William Wallace did not turn to Andrew Murray at Stirling Bridge and say “I am not fighting alongside you, I hear you’re hard on your tenants.”
A declaration of interest. At the SNP conference in Glasgow in March I was feeling very down. Having been rejected at candidate vetting by the SNP leadership, and the fact leaked to the press with resulting brouhaha, I was effectively cold-shouldered at what was a very managed loyalist mass rally. I spent a lot of time on my own and people I knew were positively walking away to avoid me.
As regular readers know I am bipolar, and I know that when I am severely depressed my perception can be wrong. But in the SNP club a few weeks later a very sensible gentleman told me he and his wife had been appalled at the way I was treated at the conference. I am pretty confident it was not a distorted perception.
Anyway, I was sitting on my own in the conference hall when Michelle Thomson came and sought me out, sat with me and chatted to me. I have no doubt that her motive was simple personal kindness. I should add that the next day Chris Law did much the same.
In Scotland we have had five days of Michelle being treated by the media as though she were the Yorkshire Ripper. The BBC, who never once managed to ask Jim Murphy about the Henry Jackson Society, have been on 24 hour Thomsonwatch, including aggressive doorstepping a la Sky News.
I am not going to set out the detail of the case here, but highly recommend that you read Wings on the distortion of the issues, and Lallands on the legal position. Both are excellent, but to me neither quite clearly delineates the most essential point.
To preface that point, let me restate that Michelle is not under investigation, and her own role is unclear.
The key point is that at no time was any vendor selling their house ripped off. This is not a case of distressed people dispossessed, and the attempts by media and politicians to make it appear that way are tendentious.
The worst that allegedly happened is this. A and B are in cahoots. Mr Smith sells his property to A for an agreed market price. A then sells to B for market price plus 20 grand. The bank gives a mortgage for this, but A quietly gives the extra 20 grand back to B under the table.
The fraud is on the mortgage company which has been tricked into giving a higher mortgage than it otherwise would have. The fraud in no way harms the original vendor. The fraud does not even harm the mortgage company provided the mortgage is paid – and there is no accusation of default. What the mortgage company has lost is that it has as security an interest over a property with a false value.
But again, unless there were a default, it has actually helped the mortgage company too as in the weird world of banking its larger loan is an asset not a liability on its books.
So it is a fraud, but not one perpetrated on poor vendors. It is a trick played on the ludicrous banking system. Clever, dishonest but not morally outrageous. I repeat again, there is no evidence or even legal accusation that Michelle Thomson was involved in any of this. But in any case it is nowhere near as immoral as starting an illegal war with consequent deaths of millions of people. Lets get a grip.
I have never claimed to be perfect. All of us have done things wrong in our past. For me the Independence referendum campaign transcended all that. It was a millenarian movement, a time when people envisaged a world renewed and more just. That phrase about living in the first days of a better nation carried enormous resonance. It was the defining moment of my own life despite coming in its Autumn. Those of us in the frontline of the Yes campaign underwent a kind of emotional rebirth. Sins were wiped clean. It was a sacramental experience, and will lead on to that better world in an Independent Scotland in short time.
It sparked England’s chance for change with Corbyn.
I don’t care what mistakes people made before the Yes campaign. By dedicating themselves to that social movement, they wiped the slate clean.
Which leads me on to Tommy Sheridan. Neither Tommy nor Michelle will thank me for lumping them together, given the very different circumstances. But the continued shunning of Sheridan by pro-Independence organisations from Rise to the SNP is ludicrous.
Most ludicrous of all is the language parroted by the left about Sheridan, that “A space containing Tommy Sheridan is not a safe space for women.” You find it here in the comment by Edward Bonobo. You find it in this article by Tommy Ball. I have had it repeated to me several times.
One answer to this is that it is even more dangerous to be in organisations that teach members to parrot catchphrases, as opposed to think.
In what way precisely is proximity to Tommy Sheridan dangerous to women? If it were true that he has a Svengali like irresistible sexual appeal – which appears to be the nub of the accusation as far as I can make out any sense from Tommy Ball’s article – then surely there is not a woman in Scottish politics not warned against it by now? Is it not rather demeaning to women to argue they would not be capable of protecting themselves from Tommy Sheridan? What precisely about being in the same “space” as Tommy Sheridan is unsafe for women? What does “space” mean in this context? Room, meeting, city? The argument about “safe space” is clearly a nonsense.
