What would Craig Murray be like if he had charisma, good looks, style and a huge slug of street cred? I came across this video last night. In fact virtually every single point made by Bob is a point I have made on this blog, but it sounds so much more radical coming from him.
The blocking of Joanna Cherry from standing in Edinburgh Central by Nicola Sturgeon in order to shoo in her anointed successor, NATO’s Angus Robertson, protégé of Lord John Kerr, secretary of the Bilderberg Group and my former boss (remarkably all that is straight fact), should be reason enough to vote against Robertson, even if you don’t know the truly filthy story that lies beneath. But who else a decent independence supporter might vote for in Edinburgh Central was a problem.
Until Bonnie Prince Bob.
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This is just infantile drivel. Not a single word about how to deliver or pay for any of the things he promised. Also, surely the electoral priority is to get rid of Ruth Davidson, not attack Angus Robertson and so hand the Tories an even bigger majority.
I’ve heard ringing endorsement of BPB from many trusted sources, and now one from Craig Murray, yours is the only negative. What’s your problem with someone embarking on a political career to oust a known and wholly unsuitable candidate? Wasn’t even Salmond himself ‘just a guy who worked in a bank’ before he became a political heavyweight?
‘Hand the Tories an even bigger majority’; oh, the old ‘The Tories! The Tories!’ device? I know little about the guy so I depend on those that do until I form my own opinion; the candidate appears kosher. However, I’ll tell you what we do know – Angus Robertson’s as bad a choice as you could make for Ed Central. Incredible that it’s come to this – but then, we all know what Robertson stands for, don’t we, Ronson?
Ronson is an SNP HQ troll. Turned up instantly on twitter also – 0 follower account,
I presume you are no longer serious about Scottish politics
I am extremely serious about stopping Angus Robertson. And bluntly Bob is much more intelligent and interesting than 90% of current MSPs.
I’m not an SNP member and never have been (unlike you). If Labour were running second to the Tories in Edinburgh Central then I would be saying exactly the same thing in favour of them.
Craig never accused you of being an SNP member.
The Baroness isnae even standing ya eejit!
Paying for it is easy, you make rich bastards wash the money they steal out of their mouths.
Ruth Davidson won’t be contesting the seat; she is going to the House of Lords. Vermin in Ermine.
That’s very funny. I think of infantile drivel every time I hear a politician speak. Every time I listen to the BBC. Policy? Maybe you need a history lesson. When was the last time you heard a politician follow up on any claim they made. Throw it out. The only thing you should look for in a leader nowadays is whether they have a sense of decency. All else will follow.
Ronson – Truthless Davidson is going to the House of Lords. Not very clued up are you.
“. Not a single word about how to deliver or pay for any of the things he promised.”
Yes, but he does have the overwhelming advantage of not being Angus Robertson. If your just going to go along with the likes of Angus Rebertson why would they ever throw you a bone?
Interestingly, Jeremy Corbyn was the only one with a fully costed manifesto at the last UK GE – look where that got him !
The average voting punter is not swayed by facts, truth, competence or honesty.
Yup, the MSM make sure that it’s all about personalities and nothing else. Makes the hatchet job easier, as what happened to JC demonstrates.
O my goodness.
Well… Partly from a bit of humility and partly from I know what others would say… Okay… It is debatable and I will allow myself that…
Speaking as a (debateably position middle class wanker) We Need Bonny Prince Bob.
Joanna would have been my choice. Above all others.
But a close second, and I now feel privileged to have this on the ballot paper, it’s definitely Bonny Prince Bob. Am very cheerful about turning up on May 6th. I think AR is a very dangerous choice for Edinburgh Central… Of the order of Baroness Tank Gun Davison… Bob, you are well loved, by many of us mcws.
Welcome. Thanks. And respect.
Looks good. He’s making really good points and seems to aware of the problems in the SNP that need to be urgently addressed.
I would be very wary though, especially since the video uploaded to that channel prior to the campaign ad is from an anti-lockdown march with people branding anti-vax and anti-mask posters. It’s unclear what Bonnie Prince Bob’s stance on that is and what his video on the march is trying to do.
The anti-lockdown movement has serious ties to the far right all over Europe and the USA. A broadly left-wing electorate, combined with public discontent with the majority left-wing party (SNP) and everyone’s exhaustion with the lockdowns are exactly the kind of niche that the far right is so good at exploiting.
When you have nowhere else to turn, along comes Bob.
(I hope I’m wrong, but look through his youtube channel)
Scotland needs a Republican party with a firm manifesto and constitution strategy. Bob by himself could be anything at this stage.
His report on the anti-lockdown protest just seems to be a coverage of the protest. It comes over as pretty neutral reportage. But I can see no reason whatsoever to associate him with the far right. In fact plainly from the above video that is nonsense.
Thanks for replying.
I hope you’re right. I suppose I would prefer comment on anti-vax and anti-mask marches not to be neutral from somebody who is looking for votes. Neutrality on that topic in particular seems like amplification of chaos.
There is obviously a rational argument for less-strict lockdowns. Whether BPB thinks there is also an argument for no masks and no vaccinations is unclear from his coverage. I would prefer to know that before voting for him.
The ‘imposter’ rhetoric is divisive (I don’t care if someone is from the moon, if they understand a problem and offer a good solution that’s good enough for me) and not the point regarding why Robertson absolutely needs to be removed.
The sexual imagery (bukake reference) and humour (I take his reference to ‘hearts’ to be so?) are a bit unprofessional (couldn’t imagine Salmond or Cherry talking like that). Being half Italian, this approach reminds me of Beppe Grillo’s descent into and arc in politics, from stand-up comedy shows that made people laugh about political corruption, to political movement (5 star movement) coordinated by an unelected Grillo with left-wingish manifesto, to Grillo meeting regularly with Bannon and Farage while still unofficially at the head of his (by now parliamentary) movement.
I’m just wary and I think Scotland deserves better than an independent canditate response to the SNP’s failures. I would prefer a coordinated effort from a fresh party.
Thanks for taking time for reading. And all I am is wary and hopeful that we might do better than this. If Cherry, Salmond, McAskill and you to lead the charge, I would have no doubts as to your intentions. I heard of BPB today.
What do you think that masks are doing? There is no scientific evidence they work anywhere.
Why should it be considered left or right?
CS: “What do you think that masks are doing? There is no scientific evidence they work anywhere.“
No evidence you’ve seen or care to acknowledge, anyway – which is a big difference.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-07-08-oxford-covid-19-study-face-masks-and-coverings-work-act-now/
Here’s a quote from the above:
The evidence is clear that people should wear masks to reduce virus transmission and protect themselves, with most countries recommending the public to wear them. Yet clear policy recommendations that the public should broadly wear them has been unclear and inconsistent in some countries such as England.
CS: ” Why should it be considered left or right?“
It shouldn’t – you are correct. It should be considered right or wrong, or sensible or stupid. The virus thrives on stupidity – which is why Trump supporters get more than their fair share of infections, and states which were too stupid to take strong measures early (including ours) have had it so bad.
“The anti-lockdown movement has serious ties to the far right all over Europe and the USA. “
Beliefs are not responsible for those who believe in them.
“The anti-lockdown movement has serious ties to the far right all over Europe and the USA. A broadly left-wing electorate, combined with public discontent with the majority left-wing party (SNP) and everyone’s exhaustion with the lockdowns are exactly the kind of niche that the far right is so good at exploiting”
This is the biggest load of rubbish and currently the boiler-plate response of the cowardly and the intellectually barren to anything ‘problematic’, ie anything that challenges the tightly controlled mainstream narrative.
