It is a simple fact that, to get any senior international job, be it at the United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank, NATO, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, or any other intergovernmental organisation, you must have the endorsement of your own government. In the case of Nicola Sturgeon, that means the endorsement of the state recognised by those organisations, which is the United Kingdom.
There are precedents for UK governments helping opposition figures whom they find congenial into international posts. But if Nicola crosses the line of enmity with the UK government, her own primary aspirations for future career and income will be finished.
As a young diplomat I had a starry-eyed view of the aims of the United Nations and presumed that the UN Secretariat was staffed by people who shared those ideals. It was a great shock to discover that UN offices were often staffed by cynical time-servers who had been put into the gig by the ruling class of their home state. There are no dissidents in the UN Secretariat. The fact that Chinese apparatchiks or Saudi royal hangers-on proved not really to be particularly dedicated to famine relief for Liberian refugees in Ivory Coast ought not to have been shocking to me, but was. What has come out to date about sexual exploitation of vulnerable women in crisis situations by UN staff I know very well to be the tip of the iceberg.
If you do have the support of your government, the opportunities are far greater than you can imagine. Do you remember Danny Alexander, the extraordinarily untalented Lib Dem politician who before entering parliament was the publicity man for the Cairngorm chairlift? Sturgeon certainly recalls him, and the fact that Alexander is now Vice President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, living in great luxury in Beijing, and pulling down even more money than the Murrells.
How did that happen? Well, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is in fact an intergovernmental organisation, and the UK government is a founding shareholder. After betraying Lib Dem voters and helping George Osborne impose austerity on the public as a coalition minister, the Tories gave “Sir” Daniel Alexander a knighthood and shoehorned him in to his splendid office at the AIIB, after the Scottish electorate had very sensibly booted him out of parliament.
If a political nobody like Danny Alexander can land such rich pickings, what kind of vistas might open up before Nicola? Her CV drops onto the rich walnut desks in the plush offices of major international organisations, as often as condominium brochures. Her international schmoozing is endless. She presents herself on the international stage not as the champion of an Independent Scotland – a subject she tends to avoid – but as a dynamic exponent of Clinton style politics and a stalwart upholder of the neo-conservative world order.
Sturgeon, and the SNP under her, supports the British government’s pivot towards projecting military power into the Pacific, supports NATO deployment of missiles on the Russian border, supports the Royal Navy in its incursions in the Black Sea, supports the destabilisation of Syria, supports each and every claim about curiously unsuccessful deployments of novichok, even supports a switch from unilateral to multilateral nuclear disarmament as outlined by her Westminster MPs Alyn Smith and Stewart MacDonald. She loudly condemns Alex Salmond for appearing on Russia Today.
In short, Sturgeon makes sure that Westminster knows she is 100% on board with the British government’s foreign policy agenda, with Britnat military adventurism and with neo-imperial force projection by the ludicrous British aircraft carrier force. She is a perfectly safe pair of Britnat foreign policy hands to be assisted into an international job.
What greater service can there be to the British state than ensuring its continuation?
With the opinion polls showing over 55% in favour of Scottish Independence, Nicola Sturgeon, just as she did in the last sustained surge of Independence support, stands holding the bridge for the union by preventing any action at all towards Independence at this, the key moment.
Independence support over 55% even with no campaign? Unionists a majority only in the over 60s? Boris Johnson and his Westminster government massively unpopular?
The Union appears to be in the gravest of danger. But do not worry, Nicola is there to save the Union, diverting the Independence movement into a choice selection of utterly blind alleys, labeled “COVID freeze”, “Gender Reform”, “Economic Recovery” and “S30 Memorandum”. Nicola will go down in history alongside the Duke of Cumberland as one of the greatest servants of British Unionism.
COVID has not prevented the greatest of changes in power, a US Presidential election, nor has it prevented general elections in Germany, Austria and numerous other countries. That it prevents action on Independence is plainly a nonsense. What COVID has allowed Nicola to do is play to her strength – fine presentational skills and an aura of managerial competence. She worked out early that the public are highly motivated by fear and prefer their politicians to err on the side of more, rather than less, restriction. Appearing more in control than Johnson has not been difficult; nor has the continual adoption of just marginally more restrictive measures than England.
If Independence were truly her goal, then the time to bank the “more competent than England” COVID kudos in the Independence cause is now – its shelf life will be limited. But Independence is not her goal. A continuing build-up of Sturgeon kudos to take to market for Sturgeon is her goal. On one question, Nicola has undoubtedly proven the science. Face masks can, properly used, be 100% effective in preventing action on Independence.
Those who believed Nicola Sturgeon was going, as she promised, to deliver an Independence referendum in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 now believe that she will deliver one in 2023. There are those who refuse to remember that her great capitulation over Johnson’s refusal to grant an S30 was on 8 March 2019, before we had even heard the word COVID.
