A Rush to the Bottom

While Westminster are looking to kill the Scottish Parliament stone dead via the so called Henry VIIIth clause, though how a precedent in English Law can be made legal under Scots Law is a separate matter. I note the emergency shut down of the Forties pipe line to Grangemouth has caused crude oil shorts to lift above $65 a barrel, as the crude oil commodities brokers sniff a killing.

Funny that, as us poor wee Scots - in 2014 - were told the oil from the North Sea was just about finished, it was worthless, you could not rely on it; except for the bit the Forties pipeline earns the UK treasury around £1.2 million a day all on its owny owe, in landing fees.

We are going to see a petrol and diesel price hike in Scotland just in time for Christmas, as suplliers cry 'shortages' and all those folk traveling to see loved ones over the festive season will just have to dig that wee bit deeper in their pockets to fund the Tory Government 'give to the rich' taxation system.

In the meantime the BBC pleads, cajoles or sends in the bailiffs to get its license fee then hands over a chunk to the rightwing press to fund 'local reporters for local papers' . The situation here in the SW of Scotland is local papers that were printed locally are sent up from Manchester, local reporters are as rare as hens' teeth while those who are around appear to be signed up Tory Party members - given the primacy of Tory MP's and MSPs who are plastered over the few column inches of local news, these local papers now carry.

Meanwhile the Tory MSPs are claiming they, all on their own, have saved Scotland from everything from a cold to a meteor strike, all of which were caused by SNP cupidity. Their current leader is twisting her knickers in a knot trying not to say she is gasping for a seat as an MP in Toryland but will only stand in Scotland, honest, well, unless she is called to be the real Tory Leader of all Engerland (Oops, Ruthie meant to say the UK), in which case it will be an emergency, so she will just take that safe seat in Toryland after all, thanks very much.

In the meantime the Scotched Labour Leader is asking why the SNP Government is not doing more to reduce the impact of budget cuts on Scottish Councils his party voted for in Westminster. The Scotchland BBC are happy to give him a platform to regurgitate this endless guff on their air 'waives' while missing out on the real news of how well the SNP are actually doing their day job or bending their news coverage in such a manner to make it look like yet another SNP failure. The sad thing is the Scotchland BBC actually believe they are being 'impartial' and are simply holding the Scottish Government to account. A feature of the BBC's general news coverage which is sadly lacking when it comes to the Westminster Government, Brexit, Westminster's historical child and sex abuse cases, Westminster economic incompetence and increasingly fascist politic.

So here we are, us Scots, sitting on the tea tray of Tory Brexit ambition, evermore out of control as we rush to the bottom of the Brexit Cresta run with no brakes, safety belt or crash helmet to hand as Westminster's latest wheeze is to take them away from us. Just like Spain is trying to do with Catalunia.

Ah Weel ....

I tried reading the press release that came out of Tory Central and then metaphorically waved by the usual right wing press as a great deal, a peace in our time appeal to the fueding, rabid Tory Brexiteers. If you take away all the hubris and hyperbole from the Prime Minister's statement on the 'negotiations' you come out with the direct opposite of 'Veni, Vidi, Vici!'. May was humped left, right and centre by the EU and no mistake.

So we now see the vast economic freedoms Brexit will bring which appear to be paying more than we do now to stay in the EU Customs Union, plus increased costs to all exporters and importers, including all the EU red tape, the Brexiteers claimed would be removed by leaving the EU, remains while the UK will have no say in future EU regulations on trade or free movement within the EU zone because we are not full members of the club. In other words the UK is just going to have to do what ever it is telt by the EU. This is a 'success' for the Tory Party, their media cheer leaders and has clearly demonstrated the weakness in the EU's negotiating position. In the meantime Harry Hewitt's wedding to a non self supporting, non national, who by the British Establishment elites own rules should not be allowed entry into the UK, is being used as a royal 'look there's a squirrel' diversion to the cover up the cock up masquerading as Tory EU policy. A modern day equivalent of the Roman elite's 'bread and circuses'.

We now know, officially, the Tory Party do not have a 'scooby' as to the actual impact of Brexit will be. David Davis, Brexit Emperor, has told us that all the economic sector impact analyses he claimed had been carried out by the Brexit Department, of which he is head, had never been carried out; beyond a quick search of Wikipedia by a junior civil servant somewhere in the bowels of the Department of Trade which was then tarted up to look like David Davis had actually done something.

The Tory Party, in all its increasingly bizarre forms and divisions, is an empty vessel making as much noise as possible to hide the reality they are deep in a giant hole of their own digging but can not stop digging it ever deeper. The view from the EU is one of despair, of incredulity, of stunned silence at the charge over the cliff edge of the UK's economy collapse the Tories are leading. The pound is now worth 10% less against the basket of major currenciesthan last year, the only currency doing worse, in real terms, is Trump's USA dollar. The idea that the pound is performing well against the US dollar which is being sold as evidence of Brexit success, is economic madness of the first order, it is a race to the bottom. In basket case terms the UK economy is now competing with those utter economic failures, Argentina and Greece in terms of stagflation, due to minimal economic growth.

Throw in the exodus of EU workers from the UK who paid UK taxes and the problems all sectors are increasingly having in recruiting suitable native workers or any workers at all, you have to ask how much worse will the current decline in UK economic performance get?

At present Scotland is keeping ahead of the economic game, partly because investors are pretty confident Scotland's economy will weather the incoming Brexit storm better than the rest of the UK and partly because they are gambling on Scotland voting for independence prior to March 2019. The Tory leadership is saying there will be no separate deals for the constituent parts of the UK but that is already so much pish and wind given the apparent reality of an Eire / Northern Ireland soft border under EU exit terms and conditions. Will the Tories be so stupid as to seek to make Cairnryan Ferry port the start of the 'hard border' with the EU? Given their current insanity I have to suggest they will definitely try this on for size. A move which will wreck the Stranrear area's already fragile economy and have a ripple effect on the SW of Scotland economy in general with local hauliers just one group who will be losing out.

For all those Scots who claimed that Brexit would not be a disaster, the Tories had it all thought out just how has the last week's farcical performances in both Brussels and Westminster left your assurance the rest of us were wrong, how is that looking right now?

Scotland's fishery sold out, Scotland's farmers sold out, Scotland's finance sector sold out in the rush to get some sort of Brexit deal with the EU by the Tory Party - Is that Scotch Tory vote looking so clever now you fishermen and farmers?

A United Kingdom, where all nations are equal .... in yer dreams.

Ah weel, stupid is as stupid does.

Jockhad - we have been for years.

I have never understood what makes an normal everyday human being become a suicide bomber but after yesterday's imperial, British nationalist, custard pie fight called the "UK Budget" I think I know.

In a week where a peer reviewed paper in the BMJ (British Medical Journal) demonstrated that Tory Health Policy had caused 120,000 unnecessary deaths in England, alone; the Tory's big give away was to cut stamp duty on homes in England selling at under £300,000 and reduce the cursed platter of Universal Credit's delay in paying out to the most needy and vulnerable by a week from six to five weeks.

Scotland was thrown an empty shroud of a pocket money increase which when checked is a cut in real terms of £239 million or so, per year, over three years. Then there is the farce of VAT charged to Scottish fire and police services suddenly being conveniently scrapped as a reward for electing the useless Tory 12 in the last election, ignoring the reality which is the SNP have been banging on about this major punitive tax imposition for years. I find it hard for any but the most stupid of Scots to believe the useless 12 had any real impact. The reality is we are seeing the British Empire demonstrating to its last colony that it can still put us Jock's in our place when ever they deem it necessary; "rebellious Scots to crush" and all that jazz.

I wish to make clear, the BMJ paper's 120,000 unnecessary deaths in England is on top of the estimated 6,000 unnecessary deaths per year the DWP admit to being the outcome of pre Universal Credit cuts to benefits. The figure for UK citizens euthanised by the UK Government health and welfare policy since 2010 is a staggering 162,000 we know of but since the DWP has stopped recording deaths linked to benefit cuts the actual figure could be far higher. We are talking, here, about Aberdeen being emptied of its citizenry since 2010.

