Another eventful week in the world of Scottish politics. Without doubt, the biggest news of the week was that Fergus Ewing has decided to stand as an independent candidate for Inverness & Nairn. Not so long ago, it would have seemed unthinkable to see a Ewing standing without SNP after their name on the ballot paper.
However, that is exactly what has happened. Fergus has made his position and reasons clear. This presented Sovereignty/Liberate Scotland with a situation after they had already declared that Andrew MacDonald would be contesting this same seat in May of next year.
However, in the true ethos of the Liberate Scotland project, Andrew MacDonald quickly declared he was standing aside to allow Fergus a free run at the seat. In a statement, Mr.MacDonald said, “the best way to support the broader independence movement is to stand aside in this constituency in recognition of Mr.Ewing’s long-standing commitment to his constituents and to Scotland.”
We agree with this sentiment and would encourage the SNP to do similar, which would also go some way to heal the wounds of this affair. Fergus Ewing should not be outside of the SNP.
This was the opening topic for our panel of Phil Boswell, Allan Petrie and Eva Comrie to open the podcast.
This week, we also had John Swinney at a Unionist-organised UK 2050 convention. There, in his best managerial speak, he said how everything in Scotland would be better if we were independent. Sadly, however, as always, the SNP did not back this up with an actual plan to attain independence.
There is an easy plan, and it is one that this blog and the podcast have been promoting for years now. Call a Constitutional Convention, invite all the independence parties and groupings together along with civic Scotland, and formulate a plan to make Holyrood 2026 an independence plebiscite! It really is that simple, John!
Throughout the week, the Scottish Government were making announcements of mitigations. Firstly, on the Winter Fuel Allowance and how Scottish pensioners would be marginally better off than English pensioners. Shirley Ann Sommerville told us that Scotland would be mitigating away the two- child rape clause the month before the Holyrood election.
The best mitigation Scotland can enact, of course, is independence! That is not on offer from the SNP. Fortunately, we now have Liberate Scotland, and they are making that option available to Independence supporters.
Rachel from Accounts was in the news this week. She has been caught short-changing the devolved Celtic nations over the Westminster mitigation of her NIC hike. She is misusing the Barnett Formula to give England a better settlement than the devolved institutions, quelle surprise!
In the week that Iran announced they had discovered the second largest lithium deposits in the world, the UK announced that they are likely to join in with the unprovoked US aggression against Iran.
Meanwhile, our Prime Minister was at the G7 in Canada making a complete fool of himself. Firstly, he mistook the South Korean official interpreter as the Prime Minister of South Korea and posed for pictures with him. This only highlighted the arrogance of an English PM that clearly had not done any preparatory work before attending the G7 conference.
He compounded his clownish behaviour when he was standing with the POTUS. Trump allowed some paper to fall to the ground. Starmer went down quicker than a £10 hooker goes down on a John to pick up the President’s papers. Such subservient sycophancy humiliates not just the clown that is Keir Starmer, but all of us that are stuck inside this corrupt and failing British union!
All this and more on your favourite Scottish political review podcast.
I listened for a couple of minutes
Boswell: “We pay for all these infrastructure programmes (in England)”
You, on HS2: “We’re going to be paying £10bn of that”
Both of these remarks are lies, and if you don’t know that, then you should be staying well clear of discussing economics.
I challenge you to show where you get this information from.
But you can’t.
Actually your comment is embarrassing for you it shows you are either extremely stupid or completely colonised. Either is humiliating for you.Best you watch cartoons and leave the serious stuff to the adults. Could I please implore upon you to speak to your doctor about oergsos having a vasectomy.
How where the funds created to pay for it? That’s right loans were taken out by Westminster, we pay between 8 and 10% of all loans taken out by Westminster regardless of whether they benefit Scotland that includes HS2 now off you pop wee man
Hahaha insults every time…. the cutting edge of satire it isn’t.
Where do you get the information that Scotland pays/ have paid/ will pay £10bn towards HS2?
Point me to it, and I’ll donate £100 to my local SNP/Alba/ Free Peoples front Of Judea organisation.
It’s a lie, and your response would indicate to me that you KNOW it’s a lie.
If you wish to live in an echo chamber of a mutual exchanging of falsehoods & mistruths, you fill yer boots, but its people like you and your cronies then ensure that indy will never happen, because the average Jock can see right through you.
