Even Maggie couldn’t truly be accused of being that shallow, but the current leader of the United Kingdom has this week categorically proven himself a snake oil salesman of the worst degree, a cad and a bounder in the Oxbridge parlance and utterly dishonourable.
David Cameron has taken the already low opinion of politicians that’s almost universally shared throughout the electorate of Britain, and flushed what little remained down Westminster’s porcelain bowl.
I had a look to see if any of this was libelous, so Cad is defined as a man (I think he might fit that description) who behaves dishonourably, especially towards a woman. In this UK Scotland is often portrayed the ‘wife’, Nicola Sturgeon was essentially promised the ‘VOW’ would be kept (look upon the Vow as a re-dedication of that marriage). So, by voting down the permanence of Holyrood, something enshrined in convention, and where supporting a vote would have been of no consequence or cost, especially after what was printed against his name on the Daily Record front page and which he affirmed through not denying or distancing then and has promised to keep since, Cad is entirely appropriate.
Dishonourable; per Google, has these synonyms; disgraceful, shameful, shameless, shaming, disreputable, discreditable, degrading, debasing, ignominious, ignoble, blameworthy, contemptible, despicable, reprehensible, shabby, shoddy, sordid, sorry, base, low, improper, unseemly, and unworthy. Consider the refusal of the Scotland office to release full details of the ‘Carmichael Memo’, ultimately the Scotland office reports to him, the minister in charge does anyway. Cameron was notable by his voice being absent for those calling for Alistair Carmichael to resign. This can only lead to speculation as to whether he himself was in that loop which authorized the release of the (at best) inaccurate details or (at worst) a fabricated smear. We weren’t told he was, but just like Mundell, we certainly weren’t told he wasn’t. The leader always carries the responsibility to act. He did or he didn’t, either way, it was without Honour.
A bounder; that popped up as ‘dishonourable, nothing but a fortune seeking man’, doesn’t really need elaborated on, does it?
The snake oil salesman bit? As his own back benchers are discovering over the EU thing, the man really can’t be trusted. He certainly is proving that he peddled ‘snake oil’ with that Vow.
The best that could probably be said for him, he’s taken these very despicable traits of human nature and absolutely exploited them to gain his best personal advantage – he is PM after all?
Jim Murphy made a statement recently; essentially he said that David Cameron is such an idiot that he’ll sleep-walk Scotland into another referendum – the implication being that now he’s quite categorically proved himself all of the above, then he’ll not win it this time. If that wasn’t the implication, why bother with the statement?
I found it quite sad that Jim left what is perhaps his one comment which was worthy of preserving for posterity until after the time when things he says are more irrelevant than ever. He too, it appears, might no longer be Cameron’s political opponent, but he’s arguably supporting these words.
Sadly, we certainly suspected this before the referendum, before the May election. The evidence was clear though not fully unqualified.
In the end, in a very small way, I suppose my hat’s tipped to Nick Clegg for just one thing; it is becoming clear you did try to keep Cameron honest, though for whatever reason you had not publicly displayed the intelligence to articulate that properly, or the moral fortitude to walk away from an apparent shyster in 2010, 2011 or 2012, by which time you could have no doubt of the character with which you were dealing. You could have walked away with honour and respect back then.
As for Labour? Well, in or out of power, they’re irrelevant, and by this week’s abstentions and voting patterns alone (there are many more examples to select as well, like their refusal to condemn the ‘bedroom tax’ and support of the bankers, stripping of national assets, etc, etc …) they’ve condemned themselves to perhaps an eternity in the wilderness.
Labour could recover; they could act with honour and principle, with integrity and solidarity. That’s the way forward for them, they know it works too – just look at what happened in GE2015 when they ran up against such in Scotland. And no, the SNP isn’t perfect, far from it, but all the media spin, lies and dissemination still couldn’t fool the majority of the voters.
David Cameron is a product of his party, his society and of the London elite. It looks like the next Labour leader will be too. Everything emerging during the current Westminster and EU debates is indicating that David Cameron probably isn’t fit to lick Alistair Carmichael’s boots, and that’s some achievement by any measure. Perhaps it’s not one to be so proud of though?
In Scotland however, we can analyse these self-serving party and individual personalities, where we find them, we need to root them out from positions of responsibility or authority, because gods forbid we’d ever emulate, admire or elect them again!
Holyrood needs to pass just one law. It’d be a good, fair and just law, and I’d love to see any Westminster dominated party argue against it.
Simply, what you as a party or individual promise to win a vote, must be delivered or face being recalled.
End of.
Showing posts with label Scotland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scotland. Show all posts
Wednesday, 17 June 2015
Saturday, 25 October 2014
Guest Writer Steven McBrien on Ms Lamont's Resignation.
Writing something nice about Johann Lamont for me is akin to trying to present herpes in a positive light, but I will finally bite the bullet and admit that I admire her actions today, even if the almost Juvenalian irony of this woman stating that UK Labour treat Scottish Labour "like a branch office" is neither lost on me or anyone else. It's funny, but it seems like just yesterday that she was gloating over Salmond's resignation and looking forward to locking horns with his successor... now, Salmond has outlasted her. She stands down immediately; he doesn't stand down until November. By my calculations, that means he's now seen off four Labour leaders during his tenure as FM, and five since becoming leader of the SNP. Not a bad hit rate.
It also seems like just yesterday that Westminster politicians were swarming their way through the cities and towns of Scotland like termites, promising more engagement with the people here. Needless to say, apart from a ludicrous Lib Dem conference in a swanky hotel, we've seen neither hide nor hair of them since the referendum. A simple equation will tell you why: if one multiplies the sum of the principles these creatures have, and then divides the result by the amount of promises they've actually kept, the result will be equal to the number of fucks they give about us.
But what the hell, Johann, gaun yersel hen. Well done. You've shown people throughout Britain what we in YES already knew: Labour are utterly finished in Scotland. Behold Blair's works, ye mighty, and despair. His true legacy is right here for all to see: thousands of dead bodies, and a dead party. The bastard has more than blood on his hands, but karma's a bitch.
If these people have genuinely reached the stage where they imagine that anyone in Britain, never mind Scotland, wants to see a single sweat-soaked wrinkle on Gordon Brown's golem head, they are beyond insane. As for Jim Murphy, the very fact that he is being touted as leadership material shows just how irrelevant and out of touch these fossils really are. They are pathetic, and their century-long stranglehold on the city of Glasgow is about to end forever. Fasten your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen: this is going to be a very bumpy night.
It also seems like just yesterday that Westminster politicians were swarming their way through the cities and towns of Scotland like termites, promising more engagement with the people here. Needless to say, apart from a ludicrous Lib Dem conference in a swanky hotel, we've seen neither hide nor hair of them since the referendum. A simple equation will tell you why: if one multiplies the sum of the principles these creatures have, and then divides the result by the amount of promises they've actually kept, the result will be equal to the number of fucks they give about us.
But what the hell, Johann, gaun yersel hen. Well done. You've shown people throughout Britain what we in YES already knew: Labour are utterly finished in Scotland. Behold Blair's works, ye mighty, and despair. His true legacy is right here for all to see: thousands of dead bodies, and a dead party. The bastard has more than blood on his hands, but karma's a bitch.
If these people have genuinely reached the stage where they imagine that anyone in Britain, never mind Scotland, wants to see a single sweat-soaked wrinkle on Gordon Brown's golem head, they are beyond insane. As for Jim Murphy, the very fact that he is being touted as leadership material shows just how irrelevant and out of touch these fossils really are. They are pathetic, and their century-long stranglehold on the city of Glasgow is about to end forever. Fasten your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen: this is going to be a very bumpy night.
Saturday, 18 October 2014
TV Political Debates; Conundrum or Not?
I’ve watched with interest as the SNP have been once again excluded from the General Election debates.
It’s actually been with a great deal of interest since they effectively won a case in 2010, that judicial review stated it was inappropriate to exclude them.
At the time, the arguments used were marginally credible.
The first statement was that they weren’t a ‘UK’ party, but a regional party. The argument then was that as they only contested seats in Scotland, then they’d no part in a UK wide debate.
The second argument actually held a bit more water, at least until this years’ debacle, sorry debate schedule was announced. Both those arguments are now relatively simple to defeat, but before that, we should examine another aspect of the debates.
No actually, I was correct in the first instance for now it is a debacle of democracy which is designed to perpetuate a two party system. The fact that it’s already been ‘pre-ordained’ that the leaders of the Conservative and Labour parties will share a head to head excluding all others, is surely a debacle; it makes a laughing stock of any pretence of democracy.
In a true democratic system, in an honourable one, all prospective candidates would be involved in the first debate in any election. The representation would then be whittled down until only the best two or three candidates remained. For these to be selected in advance by the media shows a system beyond corrupt. For it to be accepted largely without question shows a populace who for the most part is simply apathetic and doesn’t care. The referendum in September was a democratic awakening in Scotland, it shows we now care. And we care a whole lot.
As to rebalancing some of that media and Westminster engendered democratic deficit, especially following on from the judicial review in 2010, surely now with being the third largest party in the current UK, the SNP should have a seat at these debates?
The establishment will still fight to prevent it, because the establishment is about perpetuating the UK. With the SNP as the third largest party, the only argument for the establishment to now fall back upon, and it’d be a delaying tactic only, would be that the SNP aren’t a ‘national, UK wide party’. The ‘nation’ part falls to bits when we consider that Cameron, Miliband and Clegg all went on record last month to declare ‘Of course, Scotland is a nation’. That essentially and defensibly, from their perspective, only leaves the ‘Not a UK wide party’ argument.
The issue for the SNP is that it has a policy of not contesting seats in a GE which are not ‘in Scotland’.
Historically there’s a delicious irony here, for their own policy has gifted their opponents the whip with which to flay the party before the electoral masses.
How and ever, the solution could be achieved easily; and it would leave the opposition in a place somewhere between a quandary and a cleft stick.
Contest the seat held by Alan Beith; namely, the constituency of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Legally, although adopted into the area of Northumberland by statute, the town of Berwick upon Tweed actually belongs to neither country, and we’ve just had that affirmation that we’re both countries.
Legally, the SNP can’t be prevented from doing this, which gives the Westminster cabal one of two options; they can retain their claim that the SNP aren’t actually a ‘UK Party’ and effectively concede that Berwick’s a Scottish town, or they can recognize that with seats being contested south of the current border, the SNP are a UK party, they just have the stated goal of dismantling the UK and returning true power to at least some of her people.
The SNP also have the justifiable stance here of claiming Berwick-upon-Tweed as historically a Scottish town, they can even put hands on hearts and smile with a tongue in cheek attitude as they point to the fact it’s actually internationally recognized as such, nodding in the direction of FIFA and reminding everyone that Berwick Rangers play in the Scottish League.
The fact that much of Northumberland is attached to that seat is rather irrelevant for this exercise; it’s about what the seat’s called.
Scotland’s nationalists don’t have to win the seat, but if handled properly there’s a good chance they could. No, all they have to do is wrong foot the establishment, and an announcement such as this would surely do that, especially as they could rightly point out, that unofficial polls have shown a majority of the townsfolk there would rather see the border moved anyway?
It’s actually been with a great deal of interest since they effectively won a case in 2010, that judicial review stated it was inappropriate to exclude them.
At the time, the arguments used were marginally credible.
The first statement was that they weren’t a ‘UK’ party, but a regional party. The argument then was that as they only contested seats in Scotland, then they’d no part in a UK wide debate.
The second argument actually held a bit more water, at least until this years’ debacle, sorry debate schedule was announced. Both those arguments are now relatively simple to defeat, but before that, we should examine another aspect of the debates.
No actually, I was correct in the first instance for now it is a debacle of democracy which is designed to perpetuate a two party system. The fact that it’s already been ‘pre-ordained’ that the leaders of the Conservative and Labour parties will share a head to head excluding all others, is surely a debacle; it makes a laughing stock of any pretence of democracy.
In a true democratic system, in an honourable one, all prospective candidates would be involved in the first debate in any election. The representation would then be whittled down until only the best two or three candidates remained. For these to be selected in advance by the media shows a system beyond corrupt. For it to be accepted largely without question shows a populace who for the most part is simply apathetic and doesn’t care. The referendum in September was a democratic awakening in Scotland, it shows we now care. And we care a whole lot.
As to rebalancing some of that media and Westminster engendered democratic deficit, especially following on from the judicial review in 2010, surely now with being the third largest party in the current UK, the SNP should have a seat at these debates?
The establishment will still fight to prevent it, because the establishment is about perpetuating the UK. With the SNP as the third largest party, the only argument for the establishment to now fall back upon, and it’d be a delaying tactic only, would be that the SNP aren’t a ‘national, UK wide party’. The ‘nation’ part falls to bits when we consider that Cameron, Miliband and Clegg all went on record last month to declare ‘Of course, Scotland is a nation’. That essentially and defensibly, from their perspective, only leaves the ‘Not a UK wide party’ argument.
The issue for the SNP is that it has a policy of not contesting seats in a GE which are not ‘in Scotland’.
Historically there’s a delicious irony here, for their own policy has gifted their opponents the whip with which to flay the party before the electoral masses.
How and ever, the solution could be achieved easily; and it would leave the opposition in a place somewhere between a quandary and a cleft stick.
Contest the seat held by Alan Beith; namely, the constituency of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Legally, although adopted into the area of Northumberland by statute, the town of Berwick upon Tweed actually belongs to neither country, and we’ve just had that affirmation that we’re both countries.
Legally, the SNP can’t be prevented from doing this, which gives the Westminster cabal one of two options; they can retain their claim that the SNP aren’t actually a ‘UK Party’ and effectively concede that Berwick’s a Scottish town, or they can recognize that with seats being contested south of the current border, the SNP are a UK party, they just have the stated goal of dismantling the UK and returning true power to at least some of her people.
The SNP also have the justifiable stance here of claiming Berwick-upon-Tweed as historically a Scottish town, they can even put hands on hearts and smile with a tongue in cheek attitude as they point to the fact it’s actually internationally recognized as such, nodding in the direction of FIFA and reminding everyone that Berwick Rangers play in the Scottish League.
The fact that much of Northumberland is attached to that seat is rather irrelevant for this exercise; it’s about what the seat’s called.
Scotland’s nationalists don’t have to win the seat, but if handled properly there’s a good chance they could. No, all they have to do is wrong foot the establishment, and an announcement such as this would surely do that, especially as they could rightly point out, that unofficial polls have shown a majority of the townsfolk there would rather see the border moved anyway?
Wednesday, 27 August 2014
Guest writer Steven McBrien Looks At Better Together's Patronising Video.
Guest writer Steven McBrien tackles the deeply offensive and patronising piece of publicity from Better Together/ Jist Say Eh?/ No Borders ... (an update on their current title would be helpful....)
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Hear ye, hear ye! I want each and every woman on my (Facebook) friends list, regardless of nationality, to watch this. I want you all to see exactly what kind of campaign "No Thanks" actually is. Because when Better Together finally hit rock bottom, what do they do? That's right: they proceed to unveil their shovels and start digging, and this advert literally has to be seen in order to be believed. I was strongly reminded of Harry Enfield's brilliant "WOMEN: KNOW YOUR LIMITS" piss-take while watching this.
Apparently, your average Scotswoman thinks of the referendum as some sort of distraction which shouldn't be discussed, doesn't know Alex Salmond's name and refers to the First Minister of her country as "that bloke off the telly", believes that the opinions of children don't count because they are children, imagines that the YES Campaign have somehow promised that "oil will pay for it all," (and thereby refuses to acknowledge to herself that the YES Campaign have stated time and again that a trillion quid oil bonanza is only part of the package, along with renewables, some of the finest exports in Europe, tourism, no upkeep for a nuclear arsenal, over 65% of UK coastline being in Scotland, not having to finance illegal wars and ever-increasing global investment thanks to us actually having a financial capital that's not hundreds of miles away from us in another country), thinks that because there is a degree of uncertainty attached to doing something, that means you shouldn't do it at all (Why move out of home/get married/have kids in the first place then? And hang on while I ask the world's leading businesswomen if they let uncertainty hold them back at the beginning), thinks that "loving" your country means not giving it the chance to do what the rest of the world is doing, doesn't have "enough hours in the day" to go and discover facts and think for herself, gives credit only to things she sees on TV or hears by chance, believes that pensions and hospitals would be somehow safer in a Tory or UKIP-led United Kingdom than they would under an iScotland, believes that something an entire nation has spent two years discussing "hasn't been thought through" and seriously states to herself that there will be no risk posed to Scotland at all if it votes NO, ignoring the fact that we as a nation will be effectively crucified if we do refuse self-determination. The whole woeful thing basically amounts to: "Never mind any of this referendum nonsense, women of Scotland: just eat your cereal and get the dinner on." Pathetic.
Needless to say, like every other Better Together advert I've ever seen online, comments and ratings are thoroughly disabled. Because they are every bit as interested in hearing the thoughts of real women as they are in democracy.
Jesus Christ, these people stink.
Better Together Patronise The Women Of Scotland
Steven McBrien
Hear ye, hear ye! I want each and every woman on my (Facebook) friends list, regardless of nationality, to watch this. I want you all to see exactly what kind of campaign "No Thanks" actually is. Because when Better Together finally hit rock bottom, what do they do? That's right: they proceed to unveil their shovels and start digging, and this advert literally has to be seen in order to be believed. I was strongly reminded of Harry Enfield's brilliant "WOMEN: KNOW YOUR LIMITS" piss-take while watching this.
 |
| Not just you Steven! |
Apparently, your average Scotswoman thinks of the referendum as some sort of distraction which shouldn't be discussed, doesn't know Alex Salmond's name and refers to the First Minister of her country as "that bloke off the telly", believes that the opinions of children don't count because they are children, imagines that the YES Campaign have somehow promised that "oil will pay for it all," (and thereby refuses to acknowledge to herself that the YES Campaign have stated time and again that a trillion quid oil bonanza is only part of the package, along with renewables, some of the finest exports in Europe, tourism, no upkeep for a nuclear arsenal, over 65% of UK coastline being in Scotland, not having to finance illegal wars and ever-increasing global investment thanks to us actually having a financial capital that's not hundreds of miles away from us in another country), thinks that because there is a degree of uncertainty attached to doing something, that means you shouldn't do it at all (Why move out of home/get married/have kids in the first place then? And hang on while I ask the world's leading businesswomen if they let uncertainty hold them back at the beginning), thinks that "loving" your country means not giving it the chance to do what the rest of the world is doing, doesn't have "enough hours in the day" to go and discover facts and think for herself, gives credit only to things she sees on TV or hears by chance, believes that pensions and hospitals would be somehow safer in a Tory or UKIP-led United Kingdom than they would under an iScotland, believes that something an entire nation has spent two years discussing "hasn't been thought through" and seriously states to herself that there will be no risk posed to Scotland at all if it votes NO, ignoring the fact that we as a nation will be effectively crucified if we do refuse self-determination. The whole woeful thing basically amounts to: "Never mind any of this referendum nonsense, women of Scotland: just eat your cereal and get the dinner on." Pathetic.
