Scotland’s Constitution 131

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I spoke at the SNP conference fringe on Scotland’s constitution. I don’t claim this was profound but I hope it was interesting.

Independence Live caught me on the way out for the most informal of interviews

Sitting at home in Edinburgh this morning, for the first time for weeks I actually have a few hours when I don’t have to dash off and do something. Hopefully I can de-stress and come up with an interesting blog post.

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131 thoughts on “Scotland’s Constitution”

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  • Sofia

    Chutzpah Alert!!!

    EU Advisory Mission for Civilian Security Sector Reform in Ukraine.

    “The mission will assist the Ukrainian authorities in the field of civilian security sector reform, including police and rule of law. … The respect for human rights, the fight against corruption and gender issues will feature on the mission’s agenda across its different fields of action. …”,/em>

    Right! Almost as good as Obama’s “you don’t invade other countries or finance proxies” gem.

    Maybe Poroshenko can find a nice basement for them.

    http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/145774.pdf

    …

    Brian, Peacewisher.

    How long can people of goodwill in the West carry on looking the other way?

    How are we going to explain to our kids when this tragedy has run it’s course?

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Meanwhile….

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/11233890/Scandal-forgotten-Cherie-calls-on-her-friends-in-high-places.html

    Absolutely unrelated. Oh my goodness, yes…

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/10950149/Hindujas-urge-UK-to-finance-Mumbai-Bangalore-corridor.htm

    Note: whizzo commercial district. Not healthcare:

    http://infochangeindia.org/agenda/access-denied/public-health-infrastructure-what-we-need-and-what-we-have.html

  • craig Post author

    Sofia

    It seems to me extremely improbable that Poroshenko said that. I do despair of the intellectual level of people who believe everything said on RT, which is no more reliable than the BBC, merely serving a different state.

  • Sofia

    Oops!

    Lazy italics. Sorry.

    …

    Ba’al.

    Amadou and Mariam. Magic! Thanks.

    Also thanks for lifting the lid on the corporate celeb charity-wash scam.

    …

    Bono and Geldof. Maybe you can publicly commit to setting an example by paying your taxes and publicly demanding that your powerful political and corporate friends learn how to trade with, rather than loot, Africa. The little people will do the rest themselves thanks very much.

  • Sofia

    Craig.

    Actions speak loader than words.

    Here’s an article from a US publication “The Nation”.

    http://www.thenation.com/article/180466/silence-american-hawks-about-kievs-atrocities#

    Would you say that Poroshenko’s reported words are consistent with such actions?

    It’s dated July 7th so we can’t tell our kids we didn’t see it comming.

    I wonder why are you in denial about perpetrators the Ukraine coup and it’s aftermath.

    Try swapping Donetsk for Edinborough and imagine how you would feel.

  • nevermind

    Should a country that picks and chooses which of their taxpayers and citizens get services and pensions, a country that severs hospitals and schools from support, cuts off all previous state employees and their wages, not to mention chooses which human rights articles it wants to assign to the bin, be allowed into the European Union?

    And I have not even spoken about the intensely threatening behaviour of right wing fascists to all within Ukraine, whether they are elected representatives of just civilians who have sympathies with the Autonomous eastern region of Donetzk.

    I would like to be able to vote on this issue of succession, but I know such democracy is far too much reform for our politicians to contemplate.

  • nevermind

    thanks for that link, Ba’al, it looks like a pick and mix sweet bar in a supermarket.
    Sofia’s link makes it clear that we are being buttered up and that sinister forces are at work within Ukraine.
    Whoever shot down that airliner should feel and hear the last anguished crying of those who flew that day, some 80 children vanished, their lives snuffed out by dirty filthy politicians who knew it was happening, who ordered it to be shot down.

    Now you tell me whether these kids have no right to live, that their parents have no right to find out who really killed their children. Just to think of the screams as the plane went down makes me feel sick.

    https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=how+many+children+died+in+MH17&client=ubuntu&hs=OMN&channel=fs&gl=uk&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=aSFrVI_hNIfuaJ27gtAN&ved=0CDQQsAQ&biw=959&bih=671

    Now they are using general winter to finish off the so called rebels, well, is that what is available for Scotland, will Obama undermine Scottish Independence if his string pullers tell him to?

