Spotting weaknesses

So there we have it. In a curt letter to Angus Brendan MacNeil SNP MP, advocate of the go-and-take-your-power-to-permit-us-a-section 30-order-and-shove-it-right -up -your-gaping-Brexit-wound approach, the soporific Alister Jack,(heavy machine operators slump into slumber at the very sound of his voice) the government from another country’s man in Scotland, the Secretary of State Against Scotland, has clarified the following. When asked if Westminster was prepared to allow the people of Scotland to exercise their democratic rights anytime soon, his response is No, No, No, No, No, No, and Yes, the last referendum was once in a generation, which Eck and Nicola signed up for in a cast iron committed way (naw they didnae) and therefore we can have a referendum again the day after Halley’s Comet makes its next appearance, around 2062 or thereabouts.

Our old, frustrating pal demonstrated yet again, the Democratic Deficit. Since 2014 there have been umpteen democratically achieved mandates for the party of Scottish limited powers devolved government to push forward, seeking additional powers, an accord to progress towards another canvassing of Scotland’s voters about their views on their future governance, and cast iron evidence to demand that the wishes of our people, now clearly a majority view, are respected by those in government from another country, a country whom we are supposed to be in an equal partnership with. All ignored, made fun of, or dismissed by London.

2020 has been a dreadful year in many ways, however the people of the UK may well be about to find out what living during a Depression feels like as a result of a combination of the worst viral pandemic in a hundred years and a self-inflicted mini-imperial vanity project, whose negative economic consequences are now starting to emerge, vehicle manufacturing being the latest example of closure, consequences which will gather momentum once this year turns into the next. Those of us who lived through Thatcher’s worst policy excesses might find that era of contraction in employment, in trading, in growth, pales into insignificance compared to what is coming.

I sincerely hope I’m wrong. The EU might turn around in the next four weeks and say ‘Hey, enough with all of the macho-nationalist flag waving nonsense, your lack of understanding of the complexity of the issues of disentangling yourselves from the world’s largest free-trade bloc, your massive incompetence, and the disrespect you’ve shown trusted trading partners over the last four and a half year. Enough. We give in, You are Britain, and therefore you are great, you are the exception to the rest of us, you should have everything you want, including the same free-trading terms, or as close it as we can get, as you had when you were a member, but without the responsibilities, financial obligations and rules that actual members have to abide by.’ It could happen, but I doubt it.

If my reading of this is correct, I hope, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has, whilst still being careful to point out that she is in the process of managing the impact of a global pandemic in Scotland, in the last couple of days, prior to the party conference set to take place over this weekend, (cynics would say that she would be doing a bit of sabre-rattling at this time) hinted that the manifesto for the coming Scottish Parliamentary Elections in May will include some form of wording which makes it clear that voting for the SNP is a vote to permit an advisory referendum (like Brexit) o take place without the requirement to go begging to our bumbling ‘betters’. I sincerely hope that is what she means, and we’re not looking at acquiring yet another mandate we never use. 

However, in the coming chaos and confusion of post Europe little Britain, who knows what 2021 may bring. Whatever occurs the Scottish Government, and we, the Yes Movement, need to be ready. Nicola Sturgeon’s government to be ready to ‘read the room’ well and identify the opportunity to fire the starting gun, and us, to get right behind the campaign. 

In a time of upcoming extraordinary chaos we may just see weakness in a London government whose refusal to recognise the will of the people of Scotland is currently as staunch as their former plastic-chair throwing international football marauders, and their media’s, refusal to accept the genius of a recently deceased footballing hero because he used his fist to score a goal against them, whilst failing to remember that five minutes later in the same match he dribbled the baw twice round several of their players from his own half, before sending their goalie for a pie for the second goal. 

2021 is set to be interesting. Never forget, independence is normal, being governed by another country, from another country, is not. 

Beat the drum

I would love to believe that there is a double secret squirrel plan up the sleeve of somebody like the very capable and cerebral Mike Russell at the SNP for gazumping the set to be continuous unionist government cry of ‘now is not the time’, a response which will be with us for the foreseeable future. 

I really would, and I’ve kidded myself on for an extended period to a certain extent by thinking why would any details of a plan ever be revealed in advance, giving our opponents the advantage of advance knowledge. 

