There’s been an intervention, yet again

Fresh from a totally unexpected two day ban from posting to any Facebook groups, a new experience for me (for what reason I do not know, and I couldnae find any mechanism to find oot why) I’m back at the keyboard once more.

I can only imagine it might have been somebody reporting me because they didn’t like the expression on Ruth Davidson’s physiog in the photograph that accompanied my recent post ‘Union? What Union?’ where she looks like she’s swallowed a wasp which had been feeding on a spilled bottle of ex-lax.

Anyway, hey-ho, moving on I see we’ve had yet another intervention from the son of the manse, his first ever intervention on the question of sovereignty, again, during a general rant to the Fabian Society about the complete balls up the UK is in at the moment, partly caused by him and his new Labour trough snufflers.

Once again Gordy Brown has demonstrated how entirely comfortable he is speaking untruths , as he strutted about a room full of carefully picked audience members, wandering backwards and forwards in that kind of James Brown on industrial strength Horlicks thing he does.

Tut, tut, Gordy ye’ll have the beadle pleading for yer salvation tae the Meenister after your latest journey into mis-informative mendacity.

“Oh, woe is us” says Gordy, calling down the demons, “the nationalists are going for a ‘hard’ extreme Independence!”

Eh? What does that mean? There is no such thing as a hard extreme Independence. You are either governed by somebody else, as Scotland is, or you are independent, full stop. There are no shades, textures or degrees of firmness involved, it is one or the other.

Introducing the words hard and extreme to a discussion about independence is a fair bit cynical, in fact it’s as fly as the actions of a Barlinnie Jailer, from a man who let’s not forget despicably told the parents of Scottish children with serious illnesses, like cancer, in 2014 that if they voted Yes they wouldn’t be able access the care of the marvellous Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital (before the management of that fantastic health facility told him publicly to stop scaremongering, that he was talking a load of shite and that seriously ill Scottish children would always be treated there). As an aside the place in its early days was partly maintained due to the financial contributions of Scottish author JM Barrie.

Gordy was trying to link this fictitious ‘hard’ extreme Independence with what we wish was fictitious ‘hard’ extreme Brexit in the minds of the many whose only knowledge and interest in politics is as a passing flick of a channel on the tv listings heading towards whatever Great British skydiving on ice ballroom dancing bake-off whilst chewing a kangaroo’s infected paw nail show happens to be on at the time. Very feckin sneaky Gordon.

As if to compound this exercise in being a flyman, the Broonster then decides tae come right out and tell an honest tae goodness straight up n doon fib, a lie, a tall tale, a falsehood, a big steaming jobby pile of deceit.

“Oh woe” says Gordy once more, only two steps in front of the forked lightning from heaven and the burny fire, “The nationalists as part of their hard extreme Independence want to take Scotland out of the UK Customs Union and the single market”.

What a complete pile of nonsense. If Scotland returned to being an independent country tomorrow absolutely nothing would change in regards to its trading relationship with England. Nothing.

Any rationalisation, amendment, alteration or modification to any trade rules between Scotland and England would be as equally disastrous for England as it would be for Scotland. In fact disentangling trading partnerships which have been built over many decades would tie up a legion of business lawyers for years, making Brexit’s complications look like a Rubik’s cube where you can take the coloured stickers off and rearrange them in the right order. It simply would not happen.

If and when an independent Scotland successfully takes it place as a member of the European Union, whatever ends up being the end result of the protection of Ireland’s trading borders, which the EU will ultimately decide, not Empire 2 (The cheaply made straight to video sequel) will apply.

It’s back to the sleeping bag in the manse cleaning cupboard for you Gordy, behind the mop and the ironing board. Until the next very first intervention……

Along comes yet another patronising Westminster politician

My goodness did it no’ just warm the cockles of your heart tae see Jock McHunt grace Scotland with his presence?