It seems that since this is not Kim il Jong or Robert Mugabwe killing their citizens in serious numbers it is not "news worthy. It is "nothing to worry about old chap. The British Establishment knows what it is doing so just keep your head down and read your Sun, Daily Mail or Telegraph like a good boy or girl and don't worry your little head."

It is this smug paternalism, manifest in Brexit, that leaves you with a sense of powerlessness to change anything by legitimate means. You are living at a time when a UK Government is killing its own citizens as good as shooting or gassing them and all there is in the UK media is silence. The UK has been turned into a Rawandan style state where people turn a blind eye to the UK's state sponsored killings of it vulnerable citizens because they are not of your "tribe" and if you make a fuss the British State will come for you next. Is this really what UK 'think' is now reduced to?

The evidence is there to see in the Tory VAT give away to Scotland's police and fire services which should never have been instituted in the first place and the useless Tory 12's claims of success. The truth is the British Establishment was simply punishing Scotland for voting in a SNP Government and giving the British Establishment a mighty slap in the face.

It is at this point I can see why citizens of any country can be pushed to a tipping point where strapping on a suicide vest and walking into your local government or police office and blowing yourself to bits becomes a good idea. No one is listening, no one is interested and it appears nobody cares that because of a DWP cock up, you and your kids are now homeless, hungry and cold. Your public self immolation is the only way left to you to highlight state sanctioned cruelty and persecution. This is why Hammas, for example, has no problem getting Palestinian suicide bombers from Gaza to blow themselves and Isreali public transport to bits.

I believe it is only a matter of time before this desperate, last ditch, cry for help comes to a DWP job centre somewhere in the UK. People can only be pushed so far and this failed Tory Government is close to tipping things over the edge with its Universal credit purge and the shambolic mess which is Brexit. The Tories have a track record of creating the conditions for civil disturbance and rioting in the English cities, whether in Bristol, Toxteth or Tottenham, as an excuse to justify their policies.

This is why I am calling for a "Jockhad" to get Scotland out of the murderous British Empire of the Tory Party's distorted and deranged imagination before we too go down in its rotting hulk.

This is one Jock who has had enough.

Fair fa'

Whin Winter's lips first toucht Autumn's last embrace
An aa the wurld's gein broon an fawn
Ra glints oan esturine mud glaurs gowd
An shag's still hing up wings tae dry
An aabodies aa thirled in bunnets and scairfs
Thirs beasties mair frichtfu' thin carlins ir ghouls abroad

Thon beasties' fair fu ir thir ain import
Thir een na sicht thi slaister they hiv brocht
Whilst hingin fowk fae thir ain mak'd poverty tree,
Yit tellin fowk "It wisnas me, yon big boy banker makit me dae it, thin ran awa."
Thin winnae hear tell quhit thir murdrus stramash hae dun tae innocents
Bit jist lik Herod, dinnae gie a dokey.

Whar's Alba's gain gin thi Englis beastie imperial?
Far oot aa sicht forebye ye can crie, "Britain's Glory"
Yon's aa for England, nane's cummin here.
"Cry Harry for England and St George!"; yon Scotch ir jist rebels tae crush.
Once mair tae Culloden Field and pile Scotch deid anent the breach
Is England's end, an England's will be done.

Epilogue

Fair fa yir honest sonsie face,
O fowk wha hae Englis TV news graced
Ablins thon painch an tripe whit's hurl'd at Scotia's face
Ye believe; weel, it's beyont ma kenning.
Whin wull thi scales fa frae yer een
Saes ye hae sicht o' thir Red Herring?

The power of self interest

The word "equality" is being hurled around as folk try to deal with gropers, tax avoiders, democratic deficits, Brexit and Donald Trump.

We have read and heard all sorts of individuals talking about the need for "equality" with reference to bias and unfairness in the societal realm yet I am left confused as to what exactly these strident seekers of equality actually seek to achieve.

Equal means, the same as. Now, outside of the realms of fiction, do we really believe all people should be the same or even could be the same given the large number of variables in any single human life where the sum of life A is the same as the life of life B:

A = (n+n+n+n+n to death) = B =(z+z+z+z to point of death)

In any shape or form, no matter the criteria considered no two people, whatever the political system or social construct will ever be equal. The reality of any system or construct is some will always be more equal than the many. This is the observed reality whether you are in a totalitarian state run by Pol Pot or Stalin, the most open of democracies or an unknown tribal society deep in the Amazonian rain forest.

The argument is turned to say not totally equal, of course that can never happen, but equal in opportunities.

So here we have two children, 12 years old, C and D, both faced with the same opportunity with regards to their future education but it means leaving their current friends behind and going to a different school. Their current friends pressure them not to go to this school as it is for smarty pants and snobs and not folk "like them". Emotional blackmail comes into play, these current friends threaten never to speak to them ever again if they leave the herd, as they would be betraying the ones left behind.

The parent's of child C are indifferent to the educational opportunity, their families have always been workers and artisans, the assumption being child C is destined to follow his Dad into the brewery as an apprentice cooper. The parents of child D come from the same background but they see the opportunity for child D to gain an educational opportunity they never had. Child C gives into pressure from friends and parental indifference and stays put. Child D, with encouragement from his parents, takes this educational opportunity and "risk" of alienating the friends they have played with since they could walk. Child C gets three highers and ends up working for Scottish Widows in an office processing claims, as by the time they are 16 the brewery has shut down so no chance of following the family work tradition. Child D gets six highers, a first class degree and enters the professions.

The classic case of you can take a horse to water but can not make it drink, that is the problem with equal opportunities, they are never really equal when you look at it.

I would argue what any society needs to function effectively is to seek equanimity, fairness. I think this is the real issue at the heart of gender equality or educational equality campaigns, for example. Why should two people doing the same job be paid differently on the basis of gender? Why should your postcode define the quality of education your child receives?

To me, waving the 'equality card' does little to alter the reality that change only happens when those with power and / or wealth see some benefit to either their prestige or their bottom line. Take educational attainment. You can potentially put the most successful head in Scotland into a failing school whether they are successful or not is down to the perceived benefit the local community actually place on educational attainment. Where the local community raise their educational  expectations, take on power and support the head by encouraging their children to get on board, massive improvements occur, recruiting teachers becomes easier and standards rise. Where the local community remain indifferent, the failing school remains a failing school no matter how much money is thrown at it.

So it does not matter how "fair" you try to be, unless the self interest of individuals or local communities is engaged, the "fairness" project is destined to fail, no matter how great the intentions, because success requires a cultural change in the way individuals or communities think, the problem being the "Aye been thon wey" way of doing or being is a difficult mountain to climb.

It is the same with any future independence referendum the "not certain one way or the other" group who plumped for 'No' in 2014 will be best engaged by engaging their self interest, after all that was why, supposedly, workers at BAE Scotstoun or certain groups of OAPs followed the Labour and Unionist carrot to vote "No".

No matter how fine the future political arguments are for independence, next time around, the variations of cry of we are all 'Jock Tamson's bairns' will fall once again on deaf ears if individuals and communities' self interest is not engaged. Maybe it will be less hard shifting opinion given how badly let down by "Better Together" and the subsequent farce of Brexit is now impacting on Scotland's farmers, fishermen, pensioners and shipbuilders. Only time will tell.

In the meantime we "Yessers" need to start engaging the switherers self interest at every turn.

How was your week?

I will come straight to the point for me it was just depressing, to the point of becoming clinical.

Who can have watched any Tory response this week to the disaster they are wreaking on the UK whether via Universal Credit or Brexit and not feel distinctly doon in the mooth. Who can have heard the outright lies peddled by ertswhile ministers of the crown and Tory politicians in general and not be left feeling powerless in the face of their inhumane ignorance, double dealing and gross incompetence.

