Thursday 31 July 2014

Silence

Currently dealing with personal issues to have time for politician’s lies,vanity or self seeking glory. For the next few days you will need to deal with this for yourself. Good luck with that folks.

Sunday 27 July 2014

Darling? Nob End or Dickhead?

After my burst of creativity in the early part of last week a combination of the sun (a stranger to Scotland), golf and just being so completely flabbergasted at the duplicity of Westminster and the US over the genocide in Gaza and their siding with a Zionist State which increasing resembles the state that nearly wiped out European Jewry between 1936 and 1945 silenced me. I found I had nothing to say which would not have contained 'F'in Bastards or total *^!ts' every second word or so. Even Buddhists seeking the path of 'peace and enlightenment' get just a little bit mad when the BBC, the London media and the world establishment in general are trying to persuade you that a 25Kg warhead fired by Hamas + the death of ten Israeli soldiers = 10 x 1000 Kg Israeli free fall DIME bombs + 100 x 155mm high explosive / phosphorous shells justifies the 100+ dead children in Gaza ( then there is the small number of maimed children before we even count the innocent adults killed or maimed by Israel)?

So silence has reigned as unlike the numpty on the car insurance advert I had no special pal at Aviva or anywhere else to aid my return to tranquility and inner calm. The No Campaign's petty politicking over the Red Arrow's plume trail caused me not a stir, the Glasgow City Tammany Hall Orange Order outing to Ibrox did not register, Darling's attempt to turn Wee Eck's speech at the opening ceremony into a major political stushy passed me by but this morning my inner peace did not simply tremble, nor did it contain itself in a meditative silence but was ripped apart as if struck by a 105mm IDF tank shell.

What caused this eruction, this tearing of the fabric of my inner peace? 


Today's Herald carries yet anther re-hash of the 'Iron Curtain will descend on Scotland's borders if we vote Yes in September' load of old bull  from that 'Weapon the Moronic Darling'. Yes folk's, today's number plucked from the air is a cost of £8 billion a year. Now there is no point asking how this back of a fag packet number was actually arrived at but we can guess that the WMD's suppliers of crass misinformation at the OBR thought along the lines of  'Just how big do we need to make this number to make it sound scarey? £8 billion sounds about right so let's fix the data to make it look a realistic figure.'


There are the odd holes in this argument (OK the argument has more holes than a Gruyere Cheese and stinks to high heaven) but amongst the more obvious ones are:
  1. The cost of the running and building the 'Border' will be borne by the rUK Government and it will be a damned site more than £8 billion
  2. The cost to rUK trade with Scotland will hit the SME's in England hardest, the very businesses they need to grow pretty quickly to prevent the upcoming melt down in the world's fiscal markets bankrupting rUK
  3. Both countries will be in the EU (at least until 2020) and have to allow the free flow of EU trade and EU citizens across their borders 
You have to ask just what sort of shit is WMD on, it must be cut with 90% Vim ...

Wednesday 23 July 2014

Commonwealth Games

Glasgow is all hyped up with nowhere to go, travel lanes have been marked around the city so VIP's can be whisked from one photo opportunity to the next and even may occasionally take in a few points at the Ping Pong or watch the 'Guess the Weight on the bar' competitions (both with extra photo opportunities) while serially ignoring the real competition happening on the other side of the flash bulbs.

First up in the VIP Games will be the heats of the getting your anti-Scottish independence comment in first, in lane:

  1. Provost 'Brown Envelope' Matheson - we could never have done this with out Westminster's support
  2. Secretary of State for Portsmouth - this is why we are Better Together
  3. Geezajob Dugdale - Eh, what ever wee Doogie's said is OK by me
  4. David 'The Blob' Cameron - Scottish Independence will risk the Commonwealth Games' future
  5. Ed 'Where am I' Milliband - Only the Labour Party can save the Scots from themselves and their deadly wish to be socialists
  6. Jo Lamont - Eh, well, aye, but, then, Salmond's a right bastirt so he is
  7. Doogie 'the back stabber' Alexander - Wee Eck's waving that Saltire again, typical Nazi
  8. Danny 'not enough fingers and toes' Alexander - Memememe, Mememe ...
In the commentary box and BBC 'Argos' Gazebo on Glasgow Green the anal-isers and pundits will be in full flow;

"Well, 'Dunkin Donut' Taylor, who do you think will go through to the next round?"

"For me it has to be Jo Lamont, she has been in great form in the trials at Holyrood, easily ahead on the bullshitting count, leaving the Eck 'The Dictator of Scotland' in her wake every Thursday. She has the form and the advantage of being totally unintelligible to most of the Commonwealth (and most Scots when it comes down to it), I would put money on her at the current 100:1 against, a good bet."

"Who's it for you Skeletor Murphy?"


"Claire, I cannae see past Milliband, he's ma dead cert. I have been involved in advising oan his coaching fir this event an if he keeps tae the script an is lang as he tak's his thumb oot his erse and engages whit we humourously ca' his brain, he'll be jist fine .... Ma second runner's wee Doogie 'the backstabber' a viscious wee c(Bleep) wha did fir his ain sister, sae Wee Eck 'll be nae problemo, ah predict Wee Doogie 'll tak Salmond aff at the knees .....

That will be Reporting Scotland's line up, for the next two weeks, sorted. As for the actual games, the BBC is not really interested, they are in Scotland and nothing interesting ever happens in Scotland.

Tuesday 22 July 2014

How deep is the well?

As my bladder lurches towards its seventh decade, the late night luxury of having a mug of tea while reading a book in bed is losing its appeal - mostly because by 0530 I am awoken from my slumber to empty said bladder. Most night's the stumble to the loo and back is undertaken without emerging far from the cocoon of sleep but on other occasions the old brain starts whirring and clunking away and Hamlet style you head into the area of  'to sleep perchance to dream'. You see, as I have gotten older I have realised I suffer from the twin evils of compassion and empathy. These two conditions render you foreign in a society where 'me' and being a 'personality' is the sole driving force, to consider all points of view is a weakness and to seek to hold those in power to account insane.