Following his inappropriate reference to Culloden the other week, a gaff both in context and pronunciation, over the weekend he chose to trudge the well-worn path of English politicians seeking to establish some sort of faux bona fides link to Scotland, the photo shoot with a fish supper in one hand and a can of the Sunday morning cure in the other.

We’ve never seen that stunt before eh, nah, apart from the several hundred other times we’ve been subjected to photographs and news items on Mis-Reporting Scotland of politicians from another country, (and those like Rowdy Ruth Davidson and The Viceroy of Joy) blowing bagpipes, consuming a single fish, patting a snottery-nosed Highland coo, sampling a wee malt with a distillery owner ten minutes away from the honours list, munching a Tunnocks product and wearing the odd, and I mean odd, kilt.

Oh, and begod, McHunt has got a Scottish auntie too! The deal is sealed.

Och well that’s it then. We’ve been charmed and foiled again for another ten years or so. They’ve beaten us once more, sending us back to our crumbling but n bens. Cloth caps should now be doffed at any passing cretin with a posh accent.

Put away those Yes badges, those saltires, get the canvassing shoes back in the cupboard, no in fact take them back oot, you’ll need them tae walk tae the tawtie fields after Brexit, shut down your alternative media options and get back tae watching Auntie Beeb and Sunday political shows focused entirely on the politics of another country, get yerself immersed in Piers Morgan wae yer cereal, get as far away as you possibly can from being the embodiment of an uppity Jock and sit down and have a nice cup of tea and an Empire Biscuit.

Clearly the British state continues to have so little respect for the people of Scotland that their contempt has them believing that we as a nation have the memory and attention spans of Bob the Goldfish.

Up with it we shall not put. Stop treating us as if we are Russ Abbott’s teeth-grindingly patronising caricature of Scotland, stop thinking that any of this transient fake Sweaty Sock charm offensive nonsense you subject us to is anything other than actually offensive to the majority of the people of your neighbouring country, and only really impresses those sad individuals who don’t recognise that their own country is a country, preferring to mock their own culture in favour of another.

Get on with your journey to a mythical never ending dream of returned Empire and a right-Wing Utopia, and get out the feckin way whilst we take our country back first, before you wreck yours.

Oh, and yer chips are cauld.

Union? What Union?

Well that was a turn up for the books, or perhaps not. The news that a YouGov survey conducted earlier in June has indicated that 63% of Tory members would back carrying on with the cliff jumping Brexit even if came down to Scotland regaining its independence as a consequence is noteworthy, in several ways.
 
Firstly it comes as a massive size 12 tackety-booted rattle to the swinging bits of the previously placid Highland bull that Rowdy Ruth Davidson likes to climb aboard when her media advisors are looking for a photo of her (photos perhaps not so much needed now as the poor beast roars, bucks and careers headlong into any stationary army tanks Ruth may have also brought with her for a candid snap or two).

No, not a good day for Ruth. All of that vote for me, Ruth Davidson, the saviour of the Union, I love the UK, if it was a soap I’d wash my neck with it, stuff all sounds a wee bit hollow now when you consider that the party she adores, the party that she is a branch subsidiary member of, one in which, with her heightened sense of self-promotion, she intends to enjoy a dazzling career, ending in ermine, don’t actually give a shyte about whether they are in a Union with Scotland or not, as long as they get their appearing-every-one-hundred-years-on-a-misty-night Britanniadoon mythical England back.
 
In Scotland we’ve known since the times when our two hundred and fifty odd year alliance with France ended, through the regal, religious and Cromwellian jiggery pokery of the next  hundred and fifty years, then the time of the despicable knobbled nobles being chased through the streets of Edinburgh after signing away Scotland’s parliament, that actually we don’t exist in the minds of some from the larger population in the country over our southern border.

We’ve all met them, on holiday, socially, by chance. You know the kind. “Where are you from?” they’ll say. “I’m Scottish” you will reply. “Ah, I’m from England too” they’ll say benignly. Any further pointing out on your behalf that Scotland is in fact distinctly and clearly not England is met by either a blank look or an expression which suggests you’ve got a rhinoceros horn growing out of the middle of your forehead.
 
