surplus and nearest the source pays more than parity because of Westminster policies.
Don’t leave the UK, lead the UK, said Lord David piggy poker Cameron on the day before the Scottish referendum, then the next day he said, what was it again?
No wonder Sir Kier Starmer loves this guy, and the Baroness Thatcher woman, and the Tony Blair guy, they’re all the same person in different bodies
Poor Things ?
“Alister Jack’s gender reform block was no attack on devolution”
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/23991131.alister-jacks-gender-reform-block-no-attack-devolution/
By Joanna Cherry, for instance:
“Yes, there was scope for exploring the limits of the Section 35 power, but Lady Haldane has done that and found that the veto was clearly within the power afforded.”
I give up.
What’s the fecking point when the YES movement is so divided and so corrupt and so fecking stupid that people like Cherry, who I mostly respect, can be so naively and so gullibly, bought and sold by Westminster’s gold – if it does one single thing they want it to do? Baroness single policy Cherry. Feck Indy.
It’s the Parade of the Clowns and the union circus will be in town for the next fecking 316 years – and the next 316 years and the fecking next.
Joanna Cherry sets out her view on S35 and the GRR Bill and why it is devolution that is the issue.
Alister Jack’s gender reform block was no attack on devolution
https://archive.is/dccf0
Technically correct, but at the same time something of a false narrative, at least in the headline.
It wasn’t an attack on devo as it was absolutely by the devo rule book. It was however, without doubt, an attack on Scottish people and their country, as cherry somewhat alludes to. Ironically, the Scots hurt most by it were Scottish unionists, particularly the Scottish Lib Dems and Labour, and devo is their baby, so….
The Section 35 is a boost to the SNP / Yes, which is why we are seeing Yes rising in response along with Yousaf’s popularity + SNP VI, and that’s amongst more unionist Scots who are mainly responding right now. The S35 was a follow up attack to the trial by media of Sturgeon and the English supreme court overturning the 2021 election. Another battering for Scottish unionism.
Which is why Cherry is talking guff about the issue being a key deciding factor re which party people vote for, unless she she means it’s making people more SNP/Yes, which is what the polling says! The only way to vote against the principles of GRR is to vote Conservative, as Scottish Labour and the Libs both support it. The Tories are languishing in the polls across the UK, with Scotland not excluded. Having turned against GRR as part of its move right, copying the Tories doing this (May’s administration backed it), support for Labour is also falling UK wide, crashing in it’s key strongholds of London and Wales.
In Scotland, even with the lack of SNP voters responding, it is the SNP + Green + Yes shares which are edging up, while anti-GRR party vote (English Lab/Con) has stalled or is falling.
Yes and it is her view not the view of many people in Scotland including many women like me. I am so glad she is not my Mp becususe to be honest there is no way I could vote for such a self involved, uncompromising person. If the Snp hold on to her seat at the GE it will be a miracle
According to Scott Arthur, Joanna Cherry’s seat is the only one in Edinburgh that Labour think they won’t win. Of course, Scott Arthur is an idiot but numbers are numbers.
Such polls are totally pointless right now as they cannot be accurate. The CTV rates are just far too low; the only logical explanation for which is low response rates from people who regularly vote SNP and intend to do so again.
Labour are losing support across the UK, even in their traditional bases of Wales and London. There has been no swing from the SNP to them at all. That much is as clear as day in polls. Labour gained from the Tories due to the mini budget, but have been stuck since, with any rise due to the SNP loss simply an artefact of sampling error. 25% Scotland-wide if they are lucky. Unionists just can’t get over 30 these days, not when you have 3 parties fighting over at most (and likely notably less) 50% of the vote.
Knocking doors and asking is a much more reliable measure.
But this is working very well in our favour, as it’s led England to think that punching Scots in the face, including unionists (e.g. opposing iref2, GRR, Gaza, now telling them who they/friends/family are allowed to marry), is helping save the union. It’s really amusing. But then how could the likes of Starmer understand this? He is a foreigner with almost no understanding of Scotland at all, other than what he is told by people who self-id as British, so are also foreign to most Scots, who don’t. Is like expecting the DUP to see things from the perspective of Irish republican voters. Ain’t going to happen. They literally are from different countries, even though they live alongside each other.
Starmer needs to listen to the Scottish unionists in his party as they are actually Scottish, but he’s not. He’s listening to the British nationalists from Scotland, which are not the same thing.
