scotlandisdifferent

Yanis Varoufakis, in 'Talking to My Daughter About the Economy', asks why the Australians, when the British invaders came to pillage their resources, destroy their culture, and murder their people, did not retaliate by invading Britain. Why did they not build an ocean-going fleet, load it with soldiers, arms and ammunition, sail it up the Thames, and lay waste to Sussex, Suffolk and the rest of the Home Counties? The answer, of course, is that the Australians were many marbles short of the technology that would enable them to do this. So that means that it was all right for the Brits to do what they did, doesn't it? As a second example of something similar, I recently had a conversation with a Scottish opponent of independence who had run for the hills after the close shave of the 2014 referendum, emigrated to Maine in the USA, and set up her own business designing and marketing household utensils. Ninety-five percent (or some similar and improbably high figure) of Scottish...

With IndyRef2 announced, the Unionist press (and that's virtually all of it in Scotland) is going berserk. Three consecutive "reader's letters" in yesterday's Metro say: "...Scotland has a large budget deficit..." Too poor. "I urge all of Scotland who want independence to watch the hilarious 1949 comedy film 'Passport to Pimlico'..." [Pimlico is a tiny area of central London which, in the film, declares independence, but gets squeezed back into servitude.] Too wee. "...The SNP wastes hundreds of millions of taxpayers' cash. Scotland needs professionals, not amateurs." Too stupid. These aren't readers' letters, they're artful journalists' propaganda. Counter it by talking to all your friends, and giving them copies of the Wee Alba Book .

Constant Readers Sey&Dor have chided me for not blogging for two months (can it really be that long?!). So here is a quick rundown on where this blog now stands, which of course means a quick rundown on where we all stand on Scottish independence. First up is total scunneration at the Holyrood election result: no dent in the SNP, Salmond's reputation is rubbished, and Alba gets nowhere. Indy off the table for five years. Second up is the unbelievable corruption in the Scottish government. Sturgeon and her clique conspired to pervert the course of justice and to jail Alex Salmond for life. A corrupt Lord Advocate - who runs the Crown Prosecution Service but is also a government minister - puts in place procedures (anonymity in sexual-offence cases) that mean that no whiff of this can be published. Craig Murray, the only journalist who gave an impartial account of the Salmond trial and highlighted the strength of the defence, has been sentenced to eight months in jail for doing s...

There still seems to be a lot of flak going around to the effect that Salmond was charged with so many offences that some of them must have been true. That doesn't follow, of course, and there are three things to be said about it: It's logical nonsense ( fallacy of the undistributed middle ). It's exactly what the conspirators wanted you to think, which is why they dredged up a dozen or more charges out of thin air. Moorov was a Scottish lawyer who formulated the doctrine that witnessing a similar event to the one on the charge-sheet would count as corroborative evidence. So Moorov, or "more of". The fragility - or rather the emptiness - of "Moorov" in this case has been fully debunked by a very angry and upset Craig Murray here . It's a bit long, but enormously worthwhile, and since it's a podcast you can listen to it in bits. Also, some readers of this blog have said to me that they really don't have time for this, it's only politics, a...

Three additional shopping loads: Waitrose, 1st December 2020 Union Jack: eggs, mushrooms (2 items). The word "British": chicken, lamb (2 items). Saltire: none (0 items). The word "Scottish": cream (1 item). No mark: bananas, beer, blueberries, bread, broccoli, cake, cheerios, chocolate, cooking oil, fruit juice, grapes, lentils, milk, pears, pilchards, salad, sardines, shortbread, wine (19 items). So for Waitrose, 4 items out of 24 (17%) were marked with Jacks or as "British", one out of 24 (4%) as "Scottish". It seems clear where their sympathies lie. Morrison's, 9th December 2020 Union Jack: beef mince, cream, potatoes (3 items). The word "British": none (0 items). Saltire: eggs, milk, mushrooms, shortbread (4 items). The word "Scottish": milk (1 item). No mark: apples, beer, bread, cake, cheerios, empire biscuits, fruit juice, grapes, halloumi, jam, onions, red cabbage, salad, stock cubes, swee...

  Sick and tired (From Wings Over Scotland, December 20, 2020 by Rev. Stuart Campbell )  Oh just shut up you useless waste of space. He DOESN’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK. You can bleat at him for a thousand years and he won’t listen. You gave him his election and he has a majority and England has chosen its fate and there’s not a damn thing we can do to stop them dragging us down with them because you’ve wasted the last four years whining about it instead of doing the thing we elected you to do, which is put us in charge of our own future forever. Now either get off your worthless coward’s arse and do the only thing that’s actually in your power – a plebiscitary election – instead of grandstanding around the world stage achieving absolutely sod-all except getting your face in the press again, or get out of our damn way and let someone who can do the job take over. (PS that also includes the job of handling the pandemic, which you’re making a pig’s arse of too, but gosh, doesn’t ever...

A parrot walks into a bar and says to the bartender: Bird: Got any nuts? Bartender (curtly): No. Bird: Got any nuts? Bartender (louder): No! Bird: Got any nuts? Bartender (shouts): NO! And if you ask again I'll nail your beak to the bar! [Slight pause] Bird: Got any nails? Bartender: NO!! Bird: Got any nuts? Not quite sure how this fits in to anything, but it must apply somewhere to the bourach that is Brexit and the stramash that is independence.

