I shall be speaking at a fringe meeting on Saturday at the Salutation Hotel at 12.30, chaired by Linda Fabiani, on the need for a written constitution. I am available and willing to speak at any other fringe meetings. I am particularly keen to emphasise the need to be focused on independence and not allow excessive energy to be side-tracked either into fruitless pretend “Devo-Max” proposals or the temptations of self-important managerialism. Obviously I should be happy to speak on defence and disarmament, foreign policy, human rights, higher education, maritime boundaries or any of my other specialist areas also.
To be perfectly honest, I should be especially pleased to be invited to any fringe meetings on Friday as I can’t find any other way to get in!! I move in to my new home in Edinburgh on Thursday, but previously as a non-resident was not eligible to be a delegate.
Craig, congratulation on your new home in Edinburgh; I wandered past it last night.
Any written constitution is a statement contrived by the people of today, to trammel the people of tomorrow.
Which generation has the right to dictate to another generation?
JimmyGiro
I don’t think the constitution exists which has not been amended by succeeding generations.
It is a document written to curtail the power of the executive.
US Constitution.
Second Amendment.
Is it an open meeting Craig?
@Kempe: The hallowed 2nd Amendment was originally put in place to allow slave-holders to keep “their” property in line. Any honest student of US history knows this.
@Craig: It might be well to indicate that any constitution as you suggest, would be a list of negative rights, not positive prescriptions being imposed by the government. For instance, “No religious test for public office”, the rights to free speech not being infringed, and so on. When Obama pointed out this fact of the US constitution being a charter of negative rights, he was – naturally – leapt upon by teabaggers, racists and republicans for daring to suggest there was anything “negative” about the Constitution.
I would like to see it being an offence for a politician to tell a lie in public.
Ha ha ha ha .
Craig, congratulation on your new home in Edinburgh. I’m sure Nadira will find cosmopolitan Edinburgh much more to her liking than Ramsgate and Cameron’s new school will probably be much better. Also, with the general election now just under six months away, your residency issues are hopefully resolved.
In maintaining your focus on independence I think it is imperative, as I suggested on an earlier thread, that you put a lot of effort into winning over Shetland, Orkney and Dumfries and Galloway, regions that voted overwhelming No in the referedum.
If these regions decided not to co-operate with a UDI, rUK would benefit enormously while rScotland would be greatly damaged and diminished.
” The hallowed 2nd Amendment was originally put in place to allow slave-holders to keep “their” property in line. Any honest student of US history knows this. ”
Which made perfect sense at the time but 100-200 years on has become an anachronism and one which it seems impossible to remove.
I predict a future revelation for you regarding the dirty business of party politics sort of similar to your revelation that British foreign policy is murderous.
Remind me, what are the SNP position on NATO and the monarchy?
“Remind me, what are the SNP position on NATO and the monarchy?”
They are whatever the membership decides. Unlike other parties, the SNP actually have votes at their party conferences.
“In maintaining your focus on independence I think it is imperative, as I suggested on an earlier thread, that you put a lot of effort into winning over Shetland, Orkney and Dumfries and Galloway, regions that voted overwhelming No in the referedum.”
Last I heard Orkney was working on going it alone and becoming a Crown Dependency.
That would certainly be a better prospect for both the Orcadians and Westminster than them being part of an independent Scotland I would think.
Reposted because still pertinent. Comments welcome.
“I’m happy to add my voice to those who’ve wished Craig all the best for his new home and for the future.
And now…..
It may be that finding a constituency to adopt him as its SNP candidate would be easier than the prior, obligatory hurdle of getting onto the SNP’s list of approved candidates.
Why?
Because while there are some on here who see the SNP as a ground-breakingly different – and more elevated – party in its morality and ethics, there are others who are convinced that the SNP consists of politicians, that all politicians are the same (=bad) and that the SNP is no different morally and ethically than any other political party.
I happen to hold the second of these two views. If that second view is correct, is it entirely certain that SNP “Central Office” will wish to run the risk of taking on board a potential MSP whose conscience might just, one day, lead him to turn against the party/party policy in the same way as he turned against his former employer, the FCO?
Of course one could argue that SNP “Central Office” might think that a candidate with Craig’s views on several aspects of UK foreign policy might play well with the Scottish electorate, but against that must be set the risk that it will think “once a “traitor”, always a “traitor”….”.”
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Having said that, and in the light of a couple of his comments, I don’t think Craig would be overly fussed one way or the other.
Juteman
““Remind me, what are the SNP position on NATO and the monarchy?”
They are whatever the membership decides. Unlike other parties, the SNP actually have votes at their party conferences.”
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On the basis of a couple of your previous comments and responses, Juteman, I’d already put you down as a silly bugger. The above reply merely confirms this view.
The SNP has existed for some time now and I suppose it has held several party conferences.
So what is its position on NATO and the Monarchy?
Or are you trying to tell us that these questions have never come up at an SNP party conference?
Or are they perhaps in the lengthy document the SNP put out before the independence referendum?
