There are so many words and phrases in the English language that over the years the meanings have changed or been overused. I have noted particularly in English football and politics the misuse of the phrase ‘World class.’ Certain players that one should really describe as good players have been elevated by English punditry to a status far above their ability. Even before the obscenity of the Sky TV League very few English players ever made the grade outwith the confines of their own backyards. Indeed the so called greatest football league in the world is reliant on global players, owners, and money. IMHO it never has been the best league in the world, the richest, yes, the best? Not by a long shot. It actually fits in with this English need to believe that every aspect of their actual lives is superior to every other nation. The Mother of Parliaments, the royal family, the English Bobby, English Sport, Shakespeare, theatre all in the English mind the best in the world, unsurpassed anywhere.
From England recently we have had a world leading track and trace system that failed before it even got launched. The Tory Government is always talking about something or other as world leading, trade deals is the latest example of this self-congratulatory nonsense. A world leading deal on ferries, a world leading deal on Turkish PPE. The idiocy and self-denial continues unabated.The UK has the highest death rate in the world from Covid19 though listening to English TV or reading English newspapers you would believe everything is hunky dory in Old Blighty it is as usual Johnny Foreigner that is struggling. The MSM ownership is in the hands of a few offshore tax avoiding extreme neocon owners that are extremists in their view of neoliberal economics. They will defend at all costs those beliefs that reward a very few to the detriment of the many. Their organs of misinformation and hate dictate the news cycle for the equally corrupt Broadcasters to follow each day. Since May the UK has led the world in Covid deaths, yet our UK Gov has had little or no pressure from the 4th Estate.This is one world leading achievement our English lord and masters seem reticent to boast and brag about. This will continue to be the case because the 1% are only interested in protecting and accruing even more wealth. The fact that people in UK die unnecessarily is of no relevance to these vile human beings.
https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-has-highest-coronavirus-death-rate-in-the-world-2020-5?IR=T
They only get away with things like this because the people of the UK are really spineless sheep. I include my own nation in this and all the others of the Union.In 2017 the UN published a report condemning the UK Tory Gov. of abusing its own disabled citizens and failing to uphold their basic human rights. June 2019 the BMJ reported that between 2012 and 2019 Tory Austerity policies had killed 130,000 British citizens unnecessarily. Collectively we all did nothing beyond a few angry tweets and Facebook posts. The abuse and deaths continue worse than ever. Covid has allowed the Tories either through gross incompetence, gross negligence or policy to kill thousands more unnecessarily, especially our aged and infirm. Hardly a hint of criticism has been levelled at the UK Gov for this mass manslaughter of its citizens. The very people that a civilised society should protect the most are actually protected the least. Still the British public say and do nothing. Why should the Tories stop their evil when the public seem by silence to acquiesce? Thatcher’s ideology of self over society is truly imbedded into the mindset nowadays.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/31/un-panel-criticises-uk-failure-to-uphold-disabled-peoples-rights
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/01/perfect-storm-austerity-behind-130000-deaths-uk-ippr-report
The other word used with abandon in the UK is democracy. The people living in the Union think we do have the Mother of Parliaments, that our unelected head of state loves her people. The only citizen she has gone out of her way to protect recently is her son Andrew. Had a Joe Bloggs from a housing estate been molesting trafficked children they would already be enjoying porridge and anal sex in an American Federal prison. We have been told to believe we have the greatest justice system on the planet. Tell that to Julian Assange, Craig Murray or the Chagos Islanders. Try and tell that to the Orgreave miners, The Birmingham Six, The Guilford 4 or the families of the Hillsborough dead that British justice is the benchmark for the world. At every opportunity our establishment use and abuse our legal system to protect their narrow politics. This allows them to keep transferring wealth from the poor to the obscenely rich. Everything in the UK is about short term profit for the few. No policies are ever about the long-term benefit for the many. Still we sit around on our collective arses and do no more than shake our heads and tut tut. We pretend by sending out a few angry tweets that we are fighting the system. All we are doing is kidding ourselves on that we are making a difference.