How can Labour continue to bleat 'SNP baad' when their best buddies from the days of 'Better th' gither' have stitched them up good and proper with the BAE Govan frigate build sell out. Labour has let down the very workforce they got their trade union apparatchiks in the GBMU and other shipyard unions to convince to vote 'No'.

Talking about doing the day job, how bad are the SNP Government when they can build a longer stayed bridge, toll free, on time which faces worse weather conditions, over the Firth of Forth, for a smaller capital cost than the toll charging one just opened in Liverpool which will cost the average commuter using it daily, over £700 a year?

Yet it was clear during the Universal Credit debate the SNP and Labour MPs have far more in common, in terms of their politics, than divides them. Why does the Labour Party at large continue to allow its dysfunctional and self destructive Labour branch in Scotland any further say over the issue of "blacking the SNP", apart from Labour's cynical putting their own power grab above the needs of the UK as a whole.

One hopeful sign is the stirring realisation amongst the English person in the street, the BBC (and the London media) is lying to them on a daily basis, it will be interesting to see the numbers protesting BBC political bias on the 5th of November across England. Sadly we will need to go to AL Jeezera or RT to discover any coverage of these protests.

Most depressing of all is the substantial number of Scots, in the face of growing factual evidence to contrary, who still think we are "Better Together".

A pity we are not a mammal designed for hibernation ... I would, if I could.

The UK Government is killing its citizens

I was watching a documentary on the Vietnam War which sent me right back to the 1970's and student Anti-War demonstrations, I remember watching live television of the student demonstration in London's Grosvner Square, outside the USA Embassy which went from peaceful to a battle as the US Government of Nixon put pressure on the UK Government to stop the demonstration and an ill prepared Met Police Riot Squad lost the battle, only making the situation far worse. The protest was not simply against the Vietnam War but the series of killings of US students on their campus at Kent University Ohio and in Jacksonville, while peacefully protesting, by the US National Guard. It was the beginning of the end for Nixon, soon to be swallowed whole by the Watergate Scandal and impeached.

This brings me to today and what is happening across the UK on a daily basis, the deliberate action and policy of the current UK Government which is killing UK citizens just as definitively as the US National Guard's bullets did in 1970.

Where is the sense of disgust at the inhumanity of the current government, the outcry in the media, the weak and feeble Labour opposition to this modern day form of eugenics which denies the poor, sick and disabled support they need to simply to live on a day to day basis?

We know the change from the old disablement benefit to the ESA system has killed over 6,000 UK citizens according to the DWP's own fudged figures, a statement which leaves you pondering by what factor do you actually have to multiply the DWP figures to get near the real figure.

We are becoming aware of the disaster to families of the change from the previous benefit system to Universal Credit is having in terms of homelessness, starvation and keeping warm. This government is denying UK citizens the basic survival need of a roof over their heads, food and warmth and has been roundly condemned by the UN Human Rights Commission for this failure. The evidence is mounting, this policy is driving people to take their own lives, as they can not face the humiliation of the detrimental effects of UK Government policy - back door eugenics.

I look in vain for condemnatory motions being raised by the main party of opposition, Labour. SNP MPs are loud and vociferous in their condemnation of the destruction of the UK's formerly world renowned welfare and health care. Yet from the opposition benches around them there is silence, possibly embarrassed, as Labour's hand sitting, during vital votes over the last ten years, has enabled the dismemberment of the health and welfare state, especially in England, they claim to believe in and promote as Labour's big contribution to the UK State.

What I can not understand, is why are there so few ordinary people who are angry that their government is killing its own citizens?

Disabled and mentally impaired special interest groups are trying to get people to listen to the disaster which is ESA and Universal credit yet their appeals to stir their fellow citizens to action fall upon deaf ears or responding mouths that employ meaningless platitudes which achieve nothing.

I have a simple appeal and it is this, write to your MP, MSP or Assembly Member and ask them:

What are you doing to stop the killing and unnecessary deaths of UK Citizens caused by the UK government welfare and health policy?

Or are you happy for the UK Government to continue with its back door eugenics policy and take out their next target, your elderly parents who cost the state "too much"?

Minging Main Stream Media - talking mince at every turn

The UK, as a political and economic entity, is on the brink of a self-destructive, mass suicide and yet the only political party which is seeking a solution to the current EU \ UK impasse and presenting alternative suggestions to reduce the impact of the Tories stupidity is the much decried, separatist SNP.

You have to think just how screwed up the UK media is when it seeks to claim Scotland's biggest members funded party, by a long chalk, has 'peaked', is 'running out of steam', is 'failing the people of Scotland' or 'giving up on independence'.

They seemed to have been watching or reading about a very different SNP Conference to the one I have seen and heard. Labour's 'Scotch' branch struggled to fill the front few rows of the Caird Hall yet did the self same press comment on the end of 'Scotch Labour'?

Ruth's Tories are back in third place in Westminster voting intentions where are the Herald's column inches regarding the wheels coming off the Tory waggon in Scotland?

As for the Libdems in Scotland, well, they are still exploring uncharted political depth's of crass stupidity that deny any realistic comment beyond sympathy at their passing. A party I was once active in, a party which once believed in the need to decentralise power, subsidiarity, and a fair balance between the needs of the economy and the people. A party who, in the past, introduced the basic state pension and whose greatest thinker of the first half of the 20th Century, Beveridge, came up with the 1944 White Paper which Labour based their welfare, health and social reforms of 1945 wholly upon. A far cry, indeed, from the current witterings of Willie Rennie and his ilk. An example of just how far the Libdems have lost the place and their balance between Corporate greed and the people.

Mahri Black called out the BBC bias over Marr's show at the weekend, the STV suggestion that the SNP no longer had the stomach for independence fell at the First Minister's hands. For a party that has apparently run out of steam there was a stream of key policy announcements including the setting up of a national energy company and changes to future Scotrail contract bids to allow Scottish publicly owned bodies to bid for the contract. Just two of many policies being pursued that reflect the needs and expectations of the SNP membership and the Scottish people.

On the issue of paid regional organisers the same mininging media tried to make it out as a defeat for the SNP leadership, forgetting that the SNP operates from the bottom up, the folk who pound the streets on behalf of the SNP see the need for paid organisers and it is a logical step given the work load volunteers have had to field over the last four years. A logical and necessary change in the party structure, one which will improve campaigning organisation is deemed as a 'defeat' because it came from the floor rather than the high heid yins. Leaves you wondering if the reality the SNP remains a members party where the members still have a final say, where it is still OK to have a 'divisive' debate in public, to be seen to exercise democratic principles is what really scares the UK media commentariat.

Anyone see or hear of the Tory Home Secretary being taken to bits in public over their handling of England's police forces, the mess that is their immigration policy, the failings of Border Control? Yet this happened at the SNP Conference when the Justice Minister faced a heart felt statement, at a fringe meeting, from an SNP member, about the impact of the current work over load on Scotland's Police Officers. Anyone ask Jackson Carlaw or any other 'Scotch' Tory if they are campaigning to have Police Scotland's VAT bill not just zeroed but the billions paid, over the last ten years, paid back? A simple change which would see Ruth's Tories helping reduce the current overload and financial restraints on Police Scotland, at a stroke, and demonstrate they do stand up for Scotland's best interests. Where are the minging media ijournalists pointing this out to Ruth the Mooth?

What we are actually seeing is the minging media turning on the social media beyond their or their master's control which asks all the questions they should be asking, if they were actually doing their job properly and discussing what is, rather than what they have been told to write. Looking at what the facts are actually saying rather than spinning them to say the complete opposite.

So to Nick Robinson at the BBC, Tom Harris of the Telegraph, David Torrance and the others who infest the minging media plying the Westminster Establishment line I suggest blogs such as Wings or the Canary are not the real problem, they simply highlight your failings as bought reporters, they point up how far too frequently you are the story and, worse, how you seek to distort what is actually happening to fit your master's bidding. It is not just in Scotland you have been found wanting in reporting what is actually happening but in Catalonia, Northern Ireland, Manchester in fact across Europe and the world where you peddle your falsehoods at the British Establishment's behest.

