scotlandisdifferent

David Davis's speech in the UK Parliament on Tuesday evening blows the lid off the Scottish Government's long-term attempts to hide the Salmond stitch-up. He was speaking under Parliamentary privilege, which the Scottish Parliament doesn't have, so all the evidence is now in the open, and freely discussable and publishable. This means that the mainstream media can now report it fully. Be very leery of any outlet that doesn't! The full text of Davis's speech is here . Don't forget that you first read about the stitch-up on this blog.

Dear Patrick, I can't see why you sent me this. If it's a response to my claim that there's major corruption at the head of the Scottish establishment (and let me repeat, there is), it's tosh. Or to put it another way, I'm sorry to say that I find myself unpersuaded by the points you make: 1. "Police Scotland are operationally independent of Government and cannot be instructed to investigate". Police Scotland allocated 35 officers over two years, and untold public funds, digging  up dirt on Alex Salmond going back ten years. On the basis of what they found, fourteen charges were brought, and on fourteen of those charges Alex Salmond was acquitted. Police Scotland must be either thick as mince or eminently biddable (or both). 2. "This is one of the fundamental principles of our police system." Well, it would be if it was, but it isn't. 3. "COPFS (the Crown Prosecution Service) cannot instruct the police." I didn't say they could....

  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...

Nice wee comment from Dr Jim on Wings over Scotland recently, about Scottish cultural practices: Damn Scots insisting on being Scottish, they’ll be wanting to speak their own language next, dear God what’ll happen if they decide to drive on the wrong side of the road or do *all* their counting in centimetres Yoon wummin/manny goes into a shop and says can I have 3LBS of Ayrshire potatoes please, the assistant says *It’s aw Kilos noo* Yoon wummin/manny says OK 3LBS of Kilos then It’s the future Trouble is, I can't find this comment on the WoS website. I think it was time-stamped as 12:56pm on 1 March 2019, but there's no post of that date in the WoS archives. But thanks to Dr Jim all the same. It's wrong to think that politicians are more hated now than they've ever been. Viscount Castlereagh was probably the world's leading politician in the first 20 years of the nineteenth century, masterminding the recovery from the Napoleonic Wars, re-establishing the old elite a...

Response from BBC Scotland: "We couldn't be arsed. Now go away." And this from an outfit that is still recovering from the public relations disaster of messing with Wings Over Scotland's YouTube channel! Oh, well. Mr Ian Small Head of Public Policy BBC Scotland 40 Pacific Quay GLASGOW G51 1AD Dear Mr Small, I'm offended by the enclosed response that I've received from the Editor of "Reporting Scotland", and I think you should be concerned about it too. It's a public relations disaster: she hasn't been sent half the information (two charts), she refuses to read the other half (online supporting data), she makes a cheap jibe at my using the wrong name for the UK-wide broadcaster, and she ignores the main question (which was "Please explain your policy"). In an article in The Scotsman on 20th August, you wrote, "We want to engage, constructively, in dialogue with those who question our journalism or are suspicious of our decision-...

RECENT CONVERSATIONS and internet posts have left me with the feeling that the independence argument is in fact won, and the ice-sheet of No that's been stifling the hopes of younger generations is beginning to crack and break up. First up is the dog-walker, whom I reported on earlier , who had a visceral hatred of nationalists because of what they were doing to the country he loved. Leaving aside the question of why loving one's country isn't nationalism, this man is trapped in circular, content-free thinking: - I love my country. - How do we know you love your country? - Because I want it to stay in the UK. That's where it belongs. - How do you know it belongs there? - Because it does. And I love my country. This isn't political or social thinking, this is emotional masturbation. And the problem for these people at the high end of the No scale is that, when faced with facts or concrete thinking, they have nowhere to go: they can only retreat into vitriol. There...

Vile Blogger Stuart Campbell (Wings over Scotland) , for whom I have a high regard, appears to be indisposed for a few days. So since I'm by profession a linguist, here's a Scottish/English joke to cheer him up: Queen Victoria, on a visit to the Highlands, after eating Stu (correction: stew [pun intended]): That was delicious. Tell me, what was in it? Highland Clanperson: Och, weel, ma'am, there's leeks intillit, and potatoes intillit, and... Her Maj: Really lovely! And what, pray, is "intillit"? Highland Clanperson: Och, weel, ma'am, there's leeks intillit, and potatoes intillit, and... The conversation could go on for ever - she's asking about the meaning of the word "intillit", and they're telling her what's in the stew. And that takes us on to Joke 2 about two old besoms hingin' oot the windaes in Auld Reekie (gosh, what a patronising choice of words!), of whom Dr Johnson said, "They'll never agree. They're ar...