The power of propaganda

Stating the bloominist blooming obvious, the Scottish Devolution Referendum in 1997 asked the people of Scotland two questions. The results were as follows –

I agree there should be a Scottish Parliament – Yes, 74.29%

I agree that a Scottish Parliament should have tax-varying powers – Yes, 63.48%

The subsequent resulting Scotland Act 1998 is clear.

Those matters not reserved by the Scotland Act are devolved to the Scottish Parliament.

Westminster has made it crystal clear that they intend to take vital devolved matters (powers) away from the Scottish Parliament, at this stage for possibly up to 7 years (so far) and are legislating towards that aim.

That legislation sets out a process which in effect entirely bypasses any requirement for the Scottish Parliament to be involved in the decision to remove its powers.

Why aren’t the citizens of Scotland out in the street demonstrating? Why aren’t there plans for citizens rights marches to London demanding that democratic decisions are respected?

Answer: ” Good evening, the Scottish government has failed to reach agreement with the UK government…….”

“Good evening, the Scottish government is coming under increased pressure to strike a deal with the UK government……”

” Nicola Sturgeon left utterly isolated after Welsh do Brexit Bill deal.”

This widespread ingrained media bias towards protecting the British state needs to be addressed.

It’s a heist

When you boil it all down, when you strip away all the political treblespeak, when you disregard the intended,and unintended side issues, the spin and propaganda, when you clear all of that out of the way the many months of apparent intense dialogue between Scotland’s democratically elected government and the neighbouring larger power, whom Scotland didn’t vote for, but who gets to overrule us,negotiations on the destination of devolved returned powers from Europe amounts to not very much at all.

Mike Russell, the man charged with the task of making sense of Brexit and trying to minimise the damage to Scotland it will cause has admitted that often the most important point discussed at these farcical joint consultative meetings has been the date of the next meeting.

It is abundantly clear that Westminster, as it is also doing in its negotiations with the ranks of head-shaking bewildered representatives of the EU on Brexit, is employing a simple tactic in its attempts to renege on the devolution settlement, the tactic of running down the clock until crisis time, blaming those you are negotiating with for an as yet not happened impending disaster, and firing up the extensive state media to bedazzle the public into agreeing with their wildly inaccurate assertions.

My goodness folks. If you cannot see now that the BBC are part of am ongoing campaign misleading you into a nanny knows best Great British state then I don’t know what would convince you, and you are paying for that privilege of them taking the absolute pish out of you.

The Welsh branch of New/Old/ Pretendy Jesus Labour have given in. Their leader already anticipating the smell of brushed ermine in the early morning.

Theresa May, the strong, secure, clear, competent (stop laughing) deport first and ask questions later, nominal leader of the British government has said she’ll concede no more to Scotland, a country that voted for devolution, and not for Brexit. She’s having our devolved powers on fishing, agriculture and others, currently for a period of up to seven years (would you trust them, even at all, to give the Scottish government these back?).

These people are so despicable that the legislation they are putting forward to seize these powers includes reference to the fact that even if a devolved government does not agree to these powers being removed to Westminster it will be considered that they have consented anyway. Think about that. Where is that fair or democratic?

Nicola Sturgeon, a leader protecting the powers that democratically her country has legal rights to, powers which are now going to be removed after London wheedles a win in the Supreme Court, has offered a compromise.

Let’s do all of this the right way, voluntarily, and by consent. Both governments should work together on common policies which meet the requirements of both Scotland and the U.K as a whole in these areas. Let’s agree that neither will legislate separately in areas like fishing or agriculture until we have a common agreement.

Naw, Rule Britannia, Britannia rules ok, backed up by TV news, radio and the print media. We don’t count, we are simply here to be misled.

If you do one good thing today folks let it be that you sit down a non political minded fellow Scot who faithfully watches Ms Burd and co on a regular basis and buys a daily paper that isnae The National, and just explain to them in simple terms what is actually going on.

I’m not convinced, the way this whole thing is being presented, that the average Scot is even remotely aware that the devolution settlement that was achieved at the end of the last century is about to be amended in a backwards step meaning powers that rightfully are ours returning to central control in London.

