One of my oldest and dearest friends has gone public on his support for Scottish Independence. I am greatly cheered by this. More thoughts later.
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Habby
I’m quite content that you remain as ignorant on this as on everything else.
I’ll just put you down as a middling level operative.
Thanks for the tell.
I myself believe Scotland’s independence is conducive to human evolution in a world now dominated by a weak, frivolous symmetry.
The old form has vanished, replaced by a framework of greed, selfishness, competition and war. The center of this framework is the City of London, the laundry of commerce, a monolith of distorted power that has burned out the single market in an effort to support the British currency. Competitive challenges are becoming obsolescent such that market integration is championed by exchange, good-will trade and respect for dwindling resources.
It is this respect for life and our partners that can for instance strengthen our security in a way that returns ‘bipolar unemotional coalition wars’ to the waste bin of history.
The interdependence of English and Scottish families, friends, ideas, institutions and identities has composed a strong bond that will remain, developing further towards an enriched and homogeneous coupled society working together in a wise, thoughtful and intelligent way inspired by an exciting, exhilarating period of fresh, neoteric and ground breaking ideas from a Scotland liberated from terminal illness.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/03/04/against-scottish-independence-no-vote_n_4895582.html
Herbie
Your modesty is most becoming, but don’t you feel you owe it to your many admirers on this blog to tell them which independence movements you have “experience of”?
Surely such information would only serve to enhance your credentials? After all, you made the claim in order to enhance them, didn’t you?
Building carriers at Roth(e)say would be brilliant for the local economy, alas they are in fact constructed in Rosyth!
Habby
You’re quite welcome to dispute the proposition.
Are independence movements invariably exogenously produced affairs, or no.
Then you can deal with the evidence of Western intervention in the Kiev coup:
http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2014/march/25/meet-the-americans-who-put-together-the-coup-in-kiev.aspx
Oh, dear! I will be flabbergasted if a smidgen of benefit accrues to the population of this country from this sideshow. The suggestion that politicians are interested in returning power to the people is clearly ridiculous. They would be talking themselves out of jobs if they were – advocating the reduction of their own numbers, not their increase. Whoever thinks we need more of the homicidal, kleptocratic buggers establishing their little fiefdoms about the place clearly likes paying taxes more than I do. I would also point out that we could degenerate into an array of city-states if we were daft enough (as perhaps some people no doubt are) – that would be something to look forward to.
Genuine best wishes to all and try not to allow yourselves to be duped. After all, people like me, Craig Murray and, I suppose, Andy Myles will be all right anyway no matter what happens.
Herbie
“Habby
You’re quite welcome to dispute the proposition.
Are independence movements invariably exogenously produced affairs, or no.”
____________________
I’d love to debate with you, Herbie, but it’d be a pointless exercise because I’d be completely outclassed by someone who, after all, has personal “experience of” independence movements!
Just as a matter of interest though, Herbie, which are the independence movements you claim to have “personal experience of” (your post at 4.46pm)?
Failure to inform might just lead readers to think that you were telling ….porkies. LOL
“Vote #1 Free Scotland
Free of England, London and Downing Street
Free of external interference, mulicultural fantasies and Islamic infection
Free of European carpet baggers
Free of delusions of grandeaur
Free”
It’s this kind of bigoted and narrow-minded outlook that gives the yes campaign such a bad name.
OK, habby.
I’ll just note your reluctance to engage the argument, as per usual, and of course we can leave readers to judge as they see fit.
Fine by me.
“I myself believe Scotland’s independence is conducive to human evolution in a world now dominated by a weak, frivolous symmetry.”
So how come they call it devolution then?
Daniel
I wonder if Richard wasn’t spoofing….?
Herbie
Yes indeed, note away and enjoy, you doughty experiencer of untold (and inidentified) independence movements! LOL
Oink! Oink!
Mark ‘The old form has vanished, replaced by a framework of greed, selfishness, competition and war. The center of this framework is the City of London, the laundry of commerce, a monolith of distorted power that has burned out the single market in an effort to support the British currency. Competitive challenges are becoming obsolescent such that market integration is championed by exchange, good-will trade and respect for dwindling resources.’
A case in point was just illustrated on BBC London News ref Thames Water’s capital works and their intention to charge the customers for the cost. A multiplicity of companies lies behind Thames Water and the main shareholders are Macquairie Bank (Australia),China’s Investment Corporation, Abu Dhabi and other pension funds (foreign owned). Collectively these shareholders have taken £2bn in dividends since 2006. These dividends could be paying for renewal of the mains and sewerage systems and for the Thames relief tunnel.
It was particularly galling to be reminded of the existence of the Metropolitan Water Authority, the publicly owned water and sewerage provider pre Thatcher.
Coming shortly on iPlayer towards the end http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03yvtqk
‘Thames Water is regulated under the Water Industry Act 1991 and is owned by Kemble Water, a consortium formed in late 2006 by Australian-based Macquarie Group’s European Infrastructure Funds specifically for the purpose of purchasing Thames Water. Other large shareholders in recent years include: BT Pension Scheme (13%), the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (9.9%) and the China Investment Corporation (9%).’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Water
Thames Water ‘customers’ including me. Our bills are going up with a bang.
