How to make a story out of nothing

I’m reading with some confusion an article in one of our wholesome and allegedly more cerebral Scottish unionist daily propaganda journals, a somewhat gloating piece about. a back down, a miserable retreat of Napoleon taking the snowy road at Moscow proportions, by First Nicola Sturgeon on her plans to canvass the people of Scotland about the future governance of their country.

According to this newspaper, the First Minister has wiggled her way out of a corner that the modern day armoured suited, or armoured tanked, knights of St George had forced her into by changing her mind on when she suggests the said referendum should take place.

Ignoring the launch of the SNP Manifesto for the 2017 General Election as much as they can possibly get away with, or putting any report on that subject way down their list of headlines (even lower down than the asinine utterances of Small William Rennie on the State Broadcasters site) our pals the mainstream Scottish media have jumped on this apparent climb down en-masse.

Eh? Maybe it’s me, it might be. What climb down? Nicola Sturgeon has said from the moment she was left with no alternative, having bent over backwards for months to genuinely be, as well as to appear, as accommodating as possible to the band of wandering pseudo aristocrats and millionaires who make up the UK government on the subject of Brexit, that a referendum will take place at the end of the Brexit process, but before the painful and damaging divorce into isolationist little Britain takes place. Nothing has changed.

In the vernacular of our wonderfully expressive language the pish was well and truly ripped out of the Scottish government’s attempts to shield Scotland from the worst excesses of the elite troughers new empire adventure. Plans that were put forward to keep Scotland in the single market have been kennellin the fire in the cabinet office at 10 Downing Street for months and Scotland’s devolved government were left with no choice. It’s certainly not a backdown.

This is another example of Tory ”Strong’ and ‘stable ‘ spin and misinformation. Aye, just make stuff up, repeat it ad nauseam and make sure your election canvassers tell granny and granda ( the ones your horrible rightwing party is going to scam out of being able to leave an inheritance to their lassie or laddie, whilst pockeling them out of their winter fuel allowance and reducing their pension tae buttons) that the Conservative & Unionists have protected them from the nasty SNP because the image of Ruth Davidson sitting on the back of a coo with horns has frightened the blue painted savages into delaying their calls for a referendum…. Aye right.

Nicola Sturgeon’s timetable for a referendum is based on the London government’s own plan, and she has consistently said that she will watch that closely and amend her schedule as necessary. The vote will take place before the UK leaves the EiU though, nothing has changed.

Is there anyone left in Scotland who believes that the media is not unionist biased? You’d really need to be zipped up the back if you think they are impartial.

How to make a negative story out of absolutely nothing. Really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Dear oh dear.

Vote SNP on 8th June to combat Tory austerity and help address dishonest political reporting.

The crumbling facade

Would you want Theresa May arguing your corner? Would you want her standing up for you?

Would you feel confident that she would have the wit, charisma and negotiation skills necessary to go into a room with representatives of 27 other countries, members of a mutually insured bloc which fiercely protects itself, Its free trading agreements, and its partnership principles, and come out later having established a preferential trading relationship for your country with similar benefits to the members of the group but without having to contribute financially or accept the free movement of EU citizens?

No, me neither.

There is something in the wind, and it’s no’ just the whiff of methane that’s released into the atmosphere every time a Tory politician speaks in public. No, this is different. It’s all starting to crumble a wee bit, and campaign guru Lynton Crosby is going to have to earn his cash to get the show back on the road,or that shooge majority they thought they were going to establish ain’t going to happen. (I see he’s made a change though, he’s added a third word to the mantra. We now have ‘clearly’ to go with ‘strong’ and ‘stable’). My goodness he’s not got much to work with in this lot.

Following the TV performances of her band of wandering minstrels , Fallon and co, her own tv performances over the last couple of days were a revelation, that is if you didn’t know that she is clearly neither strong nor stable. In fact as a leader trying to project confidence she is woeful.

She met real people and she was Paxoed. Stuffed like a turkey five minutes before it is introduced to twenty minutes per 2 pound at 220 degrees Celsius.

