Seeing beyond the propaganda

We are in the last hours of 2019.

Since the landslide SNP General Election win nearly three weeks ago (the people of Scotland’s clear instruction to those they have chosen to be their elected representatives to put in motion a second referendum on the question of self-determination) the propaganda machinery of the British State has started to crank itself up in preparation for the campaign which 2020 will bring.

Leaks, foretastes and quotes from the Tory Government’s Queen’s Speech, at the opening of parliament, appeared in much of the the media (The entirely misnamed Scotsman did the article Hokey Cokey two-step with it once it proved to be false) suggesting that wee Lizzie the First of Scotland was about to tell us that an independence referendum for Scotland was not going to happen until the year 3099 at the very earliest.

This was to be due to the fact that the Tories have other pressing priorities on their agenda that come first, like extending, then severely limiting, Universal Credit to a point where the elderly, the infirm, the under-waged and the vulnerable are so distressed that they will be happy to queue up to jump off Beachy Head, and perhaps a cunning plan to turn Foodbanks into profitable franchises, where out of date supermarket food, bought in bulk, with the mould sliced out of it, gets handed out in exchange for a weekly subscription.

Thankfully the Lizster, who has been around a bit, took one look at the Tory script, swore loudly like a drunken sailor’s parrot, and put a red line through any reference to winding up a country she’d quite like, nominally at least, to still be the Head of State of, until her days are done. ‘One was not for saying that!’

I wonder what she really thinks of the bunch of amateurs running her government? What are her thoughts when she meets weekly with the tousled faux-clown currently in charge? We’ll probably never know.

Incredibly, some of the Scotsman’s sister papers, days after the event actually proved the story to be false, we’re still running it in their online additions as if it was true.

Much fuss about nothing, but the usual impact on public perceptions with fake stories occurred. The message that the Queen was sanctioning her government’s view about Scotland had gotten out to casual readers and viewers before it was acknowledged as false.

Then we had the widely reported news that the replacement for David Mundell, the new Viceroy of Joy, Brexiteer Alister Jack, in response to the Scottish Government’s publication of the case for Scotland’s rightful democratic right to decide its own future, took exception to the suggestion, as posited in the document, that Scotland is part of a ‘voluntary’ union of nations.

He entirely disagrees that it’s voluntary! If it’s not voluntary, what the hell is it? Do they think they own us?

Och no, says the wealthy landowner (who only has the job because the London rightwing toffery like to be invited to his stately pile for a bit of carousing and animal maiming) the Union has been magnificent for all parties concerned , ‘the wonderful thing about Unions is Unions are wonderful things’, reckons our Viceroy.

What British nationalism’s man in Scotland is really telling us in Scotland therefore is, vote for whoever you like, protest as much as you want, disagree with the policies and priorities of Westminster as often as you want, you don’t get to make decisions, you gave us the right to continue to retain power over you in 2014, so shut up and eat your porridge.

Where do these people,and the many like him, get off thinking they can actually tell the sovereign people of a nation that they are not giving us their permission to make our own decisions? We don’t need their permission.

Democratically, in any normal description of the word, where else would you find a situation where a political party which has won every election at every level of government for at least a decade, most recently overwhelmingly skelping all opponents (its main opponent running a campaign solely on the one issue, to stop a referendum) winning over 80% of the seats, being described, daily and consistently, by the media as not being representative of the electorates views, that they are not speaking for Scotland?

Think about that, if you haven’t. Ask your not-yet-convinced friends, neighbours and colleague to think about that too. Come join us.

2020 promises to be crucial in our journey to restoring Scotland’s rightful Independence. All the signs are there that every day more and more of our folk are seeing through the anti-democracy propaganda they are fed 24/7. The tipping point is coming.

A Happy Hogmanay tae all. May we raise a toast..Saor Alba gu bràth

The lightbulb before Christmas

…..The Nag’s Head, Peckham, South London, on the ‪Friday night‬ before Christmas. Many of the patrons of the pub, seated around tables and standing at the bar, look pained as if in constipated agony.  An elderly man in a navy cap, with a white beard, in a heavy seaman-like grey duffel coat, is sitting at a badly tuned piano in the corner, playing and singing, badly, a selection of Christmas Carols, festive hits of yesteryear and just any old rubbish.
 