People like me are dangerous criminals in the eyes of Government and, sadly, a fair chunk of my fellow dwellers on this Earth. We rock the boat, upset the status quo and never do what we are told to do. In the eyes of the current neo-liberal dystopia across the world we are weak soft 'lefties' crying over spilled milk, worse we are 'Commie Bastards' because we do not buy into group think where ever it comes from (even from real 'Commie Bastards'). One of the major draw backs of compassion and empathy is you understand there is no 'quick fix' for the human condition, in fact there is no actual 'fix' at all and politicians who try to sell you one are simply con merchants.

  • Yes:  I believe Scotland has the opportunity to be a fairer country on independence
  • No: I do not think Wee Eck is a God and infallible
  • Yes: the SNP have some good ideas for a future independent Scotland but the proof will be in the eating and they will disappoint all of us by differing amounts
  • No: The SNP are not the sole fount of good ideas for Scotland's future and the d'Hondt system at Holyrood will ensure the little voices are heard
  • Yes: Scotland will have to take some set backs on a Yes vote
  • No: Keeping the status quo of the current rancid and foetid system of UK Government is not the solution to avoid this risk - the status quo is the only clearly defined risk to fairness in Scotland.
The Yes / No list could drag on for pages but I trust you get the point, nothing is actually definitive and folk with compassion and empathy understand this, it is why we put people and not ideas first and have this bizarre idea of 'fairness' being the best way to resolve the world's problems. In my world, fairness does not automatically mean equality because attempts to create 'equality' routinely collapse into snake oil salesman politics as a 'fix', a measurement of 'success' by individuals with a cause but no real sense of 'fairness'. The USA may no longer be as deliberately racist as it once was in my childhood, in this sense it may be a more equal society but given the levels of poverty and destitution it is not a 'fair' society by any means.

The UK since women's suffrage in the 1920's, may be a more 'equal' society in terms of gender but in terms of  gender fairness the UK has still a long way to go - as amply demonstrated this week by Mr Cameron's reshuffle of his 'Lordlings' as a gender related, cost saving device.


The major failing of the human condition, in spite of mountains of evidence to demonstrate the opposite being true, is we like the idea of a 'quick fix' which does not require any thinking on our part. Folk spend a fortune paying to hear other folk telling them how to get rich quickly (here the secret being you get folk to pay a fortune to hear you telling them how to get rich quickly). Out of the thousand packed into the conference hall in Harrogate or where ever how many will? The answer is the same number as would out of a thousand people who did not go to Harrogate because the people who take the risks required to get rich are few and far between. The people who get rich by ethical means are even fewer than that - acquiring money requires the ability to tramp over others in a psychotic manner and is neither fair nor equal, you have to be sharper and more dedicated (i.e. greedier) than the next person. Luckily most humans are not that psychotic, a fact the rich and the politicians rely on.

Religion is another human method of seeking a 'quick fix' by projecting the problem and solution onto something else, rarely are religions either fair or equal even though most have been based on this core premise at the start - the priestly castes, quickly, like the rich and the politicians, realise they are onto a good thing and start lining their own pockets - for the glory of their God or God's which makes it 'OK'
.

The reality in an independent Scotland is the rich, the politicians and the religious will still be with us because whether we like it or not they are part and parcel of what Scotland is and to some extent they are clearly necessary to create a Scotland we can be proud of - that is what empathy tells me.

What compassion tells me is to ensure we create the fair society, we Scots at large seem to desire, means that after a Yes vote in September 2014, the electorate of Scotland can not drift back into the standard apathy of leaving it to the politicians. We, the people of Scotland, will need to stay alert, stay engaged and ensure the politicians and others of influence are held to account at every turn or this great opportunity of creating a fairer Scotland will drift away like smoke on the wind.

As the Scottish electorate, our responsibilities to this new, fairer Scotland does not end with a cross in the Yes box in September, that cross is only the beginning.

Monday 21 July 2014

I'll not be British!

Geographically the term for the archipelago of islands on the edge of Europe is the British Isles.

The archipelago is split into four main national / ethnic groupings, Irish, Scots, Welsh and English.

Unless Mr Salmond is going to tow Scotland somewhere else, on a Yes vote, or Cameron is going to shift England across the Mid Atlantic trench to become what it increasingly is, a US Federal State in all but name; the British Isles will still be here, only the politics will have changed, and folk will still be able to call themselves 'British' if they so wish, signifying they come from these islands.

Now if the Ms Bunting is having problems with her English identity and how this identity is reflected in the world's eyes; this is her own problem and one that will not be resolved by the Scots staying or going. To be honest given the ever more rancid, rabid, anti-social, right wing, racist, isolationist politics now at large in England, I too would feel uncomfortable admitting I am English outside of England and would much prefer to describe myself as 'British'.

Yet without Scotland the world will become completely convinced, if it is not yet, the British = English. Anyway calling yourself British, in this situation, is in fact a cop out to pretend you are not part of an English Electorate which is responsible for voting Cameron into power in 2010 or Thatcher in 1979 which is at the core of why an ever increasing number of Scots are leaning towards a Yes vote.


Time for folk like Ms Bunting to admit to being English because only then will they begin to take responsibility for their part in the shit heap the UK has become.

Sunday 20 July 2014

Zionists - what is the point of them?

You remember the Sudetenland?

What is the difference between that expansion and Zionist Israel's continual move onto Palestinian lands guaranteed to the Palestinians by UN mandate?

You remember the SS assault and the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance in 1943?

What is the difference between the SS and what Zionists are doing in the Gaza Strip in 2014?

Zionists use the Holocaust for their own political ends and have failed to learn anything from the experience except how to hate and justify the Zionist version of lebenstraum. The irony is Zionists have become exactly like hated system which almost wiped out European Jewry between 1936 and 1945 - they simply refuse to acknowledge this.
 

Just how can this be called Anti-Semitic?

Anti-Zionist most certainly but that also reflects the view of many of the Jewish faith across Europe, as seen their support for the pro-Palestinian protests across Europe.

Yet the London based media are still giving column inches to Zionist apologists who still try to tell us, in as many words, it does not matter how many Palestinians die, it is the Palestinians own fault, such as this in the Guardian.


Words simply fail me.

Friday 18 July 2014

The NHS is safe in my hands ....