For these people the UK, the Union, Great Britain, whatever you want to call it, is England. There are no partnerships, treaties, mutual arrangements, the only entity that exists to them, which is “precious’ is England. They simply do not recognise that there is a difference. We have no significance.
 
It is ironic that the huge negative propaganda confidence trick that has been going on now in a continuing spinning rotation for many years, ramping up in this century to try and counter the rise in Scottish self-awareness as a nation, may well be helping to facilitate the speeding-up of the inevitable end of the political union between Scotland and England.  
 
Stuck in this massive Brexit fantasy of a return to the days of John Company, Victoria the Empress of India (Charlie the Emperor of the Isle of Wight), Typhus, and Peter O’Toole astride a camel wearing light blue contact lenses and brandishing a big curved sword,  they’ve fallen for the Daily Hate Mail, Depress et al’s fallacious lines about Scotland being subsidy junkies, junkie junkies, and a burden, on England.

They’ve laughed like drains as our parliamentarians are booed, hooted at, subjected to wolf-whistles, drowned out, and ignored in parliament. They’ve near had a self-combusting orgasm at the likes of the words of a female Tory politician suggesting that a modern day version of the Clearances would be the proper answer to the West Lothian Question, and now, after all these years, it’s starting to work in our favour, not theirs. Who would have thunk it.
 
So Ruth, it’s beginning to look like you and your band of misfits, bigots, slippery linesmen and Ross Thomson, are pretty much on your own when it comes to the Prrrrreeeesssshhhiisss Union. Mind you there’s always the Ludge, you’ll look good in a sash.

Our driving, daily mission

Oh well, that’s that then, fine folk that you are, back to the Indy drawing board.

The ever-changing goalposts relating to the conditions which a government from another country wish to impose on the people of our country, when it comes to the question of who we allow to govern us, seem  to be shunting a wee bit further to the right on the playing field again, right into the big wet muddy patch that the goalie took a slippery heider into just before half time, losing one of his contact lenses in the ensuing stramash.

Fresh on the heels of Rowdy Ruth Davidson, highland coo wrangler par excellence, telling us in no uncertain terms that in her opinion the SNP will need to win an outright majority in the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections to have any chance of even asking our London based overlords (nicely, remembering to say please and thank you) to grant a Section 30 Order to allow a second referendum on the question of sovereignty, we see one of the Tory leadership hopefuls, the wild starey-eyed one, with the very appropriate rhyming slang surname, the fella who crippled the English NHS, has taken that hypothesis a step further.

Oh no, winning an outright majority in an election, or any kind of victory in an election, which the SNP consistently just keep doing for some reason, isn’t enough for Jeremy. No. no. In order for Jeremy to be satisfied, should,(celestial beings forbid) a hundred odd thousand aged, pink-faced men and women, stinking of stale fags, gin, Old Spice, yesterday’s vest and Y-fronts, and out-of-date Chanel in the Home Counties decide to select him, that Scotland’s people can be trusted to make up their own minds on such a vital subject, Nicola Sturgeon will be required to have achieved the full set of MSPs at Holyrood and 59 settle-upperers at Westminster.

She’ll have had to have purchased a verified winning national lottery ticket, with all the numbers in the right order, and have the bonus ball. She’ll also have to have been lucky enough to have chosen a chocolate bar bearing a Golden Ticket admitting her to Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory, and have won the Cheltenham Gold Cup by at least three lengths on an English born rocking horse with three legs and a tremor.

See ambitious English politicians? Ooft! See us? We care what he thinks not a jot. Yet another dog-whistler for those stuck in the past.

However I was interested to read his pledge to oppose a “divisive” Scottish poll, and in particular his words “Scotland deserves a UK Government that sees the promotion and enhancement of the Union as a driving, daily mission.”