Can you back up your assertion with any credible, factual evidence that this is the case?
Hi and yes,
For example in Ireland the anti-lockdown, anti-vax and anti-mask movement is being spearheaded by an individual named Dolores Cahill. She is a professor of Translational Science at University College Dublin and member of the Irish Freedom Party. The Irish Freedom party was founded by Hermann Kelly who was spin doctor for Farage during the Brexit campaign and advocates for taking the republic out of the EU. You can read all about them on wikipedia and various Irish newspaper articles (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Freedom_Party ; https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.thejournal.ie/debunked-dolores-cahill-covid-19-video-masks-lockdown-vaccines-5315519-Jan2021/%3famp=1)
Mockingbird’s comment below sums up my experience of these things. Take a look at the live stream of today’s London protest at tell me again that this cross cultural, cross generational mix of British people are far right…these are just ordinary people protesting for their and our (yours & mine) human rights / natural freedoms… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q9Nbn7azzA
I’ll leave aside the issue that the best evidence you can come up with is a Wikipedia article… I’ve listened live, and in person, to DC speak a couple of times & she’s about as far from far right as you could get…on the contrary, she comes across as a deeply caring & compassionate human being; one who also happens to be very knowledgeable on virus matters and is fearless in expressing her opinions on this.
But quite honestly I don’t think you really know what your talking about here…and are just espousing a line-of-least-resistance argument to tar a group of brave people who are fighting for ALL of our freedoms, freedoms which are under serious attack from the authorities at the moment.
In my experience the protestors are representative of a large section of society (both passive & active, and particularly the young on these matters). Like many of the weak willed across the political landscape at the moment you are using a stereotypical, automatically divisive hate label in order to attempt to embarrass, humiliate & destroy, rather than summoning the courage to reason about matters. This sort of labeling happens too often these days and needs to be called out for what it is; a divisive cancer on society which damages social cohesion and our ability to co-exist and love one another for who we are, unconditional of any artificial labeling.
However if you’re looking for a clear example of ‘far right’ associations and behavior, I suggest you return to the live-stream I’ve posted and watch how the state’s representatives on the day deal uncompromisingly with protestors in the course of today’s events. This is real state-sanctioned far right behavior, and is – as opposed to your trite labeling of protest groups – the actual reality on the ground in modern Britain today. The progressive shutting down of our liberties, either in Scotland or the wider UK, shows no sign of slowing, and this coupled the state-sanctioned use of force to enforce this state of affairs, is, by definition, and in contrast to your agendized labeling, a truthful manifestation of the darkness of the far-right which is threatening all of us in the UK at the moment.
Thanks Anndra. I have watched Bob over the years. And am impressed… Strikes me a bit more Dennis Cannavan than Nigel Farage.
My good feeling about Bob is also as a consequence of his earlier video work on core reasons to focus on independence. Pleased he adresses the issues of gentrification across Edinburgh, that he lives here, and actually that he talks about the needs of working class children to get access to decent chances in education and life. Edinburgh has the highest proportion of public school pupils in the world… And our state provision has a lot to compete with.
Somebody needs to take a grown-up look at what John Swinney did to the state school education system, and instigate creative measures to fix it. Liked Bob’s take on that.
Also, Craig… A wee edit button on posts would help scrappy contributors to fix unfinished words and poor grammar.
Just saying.
And, respect.
The schools you refer to are private schools not public schools. In the context of schools ‘public’ has a very obtuse and particular meaning.The word ‘public’ refers to a time when the gentry were the ‘public’.The people were serfs, had no votes and were regarded as a form of livestock or an asset.
“The anti-lockdown movement has serious ties to the far right all over Europe and the USA”
Says who? The media?
I have watched many of these protests worldwide on Ruptly and other media. I truly don’t see a significant far right presence.
QAnon have jumped on the bandwagon on occasion, but apart from that I would say the protests are by and large neutral concerning political ideology.
It is estimated 1 million people protested in Berlin on 29th August 2020. From another protest in Berlin last August. These protesters don’t appear far right to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlXxU1b3dXs
What’s wrong with the anti lockdown folks, they have a view and are entitled to it. If Bonny Prince Bob can upset the Apple cart let’s do it. He gets my vote. The SNP elite are milking the system to line their own pockets. They have no interest in independence. Sturgeon has been promised a seat in the house of lord or somewhere else when she gets kicked out. I am not sure what skills her husband can offer anyone apart from riding the gravy train. Alex Salmond was a threat to the current SNP he has passion and should establish a new party and lead it. Sturgeon is a failed solicitor and needed to find her gravy train in life.
Why have you not stood for election Craig ?
– “What’s wrong with the anti lockdown folks?”
The problem is that it misses the point. The UK social restrictions have been a disaster because covid spreads so fast, yet each and every time the government dithered, literally fatally, due to reluctance.
Look at Australia’s approach. Nine positive tests – not hospital admissions or deaths, just positive tests – and the whole of Melbourne was placed under restrictions. But just five days later, fifty people are in quarantine and Melbourne was reopened. China is handling it the same way; just compare their infection and mortality graphs with the UK’s. These places don’t suffer overwhelmed health systems and care home covid cesspits.
You make the assumption that lockdown is the reason why Australia has low Covid deaths, but plenty of countries that had really serious lockdowns had high death tolls. What about Japan? Light touch approach, low Covid deaths. Lockdowns are not the reason why countries experience a low death rate, that’s surely evident from the data by now.
That’s a good point. Don’t you think that if the lockdowns had been that short in the UK, there wouldn’t have been any anti-lockdown protests? It’s not what they did but the way that they did it>
Emma:
– “countries that had really serious lockdowns had high death tolls”
Because covid-19 spreads so fast, you have to look at the timing. Late restrictions let it get out of hand, leading to lots of hospitalisations and deaths, and lingering restrictions. Strong restrictions are hobbled by being too late.
– “What about Japan?”
Japan’s approach was unique and almost prescient, focussing upon clustering. They realised that crowded spaces, especially indoors, were transmission hot-spots, and introduced a three-rule system to counter it. That, and early test-and-trace proved highly effective.
– “Lockdowns are not the reason why countries experience a low death rate, that’s surely evident from the data by now.”
Social restrictions affect social behaviour, but it’s social behaviour that affects transmission. Strong restrictions only work if they’re adhered to, and if they don’t have gaps in. I’ve seen several studies which are poor because they merely compare strictness of the rules against the eventual death toll on some chosen date, but ignore timing of restrictions and direct measurement of population mobility data, or they take the mortality data at face value without checking it against general excess mortality.
Rather than comparing countries against each other with all the confounding variables that introduces, look within each country at infection rates versus timing of restrictions. At Worldometers, you can do the same with each US state. The pattern is very consistent; a rising infection rate prompts the authorities to impose restrictions, which arrest the rise and cause it to fall.
Bayard – “It’s not what they did but the way that they did it”
Precisely; they left it too late, three times out of three, which meant it took ages to get the infection rate back down again.
And refusing to support the working class knocked a huge hole through the restrictions, by forcing people to work in unsafe environments. Had workers been empowered with a Universal Basic Income, employers would have been forced into safe practices.
In all my life I’ve never seen such incompetence. I’m utterly furious at this corrupt government.
Emma, I’ve looked at “Left Lockdown Sceptics”; they seem to base their position upon hartgroup.org, whose arguments don’t stand up.