Oh how we health care professionals across the UK laughed at that bullshit from Cameron because it was either that or cutting our own throats. Successive Tory and Labour Governments had been hiving off chunks of the NHS, across the UK, to the private sector since the early 1980's. Devolution saw this process halted in Wales and Scotland. NHS Scotland saw a reversal of much of this privatisation when we elected the SNP to Holyrood in 2007 but the damage caused to many Scottish Hospital Trusts and Health Boards by poorly scoped PFI contracts still cuts hard into budgets for patient care.

Over two years ago, on a Question Time in Liverpool, that spawn of Satan (also known as Alex Salmond) warned the BBC listeners what was happening to the NHS in England, why the impact of the cuts to NHS England was critical to Scotland and why the SNP had refused to follow NHS England's 'lead' on hiving off services to private health companies.

As long as the English continue to swallow the NHS England bashing propaganda from the London based media it is estimated we have five years before NHS England will be publicly paid for but privately run for profit. If we want to know how that will look head over to New York and spend a weekend in the A&E department of one of the 'public hospitals', then ponder just what is so bad with current A&E in England or Scotland.

Given the growing conflict between the GDC, Government and the UK's dentists, we could also be seeing the final end of NHS Dentistry in England, inside two years, as a combination of an unworkable NHS England dental contract, the importation of dentists not up to UK standards and the GDC's attempt to double the registration fee to cover the increasing costs of disciplinary action against these poorly qualified dentists brought in to cover successive government's attempts to fill the gaps in NHS Dental provision - tips even Daily Mail / Telegraph reading dentists over the edge.

Why do they import dentists?

Because the UK as a whole does not train enough dentists to meet its needs and is seeing the bulk of its current dental professionals now reaching retirement, the bulk of whom qualified between 1970 and 1980 before the Tories cull of UK University Dental places in the mid 80's to save money. There is a big hole in dental home trained 'manpower' not helped by the increased numbers of lady graduates who, quite correctly, want to take time out to have a family between the ages of 30 and 40, a gap the Tories cuts never allowed for, and the ladies often return on a job share basis to better balance child care needs - a situation now increasingly seen amongst GPs as well. The SNP are seeking to address this shortage in Scotland by opening a new dental course at Aberdeen University. The problem is on most Scottish dental courses 60% of the students are from outside Scotland, attracted to Scotland by the perceived high standard and reputation of our University dental courses (the UK has been importing doctors from the Commonwealth and now the EU since the early 60's for much the same reasons, the problem is the same as with NHS Dentists, most GP's are now reaching retiral age in a large group).

Of course it is 'greedy professionals' who are causing all the problems in NHS England and not the incompetent Westminster politicians nor their out of control Health Quangos and 'Jobs Worths' in the Department of Health for England.

I fear NHS England has already been mostly sold off via Brown's PFI scam and the Tories are simply tidying up the remaining loose ends. If you want to get an idea of NHS England's future get on the 1730 Glasgow Pendolino from Euston on a Friday - where you will more than likely have to stand until Carlisle,
the food sold out by Rugby, the toilets will have failed by Crewe and you will be unable to stand any more of the pathetic staff apologies by the time the train is cleared away from the platform at Euston.

Welcome to NHS Scotland on a 'NO' vote.

Thursday 17 July 2014

Better Together - for Whom (2)?

Child poverty is on an exponential rise across the UK and the Tories' favourite think tank comes up with this.

Meanwhile, according to Rowntree Foundation research, a further 80,000 children will be reduced to poverty by the current misguided Welfare Reform Act, in Scotland alone, by 2017.


Sadly the Daily Mail Tories are so besotted with the idea of the 'great unwashed' they do not understand what is actually happening. Folk who previously struggled but 'got by', with two adults working shifts around child care, are the ones who are now having to be supported by foodbanks, even though they are still working, so they can feed themselves and their families.
 

The reason being they are decent people who do not want to be on 'benefits', benefits forced on them by the slave wages of Tory policy and the Government making their pay up to a living wage by said benefits, they would prefer to have a proper wage so they can pay their own way and not be reliant on benefits in the first place. 

Yet they face a Tory Government which is now cutting said benefits to make the UK 'more competitive' in its rush to implement even dafter right wing policies than the US Republican Party, it seeks to ape at every turn.

The reality is it is not the so called 'benefit junkies' who are the problem but successive UK Government's subsidising low wages so their pals in the corporates can make big profits (on which they have currently failed to pay £22 billion in taxes) at everyone else expense who then chuck the UK politicians a £50,000 directorship here or £100,000 party donation there to keep them sweet.

Here's another way of looking at things: 

Currently the UK Taxpayer subsidises UK Corporates to the tune of the UK Welfare costs + Tax avoidance schemes (British Virgin Island's Offshore accounts, etcetera) + the £22 billion in unpaid tax in 2012-13 alone.

The question we need to ask the Westminster apologists in the London media and in the Better Together - No Thanks campaign; just who are the biggest leeches on the UK Taxpayer?

The poorest in the UK or the richest?

In 2015 we have a stark choice, on a 'No' vote in Scotland, to have the Welfare State and NHS dismembered by Cameron or by Milliband - a Hobson's choice which will be made on Scotland's behalf by a small percentage of the English electorate in the Midland and Southern England 'swing seats'.

Better Together for whom?

Wednesday 16 July 2014

Better Together - for whom?

To a friend who is a Better Together supporter:

Dear ......

Maybe you can make a positive case for the Union because the Better Together - No thanks Campaign has failed miserably to do so.


So far it appears we are Better Together so Cameron can afford his new nuclear toy but for this massive reason for being Better Together to happen the NHS has to be sold off to USA medical companies and Scotland gets to store enough nuclear warheads to reduce it to an ash pit because the weapons and their missiles are too dangerous to be stored anywhere else.

Other great advantages after the privatisation of the NHS are an exponential increase in poverty in Scotland, greater inequality and having the Central Belt fracked to blazes - on the downside is the plutocratic nature of Westminster, the corruption of Westminster politics by oligarchs and a UK fiscal policy that sucks the life out of the rest of the UK to keep the lights on in London .... there is also the small problem of an unaccountable executive and a democratic deficit created by a two party system where both parties run the same policies right down to their policies on NHS privatisation and the Bedroom Tax.

