When the balloon goes up, or the ferries come in

In the world of news reporting there is nothing like having your finger on the pulse, an ability to read a room, an almost sixth sense to be able to provide an audience of readers, viewers or listeners with the news they need to know in an incisive, well-constructed manner, dripping in clarity. Right on the button and up-to-date.

Clearly the folks in the corner offices at Pacific Quay, keen to retain well-rewarded stipends and status provided by the mother ship at Broadcasting House, continue to try very hard to make sure that they demonstrate none of these qualities.

They do this in their unceasing quest to protect the established order of the British state from any chance of the countries subsumed by the power retainers in London stepping out of the shadows and taking the perfectly normal step of joining the family of world nations, as is their own legitimate democratic right.

A glance at the various late news broadcasts the other night clearly demonstrates that this is the case. (To put this into context this was the night before the Bank of England had to launch an emergency step in to stop UK pension funds from going straight down the cludgie.)

The main BBC news from where they are, not from where we are, led, as you might expect in such extra-ordinary times with the financial disaster that has arisen since the cheap Thatcher tribute act and her Chancellor made their first budgetary attempt to further enrich the very rich and tramp the heads of the working people and the vulnerable further into the mud last week.

Bloomberg headlines telling us that the at least $500 billion has been wiped off the UK’s stocks and bonds market since Truss took the prime ministerial reins. The International Monetary Fund saying that they are watching the situation in the UK very closely and making not very subtle references to Truss and Kwarteng’s mini- budget being  at cross purposes with sanity, likely to increase inequality in the UK (I think we knew that one already) and that they better get their arses in gear in time for the full budget in November to consider ways to revert their policies and try and undo some of the massive economic vandalism they have causes in such a short time.

A huge embarrassment, the laughingstock of Europe once again. 

No, the main BBC news didn’t hold back. They didn’t sweeten the deal, a news report about a huge financial issue which impacts everybody. A massive story.

Then over on the ITN News old Tom led us off as the main headline with a very worrying story about the arm-up-the-back referendum the Russians have launched in occupied areas of Ukraine, which experts are saying gives Putin the excuse he has been looking for to say, once he declares these areas to be Russian, that Ukraine is now attacking Russian soil. 

Therefore he can justify (to his own unhinged self only) the use of tactical battlefield nuclear warheads, with the consequential nightmare scenario for all of us that this might become. Eek!

As if that didn’t sober the mood enough for the viewing public the story then moved on to the relationship between Taiwan and China.

Taiwan, the world’s largest high-end processor chip producer, is looking to put together a three million strong people’s army because they reckon there’s a full-scale conflict with China coming their way soon. Again, ITN didn’t sweeten either of these stories, both of which have potentially massive consequences for all of us.

So, bring on Reporting Scotland. Sombre looks, pause for dramatic impact and we’re off, huge sensational top headline time…. and. we. are talking. about. these. late. overbudget. ferries. again. (post-script, two days later and the BBC’s Scottish news online page is still running ferries as the main headline, this time reporting further delays). My goodness is that it?

The world is going to shyte in a handcart yet the implications for Scotland’s businesses, savers, pensioners and the rest of us of such financial incompetence, or the consequences of significantly escalated conflict around the world in terms of issues like the nation’s security and increasing numbers of refugees who may be seeking sanctuary from war in Scotland seem not to be that important.

They are not important as long as you can commission in-depth reports which flog a long dead horse until it re-incarnates neighing the nightmare words ‘SNP BAD!.’

A top headline?  By all means, yes, report it, legitimately. There may have been some wrongdoing, and also report that Deputy First Minister John Swinney is concerned about some of the findings and has therefore asked Scotland’s Auditor General to investigate the BBC’s report, but the main headline of the moment on such a day? C’mon, who is kidding who?

Parochial doesn’t quite cover it. Embarrassing stuff. The news where you are is not about news at all. The news where you are is a 24/7 propaganda machine designed to convince you to put away all notions that Scotland could ever be better governed by the people who live there than by politicians and corporate leaders from another country, with their own agenda, an agenda which involves your vast natural, and potential, resources and your financial contribution.

If you can’t see it I’ve a late over-budget ferry or two I’d like to sell you.

Hitting the message home

As Dickens once never wrote ‘it was the worst of times, it was the completely bonkers and right aff its heid wae it of times’.

Surely, if he’d been alive today the vast quantity of material available to Mr D in terms of producing tales from facts, righting the wrongs of an unjust society which rewards the rich and punishes the poor would probably have killed him. Death by exhaustion, trying to keep on top of a 24/7 blog informing the many of the other side of the story, seeking only donations for the Trussell Trust in return.

