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 ......

There are fibs, lies, deceits and then there is UK Government propaganda

So what do you know .... it turns out after weeks of every media outlet pumping out just how brilliantly Ruth the Mooth was doing, how she was going to be the next first minister (in yer dreams hen), how she was Scotland's new sweet heart leading the Tory surge or should that be suck, as the Tories now have a Scottish vote share lower than the great Tory clear out of 1997. All of this hyper active grandstanding, by the usual suspects at the BBC and London media moguls, has been shown to be just so much self propagating hot air in Scotland with Ruthie now running an approval rating of -21 amongst her fellow Scots; compared to the collapsing fortunes of the evil and much reviled, international pariah Ms Sturgeon at +11.

If this was just one isolated event you could put it down to a bit of UKania hubris but a quick look at what actually happened in Syria where a Daesh chemical weapons dump, located in a civillian area, was bombed by the Syrian Air Force causing the deaths of civilians from the resulting, uncontrolled release of chlorine gas, as opposed to what we are told is happening (it is all Putin's faullt); then you have to give some serious thought to the veracity of any report eminating from London based  government and media sources.

How about how badly the Scottish economy is doing?

You still buying the problem has been caused by SNP economic incompetence rather than the direct fall out of Brexit as the UK lurches ever deeper into stagflation (prices rising faster than wages while the economy goes backwards and consumer confidence collapses).

No?

Try the claim that the UK still punches above its weight in "world affairs", how does that stand up to scrutiny?

Well the Trump US organ grinder told Boris, the UK monkey, to get back in his cage and leave dealing with Putin to the "big boys". Boris could not scuttle back into his cage and supply of  "Del Monte" US sponsored bananas and monkey nuts quickly enough, it is believed he left a cheetah trailing in his wake. As for our UK military might, well, that has the US Pentagon laughing until their sides are aching.

How about the UK Government claim the major oil and gas find off of Cape Wrath in the Faroes Sea is worthless to a small country like Scotland but the UK Government is more than happy to hoover up the millions of pounds from Scotland's oil and gas fields to fund its own self serving needs to kindly save us worrying about it.

The prize gem must be the claims from the London based parties regarding NHS Scotland being in just as bad a state as NHS England, our GP services in Scotland are under increasing recruitment pressure because Brexit has put off EU trained doctors from coming to Scotland. Meanwhile across England GP services have actually collapsed and in the last quarter alone a further 260,000 folk in England are now without GP service provision, according to the BMA. This number has been showing an increasing trend, quarter on quarter, for nearly four years. The actual figure is heading towards over a million people who are now without GP services in England who previously had access.

What?

You still believe that GERS is an accurate reflection of Scottish economic activity and the taxation base for an independent Scotland, you are kidding me, surely?

If this is the case, there is no hope for you and I suggest you assume the Tory 'brace' procedure and get some serious practice in kissing your arse goodbye.

"A SMALL EXPANDING SUN"

On Tuesday I sat in the cafe of the Nagasaki Nuclear Bomb museum pondering what sort of person takes human ingenuity and turns it into a weapon which on initial fission and for around a micro-second afterwards, was the size of a football and yet twice as hot as the surface of the sun. Within a second the searing heat had vapourised all carbon based materials with a 500 metre radius on the ground, caused bricks and clay tiles to melt and cermacise, bottles, crokery and pans to melt or deform while even melting and blistering the soild rock on which many of the houses stood. Here and there bits and pieces of a household's possesions survived relatively unscathed, only blackened: a cracked rice bowl, half a teapot, an earthenware container, spectacles in a case, a pair of eletrician's pincers - one handle melted away the other relatively intact.

In the same layer of fused together ceramacised bric-a-braq, nearly a metre thick, there was a belt buckle and tiny white glass spheres collected in a pile which could well have been the remains of a fuse box - with bits of what looked like wire sticking out like some modern work of art. Maybe the pincers and belt buckle are all that was left of the electrician who had been fixing a fuse on the fuse box, we will never know because the only evidence of carbon based materials, whether wood or human, is a thin layer of charcol dust at the bottom of the pile.