Not even the BBC's Robert Peston could get anyone to say that an independent Scotland's economy would be significantly different in that it generates year on year around an 8.7% surplus on its turn over ( or GDP) for the UK Treasury. It appears the top 100 companies in Scotland's stock returns are unlikely to be effected either according to research by the LSE as their yields are likely to stay much as they are.

So there is no economic argument, the EU entry will be straight forward as there is no system for removing EU citizenship from the Scots as Mr Junker has made clear.

The biggest advantage for an independent Scotland is simply instead of only seeing £30 billion in Scotland of the claimed £60 billion Scotland gets as a 'hand out' we will get to have the whole £60 billion plus a lot more besides to use as we direct the Scottish Parliament to do so. The saving on our current UK deduction for 'defence' is in the region of £1.2 billion, we save another £500 million not sending politicians to Westminster (remember Holyrood is currently funded out of the £30 billion that actually reaches Scotland) and then there are the deductions we would not have made for HMRC, the Foreign Office, UK Treasury, the £6 billion that sits in the Bank of England to guarantee the current Scottish pound ....

That leaves the only question to ask which is do you actually think Scotland will be better under either Cameron or Miliband because a No vote is effect a vote for more of your tax payer's money to be deflected into the back pockets of Cameron's and Milliband's backers who currently UK taxpayer's are subsidising to the tune of £22 billion in unpaid taxes.

Better Together - for whom?

Monday 14 July 2014

Enough is Enough

I have just watched what can only be called an offense against humanity.

I was persuaded to view footage of an Israeli drone attack of a funeral cortege, in Gaza, in the light of yesterday's post. The footage is clear evidence of Israel's breech of the Geneva Convention as it is a deliberate attack on unarmed civilians. The images took me back instantly to 1982, Bluff Cove, yet it is not the same.

The Welsh Guards knew the risks, that they were let down by incompetent leadership is annoying, a leadership which deployed unfit troops into a combat zone under an Guards officer so far up his backside the lump in his throat was his nose, a leader who refused to listen to an expert Royal Marine landing officer's advice and instruction, who had to do it 'by the book' as he was a Guards Officer and superior to all around him. Still the Welsh Guard's knew the risk.  Something the men women and children in the funeral cortege in Gaza most certainly had not signed up for as they mourned other civilians already killed by the misnamed Israeli Defence Force. Yet we will still hear platitudes spewed out by Cameron, Blair, Obama and other apologists for the Zionist regime in Jerusalem trying to convince us that the Palestinians in Gaza have brought this on themselves.

The only people who are profiting from the strife across the Middle East are the weapons suppliers, everyone else is taking a major loss, local economies are being destroyed, cultural icons blown up, dead children are strewn like chaff in the trail of the green eyed monster of power and domination for the few over the many.

People in the UK are asking just why are young 'British' Muslims volunteering to fight for Hamas, or ISIS or what ever Islamic Jihad is their choice. I know; and it is not radicalisation by lunatic Imans either.


Having watched live feeds coming out of Gaza, if I was 20 years younger, in my late 30's, I would be seeking to take my expertise into Gaza to help the damaged and wounded because the UK Government is just so wrong in trying to justify what is turning into genocide, in Gaza Strip, by the Zionist Government of Israel. It is the only way I could register my protest in a system of plutocratic UK Government which has long since ceased to listen to its UK Electorate and the UK Government's tame media which fails at every turn to reflect the real opposition in the UK and Europe to Israel's actions in Gaza.

Sometimes you just have to say - ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! 


If no one is listening to you then all that is left is direct action and that is why young British Muslims are joining Jihad.

It is the same reason as why the Better Together - No Thanks campaign is losing ground in Scotland, their British Establishment backers are just not listening to the Scots democratic needs and expectations for the 21st Century, so more and more Scots are taking direct action to create change peaceably.  The difference is we Scots for 'Yes' have created a situation where we can make this happen democratically, something Muslims in Iraq, Syria and Gaza do not have as an option.

Yet a quick check of most Yes Campaign threads reveals the anger against the ignorance and arrogance of the British Establishment is bubbling away quite close to the surface. The real concern on a 'No vote', especially one for which the result appears contrived and includes the removal of powers from Holyrood, must be just what will keep those angry people in check? As in 1919 will we once more see English regiments on the streets of Glasgow?

When all else fails and they feel they are not being heard, human's resort to violence - it is our default function - and that brings me back to Bluff Cove in 1982.

War is just politics by other means.

Sunday 13 July 2014

Empty Headed

I have seen too many unpleasant sights in my life as part and parcel of my professional career from faces mangled in road traffic accidents to the impact on the human body of modern high energy weapon rounds and explosives. The latter experience having left me with nightmares, on and off, for the last four decades.

One image, sent to me by a well informed source who has worked in Gaza, has rendered me silent since I saw it on Thursday night. The image is tragic enough. A Palestinian toddler lying dead on a trolley in their local Gaza triage unit. The toddler's father is beyond consolation, as any father would be as he holds the baby's face in his hands. The picture is truly tragic, painful, visceral and would create anger in a heart of stone; but as my trained eye moved over the picture I noticed the details with a surgeon's eye, this two year old had no back to their skull. Where the toddler's brain would, should have been was as empty as a cracked eggshell. In effect this poor innocent child, no threat to the Zionist politics of Israel had been rendered empty headed because the Israeli Government has no time for 'Hamas human shields'. 


The deaths of innocent civilians in Gaza, according to Zionist Israel, are acceptable collateral damage. A cost ordinary Palestinians in Gaza have to pay for 'democratically' electing Hamas to run their Palestinian ghetto, the last large coherent piece of Palestinian Authority Territory left in Palestine as the West Bank is broken up into ever smaller parcels by illegal Israeli settlements and Israel's version of the 'Iron Curtain'.

The irony is not lost on me that a territory set up to give people refuge, hope and a future, after one of the most unpleasant and vicious episodes in their history which saw them on the verge of annihilation, has turned into a mirror image of the state which persecuted Europe's Jewry.