The fella Paxman is a boorish bullying headline grabber, whose interviewing technique involves interrupting his victims whilst they try to answer his questions, hounding and harrying them into submission. No matter though, you would expect the Prime Minister of the day to be able to handle that, to brush him off, and triumph with well made points and brevity. Oh no, not this Prime Minister.

The look on her face was priceless as her interrogator drew her attention to her proclivity for overturning her own policies at the first sign of a jolt in the polls, her views on Brexit, having been an advocate of Remain, and her U turn on calling a General Election after promising faithfully that she wouldn’t do it because it would only add to the confusion and uncertainty around the Brexit negotiations.

The audience gasped, one wee wummin cupped her hands over her mouth cringing in disbelief, as May firstly looked as if she was going to devour Paxman with one bite, then briefly dropped the mask for a rabbit in the headlights money shot, before responding with a very weak comeback to suggest that Messrs Juncker et al are not in fact wetting themselves with laughter at the prospect of negotiating with her but are fearful of her powerful negotiating skills, superior intellect and excellent bargaining position, all in her wee red, white and blue world.

A fish out of water doesn’t quite cover it. Real people, and answering hard questions.

Theresa May’s General Election campaign style of transporting a bunch of cardboard cutout professional rent-a-Tory crowd from one abandoned securely locked up factory to another, with the public kept out whilst she repeats the same platitudinal nonsense over and over again for the cameras, or her incursions into deepest darkest Scotland in an attempt to meet with an ancient tribe of timeshare owning Tory voting Gaelic pixies hiding in a forest, or her attempts to engage with real Scots by chapping on their front doors whilst they are still locked up in the local BB hut breathing a sigh of relief that’s she’s left, are clearly designed around her strong skill sets, insincerity, lack of humanity, the inability to appear interested and a complete dearth of empathy.

I’d pay to see her face to face in a one on one televised debate with Nicola Sturgeon. It would be a rout.

No courage in her convictions, no honesty, no compelling argument to convince you to agree with her position ( whatever it is this week) just bluff and bluster which dissolves under any sort of pressure from questioning.

Even if you are a Scot who does not see a future for Scotland as an independent self-governing country the alarm bells must surely be ringing about these jokers. Think about this. Theresa May is going to win the General Election and her, and those like her, are likely to be governing in the UK for a long time. Is that what you want?

Voting SNP on 8th June does not mean independence is inevitable, it isn’t railroading anyone into a hell for leather charge towards an independence referendum. It only means that the chances of you being able to have a say in deciding what kind of Scotland you and your children will live in once the full implications of divorce from the EU are known, become more likely. and crucially before any lemmings start to step over cliffs.

It’s about you having a choice rather than having a major decision on the economic future of your country imposed on you, done to you. If you don’t want independence that’s your choice, Nobody is forcing you, but if you let this lot of rightwing political cowboys have their way, your opinion won’t matter either way. You won’t get a say.

Vote SNP on 8 June. Give yourself a choice.

Chancers

The Ant & Dec of Scottish politics are at it again, ably assisted by the good old British State Broadcasting Corporation.

Crystal Clear Kez and the wee surly wasp-swallying bully who is indeed a Tory, no feckin doubt about it, are adamant in their unwavering unswerving steadfast determination. They will block any possible attempts by the Scottish government to even whisper the words independence referendum.

Neither of them have anything, at all, useful or informative to say about what passes for policies in their respective parties, one almost having given up the ghost in Scotland altogether and searching through the job ads on Seek and in the vacancies column of the Ardlui Bugle in preparation for her forthcoming parting of the ways in mid June from branch office leadership, the other sniffing around her Supreme Leader like a collie begging for a biscuit, awaiting the call to the Premier League of Westminster, but, it’s the SNP who are obsessed with the constitutional question, not them, and don’t you worry Mr and Mrs Bungalow of Bearsden, we are going to block a second referendum in Scotland.

The SNP have no mandate they say, the people of Scotland don’t want one they say, there is no ‘public consent’ for it they say.

Kez reckons everywhere she goes she meets people who are distressed, upset and worried about a second referendum. She’s picking up the wrong signals, the people she’s meeting are just distressed, upset and worried about meeting her, and are depressed afterwards.