Westminster politicians are are able to get off with selling us out because they never have to explain themselves. When was the last time you saw a Westminster politician subjected to astute sceptical questioning? The controlled media pretend to scrutinise parliament whilst actually being in cahoots with it.
If an independent Scottish parliament is to avoid going down the same corrupt route, safeguards must be written into the constitution. It strikes me that there is a very simple measure which would go a long way towards holding politicians accountable for their actions. Include in the constitution that elected representatives at all levels must make themselves available for televised questioning by members of the public. The questioners could be chosen according to an absolutely transparent lottery system.
Just think of your own personal favourite example of corrupt government – could the politician responsible for it have survived a 30 minute public grilling from you?
Pre conference was NO Nato.
Conference voted to go with NATO minus the Nukes or nuke bearing ships and palnes.
What the future will bring will be decided by voting.
As for the Queen, Salmond made himself clear.
However after the purring incident,there has been a little wind of change.
So who knows ?
Personally I would’ve been happier without NATO.
But then you either join it or you are invaded by it.
Clark: Is that you finally moved North for good ? May the Forth be with you!
The SNP changed its longstanding NATO policy last year by a majority of just 2% at its conference, after heavy heavy leadership pressure.
It now has 600% more members – on balance significantly to the left – and a different leadership.
I am against NATO. The SNP will recover from its momentary pro-NATO blip very shortly.
Habbabkuk of course you are right that the selection panel is a more difficult hurdle than getting the backing of a constituency party. But I think you will discover the SNP is more liberal minded than you think – and aware of the need to accommodate the views of an enormous new membership which, apart from anything else, will be bringing it a membership income of about 3 million a year.
“They are whatever the membership decides. Unlike other parties, the SNP actually have votes at their party conferences.”
Where they receive their membership’s wishes on re-regulation of transport then take a hefty back hander from Mr Souter to ignore them.
I’m beginning to think you live in a parallel universe Fred.
The things you hear and see bear no resemblance to what is actually going on.
“Last I heard Orkney was working on going it alone and becoming a Crown Dependency”
You should visit your doctor, Fred. These voices in your head could be mad sheep disease.
Richard Lochead, the fisheries minister for Holyrood,cut a forlorn figure, in Europe today as he sat behind, a junior stand in Lord, who knows zero about fishing policies. lord what’s his name looked frantic as he hurriedly swatted up on the workings of the UK’s fishing quotas.
No doubt Scottish fishermen, will be the ones to suffer from this disastrous appointment, but when has Westminster cared about Scottish fishing quotas?
“You should visit your doctor, Fred. These voices in your head could be mad sheep disease.”
Fuck off an die retard cunt.
“I’m beginning to think you live in a parallel universe Fred.
The things you hear and see bear no resemblance to what is actually going on.”
http://www.scottishgreens.org.uk/news/greens-back-re-regulation-of-buses/
The SNP quietly dropped a commitment to re-regulate Scotland’s buses after a £500,000 “donation” from Stagecoach boss Graham Souter.
http://www.scottishgreens.org.uk/news/greens-back-re-regulation-of-buses/
Sounds like the leadership lobbied hard over the NATO issue too.
I was talking about Orkney Fred.But thanks for the link.
“Fuck off an die retard cunt.” Impressive, cogent arguments Fred wields. I must keep reading his stuff, obviously.
“I was talking about Orkney Fred.”
Councillor Stockan is leading the campaign.
Strange that Craig wastes time communicating with the troll here.
And the opinion poll that cost the country 50,000 pounds and was hidden under wraps,is to remain hidden.
Wings made a FOI request to have the details made public.After a very long winded reply, they said no.
http://wingsoverscotland.com/informing-ongoing-policy/#more-63148
Oh what a transparent society we have become.
The SNP demand for independence seems impossible to understand as other than the assertion of narrow nationalism fueled by resentment toward the English who, being rather more numerous than the Scotch*, generally carry more weight within the Union.
That would be OK if it were the case that an independent Scotland would have the means to defend its own borders. But it clearly does not, which is why it would have to enter both the EU and NATO. (And, no, Scotland cannot have the EU without NATO, since the EU is integral to NATO.)
So what SNPers unable to accept the referendum outcome (in which barely more than one in three of eligible voters opted for independence) are demanding is that Scotland cease to have a strong voice within a potentially independent UK in exchange for an almost totally insignificant voice within the anti-democratic EU.
And if a Scotland, which is unable to control its own borders can have independence, why not the Highlands (we never liked those lowland bastards) or the Western Isles, or Orkney and Shetland?
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* “Scotch,” incidentally, and in particular for the benefit of Natasha, is an English word, being a contraction of the word Scottish, with a first recorded use in 1590. The term was adopted in Scotland for a while and was used by, among others, Robbie Burns, but for some reason has fallen out of general use, except as an abbreviation for “Scotch Whiskey.” Why people in Scotland find the use of the term Scotch in any other context offensive seems hard to understand, but there seems no reason why English speakers outside of Scotland should defer to this peculiar sensibility.]