My good friend Manni Singh has been jailed for 72 days – an incredibly draconian sentence – for organising an entirely peaceful political demonstration at which I was a speaker, on which there were zero incidents of violence or damage.
The harsh sentence is completely out of line with any recent treatment of peaceful protestors, for example from the Occupy movement or Extinction Rebellion.
People attended the Glasgow All Under One Banner march from all over Scotland. Singh made all the correct applications to hold it to Glasgow City Council. His application was for simply a repeat of the highly successful and peaceful event a year previously. As I reported at the time, it was the SNP group who control Glasgow City Council who ordered the start time be moved forward from 1.30pm until 11am, specifically in order to reduce the numbers on this pro-Independence march. 100,000 people attend AUOB marches from all over Scotland, including the Highlands and Islands, so an 11am start is simply not practical.
Manni went ahead with the original start time in close cooperation with the police. There were no problems whatsoever. Glasgow City Council is not only SNP controlled, it is controlled by a group specifically close to Nicola Sturgeon. It was the SNP on Glasgow City Council who pushed the police to arrest Manni Singh and initiated his jailing, as confirmed here in this tweet from NEC national executive member and Glasgow City Councillor Rhiannon Spear.
Many prominent SNP supporters – including the brilliant writer Paul Kavanagh – are baffled by the SNP’s hostility to the AUOB marches. As Paul wrote at the time of the Glasgow demonstration:
Yet Nicola Sturgeon, who was happy to attend an anti-Brexit march in London, not only didn’t attend the Glasgow event, she didn’t even tweet a supportive message afterwards. Other SNP figures went on social media to criticise the march for taking place. Because apparently demonstrating that there is indeed mass support for independence in Scotland in the face of anti-independence parties and press which insist there is not is a waste of time that could better be spent sticking SNP leaflets through doors, leaflets that invariably get stuck in a bin without being read.
In fact, the last time that the SNP officially supported a mass participation independence event was the rally at Calton Hill back in 2013. That’s simply not good enough. But worse than that, the SNP led council in Glasgow became embroiled in a dispute with the march organisers, and now Manny Singh of All Under One Banner has been charged with an offence under the Civil Government Act. None of this is a good look for the SNP.
Here is a photo of Nicola Sturgeon on that anti-Brexit march in London.
The vicious jailing of Manni Singh shows you just the kind of oppressive society Scotland is becoming under the Sturgeon government. The fact that diehard Independence supporters like Elaine C Smith and Brian Cox have had to come out and oppose the oppressive hate crime bill should tell you something. AUOB is a genuine grassroots, working class Independence organisation. That Independence is the genuine aim of the SNP careerists who try to sabotage it I very much doubt.
The jailing of Manni Singh for a peaceful demonstration should be a wake up call to all those who believe that the Scottish establishment will not jail me for publishing the truth about the trial of Alex Salmond. Precisely the same people are behind the political persecution of me as behind the jailing of Manni. That is why I am extremely keen that you should follow my trial, and dial in to listen to the hearing tomorrow morning. Please read my article from earlier today.
Manni was given the alternative of a curfew sentence which he refused because of his employment as a taxi driver.
You can see my account of the demonstration for which Manni has been imprisoned.
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The state isn’t a safe space, neither is it a club for snowflakes. It’s a beast of power and every so often it demonstrates that power, it’s time the romantics for an independent Scotland woke up and accepted that fact.
Manni Singh quite likely did not expect such a treatment as this harsh martyrdom, but he provided a golden opportunity for those opposed to the forces behind independence in general and AUOB in particular to use the law to put them in their place.
As I understand things, Manni has resigned from AUOB, so it will be an acid test for them with what they do next. If they are left wanting on this issue it could be the beginning of the end for them.
His courage and determination is obvious, but he, along with supporters of independence, seem to have no real idea about what they are up against. It’s time romantic idealism gave way to the harsh reality of what is at stake here…_
Manny was fired from AUOB, something he blames on racism.
He was offered a softer option than prison in the form of a nighttime curfew, which would’ve enabled him to work during the day, but refused it. If he’s a martyr for independence it’s by his own choice.
What a way to run the criminal justice system: “You ran this demo 2.5 hours earlier than we told you, so you’ve got to stay in your house every evening for a month [or however long they ‘offered’ him]. Otherwise it’s prison.”
The SNP dislikes Singh because he spilled the beans on what kind of a Partei it is.
“‘I couldn’t support people saying anti-English racist things. There were also jokes being made on occasions about the colour of my skin, which I felt had to be called out.’“
“He said that he was hearing people talk about kicking the English out of Scotland and about stopping them buying holiday homes. He added: ‘And then they were talking about ending immigration from other places as well. I said, “Hang on a minute, are you saying you would have wanted to kick out my mum and dad?“, and that is where we fell out.’“
Who’d have guessed it about the Partei with the Odal rune on its flag, the Partei that tracks back to Lewis Spence, the Partei that keeps going on about a group of barons who gathered in the 14th century?
Still stings you, eh, Mr. British Nationalist?