“I wish you a hopeful Chrisssmaaas, I wish you a brave New Yeeee aaaa…” shouted out the elderly man, overenthusiastically, as he tried to replicate the Christmas song of the early 70’s ‘I believe in Father Christmas’, rising from his seat to encourage the stunned drinkers to join him in the chorus “na, na, na. na, na……”. Sounding more Chas and Dave than Greg Lake, the old man was lost in his moment of fame and triumph.
 
“Goad, I wish Albert would knock it on the head Derek, can’t you have a word?” said a tall, slimey, moustachioed individual in a suit and camel overcoat, an unlit cheroot gripped tightly in his hand as he headed towards the fire escape doorway for a smoke and relief from the noise.
 
A smaller man, seated next to the taller man,  with dark curly hair, wearing a suit jacket and a polo neck jumper, with several thick chunky fake gold chains visible over the top of the neck of the jumper, replied… “Yeh alright Boycey, I will in a minute, won’t I, It’s Christmas, he likes to let his hair down at Christmas, and a bit of a sing song, my uncle, I’ll give him one more tune … Oy Albert, ALBERT, one more, then it’s over, you can give Bobby Crush his fingers back, ok? Pack it in….” he said loudly in the direction of the bearded pensioner.
 
A thin horse-faced man, with lank hair, in a cheap checked jacket, a vacant expression on his face, lifted his pint and took a sip before saying to the smaller man “ I think Albert’s a great performer Del. His David Bowie cover songs are fantastic. Go on Albert, let’s hear ‘the Spiders from Mars’ “. The vague looking man then went to get to his feet as if to start dancing…
 
“Sit down Trigg, sit down, don’t encourage him…” said Derek Trotter, Delboy to his friends, enemies, and the local constabulary, grabbing the thin man by the arm to get him to sit back down.
 
Trying to change the subject Del again addressed his vacantly-expressioned drinking partner “Anyway Trigger, did you vote in the General Election? “
 
“Which one Del?” said Trigger, vaguely.  Becoming agitated, Del Trotter replied “ You know, the one the other week, you know, the one about the Brexit, you know… the Brexit…? Mon oui….. The free trade deals, the wheeling and the dealing, I’ll make a fortune selling onion soup back to the Germans, and  Denzil can whip over truckloads of that consignment of last year’s Brussel sprouts I bought from Dirty Barry, to sell to the Norwegians, we’ll make a fortune,  this time next year we’ll all be millionaires.”

Still receiving little signs of his friend understanding what he was talking about Del continued “Don’t you remember the butter mountains and all that,….. ye know, you must have heard of it, it’s been on the telly, the Scots are going to go interdependent because they don’t like it, that Nicola Surgeon sort”.

It was clear by the blank expression on the equine-like fizzier of the man facing him that light was not about to dawn any time soon in his comprehension of the conversation he was involved in. Del persisted.

“Pierre Morgan and that Jonathan Dumbledore, they are on about it all the time, it was in the Sun….the Daily Mail. You voted leave in the referendum, a couple of years ago, don’t you remember?”
 
Still expressionless, Trigger suddenly, and very very briefly, achieved a lightbulb moment “Oh, is that what it was?  Yeh, I was watching Newsround the other day, and that posh bloke Boris Johnson was banging on about Brexit….. He said that when we get there it’ll be great, everything will cost less and it’ll be sunny and warm all the time. Yeh, now that you come to mention it, I have heard of it.

I’m booking up with Thomas Cook to go there for my summer holidays, It’s in Southern France I think. It’ll be much cheaper than Margate, it always rains when I go. Brexit is the place for me from now on”.
 
