Only One Choice and Only for Scotland 517


Would you like to be shot with a red gun or blue gun, sir? That is the limit of the choice being offered the UK electorate as New Labour announces it will keep the Coalition public spending plans and the Coalition benefit cuts. Given it will also throw away £100 billion on Trident, and New Labour initiated the rampant privatisation of the Health Service, PFI, Tuition Fees etc., my point could not have been more eloquently proven that the UK electorate is no longer offered any meaningful choice by the neo-con parties.

It also of course demolishes completely the Gordon Brown argument that Scots need to stay in the Union to put New Labour in to power. Who carries out Tory policies is not the question; and why a nation should surrender its freedom just to make sure Ed Balls has a ministerial car and salary while he implements Tory policies, is not a question which to me has an obvious answer.

The only meaningful political choice any part of the UK population will have in the foreseeable future is the Scottish Independence Referendum. If Scots do not take their chance, all they have ahead is economic decline and the collapse of public services. The choice could not be more stark.


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517 thoughts on “Only One Choice and Only for Scotland

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  • Keith Crosby

    If I lived in Scotland I’d consider voting but at the moment it looks like the same Hobson’s choice of pin-striped Whitehall fascists versus kilted Edinburgh fascists.

    That said, why aren’t English inhabitants consulted on the constitutional status of their country? We are the only disenfranchised population in the UK.

  • Fred

    “When you talk about the Scottish being encouraged to hate the English what you are actually discussing is the little things over the years that have happened in Scotland under rule from London such as the poll tax, trident, etc, take your pick, where it appears that and the English government treats Scotland as some kind of testing ground or backwater to be used and abused. The people of Scotland know that Charles the pub landlord or Peter the plumber has nothing to do with these decisions and hold nothing against them.

    It may be part of the Scottish culture to hate the English just as it is in England to hate the French or Germans but this is something else and nothing to do with independence. If anything independence would probably bring us closer together because we would see ourselves as two distinct countries, both speaking the same language, on the same island and the joke would be “ooh, remember when we used to rule you, ho, ho, ho” instead of “ooh your just a bunch of alcoholic blah, blah, blah””

    No, you are wrong, there are actual violent racially motivated crimes committed by the Scots against the English purely because they are English. I never heard of violence being used against a Scot in England purely because they are Scottish, nor the French, nor the Germans. This is not friendly banter or the joking which goes on between all countries, this is racism and that is no joke.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1114567/Scars-girl-beaten-English-Scotland.html

  • Juteman

    Did a big hairy highlander shag you on a trip to Scotland Fred?
    Where does all your bile and hatred come from?

  • Komodo

    Oh I’m not loathed and shunned by the decent Scots, it’s only the racist bastards like you I have problems with.

    Try writing what you just wrote about a Pakistani and see where it gets you.

    LOL.

    My little splenetic friend, and no doubt confidant/e of Malcolm Rifkind, I know it is useless to try to alter your mindset, but, out of charity, let me try. I’m a racist bastard Englishman. Maybe more racist bastard English than you, who knows? I lived 30+ years in Scotland – north and south – and now live in racist bastard England. Both are fine by me. I experienced no repeat no racism in Scotland. Ever. Under any circumstances, including difficult pub scenes.
    The only fellow-racist bastard Englishmen who ever reported experiencing racism to me had obvious difficulty in adjusting to the idea that when in Rome you do not tell the Romans how they should behave, especially if you have the idea that the Romans are a bunch of fat pissheads and that you know better about everything. Some were obvious crawlers-up-the-arses-of-power, and that probably didn’t help.

    Re. Pakistanis (got something against them, have you? I note you reach instinctively for a group irrelevant to the discussion. Why?)…I would have no hesitation in writing what I wrote about a Pakistani or anyone else, who while enjoying the amenities of a country Her racist bastard Majesty’s Imperial and Royal Domains North of Oop North, publicly and systematically insults the inhabitants thereof.

