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.
Fred wrote “The Westminster government can’t regulate political parties either, we have an Electoral Commission for that.”
The electoral commission only set out rules for spending during an election campaign. There is no regulation whatsoever of party funding and clear conflicts of interest in it (e.g between a firm getting big government contracts or regulations changed to favour it and giving donations to the party that gave them those contracts or changed the regulations).
That is a gaping hole in democracy which the banks, hedge funds, big firms and billionaires can ride a coach and horses through.
There are similarly no laws or rules on internal democracy inside parties, letting e.g Labour party leaders treat votes of conference as “non-binding” (i.e ignoring them if they don’t go the way they want), suspend entire constituency parties if they don’t select the candidate the leader wants, change policy by press release and speech without any of the rest of the party having a say etc.
I find that a lot more worrying.
Dear John Goss,
When you say this:-
” If Scotland gets a modicum of independence, or better still total independence….”
I am here attempting to open a global debate about – independence – versus – no independence.
I shall do so by juxtaposing the Turks and Caicos Islands ( read post above) relative to the Scotland independence debate.
I assure both you and Craig that once it starts – then you will truly begin to appreciate “global blind spots” – if, and only if, both of you have your eyes open and your human rights conscience in a place that can objectively be assessed as being truly globally fair.
Now – waiting to hear from one or both of you.
The original Bamford was a draft dodger ’39-45.
Thats why he won lotsa industry awards but never got the knighthood.
True.
SORRY “JIVES” – I WANT TO GET BACK TO A VERY, VERY, IMPORTANT ISSUE ABOUT “INDEPENDENCE” – NOT JUST IN SCOTLAND – BUT IN THE TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS – BASED ON A TRULY AND SERIOUSLY DIFFICULT SITUATION THAT HER MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT IS FACED WITH – AND SEEMS TO HAVE NO CREDIBLE ANSWERS TO.
BUT – YOU – JOHN GOSS – AND YOU – CRAIG MURRAY – NOW ENGAGE ME IN A GLOBAL DEBATE – AND – I SHALL EXPLAIN.
WAITING FOR BOTH YOUR REPLIES.
NO REPLIES? – PLEASE READ ABOVE AT 27TH NOVEMBER 3:15 PM. I THINK THAT THIS HAS GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS. BUT – YOU CRAIG – PLEASE – TELL ME????
Brown wants Scots politics ‘reset’
Former PM Gordon Brown says politicians in Scotland must stop obsessing about constitutional change and focus on improving people’s lives.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-30256101
@Goss
“why we need a people-based world government” also known as the “dictatorship of the proletariat”. I’m afraid you just cannot hide those Bolshevik roots no matter how hard you try. The little dig at Kerensky a few weeks back was another clue.
Courtnenay
I don’t think you will find much of a take up here for a campaign on Turks and Caicos – which from the smells emanating from that direction is I fear a real life example of a conspiracy rather than the large scale overruling single conspiracy with which many here are obsessed.
If you want a reaction might I suggest you try the estatblishment right wing blogs such as Guido, Iain Dale, Conservative Home, Spectator and Telegraph. I do know that whenever I raised the issues of Turks and Caicos, Belize and funding by a certain bank back in 2008 and 2009 in such places as “toryboysnevergrowup” a prompt response was pretty much guaranteed. Some of the debate was then picked up by the Independent.
Brown wants Scots politics ‘reset’
Former PM Gordon Brown says politicians in Scotland must stop obsessing about constitutional change and focus on improving people’s lives.
Hear hear for the evil one!
Sorry just flew in from a week in Spain and Rome. Been out of touch couple of days.
What no one has mentioned is that many of the UK laws originate from the EU, so it’s not necessarily the case that Scotland would be able to decide on these matters if it opted out of Westminster control.
Sorry to hear of the travails Courtenay. I came across this from Nov 2012.
http://www.transparency.org.uk/our-work/publications/15-publications/468-speech-by-helen-garlick-to-the-all-party-parliamentary-group-on-anti-corruption/468-speech-by-helen-garlick-to-the-all-party-parliamentary-group-on-anti-corruption
Also this. True? If so, what right have the Canadian Zionists to be doing this?
MP Peter Goldring’s career has been full of wild ideas — and his Edmonton riding loves him for it
http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/11/27/mp-peter-goldrings-career-has-been-full-of-wild-ideas-and-his-edmonton-riding-loves-him-for-it/
Lockheed Martin is bidding for a huge NHS contract. Stop them!
http://action.sumofus.org/a/weapons-NHS/?akid=8238.4757780.PSUOcd&rd=1&sub=fwd&t=3
John Goss
As a chauffeur I used to drive hundreds of businessmen to flights to the Far East and India/China, all engineers and all making this country billions. our engineering base has been exported. Do the powers that be mind if there is a ding dong between returning jihadis and the UKIP mindset of the majority here?
These modern day engineering tycoons reside in brand new executive housing estates next to the motorway systems not too far from market towns or head office in the UK. They are the Bamfords of today. many Muslim businessmen live a similar lifestyle, but lean a bit more towards entrepreneurship and country manors in lifestyle.
