The Dods of War ...

As the political logic of the No campaign's position melts like snow in summer, the ballista's of mud slinging break free as Better Together randomly lob shit around in all directions hoping, against hope some might stick or even hit the fan.

Currently they are seeking to bombard the folk they perceive as the 'ring leaders' - the likes of Derek Bateman or Alan Bissett. Folk whose major crime is to suggest maybe the Ukanian establishment is a couple of slices short of a full loaf and, worser, point out exactly where the missing slices are.

The ballistas have all been given famous names; Telegraph, Scotsman, BBC Scotland, Herald, Daily Mail - and yet the missiles they launch can in no way be described as serious Dods of stone, mud, fire and excrement known to besiegers of yore. The Better Together propaganda missiles have a more loose and runny constituency, a squittery affair which 'loups in luggies' and travels hardly any distance towards its target before dissipating and simply running away down some gutter or syver. The occasional splash may just reach and besmirch their intended target for a couple of seconds before it is wiped off without much of a 'by your leave'.

There is a historical parallel here between 1314, the ulcer on the side of 'British' governance caused by the Scots with their Guerrilla war, not offering a clear target, not offering a set piece battle except on the grounds of the Yes side's own choosing, a 'British' political power feeling increasingly at risk in areas it thought itself impregnable - all because, in spite of all attempts to the contrary, there is no main target for the modern day 'Toom Tabards' to concentrate their fire on, as when they try to pin the 'cybernats' down they are attacked elsewhere. This is the growing reality within the grass roots movement in Scotland which is the power behind the Yes campaign - it is a many headed hydra.

The big problem is all across the social media there are wee web sites like this one, taking over 5000 unique page hits a month, which reflect and relay the views of Scotland's 'untermensch' - the erstwhile 'cybernats' as the Better Together propaganda hurlers would have it - the local raiding parties, the underground, the resistance, people who see themselves as 'dispossessed', the folk who need to be made an example of but slip through the Better Together fingers like mercury so can only be attacked by making them outlaws and pariahs.

A 'British' feudal establishment that neither understands nor can thole the idea the 'Jockanese' peasants are revolting. Worse, they are in denial, it is their own actions that have brought this to pass. In 700 hundred years this moribund, venal and self interested 'British' feudal establishment has learned nothing from its Scottish adventures and still considers as its right, 'those Scottish rebels to crush!', as the words of their adopted Ukanian national anthem ring out so plainly to this day.

The similarities do not end there. It is not hard to see Cameron reflected in the effete politics of Edward the Second with his favourites, his 'belle amis' and his 'hingers oan'. Cameron's inability to see how his own weaknesses within the British feudal establishment is his own 'Achilles Heel' nor the impact the loss of what is considered by many as 'Britain's' last colony will have on his future or is this just more denial from a man on the rack? Once more an over weaning and weak 'British' politician has been sucked into fighting a battle they did not wish and would have preferred to avoid, on ground that has been well prepared in Scotland's favour.

Cameron is heading for the political equivalent of a red hot poker 'en derriere' from which all his hurling of the 'Dods of War' will not save him.

Silence of the Bams ...

Not been that well since Friday - my non existent disease (Fibromyalgia) flared up on Friday night to leave me washed out like a dirty rag for most of Saturday and Sunday. I wonder how I will get on when the idiot Smith forces folk like me on 'benefits' to sign up day after day and I can not come in because I am too ill to drive and would be a danger to myself and other road users. I suppose they would tell me to move closer than the current 27 miles between me and the DWP office, take a bus .... there is one every two hours and I would have to walk over a mile to the bus stop and the same to the DWP Office .... when I hardly have the energy to put any clothes on, let alone put one foot in front of the other .
 
Better Together? Can I just have a wee think about that.

On Facebook one of my chums wanted me to read a Daily Heil article telling their 'UKIP world' that Eck Salmond had respect for Putin as a politician, this was somehow terrible and Wee Eck was already doing a secret deal to allow the Ruskies to invade England through Scotland or some equally inane Daily Heil style claim, simply because it had made my chum so angry.