Well the good news is that, while my we bro’s wife does not have her permanent leave to remain (another 1.5 years to go), seems they do meet the criteria for not having England send a van round to arrest and deport her. From where they live in Scotland.
Others will not be so lucky.
But the fear remains with her, as the rules can be changed overnight, just as they have been all of a sudden. In time, she will seek to pay through the nose for scummy piece of crap black British Reich passport just as Mrs SS did, all so she can sleep at night without the fear of the read, white and black armband wearing English border force heavies turning up at the door.
Which absolutely happens, and Scots have to protest to try and stop their own being taken away.
For contrast, Richard Walker takes the opposite view i.e. that we should be very active in opposing Alister Jack’s S35 move. He thinks we can “make them believe” we need more powers. I don’t believe we can make other people believe anything, which is at the heart of this problem.
Failure to defend devolution moves independence further away
https://archive.is/Wr48I
Apathy, Scotland’s people won’t back up their own government even though they vote for them
300 years of lack of expectation crushes the human spirit into the acceptance of defeat
It’s odd how the most rabid and vocal defenders of the union in Scotland Glasgow Rangers FC banned the BBC from their premises for years, supporters despise them as untrustworthy liars that misrepresent reporting on their club describing the BBC as blatant liars, yet fight tooth and nail to keep the BBCs influence as the British state broadcaster in control over Scotland’s media pumping out those same lies and distortions to everyone else
Being a British unionist to some is more important than anything else no matter what happens to Scotland as the result of it
We all have the power to ban the BBC from our homes even though our government has no power to ban them from our country
The excuse that the BBC is not all bad is poor cowardly and the excuse of an addictive personality, it’s like saying most of your fish is bad but some is OK so keep eating it in the hope of not being poisoned because you really want a piece of fish
Why are most of the people you hear on the news being street interviewed by the media not Scottish sounding? because hundreds of Scots walk right past the media interviewers many with their middle finger extended and many with a word or three’s opinion of them spat out at them, until the media find the usual unsuspecting foreign or compliant unionists willing to be on *the news* where we are
If the media in Scotland was a man in a pub, that man would be spending most of his time in hospital with a view to never visiting another pub because no one would ever get tired of punching him
Prof Robertson on the ball again – the BBC’s top story for Scotland this morning is about a toddler who escaped nursery and made his way home. Shock!
My ribs hurt! BBC Scotland blames SNP’s best childcare provision in the UK for toddler escape!
talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2023/12/15/my-ribs-hurt-bbc-scotland-blames-snps-best-childcare-provision-in-the-uk-for-toddler-escape/
I removed the https:// to see if that will stop embeds. If not – apologies. But it is worth a read for the entertainment value
Only a majority of over 65’s do not support Independence. So it will come if people go out and vote for it. Unless everyone changes their mind when they get over 65
Tories in Edinburgh could be voting for Labour. Still plenty of people to vote SNP. Labour might go up but Tories will go down. Similar result. Polls are often wrong especially in tight margins.
The Tories cannot do anything. They will be out of power. Labour will muck up again if they do not meet people’s demands. SNP could hold the balance of power. A hung Westminster Parliament. Anything could happen. Not all negative.
I can’t comment on the National or years now as I’m not going to pay an online fee to post, but this pretty well from btl is what I would have wanted to say on that single issue piece by Cherry.
“A somewhat dishonest and misleading piece from Joanna, cleverly written, as anyone might expect, from someone of her talent and legal background. The essence of the ruling did indeed focus on the actual effect of the legislation and the change to any wording of the EA, however minor that may be, (the insertion of the words full gender recognition certificate) does she ruled, represent a modification. Such change of wording was assessed by ScotGov and others to be so minor in its impact as to render it a non-contentious point. The degree of the impact was not considered in the Appeal process. And that pretty much encapsulates the ruling. The rest of Joanna’s piece about validating anyone’s position on either side, is more of a clever construction, NOT borne out by the actual judgement. There was NO assessment of the merits of the legislation or its wider impact on any group and that is where the dishonesty creeps in. Disappointing – but not entirely unexpected. What Joanna chooses to ignore, and the disappointment ramps up, is that such changes to Westminster legislation have in the past been numerous, and dealt with co-operatively, via Statutory Instruments. Sadly, in this case, it has all the hallmarks of simple policy disagreement and poor timing, with the unionist media exploiting and deliberately conflating various stories of the time, all used as a hammer to attack the Scottish Government for daring to be SNP and for introducing cross party legislation common across much of Europe, ahead of similar legislation promised by the Tories at Westminster, in their last manifesto. (Never to be heard of again, this session, you can be guaranteed.) Few will be encouraged by the unionist media to remember the Holyrood legislation was in fact supported by the votes of Tory, Labour, LibDem, Green and SNP MSP’s and others. It should be remembered as the worst ever example of media hi-jacking for purely political reasons, in Holyrood’s short history. And Jack’s S35 Order, was simply another part of that same attack, building on the unionist media’s gross misrepresentation of the legislation. That all of the other opportunities in Holyrood’s history flew by and ONLY this legislation merited his S35 intervention as a safeguard is the REAL deception and deserves to be explored on Appeal. It was not the only option open to him and that he exercised it, in these circumstances was clearly a simple policy choice. But an opportunity that could not be missed, to undermine political opponents, with whom they are silently at war.”