The world is a very safe place for executives abroad even in countries like Uzbekistan. The FCO sees to that very well.
The losers are the victims of deliberately stirred up wars and (whispered quietly to avoid CanSpeccy hen’s beady eye for a juicy sound-bite) UK employees.
That’s the system to which indigenous and immigrant businessmen aspire. They love the legal certainties of the UK. The owner of TATA has installed one of the most unreasonable, anti-workforce conditions at Jaguar Landrover the name has ever been controlled by. Strikes are starting from now…
In other words in every aspect of life so far as business is concerned plus ca change, plus c’est la jolly shame shose.
The evil Mubarak has been cleared of killing protesters. He looked like Ton Ton Macoute in the dock. He was clapped and cheered by henchmen and even kissed.
“While more than two centuries have past since the U.K. abolished slavery, the people of the Caribbean are still treated as chattels for the financial benefit of the English, with hypocritical lip service to rule of law, justice, and other grand ideals, but can you say Ka-Ching? It is all about the money, the money, not justice.”
Courtenay, first of all I am not a lawyer, secondly I know little about the Turk and Caicos Islands and its recent history (in fact I know a lot more about the former French colony of Haiti, and the above quote from John Thompson tells me that there is as much corruption in the Turk and Caicos Islands as there is in Martelly’s Haiti, where the majority of residents is not allowed to vote, and UN peacekeeping forces are there to make sure they don’t get that right.
One thought occurs to me regarding Scotland’s proposed independence and that sought by T&CI and that is the respective populations. With 5 and a quarter million in Scotland and about 30,000 in the T&CI a better comparison would be with the Isle of Man, which has its own government, but a token British governor to oversee proceedings (Crown dependency). It has its own parliament and is an offshore tax-haven so there are comparisons. When I was there the IOM was described as 70,000 people clinging to a rock. But I see there has been about 15% population increase. In the early seventies I published an article about Manx cats being diseased freaks and in a parochial place like the IOM that did not make me popular with everyone. But that’s a digression however they’ve closed the cattery which was breeding these sick animals.
Scotland has its own parliament too. I cannot see it going the way of the T&CI however much intervention takes place from London.
Unfortunately I can only sympathise Courtenay, as I do with the poor Haitians. Most problems in the world stem from US (and its allies) pursuit of global dominance. Perhaps if we can oppose this, or wait while it is no longer sustainable, then the next generation can set up enforcable consitutions and legal systems which protect the poor and oppose corrupt practices.
Perhaps Craig could provide a better assessment of your comparison. I think there is a need for every self-governing authority to be on the watch for intervention from those with power-based interests and big bucks.
Whatever next for these unfortunate people? There is also a report on the BBC website.
The place is in ruins, no electricity/water and now there are floods.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-30243898
Top UN official aloof as Gaza is “submerged in despair”
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/top-un-official-aloof-gaza-submerged-despair
Mr Cameron, stop defending apartheid in Israel
Signed Mary
Bamford Defence Producta produce armored Bulldozers that kill people…
The US and UK lobbyist vultures who feed off African states.
Lobbying in Africa: Nightmare on K street
http://www.theafricareport.com/North-Africa/lobbying-in-africa-nightmare-on-k-street.html
Blair gets a mention in passing.
‘”Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s edifice of companies regularly faces claims of conflict of interest. Blair insists the model is simple: the only purpose for his complex web of companies subsumed under a private trust is to stop vindictive journalists from prying into his affairs. He also has a financial consulting company, Tony Blair Associates, which has earned more than $70m since he left power in 2007. He insists that he pays all his taxes in Britain.
The Blair ethical compass
“This work finances all his pro bono activities, such as the African Governance Initiative, which operates in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Rwanda, Liberia, Malawi. Other pro bono work includes a religious faith foundation and a sports charity.
“But there are grey areas. Does his pro bono work in Guinea, for example, give him influence to push through deals in the interests of his commercial associates, such as the bank JPMorgan Chase or Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska?” ….’
Thanks for that little snippet Fool and Duncan, who would have known that the words of politicians are nothing like thick mist in the morning, to disperse before lunchtime. But wait, when they want to go to war, their spine stiffens, eyes glaze over and the blinkers emerge from behind their ears, not only blinding them in one eye, but filtering the muffled sound of whoever wants to reason with them.
Clearing Mubarak of his many crimes guarantees that the Egypt state will buy many more arms to suppress the chaos that will now be assured, by design, catch 22 applied again.
We are truly living in a world governed by demented psychopath. Why demented you may ask?
Short term memory loss and dementia amongst party politicians who can’t remember their own past actions is widespread and undiagnosed. A clinic must be established, quick hurry, offering shock therapy, force them to watch videos of their own speeches, their bespoke commitments, the theatre at the doorstep followed by a wry laugh. Such service will off course be private.
