Invisible

Friends you know this already, and if you don’t you’ve been reading too many articles in the Daily Hate Mail, you are living in a fabricated construction of false democracy. A false democracy where politicians, aided and abetted by the majority of a pliable media with vested interests, simply refuse to make themselves accountable to you, and get away with it, easily.

Every inter-action with the much referenced “British people” is stage managed, diluted and homogenised to allow politicians in power, who, for all intents and purposes appear to be getting questioned about something important to the evening TV viewers waiting for Strictly Anything Great British in a Jungle to come on the google box, to respond to the questioner with standard one or two sentence bland conceptual intangible answers that really mean nothing and are no use to man nor beast. Real people with views that conflict with what the politician is trying to hard sell you are simply not allowed to intercede or provide an opposing opinion that may inform your views or enrich your understanding of the issue under debate.
 
In Scotland it’s even worse than that. You just don’t exist.
 
Reading the BBC news website’s article this morning entitled “ Brexit: Theresa May insists deal with EU is good for Scotland” I noted and accepted the usual British nationalist propaganda, that isn’t nationalist apparently because it’s British, of the first four paragraphs or so, supportive of the most ineffectual PM since Heath’s plan to separate the nations of the UK from their European neighbours in an isolationist orgy of little empire pomp and circumstance, commentary reinforcing and promoting the half a dozen bland phrases that the robotic leader spouts on an hourly basis about the separation.
 
Then I chuckled at the game effort at a confidence trick  flung in to the text, of the not so subtle project fear variety, suggesting that the UK government had done a bit of analytical work which showed that under Theresa’s separatist plans the economy of the ‘ family of nations’ could be 3.9% wee’er after 15 years but under a no deal it would be the reverse of 3.9% wee’er, a no deal Brexit would deliver a 9.3% hit to the economy! After 15 years? How would they know? These Tory think-tank boffin types must be geniuses, and if they are, why are we in such a mess in the first place? So effectively they are telling you Brexit is gonnae be disastrous, a deliberate act by a British government is going to harm the economies of the countries which make up the UK, but you’ve no’ tae worry because under this plan you’ll get the least worst outcome. Think about it. How mental is that?
 
The bit that really got me though about this article, that really stuck in my throat, returning to my earlier comment that the people of Scotland don’t exist in the eyes of those that govern them, was the missing sentence from a paragraph referring to the First Minister of Scotland’s views about Theresa May’s Brexit plan which reads “ Ms Sturgeon, who wants the UK to remain permanently in the single market and customs union and has backed calls for another referendum on the Brexit terms, has said the SNP’s 35 MPs at Westminster will vote against the deal on 11 December.”
 
The missing sentence, the factual context which would have informed any reader of the article as to why the First Minister of Scotland has an opposing view to that of the British government, should have been, of course ‘ The people of Scotland voted overwhelmingly in favour of remaining in the European Union by a margin of 62% to 38%.’ Was it there? No. Not a sniff of a mention, you are not important.
 
The reasons why Scotland should return to its rightful, and normal, state of being a self-governing independent country are many, but being considered invisible must be high up the list I would think.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-46361492

The Visit

Where is she? They seek her here, they seek her there. Shaking her groove thang with the rhythmic dance moves of a recently born giraffe on crystal meth, the totemic perpetually hanging on by the very end of the very ends of her fingernails Prime Minister of hopefully the last, or one of the very last, governments by another country that Scotland will ever be subjected to, is coming north of the border today, ‘visiting a factory site somewhere near Glasgow’.

She’s there fighting the Brexit good fight, soothing and reassuring the masses that all will be well, there there now, as long as you keep eating the cereal (until it runs out) all will be well.
 
You should be able to spot her quite easily though if she’s in the Central Belt, because no doubt, knowing her keenness to hear what folk think,  she’ll be wanting to be as accessible to the people of Scotland as she can possibly be.