However as time has moved on and all the indicators from key players in the party of Scottish government, and of the majority of Scottish MPs at the parliament we are trying to leave, are that they are relying on some sort of permission being granted for a Section 30 order by Boris Johnson, or whomever afterwards government,  either by force of will and polling results, or by some sort of Damascene conversion towards respect for democracy, I do feel somewhat deflated. 

Logic tells me that David Cameron granted permission for a referendum on Scotland’s right to self-governance because the numbers told him at the time that less than 30% of Scots were likely to vote Yes. The resulting 45% scared the living daylights out of the Union, six or seven years later with the polls numbering more than a dozen predicting that Scotland would become an independent country should a referendum be held right now or soon there is absolutely no chance that following the polite ‘gold standard’ route of meekly asking for permission to do what democratically our people want us to do will result in London agreeing. That simply will not happen if they think they could possibly lose.

I’m irked a wee bit at the childishness of MP Pete Wishart, who clearly has too much time on his hands on social media, (perhaps he should concentrate on what he’s at Westminster for)describing anybody who writes on the subject of independence for Scotland who does not agree that this faith based idea of the British establishment caving in because more Scots have opened their eyes to our own capabilities to govern ourselves will work as ‘SNPbad Indy bloggers’. 

I’ve very rarely criticised the SNP. In fact Ive defended them almost to a fault. My blogs posts are aimed at unity, education, converting and consolidating support for the Yes Movement and by association the political party who will open the gate to independence, the SNP, through satire and hopefully, through humour. He doesn’t get to tell me or others we are not committed to independence. 

He talks about ‘ turning up the heat, and withdrawing consent’ should a section 30 order be refused. By this he doesn’t mean Scotland’s SNP MPs returning to Edinburgh and setting up a government in waiting, or non violent civil disobedience (for the record I joined the SNP, the first time I’ve ever been a member of a political party, on the day Ian Blackford got chucked out of the Commons chamber and his colleagues went with him).

What does he mean? Is he considering organising  a flotilla of saltire-painted pedalos tripping quietly along gently through the sludgy waters of the Thames up and down in front of the Houses of Parliament, manned and womanned by life-jacketed SNP MP’s singing ‘Freedom come all ye’ through megaphones at wine quaffing, smoked salmon sandwich eating Tories taking their subsidised leisure alfresco, changing their minds via the Guantanamo Bay soul destroying play book? 

I hate when we are divided. There will be due time for that once we are independent and the various political parties who will represent the variety of views of Scotlands people emerge and we start to settle on our democratic checks and balanced great future. 

Differing views, debate with a view to a positive outcome is healthy in a movement. Right now division and name calling is not. We will get there though. 

Carry on empire

Run Scotland, run like the wind, run faster than you’ve ever ran before, because the bumbling bumpkins of Brexit are about to attempt the impossible (which will be a clear vote winner with every nationalist nutter in England, and that strange band that support them from Scotland, who combined together form the Britannic version of Trump supporters, a nuanced troupe who call everybody else a nationalist and separatist whilst completely failing to realise that the only real nationalists and separatists are themselves). Yes, they are going to try to get the band back together and re-form the British empire.

With the announcement that defence spending in the UK is set to rocket via the injection of, an unprecedented in post-cold war times, upwards from £24 billion over the next four years, and Boris Johnson pronouncing that Britain will reclaim its mantle as the world’s foremost naval power, it’s clear the Tories have collectively lost the plot, and fallen through a portal into an alternative universe where the second half of the 20th century didn’t exist. 

I’m sure the Chinese, wae their 2.8 million soldiers, airmen and sailors, half a million reserves, 350 ships and submarines, and 3000 odd fighter jets and bombers, are shyting themselves at the news. They’ll be taking to their knees and handing Hong Kong back tae Whitehall by Monday. 

The 1.5 billion folk of India and Pakistan at this moment are busy identifying anything they have of value, large or small, poor or rich, and loading it into shipping containers for the journey through the Suez Canal, (which co-incidentally the Egyptian government has just in the last 24 hours, since Johnson spoke about the second rising of Britannicus, decided to gift to the UK, with a sincere apology for Nasser chasing them out in the 1950’s) taking the view that if they hand London everything they have of value up front this time maybe the mighty redcoats and their civil service won’t bother coming to pillage, to steal precious stones to set into hereditary monarchs golden hats, and stamp pass books in triplicate.

Back tae the future right enough. Fantastic. No Jock, it’s not going to be a future of opportunity for your kids. Doctors, engineers, IT analysts, innovators, inventors and professors, world travelling humanitarian ambassadors for their country they shall not be. 