Needless to say, like every other Better Together advert I've ever seen online, comments and ratings are thoroughly disabled. Because they are every bit as interested in hearing the thoughts of real women as they are in democracy.
Jesus Christ, these people stink.
Better Together Patronise The Women Of Scotland
Steven McBrien
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Thanks for that Steven.
Thanks for that Steven.
Frightening, isn't it? But then if it's true that BT have used the advertising firm owned by Saatchi - is the derogatory attitude towards women so unexpected?
However, the internet is a wonderful place - if only the poor lassie in the advert could discover that between washing cereal plates and putting down her wean's intelligence:
As does Alistair Davidson.
And Finally: Jackie Crawford's take.
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Steven McBrien's Tumblr Blog can be found here.
And Finally: Jackie Crawford's take.
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Steven McBrien's Tumblr Blog can be found here.
Saturday, 9 August 2014
The choreographed debate – Union style.
I've watched and re-watched that first referendum debate, and the more I do, the more I understand. It wasn't really a debate at all. It was a set up; a set up by irrelevant participants (Mr. A. Darling and Better Together audience plants 1 2) designed to hamper rather than enhance knowledge.
I can say that because as it unfolded, I watched the focus slide unerringly to the fiscal aspect, not surprisingly as it’s what many of us need answers on, or so the Union’s organizers’ would have us believe.
In actuality, it was a debate designed from the outset to hammer Alex Salmond and ‘his pet project’. I'm not even certain Bernard Ponsonby was aware of the facts, though it’s hard to see how he’d be ignorant of them. Ponsonby did give Darling, which appeared well anticipated, a few hard shoves but failed to use the debate to move issues and educate. As such, Bernie very much ‘shot his bolt’.
I'm taking that position as it was clear while it unfolded the script like the wrestling results of the ‘70’s, had already been drafted for release by the UK’s media the following day; they just needed to insert quote A into line B.
To any half-witted idiot it became clear before half time that it would be a twofold prong, currency and how ‘Darling won the debate’ after studiously selling ‘their guy’ low. Alistair Darling came across to me more as a renegade guest from the Jerry Springer show, not as a serious debater, although he did raise a few valid questions. He’d obviously been ‘coached’ to interrupt, shout, talk over and negate in any way possible what his ‘opponent’ had been saying. If he wasn't coached into behaving as he did, then in my mind he’s got the decorum and manners of a pig. In civilised debate, both sides get to make their points in allocated time frames, and without interruption.
Now, about those points. My, oh my, about those points.
Firstly, the currency issue. There really wasn't any reason for either of those blokes to be there last night, you see, the white paper told us what ‘Plan A’ and ‘Plan B’ are, and they’re not changing. We’ll use the pound like Ireland and a host of other’s, and we’ll do it unofficially or by preference, officially by treaty. Now, that makes life throw up another few questions, because if we were so clearly laying plan A and plan B on the table, why the screaming heebies the next day, unless the maps had already been drawn and the course charted. Where Ponsonby lost and STV shot its credibility out the window was when they didn’t make this clear.
Now, there’s the 'retirement thing', which was a more minor string on the fiddle of the sonnet to be released the following day. Both sides have agreed that everybody alive today who’s already a UK citizen will continue to have that right to a UK pension. Oddly, Chemical Ali (because he must've used some serious alchemy to arrive at his viewpoint) made it clear that as pensions are supported by those currently working, there’d need to be an agreement, and this would be part of any ‘future negotiation’. In anybody’s book, that’s a nice little addendum to ‘project fear’.
The truth of the Pension’s issue is simple, if you paid in, you get out. Westminster just has to figure out how to keep paying what are close to Europe’s worst pensions to some of Europe’s most deserving and long suffering pensioners. Westminster has to do this because there’s no real way to not do it. Do they enact a law saying you have to live in the rump state, England/Wales/NI? Then what about freedom of movement and all those ex-pats living all over the world. They’ll be coming home, and they’ll be needing cared for. What’s left of the UK neither needs nor wants that burden. What about English in Scotland, do they get a pension? How about one Scot’s parent? How about a Scotswoman married to an Englishman and living in Spain?
The pension issue is smoke and mirrors, no question about it, because any government in Westminster which dumped its pensioners would likely be out on its ear in short order. Or it would if there was such a mechanism. Do I really want to live in country without such a mechanism? We could implement such a right to recall wayward governments and officials in iScotland's new constitution.
Either way, Ponsonby and ITV lost credibility, because at the day’s end, no matter how I've looked at these issues, and what nobody wrote into any of the pre-ordained press releases was this; it all boils down to just three things on both main planks of that debate.
Firstly, we’re being blackmailed in a most horrible, spiteful way, and it’s being done by a bunch of idiots at Westminster who don’t give an actual low flying turd about their own constituents. I have to ask myself, am I in favour of that? Do I support these Bullingdon Bullies.
Sorry guys, it’s your slogan, but it’s ideal here, I’ve got to say ‘no thanks’
Secondly, I'm (still) being told Scotland’s a basket case, an economic basket case that is just too small to manage itself properly. I’ll admit to my jaw almost hitting the coffee table when one audience participant said London had more folk than Scotland, so how could Scotland possibly survive ‘alone’. I smiled incredulously; this bloke get’s to vote? I don’t see Norway, Switzerland or Luxembourg asking Davie lad to let them snuggle under his wing because they’re ‘just too wee’, or Nicky Clegg tabling a motion to devolve all sovereignty to the US, Russia or China? If we’re such a basket case, why fight to keep us? If we can’t afford pensions, the NHS, a banking system that plays fast and loose (we really want that?) and various phallic substitutes, er, sorry, nukes. Something just doesn't ring true here.
Let’s just assume for a second that what’s being conveyed here is a fact, then the only possible conclusion is that for three centuries Scotland’s been so utterly mismanaged, exploited and under-invested by successive London governments, governments who know our vote really means nowt; that they’re happy to continue to pillage and strip rather than invest and encourage.
Sorry guys, again, got to say ‘no thanks’
The third possibility, the one I'm betting on is that we've just been lied to all along. You see, I’ve done my research, unlike ‘Mr. too small’, that being the case, again, I’ve got to say again, ‘no thanks’.
Bernie, and our so trustworthy media, could easily have pointed out that what we really had the other night was a choice. We have a choice to go our own way, or opt for the fearmongering, asset stripping liars.
We do have a choice. We have a choice to watch the next debate, to see where Chemical Ali is allowed to work his alchemical skills of wonder; which one or two areas will be the highlight of his interruptions and shouty, ill mannered focus, then we can watch the media reaction the next day, and smile.
After September 18th we can decide we’ll never have to watch the like again, because we know with absolute certainty that the ones from the Bullingdon Club in London, those mired in corruption and scandal, they’re the only ones until September 18th who are worth being in the debating chair, because they’re the only ones with the power to answer our questions, like the ones for the EU and NATO, and they’re the only ones who can clarify this debate.
Except, we already know they won’t do that. They won’t give me what I need, yet they still want me to endorse them, they want me to say ‘no thanks’.
Fine, then I will, on September 18th I’ll say ‘no thanks’; no thanks to the lies, the misinformation, the half truths, the innuendoes and scare tactics, and I’ll watch us walk away from this disreputable shambles called Westminster.
Yes, it might be to an uncertain future, but it’s a future filled with potential and possibility, and I dream of being a part of it. If we don’t grasp the thistle, we know we’ll get stung for more lies, more official secrets, more obfuscation, more stripped rights and we’ll lose more of our cherished values.
Yes. Give me that uncertainty, because it really can’t be worse that what London’s offering, and in less than a generation, if we decide, it can be so, so much more.
You know what? I trust my fellow Scots to make the right decisions, now, and as we walk forward. September 19th will tell us all if we’re a confident nation.
1: Craig Murray's Blog concerning the debate
2: STV Rigging Audiences?
I can say that because as it unfolded, I watched the focus slide unerringly to the fiscal aspect, not surprisingly as it’s what many of us need answers on, or so the Union’s organizers’ would have us believe.
In actuality, it was a debate designed from the outset to hammer Alex Salmond and ‘his pet project’. I'm not even certain Bernard Ponsonby was aware of the facts, though it’s hard to see how he’d be ignorant of them. Ponsonby did give Darling, which appeared well anticipated, a few hard shoves but failed to use the debate to move issues and educate. As such, Bernie very much ‘shot his bolt’.
I'm taking that position as it was clear while it unfolded the script like the wrestling results of the ‘70’s, had already been drafted for release by the UK’s media the following day; they just needed to insert quote A into line B.
To any half-witted idiot it became clear before half time that it would be a twofold prong, currency and how ‘Darling won the debate’ after studiously selling ‘their guy’ low. Alistair Darling came across to me more as a renegade guest from the Jerry Springer show, not as a serious debater, although he did raise a few valid questions. He’d obviously been ‘coached’ to interrupt, shout, talk over and negate in any way possible what his ‘opponent’ had been saying. If he wasn't coached into behaving as he did, then in my mind he’s got the decorum and manners of a pig. In civilised debate, both sides get to make their points in allocated time frames, and without interruption.
Now, about those points. My, oh my, about those points.
Firstly, the currency issue. There really wasn't any reason for either of those blokes to be there last night, you see, the white paper told us what ‘Plan A’ and ‘Plan B’ are, and they’re not changing. We’ll use the pound like Ireland and a host of other’s, and we’ll do it unofficially or by preference, officially by treaty. Now, that makes life throw up another few questions, because if we were so clearly laying plan A and plan B on the table, why the screaming heebies the next day, unless the maps had already been drawn and the course charted. Where Ponsonby lost and STV shot its credibility out the window was when they didn’t make this clear.
Now, there’s the 'retirement thing', which was a more minor string on the fiddle of the sonnet to be released the following day. Both sides have agreed that everybody alive today who’s already a UK citizen will continue to have that right to a UK pension. Oddly, Chemical Ali (because he must've used some serious alchemy to arrive at his viewpoint) made it clear that as pensions are supported by those currently working, there’d need to be an agreement, and this would be part of any ‘future negotiation’. In anybody’s book, that’s a nice little addendum to ‘project fear’.
The truth of the Pension’s issue is simple, if you paid in, you get out. Westminster just has to figure out how to keep paying what are close to Europe’s worst pensions to some of Europe’s most deserving and long suffering pensioners. Westminster has to do this because there’s no real way to not do it. Do they enact a law saying you have to live in the rump state, England/Wales/NI? Then what about freedom of movement and all those ex-pats living all over the world. They’ll be coming home, and they’ll be needing cared for. What’s left of the UK neither needs nor wants that burden. What about English in Scotland, do they get a pension? How about one Scot’s parent? How about a Scotswoman married to an Englishman and living in Spain?
The pension issue is smoke and mirrors, no question about it, because any government in Westminster which dumped its pensioners would likely be out on its ear in short order. Or it would if there was such a mechanism. Do I really want to live in country without such a mechanism? We could implement such a right to recall wayward governments and officials in iScotland's new constitution.
Either way, Ponsonby and ITV lost credibility, because at the day’s end, no matter how I've looked at these issues, and what nobody wrote into any of the pre-ordained press releases was this; it all boils down to just three things on both main planks of that debate.
Firstly, we’re being blackmailed in a most horrible, spiteful way, and it’s being done by a bunch of idiots at Westminster who don’t give an actual low flying turd about their own constituents. I have to ask myself, am I in favour of that? Do I support these Bullingdon Bullies.
Sorry guys, it’s your slogan, but it’s ideal here, I’ve got to say ‘no thanks’
Secondly, I'm (still) being told Scotland’s a basket case, an economic basket case that is just too small to manage itself properly. I’ll admit to my jaw almost hitting the coffee table when one audience participant said London had more folk than Scotland, so how could Scotland possibly survive ‘alone’. I smiled incredulously; this bloke get’s to vote? I don’t see Norway, Switzerland or Luxembourg asking Davie lad to let them snuggle under his wing because they’re ‘just too wee’, or Nicky Clegg tabling a motion to devolve all sovereignty to the US, Russia or China? If we’re such a basket case, why fight to keep us? If we can’t afford pensions, the NHS, a banking system that plays fast and loose (we really want that?) and various phallic substitutes, er, sorry, nukes. Something just doesn't ring true here.
Let’s just assume for a second that what’s being conveyed here is a fact, then the only possible conclusion is that for three centuries Scotland’s been so utterly mismanaged, exploited and under-invested by successive London governments, governments who know our vote really means nowt; that they’re happy to continue to pillage and strip rather than invest and encourage.
Sorry guys, again, got to say ‘no thanks’
The third possibility, the one I'm betting on is that we've just been lied to all along. You see, I’ve done my research, unlike ‘Mr. too small’, that being the case, again, I’ve got to say again, ‘no thanks’.
Bernie, and our so trustworthy media, could easily have pointed out that what we really had the other night was a choice. We have a choice to go our own way, or opt for the fearmongering, asset stripping liars.
We do have a choice. We have a choice to watch the next debate, to see where Chemical Ali is allowed to work his alchemical skills of wonder; which one or two areas will be the highlight of his interruptions and shouty, ill mannered focus, then we can watch the media reaction the next day, and smile.
After September 18th we can decide we’ll never have to watch the like again, because we know with absolute certainty that the ones from the Bullingdon Club in London, those mired in corruption and scandal, they’re the only ones until September 18th who are worth being in the debating chair, because they’re the only ones with the power to answer our questions, like the ones for the EU and NATO, and they’re the only ones who can clarify this debate.
Except, we already know they won’t do that. They won’t give me what I need, yet they still want me to endorse them, they want me to say ‘no thanks’.
Fine, then I will, on September 18th I’ll say ‘no thanks’; no thanks to the lies, the misinformation, the half truths, the innuendoes and scare tactics, and I’ll watch us walk away from this disreputable shambles called Westminster.
Yes, it might be to an uncertain future, but it’s a future filled with potential and possibility, and I dream of being a part of it. If we don’t grasp the thistle, we know we’ll get stung for more lies, more official secrets, more obfuscation, more stripped rights and we’ll lose more of our cherished values.
Yes. Give me that uncertainty, because it really can’t be worse that what London’s offering, and in less than a generation, if we decide, it can be so, so much more.
You know what? I trust my fellow Scots to make the right decisions, now, and as we walk forward. September 19th will tell us all if we’re a confident nation.
1: Craig Murray's Blog concerning the debate
2: STV Rigging Audiences?
A reply to the celebs letter from Steven McBrien of Glasgow.
This is so well written and says everything that any one of us would have wished to have said to these people, given the opportunity. So much so, in fact, that I just had to re-blog it. My thanks to Steven McBrien for this great piece of writing:
Dear William Dalrymple, Eddie Izzard, Sir Patrick Stewart, Sir Mick Jagger, Jenny Agutter, Sir Ben Ainslie, Kriss Akabusi, Roger Allam, Kirstie Allsop, Alexander Armstrong, Sir David Attenborough, Steve Backley, Baroness Joan Bakewell, Frances Barber, Andy Barrow, John Barrowman, Mike Batt, Glen Baxter, David Aaronovitch, Helena Bonham-Carter, Stanley Baxter, Martin Bayfield, Mary Beard, Sarah Beeny, Anthony Beevor, Angelica Bell,Dickie Bird, Cilla Black, Graeme Black, Roger Black, Malorie Blackman, Ranjit Bolt, Alain de Botton, William Boyd, Tracey Brabin, Lord Melvyn Bragg, Jo Brand, Gyles Brandreth, Rob Brydon, Louisa Buck, Simon Callow, Will Carling, Paul Cartledge, Guy Chambers, Nick Cohen, Michelle Collins, Colonel Tim Collins, Olivia Colman, Charlie Condou, Susannah Constantine, Steve Coogan, Dominic Cooper, Ronnie Corbett, Simon Cowell, Jason Cowley, Sara Cox, Amanda Craig, Steve Cram, Richard Curtis, Tom Daley, Richard Dawkins, Dame Judi Dench, Jeremy Deller, Lord Michael Dobbs, Jimmy Doherty, Michael Douglas, Simon Easterby, Gareth Edwards, Jonathan Edwards, Tracey Emin, Sebastian Faulks, Bryan Ferry, Ranulph Fiennes, Ben Fogle, Sir Bruce Forsyth, Amanda Foreman, Neil Fox, Emma Freud, Bernard Gallacher, Kirsty Gallacher, George Galloway, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Bamber Gascoigne, David Gilmour, Harvey Goldsmith, David Goodhart, Lachlan Goudie, David Gower, AC Grayling, Will Greenwood, Tamsin Greig, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, Lord Charles Guthrie, Haydn Gwynne, Maggi Hambling, Mehdi Hasan, Sir Max Hastings, Peter Hennessy, James Holland, Tom Holland, Tom Hollander, Gloria Hunniford, Conn Iggledun, John Illsley, Brendan Ingle, Betty Jackson, Sir Mike Jackson, Howard Jacobson, Baroness PD James, Griff Rhys Jones, Terry Jones, Christopher Kane, Sir Anish Kapoor, Ross Kemp, Paul Kenny, Jemima Khan, India Knight, Martha Lane Fox, Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Tory Lawrence, Kathy Lette, Rod Liddle, Louise Linton, John Lloyd (the journalist), John Lloyd ( the producer), Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, Gabby Logan, Kenny Logan, Sarah Lucas, Dame Vera Lynn, James May, Margaret MacMillan, Stephen Mangan, Davina McCall, Sir Ian McGeechan, Heather McGregor, Andy McNab, John Michie, David Mitchell, Lord John Monks, Lewis Moody, Michael Morpurgo, Bill Morris, David Morrissey, Philip Mould, Al Murray, Neil Stuke, Sir Paul Nurse, Andy Nyman, Peter Oborne, Sir Michael Parkinson, Fiona Phillips, Andy Puddicombe, Lord David Puttnam, Anita Rani, Esther Rantzen, Sir Steve Redgrave, Derek Redmond, Pete Reed, Lord Martin Rees, Peter Reid, Baroness Ruth Rendell, Sir Cliff Richard, Hugo Rifkind, Sir Tony Robinson, David Rowntree, Ian Rush, Greg Rutherford, CJ Sansom, June Sarpong, Simon Schama, John Sessions, Sandie Shaw, Helen Skelton, Sir Tim Smit, Dan Snow, Peter Snow, Phil Spencer, David Starkey, Lord Jock Stirrup, Neil Stuke, Sting, Tallia Storm, David Suchet, Alan Sugar, Graeme Swann, Stella Tennant, Daley Thompson, Alan Titchmarsh, James Timpson, Kevin Toolis, Lynne Truss, Gavin Turk, Roger Uttley, David Walliams, Zoë Wanamaker, Robert Webb, Richard Wentworth, Sir Alan West, Dominic West and Kevin Whateley,
I would like to express my hearty and sincere thanks to you all for your stated concern that myself and my countrymen remain in the United Kingdom. I was just heading back from my job (the job where I earn under eight quid an hour for working with people with learning disabilities) and passing the local food bank when I heard the news, namely, that you were so concerned that we might leave the UK that you had all deigned to write your names on a piece of paper.