Therefore just look for a huge crowd in an industrial estate somewhere, maybe around Cumbernauld, or Uddingston, somewhere like that, and assuredly she’ll be right in the middle of it, joking wae the local characters, selfying wae everybody who wants one, charming the weans, in particular the wee lassies, who she’ll particularly be working hard to inspire to go on and take on the world and kick it’s erse, feeding the lunchtime nearby High School troops bits of her locally bought fish supper, clapping dugs and helping tae jump start faulty motability scooters. Aye, right doon tae earth she’ll be. She’s a real people’s Prime Minister. It’ll be magic.
 
The assembled crowd, they’ll be enthralled, and be hanging on her every word. “Dae ye hear that?” they’ll mutter to each other as she makes her public speech. “I never realised that the Turks and Caicos Islands were so important to the continued marvellous performance of our export sector, did you?” As a casual passer-by you’ll be able to actually physically feel what a whole gathering of Scots gushing with pride in their British identity feels like as they sigh and coo, and wave imaginary wee plastic flags they sell at the Gala every time she repeats the phrase “ It’s a good deal for all parts of our precious Union, our family of nations, and the only deal”.
 
They’ll get how clever she is, how dogged and tenacious she was in those endless negotiations with that untrustworthy lot of foreigners in Brussels, they’ll hear how she stood up for Scotland, how she put our interests first and foremost at the spearhead of her negotiating strategy.

She’ll drop hints to her captivated audience about how ensuring Scotland’s continued prosperity in particular was a clear red line for her as she took part in a staring competition with Ms Barnier, a competition in which he blinked first.

She’ll describe by anecdote a moment where over a scalding skinny long black in the atrium of the EU headquarters she threatened Jean-Claude Juncker with a gunboat off Zeebrugge unless he agreed that Tunnocks tea-cakes and Walkers shortbreed and oatcakes would continue to be on the canteen menu in the strangers lounge of the European Parliament until at least 2020. She’s a ticket, that one.
 
Once the show’s over, and she’s finished reassuring Scotland that Brexit is the greatest thing since cholera, there’ll be a rousing  three cheers of ‘Hip Hip Hooray’ in her honour, a chorus of “Rule Britannia”  and she’ll be carried off shoulder-high to her waiting Range Rover, which will depart the scene for a lunch engagement with our ever popular Viceroy, who is always particularly clear about how particularly clear he is that he is not resigning. Such a fine man of integrity that he is.

The showers of rose petals being strewn in her vehicle’s path by the scores of adoring Scots, content that they’ve had their say on the matter,  happy that their democratic will has been protected, their views satisfied, will warm our gracious leader from another country’s heart.

She’ll return to her cosy nest in the southern city state that actually matters to her and those like her, renewed in her sense of ‘Precious Union’.
 
……And then she’ll wake up, and spill her glass of water on her pillowslip.
 

Pride before a fall

It is clear beyond any doubt (the only thing that is clear about Brexit) that the crazy dance mover of Downing Street is gambling on one significant factor to try and bring her cobbled together (kick big decisions further down the road to 2020, and leave the final stages of the betrayal of what’s left of the Scottish fishing fleet to a time when she needs their fishing grounds as a bargaining tool again) plan to fruition. Shes’s hoping that the public of the UK are scunnered with Brexit to the point of taking the boak every time the subject is mentioned , and just want the whole thing over, hang the consequences for the future.
 
The group of EU negotiators involved in protecting the common interests of the remaining 27 European Union members during the protracted act of economic and cultural suicide that the separatists of English nationalism have wrought are still bewilderedly scratching their heads, only now they are thinking ‘Is this it? Is this weak, watery, full of holes agreement, which leaves the UK definitely worse off than being members of the EU really what the British have been wailing and gnashing their teeth about for the last two and a half years? Was it really worth it? Are they so obsessed with creating a fence around themselves to stop freedom of movement that they are happy to cut their own nose off to spite their face?’
 
The famed orator, admired for her spontaneity, quick witted responses to hard questioning, and inspiring charisma, a politician able to seal a deal (she’s none of these), still perilously hanging on to the key of the Westminster executive washroom, is set for a whistle stop tour of the UK between now and the 11 December, the day her plan will be voted down in parliament, sending the whole circus ring into chaos again and sparking a guddle of Brexiteers (what is the collective term for Brexiteers? A Screaming Bonkers Pride of Brexiteers , or perhaps a Xenophobia of Brexiteers?) tickling each other under the chin whilst they decide which of them gets to sit in the high chair and play phone footsy with Donald.
 