– “Lockdowns are focussed protection for the affluent middle classes, working from home or on furlough from well paid jobs. Anyone working as a delivery driver or in a supermarket has carried on throughout.”
Yes; two of my friends working in the care sector contracted covid-19, and a colleague of one of them (a care home chef) died of it.
– “anyone working in the arts has been thrown under a bus”
Yep, that’s me, that is.
But this is all because covid-19 wasn’t restricted early enough – Corbyn was right. Covid multiplies very rapidly, so prompt restrictions lead to short duration, as demonstrated by New Zealand and latterly in Australia – but this is all overlooked by hartgroup.org, who repeat popular fallacies such as Sweden having “no lockdown” without examining the appropriate metric, which is population mobility data.
https://www.endcoronavirus.org
I respectfully disagree with you about lockdown not happening soon enough, and with your comment about Sweden. There are many metrics that need to be looked at, but the point is that Sweden’s approach did not lead to catastrophic levels of death, their numbers are about average for Europe, whilst they avoided the blizzard of legislation which saw, for instance, someone’s livelihood being categorised as ‘non essential’. That’s the point surely – lockdowns may (arguably) delay death, but ultimately the virus cannot be controlled, and in the meantime look at the devastation caused by lockdown. Yep, my whole family are now unemployed too – I ran a successful micro-business in the professional heritage sector for 30 years – it’s finished. My two teenagers have been criminalised and harassed by over-zealous policing at university and pay £9k for the privilege of being locked in their halls with campus security challenging them on a daily basis about their movements. I personally don’t know anyone who has died of Covid, although I know plenty who contracted it, but I know two teenagers who took their own lives as a consequence of the despair they felt about their futures. I’m sorry, even if lockdowns DID prevent death, and I don’t agree that they do, I don’t believe they are an ethical intervention to make into society and when I survey the wreckage that Johnson and our political class (completely protected from any of the consequences of their lockdown policies) have wrought, and see the way this totalitarian government is proceeding almost unchallenged except by a handful of Tory backbenchers, I honestly wonder myself, what’s the point in carrying on?
PS New Zealand and Australia – what’s the future for them? Eternal lockdown? Closed borders? It’s an unsustainable policy. As we can see from the example of the Isle of Man too, even if you eradicate it for a time, it’ll be back. It’s a virus, you can’t stop it.
New Zealand and Australia aren’t in “lockdown” (itself a corporate propaganda term, in my opinion). New Zealand’s borders aren’t closed; they impose a brief quarantine. Australia deploys brief, strong restrictions, which are promptly rescinded.
– “Sweden’s approach did not lead to catastrophic levels of death, their numbers are about average for Europe”
Yes, but their population mobility fell about the same as the average for Europe too. The Swedish constitution precludes the sort of laws imposed in the UK, but their governmental departments issue “recommendations” which carry a force similar to law among the population. Consequently, Sweden’s experience tells us very little about the effectiveness of restrictions, though the “Sweden had no lockdown” canard has been promoted relentlessly by the corporate media.
– “It’s a virus, you can’t stop it.”
Smallpox was stopped, thank goodness. Polio was nearly stopped, and may well be defeated in the next few years.
– “even if lockdowns DID prevent death, and I don’t agree that they do”
Just look at the graphs. In the UK, restrictions have arrested the rise in infections three times now. Same pattern anywhere you look. For a real success story, look at China; they’ve had hardly any infections or deaths since virtually stamping it out on May 2020. All the graphs can be compared here:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Hit coronavirus hard and fast, and it can be wiped out in five weeks. The following site has done all the comparisons between different countries’ approaches:
https://www.endcoronavirus.org/green-zones
In a year of suffering and losses, many countries have made their own experiments in how to deal with COVID-19.
The results of these experiments are known:
Let’s learn from the countries that succeeded. Go for zero – with a green-zone strategy.
The countries that have best protected their populations are also the countries whose economies have done best:
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-health-economy
And the Isle of Man looks on course to wipe it out again; look how fast daily infections are falling:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/isle-of-man/
They have less than 28% as many infections per head of population as the UK, and will have spent a fraction of the time under restrictions.
Clarke: Well, I’ve reasonably been asked not to continue because it’s off topic but since you continue I suppose it’s ok for me? Just a couple of points:
New Zealand’s borders ARE closed, and a 14 day quarantine is currently imposed for returning residents. How long do you suppose that is sustainable for? Once you open up again to tourism, you expose the susceptible population to the virus. So death is delayed, not averted. Or do you expect tourists to do 14 days quarantine in a hotel, before they have their holiday?
Yes smallpox was stopped. Was it achieved with lockdowns?
I do look at the graphs, and each time lockdown started after infections (not deaths) had already peaked. And sorry, but if you believe the data coming from China that’s naive.
I’ll leave it there because we are off topic, but I hope I don’t get moderated out.
Sorry, I have to answer this:
– “each time lockdown started after infections (not deaths) had already peaked.”
That’s not so, eg:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/
1st lockdown March 23, infection peak some time early April.
2nd lockdown November 5, infection peak around November 15.
3rd lockdown January 5, infection peak around January 8.
I suspect that some anti-lockdown site has misled you.
Sorry, I have to respond. Chris Whitty himself admitted as much after the first lockdown, that infections had already peaked and that this was due to voluntary measures people were doing for themselves. There’s a wealth of evidence from all over the world, including this study here https://arxiv.org/pdf/2005.02090.pdf but there are loads. UK deaths in the first lockdown peaked around April 8th, and it takes approximately 23 days from infection to death, so you’re wrong on your dates.
Perhaps you’ve let some pro-lockdown site mislead you?
Yes, I’d rather that social restrictions could be voluntary, but despite weeks of warning the authorities and the corporate “news” media comprehensively neglected to prepare the population for the local onset of the pandemic, and had anyway already long since lost the trust of much of the population.
People and sites that claim baldly that “lockdowns don’t work” and echo the corporate media’s Sweden propaganda also make matters worse, by neglecting to make it clear that social restrictions do work highly effectively, but that they’d prefer voluntary restrictions organised and enforced among local communities rather than the government’s highly discriminatory and unfair blanket impositions.
Have you read the paper you cited? Because it rather prominently says the following, which you have omitted:
7 Discussion – This paper does not prove that the peak in fatal infections in the UK preceded the first full lockdown by several days.
You have also misrepresented the peak of deaths in the first wave – the days of highest mortality were April 10, 18 and 21, and the 7 day average peaked on April 13. You have also omitted the several days between infection and detection, which is included in the 23 days from the paper you cite.
It does indeed say that, and the authors explain why (failure to sample early in the epidemic) but further in the same paragraph it states “What the results show is that, in the absence of strong assumptions, the currently most reliable openly available data strongly suggest that the decline in infections in the UK began before the first full lockdown, suggesting that the measures preceding lockdown may have been sufficient to bring the epidemic under control, and that community infections, unlike deaths, were probably at a low level well before the first lockdown was eased.” Did you read it? If so why omit that?
Indeed the whole paragraph goes on to outline how other studies concur: “The results of this paper are in some alignment with such analyses for Germany (Wieland, 2020; Ku ̈chenhoff et al., 2020), which also suggest that a decline in incidence preceded the first full lockdown.” etc.
Your comments about corporate media seem bizarre to me – they are unanimously invested in perpetuating the ‘lockdowns came too late’ orthodoxy.
