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To think again
Today, July 3, the people of Scotland are to be addressed by an Old Etonian twat who happens to be Prime Minister of the Westminster Parliament, although his party holds less than half of its seats. Against that background, it’s more than a little ironic that he will call on ‘The Silent Majority’ to speak out. A few words in that forthcoming speech leap out and grab me, those where he refers to ‘the silent majority who don’t want the risks of going it alone.’ In other words, he’s talking to conservatives with a small ‘c’, and to cowards, with a capital.
In fact, there is a silent majority in Scotland. The problem for Dave is that he doesn’t recognise it, because he and his colleagues have been sweeping its existence under the carpet for so long, they’ve forgotten about it. It’s made up of the Scots, twenty per cent of us, who live in poverty created by four decades of Westminster policies, and those of us who believe passionately that independence is the only way to reverse that unacceptable situation. In September, it will be our voices that will be heard.
Independence has nothing to do with ‘proud Edward’s army’, or any of that flowery crap. It’s about recreating the fair, just and honest society that we once had in Scotland before Westminster destroyed it, about restoring hope to the deprived, and about giving them and the next generations a future that they will never have under a government that has spent the last forty years gathering the nation’s wealth into a small corner of the south east.
Nutless in Paris
In the first year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, air traffic controllers, federal employees, went on strike. When 11,000 of them ignored his order to return to work, he fired them. Clearly, President Hollande, for all his colourful private life, does not have the balls to face up to his own ATC problem, and tackle it in the same way.
Cybernuts
Having read this morning’s press on the reaction to JK Rowling’s donation, I want to make it clear that I have nothing but contempt for those who posted some of the stuff that’s been quoted. Social media can do great things, but when it’s abused by cretins, it can be anti-social in the extreme. A few years ago, I was on the end of some of that stuff, courtesy of that mighty organ, the Daily Mail; I reported it to the police straight away. My only regret was in my inability to sue the Mail for providing the platform. This morning I’ve edited a comment on this blog. There was nothing obscene about it, and most likely it was tongue in cheek, but I felt that it crossed a line. Recently the courts have started cracking down on cyber-abusers. That’s a good start, but if they could find the facilitators equally guilty, by association, that would be even better.
The rich what gets the pleasure …
So, JK Rowling has donated £1 million to Better Together. So what?
If I’d sold as many books, movies, memorabilia as she has, I’d donate a million to Yes, but I haven’t so all I can do is give it my support and declare that on September 18, I’ll cast my vote in favour of an independent Scottish Nation.
However I do have one thing to say to JK, before we cancel each other out at the polling station. A few weeks ago I did an event in Waterstone’s Sauchiehall Street store. I had a few minutes in hand,so I went for a wander, and was appalled to realise how downmarket the famous old thoroughfare has become. I saw poverty, depression and despair, and worse of all I saw resignation in people’s eyes. I doubt if too many of the folk I observed that day have been sampled by the pollsters. The good news is, they all have a vote.
I must admit that a small voice at the back of my head whispered, ‘Do I really want to be part of this?’ A few seconds later it was countered by a louder, angry voice that declared, ‘Too bloody right I do! This decline is the direct result of Westminster economic policy that has centralised more and more of Scotland’s wealth in and around London, and the already prosperous South East. The only way to reverse it is for our nation to become fully responsible for its own affairs.’
When I make my cross on that paper in three months, I won’t be doing it for myself alone, but for hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of my fellow Scots, whose hopes, aspirations and basic human rights have been ignored for too long by people who are still working against them. When I vote ‘Yes for Scotland!’ that’s exactly what I’ll mean. Those who are seduced by the dishonestly labelled ‘Better together’ crew will be voting for continued deprivation and social decline, and for the continuation of the system that has brought it about.
Is that what your million is meant to achieve, Joanne? If so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, for your wealth has been created largely by the affluent metropolitan class that has become rich itself at the expense of a truly fair and balanced society, where nobody is abandoned and left with nothing to do but bounce between the bookie and the boozer.
Whatever Alastair Darling’s advertising agency does with that million … and I hope most fervently it pisses it against the wall … already it has done one remarkable thing. It has taken an affluent, acquisitional bloke who’s seen himself as slightly conservative for all of his almost seven decades, and who’s never voted Labour in his life, and it’s made him realise that just like his old man, he’s a socialist at heart.
Betrayal
Until tonight, I was a big Obama fan.
Tomorrow, I burn the T-shirt. I never had him down as an Imperialist, as another Bush, but he is.
However, his betrayal of democracy will have a silver lining. In doing his chum Dave a favour, he has misunderstood one thing, that Scotland as a nation, the place where the Polaris nuclear subs were dumped, until the US made Tridents replaced them, is anti-American and anti-Imperialist in its soul, a position that will be underlined by his interference in our affairs.