It doesn’t mention that Westminster knows of the divides and is gleefully exploiting that divide to weaken the YES movement, whatever our actual views on the GRRB. And taking advantage of people who are against it – including those of us like me that have many reservations about it, despite the overall merits of overhauling the out of date 2004 GRA Act.
Note also the National and the Herald still allow upvote – refresh – upvote – refresh so that the SNP haters can totally fake the support for any comment. They, probably do it in 4 tabs, it’s sometimes faster.
What should always be remembered, but is rarely if ever mentioned, is that the move to reform the GRA ’04 act was recommended by a HoC Committee after it held an inquiry into the Act and specifically into the process which people had to go through to get a GRC. The Committee recommended reform of the process and one of the processes they recommended was Self-ID.
And then the right-wing fascists who don’t believe in human rights won the 2019 election in England…
Nice to see the media being found guilty of being liars and frauds once again
Prince Harry, no matter what anybody thinks or cares about him has done us all a favour by winning his case against big news
Be in no doubt this latest case is not just about the Mirror group, it’s all of them
Folk can’t seem to grasp that newspapers are a business, they’re not about the facts and truth about news, they are purveyors of salacious flavoured candy bars with the coloured wrappings of banner headlines on how tasty their particular brand of sugar coated candy is
A high percentage of what they print are the exaggerated extreme views of the few flavoured to entice the purchaser into indulging themselves in the sweetness of their product
Newspapers are written and commented on by the same people that infest the internet, that’s you and me and the guy next door who spend unnatural amounts of our time doing what I’m doing right now, and we are not average people, we are interested activist parties with strong views on what we want, whereas most normal people show selfies and pictures of their dinners on facebook to their pals
Journalists are just the same people, but with one major difference, it’s their job and they need the money, we don’t
Until we put the media out of business until something new resembling truthful journalism can be found to take its place, every time we buy a newspaper we fund the next set of liars
We need journalism, but we don’t need what we currently have, it’s a poison in our society just as surely as any harmful drug
The media in Britain is a reflection of Empire England and its Royal political greed structure, and right now all of it is fighting for our money for its own survival
The age old question of who can you trust is easy to answer, nobody, the media exists to sell you what they engineer you into thinking you want
“I’m a citizen get me out of here”, as the media only show the clips of what they believe will stimulate the result they desire, and in the end not one of us will win a prize will we
We just stupidly pay them to sell it to us, we are the punters, the sheeple, the geese, they take our bets then fleece us and eat us
Couldn’t agree more.
Would have been good to have the threesome flourish at they end:
“… they take our bets, then fleece us, stuff us and eat us.”
Have a nice weekend!
Westminster will have to bring in gender reform under International Law. Labour supports it.
Which Labour is that? certainly not the English Labour party that has branches in Scotland and Wales, because that particular party has now disbanded to form the Starmer party of Populism for England and English voters, or PEE for short
Thatcher gave the Press over to the right wing. Murdoch. Then denied interfering.
The Saudis are trying to buy the Telegraph. Non Dom tax evading owners. Leveson not implemented.
Illegal hacking, surveillance, bribing public officials. Criminal press behaviour.
The British media, the only political party that can’t be voted out and still keeps hold of all the power
If they were a guy in a pub you’d punch their lights out for being a trouble making wee snide
It’s so funny this talk of a 1997 moment again with Labour about to take back Scotland.
That’s for the birds. Nonsense talk. But let them think it, for we should never interrupt the enemy when they are making a prize arrogant racist ass of themselves.
https://archive.is/JaVPV
Labour councillors resign over ‘right-wing rhetoric’ and ‘mirroring’ of Tories
SEVERAL Labour councillors have resigned their whip over the party’s increasingly “right-wing rhetoric”, spelling more trouble for Keir Starmer.