  • Cryptonym

    Of course the Independence supporting parties – the Scottish National Party – and others have pleasant surprises in store, pleasant in that they’ll ask the Scottish people how they should proceed once the Yes vote is won, on many matters and follow through with the people’s will expressed through further referendums. The transition period of a year or so will be a sort of Independence-lite (though still a damned sight better than no-jam today or tomororow devo-max) and everything from the economy/currency, NATO, the monarchy will be up for grabs or for the dustbin of history, each issue and battle will like the independence victory, have vested and elitist interests bewailing their loss of privileges, but each successive step will get easier as the hold-outs become weaker and fewer, as ever more join in building the new egalitarian industrial and economic powerhouse that is Scotland’s inevitable role once freed from draining its natural wealth and talents down the Westminster and City of London U-bend. My feeling is that of course there will in time be a Scottish currency, a Scot’s Pound, issued on the government’s good credit and inevitable publicly held reserves of a broad range of other currencies and stored wealth in appreciating mineral resources, government spending funded by debt-free issue and high street banking and building society lending being funded only by 100% reserves. With an active stock market to fund speculative and business inward investment, alongside a public sector that jump-starts growth.

    It might be a mistake by the SNP in not outlining their own policies for a post-independence Scotland, whilst the dead, old and discredited unionist parties of Labour, Tory and Liberal, spell out theirs clearly –it’s no change ever, everything exactly the same, unmanaged terminal decline for all but the fat-cat criminal oligarchy. Not being bold enough at this stage to fire the imagination as to just how better things can be once the shackles are loosed then discarded, might well be canny as it shows up the depressingly drab paucity of the status-quo compared with the Independence alternatives there for the taking.

  • Komodo

    read…a country Her racist bastard Majesty’s Imperial and Royal Domains North of Oop North, publicly and systematically insults the inhabitants thereof.

    PS. York = Yorvik. Viking. If “Sutherland” bothers your little insular head, be very afraid of York.

  • Flaming June

    Good one from Charlie Skelton on Bilderberg.

    Bilderberg 2013: welcome to 1984

    Relax: thanks to Goldman Sachs and other ‘donors’, this year’s conference will be cost-neutral for Hertfordshire – despite the construction of the Great Wall of Watford

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/05/bilderberg-2013-goldman-sachs-watford

    This is the fence.
    http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/6/5/1370440264750/Great-Wall-of-Watford-010.jpg

    ‘After 59 years of Bilderbgerg guests scuttling about in the shadows, ducking lenses and dodging the news, that’s the rationale we’re given? The same rationale, presumably, is behind the Great Wall of Watford, a concrete-and-wire security fence encircling the hotel. As ugly as it is unnecessary, it looks like the kind of thing you throw yourself against in a stalag before being machine-gunned from a watchtower. Appropriately fascistic, you might say, if you regard fascism as “the merger of corporate and government power”, as Mussolini put it.

    The same threat of “terrorism” was used to justify the no-pedestrian, no-stopping zones near the venue. The police laid out their logic: they had “no specific intelligence” regarding a terror threat. However, in recent incidents, such as Boston and Woolwich, there had been no intelligence prior to the attack. Therefore the lack of any threat of a terror attack fitted exactly the profile of a terror attack. The lack of a threat was a threat. Welcome to 1984.’

  • Fred

    “My little splenetic friend, and no doubt confidant/e of Malcolm Rifkind, I know it is useless to try to alter your mindset, but, out of charity, let me try. I’m a racist bastard Englishman.”

    A racist bastard is a racist bastard as where he was born, I make no distinctions.

  • Fred

    “PS. York = Yorvik. Viking. If “Sutherland” bothers your little insular head, be very afraid of York.”

    Don’t bother me non, I was just using that to show how petty minded some of the Nationalist arguments are.

    “Commentators call Liverpool the North therefore the Union isn’t working”.

    Get real.

  • Fred

    “Did a big hairy highlander shag you on a trip to Scotland Fred?
    Where does all your bile and hatred come from?”

    Oh yes and I suppose you think everyone who supports Palestine got shagged by a big hairy Jew do you?