But rejoice, the furtive festive banalities will overlay the affray, they will be able to monger freely when peace on earth has us consuming.
Last week I wrote a piece for the Conversation. Time for the UK to give Scotland what it voted for: more control over energy matters:
https://theconversation.com/time-for-uk-to-give-scotland-what-it-voted-for-more-control-over-energy-matters-34460
Hugely disappointing that the Smith Commission has failed to deliver on the ‘Vow’ in the field of energy and across a number of different policy areas.
The whole package of powers to be devolved to Scotland resembles a cheap Christmas cracker; pull it if you must but don’t ask for your money back!
A link to another article that I have written on this:
https://www.energyvoice.com/opinion/69692/opinion-smith-commission-recommendations-cheap-christmas-cracker/
Test
The Tower of London hosted a £240-a-head dinner for arms dealers while poppies were still being removed from the Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red memorial.
Nearly 200 people from the UK arms industry sipped Champagne before dining on a swanky three-course dinner just yards from the memorial to the 888,246 British servicemen killed in the First World War.
The annual ‘acclaimed and influential dinner’ on Tuesday night was kept quiet by organisers London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), which did not publicise where the event was taking place.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2852826/Tower-London-hosted-240-head-dinner-arms-dealers-moving-poppy-memorial-installation-taken-apart.html
____________________________________________
Hypocrites.
Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, has voiced his strong opposition to a controversial proposed new law that would define “national rights” in Israel as reserved for Jews only.
The “Jewish nation-state” bill would recognise Israel’s Jewish character, institutionalise Jewish law as an inspiration for legislation and possibly de-list Arabic as a second official language. It is being promoted vigorously by the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and was approved by the Israeli cabinet on Sunday, but has attracted fierce criticism from opponents inside Israel as well as from the US and the EU.
Critics contend that the law – whose final form of words has yet to be settled and whose language seems likely to be softened – threatens to undermine Israel’s declaration of independence, which gives equal rights to the country’s minorities, including Israeli Arabs, by promoting the idea of Israel as a “Jewish state” above one that is “democratic”.
In an emotional critique of the proposed new legislation, which would become part of Israel’s basic laws , Rivlin said those who had drawn up Israel’s declaration of independence “in their great wisdom, insist that the Arab public in Israel not feel like the Jews felt in the diaspora”.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/26/israeli-president-opposes-proposed-law-of-jewish-rights
____________________________________
Finally someone in power with a backbone, or is he just playing “Devils Advocate” its too soon to know.
I’m not sure what the bug was but you should fully reconcile. As when one changes phone numbers, everyone must be contacted anew.
Many websites who link to CM don’t have current HTTP protocol on blogroll.
Just sayin…
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Friday that France will recognize Palestine as a state if peace efforts fail.
As French National Assembly began a debate on a resolution calling for the French government to recognize the State of Palestine, Fabius told French lawmakers that:
“If this last attempt at negotiation does not succeed, France will assume its responsibilities by recognizing the State of Palestine.”
Europe has been swept lately by a wave of support for Palestinian statehood, even as the peace process remains deadlocked.
The European Parliament was due to debate and vote on a motion recognizing the State of Palestine on Thursday Nov. 27, but because of disagreements over the wording of the motion, it was postponed to the Dec.18 plenary, according to a European Parliament press release.
The resolution — proposed by the left-wing European United Left and Socialists and Democrats parliamentary groups– is expected to eventually pass, despite Israeli efforts.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that European recognition of a Palestinian state was “a big mistake for peace.”
But EU officials take a different point of view.
Last month, Sweden became the latest EU country to recognize Palestine as a state.
The U.K. and Spanish parliaments, as well as the Irish Senate, have also all delivered non-binding endorsements, reflecting growing frustration with the sputtering Israel-Palestine peace process.
Denmark’s lawmakers will debate a similar motion in December and other parliaments are expected to vote on similar resolutions in the coming weeks, including the Danish, Italian, Slovenian and Portuguese legislatures.
Palestinian authorities estimate that 134 countries have now recognized Palestine as a state.
http://www.worldbulletin.net/headlines/149416/france-to-recognise-palestinian-state-if-peace-talks-fail
__________________________________
Any move to recognise Palestine, is a step in the right direction, that other lot won’t be pleased.
Here’s an example http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/
404 Not Found.
Ben,
That’s an offsite link as you say but it is http not https. Nothing done on this website can alter whether you get a 404 not found link when you click it as it is a straight through external link not using security in an case.
Or to put it another way it looks like there was a temporary glitch at cannonfire. It works for me when I click it.
Ben The Inquisitor and Peacewisher were found in the list of banned IP addresses; we apologise. So far, no site team member remembers doing this; theories range from ‘tap-to-click’ touchpad accident (likely) to recluse admins not seen for years (unlikely). WordPress says: “Banned IP’s: When a Visitor comes from any of these IP’s they will be presented with a 404 ‘Page Not Found’ Error Message”. Two other commenters remain on pre-moderation, deliberately, and assorted socks remain unclaimed at lost property.