N,
I think that you have your finger on the pulse – and – it beats either racism or parochialism ( maybe both):-
“He said that he was hearing people talk about kicking the English out of Scotland and about stopping them buying holiday homes. He added: ‘And then they were talking about ending immigration from other places as well. I said, “Hang on a minute, are you saying you would have wanted to kick out my mum and dad?“, and that is where we fell out.’“
OVER HERE IN THE CARIBBEAN WE HAVE PERSONS WHO ARE OF BOTH SCOTTISH AND ENGLISH HERITAGE. SOME FAMILIES’ LINEAGE GO ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE PLANTATION SLAVERY DAYS. THERE IS NOT A CRY OR SHOUT THAT SUCH FAMILIES MUST GO BACK TO FROM WHENCE THEIR FOREPARENTS CAME. THERE ARE PERSONS FROM SUCH LINEAGE WHO HAVE FULLY INTEGRATED INTO CARIBBEAN SOCIETIES AND KNOW NO OTHER HOMELAND WHATEVER THEIR SKIN COLOUR MAY BE.
So, Manny’s comments resonate with me. Plain wrong, racist and parochial is the response to him – which seems to extend all the way into the Scottish justice system.
So sad!
Oh aye, racism. Funny, that. Did the people he was involved in the organisation not notice his skin colour before they took up with him? Laughable. Still, racism’s the (racist) go-to way to try and discredit people now, isn’t it?
No, there was no choice and he did the right thing by not bowing to the oppressive regime. No harm to persons or property occurred and therefore there was no crime other than what they claim. So many sheep, ‘ oh am scared so i’ll take a deal’ innocent men don’t take deals. I’m appalled with the comments on here that suggest there was a choice. I don’t know what prison he is in but people should be holding mass demonstrations outside. Who’s next? You, maybe? Who will speak up for you?
To say that innocent men don’t take deals is nonsense. The late Joe Beltrami himself stated that during the days of capital punishment if the Crown offered a guilty plea to manslaughter (non-capital) he would take it even though he knew his client was innocent because he “dared not risk a jury’s verdict”. Better to spend the ten years or so that it was back then in prison than suffer death by hanging. ‘Plea bargaining’ as the Yanks call it is more pronounced over in the States where pleading guilty can mean the difference between a short prison sentence and life imprisonment or even death. There is tremendous (psychological) pressure placed on accused persons from all sides and particularly from their defence agent to ‘do a deal’ or as defence agents like to call it ‘damage limitation’. Accused persons are always ‘over-charged’ to give enough scope to delete parts of the charge sheet (usually the unproven parts). It is unsatisfactory for courts, they don’t like being put into the position of having to find someone guilty. They want a ‘confession’, either in court or through a third-party such as a social worker or a psychologist.
And remember that the Crown was offering a guilty plea to manslaughter because they had a weak case but even then Beltrami wouldn’t risk it. Juries and their verdicts are crapshoots.
Fantastic, for whatever reason they do. Manni Singh was not looking at years and its a miracle he is doing porridge anyhow. Prison should be reserved for the worst in humanity that need taken away from society because they pose a threat to the people in that society. While I like what you say, I cannot see that Manni Singh was any threat to people in society that he needed taken out of it.
Rhiannon Spear’s tweet is the epitome of the banality of evil.
Not a thought ever troubles the inside of that woman’s skull. And she’s so thick she doesn’t even know how thick she is. Laughable and chilling and boring.
Yes, sounds like a grand dork.
As ‘The Donald’ said: the swamp needs to be drained. Is that even possible now with the SNP ? Too many turds in their cesspool. Like Labour in the South, the position is hopeless. New political parties are needed.
“New political parties are needed” ?? The nationalist parties and movements in Scotland are in serious trouble.
The Salmond court cases and associated inquiries reveal unsavoury shenanigans by the unsavoury against the unsavoury. The likely outcome is a possible split between the ‘New SNP’ under Blairite Sturgeon and ‘Momentum SNP’ under Salmond. That could lead to the evisceration of a mass nationalist party.
The populist AUOB is not without its problems either…_
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/indyref2-campaign-damaged-anti-english-22455165
Using the record as “evidence” is not a promising start to a debate.
That is not a response that disproves what the Daily Record reports. Perhaps you can come up with a more authoritative account; perhaps one were Manni disowns how he is quoted in the Daily Record would be a start.
The Daily Record is, what the Daily Record is…_
No the opposite is true, abolish the state to gain the rule of law.
Hi Craig, I thought your hearing was fair. I hope you felt the same way. I don’t know about the law…I did expect to hear the Crown’s position but perhaps this is not the time. It appears to me that your affidavit will be honoured and accepted on the points they deem needed.
I am very much an amateur but was good to be able to dial in to hear it. Now need to have some sleep as my time here is 4:40am.
Best wishes, Shona Davidson
Thanks for that.
Is Scottish prison construction a growth industry? 😉
Can Manni receive letters? If so, is there an address?
I know it goes against the spirit of this blog, but here are the sentencing remarks: https://www.judiciary.scot/home/sentences-judgments/sentences-and-opinions/2020/08/25/pf-vs-mandeep-singh
The conclusion: “I will therefore impose a Restriction of Liberty Order requiring you to remain within your home address between the hours of 6pm and 6am for a period of 72 days”
Why the defendant opted to go to jail instead mystifies me. It certainly can’t have anything to do with “his employment as a taxi driver”. The court’s judgment would have left him free to drive his taxi for up to 12 hours each day, and now he can’t drive it at all.
What I dont understand is why he was not given a suspended sentence? That would seem appropriate for such a ‘crime’ . A dont do it again or else type situation.
He should have declared himself to be a woman and then he would have been cleared and had a state dinner with Nicola Sturgeon at Bute House.