I’m conscious of persisting with this off-topic so I’m going to leave it there, but as I said before my belief is that even if lockdowns worked, and there should be a massive body of evidence required if such draconian measures are going to be forced upon us and there simply isn’t, the harms that ensue are too great to warrant it, especially for a virus with a very low infection fatality rate.
—
[ Mod: Yes. Kindly leave the argument there, as evidence that certain hot topics can quickly derail discussion of the main political issue highlighted in the lead article, without ever reaching consensus. Most seasoned commenters here are savvy enough to avoid jumping on a passing mention of a controversial issue in case it distracts from the main focus of the article. The discussion forum provides a more suitable facility for that kind of debate. ]
Covid-19 does NOT have “a very low infection fatality rate”. It’s IFR is higher than anything else circulating in the population, and it leaves several times that number with lingering damage. It damages young and healthy people’s hearts, and can persist beyond overall recovery in gut and nerve cells. Thankfully, the latter persistence may be treatable by the vaccines. At least four fifths of deaths were caused by covid-19 rather than lockdown.
Covid-19 is capable of overwhelming hospitals, which could deny treatment to the majority requiring it, among whom its IFR would be at least three times higher.
– “What the results show is that, in the absence of strong assumptions, the currently most reliable openly available data strongly suggest that the decline in infections in the UK began before the first full lockdown, suggesting that the measures preceding lockdown may have been sufficient to bring the epidemic under control.”
Stronger measures were in place before the second and third stay-at-home laws, yet infections continued to rise. Has that paper been peer reviewed yet?
Please argue against the specific political choices of the UK lockdown, which are appalling and discriminatory against less affluent people, rather than denying the effectiveness of social restraint and the severity of the pandemic.
“The anti-lockdown movement has serious ties to the far right all over Europe and the USA”
Regurgitating mainstream propaganda is not good enough.
Did you see any of the video streams of the lockdown protests in London yesterday? It’s not a “movement”, it’s just people, of all colours, ages and political beliefs, protesting against the loss of liberty, the destruction of the economy, the plunder of the Treasury and, perhaps, the removal of the right to protest at all.
“Left” and “Right” means nothing in British politics any more (if it ever did). They are two cheeks on the same arse.
Anndra,
You wonder about the anti lockdown (bowel) ‘movement’.
There is what is identified as, the Red/Brown nexus, which is what we need to clearly understand.
I suggest you do some hours and days, trawling through the Internet, to gather your own information to satisfy yourself that it exists and who it’s backers and managers are.
For example the BrexShitheads of the self proclaimed ‘hard left’ ( the likes of the RCP and their mouthpieces Spiked/Off-Guardian etc ) and the ‘Far/ Alt-Rightists’ (“MahCunnterrybak-ugh-sovronteee, Union Jack, wewandewar”) button pushers of the MSM and their protected bovverers like Yaxley-Lennon posterboy.
Both were used to ‘bridge’ the fake ‘left/right’ to deliver the BrexShit and a ‘Hard’ one at that, at the behest of the Ancient City Global Robber Barons and Bankers who a long long time ago set up the treaties that we are still tied into centuries on. Ask why the Freeport’s which are being fast tracked can be extended to ‘25 Miles or 40km’ and why the SE of England which has sucked most of the GDP and Wealth from the rest of the U.K. NEEDS a Freeport to help its ‘regeneration’?
The control of such messaging and creation and funding of such opaque entities goes all the way up to the Atlantic Council /Nato and old institutes of Imperial Power.
That is why anti-quarantiners and BrexShitheads and anti-vaxxers and anti-Indy types are coordinated and yes I personally believe the XR are another facet of that …
Hope that helps.
Agree Emma
If I lived in Edinburgh I’d vote for this guy and not as he rightly says, the political careerist and imposter Angus Robertson.
ROS
I would go as far as saying anyone but Robertson.
I think Bob’s name “imposters” for parachutee political candidates hits the nail on the head. Just one of the many things that is wrong with our political system and I’m glad to see it called out. It doesn’t happen often enough.
Good luck to Bob. It’s as predictable as night following day that as soon as anybody challenges — or even mentions — the hegemonic neoliberal ideology an army of establishment trolls will show up. They have hair-trigger sensitivity to the whole con being called out.
If there is a truly filthy story about a prospective candidate for Holyrood, why is it allowed to be kept secret? Suppression of such a story, if true, can only serve the political interests of the would-be MSP and their Party. In which case it is in the public interest, both of constituents and of the wider Scotish public, to know the truth. Is this another example of Sturgeon’s type of “open and transparent” government?
I wish I still lived in Edinburgh Central. When I did I was for a short time a member of the local SNP branch executive committee. This was when I began to realise that local branches of the SNP had no power whatever to influence policy or anything else and that everything was handed down from central office. The purpose of local branches is simply to stuff leaflets into envelopes and act as foot soldiers for the party machine.
That is actually a funny and well put together video. It offers a more intelligent two finger vote than Trump in the US or UKIP used to offer in England.
After all why should the right wing pick up all the two finger votes.
Funny and well put together like this classic of Bobs
Jim Murphy, Saviour of The Union (YouTube, 14m 23s)
A great opportunity to get behind Bob and ensure the SNPs ‘anointed one’ doesn’t get a Holyrood set!
I very much enjoyed the video if for nothing else than seeing and listening to an intelligent and passionate person talk about how our country should be independent.
It’s not for him to say how the policies he believes in are funded. He is there to push for these polices. I hope he is elected. Holyrood could do with some intelligent passion for independence and Edinburgh.
You must see that secession of Scotland from England will lead to partition; for what Bonnie Prince Bob says of Angus, applies to the relationship between an Orcadian and an Edinburgh man …
Or Edinburgh and Leith etc.
And since when was Scotland a part of England, to secede from?
BPB outlines a plethora of reasons for voting for him. What sticks out like a missing tooth is “a vote for BPB is a vote for independence”, which he doesn’t mention.
I agree with almost everything BPB advocates. I fundamentally disagree with the ROUTE he is advocating. NOTHING on his list will be REMOTELY possible, unless we achieve independence. Whether we like it or not voting SNP/SNP is the only credible mechanism we plebs have got, of achieving independence.
Independence is the only feasible route to social democracy, and BPB is standing in the way of that route. By all means, vote for BPB AFTER independence. I most certainly would if I were an Edinburgh resident. However, right now, he’s a hindrance…….IMO.
Alex
Did Nicola hold an Indyref I missed? Because from where I am standing she has done nothing about Independence.
Craig,
When she declared back in 2015 that “a vote for the SNP is not a vote for independence”, I thought she’d lost her bottle completely. However, with hindsight, that “rear guard” action was exactly what was needed at that time. A poor result for the SNP in 2015 could have killed off independence right there. I spoke to Alex Salmond at a constituency meeting after that election, and he had nothing but praise for Sturgeon. Had he been completely fooled by her, during his years of close association with her? His exact words were “I’m a gambler. She’s her own woman, but she knows exactly what she’s doing”.
At every stage of this journey to independence, she has travelled at the speed which the Scottish people are comfortable with. I find it totally perplexing, when people talk about “chances missed”. I think of Salmond’s words, and think of these “chances” as “gambles avoided”.
In my opinion, we are now in a position where a referendum called will be a referendum won. We can argue until the cows come home as to whether that has been a result of brilliant manoeuvring by the SNP leadership, or as a result of catastrophic Tory leadership, or (IMO) a combination of both, but nevertheless, we ARE at that point, and I find it weird that, instead of rejoicing at this apparent “cusp of victory”, folk are turning on the SNP leadership and accusing them of working for the Westminster Tories.