  • Jay

    @ Nevermind

    “A system based on inequality and exploitation is threatening the future of the planet on which we depend,”

    Quality in the decisions we all make in regards to environmental and exploitative counter measures we make. Reducing calorie intake and energy usage and throwing equality in the bin and being responsible for our personality in greater scheme and listening and helping everyone.
    Our political system should help everyone to help themselves with the emphasis place on those less fortunate or un-equal in terms of their ability to work and take part in communal and environmental scheme.

    Thee idea need to be driven and our mass media seems intent on keeping us shopping and ultimately consuming.
    I have failed to germinate anything as recently although much has been pruned in anticipation.

  • DoNNyDarKo

    I agree with you about RT,it’s Russia’s point of view.
    What I don’t understand Craig is your anti Russian stance on Ukraine.
    There’s an unexplained jet crash.
    A human catastrophe is unfolding in East Ukraine with at least 100,000 refugees.
    Kiev forces are shelling either indiscriminately or targeting civilian buildings which goes against the Minsk agreement.Poroschenko is trying to turn the 2 rebel cities into ghetto’s with as much switched off as possible.It’s medieval!! It’s beginning to resemble the Serbian onslaught on Bosnia and Sarajevo.How long will Europe turn a blind eye to the slaughter on its doorstep?Putin is definitely not Mr niceguy but these clowns in Kiev are nasty pieces of CIA supported work.None of the ex Soviet diaspora here understand why.They shrug and blame America.
    I have never in my 56 years seen two aircraft incidents brushed under the carpet in the way that the Malaysian airliner ones have been.No Air Traffic Control recordings which are usually the first to be publicised.No black box information despite it being with British Experts.Surely establishing the culprit will either make the branding of Putin correct or exonerate him.
    And as for the other one.Blame it on David Copperfield.

  • doug scorgie

    Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)
    17 Nov, 2014 – 10:22 pm

    “Well, Doug, there are certainly very many people supporting Putin out of ignorance (aka “ignorant Putin supporters”).”

    “In a sense, they are innocent in their ignorance because it is not their fault that they have little or no access to channels and sources of news and information independent of, and free to challenge with impunity, the Russian govt. version of events.”
    ……………

    Habbabkuk, some Russian media outlets:

    AK&M – News Agency
    Provides economic, financial, and stock market news.
    Eurasian Home
    Analytical resource covering economic and political issues, which are of prime importance for Russia, CIS and EU countries.
    Expatica – Russia
    Information portal providing daily Russian news and essential information on living in, working in or moving to Russia.
    Inside Russia and Eurasia
    Independent monthly intelligence report of the European Press Agency.
    ITAR-TASS
    One of the largest Russian information agencies. Successor to the leading Soviet news agency TASS.
    Moscow News
    English language weekly.
    Moscow Times
    Leading English language daily newspaper.
    Neftegaz
    News and information about Russian oil and gas industry.
    Novaya Gazeta
    Liberal newspaper known for its investigative journalism.
    Other Russia, The
    News from the Coalition for Democracy in Russia.
    Regnum
    Goverment-affiliated, one of the leading Russian online information services covering news from Russia, the CIS countries, and the Baltic states.
    RIA-Novosti
    State run news agency.
    Russia Beyond the Headlines
    English version of state owned Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper.
    Russia in Global Affairs
    Journal on foreign affairs and international relations. Also carries material from analytical centres and publishes articles from Russian newspapers.
    Russia Today
    First 24/7 English-language news channel. Founder – RIA-Novosti.
    Russian Life
    Magazine covering the culture, history, travel and life.
    Siberian Light – Blogging Russia
    Covers Russia and the former Soviet Union, providing analysis of the most topical issues.
    St. Petersburg Times
    Major English-language newspaper.
    Vladivostok Times
    East Russian English-language newspaper.

    And believe it or not Habbabkuk some Russians have radios, televisions and access to the Net!

  • Peacewisher

    @Craig: I’m surprised that you cannot see fascism for what it is.

    I don’t know, but I’m guessing that your mind is telling you it can’t be as bad as this, because there are nice guys in Ukraine… but all the evidence since February has been suggesting that the nice guys have been terrorised into silence. That’s what fascists do… and we are supposed to be on the side of those who oppose fascism. Certainly that is the cause that 250000 British servicemen and women lost their lives for between 1939 and 1945.

  • Ishmael

    “which is no more reliable than the BBC, merely serving a different state.”

    It is better than the BBC for UK issues.

    Another good speech. I was considering the question of citizen action at the pub last night. A road near by is a total mess, with a spring welling up near it. There is an ‘ownership’ issue and the council don’t seem to agree it’s there business. It’s been a pot-hole mess for years.

