Ian Brotherhood
@ianbhood
If that comment by 'James' has done nothing else it's reignited this perennial argument over money.
At one extreme there is the disgusting unionist myth, peddled by metropolitan mainstream media ever since newspapers first appeared, that Scotland is a nation of savages, cripples, drunks and, latterly, 'subsidy-junkies' who only manage to subsist at all thanks to the largesse of Westminster.
The other extreme is the claim that Scotland is being fleeced by WM.
Both can't be true.
One fact we know for sure - and even the angry unionists who've been replying so far can't deny this - is that WM will not let Scotland go. And following the 2014 referendum, which gave them the fright of their lives, they're even more wary than at any point previously.
And why won't they let us go?
My pinned tweet lays out the reasons, straight from the mouth of a Whitehall mandarin:
'While travelling around Scotland in 1995, the journalist George Rosie had a chance meeting with a senior English civil servant from Whitehall.
As they sat in a hotel overlooking Ben Loyal and the hills of Sutherland, Rosie asked him why English governments have been so unwilling to hand Scotland back to the Scots.
The official ticked the reasons off on his fingers:
'One, oil. Two, gas. Three, fish. Four, water. Five, land.
The oil and gas are self-explanatory, even now. Fish might not mean much to the British but it is a superb bargaining counter in Europe. Water will be important one day, I suspect. And as for all this [gesturing to the hills] well, this is our, how shall I say it, breathing space. That bit of elbow room that every country should have.'
Introduction to Picador Book of Contemporary Scottish Fiction, by Peter Kravitz, 1997.
With respect Les I would also point out that it is not just the Scum Nonce Party who have NEVER challenged these figures , you also have to remember Alex Salmond was also leader of the SNP and First Minister of Scotland and I have never seen him challenge any of these figures , I have said repeatedly on numerous blogs that our independence politicians are failing us miserably every last one of them
NOT one of them has produced or provided any financial figures to expose the LIES of GERS, every one of them including Salmond has accepted them and signed off on them which has given the yoonionist Scum plenty of ammunition to fire back at INDEPENDENCE , it has been left to individual indy supporters the like of Indy Poster Boy Colin to source relevant information and produce jpegs that can educate people ,( Thanks Colin for all your hard work)
It is NOT Colin's or individual indy supporters job to produce educational information and facts to support and expose the LIES and MISINFORMATION excreted by the bbc and others , it is our fucking politicians and their parties whose job it is THEY are the ones who are supposed to be convincing people about independence yet they have produced FUCK ALL to educate people of the benefits of independence
ALL I have heard for the last 10+ years is we need people to go out and convince others about indy , while they sit on their arses and pontificate and draw salaries
Every politician when being interviewed, including Salmond has allowed every broadcaster without exception to spout spurious lies and figures without nailing those LIES , THEY should be EXPOSING THEM for the liars that they are , WE have been promised a rebuttal unit for years from the Scum Nonce Party but NADA,ZILCH,ZERO , instead they promote the vow liar to chairman,talk about taking the piss
BTW the population of the uk is something like 68million so the theft is even worse than is quoted.
'why hasn't the SNP been ramming this information into everyone's faces at every opportunity?'
Because nusnp do not want to see an independent Scotland 😒.Troughers looking after number 1.Independence is not even on their to do list. I gagged watching their PPB last night and can't remember the word INDEPENDENCE in that broadcast, just a list of AS achievements, apart from the baby box, which as it happens was NOT nicoliar's baby. Traitors.
Thanks James, can't argue with any of your post.Independence is the ONLY way to save Scotland and must come first.
Robert Mathewson says:
everything you say is correct basically the people or some of the people SNP politicians in particular need to feel the toe of a boot before they will do anything so let them feel the toe of the boot at the GE and show them that they cant fool us any longer their time is up and the people will do what they have failed to do.
Ann Rayner says:
Great idea and follows on from my experience campaigning in Edinburgh schemes in 2014. Folk were very receptive, often suggesting neighbours doors to knock on, keen to sign up to vote and even take forms to give to friends and family. Fantastic atmosphere. We need to top into this enthusiasm again
I would dispute that older Scottish people are anti independence. Most of those migrating to Scotland are in the older/elderly bracket, but they do not reflect the Scottish elderly position, albeit many Scottish Unionists are elderly, too. However, in no age bracket do Unionist Scots outvote independence-supporting Scots. During the 2014 referendum, the independence hubs were full of older Scots, manning them visiting them, donating.