As the peadophile cover up on behalf of 'highly placed' individuals undertaken by the British Establishment, from the early 1970's rapidly begins to unravel. As the reality that Ted Heath, Cyril Smith and other's would now be facing serious charges with regard to sexual abuse of children, that Theresa May somehow 'lost' the detailed file on politicians and others involved in an international peadophile ring based at Dolphin Square (a favoured abode of the British Establishment) in London, maybe it is time for the minging media to decide just how much longer they have left, if they do not rediscover some sort of spine and integrity and start doing their real job of holding those in power to account.

I will not be holding my breath.

THE MAYCELESTE

The air was still, a misty rain surround the lifeless hulk of the, Manchester registered, Mayceleste. As we approached, our oars dipping uneasily in the swell, the creak of rowlocks in their seats, the dull plunk of our oars, the hard breaths of the oarsmen, the quiet voice of the coxswain  and the splash, splash, splash of the waves against the Mayceleste's hull was all there was to be heard in the deepening gloom.

"Port side oars give way and in board", called the coxswain in his muted voice as he brought us alongside the silent vessel. In the bows a seaman caught the chains and we bumped against the hull to leewards. There was no challenge from anyone aboard, only an oppressive silence, so dark, so evil, a silence foretelling doom, a silence that bares no breaking nor challenge.

We crept onto the main deck and in the dim light of our lantern saw scenes no sane man or woman should suffer. At first we believed we had stumbled on a ship of zombies but those before us were beyond any ability to act on their own volition or move without any call of authority. They appeared to be living in a world far torn from this dimension of earthly experience, signalling to each other by the waving of champagne flutes and calling gull like to one another "I'm OK, yah." It was not they did not see us but looked through us as if we were not there, as if we were some creature which had crawled from the ocean's depth.

Occasionally one would stoop to speaking in English to us but little of what they said made much sense.  Take, as an instance, one obese sandy haired individual telling us just how they had beaten the European Union at every turn and how the collapsing UK economy was good for Britain.

Another was speaking to himself, apparently unsurprised no one wanted to listened to him, declaiming into his beard how much better Britain would be if only everyone was English and voted Tory rather than being Scottish, Welsh or Irish.

We searched high and low for the captain or first mate of the Mayceleste but of them there was no sign. Some of the crew said they had already jumped overboard, others said they were hiding on the orlop deck as they feared a mutiny, a few were certain they did not exist in anything but their own imagination.

The goats in the pen below the quarter deck seemed to be bleating "SNP Baad" at anyone who came near them.

Yet as we searched we found not one who could understand just how dangerously the Mayceleste was bearing onto the rocks of ignorance, bigotry and arrogance bringing with it the ship's inevitable destruction. Nor was there any concern for any of the ordinary people their stupidity and lack of concern would drag beneath the waves to their inevitable death and destruction of their families. They would be alright with their Cayman Island tax exempt life rafts, so hard luck for the 'little people" it was their own fault the little people were poor, was it not?

We returned to our row boat and cast off, relieved to get off the tawdry and lifeless decks of the Mayceleste. We left feeling unclean, our humanity stripped from us - just a little, the stench of unearned privilege in our nostrils and the fear if we also held on such a course as the Mayceleste, we too were doomed.

Our hearts lifted only once we tucked under the stern of the Scotia and being safe home. We had tales to tell of what we had seen and heard but who would believe any of our tales of our experience aboard the Mayceleste, they were to far fetched; surely?

Corbyn .... just another English imperialist

Funny that, I mean it is just fine for the Palestinians to be free of Israeli over lordship but a disaster if it happens to be any part of the so called United Kingdom trying to exit English over lordship. This leaves any sane person wondering just what Mr Corbyn means by his undying support for self determination for the down trodden masses.

Take his speech, long on what is good for "Britain" (aka Englandshire) but empty of any understanding of what is actually going on, politically, in England's "United" fiefdoms. Corbyn is just another English nationalist busy telling the Celtic fringe of the UK he knows what is best for us. His ignorance of the true basis of the UK Parliamentary Union between Scotland and England was clear for those with the patience to listen to what he actually said. Though other commentators have listed just far off beam he is on issues pertaining to Scotland it is worth reiterating the key points of his ignorance to make clear just what he stands for as an English nationalist:

• That Scots Law and constitutional practise is protected for "all time" by the Treaty of Union as an independent construct, where "all time" means exactly what it says on the tin
  
• The SNP Government is already mitigating the impact of Tory social welfare and health policies that his party sat on their hands or actually voted for, to the tune of in excess of £100 million this year alone
  
• Scotland has a separate Educational system
  
• Scotland has a separate National Health system which operates very differently to England's as the SNP kicked out the insidious privatisation of NHS services started by Labour via policy and PFI and brought hospitals back under NHS Scotland control
  
• The SNP has built more social housing than their Labour predecessors managed (not hard, I know)
  
• The SNP has mitigated against Labour's PFI schemes and their impact on education and health funding
  
• The SNP not for profit funding model has seen public projects, such as the new Forth Bridge, brought in for a fraction of the cost and time wastage of Labour's cumbersome PFI model
  
• The SNP is already using its 'powers' to enable publicly owned businesses in Scotland to bid for the next Scotrail contract
  
• As a socialist he should recognise the SNP are not his enemy to be 'wiped out in Scotland' but a potential ally for progressive change
  

• As an internationalist he is anti-EU (apparently because it oppresses the working man and woman) and yet the EU has been key in sustaining the longest period of peace, between constituent nations, seen in Western Europe, ever, which has benefitted the working man and woman through free movement of labour across the said oppressive EU

His speech is now being spun in the UK media as 'barn storming'. I would humbly suggest it was, in reality, a speech which missed the metaphorical barn doors by miles with respect to Scotland.

I rest my case that Corbyn is just another ignorant English nationalist and imperialist. If 'Labour unity' is reflected in the self immolating wasters in Labour's "Scotch" branch then this was truly the speech of a straw man.

The Big Lie

I notice that the Darien Disaster has been rearing its head as a Uninionist justification as to why Scotland can not be trusted as an independent country in charge of its own economy. The truth is Darien as a project failed but mainly because the Spanish and English Establishments of the day did not want France gaining a foothold in Central America via a Scottish colony. Powerful financial interests put the squeeze on their respective governments in England and Spain as they saw a potential attack on their hegemonies, cartels and sole trader status. In simplistic terms you could ask just what has changed in the last three hundred odd years with respect to these two nations and Scotland and, having observed the hyperbole during the 2014 referendum, the answer is that London and Madrid remain in cahoots as far as Scotland is concerned; as do their vested interests.

Darien failed but it did not reduce Scotland to a fiscal basket case as Unionist history has long claimed as justification for the Union. In the period between Darien and the Treaty of Union the core players in Scotland's economy in the period, the Burghs and nascent middle class, recovered their losses quickly. Custom and excise returns for Edinburgh and Leith indicate an economy growing at around 4%. It appears the middling Scots in the Burgh's were not feeling the pinch nor were local artisans. A study of shipbuilding at Leith over the period showed yards working at capacity for both Edinburgh and Leith Burgess and the Scottish Navy, again hardly indicative of a country in economic collapse or with its banks in serious trouble. The same was true for all the East coast Burghs.

So just who was actually in financial trouble over Darien?