I, and those like me, know of many hundreds of thousands of ordinary Scots who think otherwise. We know that in truth Scotland deserves a Scottish Government that sees the promotion and enhancement of Scotland’s people, all of them, as its driving , daily mission, and that, Jeremy Hunt, is what is coming, and coming soon.

We’ll decide, not you.

Slippery when wet

There are sheets of hidden black ice formed under camouflaging freshly fallen snow in mid-winter that are less slippery than David Mundell. There are shallow rock beds at the edges of Scotland’s beautiful Lochs, layered with stones worn flat and shiny over thousands of years, covered in a thin layer of slimy aquatic residue, which are less slippery than David Mundell. In fact Murrayfield Ice Rink is less slippery than David Mundell.  
 
Fresh on the heels of his partner-in-denial, the Walter Mitty of Scottish Unionism, Rowdy Ruth Davidson (one dictionary defines a Walter Mitty as “an ordinary, often ineffectual person who indulges in fantastic daydreams of personal triumphs”) trying to rewrite Scotland’s political history of the last 20 years, imagining a fantasy world where the people of Scotland gave her some electoral authority to speak for them, and dictate to them whether they should be allowed to make decisions about their own futures, the Viceroy of Joy, England’s man in Scotland, is yet again doing what he does best, backtracking like Nigel Farage in a Milk Bar.
 
These two, what are they like? They’ve got more faces than the toon clock and will spin in the wind and bend to whatever political view spouted by whichever political overlord is likely to benefit them personally without a second thought.  Personal integrity is not high on their agendas.
 
Wee Davy tells us now that he could actually work with Boris Johnston as his lord and master, even though he previously said that he disagreed with the menacing faking buffoon on most things and couldn’t envisage ever being able to work for him.

The Secretary of State against Scotland insists that he was very careful with his previous language on the subject, presumably so as not to rule himself out of continuing his cushy wee number pumping out British state propaganda to the folk from his own country who are governed by the country he is loyal to, and, of course, making long journeys to Myanmar to tell rooms full of bemused rubber plantation workers that nobody wants another referendum.   
 
When questioned on this subject he spluttered and stuttered, farted, and went red aboot the jowels. What a state to get himself into. As my blessed sadly long departed grandmother used to say “ If you are telling lies you’ll go to the burning fire!” If that is indeed the case the Fluffy chap must surely be feeling the heat.
 
If you haven’t seen this interview yet, check it out here………https://t.co/ily8XmVGjz

Ooft!

Just make it up as you go along

There was me thinking that the Tory drug revelations were over. Then in a big blustery puff of blustering hard-necked bluster, Ruth Davidson, utilising her I’m constipated and angry at the world face, proved me wrong. Exactly what Class A drugs is it that she is taking?
 
Apparently, according to the Ruthster, the SNP do not have a mandate to canvas their fellow Scots current opinion on whether they wish to continue to be governed by another country. Eh? Are there wee purple smiling elephants with wings gently gliding around your head Ruth?
 
Naw, naw, nae mandate, insists Ruth. In fact in order to obtain a mandate the SNP will be required, says Ruth, who has absolutely no power, responsibility or credibility when it comes to the government of Scotland (like a kind of Willie Rennie but with longer trousers) to obtain yet another outright majority, without the aid of any other party who might support independence, like the Greens, and not at all like her demented misfit minority government colleagues at Westminster and their relationship with the up to the kneeser anti- 21st. 20th, 19th and 18th century vote-bolstering-bribed-partners in the DUP of Norn Irn.
 
In case Ruth missed it, the SNP have won every election in Scotland for the last while bar the Larkhall Loyal Grand Mayster plebiscite of 2012. They currently have a triple lock mandate to hold a second referendum.  The first mandate was confirmed when the SNP were backed by the people of Scotland and won the last Holyrood Parliamentary election on a specific manifesto pledge to hold another referendum if Scotland was forced out of the EU against its will during the UK government held EU referendum.  They did, winning 63 of 129 seats. It was, Scotland voted by 62% to remain in Europe.
 