Why, when I have been feeling like fly after being given a good sook by a spider, would I want to go and do that? Waste my energy on getting angry when I have to consciously breathe because my ribs are aching and breathing hurts, I had a quick think about that - 'No way, Hosea'.

Over at the Spectator, Jim Fairlie is stating the bleeding obvious to Scottish Labour voters that supporting a 'No vote' will simply elongate the current kicking they are getting from the 'workers party' and have been getting for the last 50 odd years from Labour - what with welfare cuts, NHS cuts and austerity which continues to pump tax payers money into the richest in the UK's back pockets - amongst which, it appears, the Labour MP's just happen to number. You can see why the Labour MPs think it is Better Together.

Then there is the CBC or is it the BBI. It difficult to tell them apart in a post Fibro haze but one is lobbying for a No vote because some junior manager thinks it is a good idea but did it without anyone else knowing while the other is an unrepresentative lobbying organisation who want a 'No vote in September because that is what the feudal British Establishment requires them to do. These two are probably 'Better Together' since you can not tell them apart anyway.

All across the different media there is this surfeit of anger on both sides, the banging of heads against brick walls, the re-runs of the same arguments, the increasing frustration and desperation of well meaning individuals broaching ashore on a rocky beach of ignorance and vested self interest. An overall a sense of 'they have been warned', and if Westminster is unprepared, as Mr Carmichael has claimed, for a Yes vote then 'Deil tak the hindmost' they will just get what is coming their way - mostly in terms of a back lash from the English electorate as Westminster (now the recalled parliament of England and Wales) concedes on one thing after another, during the break up negotiations, as real politik takes over.

I have made a decision, for the good of my health, and, like judges, when anyone starts to talk about 'Better Together', their kamikaze policies or their toothless ambushes I will decree I can not hear or see them because they are improperly attired to present their case - being as Better Together is as politically naked (and can make as much sense) as they day they were born.

I will call this approach, 'The Silence of the Bams' and feel much the better for it, Clarice.

(PS: Tonight I am having a nice Chianti with liver and some sugar snap peas ........ can't get hold of any Faver Beans ...)

Reply to a Unionist ex-serviceman.

"I am 40 something have served my country in the Forces have traveled far and wide in doing so and have met many ,many interesting people along the way.

I say this because all of them in an instant realised I was Scottish due to my heavy accent.You see to me as a Scot it makes no difference whether Scotland is part of the UK or not Scotland will always be Scotland regardless and it also has become aparent that those wishing for Independence ie Nationalists are actually asking the rest of us/ sorry them (forgot who I was there Mr Salmond) to march forward towards Devolution ..because let's be honest here that is the end game in all of this the SNP have always wanted Devolution ie a Complete break from the rest of the UK."

We marched towards devolution in 1998, this clearly has turned out to be inadequate, so now we are marching towards ending the Treaty of Union because Westminster only offered a take it or leave it option rather than a new federated UK union most Scots supported.

People across Scotland are looking at what we are going to have to take from a Tory Government we did not elect, looks likely to get a second term in 2015, share little or no common ground with and are increasingly deciding to leave it.

Read Gerry's piece again. The issue is not about Salmond or the SNP seen through the narrow lense of Westminster's personality politics but is about the sort of Scotland we the people of Scotland wish.

As a Falkland's vet, I doubt many of my friends who did not see 1983 in would be very supportive of the current 'union' of the London elite who have little to say to the rest of the UK in general except 'Dae as yer telt!'.

Nor would they be very supportive of a Government whose Welfare policies are forcing people into homelessness, poverty and killed 10,600 UK Citizens in its first year alone (DWP's own figures), wrecking the NHS in England or has reduce the self same military you served in, to a world class, badly and under equipped, laughing stock which the Pentagon no longer has any respect for.

I am ex-RN - the current navy does not have enough ships to provide its minimum commitment of one ship to STAVNAVFORLANT and has not been able to since 2009.

