Chaos in Scotland.

[om15]

Interesting article in the Herald this morning

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/186 ... dangerous/

It looks like we might be treated to a little more Salmond, second helpings as it were.

[barkingmad]

Thanks for that very informative article, om15!

The Heraldinscotland was the only news output at the time of the “Cummings endangering lives” farce who pointed out that one Ian Blackhead, also known as Blackford, travelled 600 miles from Westminster to his estate in Skye.

Ref: WTF...in the UK, post on the 28th May 2020.

No other news media saw fit to highlight this “crime”, as there was too much sport to be had throwing mud at the PM’s advisor.

Can any of our Jockistan residents or eggspurts explain why the Herald seems to run what seems to be a very welcome but unusual independent reporting regime?

[Boac]

Sturgeon appears to have made the arch mistake with Salmond: If you are going to 'take someone down', do it properly, don't screw it up, or the hornets in the nest will bite you big time.

[barkingmad]

Sturgeon appears to have made the arch mistake with Salmond: If you are going to 'take someone down', do it properly, don't screw it up, or the hornets in the nest will bite you big time.

Pedants’ Corner Warning!,

From my experience, having been stung above one eye (when single digit age) whilst on holiday, hornets don’t masticate their prey, they employ a reusable sting against their perceived enemies.

And I believe they are normally outside the nest when inflicting punishment on trespassers who venture within 2-3m of their nests as very few humans or Scots politicians venture inside a hornets’ nest.

For one so normally meticulous in the written words I’m surprised you managed to mix and mangle the metaphor?

On the grounds that you were probably still reeling from the trauma of posting a Jeff Taylor video on Brexit, I think we on the pedants’ committee will let this one past without censure!

[Undried Plum]

Sturgeon appears to have made the arch mistake with Salmond: If you are going to 'take someone down', do it properly

Well said.

And well failed by the arch accuser who used her bitch, Leslie Evans, to so failingly construct the attempted political assassination of the Black Bitch.

[Boac]

BM - very grateful for the free pass from the junta. Yes, I plead I have been over-tax(i)ed. I hear Lester may be going into lockdown?

[barkingmad]

It’s reassuring to know that oop north in Jockistan they’ve got anything which might damage the populace firmly under control;

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jk-r ... r-removed-

I’m sure the travellers through Waverley station are mighty relieved this blatant political advertising has been swiftly quashed.

Now what’s happened to that Alex the Fish character about whom we heard so much in recent years?

[Undried Plum]

Now what’s happened to that Alex the Fish character about whom we heard so much in recent years?

He doesn't have that gravelly voice or Austrian accent to say "I'll be back", but he will be.

He's her worst nightmare. He is a better politician than she, and he has the support of the SNumPty grass roots who want to have another whack at a referendum.

She, and her top bosses within the Pairty, and the separatist Civil Serpents in the Leith Numptorium and St Andrew's House, knows what a disaster zone Scotland would be without the Billions of English munificence.

[barkingmad]

Tory Jockistan boss throws in the towel;

“His resignation was announced just hours after he faced First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in her weekly question session in the Scottish Parliament.”

Are there no individuals with some backbone and the correct calibre able to stand up and effectively challenge Wee Krankie?

[om15]

One thing we do know about Boris Johnson is that behind the HIGNFY buffonary, the unmade haircut, the contrived bumbly persona is that he is a ruthless nasty bit of work. It appears that he is preparing to squash Sturgeon and stop her in her tracks, so possibly removing Carlew is the first step.
Her biggest threat is Salmond, escaping a summer retreat in Peterhead he is now brimming with ambition and revenge, it could be very interesting and will give us much to comment on.

[FD2]

Douglas Murray, as ever the voice of reason, from today's Telegraph:

Why are liberals so happy to be associated with Nicola Sturgeon's brand of nationalism?

Among all nationalist parties and movements, only the SNP are given a pass by the respectable and media classes
Douglas Murray
1 August 2020 • 6:00am
Douglas Murray

How do the Scots Nationalists get away with it? In every other country on earth the addition of the word “nationalists” to a political party’s name makes self-described “liberals” shudder. Even many conservatives are wary of the connotations that the term brings.

Yet among all the nationalist parties and movements, only the Scots nationalists are given a pass by the respectable and media classes. And this is curious because Scots nationalism is no different from any other type of nationalism. In fact, it is worse than most. Its sole motivating factor is anti-Englishness. Its leaders will speak well of any country in the world (Cuba, Iran, France) just so long as they can portray the English and the dreaded “Westminster” in the worst possible light.

Of course they have pulled this off in recent years by portraying themselves as “progressive”. No right-on cause can appear without the SNP putting its fumbling, fat hands around it. From there the contradictions pile up without consequence. At present the SNP is an avowedly green party whose sole honeypot is (it believes) North Sea oil. It is a “pro-diversity” party that welcomes people of all creeds and colours. Except the English.

In power it has presided over failure after failure in every sector in which it has any control. It has been responsible for a decline in Scotland’s once-great education system, an increase in waiting times in the healthcare system and a failure of Scottish care-homes (even before Covid) on a fatal and tragic scale.

Still the polls show steady support for the party. And since the last “once in a lifetime” referendum, support for the idea of an independent country that would be perpetually governed by these numpties has actually risen. If a referendum happened today, Scotland might sail off to join sub-Saharan Africa in the ranks of the world poverty indexes.