Here’s a wee hint: respect your audience’s intelligence and tell the truth.
Not insults a reality check!
I see you missed the facts of my previous post so let’s take this stage by stage to respect your educational ability, how is the HS2 funded?
How? Basically by the taxpayer, but the “how” isn’t important, it’s the “who”.
Scotland don’t pay a penny towards HS2 (or Crossrail as the Boswell dude said)
My offer still stands: show me in GERS where it shows a charge for HS2 (or Crossrail for that matter), I’ll donate £100.
GERS? Now you’re getting real comical. You should know that the GERS estimates, stupidly adopted by the SNP government, were always designed to make Scotland look poor. Scotland pays a population share of “UK” projects.
“Scotland pays a population share of “UK” projects”
Where do you get this info from? Link please?
GERS:
Salmond: “The authoritative guide to Scotlands finances”
& “If its in GERS, then it must be true”
Sturgeon: “It carries the Scottish Government stamp”
& “I’m not quibbling with the figures”
Cuthbert: “GERS is fit for purpose”
If Scotland doesn’t pay a proportion of capital projects, why doesn’t it? Also, where did the oil revenue go – you know, the revenue that was so desperately needed that the British government negotiated at the lowest price to the conglomerates? Could it be that it paid for the benefit system that enabled the government to make hundreds of thousands of workers unemployed? Or could it have been to finance capital projects like the Channel tunnel, new roads infrastructure around the London area, etc.?
Scotland did not benefit directly from any capital project around the London area. It has meant that all major air transport in the London area requires Scotland to send most of its produce abroad through these hubs. Passengers, unless they can fly from a Scottish airport at double the cost and with far more restricted destinations, have to get themselves down south. We have no direct ferry link, either commercial or passenger, with any European/Scandinavian country (except a very restricted service via Aberdeen to Shetland and from Shetland to Norway). Again, we have to get ourselves down south, making our travel far more costly than your average English person’s.
This lack of facilities will continue to be degraded until there is nothing left. That bis not some daft prediction based on nothing, but a very fair prediction of the inevitable. Our industrial base is all but non existent. Every source of energy is diverted to England, mainly the North-east, where new hubs are being built. Even our off-shore wind energy is being carried, via cables, to North-east England for processing, and a new cable line is being constructed through our waters to carry energy from Norway to North-east England. Anything that comes back will be at double the price. The so-called new Aberdeen hub was a con, with few jobs of any kind, let alone decent ones.
Yes, we have a small population and there are difficulties with that, but we can do little to mitigate that either by choice of immigrants or by incentives to encourage indigenous population growth. I have never been one to blame England for all our ills because I believe that collaborationist Scots are at least as much to blame, but we will never – repeat never – be able to change our circumstances with the way the UK is set up to thwart real development and potential till anywhere except in England. I can even understand that because it has a much larger population base, but no effort appears to be made to off-set our disadvantages against our potential.
Whingeing will change nothing. We have to change our situation and that can come about only through independence, although, in the meantime, we can campaign for the devolution of England as a country within the UK – not of its regions and cities which would only become our rivals for funding and allocations. England needs to bankroll these itself. It also needs to share decisions with the rest of us, and not pretend that our having a 10th of the English MPs’ voting strength, will be some kind of panacea for what is deep-rooted and managed decline.
“Why doesn’t it?”
Because its devolved.
“Scotland did not benefit directly from any capital project around the London area.”
In the same way that London doesn’t t benefit directly from any capital project around the Edinburgh area
“England needs to bankroll these itself”
It does.
I suggest you go and study ONS figures, look at the revenue that London & the SE generates, and how much of that revenue goes to Scotland.
For sure in the 80s, rUK benefited greatly from oil revenue, but these days are long gone, and if we were out of the UK, we would be VERY much poorer.
You are really needing to educate yourself on how the UK functions.
You are making a fool of yourself here when trying to interact with people of far greater knowledge and understanding of how the UK functions.
My advice beat a hasty retreat while you still have some dignity.
Sam: why do you imagine that England did not devolve? England as a country is far, far more than London and the South-east. Ergo, those areas of England that are unemployment-ridden and poverty-stricken like so much of Scotland, must also be subsidised, no, if only the London and South-east make money?