The second mandate was confirmed when a majority of MSPs at Hollyrood, (you know, those folk that get put in such a place by the people of Scotland voting democratically) backed the plan for a second referendum by voting by majority for it.
 
The third mandate was confirmed by the SNP winning the Westminster snap General Election in Scotland,  an election generated by a lame duck Prime Minister who ended up needing the votes of the aforementioned Boyne Bigots to retain power, by a country mile for the second time running, achieving 35 of the 59 seats.
 
Added to that the SNP have just skooshed the EU Parliament Elections, destroying all other parties in Scotland with a huge win, turning the map of the mainland of Scotland entirely yellow, the people of Scotland wisely choosing yet again to wipe out Ruth’s party at the ballot box.
 
Did you somehow miss all of that Ruth? That must be some crack pipe that.  We know a wee fella who looks like Ray Alan’s puppet up in Aberdeen who will be mighty envious of it.
 
The Tories in Scotland, as their colleagues in London are doing, are increasingly just making things up, rewriting history, and spouting whatever comes into their mouths as headline to feed their grateful pliable media, a media which never ever holds them to account. Any fair-minded journalist listening to this wind-induced nonsense would have called it what it is, fallacious spin, dog whistling to those with a British nationalist loyalty.

https://t.co/VPDMyqIDcb

Scotland is supposed to be part of a democracy Ruth. Its people by majority make their choices,  try recognising and respecting that.

Relentless propaganda spin

I very rarely delve into the murky world of the Scottish online site of the Daily Depress, a publication which laughably has as its signature symbol a red lion rampant carrying a saltire flag.

When I click on the site page it somehow almost always makes me feel like I want to go and wash my hands afterwards.

I usually only ever visit that bugle of anger, pomposity and BITTER CAPITAL LETTERS when there is a particularly nasty bout of SNP Bad weaving its way across the width and breadth of the British state’s propaganda machine, and I want to check what bizarre spin the Depress has put on the story to make it even more damning in the eyes of the dearly bewildered who buy and consume such dross.
 
We’ve been told for many decades that Britain is one of the last bastions of the truth.  A democracy where free speech and journalistic freedom hold power to account, helping to provide checks and balances to corruption and misuse of power, providing the public with an unbiased means to be informed enough to make decisions on major issues which impact their lives and society.
 
Today, in the passing, I had a quick glance at the Depress site. Following a very quick cursory examination of the content, trying not to contaminate myself in any way, I determined from the headlines listed (I’m sure there would be more If I looked a bit closer) that there were 19 articles that could be seen as being critical of the SNP, and or, the devolved limited powers Scottish Government, 19!

There was no sign of direct criticisms of any other political party (British political parties with branches in Scotland) apart from one story praising one Tory leadership hopeful as opposed to another, if you can call that a criticism, and there were a couple of rousing gushy pieces about how wonderful Ruth Davidson is.
 
You could easily carry out the same exercise with the Hootsmon or the Herald, the BBC or STV. You would come up with a similar outcome (if perhaps maybe not quite as virulent a haul of negative propaganda spin as the Depress).  
 
How is it possible that there are grown adults in Scotland who still believe that the media that they watch, listen to, and read, are impartial when it comes to the presentation of the question of Scotland regaining its independence?  

The seeping sore of Toryism

Meet Tarquin Fforbes-Fauntleroy, who just managed to sneak in under the wire yesterday as the last signed-up candidate in the Tory leadership campaign.

181st, no, sorry…182nd, in line to the throne (those dukes and duchesses are breeding like commoners) and owning vast tracts of prime farming land in Wiltshire, Tarquin used to be a swede but felt that this would be considered a bit too foreign in these delicate times of paranoia, ruining his campaign to enter Downing Street in triumph, therefore, taking a leaf out of Esther McVey’s book he chose to be known as a good old common as muck turnip. Also like McVey, he is able to turn a good homemade soup sour overnight. 
 
