The anti-independence media in Scotland, which is the overwhelming majority of that smug and self-satisfied Scottish institution, has over the past few days been indulging itself in its favourite pastime of a perspective free feeding frenzy of SNPbad. On this occasion the cause of its call for a procession of pitchforks and torches is the news that Nicola Sturgeon has deleted her WhatsApp messages. At first the Scottish media worked itself up into a paroxysm of spittle flecked anger, complete with calls for a police investigation. In newsrooms up and down Scotland there are editors who are nostalgic for the murder tent and can’t wait for the sequel – The Murder Tent and the Case of the Slaughtered WhatsApp messages, which they are doubtless hoping will be found after the polis have dug up Nicola Sturgeon’s garden.
The Covid Inquiry is in fact in possession of reams of information and messages from the Scottish Government, including informal messages to and from the former First Minister. In a statement put out due to the media hysteria, Nicola Sturgeon reiterated that fact, and repeated that her government and its officials and advisors did not use WhatsApp for formulating policy response to the pandemic.
This is in marked contrast to the WhatsApp messages of Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, both of whom, unlike Nicola Sturgeon are known to have used WhatsApp for making policy decisions during the pandemic, yet who told the Inquiry that all those messages had been lost, giving extremely dubious and implausible excuses which do not stand up to even cursory examination. Yet the bare faced lies of Sunak and Johnson, and their unbelievable claims to have “lost” all their WhatsApp messages, messages which detailed actions which were be responsible for the unnecessary deaths of thousands of people, all wrapped up in inhumane callous disregard for the lives of ordinary people, were met by the Scottish media with a collective, “Oh dear what a pity, now here’s the fitba.”
Compare and contrast with the torches and pitchforks treatment meted out to the Scottish Government, the Scottish media becomes seized by hysteria, so caught up in its own feeding frenzy of outrage that it loses all sense of perspective. It is no longer attempting to report the news, it is trying to stoke up anger and outrage.
The question which the Scottish media is not addressing is what exactly do those at the head of the pitchfork parade think is being covered up? Do they think that anyone in the Scottish Government wanted to let the bodies pile high as Boris Johnson was reported as saying,that scientific advice was deliberately ignored as in Sunak’s lethal Eat Out to Help Out the Virus scheme, or that there was anything in Scotland as nakedly corrupt as the VIP lane for PPE contracts? No one is alleging that, not even the anti independence media in Scotland. The silence in that regard is deafening. The Scottish media would go to town on the merest hint of a possibility that something similar happened in the Scottish Government. There would be an hour long special on BBC Scotland, presented by James Cook with his best concerned citizen face on. It would dominate the news agenda for weeks and would not end until ministerial resignations had been secured and police investigations launched.
Instead there’s only innuendo and muck raking from the very same people who gave Johnson and Sunak a free pass, and a desperate evidence free attempt to draw an equivalence between the Scottish Government and the dismal, corrupt and callous chaos of the Conservatives at Westminster.
The reason for this is patently obvious. The Scottish Government is widely regarded as having dealt with the pandemic in a far more responsible and competent manner than the British Government. In doing so it proved that Scotland is perfectly capable of rising to the challenges posed by a global crisis, which in turn is a powerful argument against opponents of independence, no wonder they are desperate to discredit that legacy.
All this is a consequence of a Scottish media whose prevailing views are grossly unrepresentative of the country which it purports to serve. A good half, if not more, of the people of Scotland support independence yet the Scottish media boasts just one single newspaper out of almost 40 daily and weekly publications which backs independence, meanwhile the broadcast media is ultimately answerable to politicians in Westminster and takes the lead on its news agenda from a press which is overwhelmingly skewed towards that nationalism which isn’t nationalist because it’s British.
So instead of a media which seeks to hold up a mirror to the society which it is supposed to serve, we get a Scottish media which constantly seeks to address the mismatch between the media consensus and the public by trying to change the public to agree with the media instead of changing the media to agree with the public. Berthold Brecht will be nodding in recognition.
There’s a fundamental British arrogance and Scottish Cringe prejudice at play here, Scots are too wee and too stupid to know what’s best for them and must never ever get ideas above their station.
In other news, next week BBC Question Time will be coming from Glasgow, a city which voted Yes in the 2014 referendum, remain in the 2016 referendum, and which has an SNP council, SNP MPs at Westminster, and SNP constituency MSPs at Holyrood. What’s the betting that the audience will be chock full of opponents of independence and Tories, called up from Kaye Adams’ Bumper book of British nationalists who will be picked by Fiona Bruce to ask questions: “Yes, you sir, the racist gentleman with the beer belly and the union jack tattoo .”
The BBC really ought to rename the show Political Gardening Time, given the number of plants in the audience.
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The only thing I would disagree with Paul is the term “Scottish media”.
They are either directly controlled by the Anglo establishment or owners who have been deemed “suitable” to so do by Westminster.
An army of occupation in all but name
Exactly. What is being covered up? That is the $64,000 question. It absolutely beggars belief that Nicola Sturgeon who appeared day in day out with Covid updates was hiding anything.
I am always amazed at how tolerant we are
There’s is no way on earth any single one of us treated in this way face to face by these people would not react in a, let’s call it less friendly manner
They are abusive insulting patronising and appear to take enjoyment from their positions as owners of the media with more right to exist than the rest of us
They live in a world of what has always been therefore they are right, that in itself proves the dinosaur theory, an evolution they don’t understand or want to
The British nationalist world has been hit by a large asteroid and even as they stare at it destroying their world with blank stupidity they resist by behaving the way they always have, so everything is just fine and dandy and it’s the evolution that’s the problem
They point their fingers and scoff and scorn as every ruling class has always done at change, but change always comes and time doesn’t stand still, yet we who see the change are still being tolerant which they perceive as weakness because they know no other way
Can we just stop tolerating these English/British nationalists, they’re bullies and idiots as well as wrong
Bullies and idiots usually have some sort of sticky demise, for the most part. But because of the media support, brainwashing and fatigue with it all, most of the general public seem to simply adjust their brainpower into their daily routine and think the bile that’s served up is real. Weird.