No doubt an old scout hut or community hall stuck in the middle of a forest somewhere in Scotland will be visited over the next week or so by Theresa and a handpicked audience of Tory party associated nodders and clappers, locked in and surrounded by a security perimeter to ensure that only the BBC Scotland telly cameras get in to record her speech. It wouldn’t do to let real people in now would it. They might go off the script. With wee Ruthie off on parental leave it will be interesting to see if Scottish Tory branch deputy Jackson Carloan steps up as a replacement host, or shall we be treated to a glimpse of the man who is always perfectly clear about how perfectly clear he is that he’s made himself perfectly clear that he won’t resign, the Viceroy of Spineless himself?
 
Here’s one I’m sure she won’t be asked by roving reporters from Pacific Quay. Why is it Prime Minister that you are always prattling on about how precious the union is to you, and how you revel in our great ‘family of nations’ yet Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the European Union, by a margin far greater than they voted to remain in the UK in 2014,  and for two and a half years you have completely ignored the democratic will of the people of Scotland?  

 
 

The state of this

It is surely time for the Fluffmeister Pursuivant, the Secretary of State Against Scotland, to take one of his long trips to somewhere far far away again.

Clearly under extreme pressure over his red lines and his red neck on the future of Scottish waters post-Brexit we can surely only be hours away from him jetting off to Myanmar or Ecuador to tell assembled groups of bewildered dried leguminous vegetable exporters, banana plantation owners and shrimp fishermen that nobody wants another independence referendum and Nicola Sturgeon should take it off the table once and for all. 
 
That’s what usually happens whenever there is even a very remote chance of his spineless forty-faced lack of ownership of the consequences of his public pronouncements coming back and battering him squarely between the een.

On such occasions when he’s in full backtracking mode during an interview you can almost smell the burning rubber as the soles of his shoes start revving up for a backwards in reverse moonwalk to get him as far away from the reporter asking him the awkward questions as possible.
 
What a brass neck the fella has. Having watched his interview with Channel 4’s Ciaran Jenkins about whether he should resign in the wake of his beloved leader, the robotic orator with the crazy dance moves, (deliberately) including language in her Brexit plan which creates a huge grey area that will allow her government to once more, as they have done several time since they first took Scotland’s fishing industry into the Common Fisheries Policy, use a Scottish natural resource, and those employed in harvesting it, as pawns in negotiations with Europe, his body language, breathlessness and stilted replies clearly showed that he’s finding it very tough.

He’s finding it tough hanging on for grim death to his dream of a lovely cloak made from the fur of a short-tailed weasel (somewhat befitting), three hundred tax free quid in his back pocket every day to supplement his ample ministerial pension, and the prospects of a peaceful snooze on the benches of the Lords between late subsidised lunches in a Palace of Westminster dining room and early suppers in an exclusive West End Gentlemen’s club paid for by corporate lobbyists.
 
In his mind all he has to do to ensure that he achieves his self–serving ambition is to continue on every occasion, at every juncture, during every moment of his political life, to take every possible opportunity to deny the existence of Scotland as a country, to denigrate any statement which promotes the view that Scotland can, and will, exist as a thriving independent nation, and to continuously endorse a notion that the United Kingdom is our country, a country Scotland is effectively a region of, and fallaciously, a country which Scotland is heavily reliant on to ensure its prosperity.
 
He really is London’s man in Scotland. Of that there is no doubt, in line with the fairly recent re-branding of his government’s civil service in Scotland, which is no longer the Scottish Office, or Scotland Office, but is now The UK Government in Scotland. We move nearer to the point of being considered the last remaining colony every day.
 
As much as the man in question raises my ire, and blood pressure, as I’m sure he does for many of you reading this, I do hope he chooses the destination of any hastily arranged foreign trip, to get out of the media firing line, carefully.

For example if I was him I’d avoid North Sentinel Island, within the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal. There’s a lost Pre-Neolithic tribe there who have been in the news this week, who prefer to remain entirely isolated from modern life, a tribe who have never been subjected to any of the common viruses we all experience, the common cold for example could be devastating within their community.