I was delighted to hear this news, so transported, in fact, that I temporarily forgot about the nuclear stockpile that's a mere 25 miles away from my front door, and so giddy with the receipt of this beneficence that I almost forgot that I could spend my remaining English tenners up here as no-one up here has any kind of problem with accepting English money. I write to inform you all that the fact that a bunch of millionaires and multi-millionaires who have, on the whole, exhibited total disinterest, and, in some cases (Mr Curtis, Mr Starkey) outright contempt for my country, its denizens and its history were so thoughtful as to sign a piece of paper has forced me to totally review my lifelong pro-independence stance.
I realise and understand completely that you all probably know more about the situation in Scotland than the people of Scotland do; after all, you're all really famous, and we're none too bright up here, you know, apart from inventing television, the refrigerator, canals, bicycles, chloroform, fingerprinting, animal cloning, fax machines, microwaves and magnetrons, adhesive postage stamps, tubular steel, pneumatic tyres, radar, propellers, ATM machines and PIN codes, the telephone, the condensing steam engine, tarmac, penning such unremarkable gewgaws as Peter Pan, Sherlock Holmes and Jekyll and Hyde, discovering penicillin, founding the US Navy, establishing Universal Standard Time, adumbrating the Rankine Thermodynamic Cycle, establishing the foundation of modern economics thanks to Adam Smith, abetting in the foundation of sociology as a modern science thanks to Adam Ferguson, discovering the nearest star to our sun, Proxima Centauri, discovering and linking the Noble Gases, establishing the Kelvin unit of temperature, inventing MRI machines, discovering the vaccine for typhoid, helping to establish general anaesthetic in medical procedure, inventing the electric clock in 1840 and the flush-toilet in 1775, devising the foundations of the Bank of England and the Bank of France, taking the world's first ever colour photograph, and various other trifles. We really do need to be reminded that these are mere dilettante efforts; governing ourselves is an entirely different matter. As the good folks at Better Together have told us on numerous occasions, we, alone among the nations of the planet Earth, and despite abundant-to-the-point-of-overwhelming evidence to the contrary, will not be capable of this.
On that note, I should like to take a few lines to address the Better Together campaign now, as you have all, through your signing of this hallowed document, tacitly aligned your good selves with the efforts of that noble organisation. Despite what you may have heard, Better Together have, throughout the last few years, been a shining example of truth-telling and reassurance. Those accusations, slung by those vicious people who state facts, that their campaign has been nothing more than a random farrago of shrill, terror-inducing and panic-peddling doomsday prophecies, saturated throughout with slander, half-truths, quarter-truths, outright lies and an irrelevant hate-obsession with one man, are, as I now see, totally exaggerated. They were right all along. The debate between Alistair Darling and Alex Salmond (yes, that debate, the debate that was described by pundits as one of the most important debates in modern political history, but which you probably didn't even see, because it wasn't televised in England, thanks to the equally unbiased British media) showed us all that modern UK politics is in rude health, with three main parties who should be occupying totally different strata of the political spectrum uniting as one to remind us that Alex Salmond is nothing less than the devil in pudgy form and that we are inherently incapable of governing ourselves, before, in a coup de grace, offering to give us as a nation more powers if we as a nation refuse more powers. They are simply a beacon of logic and compassion. I should also like to take this opportunity to thank the BBC, who unthinkingly took time out from their busy schedule of covering up the sundry paedophiles and abusers of vulnerable adults who were protected and celebrated by them to alternately ignore us completely/refuse to broadcast facts/remind us up here that we don't matter.
As for having some of the finest exports on Earth, we are fully cognisant that this will not help. And the oil? We'll just follow Westminster's lead and shut up about the oil, and the possibility of joining the rest of the world in actually setting up an oil fund if we got independence, as we don't want to annoy anyone. Besides it doesn't matter: we don't want independence anyway, because we can't do it.
We should also be reminded that a constitution that is increasingly alone among the nations of the civilised world in never having been drawn up or cohesively codified (with the result that if I were a practicing rather than a lapsed Catholic, I could not be Prime Minister, and if I were to go out walking to an archery contest in York clutching a bow and arrow, it would be perfectly legal to kill me) is the way to go in terms of governance, that Martin Luther King and the rest of them were just kidding about all women and men being equal and deserving an equal chance, when in fact, the Royal Family is inherently better than the rest of us because their ancestors chopped people up really effectively. That must be why so many of you have taken knighthoods, damehoods, lordships and peerages. Yes, that explains it. You are all such enlightened and selfless individuals, there is clearly nothing you wouldn't sacrifice to defend your Kingdom; to the extent that, in some cases, such as that of Sir Tony Robinson, you have even been willing to sacrifice your own principles to defend it.
The financial system of the United Kingdom that you defend so valiantly, you know, that one were the banks and corporations do whatever they want and pay their executives outrageous salaries only to be bailed out by the taxpayer when the inevitable bust comes along, the one that enriches the obscenely rich while enslaving the vast majority of the population, is the envy of the world. This, in turn, must account for the shocking appearance, in one or two cases, of signatories of this document who are not in fact millionaires, living in ivory towers and totally divorced from the reality that most people have to live. Once again, I commend you all for making me see sense.
I am certain that the Prime Minister (you know, the millionaire who went to Eton along with half of the previous cabinet; that man whom myself and my entire country didn't vote for, as we so ignorantly revile both his party and his policies) will salute you all for your efforts. You've certainly persuaded me. I'll vote for the UK, with its pro-Israel stance, and totally ignore the suffering of the people in Gaza, too. It's for the best, really. As for foreign affairs, well, it's demonstrably obvious that the best way to conduct them is with a horde of nukes at your back, and that the surest way to preserve world peace is with an array of weapons that could only ever be deployed militarily in some kind of nightmarish endgame scenario, but which nevertheless cost billions a year to maintain and store, even while public service budgets are ruthlessly slashed. Why didn't I see this before? I genuinely feel like the writer of Amazing Grace.
I'd like, finally, to take this opportunity to highlight, and indeed, laud, certain signatories of this document who I feel have made an undeniable contribution to twenty-first century art, science and high culture, namely Messrs Armstrong, Barrowman, Bragg, Brydon, Ms Cox, Messrs Cowell, Dawkins, Galloway, Izzard, Ms McCall, Messrs Mitchell, Richard, Robinson, Miss Sarpong, Messrs Starkey, Sting, Sugar, Titchmarsh, Walliams and Webb. You are all deeply talented and necessary individuals, and I thank you all from the bottom of my bowels for descending temporarily from on-high to appeal to scum like me to see sense and vote No.
Thank you all for affording me this opportunity to tell you all how wonderfully wonderful I think you are,
Yours obsequiously,
McB
I would like to express my hearty and sincere thanks to you all for your stated concern that myself and my countrymen remain in the United Kingdom. I was just heading back from my job (the job where I earn under eight quid an hour for working with people with learning disabilities) and passing the local food bank when I heard the news, namely, that you were so concerned that we might leave the UK that you had all deigned to write your names on a piece of paper.
I was delighted to hear this news, so transported, in fact, that I temporarily forgot about the nuclear stockpile that's a mere 25 miles away from my front door, and so giddy with the receipt of this beneficence that I almost forgot that I could spend my remaining English tenners up here as no-one up here has any kind of problem with accepting English money. I write to inform you all that the fact that a bunch of millionaires and multi-millionaires who have, on the whole, exhibited total disinterest, and, in some cases (Mr Curtis, Mr Starkey) outright contempt for my country, its denizens and its history were so thoughtful as to sign a piece of paper has forced me to totally review my lifelong pro-independence stance.
I realise and understand completely that you all probably know more about the situation in Scotland than the people of Scotland do; after all, you're all really famous, and we're none too bright up here, you know, apart from inventing television, the refrigerator, canals, bicycles, chloroform, fingerprinting, animal cloning, fax machines, microwaves and magnetrons, adhesive postage stamps, tubular steel, pneumatic tyres, radar, propellers, ATM machines and PIN codes, the telephone, the condensing steam engine, tarmac, penning such unremarkable gewgaws as Peter Pan, Sherlock Holmes and Jekyll and Hyde, discovering penicillin, founding the US Navy, establishing Universal Standard Time, adumbrating the Rankine Thermodynamic Cycle, establishing the foundation of modern economics thanks to Adam Smith, abetting in the foundation of sociology as a modern science thanks to Adam Ferguson, discovering the nearest star to our sun, Proxima Centauri, discovering and linking the Noble Gases, establishing the Kelvin unit of temperature, inventing MRI machines, discovering the vaccine for typhoid, helping to establish general anaesthetic in medical procedure, inventing the electric clock in 1840 and the flush-toilet in 1775, devising the foundations of the Bank of England and the Bank of France, taking the world's first ever colour photograph, and various other trifles. We really do need to be reminded that these are mere dilettante efforts; governing ourselves is an entirely different matter. As the good folks at Better Together have told us on numerous occasions, we, alone among the nations of the planet Earth, and despite abundant-to-the-point-of-overwhelming evidence to the contrary, will not be capable of this.
On that note, I should like to take a few lines to address the Better Together campaign now, as you have all, through your signing of this hallowed document, tacitly aligned your good selves with the efforts of that noble organisation. Despite what you may have heard, Better Together have, throughout the last few years, been a shining example of truth-telling and reassurance. Those accusations, slung by those vicious people who state facts, that their campaign has been nothing more than a random farrago of shrill, terror-inducing and panic-peddling doomsday prophecies, saturated throughout with slander, half-truths, quarter-truths, outright lies and an irrelevant hate-obsession with one man, are, as I now see, totally exaggerated. They were right all along. The debate between Alistair Darling and Alex Salmond (yes, that debate, the debate that was described by pundits as one of the most important debates in modern political history, but which you probably didn't even see, because it wasn't televised in England, thanks to the equally unbiased British media) showed us all that modern UK politics is in rude health, with three main parties who should be occupying totally different strata of the political spectrum uniting as one to remind us that Alex Salmond is nothing less than the devil in pudgy form and that we are inherently incapable of governing ourselves, before, in a coup de grace, offering to give us as a nation more powers if we as a nation refuse more powers. They are simply a beacon of logic and compassion. I should also like to take this opportunity to thank the BBC, who unthinkingly took time out from their busy schedule of covering up the sundry paedophiles and abusers of vulnerable adults who were protected and celebrated by them to alternately ignore us completely/refuse to broadcast facts/remind us up here that we don't matter.
As for having some of the finest exports on Earth, we are fully cognisant that this will not help. And the oil? We'll just follow Westminster's lead and shut up about the oil, and the possibility of joining the rest of the world in actually setting up an oil fund if we got independence, as we don't want to annoy anyone. Besides it doesn't matter: we don't want independence anyway, because we can't do it.
We should also be reminded that a constitution that is increasingly alone among the nations of the civilised world in never having been drawn up or cohesively codified (with the result that if I were a practicing rather than a lapsed Catholic, I could not be Prime Minister, and if I were to go out walking to an archery contest in York clutching a bow and arrow, it would be perfectly legal to kill me) is the way to go in terms of governance, that Martin Luther King and the rest of them were just kidding about all women and men being equal and deserving an equal chance, when in fact, the Royal Family is inherently better than the rest of us because their ancestors chopped people up really effectively. That must be why so many of you have taken knighthoods, damehoods, lordships and peerages. Yes, that explains it. You are all such enlightened and selfless individuals, there is clearly nothing you wouldn't sacrifice to defend your Kingdom; to the extent that, in some cases, such as that of Sir Tony Robinson, you have even been willing to sacrifice your own principles to defend it.
The financial system of the United Kingdom that you defend so valiantly, you know, that one were the banks and corporations do whatever they want and pay their executives outrageous salaries only to be bailed out by the taxpayer when the inevitable bust comes along, the one that enriches the obscenely rich while enslaving the vast majority of the population, is the envy of the world. This, in turn, must account for the shocking appearance, in one or two cases, of signatories of this document who are not in fact millionaires, living in ivory towers and totally divorced from the reality that most people have to live. Once again, I commend you all for making me see sense.
I am certain that the Prime Minister (you know, the millionaire who went to Eton along with half of the previous cabinet; that man whom myself and my entire country didn't vote for, as we so ignorantly revile both his party and his policies) will salute you all for your efforts. You've certainly persuaded me. I'll vote for the UK, with its pro-Israel stance, and totally ignore the suffering of the people in Gaza, too. It's for the best, really. As for foreign affairs, well, it's demonstrably obvious that the best way to conduct them is with a horde of nukes at your back, and that the surest way to preserve world peace is with an array of weapons that could only ever be deployed militarily in some kind of nightmarish endgame scenario, but which nevertheless cost billions a year to maintain and store, even while public service budgets are ruthlessly slashed. Why didn't I see this before? I genuinely feel like the writer of Amazing Grace.
I'd like, finally, to take this opportunity to highlight, and indeed, laud, certain signatories of this document who I feel have made an undeniable contribution to twenty-first century art, science and high culture, namely Messrs Armstrong, Barrowman, Bragg, Brydon, Ms Cox, Messrs Cowell, Dawkins, Galloway, Izzard, Ms McCall, Messrs Mitchell, Richard, Robinson, Miss Sarpong, Messrs Starkey, Sting, Sugar, Titchmarsh, Walliams and Webb. You are all deeply talented and necessary individuals, and I thank you all from the bottom of my bowels for descending temporarily from on-high to appeal to scum like me to see sense and vote No.
Thank you all for affording me this opportunity to tell you all how wonderfully wonderful I think you are,
Yours obsequiously,
McB
Friday, 29 November 2013
Pulling The Wool - No Credit For Tweed.
Westminster and the Institute for Financial Studies (IFS) say there is, and will continue to be, a financial black hole in Scotland’s budget. They persist in telling us we are Too Poor, our economy is a basket case, and following independence we’d be poorer than a Developing Nation on its uppers, with a financial deficit in the billions. However, the IFS has apparently taken their data from those figures which are available from Westminster; figures that are created under the auspices of London’s government and London’s rules, as such they do not always, nor indeed by all appearances ever reflect the reality of Scotland’s financial standing because of certain “quirks” on how exports etc are recorded. Some of these issues I dealt with here Hidden Wealth.
Essentially, exports are credited to the UK nation that controls the port of departure. That’s right, it’s not about where they’re made, it is from where they are shipped.
The information in the above blog resulted in me being asked on Facebook what this meant for the iconic Harris Tweed Industry. It seemed appropriate to dig a bit.
My first stop was UK Registry of Companies to discover where much of the Harris Tweed industry was registered. This would tell us whether their profits and taxes could be attributed to Scottish income. The results were interesting and varied. Many of the smaller companies associated with the Harris Tweed Industry are indeed registered in Lewis, but the main mills where by far the majority of the textiles are produced brought a mixed bag of results.
I really enjoyed this trip into an iconic Scottish industry, and I learned much, such as the Harris Tweed Authority (HTA) was set up by Act of Parliament in 1993 to help protect and promote the industry, while maintaining standards within it. I was quite surprised to discover there are only three main mills within the industry, all based in the Outer Hebrides.
Shawbost is the largest mill and main producer of tweed. It is owned by Harris Tweed Hebrides Ltd and is registered in the Isle of Lewis. Interestingly, members of their board include one Ian Roper Taylor, of Vitol fame and a certain Brian Wilson, former UK Labour politician. Harris Tweed Hebrides board of directors.
The next and oldest operating mill (since 1909) belongs to the intriguingly named Harris Tweed Scotland Ltd. I say intriguingly from the viewpoint that it is actually registered as a company at Haincliffe Road, Ingrow, Keighly, West Yorkshire, BD21 5BU; Harris Tweed Scotland LTD. The company is owned by Mr Brian Haggas following a buy-out in 2006. It primarily produces tweed to be made into jackets, presumably in garment factories in the North East of England. These are then exported all over the world including sending an apparently small proportion of its finished garments back to the Islands to be sold there.
The third and smallest mill in Lewis involved in tweed production is the Carloway Mill. It’s an independent mill; however, I was unable to find any trace of registration on either of the Companies House or Company Check websites. Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to why this is so. In March of this year, they entered a joint venture with the large Chinese textile company Shandong Ruyi Technological Group Ltd. Companies not registered under their own names are often held by overseas investors through shell corporations. I’m not alleging this is the case here, but would welcome information to the contrary.
There is also a network of independent weavers within the industry who can work as contractors for any of the mills or sell their cloth freelance.
While the HTA would like you to think that the Hebrides are the centre of the exporting world for tweeds, as you will be misled by this HTA World Presence web-page, this is not strictly accurate. Indeed, all the fabric is created, dyed and woven there, but the vast majority of the product, and research indicates a substantial percentage of it, leaves the Islands by road haulage by Woody's Express Parcels and ferry for a depot in Inverness.
From Inverness I am reliably informed other haulage companies, namely DHL, UPS and FED EX take the fabric on the next step of the journey, to destinations such as East Midlands Airport (DHL, UPS), Newcastle Airport (FED EX) and all ports south. Very little of this Scottish iconic fabric actually leaves via a Scottish airport or dock. From this, I can only conclude that it doesn’t count in favour of Scottish exports and adds tonnage and financial gain to English exports, as bales of Harris Tweed exit via English ports.
What we have here is an iconic Scot’s product which has the appearance of being virtually deleted from the Scottish balance of payments ledger, while simultaneously accruing to England’s. To reiterate, as per UK export law, it is the port of exit that counts when it comes to registering overseas shipping, not the country of manufacture.
Under the weirdest of all situations one could actually have the finished garments, marked ‘Harris Tweed’ counted as a Scottish import, and worsening our balance of payments. This is because almost no ‘Harris Tweed’ garments are now manufactured in Scotland, so any sold here effectively have to be re-imported from the country of manufacture.