Hear this, Mr President: ‘Yes, we will!’
Dead politicians walking
Sad to see the shocked red-eyed Nick Clegg on today’s news? Hell no!
Slick Nick and his party are paying the price for selling every principle they ever proclaimed (but didn’t actually hold) for the sake of red boxes and ministerial cars turning up at their doors. Farage isn’t the issue, Lib Dem duplicity is; whoever leads them will be tainted, and doomed to lead them right back to the wilderness.
i dedicate this post to my friend Sir Anthony Garrett, who will agree with every word of it.
Liberation
Back in L’Escala for a few weeks, I join a band of Brits dismayed by the disappearance of UK Freesat TV, after a recent satellite move to one with a smaller footprint. Sky is still there, but BBC, ITV1 etc are gone from that platform too.
Sure, there’s a school of thought that says, if you move to another country you should embrace all of it, and leave your former culture behind you. There’s an alternative school of thought that says, bugger that for a game of soldiers. And there’s another, one that I intend to promote actively, that poses a question. If citizens of European Union nations can move freely across its internal borders, where is the logic that denies the same flexibility to television signals?
Janus
I have also been following the Icebreaker affair in which Gary Barlow, Gabby Logan etc, have been shown to be engaging in active tax avoidance. David Cameron thinks that Gary should keep his OBE, but voluntarily pay additional tax.
What do I think? As always, the Prime Minister is being duplicitous. Tax evasion is illegal, tax avoidance is not. Indeed, it is an industry, one which exists because of regulations that have been put in place under the watch of this and previous governments. If blame is to be attributed it should land at the door of those ultimately responsible, Cameron, Osborne and their predecessors in office.
PC DC
I heard Dave Cameron quoted as morning as expressing his support for a woman as the next chair of the BBC Trust.
Would that be any woman? I hope that the choice will be the best person for the job, regardless of gender.
Back-firing
Start the weekend with a laugh, that’s my principle. No problem today, thanks to the telly news, which led with the pantomime horse that is the two Eds, Millipede and Balls, visiting Scotland to campaign against independence. Thanks guys. Please stay among us for the remainder of the debate.
If that wasn’t funny enough, they were joined by the Director General of the CBI failing to explain why his organisation, which was resolutely against the Yes campaign ten days ago, has withdrawn its opposition. I came to that from watching Twenty Twelve, the classic spoof TV series. I couldn’t tell the difference.
Stormy weather for the No fleet
Sorry I’m a little late this morning. I had to rush down to the beach count the number of British naval vessels out in the Forth protecting the Scottish coastline. Know what? I looked as hard as I could, through my best binoculars. yet I couldn’t see a single one.
The First Sea Lord . . . a title that could have come straight from Gilbert and Sullivan . . . tells us this morning, on the instructions of the people who appointed him, that Scotland’s defence would be weakened if we could no longer rely on his navy. I wonder if he would tell us, in support of his claim, how many of those vessels other than nuclear Trident submarines are deployed currently in Scottish waters. No, I didn’t think so .
As the referendum draws closer, we can expect a scare story every day, orchestrated by the Westminster machine, with the help of its cronies in the London press, who are, lest we forget, currently living in fear of post-Leveson regulation and looking on with a degree of trepidation as the Brooks/Coulson trial unfolds. Will we be frightened into voting No? I rather think not.
YES for Scotland.
Better Apart
Lord Robertson, former UK Defence Minister and NATO Secretary General, has the reputation of being a sensible man. If so, after yesterday’s bizarre outburst in New York, he should fire his speechwriter. If, by any chance he wrote it alone and unaided, he should seek counselling, as a matter of urgency.
I suppose we might feel complimented by the suggestion that Scotland is central to the defence of Western Europe. On the other hand, most right-thinking Scots will be scandalised by the language that was used. The increasingly vicious No campaign has never presented a single lucid reason against Scottish Independence. Instead we have seen a sustained series of threats, of which Lord R’s is the emptiest and the most ludicrous.
YES for Scotland.
Tough enough?
A few months ago, the Crown Office signalled its intention to get tough on housebreakers in Scotland, by prosecuting them on indictment, rather than in summary proceedings. The effect of this will be to increase the potential maximum sentence from one year in prison to five.
All well and good, but that is only a statement of intent, and it leaves sentencing at the discretion of the judge. Furthermore, is it adequate? Our homes may not all be castles, but they are part of us, and they should be inviolable.
Our Justice Secretary seems to favour the populist approach. I would suggest to him that if he wants to win public support instead of the suspicion with which his actions are usually greeted, he should propose legislation that recognises housebreaking as an act of violence against the person, with a minimum tariff of five years, ie no parole, and double for repeat offences.
