Dying for a flag

I’m going to come right out and say it, blind nationalism in the UK is going to kill people.

News tells us that Scotland has just had four consecutive days where nobody has died from this dreadful virus, yet the situation is so out of control in England that the fumbling shambolic British government has had to take the step of shutting down the city of Leicester, as the current highest recently infected area. This amid almost daily scenes of massive crowds around the southern coasts and at street parties in major cities.

This is worrying for Scotland. It is crystal clear that it is time for the likes of Jackson Carloan, former Viceroy of Joy, David Mundell, current Viceroy Alister Jack, and any other individual elected by the people of Scotland who go about their purported business whilst carrying out their main task of being a representative and advocate of another country, to firmly shut the hole that lies below their noses and above their (some of them several) chins, about Scotland staying in step with their mothership.

Tory leader fan boy MP, Andrew Bowie, (the sort who would swing a Pom Pom from side to side in the Commons chamber,if only the tousled leader with the multiple personalities (sometimes he thinks he’s a cheese drawer in a fridge, other times he thinks he’s Winston Churchill) manages to do one more press up on the floor of the chamber than the latest great hope for socialism ‘Sir’ Keir Stauner) is an example.

Yesterday he twitted the following.. “We are one nation. Scottish, English, Welsh, Northern Irish. We are in this together. Please stop this divisive, nasty talk of closing borders to ‘others’.”

Clearly there is an obvious inaccuracy in Andy’s opening sentence. No, we are not one nation, we are a union of nations, apparently united to mutually benefit each other (the biggest con trick since the Greeks presented the toonsfolk of Troy wae a rocking horse that wasn’t filled with blue M&M’s).

But no, Andrew and his fellow sycophants of all things Britannic want you to go much further. “We are in this together” he says. It’s the old ‘pooling and sharing’ thing again. This time, I suppose like the many many occasions Scots have given their lives over the last few centuries as a direct consequence of the Union, you are being asked once more to put your life in danger. You’ve to pool and share serious illness and death.

As we all know the criminal negligence and incompetence of the British government in London, who also worryingly still control much of the powers over Scotland, has resulted in tens of thousands of needless deaths over the last few months, a human tragedy.

If there has been a way to do every possible thing wrong in times of a global pandemic they’ve done it. They are still doing it. I could weep for the people of England, with the worst possible individuals in charge of their government at the worst possible time. History will reflect that.

Yet that government’s agents in Scotland, abetted by the British backing broadcasting media are trying to tell you that Scotland couldn’t possibly close the borders with England during this crisis to protect Scotland’s people from further infection.

It would be an outrage, a constitutional insult, an act that would see Tory unionist politicians and leaders of sinister right-wing pseudo-religious quasi-paramilitary organisations dog whistling out the George Square gollums and trolls, eager to assault, insult and destroy anything that doesn’t comply with their tiny wee limited Union Jack mindsets.

No, as far as Downing Street, and their propagandists are concerned, if their decisions result in the serious illness and death of many innocents in England then their decisions should also result in a similar outcome in Scotland. You, a loved one or a friend must die. You must die for a flag, a red white and blue flag.

First Minister, this is inevitably coming your way. As the mortality rates continue unconstrained to cause alarm and sorrow in our neighbouring country to the south it is time for you to start considering taking that step.

Please close the borders,allowing only freight and essential traffic into, and out of, Scotland, and do so soon, before it is too late.

Groundhog Day

I have absolutely no knowledge or understanding of how it feels to be a black man living in Scotland or in any other country of this dysfunctional kingdom.

Similarly I have no knowledge or understanding of how it feels to be a refugee escaping from a war torn nation or an area of the world riddled with starvation, poverty and tribal slaughter.

I do, however, now in my mid-fifties, know how it feels to be brought up in a Cooncil scheme in a small Central Scottish town, where paper mills, foundries and a coal mine were destroyed by de-industrialisation and the surge towards a UK financial services based economy, as a Catholic.

A childhood and adolescence where in the marching season the Orange Order paraded regularly on a Saturday, and still do, along the main road around 50 feet from my bedroom window.

It would be entirely wrong for anybody anywhere in the media or elsewhere to say that the bile and hate-filled mindset demonstrated on the streets of Glasgow over the last few days is a new thing, a worrying development.

No. Scratch gently beneath the surface of the society of the Central Lowlands of Scotland, the culture, and you will find sectarianism, racism and division exists as much today as it has for generations. It is ingrained, tacitly accepted, a subject not to be spoken of at parties, a generator of many a late night drunken fist fight at a ‘mixed’ marriage wedding reception.

Unless we actively speak up against it, on both sides, we are doing nothing to change it.

Many times over the years in various places around the world, usually over a beer, and generally as a result of a chat about fitbaw, I’ve been asked by a non-Scot what exactly the sectarian side of Scottish life is about.