Surprise, suprise it was the 'Estaite o' the Lairds'. Many, in their greed, had mortgaged their estaites to the hilt to fund the Darien Company. As the Burghs recovered from the initial financial hit they started the process of calling the mortgages in the Scottish Courts. By 1700 a number of big Scottish land owners were on the edge of bankruptcy, if their mortgages were called in, and the legal pressure to settle was growing apace as the Burgh's middle classes wanted their money back. For England this would be a double whammy as many of the said Lords were willing to support the Hanoverian succession but without their lands, fues and rents would be in no position to ensure their 'people' towed the Hanoverian line. At the same time the English Government of the day were paying out large bribes to Scotland's Jacobean lords to keep them sweet on the Hanoverian deal, at a cost of £1 million pounds sterling a year to the English Treasury in the 1700's. Daniel Defoe's role in this was to ensure the Treasury money got to the right (wrong) people.

So we have a situation where the Scottish Lords, the English Parliament would rely on to ensure the Hanoverian succession are on their uppers, while the assumed Jacobean opposition Lords were doing very well, thank you very much. A change in Government in England saw a change in approach and a Treaty of Union which had been opposed at every turn in the English Parliament up until the early 1700's suddenly became vital to English interests. The position was made clear to the the Scottish Hanoverian Laird's, deliver the Union Treaty and your debts will be paid off, the rest is history.

"Bought and sold for English gold"

Nothing much has changed since, if you want to understand the Unionist opposition - just follow the money. Money has always been far more important to Unionists than Scotland's best interests, from day one. As for Scotland's economic collapse, that happened as an outcome of the Union Treaty with France blocking Scottish merchants from the Baltic states and the Low Countries while England blocked trade from Scotland with their colonies, By the mid 1700's Scotland's main export was its people, immigration forced through by the clearing of land and grinding poverty in the Burghs. Scotland's economy has never regained the levels of growth it saw prior to the Union Treaty, not so much by default than by deliberate Westminster fiscal policy. Keeping Scotland, Wales and Ireland poor was vital to the colonial ambitions of the fundamentally English Parliament at Westminster and its financial backers, just as it will be vital to any recovery in a post Brexit UK. The poverty of 'austerity' is part and parcel of this current Brexit process along with scapegoating of those who do not have a voice or are 'foreign' (which includes all Scots who are not with the current 'North Britain' scheme) via the UK media.

If you understand the historic parrallels between what happened in the 1700's in Scotland and now. The question remains; do you want to keep playing this game with Scotland always on the hind teat or not?

Democracy not dead; just pining for the fiords

As we watch the West's increasingly fascist capitalist system defend itself in Spain, courtesy of the silence and or hand washing in the EU capitals and at Brussels on Catalunia (we can not interfere in internal matters), is there any thoughtful person left in any doubt just how sick and weak our Western system of democracy has become?

Here in the UK we have what is technically a Tory minority government, propped up on the shoogly peg of a bribed DUP, claiming powers, based on an archiac English Law Statute, designed to enable Henry the Eighth's autocratic rule to run unenpeded in England and Wales in the late 15th Century. A statute which has no standing or legitimacy in Scot's Law or constitutional practice protected for "all time" by the Treaty of Union.

Over the years I have written time and time again, in this blog, about the insidious enactment of so called "British Laws" which are in breach of the Treaty of Union, warning of the creeping Nazification of the British State and yet it appears the Scots are, like the mythical frog in the slowly heated water, going to be cooked before they realise what they have allowed to happen, courtesy of their own fear and ignorance. A point at which it is too late to make the dramatic change necessary to protect ourselves, our national interests and our successors future - independence.

We need to accept the reality appears to be we are "Scotland the sheep" and not the brave. A nation of too many, "Ach ye maybees richt, laddie, bit its 'aye been' thon wey, ye'll ne'er change aucht, Lunnon 'ill n'er let ye.", boiled frogs to a man and a woman, mushroom people who live in the dark and consume the shit fed them by the UK media without any thought there is anything better on offer. A nation who think tuppence of their own parliament in Edinburgh (as told to by said media) while having no clue as to how effective their 'pretendy parliament' and Scottish Government has been in aleviating the worst of the Tory Government austerity and hatchet jobs on the NHS and Welfare funding since 2010 amongst other good works.

We now find ourselves in the political bullshit season as the Unionist political parties have their carefully scripted, back slapping, 'are we not sooo clever' weekends. We will hear from all the usual commentators just how 'baaad' the SNP is at governing in Scotland's best interests (the increasingly isolated Gerry Hassan has already started) and how lucky we Scots are to be living in a clapped out, roofless, Unionist mushroom shed somewhere a bit north of Watford, not having to worry about being dazzled by bright lights or suffering from sun burn, so eat up this load of recycled, Unionist, media shit like good chaps and chapesses, don't worry your little mushroom heads and just keep giving us kind English Unionists all your resources and profits for free. We will get round to giving your North British mushroom shed a new roof once we have decided just what Brexit actually means; then again, maybe you North Brits should just pay for the new roof yourselves, like you did that ramshackle new bridge over the Firth of Forth that you did not really need.

This Unionist version of democracy wouldn't go 'voom' if you put ten million volts through it - pass me the Scott's fungicide spray, we are down to last ditch efforts to rid us of the mushrooms causing the democratic rot in Scotland.

Brexit; a lead Zepplin

The full expression is "Going down faster than a lead Zepplin".

First, let me deal with the pedants or as I like to call them, "Unionists".

According to current physics thinking all things fall at the same rate (v) in a vaccuum under gravity, so technically the statement is meaningless as all bodies with mass fall at the same rate. It also follows the maximum energy contained within any body equals its mass times the speed of light squared; E.

Under the basic law of momentum E is conserved; consider a collision between two objects - object 1 and object 2. For such a collision, the forces acting between the two objects are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction (Newton's third law). The relationship of momentum and the stored or kinetic energy of a body can be expressed in equation form as follows:

OK pedants; so far? 

So why is the kinetic energy of a body only half of its total available energy according to Einstien's formula? 

This is due to terminal velocity:

terminal velocity formula, v = the square root of ((2*m*g)/(ρ*A*C)). Plug the following values into that formula to solve for v, terminal velocity.^[1]

• m = mass of the falling object
• g = the acceleration due to gravity. On Earth this is approximately 9.8 meters per second per second.
• ρ = the density of the fluid the object is falling through.
• A = the projected area of the object. This means the area of the object if you projected it onto a plane that was perpendicular to the direction the object is moving.
• C = the drag coefficient. This number depends on the shape of the object. The more streamlined the shape, the lower the coefficient.

Now you could just blame quantum or cry "SNP baaaad", as usual, but the observable reality, on the surface of the earth, is the terminal velocity of a lead Zepplin is far faster than that of a feather - QED.

 So how does "Going down faster than a lead Zepplin" apply to Brexit you ask, apart from being quite a funny description of the current farce playing out at Westminster. Let's try applying the terminal velocity formula to current Tory Party thinking and actions to see if I am right in my contention.

Mass: is easy to define as you can observe the 'dead weight' that makes up the current UK Cabinet so we will assume the mass of the Tory Brexit negotiating body is around the same as the average neutron star on a volume basis; 1100 tonnes per nanolitre (millionth of a litre) or the equivalent of the mass of 900 great pyramids of Cheops.

Gravity: While we all observe the gravity of the situation is high, in terms of the equation it is fixed at 9.8 metres per second per second

Density: While we would agree the Tory Party is being extrememly dense with its thinking that it controls all the Brexit negotiating levers, we are actually looking at the density through which said Brexit negotiations are falling within the EU, this is clearly a very high number indeed

Area: You can hardly call the current thinking of the Tory Party "stream lined" and given the corpulence that abounds within the Tory Party we can consider this figure to be in the region of half a square kilometre

Drag: The Tory Party continue to drag their heels and alter their latest spun press release on Brexit to face the current wind of popular thinkng within their own party. Most of the rest of us see this as a drag as we are fed up being treated like little kiddies who should just do what the "nice" Tories tell us to because they know best. There is a lot of drag around Brexit.