The Westminster Tories know EXACTLY how perilous is the position of the union now, and we will need all of our “tin helmets” over the next few months.
In August 2014, Wings published 84 blogs, every single one of which was aimed at Westminster, or the BBC, or Stephen Daisley and his ilk. I recently went back through Wings blogs, stopping at the hundredth blog, at which point i had counted 4 anti-unionist blogs, and 96 anti-SNP blogs. In a normal world, I’d take heart from that, because surely it must mean that the war against the Unionist MSM has been won?
I’m no SNP sheep. After Independence, I’ll almost certainly be “shopping around” for a political party whose policies and principles more closely aligns with mine, and it is almost certain that, without the glue of independence to hold it together, the SNP will break up into its constituent parts. What I’m NOT going to do, is get off the “SNP bus”, before the Indy terminus, and start walking, which is what you and Stu Campbell seem to be asking folk to do.
I’m not going to join in a bus sing-song, singing happy-clappy SNP anthems, but neither am I going to be at the front of the bus, snarling and screaming at the driver, that he’s “going the wrong way”, or even worse, trying to slash the tyres, which is what Stu and others are doing.
I don’t need to tell YOU that there is a mountain of stuff that needs sorting out about Scotland, and the Scottish Establishment. All I know for sure, is that we MIGHT have a chance of “sorting it out” if Scotland becomes independent, but there is zero chance of doing so, while we are subject to the rule of Westminster, and Lesley Evans is just a tiny example of that.
The SNP IS the only vehicle that can get us across the finishing line…… If Sturgeon gets a majority AND more than 50% of voters vote pro-Indy, AND Sturgeon DOESN’T act decisively, then, I will (sadly) conclude that independence will not happen for me, but will be for my grandchildren, and start building an alternative to the SNP, along with those of us who still believe in Independence. I hope that you, and Stu Campbell are wrong, and that Sturgeon HADN’T fooled Alex Salmond for decades.
If she DOES act decisively after a good electoral result, I wonder how many of you folk will have the humility to admit that you were wrong, and use your considerable journalistic talents to win independence via a referendum? I HOPE that you are of that ilk, Craig, but I seriously doubt the the “ego-on-legs” from Bath will be able to back down from his high horse.
Lying to potential votes before elections is ordinary politicians bread and butter. Sturgeon is not ordinary, she a habitual public bold face liar after elections too.
So in other words, no matter what the leadership does wrong, and no matter how long it fails to deliver its campaign promises (stop Brexit, second referendum) you just can’t believe that your own Indy dreams have been derailed and so you’ll kick and scream at all of us, and present your threadbare argument using tenuous metaphors only.
She’s too weak to deliver independence. Upon hard questioning she crumbles into politician speak – “well…. I had….. as you know, and it would have been…. and I’m not the only person…. Alex Salmond, Sexual.” She is so afraid of challenge she tried to have him jailed – what makes you think that anyone other than yourself ought to vote for that?
Westminster has never looked so good; so transparent, so checked and balanced, so honourable. A committee there would have ousted the conspirators. Haven’t you seen what a committee under an SNP government looks like? I’d rather be ruled by the English than the corrupt SNP leadership, and don’t think for a second that upon independence they will step back and let democracy happen – these are people willing to jail their friends and mentors on false allegations.
You interpret your own words. Please don’t try to put words into my mouth.
I have said consistently that I believe that Sturgeon has been moving as fast as she thinks is wise, in order to take the Scottish electorate with her. At times, I have “chomped at the bit”, because I thought she was being too timid, with the 2015 utterances about a vote for the SNP not being a vote for independence being a prime example. In hindsight, she was right and I was wrong (IMO).
If you can’t recognise that the circumstances have changed, then we will have to agree to differ. If a majority vote for Indy parties in May, and the SNP are given a majority, and Sturgeon drags her feet after THAT? …… then I definitely WILL join in the chorus calling for her head, because THEN those calling for her head will have been right all along.
On the other hand, if she takes this REAL mandate, and makes decisive moves to hold an early referendum, how many on the other side of the argument will admit that they have been mis-characterising wrongly? How many Peter Bells, or Craig Murray’s, or Stu Campbell’s will eat humble pie and admit that her judgement was SPOT ON?…… and that there IS a a “right time” to strike?
You’ve judged Sturgeon, and found her to be wanting. I disagree. I agree with everything you say about the PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES, vis-a-vis Boris Johnson, the corruption in Westminster. You also need to remember that the SNP didnt design the lack of accountability of Holyrood governments. That was designed by Dewar and his pals.
You’d rather be ruled by Westminster than by a corrupt SNP government. Where in HELL do you get the idea that the SNP will exist in its present form after independence? I for one will be doing my damned stuff to ensure that a written constitution will prevent this fiasco from ever happening again, but it seems to me (and this is MY opinion) that you’ve lost sight of the fact that we are presently ruled by Tories from Westminster, and just about ANY situation has GOT to be better than that!
Alex Salmond is STILL my all time political hero, and personally, I would have him installed as the first president of Scotland (if Lesley Riddoch turned the job down). I hate what has happened to him, and I hate the gnawing suspicion that I still have that Sturgeon was a party to all of it, but…………. Boris pigging Johnson is my prime minister, and I WILL swallow just about anything if I can have Boris Johnson be PM of rUK, with a new leader leading an independent Scotland…..I have ZERO problems with that leader NOT being Nicola Sturgeon…..and you know what? I STILL believe that Sturgeon would give up being FM if she thought it would lead to independence.
Too naive? Perhaps. I CERTAINLY believe it of Alex Salmond, because if I’d been in HIS place and what happened to him had happened to me, I’d have torn Holyrood to the ground. His restraint has been remarkable……
vote early, vote often
Big mistake to vote by post.
If I had a vote in Edinburgh it would not be cast as a spoilt ballot with this candidate on offer. I would cast it for him.
I’m as far left as you can get, but view the Covid19 farce as an overstated menace and the reaction to it as disproportionate. Pigeon holing anybody because of what they say on one particular issue is not politics, it’s bigotry.
Remember our host went to great lengths to differentiate between being anti Clinton and pro Trump…_
The facts…_
he should beware of the abbreviation “BPB” though. It could instead be ‘BNP’ that slips into the minds of some folk.
BPB’s policies seem as relevant to pre- as to post-independence Scotland. If Robertson gets established in the SNP leadership that might seem to many voters throughout the country a good reason to think twice about voting for independence.
As to BPB’s chances of winning the seat: yes, he’s an outsider, but he – and we all – might do well to learn the story of another outsider, Hans-Christian Ströbele, who was given little chance of winning a FPTP seat in an election to the German parliament. You can read the full story in English in Wikipedia, but here’s a summary:
Hans-Christian Ströbele is a member of the German Greens Party (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen). In 1998 he was elected to the Federal Parliament in Berlin on the Greens party list. As a result of that election the Greens became the junior partner in the Federal Government, in coalition with the SPD (Social Democratic Party). Ströbele soon became disillusioned with, and campaigned publicly against the policies and actions supported by his own Green Party boss, foreign minister Joschka Fischer, in particular the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999. From 2001 he also opposed Fischer’s support for George W. Bush’s Operation Enduring Freedom (otherwise known as the War on Terror). He also urged the party to leave the governing coalition.
