Gove and nationalism

It is a subject this and other Scottish independence supporting blogs are never done having to return to, the incessant false and malicious jibes, usually by wildly jingoistic British nationalist (the bad type)politicians, the salivating kind, making a play on the middle word of the name Scottish National Party.

The latest ripping wheeze, jolly jape, accusing half the country of Scotland of somehow being closet blood and soil fanatics comes from,of all people, the loathsome integrity-free Brexiting sock puppet, a craytur the word sleekit was created for, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lilliput and Bawbagdovia, Michael Gove.

It came in a Commons exchange with SNP MP Steven Bonnar.

Asked a question about whether he believes that withholding the sovereign right of the Scottish people is a sustainable position, Gove, with that perpetual look of his (smarm personified) rose to his feet to have a jab by referring to the Scottish “Nationalist” Party, the standard jibe, but then, buoyed with that overwhelming power the rightwing Brexiteers now have at Westminster decided to take it one step further bit.ly/3abuaJehttps://t.co/Y4HhuQXs3ehttps://t.co/Y4HhuQXs3e

This is an individual who said in a speech prior to the Brexit referendum that the United Kingdom leaving the European Union would be a “galvanising, liberating, empowering moment of patriotic renewal.”

That was an interesting and emotive use of language at the time. A statement which clearly highlighted the enormous great, shaggy haired mammoth in the room that is called the UK, yet somehow many don’t, or choose not to, see it. That statement is the kind of phrase that any unionist politician, even now most on the opposition benches too, would say and not think twice about it.

Does anyone remember at any time, any time at all, before, during or after the 2014 referendum, where the evil nationalist” First Minister of the time, or his ‘vile separatist side-kick’ Nicola Sturgeon mentioned patriotism being anything to do with Scotland’s rightful journey towards democratic self-determination? Can anybody anywhere remind me of a moment since, an interview, an article she’s written, a tweet, anything, where the First Minister of Scotland, or even any of her party colleagues at Westminster or Holyrood, has made this connection? Nope, me neither. So much for Scottish nationalism.

However there is indeed an enormous problem with nationalism in the UK. That nationalism is British nationalism, a nationalism which is so deeply entrenched and entwined within the establishment that control our dysfunctional biased in weighting Union of countries that many don’t even notice that it is there, or if they are conscious of it don’t see it as significant.

This nationalism is xenophobic and isolationist in nature, with public opinion being manipulated very ably by daily news headlines from their media organ 24/7, stoking up hatred and suspicion of foreigners, harking back to some sort of halcyon aged nirvana which never existed when ‘England’ was glorious (for a tiny proportion of it’s population, whose descendants still mainly retain the power).

Above all else this nationalism continues in the 21st century to be elitist, promoting an unhealthy sinister image of British superiority.

Michael Gove can make repetitious stock standard false jibes and quote Dad’s Army all he likes, but he, and his cronies, are the real nationalists, not those sitting on the SNP benches.

#Independence is normal. Being governed by another country is not.

Look up, not down

Scotland’s looking below the tree line story of the day.

A drag queen coming to tell a story to primary school kids gives me no cause to consider that the kids will end up sullied, depraved or suffer loss of innocence at all. S/he can talk to my grandkids anytime.

In the 21st century the sooner they become acclimatised to seeing real life as ordinary and normal the better, as far as I see it.

The choice of an adult entertainer to an extent to carry out this role, although perhaps misplaced, does not count in my book as wicked, or worthy of a witch dunking, as long as the adult entertainer concerned is not acting in any way as an adult entertainer at the time of reading a story to children.

I am assured that the adult entertainer concerned had nothing but the enrichment of life learning, protection and welfare of the children concerned in mind.

Look up, not down.

Economically inactive

Good morning Gran.  Stay exactly where you are. I know you are almost completely paralysed from the neck down, and cannae move anyway, and totally rely on me to look after your every need, cleaning out your throat tube very hour or so, exhausted after getting up several times from the cot I sleep in in the corner of your room, just to make sure that you’ve no’ got anything restricting your breathing, and of course keeping you clean and dry in as dignified a manner as I can. But stay exactly where you are until I come back. Stay right there.
 