Del looked back across at his bewildered friend with a questioning expression, thought for a minute, went as if to say something in reply, then changed his mind, thinking better of it. Shaking his head he turned back to the old man at the piano. “Sing up Albert, sing up unc, give us Scotland the Brave, c’mon my son!”……

Merry Christmas to all readers. I wish a joyful peaceful festive season to all preparing to spend 2020 committed to working towards the coming day of Scotland’s rightful independence.

Come away in, sit yourself down, and warm yourself at the fire

News, following the SNP’s landslide win in the General Election in Scotland last Thursday, that leading figures, and increasing elements of what was the UK Labour Party’s Scottish branch,(what may soon hopefully actually become the Labour Party of Scotland) have started to break ranks in favour of real democracy, (not the protection of a dysfunctional union kind) is entirely welcome.

Come away in folks, sit down and warm yourselves by the fire.

When we declare our independence one of the reasons we will be able to do so will be because we can clearly demonstrate that our legitimate right to self-government is not a party political issue.

Independence is not just about the SNP, the political party who are working hard to release the treble knotted chain on farmer Boris’s gate, releasing us from his field of wacky righter-than-right politics, and a long outdated union. It is a constitutional question for us all, a question we must each consider personally.

I’m not sure, reading his words of the weekend, that Tricky Dicky Leonard, branch steward, doesn’t think he’s going to try and lead the faithful down the fabled, and much worn out Gordy Broon on a red, white and blue skateboard, path of ‘Federalism’, but the early sounds coming out of others in the Scottish branch, who may over the coming months sweep the old guard away, appear to suggest an honest acceptance that the democratic will of the people of Scotland must be respected.

As a former Labour voter myself, like many others, it’s my clear view that Labour left us, which they then compounded by betraying us more than once, most spectacularly in 2014.

However the journey to independence is not about vindication, it’s not about being hostile to those who have changed their mind, or at least at this stage came to the view that as our country is on a different path to our neighbour, a decision must be made about our future, and if it must be made it must be made by us alone.

Our government, our newly elected representatives and our leaders have all come out swinging from the hip since we, the people of Scotland, instructed them to do so by our vote on Thursday. They say what they mean, and they mean what they say.

Yet more former Labour voters, and some of their representatives in Scotland, swelling our ranks can only help speed up the process of change and strengthen our hand in the coming campaign to wrestle ourselves free from right-wing nationalism.

Come join us folks, you are very welcome.

Our democratic rights will be respected

A response to the blustering, frequently semi-coherent, little empire jingo that was the victory speech made yesterday by the front man for the increasingly far-right elite of ‘One Nation England’.

To Boris Johnson

Yes, you did it, you pulled it off. You persuaded a country which generations ago fought  a crushing war, in which many were sacrificed, to stop the vile dogma of the politics of exclusion, self-greed, discrimination and separation, that in fact that sort of behaviour isn’t quite that bad after all. You, your predecessors, and your handlers, and your wacky media, have managed over a decade or so to convince enough of your countryfolk that division, ostracism, mistrust and suspicion are actually good for the soul. Yes, you did that.

You broke the deadlock, yes, you ate your expensive breakfast yesterday, probably in a restaurant or a trendy cafe within sight of a homeless person dozing restlessly in a shop front. The dawn rose on your new day, on your government, and on your majority.

You can now do what you want to do, you can “Get Brexit done”. You can use that majority, the biggest your self-serving party has gained since the days of Margaret Thatcher, to further enrich yourselves.

My goodness, that new generation of activists from the Home Counties whom you mentioned that weren’t even born in the days of the heartless callous autocrat will flourish like never before. They’ll make the Yuppies of the 1980’s obsessions with greed and possessions pale into insignificance. 

Congratulations, you are indeed, as you say, “One Nation Conservatives”. I have some news for you though, that one nation you speak of is England. 

We here in Scotland are walking a different path. I suppose you could describe it, if you like, as a One Nation Scotland. However that is where the similarities between our two countries from now on ends. Where you will be excluding, building barriers, encouraging suspicion, demonising and victimising, in the quest for greed, power and influence, we’ll be doing the stuff that makes us all up here feel warm and fuzzy, (you see we’re generally a hearty,community-minded, sort of a bunch, us Scots).