They’ve never been subjected to the Hootsmon or the BBC’s Reporting Scotland, and are therefore lacking in the deep rooted state propaganda brainwashing that the rest of us endure. Telling them that nobody wants a referendum may be confusing, or detrimental to their health, and perhaps might not go down too well. Therefore if I was Fluffy I’d stick to an exotic destination with a decent Trump Resort.
 
In all seriousness if he was a man of integrity and principle, a man with a real, honest, sense of responsibility towards protecting the interests of the people of Scotland, he would show a bit of backbone and resign immediately as a consequence of the obvious sell-out, once again, of a vital sector of the Scottish economy. Will he? No chance. Of course not. It’s all about his future, not yours.

David Mundell’s disgraceful political actions representing his London masters demonstrate clearly why Scotland must take the step of returning to its rightful independent state.
 
Dear friends, Independence is what we want, and Independence we will surely have.

Fitbaw Crazy

I had to chortle at the latest news coming out of that ancient dusty monument to ersatz democracy, the cradle of the mythical ‘Precious Union’ (the greatest one-sided swindle since Scotsman Gregor MacGregor (con)vinced several hundred British and French investors in the  first half of the 19th century that throwing huge piles of cash into government bonds and land certificates for a fictional Central American province he’d made up was a splendid idea).

This was news of serious import indeed, of Speaker of the House, wee John Bercow, he of the sacred “Order! Order!” getting his goony in a twisted knot over the silky keepie-uppie skills of SNP MP for Livingston Hannah Bardell, and a couple of her cross-party colleagues, having a wee kick aboot in the Commons Chamber.
 
Wee John, who doesn’t shout at his staff apparently, reckons ‘Our historic chamber should not be used for this type of activity.’ Seems a bit harsh to me that, particularly when he doesn’t seem to have a problem with the guffawing offspring of landed gentry and I didn’t get where I am today without kicking a sleeping homeless yob in the street and paying my workers under the odds on zero hours contracts self-made types, (not the type much driven to philanthropy) baying and spitting fury at the democratic representatives of the people of Scotland.

He doesn’t have an issue with said self-entitled types advising Scottish MP’s to commit suicide, or suggesting that Cromwell deporting Scots to the plantations was a great solution to a constitutional problem, or screeching loudly at the mention of reports detailing crippling poverty created under Tory mismanagement, trying to drown out debate, or even in the case of a former SNP female MP, he wasn’t that bothered about choruses of wolf-whistling every time she took to her feet to make a point. No, he’s not got a problem with any of that.

Nor even did his colleague, the Deputy Speaker, the other week when a Scottish MP was forced to continually repeat his question during a debate because the Tory opposite to whom he was addressing the question apparently couldn’t understand a clearly spoken Scottish accent. In the end the suggestion which came from the Speakers nest was that the Scot puts his question in writing. How crass and cringe-worthy is that?
 
I’d say these footballing ladies efforts are a refreshing change from the normal unruly child-like behaviour of the majority of the grandstanding attendees of that chamber, a place so far removed from the 21st century that, as Mhairi Black once described it, if there’s a problem during a vote, a miscount or somebody is deliberately delaying the process, they send for a guy with a big sword to sort it out.
 
I’m surprised they ever actually get anything of any worth done. It’s certainly never been a place that has made decisions that put the people of Scotland’s views at the top of its list of priorities, and as such will never be an appropriate forum to promote Scotland forward into a modern progressive self-reliant nation. Scotland needs to leave Westminster behind. Leave them to their pantomime squabbling, to their dreams of the past, in a tired museum to a greatness that for the most part never really existed.
 
The sooner that change comes about the better. Let’s do it.

Nicola goes to town

There’s absolutely no truth in the rumour that whilst wandering the dusty hallways of the Palace of Westminster yesterday First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon was heard to utter rather loudly as she passed a particularly sleekit coven of slimy Old Spice smelling gin-soaked Brexiteers who were whispering in a corner under a portrait of the snatcher of milk “Haw, you lot, ootside, yer claimed!”
 
