I spoke to a really uplifting Perth for Independence meeting yesterday – over 300 people, more than attended Cameron’s “Rally to Save the Union” in the same city during the campaign. There is no sense of defeat at all in the Yes campaign and it retains its spine-tingling energy intact.
Many interesting contributions including – a continuing feature of this campaign – several first time speakers, and more female than male. In my own talk I said that anyone who voted No because they believed “The Vow” was stupid beyond belief. Scotland will never be given by Westminster its revenues from oil and whisky, and any devolution settlement based on Scotland keeping and spending its own taxation but excluding taxation from oil and whisky, would undoubtedly be arranged by Westminster to result in a net cut in public spending in Scotland.
I have in any case not the slightest interest in any arrangement which does not give Scotland control of its own foreign and defence policies, and leaves us still as participants in continual aggressive war, torture and extraordinary rendition.
It remains my view that Scotland’s innate dislike of the astonishing wealth gap of British society, the rise of UKIP and the shift to the right of the Westminster parties, the danger of leaving the EU and European Convention on Human Rights (and thus expulsion from the Council of Europe), all contribute to a political, cultural and social divergence which make independence inevitable. It is coming in a much shorter timescale than people realise.
“It remains my view that Scotland’s innate dislike of the astonishing wealth gap of British society, the rise of UKIP and the shift to the right of the Westminster parties, the danger of leaving the EU and European Convention on Human Rights (and thus expulsion from the Council of Europe), all contribute to a political, cultural and social divergence which make independence inevitable. It is coming in a much shorter timescale than people realise.” Absolutely spot on Craig.
I had the misfortune to look at a Soaraway Sun on Sunday today in a caff.
Chequers which Cameron uses for donor gatherings and the like is costing us £700,000 pa to run and maintain. Close it down and open it to the public. Cameron is a carbon copy of BLiar.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-urged-to-reveal-list-of-visitors-entertained-at-chequers-9069517.html
PS I see Ms Mensch writes a column for it. Remember all her outrage about Murdoch?
~~
Mr and Mrs Brooks have no shame.
Phone-hacking trial: Rebekah Brooks drops costs application
The Guardian-Oct 1, 2014
Rebekah Brooks has dropped her applicaton for costs from the phone-hacking trial. Photograph: Mark Thomas/Rex Features. Lisa O’Carroll.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/01/phone-hacking-trial-rebekah-brooks-costs
Phone hacking: Rebekah Brooks’s husband loses £600000 costs …
The Guardian-Oct 15, 2014
Rebekah Brooks’s husband Charlie has lost his bid to recover the £600,000 in legal fees he incurred as a result of being a co-defendant in the …
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/15/phone-hacking-rebekah-brooks-charlie-costs-claim
Juteman
I know you’re not one of the most intelligent posters on here but the following is really rather weak, isn’t it:
“Brown was on TV in Scotland offering federalism and Home Rule. Darling was interviewed on TV agreeing with the presenter Bird that Devomax was on offer.
Most folk in Scotland agree that Home Rule / Devomax is everything bar foreign affairs and defence.”
What, in anything written or said by anti-independence UK politicians about “Home Rule” or “Devomax”, can reasonably be understood to be offering or promising that Scotland should be able to keep for itself all revenues from oil and whisky?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As to your claim (unsourced) that “most folk in Scotland agree that Home Rule / Devomax is everything bar foreign affairs and defence”, this is – whether true or not – beside the point. What we are interested on establishing is not what “the Scottish people agree” but what was offered/promised to Scotland under “The Vow”.
Mary
“I had the misfortune to look at a Soaraway Sun on Sunday today in a caff.”
_______________________
If you consider looking at (you mean dipping into, don’t you! 🙂 ) the Sun a misfortune, how come you didn’t summon up the will power to resolutely ignore its seductive power and just leave it lying there for some horrible UKIPer to read?
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
I hope you’re not one of those people who take the Sun on Sunday home carefully concealed inside their copy of The Observer?? Quite a few of them around, so I’ve been told.
When Scotland gets its independence Craig the new government will need to be careful that US-funded coups do not overthrow the popular government. This is what has happened in Haiti and even supposedly left governments of South America are supplying UN ‘peacekeeping’ troops to prop up a government that Haitians do not want. They want Aristide back but what they’ve got instead is the new democracy: capitalist dictatorship.
Dady Chery reveals why South American countries, at the behest of the hegemonic UN, forget their historical debts to Haiti and supply troops in support of an undemocratic US-imposed puppet government.
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2014/10/18/et-tu-brute-haitis-betrayal-by-latin-america/
“When Scotland gets its independence Craig the new government will need to be careful that US-funded coups do not overthrow the popular government.”