Where ever you look this London centric 'Union' has failed its people, it is coming to its historical end and its squealing and increasingly hysterical attacks on Scotland merely serve to highlight their desperation.

Do you you really believe what the current Defence Minister, Mr Hammond, said about an independent Scotland being open to invasion from 'wee green men'?

Which Tory minister do you believe about the currency union - the one that said yes or the one that said no?

How about oil and gas - is it a basket case resource in an independent Scotland or as the Tory UK Minister of Energy stated 'vital to the UK's economy, worth over £35 billion and more per anum''?

I don't know about you but all politicians are lying as soon as they open their mouths is a given, yet when one side's lies constantly contradict themselves at every turn - it does make you stop and think.

Chairs, Deck, Titanic, Rearranging ...

If current Scottish public opinion equals an iceberg, then the UK Union equals the onrushing Titanic which means Gordon Brown is just one of many deck chair attendants.

Unfortunately folk like Standard and Poors, Fitch and almost anyone else who has independently looked at pension and welfare provision in an independent Scotland has identified that an independent Scotland's economy will be easily able to afford its current public services - NHS, Welfare, Pensions ....

Better Together did not listen to Professor Curtice who stated that the Better Together campaign was at risk of becoming an annoying back ground noise that no one in Scotland is listening to.

Brown 'crying wolf' in the face of fiscal reality is just yet another reason why the Union is heading towards its end.

The Scots want substance and all Westminster and its media bubble are offering is hyperbole and 'jam tomorrow'. Folk, like myself, who are writing parody and satire about the Better Together Campaign have reached a point where the announcement's from Better Together and its tame media outlets are just so bizarre, so out to lunch they are beyond parody. Just when you come up with an idea that an independent Scotland will risk invasion from wee green men, the Defence Minister, Mr Hammond, only then comes up to Scotland to tell us we would not be able to protect ourselves from an attack from outer space if we were independent.

Yesterday the Scottish Daily Express ran a headline stating Brown's line over pensions being a 'big risk to Scotland' while their UK edition was warning all UK Citizens the UK Government had cocked up future pension provision and there was this massive 'black hole' accompanied by falling tax revenues.

In an independent Scotland oil and gas is a basket case yet the UK Minister of Energy is telling the oil and gas industry the sector is 'vital' to the UK's economic interest.

Then there is the evidence of psychological projection going on between the Cameron's, Millibands and Cleggs and the UK population and is clearly seen where the actual failings of Westminster are projected onto an 'independent Scotland' in a form of megalomaniac denial.

The very political organisation (Westminster) which is to all intents and purposes an elected dictatorship paints the current leader of the Scottish Government as a Hitler, Pol Pot or Mugabwe style figure. Yet it is Westminster legislation which is directly implicated in increased homelessness, the collapsing NHS in England, rising levels of poverty and the deaths of over 10,600 UK citizens directly attributable to the Welfare Reform Act 2012 by the DWP's own figures. Comparisons with the 1934 Nuremburg Laws are not in anyway an exaggeration of the impact Westminster's narrow cronyism on actual people in the UK.

The Guardian editorial (Gordon Brown: Union man) is both wishful and ignorant in its construction and assumptions and merely demonstrates further that Westminster and its tame London media are JUST NOT LISTENING to the ordinary people of Scotland, along with large chunk of ordinary people England and Wales.

If Westminster fears for the end of its hegemony over Scotland to this panic stricken extent then it should be terrified by the UKIP monster it is nurturing in England and will be unleashed on a 'Yes vote' in September.

Beyond Parody?

Na sir 's na seachainn an cath. (Neither seek nor shun the fight).

Wise words from the old language and words that most reflect most of the folk supporting a 'Yes vote', I know, follow.

The problem I am now finding though is - Just where is the fight?

The Better Together Campaign has become a parody of the BBC Scotlandshire parodies. They are coming up with ever dafter reasons for a no vote - "Maybees aye, Maybees naw - wee green men 'll invade ye if ye dinnae keep hud of the Union."