Given all the apparent agencies acting to slow the velocity of Brexit it appears, at first glance, I am potentially wrong in my contention of Brexit "Going down faster than a lead Zepplin" but mass will out. The average human being has a volume of 95 Litres, multiply by the number of Tory Brexiteers, times 1100 tones, times ten to the power 6 and I think you will agree the mass of Brexit under the Tories means the UK will "Go down faster than a lead Zepplin", creating a political, social and economic abyss, courtesy of its kinetic energy, we will never again see daylight from, welcome back to the dark Satanic Mills, UK. You just can not ignore the maths or the physics involved (let alone quantum). 

Simply put, we Scots are going to be fucked over, big time, if we stay in this UK Union.

The Final Curtain

It is 0400 on a Tuesday morning, the sun is already rising in the north east and my usual June, Falkland's induced insomnia has me bright eyed and bushy-tailed. I have had a cup of tea, talked to the dog and stroked the cat. My house is sold and in the next 28 days I will have tidied up the last threads of my divorce, moved to a new house, cut my mortgage liability in half and be ready to embark on my seventieth decade with a clean sheet, plus a whole load of baggage you inevitably drag around with you.

In the process I am cleaning out nooks and crannies, mental and physical, long left unvisited, finding stuff I had forgotten I had and other things I wish had stayed unfound. Throwing some of it away, checking other items for fitness of purpose and asking myself why I need three tents; lightweight, Everest storm proof and a three section family tent. Wondering if it is worthwhile fixing the zip or a broken pole fixing on the lightweight and re-taping the seams on the storm proof's fly sheet (no and yes). Do I really need four sleeping bags of different weights or four rucksacks?

It would appear I now have too much time on my hands to go along with my insomnia.

Over the last six years of blogging I have routinely ranted and occasionally informed, it has been fun but like all things has now run its course. When you are faced with the omnishambles that is UK politics in 2017 you have to ask yourself just what is the point?

Logical argument has failed, we are stuck with the politics of division, scapegoating and ignorance within a UK Parliamentary Union fueled by Westminster party spinners and a lack lustre national media which holds the UK citizens in contempt as it pursues its own narrow concerns. A British Establishment which has lost the plot and is in a downward spiral of self deceit and utter delusion, seeking a lost empire it can never regain and lives on, only its its own demented thinking, as it once again wheels out Liz in an attempt to paper over societal chasms so clearly exposed in the recent Grenfell Flats disaster.

The outcome of the UK Election demonstrates the utter collapse of the UK Parliamentary Union where you have the party of government negotiating with the political front of a known right wing, sectarian, terrorist organisation, in a straw clutching attempt to retain power, no matter how flimsy. As for Brexit .... just do not let me go there ... seriously; don't!

In Scotland we see the media's fawning over a bit part "Scotch" Tory leader who, yet again, came a poor second to the SNP in seats and vote share, acclaimed as the conqueror of Scotland, "those rebellious Scots to crush." Sadly there are too many on the pro-independence side of the fence apparently too ready to buy into this pish of a "great Unionist come back". It is all the SNP's fault, they cry and yet the SNP vote held up overall.

The real irony of the election is the proof positive that in Scotland the claim of "Vote Labour, get Tory." is now proven beyond reasonable doubt and the election has ended up costing the Tory Party dear as Channel 4's Kirsty Allsop put it so succinctly, "..to simply give the SNP a bloody nose in Scotland."

Over at London Labour, how long before the usual Blairite suspects will be mauling Corbyn at every chance, allowing the Tories to carry on on their destructive way by abstaining or voting with the Tories?

Labour's Blairite Scotch wing is quite open that voting Tory at every turn is the way to go. Why will there be any difference at Westminster?

All in all I have decided I have had enough blogging. Human greed, ignorance and stupidity clearly triumphs at every turn; watching fishermen and farmers in the NE of Scotland voting like turkeys for Christmas, being a case in point. I have other things to do with my decreasing energies than seeking to continue to highlight the repetitive, contrary, selfish and self limiting thinking of my fellow human beings as they wring their hands and claim they are powerless in the face of ..... their own ineffectual thinking and fear.

With my move from Larglea, The Tarff Advertiser is closing down, many thanks for reading and occasionally responding.

HO-HUM....

What is it with unionist politicians and their supporters in the media?

Willie fronts up in a failure of a sports car.

Ruth fights a re-run of the 2014 referendum while being policy empty when it comes to Scotland.

Kez says mostly anything about Scotch Labour's "independence" in policy making, only to be slapped down by London.

Not one unionist politician can answer why their bosses in London are fixated on buying a missile system which is already out dated, the USN is shutting down any further development on Trident after 2020 and current development work will end by 2025. The USN is currently planning to have all its Trident boats decommissioned by 2050 while the first of the UK's next generation 'bomber' submarines is unlikely to commission much before 2030.  Add in the UK can not afford to fully arm its current Trident warheads and will be launching as many lumps of concrete, in retaliation, as nuclear weapons and you are left wondering, why bother in any case. The question remains will Lockheed - Martin continue to run its Trident maintenance program once the USN Trident is out of commission after 2050 and at what cost to the UK taxpayer?

UK Nuclear weapons did not deter Russia from walking into the Crimea a couple of years ago; North Korea from being, well, North Korea or any number of African genocides over the last four decades, let alone the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982 or any number of US military incursions, contrary to UK best interests.

In the meantime to afford this obscene nuclear willy waving our conventional forces, the ones we actually need to be effective in today's asymmetric warfare, as conducted by the likes of ISIS, are being cut to the bone. The UK can not meet its own home defence needs let alone its NATO commitments as another two type 23 frigates are laid up ten years earlier than planned, the British Army can only support one armoured division in the field and only for a couple of weeks at that (its NATO commitment is to provide 3 armoured divisions, an actual army) while the RAF still can not fulfil its main NATO commitment of maritime surveillance in the Iceland - Faroes gap and Norwegian Sea.

According to the unionist triumvirate we are stronger in the face of terrorism and outside aggression by staying in the UK .... aye, right enough!

Scotland has a basket case economy, reliant on oil, according to arch unionist, Andrew Neil, telling ignorant, wee Nicola off. Wait a minute Andrew, just who is actually responsible for the macro economic decision making that hamstrings Scotland's economy at every turn, that'll be UK Government policy at Westminster, politically driven by the UK Chancellor via the UK Treasury, surely, Andrew?

As this unionist election campaign in Scotland unravels by the day it seems amazing that any person who has more than a single brain cell synapse can still claim any key area of Scottish society is "safer in the UK Union" and control  "better exercised at Westminster than Holyrood" when the opposite, whether it is basic welfare provision, the NHS or State Pensions, is objectively and demonstrably true for Scotland.

When unionist politicians resort to out right lies, such as Ruth's on the SNP manifesto delay, then you have to wonder what the internal polls the unionist party's are seeing in their canvas returns are actually saying. The increasing stridency of Ruth, Willie and Kez suggests the published "UK" media polls on Scotland are pretty far off the beam when compared to actual doorstep returns.

With eight days to go the only policy it appears the unionist parties have in Scotland is "No to a second referendum" with a sub text of "Scotland: just do as yer telt by Westminster, jist like we're daenin', pal. Bein' buggert aa the time by Lunnon dandies is nae tae bad, aince ye get the hang o' it an' as long as ye hae ane o' thon muckle pots o' Union flag bedecked Vaseline haundy."

Ho-hum .... who could seriously vote for the Vaseline pot and smile?

Missing ....

There has been a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes in my life, the private is private, need to know only but has been taking up a lot of my energy and time. Hence the sporradic blogging. Over the next couple of months all the Secret Squirrel activities should be brought to a final conclusion, a full stop and a new chapter in my already chaotic and hectic life story will open for me to engage with.

This creates opportunity but it also requires some calm reflection on where I want to commit my slowly decreasing energies to the best effect.

The most marked public emotion at present is anger and it presents in different forms from the booing of Tories on Question Time, the ranting in the media over trifles - while ignoring what really is happening by journalists and politicians who should know better, I hear it in my Tory voting friends who are starting to feel ostracised, lost, let down and increasingly isolating themselves in a Union Flag bubble of deafness to all but their long held certainties of "Great Britain".