I know it’s not always perfect  but I try my best, and I promised my Mam, your daughter, before she passed away that I would always care for you. I love you, you are my grandmother. You looked after me as a child, fed me, babysat for me whilst Mam worked in the factory, cuddled and comforted me, cherished me when I needed you. Now you need me.
 
I’m so stressed right now.  How can we do this? How can we fit in the long process it takes to keep you nourished? Honestly I don’t mind at all sitting for hours spoon-feeding you concoctions of liquidised food. I do try as much as possible to produce as many wholesome tasty meals for you as I can, I’ve gotten quite inventive over these years, although I know it doesn’t look much after it has been mushed up. I try my very best with the money available. We just about get by. I’ve left a cool flask and straw by your  mouth on the pillow.  I’m really worried about what I’m going to do about your medication.  As you know we have a regime in place that works quite well for you. Various tablets 8 times a day, some spaced out from others, some not compatible with others and can only be taken one at one end of the day and one at the other. We’ve gotten that working perfectly Gran, haven’t we? Today I’ve split them in three lots, best as I can work out. Here take this pile now, until I return. It’ll be fine. Don’t worry.
 
I’m filled with sorrow, I’m filled with dread, I promise I will come home to you as soon as I can. I’ve spoken with Mrs McCann next door, she will pop in to see you when she can, assuming her arthritis isn’t playing up. She’s having difficulty walking today. She’s got my number.  If you take one of your turns press your buzzer with your nose, you know like you did before, and I’ll try and get here. If needs be we can get an ambulance arranged to get us to the hospital, but it won’t come to that, I promise.  The Doctors? No Gran, sorry. GPs are very scarce now since many of them left the country. We’d never get an appointment. There’s no point of even trying.
 
How’s about this? If I’m placed somewhere near home today I’ll try and get back to make you some lunch, freshen you up and empty out your bag. I’ll try my very hardest.
 
I’ve got to go Gran, I know you need me , I know, but I’ve got to go. I’m now part of Priti’s Land Army. I’ve been officially registered as ‘economically inactive’. There are hundreds of vital jobs not getting done, that don’t need much training apparently. The BBC  news said so last night. I will be sanctioned for six months if I don’t go. I love you…….
 
 
#Independence is normal. Being governed by another country is not.
 
Somebody please get Scotland out of the nightmare which is little Britain 2020 and beyond.

The unwavering ‘cult’ of Hope

Let us assemble, haud wan anither up by the oxters, put on our pointy hats, and meditate the gither, oh Brithereen and Sistereen of the sacred order of the Unconquerable Saltire. For we have been fhun oot! Somebody has spotted that we are a cult.

It was inevitable that at some point someone would stumble upon our most closely kept secret, but it took the sparkling intellect that is Jackson Carloan,the freshly anointed branch leader of the Tories in Scotland, (stop laughing) to work it all out, by cleverly spotting our complicated handshakes, dodgy eye movements and secret code words, before outing us publicly on one of the British state’s news and propaganda broadcasts.

This on the same day that his master in London, the supreme leader of the new empire project, Dominic Cummings, stage managed his mop-headed stooge’s first Cabinet Meeting after the latest reshuffle of nodding headed muppets.

A meeting indeed where, ludicrously set up for the cameras, the assembled careerist sycophants were encouraged to chant out answers like giggling weans to the questions the erratic posh manboy put to them (kind of like you’d see in a cult). But never mind all that, the red faced, and necked, former car salesman has found us believers in our own self-determination out. The game is up!

Personally speaking I like being part of our cult. I’m comfortable in my beliefs, in my values and in my views. If my unwavering faith in my countryfolk’s abilities to govern my country, and always in the interests of our people, all of them, better than the imposed government by another country with its own interests and agenda, means I’m in a cult, then yes, I’m happy to accept that.

As part of being in that cult It is really great, and in fact uplifting, not being a populist, nationalist, separatist,xenophobic,isolationist,royalist,elitist, quasi-fascist, imperialist, self-serving, greed-obsessed exceptionalist.