What a pair of chancers. You’d think, both having reached the nosebleedingly lofty heights of quasi leadership, that they would have heard of democracy. Obviously not, and they are clearly dismissive and disrespectful towards the parliament they were both elected to serve in.

The Scottish government already has a clear mandate to take steps to seek the opinion of the people of Scotland on their future once the full implications of the Brexit divorce are known. If those self same people democratically, through the ballot box, choose to return a majority of SNP elected members to Westminster in June, which they will, that will only further cement that mandate.

Neither these two characters or Theresa May, will stop a referendum if the people of Scotland demand it. The weak and unstable Prime Minister may refuse to give her permission as she is doing at the moment, and the powers of unionism can take the huff and refuse to take part if they so wish, that’s up to them, but when Scotland decides to do it it will happen.

Wee Wullie Rennie when asked his view was heard to utter ‘Aye … what they said” before wandering off to scare some sheep.

It’s got to be SNP all the way on 8 June. The alternatives don’t even bear thinking about.

Spin the bottle

Ruthie is back on the glue it seems.

The subject of immigrants, and immigration, in relation to Scotland is a bad thing, a good thing, a stable and strong thing, a ‘ I’m not being racist but…’ kind of thing, and a no’ bad, but I prefer red sauce wae my chips thing, all at the one time.

She and the incredible wooden spinning top that is her Supreme Leader are starting to make Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby sound plausible in their sheer ability to gibber nonsensical shite with a straight face and hope to get away with it. All that time sooking up tae Theresa May has obviously rubbed off on her North British acolyte.

Scotland is unique in its ability to frighten immigrants away says Ruth, and guess who is getting the blame for that? Yes, those vile civil nationalists are at it again. Not yer actual jingoistic xenophobic British nationalists you understand, who cancel schemes to accept orphaned refugee children at the drop of a union flagged armband, or who desecrate war memorials to Polish airmen who fought in the Battle of Britain to help save the world from an earlier form of fascism, no, not them.

The ones Ruth means is those evil divisive separatists who despise foreigners so much that they make one of them the figurehead of the governing authority of the largest city in Scotland.

Ruth reckons immigrants won’t come to Scotland because Scotland is ‘ now the highest taxed part of the UK’. This, if you recall is due to the fact that the Scottish government chose, as is there right ( for the moment anyway) to not follow the London Tory government example when they cut taxes for the better off in Sidcup. In practical terms the numbers impacted in Scotland are fairly insignificant, it’s hardly the storming of the winter palace, but Ruth will have us believe otherwise.

Reducing the number of EU migrants to Scotland would have a disastrous impact financially for the country to the tune of several billions of pounds.

In a country with an increasingly ageing population it is a simple concept to understand. Working age tax payer contributions pay for current pensions and public services. Reduce the number of working age tax payers and see what happens Ruth. In fact don’t.

It’s got to be a vote for the SNP on 8 June folks. There is no other sensible option.

We made it

As a mark of respect for those who lost their lives during the horrific events in Manchester, and for those they leave behind to grieve for them, today’s blog isn’t the usual satirical rant about politics. It’s not appropriate today. We’ll get back to that once the General Election campaigning gets underway once more.

Instead, a short tale of hope…….

The proffered bundle of books seemed nothing less than comprehensive. Dusty leather-bound heavy tomes,some of them, well-thumbed-through paperbacks with paragraphs and sentences highlighted and underlined, once glossy, now faded, magazines, thin pamphlets with titles like ‘The Common Weal’ that carried the musty smell of age, of years piled up in the dark in someone’s back press.

Drew took the pile of books from the older man and put them down on the table, and smiled at his grandfather who winked mischievously back at him. “Aye son, auld Mick kens his stuff, and when you read these, you’ll know it tae. You’ll be aw the wiser for a better knowledge of Scotland’s history and challenges.”

Settling down in the well-worn and comfortably upholstered chair by the fire, peering out the window at the bleak wintery twilight settling in over the nearby hills Drew picked up one of the paperbacks. They really were old, some of them, from a different time.