No, no, it’s a martial future for them, and hey if they try really really hard, and survive several years as cannon fodder,  thrown into all sorts of hell holes around the world, with consciences wracked from the horrors of the deaths of thousands of innocents, stricken with blood soaked PTSD all because the males in Boris Johnson’s Cabinet all have small membrum virile’s, they might, if they are very lucky retire on a sergeant’s pension. Feck that for a gemme of sojers. 

A question for the London exceptionalist elite and their sycophants in Scotland, what is this need, this arrogant bollox, for Britain to be some sort of high profile big player in the world?  In 2020 what is it all about? It’s in the past, leave it there. Just apologise, make reparations and move on. You are embarrassing yourselves. 

Meanwhile domestically there’s a pandemic killing innocent people needlessly every day, poverty is sky high, your self-inflicted separation from Europe, against the democratic will of us Scots, in just few weeks will set off a depression not seen in the UK since the 1930’s, and ye cannae even pay the frontline health workers, risking their lives on a daily basis, selflessly to help their fellow human being, what they are worth in wages, or give them enough of the appropriate equipment to protect themselves. 

It really would make ye sick. Scotland we need to leave, we need to do it soon. Once May’s election is over, let’s get this done.

The gift

As the Scottish agents of the dysfunctional government from another country, of another country, and of us, emerge from abandoned underground nuclear bunkers strewn around the coast, now that they’ve perfected what they are going to say to try to counter-act one of the biggest political gaffs their leader has made in a career strewn with political gaffs, what is the likely impact of well-known hiker of Scotland’s coastline and walk-in fridge salesman, Boris Johnson’s, recent pronouncements on devolution during a Zoom conference with some of his northern English cohort of MP’s?

According to the woolly-headed muppet devolution has been a disaster in Scotland, the worst decision Tony Blair made during his time as Premier (a pretty steep assertion that would suggest that Johnson thinks allowing Scotland a referendum to decide whether to return to having its own devolved limited powers parliament was worse than Blair deciding to hang onto Geordie ‘Dubya’ Bush junior’s coat tails and then rampage through a middle eastern country on the basis of highly dubious information about non-existent weapons of mass destruction scribbled on the back of an old post-it note).

That is a biggie, or as the outgoing narcissistic painted lunatic of Washington, and buddy of Johnson, would say “It’s bigly” in terms of statements to make. It’s pretty emphatic, and with not much more than six months to go until the Holyrood elections in May. It is a phrase we will hear repeatedly in the upcoming electoral campaign of the party of the current Scottish government looking to retain their position. Oh yes we will. 

Giving the blithering buffoon the benefit of the doubt, I know I shouldn’t but let’s play devil’s advocate for a moment, to his mindset, and to most unionists (apart from those in Scotland still hanging onto some fantasy idea that Labour are somehow going to go into a sudden reverse north of the border, gathering reverentially around a reincarnated risen-again version of Keir Hardie, whose name, at one of their more recent annual conferences they couldn’t even spell correctly, never mind uphold his ideals, a hero leading them to a landslide victorious government in Edinburgh, and then they can all go back to the two-party cosy business lunch and second home expenses nirvana of the past) he’s hit the windswept tent peg squarely on the head.

For them devolution has been an unmitigated Cluster-Burach, a disaster of the highest order. One that incrementally, since 1999, has allowed the Scottish electorate to slowly but surely, with gathering pace, start to see and understand all of the unionist propaganda, all of the nonsense about dependency, all the falsehood about Scotland’s limitations, all of that spin, for what it actually is, lies to keep Scotland, with its assets, resources and advantageous strategic position in terms of the defence of the UK, down, to keep us under London’s control. 

The massive panicked Project Fear campaign of 2013/14 shone a floodlight on all of this, and the momentum of the awakening of many Scots to the prospect that we can do all of this governing nonsense ourselves, and to a much better standard than a government in another country who do not have our needs, requirements and aspirations, anywhere near the top of their priorities. 

The natural conclusion of all of that change in attitude and recognition of the realities of being a lesser entity in a false union of equals, a subsumed state,is inevitably independence.

Boris Johnson’s assertion that granting ‘permission’ for a referendum to take place in 1997 to decide whether Scotland should return to a form of governing itself for the first time in 290 years (limited powers as they were, and still are) was the worst decision Tony Blair ever made shows a remarkable lack of respect for the democratic will of a country.