I do not know the truth about the sexual shenanigans of which Tommy was accused by Murdoch. Nor do I in the least care if they were true. I have done all that kind of stuff. Often before tea. I do know that Sheridan was jailed for perjury, and that Coulson lied in court at the same trial but the judges ruled that it was OK for Coulson to lie, but not for Sheridan. I know there are allegations that Sheridan pressured other people to lie for him. I do not know if it is true, but I have had so many friends – of both sexes – ask me over the years to give them an alibi for marital infidelity I am not shocked by that. I am afraid to say that in my younger days I have asked that myself.
None of which explains the sheer hatred and bile poured out at Sheridan. This is a man who liberated poor families from the destitution and humiliation of warrant sales, who led the anti-poll tax campaign, who sparked the Murdoch phone-hacking revelations and has been repeatedly arrested and even jailed outside Faslane – trying to make the world a “safer space” for everyone. This tribute is undoubtedly true:
You supported individuals in the community; both in parliament and in the street, you were able to use your undoubted powers of oratory to press home your cause; you led the Scottish Socialist Party to considerable electoral success; and your contributions to the anti-poll tax campaign and the abolition of warrant sales will become part of the fabric of Scottish social and political history.
It was said by Lord Bracadale as he sentenced him to three years in prison for perjury in the Murdoch case.
Tommy Sheridan proclaims his innocence, but in any event he has undoubtedly made mistakes in life. But his achievements are very important, and the continued vindictiveness of the sex-negative feminists and their followers on the Left is extreme. Tommy has been to jail. Is offender rehabilitation only something the political classes claim to believe in because they don’t actually expect to meet any ex-convicts in their sphere of life? The attempt to dress the vicious vindictiveness up as warding off a present danger to women from Tommy Sheridan is intellectually ludicrous.
I shared a platform with Tommy Sheridan at Caird Square, Dundee on Sunday. I was not asked to speak until the gloaming, when 95% of those attending had gone home, but I accepted that and got on with it because I will do anything, anywhere to promote the cause of Independence. The SNP boycott of the event because Tommy was there cannot possibly be helpful if Independence is really the aim.
The Independence movement has a vast and powerful army arraigned against us. The entire British state, their corporate masters, the transatlantic neo-cons, both state and corporate media, the security services. For God’s sake, we need to be absolutely united if we are to reach our goal.
We need all of us. We must value all of us; as people, not robots. We should not be trying to project some corporate media image of a totally fake and hypocritical groomed perfection.
We have tremendously powerful enemies. We only have each other.
Our enemies lie before us. We should not look askance at our allies.
Mary – Fridamn was ordered by Davey to sell. Was this a good thing or a bad thing?
This is a tastier rumour than caliph al-mccaini’s death at Karbala. Laura Kuennsberg has agreed to do penance after labours recruitment upon JC election overtook entire con party membership, approx 180k?!!
Instead of singing any ditty to democracy, she will be eating the hat of a BBC in public at Westminster, kneeling on a red buttoned cushion donated by the Queen. Ainsley Harriot is rumoured to have been selected to provide her with the all you can eat buffet !!
ResDis? ref Harold Lever.
You said above ‘(he was born in Manchester and his father and mother fled Lithuania from the Tsarist police).
Lever’s obituary says his paternal grandparents fled.
‘He was one of the four sons of a pious and well-to-do Manchester textile merchant, whose father, like his mother’s father, had fled from the Tsarist police in Lithuania.’
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-lord-lever-of-manchester-1595170.html
PS What is anti-Semitic about the phrase ‘one of those old Lithuanians’?
There is some comment and background on the IMF transactions in the obituary.
The BBC are now saying that five people were killed in the Puma crash in Kabul.
Why be Ordinary. Davey was the mouthpiece. Good or bad is irrelevant. It’s happened.
‘The 12 fields, mainly in the southern North Sea, were sold in March by German firm RWE to the LetterOne company controlled by Mikhail Fridman.
They represent around 8% of UK gas production, including the Breagh and Clipper South fields.
The UK Energy Secretary before the UK election, Ed Davey, told LetterOne in April that it had to sell them again.
He said it was not in UK interests to have the fields at risk of sanctions against Russians, and threatened to revoke the owner’s operating licence. The sale had to take place by 20 October.’
~~~
Davey, Energy Secretary, got the boot in May and is now guess where? Advising in the energy sector.