It reads to me as if the judge thought he was giving the defendant the most lenient sentence he could, given the sentencing guidelines etc. He’ll have been as surprised as the rest of us that the defendant is apparently now in jail.
Martinned, read the article, its patently obvious to me and others that Manny wouldn’t have been charged (the police were fine with the start time) if the SNP-controlled Glasgow City Council hadn’t pursued his arrest and subsequent conviction and draconian sentence.
As Craig rightly points out Sturgeon hasn’t attended an independence march for seven years, yet she vigorously put herself about to try and stop Brexit. Sturgeon is making an example of Mr Singh, watch out Scottish independence march organisers, you will be prosecuted for wanting an independent Scotland.
“Guidelines”….
Sentencing guidelines are not as optional as they sound…
I can’t find the Scots law equivalent, but for England the rule is in s. 125 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009:
125 Sentencing guidelines: duty of court
(1)Every court—
(a)must, in sentencing an offender, follow any sentencing guidelines which are relevant to the offender’s case, and
(…)
unless the court is satisfied that it would be contrary to the interests of justice to do so.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2009/25/part/4/chapter/1/crossheading/duties-of-the-court
They don’t like it when you tell them to shove a fine or in this case a “restriction of liberty” order up their cr*pholes.
Sheriff Paul Brown explains that the reason that the bar for a custodial sentence was passed was that “(I)t is a serious offence which had the potential to impact upon a huge number of people.”
In other words he got a phone call from Bute House? He obviously couldn’t marshal arguments in support of a proposition to save his sorry little Nazi truth-dentist excuse for a “life”.
He then goes on to say there’s mitigation and therefore he is imposing the curfew instead.
Hmmmmm… Makes you wonder…
Apparently Singh entered his plea on the morning of the trial. Did he originally plead not guilty? Maybe the procurator fiscal welshed on a plea deal?
Manny, if you are reading this, next time don’t plead guilty, OK?
Nonsense. I know nothing about the event in question, but something of the scale of 100,000 people seems like the kind of thing that should require a permit. And if you’re going to require people to get a permit before they can do something, there also has to be a penalty if people do that thing without the permit. That goes for driving a car as much as for organising a demonstration.
Singh must have been crazy to plead guilty.
The sheriff, Paul Brown, seems to be as big a prat as Rhiannon Spear:
“You yourself have estimated the numbers of people actually in attendance at 100,000 people. This was a large scale and major event and you were under no illusions that the time and route you eventually took was unacceptable.“
Apparently
“It was submitted on your behalf that the public interest of this prosecution was open to question.“<\p>
All the more reason why Singh should have pleaded not guilty.
Listen to the lip on Brown!
“I note in particular the personal difficulties you have experienced in the past, your lack of relevant previous convictions and your difficult present circumstances. I am told that you felt there was no risk. That has to be set against the fact that you were not in a position to make that assessment and you had no authority to do so.”
Paul Brown worked in the National Sex Crimes Unit in the Crown Office. I wonder whether he worked on the Salmond case at all.
He should have pleaded not guilty. If he had stuck to his guns the whole ‘case’ would have likely collapsed. He has done what most people do, that is given into pressure and took what seems the easiest option at the time. “If you plead not guilty you will have to come back another day 😉 “. Just wants out the door and to get it over with. Short-term thinking and never considering the longer-term consequences.
Probably likes the attention, and the whole ‘Scottish freedom martyr’ legend-building.
Taxi drivers can’t earn a living working during the day. They make most of their money in the evening, and at weekends.
I’m sure they still make more money during the day than if they’re in jail.
Yes. The judge could have varied the hours to reflect that fact. It isn’t as if he were a drunk and disorderly case who needed to be kept in at night. Changing the hours to 12 to 12, for example, was possible. I do not understand why his defence did not argue for this.
Thanks for posting that sentencing link which certainly does give some missing context.
The law has a long track record of singling out and punishing the leaders of organised protests and gatherings and has been reflected in anti-trade union laws from the Combination Acts onward. It does this because it is impractical to arrest and punish the thousands of participants who because they are freely engaging in the protests are also breaking the law. It also does it to teach a lesson to these others. Manni Singh is simply the scapegoat for being their representative. What you have here is the modern equivalent of Peterloo and shows how little the democratic process has actually advanced since that time. That the “democratically elected” local authority has misused its “democratically based” powers for narrow political reasons seems beyond dispute. Saying, as people have been saying here, that it was his individual responsibility or that he had a choice in his fate is total cant.
The right thing to do is to release Manni Singh immediately, then review the law, which I suspect was never made with this situation in mind and has been abused by the so-called representatives of the people. “Animal Farm” comes to mind.
I am in two minds about all of this. I have seen Singh madly ranting on Facebook, calling people ‘cowards’ and such. He seems a bit mentally unbalanced, to me, and there are a lot of unanswered questions about transparency in the organisation’s accounts, non-use of SIA-licenced stewards at marches, etc. Singh said he works taxis at night and thus took a jail sentence instead of sit at home nights. He could easily have shifted his shifts to days. He comes across as horribly egocentric and sneering online. Don’t like the guy. He doesn’t seem to care much about rules and laws, which he doesn’t seem to think are made with him in mind. He now knows better.