That you can play with the base fundamentals of an economy in such a fashion is very simple indeed. Especially when almost everyone relies upon the official figures from Westminster to obtain a consensus of agreement that Scotland might just be an economic basket case with a horrible balance of payments deficit, when the reverse may well indeed prove to be a much more accurate statement. The only real way to prove Scotland’s net worth would be to do as the USA apparently does with its states, and count the country of origin or state of origin of goods, but that might not be in vested interests with a referendum in the offing.
This is obviously something that happens with startling consistency where Scotland’s exports are concerned. It is agreed by those who have actually researched the figures that Scotland is nominally responsible for somewhere around 9% of UK GDP, this does not include oil which is treated separately, yet based upon air freight, with a similar number being expected across the board, Scotland is credited only for about 2% of UK export, by weight. Air Freight tonnage. The fact that the system is set up in such a way that practically all of Scotland’s manufacturing ends up exiting the British Isles not via a local airport or freight terminal, but one which, in Stornoway’s case, may be almost 700 miles away (Stornoway-London) is both detrimental to our economy and destructive to our environment. It is also a bit of an eye-opener when you discover Kent International Airport (where?) moved more tonnage in air freight (12,744 tonnes) than Edinburgh (8,933 tonnes) in the first half of 2013. In fact Manchester Airport shifted over twice (45,831) the cargo that the whole of Scotland moved (22,731).
The reality of this situation is that if Scotland produced exports of 9 billion pounds per year, then she would be being credited for 2 billion pounds per year, while the other 7 billion pounds per year will accrue to Westminster’s ledger, and no, they’re not hard numbers, they’re example figures.
This is a dreadful under-use of Scotland’s facilities and resources from all sorts of angles, including Green Issues, but that’s another blog for another time. Far more could and should be moved through these airports from an economical point of view. Local economies and employment would benefit enormously from this.
The important aspect I got from all of this is from London’s perspective, when you spread this “port of exit” requirement across all of Scotland’s exporting industries, whether it’s tweed, electronics or shortbread, they have created a wonderful statistical tool that ‘anyone’ can use to perpetuate the ‘too poor” case for the Scots’ economy and produce ‘believable’ statistical data that might encourage a ‘NO’ vote when perpetuated by the MSM in Scotland without proper back up research.
Essentially, exports are credited to the UK nation that controls the port of departure. That’s right, it’s not about where they’re made, it is from where they are shipped.
The information in the above blog resulted in me being asked on Facebook what this meant for the iconic Harris Tweed Industry. It seemed appropriate to dig a bit.
My first stop was UK Registry of Companies to discover where much of the Harris Tweed industry was registered. This would tell us whether their profits and taxes could be attributed to Scottish income. The results were interesting and varied. Many of the smaller companies associated with the Harris Tweed Industry are indeed registered in Lewis, but the main mills where by far the majority of the textiles are produced brought a mixed bag of results.
I really enjoyed this trip into an iconic Scottish industry, and I learned much, such as the Harris Tweed Authority (HTA) was set up by Act of Parliament in 1993 to help protect and promote the industry, while maintaining standards within it. I was quite surprised to discover there are only three main mills within the industry, all based in the Outer Hebrides.
Shawbost is the largest mill and main producer of tweed. It is owned by Harris Tweed Hebrides Ltd and is registered in the Isle of Lewis. Interestingly, members of their board include one Ian Roper Taylor, of Vitol fame and a certain Brian Wilson, former UK Labour politician. Harris Tweed Hebrides board of directors.
The next and oldest operating mill (since 1909) belongs to the intriguingly named Harris Tweed Scotland Ltd. I say intriguingly from the viewpoint that it is actually registered as a company at Haincliffe Road, Ingrow, Keighly, West Yorkshire, BD21 5BU; Harris Tweed Scotland LTD. The company is owned by Mr Brian Haggas following a buy-out in 2006. It primarily produces tweed to be made into jackets, presumably in garment factories in the North East of England. These are then exported all over the world including sending an apparently small proportion of its finished garments back to the Islands to be sold there.
The third and smallest mill in Lewis involved in tweed production is the Carloway Mill. It’s an independent mill; however, I was unable to find any trace of registration on either of the Companies House or Company Check websites. Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to why this is so. In March of this year, they entered a joint venture with the large Chinese textile company Shandong Ruyi Technological Group Ltd. Companies not registered under their own names are often held by overseas investors through shell corporations. I’m not alleging this is the case here, but would welcome information to the contrary.
There is also a network of independent weavers within the industry who can work as contractors for any of the mills or sell their cloth freelance.
While the HTA would like you to think that the Hebrides are the centre of the exporting world for tweeds, as you will be misled by this HTA World Presence web-page, this is not strictly accurate. Indeed, all the fabric is created, dyed and woven there, but the vast majority of the product, and research indicates a substantial percentage of it, leaves the Islands by road haulage by Woody's Express Parcels and ferry for a depot in Inverness.
From Inverness I am reliably informed other haulage companies, namely DHL, UPS and FED EX take the fabric on the next step of the journey, to destinations such as East Midlands Airport (DHL, UPS), Newcastle Airport (FED EX) and all ports south. Very little of this Scottish iconic fabric actually leaves via a Scottish airport or dock. From this, I can only conclude that it doesn’t count in favour of Scottish exports and adds tonnage and financial gain to English exports, as bales of Harris Tweed exit via English ports.
What we have here is an iconic Scot’s product which has the appearance of being virtually deleted from the Scottish balance of payments ledger, while simultaneously accruing to England’s. To reiterate, as per UK export law, it is the port of exit that counts when it comes to registering overseas shipping, not the country of manufacture.
Under the weirdest of all situations one could actually have the finished garments, marked ‘Harris Tweed’ counted as a Scottish import, and worsening our balance of payments. This is because almost no ‘Harris Tweed’ garments are now manufactured in Scotland, so any sold here effectively have to be re-imported from the country of manufacture.
That you can play with the base fundamentals of an economy in such a fashion is very simple indeed. Especially when almost everyone relies upon the official figures from Westminster to obtain a consensus of agreement that Scotland might just be an economic basket case with a horrible balance of payments deficit, when the reverse may well indeed prove to be a much more accurate statement. The only real way to prove Scotland’s net worth would be to do as the USA apparently does with its states, and count the country of origin or state of origin of goods, but that might not be in vested interests with a referendum in the offing.
This is obviously something that happens with startling consistency where Scotland’s exports are concerned. It is agreed by those who have actually researched the figures that Scotland is nominally responsible for somewhere around 9% of UK GDP, this does not include oil which is treated separately, yet based upon air freight, with a similar number being expected across the board, Scotland is credited only for about 2% of UK export, by weight. Air Freight tonnage. The fact that the system is set up in such a way that practically all of Scotland’s manufacturing ends up exiting the British Isles not via a local airport or freight terminal, but one which, in Stornoway’s case, may be almost 700 miles away (Stornoway-London) is both detrimental to our economy and destructive to our environment. It is also a bit of an eye-opener when you discover Kent International Airport (where?) moved more tonnage in air freight (12,744 tonnes) than Edinburgh (8,933 tonnes) in the first half of 2013. In fact Manchester Airport shifted over twice (45,831) the cargo that the whole of Scotland moved (22,731).
The reality of this situation is that if Scotland produced exports of 9 billion pounds per year, then she would be being credited for 2 billion pounds per year, while the other 7 billion pounds per year will accrue to Westminster’s ledger, and no, they’re not hard numbers, they’re example figures.
This is a dreadful under-use of Scotland’s facilities and resources from all sorts of angles, including Green Issues, but that’s another blog for another time. Far more could and should be moved through these airports from an economical point of view. Local economies and employment would benefit enormously from this.
The important aspect I got from all of this is from London’s perspective, when you spread this “port of exit” requirement across all of Scotland’s exporting industries, whether it’s tweed, electronics or shortbread, they have created a wonderful statistical tool that ‘anyone’ can use to perpetuate the ‘too poor” case for the Scots’ economy and produce ‘believable’ statistical data that might encourage a ‘NO’ vote when perpetuated by the MSM in Scotland without proper back up research.
Saturday, 23 November 2013
Hidden Wealth.
It gets you that way. You find yourself in a long Facebook natter and suddenly you realise there is a fact which doesn't often get highlighted in this “debate” about Scotland’s constitutional future. Oh yes, the Unionists aren't slow to drag the “oil is volatile and will cause you no end of confusion” card, and sadly many, many people pick this one up and run with it. It defines and confines the financial deliberation within heavily bordered limits. And this is precisely where Westminster wants this discussion to be kept.
Yet, there is not so much an elephant in the room but a small herd of elephants in the room. These are all of the companies currently manufacturing and exporting from Scotland and/or selling goods to the people in Scotland, but are head-quartered in England.
Currently, the majority of goods manufactured, grown, distilled or created in Scotland are exported via ports and airports in England. All taxation receipts from the following items such as airport fees, freight charges, fuel sales, VAT, applicable export levies and associated profits from these goods are then allocated as English income at the Treasury. The exact figures are hard to break down as they appear to be intentionally difficult to search or find in any of the Westminster governmental sites. For an example of a typically Scottish product regularly exported, in 2012 Whisky exports topped £4 billion. Approximately seventy-five percent of this is exported via English ports and allocated to the Treasury as English exports and income. This is also true of beef and other farm produce grown in Scotland, yet exported via ports down south. This can only be viewed as profits and tax receipts which should be credited to Scotland lost in a system set up to confuse and obfuscate.
Then we have the interesting situation of companies that sell goods and services in Scotland, but are head-quartered south of the border. With very few exceptions, it is only chains and stores with head offices in Scotland that record profits and VAT as being income from Scotland. The majority of companies which operate central offices in England pay their taxes and are shown as making profit in England – despite it being hard earned wages which gave them those profits and VAT receipts at tills in Aberdeen or Kilbirnie or Haddington.
We all need to eat, furnish our homes and wear clothes (well most folks do!). And many of us enjoy our electronic goods or buy home improvement items – you get the picture. We go to our local supermarket, DIY store, favourite clothes shops or electrical store and pay for all those things that make our lives viable and comfortable. Except, very few of these stores have a head office in Scotland.
As a way of explanation, allow me use one chain to give a small example.
Sainsbury: They have 1,016 stores throughout mainland UK, 60 of those are in Scotland – according to 2012 figures. This is roughly 6%. Until March of this year they took £2,329 Million in VAT. Roughly 6% of that or £140 Million was taken in Scottish stores. Under the current arrangement, ALL of that money is allocated as English income to reflect where Sainsbury have their HQ.
Now, imagine in an independent Scotland, that portion of VAT generated by us busily getting on with our daily lives, equipping our bellies, families and homes, going directly to Holyrood to be spent as needed on those things that we have deemed as important to us and our society – whether it’s infrastructure or social care. Sounds great doesn't it, but it’s “only” £140 Million, I hear someone mumble. However, you need to extrapolate this small amount over every company presently operating in Scotland under the current set-up.
What we have is a pile of money heading to Westminster and not really finding its way back to help those who spent it in the first place. Not only that, because it isn’t shown as being generated within Scotland, it helps to reinforce the “Too Poor” aspect of the Unionists argument. They can throw the volatility of North Sea Oil in our faces every other day, but they deliberately miss the point of other important, yet hidden aspects of the Scottish economy (e.g. £500 million in road taxes with associated fuel duties) which isn’t being allowed to show up for us in the “Books”.
How easily they can transform Scotland’s vibrant economy, created and supported by her hard working population, from energetic to appear poor and perhaps slightly quaint and backward.
Yet, there is not so much an elephant in the room but a small herd of elephants in the room. These are all of the companies currently manufacturing and exporting from Scotland and/or selling goods to the people in Scotland, but are head-quartered in England.
Currently, the majority of goods manufactured, grown, distilled or created in Scotland are exported via ports and airports in England. All taxation receipts from the following items such as airport fees, freight charges, fuel sales, VAT, applicable export levies and associated profits from these goods are then allocated as English income at the Treasury. The exact figures are hard to break down as they appear to be intentionally difficult to search or find in any of the Westminster governmental sites. For an example of a typically Scottish product regularly exported, in 2012 Whisky exports topped £4 billion. Approximately seventy-five percent of this is exported via English ports and allocated to the Treasury as English exports and income. This is also true of beef and other farm produce grown in Scotland, yet exported via ports down south. This can only be viewed as profits and tax receipts which should be credited to Scotland lost in a system set up to confuse and obfuscate.
Then we have the interesting situation of companies that sell goods and services in Scotland, but are head-quartered south of the border. With very few exceptions, it is only chains and stores with head offices in Scotland that record profits and VAT as being income from Scotland. The majority of companies which operate central offices in England pay their taxes and are shown as making profit in England – despite it being hard earned wages which gave them those profits and VAT receipts at tills in Aberdeen or Kilbirnie or Haddington.
We all need to eat, furnish our homes and wear clothes (well most folks do!). And many of us enjoy our electronic goods or buy home improvement items – you get the picture. We go to our local supermarket, DIY store, favourite clothes shops or electrical store and pay for all those things that make our lives viable and comfortable. Except, very few of these stores have a head office in Scotland.
As a way of explanation, allow me use one chain to give a small example.
Sainsbury: They have 1,016 stores throughout mainland UK, 60 of those are in Scotland – according to 2012 figures. This is roughly 6%. Until March of this year they took £2,329 Million in VAT. Roughly 6% of that or £140 Million was taken in Scottish stores. Under the current arrangement, ALL of that money is allocated as English income to reflect where Sainsbury have their HQ.
Now, imagine in an independent Scotland, that portion of VAT generated by us busily getting on with our daily lives, equipping our bellies, families and homes, going directly to Holyrood to be spent as needed on those things that we have deemed as important to us and our society – whether it’s infrastructure or social care. Sounds great doesn't it, but it’s “only” £140 Million, I hear someone mumble. However, you need to extrapolate this small amount over every company presently operating in Scotland under the current set-up.
What we have is a pile of money heading to Westminster and not really finding its way back to help those who spent it in the first place. Not only that, because it isn’t shown as being generated within Scotland, it helps to reinforce the “Too Poor” aspect of the Unionists argument. They can throw the volatility of North Sea Oil in our faces every other day, but they deliberately miss the point of other important, yet hidden aspects of the Scottish economy (e.g. £500 million in road taxes with associated fuel duties) which isn’t being allowed to show up for us in the “Books”.
How easily they can transform Scotland’s vibrant economy, created and supported by her hard working population, from energetic to appear poor and perhaps slightly quaint and backward.
Sunday, 29 September 2013
The Westminster Cronies Al Qaeda ... You decide.
Something has been troubling me for some time; it did in 1979 before that referendum, it has again for more than a year. It crystalised not too long ago when the denizens of that inimical palace of Westminster labelled the tactics they would use in Scotland to secure a ‘No’ vote as ‘Project Fear’.
If we doubt Westminster and her allies are indeed inimical towards the Scots, we need only look to five quick definitions which can be uncovered with two minutes of browsing through almost any dictionary.
Also, that Unionists are utelising a not-so-subtle form of terrorism against Scottish aspirations is becoming increasingly apparent as we begin coasting down the months towards the referendum in September 2014.
The only significant question to be asked is "why would we believe anything from such a source?".
Meantime, consider those above; the actions, words and deeds emanating from the London Parliament and its supporters, and decide for yourself if a no vote is a vote in support of terrorism, blackmail and fear?
There is no grey area, if you decide that’s what’s happening, a NO vote is simply a vote to support state sponsored terrorism and blackmail.
The online Cambridge dictionary was used for the definitions pasted below.
Project: a piece of planned work or an activity that is finished over a period of time and intended to achieve a particular aim.
Fear: an unpleasant emotion or thought that you have when you are frightened or worried by something dangerous, painful, or bad that is happening or might happen e.g., "Trembling with fear, she handed over the money to the gunman."
Terrorism: defined as ‘Threats of violent action for political purposes’
Project: a piece of planned work or an activity that is finished over a period of time and intended to achieve a particular aim.
Fear: an unpleasant emotion or thought that you have when you are frightened or worried by something dangerous, painful, or bad that is happening or might happen e.g., "Trembling with fear, she handed over the money to the gunman."
Terrorism: defined as ‘Threats of violent action for political purposes’
Terrorist: would be someone who uses violent action or threats of violent action for political purposes.
Blackmail: the act of getting money from people or forcing them to do something by threatening to tell a secret of theirs or to harm them.
Accordingly, we have it clearly from the architects themselves. They describe their own work as ‘Project Fear’ and they’re proud of it, damned proud.
Consider the multitude of scare stories; from currency to oil; from the northern isles breaking away to ejection from the EU; from border controls to debt; the storming of Scotland’s airports by English forces to our inability to defend ourselves. Then consider and remember that each of the principle denizens of the belly of the beast, the main political leaders of Westminster and their puppets in Edinburgh, for surely they deserve no other title under these circumstances, have all stated that ‘of course, Scotland could be a successful independent country’.
These same political leaders have then gone on to bless "Project Fear". Perhaps not overtly or openly, but neither have they decried it, which at the least is tacit approval. And we all know the danger of mute inaction because as widely acknowledged; evil only wins when good folk don’t take a stand and speak out against it.
It’s also re-enforced by the fact that the threats and implied actions against the Scots aren't presently enacted against the Irish, who like us were also ‘engineered’ into this same union. It is not enacted, it would appear, simply because they've already left, though history tells us of tactics utelised before they did.
It is said the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. We should have good cause to expect similar treatment to the Irish, though like the Irish, we might expect it to take three quarters of a century.
Project Fear is quite simply a piece of planned work that will be finished over a period of time and is intended to achieve a particular aim. In the eyes of its architects, it will secure a ‘No’ vote in the upcoming referendum. Remembering of course, a referendum is a political event. ‘Project Fear’ is therefore decidedly an attempt to influence a political process through intimidation.
This leads to the fact that Project Fear is clearly an attempt by those pictured above to convince Scots that something dangerous, painful, or bad might, most likely will happen should they dare to vote ‘Yes’
Project Fear is therefore clearly state terrorism under this accepted interpretation. For like many political or religious extremists, it is carrying both the implied and overt threat of violent action for political purposes. What else can describe the almost 'hell on earth' which would be engendered in Scotland if every one of the dire utterances from, or on behalf of the Union were to play out after a successful independence vote.
It would clearly follow that the leaders of project fear are at worst terrorists under the literal meaning. It means those pictured above who might participate in such negative propaganda lie anywhere in the scope of this blog from real actual terrorists in the true Al Qaeda vein, to simply not very pleasant people; if one equates good people with pleasant people. If it were otherwise they’d surely be speaking with one voice and condemning ‘Project Fear’.