  • Suhayl Saadi

    “Oh dear, Suhayl, you’re at it again. In your rushed early morning effort at finding racism, you have overlooked the documentary “Alps Murders” scheduled for broadcast this evening on Channel 4, and articles about the Al Hilli case appearing in the Guardian, Express and Telegraph in recent days.” Giles.

    Ah, thanks, Giles. I’ll check them out. I am rushing, always. I hadn’t seen anything appearing about the case recently and was suggesting that ‘ the MSM has become desensitised to the deaths of Arab people.

    If I was wrong about all that, then that is good. I’m glad that I was wrong and that my early morning error has facilitated your much-welcomed information oin the matter. Thank you.

  • Komodo

    A racist bastard is a racist bastard as where he was born, I make no distinctions.

    I’d already gathered that you had difficulty with distinctions. It must be a terrible handicap.

    Now, if you could return to earth for a second, what’s racist about anything I wrote on the subject? I think an explanation is in order, particularly as the English aren’t a race in the sense legally defined for the purposes of defining racism. And also as I am not sure that calling someone a racist bastard in the absence of strong supporting evidence isn’t contrary to someone’s terms and conditions.

    Hmmm?

    Lots of fatties in Yorvik, btw. And quite a lot of them drink too much. Racist? Not if you do it, I think.

  • Fred

    “Now, if you could return to earth for a second, what’s racist about anything I wrote on the subject? I think an explanation is in order, particularly as the English aren’t a race in the sense legally defined for the purposes of defining racism. And also as I am not sure that calling someone a racist bastard in the absence of strong supporting evidence isn’t contrary to someone’s terms and conditions.”

    Like I said, try substituting “Pakistani” for “English” in the statements you make and see if you aren’t termed racist.

    So you can say “it’s no vast surprise to me that you are loathed and shunned by decent Scots when you put your blethering neb oot the door.” without any supporting evidence. It was you who started the slander. Whenever anyone tries to point out the facts like why Liverpool is referred to as the North and why some people in England don’t accept Scottish bank notes there are always Nationalist Black Shirts jumping in with the personal attacks.

  • Komodo

    Your amusement value rises by the hour, Fred.

    To put it in simple terms for you, and returning gratuitous insult for gratuitous insult – I tried not to, but you obviously want the truth – you are an arsehole. As an English arsehole in Scotland, you are one step below a Scottish arsehole in the scale of repositories for shit, and it is unreasonable to expect that shit will not descend on you. Not because you’re English, but because you’re an arsehole, and a low status arsehole at that. I’ll say that again, because you seem to have trouble reading it: not because you’re English, but because you’re an arsehole.

    For Scots arseholes in England, the situation is reversed. You may take some comfort from that. You might even find it better for your blood pressure to return to what I can only assume is your native land (and mine) where you are at least on level terms with English arseholes, such as the ones who go around torching mosques and even the ones who run the country.

    Thank you for your attention. It’s been a pleasure.

  • Fred

    “Your amusement value rises by the hour, Fred.”

    I bet you just laughed your socks off when you saw the picture of the girl in Aberdeen.

    It’s surprising how often the subject of BBC commentators and Scottish bank notes crops up in discussions like these and I wonder how many Scots would actually have noticed or even cared if it wasn’t for the Nationalist hate mongers repeatedly pointing it out and pretending it implies something it doesn’t.

    An irrational resentment stirred up by the Nationalists is no reason for independence, it’s easier to just take away the resentment, explain the true reasons.

    But of course that is not what the Nationalist hate mongers want, they want to foster as much hatred and resentment as they can.

  • Rob Royston

    Bank of England notes are not Legal Tender in Scotland or Northern Ireland, but I’ve never had a shopkeeper quibble about it in either country.
    Now try passing a Scots or Northern Irish note in an English shop. Is it a lack of education or just badness?

  • Indigo

    @Fred

    If you understand so little of Scotland or the Scots what in hell’s name are you doing there?

  • Frazer

    Ipais for some groceries at my local TESCO today with a £20 Scottish banknote. No problem. Point proven methinks ! Now I will go and open that nice bottle of Sancerre.