Six councillors from Hastings Borough Council, including the council’s leader and deputy leader, announced their resignations from the Labour Party on Friday to form an independent group, saying Labour “no longer provides us with the policies, the support or the focus on local government that we need”.
The councillors cited the Labour Party’s policy on Gaza, a lack of support for workers, and the party’s increasing use of right-wing rhetoric, as reasons for leaving.
Hilarious the red Tories are revolting LOL
This is what happens when you deliberately target innocent civilians in a ethno-religious genocidal massacre.
https://archive.is/6i9g9
Israel hostages: IDF says it mistakenly killed three men held in Gaza
The Israeli military says it has mistakenly killed three hostages during its campaign in Gaza after they were mis-identified as a “threat”.
They were named as Yotam Haim, 28, Samer Talalka, 22, and Alon Shamriz, 26.
The military shared its remorse and said the three were shot by troops operating in Shejaiya, in Gaza’s north.~
Slowest of slow claps for the IDF.
Now up to their armpits in blood, including that of ‘their own’.
I will leave the Welsh contingent to comment, but I read this as English Labour seeing a decent enough man who supported democracy as ‘toxic’.
https://archive.is/0sCBS
A warning to anyone’ England’s newspapers slate Welsh FM’s Mark Drakeford’s time in power
“It seems pretty obvious that the English party leadership sees Mark as toxic due to his respect for democracy, and has asked him to step aside”
If he hadn’t resigned he’d get a polis tent in his garden, and if he says anything about Starmer he’ll get a polis tent in his garden
It’s how they do their business in the big London
I think we’ve all seen this in a Scottish context, too:
If you are despised by those within the great orbital that is the Imperial capital, you must be doing something right (and ruffling their feathers, too). Otherwise, ‘the territories’ are often as not ignored.
A decent enough man, who like all of us can make and did make mistakes. But, hell, he did his best for his country, and that at a time of great national emergency – and isolated himself in his shed when other ‘leaders’ partied at Downing Street.
He is not of my political party but I wish Mark Drakeford well in his retirement, the muted joys of Christmas (his first without his wife) and a Happy New Year.
Word is Ian Murray is moving to London if the SNP increase taxes on the wealthy.
Let’s hope this is true.
Very sensible indeed, a couple of pence in the £ in Scotland far outweighs the £ million quid it’ll cost him to buy a room and kitchen in that big London to fit his family and his wee petted lip into
Seems the IDF shot the three Israeli hostages even though they were waving a white flag.
Must have mistaken them for innocent Palestinian civilians.
The evidence continues to mount. Labour are continuing to fall back. Starmer needs to get tougher on immigrants, refugees, Palestinians, people on low incomes, Scottish unionists, trans folks etc.
https://archive.is/wip/mFTAH
Labour lead slips to 13 points in poll that shows NHS is voters’ main priority
Labour’s lead over the Conservatives is now at 13 points, the lowest since before the party conferences, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer.
Both Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak’s approval ratings have stayed steady since they both saw a big hit to their ratings last week. Starmer’s net approval is now -9, while Sunak’s net approval is now -29, a 3-point increase from a week ago.
Another factor backing up my polling theories is Wales moving towards indy as it moves away from Labour.
https://www.whatscotlandthinks.org/gb_questions/how-would-you-vote-in-a-referendum-on-whether-wales-should-be-an-independent-co/?removed
2023 (Jul-Dec) 35%
2023 (Jan-Jun) 31%
2022 (Jan-Dec) 31%
Was just 20% back pre-brexit. But this year is showing a stead rise over the second half from both regular pollsters. Ties in with declining support for Labour over the same period.
That backs up Yes rising in Scotland over the same time-frame and makes Labour’s reasonable showing in polls here look even more like Scotch mist.
English Spectator does seem to have taken a shine to Forbes.
https://archive.is/TVheY
Is Kate Forbes Scotland’s answer to Giorgia Meloni?
Of course, migration is less of an issue in Scotland, not least because there are so few migrants…
No, it’s because Scotland has a lot less racists than England. 16.7% of Scotland’s population were immigrants (non-Scots born) in 2011. This was higher than England at 16.5%. It would be expected to be closer to 20% now in Scotland, what with the influx of EU refugees and English people fleeing brexit England. No Scottish parties are suggesting to ‘build a wall’ at Gretna, certainly not the pro-indy ones. Calls to ‘rebuild Hadrian’s wall’ come from south of the border.