Exquisite outrage…
Sent from Outlook for Androidhttps://aka.ms/AAb9ysg ________________________________
Classic Paul, especially the plant. Bravo
Today as every day the Scottish government or anybody connected to it is *forced to deny*
The UK government however has *issued a statement saying*
The implication? The Scottish government lie, the UK government states facts
The English/British media in Scotland working against you
“The Scottish government is under pressure” that’s a cracking statement the media engage in every day, and it’s used to back up any fabrication of an invented concealment by the media
It works like this: if whatever it is the media says was or is concealed then how could there possibly be pressure to reveal that something that was concealed if nobody knew of the concealment
Folk used to say read beyond the headline, even that is now no good, because the media in Scotland are allowed to lie every single day by calling whatever they lie about “investigative journalism”
To you and me that’s the invention of a suspicion that nobody ever had but now has become important because the media invented it, and if you’re not convinced then STVs John McKay will shout it with booming voice right at you every night at 6pm, then if you switch over to BBC Scotland at 6.30pm there’ll be someone there to whine the same important accusation at you with an extremely worried facial expression,
(because our media cares) just not about the truth
Two entirely different news organisations using the exact same script, and you’re not supposed to notice that? why not? because they believe you to be so trustingly thick that you’ll be *forced* to believe this shit
Pretty insulting isn’t it
Yup
Insulting. Yes it is. Deeply. I believe it will be their downfall.
Must be pretty annoying that Sturgeon is constantly accused of and investigated for every heinous act under the sun, but is always found innocent of any wrongdoing (so far, but my money is that will continue).
If the media never name an accuser then they media is the accuser
If there are facts to present then they should present them
England has had proven liars and thieves as PMs time after time and the media in that country only pursue complaints if there’s sufficient public outcry, as we’ve seen clearly over the British Post office which took a television drama to highlight that corruption that is top down in English/ British institutions
The media in Scotland is controlled by those same English/British institutions They forged an Empire by lying to people for goodness sake, they’re world famous for exactly that characteristic
Perfidious Albion is their nickname, and what makes it worse is they laugh about it knowing it to be true
Talking of blue murder tents…
When can we expect the “Breaking News” that nothing was found, no one is under suspicion, and that Polis Scotchland has apologised ?
Never watch the BBC, and used to think we got a more honest view from STV, but sadly that’s been infiltrated long ago.
Aye, well said indeed Paul, it IS very much a case of “So instead of a media which seeks to hold up a mirror to the society which it is supposed to serve, we get a Scottish media which constantly seeks to address the mismatch between the media consensus and the public by trying to change the public to agree with the media instead of changing the media to agree with the public. Berthold Brecht will be nodding in recognition.”
Might I add Joseph Goebbels to that nod of recognition… ?
I’d been watching what HMS James Cook would come out with, given that they had already signalled in advance of the Covid UK Inquiry sitting in Edinburgh, that Scotland had suffered as badly from Covid as Gong-giving England, and the question of why SG deleted WhatsApps would inevitably be raised – And lo it was, by him or his aide-de-Innuendo David Wallet-Locked-Hard, and has been ever since, ad nauseum…
I plead guilty to being incensed by this particular BBC propaganda campaign, as despite my own absence of a political home or axe to grind, I have a profound despise of liars, or as James Cook previously and more eloquently exampled it, “We’ve seen the emails…”
What stunned me most of this propaganda campaign was the arrogance of BBC Scotland who are central to this media-pile-on (see how news feeds work) in believing none in Scotland had been following the Covid Inquiry in London, despite the audience undoubtedly exceeding that of ‘Misreporting Scotland’ with fewer guffaws etc., etc..
The importance of the London based inquiry is that it established in evidence SG did not use WhatsApp for official internal dialogue, #10 did – No only that, but when the reality of revelation in an Inquiry arose, #10 simply instructed via the head of the civil service to delete all WhatsApps daily….
So what does David Wallet-Locked-Hard do.. Ignore the fact all his previous citations were from civil servants whose WhatsApps were instructed to be deleted by London, by simply quoting “government policy”, the bias by omission schtick….
I presently count TWO articles on the main part of BBC/Scotland web-page which are outrageous propaganda, and FIVE on the BBC/Scotland/Politics web-page….
Goebbels would be delighted to see his work lives on at Pacific Quay…
Sorry, I can’t raise any interest in the Covid Inquiry. It’s been, it’s gone, I’m luckily alive and so are all my family and closest friends. I do know people who sadly died, and I guess a fair few of us may have had Long Covid, or at least taken time to recover not even knowing if we actually had it.
The thing is this – nobody I know is remotely interested either in the Inquiry, whose purpose should be to learn from mistakes so as to improve responses in the future. And indeed, people I know who previously hated Sturgeon came to like and respect her, and look forward to her broadcasts as it made them feel that it was being taken care of.
As far as I’m concerned therefore, the media is flogging a dead horse, in more ways than one.
Aye, the population know fine well how respective governments handled covid, and no amount of English / British media propaganda will convince them otherwise.
However, this is a useful exercise in further eroding what little trust Scots have left in said media, and remining them how the Scottish government towered above the UK government in its handling of the covid crisis.