However it seems she may have caused a bit of upset and disruption to the normal workings and purposeful progress of the seat of our magnificent government overlords (sloth-like adherence to the status quo, pointless postulating on the technical details of parliamentary protocols and ageing posh boys gazing down at the growing bump in their anatomy where their navel used to be) by her visit.

She was in London to try and corral assorted careerists, fake socialists, second coming Messiahs, pseudo-progressives and some Welsh people into some sort of sensible alliance against the forthcoming madness of the re-launching of the East India Company, this time without thousands of bearded Highland kilties, mad as a cut snake with prickly heat, charging round the sub-continent putting sharp bayonets in lots of places that cause mischief, roll up, roll up, get your trade deal here, two for a pound!
 
It has been reported that our stalwart FM, always keen for a good laugh, stumbled upon a meeting of the right-wing nutjob Tory European Research Group, whose chairman is of course that well known Horace Broon look-alike Jacob Rees-Mogg,  and seeing a room full of self-entitled wallopers hell-bent on ‘Jaunting’ Tomorrow People-like back to the era before the Suez Crisis, it seems she decided it was well worth a gatecrash for a chance to see stark raving lunacy displayed in one of its finest settings.

Allegedly the assembly of Hooray-Henry’s and Henrietta’s gave her a rousing cheer for doing so, although I’m not so sure they were too happy about her then proceeding to stand at the back of the room interjecting occasionally with such phrases as “ Naw ye didnae” and “ Aye ye ur” and “ Naw yeez hivnae” as the various wind-baggers and exponents of expensive educations which clearly have done them no good, demonstrating the principle that you can’t teach a pot plant to compose a concerto, spouted forth bilious Daily Mail quotations at each other.
 
Apparently too the FM, on her way into the office of the robotic orator with the crazy dance moves who precariously is still purported to be in charge of the Circus of Westminster, came face-to- face with the bumptious shaggy haired Bullingdon bully, who pretends to be everyone’s friend and tries to deceive by projecting a comical persona, even to the extent of dishevelling his blonde grey mane just before going on camera for interviews, whereupon said dangerous right-wing opportunist wished her “Good luck”. The FM is reported to have replied “Want me to tell her anything?”
 
Nicola Sturgeon is obviously too polite to have given him, one of the main instigators of the disaster which is about to befall the UK, the reply he deserved. Three words, and the first two are Get tae…….

There’s been a poll!

Oh my goodness, woe is us, for we are lost!  

Re-banish the name Douglas, raise the dragon banner and let it be known that anyone who shelters the rebel Sturgeon will immediately have their lands and possessions wheeched oot from under them and redistributed to a cadre of Daily Mail readers in Sidcup, to be replaced by a white van delivery of every conceivably distinct Scottish product, food or beverage that they can possibly stamp with a red, white and blue flag, which they’ll then make the harbourer of the rebellion consume whilst listening to a continuously repeated version of Blake’s Jerusalem at a volume just audible from outer space  “AND DID THOSE FEET IN ANCIENT TIME..”
 
There’s been a poll! Commissioned by our good friends Union In Union, Union, Precious Union, Oh Union I love thee, not surprisingly it finds that there are approximately twelve people in Scotland who would like their government to actually be in Scotland and have their priorities, as the people of Scotland, at the centre of their policies, the headline in the suddenly with one bound they were debt free, to hang with the staff pension fund,  reincarnated Hootsmon tells us triumphantly.

We Scots it seems are desperately keen to continue to leave the big decisions that impact our lives to people who know better than us, from another country, especially since Brexit is happening, and they’ve done so well getting ready for it so far.
 
The Survation poll, which I can only imagine somehow accidently managed to include, amongst the 1,013 people it surveyed, several of those weird dodgy folk, carrying children’s dolls,that hang around hospitals dressed in union flagged suits every time a member of the UK branch of the Sax-Coburg and Gotha extended family has a wean, the Larkhall Loyal Flute Band and Roughcasting Division, Jackie Burd’s pet bulldog Winston,  Andrew Marr, a significant number of readers of the Scottish version of the Express, and a young team which surely must have been canvassed via their email addresses at the likes of Fettes, Gordonstoun and George Watsons, has well and truly done for us.
 