‘Independence or Union: Scotland’s past and Scotland’s present’ was the lofty title, by someone called Tom Devine.

“I’ll take these back to Uni with me Papa, and in between assignments I’ll make sure they get my full attention.”

Drew Binnie, a student at Glasgow University, was visiting his grandparents on the west coast of Scotland, as his grandmother recuperated from heart surgery at the world renowned Coronary Care Centre of the Edinburgh Medical Campus.

His parents, both medical doctors, were overseas working as part of the massive Humanity Project, a worldwide movement, born of crisis and necessity, which had over the last ten years tackled growing refugee and humanitarian crises from war-torn and drought ridden areas in the Middle East and Africa head on, and with remarkable success. Much was being done to help bring peace and a semblance of normality to these regions, without the need for military intervention, smart guided missiles or drone strikes.

Whilst gran rested upstairs Drew was trading banter with his Papa, known affectionately to all in the family simply as ‘Mick’.

“I never knew that you had a tattoo Mick? ” said Drew, as he flicked through the pages of the paperback. “Oh aye son, we all got them, back then, at the time. Even your gran got one, one sunny Saturday after a wee gathering in George Square and a few glasses of wine.”

“It must have been really something” said Drew.

Looking out into the falling darkness again Drew could just make out in the distance the massive blades of the wind turbines, which along with the offshore wave complex a few miles up the coast, had been proving enough energy to power the entire area for several years now, as well as feeding any excess capacity into the European grid network.

This system was producing funds, along with the dozens of other similar schemes for reinvestment into energy technology research and development, and helped to fund, with other tax revenues, the comprehensive cradle to grave system of health and welfare public services that the citizens of Scotland enjoyed.

It was hard to imagine that some of the things Mick was telling him about the past were actually true.

How could a country rated amongst the top ten in the world for standards of living, with one of the lowest rates of infant mortality in Europe, which had all but obliterated inner city and rural poverty via support provided through a vast network of public services, legislated as part of the much vaunted ‘Citizens Constitution’ (which many other small countries in Europe seemed to now be introducing and adapting to meet their own needs) have been anything like he had described it?

He must be making some of it up, thought Drew, he’s prone to a wee bit of exaggeration is Papa.

Looking again through the books he noted some of the titles ‘We Made It’ by Paul Kavanagh, ‘Scotland, -Investing in Ourselves’ by Robin McAlpine,, ‘The Light in the North’ by Lesley Riddoch. These three seemed to be written around 2023, after the dust had begun to settle on the sovereignty defining events of ExitUK were over.

The display screen above the simulated log fire sprang into life and a 3D life sized image, slightly out of focus. of a girl in her early twenties, stood before Drew in the sitting area.

“Hiya babes. How are you?’ How’s your gran?” said the image of the girl. “How’s you and your Papa getting on?”

“Fine, fine” Drew responded. Kirsty his girlfriend had been winding him up at university for weeks beforehand about his trip to the remote west coast cottage of his grandparents.

“Gran is on the mend, thankfully, and Mick. well he’s been regaling me with stories of the old days, haven’t ye auld yin, spinning a few yarns”
He said, gazing over to the seat at the kitchen table where the older man sat.

“He’s been telling me that at one time folk didnae want Scotland to have its own government, can you believe that?”

” I already knew that. If you werenae so wrapped up in that mathematical skull of yours, you’d know that too ya numpty.” said Kirsty, laughing now. Drew was studying advanced chemical engineering and was already appearing on the radar of some of the big players in biofuel research and development as a potential up-and-comer.

“Aye, aye, but wait till I tell you this one, Mick’s got a tattoo, and apparently so has Gran, the same one.”

“Show her your tattoo Mick.” At this the older man slipped the neck of his teeshirt down over his right shoulder to reveal a small blue coloured tattoo, with three letters, making one simple word……YES.

Postpone?

As happened, rightly, once the information started to come through about the horrific incident in London where a West Midlands man committed the murder of four people and maimed many more in the area of the Westminster Parliament buildings, when the historic vote in Holyrood’s Parliament to ratify a request for a further independence referendum was suspended to another date, it may be appropriate for today’s launch of the SNP Manifesto for the 8 June General Election to be delayed too.