Anything worthwhile in life is worth fighting for to preserve or attain. Today with Johnson’s latest refusal to accept the settled will of the Scottish people at the ballot box he has effectively told Scotland that democracy does not exist. The Tories are backed in this act of imperialism by the Labour and Liberal Parties of England. Each and every one of these English based political parties have made similar statements. No matter how often or by how great a margin we vote for the right to hold an independence referendum, they just won’t allow it to happen. In effect what the English establishment is saying is simply this, democracy and voting in the UK is a sham. Unless you vote as London wants then we will just ignore your votes, your elected representatives and your wishes. You can give your representatives hundreds of mandates we will just ignore each and every one. Should you vote in a manner we view favourably then we will be democratic and support your view. However, when you vote for something, we do not like, we will just bully you into submission. We do this in the full knowledge that the media that is meant to hold power to account is an integral part of the English dictatorship They protect the few and ignore the many. You could not name a single journalist that has written that the Scots have a democratic right to a referendum. Not a single one! In the past 40 years with the exception of the Poll Tax, the peoples of this union have been as passive as a sloth on cannabis.
Scots if you do not want to lose your last vestiges of democracy and dignity you are going to need to react. I have never, nor will I ever advocate violence, however the Tories have demonstrated being law abiding and democratic, playing by the rules just does not work. They have no respect for law, or decency They now operate a crime syndicate, not a government. Multi-million £ contracts are being blatantly handed out to friends and donors of the Tory Party. The corruption and disregard for the law are now so blatant they do not even try to hide their criminality anymore. Nobody in this undemocratic abomination called the UK is ever held to account. Corruption, racism, fascism are now endemic in England. Let us not kid ourselves that such things are not also in Scotland. We as a people are going to need to take our independence London rarely if ever cedes power. Our own Scottish Government seems to want to keep playing by Westminster rules. We can never win by doing this. We need to break the rules and conventions if we are to see our nation attain its place among the nations of the world. We need to focus completely on prising our nation out of this corrupt Union. The Scottish Government need to stop pushing narrow based policies that are dividing the supporters of independence from the Party of independence. Matters of this kind can wait until after the main battle is won. More than ever we need to claim our independence. The SNP Scottish Government can either lead that fight or get out of the way. Continuing to meekly, abide and comply by English edicts is no longer an option. We need a Plan B, and we need it now Nicola! You cannot keep timidly edging along in the hope that any Tory Government will suddenly start acting decently or democratically. These people are narcissistic sociopaths they do not play by the normal rules of human decency. All bullies understand is a good headbutting on the nose metaphorically or otherwise. The time is now we cannot prevaricate any longer. Give us a lead the people are ready, our destiny is in your hands. What is the plan, hen?
Against a backdrop of trump’s military forces on the streets of America, and the final almost check mate move of the brit government against our Scottish democracy, under the cover of their Russian report – with inferred influence on our indy battle, while they pass laws in their evel parliament and get ready to trade away all our riches and benefits, isn’t it time Nicola played her Joker to get us out of this “Jeux Sans Frontieres” ??
We will do the rest, but sitting hoping and waiting while this unfolds is now surely untenable, or the game is a bogey.
Democracy? The closest we get to democracy in the UK is when once every 5 years we get to vote in a general election. Even the law that stipulates “5 years” can be over-ruled when it suits. Once we have our wee sliver of “democracy”, the new government can do whatever it wants. Promises? No, these were merely options. Lies? No, these were merely nuances. We’ve lied to you and broken our promises before? No, we rely on you plebs having the memories of goldfish.
UK “democracy” is practically non-existent.
This is a ‘spot on ‘ appraisal of where we are at. We have been keeping our powder dry for the past six years, the only difference being that previously it was Teresa May telling us ‘now is not the time’, now it is Nicola saying it. I have no doubt that there is significant infiltration within the party which means everyone has to watch their backs, such that Boris can spontaneously shout in parliament that there is no such thing as a border but the SNP can’t even murmur a breath in defence without enduring the wrath and vitriol of the mendacious media; and such that a senior and highly respected member of the Scottish establishment can be dragged through the courts and proven absolutely not guilty to the backdrop of silence from the media and the party / government itself. The question that we ordinary members are increasingly asking is ‘are we being conned?’ We have trusted the party all along but the signs are not good. The most recent hint on the Andrew Marr show that independence will remain on the back burner until after not just Covid, but the economic fallout from Covid was a massive disappointment to all independence supporters, yet the words flowed so easily and unapologetically from Nicola’s lips. And where is Alex Salmond in all of this? In my opinion we need him to become visible again, to possibly lead the emerging Independence alliance. We need to disabuse the SNP membership of the ‘both votes for the party’ argument and establish a strong lobby group within Holyrood, to firstly displace the unionist cuckoos and secondly bolster and accelerate the cause and priority of independence. Finally we need to reinstate a properly grounded party conference, as well as the highly successful and nationally visible programme of marches.