Today we are being threatened with doom and gloom by the 'Clunky Fist', "The seat's coming oot the erse o' your granddad's pension, pal, sees if ye dinnae stay in thon Union, they'll be oot on the street, in the cauld, starving tae death."

To which the only reasonable answer is, "Just as they increasingly are at present, Gordon, what with your 'Bedroom Tax', lowest pensions in Europe, fuel poverty and being forced into using food banks to get by."

How do you parody folk like Gordon or Hamond or Murphy who know they are telling massive porkies which even they clearly struggle to believe anymore?

Take Cameron and Jack Straw suddenly finding the 'God of the C of E' this Easter, declaring Britain is a Christian Country. Is this some messianic conversion or are the polls simply stating the 'Conservative Party at Prayer' are increasingly voting UKIP rather than Tory. All this before you point out only England is by 'English Law, practice and constitution' a legally established Christian country and England does not equal Britain. The side question is why are the parties at Westminster seeking to bring Shari Law within English Law - surely that is an anathema to a 'Christian' country? Maybe its more about votes in Asian Muslim middle England and UKIP again.

Could this be the Better Together master plan, having made such a mess so far, they feel their only ploy is to be even more ridiculous in their statements so they end up being beyond parody and lurch back into being believable - along with the existence of Orcs and holy underwear can save you from Satan.

Ged is dona an Donas thoir a clothrom Dha (Although the Devil is bad, give him fair play)

Dry Stane Walling

Where I live in rural Galloway my house is surrounded by dry stane walls. The walls have been there since around 1840 when the bounds were used to dry out bones before being crushed in the bone meal mill on the Mill Burn. Like all things old these walls need maintenance especially after the high winds this year and trees roots giving them a right good shoogle - slippage and collapse is evident.

The thing about dry stane walling is it is a combination of picking the right facing stone but more importantly backing it up with tight packed support stones from large to ever smaller, a well packed core is the secret to a good repair.

You occasionally pick the wrong facing stone and all the packing in the world does not make it stable, so you have to go back and redo (forget all the nonsense about having an 'eye' for the right stone its bollocks, at best you indulge in educated guess work). So you fiddle about, change stones here and there and the wall grows with out much apparent effort, you step back and see the lines of the original wall are carried along in your repair then you put on the cap stones, giving the wall its vertical loading, and look at what has been achieved. Routinely I look at what I have done and it looks like a nasty scar on the face of a well constructed wall but in three or five years the variety of mosses and lichens will have returned, the algae softened the raw stone edge with its deep green hue and I will be the only one who knows where my repair is.

This is also how I see the campaign for a Yes vote in September, its strategy and result.

We are seeking to build a better Scotland than the one that has been thrown down by the roots of greed and neo - liberalism and we will rebuild or country to the best of our skill and ability using the people who care, its own people. If we build our wall strong, balanced and properly supported it will last long into the future, solid steady and protective. Held up by all in the 'wall' working together. If we do this, the inevitable scars will disappear and become an ancient memory.

Must go - I have a wall to repair.

Dear Telegraph Reader ...

A quick read down the standard Telegraph blog on independence and the reason the Scots are moving ever 'Yes ward' is clear to those who pause for two seconds to consider the content of the bile, anger and hatred being displayed by 'honest' Tories.

Hammond was in Scotland this week to tell the Scots they would be invaded by space monsters if they left the Union. Lord George Robertson has announced that Russia will get into NATO before Scotland. The RN has admitted the only place the new carriers can be maintained on the British mainland is at Rosyth. Osbourne is still trying to convince the Scots that North Sea gas and oil is a basket case in their hands but announced as vital to the UK by the Conservative Energy minister ... the currency union ploy is now dead as the international markets and credit agencies make clear they want a currency union or rUK can forget regaining its triple A rating in the near and middle future.