Blackmail: the act of getting money from people or forcing them to do something by threatening to tell a secret of theirs or to harm them.
Accordingly, we have it clearly from the architects themselves. They describe their own work as ‘Project Fear’ and they’re proud of it, damned proud.
Consider the multitude of scare stories; from currency to oil; from the northern isles breaking away to ejection from the EU; from border controls to debt; the storming of Scotland’s airports by English forces to our inability to defend ourselves. Then consider and remember that each of the principle denizens of the belly of the beast, the main political leaders of Westminster and their puppets in Edinburgh, for surely they deserve no other title under these circumstances, have all stated that ‘of course, Scotland could be a successful independent country’.
These same political leaders have then gone on to bless "Project Fear". Perhaps not overtly or openly, but neither have they decried it, which at the least is tacit approval. And we all know the danger of mute inaction because as widely acknowledged; evil only wins when good folk don’t take a stand and speak out against it.
It’s also re-enforced by the fact that the threats and implied actions against the Scots aren't presently enacted against the Irish, who like us were also ‘engineered’ into this same union. It is not enacted, it would appear, simply because they've already left, though history tells us of tactics utelised before they did.
It is said the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. We should have good cause to expect similar treatment to the Irish, though like the Irish, we might expect it to take three quarters of a century.
Project Fear is quite simply a piece of planned work that will be finished over a period of time and is intended to achieve a particular aim. In the eyes of its architects, it will secure a ‘No’ vote in the upcoming referendum. Remembering of course, a referendum is a political event. ‘Project Fear’ is therefore decidedly an attempt to influence a political process through intimidation.
This leads to the fact that Project Fear is clearly an attempt by those pictured above to convince Scots that something dangerous, painful, or bad might, most likely will happen should they dare to vote ‘Yes’
Project Fear is therefore clearly state terrorism under this accepted interpretation. For like many political or religious extremists, it is carrying both the implied and overt threat of violent action for political purposes. What else can describe the almost 'hell on earth' which would be engendered in Scotland if every one of the dire utterances from, or on behalf of the Union were to play out after a successful independence vote.
It would clearly follow that the leaders of project fear are at worst terrorists under the literal meaning. It means those pictured above who might participate in such negative propaganda lie anywhere in the scope of this blog from real actual terrorists in the true Al Qaeda vein, to simply not very pleasant people; if one equates good people with pleasant people. If it were otherwise they’d surely be speaking with one voice and condemning ‘Project Fear’.
As to the role of the head of the state in all this? Surely a benevolent monarch should be decrying such tactics in ‘her’ land? In respect to the Queen, what will change, except perhaps Scotland’s financial contribution?
Finally, we have blackmail, for surely ‘Project Fear’ is blackmail, because it’s got every appearance of trying to force a particular course of action in order to avoid the threat of, or actual personal harm.
Personally I believe Scots to be a bit better than to submit to blackmail, terrorism, or other such attempts at coercion.
Finally, we have blackmail, for surely ‘Project Fear’ is blackmail, because it’s got every appearance of trying to force a particular course of action in order to avoid the threat of, or actual personal harm.
Personally I believe Scots to be a bit better than to submit to blackmail, terrorism, or other such attempts at coercion.
In addition, I believe we’re overall a worthy, competent and conscientious folk more than capable of building our own home and living peacefully in the village of nations.
Meantime, consider those above; the actions, words and deeds emanating from the London Parliament and its supporters, and decide for yourself if a no vote is a vote in support of terrorism, blackmail and fear?
There is no grey area, if you decide that’s what’s happening, a NO vote is simply a vote to support state sponsored terrorism and blackmail.
Monday, 8 July 2013
Is there pact to destroy the NHS?
I've had the opportunity to live in both the UK and US. In a previous life I spent a career in healthcare. Consequently, I have always kept an eye on this subject as I'm interested in it, and have watched England’s steady march to Privatisation for a decade and more.
The first issue is; why privatise?
No, really, why bother?
The universal government line is that it is:
1) ‘Necessary’
2) ‘Reduces costs’
3) ‘Fosters competition’.
The first two are obviously hokum; the last is probably undesirable in a health care scenario, unless folk just get the opportunity to go elsewhere, which could be satisfied by simply electing to go to another health board. It would be easy to make a statute to cover a right to change health boards. The cost would be no more than some legislation.
Let’s look at the first two for a minute, the hokum claims.
Well, I would deal with ‘Necessary’ first, except I've come up against an immediate issue; nobody is telling me Why it’s necessary, unless it circles around points two or three, in which case it’s irrelevant fluff; and fluff we should also be able to agree is hokum.
So, if reason one for privatisation is self evident ‘padding’ of hokum, and reason three can be fixed by statute that leaves reason two.
Reason two says it ‘reduces costs’, which is smoke and mirrors. Let’s say the State, and we’ll make it the entire UK as well as use easy numbers, has a hundred billion for health care. We’ll make it simple by abbreviating scenarios and not adjusting for inflation.
In 1973 the nation had a hundred billion to spend on health care. We were taxed a hundred billion to support it, we spent a hundred billion on it. We got what we paid for, more or less directly returned.
Now, fast forward forty years. At this point about a third, twenty to fifty percent depending on how you work the numbers, of that service is effectively privatised, from PPI to PFI contracts to farming out of services and people.
So, now we've got a hundred billion of our money going in and about sixty five billion returned directly in ‘services’
What has happened to the other thirty five billion? Well, ‘The City’ and ‘Wall Street’ like to see profits of thirty to forty percent; we’ll call it a third on average. Executive salaries in the private sector are generally higher, hourly wages generally lower, but about ten percent of company revenue is usually kept to repay banks and shareholders as well.
Of that thirty five billion, we’ll be generous; about twenty billion might come back in services which have been included as part of PFI/PPI agreements, e.g. laundry, security, some aspects of direct care services, building maintenance etc.
So, in 2013, we still put in a hundred billion, but we lost fifteen of it to the ‘privateers’ padding their treasure chests. Now you know how a lot of those new yachts I see every day get paid for. Luxury lifestyles being financed while your children or your grandparents go on waiting lists. In fact, at the time of writing, our £19,000 floating home is next to a $7,000,000 yacht – financed by the insurance side of the US health care industry. And let’s be clear, it is an Industry.
So, what inspired this blog, and why now?
The NHS has just announced it expects a thirty billion funding gap by 2020.
To meet that, Lady Williams is advocating charging for visits to doctor’s surgeries. They’re also proposing having pensioners pay. So-called “wealthier” pensioners, just because they might have worked all their lives and saved like crazy and have a pension other than the State’s, now get to buy that executive or banker’s new yacht. Yet, had those elderly squandered their money instead of saving, they’d be off the hook for the time being - until the financial threshold is eliminated.
Of interest are the comments made by NHS England’s information director, Tim Kelsey.
Here is the gist of what Mr. Kelsey said:
"We are about to run out of cash in a very serious fashion."
Followed by a revealing statement:
‘... the UK and US governments were currently working on a common standard of certification for health companies to make it easier for them to access both markets”.
As the Guardian article pointed out, critics of the government's health reforms say they were conceived as a "necessary prelude" to a trade agreement with the US.
He further stated:
"one of the things that we agreed with the US government which will be hopefully signing at the G8 meeting in November is that we want to make it as easy as possible for small businesses to get access to both the US and the UK market places” .
“To do that we want to have some common standards. We will be working on a standard of certification so that you can be in the digital hospital marketplace or the apps marketplace and you only need to sign up to one certification scheme."
Based upon his statement and those of others, US healthcare companies, in return for their millions poured into US election campaigns, want a return on those millions. They need fresh markets and fresh profits. The government and those who manage the NHS appear to be on the brink of devising a system which would enable the simple, painless integration of NHS services into private US health care systems. This is a very accomplished system that charges ever-increasing amounts of money in the form of monthly insurance payments from its users i.e. Patients.
The fundamental interpretation here is that these US companies have lobbied their ‘bought’ representatives to make access to the UK market a prerequisite of any future trade deal. Very quietly, the US is telling Westminster, ‘Privatise Your Healthcare’, and Westminster, London, like the subservient poodle it is, is agreeing.
The only way they (health care companies based in North America) can get that access, and therefore additional opportunities for profit, is through increased privatisation of the NHS. If that privatisation doesn't happen, then they’re only fighting for a bit of that existing thirty percent. They will then undercut each other, services will suffer, bankruptcies will follow, and our people will get hurt by both poorer care and unpaid bills.
Remember just because Blue Cross UK goes belly-up and leaves a medical wasteland in its wake, it doesn't mean Blue Cross USA has to pay. That’s the “beauty” of independent subsidiary companies.
Therefore, feel free to vote “NO” in 2014. Just be aware there is every likelihood one of the many things you’ll be voting “NO” to is the NHS. You have to remember, reduced public spending in England will result in a claw-back of our meagre pocket money under the Barnett Formula. The outcome of which can only mean reduced spending in Scotland.
The current cost of a quality ‘family healthcare plan, i.e. the kind of health care we currently take for granted, in the USA is creeping towards a thousand pounds per month. Can you afford that?
Furthermore, from personal experience, I know that even “comprehensive” cover doesn't truly ensure care in every eventuality that may become a health imperative in your life. Like many in the US, we were forced to sell everything we owned - from our home to my guitars - to pay for brain-scans and tests following a serious industrial accident.
As the UK will be copying the US health care model over the next several years, with both Labour and Conservative members pledging to ‘continue these reforms’, what you’re looking at is a return to the nineteen thirties. If you have any doubts about this, just check the list of Registered Members Interest in both Houses and see how many are intertwined with private healthcare companies. We need only look as far as Ms. Cherie Blair to find one very well-known example.
Then again if you do vote no, perhaps next time I break down on the ocean, maybe one of these new multi-million pound yachts will stop and help me. If it does, I’ll thank you for that ‘No’ vote. In reality, I’d expect it to do what the last one did when emergency struck. I’d expect it to ignore us, to keep on sailing, and pretend it didn't see the distress flare’s being let off or it didn't hear our anxious calls on the emergency radio channels.
You see, like us, if you don’t have health insurance in several years time, you’ll be able to expect that hospital ship to just maintain its current course and keep sailing on by.
The first issue is; why privatise?
No, really, why bother?
The universal government line is that it is:
1) ‘Necessary’
2) ‘Reduces costs’
3) ‘Fosters competition’.
The first two are obviously hokum; the last is probably undesirable in a health care scenario, unless folk just get the opportunity to go elsewhere, which could be satisfied by simply electing to go to another health board. It would be easy to make a statute to cover a right to change health boards. The cost would be no more than some legislation.
Let’s look at the first two for a minute, the hokum claims.
Well, I would deal with ‘Necessary’ first, except I've come up against an immediate issue; nobody is telling me Why it’s necessary, unless it circles around points two or three, in which case it’s irrelevant fluff; and fluff we should also be able to agree is hokum.
So, if reason one for privatisation is self evident ‘padding’ of hokum, and reason three can be fixed by statute that leaves reason two.
Reason two says it ‘reduces costs’, which is smoke and mirrors. Let’s say the State, and we’ll make it the entire UK as well as use easy numbers, has a hundred billion for health care. We’ll make it simple by abbreviating scenarios and not adjusting for inflation.
In 1973 the nation had a hundred billion to spend on health care. We were taxed a hundred billion to support it, we spent a hundred billion on it. We got what we paid for, more or less directly returned.
Now, fast forward forty years. At this point about a third, twenty to fifty percent depending on how you work the numbers, of that service is effectively privatised, from PPI to PFI contracts to farming out of services and people.
So, now we've got a hundred billion of our money going in and about sixty five billion returned directly in ‘services’
What has happened to the other thirty five billion? Well, ‘The City’ and ‘Wall Street’ like to see profits of thirty to forty percent; we’ll call it a third on average. Executive salaries in the private sector are generally higher, hourly wages generally lower, but about ten percent of company revenue is usually kept to repay banks and shareholders as well.
Of that thirty five billion, we’ll be generous; about twenty billion might come back in services which have been included as part of PFI/PPI agreements, e.g. laundry, security, some aspects of direct care services, building maintenance etc.
So, in 2013, we still put in a hundred billion, but we lost fifteen of it to the ‘privateers’ padding their treasure chests. Now you know how a lot of those new yachts I see every day get paid for. Luxury lifestyles being financed while your children or your grandparents go on waiting lists. In fact, at the time of writing, our £19,000 floating home is next to a $7,000,000 yacht – financed by the insurance side of the US health care industry. And let’s be clear, it is an Industry.
So, what inspired this blog, and why now?
The NHS has just announced it expects a thirty billion funding gap by 2020.
To meet that, Lady Williams is advocating charging for visits to doctor’s surgeries. They’re also proposing having pensioners pay. So-called “wealthier” pensioners, just because they might have worked all their lives and saved like crazy and have a pension other than the State’s, now get to buy that executive or banker’s new yacht. Yet, had those elderly squandered their money instead of saving, they’d be off the hook for the time being - until the financial threshold is eliminated.
Of interest are the comments made by NHS England’s information director, Tim Kelsey.
Here is the gist of what Mr. Kelsey said:
"We are about to run out of cash in a very serious fashion."
Followed by a revealing statement:
‘... the UK and US governments were currently working on a common standard of certification for health companies to make it easier for them to access both markets”.
As the Guardian article pointed out, critics of the government's health reforms say they were conceived as a "necessary prelude" to a trade agreement with the US.
He further stated:
"one of the things that we agreed with the US government which will be hopefully signing at the G8 meeting in November is that we want to make it as easy as possible for small businesses to get access to both the US and the UK market places” .
“To do that we want to have some common standards. We will be working on a standard of certification so that you can be in the digital hospital marketplace or the apps marketplace and you only need to sign up to one certification scheme."
Based upon his statement and those of others, US healthcare companies, in return for their millions poured into US election campaigns, want a return on those millions. They need fresh markets and fresh profits. The government and those who manage the NHS appear to be on the brink of devising a system which would enable the simple, painless integration of NHS services into private US health care systems. This is a very accomplished system that charges ever-increasing amounts of money in the form of monthly insurance payments from its users i.e. Patients.
The fundamental interpretation here is that these US companies have lobbied their ‘bought’ representatives to make access to the UK market a prerequisite of any future trade deal. Very quietly, the US is telling Westminster, ‘Privatise Your Healthcare’, and Westminster, London, like the subservient poodle it is, is agreeing.
The only way they (health care companies based in North America) can get that access, and therefore additional opportunities for profit, is through increased privatisation of the NHS. If that privatisation doesn't happen, then they’re only fighting for a bit of that existing thirty percent. They will then undercut each other, services will suffer, bankruptcies will follow, and our people will get hurt by both poorer care and unpaid bills.
Remember just because Blue Cross UK goes belly-up and leaves a medical wasteland in its wake, it doesn't mean Blue Cross USA has to pay. That’s the “beauty” of independent subsidiary companies.
Therefore, feel free to vote “NO” in 2014. Just be aware there is every likelihood one of the many things you’ll be voting “NO” to is the NHS. You have to remember, reduced public spending in England will result in a claw-back of our meagre pocket money under the Barnett Formula. The outcome of which can only mean reduced spending in Scotland.
The current cost of a quality ‘family healthcare plan, i.e. the kind of health care we currently take for granted, in the USA is creeping towards a thousand pounds per month. Can you afford that?
Furthermore, from personal experience, I know that even “comprehensive” cover doesn't truly ensure care in every eventuality that may become a health imperative in your life. Like many in the US, we were forced to sell everything we owned - from our home to my guitars - to pay for brain-scans and tests following a serious industrial accident.
As the UK will be copying the US health care model over the next several years, with both Labour and Conservative members pledging to ‘continue these reforms’, what you’re looking at is a return to the nineteen thirties. If you have any doubts about this, just check the list of Registered Members Interest in both Houses and see how many are intertwined with private healthcare companies. We need only look as far as Ms. Cherie Blair to find one very well-known example.
Then again if you do vote no, perhaps next time I break down on the ocean, maybe one of these new multi-million pound yachts will stop and help me. If it does, I’ll thank you for that ‘No’ vote. In reality, I’d expect it to do what the last one did when emergency struck. I’d expect it to ignore us, to keep on sailing, and pretend it didn't see the distress flare’s being let off or it didn't hear our anxious calls on the emergency radio channels.
You see, like us, if you don’t have health insurance in several years time, you’ll be able to expect that hospital ship to just maintain its current course and keep sailing on by.
Monday, 25 February 2013
The Wrong Message
Creation of a sterling-zone as trumpeted by the SNP is decidedly the wrong message.
Scotland needs to dump the pound faster than a drowning diver needs to dump his weight belt.
The recent downgrading to Sterling brings only one question, posed by the French almost a year ago, and that is, why has it not happened long, long before now?
In the last week I saw the value of my income plummet. For argument’s sake let’s say I get £725 a month. That’s what it was last month anyway, or last time I drew it out. Today they handed me £688. This was, they said, due to the fact the £ plummeted against the $ after the downgrade.
My account said £725 had been deposited, the bank gave me £688, there’s a problem when my bills are £700. The ends no longer meet in the middle. I’m now worse than broke.
Anyone not relying on foreign exchange rates may see it as a minor thing, but with pretty much everything made overseas these days it simply means, in Scotland, when the current supplies on the shelves run out, the new ones are going to cost more. We are all two months away from losing that real money.
In about ninety days, and much less for many items, that £725 a month in every pocket will soon become £688. It will still say £725 on the statement, so we’ll fool ourselves. But at the end of the day if it doesn’t buy anyone what £725 did a month ago, how can you argue it’s still £725?
Let’s invent a little scenario. You’re selling your car, you want £5,000, but you drove it this morning and had a wee fender-bender and slightly bent the chassis – but it still looks not too bad. Hey, it’s still your £5,000 car. It has a couple of dents here and there that weren’t there yesterday, but you've still got the same sticker on the window, £5,000 it proudly declares. Think you’ll ever get that now?
That dented car of yours is Sterling. These are just the first view visible dents. The difference is it has been ready for the knackers yard for years, the rot was just hidden under the shiny exterior, but any decent mechanic would walk away from it asking if you’re insane. MOT; No chance mate, but there’s a bloke in the next village who, for fifty quid like….
We’re now at the point where even the bloke in the next village won’t touch it.
For the UK and Sterling, it means this time it won’t recover.
Expect the pound to continue to devalue. After all, it has for over eighty years. The ability to devalue the pound and thereby steal our savings is the primary reason that Westminster didn't join the Euro.