Following the heartbreaking incident in Manchester last night it would make sense to delay, if they can. Today is not a day where politics will mean very much.

There is the old adage about going about your business as normal in the face of terrorism being the best response to combating a terrorist’s intent, but on this occasion I think it would be the right thing to do.

Condolences to all impacted by the terrible losses, to those that were injured I hope for your speedy recovery, and to the emergency services and hospital staff involved, as always you have my admiration.

PostScript update. Reading that the SNP have indeed now cancelled the manifesto launch and suspended campaigning as a mark of respect for the victims. A wise and appropriate step in the circumstances.

‘We’re caught in a trap’

I know it’s hard but please step away from the keyboard folks, big deep breath now. Open a windae, take in a lungful of fresh air and maybe drink a glass of good Scottish water (before the Tory fracking plan pollutes it).

Ignore the impassioned nurse with the personal plea to Nicola Sturgeon during the Scottish televised General Election leaders debate who may, or may not, be an audience plant. Move on. If she is genuine, she is entitled to her opinion.

If she is not, what happens now, whatever revelations may or may not come out, whatever is exposed, will not be the story which will be portrayed in the media,

The headlines will say ‘Witch hunt’, and the sub text will be evil Cybernats,stoked up by SNP prompting, engage in pitchfork and torchlight hounding of a member of the public who disagrees with them.

This will then give additional grist to the mill for anyone canvassing in the name of unionism to happily chap on poor unsuspecting granny’s door, or write a column in granny’s paper, that she still buys every day, which will gloss over the real issues. the genuine threats to granny’s pension or the brutal austerity measures that will tighten around granny’s throat if the Tories get a larger majority, and will cut to the easypeasy tap-in-goal chase of ‘look granny, see what these evil separatists are doing, victimising nurses, in a county where we fought wars to stop this kind of thing. Vote Tory granny, we’ll stand up to them”.

There will now be a round of unionist owned newspapers ( just about all of them) journalistically lazy and happy to trawl through social media for sensational bumph, who will dig out the most unsavoury comments they can find that have been made about the lady concerned and publish them as clear examples that we are all indeed hateful fanatical cult members, worshipping at midnight covens, naked apart from kilts and painted faces, on our knees before the dark art altar of SalmondGod and his wicked she-devil enforcer.

Their propaganda machine is comprehensive, and let’s face facts, something we will always have to live with, to overcome, until independence. It drives us to the point of distraction but we must find ways to deal with it better, instead of playing into their hands.

Politicians are up there to defend their policies. Public figures who insist on telling us how we should think are entitled to have their views debated, seeing as they’ve entered the public forum, in a fair-minded way. We need to retain our dignity, we are better than that, but those with power who attempt to stifle the rights of the people of Scotland to have their democratic views respected will always trap us with alleged ‘concerned members of the public’.

Step away, and let’s get out there and engage folk on the real issues, Brexit, suppression of democracy in Scotland, the crippling impacts of austerity and right-wing policies, and the struggle to make life better for genuine Foodbank users.

The more we remain above reacting to manipulation the quicker we’ll win.

Now will never be the time

You may have noticed that the British Conservative and Unionist Party have just launched an adapted watered-down version of their main rightwing manifesto for the upcoming General Election for Scottish voter consumption.

Lynton Crosby is earning his money on the big push of one single message in Scotland, one single message only. We the Tories who are obsessed with talking about nothing else in Scotland bar the independence question will stand up to the SNP.

Swing voters who believe saturation state sponsored propaganda, remaining Labour voters who are uncomfortable with self-government, up to the knees loyalists, and actual ScottishTories are the target of the ‘ Strong’ and ‘Stable’ brainwash strategy of the party of the ‘working people’. (If you believe that one can I have your bank account details please, and your PIN number).

Each time I see Theresa May in action I’m becoming more convinced that she’s got a slot for pound coins between her shoulder blades which requires regular feeding to produce the repetitive dogma that comes out her mouth. How robotic can a politician get. She makes John Major look like Billy Graham.