I notice too David Mundell, a man who if you were unfortunate enough to ever have to shake his hand you’d automatically then wipe your own hand on your trouser leg, displaying displeasure that the Scottish government aren’t agreeing to his master’s kind offers of absolutely nothing.

He’s suggesting that the First Minister should sign up to the turkey’ voting for Christmas continuity deal, and, wait for it, he’s kindly offering to help us out and do his best to see Scotland gets as good an outcome as possible.

This is like a cobra inviting a field-mouse around for a morning coffee and a watch at a couple of old episodes of ‘Cash in the attic’.

Independence is the way out of this for Scotland. It’s coming sooner rather than later. It has to.

Get a grip

I grew up in a era when myself and most of my schoolmates spent our early working life standing leaning on shovels in groups in dreary windy parks or on roadsides, like prison work gangs in America, in all weathers, dressed in manpower services commission provided bright yellow wet weather gear, digging holes where we were told to, and filling them in again, for a wee bit extra every fortnight on our broo money.

So inconsequential were we that one of our assignments involved a week emptying a dusty basement of books in the local library to allow remedial work to be done. We found out on the last day, as three guys in white protective suits and masks came in beside us, that the remedial work was to start removing asbestos.

This was a period where the industrial and manufacturing base of Scotland had been virtually wiped out by the policies of the British government and its leader, now hailed in revisionist history as some sort of saviour of the country, a time when the numbers were fudged, where we, the unemployment were wished away, to disappear, worthless.

Many friendships were cemented during that time. We had a laugh, we had to. Years later I can say that friends and workmates from those manpower teams have gone on to become successful business people, first class highly rated tradespeople, advisors to parliament, heads of government agencies, project managers of major engineering projects around the world, medical professionals, etc despite this start, but it wasn’t easy for any of them.

The views which I formed growing up in Scotland, and in the thirty odd years since those days are fairly simple, open, honest and mean no harm to anybody else.

I want my country to be governed by the people who live there, not by a government from another country that sees my country as a resource to use for its own benefits, not ours.

I wholeheartedly trust that the people of my country, whether they were born there or choose to be Scottish, have an abundance of skills, expertise and the intellectual capacity to govern a small thriving successful Northern European nation, utilising its assets and resources for the benefit of all of its citizens.

I do not, repeat, do not want my grandchildren to ever be in a situation where they are an unwanted statistic, considered worthless and on the scrap heap before they’ve even had a chance in life.

As a result of holding these, what I think are perfectly reasonable, views, the mainstream British media and those who follow unionist political parties would consider me a weird sinister cybernat cultist. A worshipper at the altar of the evil Sturgeon and Salmond. Somebody to be suspicious of in all things. I’m that dreaded nasty word, a nationalist.

I don’t spend a lot of time away from writing this blog discussing politics with others but it strikes me as amazing how blinkered and uninformed the general public in Scotland are about exactly what nationalism is, and where it is to be found.

In their defence the state media and their print friends feed them the nonsense which creates a serious misapprehension on this subject, but for example look at the events of the last 24 hours.

A woman in London has had a baby. Mother and baby are both well. Good stuff. Glad to hear it. I hope the wee fella thrives and grows up to be a kind caring person

I am not a monarchist. I do not believe that anyone by right of birth is entitled to rule over me. I am no one’s subject, apart from perhaps my wee granddaughters when they insist that my shoulders are the golden carriage transporting them to the ball, before turning into a pumpkin at midnight.

I bear the British royal family no malice. They are human beings. I don’t hate anyone. They breathe, eat, sleep, laugh, cry and defecate just like the rest of us.

What surrounds them though is real nationalism, a stoked up cult of veneration and sycophancy which maintains and renews, each generation, a system which only ever benefits a small select group and penalises everybody else, including the mug punters that get hypnotised into the hero worship of people of immense privilege and wealth they’ve never met, whom they will never meet, who have nothing in common with them, and want nothing to do with them.

There are extremes. There is something deeply troubling about grown adults wandering around wrapped in Union flag suits, sleeping in the street outside a hospital voluntarily for a fortnight, and cuddling and kissing dolls of small children. These troubled, and being kind ‘ vulnerable’ folk are fed cult worship nonsense by a media intertwined in the maintenance of the establishment.

I no longer can see, if I ever could, a difference between the BBC and the British government, they are simply both arms of the same organisation.