Maybe Mr Carloan might want to consider, in his quest to win the hearts and minds of the people of Scotland for unionism, exactly what it is about us that has reduced the membership of his party in Scotland from 35,000 members in the early 1990’s to about 9,000 now, or saw the number of Tory London lapdog MP’s in Scotland more than halved at the last General Election, whilst the ‘cult’ won in a landslide victory?

He may also want to consider why it is that his party’s unionist allies in Scotland, their traditional adversaries, have all but been wiped out in a country which used to count votes for them by weight rather than number?

Being generous, the best the buffoon-like Mr Carloan can possibly hope for is that he personally ascends into that other cult, the ones that wear ermine cloaks and give themselves made up titles (and generous raises on their expenses payments on a regular basis) along with his former leader, who we were led to believe was looking for another career until the dangle of the Lords gravy train was put before her eyes, and, that they get to stay there at English tax payers expenses after we take our country back.

#Independence is normal. Being governed by another country is not.

A bridge too far

Right, so let’s get something straight.

There will never ever ever, ‘for a generation or two’ even, be a bridge built between Norn Irn and Scotland. It is all bullskitters, moon-dust and deflection.

What a guy. Where there is no integrity or conscience there is no feeling. If in doubt, strategises the posh manboy faux-bumbler, throw the great unwashed the bone of a major project, a skyrocket to Mars, a promise to build 25 million new houses and 700 hospitals somewhere near them, a project that will never ever happen. A promise, always reneged upon, a promise he thinks will calm the common folk down, and make them more compliant to his homely P.G. Wodehouse-like charms.

His track record goes before him. The City of London Cooncil are still trying tae sell, for spare parts, assorted riot water cannon trucks, ironically purchased originally at great expense in Europe, that he thought would come in handy some years ago. Hey-Ho.

He then spent a fortune on all sorts of studies and expert consultancy reports, lining the pockets of his muckers in the private sector, for a bridge in London (across the sludge that is the Thames, they could just have planted grass seed) a bridge that was gonnae look like the Beechgrove Gairden. In the end not one brick was attached to another, yet a huge wedge of public dosh was flung at the idea. The project was shelved.

Now he’s spending an absolute mint on a high speed rail link, currently financially spinning out of control when measured against its original estimated costings, a black hole which Scotland is throwing a significant contributory wedge into, money spent which we’ll never benefit from (cmon BBC point out that fact) and he’s already started to reverse, rolling the hyperbole back about the northern stretch of the track.

This project will never be fully completed either, or even half finished, despite the significant wedge of public money already spent, cash no doubt resting peacefully in the bank accounts of the likes of the big five consultancy groups.

That old tried and tested detestable Thatcherite style mechanism designed to drain the wealth of the many into the hands of the few still works, get the consultants in, and,amazingly,is still considered legitimate and always above board.

If you know any unionists who are voicing positives quoting Johnson’s false elucidations about a fantasy bridge to the island of Ireland, please point them in my direction will you, I’d like to talk to them about perhaps investing in a timeshare villa in Methil.

#Independence is normal. Being governed by another country is not.

A sackload of chancers

It is a rare occasion when I find myself putting out two blog posts in the one day, (and it’s still early yet) but sometimes, just sometimes it needs to happen, if only to stop me chewing the furniture in angst.

Dearie me. What about yon cosy establishment, and their rituals, eh? My goodness, they love to protect their own, don’t they?

I nearly spluttered soggy rice crispies all over the cat this morning when up on my Twitter display popped the bold Jackson Carloan, aw red-faced and smarmy-looking, bowing and scraping before the next in line on the hereditary human-god-emperor/ess production line (a title he looks like he’ll inherit around the time of the next sighting of Halley’s Comet in 2062) to receive a CBE (Comanchero of the Brittas Empire) for, wait for it, stop giggling at the back, “his political and public service.”

What? Public service? What public service? Has he been doing fantastic great works of selfless charity on the quiet, soothing the worries of the thousands of folk his party have subjected to Universal Credit? Has he perhaps been volunteering at the weekends at one of the burgeoning Foodbanks the withering policies he and his cronies political ideology created?Has he even walked his ageing next door neighbour’s dug roon the park?