Before I go any further, I thought I should mention, in case you never noticed, and that so easily could be the case if you’ve been rough camping on the Planet Neptune for the last month or so, that the longstanding monarch passed away. 

Fair play, and condolences to her family on an entirely human level. Her devotion to the task, a duty which I genuinely believe she committed herself to, is admirable. Farewell Elizabeth the First of Scotland. I am not a royalist and never will be, but it is indeed the end of an era.

Her replacement, her ageing son, on early evidence has displayed more petulance and basic bad manners towards members of his staff in public than his mother did in the seven decades she was in the top seat.

Snarling at a servant because there’s an inkwell he could have easily lifted out the way himself on the desk in front of him, in his way, or losing the plot because a pen leaked ink on his hand are not good looks for anyone, never mind an incredibly wealthy public figure who fully expects to invade the nations of the UK’s living-rooms every 25th December before the Turkey breast gets carved, or in the case of this year, the turkey wing, striving to be as popular as his auld dear was and perpetuate the mass illusion of their value to ordinary working people. which hereditary royalty is.

It is time for the whole thing to be scaled down in my view. Let them all retire off somewhere on their vast wealth. Make it clear they’ve had their last penny (or as its soon to be called) pound, from the public purse. 

We’ll have all of the vast palaces and country houses back though, because like the French, who it seems, make 10 times more the amount of revenue out of tourists vising their huge empty relics of a royal past than the UK does with our elite accident-of -birth mob still in situ, we’ll need somewhere for the tourists to visit.

The people of Scotland can make up their minds about that particular issue sometime after Independence, but we’ll get to that one day. If the majority wish royalty to remain they stay. That is called democracy.

Back to the subject at hand it seemed after several weeks, or perhaps it was months, without any sort of recognisable government of the UK coming out of London (its former leader spending the time either on various holidays or playing Top Gun and Best Man’s Dive with the Commandos) that were would never be a UK government in place again.

That was until the Tory leadership race came to a screeching conclusion, after much Americanised cringe-worthy razzamatazz, with the anointing of surely the biggest numpty possible since the anointing of the previous numpty, who was at that point practicing his barrel rolls in a real barrel.

Yes, Liz Truss, who many of us are acquainted with from her days of gaff-ridden public bubble speak during her time as the International Trade Secretary, is the new Sheriff in town. Save us! 

Like a pound shop Thatcher she talks big but her early actions so far have resulted in a dodgy budget ,reminiscent of her vile pin-up’s budgets of the 1980’s, causing the pound to drop into freefall, the top earners in England receiving a huge boost in tax reductions (which really won’t be that useful to them if twenty pound notes are only goof for throwing in piles onto the fire to keep warm) and, yes you’ve guessed it, the average working people, the less well- off and the vulnerable got good and proper shafted once again.

As if that’s not bad enough the Tories, by way of those who aspire to an eventual better pollical gig down south in ermine who haunt Holyrood, Ross McDougall, the VAR with the batteries removed and his pals, are getting all excited and setting fires under their biased Union-backing friends at BBC Scotland to try and betwixt and bedazzle the voters of Scotland into thinking that they are somehow missing out on a bumper budget dividend.  

All this because that NIkla Sturgeon, you know, the democratically elected First Minister of Scotland, has not passed on the tax cut for the high earners to those in that tax bracket in Scotland.

Lets’ face facts here folks, and I know I’m repeating myself and pointing out what most of you already recognise, grannies sucking eggs etc. Your news broadcasting services are not serving you well. Lazy, passing on verbatim the message London wants to pass on is a very poor show. Bear in mind too that you are required to pay a fee by way of licence to be provided with this biased, one-sided information. 

The BBC as a pillar of the British State (for example, the BBC World Services until recently was still being openly funded by the Foreign Office, now it masks that connection by cloaking the funding as a grant) has a vested interest in the Union remaining intact. Once you clearly recognise that fact (admitted on many occasions by senior executives) the bias in the many forms it exists becomes obvious. 

Yesterday when they waffled on about this from early morning until late at night what the BBC didn’t do, and this is what makes the BBC a disgrace, is tell you the other side of the story. They didn’t provide any balanced counter to the Tories simplistic Project Fear headline designed to frighten the non-politically minded over their early cornflakes and late-night cuppa.

As we move towards either the decisive referendum or the decisive referendum by way of the next General Election you can me sure that the levels of positive good news stories for the Union and negative propaganda about self-government will rise on a scale way beyond what we experienced in 2013/2014. This time they know we can win.