What is the difference between say the Warsaw Ghetto and Gaza?


Both are / were contained within walls to isolate them. Access was / is carefully controlled by police and the military of the state in power. Both were / are exposed to random raids, arrests, beatings and, if they show any resistance, sudden death. Just as it was 'OK' to treat the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, the untermensch, in this way it is 'OK' for the Zionist state of Israel to treat the Palestinians of Gaza in this way. The world, much as it did with European Jewry between 1936 and 1945, shrugs its collective shoulders and says - so what, they probably had it coming and carries on as if nothing is happening, innocent people are not dying, streets in Gaza are not filling up with human excrement because the Israeli Government has shut down power to Gaza yet again and of course innocent civilians are not dying as they have become defacto terrorists so do not count. The Israeli propaganda machine learned how to sell this as 'normal' from its contacts with aparthied South Africa and does it so well.

Cameron, Obama and other apologists for Israel's Zionist Government continue, with the support of their tame national media set up, to seek to convince the electorates of their respective countries that it is all the Palestinian's own fault, Israel needs to be allowed to 'protect itself'.  The unsaid words are, '... and if they expand their territory further we will continue to turn a blind eye.' It appears that allowing a right wing government 'lebenstraum' is once again derigeur in Washington and London's political circles and the break up of Gaza only a matter of time. Lurking in the back ground is the Saudi spawned ISIS, a beast which Saudi is losing control over as it takes on a life of its own and looks to subsume Sunni Iraq, Syria, Jordon, Lebanon in its grandiose plans for a Sunni State of the Levant, a rebirth of the empire of Sallahudin (if you will) which, when complete, will turn on Israel with a vengeance.

In effect, this is just more empty headedness but at a level which is not supposed to be empty headed. The result will be the same as for the tragic toddler in Gaza, more parents holding the heads of their dead children and through their pain and suffering asking - Why?

The answer is the same through out history, ordinary people's indifference to others suffering.

(I am expecting some claims of antisemitism from those who can not face reality, be very clear my argument is not with those of Jewish faiths and sensibilities but with the nasty right wing, neo-liberal, Zionist Government of Israel. An argument also being pursued by those of the Jewish faith across Europe as can be seen by Orthodox Jews' involvement in protests in support of Gaza)

Thursday 10 July 2014

The Cost of a Yes vote ...

Sauntering home along the lanes by the Tarff River from Kirkcudbright I began to muse just how much a Yes vote would cost say ..... Alisdair Darling.

I took out my 'Labour Back of a Fag Packet' or 'LBFP' calculator (TM Scottish Labour; patent - pending) and mused thus:

On a No vote and joining the Vermine in Ermine, Alisdair will be up for:

  1. His ministerial pension as Chancellor                          £ 145,000 pa  (index linked)
  2. His Vermine in Ermine expenses                                £  45,000  pa (30 weeks at £300 per day)
  3. An add on for Lording it over Labour Lords              £  20,000 pa (additional expense allowance)
  4. Total for the 'day job'                                               £ 210,000 pa
  5. Speaking at private functions                                     £ 250,000 pa
  6. Add in book deals, directorships, investments           £  200,000 pa
    Total to get by on                                                   £ 660,000 pa
(Caution - The use of the LBFP does not mean the actual total will not end up being at least double or triple the originally calculated figure.)
     
So what happens if you use the 'John Swinney Westminster Ready Reckoner' or 'JSWRR' to calculate the impact on Alisdair Darling's income on a Yes vote (accurate within 5% of estimated totals)
  1. His ministerial pension as Chancellor                      £ 145,000
  2. Speaking at private functions                                 £ 150,000
    (I mean who would pay over the odds to hear the loser of the independence referendum speak?)
  3. No book deal and income losses elsewhere           £100,000
    (After all 'How I lost the Union' is hardly likely to walk off the shelves and who will want advice from a man his own nation ignored and basically disowned, as a 'director'.)
    New total to get by on                                        £395,000
Still not exactly penury nor cause to plead poverty, though.

Now I am certain Alisdair is not giving the potential loss of an estimated £265,000 of personal income (according to the JSWRR) to drive his argument for a No vote but when you look across the board at Scotland's Westminster MP's they are all going to take a sizable hit on their current finances and the bigger they are the harder they are going to fall. It must be weighing on a few of their minds to the point of at least tinting their out look on September's vote.

Some of Labour's newly unemployed politicians may consider trying for Holyrood in 2016 but in the aftermath of a 'Yes vote' and the violent blood letting which will break out in 'Scotch Labour', just how attractive to an independent Scottish electorate will putting a 'Mags Curran' or an 'Iain Davidson', on a Labour ticket, be? 

Yet this assumes there will be a Labour Party in existence after a 'Yes vote' and standing for Holyrood in 2016 in any shape or form, a likelihood the talk at the weekend's 'Common Weal' event makes ever less certain as the reawakened 'left' in Scotland seeks to create a new politic and a new party of the left to go with it. Thinking which kicks the Labour Party in Scotland into the long grass along with its current Scottish CP set up and John Smith House control centre (or is that London Labour relay station?)

It is a clear case of a Yes vote being good for Scotland is, most certainly, not good for the present Labour Party and its hidebound set up, in any shape or form.

(Just in case MI6 reads this blog - neither the LBFP nor the JSWRR actually exists, the same as goes for your claims for the SNLA and its bomb threat to Better Together - No Thanks' Blytheswood Square office. This article is what is called 'satire' in the real world, the one which really exists beyond the flailing search by the No Campaign and its agents in the UK media to find vicious and bullying 'Cybernattery' stories at every turn - this bit is not is not satire but irony ...... )

Willfully Missing the Point

Poor Martin writes this fluff in the Gruniad at the same time as yet another British Establishment cover up of high level peadophiles is breaking, energy rich Scotland is told it is going to have to pay even more for its energy to subsidise the rUK and Westminster's complete and utter failure to plan more than a couple of weeks ahead on anything, ignores the sizable elephant of IDS's failed Welfare Reform Act, Osbourne's failed austerity policy and attacks on social provision the Scots consider is worth funding in welfare and NHS.

How does his claim stack up?