As for that creepy manhater careerist zoomer Rhiannon Spear, the less said the better. All she cares about is piling more of her idiot pals into Holyrood, with this ‘gender balance’ drivel. The photo of her yesterday in The National, standing in front of a wall of books, was hilarious. She was clearly trying to appear ‘educated’ and ‘serious.’ Anybody reading her Twitter feed, with her inane wafflings about Beyonce or whatever crap she is eating, or new-agey crap she is studying, can easily see how far that is from the truth. Several of the tomes behind her were about war in Syria. Oh aye, she definitely strikes me as a person who reads extensively on Middle Eastern conflicts. When she’s self-righteously not whining about American intersectionalist crap on Twitter, that is.
This whole independence thing is a car crash in all directions. The march went off incident-free, fair enough. But it sounds to me like an accident waiting to happen. And if something did go horribly wrong, the setback for indy marches, and the resultant unionist media schadenfreude carnival, would be deeply damaging to the independence movement. Things need recalibrated, and egos need to be subsumed for the greater good. And the lunatics and careerists at the top of the SNP need removed. NOW.
Interesting characterisations of Singh and Spear. Taken together with what we know about Salmond and Sturgeon, they seem to indicate that most of the leaders of the Scottish independence are very peculiar people indeed. Perhaps they are not the sort of people the Scots should want to follow?
Its becoming patently obvious that Sturgeon is cracking down on the public face of Scottish independence, unless its used to promote the SNPs agenda. Sturgeon’s never off the BBC now, when not so long ago anyone promoting Scottish independence wouldn’t have gotten near a BBC studio unless it was to pose negative questions to them on the subject.
We’ve been betrayed by the heirarchy of the SNP, and those MSPs that know it, are leaving Holyrood in numbers.
Its simple – he was given a workable sentence within the law that would allow him to work. He refused it because he couldn’t work nights, in the full knowledge he would go to jail, and cant work nights, or days. So dont blame the court, blame the fool. But Craig – your ranting about “vicious” sentencing doesn’t put you in good light given your current situation.
So the (assumed) fact that someone was “given a workable sentence” means the sentence is always just, no matter what the facts might be and how reasonable the behaviour was?
“he was given a workable sentence within the law”
has it occurred to you that the law often is used as an excuse by totalitarian governments? After all, there were laws in Germany that prohibited and penalized the intermarriage of Jews and non Jews, there were laws in Russia that permitted the incarceration of political opponents and their treatment as mentally ill.
One could go on, but I guess “within the law” can be the lowest denominator for justification of injustice.
Indeed, the Criminal Code of the Soviet Union was ‘within the law’.
Breach of the ‘Civic Government (Scotland) Act’ usually results in a fine. Jailing someone is unheard of..
The judge would have given him an unpaid work order, but couldn’t because of the defendant’s ill health. So he gave him curfew instead. How much more lenient do you want it?
Cabbies can’t live on day work. Keeping him in at night was Hobson’s choice.
According to The National: “THE Lord Advocate of Scotland, James Wolffe QC, admitted in court this morning that two administrators of the liquidated Rangers FC had been the victims of malicious prosecution by the Crown. In Scotland’s highest civil court, the Court of Session, David Whitehouse and Paul Clark of administrators Duff and Phelps are suing the Lord Advocate and Police Scotland for a sum now thought to be in excess of £15 million for their wrongful prosecution.”
Interesting term that, ‘malicious prosecution’. I suspect we will be hearing more of it as independence gets closer.
It’s funny because before the march in question, Manny Singh was the poster boy for AUOB.
Look how quickly they dropped him and have turned against him. It’s absolutely detestable.
I seriously doubt the independence ‘movement’ has the wits or brains to gain independence. It’s a really gossipy, sweetie wifie ‘movement’ and whilst I am certainly no fan of Sturgeon, maybe she’s doing the right thing by having as little to do with it as possible.
Corbyn Redux
Sadly I wasn’t able to listen in but I do hope all went well for you. Due to all that’s happening in the world cases like yours and Manny’s are being dealt with without the light of public scrutiny being shone upon them.
In today’s Times, an article that made me wonder whether SNP-controlled Scotland is a banana republic.
‘Gerry Moynihan, QC, the lord advocate’s lawyer, admitted this morning that every stage of the prosecution after the two men’s first appearance in court had been unlawful. He told a virtual hearing of the Court of Session that the investigation had been motivated by “malice” and conducted without probable cause.’
What the buggery-bugger was going on?
The intention was to punish somebody (anybody except the proper person) for the demise of Glasgow Rangers due to systematic tax evasion. Unfortunately for them, they picked the wrong somebodies to blame and the wrong police persons to pursue them. In one farcical interview, held under caution, the newly-promoted lead investigator (who had apparently had no training whatsoever in investigating financial crime) tried to intimidate a ‘suspect’ by loudly chanting a religiously bigoted football anthem at the ‘suspect’ while the interview room camera was trained on the police person instead of said ‘suspect’.
What was happening in the court was the chickens coming home to roost.
As for Mr Singh, I am reminded of a pearl of wisdom I learnt when I was young.
“We must continue to rub along with the English or we’ll be ruled by Glasgow City Council.”
You could vote out Glasgow City Council in a heart beat. I see no excuse for wanting to be subject to English Tories, I’m afraid.
That’s a profoundly stupid reply. Would you care to elaborate?
Sure, I’m saying it’s silly if you’re Scottish to want to be ruled by contemptuous English Tories. The rest of the world threw them off decades and centuries ago without a scintilla of regret. All would advise you to lose the Stickholm syndrome and aim to govern yourselves with dignity.