Tarquin, as you can probably gather from his picture, appears to have more credibility, sense, charisma, humanity, leadership ability and empathy towards the electorate than the entire rest of the coked up, dodgy lassi drinking, wildly hallucinating about being a dolphin on a skateboard, field of runners and riders joined together.
 
In all seriousness though this horror that is the Tory leader election campaign has clearly floodlit the huge seeping sore that is the established government at Westminster (the government of England and its absorbed disenfranchised neighbours) or as its laughably referred to ‘the precious Union’.
 
Last week the band of career-obsessed narcissists competing with each other for the big chair in the classroom were lining up, like the extras in the 1980’s movie ‘Airplane’ slapping the hysterical passenger around the gub during the flight malfunction, to outdo each other about how they would disrespect the people of Scotland by not allowing their democratic will to be exercised. I’m not sure but I think at the last turn of that game of one-upmanship Ruth the Mooth Davidson’s new pal ‘Saj’ was promising tae ship a couple of million Scots to the Isthmus of Darien, starting with the entire population of Dundee, with only a month’s supply of Sir Tunnocks tea cakes and some vegetables grown in the Howe of Fife but packaged in red, white and blue boxes, for sustenance.
 
By the end of the week, moving into the weekend, the motley band had moved on to a sudden bout of group therapy- competitive honesty about the various mind-altering substances they have variously consumed over the years, clearly just half a step in front of the tabloids exposing them for the hypocrites that they are. (It’s like a cheap reality show this).

If ever there was a tip of the iceberg moment on that kind of revelation from the Palace of Westminster, that was it. I’m sure we can all clearly  think of certain members of parliament and indeed cabinet ministers, past and present, who did, and indeed do, a very good impression of being chinged oot their nut in front of the TV cameras on many of the occasions they are placed before the public by the media.
 
This week, and following the Sunday shows (the combination of Michael Gove and Esther McVey on the Marr Show gave me a bout of the dry boak) the cabal of competence-free chancers are desperately trying to outdo each other in the task of satisfying the greedy selfish I’m Alright Jack. Me Me, bastards that are your average tory voter.

‘I hate pensioners, they are getting feck all. I love pensioners, I’m going to up their cash. See how the median wages up and down the country are only about 26k well I’m going to give everybody getting over 50k a bit of tax relief in their hip pocket and the scruff can pay for it. If I get the job we are leaving with no deal, it will be great, Britain is Great! I’m taking my phoatie of Margaret Thatcher with me everywhere I go just so the world can be reminded that I’m as much of a horrible nasty lunatic as she was. Don’t ask Lorraine Kelly about me though.’

Oh, and then there’s wee Mikey Gove, who might have filled his visa form tae get into America in the past a wee bit wrong, mibbees aye, mibbees naw (he would understand that phrase because he was Scottish at one time) ticking boxes, easy mistake to make. He’s for hanging on to the grim death on a deal with the EU, whose leaders are looking in and still shaking their heads in bewilderment, something they’ve been doing now for about three years.
 
…..And its only early yet. There’s a few more weeks of this to go.  

C’mon now, fellow Scots everywhere, repeat after me “Strong and Stable, Strong and Stable”………………. “Stay with us Scotland, the broad shoulders of the UK will protect you”……….Oh dear.
 
 

Blow them away

So, almost as surprising a revelation as the fact that the morn’s mornin’ comes before the morn’s eftirnin it may be, but the fact that several of the contestants in the cringeworthy bunfight tae replace the disco-dancing-diva of Downing Street in the big ejector seat in the cabinet office have been indulging in mind altering substances really doesn’t help when it comes to any hope of somebody somewhere unravelling the puzzle which is Brexit.

Wee Mikey Gove apparently was so chinged up during his time as a journalist that his accent changed, it’s powerful stuff indeed!