So, basically, London and the South-east subsidise every other part of the UK? Why? Explain. By your argument, all the oil and gas revenue from Scottish waters, and the revenue from renewable energy, including hydro, are nothing. Why hang on to our waters? Why not re site the nuclear installations out of Scotland? Why hang on to them all? Why hang on to Scotland if we are this huge burden?
Why was the McCrone Report buried at the time? It would have been a massive bonanza for an independent Scotland which would have gotten Scotland off their back. Do you understand what debt is? If you do, explain how Scotland, with 8% of the UK population, Wales with even less and NI even less again can, together, create debt in equal proportion to England with at least 10 x the population of the rest of us put together?
Take into account that almost the entirety of UK-wide capital benefits reside in England, and normally in the London and South-east, so, how can the capital projects bill for the rest of us be so high if we are not contributing to it? By your reckoning, England-as-the-UK would be much better off sloughing off the rest of us from its back, no?
Sam: England did not devolve as a country. What is difficult about that? Can you explain why it didn’t because doing so would have led to a four-part UK with all four parts having an input into macro decisions and international affairs – and might – just might – have led to a contented UK rather than a divided and bitter UK. You’ll know best, though.
Yes, perhaps I am using a spot of hyperbole in relation to poverty in the UK, but you get the gist: most parts of the UK, apart from the London and South-east areas are far less well-off; so who do you blame for the non dissemination of the lucrative parts off the economy? The Power is centralized, ergo the decisions are made with that in mind. I accept that most capitals and all the largest cities everywhere are the hubs of the country, but you do not solve geo economic problems by hoarding everything in one or two geographical areas. If you have not been paying attention, Scotland, granted, a smaller populated country, suffers disproportionately from centralization and loss of industry and employment, such as it is, to other parts of the UK, notably England.
Of course we would have paid towards HS2 for the simple reason that, before cancellation, to would have run up to Scotland. Any capital project in Scotland, whether an end project or otherwise is paid for by Scotland. I also accept that monies are pooled and I would have to as a Scot since the oil and gas monies were certainly pooled and large capital projects were started in the London and South-east at the same time.
Perhaps McCrone was meant to be an internal memo, but it was not, at first, mooted as such. I also accept that many internal government matters are kept private for good reasons; however, McCrone specifically pointed out that independence for Scotland would almost certainly have had a massive boost had the real figures been known, and these were deliberately kept from the Scots and from the SNP of the time.
I have never trusted Labour because they have always tried to dupe the Scots. Always. Pretending that we have much in common when we really do not. Labourism might have started in Scotland, with very pure and excellent motives, but it has degenerated into just another Unionist party with little empathy for Scotland and the Scots – indeed, little empathy for the Midlands and North of England either, if truth be told. Always the lure of power at the centre. The SNP has gone the same way, and it seems likely, if neither is able to form a government after 2026, they will form a joint one, but it won’t be like the Greens and SNP. Labour will want many more concessions for their co-operation. We saw how the Greens began to destroy the SNP: a SNP-Labour coalition will finish the SNP forever.
You avoided the debt question. Economic experts have pointed out the discrepancy between our share of UK debt and our raising of UK debt. Essentially, we have no say at all, and are allocated a share per capita when the Scottish government must balance its books each year. That is my point. England-as-the-UK does not have to balance its books each year, but it would have to if it were devolved as a country like Scotland, Wales and NI, and decisions detrimental to us would have to be discussed equally, not thrust upon us. You believe what you want to believe, but Scotland and the Scots are doomed in the future to becoming a mere sideshow even more than they are if qe do not get independence soon.
Offs tax money used to repay the loans taken out by Westminster to fund it Scotland is allocated 10% of the loan repayment bill, and you might find a more realistic economic argument within the beano than you will from GERS.
Really?
Point out to where I written anything that makes me look a fool.
Tell where you get the information that Scotland pays for all these capital projects, HS2, Crossrail, London Underground etc etc.
But you wont argue with ant facts, because you are wrong, and you know it.
“Scotland pays a population share of “UK” projects”
Like what?.
Lorn, sorry I don’t understand what you mean by “England did not devolve”…. I’m talking about powers that are either reserved or devolved… you do know the difference, yes?
“areas of England that are unemployment-ridden and poverty-stricken”
Oh please, what are these areas? I think you exaggerate somewhat. What the UK does is indulge in pooling and sharing, and right now London is a huge cash cow for the UK, and ALL areas of the UK benefit from this… it’s not a subsidy… would you rather London & the SE keep all their revenues for themselves?