I would agree that those left in the SNP do not see independence as a priority because they see the ‘trans’ issue as the priority. Some day, the intentionally and wilfully blind will realize that they were conned and have been cheated out of independence by the politicians quite deliberately. The leadership of the SNP thought, in 2014/15: oh, how can we engage the young people? Yes, let’s concentrate all our energies and resources on the ‘trans community’, whatever that is. Let’s betray all the female voters who have supported us throughout SNP history and let’s especially betray the females who actually worked hard in leafleting on the doorstep, going on marches, holding all kinds of fundraisers. We don’t need them anymore, so they can go to hell.
This issue, and this issue alone, has destroyed the SNP and will destroy the Greens and Labour and Lib Dems. It does not matter a jot who comes to power this year, the result will be the same: the parasites will take over the reins of power and infiltrate every political body. A letter in today’s National lays out how we could have achieved independence, but the stark and shameful reality is that the SNP leadership grabbed hold of the delusion with both hands and used it to crush independence. No backbone. Boneheaded. Traitors to the cause of Scotland’s independent future. Do they care about child poverty and the miserable lives of so many? In a vague, middle-class, virtue-signalling way, but, more than skin-deep? Nah, or they would have grabbed independence with both hands. The ‘trans’ issue was the war of choice that let them off the hook.
I’ll be abstaining at the next Westminster election unless the SNP or Alba adopts the Sinn Fein policy of their MPs refusing to take their seats in England’s parliament.
“grow the economy” how do they propose to do that? They can barely utter the term “industrial policy” and no Minister (even at junior level) has “industry” incorporated into their job title.
Of course “industry” gives the Malthusian zealots fae the Greens the vapours. The Salmond strategy was to grow support for independence by demonstrating competent, adult governance under the restrictive terms of Devolution.
The Cabinet and Ministerial posts are now filled based on perceived, personal loyalty to the leader. I’ve seen this scenario in the Private Sector and it doesn’t end well. Handpicked nincompoops spiralling in ever decreasing circles.
I blame the supposed bulk of SNP members who voted for HY.
He was absolutely clear at the hustings what his focus was and it certainly wasn’t independence, what was it he said just once; ah yes – I’m really quite keen on Independence.
Hardly a rousing call to arms.
What did he focus on; the alphabetties pet projects as they were demonising Regan and Forbes to his benefit.
The electorate watched on in increasing bewilderment and rising disgust at the SNPs self imposed unraveling loss of direction.
The deaf to the room SNP members meantime seek solace in not seeing past blue tents.
The SNP is done, they still haven’t truly grasped the *why* in what happened at Rutherglen Hamilton West, to them it’s always someone else’s fault.
Lorna Campbell above is right, the alphabettie cuckoos in the SNP hierarchy nest will jump ship to whoever, whatever, whenever, is the winning party and will do the same to them as well.
“I’ll vote Alba (hey, I’m a member) but I’ve sort of accepted in my heart that independence will never happen. We had one golden chance in 2014 but we bottled it as a nation. A shame that will wound us forever.”
We had two golden chances: 2014 and 2016-2020. We bottled the first one. Our leaders fucked the second one.
I had a conversation with my sister about the current SNP government. We concluded that when you don’t actually deliver any meaningful policies or improvements for nearly a decade , then people will become unhappy . Add to that, the fact that all you actually appear to deliver is policies seemingly designed to piss the majority of people off , OBF, GRA, potential juryless trials , then you are going to get a sore one at the ballot box . This is likely to happen at the GE , but the SNP will still hold the reins at Holyrood.
Now if you were say a , shamless narcissist, it would be handy if someone else was carrying the can when this happens . Leaving you free to pursue other income streams and to position yourself as the saviour of the party and of “ independence “ once the party has had its kicking .
Political parties no longer lead, they only follow. That the SNP is no longer interested in independence is no surprise. Their goal is to get re-elected and until the electorate put independence first and foremost you won’t see any party respond.