[…] Source […]
IIRC Question Time is paid for out of the Scottish BBC budget, along with Homes Under the Hammer (me neither). I think we should demand a refund.
The Westminster Gov should down the pandemic facilities and cut funding. To concentrate on ‘getting Brexit done’. Fatal decisions which led to excess deaths. The buck stops there.
The Tories will be gone in a few months. The Inquiry will go on for years. To find any considered answers. Or to hide the facts under the Official Secrets Act. The usual cover up. To not take any responsibility.
@ Shut down the pandemic facilities. Westminster Gov spent £270Billion funding Covid over two years. £370Billion over a life time. Much wasted. Westminster did not listen to professional advice.
Westminster Gov now bombing the poorest country in the world. Cowards. Spending £50Billion on redundant weaponry. No increased funds for the NHS.
180,000 military personnel. 10,000 based in Scotland. Scotland pays £5Billion. Scotland pays (loan) repayments on money not borrowed or spent in Scotland.
The unionists cry ‘Wolf’ so much, no one listens. White noise in the background. Not again
Professor Jason Leitch, another one of the good guys is accused of being a jocular fellow, and his accuser? Labour spokesperson for faux outrage Jackie Baillie who is not jocular, and not a fellow (as far as we are aware)
This latest temper tantrum from Ms Baillie took place in the chamber in Holyrood because, well it’s incredibly important that Labour should take every opporchancety in this election year to pretend that they give a damn about the population, who if asked I’m 100% convinced wouldn’t hardly have a cross word to say about the Prof except in a political sense in that he stood next to the FFM almost every day impressing upon us all ways to avoid catching a disease that was capable of killing us
People died around the world of this thing, yet in Scotland the very people praised by other countries for their actions in keeping more Scots alive than the officials in England are now hounded to greater excess than their English counterparts who partied broke rules made statements about piling up bodies, tried to avoid locking down in favour of “herd immunity” then lied their way through the enquiry using statements like “I don’t recall” “I was very busy”
The only people that Labour’s Jackie Baillie kind of outraged are, are those who are politically opposed to the SNP, and those folk would be outraged at the drop of Jackie Baillies hat if she told them too
There are real people who lost relatives for a number of reasons
One reason is a disease that we had not the technology to cure, they caught the thing and sadly passed away, that is the fault of no one
There are others that passed away who by their own anti rules or political affiliations refused to do the right thing to protect themselves, and they died
To the relatives of those people, you know who you are and what happened
We read and saw them night after night, the internet was infested with the anti SNP brigade insisting they would behave in the way they wanted, they did and some of them died, none of this was anyone’s fault but their own, they died for not liking or having no respect for the person and people delivering the message of how to protect themselves from doing so
Now we have some people that are angry about relatives they could not visit before they passed, those rules were the same all over the world, a disease that nothing could be done about killed them, but what’s happening now is opposition politicians are using you as mugs for their game of replacing the ones they’re encouraging you to blame
Think carefully about what the ambulance chasing lawyer says to you, think again about what the opposition politician and the journalist says, and the words they use are all the same aren’t they?
We all know if there’s blame to be apportioned at all, it’s not in Scotland where we had the FFM and her team on call 24hours per day every day and herself standing at a rostrum with darkened eyes every day breaking her heart following sleepless nights of anguish over the deaths and the couldn’t care less attitude of the officials in England who were having a party those same night after nights, then order some eat out to help out their economy spreading the disease with even greater speed
The anger should not be directed at anyone in Scotland except for the ones that opposed and caused as much trouble as they possibly could, the media the Tories Labour the Liberal Democrats, those are the rats that are making you angry at people who actually were there for every one of us during that time, it was horrible and we all suffered
Don’t allow these charlatan opposition politicians their lawyers and their media to make this into their political witch hunt, because all they want to do is use you to replace the folk that did the best job they could under the circumstances thrown at them, and remember that job they did saved more people in Scotland per head of the population than the entire UK, WHY? most of us listened because we knew that woman who stood there every day tried her absolute best to keep us alive, and we are
Very well said!
Thanks Archie, I get roused sometimes
So a friend and former neighbour who says he’s Yes but Labour was saying to me that he has ‘gone of the SNP’ again at the weekend when he came with his wife to visit.
So, to persuade him away from Labour to SNP Green, I just sent him the Labour manifesto. Asked if he can find the word ‘Scotland’ in it so I can see what Labour have on offer for us.
Stage 1 complete. 🙂
Funny about these Labour folk who say they would vote YES given the chance that Labour will never ever give them even if they were down to their last MP in Scotland
Oh? they already were, since they doubled that to two, so Labour and YES does not will not and cannot ever compute even if you looked for it in the Cern Large Hadron Collider for the next forever years
Labour don’t support a Palestinian state so what chance Scotland?
What’s Stage 2?
My guess is telling them that if they want a real Scottish Labour party, funded by Scots for Scots, the first thing they need is independence – and, as they’re YesButs they obviously realise this already.
Do you think that the Yes movement should, maybe, outline what the party political situation would be in an independent Scotland? Real Scottish parties; no one party having all the say; collaborative v confrontational politics; maybe cross-party working groups with local govt and communities involved so that voters knew all levels were having input?
Speaking as an ordinary punter, rather than long-time politically aware (not encouraged in England, obvs) I’m not sure the general public is as aware of the possibilities as most contributors on here. And, before someone shoots me down with “well they’re stupid then and shouldn’t have the vote at all”, it’s not lazy, stupid or wilfully ignorant to not know what you don’t know. Or, indeed, not know where to find it when you realise you need to find out!
As far as the media is concerned The Covid Inquiry ( UK ) which has encamped in Edinburgh should , in all honesty , be renamed :
”The Let’s Trash any Scottish Figure who helped Scotland Through the Pandemic by Ignoring 99% of their Testimony Inquiry .”