Continual unremitting reportage of British (for British read English state) exceptionalism, pomp and ceremony, tradition, militarism and flags by the bucketload is nationalism, not patriotism, nationalism, and not the good kind.

The problem is that so many are taken in by this nonsense. Brexit is partially a consequence of it.

The papers are just as bad. The Sum headline accompanying the birth of the new wean reads ” Cry for Mummy, England and St George.” They’ll be running around dressed as crusaders next, and we’re not even at the upcoming wedding yet.

Yet it is us who are the nasty nationalists, because we don’t conform to their view of their country, not ours. Go figure.

Somebody get us out of this please. Scotland will be so much better off once it returns to its rightful independent state.

Caught up amongst the noise

Being caught up in a white noise maelstrom of wildly conflicting, conflated and confusing sensationalist news items about poisonous gas attacks in Syria, nerve agents which apparently will now take months and millions of pounds to clean up in Salisbury, schemes to deport pensioners who have done nothing but give fifty years hard work and tax contributions to good old mother England, Scouse-accented rightwing politicians (is that even possible?) disgracefully and condescendingly telling rape victims that it’s good to talk, oafish telly car magazine presenters again suggesting that self-determination for Scotland in about getting rid of English people, which is a shame because we have such a beautiful country, and Ross Thomson, it is hard to focus.

However, somewhere in the middle of all that the fact that the UK government, that great promoter of love-in equal partnerships, that body whose erstwhile leader, now happily ensconced in comfy mult-millionaire-hood once pleaded with Scotland ‘ not to leave us, but instead lead us’ is trying like a particularly persistent bear to pull the devolution rug from right out underneath us, is getting kind of lost.

As expected after the seemingly never ending months of meetings, jammy dodger sales figures hitting a new annual high, between the people who democratically represent Scotland and the people who don’t, (those who, bizarrely to the rest of the world, we still allow to govern us) our southern masters have dashed off to the Supreme Court in the spirit of arrogant One- Britainship to seek a legal kibosh on Scotland retaining powers returning from Europe that rightfully are ours under the devolution settlement.

Wee Davie, the Secretary of State Against Scotland, nuzzling up to his mistress’s gunboots, and offering up a paw in exchange for a future filled with non-executive silent board memberships and £300 a day attendance expenses, tells us that it’s all a matter of clearing up a technicality, and getting some clarity around who gets to make policy decisions on such teensy wee trifling areas like fishing and agriculture. We’ve not to worry about it. Get back tae watching 24hour in-depth interviews with the owner of the launderette which is three doors along from the flower shop that was second on the list, only just missing out on providing the wedding buttonholes for young Hewitt’s best man’s chiropractor’s dug.

Wee Davie might be better employed as a foil for Jeremy Clarkson in a modern day version of James Boswell and Dr Johnson. They could ride around Scotland, or float aboot the coastline in a rowing boat, observing the natives, cataloging the fauna. Davie, notebook handy, quill in sweaty paw, hanging off every masterful utterance of profound wisdom that leaves the tall surly buffoon’s gub “Oh look Munders, there’s one of those Pictish fellows on the shoreline, ugly brute. What’s that he’s waving? A chib? Jot that word down old chap would you. He’s shouting something at us now. It’s a strange language. What exactly is a sleekit torn-faced wallaper? ”

I digress. Anyway, in the middle of all of this diverting hawkish self-appointed world policing nonsense, in support of the most dangerous man with a fake tan that was ever born (not Bob Monkhouse), coming out of Whitehall, watch the Tories wheedle their way into full Westminster parliament is sovereign mode when in comes to Scotland and Wales even daring to suggest that actual laws preserving powers devolved to those countries should be upheld. We’re about to be swatted yet again.

The parties of unionism,and their media, constantly say that we who only want the natural, just and perfectly straightforward outcome of Scotland taking control of its own destiny, are acting on grievance, an imagined cause for complaint.

I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly not imagining it.

We should be grateful

Ah bliss.

Like sinking into a warm bath after a windy winter’s chill day spent outdoors, frozen to the marrow, extremities creeping back to life, numbed, crying out for circulation, sinking, easing into the cosy, all embracing dream-like state. Safe.