In that vote in 1997 in a two question referendum 74.29% of the near 2.4 million Scots who went through the doors of polling stations that day voted Yes to the question ‘Do you agree there should be a Scottish Parliament? 

To the second question ‘Do you agree a Scottish Parliament should have tax raising powers?’ 63.48% voted Yes.

These are significant unequivocal majorities. Real democracy in action. Decisions made by a country way beyond the influence of falsehood laden deception, broken purdah’s and offers of a Vow for change those gripping onto power had absolutely no intention of keeping. 

Those decisions in 1997 were light years away in terms of dignified progressive politics from the hurried let’s cancel PM Questions in parliament, let’s try and raise a non-co-operating Saltire above 10 Downing Street to make it look like it should be there, and let’s send every unionist politician with a pulse and an expenses account on trains, planes and in automobiles to Scotland asap to scare the locals out of their sovereign destiny type of panicked 10% majority (when you originally expected to win by 30%) no, these are the real deal.

Boris Johnson has just gifted us the prize, he’s dumped a substantially sized toxic steaming jobbie on the people of Scotland’s democratic rights to have their views, decisions and their will respected within his disunited Kingdom. He will never hear the end of it. The phrase ‘devolution has been a disaster north of the border’ will be heard so often repeated back in counter arguments to remaining in the Union that it will make ‘once in a generation’ all but disappear.

The open goal in front of the independence movement is widening, the goalie is standing at the wrong post, and not even Doogie Ross sticking his flag up, before falling over, should stop us. 

The Scottish government is dealing with a global pandemic, granted, (and they would have a damn sight better chance of ameliorating it’s harm if we had full control of all of the levers of governance). This however is no reason for the party in government not to also work tirelessly towards (in tandem with the May elections and its aftermath) a strategy to progress to independence should the people of Scotland provide yet another mandate in a few months time, without the need to seek a section 30 order. It is their fundamental reason for existence as a political party so get on with it. 

The days of asking permission from the likes of Boris Johnson or whomever comes after him are long gone. It’s time to get that preparatory work done, and ready to go. 

A time to heal

Like a particularly annoying nasal hair, which no matter how many times you trim it, keeps growing back, only to then protrude from your beak at the most inappropriate of moments, the thickness of a bass guitar string, just dangling there for everybody to stare at and be embarrassed for you, Gordy, Saviour of the Union, and son of the manse, Broon, has re-appeared again for one of his now almost monthly (it seems like) first ever interventions over the question of the sovereignty of Scotland. This time on the Marr Show.

Like the non-compliant nose hair you hope, after each of these self-aggrandising media appearances, that the former Prime Minister and Treasurer of the London based government will just go away, but naw, he never does. He just churns out the same unionist platitudes that have served him personally throughout his career. 

This is hard to take in a time when the current incarnation of what, in the 21st century, passes for government around the Palace of Westminster estate, easily takes the prize for being the most chaotic, disorganised, fatuous, dysfunctional, in-appropriately frivolous clown-shoe version of the Mad Hatters tea-party known to British politics in the last hundred years.

The director of this madness, having attracted massive public ire due to his arrogant disregard for public health, whilst at the same time being in charge of  devising the public health restrictions everyone else has to follow, has just been part of an orchestrated stage-managed public clearing of his office desk, (complete with picking up his box of staples, rulers, pens and copies of Steve Bannon monthly) before suffering the faux-indignity of being size ten shoe toed-up-the-hole out of the front door of number 10 (even Larry the cat gave him the middle claw salute on the way onto the street) to a myriad of tipped-off media camera clicks (c’mon, does anybody seriously believe that’s him out of the picture?). 

The man who engineered Brexit has apparently bolted before the penny drops on everybody else in January that the European Union are now quite glad tae get shot of the UK, they are so scunnered, Little Britain is no’ worth the aggro, leaving Cummings wee Brexiteerian muckers scurrying around, Corporal Jones-like, as they did the morning after they couldn’t believe that they’d actually convinced enough people to vote leave. Gove looked like he’d had a nasty follow through, and Johnson just kept jumping in and oot of revving up motors for days, hoping journalists and protestors would leave him alone. 

With Cummings allegedly gone it seems that Boris Johnson’s bidie-in is now in charge (the bold yin is once again hiding in a fridge, for another fourteen days, having conveniently been in close contact with someone who has been unfortunately diagnosed with the dreaded virus). 

