I have no sympathy at all for anybody who voted No on the grounds of the pledges by Brown, Miliband, Cameron and Clegg about constitutional change, and is now whingeing about the blatant dishonour of those pledges. I cannot understand how anybody could be so stupid as to have believed them, and yet have a brain capable of sparking respiration.
Labour is interested in losing no influence of Scottish Labour MPs on any UK or English matters. It wants greater powers to English metropolitan councils which are controlled by Labour – because that will give Labour careerists more jobs and access to contracts. Those are Labours “constitutional reform” goals. The Conservatives “constitutional reform” goals are to keep Scotland’s tax on oil revenues and tax on whisky coming to Westminster, while loading greater responsibilities but no more money on the Scottish parliament, and stopping Scottish MPs voting on English matters thus guaranteeing conservative apparatchiks continued jobs and access to contracts.
Both Tories and Labour want to keep the appalling corrupt and undemocratic House of Lords for its jobs for apparatchiks, access to contracts etc.
Nobody cares what the Lib Dems think anyway.
I ask again – what did you expect?
This is the collective wisdom of Andy Myles and myself, over an excellent mackerel breakfast at Nom De Plume.
Well I think, considering ‘everything’, seems obvious we just can’t have a left in the uk because it would effect royalty and the class system.
I’v advocated we come together, march down there and eject them from the country. But People always seem to regard our kings and queens and stuff as a none issue, myself I think they are at the heart of a lot of it. The top of the class system. Brutal and unjust.
It’s a bit more nuanced than the Chomsky type view of pure corporation control (though that’s what they are also) as there is no reason why rich countries with big corporations and lots of capitalism can’t have none constant war governments.
Always seems irresponsible that we don’t. It not quaint or nice or novel or anything good, to live in a ya old kingdom still as ripe as ever and a govenment, army, country, who serves them.
David Cameron: Karma’s Chameleon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J94yX0aLfdY&list=UU1Cbp8Fjy7iMfjp0jzGY3rQ
@BrianFujisan
23 Sep, 2014 – 1:54 am
The result for Na h-Eileanan Siar is indeed very odd.
This from Wikipedia about the sitting MSP for the Holyrood constituency of Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Alasdair Allan.
‘In the 2011 Scottish Parliament General Election Allan again stood for the SNP in the Western Isles and increased his majority, returning to Holyrood with 65.3% of the vote, an increase of 18.7% and a swing of 15.8% from Labour.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na_h-Eileanan_an_Iar_(Scottish_Parliament_constituency)
The turnout was 59.2%
The sitting MP for the Westminster constituency of Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish Gaelic: Aonghas Brianan MacNèill)won with a majority of 1885 on just under 46% of the vote.
The turnout was 66.1%
The seat has been a two-way marginal between the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party for many years. In the 2005 and 2010 general elections, it was one of only two seats outside Northern Ireland in which the Conservative Party obtained less than 5% of the vote and was pushed into fifth place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na_h-Eileanan_an_Iar_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
The reported referendum result was YES 46.6% NO 53.4% on a turnout of 86.2%.
Await your findings with keen interest.
The Yes campaign should have smelt a rat, when the TV companies announced there would be no exit polls, and organised one themselves. This was seen as one of the most important elections in the UK for generations. If the TV companies were independent and simply doing their job, not to run exit polls is ludicrous. Exit polls are extremely accurate.
I think they were ordered not to run exit polls for if they had..and announced at 10pm what they were, the disparity between how people actually said they had voted and the declared result, would be enormous and unexplainable in the absence of fraud.
Tony
“Was the A9 not shut for a few hours on Thursday njght due to an accident ?”
Yes, one of Cormack’s livestock lorries went over on the Braes, it happens a lot, hell of a road they are and the only realistic way in or out of the county. Sandy Cormack’s son was killed.
@Tony
except they have historically proven inaccurate in Northern Spanish (Euskadi/Ipparalde) elections.
the fraction of the populace claiming, on exit-poll, to have voted ‘pro-independence’ has regularly been overemphasised, compared to the eventual, secret, vote results; it’s understood to be the population avoiding potential peer criticism.