Our race is done, our battle is over, the cause we have so strongly committed ourselves too now withered on the vine, dissolving away.

It’s over. We must return into the belly of the beast, our mother Empire. We must hasten back to our crofts, or our little Hobbit houses in the sides of hills, with peaty smoke puffing gently out of little chimney stacks.

We must learn to grow enormous moustaches to stick out from under our cloth caps, doffing is in once more. We must learn how to mend nets we’ll never use and re-claim St Kilda. We must perform our monthly ablutions in a bath in front of the kitchen range. Where did great-grandad leave that hairy bar of carbolic?

Our countryside is beautiful, one of the most stunning landscapes in the world we are told. Is it? We never noticed. All of these years we’ve been here and, you know, we’ve never noticed. Maybe we were busy.

We should consider ourselves as its fauna, we should set our minds to the opinion that we require or deserve no right to entertain the idea that what is ours is ours, that decisions that specifically impact us should be made by us, no,for we belong to our great benevolent Mother mini-me Empire.

No longer should we concern ourselves with our future, for we, we in our supplication, will be looked after, grudgingly, but forever, forever in our greater England. Bow now, whilst we pat your heads.

Quieten down now Jocky. We’ll even take your ‘heroin enthusiasts from tenements in Glasgow’. How reasonable is that? Better still, for you, the end of all of this rebellious nonsense means we’ll let your wandering bands of tramps remain in our beautiful capital, the capital of our world, where the streets are paved with gold, apart from the kerbs upon which your wanderers slumber.

Who is it that has destroyed our dreams for the natural and rightful independence of our country by putting our minds at such ease, by pulling us back, deep into the warm butcher’s embrace?

Some burnt-out bawbag who talks on telly about motors, and bullies his production team.

Hypocrisy, and the right thing

The most dangerous and unstable elected leader of a major western power in modern times is currently girding his loins and polishing up his GBU-43 MOAB’s for a Slim Pickens-like bucking bronco ride across the skies of the Middle East, and then back up through the Russian Steppes.

He is embarking on this show of machismo bluster in an attempt to use the power of his position to see off an internal investigation where former Washington power brokers, including the Speaker of the House, are jumping overboard looking for seats in the lifeboat, having determined that something seriously smelly is taking place in the White House, the rancid whiff of which they do not want sticking to their own political careers or aspirations.

This is a White House where aides, flunkies and hangers-on are one by one probably being offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for giving up the next link up in the chain of superiority, a process that will eventually leave the man at the top left with no one to give up in exchange for his political demise, Russia’s President Putin being unfortunately out of reach.

As this dangerous gamble plays out his close ally in the ‘ special relationship’ always eager to be diverted from issues like Brexit, domestic strife, botched up spy accusations that need justified and constitutional crises generated by her policies towards devolved parliaments, rises to his aid.

Poison chemical gas attacks, the killing of innocents, when they take place in countries of strategic and financial importance are to be condemned and despised. Not so much however when such horrible atrocities are carried out by allies or countries her own country supply the weapons to in the first place in places like Yemen or Palestine.

Urgent meetings of cabinet to take place, stouthearted John Bull, series political work to be done, proportionate responses to be considered, standing shoulder to shoulder with our friends and allies when called. Load up the munitions, rev up those jet engines.

All of this without the need apparently of the consent of the nominally democratic chamber of elected representatives.

Ah, says one her cohort on Newsnight, this situation is dire , grave and therefore urgent, and remember ‘we declared war on Germany without a vote’, channelling the days of Vera Lynn, of rationing, of stiff upper lip, of concentration camps and in the case of the ”Great’ War, chemical gas attacks killing and maiming thousands.

Also an era where the prime British political icon as Minister for War in one conflict and Prime Minister in the second, heralded as a hero even to this day, was a keen advocate for both concentration camps, Britain having used these in the war against the Boer’s, and chemical weapons. He was famously once quoted as writing in a memo ‘ I really don’t understand this squeamishness about poison gas’. A weapon he first advocated should have been used against wayward tribes in northern India.

There’s a lot of hypocrisy about folks. The real tragedy and horror is that thousands of innocent lives are traded in the cause of political expediency.