Yet still the Telegraph and its readership continue to blame the SNP for their own failure to address the actual issues among ordinary Scots which are driving the end of the UK Union, issues which are far beyond its total and blind fascination with Alex Salmond. A focus on Alex Salmond based on the Westminster medias' fascination with the personality politics of X-Factor or the Voice rather than the real issues of political divergence between Scotland and Westminster.

Not the least of these issues being Duncan-Smith's crass Welfare Reform Act 2012, the ever right wing shift by the 'Toryliblabdemkip' at Westminster and Cameron's recent appeal that he is doing 'God's Will' after which most Scots' sympathies are with the jelly fish.

Time to take your collective heads out of the Tory bucket within which your voices clash and clang but never can hear or perceive what is happening outside.

Patronising and antagonising Scots is not the way to save the union of sovereign parliaments created by the 1706 Treaty of Union which is the UK.

Whether, dear Telegraph reader, you can understand or wish to acknowledge in your anger and fear what a 'Yes vote' means is up to you but the end of the 1706 Treaty of Union which a 'Yes vote' delivers, means the end of the UK Parliamentary Union and the recall of the sovereign parliaments of the two original signature realms.

(Been off on a golfing holiday - news and computer free which fairly cleans up your head of all the clutter and emotion.)

Alba's Adventures in Blunderland

In 2011 the SNP received 48% of the vote from those who participated, all in all 54% of Scots who voted supported independence orientated parties. The SNP in Government promised a referendum on the issue of devomax / independence in the latter part of the current Holyrood Parliament. They kept their promise in the face of untrammeled opposition from Westminster full of empty threats whose only answer, in the end, was to remove devo-max from the ballot and leave a straight Yes / No because they believed the Scots would vote 'No'.

Even now the Better Together campaign remains in denial while continuing to peddle the same 'scare stories' they have been peddling for the last year but even louder and shriller. The Better Campaign has gone from an 'Astroturf' campaign, to an 'Elizabeth Bott' campaign and now is morphing into a 'Humpty Dumpty' campaign, in that, "Words mean what ever we want them to mean". Negative has now become positive and vice versa according to Humpty Darling. The problem, as we know, is when Humpty falls off the wall, "All the King's horses and all the King's men could not put Humpty together again." Humpty Darling is increasingly looking at a big fall as the wind turns against him and steadily increases in strength.

In the meantime Mad Hatter Murphy sits at the head of the Better Together tea table talking to Danny 'March Hare' Alexander, while Dormouse Ming sleeps on in the teapot, all seeking to charm the Scottish electoral Alice to stay for just one more cup of tea as they reorganise all the dirty dishes on the table before them claiming they are now 'clean'. Yet they suffer from being stuck in time, unable to move forward or backwards. All the while telling Alice riddles in an attempt to confuse her such as "When is the removal of Trident not the removal of Trident?" or "What do you get if there is no currency union?".

Meanwhile, in Holyrood the Mocked Turtle bewails her fate and tells all who will listen of how cruel her life has become, how sad she is, how destitute as she is directed to say just what she is told to say by Moribund and Gromit.

In the background Dave, the Queen of Hearts, struts around shouting for anyone and everyone's head (but his own or his pals) as he seeks to incarnate the Jabberwocky from its long sleep in the warmth of Dalgety Bay radiation, and command it to rise once more, slay the opposition to his rule with its 'big clunking fist' and so preserve his status as Queen of Hearts over all the land. The more and harder Cameron tries to smite his enemies in the white lands, the more he is haunted by the ever larger smile of the Morayshire cat, friend to the white lands - Alba - a cat whose head he would love to lop off.

The big problem for Cameron, Queen of Hearts, is Alice is still growing and increasingly refuting the right to be told what to do by a pack of cads - and is reassured by the Morayshire cat's smile.

"I have seen a cat without a smile but never a smile without a cat." said Alice

Dances with Wolves

I just love the smell of Unionist panic in the mornings (and afternoons, evenings - in fact at all times).
Apparently Dave Cameron has got 'God' and is now claiming he is doing 'God's work', 'Uniting the Nation' - in a far less successful remake of the Blair Years.