Now is not the time, now will never be the time, according to Theresa. Wee Ruth the bullying mace chucker and big drum banger is going to ‘cut the SNP down to size’ because everybody knows that Theresa is the only leader that’s capable of taking on those pesky European leaders to get the best deal possible out of Britain shooting itself in both feet. This even though the evidence clearly suggests otherwise, Ms May being dreadfully feart of having to defend her position in public debate with her opponents, and avoiding the actual public like the plague, washing her hands in carbolic soap every time she comes within a hundred yards of a real voter during her farcical campaign staged travelling circus.

We are no’ tae get a referendum on deciding our own Brexut fate and future in Scitland unless there is ‘ public consent fir it to happen’, in a kind of unspecified way. It’s hard to imagine what that actually means. If an overwhelming majority vote to remain in the EU, 56 out of 59 MP’s currently at Westminster in favour of it, a democratically elected devolved government in Scotland in favour of it, and a further democratically sanctioned vote in that parliament supporting it, is not considered ‘ public consent’ what is?

Meanwhile, their plans for Scotland include supporting fracking . Not content with our oil revenue, our food and drink export revenue, the benefit of our other resources, using our fishing resources as a trade off in deals to benefit the southern city state,and hoarding the historical wealth of our now defunct industries, they are going to take what’s under us too, and potentially spoil the health of yet another generation of Scots.

Oh, and granny won’t need to worry about getting her winter fuel allowance, just vote Tory granny, until of course 9th June comes along. Nobody can say Unionist government’s don’t have form for breaking promises to the people if Scotland, but we never seem to learn. That’s the beauty of structured relentless propaganda. Granny and the cautious minded believes it.

That’ll be something that those bogeymen pension stealers at the Scottish government will continue to fund as a protection for Scotland ‘s pensioners.

Will all of this Tory bluster be effective come 8th June? Time ,and the BBC, will tell.

Ruth Davidson suggest that the Tories are back in the central ground of politics in Scotland. A place they once held in the old cap doffing days of yore. Heaven help us if they are .

Never mind, there’s more important things to consider, things like Pippa Middleton’s wedding.

Off the hook

When is a leadership debate not a leadership debate? When Hawdit and Dawdit decide not to take part.

I can understand Theresa May’s reluctance not to show up to the ITV General Election leadership debate, seeing as she is pants at thinking on her feet without resorting to repetitive platitudes, and her policies would have been torn apart under the scrutiny of the studio audience and the viewing public, and she would have surely self combusted under the microscope of the blistering white heat of Nicola Sturgeon’s cross examination skills, but Jeremy Corbyn, what was his excuse?

Surely he would have been better facing the music, promoting his policies and standing up for what he believes to be right. Yet again he’s let the Tories off the hook. Imagine how foolish and weak the current Prime Minister of the UK would have looked if she, and only she, failed to turn up to a televised leaders debate. Jezza has diluted that by doing the same.

What about that UKIP bloke? He might be a dead ringer for Ade Edmondson but he has none of his charm or wit. He just throws out numbers in a childlike simplistic ‘over a game of pool in the pub’ sort of way. You know, like the guy everybody shakes their heads and laughs at when he eventually leaves the bar after hogging the conversation all night.

The population will be 80 gazillion by Christmas, one in, one out, I counted 35,000 Syrian refugees in Tescos the other day. There are 50 million Luxembourgians parked in dirigibles in the straits of Calais heading for Folkestone, and they all like Marks & Spencer Coronation Chicken sandwiches, so there’ll be none left for the locals. What a rocket.

I thought the leader of Plaid Cymru was going to plant him one when he continually got her mixed up with a long deceased Hollywood former child star from the John Ford classic The Searchers who mysteriously fell off a boat and drowned.

Every time I see Nicola Sturgeon in one of these forums she never fails but to impress. Sincerity, honesty and her real commitment to social justice and protecting the people of Scotland always shine through.

Her comment that the nutty far-right Nuttall was there as Theresa May’s spokesperson was gold, pure gold.

Vote SNP on 8 June. It really is the only sensible option.