Good on her, somebody has to do it, it may as well be her, but Gordy still feels, as he always does, that we need to stick with our betters. No matter how bonkers they actually are their accents are posh, so trust them, right?

Broon’s assertion that independence is a bad thing is all the more puzzling when you consider that the UK is currently, as well as dealing with a world-wide pandemic (badly), in its last incompetently engineered divorce Brexit days, as mentioned above, moving from what was a stable economic, financial, cultural and peaceful relationship with the world’s biggest and most prosperous free trading, free movement, bloc, to financial chaos, as clear a case of State self-inflicted suicide as you’ll ever see.

Like a perfect storm, the consistent governmental incompetence (un-encumbered by any semblance of intelligent input) of an increasingly small former imperial power, with much less influence than it once had, unable, or unwilling to understand its current status in the world, isolating itself from favourable trading arrangements with its trading partners, now has to navigate through two major events in its’ current and foreseeable future, of a magnitude Britain hasn’t seen since 1939-45. Two such high magnitude events,not one!

Even with the numbers of cases of Covid-19 rising, restrictions being monitored, re-imposed and re-evaluated both in London and in Edinburgh almost on an hourly basis, and studies showing that Scotland is, and has been all along, at a different stage in the pandemic from England, the most recent attempts by Scotlands democratically elected government to try and work together with our masters to address the needs of all the people of the various countries of the UK has failed, demonstrating yet again if it needed demonstrating that the Union does not work, and always without fail places Scotland at a significant disadvantage. 

When seeking some form of reassurance that Scots would have access to the renewed supporting financial furlough scheme (our own money) if Scotland was locked down at a different time from England, basically when we need it, the Scottish government received a variety of answers, depending on who they were asking. Dougie ‘VAR with the plug out’ Ross, looking tae win popularity contests, said of course, nae bother tae the broad shouldered red white and blue. The spondooliks will be there whenever they are needed. 

Alternatively, and suggesting not so, any, and all, of the associated members of Johnson’s cabinet, canvassed the next day on the same subject, refused to tie themselves to an straight answer, quoting by rote that Chancellor Sunak would have to consider such a request at the time if one was made. 

What can we read into that? Yet again Scotland will only ever be allowed access to what is effectively its own finances when, and if, it suits London, even in a time of dire crisis, where people in our communities are dying.Partnership of equals? Don’t forget a few months ago they tried to half-inch all of the available PPE too. “Don’t leave us Scotland, lead us” was one of their former Prime Minister’s sayings. Aye right!

Gordon Brown talks of needing a ‘time to heal’ from the pandemic before a referendum can possibly be considered (that we don’t need according to him because life can be so much better just over the brow of that next wee hill of vows and promises to blissful unionist nirvana).

In reality the likes of the falsehood, misdirection and ambiguous statements made by Gordy, and his ilk, who some saw as capable of being trusted in the days running up to 18 September 2014, stuff about vows, about federalism within two years, about becoming the most devolved nation in the world, shameful scary stuff casting doubts for parents about the future health treatment of gravely ill Scottish children should Scotland return to being an independent country, these are the kind of blows which caused the wounds that require healing, and for many these cannot ever be forgotten or forgiven. 

However, the people of Scotland will heal. You can be sure of that. They will heal from the many decades of systematic governmental abuse from successive Westminster governments,  ignorance, abandonment, social experimentation, poverty, mass poor health and addiction issues as a consequence, asset and resource stripping, the gutting of industry, employment and communities in the name of progress. 

They will heal, but it will take many decades after the rightful return to self-government for the wounds to knit properly, and the sooner we get on to that the better.  We need to be on the front foot, and have a strategy ready to go in May which does not involve asking anybody else’s permission to proceed in enacting what the majority of our people now wish us to do. 

A jolly good wheeze

Not known as a witty raconteur, being more of an inducer of sudden soporific slumber just by opening his mouth and speaking, so much so that combine harvesters and tractors have been known to switch themselves off if he passes a field on his estate where one is in operation whilst walking-in his new weekend shooting gumboots, England’s man in the camp, the Secretary of State Against Scotland, Alister Onion Jack, has made it known that he was only guising the other day when he said that democracy should remain in suspension in Scotland for 40 years. 

According to him he was just at the wind-up, kidding on, indulging in a touch of jocular japing with the Jocks. He was just pulling our collective p***er. What a card, what a character, what a guy. 