Sturgeon will not hold a referendum in 2023. This is what she will do:
In 2023, or just beforehand, she will write to Boris Johnson or a Tory successor and request Section 30 permission to hold a referendum. The Tory PM will refuse. Sturgeon will then instruct the Lord Advocate to go to court in order to win the Scottish Government’s right to hold a referendum. The Scottish Government will lose in court. The Supreme Court in London will uphold the supremacy of the UK Parliament, as a whole series of Supreme Court judgments have made clear – including the judgment that the Sewel Convention cannot be binding on the UK parliament as it is supreme, and that the Scottish Parliament has no power to incorporate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scottish law.
The Scottish Courts will in all probability rule the same before even getting to the UK Supreme Court – as foreshadowed by their judgment against the heroic Martin Keatings in which they dismissed the standing of the Scottish people and with it the legal force of the Claim of Right.
I am very sorry to tell you that the courts will be right. Under UK domestic law the UK parliament is sovereign and Scotland does indeed have no right, according to the colonial regime, to hold an independence referendum. Sturgeon knows this too. The authority Sturgeon really listens to on the subject, Professor Aileen McHarg of Durham University, has stated the case at length.
So consider this. Nicola Sturgeon is not a fool. She does not really believe that a Tory PM is going to grant a S30 Order for an Independence Referendum where unionist defeat is probable. (David Cameron only had agreed because at the time Yes was 32% in the polls). Nicola Sturgeon also knows that the UK Supreme court is not going to rule in the Scottish parliament’s favour.
There simply is no route to Independence that leads through London. Yet Nicola states the path through London is the only path and no Plan B may even be considered. London is accepted as the arbiter of what is legal. Sturgeon insists on taking only routes which she knows will fail, and condemns all alternatives as illegal.
So Nicola Sturgeon has delayed action on Independence for years, continues to do so, and looking ahead to the possibility of eventually being forced to move, she insists on a route that is impossible. Why?
There is only one answer. Nicola has no intention of achieving Independence. She wants international kudos as a good manager of Scotland who supported US hegemony, and then a decent international job to move into, leaving Scotland behind. The amount she cares about what happens to Scotland after that is limited.
I trust Dominic Cummings less far than I can throw him, but I believed Cummings when he stated Boris Johnson did say of COVID “Let the bodies pile high”. I also believe his revelation that Sturgeon has informed Johnson, through her staff, that she does not want an Independence referendum before the next Westminster election in 2024.
This is entirely consistent with close observation of Sturgeon’s behaviour. The SNP have made no budgetary provision for a referendum and are remarkably pre-occupied with arguing about boundary changes for future UK, Westminster parliamentary elections.
This also ties in with my own Tory sources, who tell me that through chief of staff channels, Sturgeon has suggested to Johnson he might agree a three question referendum after the next Holyrood election, with a form of “Devo Max” as a middle option that would be sure to win. There are many SNP MPs and MSPs who now see “Devo Max” as a safer option than Independence, in terms of the potential risk to their own careers from an Independence bid. The comfy parliamentary pensions brigade are now very, very attracted to Devo Max.
The truth is that there is another route to Independence, which Nicola does everything to deny even being discussed.
The domestic law of the larger state cannot constrain the right to self determination of the nation or people wishing to leave. Otherwise Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia would still be in the Soviet Union. As I have frequently explained, this precise position was taken by the United Kingdom in the Kosovo case and endorsed by the International Court of Justice. Indeed, if the state seceded from could simply forbid it, a great deal of decolonisation would never had happened.
Scotland does not need the permission of England. Neither the Westminster Parliament nor the UK Supreme Court can remove the Scottish people’s inalienable right of self-determination under the UN Charter. There is no requirement in international law for a referendum in order to become independent – the majority of states in the world achieved independence without a referendum. If the UK state refuses one, Scotland must declare Independence through a National Assembly of its combined Holyrood and UK parliamentarians, and hold a confirmatory plebiscite as an independent state. Brexit has made the task of gaining international recognition very much simpler.
There is a single test of Scottish Independence – recognition by the United Nations. The domestic law of the UK is completely irrelevant.
That would require a leader of the nation for whom Independence is an overriding priority. Which will never be Nicola Sturgeon.
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When Put Like this Craig..Yeah..Disturbing reading in So many fronts. Jeezo… I offered this bit of Info to an Indy group yesterday ( In-D-Car )..cos someone asked what 77th are –
“Less than a year after Scotland’s 2014 independence referendum the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, said, given ‘that Scottish independence is, in effect, a threat to the state,’ nationalists were not at all paranoid to suspect they had been subjected to the surveillance and manipulations of Britain’s secret services and security forces. Craig Murray A Former British Diplomat turned independence supporter and a former rector of Dundee University, had much the same to say at the same time.