With the S.S. Great Britain sinking slowly beneath the waves, the electorate are likely to continue their clamour for the basic essentials – jobs, education and health – that can no longer be delivered effectively, or in some cases, even at all. Maybe they’ll come to their senses and realise that change will only come with independence. The only problem is that nobody on stage is capable of delivering it. Even if Alba was staffed to the rooftops with Salmonds, they’d still have to operate in a system that is on the verge of collapse. Their chances of success in these circumstances are vanishingly small. I think it will take a general shake-up of the west and a rejection of neo-liberalism before we can expect to see the current situation change sufficiently to make independence a prospect. It’s slowly being delivered as Europe sinks further into the mire to be east. I’d rather it wasn’t delivered by tanks rolling into Berlin, again, but every cloud has a silver lining.
@Lorna excellent comments as ever. I disagree with your point that the trans lobby destroyed independence. On the contrary, the creation of the world’s first trans-ocracy would have been a notable achievement. It simply didn’t occur to them. Perhaps if the fruit-loop socialists and trans-humanists from sunny California were pushing for succession from the USA then we’d see a copycat action here. But alas, twas not to be.
@ Stuart Mackay
” I think it will take a general shake-up of the west and a rejection of neo-liberalism before we can expect to see the current situation change sufficiently to make independence a prospect. ” . I think so too , Stuart .
I don’t think ” Scottish Independence ” can be isolated from the prevailing overall National/International situation .
I also think Independence will not/cannot be realised until people – more people – are able to see through the relentless onslaught of lies pumped-out 24/7 by bought-and-paid-for Politicians and their MSM servants/masters .
The complete distortions of reality that are being fed to the public re eg & *ovid , *aza and **raine are of the same nature as the distortions re the case for Independence . If people can’t see the blatant falsehoods being * presented * re the former , they’re unlikely to see the those of the latter .
In all these cases vested interests have almost total control of the applicable narratives and ” **raine will defeat *ussia if only we pour more $£billions in cash and * hardware * ” into that catastrophe differs only in degree of lethality and human/ecological devastation from ” Scotland can never prosper/survive as an Independent nation ” .
It’s all lies designed to maintain the status quo of – geo-politically – lucrative MIC-driven permanent war and- domestically – serve the imperial delusions of England-as-UK .
Yousaf leading Scotland to Independence is quite literally unimaginable – try it : try to picture H.Y standing on a podium declaring to a euphoric audience after an epochal victory in a Referendum ..” Scotland is a free nation again ” . It’s just not conceivable . It will NEVER happen .
That’s why he is where he is . His * election * was to guarantee the continuity of failure & disappointment instigated by the despicable Sturgeon/Murrell * partnership * .
Stuart MacKay: how do you think that a ‘trans-ocracy’ would have benefited women, children, young people and Scotland, in general, Stuart? All our rights would have been lost immediately, never to be resurrected. Those who believe that pushing through the ‘trans’ agenda would have led to independence, out will lead to independence mistake the hard left for democrats and are as deluded as the ‘trans’ themselves and their equally deluded supporters. It would have led to tyranny and totalitarianism of the hard left, queer theorists and post modernists.
Behind it all, the global corporate moneymen would have been rubbing their scaly hands as per, because they are neither up nor down whoever is in power. They still win. Westminster and England would never have allowed a ‘trans’ takeover, by the way. They will never allow it and nor will the American government, no matter how mouthy-foamy the men in frocks get. At least, they will try to prevent it, which might be a different thing from actually preventing it, but I don’t think so. After all, how could you ever trust a man in a frock with government secrets? Some of them would sell their granny to sit in a soiled nappy.
If the moneymen were ever in any danger of losing their trillions, they would simply decamp to another mug country, just as the Russian oligarchs decamped to jolly old London, UK, and bought up massive, palatial mansions in the unsuspecting countryside around the capital and were given a bye on taxes. Putin must have been rolling about in tears of laughter.
Neither extremes of right or left are of any use to the people. As you say, spot on, Stuart, the politicians and their parties have no integrity or critical thinking and are bought and sold by global corporate gold. Any policies offered would have to conform to global corporate intentions for us, the people, so no policy will be offered that might lead to a straying out of the sheep-pen – at least, certainly not by any of the mainstream parties, including the SNP and Greens.
“there’s a UK general election happening this year anyway. All it takes is a one-line manifesto.”
Deid richt, Rev.