_____________________
One step at a time, Mr Goss, one step at a time; it might be quite a long while before you have to start fretting about coups.
In any event, an independent Scotland will still be in NATO and behave exactly like any other capitalistic Western European country, so I’d put your worries down to your usual Manichean world-view rather than anything serious.
I might consider myself a leftist person except I don’t get on with most of The Left. I can remember in my eager student days being perplexed by the difficulty of being accepted into any leftist group. There was always some test of orthodoxy that I failed, some impossible shibboleth.
‘Left Unity’ is an oxymoron, unless we are using ‘unity’ in its mathematical sense: the doctrine will become so pure that eventually there will Only One and he (it will be a ‘he’) will be the Messiah.
The defining characteristic of The Left is the utter absence of humour and humanity. It’s always Lent without Carnival, as an Italian friend once described Scotland’s drearily Presbyterian Catholicism.
As far as The Left is concerned, we should take old Khayyam’s advice and leave the wise to quarrel. Socialism will get on better without them.
“The Left is the utter absence of humour and humanity”
Yeah. It’s easier to love the entire abstract pool of humanity, than it is one person. I too lament the travails of the Left, which can’t seem to organize a trip to the crapper. They go out of their way to point out differences between themselves with a self-righteous and intolerant attitude. Orwell wept as well.
Listening to Gordon Brown in the House of Commons, proposing the extra powers which weren’t covered in the vow, nor outlined you’d have actually thought he knew what he was talking about, and could help push them through.
The truth is a completely different matter, Brown a part time backbencher, who scurries around on the fringes, of politics, has no powers to speak of. Labour have been touting him to take over from Johann Lamont, in Scotland as Labour’s stock has plummeted to new levels, after they jumped into bed with the Tories to thwart independence.
Brown responded to the offer as Scottish Labour leader by declining it, he vaguely mentioned an ambassador type position, that he knew was in the offering.
As Craig said no new significant powers will find their way to Holyrood, and for those who voted no, on the pretence, they would, well they’re only kidding themselves.
A Westminster vote over EU membership could well trigger another referendum, or it could happen sooner if residents of Scotland feel betrayed by the vow, and they may well feel that way.
Vronsky
Good post, spot on about the lack of humour (I believe you also have Orwell’s endorsement on the point).
“As Craig said no new significant powers will find their way to Holyrood, and for those who voted no, on the pretence, they would, well they’re only kidding themselves.”
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Has the line now changed to “the Noes fooled themselves”??
If not, I’m still awaiting an answer to the following:
“Was there anything in “The Vow” which could reasonably have led people to believe that letting Scotland keep all oil and whisky revenues was being offered/promised?”
__________________________________-
I espy a straw man.
Was there anything in “The Vow” which could reasonably have led people to believe that letting Scotland keep all oil and whisky revenues was being offered/promised?
If so, could someone produce the exact words?
____________________________
Habb 12.41pm
There are no exact words, regarding extra powers in the vow, this may help clear it up a bit.
http://wingsoverscotland.com/be-sure-the-truth-will-find-you-out/#more-62206
The Daily Record are the partial architects of the vow.
“A Westminster vote over EU membership could well trigger another referendum, or it could happen sooner if residents of Scotland feel betrayed by the vow”
________________________
The only way in which a referendum can be “triggered” is by legislation passed by the Westminster Parliament.
As well you know.
Get over it, you and your ilk are becoming most repetitive and therefore tedious.
Oh dear. H has discovered that the way to get under my skin is to agree with me.
“I espy a straw man.
Was there anything in “The Vow” which could reasonably have led people to believe that letting Scotland keep all oil and whisky revenues was being offered/promised?
If so, could someone produce the exact words?
____________________________
Habb 12.41pm
There are no exact words, regarding extra powers in the vow”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~=
Thank you, Republicofscotland.
“No exact words” – in which case it cannot be claimed that anti-independence UK leaders promised Scotland that it could keep all oil and whisky revenues for itself in future.
Of course it would agree. St Ronaldus would agree; “Never speak ill of a fellow republican” Conservatives are more contentious these days but they still seem to understand the value of unity. Hab is stove-in on hive mentality. But their strength of unity is also a weak spot, because it engenders weak minds. Now if only the Left could make lemonade from our lemons.
Has the line now changed to “the Noes fooled themselves”??
If not, I’m still awaiting an answer to the following:
“Was there anything in “The Vow” which could reasonably have led people to believe that letting Scotland keep all oil and whisky revenues was being offered/promised?”