MI5 in Scotland
In fact, even before the referendum Jim Sillars, Deputy Leader of the Scottish National Party in the early 1990s, claimed to have been aware of the arrival into Glasgow of a number of secret service operatives. Of course, this is all a matter of speculation and anecdotal, but then Special Branch, GCHQ, and MI5 don’t exactly broadcast their activities and neither are they subject to Freedom of Information requests. So, the absence of evidence – especially in the case of state security services – does not amount to evidence of absence…..”
How MI5 and GCHQ are trying to subvert the Scottish independence movement – by Jason Michael McCann (Press TV, 25 Feb 2020)
Thank You
Very well written article and an accurate and comprehensive account of Sturgeon’s motivation and where we stand because of it.
My worry is a referendum of any kind. An expression of our national and civil rights, expressed by honest trained people on our behalf is what I want, we have the right.
I have Sturgeon down as a sinister human being and we are well acquainted with being stitched up. A bullshit referendum promising more length to the chain will be added to the list.
“I have Sturgeon down as a sinister human being and we are well acquainted with being stitched up”
I’ll bet that as a baddie she can’t beat Eleanor Iselin played by Angela Lansbury in “The Manchurian Candidate”!
(My point being that we should be a bit wary of calling any human sinister, though there may be some exceptional cases)
Fitting people up, selling out a country counts as sinister to me.
Who the f*ck is Angela Lansbury?
‘Granny’ in the ‘Company of Wolves’ (1984)……very good.
Jessica Fletcher in ‘Murder, she wrote’……Sunday tea-time rohypnol for the blue rinse hair brigade.
Lostinaforest, she’s also the granddaughter daughter of George Lansbury staunch socialist leader of the Labour Party and she supported Jeremy Corbyn
I find humans sinister and I’m not entirely comfortable being one. Our problem is that personally, each of us has a dark side which is hidden to us, to some greater or lesser extent. It’s easy enough to see in others but almost impossible to see our own – our consciousness sees our self-image instead, with all its justifications and rationalisations, but that self-image is generated subconsciously.
The richer and more powerful any of us gets, the more affirmation we receive – in the modern neoliberal atmosphere, wealth itself is a powerful affirmation of success – and affirmation reinforces and justifies the self-image.
Sinister (from Lat sinestra) = left-handed
My kind of comment. Attempts to generalise about humans is probably fruitless. I think people become trapped by circumstances. People are subjected to pressures and personal from within and without.
I am pretty sure Nicola can say to herself that she is a committed independence seeker but has been thwarted by her own doubts and uncertainyies, by pressures from elsewhere.
It is my belief that Scottish independence will be resisted overtly and covertly by powerful forces within the existing state.(status quo). Functioning states are like organisms and there is a homeostatic or self-regulating mechanism which tends to resist change. Adaptation has occurred, rightly or wrongly, through history, relationships are functionally settled.
I asked myself on reading the post whether I would have the capacity or conviction to create a situation where harm will come to others, and I have to admit I would not.
That’s not to say I dont seek and aspire to independence. There are powerful reasons to do so.
I think independence must be incremental and consensual. England is itself needing independence. The current forms of democracy are not serving our collective needs such as addressing the climate change issues or the establishment of a humane distribution of wealth, priviege and resources. People are abandoned to their fates while the fortunate elite accumulate and sequester the means to address the poverty of many.
Nicola and others are in a funk but I doubt if blaming or agitation will shift that.
You are spot on the money Craig. One hundred percent correct in your analysis. Glad to see you out and back contributing to the cause of Scottish Independence
More power to you Sean, if only we had more Scots like you willing to get out there and tell it like it is.
When it is all laid out so clearly without unnecessary embellishments it is frustrating to realise that it is ONLY the stupidity of her sycophants and apologists combined with an electorate who are more interested in celebrity gunge or strictly come dancing rather than the corruption going on with politicians , that is keeping this deviant and her tartan taliban tories in power
Welcome back, Craig.
It has been obvious for some time that Sturgeon’s goal is not Scottish independence but to become the Mary Robinson of Scotland.
She has missed no opportunity to advance herself on the international stage, most recently at COP26. Meeting Wee Greta was an easy gig but Angela Merkel a photo-op of decidedly greater magnitude. But she really hit the jackpot with Biden. I wonder if she asked him how Hilary – a previous photo op partner – was doing?
One thing puzzles me: who manages to get her coverage in US media and on the continent. (She was hailed as Reine d’Ecosse by Le Monde)? This sort of promotion does not come cheap.
Thank you for putting so much flesh on the bones of Sturgeon’s real ambition. Her international profile has come a long way since her cringe-making encounter with the Borgen actress.
Nicola Sturgeon lobbied to meet star of Borgen
Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon lobbied furiously to meet the star of her favourite Danish TV drama, e-mails from the Scottish Government show.