Unionists are right to be worried about this. Not least because nothing we say has any effect, as the recently departed leader of the Scottish Tories, Jackson Carlaw, discovered. Personally I find the idea of a second “once in a lifetime” referendum ridiculous. But if it ever did happen, it should only take place with the consequences of a “yes” vote fully agreed upon.

Next time, let the voters know exactly what would happen to their currency, international alliances and security arrangements. Above all let it be agreed what share of the national debt they would be forced to take on. Only once these things are agreed upon should any vote even be considered. Which is one way – of course – of ensuring that it never happens at all.

[Undried Plum]

Wee Nippy continues to exhort guid Scots folk not to spend money in Ingerland and to shun Sassen travellers, but meanwhile she is silent on what Scots should do about the infection clusters in North Lanarkshire and InverClyde and in Furryboots. It's as if they never happened.

Different rules, apparently.

[barkingmad]

Thank you for that, FD2. I have long been alerting our forum to D M and his writings and also to his many podcasts and videos.

Both in topics concerning the ‘UK’ and other lands and creeds he is well worth following as an articulate informed and passionate advocate for NOT following the madness of the 21st century crowds.

[Undried Plum]

One of the clever things of the SNP is in the name.

Of course those who love Britain and support The United Kingdom are nationalists too, but the separatists have successfully hijacked the word 'nationalism' for their own. They've even hijacked the flag of Scotland as their own.

[om15]

Looks like the genie might just be about to pop out of the bottle

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/ ... in-2931874

[FD2]

Elsewhere in a quiet part of Scotland, an Air BnB let turns surreal when a booking for 7 men turns into something strangely different. A neighbour phoned the owner to tell her about many cars at the property and it turned out that 34 were sleeping in and around the house. They had brought their own Tannoy system, there was a sword on a bed and an axe on a table outside. At first it seemed to be a re-enactment of the Jacobite uprising but as some of the bookings were for men from Manchester and they were praying on a nearby beach, that they were perhaps celebrating Eid which they were unable to do in Covid infected Manchester. All dispersed peacefully on the instructions of the local po-lis.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/po ... e=hs_email

[barkingmad]

Well obviously they wanted to chop firewood and use the other blade to slice ‘n dice the carrots for the evening casserole!

Unless they were of WEHFF appearance and religion in which case I trust MacPlod made a good note of their details and photos before wishing them a safe journey home?

[Boac]

" men from Manchester" - hmm. that'll spread the virus nicely!

[om15]

Adam Tomkins writing in the Scotsman today

In times of fear people want to be led. They want clear, calm, authoritative leadership. I’m going to be honest about this—I found this shocking. I am a liberal to my core—it’s why I am a Conservative. I believe in individual freedom and responsibility. I don’t want to live in a society where the criminal law makes it an offence to go outside without permission. I want to live in a society where people make their own responsible and informed decisions about what is safe and appropriate, and what is unsafe and inappropriate, in a time of pandemic. But I know I’m in a minority. Most people do not think that way. Most people want clear rules, clearly and calmly explained, by a person in authority whom they trust.

We know that Nationalist and Unionist is a deep division in modern Scottish life. But Coronavirus has taught us that there is an even more profound one—libertarian and authoritarian.

In managing the Coronavirus crisis, even though the substance of their decisions has been remarkably similar, the way in which the Scottish and UK Governments presented those decisions to the public has been divergent in the extreme. No leader in Europe more fully embodies the liberal approach to governing a crisis than Boris Johnson. And few leaders in the world more fully embody the authoritarian approach than Nicola Sturgeon. That is why the Prime Minister changed the “stay home” message to “stay alert”. And it is why the First Minister castigated and pilloried him for it. Boris believes that Covid is best managed by people staying alert and making their own responsible decisions; Nicola believes that that is nonsense. For her, it is clear government direction that will conquer Covid, not individual choice and responsibility.

For a few weeks in the spring I thought that Coronavirus might be such a big event that it would finally drag Scotland out of the Nationalist v Unionist rut in which our politics has been stuck for a decade. That was a naïve hope. As our sunny spring gave way to another grey summer the old familiar politics began to reassert itself amid the new normal. It is depressing—but true—that Coronavirus has been reduced in Scottish politics to a battle between Boris and Nicola.

Perhaps this was inevitable. Crises of all descriptions push governments and leaders centre stage. Power shifts from parliaments to governments as emergency laws confer huge and unprecedented powers on ministers. MPs and MSPs struggle to hold ministers to account, and opposition leaders struggle for air time.

Where does this leave us? The future is notoriously hard to predict but, if the past is any guide, the lesson is this. Throughout the 20th century support for independence went up in times of economic prosperity and down in times of uncertainty. Why? Because, for all of that time, the UK was seen by the majority of Scots as a safe haven, as a port in a storm. That is the hard-won reputation for the United Kingdom which Unionists have to secure. We will not be able to secure it by banging on only about the substance and the reality of the extraordinary financial support Rishi Sunak and the Treasury have provided. We will be able to secure it only if we get the presentation right, too. It is not enough for the Union merely to be that safe haven. It has to look and act and feel like one as well.

Adam Tomkins is Scottish Conservative MSP for Glasgow region

I think that this is an excellent summary of where we are, Separatists (and their admirers) are missing the point, they are looking at the messengers and not the substance.

[om15]