Bill Bailey thinks Milliband is one of those plastic bags stuck in tree no one can be bothered to get down.

Better Together's big news today is some Tory donor has paid for a call centre to be opened in London to telephone canvas in Scotland - that 'll work ...

Where are the Telegraph / Guardian headlines about how much Alisdair's trip to the USA is costing the UK tax payer simply to say a variant of 'Don't listen to Wee Eck, he's a liar.' or the costs to the UK Diplomatic Service of pandering to Darling's every whim and not inconsiderable ego plus protection officers?

Wee Eck is 'bad' because he and his wife are staying in a $750 a night suite. 

So, OK, where's Darling being put up - a cardboard box behind the UK Embassy? Did he swim to the USA with only a pair of Wilko swimming wings to support him? Why would the USA want to listen to a failed politician who brought Wall Street so much grief? Darling will be eating in Salvation Army soup kitchens while in the USA, wont he?

The USA will recognise and do business with an independent Scotland simply because its oil and gas industry is not leaving the North Sea anytime in the next 50 odd years.

Ed Davey's statement yesterday has already been shot down by umpteen academics pointing out the exact opposite will happen - Scotland has surplus generating capacity England is down to less than 2% safe margin. We have had Lord George Robertson of Poltroon claiming in effect 'Western Democracy will collapse' if Scotland gains independence and Darling making claims on behalf of the IMF which have no IMF attribution but are peddled by the papers and London media as being 'the truth'.

The people of Scotland will decide in September whether the UK Union stays or goes - over four months out and the Unionist Astroturf campaign is already in trouble while staring into the abyss of an increasingly probable defeat. The Unionist response is to yell ever louder, over and over again, the very same claims which have reduced their lead in the first place, claims which Scots are believing less and less in any case. Claims which Professor Curtice has warned Better Together will ".. reduce the Better Together campaign to an irritating background noise which no one is listening to."

The real question is just who is all this 'crying wolf' for? What is the point of all these doom and gloom messages when it is clear Scots are, in increasing numbers, not listening to the 'scary messages' from UK Parliament spokespeople?

My only conclusion is the Westminster establishment is lining up the Scots to take the blame when the rUK economy and currency goes pear shaped on 'no currency union' as a result of a 'yes' vote.

"I'll scream and scream, and scream until I'm sick"

Even the 'Save Alisdair Darling from real work' Campaign must have sunk their heads in despair after his performance on the Andrew Marr Show at the weekend as he launched his rather bald 'Yes campaign bad / No Campaign good' propaganda for this week.

It seemed a good wheeze after all we had the shocking claim from Ian Murray MP that some Yes campaign vandal had harassed his constituency window in Edinburgh's 'leafy' Newington with a single business card sized 'Yes' sticker. It seemed strange that the press focused on his constituency office door which had been vandalised by a local gang rather than the single sticker - but hey, it made for a better photograph and surely would have fooled a lot of folk into thinking how nasty the 'Cybernats' are.

Then we had the mystery Labour MP who has to hide their face when walking down the street in case they are harassed (this is apparently the No campaign's word of the week) by Cybernats. The claim is they hide their head in a 'hoodie' but I recon it is a brown paper bag with a couple of eye holes. Clearly it can not be the MP is actually being harassed by constituents because they voted with the Tories for a Welfare cap or the increasing number of food banks and folk in poverty in his or her constituency which they are doing sweet 'FA' about but hand wringing and saying 'austerity' over and over again in some perverted version of a Buddhist mantra - that could never be the case.

(As an aside; I have come to understand that when a Labour MP uses 'austerity' in defence of their ever more right wing policies they actually mean, " I dinnae agree, bit its fir ra best, there's goan tae be some jam ra morra, honest." while pauchling an increased personal income, the odd non executive directorship along with an ever larger Westminster expenses claim.)