The Scots have been asking for a new Union settlement of autonomous countries / regions since before 2006 - they have been ignored in this request simply because Westminster was reliant on Labour hegemony in Scotland going on for ever and there was a smug self assertion the 2007 result at Holyrood was a 'blip' and not the changing groundswell of Scottish opinion it, in effect, was.

Kettle still does not understand the UK is only a Parliamentary Union, the Scots are taking a long hard look at this UK Parliamentary Union and exercising their right to seek to withdraw from the Treaty because they no longer see the UK Parliament as beneficial in terms of exercising their democratic rights, economic prosperity and the creation of the sort of country they wish to live in.

As Peston's amazingly balanced piece on the BBC pointed out there is not really an economic argument to be had - in economic terms Scotland will neither be that much better or worse off which ever way the coin spins.

The situation the UK now finds with regards its imminent break up has little to do with 'Braveheart' or anti-English sentiment and a lot to do with work a day Scots taking a long hard look at what passes for Westminster politics and economic strategy - both of which look venal and corrupt in an increasing number of Scots eyes - and saying we, as an independent nation, can do better.

The vote in September is about a vision for Scotland and comes down to ever increasing poverty and division in a Whig and Tory run Westminster Parliament or the opportunity, through independence, to create something far better and fairer than is ever going to be on offer from two parties solely interested in about 80,000 right of centre voters in the Home Counties who decide, in effect, who gets to be 'King of the Castle' for the next five years.

Yes, Mr Kettle, this is not only Scotland's problem. The difference is the Scots can do something about it.

Wednesday 9 July 2014

Westminster - Paddle? Shit Creek?

A pretty pass when  Norman Tebbit admits there may have been a cover up of a high ranking peadophile ring within the British Establishment and explains it away with a 'Hot Fuzz' style claim of the 'greater good'.

It turns out the suspected high ranking ring was first reported to Leon Brittan when he was Home Secretary and I was a Surgeon Lieutenant on my way to the Falklands to tidy up Carrington and John Knott's faux pas of not listening to what they were being told about Argentine intentions over the Malvinas by saving those I could and burying those I could not.

Mr Brittan was handed a detailed portfolio of evidence which apparently the Home Office disregarded because they thought the MP, Mr Dickens, was a bit of a 'nutter' and of course had little to do with the fact that Sir Robert McAlpine's - the Tory Treasurer and donor - brother was on the list of suspected high ranking peadophiles.


The cover up is already starting. In today's Independent there is an article running which reaffirms Dickens as being a bit of a nutter, a political David Icke, pestering Ministers with bizarre suggestions and claims, being a bit of grit in the Party and Government machine, a loose canon - if you will. The article also seeks to smooth things over, there is nothing for the UK Electorate to see, leave Butler-Schloss to carry out her investigation, you will see there is no substance in these claims of a high level cover up of a British Establishment peadophile ring and, anyway, it was such a long time ago, memories are not what they were.
 

The problem remains that Brittan, as Home Secretary, received Dicken's dossier, some work must have been undertaken or there would not have been in excess of 114 documents for the Home Office to misplace, shred, mistakenly destroy in relation to Dicken's claim. Claims are circulating of Tory whips warning off other Tory MP's from following Dickens line of questioning and inquiry on the British Establishment peadophile ring. Retired police officers from the Met are now saying their attempts to investigate Dicken's claims were brought to an abrupt halt on the orders of Senior officers in the Met.

Brittan is currently under police caution after an allegation has been made about his own sexual proclivities at the time with young, female office staff. Hague's investigation into the North Wales Orphanage molestation claims is now looking to have been part of the cover up, deflected by the media latching on to the wrong McAlpine brother by accident or possibly part of the cover plan.

The serious claim, which is now bubbling up, is the involvement of a member of the Royal Family in this high powered ring. If this is in the slightest bit true it means the 'Crown' in the person of the Privy Council will have known about the allegations and the cover up. Let us be clear Liz, personally, may have never been allowed to know about the allegations, after all, if the cover up was successful, she would not have needed to know.

So the British Establishment has to close ranks, with out appearing to close ranks, as there is a potential constitutional crisis if the 'Royal' connection is revealed as being real. All this is boiling up on Cameron's watch which already has a number of damaging issues pressing in on HM Government with the failed Welfare Reform Act, the EU exit referendum, the failure of Osbourne's austerity program, a £1.7 trillion and increasing UK debt and the one they want to pretend is not happening; the Scottish exit from the UK Union.


The UK's economic situation with out Scotland is not that smart, manufacturing output in England is down 1.3% this quarter, the reality is outside the M25 Orbital the English economy is still bumping along the bottom and remains heavily reliant on the City of London.

All in all we have a British Establishment vulnerable from many angles and in serious trouble if this Westminster Peadophile Ring wakes up and unites the English electorate rather than the way current UK media manipulation is successfully keeping the English electorate divided and at each others throats.

In October, with all these problems mounting one on top of the other, the British Establishment may have to face an ever more angry English electorate as all the bluster and promises about what an independent Scotland can not have or would not be able to do melt away 'like snaw aff a dyke.


Then there is the likely requirement in October, on a Yes vote, of elections to the new rUK Parliament to give it a legal and constitutional basis to under take negotiations on the ending of the Union Treaty.

The next few weeks on the peadophile inquest claim, as much else in Westminster, will be long on promises and short on action in the hopes this will simply disappear over the summer simply because the British Establishment and Cameron know if this allegation becomes fact they and the UK as currently run is screwed.

It does not take a genius to realise this will mean ever more obtuse, vilifying and scurrilous claims against the Yes Campaign and the idea of Scottish Independence, in the usual media sources, targeted mainly at the English Electorate as ever more ridiculous 'Look a Squirrel!' stories are fed to the English public in the hopes their attention span can be moved into Goldfish mode.

Monday 7 July 2014

He’s solid, reassuring, a bit dull – and Scottish .....

This is how his Libdem Allies describe Darling :

"He’s solid, reassuring, a bit dull – and Scottish.."

Let us be very clear, this particular Independent article is for consumption within the M25 Orbital, the main pretense is that Labour remains in control in Scotland and Darling is respected in his own land.