Naw. Since Ruthie, Tank Commander, decided she fancied moving out the hot seat at the front of the Tory benches at Holyrood to consider her next career move, he’s been a wee poster boy for their preeeeeecccccious Union. Willing to stand up at FMQ’s every week, talk mince about how great it is tae be under British rule, and how bad it would be to govern our own country, and then get his big beamer of a fizzer handed back tae him on a plate by Nicola Sturgeon on just about every single occasion.

Incredible stuff. It’s the British way, serve the masters and you shall be repaid. Parcel o Rogues right enough.

Talking of Ruth Davidson and career moves, I note the state broadcasting propaganda machine is reporting that Downing Street is about to nominate the bold yin for a seat in the ermine cloaked Lords.

Jeez, who could have predicted that outcome? Just about everybody.

Yes it appears, alongside former annoyances tae the Brexit Borg, who refused to assimilate, ex-chancellors Philip Hammond and auld Ken Clarke, who have been vocal against the current madness of the rightwing cabinet, and are to be elevated to the Lords basically to shut them up, that Ruthster is to join them. Well played Ruth. I’m sure that was in the plan.

The former Viceroy of Joy, who now doesn’t spend any of his time in Myanmar telling sweaty rooms full of rubber planters that the people of Scotland don’t want an independence referendum, Davey Mundell, will be pleased.

Patronage, cronyism, bias, jobs for the boys (and tank drivers) inherited hereditary power and vast wealth. One day, hopefully soon, Scotland will escape all of that.

#Independence is normal. Being governed by another country is not.

Beyond party politics

On yet another day when the headlines are not going to be about the rightful claim of Scotland’s people to self determination, but are going to be about individual politician’s behaviours, alleged or otherwise, which will be used to try and undermine the independence movement, it is becoming apparent that a Yes Campaign must become clearly distinct, and identifiable as such, from the SNP, or any other political party.

Much as the SNP are pushing through, upping the gradualist momentum, and opening the constitutional gate ever further in a tactical and strategic game of constitutional snakes and ladders, and will be the political hammer that will drive in the final nail on the Union, more of our not-yet-convinced folk need to start to be able to recognise that identifying with independence is not party political, and is genuinely grassroots focused.

I would advocate for a lean and mean structure to such a campaign group, with the emphasis on bottom-up decision making rather than top-down, the grassroots groups letting the centre know what they need to get the job done, and the central administration working to provide those resources.

It’s now my view that any central structure should be focused mainly on providing support.

There should be a fundraising team, an adaptable rebuttal team created to counter media unionist propaganda with facts in a timely and structured manner, and an administrative and technical team, funded to support any requirements local groups have for the provision of campaign literature or equipment, technical expertise for sound, lighting and stage facilities, mobile and flexible to short notice requests, depending on what has developed politically at any given time, and be able to help meet the costs of meetings, marches, rallies, conferences. Any management within this structure should be focused solely on these functions.

And then? Let the grassroots groups get on with it, doing the great work that they have been churning out for the last few years, but with the ability to do more, with the proper support, resources and financing behind them.

No central figureheads, no stairheid rammies or ego trips about who is in charge, no politicians directly associated with the structure of the movement (targets to be brought down by scandal, their personal behaviour used disgracefully by the media to try and undermine the independence movement as guilty by association).

Obviously, as has been seen by the great support and work of the likes of Philippa Whitford and Joanna Cherry, independence-minded politician’s are we always welcome to support the movement, make speeches at rallies etc, these folk are committed to the cause, but I would suggest that they not be members of any board or committee associated with the grassroots movement whilst in political office.

The many and varied grassroots groups across the country are doing a magnificent job, all of them. Let’s give them the support to take us over the line. Let’s help them to convince and reassure, and build confidence in our country’s ability to return to governing itself. This is way beyond party politics.

#Independence is normal. Being governed by another country is not.

An actor, playing a part

The numbers are up. The last three polls are showing that,nominally at least, over half the voters of Scotland are now in favour of the perfectly normal constitutional arrangement of being governed by their peers, like most other countries in the world. We’ve been here before, most noticeably just after the original Brexit vote, but now we must maintain what we have, and build further momentum.