Tho juist chree wirds wad dae:
“END THE UNION”
You are right, REV, we need to build support for independence. The SNP, both parliamentary party and members, lack the requisite courage to grasp the thistle. That Sturgeon deliberately chose to back the ‘trans’ issue and allowed it to sink independence, in full knowledge that many, many independence-supporting women would feel betrayed was a master stroke, really. From 2015, it effectively corralled independence and opened it in alongside the sheeple bleating that we cannae, we shouldnae, we couldnae. I believe and have always believed that there is something in Nicola Sturgeon that answered the call to deviancy, and it had nothing to do with ‘kindness’.
That aside, many will simply spoil their ballot papers this year because there is nothing for them in the manifestos, and hasn’t been for nine years. HashtagEndtheUnion, Peter Bell’s suggestion would be a mass civil disobedience, but, whatever happens, if the SNP survive this year, it will have to be destroyed completely in 2026 if we are ever to regain our independence. They will continue to block any and all attempts to revive independence. It makes much more sense for the party to be brought low this year so that another party/movement/convention can start to build a new independence consensus in time for 2026 and a Scottish plebiscitary election. Thereafter, no referendum. UDI and resiling of the Treaty so that we have the grounds to negotiate the return of all of our assets and resources. Westminster will try to keep as many of them as it can get away with, so we need to be prepared and, to that end, the work done by SALVO and Liberation will be crucial.
Nurturing grievance to secure that comfortable, British state sinecure (and the £1.3m pa in Short money that bankrolls Jackson’s Entry) is the only game in town.
The SNP are the Irish Parliamentary Party of the 21st Century. Opportunities for change are actively spurned.
Voters resident in Scotland voted Remain by a 24% margin of victory in 2015 (the margin of victory among autochthonous Scots would be c. 28%). Such a differential in a binary plebiscite is remarkable these days.
This should have been used to leverage some advantage. Robin McAlpine has heard from more than one source in the Civil Service that in advance of her first, post Brexit vote meeting with Nicola Sturgeon, Theresa May had her top Civil Servants prepare a dossier of “compromise positions”. At the opening of the meeting, Sturgeon stamped her wee feet and squeemed “No Brexit”. The potential compromises were removed from the table without ever being examined.
As the old game show host used to say, “let’s see what you could have won”.
The bespoke Brexit deal arranged for Northern Ireland has 4 Customs, Ports of Entry (Belfast Port, Larne Ferry Terminal, one of the Belfast airports & Warrenpoint Container Terminal). One Port of Entry per 0.475m people.
A combined Northern Ireland / Scotland entity would be entitled (on a pro rata basis) 15.6 Ports of Entry.
Northern Ireland would only require 3 (Larne only handles Scottish traffic) leaving 12 PoE.
Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen & Prestwick airports combined with one rail freight terminal leaves the Solway / Tweed border with 7 potential PoE. We are only concerned here with commercial freight traffic and there ain’t that many HGV suitable crossing points on the border.
Joining Northern Ireland in a Brexit “halfway house” would have had genuine commercial advantages and would have psychologically prepared the “faint hearts” for the hard border that would be necessary for independence (a hard border in such circumstances is no substantive inconvenience at all).
From a Westminster perspective, it could have assisted with their problems with the DUP (although you never can tell with that lot).
Had Westminster rebutted this proposal the propaganda value would be immense and support for independence would substantively and permanently increase.
An entirely feasible solution and the SNP couldn’t even arrange this. Was Sturgeon’s display of petulance spontaneous or was it calculated? Impossible to say, but A hae ma suspicions.
Steven – away and lie in yer water;
In 2022-23 Scotland raised £87.5bn in tax which goes directly to Westminster. However, the Scottish Government only received a budget back of £59.7bn, a difference of £27.8bn staying in London.
64% of revenue is reserved to London and 36% devolved to Edinburgh. While 41% of expenditure is reserved to London and 59% is devolved to Edinburgh.
The Scottish Government can borrow £3 billion for capital expenditure in the term of a parliament with the annual limit for 2023/24 set at £450 million. Resource borrowing is set at £500 million annually. The Scottish Government legally can NOT overspend its budget outside of the agreed borrowing limits, which leads me to my next point.