We’ll be back in the EU quicker than you can count how many children you have. With our natural and renewable resources, world class food and drink exports, innovation and membership track record the ladies and gentlemen of Brussels will be beating a path to our door. 

For every barrier you put up, for every restrictive policy you implement, we in our country will take one down. We will continue to be warmly welcoming to those who pay us the privilege and compliment of making their home in Scotland. We will continue to centre our politics on looking after all of our citizens, the young, the old, the vulnerable, everybody, not just the ones with a bob or two. New Scots, or born Scots, we are all the same, One Nation. 

Yesterday the people of Scotland flatly rejected your policies of greed, fear and hate. Our future is ours to decide. We are now taking steps to ensure that all of the major decisions that are required to be made for, and about, Scotland will be taken by those that rightfully should be making them, us.

Next year we will have a referendum in Scotland. This will happen because we as a sovereign people have, yesterday, through our combined will at the ballot box, instructed those we have selected to represent us to do this. We do not seek your permission for this to take place. It is not your right to have any say on the matter. 

Enjoy your current success, try to remember as much of it as you can, it will be good for you to at least look back, in your dotage, at a time before you became the last Prime Minister of an unfit for purpose abusive political arrangement. Your countryfolk, as they always have, will continue to find us to be their best neighbours,and by their side when they need us, your vile policies will eventually wither miserably. 

Lastly, I will leave you with this, we are in a different ballgame now. Clearly, from our point of view (for we are a peace-loving nation) violence and causing harm to others are entirely unacceptable, and would be roundly condemned by all seeking that Scotland return to its rightful independence. We would never ever countenance that in any shape or form, but there are many means of peaceful non-violent lawful civil responses available to us. 

Our democratic rights will be respected. 

Yours sincerely (don’t doubt it)

The people of Scotland

Get out and vote, do it now

A few years ago, about a year and a half, or perhaps two years or so, before 2014’s Independence Referendum, I started tae get awful agitated and switched on to the prospect of my country doing the perfectly normal thing of governing itself.

I had always before seen this as a bit of an aspiration, and wondered why there were impediments in place to what is considered such a standard pillar of democracy anywhere else in the western world, but had, up until that time, believed to a limited extent the fallacious British state propaganda about issues like financial dependence etc which countered that entirely reasonable viewpoint.

I was conscious, as my enthusiasm grew, my knowledge of the reality accumulated, and I started to expound the facts that Scotland’s, and my grandchildren’s, futures would be far better if decisions about their destiny were made in Scotland by their peers, rather than by a distant government with an agenda based on their own priorities, that I may not entirely be seen as in agreement with those I love and respect.

In particular, I was quite concerned about upsetting my best friend, apart from my wife, the person who knows me the best, on a subject, would you believe, which we’d never previously discussed. But I had to do it, my passion was raised, and has been on the subject of the sovereignty of my county ever since.

A few weeks after I started posting comments and blog articles for Indy Websites, leading to a couple of guest articles on the weegingerdug and then creating this site, one night he responded to my blog in the positive, entirely in agreement with my point of view. I actually wept a few tears of relief, much to my darling wife chastising me as a Big Jessie.

Now I write this because that same man, never shy of hard work, like me a child of the Thatcher years, when we had to stand in the fields like coos and dig holes for extra broo money, before eventually being forced to leave our community to find work and careers, yesterday, too late for postal voting, drove 5 hours home to Scotland from his work down south, after a full day’s work, just so he could vote today, before immediately driving back down the road again. He’s coming Hame again tomorrow night for the weekend.

He passionately believes in his country, community and the ability of our ain folk to make decisions on our behalf. We need no others to do this for us.

I’m so proud of him. If you are swithering about voting, if you are thinking “ ach, they are aw the same, why bother, nothing will change” you are creating your own negative outcome.

Get out and vote! Do it now.

Vote SNP today, and Yes in 2020. Independence is normal, being governed by another country is not.