Meanwhile, helping us along, the frontman of right wing crypto-fascist British nationalist separatism as it is emerging in England, Dominic Cummings’s music hall stooge, Boris ‘Flashing Cutlass’ Johnson, is coming over all Trafalgar, as he makes the latest of those rambling incoherent speeches we have become accustomed to, from one of the cradles of old empire’s manhood, the Old Royal Navy College at Greenwich.

The good ship Little Empire is set to sail, Britannia will once more waive the rules, sod the Europeans, we’ll swamp them with landing crafts made of hearty oak filled with more mutton chopped redcoats than Butlins, thinks Boris.

We’ll sing Ingurrrrlannnd, Ingurrrrlannndd, Ingurrrrlaaannnd at them, close enough for our hateful bile to spatter upon their olive-skinned Mediterranean good looks. We’ll send airborne showers of plastic chairs forth down in hales upon cafes, pubs and restaurants in their coastal holiday spots at the very first sign of an empty HP sauce bottle, or the chips running out this spring and summer, until they concede that they really still want to give us preferential trading rights, the same as if we were a member of the EU, only without having to pay for the privilege.

They’ll do all of this, those Johnny Foreigners, because, damn your eyes, we are British, we are different, we are better, rambles the quixotic posh man boy, a very well paid actor.

For acting is what he does, rambling half learned latin quotations, ingratiating himself, being jovial, witty bumbling, these are his things. His handlers let him loose, pointing him in the direction they want him to go, to draw the public’s attention away from what they really are doing.

Policy, details, integrity, critical and strategic thinking, they are not high up his list of priorities. Headlines, new trains at astronomical price hikes from the original estimate, bridges to the moon, 4 million new police, a new hospital each for all the members of South Kensington’s Women’s Institute bowls and crochet club. That’s his forte, and it is indeed all an act.

He has absolutely no idea what is going to happen next. He’s telling everyone who will listen that Britain is now out of the EU and he has a trade deal with them. He hasn’t, it’s the withdrawal deal only, that his robotic field-of-wheat running predecessor agonisingly, for all of us, negotiated, and, for another 11 months the only thing the UK has lost from the EU is a say on anything at all to do with how it operates (that was bright eh).

They still are effectively in the customs union until they inevitably and disastrously feck up the negotiation on the separation trading deal over the next few months, blame the EU, and start sooking up to the wearer of the thickest applied fake tan since Bob Monkhouse left The Golden Shot, looking to tap into a hyper-obesity and chlorinated hors d’oeuvres trading agreement that will eventually see prescriptions in England hitting the 50 quid mark for a box of Senokot, and suffers of life threatening illnesses having to ask their ambulance driver tae stop off at the bank’s hole in the wa’ first, on the way tae the A&E department.

As if all of that isn’t enough we await the forthcoming Scottish love-in that the media have recently reported.

£5 million, of taxpayers money, your money, to be spent on an enhanced propaganda campaign, billboards, tv messaging, adverts along wae yer ice cream and nachos at the pictures telling you how great it is tae be in a union where one partner has stolen, and is systematically draining, everything of value your country has for generations for their benefit over yours.

Oh, I sense a defence shipping contract suddenly being dangled our way, a new highway for the highlands or perhaps the prospect of another new shiny huge public use building named after wee Lizzie of London, Elizabeth the 1st of Scotland. I think they think we button up the back.

There there Scotland, continue to nestle in our loving embrace, ‘lead us, don’t leave us’ our broad-shoulders are there to protect you, our union is precccccious (like the snake in the Jungle Book).

That will go down well. At least we’ll get a laugh if nothing else. Tick, tick, tick….. the clock is running down. We are on a different path, and there is no going back.

#Independence is normal. Being governed by another country is not.

Delivering Independence

Immediately after listening to it, in fact from about nine minutes in to Nicola Sturgeon’s speech yesterday, on the day Scotland was removed from the EU against its will, I was sorely disappointed.