Naw, although it’s clear a joke is only ever funny if the audience don’t actually need it to be explained to them before they get it, so therefore he’s as funny as passing a kidney stone, what he really meant was it would be as well being 80 years,or 100 years, or until High Valleyfield freezes over for that matter, the British government do not intend to respect the will of the democratic majority of the people of Scotland at any time. 

It’s for our own good, we’re not smart enough to be allowed to wear big boys and girls pants, we’ve to get back in our box and see our hopes and aspirations wither on the vine of Little England patronisation. 

They were never going to give their permission (that word in the context of one country having such power over another sovereign nation is simply ludicrous). They were never going to do so when they were comfortable that they would still win a second referendum, they certainly won’t grant one now that we’re a year or so along of a dozen or so polls suggesting they will lose. As the appetite for independence grows in the people of Scotland, as the confidence in our own abilities to govern ourselves continues to rise, there is no chance that London will comply with our democratic wishes. 

Yes, we are in the midst of a pandemic, yes the number one priority of Nicola Sturgeon and her government at this time is the health and wellbeing of Scotland’s people, for which they should be commended in comparison to the horrific clown show of mixed messages, milking of public money on the back of human misery and incompetence coming out of Westminster, but it’s getting way past the time where the repeated official view from Bute House is that somehow Boris Johnson or a successor will crumble and grant a section 30 order allowing a further referendum on Scotland’s future can be seen to have any credibility. 

Somebody somewhere somehow must come up with another approach, and soon. Power is never given freely. A wise man once said “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” 

It is time for Scotland to take the necessary steps, peacefully and non-violently, but forcefully, to return our country to its rightful state of self-government, a normal condition for most other nations of the world. 

Wishing and hoping just doesn’t cut it. It really doesn’t. 

The mutual and long-term virtues of the Union.Eh?

Springing out of the typical semi-obscurity of former UK political leaders (wildly financially advantageous fees accepted for after-dinner speeches and lobbying for banks, corporations and rogue states noted as great friends of the UK’s arms manufacturing companies)John Major has made an intervention

Yes, an intervention of a kind we in the independence for Scotland movement recognise, for it is an intervention very similar to the regular interventions, always for the first time, made by Major’s fellow former Prime Minister and lunch partner of the iron beastie in her dotage, Gordy Broon. 

Previously notable mainly for three  things, being just a wee bit dull, having a fondness for garden peas, and much to many’s surprise at the time, having a four year incredibly close working relationship on the side with Edwina Currie, the bold Johno has, it seems, worked out a plan that will top Gordy’s trite to the point of monotony Federal solution, and knock the old separatists of Scotland right over the boundary at the Oval for a stonking six. 

It’s radical, it’s badical, it’s farcical. It’s no’ gonnae happen. 

Firstly, it would have been nice if Major had started his pitch with a touch of pragmatism. You know, the kind of stuff that would have been refreshing for we souls who think the same democracy most other Western countries enjoy is a reasonable normal thing to ask for Scotland. 

He could have appealed to our better side by letting us know, even if he doesn’t believe it, that yes, the London government shouldn’t have the ability to say yay, nay, GTF, or veto any of a sovereign country they are in a Union with’s democratically mandated aspirations. Did he do so? Naw. 

Naw, what he advocates is that Dominic Cummings globe puppet, Boris Johnson, should “offer”us the opportunity of two further referendum votes, one to get the whole Braveheart, grievance, annoyed, shocked and bewildered at the policies of the current and recent clown shoe British governments, uppity Jock, stand on our own two feet, flag waving thing out of our wee toatsy cute systems, bless. 

The other vote, a secondary more adult, cerebral, pull yourselves together, John Mills in a WW2 Destroyer type of vote, which would “focus minds away from a short-term reflex opposition to a perceived English Government, and back to the mutual and long-term virtues of the union”.

Wow! If ever there was another clear demonstration that mainstream two-party system British unionist politicians have little or no clue about what has gone on in Scottish politics over the last twenty years this is it. 

The time for kidology, empty promises, appeals for patriotism and loyalty to a cause which has done nothing to instil either of these emotional states (an ex imperial entity he himself admits is in decline) Project Fear threats, and bribes has most definitely passed. We’re over it. 

Get out of the way John, get back to your plate of garden peas. The road to independence continues. 