I agree that in UK ‘normal’ elections the Exit polls are accurate, but they *might* not have been in the Scottish case. I agree with you It would have certainly been interesting, encouraging, to have had the data! It would have made a great university project, it didn’t need to have been Media supported.
Is it just me or has anyone else noticed? (that Blair’s a fraud)
Around half of everything I’ve posted here addresses that question. But to spare you the tedium of looking –
a. The Quartet Representative post was Bush’s thank you present to Blair. It’s a sinecure, and he replaced someone who was embarrassingly proactive.
b. Blair hopes to improve the condition of Palestinians by improving their economy without causing Israel any inconvenience, because he’s well in with Israel. He refuses to deal with Hamas, in stark contrast to his attitude to Sinn Fein during the Troubles, because Israel told him not to. Unless Gaza is rebuilt, and the siege lifted, there isn’t going to be an economy. Israel will not lift the blockade, and neither is going to happen. So he’s on a hiding to nothing as far as peace is concerned.
c. Blair still believes in a two-state solution. I am not sure how Israel is hiding the evidence that they have no intention of achieving this from him, but I can only assume there’s a commercial dimension. And he has a lot of Zionist friends, some of whom funded Labour when he was PM, and others of whom have donated to his (heavy quotes) “charitable foundations”
Ba’al Zevul
23 Sep, 2014 – 12:17 pm
“Unless Gaza is rebuilt, and the siege lifted, there isn’t going to be an economy. Israel will not lift the blockade, and neither is going to happen.”
————————————–
Blair will know full well that the two state solution is dead, and as for Gaza, the Israelis want the land but not the people.
The purpose of the blockade and continuous air strikes, incursions, nightly sonic booms etc. is to break the morale of the people to a point when they will accept relocation.
Gaza can then be annexed without upsetting the demographics of an expanded Jewish Israel.
From the JPost:
“The only durable solution requires dismantling Gaza, humanitarian relocation of the non-belligerent Arab population, and extension of Israeli sovereignty over the region.”
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Into-the-fray-Why-Gaza-must-go-368862
Note “humanitarian relocation”!
See also: “When genocide is permissible” An article in the Times of Israel that was quickly removed but reproduced at:
http://mondoweiss.net/2014/08/yochanan-genocide-permissible
Yes, one of Cormack’s livestock lorries went over on the Braes, it happens a lot, hell of a road they are and the only realistic way in or out of the county.
When you mentioned it, I didn’t know it was called the Braes, but my mental picture was of exactly that bit of road. It’s horrendous. How’s the proposed correction going?
http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/system/files/uploaded_content/images/projects/A9-Berriedale-Braes-exhibition.pdf
I know, Doug. I know. I was being facetious when I implied Blair was naive on the two state solution. He’s completely aware of its impossibility (in the Oslo Accords sense), and he’s lining up his backers to monetise the subject population in the shrunken bantustans. He’s probably the only person on earth I can honestly and unreservedly say I hate, personally. Even Thatcher had redeeming features beside that bastard.
not only are obama & his rebel-funding gulf cronies bombing syria…israel has shot down a syrian jet in the golan region, claiming it penetrated israeli airspace by mistake…this whole interview on abc tv in australia is truly sickening –
‘We want to make peace’ with Palestinians says Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
On a day Israel’s defences shot down a Syrian jet, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu asserts his country wants a ‘durable, realistic peace’ in the Middle East.
LEIGH SALES: You’ve been in a cabinet meeting over the past few hours. There are reports of Israel shooting down a Syrian fighter jet in Israeli air space. What’s happening?
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Well, our air defences are designed to prevent any penetration of our air space by enemy fighter jets and, essentially, they went into action when there was such a penetration.
LEIGH SALES: Do you have any idea why this penetration has occurred?
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Well, we have an idea. We don’t think it’s a deliberate assault but our defences go into action automatically. You know, Israel is not the size of Australia. It’s about, I think, I don’t know, maybe one per cent of your territory; a little more. So it’s a tiny country and we don’t have the time or the privilege to wait and check, because they could be above Tel Aviv or above Jerusalem in, literally in less than minutes. So that’s why we have this procedure…
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2014/s4093374.htm
videos: Israel Downs Syrian Jet in Golan Heights
While the Syrian government was angry over the downing, opposition forces were happy to hear the news, with one exiled leader in Turkey thanking Israel for hitting the jet, Israel Radio reported.