A quick look at Facebook or Twitter and you will see the same increasingly unrestrained anger turning into divisive hatred between Scots, some who have not a clue who the others are, but they are "Yoons" or "Independies" and that it now appears is enough to threaten destruction of political or personal lives.

Yet when we look at the current leadership of the UK in Downing Street what we see is a group of people scared of losing; of losing votes in Parliament, losing seats in the June Election, losing their raison d'etre of their one sided Union with the increasing problems of a Scotland and Northern Ireland pressing to stay in the EU and the pressure for independence and reunification, respectively, increasing as a result. Their fear of losing comes across in an ever more strident and divisive political message, a message which appeals to an England which is narrow minded, bigotted, arrogant and ignorant of the destructive impact this has on their idea of a Great Britain (aka England) in the eyes of the Scots and Northern Irish. This vain glorious and non-existent Great Britain is trumpeted as being real by all the usual London based media hacks from the BBC to the Sun. Sadly it is not just May's Tories who are pushing this "British (England) is best" line, so do as you are told all you foreign Johnies, Jocks and Paddies but Corbyn's Labour is at it as well and I bet if the Libdems had a policy it would also be to suppress the Jocks and Paddies for their own good, mind, and leave the thinking to us English.

The problem with this "Westminster is best" line of thought is when you look at the England their thinking has created over the last four decades it is not a very nice place. The division between the "haves" and "have nots" is bigger than any historical period since Victorian times. England is now a country where if you want an NHS GP appointment that will take four weeks but if you have £140 the same GP will see you the same day. It is a country where the people, UK government policy has driven into poverty, are blamed for being in poverty and the increase in medical conditions which result from being in poverty is to blame for the collapse of the NHS in England. Then there is the additional line of blaming retired people for claiming their state pension as being a "burden on the state". These same people were not a burden on the State when their taxes and job losses were funding Thatcher's 'revolution' in the 1980's. Yet the opinion polls in England are selling the idea the turkeys (English voters) are going to vote for a Tory Christmas anyway.

When I look at all this objectively I am left with one thought; human beings are inherently stupid, English human beings doubly so.

This leaves me thinking on the lines of: If Scotland does not become independent after the next referendum maybe Scotland is not the country I think it is, one where, by and large, we look out for those worse off than ourselves whether through poverty, ill health, disability or age. To me, too many Scots are angry about the wrong things (see most Yoon /Independy posts) and are missing the important stuff. Why do I say this?

Because if we stay in a Tory run, England centric, UK Parliamentary Union we will all soon be paying £140 to see a GP, see increasing numbers of folk on the streets dead from hypothermia, old folk begging on the streets and increasing numbers of children being dumped as orphans because their parents will hope, that way, they will at least get three meals a day. This is the Britain the lead writers in the Telegraph and the rest of their ilk are promoting for their Tory masters. This is the Britian Corbyn's Labour is supporting by their abstentions on key welfare, disability and health issues in Westminster votes time and time again; no matter the current bluster from Labour they will return to type, just as soon as their noses are once again safe in the Westminster trough.

This is a Britain, after objective and calm reflection, I would not wish to live in. So if the majority of the Scottish Electorate wish to vote Tory and stay with the abomination that is the UK Parliamentary Union then I am free to emigrate because Scotland would cease to exist in my eyes.

I would not be going missing but the country, I thought was mine, will; and my energies and desire for equanimity for all will be better spent where they have already been effective and regarded, as in Nepal, or any other developing nation.

The BBC - beyond Goebbels

On a recent "Have I got news for you" Ian Hyslop forensically took the BBC's fawning attitude towards the current Tory Government apart merely by reflecting the BBC's politcal coverage of Labour policies versus the identical Tory policies. He hit the BBC's biased political coverage fair and square,taking no prisoners.

It now appears at least some political commentators in Englandshire are waking up to the increasing use by the Tories of the BBC News as a method of thought control. In 1940 the BBC slipped into the same malaise of spouting only what the government wished to be heard, silencing any comment on the increasing sinkings by German U-boats of merchant shipping, hiding the sinking of the Royal Oak, the disaster in Norway and many other clear failures of the UK Government of the day. The BBC, by mid 1940, had become a laughing stock as a news service because ordinary folk in the UK knew about the disasters. Eventually the BBC found a spine and made clear their world wide reputation was being badly damaged by UK Government news management, they were becoming a laughing stock, as it appeared to many in the UK that Goebbels' Rudfunk English broadcasts were more accurate than the BBC's in terms of content. The BBC argued the people of the UK were not stupid and would stand up to the struggle better if they were told the truth good and bad. The final straw was the virtual news black out imposed after the Dieppe fiasco in 1942. Folk around Portsmouth and Southampton saw with their own eyes the difference between the assault force which had shipped out and the remnants which had returned. There was no UK Government cover up which could explain away the high numbers of casualty telegrams landing on doorsteps across the UK and in Canada.

The dissonance between what people actually knew and the UK Government line "of don't worry your little heads over it, we are in charge" combined with the reverses in North Africa in 1942 threatened Churchill's position as Prime Minister with a pending vote of no confidence being talked up at Westminster. Churchill shook things up, the imbedded BBC reporters were given much greater freedom to write their copy honestly (within the remit of war) and as a result the faith in the BBC's news reporting was largely restored. UK public morale lifted and by the end of 1942 the war had begun to shift in the Allies direction.

"The truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

Joseph Goebbels

This is true in a dictatorship but the opposite is true in a proper democracy.

The BBC is currently in a worse state than it was in in 1942 with large sections of its once loyal listeners disregarding it as an unbiased news source. In Scotland the figure is around 30% who still trust the BBC as a source of unbiased news; in England the figure is nearing 60%. The BBC's Reporting Scotland has become a byword for inaccurate, inane and biased reporting in Scotland, seen on a level with the Torygraph and frothing at the mouth Daily Mail. Like many of its Unionist media bed fellows it is seeing a continuing decline of audience.

"The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous."

Joseph Goebbels

Here, in a nutshell, we see the bind Ms May's Conservatives have got themselves into. They have generated lies so big, no matter how empty they are seen by the UK Public, they have left themselves nowhere left to go. They can not go back on lies such as the Tory leave campaign's extra £350 million for the NHS in England nor the falsehood of being "in control" of any future Brexit negotiation to ensure the "greater good" - for whom they neither know nor can say. The result is the Tory Party is looking increasingly ridiculous at every turn to the UK electorate and, worse, even its own support is starting to question the party's sanity.

"If we have power, we'll never give it up again unless we're carried out of our offices as corpses."

Joseph Goebbels

This is the where Tory Party now find themselves, totally wrapped up in keeping power for power's sake, hence the repeated "strong and stable" mantra we hear from them on an hourly basis. The have become "par example" the ultimate destructive version of Enoch Powell's view of Westminster's so called democracy as an elected dictatorship. The Conservatives are only interested in what is good for the party, a position they seek to sell to the UK electorate as being for our mutual benefit, via its tame media sources, when clearly the opposite case is true. Where is the benefit to the UK electorate of selling off the NHS in England in a piecemeal fashion? The only benefit is to the Tory Party and its backers. The so called welfare reforms are another case in point, what is the good of a reform which kills your own citizens and drives others into poverty?

In the next few weeks the BBC news organisation could do much to rehabilitate itself by holding this megalomaniac Tory Party to serious account, exposing the real effect and impact of current Tory policies on UK citizens. Doing what they did in 1942 and standing up to a Tory Government intent of hiding the truth from the people of the UK, holding this self interested mob of deluded individuals to account.

The BBC could, but they will not, their DG does not have the spine and their news machine is heavily leaning towards the Tory Party and bound into the English (aka British) establishment and its preservation.