I have never been able to answer that question without making myself sound silly. Some Dutch guy cutting about on a white horse, the Pope, big drums and big bellys. I just can’t make the implausible sound plausible. The originator of the question usually entirely regrets asking it before saying “and how long ago did you say all of this took place again?”

In truth this stuff is what holds Scotland back. It’s the classic long running state sponsored divide and conquer routine. Keep the masses fighting amongst themselves and they won’t notice too much that the vastly powerful and privileged have been ripping the piss out of them for centuries.

Managing to convince a section of one side of the working class that although they might be poor, their life expectancy might be a lot less than if they lived in a cottage in the Cotswolds, and their access to opportunities to improve their lot are zero, but, at least they are superior to Catholics, was the first step.

Then getting a section of the other side, from the immigrant community, to start complaining that they are being penalised over their religious beliefs and country of origin or ancestry, whilst they were actually being penalised for these things, was the next.

Strife, division and hatred repeated generated after generation ever since, stoked up whenever it is convenient for the state to do so, or at times, like the present, when they feel vulnerable.

Heaven forbid we in Scotland start to see beyond that narrow cringey localised negativeness and suspicion and begin to work together to build a better Scotland. On that day the long held grip on power is gone.

The mob in George Square, like their brethren in the same spot on 19 September 2014, are creatures of right wing thought, of media propaganda, of years of the vile dross written in the Daily Mail/ Telegraph/ Express/Sun et al demonising immigrants.

Nobody manipulating them into a frenzy ever takes ownership of them. Unionist politicians like Ruth Davidson or Alister Jack or the former Viceroy of Joy, Davey Mundell, will dog whistle them into a frenzy, they’ll flash their frilly red, white and blue panties at them, they’ll throw in war time references, they’ll constantly whine on about how the nasty Scottish separatists are harming our great British traditional way of life, disrespecting our past and insulting our forbears. Yet when the Oompa Loompa’s emerge out of the sludge at their behest for yet another shameful expression of their racism and sectarianism these public figures dive for cover.

In the aftermath of such mayhem, (similarly to when they were sought for comment following the unelected leader of the Westminster government, their boss, deciding to go for a run in his motor from one end of England to the other to celebrate his wife and Maw’s birthdays, during the lockdown that he had decreed for everyone else) they disappear when asked for an opinion on the behaviour of a mob that clearly support their precious union, and the divisive separatism of Brexit. They simply won’t take ownership of their part in stoking up the rage.

I’ve never understood or agreed with any aspect of sectarianism in my country, or the racism around new Scots who do our country the great honour of choosing to live in, bring their children up in, and contribute to, our Scotland. I’m convinced the vast majority of us see it that way.

I’m not naive enough to think we will ever eradicate this bile completely, but I have hope that one day soon, as an independent nation Scotland will be a more tolerant and welcoming place for all of it’s people.

#RefugeesWelcome

Narrow nationalism

It has eventually happened.

As predicted repeatedly since the first cornerstone was placed on the cleared land at the bottom of the road to Holyrood Palace, and even further back than that, by 99.9% of the mainstream media, every newspaper under the ownership of the British establishment, and every unionist politician of both blue, red and sickly Rennie and Carmichael yellow, narrow divisive separatist nationalism is eating the British state.

The people of England woke up today, despite the efforts of their media to play down fascism amongst them, bizarrely referring to those making nazi salutes in the streets of London as ‘anti-anti fascist supporters’ to discover what much of the rest of the world, particularly the lands previously who suffered from having their resources and assets hoovered up and transported to London, and we in Scotland, have known for some time, the only narrow divisive separatist nationalism which exist in the UK exists in England. I’m sure, the vast majority of the folks south of the Tweed, being right-minded ordinary human beings, thankfully, won’t like that moment of realisation.

Yesterday’s farcical scenes in London would have been laughable if it hadn’t been for the constant prospect of some innocent bystander or a member of the Polis being hurt or killed by one of these Neanderthal pea brains.

It was all just a wee bit confusing to the casual observer. The Polis were set up to shield inanimate boarded up statues, and commemorations to Boris Johnson’s fridge period, from a group of people who weren’t actually there, the Black Lives Matter movement having smartly rethought the prospect of demonstrating whilst facing a rabble of bile-spewing extras from a troll crowd scene in Lord of the Rings.

The troll extras themselves, fresh from their local branch meetings of Mensa, were protesting against that same group of people who weren’t actually there, that the Polis were protecting the statues from, and then to top that off they then endeavoured to assault the Polis who were there protecting the statues they want protected.

That was even before you start to consider that these angry red-faced individuals were performing Nazi fascist salutes whilst apparently protecting statues of individuals who are much vaunted for opposing Nazis and fascists.

Better Together? Really?

It’s time to go. Dear friends independence is what we want, and independence we must have.

Talk about a brass neck

The behaviour of the slabbering benches of the former Ruth Davidson for Scotland party at Holyrood, and their current grand master flash, Jackson Carloan, over the period of the current pandemic, would surely give yer arse a sore head.