Interestingly, the Spectator goes on to suggest that people have to be ‘non-white’ to count as migrants, presumably because it is actually aware that Scotland has had ‘mass, uncontrolled, immigration’ from England, given this is right there in the census data, which the author will have looked at for his ethnicity data. This if course means it is now suggesting the vast majority of people who came to the UK from the EU do not now count as migrants, when previously they did. I mean what is the most common skin colour in the EU?
Racists always tie themselves in knots like this because their views are not factual nor evidence based, but just lies based on hatred of others.
This is a very unsubtle attempt to smear Kate Forbes.
Firstly, you mention the “English Spectator” but omit that it is the Scottish journalist Iain Macwhirter who wrote this article. He is clearly trying to smear Kate Forbes and the SNP at the same time.
But Kate Forbes is clearly more popular with Scottish voters than Humza Yousaf and may still become the SNP leader should a future leadership contest be held. This is a prospect which frightens Iain Macwhirter hence his hit piece:
So yes, well worth reading with a critical eye for the obvious anxieties of a duplicitous unionist political hack.
https://archive.is/TVheY
McWhirter lost the plot ages ago.
This is a very unsubtle attempt to smear Kate Forbes.
No, your post was an attempt to smear me. Forbes supports some stuff that the Spectator does, so it will latch on to that in the hope of stoking division. She holds conservative views in some areas, and conservative media outlets will laud these. I actually voted for her in the leadership contest, ranking her second. I think in the end I made the right decision to do that, putting Yousaf first. I need to know an FM does not bring their personal religion into the chamber. Yousaf leaves his at home, Forbes it seems cannot. I can only vote for secular politicians who believe in equal rights for all, who offer evidence based policy (e.g. the BMA recommending self-id for trans). Forbes said she’d have voted to stop a family member of mine marrying (who died of cancer just after the marriage) if she’d been given the chance, so that was that for me. Forbes thinks it’s about her, Yousaf thinks its about all Scots.
Other than that, my post was all about the racism of the Spectator. Pretty obviously given 95% of the text in said post was talking about the language used and approved by the editor.
Is MacWhirter Scottish? If we have a statement he self-ids as that as opposed to British in whole or in part, I’d be interested to see that. Him writing for the Spectator indicates British hard right-wing identification, and he’s clearly racist, just as I said in my post. If he thinks English people are not immigrants in Scotland, but people with a different skin colour are, what more evidence do we need?
What “stuff” that the Spectator “does” does Forbes support?
Kate Forbes didn’t write that article. Iain Macwhirter wrote it and it reflects the editorial policy of the Spectator which has been obvious since at least 2014 when Alan Massie wrote similar rubbish about Scottish people.
Either you are implying guilt by association or you are unaware of the devious tactics of the right wing press. Even Macwhirter acknowledges that Kate Forbes would be horrified to be put the same class as the Brothers of Italy.
This has to be one of the most hypocritical statements ever uttered by any politician.
The words come from a statement issued jointly by David Cameron and his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock calling for a “sustainable ceasefire” in Gaza.
No longer are the Tory government seeking “humanitarian pauses” that was the old policy and it has been replaced by these new weasel words “sustainable ceasefire”.
Note they claim that is not the same as an “immediate ceasefire” oh no, they are definitely NOT asking for that as they make clear in the statement.
There have been more than 18,000 civilians killed in Gaza already how many more thousands will die before this “sustainable ceasefire” is enacted? This is why they are hypocrites their hearts do not break when seeing “children in the rubble of their destroyed homes, not knowing where to find food or water”
https://archive.ph/ovgUz
Tories do not have a heart,only a cash register.
With Israel’s long history of an Arm for an Eye and a Leg for a Tooth response,the question must be why did Hamas launch their attack?
They must have known how the Israelis would react.
Perhaps this was part of their planning but either way a complete disregard for the well being of Palestinians.
This does not excuse the brutality of the Israeli state but nontheless was predictable.
Both Hamas and Netanyahu’s government are flipsides of same coin who dont care about their civilian population.
The only solution to this is a 2 state one where both sides recognise each others right to exist as a state with no future hostilities.
Hamas dont want that and neither does Netanyahu.
Obviously all of the Palestinians must die or flee to Egypt. Netanyahu has admitted he has no intention of implementing the “two state solution” and neither does anyone else in Washington, London, Berlin or Paris. Genocide is being perpetrated and the whole world watches in horror.