A jail sentence for holding the march at the originally agreed time, rather than an unfeasibly early one?
A jail sentence??
A £1000 fine sounds more like it, even that is a bit draconian, but it might equate to two weeks’ wages for a taxi driver, so it might be vaguely justifiable.
What jail sentence should 500 Westminster MPs have got for voting to kill 1 million people in Iraq??
None of them got a single fine and Tony Blair got £50m in blood money.
To say that politicians no longer have any credibility totally fails to express the situation any longer.
They must be held in contempt by any thinking Scots right now.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a Unionist or pro-independence. What matters is that you respect the right of peaceful folks to demonstrate in public about matters they feel passionate about.
The SNP politicians clearly no longer do.
They may come to regret that rather sooner than they might realise….
No, no jail sentence. A curfew. (see above.)
Well said Dr Jagger.
I was on that march with tens of thousands of peaceful protestors enjoying something of a carnival atmosphere.
I recall seeing Craig walk past us at Glasgow Green – although we missed his speech because we were in the middle of he march, and hence arrived much later than those at the front – and they were still coming into the park as we were leaving.
The only nastiness we saw was from a pathetic group of counter demonstrators in George Square.
The idea that someone would be jailed for organising it is abhorrent – and augers ill for what is ahead.
i dialed in this morning craig, but after 10 mins my hands free phone died 🙁
opening comments from the judge seemed to be saying that she would withhold judgement on evidence/witnesses until the actual hearing and would do so as and when the issues arose. both sides appeared to agree with her.
any chance of a quick update? do you know how many dialed in?
I guess Manni Singh should appeal against the excessive sentence. This affair should be a matter of concern to any democrat, so I hope any such appeal succeeds, at the very least in getting his sentence substantially reduced (e.g. to time already served).
Regardless of the rights or wrongs of this (I know very little of the details) the 72 days is preposterous in the extreme.
If thats what you get for a march then many Tory MPs should be behind bars for life.
Well, it is shorter than the 75 years that Trump was trying to force on the people who protested his inaugural. They tried to do that, but a DC jury threw their first case out of court and the Trump’s federal prosecutor finally dropped the cases that were left against the people who had not folded to the intimidation.
This is why the powerful hate juries.
It is so much simpler when they can just say “Will no one rid me of this activist?”
An absolute disgrace that Sturgeon’s colonial clique tried to change the time of the march to morning time. An absolute disgrace they reported Manni to the Polis when he would not agree to this.
The sentence is draconian. At most he should have received an admonishment.
Just as well hung, drawn and quartered has been done away with for those who want Scotland free from the tyranny of the British Empire / The Crown of England, or Imelda Marcos Sturgeon’s anti-independence colonial SNP regime would have been calling for that sentence.
Malicious prosecution is a weapon. A weapon used by a state, a corrupt state. And it is a weapon to destroy individuals and or take away their freedom.
Scotland is a corrupt state. Recent prosecutions, and ongoing prosecutions of political opponents like a Salmond, Murray, Hirst and Singh show that. In fact Singh was jailed as an example and so too would Salmond have been were it not that the tissue of lies were rejected by the jury.
And today we have the admission that two individuals involved with the Rangers bankruptcy were prosecuted ‘ unlawfully and with malice ‘ by Police and the Crown Office. But these are not the only two wronged individuals wronged by the state because there are another four cases to with similar decisions to be announced.
Yes Scotland’s legal system is a running sewer. And out of Europe it will only get worse as it bows to dark vested interest.
Nictator Purging!
A non elected Monarchy have to pull every dirty trick in the book to remain in power. The Crown Prosecution Service and Judiciary aptly positioned to keep the tyranny alive and kicking…..
I am lost for words. How deep runs the corruption of the SNP, their government and our judiciary, let alone Westminster? At some point we have to cry enough. The Sturgeon led SNP won’t do it, as it has becoming increasingly clear they have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Our best hope is a root to branch clear out of of Sturgeon, Murrell, and their cronies or, failing that, the rise of a new party with independence as its goal. As matters stand I cannot vote for SNP at any future elections having been a member for many years until the penny dropped on 31 January 2020.
I am not advocating violence but a public display of our rejection of our corrupt establishment, a la Belarus, might make some of us wake up. Perhaps that is why they fear Manni Singh.
Can you imagine how upset the EU would be if Belarus dared to throw protest leaders into jail for 75 days for a minor infringement of the start time on a permit that was designed by the regime to try to hamper the protest!
The EU would be up in arms! The sanctions would be flying thick and fast!
CNN would have their art department working on graphics for the huge crisis and designing the war music to be played before and after all of the commercials!
Many Engish who have always believed Scotland to be a decent place by comparison with the cesspool that they live amidst must be looking on in disbelief.
It seems Scottish law is not that different after all from the pig-headed troglodytic kind of law practiced in England. Having found myself falsely on the wrong end of it at one point in my life, I can only say that truth and righteousness is not the way to escape it. Boundless bum-licking is the only way, I am ashamed to say. We are a nation of boot-lickers, and it appears Scotland is too.
All the very best to Craig tomorrow though. I would like to have some words of comfort, but I was never under any illusion that this was just a show trial against him.
Are you okay Craig?
People obviously used the Independence cause to take power.
Now they are pursuing their own agenda.
Unfortunately, way too common.
And, just like the crooked official at a sporting match, they impose quick and harsh penalties upon any who object.