We've all heard and seen the unrest in Greece; in many instances the United Kingdom’s press have given the Greek people short shrift in terms of sympathy. The Irish have been the media’s financial whipping boy. The Spanish, Portuguese and Italians have all been slated and derided by the papers. Whereas, for most of the UK’s self vaunted media, the Italian’s have always been good for a joke; the Spanish and Portuguese seem to me largely ignored.
It may take once-mighty Britannia a decade more to be in such a condition that Greece looks like a safe haven. It may only take a few months. The United Kingdom’s per capita and national debt burden is fast outstripping that of Greece. Don’t doubt it, Greece’s debt load stands at less than 70% of the United Kingdom as a percentage of GDP.
What about Italy, Spain and Portugal? They are likewise positioned with debt about 75% of the UK’s. Only Ireland, another favourite punching bag of the UK media, is actually worse. However, we’re entering the home stretch and the nag in green white and gold isn’t the favourite in this race anymore. With the finishing posts ahead, the cuddy in red white and blue is set to come thundering down the home stretch. That poor old Irish nag seems like it hasn't got a hope of staying in front.
Except this is a race to poverty, to national penury and isn’t a race anyone really wants to win, is it?
The reality of the situation is that no matter who is elected to Westminster, the average individual is going to get screwed.
Westminster can barely service its debts right now. If interest rates climbed just a little, say to the historical norms of five percent, then Germany’s old Weimar Republic where wheelbarrows were needed to carry the cash to buy a loaf of bread might look like a wonderful place to have lived. Our debt burden is already worse than that of the Weimar Republic.
So, why has the crash not already happened?
It has begun, but most people want to play the ostrich. Maybe if we stick our heads in the sand long enough, we might fool the lion and he won’t actually bite us on the behind. Sadly, the lion has the luxury to decide when the ideal time will be to bite us. The only thing we know is that his jaws will snap shut someday soon, and when it does out collective behookie is going to hurt like hell.
Social upheaval, no jobs, riots, deprivation and hunger are possibly the nicer parts of what lies ahead, if we don’t get our act together. Mr. Osborne’s current attitude of “it’ll be alright” and Westminster’s continual “Nothing to see here folks, move along” are even bigger lies than Chamberlain’s “Peace in our time” declaration in 1938. Six years of “peace” broke out the following year in September. Chamberlain’s piece of paper had as much true worth as that printed by the Bank of England today.
Consider at the time of the collapse of the Weimar Republic, still in living memory for some, that one pound of sterling bought one pound of silver. At the time of writing the value of silver is £300 per pound. Where did the other £299 go?
It was neatly pochled by Westminster, through that cunning mechanism “inflation”.
Surely, we may think, the value of silver has just risen incredibly? No, it hasn't At that time five hundred pounds, sterling or silver, bought a modestly sized family home. Five hundred pounds of silver today will still buy that £150,000 home. And what about the £1 note from 1932? Well there is not a coin small enough in the treasury’s inventory that I could now trade it for. It is worth a fraction more than one old ha’penny. They have legally devalued that £1 to nothing viable in today’s currency; only in Westminster.
Remember, in the five centuries prior to World War One, inflation was by all comparisons, nonexistent.
The only way the United Kingdom is surviving today is by borrowing. Where do the banks get the money they lend to the government? Essentially, it’s invested savings. You put your extra cash (if you are one of the lucky folks to have any) in the bank to save. The bank loans it to the government at less than 2%, sometimes less than 1%. Inflation has swung from over 5% to less than 3% in the last seventeen months. That means your bank is loaning to your government at a guaranteed loss.
There have even been instances of late when some governments have been able to borrow money at negative interest rates. Although, not Westminster, they’re not “safe enough”. Effectively, the investment firms supplying that money have been willing to guarantee their investors i.e. you, an instant loss for the so-called safe keeping of your money. In other words, well managed economies are actually being paid to borrow your money.
The United Kingdom passed the point of no return about five years ago and has been hovering around there, barely surviving, making payments, but not cancelling debt.
The problem is those interest payments, those billions upon billions paid every year are our new hospitals, schools and our infrastructure. Our future.
Westminster is bankrupt, arguably it’s fiscally, morally, and intellectually bankrupt. Like the destitute old lord in the crumbling manor, it is time to sell the family silverware. Except, we are the only silverware Westminster has. Our savings, our pensions, our health service, our children’s education. Like any government in history, Westminster has only one option; its people and their pockets.
This fiscal tsunami will be released in the not too distant future.
Hopefully it won’t be released until after the 2014 referendum. If Scots vote YES, which appears to be the intelligent course of action, it could well be released with early. After all, the release of this tidal wave will only require a very modest 1.5% change in the interest rates, and we've all seen that happen on countless occasions in our adult lifetimes.
Any way you look at it, promoting a “Sterling Zone” is insanity incarnate.
The Scots Pound is already in circulation. We need to resurrect it as a world currency once more. As many economists have pointed out, it wouldn't be difficult. Let our money float, or tie it with other currencies, any currency - except Sterling.
Our choice is simple, since no nation in history has ever recovered from the UK’s debt load; we have to vote Yes to survive or we vote No for long term debt, poverty and bankruptcy.
Scotland needs to dump the pound faster than a drowning diver needs to dump his weight belt.
The recent downgrading to Sterling brings only one question, posed by the French almost a year ago, and that is, why has it not happened long, long before now?
In the last week I saw the value of my income plummet. For argument’s sake let’s say I get £725 a month. That’s what it was last month anyway, or last time I drew it out. Today they handed me £688. This was, they said, due to the fact the £ plummeted against the $ after the downgrade.
My account said £725 had been deposited, the bank gave me £688, there’s a problem when my bills are £700. The ends no longer meet in the middle. I’m now worse than broke.
Anyone not relying on foreign exchange rates may see it as a minor thing, but with pretty much everything made overseas these days it simply means, in Scotland, when the current supplies on the shelves run out, the new ones are going to cost more. We are all two months away from losing that real money.
In about ninety days, and much less for many items, that £725 a month in every pocket will soon become £688. It will still say £725 on the statement, so we’ll fool ourselves. But at the end of the day if it doesn’t buy anyone what £725 did a month ago, how can you argue it’s still £725?
Let’s invent a little scenario. You’re selling your car, you want £5,000, but you drove it this morning and had a wee fender-bender and slightly bent the chassis – but it still looks not too bad. Hey, it’s still your £5,000 car. It has a couple of dents here and there that weren’t there yesterday, but you've still got the same sticker on the window, £5,000 it proudly declares. Think you’ll ever get that now?
That dented car of yours is Sterling. These are just the first view visible dents. The difference is it has been ready for the knackers yard for years, the rot was just hidden under the shiny exterior, but any decent mechanic would walk away from it asking if you’re insane. MOT; No chance mate, but there’s a bloke in the next village who, for fifty quid like….
We’re now at the point where even the bloke in the next village won’t touch it.
For the UK and Sterling, it means this time it won’t recover.
Expect the pound to continue to devalue. After all, it has for over eighty years. The ability to devalue the pound and thereby steal our savings is the primary reason that Westminster didn't join the Euro.
We've all heard and seen the unrest in Greece; in many instances the United Kingdom’s press have given the Greek people short shrift in terms of sympathy. The Irish have been the media’s financial whipping boy. The Spanish, Portuguese and Italians have all been slated and derided by the papers. Whereas, for most of the UK’s self vaunted media, the Italian’s have always been good for a joke; the Spanish and Portuguese seem to me largely ignored.
It may take once-mighty Britannia a decade more to be in such a condition that Greece looks like a safe haven. It may only take a few months. The United Kingdom’s per capita and national debt burden is fast outstripping that of Greece. Don’t doubt it, Greece’s debt load stands at less than 70% of the United Kingdom as a percentage of GDP.
What about Italy, Spain and Portugal? They are likewise positioned with debt about 75% of the UK’s. Only Ireland, another favourite punching bag of the UK media, is actually worse. However, we’re entering the home stretch and the nag in green white and gold isn’t the favourite in this race anymore. With the finishing posts ahead, the cuddy in red white and blue is set to come thundering down the home stretch. That poor old Irish nag seems like it hasn't got a hope of staying in front.
Except this is a race to poverty, to national penury and isn’t a race anyone really wants to win, is it?
The reality of the situation is that no matter who is elected to Westminster, the average individual is going to get screwed.
Westminster can barely service its debts right now. If interest rates climbed just a little, say to the historical norms of five percent, then Germany’s old Weimar Republic where wheelbarrows were needed to carry the cash to buy a loaf of bread might look like a wonderful place to have lived. Our debt burden is already worse than that of the Weimar Republic.
So, why has the crash not already happened?
It has begun, but most people want to play the ostrich. Maybe if we stick our heads in the sand long enough, we might fool the lion and he won’t actually bite us on the behind. Sadly, the lion has the luxury to decide when the ideal time will be to bite us. The only thing we know is that his jaws will snap shut someday soon, and when it does out collective behookie is going to hurt like hell.
Social upheaval, no jobs, riots, deprivation and hunger are possibly the nicer parts of what lies ahead, if we don’t get our act together. Mr. Osborne’s current attitude of “it’ll be alright” and Westminster’s continual “Nothing to see here folks, move along” are even bigger lies than Chamberlain’s “Peace in our time” declaration in 1938. Six years of “peace” broke out the following year in September. Chamberlain’s piece of paper had as much true worth as that printed by the Bank of England today.
Consider at the time of the collapse of the Weimar Republic, still in living memory for some, that one pound of sterling bought one pound of silver. At the time of writing the value of silver is £300 per pound. Where did the other £299 go?
It was neatly pochled by Westminster, through that cunning mechanism “inflation”.
Surely, we may think, the value of silver has just risen incredibly? No, it hasn't At that time five hundred pounds, sterling or silver, bought a modestly sized family home. Five hundred pounds of silver today will still buy that £150,000 home. And what about the £1 note from 1932? Well there is not a coin small enough in the treasury’s inventory that I could now trade it for. It is worth a fraction more than one old ha’penny. They have legally devalued that £1 to nothing viable in today’s currency; only in Westminster.
Remember, in the five centuries prior to World War One, inflation was by all comparisons, nonexistent.
The only way the United Kingdom is surviving today is by borrowing. Where do the banks get the money they lend to the government? Essentially, it’s invested savings. You put your extra cash (if you are one of the lucky folks to have any) in the bank to save. The bank loans it to the government at less than 2%, sometimes less than 1%. Inflation has swung from over 5% to less than 3% in the last seventeen months. That means your bank is loaning to your government at a guaranteed loss.
There have even been instances of late when some governments have been able to borrow money at negative interest rates. Although, not Westminster, they’re not “safe enough”. Effectively, the investment firms supplying that money have been willing to guarantee their investors i.e. you, an instant loss for the so-called safe keeping of your money. In other words, well managed economies are actually being paid to borrow your money.
The United Kingdom passed the point of no return about five years ago and has been hovering around there, barely surviving, making payments, but not cancelling debt.
The problem is those interest payments, those billions upon billions paid every year are our new hospitals, schools and our infrastructure. Our future.
Westminster is bankrupt, arguably it’s fiscally, morally, and intellectually bankrupt. Like the destitute old lord in the crumbling manor, it is time to sell the family silverware. Except, we are the only silverware Westminster has. Our savings, our pensions, our health service, our children’s education. Like any government in history, Westminster has only one option; its people and their pockets.
This fiscal tsunami will be released in the not too distant future.
Hopefully it won’t be released until after the 2014 referendum. If Scots vote YES, which appears to be the intelligent course of action, it could well be released with early. After all, the release of this tidal wave will only require a very modest 1.5% change in the interest rates, and we've all seen that happen on countless occasions in our adult lifetimes.
Any way you look at it, promoting a “Sterling Zone” is insanity incarnate.
The Scots Pound is already in circulation. We need to resurrect it as a world currency once more. As many economists have pointed out, it wouldn't be difficult. Let our money float, or tie it with other currencies, any currency - except Sterling.
Our choice is simple, since no nation in history has ever recovered from the UK’s debt load; we have to vote Yes to survive or we vote No for long term debt, poverty and bankruptcy.
Thursday, 18 October 2012
A single question, but we still get three choices.
I have spent a month back in the company of my fellow Scots, and a wonderful month it was, sadly like everything else in life it is over, for now.
During the visit I witnessed Alex Salmond sign the accord with David Cameron, an accord which on the surface betrayed democracy in Scotland. The Holyrood Consultation results haven’t even been announced, and those who might have expressed a desire for a third question were being discarded.
The key is on the surface.
Scots will still have a multi option referendum, it’s simply that none in the UK Westminster centric “national” media care to investigate, or highlight it.
As Scots go to the polls in 2014’s referendum there is every possibility that they will do so not simply to decide upon Union or not, but which Union. Westminster is hoping the additional air of uncertainty surrounding what will then be our times coupled with the disgusting celebrations earmarked to herald the start of a war will scare the nation into keeping the existing “pocket money” set up.
What’s not trumpeted is that so far, referencing OMB (Office of Management and Budget) and media reports, over 80% of the cuts that are required by Cameron’s “austerity” have still to be enacted. They’ll bite between now and 2016. Westminster is holding off and praying for a miracle. Someone should tell Mr. Cameron, Scotland is a long way from 34th street.
What else isn't trumpeted is the Euro-sceptic Tory mindset. In recent days we’ve seen several major cabinet players come forward with such positions. It appears most of the Tory front bench are lining up behind Teresa May; a person quietly tipped as possibly the next Tory leader.
Where this leads us, and not just on the Tory benches, is to a probable referendum on EU membership, a referendum where once again Scots stand to have their wishes subordinated to that of England in our “democratic” system. Bet on it. We will either stand united with England’s electorate, or be trampled divided. Our voice will count for little other than a distant barely audible OK, or simply be drowned.
It will happen, believe it.
It will happen because the EU Euro nations are being forced into tighter unity. Merkel and the Bundestag want a federal Europe, a United States of the Euro.
Note the difference, there will be a two tier EU, and it will come about inside the next five years. Already there is talk of what amounts to full fiscal Euro zone integration coming on line in January, that’s this January, with the ECB bond buying and backstopping shoogly economies.
When the Euro zone begins direct intervention there will be a de-facto United Sates of the Eurozone, leaving nine nations, including the United Kingdom simply peering in from the outside. We will have no say.
This is because the vaunted veto isn't really worth diddly, as we've seen. David Cameron played the trump card and achieved a small delay, substantial ridicule, was shunned in Europe and received accolades from his back benchers, but not a lot else. The rest of Europe basically set up in another room and did their deeds anyway.
Laughing stock doesn't even begin to describe what took place following that action.
The markets are pressing for Eurozone integration, the member nations are largely pressing for Eurozone integration, even David Cameron is pressing for Eurozone integration. Everyone appears to acknowledge it’s about the only way the Eurozone can sort itself out. Integration.
There are calls for a unified foreign policy, police and armed services, each made up from constituents of the Eurozone countries in the first instance no doubt. Ms. May is already calling for “repatriation” of laws and another look at the EU arrest warrants. The blackout blinds are being pulled down in London.
Where this leads us to is the fact that the already largely worthless but much vaunted veto will become effectively redundant. Since the Lisbon treaty much, most, of EU voting is done by QMV, Qualified Majority Voting. This means alliances come and go, the sands shift, and on most days every constituent nation is happy enough with what it gets.
The issue with a formal Eurozone bloc is that it will hold a perpetual majority in QMV. There will be no further need of alliances, the sands will be scorched until they become a solid immovable block of glass, and that glass will bear the word ‘Eurozone”.
Within five years, the Eurozone will either fracture and disintegrate or rule the EU. With Germany, France and Holland backing the Eurozone, Westminster can already see the sands solidifying; the groundwork is being prepared to take the UK out of the EU to protect the City of London.
No one has yet hazarded a guess as to what the few states like the UK that are not presently in the Eurozone will do when the bloc solidifies its voting structure, but one can expect most to simply join the bloc. Those that don’t can either leave or live with the multitude of diktats that emanate from Brussels while having no true say in their formation.
This is something akin to Scotland in our current Union. Westminster appears to find that option unpalatable in Europe, yet believes Scots should be browbeaten into acceptance of such a situation.
Scots will therefore have a choice in 2014, not about Union or not, but about which Union.
A “No” vote gives them what they've had these last three centuries, a short spoon and a distant seat at Westminster’s table.
A “Yes” vote gives them the opportunity to see for themselves where they would rather be, they can enter into a more loose form of Union with England should they desire, a form outwith the EU.
They could opt to remain within the EU but tied to Sterling, effectively replicate the current situation but within a bigger, safer more cosmopolitan union than Westminster could ever provide.
They could opt to join the Eurozone, because with fiscal integration the Euro will be here to stay, and backstopped by Germany, France, Holland to which would be added Scotland’s resources it will become the currency of choice.
Or our fellow countrymen and women can opt for an independent Scotland, standing aloof but ready to assist.
Four choices, two boxes, one referendum.
Only one box opens up all the choices to every Scot.
During the visit I witnessed Alex Salmond sign the accord with David Cameron, an accord which on the surface betrayed democracy in Scotland. The Holyrood Consultation results haven’t even been announced, and those who might have expressed a desire for a third question were being discarded.
The key is on the surface.
Scots will still have a multi option referendum, it’s simply that none in the UK Westminster centric “national” media care to investigate, or highlight it.
As Scots go to the polls in 2014’s referendum there is every possibility that they will do so not simply to decide upon Union or not, but which Union. Westminster is hoping the additional air of uncertainty surrounding what will then be our times coupled with the disgusting celebrations earmarked to herald the start of a war will scare the nation into keeping the existing “pocket money” set up.
What’s not trumpeted is that so far, referencing OMB (Office of Management and Budget) and media reports, over 80% of the cuts that are required by Cameron’s “austerity” have still to be enacted. They’ll bite between now and 2016. Westminster is holding off and praying for a miracle. Someone should tell Mr. Cameron, Scotland is a long way from 34th street.
What else isn't trumpeted is the Euro-sceptic Tory mindset. In recent days we’ve seen several major cabinet players come forward with such positions. It appears most of the Tory front bench are lining up behind Teresa May; a person quietly tipped as possibly the next Tory leader.
Where this leads us, and not just on the Tory benches, is to a probable referendum on EU membership, a referendum where once again Scots stand to have their wishes subordinated to that of England in our “democratic” system. Bet on it. We will either stand united with England’s electorate, or be trampled divided. Our voice will count for little other than a distant barely audible OK, or simply be drowned.
It will happen, believe it.