I blame the power lines

I blame the power lines.

I was going to blame the schools but that would infer an unfair dig at the SNP, who during their time in office in Scotland are now sending record numbers of Scottish teenagers into tertiary education and technical and vocational training, but recognise, in an age where many children communicate in pidgin English on social media and don’t read books, that they have a real problem with the three R’s in Scottish schools, a problem that they are determined to fix. The BBC won’t tell you about the first bit though.

No, it’s definitely the magnetic force fields from the power lines which are turning the insides of the heads of unionist politicians at all levels in Scotland and England to a mush of self-serving (as if they weren’t self-serving enough ) scrambled egg, situated where what passed for their brains used to be.

Bitterness, bigotry, power-grabbing and career positioning abound.

Get a load of those wax-jacketed, gun-boot wearing lads out at Stirling. Newly elected to seats in auld Viewforth, they are not content with insulting the gay community and describing their membrum virile to all and sundry. They had to take it that one step further and have a go at the Catholic community and primitive African tribes as well. Child abuse and cannibalism is it? how droll. Talk about regressive politics of old empire? Their mothership’s strategy for Brexit is to take the UK back to the 1950’s, these jokers are more aiming at the 1850’s, or perhaps the 1690’s.

Suspended? Aye right Ruthie. Maybe don’t defrock them ( because it will only encourage one of them to start on about his membrum virile again) but most definitely it should be their jotters for these two. Would you want somebody like that representing you?

Then we’ve got the cabal of power grabbing Labour Cooncillors in the granite city. Nae wonder real Labour voters have deserted this lot in droves. Despite the threat of ‘Kez’ coming down hard on them they’ve still climbed intae bed with the devil for the sake of a Provost’s chain and some power.

It’s clear that those evil civil nationalists with their fiendish and sinister policies, free prescriptions, free tertiary education, free school meals for the wee yins, free and subsided nursery care, a better standard of NHS services by at least 10% than the rest of the UK, baby boxes, a commitment to renewable energy sources, all of that real nasty stuff and much more, must be stopped at all costs.

No, what’s needed is to power share with a party, who,in a few years time, will be giving yer granny an annual medical to see whether the cod liver oil capsules have kept her supple enough to bend over far enough to pick tawties in exchange for her pension, if not it’ll be up the road to the workhouse, and days spent sewing sacks whilst watching the Bold and the Beautiful on an old Grundig portable. What a bunch of chinless, spineless, conscience free, power hungry self servers those councillors are. I’m sure the folk that voted for them will have something to say about it. Let’s hope so anyway. You never can tell these days.

‘Let me be perfectly clear Kez’ who very soon will be joining Jimbo the fundillimundilly eggman consulting in overseas development somewhere (or did I hear he’s back working with a war criminal again?) when she gets punted on 9 June, should go to town on this lot. In the end will she, apart from blowing a bit of hot air? I doubt it.

Finally how nauseating is the British State broadcasting and printed media bias against Jeremy Corbyn becoming? For Jezza 2017 read Alex Salmond circa 2014.

Shocking. As supporters of an independent Scotland we’re well used to it, and seeing as the guy says the words ‘ Scottish independence would lead to turbocharged austerity’ almost as often as the Tory Supreme Leader mentions how ‘strong ‘and ‘ stable’ she pretends to be, I’ve got limited sympathy for him, but it’s withering stuff.

The blatant bias is so bad that I’m waiting for a story appearing in the Daily Mail along the lines of an interview with a retired stockbroker from Surbiiton revealing exclusively that he was out one day walking his bulldog Winston in the local park, and had just chucked a tennis ball for Winston to fetch, when suddenly that scoundrel Corbyn jumped out of the peony roses and made off with the ball, leaving the poor pooch traumatised.it’s coming.

If any Labour supporter, any at all, real/old/New, ever tells me again that they don’t think that the BBC and the mainstream news media that they watch and read in the UK are biased in favour of their rightwing ownership, I’ll tell them that they need their heads x-rayed.

Roll on a progressive independent Scotland. Let’s get away from this madness.

I blame the power lines.