Any stranger to Scotland listening to the Scottish ( sic ) media would be forgiven for drawing the conclusion that it’s Government is incompetent , untrustworthy , evasive and corrupt .
The list of charges levelled against it by the media ( aka Ministry of Truth ) , political giants like Damn Jackie Baillie and lawyers-on-the-make , like Aamer Anwar , are so appalling and numerous that one would find it hard to believe that Scots generally made it through Covid in a better state than the UK . The frenzy is palpable !
The most innocent of actions during Covid by any figure who has the slightest connection with the Scottish Government are highlighted , warped and deformed to such a degree that it is surprising that the Polis have not set up their wee Blue Tents outside most of the homes of SNP ministers , with John Mackay declaring nightly on STV News , ”There’s been another SNP murrrder !”
Hard working , professional Public Servants are being treated in the most appalling fashion by the media , and their honesty, integrity and reputations seriously tainted by the litany of misreporting and , at times , downright lies of the BBC , STV and what passes for the newspaper industry in this benighted UK .
I live in the hope that these monstrous agents of unionist propaganda will live long enough to see Scotland escape their malignant touch and thrive in the cleaner air of an Independent Scotland .
We can then watch from afar as the desiccated corpse of the English media dedicates its dwindling energies to promoting The New Freedom Party of Sir Kid Starver as he merges his New New Labour rump Party with the dregs of Penny Mordant’s rump Tory Party and The Not Too Fascist Farage Party , as they decide how a New House Of Lords will be paid for to accommodate the thousands of new peers created by the abolition of the House of Commons .
Ok, so it’s the Telegraph … but I’m sure I echo the thoughts of many here:
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/public-faces-call-war-military-205510421.html
Serve under the Butcher’s apron? Eff off!
The Telegraph was the paper that screamed that the Queen Elizabeth was sinking when its propellor gland let in just 200 litres of water an hour. By a curious coincidence that’s the capacity of my old 12v fluid pump, and they’re faster these days, and costing less than £20.
200 litres = 0.2 tonnes of water an hour on a ship of 65,000 tonnes. The Telegraph doesn’t do reality.
We’ve already been there and got chased out. We have the bagpipe tune to prove it “The Barren Rocks of Aden”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUx8ntCzo-w
So, no thanks, been there done that.
Pre-campaign polling predictions vs reality lesson #10.
2015:
Prd: Lab UK win + win in Scotland.
Act: Con win UK-wide. Historic SNP victory in Scotland wipes out Lab.
2017:
Prd: Huge Con majority. Massive SNP win in Scotland again.
Act: Con fail to win majority. SNP see significant losses in Scotland due to low turnout.
2019:
Prd: Lab ahead of Con UK-wide, albeit both parties losing support. Con lower than now. SNP to stand still in Scotland on 2017 levels.
Act: Variable surge for Con and Lab UK-wide. Huge Con win, Lab support lowest since 1935 as a function of total electorate. SNP vote rises as turnout rises and they take back many seats lost in 2017.
2024:
Prd: Huge labour majority in England, albeit it Lab support remains at lowest since 1935 as a function of total electorate. Tory wipeout. Lab to lose to SNP in Scotland again, and suffer notable losses in Wales. Baseline Yes now in permanent (?) majority in Scotland and at highest ever level in Wales.
Act: TBC.
‘Sniggers’.
Have you encountered on your travels a graph of GE party votes v electoral roll ?
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/elections/electoralregistration/bulletins/electoralstatisticsforuk/2019
The registered electorate has varied, and by quite a bit, rather than just climbing steadily with population size. Shall look into any effects at some point.
It reached a peak in 2019, which means things look even worse for Labour. The registered electorate maxed out in that election, yet they did their worst since 1935, and have not gained any new voters since.
What I meant was a chart similar to what you posted, but only for GEs, and instead of %age of the vote it’s %age of the electoral roll at the time of the election.
My hunch is the %ages are not only low but showing a distinct downward trend since the 1970s….
I can look at this. Scottish electoral role is hitting historic highs 2021/22. Directly correlates with the long term rise in Yes over the period 2012 to date. Yes not up because no voters are not engaging or similar. Scots are moving to Yes and wanting to be on the register so they can vote for that.
https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/people-registered-to-vote/1st-december-2022
This does not bode well for unionism, as it strongly suggests turnout projections will not stay low. Rather than having people not registering to vote as they have disengaged with politics, they are registering in historically high numbers, but just not engaging with pollsters right now, particularly when it comes to UK politics.
This makes sense given Holyrood 2021 was a record turnout that, for the first time, exceeded previous UK election turnouts. This indicates Scots detaching from the UK and seeing Holyrood as their main parliament now, with Westminster being abandoned. The R&HW by-election supported this starkly. A supposed revival of unionism saw voters not remotely interested in having a seat in Westminster, useless as these are.
In April we should get the Dec 2023 numbers.
I went through that very exercise on the R&H byelection when all we were hearing from the media etc was ‘swing’ – The numbers proved a very different scenario from the ‘Labour resurgence’ being portrayed – A one trick pony that will most assuredly be gelded come the next GE, ironically owned by a Shanks…
I keep hearing on England forums, predominantly Labour, of increasing despair over England’s hegemonic politics – They actually envy the Scots in having a ‘democratic choice’.
– That is probably what spurred the concerted media effort (particularly by HMS James Cook) to wreck the credibility of SG officials/ministers during the UK Covid Inquiry convening in Scotland.