“We thank Israel for knocking down the plane, and we hope it is the start of a new situation, where the airspace in Syria, and in particular, the Golan Heights are clear of any of Bashar Al-Assad’s jets,” he said, according to Israel’s NRG News.
The Syrian government, however, called the downing “an act of aggression,” and claimed that Israel was aiding ISIS by hitting the aircraft…
http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/09/23/breaking-israel-downs-syrian-jet-in-golan-heights-video/
meanwhile israeli special forces have killed two palestinians in the west bank, claiming they are hamas & were involved in the kidnapping of the 3 teens.
PS – to clarify – Blair’s ‘support’ for the ‘two-state’ solution is stated in the OQR’s report to the UN Ad-Hoc Liaison Committee yesterday. Can’t find the document right now, it was published in advance of presentation, but the chair’s summary echoes it uncannily:
http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/UD/Vedlegg/fredsarbeid/AHLC-Chair-summaryNewYork140922_FINAL.pdf
Not a bloody word on how Israel is to be induced to do anything. And Hamas is scheduled to pack its tents and go. Realistic, eh?
This intrigues me. Back when Tony was using G-CEYL as his very impressive personal conveyance*, and obediently presenting the Israeli terms for the first, failed Gaza ceasefire this year, it flew to Cairo via a stop in Italy (Milan? or Pisa? – can’t remember) and I got the impression Ms Mogherini was subsequently involved in talks. And yesterday –
http://www.undpi.org/Palestine-and-Gaza/Italian-FM-meets-Blair-calls-for-EU-s-political-role-in-ME.html?PageSpeed=noscript
Cherie, watch him…
*This may have ceased. Though one reason for its recent visit to Beijing may have been to refuel for an onward flight to Japan – Cherie was there in the right timeframe, and the range of the Global Express with full tanks doesn’t take it all the way to Japan.
Projected US nuclear weapons spending hits $1 TRILLION – just five years after Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2765493/Projected-US-nuclear-weapons-spending-hits-1-TRILLION-just-five-years-Obama-s-Nobel-Peace-Prize.html
US Now Bombing ISIS in Syria…Developing
And so it begins. Who would have thought even a year ago that a) we would be
bombing Syria and b) the target would not be the Assad regime?….
Worth remembering: Josh Rogin in The Daily Beast, on September 15, 2014:
The White House has an answer for critics who want to know how the Obama
administration can justify striking ISIS inside Syria under international
law: If and when we actually do it, we will come up with a legal
justification then.
http://reason.com/blog/2014/09/22/us-now-bombing-syriadeveloping
On the two state solution, so far after my study (a few years) I don’t agree it’s less possible than one state. Not by a long shot.
If the boarders where put back seems it would be do-able. And far more chance of that with targeted sanctions etc, Making it clear that’s what it’s about so the Israel population get the idea. ATM they don’t really care about the settlement’s, with the help of the state they really don’t connect it. And they do have worries (however perverted by the state) of there ongoing existence.
The group that says one state plays right into this narrative, because what they are really saying is just that.
Does anyone who thinks ‘two states is lost’ really belive they are going to allow (or be more likely to be forced to allow) themselves to be a small minority in what would then be a mostly Arab Muslim state?
They have, for better (and often worse) lived there for a long time now. Your going to get tiny public support once the aims of one state are clear, Ie what it really means. And I think that’s correct. As much bad as the state has done, the people are not all responsible. And integrating to a single state after all this would be a death sentence to jews in that area.?
Ishmael:
Unless someone kicks Israel’s arse pretty damn hard, as it richly deserves, it will continue building settlements on illegally occupied land, displacing the previous residents, and strafing Gaza on a two-yearly basis, after blatantly provoking the resistance. Meanwhile it will tell the world with tears in its eyes that it is only defending itself, and that God told it that was ok in 2000BC. The only two state solution Israel is contemplating is Us and Them. Us = Here, and Them = Somewhere Else, except for the cheap labour Israel needs, living without citizens’ rights somewhere valueless where they won’t be any trouble.