Apparently 60% of our young folk over 16 would choose to stay in the UK. Aye, that makes sense. I can understand it of course because a yearning to live on a large island which isolates itself from its neighbours, mistrusting foreigners, limiting your chances of working in other countries and broadening your horizons and opportunities in life is right up there as a huge plus for those up and coming generations. They just love a rigid structure to their existence and the comfort of barriers and rules stopping them doing what they want to do or experiencing new things in their lives , so they do. They are also mad keen on the Antiques Roadshow and Songs of Praise, and they are forever writing down the phone numbers on those television adverts for funeral insurance.
 
Aye, we are no more. The independence movement is a busted flush, and as usual they’ve drafted in polling expert  ‘Sir’ John Curtice to tell us that this is the case. You’ll be sick of seeing his fizzer and hearing about this particular poll over the next few days. It will be on every news bulletin that accompanies your boiled eggs, your plate of soup, your teatime tawties and your twilight hours roasted cheese.
 
Back in the real world of course, as Margo MacDonald used to say “Polls (sic) are for haudin up tents”. The only real poll is the one they are worried about, the one they are losing sleep over, the one that is coming to a polling booth near you in the not too distant future. Then we’ll see.
 

Getting up off our knees

Upon reading this morning’s headlines regarding the draft proposals to separate the UK from the European Union it is clear that, amongst several other associated risks, the British government have just taken an almightily massive risk, based on what calculation we do not know, that the numbers of Scots who identify themselves entirely as British outnumber the rest of us, despite the fact that 62% of Scots voted to remain in the EU.
 
After the many months of chaos, confusion and procrastination we’re at a crunch point. The crazy dancing robotic orator who is the current Premier of the Westminster government politically will shakily stand or fall from an extreme height sometime over the next week or two on the basis of the details she has presented as meeting with the requirements of her head and her heart as the right deal going forward for her precious union.  
 
The Pretendy-Jesus-for-Prime-Minister-then-we-can-punt-him-out-the-way-and-get-back-to-neoliberal-pseudo-socialism-Blairite-trough-swilling-party don’t like it. They think they are in with a shout of the big chair at the table.
 
The DUP, who have been propping the present government up since the last General Election in exchange for cash and a blind eye being turned to their extremist views, are ready to don the bowler hats, sashes, and white gloves and march in a circle around pyres of burning EU produced wooden pallets at the very thought of the proposals, they don’t like it either. How a political party from any country anywhere in the world can possibly get outraged about the fact that their country/ province is about to gain an economic windfall and a clear advantage over its neighbours is beyond me, but hey-ho, No Surrender, nobody said they were smart. The fleg is the important thing, not jobs, not investment, not trade, not the inward movement of EU workers paying taxes to bolster your public services, no, none of that, it’s about being loyal and true.
 
The Brexiteers are apoplectic. Boris Johnson’s Jerusalem is not in sight, and not likely to be if Theresa May manages to see this through, and keeps a link to the EU but without any  decision-making ability. If she falls from power in the trying please consider this dear friends, there’s a  strong chance that the new man in charge of Scotland’s destiny will be that dead ringer for a grown up Horace Broon, (Jacob Tree-Frog), a principled fellow with the look of a 21st century psychopath and the views of a 19th century Lord keen to put a workhouse in every dilapidated formerly bustling High Street of the UK (perhaps between the Turkish Barbers shop and the E Cigarette emporiums). He’s clearly nuts, and I’m sure if given the opportunity he’ll have some lovely experimental plans for Scotland, as per the woman of his dreams, now residing in a very warm place somewhere south of the earths’ core. The right-wing hard-liners are not happy.
 
That madcap mob of Scottish Tory sycophantic Johnson cheerleaders at Westminster are not taken on with the idea either. Remember them? That was the lot that when they were elected enthralled us with loud exclamations about how they were not there to be the Tory party’s puppets, they would be standing up for their constituents and Scotland, aye that’s them. High profile amongst them, and talking of puppets, the zoomer that looks and acts like Ray Alan’s puppet, Ross Thomson (Why, people of Aberdeen South, just why?), a mad keen Brexiteer, is particularly non-plussed about the proposals  (bearing in mind that his constituents, the people he represents voted to remain in the EU) and reckons if they are implemented it will lead to the UK being a ‘vassal state’ to the EU. Can you believe that? Scotland is, and has been for centuries now, a vassal state to the country that he adores but naw that doesn’t matter, he doesn’t see it, not at all, that’s unionist logic right there.
 