But I digress…
Rather as Covid, a sense of democracy can be infectious, that is what is feared the most by the ‘Cozy’ Nostra…
A record high number of people signed up to vote, yet a very low turnout says something very powerful about the interest Scots have in sending MPs south to take part in ‘day to day’ Westminster politics.
If the by-election could have somehow progressed indy in a clear way, I bet there’d have been a record turnout.
Which is why the SNP need to make Westminster elections all about indy. A vote for them must be a vote to push for indy in a unambiguous way. That needs to be the message rammed home.
‘We get the right to have our referendum, when we want, and that’s a permanent right, or 2026 is a defacto indyref’.
Snigger. 🙂
Sun headline today.
Jason leitch gives Humza hack to by pass wearing a mask.
I think that’s what I read and if it is can someone tell me wtf it’s supposed to mean.
Golfnut
In internet speak it basically means it was a way to technically bypass the rules of wearing a mask. As a headline it is dreadful though
There was a bit about it in the media, apparently hanging onto a glass (drink) excused not wearing a mask…
Unless you hear it confirmed specifically by Humza or Jason specifically, it didn’t happen.
More reality polling. Scots want Yousaf as PM of an indy Scotland too over the, at best, ‘dull as dishwater’ ((c) Prof. Curtice) kid Starver.
https://archive.is/6eVNB
YouGov poll: Most of England prefers new Tory leader as PM over Keir Starmer
A NEW poll has revealed that a new Tory leader could potentially secure a victory over Labour at the next election.
As previously discussed, expect UK Labour to lose 10 points in the run up to the election as per 1997, taking them to low 30’s. Con will increase to low 30’s as Reform voters go Con tactically. A new leader for the Tories could liven things up even more.
My preference remains for a weak, divided Labour-led UK government with no mandate for Scotland. A ‘Hated English labour government Scots didn’t vote for’ to quote Scottish Labour bods back in the 80’s/90’s, but updated the party in power in London.
No way the English right-wing base and media will let Labour back in with a big majority.
This is with respondent pools being overly unionist at the moment.
http://tinyurl.com/3p7mkcy2
Which of the following would you prefer [for the UK]?
Scotland:
33% Monarchy
43% Elected head of state
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2024/01/22/c4fed/1
Do you support or oppose the UK having nuclear weapons?
Scotland:
35% Support
41% Oppose
Military personnel. 180,000. 10,000 based in Scotland. Defence funding £50Billion. Increased £5Billion. Trident and redundant weaponry wasted £Billions. Scotland pays £5Billion. Scotland makes repayments on (loans) monies not borrowed or spent in Scotland. Scotland overpaying for Defence.
No UK Gov funding increase for the NHS. Westminster would rather spend monies killing people than keeping them alive. Life expectancy going down in the south.
NATO needs to get rid of missiles trained on Russia. US should honour agreements not to have missiles trained on Russia.
News just in: England will vote Tory if they change the leader
C’mon! Penny Mordaunt for PM, Scotland reels in horror followed instantly by a screaming clamour for Scottish independence
England will vote Tory if the Tories keep the current leader. Wait and see.
England will not allow anyone with the slightest whiff of left around them into No. 10. The right-wing base will turn out and make sure plastic Tory Starmer doesn’t get his big majority.
What a stupid tactic by the unionist enquiry dogs ” Be outraged”
The Jason Humza story boils down to if you’re eating or drinking you don’t wear a mask
The inquiry political chancers keep trying to make capital of the idea that somehow you should just pop your mask on in between slurps and bites and not make it seem as funny as it actually was to the population of the entire world at that time
We all could see that ya shower of balloons
So don’t be outraged by Tory Michael Gove’s Scotch egg, but be outraged at Jason Leitch cause he works for the Scottish government and we’re out to get them
I guess by the time the FFM takes the stand at this now Witchfinder general trial we’ll have been whipped up so hard as to be totally *livid* that she followed the protocols and saved people’s lives, how very dare she
At a time when praise from around the world was coming in for the way the FFM and her team handled the situation in Scotland, all England has to attack us is to turn the *Covid Enquiry* which was instituted as a way of determining procedures in any future pandemic, into an England Scotland contest of superiority and authority
The only stuff we get to see from this enquiry is the criticism of Scotland’s government by a hand picked bunch of English unionist Twonks and their drones
Did anyone see or hear Devi Shridar? I bet most of us didn’t, WHY? because she’s not an English Twonk drone that’s why
I really don’t understand how some Scots haven’t figured it out yet, England considers us lesser mortals, don’t get me wrong though, it’s not just us they’re racist about, it’s everybody who’s not them and they cannot change
It’s why everybody else in the world has dumped their racist superior colonialist Arses
They’re a waste of our time, 300 years they’ve tried to make us them and they hate us for not doing it and it isn’t fuc*ing working, so let’s get them binned
I watched Prof Sridhar’s testimony to the Covid inquiry yesterday. She was as usual eloquent, clear and very much on point. I noticed the KC had to ask her several times to slow down a bit because the stenographer was having trouble keeping up with her! The KC also admitted at one point that he was having trouble keeping up with the speed of her delivery. Must admit I did not have a problem but then I’ve seen her loads of times on Ch4 news and listened to her on the radio too.
I noticed Prof Sridhar had a column iderlined thn the Guardian today on the subject of measles in which she underlined the stark contrast between Scotland, 1 case, and England hundreds of cases.
As usual she posted it on Twitter but did not allow comments so clearly anticipated a pile-on about her testimony yesterday. Learning from bitter experience not to feed the trolls and bots.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/24/anti-vaxxers-measles-uk-scotland-england-wales-2023
I really should read my posts before hitting reply. Sorry.
Don’t worry, this makes me feel better.
