scotlandisdifferent

A newspaper editor was sitting at his desk, when a bullet crashed through the window and buried itself in the upholstery of the chair just beside his left ear. "Ah," he said unruffledly, "I knew that new personal column was going to be a success." Or, to put it another way, if you're writing stuff and publishing it, and somebody, somewhere isn't wishing that you weren't, you're not doing it properly. I'm able to report that this blog has now succeeded on that front. Readers may be aware that there is a big stooshie going on in indy blogland between those who think that the SNP will deliver indy, and those who think that it won't. The two sides are represented by Wee Ginger Dug and Wings Over Scotland - both extremely good blogs, well written, and with vigorous comments after each article. Let's call them the Dugs and the Wingsters. The feud worries me, because there is a real issue here, demanding thought: do we vote for the SNP in the ...

I posted on Wee Ginger Dug yesterday that I would set out my reasons for thinking that SNP opposes independence. Here they are: There will not be a Section 30 order. Scotland has one-third of the UK's land mass, three-quarters of its sea area, nine-tenths of its oil, most of its renewable energy, a noticeable chunk of its fish, animal produce, soft fruit and whisky, intellectual capital in the shape of four world-class universities, and the base for the UK's nuclear deterrent (from which follows its seat at the UN Security Council). The UK will never consent to a referendum that puts that at risk. This is standard British UK thinking, and the SNP leadership must know that. The UK government has no motive for granting a Section 30 order anyway. It has a cast-iron majority, overwhelming media support, and no identifiable benefit from allowing an indy ref. The SNP leadership must know that too. The SNP won elections, and gained mandates, in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019, and in every...

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...

No, not that Alex. Alex Prentice, of course, the prosecutor in the Craig Murray contempt-of-court case. Craig is proposing to bring forward individual witnesses who say they couldn't identify any anonymised witnesses from reading Craig's blog. The prosecutor wants to rule this evidence inadmissible, on the grounds that the individuals are too few to make a difference: "...the state of knowledge of a limited number of individuals cannot assist in the central issue [of 'likelihood']...". This is an unfortunate argument for the prosecutor to have used, because it concedes the point that likelihood is measurable: if these individuals are too few, there must be a number that is not too few. Further, Alex Prentice has to decide what that number is, because he's going to need it. He's going to need it to deal with the second implication of his argument, which is his presumption of guilt: these numbers are too few, he implies, to show Craig's innocence. Bu...

Craig Murray is facing trial for publishing information "likely to disclose the identity" of persons involved in the Alex Salmond trial (they have statutory anonymity for life). What a can of worms that word "likely" is! Longman's dictionary defines it as "can reasonably be expected [to happen]". Reasonably, that's the word. Craig wants to bring in two pieces of evidence: first, evidence from people who read the mainstream-media accounts of the trial, and were able to tell from those accounts who the anonymised persons were; and second, parallel evidence from people who read Craig's blog and were not able to tell who the anonymised persons were. The prosecutor has asked the Court to disallow these two sets of evidence, but the reasons he gives don't meet the point. Moreover it seems clear that he's intentionally missed the point, so that he can muddy the waters. He can't be so thick as to have merely got it wrong. Likelihood - as ...

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...