Five seconds later the blast compression wave landed from on high and sped off on its five kilometer dash to Nagasaki Harbour at twice the speed of sound and with a destructive force of twice that of the worst Typhoon ever recorded hitting Japan, the shape of the Urikame river valley acting to contain and focus the blast. The blast wave saw steel panel railway bridges bent and ripped apart with whole panels thrown 100 metres, the metal structures of factory buildings bent as if merely a child's toy, ferro-concrete walls and buildings pounded into dust, the air was sucked out of the chests of any animal in its path which had survived the intial flash of 3000 C plus heat. Then to add insult to injury, as nature abhors a vaccuum, hundred mile an hour winds rushed in to fill in behind the blast wave causing the smouldering remains of buildings to burst into flames up to 5 kilometers away from ground zero, in its turn creating a firestorm which took over 48 hours to bring under control.

These are the bare facts, before even attempting to get your head around the physical and emotional suffering which the people of the Urikame valley, who survived, sustained on that day and for decades after.

I am not going to argue the rights and wrongs of President Truman's decision, there is only what happened. Whether the two bombs saved many millions more Japanese and Allied people than the casualties at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is just conjecture based on the casualty rates of the millitary (on both sides) and civilians during the battles for Okinawa and Iwo Jima. There is only what actually happened.

I mention this on a day where the dirty game being played by Russia and the USA, of war by proxy in Syria, came ever closer to an actual confrontation between the two. A confrontation an unwilling Europe would be potentially sucked into by default as NATO's "An attack against one member, is an attack against all" came into effect and the USA looked to call in its chips.

This is the dangerous game Trump is now playing after last night's attack on a Syrian Air Base by US Cruise missiles. Whether or not Assad's military used chemical weapons and crossed the USA's line in the sand is neither here nor there when you have a US President whose grasp on reality appears extremely shaky at best, whose popularity ratings are plunging faster than Brexit Sterling is devaluing or the UK economy is collapsing and is increasingly looking as if he will face impeachment on a number of serious tax avoidance and other issues.

I have been on active service, I have seen at first hand and what normal, fun loving men with kids, a wife or a partner at home can do to each other when Governments decide to escalate a conflict. At what point in any future conflict does one side or the other decide that maybe a Hiroshima or Nagasaki needs to happen again, to 'save lives'?

Once, I would have had confidence that mutual assured destruction would keep heads 'clear' but with the likes of "willy waving leaders" like Putin and Trump, I do not have this confidence anymore. I fear Israel will trigger a nuclear war in the MIddle East, as another member of the "willy waver" club, Netanyahu, would want to show both Putin and Trump just how tough he is in defence of Israel.

Remember Netanyahu is yet another right wing Head of State, who is under investigation for illegal financial activities which have the potential to destroy his political career and land him in jail. Another right wing Head of State in ever increasing trouble, Ms May of the UK Brexit Empire 2.0, may also see benefit in an escalating Syrian conflict as the Tory general election financial misuse heads for the English courts with the potential to bring down the current UK Government and force a new general election. Though what use the UK's "severely degraded conventional military capability" (according to current Pentagon analysis) would be to the USA, is a moot point.

So while we consider whether Scotland should remain as a region of Englandshire or breathe the air of independence as a nation once more, we need to keep a careful eye on just where Trump and Putin's proxy war in Syria might take us in the future and trust the majority of EU nation states, via NATO, have the courage to tell Trump he is on his own in this "manno a manno" Middle East battle with Putin. NATO pact or no NATO pact, this is not Europe's fight, no matter how hard the UK Establishment media will continue to try and tell us otherwise.

Syria must not be allowed to become the "poor, little" Serbia of the 21st Century.