If there’s such a word as unintimidatable it applies to Devi Sridhar, and apologies for spelling her name wrongly
The BBC News website’s Scotland page is lapping up the testimony at the Covid Inquiry’s Edinburgh hearing from a Professor Woolhouse of the University of Edinburgh. In short, the BBC is reporting that he basically disagrees with and condemns just about everything associated with the Scottish Government’s response!
The Professor is getting a lot of exposure in the Inquiry’s public hearings, including in the London hearing for Module 2 on 16 October 2023. I was curious to determine the tone of the evidence he gave there regarding the UK’s pandemic response so I skimmed the relevant transcript. For anyone interested in details of the inputs to the Inquiry, the Professor’s responses to questions is an an object lesson in convolution tinged with individual supreme confidence in one’s own ‘rightness’. His criticisms of officials in Scotland are matched by implied criticisms of officials and experts on advisory panels serving the UK government. The key difference seems to be the level of media coverage of his remarks made in these two places.
I haven’t yet read the transcript of the relevant Edinburgh hearing, but the interrogation of Professor Woolhouse in London was thorough whilst ‘gentle’: I am no subject expert but IMHO it revealed contradictions, expressions of certainty qualified by (less forcefully expressed) caveats, and someone willing to take full advantage of the luxury of NOT being the one having to take the big decisions under uncertainty! It will be interesting to check later how the Professor’s views expressed on the UK government’s response and his seemingly more strident views on the Scottish Government are handled in the Inquiry’s reports.
And for context, regarding BBC Scotland’s coverage of the Professor’s seemingly unalloyed negatives about Scotland’s response, I share just two extracts from the earlier, London hearing for illustration:
Extract 1) From the Inquiry’s lawyer: ‘Then if we can go to a passage towards the end of your statement, please, you return to this theme …..:
“… SAGE and its subgroups put too much emphasis on consensus and too little on minority views. The most likely outcome — intended or otherwise — of only
expressing a single view is that it presents policy makers with an overly limited set of options and so will channel policy decisions along a particular route.”
Adding: ‘May we take it, Professor, that you felt that IT WAS OFTEN YOUR MINORITY VIEW THAT WASN’T BEING HEARD BY POLICYMAKERS?’ (my emphasis)
Woolhouse: ‘That’s where I’m most sensitive to this issue, that’s true, yes.’
Lawyer: ‘The argument in favour of consensus, really just redrafts that paragraph we’re looking at. The argument is that policymakers will find it easier if they are
given one view which a group of experts have, as it were, coalesced around. What do you say to that?’
Woolhouse: ‘I say that it does exactly what I said, that will channel policy decisions along a particular route that is actually set by the advisers. We’re, for example,
not offering them alternatives to lockdown, so — may I? — in the build-up to that November lockdown in England that we discussed, as far as I could see, SAGE was simply telling the government it should lock down.’
(Woolhouse was not a member of SAGE.)
Extract 2) Woolhouse: ‘So I am in complete agreement, not only for the UK but for the world, with the report of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, which reviewed the World Health Organisation’s pandemic response, and it used the phrase in its report “lost February”, which is referring to February 2020, and they are concerned that SIMPLY — NOT JUST IN THE UK, BUT GLOBALLY — NOT ENOUGH WAS DONE IN TERMS OF PANDEMIC RESPONSE. And I think that is as true of the UK as it was so many other countries in the world.’
The report of the Panel referred to above – entitled ‘COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic’ – states in section 4.3: ‘The declaration of a PHEIC (Public Health Emergency of International Concern) by the WHO Director-General on 30 January 2020 was not followed by forceful and immediate emergency responses in most countries, despite the mounting evidence that a highly contagious new pathogen was spreading around the world. For a strikingly large number of countries, it was not until March 2020, after COVID-19 was characterized as a “pandemic”, and when they had already seen widespread cases locally and/or reports of growing transmission elsewhere in the world, and/or their hospitals were beginning to fill with desperately ill patients, that concerted government action was finally taken.’
BBC Scotland tells the readers of the BBC News website today: ‘Early warnings about coronavirus were not listened to as senior Scottish government officials “froze”, the UK Covid Inquiry has heard.’ Context, perspective from BBC Scotland? Of course, there is none! Were governments in most countries across the world frozen too?
I heard most of what this individual had to say and he exhibited all the classic symptoms of the overlooked angry man syndrome, the nobody paid enough attention to meeee guy
My guess is this man suffers from a shortage of appreciators and he doesn’t understand why, I think we do
All this Covid nonsense is ever going to achieve in terms of future planning (which is what it’s supposed to do) is let’s all prepare for a piano falling on our heads from the sky
There’s just no legislating for everything, except if aliens appear in the sky, then the plan will be to try and shoot them down, because it never occurs to leaders that if they can fly space ships a gazillion miles to get here whatever they shoot at it they might like to eat as lovely protein for their dinner and us for dessert
Then they’ll have a Martian enquiry and blame Nicola Sturgeon for sitting in the house
When people trip over their own feet they always look down for the slightest bit of pavement to *blame*
Shit happens and some can’t deal with it, the only people to blame are those that did not try, and we know who they are
I watched some of his testimony this morning and would agree with your analysis of his testimony. The clip shown on Reprting Scotland just now illustrates your description of him. Further context would be to point out that he and his family left for their home on Lismore just before the 1st lockdown was announced and stayed there for some time. Compare and contrast with other scientists who stayed in the centre of things and realised that they could prefer advice/information to politicians but the decision wold be up to the politician who would be gettingbadvice/info from a variety of sources. Rightly so.
Here is an interesting and revealing interview on Ch4 news in which he was interviewed by KGM and ended the interview when he did not like the questios.