The US could stop the slaughter with one phone call. They have two battle groups in the East Mediterranean and a nuclear submarine in the Persian Gulf. But they are there to threaten Lebanon and Iran, not to force Israel to obey international law. Besides, the US and UK are still selling bombs to Israel which are being dropped on Gaza (and Syria and Lebanon). Why interrupt a lucrative trade?
Anyone watch Baroness Moan of Raking in the Shekels on TV this morning? I didn’t as was hoping someone else could give a precis …
Otherwise, I’m happy to leave this here:
https://nation.cymru/news/baroness-mone-said-she-stands-to-benefit-from-ppe-contract/
Baroness Mone said she stands to benefit from PPE contract
17 Dec 2023 3 minute read
Baroness Michelle Mone has said she stands to benefit from a contract between the Government and PPE firm Medpro in her first major broadcast interview since the scandal emerged.
The Conservative peer and Ultimo bra tycoon faced questions over the controversy surrounding “VIP lane” contracts during the coronavirus pandemic when she appeared on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme on Sunday.
It comes after she conceded she made an “error” in publicly denying her links to the firm, which is being investigated by the National Crime Agency (NCA).
[…]
Life’s too short – but as someone pointed out on X, how many other people currently under investigation for corruption and fraud get a platform on the BBC to set out their case?
Just the Tory ones. The BBC is a Tory channel.
THIS during a live investigation….
I saw part of it on the News Channel. From what I saw both Mone and her husband were being delusional about what not telling the media the truth means ,and often were wittering on about how their family have suffered because of press intrusion re their involvement about PPE contract. She said more than once that not telling the press the truth was not a crime. In other words she lied but that is not criminal. I think I would sum up what they said in the interview as Disingenuous .
I would sum up what they said as ”complete SH*TE !”
The last 3 GE’s actually show quite nice apparent linear correlation between the share of the vote going to Con + Lab in Scotland vs England.
When the big two take a large share of the vote in England, they have done so in Scotland too. This is because in Scotland, unionist voters tend to behave like voters in the rest of the UK, so mirror their behaviour. When folks in England drift away from the big two, so unionists in Scotland do.
Year & Con+Lab share in Scotland vs UK:
2019 43.7 vs 75.7
2017 55.7 vs 82.3
2015 39.2 vs 67.2
CL Scotland = 1.065*CL England -33.73
R2 = 0.89
Based on Labour polling 43% and con 25% right now UK-wide, that corresponds to a Labour + Con combined share in Scotland of 39% on the day.
Splitting that proportionally based on current Con to Lab ratio in Scottish polling, you have:
12.4% Con
26.3% Lab
There is likewise a corresponding correlation between Lib in England and Lib in Scotland. it suggests 9.2% Lib, so like 2019, but down a bit. This would give 47.9% for the main UK three here.
Which are very sensible numbers for Labour having taken much of the con ‘save the union’ vote. I’d put a lot of money on this being more the reality if pollsters were getting more reliable samples.
The results of the Scottish sub-sample from todays Opinium poll for the Observer are:
14% Con
26% Lab
10% Lib
That’s very close to your figures, others are 39% SNP, 3% Green, 5% Reform and 4% Other.
Yes, that would seem more sensible. The smaller parties will not get those shares though. This happens as a result of prompting for them on the initial prompt.
We’ve not had Scottish poll since late November, so it’s not possible to see the effect of Starmer’s stance on Gaza yet. It does seem to be hurting Labour UK-wide, notably in their traditional bases of Wales and London. It’s not just about his anti-ceasefire stance, but because this prominent story will have people paying more attention to him and what else he’s doing. They then read about lefties in his party resigning due to him being a hard right Tory backing Tory policies / standing aside while Israel commits genocide, and their eyes begin to open…
If the VI move away from Labour UK-wide I’m seeing continues, it will happen in Scotland. The talk of a GE next year will accelerate the process of people paying attention, deciding what they plan to do, and so start responding to pollsters to tell them this.
France has had enough. England’s government and main opposition still all fine genocidal ethnic cleansing.
https://archive.is/iphMK
French top diplomat calls for ‘immediate and durable’ Gaza truce
Tel Aviv (AFP) – French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna on Sunday pressed for an “immediate and durable” truce in the Gaza war, saying “too many civilians are being killed” in the Palestinian territory.