In the Guardian, Ming the Merciless sounded his siren (as in a loud pitched) scream mixed with sentimental mush and pap on why he would be voting 'No'. As he waxed and waned in his fulsome praise of a political system he claims he wants to change (but only if we silly Scots vote 'No' - of course) the underlying theme of being harassed shone through. Ming the Merciless would not have had to commit himself to writing for the Guardian unless he was worried ordinary Scots were being harassed into voting 'Yes' by those agents of the political 'Mysterons' - the Cybernats. Clearly Ming the Merciless sees himself as Captain Green (on the more yellowish side than blue of green - a sort of bile green; you understand) with his main aim to discover and eradicate the 'Mysteron' agents on Earth at every turn.

Yesterday the Scotsman was harassed by Panelbase and Professor Curtice for its misleading headline which misrepresented both the poll's primary findings that the gap between 'Yes' and 'No' continues to narrow rapidly and also Professor Curtice's opinion on the findings. The Scotsman on line version headline changed three times, as the subs fought to get a negative enough headline which did not upset either the Prof or Panelbase. How upset must the 'No' campaign be when they start getting harassed by Professor Curtice for misusing his statements.

Today the BBC Scotland (motto: Never knowingly say anything bad about Labour) had this little headline gem from Lord Robertson of Poltroon - "Former secretary general of Nato, Lord Robertson, says Scottish independence would be cataclysmic for the West in an era of international turmoil." 

Now here is a man who is truly harassed as all his cunning plans to kill the Cybernats' Mysteron controllers 'stone dead' have come to naught. He is now only left to warn the 'West' of his failure, the dangers of the 'Mysterons' and is rapidly descending, along with the No Campaign, into full Elizabeth Bott mode.

The message from all these increasingly harassed individuals in the 'No' campaign appears to be:

"Unless you vote 'No', I'm going to scream and SCReam and SCREAM until I am sick."

Someone pass them a bucket, please.

(For those who are too young to understand the Mysteron allusion - Google 'Captain Scarlet'.
Elizabeth Bott is 'Just William's' romantic interest - though he will strenuously deny it.)

I'm pink, therefore I'm SPAM (the tinned meat of my childhood)

Margo MacDonald has died but the message, the idea, the hope and wish she has pushed from when I first saw her speak in 1975, at the Edinburgh Students' Union, is alive and well as both her legacy and her memorial:

"Scotland will once again be an independent nation state, within my life time."

Margo was thinking about the upcoming 1979 referendum on Scottish autonomy in 1975. that 'Yes' would win and the Scottish Parliament be recalled. This was always seen as a stepping stone to ending the Treaty of Union and full independence but Margo was cheated out of her dream in 1979 by Westminster gerrymandering which allowed the No side on that occasion to count the dead and the non voters in Scotland as, in effect, 'No' votes and so we Scots got nothing except 17 years of Thatcherism we never voted for. So much for Westminster 'jam tomorrow'.

Sadly the young, vibrant Margo of 1975 didn't quite manage to fight off her crippling illness for long enough to see the idea, the wish, the hope she so clearly expressed in that Student Union debate, 39 years ago, to be finally realised.

The national media, so quick to heap praise on politicians in Scotland with as much integrity as was in Margo's little finger. So quick to trumpet the genius of Gordon Brown or Alisdair Darling who with their Westminster chums robbed the UK Tax payers blind - how have they reacted to the news that the woman who embodied the 1998 Campaign along with her own personal heroine, Winnie Ewing? The woman who has been vocal and precise on why now is the right time for a Yes to Independence?

You will struggle to find much in the 'UK' press and media, Brian Wilson's piece is hidden away at the bottom of the Guardian politics page and simply damns her with faint praise. There is a strong sense in his piece that he is choking, not in grief but on his own bile. Brian Wilson, the Scotsman's answer to Alan Cochrane, was the Guardian's best option.

In the mean time Severin Carrell's concerns in the Guardian that Eddie Izzard's pro-Union, Better Together Fund raising gig will be swamped by 'Cybernat' hecklers, gets front page treatment from the Guardian.