The second pretense is that the vote on September 18th is about Alex Salmond - oh no it is not, the Scottish electorate know it is something far more important than Alex Salmond or the SNP, the referendum is about the sort of Scotland we want to have and leave for future generations.

The choice we have is more of Westminster's crap, self interested politicians, corruption, protectors of peadophiles, subsidisers of the already rich, destroyers of the UK's economy, 'sellers off' of the NHS, killers of the old, poor and disabled via their 'Welfare Reform Act' or take opportunity to break this failed and undemocratic Union of the super rich and step out as an independent Scottish Nation once more, a nation which puts its people before politicians greed for being a player on the 'world stage', a nation which does not believe nuclear weapons are any solution to the world's problems, a nation to whom the ideas of compassion and empathy for its poor, disabled and sick are not simply sound bites to get re-elected in May 2015.

A Yes vote is the opportunity to create the antithesis of the British State and its corrupt and venal establishment for whom the laws of the land do not operate, laws are only for the 'little people'.

Darling says it is all about the 'economics' and misses the point they have already destroyed their own campaign as economic lie after lie has been exposed from BAE Scotstoun to pensions, not by Salmond or the SNP, but by ordinary people, in Scotland, doing the research and sums for themselves, talking to others about what they have discovered, backing their discoveries with independent findings from Nobel laureates and academic experts or even the CEO of BAE Systems while all the time journalists in the Local London papers, like the Independent, Guardian or Telegraph pump out tosh like this.

The question is just who is this anodyne rubbish actually for?

Who is the British Establishment - of which Darling is in with the bricks - trying to fool?

Let us be very clear it is not the Scottish electorate because no matter how much Kellner of YouGov tries to spin it, the momentum is with the 'Yes campaign' simply because the 'Yes campaign' is not Salmond or the SNP it is the ordinary people on the ground, running information meetings, knocking on doors, speaking to folk they have never met, canvasing when they have never canvassed before, spending Saturdays rain and shine manning information centres in towns and cities across Scotland, exercising the basic tenet of Scots Law and Constitutional practice that the considered will of the people of Scotland is paramount because the people are sovereign, making sure the people of Scotland have all the facts, not just the 'No Thanks' spin.

This and articles like this, have one role and one role alone - to keep the electorate of England ignorant and angry so the political and economic impact of a Yes vote, on what will become the rUK, can be blamed on the Scots when it will all be down to Westminster's denial and dithering while they try to convince themselves the end of the UK Union is just not happening.

Darling is at the apogee of the denial and dithering of Westminster, a man that cried out for a debate with Salmond 'anywhere and anytime' but when one was offered ran away and hid. An action which the local London paper's claimed was due to 'cybernat bullying' rather than the reality Darling has no real argument for continuing the Union or he would have leaped at the chance. The problem with the 'cybernat bullying story' is it lies in the minds of 'Better Together - No Thanks', swallowed hook line and sinker by the London media, for which they have little or no evidence to support their claims. It appears the J K Rowling attack was traced back to MI6 and had nothing to do with 'cyber' or any other sort of 'nats'.

Instead we have seen a re-hash in this and other local London papers of lies and nonsense long discredited - even the BBC has grudgingly admitted that according to EU experts Scotland's EU entry will be rapid after a Yes vote.

A right wing think tank has laughed out Danny Alexander's claim about oil and gas off Scotland by saying the latest UK Treasury figures are light by over £8 billion a year at current production levels.

This is a long post, I make no apology for that, but reader's in England are being taken for idiots by articles like this one. Darling is only fooling himself with his claims and fails to address the core issue, the failure of Westminster to address Scotland's wish for a new UK Union fit for purpose in the 21st Century, one with wide spread autonomy and the reduction of Westminster's increasing centralisation of power. This failure to address the wish for greater autonomy and a new UK Union is what is at the heart of the increasing support in Scotland for a 'Yes Vote'.


"Better Together - No Thanks" have summed up their own campaign in their chosen slogans 'Better Together' and 'No Thanks'.

Saturday 5 July 2014

May You Live in Interesting Times! (an old Gaelic curse)

Take 25% of Sterling's foreign exchange earnings out of this PwC 'Through the Looking Glass' fantasy and just how screwed is the rUK's economy?

rUK has an underpinning fiscal instability which is the level of Bonds, QE and UK Government debt the City of London is currently propped up on, estimated to be in the region of 400% of the present UK GDP, according to analysis carried out for the Jimmy Reid Foundation by the Cuthberts.

This situation is likely only to get worse given the true failure of austerity to encourage the expansion of the rUK product and manufacturing base, inward investment outside the M25 orbital and a rUK economy top loaded by the City of London. If the City of London catches cold then rUK is going down hard, we are talking 1928 or South Sea Bubble hard, and a state of affairs which will make Greece look like a picnic, Wiemar just a blip and Zimbabwe looking fiscally and economically solid.

The most likely trigger will be a rise in US Fed or EU Central Bank interest rates which Sterling will have to track to prevent capital doing a runner from the City. The current re-inflation of the mortgage bubble by London prices is a further weakness because this will force the BoE to raise Sterling interest rates, something the very iffy state of the rUK economy can not afford, and the current chief of the BoE has warned the UK Government of this fact.

rUK based multinationals are sitting on big piles of cash which they are recycling back to their investors rather than investing in their business in the rUK. SME's in rUK are struggling to get finance or backing for new products as UK Treasury policy continues to be based solely on supplying puncture repair kits to the City of London.

None of this is reflected in PcW's glossy report - in the meantime the UK's economy remains reliant on the City of London's casino gambling and Scotland's energy, product and manufacturing surplus for its survival.

Take Scotland out of the UK headline figures and OECD figures indicate an independent Scotland at 4th in terms of GDP per head and rUK at 8th, well below France. Chuck in 'no currency union' on Scottish independence, a devaluing pound Sterling, increasing inflation and the rise in Sterling interest rates this would trigger and you have a recipe for economic disaster in rUK.

What if the newly independent Scotland says you can stuff your £ Sterling, keep it, we will take the £6 billion lodged in the BoE back, you can keep all the UK Debt, your already struggling industrial base can deal with the additional £660 million per year costs 'no currency union' puts on rUK product and manufacturing trade with Scotland? 