————-
And to think, there are people in Belarus and Hong Kong who think that the UK is the height of democracy. But they don’t realize that the UK has been the constant foe to democracy over the centuries. The UK supported every King against his people. And even now, the UK has a sharply limited form of democracy. Democracy is supposed to mean that the people hold the power. But the UK has a system which has been rigged to make sure that there is only a show of democracy while the people have little power at all.
Quite aside from everything else, how can anyone take a monarchist regime seriously?
“Royal prerogative”, “the Crown”, “the Crown Estate”, “Her Majesty’s Government”, “the House of Lords”, “QCs”, “the Privy Council”, the “Royal Navy”, the “Royal Marines”, the RAF, the “Royal Horticultural Society”, the RSPCA, Queens’ College, King’s College, the College of Arms, the Household Cavalry, the “Royal Standard” flying above Buckingham Palace when the “queen” is “in residence”, “royal weddings”, “royal visits”, “royal babies”, “royal protection officers”, the “Royal Opera House”, the “Royal Shakespeare Company”, “God Save the Queen”, the “state opening of parliament”, the “Royal Albert Hall”, the “Royal Festival Hall”, the “queen’s” image on coins and banknotes, “Royal Assent”, “Queen’s Consent”, “Royal Ascot”, “Lords and Ladies in Waiting”, “Queen’s club” in tennis, “the kissing of hands”, “the prime minister has gone to Balmoral”, etc. etc. etc. – all of these are considered perfectly normal things in Britain, but what a row of absolute buckets of vomit they are for anybody who has any genuine respect for our species.
I listened to a radio programme recently in which some academics not all of whom were posh were going on about “the Victorians” as if that were a completely normal way to talk about people who lived in all classes of society during a period of very widespread csocial change that lasted about 60 years, as if such a usage didn’t deserve derision in the slightest. And they weren’t just talking about Britain either – apparently there were “Victorians” in continental Europe too. I don’t reckon academic historians in Austria or Hungary nowadays talk about the “Franz-Josephians” in the same way. If one of them ever did, you could imagine him doing it after riding his horse into the lecture room, just before they took his sabre from him and locked him up in an institution for the mentally ill.
And of course there is the term “United Kingdom” or “UK”, employed to refer to…the country itself!
Baulk at it and people stare at you cluelessly and even with some unease as if it’s you that’s the nutter.
There have been some utterly wacky outfits calling themselves “Communist Parties” in Britain, but at least there has never been a “Communist Party of the UK”.
No, but there has been the Communist Party of Great Britain.
Surprised that you – as a “Marxist” (for me, just a bitter old ranter) – don’t know that.
Of Great Britain?
Did it not operate in Norn Irn then?
Yes, the CPGB, you can look it up. No idea if it still exists and I have no idea whether it operated in Northern Ireland.
Time for bed, N_, you sound very overwrought.
You forgot the Royal We(e)…
Anyone in Hong Kong unaware of Britain’s contempt for democracy has not been paying attention.
The British had ample opportunity to set up democratic systems in Hong Kong during the hundred or whatever years after they stole it. Something else Johnson wants us not to be embarrassed by? It’s certainly ignored by all the journalists pumping out the Sinophobic propaganda.
In ruling that the prosecution against David Whitehouse and Paul Clark was ‘ unlawful and malicious ‘ the Court of Session heard that the businessmen’s legal teams have been supplied with documents which show senior Crown Office lawyers speaking about the “need to nail the Duff & Phelps people”.
UNLAWFUL, MALICIOUS with documents recording the prosecution intention of the “ NEED TO NAIL THE DUFF AND PHELPS PEOPLE , the deliberate capitalising of these words bring into focus the absolute disrepute of the Police and the Crown Office in Scotland.
Begotten of a rotten and corrupt political governance this abuse of police and prosecutor power extends beyond the treatment of these two professional administrators. The twenty two man Police Scotland Alex Salmond Team set up to pursue Salmond and to facilitate an utterly discredited court case is another example.
Ditto Craig Murray and Mark Hirst. Or what of Manny Singh pursued by Police, prosecuted by the Crown Office and now jailed on the flimsiest of alleged civic misdemeanour. Or of the march organisers in Aberdeen similarly pursued by Police Scotland on similar trumped up allegations of civic misdemeanour.
Unlawful, malicious, there can now be no public respect for the police, the prosecution and their political masters.
The Rule of Law is broken, and broken utterly, to the extent of the cess pit bred of a despotic Banana Republic.
Let us hope there may be some good judges left in the legal sewer who will, as in the case of Whitehouse and Clark, recognise what is happening.
Willie,
They only “recognise(d) what is happening” because the were confronted by an overwhelming body of evidence, by a company and legal team based furth of Scotland who were not intimidated, and could not be directly threatened by the Crown Office and Police Scotland – and most importantly had the resources to pursue the matter.
Others are not so fortunate when confronted by the might of the corrupt state.
It is not much of a stretch to imagine “ NEED TO NAIL ALEX SALMOND”, “ NEED TO NAIL CRAIG MURRAY”, “ NEED TO NAIL MARK HIRST”…..
There is a whiff of sulphur around the Sturgeon administration.
They are probably just very keen on Eggs and Egg derived products.
Just egging it on a bit.
You’ve gotta break a lot of eggs to make a conspiracy omelette. Sturgeons eggs appear to be well past their sell by date. The stench! What a rotten state, serving unpalatable egg based dishes. Guess the chickens are coming home to roost … all power to Craig and the heroes of alternative (true) journalism.