Our lovable cuddly fluffy Secretary of State Against Scotland, chinless to a fault, who previously had suggested that any move that gave Northern Ireland an economic advantage over Scotland, which would inflame the wild beasts of independence, namely us, would be a resignation matter for him, has rather predictably rolled over and let the dancing queen scratch his beard on the proposals, although he still has ‘his reservations.’ This is a man of very strong principles, but if you find you don’t like them don’t worry he’s got others. What a particularly loathsome politician he is, history will not be kind to him.  
 
Scotland? We didn’t even rate a mention in the proposal document, in the entire 500 odd pages, not a word. Everybody and their auntie, including the governor of Gibraltar and yon big scary wummin wae the Red Hand of Ulster tattooed on her knuckles (they need her and Sammy’s votes) was allowed a squint at the proposals document before its publication, apart from the folks in charge of the Welsh government and our very own First Minister. She was granted a phone call after publication though, awful good of Theresa May that, just to pass on the news that in London’s view “ Scotland’s distinctive interests had been protected” in the proposal.

I’m sure Theresa was disappointed to hear that Nicola Sturgeon, and almost anyone else who has paid any attention and isnae obsessed with red, white and blue flags has a different view. Scotland’s interests have been completely disregarded, and the prospects now of an economic downturn of a significant magnitude due to the clear competitive disadvantage which will exist as a result of Northern Ireland still being able to trade as if it is a member of the EU, make the picture decidedly bleaker.  
 
Scotland, as usual, exists, and its fortunes improve or worsen, at the continued whim of a government from another country. This is not normal.
 
How much of this can you take? Get up off your knees folks. It can’t go on much longer. We must seek independence, and we must do it soon. We have the mandate.

Finding shelter

Nearly two and a half years ago newly appointed UK Prime Minister Theresa May said the following on a trip to Edinburgh… “This visit to Scotland is my first as Prime Minister, and I’m coming here to show my commitment to preserving this special union that has endured for centuries.”
 
She then went on to say regarding the then early stages of preparations for the UK to leave the European Union…“I’m willing to listen to options and I’ve been very clear with the First Minister today that I want the Scottish government to be fully engaged in our discussions.”
 
Today, with the stopwatch ticking down to 29 March next year, the date set for the separation from Europe, less than five months away, the cabinet of the British government at Westminster will meet to discuss a hurriedly prepared proposal for leaving the EU, an event which will impact the citizens of the countries which make up the union that is the UK in ways that at the moment most can only imagine (the complexities of the divorce being such that the ramifications have not been widely shared in a form that allows folk to understand the personal implications of Brexit for themselves).
 
When the Brexit vote took place the people of Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the European Union. Despite that fact, despite Theresa May’s comments in July 2016, despite her lip service to what is sickeningly described consistently by herself and other unionist politicians as “our precious union” (precious for whom?), despite all of that no one in the democratically elected Scottish government has seen, or has knowledge, of the detail of the proposal which will take the people of Scotland out of Europe against their will.
 
A country, whose people are sovereign, which has democratically decided that they do not wish to endure the economically suicidal risk of Brexit, are being over-ruled, completely ignored and are at the whim of a group of separatist right-wing English politicians in London. A cabal seeking to establish a nationalist, protectionist isolation and a newly established imperial nirvana based on a glorious past that never actually existed, a future involving shiny new Royal Yachts filled with celebrity royals, and Prince Andrew, sailing the seas, and claiming new lands and riches for Britannia, or as they like to describe it, a foreign trade deal with Papua New Guinea.
 
Before today’s meeting of the cabinet Westminster’s man in the north, the Secretary of State Against Scotland, David Mundell, will have been fully briefed on the content of the proposal, yet the First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon, and Mike Russell, the Scottish government Minister designated to negotiate with London on the implications of Brexit for Scotland, will have no knowledge of any of the content.

