From the warm embrace of passionate citizen activism, Scotland’s future passed to the cold hands of hardened political hacks in closeted rooms. It is a physical impossibility that all 14,000 submissions from the public received by mid-October were even read, led alone properly considered. I am willing to bet most were not even opened.
No, this was the very worst kind of deal-making by callous political operatives, where party interests came first, second and last. I do not give a fig for the result. Income tax devolution is of minimal use if other major taxes are set from London and most income still comes from a Westminster “grant”. Revenue from oil and whisky will still be treated in government accounts as “UK” rather than arising in Scotland. It is far short of the quasi Federal powers which No voters were promised and the Lib Dems pretend to believe in.
Actually, I do not give a fig for the Smith Commission. I want to live in a country where the Westminster establishment does not send our children to fight and die in illegal wars, and which does not harbour weapons of mass destruction. I want a country where governance is decided by citizens and not cooked up the way of this sordid, sordid deal.
That is not to say we should not take advantage of any minor opportunities for increasing social fairness in Scotland that may accrue. But given the continued Westminster stranglehold on overall funding levels, they will be minor indeed.
Nor will I disdain the amusement afforded by the total intellectual mess into which the Labour Party has landed itself. If non-Scottish MPs in Westminster cannot vote on Scottish levels of income tax, it would be absolutely wrong for Scottish MPs to vote on English, Welsh or Northern Irish levels of income tax. That is unanswerable, yet the Labour Party cannot bring itself to acknowledge it. This should be fun.
For those wanting a detailed analysis, we have the excellent Stuart Campbell.
EU lawmakers have criticized Israel during a debate on the recognition of Palestinian statehood at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France, Press TV reports.
It is expected that a vote on the subject next month will get the overwhelming support of EU legislators.
The lawmakers believe that the EU’s recognition of Palestine as a state would send out a clear message to Israel that killing Palestinians and illegally seizing land is unacceptable.
Last month, Sweden became the first major European country to officially recognize the state of Palestine, confirming the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.
Some European countries, including Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland, are among 130 nations that have already recognized a Palestinian state.
___________________________________
Pressure is building, and a new found momentum towards, the recognisation of Palestine, is almost in the offering, much to the discontentment of that other lot.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/11/28/387840/meps-rap-israel-over-palestine/
@MODS: Have you noticed the spam-foiler has vanished?
@ Fred 4.48 – You make an interesting point. People are less likely to opt for change if they believe that they are being treated fairly.
Just for further explanation: In Canada the Provinces’ right to raise their own taxation is not a devolved right but a constitutional right that could only be changed by Provincial agreement.
“RoS:
Facebook can gain direct access to a person’s mobile and take pictures or make videos at any time without explicit consent.”
Don’t tell Privy Councillor Conservative ultra Zionist Malcolm Rifkind it can do all those things. He repeatedly told us it wouldn’t be used for anything. I hope he chucks his tablet in the bin immediately.
The United States will arm Israel, a key ally in the Middle East, with 3,000 smart bombs as part of Washington’s military aid to Tel Aviv.
The Department of Defense announced that the funding for the sale will come from the military package and will be paid until the end of November 2016.
The United States provides Israel with some $8.5 million in military aid per day.
The cost of the deal is estimated at $82 million, through which the Israeli Air Force will receive thousands of G-DAM model bombs.
The US military aid to Israel has prompted several demonstrations across the country against such deals.
American protesters argue that the US taxpayer money is used for more Israeli aggression against Palestinians.
The Israeli Air Force used smart bomb in its latest war on the Gaza Strip.
The besieged strip has witnessed three destructive wars since 2008.
During the latest offensive this summer, more than 2,140 Palestinians, including over 570 children, were killed and at least 11,000 others were injured.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/11/28/387844/us-to-arm-israel-with-3000-smart-bombs/
__________________________________
If I were an American citizen paying taxes I’d be more than pissed off at my hard earned Dollars going to Israel.
Glenn_uk – Yes – we are testing alternative spam detection which will hopefully allow us to do without the captcha. We will see how it goes.
RoS:
Facebook can gain direct access to a person’s mobile and take pictures or make videos at any time without explicit consent.”
Don’t tell Privy Councillor Conservative ultra Zionist Malcolm Rifkind it can do all those things. He repeatedly told us it wouldn’t be used for anything. I hope he chucks his tablet in the bin immediately.
_________________________________
Guano
Its not just mobile phones Guano those new smart TV’s do it as well, amongst other things, its like having a spy in the home.
As far as I know even the XBOX can listen in on your conversations.
What next the hoover calling the police on you.
Glenn_UK
Facebook is already monitoring and controlling the spam for you.
Leave it to superman.
That’s cool by me Mr President of Scotland, so long as they keep those Muslim Terrrrrrrrrists at bay.
RoS
Virgin Media kindly installed 2 broadband channells for my neighbours, one for them and one that picks up the bugs in my walls. I used to have to pay them to spy on me.
Thanks for link to Bamford’s complicity in the Israeli Occupation.