It will happen because the EU Euro nations are being forced into tighter unity. Merkel and the Bundestag want a federal Europe, a United States of the Euro.
Note the difference, there will be a two tier EU, and it will come about inside the next five years. Already there is talk of what amounts to full fiscal Euro zone integration coming on line in January, that’s this January, with the ECB bond buying and backstopping shoogly economies.
When the Euro zone begins direct intervention there will be a de-facto United Sates of the Eurozone, leaving nine nations, including the United Kingdom simply peering in from the outside. We will have no say.
This is because the vaunted veto isn't really worth diddly, as we've seen. David Cameron played the trump card and achieved a small delay, substantial ridicule, was shunned in Europe and received accolades from his back benchers, but not a lot else. The rest of Europe basically set up in another room and did their deeds anyway.
Laughing stock doesn't even begin to describe what took place following that action.
The markets are pressing for Eurozone integration, the member nations are largely pressing for Eurozone integration, even David Cameron is pressing for Eurozone integration. Everyone appears to acknowledge it’s about the only way the Eurozone can sort itself out. Integration.
There are calls for a unified foreign policy, police and armed services, each made up from constituents of the Eurozone countries in the first instance no doubt. Ms. May is already calling for “repatriation” of laws and another look at the EU arrest warrants. The blackout blinds are being pulled down in London.
Where this leads us to is the fact that the already largely worthless but much vaunted veto will become effectively redundant. Since the Lisbon treaty much, most, of EU voting is done by QMV, Qualified Majority Voting. This means alliances come and go, the sands shift, and on most days every constituent nation is happy enough with what it gets.
The issue with a formal Eurozone bloc is that it will hold a perpetual majority in QMV. There will be no further need of alliances, the sands will be scorched until they become a solid immovable block of glass, and that glass will bear the word ‘Eurozone”.
Within five years, the Eurozone will either fracture and disintegrate or rule the EU. With Germany, France and Holland backing the Eurozone, Westminster can already see the sands solidifying; the groundwork is being prepared to take the UK out of the EU to protect the City of London.
No one has yet hazarded a guess as to what the few states like the UK that are not presently in the Eurozone will do when the bloc solidifies its voting structure, but one can expect most to simply join the bloc. Those that don’t can either leave or live with the multitude of diktats that emanate from Brussels while having no true say in their formation.
This is something akin to Scotland in our current Union. Westminster appears to find that option unpalatable in Europe, yet believes Scots should be browbeaten into acceptance of such a situation.
Scots will therefore have a choice in 2014, not about Union or not, but about which Union.
A “No” vote gives them what they've had these last three centuries, a short spoon and a distant seat at Westminster’s table.
A “Yes” vote gives them the opportunity to see for themselves where they would rather be, they can enter into a more loose form of Union with England should they desire, a form outwith the EU.
They could opt to remain within the EU but tied to Sterling, effectively replicate the current situation but within a bigger, safer more cosmopolitan union than Westminster could ever provide.
They could opt to join the Eurozone, because with fiscal integration the Euro will be here to stay, and backstopped by Germany, France, Holland to which would be added Scotland’s resources it will become the currency of choice.
Or our fellow countrymen and women can opt for an independent Scotland, standing aloof but ready to assist.
Four choices, two boxes, one referendum.
Only one box opens up all the choices to every Scot.
Sunday, 16 September 2012
What about the children?
At times it is worth a visit to the twilight zone, a look into an alternative reality whereby our politicians only did what is right, what is in the best interests of our society, what is good for the children. Not what is often simply in their own self serving interest.
It is surprising, very surprising that no one in any political movement has examined this issue, more precisely “is it good for the children?”
A simple suggestion indeed, but what if it became our guiding legislative principle, we are, after all only caretakers for the next generation, and caretakers can be good or bad. Westminster is a stark example of bad caretaking with rising, soaring child poverty.
Take for example NHS privatisation, service cuts and PPI/PFI. As these issues continue to impoverish and dismantle our social contract by an exponentially soaring debt burden that has transferred to the unborn, can we honestly argue that this is good for the children?
Consider also that the UK is at the forefront of the world’s list of most unequal nations, and consider if that can possibly be good for the children.
Imagine an updated proposed or implemented Scottish constitution, one that is yet to be written, but one that the current Holyrood government guarantees will include nothing that negatively impacts our children. Holyrood could pass such legislation in this or next year’s sessions.
Holyrood could guarantee to set up an independent body of perhaps a dozen randomly selected citizens from a pool of volunteers to examine each and every article of legislation passed or enforced in Scotland. If it is viewed as good for the children, neutral or wouldn’t affect them it continues the legislative process. Alternatively Holyrood could simply propose an act whereby legislation perceived as not good for the children could be challenged and struck.
This is the only principle that Holyrood need propose for inclusion into a future restored Scottish state, the only big bazooka as the financial gurus would call it that is likely to grab a nation’s attention.
Enshrine the sovereignty of the individual by protecting tomorrow’s citizens.
It will do so because such a proposal is almost unique, certainly in our modern western civilizations.
It will do so because virtually everyone will agree that if it isn’t good for the children, and we can demonstrate that it isn’t good for the children, then we shouldn’t be doing it, proposing it, or allowing it.
It will do so because it will shift the independence debate away from the SNP; from the same old, same old arguments, from the bickering, from the internecine party warfare to where the debate should be, what kind of Scotland we want for tomorrow, what kind of Scotland we want for our children.
Imagine the effect if this is put before Holyrood, as an overriding aspect of future Scots law.
The Union parties would have to vote for it, or against it. Expect their backers to want it to be killed. Big chemical, big pharmaceutical, big oil will all see drawbacks to a law protecting children. The City certainly would not support it because the fees and charges our pension pots currently suffer under as we stagger through crisis after financial crisis would need to be capped or moderated if proposed for future amendment. Parents requiring support from their children through usurious finance charges, is not good for the children.
The principle is simple; the objectors will be many, for today’s adults cannot be asset stripped unless it is deemed “good for the children”.
Imagine the cleft stick that Holyrood could place the Union supporters in. London will be unable to insist on legislation that could be deemed detrimental to the children. If it insisted it is not impossible that Westminster governments might fall.
The Union parties would have to oppose the proposal; they are likely to be ordered to do so. However, if the Union parties do oppose the proposal, it would strip their veneer, it would lay them bare to every citizen of these islands, and they would be perpetually seen as the parties who don’t care about children.
The effect would ripple right through Scots society, it would galvanise Scots as they realise this referendum isn’t about the SNP, it isn’t about Labour, or their more minor partners, the Tories. It would help people forget the irrelevance that is the Liberal Democrats.
It would, more than anything else conceivable, bring the focus sharply back onto the real purpose of this referendum.
That it is about nothing more or less than Scotland’s future, and the ability of Scots to shape it directly without any disastrous dilution of their democracy.
It will remind folk, or shock them into acknowledgement for the first time, that a vote which is diluted by over 90% is a worthless vote when it comes to writing your own story, to choosing the path that you need to choose.
It will do all these things and more simply because it is in the best interests of the children, and who among us except the predatory, the depraved and the simply evil wouldn’t put the good of the children first.
It is surprising, very surprising that no one in any political movement has examined this issue, more precisely “is it good for the children?”
A simple suggestion indeed, but what if it became our guiding legislative principle, we are, after all only caretakers for the next generation, and caretakers can be good or bad. Westminster is a stark example of bad caretaking with rising, soaring child poverty.
Take for example NHS privatisation, service cuts and PPI/PFI. As these issues continue to impoverish and dismantle our social contract by an exponentially soaring debt burden that has transferred to the unborn, can we honestly argue that this is good for the children?
Consider also that the UK is at the forefront of the world’s list of most unequal nations, and consider if that can possibly be good for the children.
Imagine an updated proposed or implemented Scottish constitution, one that is yet to be written, but one that the current Holyrood government guarantees will include nothing that negatively impacts our children. Holyrood could pass such legislation in this or next year’s sessions.
Holyrood could guarantee to set up an independent body of perhaps a dozen randomly selected citizens from a pool of volunteers to examine each and every article of legislation passed or enforced in Scotland. If it is viewed as good for the children, neutral or wouldn’t affect them it continues the legislative process. Alternatively Holyrood could simply propose an act whereby legislation perceived as not good for the children could be challenged and struck.
This is the only principle that Holyrood need propose for inclusion into a future restored Scottish state, the only big bazooka as the financial gurus would call it that is likely to grab a nation’s attention.
Enshrine the sovereignty of the individual by protecting tomorrow’s citizens.
It will do so because such a proposal is almost unique, certainly in our modern western civilizations.
It will do so because virtually everyone will agree that if it isn’t good for the children, and we can demonstrate that it isn’t good for the children, then we shouldn’t be doing it, proposing it, or allowing it.
It will do so because it will shift the independence debate away from the SNP; from the same old, same old arguments, from the bickering, from the internecine party warfare to where the debate should be, what kind of Scotland we want for tomorrow, what kind of Scotland we want for our children.
Imagine the effect if this is put before Holyrood, as an overriding aspect of future Scots law.
The Union parties would have to vote for it, or against it. Expect their backers to want it to be killed. Big chemical, big pharmaceutical, big oil will all see drawbacks to a law protecting children. The City certainly would not support it because the fees and charges our pension pots currently suffer under as we stagger through crisis after financial crisis would need to be capped or moderated if proposed for future amendment. Parents requiring support from their children through usurious finance charges, is not good for the children.
The principle is simple; the objectors will be many, for today’s adults cannot be asset stripped unless it is deemed “good for the children”.
Imagine the cleft stick that Holyrood could place the Union supporters in. London will be unable to insist on legislation that could be deemed detrimental to the children. If it insisted it is not impossible that Westminster governments might fall.
The Union parties would have to oppose the proposal; they are likely to be ordered to do so. However, if the Union parties do oppose the proposal, it would strip their veneer, it would lay them bare to every citizen of these islands, and they would be perpetually seen as the parties who don’t care about children.
The effect would ripple right through Scots society, it would galvanise Scots as they realise this referendum isn’t about the SNP, it isn’t about Labour, or their more minor partners, the Tories. It would help people forget the irrelevance that is the Liberal Democrats.
It would, more than anything else conceivable, bring the focus sharply back onto the real purpose of this referendum.
That it is about nothing more or less than Scotland’s future, and the ability of Scots to shape it directly without any disastrous dilution of their democracy.
It will remind folk, or shock them into acknowledgement for the first time, that a vote which is diluted by over 90% is a worthless vote when it comes to writing your own story, to choosing the path that you need to choose.
It will do all these things and more simply because it is in the best interests of the children, and who among us except the predatory, the depraved and the simply evil wouldn’t put the good of the children first.
Friday, 31 August 2012
Can a Nation suffer from Stockholm syndrome.
The Question is this:
Are the Scottish proponents of continued Union with England purely mercenary or simply suffering from a Stockholm’s type delusion – is there another possibility?
Before investigating the concept of a large section of our populace suffering from the Stockholm Syndrome, it is necessary to examine the background of the nation or nations involved.
Can it be so simple to apply Stockholm’s to our nation that it doesn’t even need, as in my case, either a psychology degree or convoluted logic to demonstrate how simply the facts fit the case.
Our present Union construct of four quasi-devolved nations, evolving since the legal construction of the UK in 1926 is simply an ongoing dialogue that’s principally between the Scots and English, Holyrood and Westminster. Key to this is in understanding that for a captive to exist there has to be a captor. If the traditionally disseminated Union story of voluntary assimilation by both nations into one government, of a benign rescue by London of a debt burdened near bankrupt Edinburgh is factual there can be no case for Stockholm’s.
The background
A look at the history behind the creation of this “Gee-Bee” perception and the psychology that maintains it proves fascinating.
Prior to our present quasi-devolved state construct of four nations there is the older Union by Treaty of two sovereign nations, that of England and Scotland from 1707.
That the Scots never wanted that treaty is self evident to any student of history. Anyone doubting this fact needs only to examine the facts. In Scotland it was signed in secret, with the supporters fearing for their lives. Daniel Defoe, King William’s paymaster and agent of subterfuge within Scotland in the lead up to the Treaty of Union also recorded in his journals that more than 9 in 10 Scots were against the Acts.
It is well documented that Darien was a failure, leaving many nobles near bankruptcy. Not so well acclaimed is the historical fact that it was English and Spanish collusion that were substantial drivers in the failure. Darien’s demise was engineered in London.
With the demise of Darien many Scots in opposition to Union perished, others of the ruling class were near destitute, and although the nation itself remained debt free and relatively wealthy, it was this ruling class which sold their votes to avoid penury.
Effectively we have a captive / captured situation.
There have been many attempts by the Scots to dissolve the Union that prove this, from rioting at inception to a parliamentary act some five years after, two open rebellions and other home rule acts, petitions and finally devolution.
On the oppressive side there have been “the clearances”, “the banning of name and dress” proscription of weapon, and educational acts prohibiting use of our native language. In all it leads to a picture of what can only be accurately described as cultural genocide.
There are examples in living memory, from the simple act of repression created by ignoring the 1952 National Covenant to overturning the 1979 referendum by invention and insertion of a “one time” constitutional hurdle. In the devolution settlement of the 1990’s Scots voted for a “Parliament”, Westminster then “granted” an “executive”.
Having set the background stage it is opportune to see if the current proponents of Union with England, claiming Scotland’s best interests as dear to the heart, still act simply from personal self interest as their forebears did, or are principally victims of the Stockholm syndrome.
On the surface at least it is apparent that those projecting vacuous or unsubstantiated reasons for Scotland remaining in this present union “stronger together” “Britishness is a state of mind” have no apparently hard credible arguments, but almost without exception these individuals or organisations have benefitted substantially from espousing that view. Arguably for them the captor has been kind; they have been elevated above their peers.
Stockholm or personal profit is for the reader to decide – for without a credible third argument appearing, it would appear to be an either/or situation.
No other viable explanation appears to exist, as Annabelle Goldie, ex leader of the Conservative party in Scotland publically confirmed to the UK Prime Minister David Cameron on the weekend of October 1st 2011, “Scotland is not subsidized, the UK would be poorer without Scotland”. The Union proponents have still failed to give Scots a hard and fast third option, they still, after three centuries and counting, have not given the average Scot a solid Union benefit.
Ms. Goldie herself here clearly states “Scotland would be richer” outside the Union, simple interpretation of her statement must mean that Scotland is poorer within the Union. Ms. Goldie therefore supports poverty to a greater degree than is required for her nation, asking why she and those like her take this position is certainly legitimate.
What is Stockholm’s Syndrome?
An accepted definition of the Stockholm syndrome: An extraordinary phenomenon in which a hostage begins to identify with and grow sympathetic to their captor.
Named for an episode that occurred in Stockholm in August, 1973 when an armed Swedish robber took some bank workers captive, held them for six days and stole their hearts. The Stockholm syndrome is not limited to Swedes.
Patty Hearst, heir to the publishing fortune, was kidnapped in 1974 by the Symbionese Liberation Army. She later joined the SLA and participated in a bank robbery with them.
More recently, Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped by a couple for 9 months. Elizabeth repeatedly had the chance to run away or ask for help but did not. It is now generally believed that she had the Stockholm syndrome, in which she formed emotional bonds with her captors.
Stockholm syndrome is a term used to describe a paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express adulation and have positive feelings towards their captors that appear irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, essentially mistaking a lack or perceived lowering of abuse from their captors as an act of kindness.
The FBI’s Hostage Barricade Database System shows that roughly 27% of victims show evidence of Stockholm syndrome. It also appears more prevalent among women. This therefore begs the question, “is this why Scots women consistently lag behind Scots men in polling for a Yes vote?”.
While there is still disagreement as to what factors precisely characterize incidents that contribute to the development of Stockholm syndrome, research suggests that hostages may exhibit the condition in situations where the following four factors are present:
· They feature captors who do not overtly physically abuse the victim.
· There is a long duration before resolution.
· There is continued contact between the perpetrator and hostage.
· There is a high level of emotion involved.
How it can apply in the case of Scots supporting Union.
Firstly hostages who develop Stockholm syndrome often view the perpetrator as giving life by simply not taking it. In this sense, the captor becomes the person in control of the captive’s basic needs for survival and the victim’s life itself.
It is relatively simple to place this into context, with Westminster controlling all taxes, welfare, pensions and much of criminal and social justice systems.
Secondly the hostage endures isolation from other people and has only the captor’s perspective available. Perpetrators routinely keep information about the outside world’s response to their actions from captives to keep them totally dependent.
Following three centuries of death, deprivation, clearances, execution, proscription and exile, dating from a time well prior to the signature of the Treaty Of Union through the present Scots now live in a reasonably just society, arguably more so than in England.
One should consider however that in the 20th century alone there was more than one occasion when censorship was rife and directed by London. This included the reported issuance of provisional orders for English armour to take to the streets in 1919 and in the 1960’s [Glasgow] through the ’74 gagging of McCrone. There were innumerable instances of atrocity that went unreported during the fall of empire to maintain the appearance of “benevolence” to the dispossession of the Diego Garcia inhabitants.
The condition of censorship continues in the present decade as we escape illegal wars and in the last week alone the attempts at suppressing the antics of “Prince Harry” are just a recent example. Corruption is endemic in the state, it’s rarely reported as such, and it’s only a miniscule percentage of offenders that is ever held to account. Even the state needs examples on occasion.
For three centuries and more, the people of Scotland have now largely obtained their information through Anglo centered, London based media, where censorship is rife, often simply by omission, and through the 20th century has been controlled, in disproportionate fashion by the BBC, with the greater portion of funds provided by the nation of Scotland directed towards production facilities in and around the English Capitol.
This was forcibly underlined during the recent Scotland Act, 1998, whereby the Media and broadcasting was specifically noted as a power reserved to the Westminster Parliament. At the Olympics we just witnessed the obliteration of anything with the potential to demonstrate to the world, during Westminster’s showcase, that there might actually be a nation called Scotland.
The message delivered through these media over decades, often subliminally, is that the Scots are now a race of “Subsidy Junkies”. Scots are also informed that they could not survive as an independent nation (while the UK attempts to simultaneously convince nations larger and smaller, from the BVI to India that they CAN survive), and that the voice of Scotland would be mediocre on the international stage. It omits to point out that within the Union presentation on the world stage the voice of Scotland does not exist.
Scots are also informed that as a member of the Union the international community views them with respect and dignity, which is obviously incorrect as demonstrated by such internal stories printed by the often perceived Scots sycophantic press. Everything is filtered through Westminster.