Do not enable this man

We’re now into the last hours of a General Election campaign called by a detached, seemingly untouchable, Prime Minister.

An individual cosseted from harm by an enabling news media, he is so unsure of what is going to come out of his mouth next that his advisors have had to keep him away from any attempt at real political scrutiny by any of the well known straight-talking interviewers on either of the major tv channels in the UK.

This lest he panic and recite the four plays of Medea, Hippolytus, Heracles and Bacchae by Euripides, or at least the few quotations he can remember, between babbling out the words “Let’s get Brexit done” and “2 million more policemen and tariff free tampons” at random intervals.

He’s clearly feeling the strain of having to work full time during this election, as his spontaneous dabble in telephone kleptomania the other day demonstrated, pocketing the unsuspecting reporter’s phone when urged to take a look at a photo of an ill child’s experience of having to lie on the floor whilst being treated in an English NHS hospital.

The incredible thing though is that despite his ineptitude and incompetence being exposed in the clear light of day time and time again over the last few weeks, defeating the significant efforts of the media and his campaign team to hide it, Boris Johnson will probably still be the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom as it currently exists come Friday.

Just think about that for a moment. Is he really Prime Ministerial material? I suspect the guy is a clown figure front man for a sinister creeping right-wing Britain, ready to be discarded at the appropriate time when the real leader sees fit to emerge.

It is clear that the Tory party has moved so far to the right in its efforts to placate Farage and the brexiteers that even former grandees of the party, like Tarzan Heseltine, John Major and Ken Clarke are body-serving them. Who would ever have thought that would happen? The fascism that so many sacrificed their lives and futures for to defeat in a previous generation is on the rise again, but this time from within. It’s slow, it’s creeping, it’s incremental, but it is coming, unless somebody stops them. Their policies are woven in bitter isolationism, exceptionalism and exclusion.

However Thursday is about something else for us in Scotland. Thursday is about demonstrating that we are ready to take our destiny into our own hands, that we are no longer prepared to allow others beyond our country to make decisions for us based on their priorities, not ours, and that we are not going to let this imbalance continue. We are sending a message they cannot ignore. That time has passed.

Scotland is clearly on an ever increasingly divergent path from England. Devolution, most of the election results of the first twenty years of this century, the Brexit Referendum result, and the fact that based on a number of promises made, but not kept, by Westminster leaders prior to 18 September 2014, the 45% of the electorate in favour of Yes then has held fast and increased in number in the face of gross incompetence, insults and tangled webs of lies being seen as the norm in terms of those that hold power’s relationship with what they consider a resource rich province to their north.

Do not be under any illusion or misapprehension, if the entity which is now the Tory Party win a majority tomorrow they are coming after everybody. As Brexit bites we will see withering welfare benefit cuts for the vulnerable and public services gutted and hived off for profit to increase the wealth of their classmates at Eton and the huge corporations of America. If that happens they’ll look to attack Scotland’s public services too, introducing legislation enforcing competition based on price not value, biggest profit margin, poorest service provision.

Tomorrow the people of Scotland can take another forward step towards a better future, a future that is in our control, a future based on a society who looks after its most valuable assets, its people, all of them.

Vote SNP on 12 December 2019, and Yes in 2020. Protect your future, and encourage others to do so too.

A Leader, there’s not many of them about

So anyway, here we are a week away from a Westminster General Election, hopefully one of the very last, if not the last of such occasions when the people of Scotland decide which 59 representatives they’ll send to London.

When these representatives get there, as usual, they will be largely ignored, scoffed at and marginalised unless they happen to represent any of the three unionist parties putting up candidates for election by the vast majority of the other 591 representatives, who are mainly pre-occupied with the politics of the country of England, and what tattered remains still exist of a ‘glorious’ past, a past where history has almost always been written by the victors, and huge sweeping brushes have swept equally huge sins, crimes and gross misjudgements under carpets the size of the turf at Wembley Stadium.