    My feeling on the matter, The road has 4 or 5 relatively expensive cottages on it, and the residence could easily pay to have it sorted if they just clubbed together. It’s this king of thinking and radical chance in people we need imo. I expect poorer people are more willing, but one resided said she tried, so it’s not perhaps such a outlandish thought that people could start organising in this way for many issues.

  • fred

    “Certainly that is the cause that 250000 British servicemen and women lost their lives for between 1939 and 1945.”

    I think you’ll find that Germany was actually National Socialist not Fascist.

  • Ishmael

    “fascism for what it is”

    There is no unanimous definition. Sure there are worryingly similar elements, as in any authoritarian system, but I don’t know if it helps much to classify that as something most people associative the open slaughter of another ‘race’ of people.

    I think it’s far more powerful to point out the physical circumstances that exist, and I would liken some of those realities to ‘it’ perhaps. But it’s nothing like 1940s Germany, or many other fascist groups in the past.

    mmm, I just don’t know, it’s complex.

    Ps, hope you are all well.

  • Ishmael

    “I think you’ll find that Germany was actually National Socialist not Fascist.”

    It was both. And to some extent that is what “state socialism” is. If you can put thoes two things together with a straight face.

  • Peacewisher

    Bizarre! There seems to be an attempt here to rewrite history. There must be soooo many rolling in their graves about what is happening, and being supported, in the Ukraine over the past six months..

  • Ishmael

    They had lost of socialists policy’s, but the German state was a totalitarian fascist entity.
    Frankly as someone who is part German it really annoys me when people start bending reality over this very serious historical fact.

    It’s very telling that it’s always ‘British’ minded people who seem to do this. Shove your racist state nationalism up your ass.

    But there is sod all wrong with socialism. Why do we think states use it so much? The USA would never have got where is did if not for massive socialism, now all but extinct as the state attack there own people. And any notion of socialism.

  • fred

    “But there is sod all wrong with socialism. Why do we think states use it so much?”

    To consolidate assets and make them easier for Capitalists to steal.

  • Ishmael

    Yea, very worrying overtones I see in the uk.

    Look at what Craig or Alan had to go though facing that dam corrupt select committee or whatever you want to call it. If that’s not totalitarian intimidation I don’t know what is.

    It’s them who should be investigated, put on the spot for complicity in torture and war crimes, yet it’s the people who expose it who are put through all kinds of degrading treatment. It’s bloody awful, people who stand up for justice treated in this manner, Really disgusting.

    And the so called patriotism they espouse, scoundrels.

  • Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)

    Mr Scorgie

    You present a long list of Russian “media outlets” with the aim, I suppose, of showing that the mass of the Russian population cannot be other than very well informed – and that their support of Putin is therefore founded on knowledge and not ignorance.

    Now, leaving aside egregious news “outlets” like:

    “Expatica – Russia
    Information portal providing daily Russian news and essential information on living in, working in or moving to Russia.” (thanks a bundle, Doug, I’m sure that’s a best seller with the Russian narod!),

    many of the outlets you list toe the govt line (eg ITAR-TASS, the successor to the old Soviet TASS agency).

    Moreover, it is doubtful that very many – if any – of them get through to more than a very small percentage of the great Russian population.

    You will recall that I said that “there are certainly very many people supporting Putin out of ignorance” – very many, not “all”.

    You’re slipping a little, aren’t you?

  • glenn_uk

    @Jay & Jemand:

    Are you actually serious here? Do you really think that withholding taxes is a way to deprive a warmongering state of the finances it needs to carry out its adventurism? I’ve heard that argument before, a self-serving argument it was too, from a layabout who rationalised his hand-outs as a strike against war.

    It will be a cold day in hell before our government (or any other) decides that it can’t afford war, because it has to pay out too much in benefits as it is. What do you imagine will be cut back first – warmongering, or services to the disadvantaged?

  • nevermind

    dong dong dong dong, this is the 6 o’clock news and the special people we always talk abouit have felt a little of their own medicine today. In days to come we will bring you every minutiae of how it happened, how many people got killed in response and what we all in the west say about it, again and again.

    All other news will take second nature to the spin of 6 uselessly killed people, but we will not see what Israel shall reap on the Palestinians. nothing about the children that have lost their lives, nothing at all from the criminals who put children in prison.

    When will Israel start talking to the coalition of Palestinians? when will it stop goading Muslims, spreading this conflict world wide, why is Israel and BIBI Netanyahu setting an already smouldering world alight?

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