It was reported for 2022/23 Scotland had a deficit of £19.1bn. The media and unionist politicians mistakenly or deliberately report this as Scot Gov overspending. However, it is a lie. There are some very interesting figures within Scotlands ‘deficit’, for example: the figure of £9.1bn under the name of ‘Reserved public sector debt interest’ is Westminster debt being allocated to Scotland; debt Scotland had no part in creating or spending. That is 47.6% of Scotlands ‘deficit’, almost half is being created by debt loading from Westminster. If this debt was not being allocated to Scotland, the nation’s deficit would go down from 9% of GDP to 4.7%.
I would like to note another interesting point: this debt Scotland is allocated actually stems from the 1707 Union. One of the terms was that Scotland would be paid £398,085 to offset Scotland being allocated a share of England’s debt for all of time. That in 2021 prices is £71,260,439 million. As you can see, that was not nearly enough to offset the burden on Scotland of England’s debt, Scotland has paid more than £9 billion more in one year on their neighbours debt than the whole amount that was supposed to offset it forever.
Scotland is also allocated £4.5 billion for defence, but the UK government only spends £1.9bn on defence in Scotland. £2.6bn of Scotland’s money is being spent outside of Scotland, where it would better be used in the country to bolster the nation’s defence.
Let’s look at this statement: Andrew Bowie, Tory MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine admitted in an interview for the BBC “We now tax oil and gas companies 75% on their profits that they make, that 75% tax has gone towards paying for half of everybody in this country’s energy bills over the past winter. Oil and gas is important and it will be with us for the next 25-30 years.”
How can a nation of 5.5 million that has 90% of the UK’s oil reserves and roughly 60-65% of the gas reserves subsidise 34 million peoples energy bills for a whole winter but run a deficit and apparently be subsidised by its southern neighbour? The answer is; it can’t. Someone is lying: it’s the establishment in our neighbour’s capital that benefits tremendously by having Scotland shackled to it.
good comment from james on the standard-practice accountancy fiddling which goes on; this is so egregious it belongs in the “BIG LIE” category of propaganda, but it comes with a strong cognitive dissonance, Scotland being too poor to go on its own, but is also propping up the UK, and anglo efforts to keep us onboard – which make them “poorer”, a perverse from of pathological altruism, a quality the anglo is not known for, nor has ever demonstrated in his history (piracy, monasteries, india, slave trade, gold/diamonds in south africe – all incidental, a kind of “bob a job” for the world)
any serious nationalist would have put in a long term analysis unit to draw up a fair set of accounts to make the economic case (also for reparations), but this was never done.
– relating to last article, of course NHS/housing/economy/money is what people worry about, and are right to; the nationalist must then present independence as being the overarching solution to all of these problems, with copious evidence from comparative studies, e.g. the EFTA nations (the unionist will try to claim the opposite) – but the basic fact is, from day one, if you are having the full tax return flowing through your economy and not siphoned off to the south east of anglo land, you have to be better off; it would take unheralded world beating moronicity or high intelligence sabotage to do otherwise. This is without doing anything actually clever, that will come afterwards, hopefully.
Any competent nationalist politician should be able to make the point of the – impossibility – of “solving” the housing/economy/cost of living, problem while in a “union” which is setup to exclusively cater for the south of England. Impossible!
instead we get empty slogans
“equality” – easy to achieve, for we will all be equal at the bottom, with nothing
“opportunity” – for who, exactly? Me and my grifter gang?
“community” – which one, the asian business community perhaps
the deep problem for us is that the Murrells are “gone”, but not removed, the police “investigations” being aimed at them, slower, and less in earnest than a WWF “smackdown”.
I’d vote for any party that abstains from taking their seats in that rancid corrupt anti-Scots shithole called westminster. How embarrassing worldwide would that be for the ‘mother of all parliaments’ if a majority of independence minded mp’s took that step. A massively bigger impact than sending a party to westminster whose presence will give legitimacy to be denigrated, insulted, and totally irrelevant to the tory/liebor government of the day who is in power.When will you ever wake TFU Scotland.
If the REV fails in his jobsearch, despite the obviously strong nature of his application, he could go for one of these :
the modern day woke equivalent of the mafia no-show; and remember
“As a user of the disability confident scheme, we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum behaviour requirements for the position.”
remember at interview to bring up the horrendous blackface antics which scandalised t in the park all those years ago, and the notorious burnbank pogroms where special police units comprising accies fans shot women and children behind morrisons. Oy Vey!