Sky News say that Johnson ‘s actions are dependent on Sturgeon..
‘Many of these U-turns by Mr Johnson’s government have been reluctant, angry and preceded by repeated denials that they would happen, maddening Tory MPs that defend the government’s initial position but are then left floundering when Number 10 changes its mind.
The reasoning, according to one minister, is a deep-seated worry about the state of the union. “Number 10 are nervous about Nicola Sturgeon offering an alternative in Scotland when they are trying to argue the case for the United Kingdom,” they said.’
https://news.sky.com/story/the-one-factor-that-may-be-behind-all-the-governments-u-turns-12057400
The Torygraph reports today on the financial benefits of the Union to the Scots and see them as a ‘hammer blow’ to Sturgeon’s plan.
Scotland’s ‘Union dividend’ rises to almost £2,000 per person in ‘hammer blow’ to Nicola Sturgeon
The SNP government figures for 2019/20 showed each Scot received £1,633 more public spending than the UK average and paid £308 less tax.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/26/scotlands-union-dividend-rises-almost-2000-per-person-hammer/ Paywall
Now, what would the Torygraph say, hmm…
Nicola Sturgeon’s economic case for separation has received a “hammer blow” after her chief economist published figures showing Scotland’s “dividend” from being part of the UK has surged to almost £2,000 per person.
The General Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (Gers) figures for 2019/20 showed each Scot received £1,633 more than the UK average in public spending thanks to the Barnett Formula. This is the equivalent of 9.2 per cent of UK total spending.
But tax revenue north of the Border was £308 less than the UK average, including a geographic share of North Sea oil, accounting for only 8 per cent of the UK total.
The Scottish Tories said that together this meant the “Union dividend” per person has increased to £1,941, up from £1,805 the previous year, and separation would require spending cuts equivalent to the entire NHS budget.
Scotland’s notional deficit – the difference between spending and tax revenue – surged by £2 billion to £15.1 billion last year.
This was the equivalent of 8.6 per cent of GDP – more than treble the UK figure of 2.5 per cent and nearly three times the 3 per cent required for EU membership.
? @murdo_fraser
It’s beyond dispute that the case for independence has never been weaker. Separating would cost Scotland £15 billion a year that we need for our schools and hospitals. pic.twitter.com/TkB6W7rYlr
— Scottish Conservatives (@ScotTories) August 26, 2020
But the figures only included the early days of lockdown and the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank predicted Scotland’s deficit could surge to between 26 and 28 per cent of GDP this year.
In an analysis of the report, the IFS predicted it would still exceed 11 per cent of GDP in 2024/25, the highest level since the Second World War apart from the current financial year.
David Phillips, the think tank’s associate director, concluded “the need for tax rises or spending cuts would be starker” under independence and spending restraint would likely be more “stringent and / or long lasting”.
Kate Forbes, the SNP’s Finance Secretary, denied the figures demonstrated the fantastic deal Scots get from the Union and insisted they showed the “status quo” could not continue.
She blamed Brexit and an “unprecedented health and economic crisis” on the ballooning deficit and noted a separate Scotland could make different economic choices from the UK Government.
But, when repeatedly pressed on what she would do differently, she cited higher growth without stating how this would be achieved and more borrowing.
But Alister Jack, the Scottish Secretary, said: “The Scottish Government’s own figures show clearly how much Scotland benefits from being part of a strong United Kingdom, with the pooling and sharing of resources that brings.
“People in Scotland, year after year, benefit from levels of public spending substantially above the United Kingdom average, with a Union dividend of £1,941 per person in Scotland.
“That has never been more important than it is right now. In the face of a global pandemic, the strength and experience of the UK Treasury is helping people in Scotland and across the rest of the United Kingdom.”
Countries around the world are running significant (real) deficits – don’t see any of them reconsidering their independence. The difference is they have the levers to do something about it and aren’t dependent on another government’s policy choices. /2
— Kate Forbes MSP (@KateForbesMSP) August 26, 2020
Murdo Fraser, the Scottish Tories’ Shadow Finance Secretary, said: ““The SNP and Nicola Sturgeon herself used to hail Gers figures as all the evidence Scotland needed to separate from the UK. Now, nationalists will spend the day denying facts from their own government.
“This doesn’t even take into account the blockbuster support from the UK Government throughout the pandemic, including one of the largest and most generous job-saving schemes in the world.
“This is a hammer blow to the SNP and a massive setback for separation. Nicola Sturgeon would have to throw away Scotland’s entire NHS, every nurse and doctor, just to come close to balancing the budget in her separate state.”
The Gers report found Scotland’s tax revenues increased by £436 million last year to almost £65.9 billion, although the amount provided by North Sea oil and gas halved from £1.4 billion to £0.7 billion.
But spending rose over the same period by more than £2.4 billion to £81 billion. This meant Scotland’s notional deficit increased from 7.4 per cent of GDP to 8.6 per cent. Across the UK, the figure rose from 1.9 per cent to 2.5 per cent.
Only two of the EU’s 27 member states had a deficit of 3 per cent or more last year and Scotland’s figure is twice that of the worst performing country, Romania (4.3 per cent).
Latest official figures show a Union dividend of £1,941 for every person in Scotland: https://t.co/WxoVW3WCyy #GERS pic.twitter.com/FvMuzzTWtz
— Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland (@ScotSecofState) August 26, 2020
Ms Forbes said: “Countries across the world, including the UK, have increased borrowing to record levels and, as we emerge from the pandemic, high fiscal deficits will inevitably be one of the consequences.