Meanwhile a little Catalan lady with grey hair, an academic, who has worked in one of the oldest established universities around, St Andrews in Scotland, awaits a hearing today on whether she should be sent to Spain to face charges of rebellion, charges amounting to establishing that she is to blame for a number of Spanish police officers in full riot gear, armed with clubs, shields, rubber bullets and pepper spray, bursting their knuckles or cracking a toe or two, inside their steel toed boots, on the heads and torsos of hundreds of innocent Catalan people trying to do nothing more than exercise their democratic right to vote.

It is time for the Scottish Courts to do the right thing. Refuse Spain’s international arrest warrant. Let us have something decent and honourable to be proud of today.

Not a big deal

So there we have it. Out of the mouth of everyone’s favourite panto villain himself (Boo, Hiss) Lord Soldthejerseys,the Viceroy of all Scotland.

In an interview with the P&J (Pyjamas & Jodhpurs) David Mundell casually let the adoring public know that batting off the Scottish Government’s attempt in law to protect Scotlands farming, fishing and renewable energy sectors, and others, looks like it’s inevitably going to come up before the Beak at the Supreme Court, but we’ve no’ tae worry cos dismissing its relevance is just a wee technicality, ‘not a big deal’, a mere triflette.

The Scottish government’s attempt to protect the devolution settlement and prevent a possible constitutional crisis will get kicked in tae touch, leaving David’s glorious Britannic leaders to continue to maintain their firm grip on Scotland’s resources, and allow them to use the product of the livelihoods of Scotland’s work forces in these areas as bargaining pawns in any future trade negotiations they find themselves involved in once the Brexit shit really does smash unceremoniously in to the fan.

Well, that’s all right then, thanks for that David. We feel much better now, knowing that your government has it all in hand, ensuring, as usual, that their interventions benefit them, but never us.

Did any of Davy’s colleagues manage tae have a wee chat with the European Commissioner for agriculture Phil Hogan, on his recent visit to Edinburgh, I wonder? I suspect not.

Phil, is one of a long line of EU representatives over this lengthy cat and mouse period who has had to say ‘hang on folks, the British government are telling you stuff about their future relationship with Europe that simply isn’t true’.

Opting out of the single market and the customs union does not allow for a barrier free trading arrangement. If it did there would be no need for existing members to comply with their existing obligations as members. The final outcome of Brexit will be a disaster for Scotland.

This droning repetitive argument from London that the EU will cave in because we’re British, God damn you, and they need us, is a fallacy, and is surely only now being accepted as realistic by those too wrapped up in a Union flag to care.

When it happens though I hope no one even remotely pretends that they are surprised at the final outcome, because we’ve been told often enough by those May’s government are negotiating with, those who have publicly corrected every statement the UK has made on the progress of the negotiations.

Mind you once those warnings get filtered and machine washed through the State broadcaster and their print press pals the only message the viewer or reader receives is ‘ dodgy untrustworthy foreigner bureaucrats lying to us again before we British undoubtedly get the upper hand’. It’s delusional.

Scotland has a way to avoid this car-crash. Independence is the only answer. It’s not a technicality David, it’s an imperative.

The clock is ticking

I wrote a blog update yesterday entitled ” Good evening’ which depicted a fictional Reporting Scotland excerpt from some time in a future 2020 on a day when a pressured Scottish Government lose a snap election to a coalition of the three unionist parties of Holyrood.

The purpose of this blog was not to frighten, or stir up anger, or provide fake news, or reduce supporters of an independent Scotland to tears, as at seems to have done on at least one reported occasion (apologies for that one).

The purpose of the blog was to highlight the fact that we have no right to be the slightest bit comfortable that the playing field that currently exists as we edge forward to self-government, the mandate we currently hold, the advantages that currently we could be taking advantage of, will be there for much longer.

There is currently a debate on the go within the independence movement about the timing of a crucial second independence referendum.

There are several opinions on this. All with one thing in common, those holding each particular opinion see their viewpoint as the best way to achieve independence.

I personally do not subscribe to the long game view. I did at first, after 2014, but events since ( Brexit, the opportunities we have to take advantage, if properly focussed, of the incompetence and internal wranglings of the British government and the farce that continues to be the offical opposition, the instances of Unionist parties working in tandem, and the clock ticking towards the next Scottish parliament elections in 2021) have changed my mind over time.