The IDF has killed a French official from the diplomatic service. There are reports that the IDF has bulldozed tents in the Kamal Adwan Hospital grounds crushing everyone sleeping there to death. Obviously this should be investigated.
The horror goes on.
https://x.com/Megatron_ron/status/1736103461987426639?s=20
Aye. this is what happens when you deliberately target civilians. You end up killing people from other countries… Israeli hostages…
https://archive.is/pXuhr
French foreign ministry says worker killed by Israeli attack in Rafah
The French foreign ministry said one of its workers had died as a result of wounds sustained during an Israeli attack in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip.
The man was seeking refuge in the house of a colleague from the French consulate alongside two other co-workers and a number of their family members, the ministry statement issued late on Saturday said.
If Michelle Mone sees herself going down she’ll take Michael Gove and as many as she can with her (lovely)
Immigration? I’ve never met an English/British person in my life who thinks of themselves as a foreigner no matter where on this earth they go, it’s everybody else that’s foreign
Gaza, If you’re an Israeli you want every last Palestinian gone, same thing in reverse from Palestine, long term the two state solution can only work one way (for the side that’s demolished the other)
If you’re an English elite politician you want every Scot to leave Scotland, they’ve been trying to do it for hundreds of years, it’s why Scotland is the most emigrated nation in these islands (The only require those they have *civilised*)
On the way to power you swat your own flies, once you’re in power you engage others to swat the flies (because you’re *civilised* with rules by then)
World stage, Global, Top world leader, in the club of other powerful leaders
Democracy is what I say it is
They use a sword and gun until it’s time to use a rule (democracy)
In homes across Scotland right now:
‘So, mum/dad/sis/bro/gran/grandad/cousin/mate [delete as a appropriate], are you going back my wife / husband being deported by continuing to vote Lab / Con and/or support the union?’
https://archive.is/0gYtK
We sacrificed so much to be here’: couples’ lives in disarray after new UK visa rules
British citizens who earn less than £38,700 face ‘immense uncertainty and heartbreaking choices’
A vote for Lab/Con/the UK means you are voting to deport the loved ones of Scots. You are backing England sending vans around to people houses to take away their husbands/wives…the mums/dads of Scottish kids. Think about that unionists.
Scotland’s cities are very cosmopolitan. Do people seriously think Labour can win these with this policy?
Edinburgh is at least 16% non-‘white British / Scottish’ (2011). Labour can forget the vote of these people and their families, and those of many actual white British who have fallen in love in a cosmopolitan city with someone from overseas. Like my wee bro did. That or they simply are not racist like the English Labour party is.
And so far, no crime discovered / suspect charged, after a 1m spend and 2.5 years of investigation.
I might suggest that maybe the reason they are finding it ‘very challenging’ to find evidence of a crime, is well, because…
https://archive.is/zkKhY
Operation Branchform: SNP investigation costs ‘now over £1 million’
Plenty of cuts to police services and the closing of police stations though.
A public enquiry is needed into this farce when it concludes. Even if it turns out PM has a mansion in the Bahamas or similar paid for out of snaffled donations, it shouldn’t take 2.5 years and £1m to work that out.
Funny how the National never mentioned that is many months now since anyone was arrested and questioned re this matter
Meanwhile BTL there, the usual suspects are bitching that the Snp have dared to select a candidate for Na h-Eileanan an Iar constituency.They obviously think it should be left to the blessed Angus as the Indy supporting candidate.So democratic choice should be limited for that constituency to keep them and Angus happy then . These people are seriously delusional
How many senior officers are members of a well known secret society, Eilidh?
The ‘interview under caution’ as it used to be known, was over 6 months ago…
While it was necessary to place PPE contracts during COVID questions must surely be asked as to how a Tory Peer was able to steer a contract to her husband and why the procurement team allowed a quick turn around supply contract netting a 30% profit to said husband.
Lying to the media is, as she said, not a crime. If you tell the truth the chances are the media will lie anyway. However, the nepotism and excess profit is hugely questionable.
On the matter of the normalisation of fascism, the recent comments by Trump should a shiver up all our spines. The world is tottering on a political precipice. It is almost as if the 1930s never happened. It seems to me that as the Labour lead weakens both Tory and Labour politicians are doubling down on who is the most authoritarian. It is deeply worrying.
Prince Andrew must be pleased, as he has been well and truly knocked off the top spot when it comes to car crash interviews by stupidly wealthy brits fleecing the taxpayer and/or committing sex offences with minors.