It comes as no surprise that the British state broadcaster’s Scottish news site one week out from the vote is saturated in direct, indirect, veiled and frankly ludicrous SNP Baddishness. Would we expect anything else? No. It’s what it is.

Whilst what passes for a Prime Minister in England at the moment (in reality the word Britain or the reference UK mean England and what it’s elite consider their regions, so why hide the fact) dodges about getting selfies with the less brighter ex-partner of Gordon the Gopher, avoiding scrutiny of his child-like posh oafishness by both major tv channels, our own First Minister flits around tv and radio studios, debates, being shouted at for half an hour, hustings, town centre gatherings, live audiences, phone ins, responses to smoke singles, semaphore and seances like a political dervish on Irn Bru (the old recipe) taking responsibility, pelters and praise all with the same measured dignified response. She, dear readers, is a Leader.

We are about to take the first step towards independence, and Nicola Sturgeon is the leader who will take us over that line.

In the world of social media (thank goodness the majority of folk don’t actually live in that world) in the time honoured traditional Scottish way it seems that we are trying, as we always do, to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Indy wars seem to be on again. This time they are self-inflicted, and an overwhelming artillery bombardment of last weekend’s tawtie scones on Falkirk High Street, or a surprise assault on the Gogar roundabout by the Achiltibuie Light Dragoon’s just won’t cut it in terms of calling for a ceasefire this time.

What I would say to you though, is if you are thinking of not voting for the SNP next week because of an ill-timed Twitterati row consider this. If the SNP do not make a good showing in the General Election, retaining all, or most of their current seats, and making further gains taking other seats, the only headline about Scotland that will appear in the British state backed media a week today will be “Disaster for Nats as support for independence dissolves!”

Please #VoteSNP on 12 December and Yes in 2020. Independence is normal. Being governed by another country is not.

Ye Olde Election Fever

It was the bitterly cauld winter season. The nights had fair drawn in, the pilot at the gas byler had blown oot (again) and the ice was starting to form on the inside of the windows of Boaby McCrachit’s poorly insulated one bedroomed flat. A blast of freezing air, recently having circled Siberia, rattled the ill-maintained window frames.

Boaby, happed up in both of his jackets, glanced across the tiny living room in despair at the small figure hunched over on the threadbare settee.

Wee Tam, his laddie, small for his age, had had a bad run. Constantly prone to infection, he always had a runny nose and wheezy chest, but a recent bout of the yellow jondys (sic) had really laid him low. The shelves in the McCrachit family bathroom cupboard seemed to always look like they should be in a chemist’s shop instead.

“Oh I do wish that General Election would hurry up” said Boaby to his wife Ethel. “Life for us will be so much better once we get that nice Mr Boris de Pfeffel Scrooge elected properly into power, with a majority which allows him to pursue his marvellous agenda of Dickensian one nationhood. He’s so honest and straightforward, and he gets things done.

We’ll have treacle scones and mince pies for tea, rickets and the return of scurvy, and thanks to the close friendship Mr de Pfeffel Scrooge has with that lovely man from the colonies, President Defo Fuzzywig, we’ll soon be knee deep in mildly chemical-smelling tinned chicken, and we’ll have all the medications we need for wee Tam at our fingertips, some even at very reasonable prices.

Just think Ethel, we’ll never have to sit for hours in hospital waiting rooms to have Tam examined and treated ever again, because the won’t let us in to the front door of the A&E without private insurance. But think of the extra freed up time we’ll have to make ourselves available for more zero hours low paid work. We can note all of that down on our Universal Credit forms.”

“Do you really think so Boaby? That would be just wonderful!” said Ethel, clearly unsettled by the prospect that at some point she may not have the important choices in her life made for her.

“Yes, my love. Nae mair will we hear anything from those damned separatist agitators either. How dare they try tae force us to think for ourselves and make decisions about oor future.

That’s not our job. That’s for oor betters, who know all about these kind of things. Who in their right mind would want to live in a country that governs itself, that’s just madness?

Anyway the leccy’s not due to be switched off until Friday so get the gogglebox on, we might just catch the end of Reporting Scotland.”