Do he and Cameron raise a glass when they are dining together?
Please consider signing this.
‘I just created the petition “Mr Cameron, stop defending apartheid in Israel” and wanted to ask if you could add your name too.
This campaign means a lot to me and the more support we can get behind it, the better chance we have of succeeding. You can read more and sign the petition here:
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/mr-cameron-think-again
Mr Cameron, stop defending apartheid in Israel
The Prime Minister should re-think his answer
Why is this important?
By refusing to condemn Israel’s Nationality Bill, David Cameron defended the indefensible and showed himself out of step with all right-thinking people in this country and elsewhere.
See the extract below from PMQs of Wednesday 26.11.14:
Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab): Will the Prime Minister condemn the new Israeli Government Bill that removes what are defined as national rights from all Israeli citizens who are not Jews, makes Hebrew the only national language and has been denounced by the Israeli Attorney-General as causing a “deterioration of the democratic characteristic of the state”? Will he make it clear that the statutory, repressive removal of citizenship rights on the basis of religion will turn Israel into an apartheid state?
The Prime Minister: One of the reasons I am such a strong supporter of Israel is that it is a country that has given rights and democracy to its people, and it is very important that that continues. When we look across the region and at the indexes of freedom, we see that Israel is one of the few countries that tick the boxes for freedom, and it is very important that it continues to do so.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmhansrd/cm141126/debtext/141126-0001.htm#14112630000006
@Guano : “Facebook is already monitoring and controlling the spam for you.”
Doubt it mate – no FB here! Hope we’re not thinking of a “sign in with FB!” at this site, before allowing comments…
There are definitely no plans to use Facebook (etc.) to sign in.
Plenty of money for weaponry but none for beds for mental health patients.
28 November 2014
Seven mental health patients died waiting for beds
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30236927
What a cruel and heartless country as the supermarkets were besieged by crazed shoppers.
Gosh Guano, you are so full of your name today.
Nafeez Mohammad has written more sense in his books that you ever have here.
What he could and could not write in the ghastly Guardian you have to check out with Rusbridger, the AXA enforcer.
Comrade Baal, many thanks for the heads up, Habbabreak now includes the https URL.
Fascismo Mods, for correct https security you need to disable SSL3 on your web server.
Free love for everyone!
I don’t suppose it’s possible to have a kind of logon, which ties the userid to an address, which makes the scourge of sock-puppets less likely?
Afrend – yes we know. However we are doing things slowly so we can identify which change caused any specific problem. We will also lock out some old XP systems running IE 6 when we turn off SSL3 but then they are already locked out of most secure sites now anyway.
More on the Bamfords
http://www.forbes.com/profile/anthony-bamford/ Rolling in it.
What a myriad of companies for transferring profits, losses and assets around.
Wonder what Bamford Defence Producta produce?
http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/lord-bamford/4305
IE6. Incredible. That’ll be our friends at the Research and Analysis Wing. 🙂
Afrend – SSL3 now switched off. Probably most/all of the visits that claim to be XP with IE6 are bots anyway.
Nevermind
Gosh! Obviously a full-time, professional journalist writing from inside the established Muslim community will write more sense than me. Even if I ask the Muslim imams directly I am fed with direct lies, as you would expect.
Winding up the Muslim reverts with rubbish seems to satisfy the counter-colonialism shoulder-chips, but fortunately the Muslim revert is assisted by the truth of the Qur’an.
There should be a comparison between the actions that the best politically-informed Muslims describe and the teachings of the Qur’an. We need to know whether the two tie up and how.
Being fed entirely with disinformation leads me to follow the mixed-motive attempts of outsiders to describe what achievemnets and horrors are being committed in the name of Islam.
They really detest my asking questions which I would not ask if any one of them answered my questions truthfully. Boy how they detest being suspected of telling lies when I know for certain that’s what they are doing.
My comments on this blog are really a protest against the imams who like to spy on me out of nasty suspicion, for their horrible dishonesty about the basic activities of current Islam.
Doth God exact day-labour light-denied, I fondly ask. but patience to prevent that murmur soon replies:
God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts, who best
Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’re Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and waite.
John Milton Scholar Poet and Muslim.
One thing I know for certain is that the agenda of the UK intelligence agencies is to prevent the people of the UK embracing Islam, which is exactly the same as in Milton’s time.
most telling part of the Smith Commission report is Paragraph 24., page 13
“Despite the provisions of paragraph 23:
(1) the Scottish Parliament will have no powers over the regulation of political parties
(including donations)”
The only reason to include this is that the UK parties were scared their bank, hedge fund and billionaire donations to party funds might be curtailed in Scotland, or that they might be forced to have some democracy inside their parties instead of the party leader being able to change party policies just by making a speech or putting out a press release.
The Smith commission deal is more about the interests of the three main UK parties than the voters in Scotland, but some (e.g some Scottish Labour MPs) fool themselves that whatever benefits them as Labour MPs is by definition good for the voters.