________________________________
The vow promised new powers but, not what they’d be, Holyrood know fine well that Westminster will fall way short of their and the people of Scotland’s expectations as which powers will be devolved.
The beauty of this position is that Holyrood are in a win, win situation, if Westminster deliver significant new powers then that’s a win, if not then that’s also a win. No new significant powers hopefully will trigger, a kind of political civil unrest in Scotland, that may well lead to another referendum.
Westminster will try and kick the vow into the long grass to diffuse the situation, kind of out of sight out mind approach. will it work? I doubt it as Scotland is politically awake, far more than its ever been.
“Oh dear. H has discovered that the way to get under my skin is to agree with me.”
Well at least you are partial to a bit of humour yourself Vronsky. Much of what you say about lack of humour on the left is true. Too many are too serious, but disillusionment and inability to get serious issues discussed, let alone to joke about it. I have known some on the left with a wonderful sense of humour, some great mimics and sarcastic and biting one liners, with an excellent sense of timing.
http://www.pythagorasandthat.co.uk/the-best-dennis-skinner-quotes
There’s even Blair defending himself with an impression of Skinner. I think it is when people like Blair speak that we on the left haev the smiles wiped off ur faces.
In my view the old Left/Right thing has become an irrelevant backwater inhabited only by the visually impaired. Traditional Rightist principles of free enterprise and market forces don’t apply any more. Traditional Leftist principles of collective ownership and the empowerment of working people are no longer an option. That’s why the Labour and Conservative parties are essentially the same.
The issue now is whether you want to be a serf in a global feudal superstate or not.
@Mary: After initially promising much, Louise Mensch’s only significant contribution to the commons committee was to try to deflect hacking blame from The Sun to The Mirror. She didn’t succeed.
“Traditional Leftist principles of collective ownership and the empowerment of working people are no longer an option. That’s why the Labour and Conservative parties are essentially the same.”
That’s the result of campaigning from the middle to capture the most votes, usually the misinformed or simply ignorant. The homogenization of the putative Left and it’s assimilation into the present broken system requires something new and untried; a participatory democracy where wealth does not buy seats in legislature.
@John: I suspect that the rest of the world is laughing at UK People for moaning and groaning but still continuing to allow Blair to get away with it. Blair knows from personal experience that this will continue. But maybe in an Independent Scotland…
2010 general election spending in Great Britain by parties who won seats
Party Seats Contested Total spent (England Scotland Wales)
Conservative 306 631 £16,682,874 £14,298,166 £1,273,110 £1,111,598
Labour* 258 631 £8,009,483 £6,516,412 £967,904 £525,116
Lib Dem 57 631 £4,787,595 £3,987,035 £470,619 £329,941
Scottish National 6 59 £315,776 – £315,776 –
Plaid Cymru 3 40 £144,933 – – £144,933
Green 1 335 £325,425 £325,425 – –
Dennis Skinner, for those interested, has written reminiscences called “Sailing close to the wind”. A friend of mine is reading this and really enjoying it. At eighty he has been fighting off so many illnesses and is still one of those very, very few MPs who speak without fear of what the party leadership dictates. I shall get a copy.
http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/dennis+skinner/dennis+skinner+memoir/9535778/
link http://www.ukpolitical.info/Expenditure.htm
Peacewisher, hopefully an independent Scotland will be the beacon that rescues the rest of the UK.
11/54 = 20% of comments.
” 20% of comments.” with zero content. I think that’s the biggest objection to Toryistas blathering. It’s like a heckler in the audience. The only goal is to derail and obstruct; the sole talent of conservatives.
The “VOW” was a fucking “sound bite” that the gullible all over the world have fallen for time and time again.
” Watch my lips” there will not be any tax rises. Lying bastards, and they get away with it time and time again.
Of course there was nothing specific in the “VOW”. They never ever had anything in mind to offer the mugs.
I new a “catchphrase” would swing it. I tried to come up with one myself. I tried to encourage “YES Scotland” and Stephen Paton to use their talents to produce the “sound bite” that would give us our Independence, but to no avail. “FUCK”.
Imagine if the result of the referendum had been reversed – 55% ‘Yes’, 45% ‘No’ – and ‘No’ campaigners were holding meetings and rallies demanding that despite that decisive result, the Union should continue.
What would Craig’s reaction be?
He would quite rightly be telling them to shut up, to respect the democratic choice made by the people of Scotland, and to put their efforts into turning an independent Scotland into a fair and decent country we can be proud of.
So, Craig, don’t be a hypocrite.
Shut up, respect the democratic choice made by the people of Scotland, and put your efforts into turning a united Britain into a fair and decent country we can be proud of.