scotlandisdifferent

Wow, this needed to be said, and here it is! This is a statement on the Catalonian referendum issued on 25th October 2017 by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights. I show the link above, but I quote the statement in full anyway at the foot of this post. The statement makes four main points, exposing the logical fudges used by those who support the Spanish government. These points are also highly pertinent to the Scottish situation, and we need to think of ways of addressing them. The four main points are: The right of self-determination belongs to the people, not the state, and the state cannot take it away. The right to self-determination overrides the principle of territorial integrity. Using force, making a referendum illegal, and annulling autonomy violate international covenants on civil and political rights. Dialogue and negotiation are the way forward. The constitutional settlement for Scotland violates the first of these four points: we can...

A while ago I reported on a mild-mannered, middle-aged dog-walker who accosted me insultingly while I was walking back from the dentist wearing an SNP badge. Today I went to the same dentist again, wearing the same SNP badge (it lives on the coat, stupid!), and lo and verily behold, same spot, same dog, same guy, same tactic, same spiel. He stopped as he was walking past me on the bridge over the Kelvin, made eye contact, said, "That's a shame!" and waited. One thing that will have occurred to readers already is that it's not a good idea to regularly accost strangers when you walk your dog, because they're likely to be the same people as you accosted when you last walked your dog. As they were in this case. Another thing that might occur to you is that if you're going to accost the same stranger again, you could do yourself a favour by recognising them, which he obviously hadn't. So I told him that he'd tried that trick on me before. He showed no reac...

The Catalonian referendum result was astonishingly pro-indy: 91% pro-indy, on a turnoutof 42%. If all those who stayed away had voted, it would have needed 79% of them to vote anti-indy to produce a 50-50 result. Hands-down win for indy, no question. It is of course true that we don't formally know the voting intentions of those who stayed away - that's what staying away means. But we can make some reasonable assumptions: Some of them were dead, or had moved house. All electoral rolls are out of date: in December 2015, 9% of the entries on the electoral rolls of the UK named people who were no longer there (Electoral Commission) , and the Spanish registers will be comparable. So 9% of the alleged abstainers don't in fact exist, and to get a 50-50 result, we actually need not 79% of those who stayed away, but 87% of them, to vote anti. Some preferred not to be clubbed to bits by a cop dressed in a wall of plastic armour. Everything we know about human nature suggests tha...

Let's make no bones about quoting and requoting these words of Wee Ginger Dug : The lesson from Catalonia is that independence is about the big issues, the big story. It’s about justice and democracy. It’s about representation and political accountability. It’s about what kind of society we want to live in. It’s about fairness, equality, and giving every citizen an equal stake in the country. These are the stories we need to tell in Scotland if we are to achieve our own dream of an independent country. Tweet and retweet far and wide.

For those who haven't heard of Kevin Hague and his rabidly anti-independence blog (What is he scared of? Why does he hate independence so much? Is he misinformed, or just greedy? And if greedy, what for?) , this is a chilling post: https://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/ 28 August 2017 at 01:14 Comments to "Professor Murphy and the Deckchairs" Anonymous Drew said... Here's a tricky one for anti-independence campaigners. While you want the Conservatives and/or Labour to win control of Holyrood in 2021, you wouldn't want them doing too well. There's a danger for opponents of independence that if Scotland's economy ever improves to the extent that tax revenues increase and spending on poverty, health and social problems decrease, then the situation with GERS might show Scotland could prosper with greater control over the economy. This would risk doing the SNP's job for it. The parties against independence need to be able to show that Scotland is economically w...

Well, everyone says it happens to them at some time: they get insulted for wearing a pro-indy badge. Walking to the dentist across the park this afternoon I was approached by a mild-looking middle-aged man walking his dog, who stopped me as if to speak, said "That's a shame," and left the remark hanging. "What's a shame?" I asked, baffled. Here was a complete stranger, stopping me to offer an opinion about nothing that I could identify. Weird. "That you're a nationalist," he spat out, and turned his back and walked swiftly on. So there I was, completely set up and verbally mugged. With hindsight, the first answer I thought of, to give him a quick and nasty smack around the head, was of course not the right one, and in any case I was too late for it. The right answer would have been to tell him, in terms, that if he wanted to engage in dialogue there was no point in walking away, and if he didn't want to engage in dialogue then he should shu...

An open letter to Kevin Hague Dear Kevin, Kevin Hague said... yes - unclouded by anger and not troubled with supporting data that is an excellent summary, thank you 31 August 2017 at 07:24 I'm glad you agree that I gave ( here ) an excellent summary of your post about GERS on your blog. I summarised your post because I wanted to get behind your vituperation and your avalanche of data, and look at the merit of your arguments. I have to say I'm not impressed. Let's take your five main points:- 1. Professor Murphy asks why the Scottish deficit is so much larger than that of the rest of the UK (the 'deficit gap'). You reply that it's because the difference between what Scotland spends on services and what it collects in revenue is larger that that of the rest of the UK. This answer is vapid: it doesn't explain, it just restates the phenomenon. If you asked an employee of yours why they were late, and they said it was because they hadn't arrived at the state...