I doubt you are unaware of this, actually. The name’s a dead giveaway, as is your very variable writing style.
I was actually nicely surprised to see Russell Brands advocacy on this was very good. I think he nailed what we should be doing, and what we should not.
Will it work? Do any good? Who knows, but i’ll not be advocating something witch imo just inflames tensions and attacks all of Israel.
And I do know the injustice that goes on. And I deplore it.
i’ll not be advocating something witch imo just inflames tensions and attacks all of Israel.
I’m astonished to hear it.
Here, with maps, is Israel pursuing a two-state solution.
http://www.popularresistance.org/chomsky-israels-west-bank-plans-leave-palestinians-very-little/
The Tooth Fairy is available for consultation.
“I doubt you are unaware of this, actually. The name’s a dead giveaway, as is your very variable writing style.”
Don’t assume to much.
I can write better at times, but it’s not somthing I do with much focus often. Painting being more my thing.
“Here, with maps, is Israel pursuing a two-state solution. . ”
Yea, but that’s not Israel pursuing a two-state solution really is it.
Does not stop us trying to force them to.
BTW My position is pretty much as said by Chomsky. Though I have reflected myself to come to it and still do reflect on the whole situation.
Denver Post expands their readership and possibly their entire bizness.
http://www.thecannabist.co/
“Also today the Syrian airforce wanted to bomb Jabhat al-Nusra positions in the Golan heights where Nusra is, as first reported here, opening a corridor from Jordan towards Lebanon and for attacks on Damascus right along the demarcation line between Israel and Syria. Israel, in quite open support effort for the Nusra plan, shot down the Syrian SU-24 using U.S. provided Patriot missiles. While Israel claims that the plane violated its border the reported crash site was far from the border near Kanaker, Syria which is halfway between the demarcation line and Damascus.
Under the protection of the U.S. attack on IS and other targets Israel now practically established a no-fly-zone next to the Golan which will allow Jabhat al-Nusra to safely use the corridor and to attack Hizbullah in Qalamoun and in south Lebanon. It also opens space for new attacks on Damascus.
The U.S. attack on the IS in Syria will, as the NYT headlines express, have as little effect as such attacks have in Iraq. Without coordinating air attacks with a capable, available ground force like the Syrian army such strikes on IS will make no conceivable difference. I have yet to see any report that the U.S. planes have hit some of the major weapons or ammunition depots the IS captured from the Iraqi army. There are some 50 main battle tanks and lots of heavy artillery pieces in the hands of IS. What is done to disable those?”
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2014/09/concealed-by-us-airstrikes-israel-opens-nusra-path-to-lebanon.html#comments
‘Show’ bombing. It’s a more lethal form of Dancing with the Stars.
I note the doblethink that goes on among some UK intellectuals about this, you only have to look at the advocacy to see it. They do keep saying end the settlements etc, Then they say how two states is lost.
Those two positions are opposing. If you favour one state what difference does it make to withdraw?
Many I respect in stop the war have totally lost me on this, they say whatever we think we have to come together….No I don’t, and I won’t, because we are calling for different things. Except when it feels good to shout end the occupation, then they seem to revert to the two state position.
Intellectuals who I really respect, but on this I can’t see how they can’t see themselves. If your going to fight more effectively you need to unify your goals.
Illegal Jewish settlements are using Palestinian packaging firms to label their goods as “Made in Palestine” to gain access to EU markets.
“Palestine enjoys customs exemptions and export-related facilities in trade with the countries of the European Union, so the Israeli companies cooperate with Palestinian merchants to export the dates produced in the settlements illegally established in the West Bank to the European Union, while benefiting from such exemptions.”
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/14307-made-in-palestine-new-slogan-for-marketing-israeli-products
If you agree with Chomsky, Ishmael, you’re agreeing with my proposition. To remind you –
There is an overwhelming international consensus in support of a two-state settlement on the internationally recognized border, perhaps with “minor and mutual adjustments” of this 1949 cease-fire line, in the wording of much earlier U.S. policy. The consensus includes the Arab states and the Organization of Islamic States (including Iran). It has been blocked by the U.S. and Israel since 1976, when the U.S. vetoed a resolution to this effect brought by Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.