To punish Ströbele for his intransigence the Green Party leadership left him off the party list for the next federal election in 2002 (shades of Johnson and Starmer). Still a party member, Ströbele decided to stand for election under the first past the post system (about half the members of parliament are elected by FPTP, the remainder from party lists) in his local constituency, Berlin Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, an inner city area with plenty of ‘MCWs’ and ‘people with an immigration background’. He campaigned against the militarist policies of his own party and won the seat, becoming the first Green Party member to win a parliamentary seat by FPTP anywhere in Germany. He won the seat again in 2005, 2009 and 2013. In 2017 Ströbele stood down and retired from active politics. In my estimation, his main achievement was to re-awaken the dormant anti-militarist movement in Germany, leading to the growth of support for the socialist Left Party (Die Linke).
thanks for that little bit of memory, it also was a resounding mpment for me as Joshka Fisher, once a radical taxi driver who moved people and ‘stuff’ for the Baader Meinhof gang, decided to back NATO bombing of Kosovo, because he was goaded by the Serbian delegation passing the Greens in the corridor at Rombuchaunt, saying ‘ you Greens are for Peace aren’t you? you will vote against will you not?’ the rest is history. Stroebele was the exception.
Bravo – what a thoughtful and interesting video. Sadly I am not in Scotland – voting has its problems, but voting for this chap seems like the least worst option!
A solid leftist wish list, with the notable exception of the promotion of Universal Basic Income.
Temporary Covid-related measures apart, people need and want jobs, not to be given £100pw, have all other benefits removed, and being told to then f*** off and go away.
A Job Guarantee, providing non-compulsory, government-funded, locally administrated employment, at a genuine living wage, with pension rights, sickness and holiday pay, and career advancement, achieves a far more humane and economically sound result.
It forces the private sector to match the genuine living wage if it wants to bid workers away from the JG, it acts as a fairer inflation buffer than condemning 5% of the working population to sacrifice their social economic well-being, as well as their physical and mental health, to the fight against inflation under the neoliberal policy of the NAIRU, and, apart from the economic madness of a UBI pumping more money into the economy without a commensurate increase in productive capacity to absorb the extra spending, and the absurdity of weekly giveaways to millionaires, a JG avoids the resentment of those who are still in employment towards others who simply take the money without making any contribution to the productive economy that benefits us all.
UBI is a sop to neoliberal private capital interests; sustaining demand for its products, yet condemning workers to subsistence levels of survival. If in doubt, ask yourselves why there is such a high level of support for it amongst billionaire entrepreneurs and their think-tanks?
That jumped out for me as well, UBI is pretty much Universal Credit including the unemployed.
None of the frameworks (RSA,Fraser of Allander,Reform Scotland) put forward have I’ve looked at have much to commend them.
A lot of high tax pain for no discernible gain.
JG is far more useful to individual dignity and the main interests of society.
Indeed.
The number of people needing to avail themselves of JG employment at any given time also acts as an important timely and spatial signal as to the state of the economy; too many means the economy is underperforming and requires more stimulus, hardly anyone and the economy is nearing full capacity and will require spending cuts and or tax increases in order to avoid inflationary pressures building up.
A UBI can offer none of these useful signals because take up is unchanging – temporally and spatially (i.e. geographically).
That’s all very good, but what are these Job Guarantee people actually going to do?
You also neatly ignore that any sensible UBI would be introduced with the removal of the personal allowance for income tax, so there would be no “weekly giveaways to millionaires”, the millionaires would get their tax-free personal allowance like every other taxpayer, something that already happens. Also any sensible UBI would be introduced so that those at the bottom of the heap on benefits would be no worse off, but would have the huge extra benefit that, when they start work, they don’t end up paying tax rates of around 70% as their benefits are withdrawn.
It’s very easy to outline a highly expensive or otherwise unworkable system of UBI and say “oh, look, UBI doesn’t work” whilst glossing over the fact that there are other, more workable systems available.
Well when someone comes up with a sensible option, I expect I’ll have to look again.
Little so far has emerged in that category.
You haven’t looked very hard, then. Of course there are lots of nonsensical options floating around, that’s par for the course for an idea that TPTB want to discredit.
Anyone earning over £120K already loses the Personal Tax Allowance, so the well-off would indeed be receiving their £100pw or whatever, as additional income.
I note you fail to address the macroeconomic points I raised in objection to UBI and in preference of a JG.
If you can look around you, and genuinely not see any “jobs” that need doing, you must be extremely privileged and live in a very wealthy neighbourhood!
I have looked very hard, as I said, at the RSA,FOA and RS proposals.
Tell me what they have to commend.
In my honest and informed opinion, they have no merit or purpose other than than being something ‘UBI’.
There has been a fair amount of dough thrown their way, and they have come up with SFA.
Tell me another that is worth my,let alone elses time.
Maybe you could offer a case study?
Would a universal basic income not be useful in the unlikely event of, say a worldwide pandemic?
@iain stewart:
no
The best answer , if you are worried about pandemics, is to have a highly redundant, free to all health infrastucture.
In between pandemics, it can treat people and prepare.
“Anyone earning over £120K already loses the Personal Tax Allowance, so the well-off would indeed be receiving their £100pw or whatever, as additional income.”
Do you really imagine that a UBI would be introduced without some tweaking of the tax code? This is just another case of “look I can think of an unworkable way that UBI can be introduced, let’s not do it then.
“I note you fail to address the macroeconomic points I raised in objection to UBI and in preference of a JG.”
I am not an economist, but I do know you can prove almost anything with economic theory. Why not provide some facts instead? You haven’t said how your JG scheme gets rid of the punitive rates of benefits withdrawal.
“If you can look around you, and genuinely not see any “jobs” that need doing, you must be extremely privileged and live in a very wealthy neighbourhood!”
Well, if they are that obvious, perhaps you can come up with a few. It’s not as if this hasn’t been tried before with a resounding lack of success. In any case, if the jobs currently aren’t being done and everyone is coping OK, then it shows that there is no real need for them to be done, certain not such a pressing need that it warrants the creation of a vast new bureaucracy to oversee their doing. Let’s face it, the point of the JG scheme is not to get these jobs done, but to enable the recipients of benefits not to be seen to be getting something for nothing, an extremely expensive way of keeping the Daily Mail reading classes happy.
@paul
Your plan doesn’t help the healthy who can’t take up their employment, does it.
@Iain Stuart,
That’s why I said, “Temporary Covid-related measures apart”.
I don’t want to sound patronising, but if you’re not very knowledgeable about economics then you’re not going to easily understand how the macroeconomic effects of a UBI differs from those of the JG.
A UBI supports the demand side, but without addressing the capacity of supply side, in fact it threatens to reduce it, which is an inflation risk.
The tax increases that will be required, not to *fund* a UBI, but to address the inflation that would be created by any meaningful level of weekly payment, would most definitely breed resentment in those who chose to continue to work, whilst they saw others just sitting at home not having to pay those increased taxes. The first political party that proposed to remove it would romp home at the next GE.
A JG also acts as a superior inflation buffer to the NAIRU, because it avoids ordinary people being used as pawns in the fight against inflation with a policy of maintaining unemployment at around 5% in order to keep down wages. Using the NAIRU is inhumane.
You yourself mentioned the idea of removing the PTA from the wealthy to cancel out the apparent injustice of millionaire handouts; I pointed out that it’s already the case, so your point is moot.
Unemployed people or those who are disgruntled with their present jobs will be far better off financially, socially, and mentally working for a genuine living wage (around £400pw) with the usual employment benefits than sitting at home with £100pw.