How very odd
More useful right now polling. And this is with Yes/SNP voters currently under-engaging with pollsters, ergo more pro-union samples.
https://archive.is/g7Unn
Poll: Majority back Scottish Parliament having independence powers
A MAJORITY of Scots back Holyrood having the powers to negotiate and legislate for independence, according to a new poll.
The survey, carried out by FindOutNow on behalf of the Alba Party, found nearly six in 10 Scots – 57.5% – agree or strongly agree with the proposal, excluding don’t knows.
Around a third said they did not back the idea, with 10.8% saying they disagreed and 22% saying they strongly disagreed.
Forcing Scots to fight for England is like forcing Ukrainians from occupied Ukraine to fight for Russia.
England is the biggest threat to Scots right now. It is the country with boots on the ground here, nuke armed subs patrolling out waters, its parliament / courts suppressing our democracy… controlling our media… and all so it can plunder our resources.
https://archive.is/DQ1Xz
Britain must train citizen army, military chief warns
Britain should train a “citizen army” ready to fight a war on land in the future, the head of the Army has said.
General Sir Patrick Sanders warned that an increase in reserve forces alone “would not be enough”.
He highlighted the threat from Russia and pointed to steps being taken by other European nations to put their populations on a “war footing”.
If Scots should be put on a war footing, it should be to free their country from English rule, restoring democracy. We’d be at the end of a long list of peoples forced into that, including the Irish next door.
Presumably Irish living in the UK, including N. Irish will be exempted?
As I am not a British passport holder, I would be exempted too right? I hold and Irish passport, so am the same as an Irish person from N. Ireland.
I’d go along with that, ready whenever the rest of Scots wake up, I cannae run fast anymare but I can be sleekit and nasty
This is daft, an English government would never train and arm ‘ citizens ‘ so this is a kite being flown for something else, possibly recruitment of private/ mercenary troops to be used not for defence but suppression.
Golfnut
Pretty standard stuff for when a spring budget is coming up.
Of course they wouldn’t but they would float the idea of conscription, or as they used to call it when they did it before, National Service
A totally excellent article in the Herald about this, I’m gobsmacked.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/24071889.national-service-war-russia—really-happen/
Yes, I agree. However it does flag serious problem with Scotland now being held in the UK against the will of its people.
Is it not illegal under international law for a country force the the citizens of another into its army against their will? Certainly forcing Irish from N. Ireland into the British / English army would be breaching the GFA, that’s for sure. And if you can’t force them, you can’t force anyone in the UK who has Irish citizenship as they can state that is their primary nationality. I am and Irish national who nationally identifies as Scottish and Irish, so you can forget me. Doesn’t matter that I was born in the UK of one UK parent. That entitles me to citizenship but it doesn’t make me a British citizen. I am Irish.
Since the courts agree that believe in Scottish indy is a protected characteristic, as is Scottish national identity, so the British army is a foreign army, particularly in light of Scots not democratically supporting the UK anymore. While I’m not a spring chicken these days so I doubt I’d be drafted, I would do my duty if called. However, I’m not taking orders from / dying for English / British occupying imperial scum, which is what those opposed to Scottish free self-determination are.
Then we come to the deep irony…. only a prize idiot in London would actually think it a good idea to force young indy supporting Scots (70% Yes) into military training on how to fight off an aggressive oppressing country that was subjugating their own. So young Englishmen would be asking why the Scots, N. Irish and even Welsh are exempt…
It was, after all, the e.g. the Irish that came back from the trenches of WW1 that were ready and trained to step up to free my other country when England overruled the vote for indy there and invaded in response. And they were volunteers as, England was wise enough not to forcibly conscript Irish folks.
Private corporate military are the new norm, they are of course employed and funded by government contracts to carry out various functions, they all have lethal capability and the benefit to the government is that they come under that very useful phrase ‘ plausible denibility’.
Conscription won’t go down well I England anymore than it would in Scotland under the current regime. So citizens army is a kite being flown.
Golfnut
Scots could be Constitutional objectors, except for the Tory Labour and Liberal Democrat voters of course
Type 31 taking shape in Rosyth.
https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2023/august/24/20230824-venturer-bow
There’s a lot of secrecy of course, around where these frigates are to be deployed, but it seems pretty obvious that for camouflage reasons the Red Sea is their intended area of operations.
I’ve been meaning to do this but too busy with work.
There’s a con job on Scotland (no, really?) doing the rounds, that 13 frigates were promised, and 13 are being built in Scotland. Before it was that 13 warships were being built in Scotland as promised. This relies on us being zipped up at the back and nodding like nodding dogs. Well “woof” to that.
The older one relied on us being unable to tell the difference between a Type 26 frigate at £1.3 billion (for the first batch) and 6,900 tons, and an OPV at £127 million and 2,000 tons. Yeah, right.
The new one relies on us being unable to tell the difference between the Type 26, and the Type 31 at £250 million and 5,700 tons. So it’s more subtle, being not much different in tonnage. It’s also based on the Danish Ivor-Huitfeldt hull design, which makes it cheaper.
So what?
The original promise of 13 Type 26 frigates would have used basically the same new design hull; it was planned that 8 would be for anti-sub, and the other 5 as General Purpose frigates (GPFF). BUT on the same hull, and this is where so much of the cost came in for the type 26, and the design delays:
“Their hull form and propulsion system have a low acoustic signature to avoid interfering with passive sonar also makes it harder for submarines to detect the ship.”
https://www.navylookout.com/a-guide-to-the-type-26-frigate/
The promise wasn’t for 13 warships. nor was it for 13 frigates, it was specifically for 13 Type 26 frigates on the Clyde, at least on the same hull. It was also for 13 on the Clyde, not 8 on the Clyde and 5 on the Forth.