I do not envy Nicola Sturgeon her job. On the subject of a second indy referendum It’s all about risk, it’s going to be a gamble whatever she chooses to do, whenever she chooses to do it, and I definitely get that she can’t properly launch a campaign based on comparing an independent Scotland with a European membership-less UK without knowing the details, details of which the Tories are playing so close to their own chest that they don’t know themselves. They can be relied on to be only one thing, dishonourable, and of that we should be wary. However the First Minister is the democratic leader of my country, so she entirely has my support.

This is where I get frustrated. We seem to spend so much time where our political representatives, our advocates of self-determination and just us committed indy folk expend energy, like it’s going out of fashion, knocking verbal lumps out of one another, taking sides, getting the last word, helping out the unionist Womble media in their ‘ Oh look the cybernats are fighting again’ and ‘ Billy Connolly says they are all nutters’ headlines to readerships and TV audiences we will ultimately need to convince towards the idea that our viewpoint is correct.

The people of Scotland, by birth or by choice, have a right to expect that the perfectly natural and normal prospect that their country is governed by the people who live there occurs. It’s just a pity that more of them don’t seem to realise that fact.

We need an offical professional Yes Campaign organisation and we need it yesterday. It’s been hinted at, it’s been promised. We need it now. We can workshop ourselves into a stupor later, but we need this now.

The thousands of committed advocates of Scotland’s right to self determination need their talents, energies, expertise, communication skills, and emotions harnessed, focussed and channeled at the right target, Westminster and the British state.

I’ve said this before, and no doubt I’ll say it again, we need an established public face, an ongoing organisation that shows our countryfolk that we mean business, led by a respected figure they know and trust, and running a professional rebuttal unit to kick Project Fear swiftly in the nuts everytime it rears its malicious fallacious ugly head.

We do not need a date set for a referendum to start a campaign promoting the benefits of living in an independent Scotland. We don’t need to know the full extent of the impact of London’s government getting its centuries mixed up in its policy decision making to put the positive case for Scotland.

Where is this Yes organisation? Again, I’ve said it before, if it’s about money we’ll get you the money. Just get on with it please. We are missing a huge opportunity to start the work of persuading others to our cause, and the clock is ticking.

“Good evening…”

“Good evening. Welcome to Reporting Scotland on a historic night. Here in Glasgow, and with our Edinburgh outside broadcast unit at Holyrood we will give you all of the reaction to the results of today’s snap Scottish parliamentary elections.

Following 13 years in power the SNP, after electoral losses experienced by the Greens,and themselves, have been ousted from government by an extraordinary three party coalition.

With me in the studios to discuss the consequences of this significant day we have the former Secretary of State for Scotland, now Lord Mundell of Dunskeemin.

Lord Mundell, congratulations on your recent elevation to the House of Lords. In your view how do we now begin to work out the mess that Scotland is currently in? ”

“Thank you Jackie. Firstly let me say this. Today is a vindication of the views of the silent majority of Scotland. They’ve never wanted any of this, they are rightly happy to continue, as we have in harmony now for many hundreds of years, as partners in our precious and enduring Union.

At last, hard as the task will be,our country can now begin to make progress again.

As to your question, the first issue we will need to address is trying to unpick the legal and economic mess that we are in as a result of the SNP interfering in the government’s plan for our orderly withdrawal from the European Union.

The actions of Nicola Sturgeon and her party over the last three years have shamefully sabotaged the Prime Minister’s clear and robust plan to successfully transform the economic fortunes of the entire country, not just Scotland, resulting in opportunities being missed and future trading relationships with partners threatened.

These are people’s livelihoods the SNP has been putting in danger, we’ve seen increased numbers of business closures, significant unemployment, terrible examples of severe poverty we’ve seen highlighted in the media, your report about Govanhill last week for example, all of these represent their legacy, the SNP, and our job now is to fix that. ”

” I see. The SNP came under considerable pressure on these issues, both heavily in the media, and at Westminster, following the collapse of the Prime Minister’s negotiations with Brussels because of the lengthy legal action instigated by Edinburgh. I suppose we could say this led to the calling of the ill-judged snap election. What are the government’s immediate plans?”