“how can the capital projects bill for the rest of us be so high if we are not contributing to it? ”
Where do you get the information that we contribute to ANY of these London projects? How many times do I have to ask? On the video I have referenced above two of the participants state that Scotland pays £10bn for HS2 (we don’t, Not.A.Penny), a also contribute to Crossrail…another falsehood, that is paid for by London taxpayers AND private investment.
Ah the McCrone Report, that old chestnut, the report that was an internal memo never meant for publication…didn’t you buy any newspapers in 1974? Gavin McCrone is on YouTube discussing that report… I suggest you go and watch it.
Sorry, missed this this morning.
No Alan, we don’t pay “between 8 and 10% of all loans”, we pay a population share of the INTEREST on the loans.
Now that could be an issue for a gripe if we contributed less than our population share to the UKs deficit, but we don’t.
From 2022-2023
Scotland, expressed as a % of UK
Population: 8.2%
Revenue: 7.9%
Expenditure:9%
Again, if you can source me where you get your info from that shows that we pay “between 8 and 10% of all loans”, then my offer still stands.
🤣🤣🤣 how much did we pay for your lobotomy? Ffs there is stupidty and there is yoon stupidity.
So, for the third time of asking:
Again, if you can source me where you get your info from that shows that we pay “between 8 and 10% of all loan please.
You should be really concerned that someone you reckon that has had a lobotomy is smarter than you on this.
Talking about Starmer making a fool of himself we should not forget our First Minister who is right up beside him like is long lost bum chum.
Much as I despise Humza Yousaf, and whilst it may have been a cheap political shot at Swinney, he did this weekend raise an issue of importance when he brought up how since the beginning of June, Prestwick airport has been used 39 times to accommodate landings of US military war planes.. Yousaf’s cry is that with the US now at war with Iran, Scotland is also at war in supporting the US military war effort.
But Yousaf is of course in truth right. We are at war, and our First Minister is right up there in that objective.
How will it play out one can only guess. In response to ever increasing foment on Russia’s doorstep and supported by the West, Russia went in to undertake a special military operation. Three years on with hundreds of thousands killed and maimed on both sides, huge economic destruction and the risk of escalation across Europe the conflict increases rather than decreases.
And in the middle east the UK forces as well as being active in the Russain Ukraine conflict are active on behalf of Israel, First in assisting with intelligence and targeting in Gaza, bombing in Yemen and Navy assets in the gulf but now assisting in the US war on Iran.
As Iraq showed, or Afghanistan, its easy to get into a conflict and nit so easy to get out. Bombing with a mass of Aircraft from 40,000 ft is one thing, getting down and dirty in the trenches to coin a phrase is another thing altogether and we should remember that backward Afghaistan, or for that matter Iraq was not a military success. Afghanistan in particular was an utter military disaster for the UK and the US. They died in vain, heroes yes for their effort, in vain.
But Iran is no Iraq, it is a big advanced country, and does anyone, save for the military planners, really think this is the end of the story. The flames are spreading and one can only fear what next if the threats against China spark into military life.
Rolls Royce and BAE Systems shares may be booming along with other weapons manufacturers But how good is that. The big reset is coming. I don’t think there can be any doubt about that. And will the US and its coat tail partner prevail? I don’t know.. Britain looks pretty broken too me at the moment but maybe a good going war will sort it all out.
Gaza after all, once it is cleared could be prime real estate land. But who is going to be the victor in this big reset.
But yes, two bit Humza of the white, white, white fame is right. Scotland is up to its neck in the war and with modern warfare must be a target.in a worldwide conflagration. Clydebank knew that and that was getting on towards a century ago with the primitive weaponry of that time. Military industrial targets and surrounding populace could burn much more easily today than they did in 1940.
Makes you wonder therefore if the average Scot actually cares. Not a topic of discussion for the majority as far as I can establish and most certainly not a topic for our pretend and certainly not a topic for our pretend parliament especially since I read recently that Ireland is one of the safest countries in Europe in the event of a widened conflict.
Otherwise, dulce et decorum est in pro patria mori.