For us Scots?

We must also be aware what such a two fingered, stuff Sterling, salute to the Whigs and Tories at Westminster's rUK Parliament would mean for the newly independent Scottish economy while we sought new markets for the goods and products we currently sell to rUK and which would no longer have a market, as a result of a Sterling crash.
It can be done but would take time and increase our reliance on our oil and gas reserves in the short term to medium term.

For folk in the rUK?

They should be aware just what Miliband, Clegg and Cameron are wishing for as they seek to belittle, berate and isolate an independent Scotland with their empty threats of 'no currency union' and all the rest of their insulting pseudo-economic baloney and mumbo-jumbo.

I would suggest on the Yes side we should abide by that fine Scot's expression and 'Keep the Heid' no matter the provocation; provocation which is only going to increase and get much nastier between now and September the 18th as the mysterious re-birth of the non-existent 'SNLA' (aka MI6 agent provocateurs and the Orange Order) reveals.
The old Scot's curse - "May you live in interesting times." has to be our watch word as we deal with the ever increasing fear driven bile, slander and hatred from the Better Together / No Thanks campaign as the opinion polls continue to close and the likely 'Yes vote' becomes an increasing certainty.

Thursday 3 July 2014

If you love your country.

Cameron is making yet another 'big speech' today to save the Union, today's appeal is to the 'silent majority' of Scots he believes wants to vote 'NO'. The problem for Cameron is the 'silent majority' are being heard and the message that is growing, day on day, is the Union is toast ...

Ignore YouGov ... it is the canvassing figures that demonstrate what is happening and they are showing a 'No vote' collapse. Dave's good pal, Mr Kellner, at Yougov has had to run a spoiler to try and explain away why YouGov polls on the Scottish referendum are way out of kilter with the rest.

We do know what a 'Yes means' - and end to English Conservative hegemony (from either Labour Whigs or the Tories at Westminster) and its rush to pursue US Republican neo-cons to the bottom.

The English electorate may not know what a 'Yes vote' means but that has a lot to do with the English Establishment not wanting them to know how diminished the rUK will become in the world, how iffy Sterling as a reserve currency will be without a currency union and how screwed the rUK fiscal position will be even if Scotland takes, as it has offered, its share of the current UK debt.

Articles like this in the Independent are more about keeping the English electorate ignorant rather than trying to sway the case for a failed 'No Campaign' in Scotland.

As Scots realise what 'Yes' actually means, more move towards voting 'Yes'. Cameron would like to make this debate about Salmond and the SNP but the 'Yes Campaign' is far, far bigger than that.

This reality remains the biggest failure for the London based media, the BBC and their Westminster hegemony propaganda line to grasp or even understand.

A Yes information meeting can see a communist, socialist, social democrat and Tory all saying the same thing and agreeing the only way to make Scotland a fairer place for its citizens is to end the Union - they may disagree on the 'how' but they agree on the 'why'.

Compare this to the No Campaign where Labour, the Libdems and the Tories can not agree on anything except their Scottish members gravy train at Westminster is heading for the buffers and that can not be allowed to happen.

The editorial in the Gulf Times today describes Cameron, to all intents and purposes as a 'dead man walking' as he is likely to lose in September. The Editor sees this loss as a dystopian nightmare for Cameron as rUK loses its place in the UN, isolated over Europe, loses its USA 'bestest EU buddy' ticket and sees increasing pressure from within for greater devolution to the English regions and decentralisation of power from Westminster. If the rUK votes to leave the EU the editor suggests Wales and Northern Ireland will not remain part for long, the descent of England back to being a small country on the outer edge of Europe will then be complete - much as the Chinese have recently suggested.

Yes campaigners are aware the dirty campaign by the Westminster Establishment has begun but so far it has mostly been a series of own goals because, simply put, none of the three parties behind the No campaign can agree the price of an orange let alone any practical, nailed down policies to meet the needs and expectations of the Scottish electorate for greater autonomy.

Mr Cameron - the silent majority in Scotland are speaking and the message increasingly to you and the rest of the No Thanks campaign is a redownding,

"Git tae Freuchie, ye numpty!
"

Tuesday 1 July 2014

Labour's dying insult? ...

As I was doing my daily scan of the news on line one idea kept on coming back to me - just why do Scotch Labour apparatchiks hate the electorate of Scotland so much?

How does Scotch Labour, run by Jim Murphy, think that insulting and deprecating the Scottish electorate is going to win them their continued seats on Westminster's gravy train?

I could not believe my eyes when I saw this on Wings over Scotland and the interchange of comments amongst 'high heid yins' in Scotch Labour which demonstrate, clearly, just how much Scotch Labour hate their own electorate.

Then there are Jim Murphy's attempts to accuse a peaceful demonstration, acting on academic evidence, questioning the BBC's impartiality as 'bullying'.

We have, allegedly, seen the hand of MI5 in the cyber attacks on Ms Rowling in an attempt to portray the Yes campaign as 'nutters' and there will be no doubt more to come on that line. MI5 have previous on acting as agent provocateurs in Scotland as I noted in yesterday's post.

I did not read Mr Cochrane's rant in the Telegraph as I prefer putting two fingers down my throat than tasting his bile - apparently he had all kinds of nasty things to say about deluded Scots voting Yes.

Poly Tonybee in the Gruniad is today, belatedly, starting to wake up to just how isolated and insular England will become in Europe on a 'Yes' vote in Scotland if the EU referendum Cameron has promised takes rUK out of the EU. She ponders how much longer after that Northern Ireland or Wales will stay before they take a walk and follow Scotland, isolating England even further.

Just when I did not think things could go any lower a Scotch Labour PPC compared three kids having a photo taken between two Pandas and under a 'Wings' banner at the BBC bias protest to a Hitler Youth indoctrination campaign, seemingly her fellow Scotch Labour folk agree.

It seems Ms Lamont's claim that the Yes campaign is a virus, should be eradicated and that Scots are all scroungers was not a one off - it is Scotch Labour's political manifesto.

Vote No and be insulted and deprecated for another 300 years - has a truly inspiring ring to it.