There has been discussion in the blogosphere, and some anger, at the supermarkets' policy of labelling as "British" anything that could conceivably be so called. There are suggestions that this is a deliberate ploy to undermine the independence movement. So, being a good boy who does what he's told, I reacted with anger when I saw the rows of British flags ("flegs" in England) on produce on the supermarket shelves. Then I stopped feeling angry, and wondered whether there really were that many Butchers' Aprons on view. Time to gather some data, it seemed. Fortunately that was quite easy. I do an online shop roughly weekly, using different supermarkets, so when the order comes in I can simply sit it on the kitchen table and count the flegs. This of course means that the data is dependent on what I've happened to buy that week, and that in turn is skewed by my feelings about flegs anyway. ("Do I feel like paying double the price for eggs that don...

Dear Nicola, I'm looking at your St. Andrew's Day appeal for funds, and I have to say I have some issues with it. Let's have a look at them. Your top line says that this is an appeal for the "Holyrood 2021 Election Campaign Fund". So the donations are ring-fenced. But you'll know that £700,000 raised by two earlier ring-fenced appeals didn't appear in the party's financial accounts, leading to suggestions of criminal false reporting. Can you assure me that the new funds will be properly accounted for, and can I believe you if you do? The top line also means that this letter sets out the basis on which I'm to donate. It's not the election manifesto, but it's a precursor of it: it presents your side of the bargain, the offer in return for which I'm to give you money. And it isn't impressive. I'm looking for indy in the first line, since that's the first item in the party's constitution, but indy isn't there. Wh...

We linguists very much like the item immediately below because it's so beautifully put together, with spelling and wit and everything. So as a wee linguist myself, I've pinched and posted it here. It comes from Wee Ginger Dug on 2nd November, second comment . Lucky Molly, with her clear-headed Mum!   Molly's Mum (@SNPsoosie) says: November 2, 2020 at 6:53 pm Boris Johnson has completely lost control of the pandemic in Englandshire now, if he ever had it before. Asked in the Commons what the plan was for coming out of the new lockdown, he said Englandshire would be coming out of lockdown, regardless of whatever happens, on December 2nd, for that is the date he hath spoken. He added that the R is currently above one, only a teeny weeny scientific bit, and hopefully, having waved some of Dominic’s entrails about, it will come down a eeny spleeny bit to just under one, but even if it doesn’t then the lockdown will endeth regardleth. All haileth Borith for he is the slayer of th...

Update, 26/09/2020: The joke at the foot of this post, the pseudo-graph from pseudo Kevin Hague, has been picked up and republished by Munguin's Republic , a lovely site with stunning nature pics, a strong but unencumbering commitment to Scottish independence, and jokes. Thanks, Tris, and best wishes in the ongoing struggle. IT'S TIME for a brief look at GERS, the "Government Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland" report. The usual narrative is: • Scotland has a deficit, because it spends more on public services than it raises in taxes. • The UK funds that deficit by giving money to the Scottish Government (the "fiscal transfer"). This means that Scotland sponges on the UK. • An independent Scotland couldn't fund that difference. All nice and clear, then - and all nice and falsely spun. Let's look at those falsehoods. Firstly, deficits are normal: all countries in the world have deficits, bar a handful of tax havens. What matters is whether a country...

As immediate fall-out from the Alex Salmond trial stitch-up, the commentator Craig Murray is being prosecuted for saying that the Alex Salmond trial was a stitch-up. The grounds for the prosecution are that, by saying that the Alex Salmond trial was a stitch-up, he committed contempt of court. Contempt-of-court cases are heard not by a jury, but only by judges, and carry a possible sentence of two years in prison. The first step is a procedural hearing, scheduled for Wednesday 10th June at 10:00 a.m. This hearing will be on line, and therefore open to anybody with an internet connection. But you need to apply for access. Please do so - it's important that as many people as possible know what was actually said in court, because the mainstream media and the judiciary will try to stamp on anything they see as threatening, and what Craig Murray has to say undoubtedly fits that bill. You can apply for access by emailing judicialcomms@scotcourts.gov.uk . And please circulate this to fri...

My last post has been met with incredulous hostility by some commentators, hostile incredulity by others (all in personal communications), so I need to flesh it out a bit. To provide continuity with the previous post, I thought of heading this one "Where it's really at, asshole", but since the skeptics were my friends I've forborne to do this. The first point in my previous post - that Nicola Sturgeon would either commit or not commit to an indyref this year - was not controversial (how could it be? - it covered all possibilities). In the event, NS's response contained many fine words and high aspirations, but you should always listen to the small print. What she actually said was, " it is still my hope [that we can get an indyref in 2020]". That doesn't sound like commitment to me. My second point - that SNP policy is based on the belief that indyref without a Section 30 order would create too much hatred and division to be sustainable - attracted ...

That title reminds me of a linguistic joke, so let's get that over with: New student at Harvard, seeing a clearly established student whom he can ask for information: "Say, is this where the library's at? Established student (snootily): "This is Harvard. We don't end sentences with a preposition." New student: "Oh, I'll rephrase my question. Is this where the library's at, asshole?" To the point, now. It's been a long time since the Scottish independence movement has been anything other than murky, unpredictable, unbelievably baffling or just plain hopeless. However, things are beginning to turn the corner, with some upcoming dramatic events:- This coming Wednesday, it is said, Nicola Sturgeon will set out her response to BJ's refusal of the request for a Section 30 order. This either will or will not contain a commitment to an indy referendum this year. It's difficult to see how it will plausibly do that. But if it doesn...