I have to say that I was shocked that Trump ordered a direct US bombing raid on Iran instead of filtering the necessary weapons through third countries to Israel. He has never been a warmonger, unlike every other US president I can think of, so something triggered him to order this and deflected him from his usual ‘trade will fix it all’ stance. I agree with him insofar as trade is a great leveller, and, with the Abraham Accords in place although not yet in operation, several Arab states, including UAE, Bahrain,, etc., and, later, Saudi, were desperate to put feelers out to Israel to initiate trade agreements.
I may be wrong, but it was the Abraham Agreements, I believe, that triggered 7 October, via Hamas, by Iran. Most of the Arab countries which would have been affected are predominantly Sunni Moslem, rather than Shia, as is Iran, which has sought, consistently, to derail any agreements between its Sunni neighbours, albeit Hamas is Sunni, but they are another story. The Iranian theocrats hate the West just a little bit less than they hate the Israelis and the Sunnis, and wholesale conversion to Shi’ite Islam has long been their goal in the region, as well as a power play. I’d imagine that goal is also one they try to push in the West, too.
We are so in thrall to the bad faith of the West that we are in danger of not seeing the wood for the trees. The touching belief that a bunch of psychopathic, Islamic extremists hell bent on creating a Shi’ite Caliphate, and whose followers are willing to die as martyrs, will not trigger a nuclear holocaust against Israel and the West, is inexplicable given that their religious goals involve exterminating all Jews, not just Israelis. When I was ab lout 14 and started to read seriously about the Nazi regime, I used to wonder why and how the Germans did what they did. I don’t think there is any ‘why’ except a psychotic hatred of a people who had not yet even set up a state of their own that they could blame. Do I think Israel is beyond reproach? Of course not. The West? Definitely not. Would I choose to live in Israel or the West as opposed to any Arab state? You bet. Our nationals who live and work in UAE, for example, or even Saudi, do so under the protection of the West.
I hope that we do vote for independence in 2026, but, if we do not manage to take a majority with us, we should be looking to change devolution to include England. That would actually be a first step towards independence for all four parts of the UK. The fact that England – as a country – has never even given any thought to devolution of itself on a par with the other three parts, albeit it is the largest per capita, speaks volumes as to its sense of itself.
I’m not advocating this in place of independence, but as something that needs to be highlighted at every opportunity. I would like to see England defend the status quo. How would they do that? No actual Union? Subsumption of Scotland? The Treaty? The legal status of the Union? We would be forcing them to look at the Union and how it has come to the point that, de facto, England-as-the-UK has swallowed the rest of us without any legal basis for so doing. I would like to hear the arguments for assuming subsumption of Scotland in 1707. Those, in Scotland, who argue this premise, I feel, are blind to reality.
We have accepted an asymmetrical devolution that makes no sense because: a) it is illegal under the Treaty Articles; and, b) it is extremely detrimental to the rest of the UK and can lead only to huge dissent and dissatisfaction with the status quo. Had England also devolved as a country, albeit it is much bigger per capita, Scotland, Wales and NI would also be party to all national and international decisions, and England would not have been able to centralize the assets and resources for capital projects without agreement of the other three parts. The English population could not have grown so large either in comparison with the rest. Also, the other three parts could have insisted on a sharing of the capital projects that, at the moment, benefit only England’s South-east, even though the various taxes from all sources within the other three parts are funnelled south. and, later, a proportion returns by way of the Barnett Formula, which has turned out to be a poisoned chalice.
Yes, independence is the goal and we must strive for that, but, if we have to wait again after 2026, then let’s use the time constructively to change the UK fundamentally and nudge it towards the longer term goal of independence for all parts, including England. Devolution for England, the country (not its regions and cities, although that could happen, too, but would be England’s affair) would be a first step.
I’d also like to add to my last comment, Roddy, that I believe, from that which I have witnessed, and read, that Scotland’s people are becoming utterly demoralized, although I also think that this is happening right across the UK. However, Scotland is doubly unable to have a firm sense of itself when it has no autonomy to make its own decisions. Like a wife or partner controlled financially, physically and mentally by an abusive spouse who, perhaps, does not even regard himself as that, but who believes he is doing the best for his wife, even though she has no autonomy, Scotland is declining in health and well-being, as well as materially.
All sadly true that is why the multiple independence talking shops need to start actually doing some practical things to re-enthuse our base.Elections are won on the doorstep and at the school gate not in talking shops. From victory at the ballot box come mandates, unlike the SNP other independence serious players will take that mandate and run with it.