“The current situation, with the looming withdrawal of furlough support by the UK Government, means it is now more urgent than ever that we gain those powers.”
But Richard Leonard, the Scottish Labour leader, said: “With billions draining from the Scottish economy in the event of separation, Scotland would be thrust into years of savage and unrelenting austerity.”
Tracy Black, the CBI Scotland director, said: “An increase in tax revenues, including onshore, is clearly welcome however Scotland
still lags some way behind the whole of the UK when you look at the deficit as a percentage of GDP.
“Even without considering the impact of coronavirus it’s clear that Scotland continues to spend significantly more than it raises in tax.”
Paul Cavanagh gives an infinitely better interpretation of the ludicrous GERS figures (which are Propaganda Acountancy, and bear no relationship to the true fiscal position of Scotland in the UK – let alone an independent Scotland.
It can be read here:
https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com
But for convenience I’ve pasted the relevant portion below:
There is a common misconception that GERS stands for Government Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland. It doesn’t. It stands for Government Expenditure and Revenue: Scotland, without a preposition. That seemingly insignificant point is in fact very important, because the GERS figures are made up of two components. There’s government spending which is spent inside Scotland, and then there is government spending which takes place outwith Scotland but which is assigned to Scotland by the British state.
The published GERS figures don’t make it immediately obvious just how much public spending is carried out by the British government outside Scotland but which is then assigned to Scotland. That is deliberate. However a considerable chunk of the expenditure assigned to Scotland isn’t actually spent in Scotland.
So to use the example that I trotted out last year, and the year before, and the year before, the GERS figures allocate approximately £3.3 billion of UK defence expenditure to Scotland. This is based upon Scotland’s population share of the UK, so the total UK defence expenditure is divided by Scotland’s share of the UK population and the resultant figure is assigned to Scotland as Scottish expenditure. The rationale for this is that defence expenditure benefits the UK as a whole, irrespective of where in the UK it is actually spent. A Royal Navy vessel based in Portsmouth is theoretically defending Scotland too, even if it takes it two days to get the Moray Firth when a Russian navy ship is sighted there.
However it is universally agreed that the amount spent within Scotland on defence does not come close to approaching the figure assigned to Scotland in the GERS figures. Most estimates put defence expenditure within Scotland at around £1.7 billion – which includes the spending on the nukes in Faslane which an independent Scotland would have no interest in continuing. Much of the remainder is spent in the south of England where the UK has concentrated the MoD offices and its military bases. No independent country in the world spends almost half of its defence expenditure in someone else’s country, especially not a small country like Scotland which has no punching above its weight and pretending that it’s still a global player even though its glory days are long gone. The UK is the Norma Desmond of global military power.
The defence expenditure which is allocated to Scotland but spent outside Scotland isn’t dead money. It goes to pay people’s wages. Those employees need housing, they go shopping, they buy things. It is spent on goods and services which support the defence installations. This in turn creates other economic activity in the form of the ancilliary jobs which are supported and the goods and services that these require. All of this economic activity then generates revenues for the government in the form of taxation. But despite this revenue being supported by expenditure which is assigned to Scotland, none of the revenue is credited to Scotland. It is credited to the part of the UK where the notionally Scottish expenditure takes place.
Even that part of the expenditure which does take place within Scotland does not necessarily work in Scotland’s economic interests. The vast defence expenditure lavished on Faslane generates very few jobs compared to the amount of money which is actually spent. Much of that spending in fact ends up going south of the border to specialist companies and suppliers in England, so even though it notionally takes place in Scotland, it doesn’t stay in Scotland for long.
By way of comparison, Ireland spends approximately £900 million annually on its defence expenditure. The UK state spends money on things that Scotland doesn’t want, spends it in ways that don’t benefit Scotland, and spends it outside Scotland. Then it sends Scotland the bill and tells us we’re too poor. That’s how the GERS figures work. It’s how they were meant to work.
This is your annual reminder that the GERS figures were first established in 1992 in the context of the debate on devolution by the Conservative Scottish Secretary of State Ian Lang. Lang wanted them as a political tool to be used against those who were arguing for greater self-government for Scotland. Almost thirty years later they’re still being used for the same purpose.
John O’Dowd and WGD (and others) well explain GERS and what its really about. However, independence is arguably not about money per se, its about removing the oppression of a people, oppressions which takes numerous forms, often institutionalized, including what we see with the ongoing and higher intensity political (colonialist?) repression aimed at what are deemed the more ‘radical’ elements of the nationalist natives. In relation to ‘wealth’, it is evident that colonial nations/peoples are ‘suiked dry’ and are hence considerably less developed than they would otherwise be, i.e. they have tremendous scope to make far better use of their wealth and resources in their own interest (including in particular their own people!) and thus to further their own national development and economic growth. Scotland’s people are therefore constrained and oppressed (doun-hauden) through the imposition of an aggressive imperial and alien political ideology, which also results in a cultural and ‘ethnic division of labour’ (see Hechter’s ‘internal colonisation’). Only independence can properly address Scotland’s national/cultural predicament.
Only an idiot or a Britnat believes the GERS nonsense.
100% lies and propaganda.
The only deficit Scotland has is a democratic deficit. Only with independence will the people of Scotland finally have democracy.