This is a beauty, for winger “anton decadent”
– where he can assume extraordinary legal powers to sweep the scum off the streets.
“The post will particularly cover a variety of tenancy services duties including … dealing with anti-social behaviour and tenancy and estate management.”
Bobbyp.
The only one that I know is the ISP, they are a indy party for abstentionism at Westminster.
For me abstentionism is one of the first steps to ditching the union, sending Scottish MPs to Westminster only legitimises that foreign parliament and it gives it credibility, for Scottish MPs making a good living in England comes before the welfare of our nation and independence.
Young Lochinvar @ 6:41 pm
“Comprised 3 first year drama actresses masquerading as members of the public”
All from the Glasgow area too, judging by the accents.
On the subject of social welfare benefits, these are rather theoretical now in that ‘free’ health and dental care is fine so long as there is sufficient capacity in the system, which there isn’t, more especially with significant added demand constantly moving in from rest-UK.
Same with ‘free’ higher education which is capped so that relatively few Scots can gain access, whilst most places are allocated to paying students from outside Scotland, especially at the ‘elites’.
“money!” … WTF
Scotgov would be better served by hiring-in outsiders, with no skin in the game, like anti-corporate fraud investigators from Kroll – “Scotland has been robbed!” – then you set them loose to find the money. Expensive, but cheap, much cheaper than a ferry, for example.
Since the referendum failed, wingers must start the long march through the institutions, and this is why I am trying to get everyone a “joab”. Power everywhere is hierarchical and structured as a network; if you get enough of “your guys” in the right place, you can control the whole thing, democracy and numbers be damned (how do you think our enemies, the lobbies, the pressure groups, work).
We need our guys at GCHQ and the Cabinet Office.
Wings as, say, an … underground boxing club, might work.
– I would bet on ruby.
In my opinion the only credible route for independence is with Alba and ISP, both of whom if candidates win MP seats will take Sinn Fein stance of not sitting in Westminster but taking up in Edinburgh.
It then has to follow they take a majority of Holyrood seats .
Alba manifesto already covers publicite elections on an Independence stance.
I can’t understand why no one else on here gets behind them, or are many still hoping forlornly for SNP revival.
Good luck with that nightmare.
“it’s about making Scotland’s voice heard at Westminster which everyone knows it won’t be no matter what the result”
Correct! And these figures confirm that. The figures are from 2014 but one or two boundary changes since then are not sufficient enough to create any real difference to Scotland:
Representation at Westminster:
London 73 MPs
South of England 139 MPs
The Midlands 105 MPs
East of England 112 MPs
North of England 104 MPs
Scotland 59 MPs
Wales 40 MPs
NI 18 MPs
Scotland, your Westminster vote isn’t even worth the paper it’s written on. The country of Scotland within Westminster’s system can be outvoted at any time on any issue by just one of England’s regions. The country of Scotland’s power within that system is even less than that of any one of those regions. Scotland’s representation has been cut even further since 2014. And it has been getting reduced for decades.
twathater @ 9:39 pm
“the ability to speak a community language is desirable”
Aye, ony language but Scots, A wad expeck. Oor ain naitional government dinnae e’en value oor ain Scots langage or fowk wha speak it.
Such is life in a colonial society, a fowk deprived o thair ain langage, an thair naitional identity:
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2021/07/04/paper-two-the-determinants-of-independence/
Starmer’s overt Neoliberalism and partisan Zionist agenda will save a substantial portion of Flynn’s dae nuthin’ parasites.
YouGov, Where do sympathies lie, Palestine / Israel, field work 12 – 13 Feb.
Excluding don’t know & equal.
UK, Palestine net +12%
England, Palestine net +10%
Scotland, Palestine net +20%
Next week the SNP will weaponise Scotland’s innate sympathies for the Palestinian cause to damage the position of Labour in Scotland and save their own worthless skins. They will don a faux persona as “radicals”. Whether Stewart McDonald has run this past his Handlers in Foggy Bottom is unknowable. Ultimately it matters not a jot, it’s just performative posturing, theatre.
The MRP Poll from earlier this week put the SNP’s Westminster prospects at 40 seats just behind the LibDems on 53 seats.
The two by-elections yesterday had the LibDems vote collapse to 4.7% and 3.3%, while interestingly RefUK’s vote remained resilient at >10%.