Away and run up my hump

The previously referenced dullest waste of a publicly funded salary, a man so soporific that nearby heavy machinery automatically switches itself off as he passes, an individual who makes James Kelly MSP seem like Morgan Freeman reciting speeches from Martin Luther King, Alister (onion)Jack, has roused from a nap on the shiny new settee, in his shiny new office, (a room which appears to have more images of flags than an American polling station car park) in the shiny new office block,that poor Davy Mundell had his eye on before he got bumped for someone who can offer pheasant shooting, to tell the people of Scotland what they cannot do, and for how long. Aye right. 

To be fair, back in Davy’s day he at least had the good manners to sod off to Paraguay, Argentina or Myanmar to tell smoke filled rooms of bewildered local landowners, wicker basket exporters and rubber planters, on repeat like a broken record, that there’s nae appetite for a referendum, nobody wants one, and they are divisive. 

This he did to avoid being pointed, and giggled, at back home, before being pelted wae stale doner kebabs and mouldy bridies. 

The dynamic Jack, he’s different. After 12 polls in a row over an extended period of time have informed anyone who is interested that the people of Scotland are now ready to take the next step on the journey to regained sovereignty the Secretary of State Against Scotland (a roving portfolio consisting of criticising anything the Scottish Government does and promulgating the bleak proposition that Scotland is too wee, too poor and too dependent on his masters to possibly survive in its own) reckons it’ll be 25 to 40 years before we are allowed to have a referendum. Straight-faced too, he never even took a beamer. 

There’s that pesky auld democratic deficit rearing it’s head again. Scotland is simply not being governed in a representative democratic manner. The views and will of the majority of our electorate are not being respected. You don’t matter. 

The UK’s largest nation England, criticises many countries around the world where democracy is ignored or paid lip service. Yet it gets away with treating its partners, the countries it has subsumed in a scam family of equals, in entirely the same manner. 

This, dear friends, will not stand. We cannot let it stand. There needs to be an alternative to seeking their permission to act of our own free will.  At some point all of this pussy-footing ‘gold standard’ stuff is going to need to stop.

We can do this so much better ourselves

Ah, there it is again, for only the umpteenth time in living memory we see the inequity of life as a subsumed member of an in-name-only equal Union clearly demonstrated for everybody to see, apart, of course, from those who choose to ignore and accept it, (if the polls are right) the ever decreasing ranks of the Proud-Scot-buts.

For several weeks now the Scottish Government (and the Welsh Government for that matter), with numbers of cases of Covid-19 rising worryingly and various restrictions re-applied incrementally in a targeted manner on a risk scale, have been lobbying (for that is what unequal partners must do) Dominic Cummings’ London clown shoe academy and the treasury to determine the next steps with regards to gaining future access to the bail out of businesses and individuals furlough system, which was due to end in October. 

Answers to these kind of essential questions are pretty important in being informed when planning a continuing response to a global pandemic, don’t you think? No, to say Scotland’s representatives been met with the rubber ear would be an under-statement. Bluster, bewilder, misdirect and access denied are the red, white and blue orders of the day, as usual. 

Yet with one flick of an unkempt turnip-heid of blonde, greying hair from the galoot reputed to be in charge of the Westminster government, and an  inappropriate watery smile from the hedge fund manager Chancellor, upon receipt of the grave news that the virus is rapidly getting out of control in England, a veritable fortune of government money, oh no wait, that is public funded money isn’t it, is suddenly back on the table tae subsidise those locked down in England for the next month, to the same financial extent as the previous scheme. 

Kate Forbes, the Scottish Government’s Finance Secretary, a capable individual, has worn her knuckles out chapping the door at the London Treasury seeking assurances that when, and if, Scotland’s people need the use of the furlough scheme (Scotland currently being in a different phase of the virus having gone at the community restrictions a wee bit harder than England) we’ll get it. 

All representations have been rebuffed by Big Brother, you know, the one with the broad shoulders, the pooler and sharer, and it’s clear this money is only available during the time when England needs it, during their lockdown, not when the devolved nations need it. 

Not a good advert for the Union is it? When a country needs to beg for permission to access, when it requires it, its own money to help manage a critical mass health crisis, one where people are dying, and then, is all but ignored unless it falls into line with the plans of a government which has failed disastrously in protecting its population from a withering virus, we are most definitely not part of an equal partnership. 

Time to go. Independence is not just an aspiration, it is now a necessity.