Indeed Mike Russell was in London yesterday, attending one of the custard creams and bourbon biscuit (JMC) meetings that the UK government set up a while ago with the devolved governments of the parties to the union so as to tick a box and appear to be consulting with them on Brexit. Meetings at which, without fail, Russell, and on occasion the First Minister, have said afterwards, leave them knowing no more about Brexit when the meeting was over than they knew before the meeting started. I suspect they would have been better employed over the course of these tedious non-progressive meetings reading a good book or perhaps playing a spot of Twister. These gatherings from start to finish have been a sham. London doesn’t care. We don’t matter.
 
May said some time ago she wouldn’t trigger the Article 50  notice of withdrawal from the EU without a commonly agreed with the devolved government’s proposal in place. The Scottish government then read about Article 50 being triggered in the papers anyway.
 
The Scottish government came up with their own proposals for consideration, a document designed to protect the people of Scotland and the rest of the UK from the repercussions of a ‘No deal” Brexit. The hard copies of this document, apart from one, which is acting as a balance under one of the legs of Dominic Raab’s office desk, are now being stored in a cupboard in Whitehall awaiting the period of shortages after Brexit when they can be cut up into squares and used for a purpose aligned to the utter contempt which the government from another country feels for the devolved government of what it considers a region of itself, a possession.
 
Scotland’s democratically elected majority party at Westminster have been laughed at, scorned, invited to commit suicide, ignored, had their accents made fun of, and railroaded into vital decisions about Brexit being made in the Commons chamber without their input and against their will.  Frankly if there was a mechanism available to bring them home and set up a provisional independent government in Scotland I’d seriously advocate it. However currently their important work in representing their constituents in the circus tent of the Palace of Westminster, and the fact that those self-same constituents haven’t had an option or opportunity to vote for that arrangement as yet, mean that is not an option.
 
If, in Scotland, after all of that you still think the government in London is serving your interests, and is putting yours and your family’s needs high on their list of priorities, you must be entirely wedded to the fact that Britain is your country and you are happy for your part of that country to be seen as a region.

For the rest of us, independence, and independence now, yesterday, the morn’s morning, the day after that, is the only answer. There’s a cold hard rain coming and the people of Scotland have the means to find a warm and dry shelter. Let’s do it.
 
 
 

Cheap and nasty

As is the proper thing to do, this blog has stayed away from commenting on the allegations against former First Minister Alex Salmond other than to say that in the interests of all the parties concerned the matter should be left in the hands of the courts and due legal process.

However I can’t let the photograph which accompanies the ‘Hootsmon’s’ online article, published overnight by Tom Peterkin, about the procedural hearing taking place in the Court of Session relating to the action Salmond has taken to contest the complaints process activated against him, pass without expressing disgust at the blatant attempt by this declining newspaper to paint him in a poor light.

Above the caption ‘First Minister Alex Salmond is seen today filming outside of the Scottish Parliament and Holyrood Palace this afternoon in Edinburgh’ there is a photograph of Alex Salmond facing a woman, clearly in conversation about something or other, and being animated with his hand in the air. However,the way the photograph is angled it could be inferred that he is staring lasciviously at the woman’s body and has his hand poised to touch her inappropriately.

This stuff is gutter press, stooping lower than a snail’s hiatus hernia, worthy of the very worst days of the News of the World and the Sunday Sport.

I’m not going to post a link to the article or the photo. These days I wouldn’t give the Scotsman the benefit of the clicks. Talk about hanging the guy out to dry before he’s had the benefit of legal process. Shocking.

Hearing of that particular paper’s circulation problems over the last few years I’ve always kind of hoped that someone with a bob or two and a sense of fairness and balance would emerge to take it over and restore it to what it once was, in its past it hasn’t always been as firmly stuck up the behind of unionism as it is has over these past decades.

Balance is all we want, not bias in favour of those advocating self-government, just a fair shake, two sides to a story, context, meaningful comparisons, a bit of honest good quality journalism, a recognition that politically and culturally Scotland has substantially changed since devolution, not lazy slapdash sensationalism and protection of establishment bias.

Now? I never like to see anyone being made unemployed but I wouldn’t miss the Scotsman if it went under.