Scotland may well return 59 SNP MPs this June, yet all the current posturing by the Tories and Labour still means they will concentrate on Englandshire at every other UK nation's expense, no matter the result in June. The sad truth is under the current Westminster machine is Scotland is side lined, ignored and belittled and with Corbyn's refusal to enter a progressive alliance with the SNP to keep the Tory Party out of power, it is going to stay this way.

"Now's the day, and now's the hour;

See the front o' battle lour;

See approach proud TORY power—

         Chains and slavery" 

In June 1314 we, the Scot's nation, rose to face a destructive, over confident and overweaning enemy in the English Establishment to defend our right to self governance. In June 2017 we are facing the same hubris in the form of the Tory Party and we can do the same, bloodlessly, via the ballot box rather than the broad sword and pike.

To paraphrase Churchill:

" 59 SNP MPs elected in June may not be the beginning of the end but will be the end of the beginning."

A Scotch Coo

So the big message from the Yoonistas to Scotchland, in June's forth coming Generial Infection is:

"We know better than you, so do as we say and stop talking about being independent because you know you are too wee, too stupid and too small and will fail without Westminster holding your hand."

So far, so normal.

Then there is the "big idea" from Labour that by voting with the Tory Party on almost everything Labour are cunningly opposing their policies unlike the nasty SNP who keep voting against Tory policies and abstained on the "let's have a general election five years early". Apparently this sort of active SNP opposition to the Tory Party is divisive and not good for Britain. Better for Labour supporters to vote for the Tories in Mundell's seat (majority 750) or Tory supporters to vote Labour in Edinburgh South to keep what's his name's nose, you know the wee Labour nyaff, in the Westminster trough. Funnily, it does not seem that either Ruth's Tories or the Dug's Labour give much of a toss about the other lone Yoonist in Shetland as, as yet, there has been no cry and hue to come to Alistair's aid, though maybe that was what Willie Rennie sitting on a lawn mower was about. Maybe Willie was channeling Ruthie's tank fixation with the usual result for the Libdems, a bit of a flop.

So as May's council elections in Scotland looms, what is the message from the Yoonistas?

It appears to be:

"We know better than you, so do as we say and stop talking about being independent because you know you are too wee, too stupid and too small and will fail without Westminster holding your hand."

 I do not know about you but I think I have heard this particular message far too many times, already.

The mystic Meg's of Ukanian motile political spherology have been breaking eggs, stirring their tea leaves, sacrificing chickens while dancing naked around a blood daubed image of Margaret Thatcher then decided that Ms May will win a landslide (except for Scotland or Northern Ireland) in Great Britian which will give her all the powers she needs to cut down the first born of the SNP and Sinn Fein, shattering the revolting Celts hopes under the heels of her kitten heeled, leopard skinned shoes.

In any other realm, other than media of the Democratic Ukanian Dictatorship (aka DUD), journalists would be quick to point out the rather large hole in this rather tenuous reading of the political runes. The problem for the UK Parliamentary Union is it can only exist as long as both the original signatories to the Treaty of Union continue to agree to share sovereignty in the UK Parliament at Westminster.

The argument of the 'constitutional experts' is basically the Scottish Parliament is not actually sovereign or that its sovereignty is constrained by the Scotland Act. Fine, that is OK if you go along with the fuges, bodges, misplaced assumptions, precedent and down right lies that are the basis for the UK Parliament's historical claim to exercise the Scottish people's sovereignty.

What if you, like Lord Cooper in his comentary on McCormack (1953), believe the issue of how and who represents the people of Scotland's sovereignty at Westminster is a loose and impermanent mix of what ever the UK Government of the day tries to get away with, as the historical series of fudges since 1707 clearly demonstrate; whether its is Grand Committees or the quasi viceroy position of the Secretary of State for Scotland of Thatcher's time. May's Tory Government has gone one stage further by removing the current dogsbody Secretary of State for Scotland from the cabinet. The sovereign people of Scotland currently have no one representing their sovereignty or considered will within the current UK Government's main decision making process.

This being the case with the elected voice of the sovereign people of Scotland actively ignored at Westminster over such key issues as Brexit, to what extent has the UK Parliament any claim on the people of Scotland's sovereignty, except to ignore it?

If the considered will of the people of Scotland is ignored routinely by Westminster, how can it claim to exercise the people of Scotland's sovereignty?

Under modern Scottish constitutional practice the "considered will" is exercised for the people via the election of MPs and MSPs on behalf of the sovereign Scottish people. While the constitutional experts claim that AXA vs the Scottish Parliament would have had a different outcome if only AXA's highly paid QC's had picked the 'right sub clause in the Scotland Act' rather than the one they chose. The bottom line remains the UK Supreme Court stated in 2010 it had no power to send back or block a legitimate bill of the Scottish Parliament which reflected the 'considered will' of the people of Scotland.

My suggestion is:

"It is time to legally test where the people of Scotland's sovereignty actually lies because clearly it is no longer exercised in accordance with the requirements of the Treaty of Union by the current UK Parliament and Government at Westminster."

The simplest way would be for a bill to be brought forward in the Scottish Parliament seeking to suspend the 1707 Act of Union (Scotland) until such time as the outcome of Brexit negotiations are known or the sovereign Scottish people decide on the 1707 Act's continuation or repeal, as the result of the outcome of a referendumon this issue. In effect this bill, if put into effect, would return full sovereignty to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh for the duration of the Brexit negotiations, forcing May's Tory Party to negotiate with the Scottish Government on the key issues such as Scotland retaining its place within the EEA, as a minimum requirement, if they wanted to keep the UK Parliamentary Union intact. In effect forcing the Tory Government to act upon the "considered will" of the people of Scotland as the Treaty of Union requires them to do, as opposed to, at present, simply ignoring us.

I can see this suspension bill of the Scottish Parliament causing the current presiding officer a serious outbreak of political hives. On the one hand his Labour bosses will be pressurising him on behalf of the Yoonistas, to throw out such a bill as being outside the powers of the Scottish Parliament as it is a "constitutional issue" reserved for the UK Parliament which is sovereign. On the other hand it would raise some serious questions of the legitimacy actions taken by the UK Government regarding Scotland, within the UK Parliamentary Union, merely from the social and mainstream media comment, given 60% of Scots made their considered will known over the issue of remaining in the EU. Even if the Presiding Officer blocks such a suspension bill, the argument over who represents the considered will of the people of Scotland and thus legitimately represents the sovereign people of Scotland, is not going to go away. The lid of the Pandora's Box of 300 plus years of constitutional fudging, bodging, assuming and lying by UK Governments and Parliaments over Scotland will not be easily closed, once opened.

Importantly the "Lord Cooper argument" says the UK Parliament has no powers to renegotiate the terms and conditions of the Treaty of Union and only the sovereign parliaments of the original signatories have these powers. By ignoring the import of the people of Scotland's considered will, by abusing and misrepresenting the sovereignty of the people of Scotland, surely the UK Parliament has taken powers for itself, outside of the legitimate and legal remit set out in the Treaty of Union Article 19, thus the UK Parliament is open to legitimate legal challenge of which the suspension of the 1707 Act of Union (Scotland) is but one legitimate pathway to ensure the UK Parliament and Government takes full cognaissance of the people of Scotland's considered will on Brexit and other issues.

I am indulging in blue sky thinking but the one thing I know is there is no progress in any human field without the challenging of "expert opinion" based on the principals of logic. In the 14th Century all the experts said the world was flat. In the 18th Century no one believed there was a simple solution to the problem of longitude except by measuring the transit of Venus. In the 19th Century no one believed you could split an atom. In the 1940's British experts said electronic bombing aids would never work as the signal could not bend round the earth ... tell that to Coventry. In the early 21st Century it was proven that gastric ulceration was caused by bacteria and not by the long taught methodology.

My point is simple: Experts are only right until proven wrong; at some point all experts are proven wrong - even Einstein. The same is true for "UK Constitutional experts".

Now I just need to find a MSP to volunteer to trigger my Scotch Coo ......