They’ve aw been at it. Marajiwana, poppies, Ovaltine, and bizarrely, in Jeremy rhyming slang’s case, sharing a cannabis drink wae a dug whilst filming an episode of ‘Lassie come home’.

The kid-on-buffoon that will be the worst Prime Minister in memory (and that is saying something) thinks he might have snorted coke but he’s no’ sure, it may have been Pepsi Max.

Never mind, auntie Beeb will tidy all of that up for you. There there. A couple of days and it will all ‘blow’ over.

Imagine, just for one moment, if that had been Nicola Sturgeon. My goodness we would never hear the end of if. As it is we are set to be Natalie McGarry-ied until we’re blue in the face or Alex Salmond has another court date.

I think the various media outlets of union propaganda had a wee quiet competition going amongst themselves to see who could the letters SNP the earliest into a sentence containing the name of the now disgraced former MP this week. As usual on planet Britannia anything that can be used to undermine a threat to the British state in the eyes of the public must be taken advantage of.

Meanwhile the latterly greetin’ faced former Prime Minister, sorry for herself, she who declared early on that Scotland was so high up her priorities that she made Edinburgh her first port of call as Premier, before entirely ignoring,disregarding and disrespecting the democratic will of the place for her entire time in charge, goes off to blissful life of luxury with no responsibilities at all, kind of like she’s been doing for the last three years.

For the people of Scotland nothing will improve under any of these characters set to replace May, and the sycophantic flip-flopping acolytes who will continue to do their seedy work for them, the ones with principles which can be changed if you don’t like them (they have others) Ruth Davidson and the Viceroy of Joy,Mundell.Spinning Ruth now, of course, publicly endorsing the fella we all need to get permission from tae go tae the cludgy,for the big job. It makes perfect sense tae her to support a candidate that has crassly announced that he won’t allow her countryfolk to make any decisions for themselves.

Westminster has severely limited the potential of the people of Scotland to thrive for many years, whilst taking a huge advantage of Scotland’s natural resources, discrete world-acknowledged branded export goods and innovation. They are soon to limit that potential, through Brexit, to the point of creating an economic depression.

Independence now. There is no credible basis to continue in a political union with this lot. The alternative to self- government now does not bear thinking about.

The fork in the road

So there you have it. You took what you thought was the sensible reasonable approach, and no one can criticise you for that.  

The grey men in suits of Westminster, the Prime Minister of the day, and former Prime Ministers and Chancellors from Scotland pleaded with you. ‘We love you Scotland, you make our precious Union great. Don’t leave us, stay and lead us. Voting No is the quickest and best way to change. A new federal Scotland with all the bells and whistles of a responsible socially responsible democracy you will have’ they Vowed. ‘We know we’ve neglected you, taken you for granted, we see that now, let us make it up to you. Give us one last chance, you won’t regret it.’
 
That was 2014.
 
Now five years later your country potentially faces the worst peacetime crisis it has experienced since the Great Depression.

How can that be? How could we have reached such a dangerous point in time so quickly where an extreme right-wing loose cannon of an American President, a narcissist,  can say with apparent legitimacy, as he stands on a podium beside a nervously smirking politically impotent Prime Minister of the UK, that the jewel of the post-second World War social contract, the National Health Service, will be up for grabs under a new improved chlorinated chickened mega-trade deal between America and what presumably will be a right-wing adjunct of the 50 states, if only, and once, Britain abandons its membership of the European Union?
 
Come join us folks. We’ve plenty of room. Come in and sit yerselves down by the fire. We’ll welcome you with open arms and a friendly smile. Changing your mind once you have knowledge of the facts is not a weakness, it is a strength. Come and make history.

The choice has narrowed, the fork in the road is becoming more extreme as every day passes. Help us return Scotland to the control of its ain folk, in a parliament that previously existed for more than 400 years prior to the now catastrophically failing political union with England. Help build a progressive outward -looking social democratic European country which has its people, all of them, as its central focus. Do it for your future, for your weans and your grandweans futures.
 
C’mon, let’s do this, together.