Ed Davey takes up new clean energy roles
Guardian reports Energy and Climate Change Secretary is to start private work advising City lawyers on renewable energy projects |
15 Sep 2015
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2425956/ed-davey-takes-up-new-clean-energy-roles
Yes Mary you are right that it was his grandparents that fled Lithuania.
Perhaps you or Tony M could enlighten us to what is being hinted at by the reference to him being “one of those old Lithuanians” since he clearly wasn’t and where his grandparents came from would appear to have no relevance whatsoever to the matter being discussed.
The comments in the obituary are hardly supportive of Harold Lever plotting with the IMF to introduce privatisation.
It was Harold MacMillan, who used the phrase, “More Old Estonians, than Old Etonians” Was he anti-whatsit too? The trouble with trolls is they don’t do humour.
And have the memory of a goldfish.
I doubt that A A Gill (who doubts the existence of the celts in his Sunday Times TV review today) peruses this blog but if he should I would just like to point out to him that William Wallace was a Welsh speaker.
Fwl
BtW Got yir post on my ANRGY reporter.. Cheers For letting me Know he has Other Work on utube…WHADAGUY
I note that Nevermind was Lamenting the situ in the Golan Hights of Syria Re Stealing OIL…Some more on that –
Genie Oil and Gas has some high profile investors and advisors: Media baron Rupert Murdoch, former US Vice President Dick Cheney, American hedge fund manager Michael Steinhardt and British investment banker Jacob Rothschild are all members of the company’s “Strategic Advisory Board.”
Murdoch stated in 2013 that “Israel is the greatest ally of democracy in a region beset with turmoil and radicalism.” This was an audacious statement given his investment in a company breaking the basic tenets of international law.
The chairman of Genie Israel, Effie Eitam, who lives in the Golan Heights settlement of Nov, is a former military commander and member of the National Religious Party. He once referred to Palestinian citizens of Israel as a “ticking bomb” causing a “cancer” in Israel. He also told The New Yorker in 2004, that Palestinians were “creatures who came out of the depths of darkness” adding that “we will have to kill them all” before backpeddling slightly: “I know it’s not very diplomatic. I don’t mean all the Palestinians, but the ones with evil in their heads.”
Afek claims on its website that Syria’s occupied Golan Heights is part of the “State of Israel.” The company was granted a petroleum exploration license by the northern regional planning and building committee, in direct violation of international law by completely ignoring the Annex to the Fourth Geneva Convention — which applies to the occupied territory.
In February, an Afek subsidiary started drilling its first exploratory well and drilled to a depth of 1,000 meters. The samples extracted are now undergoing analysis and drilling continues. In the event that the company finds oil, it will request the required licenses to begin the production stage.
There are grave breaches of international law as well as environmental concerns at play here. Firstly, the type of oil expected in the area may not be in liquid form and could require fracking — a process that involves injecting large amounts of scarce water and toxic chemicals into the ground in order to force the hydrocarbons to the surface.
Tony M
Will you admit you were talking cock when you said that Harold Lever was NOW probably a Sir or a Lord?
Reminder: Lever died in 1995 so he isn’t anything now.
What was that you said about some people having the memory of a goldfish?
Fujisan
“Afek claims on its website that Syria’s occupied Golan Heights is part of the “State of Israel.””
_______________________
Why the inverted commas?
The State of Israel exists, it is quite a successful state and it will be here long after you, Mary and the other haters are six feet under.
Get used to it!
So we don’t need to use their vanity titles after they’re dead. That’s a good von. You seem to have missed the later post, the good lord was made a Baron. Of course Craig set the example, The sundered parts of Sir William Wallace would be turning in their grave.
Hab
You Really undo YIRSEL This time….Which Youtube Murder Shall Wee Show You FIRST..The Pregnant woman. and her Tree year old.. Dead.
Hasbararsenik, you swaggering fascist – As I am sure you well know, in Zionazi thought the notions of the “State of Israel” and the “Land of Israel” are not the same; the State of Israel has no official permanent borders demarcating the territory it claims; nor has it officially annexed the Golan in the same way it has with East Jerusalem. It’s always always always “facts on the ground” that count, i.e. control, not law or academic bollocks, and not what Zionazis say about themselves, which is of course always practical and expedient, and yes for the time being they occupy and control the Golan…and Jerusalem…and quite a bit of other land too.
N
Brill..Thanks
Ju Know Im Sick of it all… And Where is Dre
“I wonder how many so-called ‘suicide attacks’ actually involve a suicide bomber. . . . 50% ? . . . . 25% ? . . . . Who knows. My guess is less than 10%.”