Any attempt to fool us otherwise, is an outright sneaky lie, relying on a total absence of punters like me who have a clue. Well, go home tae think again.
I see Sir Tony Blair has teemed up with ex tory leader Lord William Hague to tell the UK public that we have to sell their medical records to the private sector if we want to keep up with the growth in AI and biotechnology.
This is of course no surprise, last summer he was saying there should be more private sector involvement in the NHS, saying there should be “complete cooperation between the public and private sector”.
Like Starmer he also thinks that “private” shouldn’t be considered a “dirty word” and says that the NHS, in its current state, was not serving its purpose.
Will the NHS be safe in Starmer’s hands? Why should it, it wouldn’t be safe in Tory hands and Labour are every bit as much Tory now as the real thing.
https://news.sky.com/story/sell-nhs-medical-records-to-fund-cutting-edge-treatments-sir-tony-blair-and-lord-hague-say-13055874
And after the complete disaster of the PO/Fujitsu/Horizon system, would anyone trust their personal details being in the hands of the uk government and their crony companies? I wouldn’t.
The article also mentions ID cards, and whilst I think these would be a great idea, unless they were similar to European ID cards in Spain, Germany, France etc, then again they’d fail as they’d be run by some useless Tory/Lab crony company on a money making scam.
This morning BBC Scotland’s Gary Robertson was interviewing Patrick Harvie and insisted upon comparing Scotland’s rental housing situation with the Republic of Ireland, and not once did Harvie point out to him that the Republic of Ireland is an independent country and can do whatever they choose to do, Scotland cannot as powers in this area like all powers of Holyrood can be legally challenged and struck down by the English/UK government at any time of their choosing
Scotland’s government has certain management powers it can exercise as a colony, not the powers of a normal independent country
The people of Scotland voted to remain a colony of England in 2014
Since Burns Night is almost upon us, Billy Kay reminds us that everyday Scots is the language of the kings and poets.
Following BBC Scotland’s Kaye Adams on air comment about “FFM Nicola Sturgeon isn’t a human being” yesterday, her name has been put forward by the BBC for the next UK honours list
I’m of course joking, but will Adams be reprimanded? NO! will Adams be sacked? NO! is it more likely she will be created a dame at the very least? YES
Well they used their press media and furiously demanded Nicola Sturgeon’s messages and now after all the publicity they got doing that in support of Labour’s upcoming election chances they’re going to have to read them out aren’t they
I’ve seen them and the opposition should’ve suspected Nicola Sturgeon was smarter than than *the average bear* when she suckered them into their faux outrage
The FFM spares little in her use of adjectives and colourful language in her description of all things and people in the UK clownshow of a government
Now let’s see if the BBC cover that as extensively as they’ve publicly slandered her every move, well they said the whole of Scotland is demanding all of it, now’s their chance to satisfy that demand the media said we wanted
“Nicola Sturgeon in foul mouthed rant” C’mon BBC and British/English press print it
Scotland’s gonna love it , just not in the way you hope they will
Let’s face it, the media have thus far succeeded in absolving themselves of any blame for what transpired in Scotland during the Covid emergency – Just as James Cook orchestrated deflection from public disgust over the Tory leadership ‘competition’ in Perth, thus he does so here https://archive.ph/UukQS
Now do bear in mind the headline “Nicola Sturgeon called Boris Johnson a ‘clown’, inquiry hears” probably echoed the thoughts of 80% of the UK, 95%+ of the Scottish and 100% of the european populace, so why should any be surprised over such confidentially expressed frustrations ?
Yet as usual for HMS James Cook, it’s all about the spin, context free facts, as exhibited at the tail end of the piece with –
” Mr Johnson was quizzed about his relationship with Ms Sturgeon when he appeared in front of the Covid inquiry in December. When I have talked to her, we have got on very well and had a friendly relationship,” he said. ”
James cannot avoid recognition of the despise the public held for the incompetent Johnson, a serial and prodigious liar, yet proceeds to do so as if there is some ‘misunderstanding’ ?
Are there no competent and impartial journalists left in Scotland ?
No there aren’t Bob, they are the media, the unaccountable political party that pretends to represent the public when in fact they represent their own political and even private agendas, as I pointed out earlier in the case of BBC Scotland’s Kay Adams who because she favours a different political aim just decided to verbally abuse the FFM on air by saying she was not a human being, so we must presume she thinks Boris Johnson Rishi Sunak and uncle Kier Starmer and all are just fine and dandy human beings, and still no word from the BBC on Adams personal opinions
BBCs James Cook a proven liar of the highest order who claimed on air and in print that he had seen what later turned out to be factually proven non existent emails between Nicola Sturgeon and the French Ambassador relating to the FFMs preference that David Cameron should be PM, no apology no words of contrition from the BBC, Cook was shipped off to the US colonies for a couple of years until the heat died down, as is at this moment another liar Sarah Smith, daughter of the late Labour leader John Smith
This is the media we have in Scotland, our land where we tolerate constant lies and inventions by these people solely because they are the leftovers of the Labour ruling classes of the last Tory and Labour governments
They despise the SNP and the entire notion that Scottish people should choose not only their own destiny but choose anything whatsoever by themselves
They are the Rangers football Orange lodge British ruling class in Scotland that would be English converts if they ever got the chance for those they worship to give them a job in the big London town, but better to rule a small pond than sink in the big ocean, and we the people tolerate these monsters with shrugs of our shoulders in the great Scottish tradition of “Whit kin ye dae”? where most other countries in the world would tear down their edifices stone by stone brick by brick and throw these people out of their society or in many cases far worse
The media are a blight on our country
John Wick only needed a pencil