Does this cast doubt on the prospects of the LibDems predicted in the MRP Poll, or will there be quid pro quo, tactical voting by would be Labour voters?
It would be frankly infuriating to see Flynn’s troupe of troughers emerge once again as the 3rd largest party in the HoC and settle down for another five years of luxuriously remunerated prevarication.
Geri @1:50pm
Labour’s victories on such low turnouts mean that we’re well on the way to an abstentionist election, never mind a poll.
Sooner or later everyone will have to look in the mirror and admit the current system simply isn’t working. Once the two quarters of economic decline become two years, then perhaps, alternatives might come into focus.
It will be interesting to see whether the Conservatives fall apart – though they tend to prefer hanging together instead of hanging separately, as the recent “revolt over Rwanda” showed.
As for Starmer’s firm hand on New Order Labour? We’ll see how long they’ll be able to hold things together. I doubt it will take long. The country is on a clear downward trajectory. Once Labour are forced to start privatising parts of the NHS then the wheels are likely to come off in grand style.
So what’s next? Well, at this stage pretty much anything will be an improvement.
But Vivian, events, my dear boy, events…
…the pressure is building and building over Palestine and sooner or later something is going to blow. Either the collective West accepts their heritage as being aligned with Baerbock’s, Scholz’s and von der Leyen’s grandfathers or they start to grow a conscience.
The politicians already know who is buttering their bread and they’ve picked a side. Same goes for the media. Just how much blood the electorate want to be soaked in remains to be seen.
At the start of this, before the latest bloodletting, I was sort of on the fence over the situation. Clearly the people of Gaza have gotten themselves a government with questionable morality (yes, I know that H**** is a liberation struggle) but now the situation is getting unbearable. I doubt hundreds of millions of Europeans are willing to go to their graves knowing they stood by and did nothing while children were being slaughtered by snipers.
OT did anyone notice the gas company’s profiteering?
72 million last year to 751 million this year – just had my statement in and this months gas is 100 quid dearer than last month . I am pondering the possibility that we are being fleeced.
Humza has had a silver spoon in an orifice since birth. His dad sent him to a private school. The problems are that he’s just not that clever, and that he blames everyone else for his own inadequacy.
He has never done anything but politics. And he has been at the heart of things when Sturgeon fooled us all. For 9 years.
Sturgeon led the independence party and did nothing to further the independence cause. She betrayed us all.
Humza thinks more of the same will still do the trick. News just in – It won’t.
If I don’t have an Alba or ISP candidate to vote for – I’ll just spoil my vote.
“Scotland United ” would have been the way forward.
TURABDIN @ 2:53 pm
“Had the SNP benches been empty” then the UK parliament could no longer lawfully legislate for Scotland.
So yes, it is SNP MP’s sitting in Westminster who keep the colonial racket going:
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2023/12/12/the-route-is-thereif-the-snp-use-it/
I just wish Salmond and Alba would come out and declare they will adopt Sinn Fein’s policy of abstentionism. The craven SNP will say it’s a meaningless gesture because Alba has no chance [at the moment] of winning a seat in Westminster but it would definitely put pressure on gutlessh wonders like Yousaf and Flynn to follow suit.
“Alexi Navalny finally murdered by the Russian state.
"They were so afraid of this man they just had to kill him.”
I doubt the leader of the RF had this CIA stooge killed especially with the RF leaders stock riding high after the candid interview with Tucker Carlson.
The hypocrisy of the west is staggering, Assange has been held in a high security prison (Belmarsh) for five years without charge, and in four days time he’ll come up against another establishment judge (Lady Sharp) that will sign-off on his extradition to the States where he will be tortured then killed, his crime? exposing western war crimes, basically telling the truth.
Yesterday Rome made Assange an honorary citizen.
https://www.declassifieduk.org/the-tory-appointee-holding-julian-assanges-life-in-her-hands/
I think our biggest mistake has been to insist in seeing the SNP under the political fraud and her continuity candidate as a different entity from labour and the tories. They are not. They are the exact same thing and with the exact same purpose: to preserve the union, the monarchy and the pillage of Scotland’s assets at all costs.
Because what is really there differentiating the tories from the other two brands? That they do not support self-id
What differentiates the SNP from labour? The seemingly support of Humza’s SNP for Palestine in opposition to the blind support for Israel by Starmer’s labour.