—–
With remote detonation being used, it’s hard to say. How many people, children even, have been tricked into performing the delivery, believing that they will be walking out?
Tony M
“And have the memory of a goldfish.”
You know, every time I pass that fish I can virtually read its mind. It is definitely one day planning to murder me and take over.
and talking of fish, i see the sea-lion has been mooching about demanding information..
and talking of pets, the destruction of Israel’s pet project to use Al Qaida and IS to clear Syria of human beings to create the Greater Israel has put the troll in a bad mood:
“Why the inverted commas?
The State of Israel exists, it is quite a successful state and it will be here long after you, Mary and the other haters are six feet under.
Get used to it!”
I wouldn’t put a goldfish six inches under, in fact I macerated about 20 of them once down the sink macerating unit, after they’d died obviously.
BDS may be a good modern equivalent of an expulsion. We cant simply have a 1290 again, even cryptos cameron and wellby (a “good” Christian who wished French special forces “well” re the two charlie hebdo patsies) would need to be expelled to Lithuania ! BDS is a civilised option in the current vastly improved level of world humanity, although you might be mistaken seeing the latest treatment being meted out to the occupied Palestinians by the zio beginers.
—-
[ Mod: No sock-puppetry, please. Keep to one name per post, preferably one name ever, only. ]
Mary
You wrote
“*’He (Fridman) is a member of the Board of Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations (USA). Mikhail is an active supporter of Jewish initiatives worldwide.’”
What you have now posted explains why the first sentence is relevant. What has the second sentence to do with anything, unless you are claiming that this is the real reason Davey had?
Jemand
Tricked by whom? People who worship their Creator and fear the next life or agents of David Cameron? You’re like the sandwich board man whose daily message to the world is ‘God is Love ‘. Why not ask for a better job then? Make a better version of Islam than David Cameron’s instead of moaning constantly about his false flag version.
Turks blame Erdogan for Ankara bombing.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/11/turkey-bomb-blasts-ankara-mourning-scores-killed
Why be ordinary? That was a quote from Wikipedia.
You move on from asking whether the order to sell from Davey was good or bad to this. What is your game? Do you post here under another name perhaps?
The significant part of the quote is about Fridman’s association with the CFR. Do you know who they are? Neocons and warmongers including Powell and Allbright or as I call them, gangsters-in-charge.
http://www.cfr.org/about/people/board_of_directors.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_on_Foreign_Relations#Membership
“Why be ordinary? That was a quote from Wikipedia.”
—–
Since when have quotations been a defence for impertinence? Is it okay to give currency to libel because someone else is the original author? YOU are responsible for what you quote, not someone else.
Jemand
Exactly so – you’ve nailed Mary rather well. Let’s see how she tries to wriggle of that one! 🙂
I see Giyane has ‘come out’ as a Zionist supporter hence all his previous anti-Muslim output I suppose.
‘At least 24 Palestinians, including attackers, and four Israelis have been killed in violence so far this month, news agencies report.
This follows weeks of tension over access to a site in East Jerusalem sacred to both Jews and Muslims.’
Good photo of a massive hole in the ground in Gaza where once there was a home of a Palestinian mother and her child at the start of this video.
See the child’s football and satchel in the wreckage.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34498442
One of those BLU bunker busters (what a friendly sounding name) was probably used.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLU-109_bomb
The page is headed ‘Palestinians killed in Israel Gaza air strike’ but strangely ‘Palestinians die in Gaza air raid’ on the Middle East page. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world/middle_east.
Why the change in the BBC’s language?
Ref Al Aqsa, there are numerous reports going back years on Israeli provocation at the holy place. One of the latest.
Israeli forces step up repression in Jerusalem, West Bank
By Jean Shaoul
10 October 2015
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/10/10/isra-o10.html
The trolls took their time arriving on this post. Do they think that their tripe will evade the site’s ‘delete’ button once page 2 comes into use?
Habbabkuk, I don’t expect much these days. Except abuse, of course. And the subsequent flutter of a supposedly broken wing to feign victimisation and gain sympathy.
“The trolls took their time arriving on this post. Do they think that their tripe will evade the site’s ‘delete’ button once page 2 comes into use?”
—-
The more you use the word “trolls”, the more you look like a troll. That’s one of the ironies of online abuse.
But you are probably right about the active ‘delete’ button being employed to improve history on this thread like the others. There is no place for dissent on a blog that exists to express dissent.