Mince, Vince
According to the wizened seer that is Vince Cable, the problem with teachers is that ‘they know absolutely nothing about the world of work.’ I have always suspected that for all his PhD in economic integration and industrialisation, Dr Cable is actually a very skilfully disguised idiot, and I am grateful to him for proving it.
As a man who finally became an MP at the fifth attempt, aged fifty-three, he should know that if there is a profession worthy of such criticism above all others, that is politics. From the Prime Minister upwards, the Front Benches on both sides of the House are populated by people who moved seamlessly from long-term education into Party back offices and through them into safe Westminster seats, with not the faintest idea of what is happening outside their cosy little world. Second in the insularity stakes is journalism, with public relations coming third. I say all of this with authority, having worked in two of those sectors, and observed the third closely over many years.
The truth is Vince, that teachers make an invaluable contribution to our ever-evolving society, which politicians are most famous for besmirching.
Don’t be fooled, again
Anyone who was naive enough to believe that the Scottish Independence debate would be a matter for Scots alone, must be staring gloomily into his porridge this morning. With all the subtlety of a Putin on nose candy, Westminster has marshalled its allies into a campaign of misinformation, browbeating and outright bullying. We have had scare upon scare, threat upon threat, lie upon lie, even though we are still six months before Referendum Day.
Today, the programme has rolled out the Dutch head of Shell Oil to say that it would be better for his company if Scotland remained part of the UK, because it values continuity and stability. As the Scottish Government has been very quick to point out, that is hardly guaranteed within the context of a continuing United Kingdom, where we are promised an in-out referendum on EU membership.
The fact is, all this is a sham. Shell will continue to do business in an independent Scotland. So will Lloyds, Barclays (even though its profile north of the border is barely discernible with fewer than a dozen branches), RBS and even Standard Life, which actually diluted its Scottishness when it demutualised. So don’t believe any of their hints, their threats and their innuendos. On the day that Scotland assumes total control of its own affairs, every one of these companies will be knocking on the door of the cabinet room wanting to be our new best friend.
Yes for Scotland.
Below Standard
Thank you again, Kenneth, for exposing hypocrisy at the highest level.
Right said Fred
This comment on the previous post, by Fred from sunny Sydney, is so on the mark that I feel it deserves to be a post in its own right.
‘Agree Quintin.
I have been following this from afar, having departed Scotland 40 years ago.
It appears EVERY article The Scotsman runs, makes mention of a possible negative financial impact, should there be a yes vote, and emphasises supposed dire ‘told you so ‘problems should Scotland cut itself free of England.
Well, I’m resident in Australia now, and THEY cut themselves free of England many years ago (apart from the queen, and some of us are working on that) and have prospered while England has deteriorated.
You may not have the weather or minerals we have, but I think you have all the personal capabilities that they have here, so there is absolutely no reason why Scotland shouldn’t prosper on its own.
However, I am now beginning to wonder whether due to the negative nellies peddling their doom and gloom stories, whether Scotland actually has the COURAGE to vote yes.
Scotland The Brave?
I guess we’ll see in September.‘
It’s for Rex
Attention please, for I will say this only once. (Fat chance!)
So far, every single objection to an independent Scotland has been based, when you dig down into it, on one thing alone. Money.
The principal objectors are the wealthy, individuals and big business, and all those other vested interests, who are scared to stick a single toe out of their comfort zone. They’ve all forgotten the Horlicks that Westminster made of the UK economy by the shoddy regulation that it put in place, and by its determination to persuade the electorate that everything was New Labour Rosey when actually it was disappearing up its own fundament at a rate of knots. The Better Together campaign is harnessing one thing alone, and that is the self-interest of the better off.
Nobody seriously argues that Scotland is incapable of managing a strong vibrant economy, not any more, but they’re using any means available to divert attention from the other opportunity that independence offers, the chance to create a safe, compassionate society where every citizen is valued equally, not one run by a clique that’s only interested in looking out for its own.
My new grandson, Rex Masato Jardine, was born on February 15, to my daughter-in-law Kyoko, and my son Allan. Before any of those three were a twinkle, I knew how I’d vote in any independence ballot, if I ever had the chance. Now my motivation is even stronger. When I put my cross in the ‘Yes’ box on September 18, I’ll do so first and foremost because I believe it’s best for Rex.
BBC bias
Another fine piece by Kenneth Roy, exposing the extent to which the game is rigged against the Yes campaign.
Alastair Darling champions Canadian teachers
Of all the bloody stupid bluster we’ve seen over the last few days, this may rank as the bloody stupidest! Beyond doubt independence will be followed in short order by a new Scottish National Lottery; I predict that this will run on a not for profit basis, unlike Lotto, where 10p of every £2 stake (and that’s a lot of pennies) goes to the operator Camelot, which is owned, bizarrely, by the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund.
Given that Scots are inveterate punters, it is entirely possible that Scottish charities will gain in net lottery disbursements.
Quintin Jardine's blog 