The Scots world view has therefore spent almost the entire time of Union being shaped by London. Scots see the world largely through London’s selective lens; even the weather maps on BBC television contain subtle minimizing psychology.
Thirdly, the hostage taker threatens to kill the victim and gives the perception of having the capability to do so. The captive judges it safer to align with the perpetrator, endure the hardship of captivity, and comply with the captor than to resist and face murder.
Clearly the attempt, almost successfully, was made to destroy an independent national identity and erase that culture from amongst the Brotherhood of Nations. Through encouragement of divisions along ethnic/religious divides, clearances, and two unsuccessful risings, the realm of Scotland was to be relegated to simply “North Britain” throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth and much of the twentieth century’s.
It is in fact not uncommon to still see the phrase “North Britain” used in print, video and other media post 2010. That it was largely successful on the international stage is evidenced by the fact that to the world community at large, England and Britain are interchangeable phrases for the same identity. Scotland is not perceived as a nation in its own right by much of our world.
Our voice is not “stronger within”, it is decidedly gagged.
The dominant faction of the Union (England) began apparent moderation of these policies as the twentieth century wore on. It is arguable the moderation took place after Westminster perceived the case as “won beyond redemption”. When Scots returned a Tory majority vote in the 1950’s that opinion was likely catalyzed.
The centuries of abuse also arguably left the most solid underlying impression in the national identity of the common Scot that both the ability and the will were present on England’s part for an attempt at utter extinction of the national Scots identity should it become a necessity. Endurance and compliance could, in large part, prevent this. Even in today’s Olympics, when Scots athletes proudly display the Saltire it is, for the most part, simply edited out – like the attempt upon Scotland herself from history through Westminster’s control of broadcasting.
With a referendum approaching the overriding theme from the Union is negativity. Scots have heard all the doom cries, possibly more than could have been expected. Everything from expulsion from Europe to bombing our airports, Scots have been promised fiscal and literal death. Perhaps NATO would be a good idea to give us allies and forestall English aggression – the overtone is unmistakable.
Lastly, the captive sees the perpetrator as showing some degree of kindness. Kindness serves as the cornerstone of Stockholm syndrome; the condition will not develop unless the captor exhibits it in some form toward the hostage. However, captives often misinterpret a lack of abuse as kindness and may develop feelings of appreciation for this perceived benevolence. If the captor is purely evil and abusive, the hostage will respond with hatred. But, if perpetrators show some kindness, victims will submerge the anger they feel in response to the terror and concentrate on the captors’ “good side” to protect themselves.
The captive nation (Scotland), from the apparent perspective of a mass of individuals within the nation could be said in many/most cases to observe the union as “Kindly”.
This is because it ensures in the present day and age that a roof is still available, as is nourishment. What appears more difficult for these individuals to understand is that these same mechanisms would in almost all scenarios still exist without the union, perhaps in greater plenty and with greater security.
The Union and its proponents self edit the atrocities, the abuses and the practiced cultural genocide, highlighting instead warm and fuzzy “better together” images, without ever explaining exactly how we are better together.
It remains to be seen what the outcome of austerity will ultimately be with respect to the Union as Scots witness the dismantling of the socially beneficial aspects of the United Kingdom. It may alter the “kindly” perception enough to create a substantial difference.
These scenarios are apparently subconsciously discounted by media and politicians alike, with phrases such as “Scotland’s wishes to be considered” (a statement by Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg with regards to Scots being forced to change the date of their national elections by Westminster).
The incredible issue here is that these statements can be portrayed as acts of benevolent kindness rather than an inalienable right in a democratic society! Somehow rather than generate a universal national anger, these comments instead are apparently seen by many less astute Scots with a type of “we’re being cared for” perspective.
Conclusion.
When only 3% of Scots residents view themselves as “British” foremost, it seems appropriate to enquire how this Union survives. Furthermore, what, if any, are the driving factors for its survival outwith the probability of the almost universally unhealthily decried Stockholm Syndrome or England’s economic need.
Throughout the last three hundred years there have been a great many notable cases which reflect the fact many of us, past and present, arguably, very strongly arguably, suffer from the Stockholm syndrome. There are very few equally notable exceptions.
In cases where Stockholm syndrome has occurred, the captive is in a situation where they have been stripped of nearly all forms of independence as well as their basic needs for survival, and the captor has effectively gained control of the victim’s life.
Some experts say that the hostage regresses to, perhaps, a state of infancy; the captive must cry for food, or in our case natural sovereign powers, or remain silent, and exist in an extreme state of dependence.
In contrast, the perpetrator serves as a 'mother' figure protecting the 'child' from a threatening outside world, including law enforcement’s deadly weapons. The issue with Stockholm’s is that it is insidious; it is invisible to the sufferer.
We can only conclude that, as a nation, it is past time for Scotland to take her position of responsibility in the global community. It is time for individual contribution, for individual recognition. It is time to cease being Scots in failure and “Brits” when triumphant. It is time to stand proudly once again.
This is where we stand today, but with a referendum due in 2014, and those who would vote “No” appearing to opt for decades more privatisation, austerity, asset stripping and social policy decimation is there any other ready explanation than that posed above?
For those who would vote “No” in the referendum, knowing that by common consensus they will be poorer if they do, they should ask themselves why they would deny their own Sovereignty, why they would further impoverish themselves and their children.
The definition of foolhardiness has been said to be repeating the action and expecting a different outcome. As the Union has undeniably failed most Scots, it is amongst the most unequal nations on earth. Individuals who would vote “No” must surely question their choice.
Therapy anyone?
Are the Scottish proponents of continued Union with England purely mercenary or simply suffering from a Stockholm’s type delusion – is there another possibility?
Before investigating the concept of a large section of our populace suffering from the Stockholm Syndrome, it is necessary to examine the background of the nation or nations involved.
Can it be so simple to apply Stockholm’s to our nation that it doesn’t even need, as in my case, either a psychology degree or convoluted logic to demonstrate how simply the facts fit the case.
Our present Union construct of four quasi-devolved nations, evolving since the legal construction of the UK in 1926 is simply an ongoing dialogue that’s principally between the Scots and English, Holyrood and Westminster. Key to this is in understanding that for a captive to exist there has to be a captor. If the traditionally disseminated Union story of voluntary assimilation by both nations into one government, of a benign rescue by London of a debt burdened near bankrupt Edinburgh is factual there can be no case for Stockholm’s.
The background
A look at the history behind the creation of this “Gee-Bee” perception and the psychology that maintains it proves fascinating.
Prior to our present quasi-devolved state construct of four nations there is the older Union by Treaty of two sovereign nations, that of England and Scotland from 1707.
That the Scots never wanted that treaty is self evident to any student of history. Anyone doubting this fact needs only to examine the facts. In Scotland it was signed in secret, with the supporters fearing for their lives. Daniel Defoe, King William’s paymaster and agent of subterfuge within Scotland in the lead up to the Treaty of Union also recorded in his journals that more than 9 in 10 Scots were against the Acts.
It is well documented that Darien was a failure, leaving many nobles near bankruptcy. Not so well acclaimed is the historical fact that it was English and Spanish collusion that were substantial drivers in the failure. Darien’s demise was engineered in London.
With the demise of Darien many Scots in opposition to Union perished, others of the ruling class were near destitute, and although the nation itself remained debt free and relatively wealthy, it was this ruling class which sold their votes to avoid penury.
Effectively we have a captive / captured situation.
There have been many attempts by the Scots to dissolve the Union that prove this, from rioting at inception to a parliamentary act some five years after, two open rebellions and other home rule acts, petitions and finally devolution.
On the oppressive side there have been “the clearances”, “the banning of name and dress” proscription of weapon, and educational acts prohibiting use of our native language. In all it leads to a picture of what can only be accurately described as cultural genocide.
There are examples in living memory, from the simple act of repression created by ignoring the 1952 National Covenant to overturning the 1979 referendum by invention and insertion of a “one time” constitutional hurdle. In the devolution settlement of the 1990’s Scots voted for a “Parliament”, Westminster then “granted” an “executive”.
Having set the background stage it is opportune to see if the current proponents of Union with England, claiming Scotland’s best interests as dear to the heart, still act simply from personal self interest as their forebears did, or are principally victims of the Stockholm syndrome.
On the surface at least it is apparent that those projecting vacuous or unsubstantiated reasons for Scotland remaining in this present union “stronger together” “Britishness is a state of mind” have no apparently hard credible arguments, but almost without exception these individuals or organisations have benefitted substantially from espousing that view. Arguably for them the captor has been kind; they have been elevated above their peers.
Stockholm or personal profit is for the reader to decide – for without a credible third argument appearing, it would appear to be an either/or situation.
No other viable explanation appears to exist, as Annabelle Goldie, ex leader of the Conservative party in Scotland publically confirmed to the UK Prime Minister David Cameron on the weekend of October 1st 2011, “Scotland is not subsidized, the UK would be poorer without Scotland”. The Union proponents have still failed to give Scots a hard and fast third option, they still, after three centuries and counting, have not given the average Scot a solid Union benefit.
Ms. Goldie herself here clearly states “Scotland would be richer” outside the Union, simple interpretation of her statement must mean that Scotland is poorer within the Union. Ms. Goldie therefore supports poverty to a greater degree than is required for her nation, asking why she and those like her take this position is certainly legitimate.
What is Stockholm’s Syndrome?
An accepted definition of the Stockholm syndrome: An extraordinary phenomenon in which a hostage begins to identify with and grow sympathetic to their captor.
Named for an episode that occurred in Stockholm in August, 1973 when an armed Swedish robber took some bank workers captive, held them for six days and stole their hearts. The Stockholm syndrome is not limited to Swedes.
Patty Hearst, heir to the publishing fortune, was kidnapped in 1974 by the Symbionese Liberation Army. She later joined the SLA and participated in a bank robbery with them.
More recently, Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped by a couple for 9 months. Elizabeth repeatedly had the chance to run away or ask for help but did not. It is now generally believed that she had the Stockholm syndrome, in which she formed emotional bonds with her captors.
Stockholm syndrome is a term used to describe a paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express adulation and have positive feelings towards their captors that appear irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, essentially mistaking a lack or perceived lowering of abuse from their captors as an act of kindness.
The FBI’s Hostage Barricade Database System shows that roughly 27% of victims show evidence of Stockholm syndrome. It also appears more prevalent among women. This therefore begs the question, “is this why Scots women consistently lag behind Scots men in polling for a Yes vote?”.
While there is still disagreement as to what factors precisely characterize incidents that contribute to the development of Stockholm syndrome, research suggests that hostages may exhibit the condition in situations where the following four factors are present:
· They feature captors who do not overtly physically abuse the victim.
· There is a long duration before resolution.
· There is continued contact between the perpetrator and hostage.
· There is a high level of emotion involved.
How it can apply in the case of Scots supporting Union.
Firstly hostages who develop Stockholm syndrome often view the perpetrator as giving life by simply not taking it. In this sense, the captor becomes the person in control of the captive’s basic needs for survival and the victim’s life itself.
It is relatively simple to place this into context, with Westminster controlling all taxes, welfare, pensions and much of criminal and social justice systems.
Secondly the hostage endures isolation from other people and has only the captor’s perspective available. Perpetrators routinely keep information about the outside world’s response to their actions from captives to keep them totally dependent.
Following three centuries of death, deprivation, clearances, execution, proscription and exile, dating from a time well prior to the signature of the Treaty Of Union through the present Scots now live in a reasonably just society, arguably more so than in England.
One should consider however that in the 20th century alone there was more than one occasion when censorship was rife and directed by London. This included the reported issuance of provisional orders for English armour to take to the streets in 1919 and in the 1960’s [Glasgow] through the ’74 gagging of McCrone. There were innumerable instances of atrocity that went unreported during the fall of empire to maintain the appearance of “benevolence” to the dispossession of the Diego Garcia inhabitants.
The condition of censorship continues in the present decade as we escape illegal wars and in the last week alone the attempts at suppressing the antics of “Prince Harry” are just a recent example. Corruption is endemic in the state, it’s rarely reported as such, and it’s only a miniscule percentage of offenders that is ever held to account. Even the state needs examples on occasion.
For three centuries and more, the people of Scotland have now largely obtained their information through Anglo centered, London based media, where censorship is rife, often simply by omission, and through the 20th century has been controlled, in disproportionate fashion by the BBC, with the greater portion of funds provided by the nation of Scotland directed towards production facilities in and around the English Capitol.
This was forcibly underlined during the recent Scotland Act, 1998, whereby the Media and broadcasting was specifically noted as a power reserved to the Westminster Parliament. At the Olympics we just witnessed the obliteration of anything with the potential to demonstrate to the world, during Westminster’s showcase, that there might actually be a nation called Scotland.
The message delivered through these media over decades, often subliminally, is that the Scots are now a race of “Subsidy Junkies”. Scots are also informed that they could not survive as an independent nation (while the UK attempts to simultaneously convince nations larger and smaller, from the BVI to India that they CAN survive), and that the voice of Scotland would be mediocre on the international stage. It omits to point out that within the Union presentation on the world stage the voice of Scotland does not exist.
Scots are also informed that as a member of the Union the international community views them with respect and dignity, which is obviously incorrect as demonstrated by such internal stories printed by the often perceived Scots sycophantic press. Everything is filtered through Westminster.
The Scots world view has therefore spent almost the entire time of Union being shaped by London. Scots see the world largely through London’s selective lens; even the weather maps on BBC television contain subtle minimizing psychology.
Thirdly, the hostage taker threatens to kill the victim and gives the perception of having the capability to do so. The captive judges it safer to align with the perpetrator, endure the hardship of captivity, and comply with the captor than to resist and face murder.
Clearly the attempt, almost successfully, was made to destroy an independent national identity and erase that culture from amongst the Brotherhood of Nations. Through encouragement of divisions along ethnic/religious divides, clearances, and two unsuccessful risings, the realm of Scotland was to be relegated to simply “North Britain” throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth and much of the twentieth century’s.
It is in fact not uncommon to still see the phrase “North Britain” used in print, video and other media post 2010. That it was largely successful on the international stage is evidenced by the fact that to the world community at large, England and Britain are interchangeable phrases for the same identity. Scotland is not perceived as a nation in its own right by much of our world.
Our voice is not “stronger within”, it is decidedly gagged.
The dominant faction of the Union (England) began apparent moderation of these policies as the twentieth century wore on. It is arguable the moderation took place after Westminster perceived the case as “won beyond redemption”. When Scots returned a Tory majority vote in the 1950’s that opinion was likely catalyzed.
The centuries of abuse also arguably left the most solid underlying impression in the national identity of the common Scot that both the ability and the will were present on England’s part for an attempt at utter extinction of the national Scots identity should it become a necessity. Endurance and compliance could, in large part, prevent this. Even in today’s Olympics, when Scots athletes proudly display the Saltire it is, for the most part, simply edited out – like the attempt upon Scotland herself from history through Westminster’s control of broadcasting.
With a referendum approaching the overriding theme from the Union is negativity. Scots have heard all the doom cries, possibly more than could have been expected. Everything from expulsion from Europe to bombing our airports, Scots have been promised fiscal and literal death. Perhaps NATO would be a good idea to give us allies and forestall English aggression – the overtone is unmistakable.
Lastly, the captive sees the perpetrator as showing some degree of kindness. Kindness serves as the cornerstone of Stockholm syndrome; the condition will not develop unless the captor exhibits it in some form toward the hostage. However, captives often misinterpret a lack of abuse as kindness and may develop feelings of appreciation for this perceived benevolence. If the captor is purely evil and abusive, the hostage will respond with hatred. But, if perpetrators show some kindness, victims will submerge the anger they feel in response to the terror and concentrate on the captors’ “good side” to protect themselves.
The captive nation (Scotland), from the apparent perspective of a mass of individuals within the nation could be said in many/most cases to observe the union as “Kindly”.
This is because it ensures in the present day and age that a roof is still available, as is nourishment. What appears more difficult for these individuals to understand is that these same mechanisms would in almost all scenarios still exist without the union, perhaps in greater plenty and with greater security.
The Union and its proponents self edit the atrocities, the abuses and the practiced cultural genocide, highlighting instead warm and fuzzy “better together” images, without ever explaining exactly how we are better together.
It remains to be seen what the outcome of austerity will ultimately be with respect to the Union as Scots witness the dismantling of the socially beneficial aspects of the United Kingdom. It may alter the “kindly” perception enough to create a substantial difference.
These scenarios are apparently subconsciously discounted by media and politicians alike, with phrases such as “Scotland’s wishes to be considered” (a statement by Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg with regards to Scots being forced to change the date of their national elections by Westminster).
The incredible issue here is that these statements can be portrayed as acts of benevolent kindness rather than an inalienable right in a democratic society! Somehow rather than generate a universal national anger, these comments instead are apparently seen by many less astute Scots with a type of “we’re being cared for” perspective.
Conclusion.
When only 3% of Scots residents view themselves as “British” foremost, it seems appropriate to enquire how this Union survives. Furthermore, what, if any, are the driving factors for its survival outwith the probability of the almost universally unhealthily decried Stockholm Syndrome or England’s economic need.
Throughout the last three hundred years there have been a great many notable cases which reflect the fact many of us, past and present, arguably, very strongly arguably, suffer from the Stockholm syndrome. There are very few equally notable exceptions.
In cases where Stockholm syndrome has occurred, the captive is in a situation where they have been stripped of nearly all forms of independence as well as their basic needs for survival, and the captor has effectively gained control of the victim’s life.
Some experts say that the hostage regresses to, perhaps, a state of infancy; the captive must cry for food, or in our case natural sovereign powers, or remain silent, and exist in an extreme state of dependence.
In contrast, the perpetrator serves as a 'mother' figure protecting the 'child' from a threatening outside world, including law enforcement’s deadly weapons. The issue with Stockholm’s is that it is insidious; it is invisible to the sufferer.
We can only conclude that, as a nation, it is past time for Scotland to take her position of responsibility in the global community. It is time for individual contribution, for individual recognition. It is time to cease being Scots in failure and “Brits” when triumphant. It is time to stand proudly once again.
This is where we stand today, but with a referendum due in 2014, and those who would vote “No” appearing to opt for decades more privatisation, austerity, asset stripping and social policy decimation is there any other ready explanation than that posed above?
For those who would vote “No” in the referendum, knowing that by common consensus they will be poorer if they do, they should ask themselves why they would deny their own Sovereignty, why they would further impoverish themselves and their children.
The definition of foolhardiness has been said to be repeating the action and expecting a different outcome. As the Union has undeniably failed most Scots, it is amongst the most unequal nations on earth. Individuals who would vote “No” must surely question their choice.
Therapy anyone?
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