Mary, I know a bit about the Bamford Family. They were an old propertied Tamworth family and at least two of them were members of Tamworth Book Society around 1814. Tamworth Book Society was quite progressive. I have more respect for Joseph Cyril Bamford than most capitalists. He was, like myself, an engineer. He was not a banker. He actually made machines that were the best in the land, a bit like Dyson today. He built up a business from scratch that became an international success story. Eventually he became a tax exile but while he was here he provided for his workers (who were the best paid in the area and hence he would not tolerate trade unions – where I part company with him). I never heard of anyone in South Staffordshire who had a bad word for him, though I don’t doubt there were some. It is the capitalists who exploit their workers I cannot abide. And those who just put money into manufacturing companies and sit back waiting for a return. Old Bamford died in 2001. Don’t know about his sons who had already inherited the business.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Cyril_Bamford
Our country needs more people like old Bamford, better still if the companies were publicly owned, because the industrial base of this country fell flat on its face some thirty years ago. Skilled men (there were few women in heavy engineering) today are at a premium. If the United States carries on with its pursuit of a world war it, and we, will not be able to produce the component parts we import from here, there and everywhere because we do not have the trained personnel. Nearly every invention from the UK and the US will by now have been reverse-engineered. Foreign companies paying low wages will have the skill base where we will eventually have wasted young men in the dole queue.
I’ve not become a Tory. Of course politically I am poles apart from the Bamfords and even further away from David Cameron, who has never produced anything of worth as far as I know. It was the mercantile and manufacturing classes that built this country, and the Astors and Camerons that filched from the workers. I would like to see people in the public sector coming up with initiatives like old Bamford did. And top management being able to recognise and invest in their skills.
‘most telling part of the Smith Commission report is Paragraph 24., page 13
“Despite the provisions of paragraph 23:
(1) the Scottish Parliament will have no powers over the regulation of political parties
(including donations)”’
The Westminster government can’t regulate political parties either, we have an Electoral Commission for that.
It would be extremely worrying if they could.
Fair enough John.
It was the galling content of this link that Doug put up that annoyed me. The current Lord Bamford is either a Zionist like Cameron or else chooses to ignore the facts of a cruel Occupation. I am reminded of the presence of the US firm Caterpillar in Israel.
Not to forget JCB’s work for the occupation of Palestine:
“The company’s tools are used in the construction of settlements, settlement industrial zones and infrastructure projects on occupied Palestinian and Syrian land. JCB loaders and excavators were used for the construction of housing projects in the West Bank settlements of Alfei Menashe, Oranit, Ma’ale Adumim and Tzufin; in the settlement neighborhood of Har Homa in East Jerusalem; and for the construction and expansion of the Kalia settlement’s beach in the occupied Dead Sea area, and in the Barkan and Ariel West settlement industrial zones in the West Bank. In addition, JCB machinery is used for construction projects in the occupied Golan Heights.”
http://www.whoprofits.org/company/jcb-j-c-bamford-excavators
It is downright wicked.
I don;t think his comments are necessarily directed at imans, but I know, from my month of working for Bushra, that these religious leaders are led by money and their standing with other imans, a scale/ladder exists.
Now Nafeez is an academic who works with facts as they have happened, he does not speculate of infuse confuse or make up stuff.
His reasoning, now there’s some ambiguity, is nevertheless based on past events and experiences as they have happened, whether he describes the lessons of the Bojinka plot or the relationship of the Bush family to the Taliban of old.
I shall now go and share my pillow.
“It is downright wicked.”
I agree, Mary, thanks for the link. I had not seen this before. My period really is the eighteenth century. There was a lot of bad stuff went on then too.
Today Israel has broken more international laws than any single country as far as I know. The US and UK has supported Israel until very recently. Everybody, who can get their hands on it, is pulling their gold out of the US, with good reason. We have to be honest that the media of both countries has Zionists pulling the strings. The same with governments. Donors to parties get to manipulate the agenda. That is what is wrong and why we need a people-based world government to make sure that ordinary people are catered for.
That does not mean that ordinary people should not shoulder responsibility. It is important that they do. I have seen racist and religionist propaganda, like that of former Irish immigrants to this country in the fifties and sixties. “They breed like flies. The country will in thirty years be totally Catholic.” Well it is not. Neither will it be totally Muslim in thirty years from now. Mary, this is not aimed at you because I am sure our thoughts are in a similar vein, but it is a disturbing world we live in. I pray for peace.
The earth is a tinder-box.
@ Duncan
That’s new labour for you- aggrandisement.
Talking about constitutional reform in back room this week’s Private Eye no. 1380 has an interesting little item on page 9 (apart from the Sark Closed piece) on how an annexe to the 12th Report from the Political & Constitutional Reform Committee, published on 20 March 2014, provides that parliamentary approval is not required for deployment of special forces or normal Uk forces for the purpose only of assisting directly or indirectly the special forces. Maybe thats is necessary sometimes I grant you, and maybe it gets abused, but how does it just get sneeked in in such a way? How does everything big like the restructuring of the UK seem to happen on the back of a fag packet. or in an annexed document to a 12th report?