There will be very little balance or impartiality from the BBC.  Any Information that allows you, their viewers and listeners to think about the subject, to really consider the issues and make your own minds up, will be scarce. This must be countered with balanced facts and evidence, information which will have to be provided on a professional high standard basis by the Yes Movement, either formally via the political parties promoting independence or in tandem with the others able to carry out that work, but it must be co-ordinated. It is my view that it is crucial that this happens, that the counter-information is factual, checkable, is widely available and timely. A conduit must be found and made available for this to happen. Now.

The other day the devolved government was hammered in the media for Scottish NHS A&E waiting times, using particularly poor examples, which granted are concerning, to highlight what was being portrayed a systemic problem. This despite official figures showing that in the last year Scotland is far and away the best achiever overall in patients being treated within 4 hours and 12 hours across all of the UK nations. Where was this pushback evident? I saw it on social media only.

Now, as mentioned earlier, the media are highlighting high flying big wage earners in Scotland, notably a top KC in the legal profession, suggesting he might consider moving south because he’ll be taxed less down there on his large earnings. You know, taxes, the money that pays for essential public services.

Do they think we have short memories? We experienced all this same argument before in 2014 when they used this same tactic to suggest that Independence would lead to a brain drain of experts, innovators and professionals, crucial to the success of any nation, if Scotland’s tax system was different to England’s. Oh, woe was us!

Firstly, if anybody from the top 1% of earners in Scotland feels that way about paying taxes to fund essential services for all in Scotland, and remember they are not paying any more than they were last week, I’m quite happy for them to go count their money elsewhere. Watch and no’ trip on the front step on the way out.

Secondly, where was the official rebuttal to all of this nonsense? Where were the details of what is available to Scots under our current devolved system of taxation, support which is not available to England. The advantages which benefit all Scots, not just the high earners.

I came across a tweet yesterday by Yes activist Steven Marwick, which covered some of the details of what could have been used to rebut such crude simplistic Unionist headlines. Great credit to Steven, who wrote about the benefits of living in Scotland via our tax, like the following.

Council Tax is way lower in Scotland. Band D pay £590 less than England, 

Water charges are lower in Scotland than England. 

Scottish Child Payment adds £25 per week (£1,300 pa) to Scottish family budgets per child under 16 from November.

Prescriptions are free in Scotland, saving an average £177 per person per year, In England you pay for prescriptions. 

Scotland has free school meals for primary weans, saving families £400 on average per year.

Scotland has free University tuition, saving £9,000 a year. 

Scotland has free Personal Care valued at around £10,000 per annum. Scotland has free childcare to a value of £4,900 per year. 

Mothers in Scotland are entitled to a baby box, around £160 worth of essentials to help a new life through the early days. 

Some of this stuff may appear obvious to you and me, but this is the valuable campaigning information which needs to be pointed out to our fellow undecided Scots. Some of whom only seem to hear who shouts the loudest. 

Criticism is coming our way at an ever-gathering pace. Somebody somewhere in the Yes Movement needs to be making sure that both sides of the story are widely available to the Scottish public, and they must ensure it is done well.They need to do that now or we are canvassing with one hand tied behind our back from the off.

Lastly, did you hear the joke about the ghost of Keir Hardie, the Labour Party Conference red, white and blue backdrop and the dropping of the “Red Flag’ anthem of international socialism? Naw? Never mind, it wisnae funny.

Independence is normal, Independence is inevitable, Independence is coming.

When it comes

When it comes. When what shall be is fully formed. When the narrow-minded wailing, the bile and hatred and gnashing of teeth has subsided. When the forces that have subjugated, subsumed and subordinated us have been driven into insignificance. 

When they are disarmed of their power, stripped of their magic ermine and patronage, at last vulnerable, visible to all who will behold what is underneath their suits of ‘new clothes.’ Their Union of equals it has not been, or ever will be.

When at last the unrelenting 24-hours per-day declining-empire propaganda machine, which perpetuates the continuation of a massive confidence trick, the celebrity cult of worshipping unelected hereditary obscene wealth, acquired on the backs of the misery of others, has lost its grip. 

When doubts filter through the minds of many, attuned to lifelong conditioning. When holding up a blank sheet of paper in a crowd is not seen as a reason to be arrested and confined, for fear of what you may write upon that paper, but as a perfectly healthy means of freedom of expression.

When all that matters to those we entrust as our choices to serve us as our government is their commitment to the betterment of the lives of us, all of us. Scots born and Scots by choice, all of Tamson’s children. 

When the policy manifestos of the political parties, existent and the not-yet-formed, compete only on the degree as to which their specific plans improve the future and provides beneficial opportunities to our people. When the burden of responsibility has consequences not personal advantage.