Like many advocates for the rightful return of an independent Scotland, I had worked myself up into more than half expecting the announcement of either the date for a consultative referendum on self-determination, without the permission of our overlords to the south, or news that perhaps the next scheduled Holyrood Elections were being brought forward on the basis that if a return vote resulted in a mandated majority for independence immediate discussions would be sought with London to break the constitutional deadlock. No, there was none of that. I was deflated.

It didn’t help mind that the YouTube stream I was watching the speech on had terrible sound, making the First Minister appear to sound like she was talking from inside a deep sea diver’s steel helmet surrounded by a bilious octopus at the bottom of the Pacific, but disappointing it indeed was.

Then I thought about it a bit more, slept on it, and now I don’t feel so disheartened.

The key point I think, having watched the speech again, this time with Nicola Sturgeon speaking in her natural voice, is, as she says, she has pursued an independent Scotland all of her adult life and her job is to deliver that outcome, to ensure that when a referendum comes we will win it.

It is clear now that, as some of the noisier voices amidst our movement have been saying for a while, there isn’t a cunning plan in place to take us forward, a shortcut, a legal sleight of hand, under the current constitutional relationship with England.

This current deadlock reveals in a sharp light that we are effectively an annexed country, seen as a province, and have been so for so long (we’ve all but been absorbed into an extension of England) to such a degree that half of our population don’t even have the foggiest understanding or interest in that fact.

This is where the problem lies, this is where Nicola Sturgeon is coming from, this is (and I know we’ve heard it over and over and over again) the challenge we must overcome, opening up their eyes.

It remains to be seen how we will ever get the posh bumptious man boy of Downing Street to grant us his divine permission to transfer the power to hold a referendum, but to my mind, having given it a second thought, the First Minister is playing the commonsense approach. Remember, as she says, her goal is to ensure that she delivers independence.

Her approach now seems to be to influence the factors that she can influence (the people of Scotland) to increase the pressure on London, and let the rest take care of itself. Paraphrasing a small French guy who had a passion for republics some years ago, don’t interrupt your opponents when they are making a grave error.

The real impacts of Brexit will effectively not kick in until 2021, once the benefits and protections of the EU slip away in 11 months time, but sure as the morn’s mornin comes before the morn’s night Boris Johnson and his band of renegade cowboys will make a complete horse’s erse of the upcoming crucial negotiations with the EU.

See the mess they have made during the time they have still been a member, as the EU have been trying to dissuade them from their folly. I think they’ll find that now they have officially, if not actually, left the EU the folks at Brussels will be dealing with them on a different level. It won’t be pretty. It will be hugely damaging for the UK, but vitally, it will be good for the independence movement in Scotland, as increasingly numbers will swell.

You can be sure too that the odd EU Commissioner here or there flashing the proverbial knickers in Scotland’s direction regarding our prospects of filling a warm seat once we are in control of our own destiny will add to those numbers too.

One other factor to consider too is the upcoming ‘show’ trial of the former First Minister Alex Salmond. Whether he is proven guilty or innocent you can bet your last dodgy commemorative fifty pence that the state propaganda machine will be going all out, overboard, to try and make whatever mendacious mischief they can around the court proceedings. When did Sturgeon know? What did she know? Why did she meet Salmond and share a Marks and Spencers BLT deluxe sandwich on that particular day, etc?

Timing wise, I think it’s best for that scenario all to be played out and lost in old Daily Depress and the Hate Mail chip wrappers before we move much further. A government (a limited powers government) and a leader can only fight on so many fronts at one time, can only push forward when it picks battles it can win, and therefore I think she is playing this very canny, adjusting her strategies where required, but she is playing it well.

You could see by the body language of the First Minister yesterday that she was uncomfortable knowing that what we wanted to hear from her she was not going to deliver. However sometimes leadership is about that, having the courage to give those who follow news they do not necessarily want to hear, for the ultimate greater good.

For those, some of whom who have toiled, marched, canvassed and contributed to our noble and rightful cause for many years, who say, naa, that’s it, I’m chucking it, please please reconsider. We are getting there. I know your patience is wearing thin, so is mine, but in a world full of selfish, narcissist, greed obsessed politicians we need to have trust in someone, and we have a good one, who WILL deliver independence.

#Independence is normal, being governed by another country is not.