You do not need to be much of a philosopher to understand the logic and message coming from the UK Press and media: Scotland - We don't actually give a shit!

Yet again Better Together and their media pals shoot themselves in both feet.

Like SPAM these numpties are a pink reconstituted mass, with a bland taste, compressed into a tin which is impossible to open with out damaging yourself.

A New Life

We are a Grandad.

In celebration of my son and his wife's wee event in far off Japan I am laying off politics today:

A New Life. 

The Black bird’s rising song 
Which only he can sing.
The gate screech call of Chaffinch, 
Before he takes the wing. 

The hidden Wren’s melodic wish 
From ivy green redounds 
The Robin’s challenge, clear and strong, 
Around the garden bounds. 

They all call one song, 
Loud and clear, 
“Its Spring!”, 
New life, abounds.


The wee one is a girl, fine and healthy, Mum's doing well, as for Dad .... you know what sons are like ...

England is Screwed! (No not the Dutch 20/20 win)

"All this highlights two issues: the no campaign is in difficulty – polls show the yes vote increasing – and England is indifferent. Mr Cameron’s appeal for those of us who live south of the border to weigh in and fight for the Union has patently not worked. Alan Cochrane’s cri de coeur yesterday made the point that it’s time for unionists to get the collective finger out was eloquent, but the scale of his task is underscored by today’s April Fool jokes. Yes, I know, it’s all a bit of fun, but we should save the laughs for after September 18. The English need to wake up to the fact that Scottish independence won’t help the Scots, and it will screw them too."  Bernard Brogan - Telegraph

"The English need to wake up to the fact that Scottish independence won’t help the Scots, and it will screw them too."

At last, someone on the 'No' side of the debate has let the cat out the bag, the 'No Campaign' is not about what is best for Scotland and all about preserving the current British Establishment / English hegemony at Westminster. England is screwed without Scotland - a staggering statement.

Mr Brogan is quite clear about it, the time for joking is past, it is time for the English public to wake up to the reality the Scots are not joking, they are deadly serious. The September 2014 referendum is no April Fool's Joke and could see the English being 'screwed'.

Worse Mr Brogan lets slip the FT coverage of the Scottish independence debate is too close to accurate for his liking, he dislikes its apparent enthusiasm for the pro-Yes camp in the articles it is routinely publishing. Sadly Mr Brogan has lost the ability to discern balanced reporting when he sees it, as is clearly seen in his praise Alan Cochrane whose columns are met by most Scots with scorn and laughter.

The problem for Mr Brogan to address is just who is going to apply the breaks to the Better Together too poor, too wee, too stupid campaign as its speed ever increases well past the point of  'safe braking' and a 'soft landing'?

How will Mr Brogan reverse nearly two years of London based media antipathy towards Scotland?

How will an England, presented in the media as being scornful and indifferent to Scottish wishes, turn itself back through 180 degrees?

The nonsense around a currency union has deafened even more Scottish ears to Westminster whining, every 'Scotland cannae dae it' appeal comes up against a barrage of informed comment from knowledgeable pro-Scottish Independence bloggers and is often stopped in its tracks before it starts - as seen in yesterday's Barrhead Travel fiasco which lead to folk cancelling their holidays in disgust and left the board of Barrhead Travel sending out press releases that the founding father was not speaking on behalf of the board, on which he is a 'non-executive' director. Is this Barrhead Travel's Gerald Ratner moment?

This is not Scots being prickly, this is Scots saying we have had enough of your trashing of Scotland, in fact we are fed up with the rubbish coming out of 'Better Together', full stop.  The point is rapidly arriving where Better Together is becoming - in Professor Curtice's words, '..just an irritating noise in the background.'

The Better Together Campaign's Grand National horse, 'Too poor, too wee, too stupid', lost its rider at the first and is increasingly just a nuisance to riders, causing horses to trip and fall - the latest faller being 'No Currency Union' trained by A Darling, ridden by the Three Stooges and owned by D Cameron.