“Well Jackie, we are living in extraordinary times. This crisis caused by the SNP, their destruction of the Brexit process, during a period where events elsewhere have launched us in to danger, our armed services having to once again be deployed on foreign soil to ensure that we at home are safe, would not have happened if Nicola Sturgeon had stood with us, united with the Prime Minister and our very close allies in the special arrangement,standing firm against terror.

I think the public would expect us to take this very seriously, and will not be surprised to learn, following our clear electoral campaign messages, that there will be a period of suspension of activity within the Holyrood parliament buildings, the duration of which is not yet clear, to allow time for reflection and a refocus.

It is of paramount importance that as soon as possible we see Scotland coming back in to line with the rest of the country, and gaining the benefits this will bring. This will also help to reduce the impacts of the measures that unfortunately we will need to put in place to bring finances under control, to recover from the SNP’s economic vandalism.

When Holyrood reopens under our new coalition leadership it will return to its original designation, The Scottish Executive. This will reflect its refocus, and particularly its supporting role of government at Westminster.

We will all have to tighten our belts. This is unfortunate, but necessary. However the Scottish public can rest assured that changes in prescription charges for example will be phased in gradually over a two year period to match the rest of the country. ”

“Thank you David Mundell, on this extraordinary night. Lastly, was there ever a time following the 2014 referendum on independence when you seriously felt that the country was once again heading towards separatism? ”

“Well Jackie, now that all of this nonsense is past I can say that possibly there was a slim argument to be made democratically I suppose, following the Brexit result and prior to the current economic downturn and terror crisis, but it would have been pretty lame.

We in government knew that as long as we held our nerve and waited long enough, then the facts would speak for themselves. The British public always tire of individual government’s eventually. This was no different The nats ran out of time.

Can I also take this opportunity tonight to acknowledge the work of the media in reporting fairly and impartially the issues that have been important in informing the people of Scotland of the facts they needed to consider in terms of today’s election result.

The BBC is known and respected throughout the world for its fairness and unbiased reporting. This reputation is well deserved.”

“And what is your immediate plan Lord Mundell? Are you off to celebrate? ”

” I’m going down to George Square Jackie, where I hear the good natured crowd have reclaimed the saltire, back where it belongs. This is a proud moment for our country. We need to put all of this behind us and pull together as we British historically always have. I am confident that we will do that again.”

Close encounters of the unionist kind

Check that Labour mob oot. Mair faces than the toon clock. The ghost of Keir Hardie, who for some time now has answered to the name Burlin’ Jimuck, must surely be giving itself a spiritually terminal splitting headache with the extent of the massive centrifugal force that’s being applied around it.

They are at it again. As has happened previously in other Scottish council areas, over in sunny Fawkurt, aided and abetted by a locally well known spotter of visitors from Saturn, they’ve jumped into bed with their unionist buddies the Tories to launch a coup (i wish I could swat them roond the melt wae the erse of a coo) to overthrow the nasty separatists that the people of the Falkirk Council area democratically voted into control of their council.

If you are a Labour voter in the Falkirk area, did you vote to join forces with the Tories? Are your views, opinions and aspirations served by Tory policies ? Do you consider Labour values to be compatible with the party of austerity?

Let’s see what the maestro of oration, the darling of the debating chamber, the elephant not in the room at FMQ’s, Tricky Dick, does in response, if anything.

His predecessor, known for her repetitive harmonising of the phrase ‘get on with the day job Nicola’ with her pal Ruth Davidson, whilst her own day job seemed to consist of swallowing kangaroos testicles for money on the telly (thankfully the poor kangaroo had been separated from the cojones for some time) suspended a bunch of similarly unprincipled councillors in Aberdeen for such skullduggery.

That was at a time when they were trying to polish up their image and deceive the Scottish public into believing they aren’t just another bunch of self-serving Blairite/Gordy Brooniite (yer weans will no’ get cancer treatment if you vote Yes) Jim Murphy egg style, trough munching, expenses lunch craving, wallopers, but are, right into that quaint auld socialism thingwae, and Pretendy Jesus, who hates nuclear weapons apart from the ones in Scotland, because the SNP will turbocharge austerity. Right on man!

Vote Labour ever again? When hell freezes over. They’ve a better chance of that Kangaroo voting for them.

Better Together? Aye right. Unionism at all costs mair like.