Pick pick, nit pick, and pick again. Nike Conference, get that dreadful Calderwood woman sacked for driving over the Forth Bridge, “there cannot be one rule for bosses and another for everyone else”, The Nike Conference again, ‘Oh we’re so confused because the nasty separatists have set different lockdown rules to our beloved motherland’, back tae the Nike Conference, ‘we’re on to you Nicola because all of this effective leadership during a pandemic is just a secret plan to further your obsession on independence’, the Nike Conference again, and then running for the underground soundproof bunker, in case they were asked for a quote, when their unelected leader in London decided to go for a hurl to Durham for his Mrs and his Maw’s birthday defying the lockdown rules that he created himself, then put the wean in the back of the motor whilst he was suffering a dose of Thunderbird drinker’s blindness on the way back.

Now it’s Jeane Freeman they are trying to tie to a stake above a fire pit. They tried it before when she was at Social Security, and now they are after her again. A more capable public servant you’ll never meet, who I’m absolutely certain is eating, sleeping and breathing strategies to defeat this virus 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. She’s all over it like a rash. Yet to them, the sycophants of their masters, that is not good enough.

The brass neck on these wasters, hoping for a wee pet behind their ears from London, is beyond belief. Let’s get a sense of perspective here. The people of England, God love them, under their government, are suffering a rate of mortality and serious illness without precedent, unless you count the many millions who died in the 1918-20 flu pandemic.

Every decision they make is either the wrong one, pointless or is too late. If there was a study held asking a group of supposed leaders to sit in a room and deliberately come up with the wrong way to address a pandemic it would not be very far away from what they’ve actually done.

The excess deaths in England as a result of the coronavirus is approaching 60,000 people. These are not statistics, these are human beings, grannies, grandads, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunties, uncles, and daughters and sons.

The worst handling of the COVID-19 almost anywhere in the world. Yet still they bleat and they whine and the scoff at the Government of Scotland pursuing one vital goal, protecting Scotland’s people.

If the Scottish Tories had any dignity, any at all, they would sit in the chamber with their gobs firmly shut or, if they really considered themselves representatives of their electorate, they would turn towards the benches on their right and ask the question ‘what can we do to help?’

The people of Scotland are no’ daft. We see you.

An open letter to the First Minister of Scotland

An open letter to First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon.

First Minister, thank you.

Thank you for your tireless work, your great energy, your leadership, your reassurance, particularly in reassuring our children and grandchildren, your direction, humanity and honesty.

Thank you for having a conscience throughout this dreadful pandemic which we all face. Thank you for the sleepless nights which I am sure you have undoubtedly endured worrying about the safety of those you serve. Thank you.

First Minister I urge you at this time to strongly consider taking the following action.

Please take steps to implement border controls with our neighbouring country to the south, England in order to reduce the dreadful impact of the current pandemic in Scotland.

This strategy has been seen elsewhere in the world to be very successful in reducing the spread of contraction and morbidity of the Covid-19 virus. Australia for example, has closed all borders between each State, effectively stopping the disease from community transmission in some States, achieving this in a very short period of time.

We are all watching with horror the events that are unfolding as a result of the relaxation of the lockdown in England, and the resulting consequences of the Cummings disaster, where thousands now casually disregard official advice. You know what is coming soon. So do we.

The Scottish Government should, with some urgency, whilst retaining its measured responsible approach, introduce emergency powers under their current devolved responsibility for law and order in Scotland, in the Scottish Parliament, to override the retained power and responsibility that London retains over Scotland’s border controls.

Border controls must be put in place at the English border, Scottish ports and airports to prevent the impending inevitable second wave spreading into, and engulfing Scotland, causing devastation.

It is clear that Johnson, Cummings, Gove, Hancock, Patel et al must surely be replaced shortly by a coalition all party UK crisis government, centred on doing the right things to protect human life, not corporation profits.

The incompetence of these idiots is killing tens of thousands of our fellow human beings, our friends, our neighbours, our relatives, innocents who have become the victims of elite exceptionalism. A central regime going against the trend, ‘following a science’ different and oppositional to every other first world country, being plucky Bulldog British, condemning the vulnerable and blameless to death.

Over the UK the death rate hasn’t fallen, in fact it is on the rise. The cabal of clueless underachievers in charge haven’t met, or achieved, any of the targets or tests that they said would need to be achieved before they lifted the lockdown.

Letting the shielded and vulnerable return to mixing with others is criminally negligent beyond belief. This is an absolute human catastrophe.

Please close the borders, allowing only freight and essential travel into, and out of, Scotland, and do so soon, before it is too late.

Once again, thank you for the selfless work you put in to your job on behalf of those you serve. Such actions as those suggested above can not be undertaken lightly. However this is not about politics, it is not about sovereignty. It is about saving human lives.