  • Juteman

    Fred seems to be a typical unionist troll.
    Deliberately confusing civic nationalism with the ethnic variety.
    I wonder how the English SNP MSP’s feel being called racist?
    I’m surprised my English friends still speak to me, what witb me being a Blackshirt.
    You sad little man
    Goodbye.

  • Fred

    “Bank of England notes are not Legal Tender in Scotland or Northern Ireland, but I’ve never had a shopkeeper quibble about it in either country.
    Now try passing a Scots or Northern Irish note in an English shop. Is it a lack of education or just badness?”

    I think I already explained this but I’ll try again.

    Bank of England notes are widely circulated in Scotland, every shop keeper knows what they look like. Bank of Scotland notes are not common in many parts of England, few shop keepers know what they look like and there are forgeries about.

    If a shop keeper in England doesn’t accept a Scottish £20 note then it isn’t lack of education nor is it badness it is due to a fear of losing £20. It may even be because they have taken a forged note in the past.

    I can assure you shop keepers in England like to sell things, they don’t refuse money just for the hell of it.

  • Fred

    “If you understand so little of Scotland or the Scots what in hell’s name are you doing there?”

    Oh I understand all right, I’ve seen it all before.

    Only then it wasn’t “they won’t take our bank notes” it was “they come over here taking our jobs”.

  • Indigo

    @Fred

    I may be Scots but I haven’t lived there for many years … you won’t be taking any job from me. I don’t have a vote (just before you tell me) but, like most Scots, I feel I have an interest.

    I’ve moved many times in my life … from region to region and sometimes country to country. Each had a different culture or sub-culture. In each there are things you don’t understand … you like … or dislike. You make an effort to understand the culture and the language or dialect in order to play a part in the community in which you live … to be accepted and to accept.

    My question to you had no racist undertones or hidden meanings, it was exactly what it said. To put it another way, why stay somewhere you apparently dislike, where you don’t understand the country and its people and where you make no effort to do so?

    It appears, sadly, that you judge others by your own standards.

  • Fred

    @Indigo

    How do you equate me pointing out the facts about why a few shop keepers in England don’t like taking Scottish bank notes and that it has nothing whatsoever to do with feelings about the country they came from with I don’t like where I live? Did I say I don’t like where I live?

    Do you have any evidence that any shop keeper in England ever refused to take a Scottish bank note because they don’t like Scotland? If you do post it because your personal attacks and unfounded allegations add nothing to the debate.

  • craig Post author

    Am feeling somewhat depressed. Diagnosis on why I can’t work is a spur growing out of the bottom of my heel. Looks like surgery and a lot more waiting. Meantime I really cannot walk more than a hundred metres. (Doctor says it’s OK to walk, it’s only a pain management issue, but if after a hundred paces you are writhing on the pavement in pain, it doesn’t seem very practical). I don’t know how I am going to manage with that kind of limited mobility.

  • Flaming June

    Special orders from Agent Cameron for the G8 17/18 June?

    Irish town erects fake shop fronts for G8 summit http://dangerousminds.net/comments/irish_town_erects_fake_shop_fronts_for_g8_summit_meeting

    ‘At a former butcher’s shop, stickers applied to the windows show a packed meat counter and give the impression that business is booming. Across the street, another empty unit has been given a makeover to look like a thriving office supply shop.

    Locals are unimpressed. “The shop fronts are cosmetic surgery for serious wounds. They are looking after the banks instead of saving good businesses,” said Kevin Maguire, 62, an unemployed man who has lived all his life in Belcoo.’

    Laughable but not in the least funny.

    {http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0604/454399-g8-fake-shop-fronts/}

  • Habbabkuk

    @ Fred (or, the Biter bit…) :

    Well, Fred, just wondering if you’re enjoying being pissed on by the masses for daring to deviate from the approved line on this issue?

    Skimming over the posts I see you’ve been called, inter alia, a racist, a comic (or clown) and, latterly, a Unionist troll.

    Think about it next time you feel like joining the Eminences when they piss on me for a similar offence, won’t you 🙂

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