Hamish MacPherson has written two articles on the treaties which Scotland signed with other nation states. The first was published on the 10th December.
The treaties that solidify Scotland’s status as an independent nation
https://archive.is/0LV6M
The second article is published today.
Treaties of Scotland: From Auld Alliance to the Treaty of Leith
https://archive.is/52BLe
We rightly hear about the innocent hostages Hamas took, but not so much about the innocent hostages Israel takes all the time.
Wonder where this practice was learned from? Oh wait, the BBC actually says.
https://archive.is/29QA8
How Israel jails hundreds of Palestinians without charge
In a family home in Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank, Yazen Alhasnat was sitting next to his mother rubbing sleep from his eyes.
The 17-year-old had been released from prison the night before, nearly five months after being arrested in a 4am Israeli military raid on the home.
Yazen had been held under “administrative detention” – a longstanding security policy, inherited from the British, that allows the Israeli state to imprison people indefinitely without charge, and without presenting any evidence against them.
But aye, the same was done to Irish people in the north. They were walled in, shot at, killed and imprisoned without charge by the English [sic British] government. The same government that’s now taken the vote of Scots / Welsh / Irish people away, removed their EU citizenship against their will, and is now passing laws so they can only practically marry other brits with the goal of English ethno-eugenics.
There is no case for the union left. Nothing. It’s a dark, genocide supporting, dictatorial, ethno-religious fascist state.
Lets not try to sugar coat this racist shit-hole. It needs to be broken, for the sake of all it’s decent residents.
We’re not the only ones noticing where Starmer is taking the Labour Party.
https://archive.ph/ozKAS
Vote Labour get Tory.
During the Michelle Mone interview there was something her husband said that no journalist seems to have bothered picking up, and it was that her husband said a high ranking government figure offered to make the case go away if he paid him back more money than he actually made from the deal
Sunak’s signature is on the cheques and Gove handed out the contracts
It must come as some relief that the English Government is paying £64 billion to English LA’s to fund health and Social Care and stem the threat of one in five English councils declaring themselves bankrupt by April ’24.
Surely this means that Scotland will receive the equivalent bounty from Gove, Michelle Mone’s pal and fixer, in Barnett consequentials?
No? How no?
£5 billion plus change of our own money back will come in handy right now.
btw, did Kuenssberg fly to the Isle of Man to interview Mone and her billionaire partner?
Asking for a friend.
Same difference, Jack.
I think the interview took place in Spain. (See Sangita Myska, LBC on YouTube).
Does the UK have an extradition treaty with Spain ? Asking for an angry Taxpayer !
and … does Baroness Moan pay tax on her HoL stipend ? Actually , does Moaning Face pay tax at all ?
If you mean the £300 plus money they get each day they turn up at HoLords I believe it is tax free.
Bizarre BBC top news item in Scotland is about a 23 year old shot in Utah. His mother was born in Glasgow. He was born in Dundee and they left Scotland when he was six weeks old.
“End culture of hatred” in Scotland where crime rates have plummeted.
But it does relegate a story about jobs growth in renewable energy to second place. How transparent they are.
BBC News – End culture of hatred, says mother of man shot in US
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-67694134
Prof Robertson points out that the cut in the Scottish block grant of 9.8% is not being reported while the media foam at the mouth about potential tax rises for those earning over £75,000, i.e. them. Heart breaking isn’t it.
https://tinyurl.com/3eh2sm42
Meanwhile in Scotland the case against Nicola Sturgeon has now become so ancient that the Crown Office and Police Scotland has referred it to Simon Wiesenthal’s office and the British museum’s team of Paleontologists
Apparently fragments of bone were found deep in the bowels of the earth below the former FMs shed leading to suspicions that prehistoric mice may have consumed the contents of all the SNP documents proving beyond any doubt that this case may be continued into the next millennium
BBC Scotland were approached for comment but have been out to lunch with Michael Gove for the last two years, but issued a statement saying “all news is thoroughly and rigorously investigated by Martin Geissler and his senior team of all of Glen Campbell’s, leading to a non speedy conclusion as soon as is not possible”
Toodle oo the noo!
Humza Yousaf has been advised against making the general election vote about independence by a “former SNP” strategist, because he says at this time Scotland would definitely vote for it, and now would be the worst possible time to have a row with the English/ UK government
Humza Yousaf in reply said “this is why he is a FORMER strategist and not a current employee of the SNP”
President Joe Biden shelves trade deal with the UK, when asked why, President Biden said “can’t trust em”