I for one don’t know what to do about this! I’ve never had to riot on the streets or anything else. I wouldn’t know how and now I’m old. We desperately need someone to follow.
Love it, you have nailed it. Hope we get another independence party up and going for the list vote, to clean out the Carlaw carcrash spices.
I would hope to see a UDI before then and know secretly one or two SNP MPs and MSPs would love the same.
But a hae ma doobts. 🤷♂️
Spot on again.
But how we galvanise people to take action is the big question. The Poll Tax hit people’s pockets hence the action. Their pockets are constantly being hit by the latest crowd of charlatans in WM (and will be even more to pay for the virus) but even with job losses, it’s a more insidious, gradual hit so I don’t think it will kick start any action. The removal of the NHS or Holyrood might do it but if we let them take either we’ll never get them back and any protest will be too little, too late.
Those we elected to take Scotland out of the UK need to look lively, they’ve spent far too long trying to save England from its own idiocy – time now to do their ‘day jobs’.
Yesterday I sent an email to my MSP with a screen shot of the the two bills with votes and asked her or the Scottish Governments opinion of the result. Too early for a reply, if I get one, but the most frustrating thing about being an SNP member in the last few years is the lack of any form of inclusion in the decision making. Yes Nicola is a suberb administrator but thats not why I vote for the SNP. You have hit the nail on the head with your essay. This situation is catastrophic for Scotland, and that is no exaggeration. If this goes ahead Scotland is no more, it wipes us out. When is Nicola going to address the Scottish nation explaining what the Scottish government are going to do about this? Do we not warrant some information about this? How can it be that one nations government can simply ride roughshod over another nations democratic rights, it is’nt right, and we expect the Scottish government to stand up and say so.
Can’t agree more, Sandra K. WHen we will hear from the SNP? What can we do without them? I feel like we put all of our eggs in one basket quite a while ago and now that basket has rotted and fallen apart.
Andrew Marr once said “the problem that we have here is that we are talking about British Democracy and Scottish Democracy and they’re not quite the same thing!” A sentiment shared by many a BritNat.
That’s a very pertinent post BB. Fighting talk. I like it. We need to fight now. I always knew we would have to.
It appears that the SNP are letting us down….again. I don’t trust any within the SNP. I just read Robin McAlpine’s post on Source: Unite? Behind what exactly? I think he’s right, the SNP are saying and doing all the wrong things. Sturgeon floats from podium to podium appearing sensible and reasonable in the fight to contain the Corona virus, which wouldn’t be difficult given the UK government as opposition. Why doesn’t the health minister do that job? Where is the strategy to defend Scotland against the economic ravages soon to hit our nation. Where is the plan for independence that would enable the Scottish government to enact plans to save the nation from, joblessness, evictions, repossessions, hunger, physical and mental health issues. The UK is more dangerous to the health, wellbeing and safety of the people of Scotland than Covid 19 will ever be, and the SNP are apparently happy we stay within this paradigm for at least the next 5 years, and we should fuck off if we don’t like it.
I imagine that the Yes movement needs to form a new independence party. The Greens are even less timid than the SNP, therefore are no good.
Do you think that Alex Salmond could or should lead that new party?
The time for gradualism is over.
We simply don’t have the luxury of time now. After Brexit in December , things will move at pace. The WM government will begin to dismantle both democracy and Holyrood’s powers. This is not a benign state where things will remain in situ until we decide to have our referendum. If Nicola thinks she can spend three years dealing with austerity and then go for independence, then she really is deluded.
The Tory goons are not going to sit idle. They will have plans to end devolution by stealth.