The bureaucracy necessary to run the JG creates admin employment in itself, besides which there are plenty of jobs that can be done in connection with environmental work, the GND, plus caring, mentoring etc.
The private sector will need to improve pay and conditions in order to bid workers away from the JG, so no more low paid, no benefits, fake self-employment gig economy macjobs, because there will always be a better living wage option on offer.
Pavlina Tchernova can inform you better than I can if you care to read more about how the JG is better than a UBI.
Where are all the other candidates to contest the other constituencies? Why can’t we have an alternative pro independence choice?!
F*****g cool!
Well, I’m impressed.
And don’t put yourself down Craig. The resemblance to you is uncanny.
Soundtrack for today’s times – ‘Edinburgh Man’ by The (mighty) Fall:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbMG1v7qDqs
He’s gorn.
Ex-finance secretary Derek Mackay quits the SNP
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-56463605
An excess of libido. Is there something in the water up there?
The Scottish Medical Journal may have the answer.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0036933012474600
Bonnie Prince Bob?
Yet wants to abolish the monarchy? Isn’t that some sort of hate crime?
Anyone checked with Humza?
Or is he still too busy backslapping Anas Sarwar?
“wants to abolish the monarchy? Isn’t that some sort of hate crime”
No, but speaking about the middle class in the manner he does is a crime coming to your living room anytime soon…_
They all start off a bit like BPB, look at Mhairi Black MP, she was almost as radical and refreshingly honest when elected to the Commons aged 20.
You barely hear from her these days. Something about money and power that moderates any early radicalism. Most quickly realise the futility of it, and learn their lowly place and decide for a quiet life. One of the reasons among other reforms we need term limits – to clear out the political time-servers and careerist deadwood that litters all the big political parties. Two terms or 10 years and that should be it. None of this ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ father of the house’ BS, let’s have fresh people to drive change and move things forward.
Here we go again – so many people here saying the’re not going to vote SNP at the forthcoming election. Westminster has long realised that we’re not too wee and we’re certainly not too poor, but they’re still banking on us being too stupid and they may well have got it right. There is one thing that overshadows everything else in its importance and that’s INDEPENDENCE. I’ll repeat that because a lot of people here seem to have forgotten about it – INDEPENDENCE. How we get that as quickly as possible, how we free ourselves of Westminster’s corrupt warmongering rule as early as we can, that’s what we should be concentrating on. I remember going round the houses canvassing before the 2014 referendum and being utterly dismayed at the number of people who said they wouldn’t vote for independence because they didn’t like Alex Salmond. Just how stupid and petty minded can you get? But it’s exactly the same as is happening here – people losing sight of the bigger picture because they don’t like some individuals. Snap out of it FGS. I suppose that if the SNP don’t win the next election and Independence drifts another 20 years into the future and we’re landed with another indefinite period of Tory rule you’ll still be happy in the knowledge that you’ll at least have got rid of NS. Do get real. Much as you might say that the SNP doesnt want independence, it’s people who say that they won’t vote for the only party that’s going to bring us independence that are the real barriers to our getting it.
And one other thing while I’m at it. We all know the depths to which Westminster – “Perfidious Albion” – can stoop. We all know that no trick is too dirty for them. So just consider this. Is it a mere coincidence that only weeks before a vital election, with Indepepndence at last being realistically in our grasp, we’re suddenly faced with a crisis that is, apparently sucessfully, resulting it a number of people who might normally have voted SNP deciding not to do so? While I am totally convinced that there was a plot against AS, I have neither seen nor heard any evidence that NS was complicit in it. All the so-called evidential papers I’ve seen or heard of appear to have been circulating among Holyrood’s civil servants, many of who we know to have been Westminster appointmants. I am becoming increasingly convinced that all this is a long term Westminster project relying on cooked-up evidence calculated to hit the headlines just before one of the most inportant elections in our history. Have we Scots not yet learned that if we turn in on ourselves we won’t win?
But if you must, go on, throw it all away. Don’t vote SNP and just let the Tories in instead. Let independence slip through our grasp. Play straight into Westminster’s hands and in in years to come wonder how on earth you were stupid enought to let them win.
Reality Check (from a Sassenach): It doesn’t matter who gets in, Westminster and their minions are not going to let Scotland achieve independence without a huge, and probably violent, fight. Democracy, whatever that means today, is not going to help because the western version is totally corrupted.
Look at what happened in Catalonia, look at Greece, look at how the UK has been neutered. Expect huge resistance from the establishment, nationally and internationally, the US (it’s their Nukes you are hosting).
I support independence if that’s what the people want but you’ll need another way to achieve it. Not being negative, just realistic … IMO !
I think we all expect huge resistence from the establishment. But their job is going to be so much easier if, as so often happens, we Scots end up fighting against each other rather than the real enemy. Unfortunately that trait is fairly well known and we’re currently seeing our opponents exploiting it once more. You’d think we’d know better by now.
Broadly agree @DaveyTee
Strong element of ‘Cutting off the nose to spite the face’ about this ‘won’t vote SNP’ fit of pique. No majority and Sturgeon resigning might be some sort of Pyrrhic victory when you look at the likely FM candidates both in the Tory , Labour, LD opposition and those waiting to contest the party leadership in the SNP.
At least with a SNP majority inde supporters can demand that promised referendum when conference resumes. Bonnie Prince Bob seems to have a chequered history when it comes to supporting those promoting independence(re his views on Wings…).
“While I am totally convinced that there was a plot against AS, I have neither seen nor heard any evidence that NS was complicit in it.”
Hubby and minions kept our queen out the loop cause they knew she’d have quashed the plot. I’m wit ya Davey!
I think you are forgetting what you want independence from. As was said in Ireland at the time of their independence, “the only thing that is going to change is the accents of our masters”.
But I’ve not heard much regret expressed since by the Irish about having taken the step to independence.
It’s to be expected that such a change will entail breaking a few eggs and possibly holding one’s collective nose at times for the greater outcome.
Breaking a few eggs is a lovely euphemism. Is that from the Ladybird book of modern Irish history?
Glad you enjoyed.
Once again, it’s not what they did, but the way that they did it. No, the Irish wouldn’t regret taking independence, but very many of them regretted that independence was followed by civil war, in which those who had spearheaded the fight for independence ended up on the losing side.
Like Michael Collins?
“There is one thing that overshadows everything else in its importance and that’s INDEPENDENCE. “
In which case why are the SNP putting up Angus Robertson and not Joanna Cherry?
Tell me honestly. What crime would Nicola Sturgeon have to commit, covered up by her circle, aided by the crown office, in order for you to have second thoughts about putting her at the helm of an independent country and writing the laws of the land? I’m serious, what crime? What would render her and her circle unfit for that role in our nation’s history?
If I lived in Edinburgh I would vote for Bonnie Prince Bob. I wish him every success. Angus Robertson epitomises all the reasons why not to vote SNP.
I managed two minutes before the schoolboy language made it unwatchable. One for pseuds corner …
Disrespectful, wasnt he?
I thought at first it was a Neil Oliver spoof…….
DT
sounds like a person to represent the dienfranchised, as opposed to the bourgeois who are most concerned with superficial matters like image and language while missing the actual substance… vote for a hollow body that looks the part.. that is what the msm have trained people to thinking…
David Cameron springs to mind.
Excellent video by BPB and he hits all the right buttons on what’s gone wrong in central Edinburgh and the wider issue of colonialism at play there and in Scotland more generally. More Scots are starting get the picture that independence is decolonisation.