The rejectionist record continues to the present. Washington’s most recent veto of a Security Council resolution on Palestinian territory was in February 2011, a resolution calling for implementation of official U.S. policy — an end to expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements. And the rejectionist record goes far beyond the Security Council.
(Chomsky)
IOW-
“Unless someone kicks Israel’s arse pretty damn hard, as it richly deserves, it will continue building settlements on illegally occupied land, displacing the previous residents, and strafing Gaza on a two-yearly basis, after blatantly provoking the resistance.”
(Me)
With US complicity, as Chomsky says. The US will simply not allow the boot to be applied to the Zionist chuff, and so, there is no possibility of a two state solution in anything other than name – although, again as Chomsky says, if the Pals want to call it fried chicken, Netanyahu will be fine by that.
They do keep saying end the settlements etc, Then they say how two states is lost.
You’re missing the point (intentionally?). The prospect of two states recedes by 70 yards every time an acre of land is removed from Palestinian ownership by the ILF.
ILF? I hear you ask?
http://www.israellandfund.com/en-us/index.htm
Lovely people. Not.
Mr Scorgie
You write – and I have no reason to doubt the veracity of your post – that
“Palestine enjoys customs exemptions and export-related facilities in trade with the countries of the European Union, so the Israeli companies cooperate with Palestinian merchants to export the dates produced in the settlements illegally established in the West Bank to the European Union, while benefiting from such exemptions.”
Would you agree with the proposition that those Palestinian merchants are traitors to the Palestinian cause and, by their complicity, are supporting, whether directly or indirectly, the occupation by Israel of the West Bank?
“The US will simply not allow the boot to be applied to the Zionist chuff”
Seems that’s an issue that is also subject to pressure and actions within the US. And from the outside.
Nobody said it was easy, or anything sure, but better than what amounts to nothing. The point is you try kicking, as hard as you can.
It’s not as if with any activism there is never issues. That’s the point. So you focus to try and overcome them.
The point is you try kicking, as hard as you can.
Help yourself. Buy a congressman or two, why don’t you? You’ll have to outbid AIPAC’s little helpers, though, and you’ll need a lot more than two, in both parties. Half the population is the kind of Christian that believes the guff in the Old Testament, and five percent of what’s left is Jewish. The country was founded by violent settlers displacing the indigenous population, and most of its citizens will tell you that was fine.
Good luck with that.
(Sorry, Ben, btw. Take a pop at my country as a quid pro quo whenever you like…even we have some flaws!)
“When you mentioned it, I didn’t know it was called the Braes, but my mental picture was of exactly that bit of road. It’s horrendous. How’s the proposed correction going?”
We’ve had men wandering around with clip boards, talking about ironing out the bend. Won’t do any good, iron out that bend it just means they’ll be going faster when they hit the next one.
It isn’t the worst hill in Britain but it’s different, different in that every last tin of baked beans in every shop in Caithness, Orkney and Shetland has to be dragged up it.
Only real solution is a bridge but there’s no money for that, all the money is being spent down in the Central Belt where you see those splodges of blue on the results map.
Fred there is bugger all spent in the central belt. The infrastructure is archaic. The biggest single piece of infrastructure spending in Scotland in recent years, after taking the A74 from where it ended in a dead end, to join the M8 at Kinning Park, was the reconstruction about twenty years ago, of the St James Interchange at Glasgow Airport M8 Junction 29, taking the A737 on/off slip-roads over the top of the existing roundabout, which had been an inadequate and chronic bottleneck since the 1/2 mile Linclive Link Road was built for Rootes expansion at Linwood at the beginning of the 1960s. Labour in 50 years or more of absolute local and regional government control, as well ruling the roost at Westminster often enough, didn’t in all that time of absolute power, even run half a mile of rail track from either the nearby Glasgow-Ayr or the Glasgow-Gourock railway line, across some waste ground, out to Glasgow Airport. And then had the cheek to blame the SNP in their first minority government at Holyrood for their own half-century of incompetence and neglect, for this staggering failure for which they alone were responsible.
Niggardly Highland-Lowland division sowing, how typically Fred-like, troll-like.