Farage and Clegg face to face on Sky News if anyone is interested.
Disrupter, diverter, as per usual.
Mary writes:
“It was particularly galling to be reminded of the existence of the Metropolitan Water Authority, the publicly owned water and sewerage provider pre Thatcher.”
___________________
Erm, would that be the same Water Authority that spend decades NOT renewing London’s sewers, with the result that many of them are crumbling away fast?
Surely not!
As the methodology becomes more apparent, it is more amusing than porblematic. 🙂
problematic..
Habbabkuk, you are showing your historical ignorance. Herbie stood alongside Wallace at Stirling Bridge and later, with Gandhi, agitated against the British throughout the ‘Quit India’ movement. A leading Republican commander during the Troubles, in recent years he has offered his considerable experience in support of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Ba’athist regimes of Iraq and Syria, and lately the SNP.
A node re Scotland resembling Moldova: “Good. Suits me.”.
Have you thought about leafleting for the Yes campaign on this particular point, Node? I mean, it’s bound to be a winner with the electorate!
Anon
I stand abashed, discombobolated and yet seized with admiration. Admiration on the one hand for your historical grasp and detective skills, and on the other for Herbie’s drive, energy, commitment and, yes, courage. And also for his modesty – why, but for you, this blog and I would forever have remained in ignorance of Herbie’s personal “experience in independence movements”!
Many thanks!
Old Metropolitan Water Authority (R.I.P.) : absurdly low prices; few sewer repairs despite no need to pay dividends to shareholders.
New Thames Water : higher prices; pays shareholders (including your pension funds) dividends while at the same time putting billions into much-needed sewer repairs.
Both painful and appalling.
My piece on the rip off crowd at Thames Water seems to have been worthy of producing two inane responses which gives me the opportunity of providing further information.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/nov/10/utilities-water-bills
There is a network of 47 active companies linked to Thames Water at RG18DB.
http://companycheck.co.uk/search/results?SearchCompaniesForm%5Bname%5D=THAMES+WATER&yt0=
‘Oh what a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive.’
Sir Walter Scott Marmion 1808
Mary
Why a “rip-off crowd” and why was my post “inane”?
You know as well as I do that water was fantastically underpriced (the water companies were public utilities and successive govts didn’t want to piss of voters) – which was one of the reasons why next to no money was spent on maintaining, renewing and upgrading crumbling sewer systems (many of which had been left untouched since the Victorian age).
Sure the price has gone up since the 1980s – as has the price of everything else, and as have wages. And money is being invested in sewer infrastructure at long last. Fact.
Anon 26 Mar, 2014 – 7:41 pm
I answered your question but you didn’t answer mine. Here it is again:
Do you approve of the UK spending so much on ‘defence’ when we can’t afford to maintain our infrastructure?
Good to see you posting again so prolifically, Craig. Popping in to see what I’ve missed – plenty, it seems!
Interesting to see Galloway come out so strongly against independence. I don’t follow what he does particularly closely, but like some here I have mixed views about him, right though he’s been on Iraq. It’s going to feel odd – for both him and the Establishment that despises him – to have so much now to agree about.
I do think his argument is worth examining, though I am not sure “more of the same” is a good recipe for surviving neoliberalism (or representing Scotland well at the EU). But here it is (from the Guardian):
For me, that’s an interesting view, even though I am minded to disagree with it. But I wonder, for folks here who believe the financial elite want to shift the UK towards an unfettered neoliberal economic model, would independence worsen austerity policy and widen the wealth gap in England? Indeed, if we think it might, would that be a reason to suggest that Scotland should remain in the union?
When you guys are finished with your Forrest Gump impressions and bathos, any chance of addressing the issue.
Here it is again.
Whilst I wish the Scots well, I fear that absent a collapse in the UK, they will not be allowed to seccede other than with strong external support.
At the moment that probably means the US or EU.
As I’ve said before I don’t quite see why EU apparatchiks would not welcome the splitting of member states, since that increases central control of power, which is what they’re all about of course.
================================
I suggested recently that habby may have worked at the EU. I’m now much more convinced that he’s former FCO. Definitely British. He’s admitted to drafting speeches and whatnot for the likes of Baroness Golly Gosh. Apparently he’s an expert at that. Would explain a lot too.
I’m now wondering is he that other former UK ambassador. You know. The horrible one. And am amused by the idea that even he finds his blog so boring that he’s always over here.
I have often wondered if he is Charles Crawford of Blogoir fame!
Great minds, Mary. Great minds.
You see, I think Craig knows habby. It was just an exchange they had once.
Habby was up to his usual personalising diversionary tactics, people were rightly complaining and habby addressed Craig, asking him was he OK with his commenting here, and Craig came back with a kind of weary OK.
There was just something a bit over familiar and presumptious about it, as if he already knew the answer.
But yes. He’s got his own blog. It’s not very good. So he’s jealous of Craig and he’s over here trying to wreck poor old Craig’s blog.
That’s what they’re like, these people. Always jealous of what the other chap’s got. Horrible, horrible people.