Bob should align with AFI, Craig. I really like this from AFI, Action for Independence, Scotland’s new National Party:
“AFI shall also campaign for a simple majority of the popular vote for pro-indy parties across both the constituencies and the regional lists, at the “Independence” election, and for such a majority to be understood to be a mandate for independence itself.”
https://afi.scot/route-map-to-scottish-independence/
If I lived in Edinburgh Central then I’d definitely be voting for Bonnie Prince Bob. That would throw a cat among the pigeons at Holyrood and make the place interesting in a new way. I mean, could you imagine BPB being there and Tommy Sheridan too.
P.S. Craig, I do live in Lothian region and if you’re top of the AFI list then I will be voting AFI in the hope that you get into Holyrood too. Good luck with that project Craig. (Maybe you could get BPB to give you lessons on ‘charisma’.) ;0)
Go Bob!! I’d be very tempted to vote for him…but don’t have to decide one way or other because I don’t live in Edinburgh Central.
No career politician from a mainstream party whether separatist or unionist would last two minutes in a direct debate with this guy. Gotta wonder whether the gangsters in the SNP administration will send the cops round to pay him a visit. Not joking – they may do.
I’d advise him to cut half his references to “neoliberalism” and replace them with direct, practical, down-to-earth references to CORRUPTION. Or to put it another way: you’re better than Russell Brand, so let him disappear in your rear view mirror. Remember this about the bourgeoisie: they don’t like it up ’em.
The extent to which I want him to win as we approach 6 May will be the extent to which he sticks it to the bourgeoisie… He seems to be doing quite well so far. More and faster please 🙂
There’is no such thing as neoliberalism if you’re a supporter of corporate Democrats and the EU (sorry, I mean a Marxist….).
Craig says: “But who else a decent independence supporter might vote for in Edinburgh Central was a problem”.
No problem at all. Edinburgh Central is a Tory seat with the SNP a few hundred behind. No-one else has a chance. A vote for BPB is therefore effectively a vote for the Tory candidate. If you really, truly want independence, and that is more important to you than not liking the SNP candidate (and surely it is), then SNP is the only way to vote.
DT
Davey tee – is this election a plebiscite ejection – doesn’t look like it therefore we are not voting for independence.
Looks like the same old same old – a promise of an independence referendum sometime in the future. Where is the draft independence referendum bill the SNP promised by now. Sturgeon has been stringing Independence supporters along for about 4 years now. The referendum is always NEXT year.
It is not just a case of not liking Robertson it is a case of holding the opinion he is against independence.
Hmmm – so you’re presumably suggesting that we should vote against the only party that is promising to give us independence and instead vote for an ultra corrupt party that has kept Scotland subjugated for centuries and, if people do what you seem to be suggesting, will continue to do so for decades to come. Not very clever.
As for no referendum in the past four years, consider first that if we’re going to have referendum it should be in the expectation that we’ll win it. Four years ago Sturgeon said she’d be going for an indy2 referendum but then the SNP lost 21 seats in the general election. During 2017-19 opinion polls suggested that support for independence lay somewhere in the mid 40%s. Only in the spring of 2020 did Yes at last start to show a consistent majority and many would say that that was largely due to NS’s covid performances and I assume that you’re not suggesting that we should have had a referendum in the midst of the pandemic.
As for Robertson, where’s your evidence that he’s “against independence”? Certainly the Tories who will undounbtedly take Edinburgh Central if Robertson doesn’t are dead set against independence.
DT
Hmm DaveyTee where do I say who I am voting for or anyone else should vote for other than Robertson. So you are not that clever are you and can’t read very well.
Well we are about to have an election in the middle of a pandemic so why not a referendum – why not a plebiscite election.
You conveniently side step the missing draft referendum bill that was promised by the SNP – now overdue. They can get on with the Hate crime bill no problem. That shows their priorities.
Well perhaps you need to read Craig’s blog a bit more closely re Robertson.
If you follow your approach you just do what the polls tell you and therefore there would have not have been a referendum in 2014. It’s all just excuses for Sturgeon taking independence supporters as mugs. Sturgeon will always find an excuse and people like you will always lap it up.
I haven’t sidestepped the draft bill – it was promised by the end of this parliament and I expect it to be published within that timeframe. When it is, no doubt you’ll be happy to welcome it and to congratulate the SNP in fulfilling its promise.
As for Angus Robertson, I again ask where’s your evidence that he is “against independence”?
There was a referendum in 2014 because Alex Salmond, not believing that he would get a sufficient majority in parliament, promised one if the SNP did get a majority. They did achieve that and unlike many politicians Alex was true to his word and ran the referendum even although it was hardly the best time to do so. Cameron certainly thought he would lose and it was only by dint of astonishingly effective grass-roots campaigning that a 45% Yes vote was achieved. There has of course been no possibility of any such campaigning for the last year and indeed prior to NS proving herself so effective in the covid situation Yes poll ratings were still stubbornly hanging round in the mid 40s. There really is no point having a second independence referendum until you can be pretty sure of winning it – ask the Quebecois.
DT
Genuinely interested to know how a referendum could’ve been held in a pandemic: no gatherings, no rallies, difficulty drumming up enthusiasm, widespread accusations of being tone deaf during a pandemic by pressing ahead, ideologically obsessed etc. Surely she [Sturgeon] and the SNP had no choice but to delay due to the political reality, the ‘realpolitik’? It can be argued they haven’t communicated this well to the SNP support base but a referendum under current unforeseen(at the last elections) circumstances was impossible, regardless of passion for independence.
And UDI is impossible with the nation split roughly 50/50 in most polls.
I get why people are hating Sturgeon for other reasons, but to say independence was there to be grabbed is false.
DaveyTee it was promised in 6 months time and 6 months have passed. Anyway Mike Russell said today that it would be available next week. He also said that there would be no date in the draft bill and if would only say it would happen at the right time when the pandemic is finished. So no I will not be welcoming it. It is just another jam tomorrow promise that the SNP is now becoming famous for.
So Salmond was correct to honour his mandate but Sturgeon was correct NOT to honour her MANDATES.
Personally, I am sick of all the excuses punted by people for Sturgeons inaction on independence. Excuses excuses excuses.
Regarding your point about Sturgeon being effective re Covid sure she is a good communicator and can talk and talk and Scotland has better figures than Johnson’s England but as England has the worst result in Covid terms and economic terms it is hardly a high bar to better. So no Scotland has not done as well as it could have done.
I repeat re Robertson – you need to clue up more. Try reading Craig’s articles.
I am also sick of the tired Quebec nonsense. Scotland is one of the world’s oldest nations. Quebec is not.
People vote in a referendum – people vote in an election. If you can do an election you can do a referendum or a plebiscite election in a pandemic. It is just another excuse. Once the pandemic is over in years to come the next excuse will be back to the Jan 2020 surrender speech – I’m not having an illegal referendum. Sturgeon and her colleagues are only interested in devolution not independence.
i think you are short sighted in your thinking here…. rubber stamping the same b.s. is definitely not the way to go at this point.. i say this not living in scotland, so you can toss my comment aside, or consider it an outsider’s viewpoint on your choices..
dang… i wish i lived in edinburgh central instead of here on vancouver island.. i would vote for him in a heartbeat! i am a middle class wanker too, lol… i have sent it to my one friend in edinburgh.. not sure what part of town he lives in… i hope this guy gets traction.. he has done a fantastic promotional video to help him succeed…
and craig – thanks so much for the heart felt video you posted yesterday… i really need to support you financially for all the insights you have given me… thank you…