This is mere political posturing, political positioning to force some artificial differentiation into three products that are now so, so close to each other, that unless you have them standing next to each other and side by side you would not know which one is which.
Both, the Israel/Palestine and the trans/self-id bollocks are global matters that have nothing to do with our actual domestic policy of governing Scotland. They are deliberate distractors. Artificial differentiators to make three identical products look slightly different from each other and create the illusion of choice.
But the reality is that the Scottish people have been denied of a choice since 2015. What we are being presented with is the illusion of choice, not a real one.
If there is no choice, then there is no democracy.
That these “parties” have to hide themselves behind international matters to look vaguely different, tells us they know they are conscious they have nothing different to offer in in terms of domestic policy. They are trying to take us for a ride.
It stands to the obvious that those in control of the SNP have no interest whatsoever in winning. They want Labour to win and they have wanted this for a while, and that is why they are behaving like complete and utter clowns working every day to make the party unelectable and a laughing stock.
Sturgeon resigned (or was asked to resign) because she completed the job she was tasked with, which was to rein in the yes movement and keep it on a leash at what has been the most critical and dangerous point the union has been through in 300 years of history.
Now that the political fraud and her brigade of useless paper tigers have left the yes movement in disarray and with no credible political vehicle to deliver independence, they will simply obediently retreat like good useful idiots, pass the baton to labour and, voila, the useless English bipartite political system resumes in Scotland.
What is scandalous is that we still have the corrupt and unscrupulous colonial leaders and their propaganda mouthpieces singing victory when the turnouts are now so embarrassingly low that to even dare call elections in Scotland democratic, never mind representative, is simply laughable.
Unless a political party who campaigns on an abstentionist platform of not sending MPs to the Westminster cesspit, and they have in their manifesto revoking of the treaty of union is available, spoiling the ballot is the only way of creating a choice.
Sending MPs to the Westminster cesspit only serves to legitimise the continuity of this rotten to the core undemocratic system, to prolong the same toxic denial of democratic choice for Scotland, to prolong the continuous gagging of Scotland and the legitimisation of the continuous abuse and pillaging of Scotland.
At some point we are going to have to refuse to continue playing this losers’ game of casting, over and over again, a useless vote that takes out nowhere and changes nothing because this flawed system is designed precisely to move nothing, to change nothing and to ensure the rot remains permanently in the system.
An election is only democratic if it offers a choice. Having only pro-union parties and parties that seek to preserve the pillaging of Scotland and the denial of its constitutional and democratic rights is not a choice.
The useless SNP paper tigers have demonstrated to us for 10 never-ending years that sending MPs to Westminster is a complete waste of our time, energy and votes.
Either we vote for an abstentionist party or we spoiling the ballot. Those are the only two ways we can force choice at the ballot box and have our voices heard.
Republicofscotland
Ignored says:
16 February, 2024 at 7:51 pm
“Alexi Navalny finally murdered by the Russian state….
…The hypocrisy of the west is staggering…
Not just Assange. I heard Biden’s outrage a Navalny’s death, yet US citizen Gonzalo Lira’s torture and death in Yookranian custody, as he foretold when arrested, is swept under the carpet. Lira criticised the “wrong” side, and doubled down on his “crime” by being right about every word he wrote.
Hypocrisy somehow seems too small a word for these eye watering double standards, and there seems no end in sight to the West’s sepsis-like infection of dishonesty and misrepresentation.
We are watching the flesh of western society fester and rot on the bone, like a gangrene which will ultimately destroy everything. Whether it’s the decades of febrile dishonesty in the Middle East or the despicable charlatans masquerading as champions of Scottish Independence, they lie to our face without a microgram of shame, and utterly demean the integrity of their office. I cannot adequately convey how much these t(reacherous) bastards disgust me.
The word bastard is entirely apt, because there is no legitimacy whatsoever in standing for election on a Scottish Independence ticket, only to then turn your back on Scotland’s cynical exploitation and sell our nation down the river. May they burn in hell for this nauseating betrayal.
Whether incompetent aresholes devoid of conscience or principle, or bought and paid for subversive agents of an enemy state, the distinction is purely academic for the one is as much an enemy of Scotland as the other.
The only vote these tossers will get from me is “guilty”, as I sit as juror in their trial for t(reason).
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