All those many of us who were deeply involved in the referendum campaign of 2014 will never forget the experience. It appeared a moment of new hope and new joy. Bliss it was on that dawn to be alive, but to be knocking on a bit was even better, because you had been waiting decades for something like this to happen, and realised just how rare it was to feel on the cusp of an egalitarian revolution.
I was dashing all over Scotland from one speech or campaigning venue to another, and helping out with stall, canvassing or leafleting wherever, I was before moving on to the next venue and the next hotel in the next town. I spent an awful lot of money on travel and accommodation, and made several donations to local campaigns, or just gave cash to get something that was needed for a stall or get more flyers printed up. Over 90 per cent of the time I did not ask or receive any expenses for turning up to speak.
I was however in odd moments pursuing my researches into Alexander Burnes and visited Forfar and Montrose to look at manuscripts. I am therefore trying at the moment to sort out my expenditure in the period for my income tax return, and identify what I spent on the campaign and the much smaller amount which is legitimately an expense against income from the book.
And it is very, very difficult. When you are dashing around campaigning like mad, living from hotel to hotel and firmly focused on the campaign, record keeping is not on the top of your mind. Receipts are stuffed into trousers, shirts, jackets, suitcases, laptop bags. A lot of hotels now don’t give you a physical receipt but promise to email one on. I am only able to piece together a very partial account of what I spent during the white hot period of campaigning.
It is of course my own money. This site does not accept donations and it was all simply my own cash. I am therefore under no obligation to account for it. The smaller sum that might be attributable to Burnes research, I shall not be claiming as a tax expense where I can’t find the receipt.
But I have enormous sympathy for the trouble in which Nathalie McGarry finds herself. Accounting is not the top of your list when you are attempting to alter the destination of your entire nation, and Women For Indy was everywhere, doing stuff all over Scotland. From my own experience I can sympathise with why it can, in all innocence, be very difficult to account for everything undertaken in that hectic, breathtaking time. People should remember that before rushing to judgement.
Thanks for yir Latest Haiku Nevermind… Seems you have the Corporate EXTREME Media Figured
Co Op bank is no longer ethical – https://www.rt.com/uk/323459-palestine-solidarity-bank-account/
@ Rob.G. Thanks for the link to Nafeez Ahmed’s excellently researched article on Turkey’s rogue state and its terror agenda.
It should be shared widely and frequently because none of the MSM is daring to do such proper research, ain’t that right Grauniad?
can’t resist
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/europe-is-harbouring-the-islamic-state-s-backers-d24db3a24a40#.oquru2i0d
4 Examples of Mainstream Media Fabricating News to Push for War
As we inch further into the future and evermore closer to the next, and certainly last, world war, it seems proper to give pause and consider the significance of the fact that much of the information provided on world events is dreadfully compromised by corporate and political propagandists.
Mainstream media, with its exceptional reach, is able to mold the public’s first impression of any global event thereby establishing the ‘official story,’ the one that is repeated again and again during the first moments of a crisis. They capitalize on the immediate shock value of an act of extraordinary violence or unrest to mold public perception into conformity with a narrative that will become the abiding fiction by which any further substantive investigation of the event must be measured against.
SNIP
Example #1 – BBC stages a chemical weapons attack in Syria to justify NATO invasion.
With BBC reporter Ian Pannell standing amidst a host of crisis victims while on the scene at a small rural hospital in Syria, a supposed incendiary bomb or napalm attack happened, and as they were filming and a stream of wounded patients began pouring in. A doctor was interviewed on the scene, remarking that a napalm attack had occurred.
One month later as the NATO pressed for military intervention in Syria, the exact same footage was used in a new video report, however, the audio of a crisis doctors statement had been digitally altered. The word ‘napalm,’ had beeb changed to ‘chemical weapons,’ an obvious deception.
This video ‘…shows both versions are identical and from the same speech. The BBC then digitally altered the words from ‘napalm’ to ‘chemical weapon,’ the exact justification that NATO was finding difficult to prove.” [Source]
Watch the analysis of this totally fabricated event for yourself here:
(Embedded video at link)
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/11/24/4-examples-mainstream-media-fabricating-news-world-war/
Israel meets with Google and YouTube to discuss censoring Palestinian videos
By Middle East Monitor
Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely has met with representatives of YouTube and Google to discuss ways to cooperate in what she calls the fight against “inciting violence and terrorism”.
Israel’s Maariv newspaper reported yesterday that Hotovely agreed to work with Google and YouTube in order to establish a joint working mechanism to monitor and prevent the publication of “inflammatory material” originating in the Palestinian terriroties(sic).
Since the latest escalation of violence between Palestinians and Israeli security services that erupted at the beginning of October, many people have been sharing videos depicting Israeli aggression towards Palestinians to highlight the Palestinian perspective of the conflict. London-based Arab newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed has expressed concerns that the meetings suggest moves towards censoring Palestinian material on the part of the Israeli state.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/22471-israel-meets-with-google-and-youtube-to-discuss-censoring-palestinian-videos
Some people do seem to feel obligated to bend over backwards to make sure they don’t offend Israeli sensibilities, even when Israeli citizens’ wrongdoing has been documented by the FBI. I would like to provide more details but unfortunately from past experience have to consider that I might run the risk of this post itself being censored, were I to do so.
Alex Salmond skips Syria debate to unveil portrait of himself in Edinburgh
The SNPs’ foreign affairs spokesman decided to attend First Minister’s Questions in Holyrood, before unveiling the picture at Edinburgh’s National Portrait Gallery
Alex Salmond skipped David Cameron’s statement on launching attacks on ISIS in Syria to visit Edinburgh, where a portrait of himself is being unveilled.
Salmond, the SNP’s foreign affairs spokesman in Westminster, also attended First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood, where he reportedly “sat at the back.”
An SNP spokesperson said Mr Salmond was briefed on Mr Cameron’s plan to launch air strikes in Syria last night, and noted that he remains a member of the Scottish Parliament.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/alex-salmond-skips-syria-debate-6905120?
Anon1gone @ 8:56 (to Mary)
“I would like to offer £5 now and every day under the condition that you no longer post. I will give £150 a month to MAP for your continued silence”;
Desperate as the Palestinians undoubtedly are, not even THEY are THAT desperate.
A time slip from a parallel universe. Message from the past.
http://keldbach.net/2015/11/15/old-ussr-caricature-on-syria/