When we are ready to re-emerge into the world as a 21st century mature social democratic country, answerable to our people, focused on fairness, equality and social justice. When we are once more recognised for our outward view and friendship. When we will undoubtedly be warm and welcoming to our neighbours and responsible members of the family of world nations.

Then, without the need for endless rounds of repetitive pomp, archaic self-perpetuating ritual or this flaunting obscene wealth, originally pillaged from nations long ago occupied who’ve since set themselves free, the chain of a declining nation’s narcissism around our ankle will snap.

All of this ultra-national veneration of individuals and lost glory will stop, or at least reduce to the levels of what could be considered sane.

Scotland will once more be an independent self-governing country. It is coming perhaps sooner than we think.

From the bizarre to the just plain ridiculous

It’s like some sort of a 1970’s Lindsay Anderson weird farcical cinema this, along the lines of ‘Britannia Hospital’ or ‘A Clockwork Orange’, the UK in 2022.

One huge unkempt dollop of incompetent, (sometimes criminally and dangerously so) buffoonery comes charging along Downing Street to a rousing reception from his band of self-entitled acolytes, wine swillers and fine payers, on his last day in office. Celebrated like a returning hero. 

For what? Being absolutely and demonstrably useless at the job he was given three years ago. Rewarded for being the most ineffectual sub-standard Prime Minister in living memory.

Like most people I was utterly astonished at the time, when bizarrely, the former “Have I got News For You’ extra, bungling ex-mayor of London, with his expensively-bought rusting riot control water cannons and plans for Jurassic Park bridges, somehow ended up as the Prime Minister of the UK, and what a disaster he has been. 

Everything about the man is a front, no substance, no real intellect, just a strong sense of self-entitlement and a fortified brass neck, an extreme Wide-O with a posh accent.

Then a bit later on in the day, amidst showers of heavy rain and thunder lightning heralding a sense of foreboding, another (not quite as big in stature) lump of incompetent buffoonery, possibly, if it is indeed feasible, worse, and even less qualified or able for the job than Boris Johnson, comes strolling along the Downing Street pavement, adopting the ludicrous power-stance that Tory politicians seem to have been talked into by their media affairs bods, and takes over the reins of power. 

This again to a rousing cheer from the Party staff and insiders, competing with each other in displaying enthusiasm, hoping to keep their jobs or get access to an even bigger feed at the trough amongst the early days of a new government.

Whereas Johnson seems to have had a weird fantasy going on in his mind for some time that he is some kind of a 21st century reborn Winston Churchill, we’ve all seen, from the umpteen media photographs this genuine ‘attention seeker’ has had taken over the last while, who Liz Truss models herself upon.

I mean this as no compliment to Margaret Thatcher when I write that an examination of Liz Truss’s past decision-making as a politician in government and being subjected to watching and listening to her public pronouncement in the media, I fear she thinks she has the ability and potential steel of the Iron Lady, but she doesn’t have the self-awareness to realise she doesn’t have the intellect to go with it. 

The Tories are most definitely scraping the bottom of the bottom of the barrel.

Thankfully we were spared from the hypocrisy of any Margaret-esque quotes from St Francis of Assisi. 

Oh, she’ll definitely create headlines. She is crude and crass. She’ll say whatever Daily Mail readers want her to say. She’ll be controversial and relish looking like the school bully, She will blow with the wind, but when it comes to the crunch, she does not have what it takes to be a leader, particularly right now when the economy is trying hard to repeat the early 1980’s and the private sector are shaking down the long-suffering public like never before. Oh, and there might be a shooting war!

I fear panicked kneejerk reactions may be her response to pressure. If she cannot answer, like last weekend, in an interview with Tory-pet presenter Laura Kuenssberg, reasonably easy softball lay-up questions without developing a strange blinking tick in her eye, akin to Herbert Lom when he hears the word ‘Clouseau’, it doesn’t bode well for her ability to handle stressful situation.

Statesperson-like she certainly is not. I would pay a ransom to be a fly-on -the -wall the day her smug expression finds itself standing on the doorstep of Bute House in Edinburgh. In terms of leadership there can be no doubt how that meeting will go, and as the First Minister jokingly requested of Lorraine Kelly on TV yesterday, she should come along to hold the jackets.

Surely Scotland, governed by the people who live there, can do so much better than the clown circus at Westminster? Promises have been reneged and the UK has changed so much for the worse, out of sight, since 2014 that any argument that “You had your referendum in 2014 and people said No” should be laughed right out of the room. Anyone who can’t see that simply doesn’t want to accept the truth.

Independence is normal. Independence is inevitable. Independence is coming.