By Andrew Whitaker (The Scotsman, 4th May 2013)
Quoted: “There is a single test of Scottish Independence – recognition by the United Nations. The domestic law of the UK is completely irrelevant.”
Which is why the “Declaration of a Sovereign Scot” initiative started back on the 6th of April this year, with each individual signed Declaration (in growing numbers) then being sent to the Secretary General of the United Nations – as Stage 1 in the initiative.
https://www.facebook.com/X2-113742180011217/
“There is a single test of Scottish Independence – recognition by the United Nations. The domestic law of the UK is completely irrelevant.”
So how did anyone know if they were independent or not prior to the creation of the UN?
Who died and left the UN in charge?
Welcome home Craig , you can’t keep a good man down.
Sturgeon reminds me of Alex Guinness’s character at the end of the Bridge over the river Kwai.
Thank you for the timely reminder of English political choices – there is NONE.
“After betraying Lib Dem voters and helping George Osborne impose austerity on the public as a coalition minister, the Tories gave “Sir” Daniel Alexander a knighthood and shoehorned him in to his splendid office at the AIIB, after the Scottish electorate had very sensibly booted him out of parliament.”
Don’t forget the Rose Garden bromancers, the dashing Clegg of Sheffield now ensconced in a high level deep stare position as some arbiter of truth on social media.
I say this more to us English voters as the rebuilding of that fake alternative proceeds in Shropshire today.
A lie of choice – we had a real one in 2017 by the miracle of Jezza; not so much in 2019 with the rotten apples Starmer and co left in the barrel; with the foreign states Gauntlet; mass media propaganda and collusion; and the belt and braces of postal vote fraud.
There is only one choice left to the ‘electorate’ a group whose choices are subverted and as a group regularly gaslighted, demoralised and ultimately made to feel worthless. That choice is mass revolt. Smart revolt. A Jarrow for the C21st. A General Strike – but one made for this century.
That is by capturing the voting booths and making a statement as big as the BrexShit poll did out of the blue – a giant upyours to the fake choice presented to us.
If 10% of registered voters systematically spoil their votes – MILLIONS of voters would delegitimise the fake claims of being given a choice.
The majority of votes must count and that is never going to happen in a first past the post centuries old theological monarchic system with hereditary upper house and neutered Parliamentry system. I demand full on messy PR where government is formed AFTER a vote taking however long to form a executive representing the votes as cast. It hasn’t hurt Germany (3 months) nor Netherlands, 200 days or many other such nations. It won’t hurt us – only the ancient stitched up system which has hardly progressed from when a rich man could buy a parliamentary seat by buying the handful of voters entitled to vote!
Just because suffragettes won votes for Women and we have got voting at 18 doesn’t mean that the fight to attain maximum enfranchisement and turnout and true choice is over – remember these against whom such Rights were won didn’t roll over and due like dinosaurs- they LIVE yet! The Crown exists. The Aristos do. They lay claim to THEIR ancient rights – including fake, captured political choices.
Scottish peoples should just proceed and form shadow government, constitution and policies through mass public assemblies – you need to its the only way you can take over day 1 knowing exactly how it will be run and managed for and by Scots and that is the only way of grabbing back your resources and standing any chance of success.
So who is up for a mass registration and a coordinated Vote spoiling at EVERY possible election from now on?
It would be popular and encourage many who know their votes never count.
The Abstainer vote has regularly won British FPTP elections and the state hasn’t taken any notice. I had to twist a few arms to get the size of abstention included in Wiki election articles. A state that encourages and ignores abstention that is unmoved by the boycott of 35 per cent of the registered electors won’t take any notice of a piffling 10 per cent.
I am not talking about abstaining.
I am saying REGISTER the SPOIL the vote in a SYSTEMATIC way.
I am saying demand your vote and say NONE OF THE ABOVE in a way that can not be UNREPORTED.
It hasn’t been done before but it can be as a grassroots endeavour.
Does that make sense?
Is this for real?
Has Craig forgotten 2012 when the then SNP leadership narrowly won its policy change to have our future independent non-nuclear Scotland remain in the world’s biggest nuclear alliance called NATO.
Kenny MacAskill’s “I’m sick of marching” speech and Alex Salmond’s strategy of standing at the edge of the stage staring at delegates as the vote was being counted played no small part in securing the 28 vote victory for their pro-NATO motion and change of our long-held policy rejecting future NATO membership.
If future NATO membership is a vital, albeit pragmatic, part of our campaigning for independence, does the fact that the Alex and Kenny have kept any mention of NATO off the Alba agenda suggest that their new party is not really serious about independence and is really just a narrow forum to attack and undermine Nicola
Indeed – and I shall be pushing, along with others, for Alba to adopt an anti-NATO policy. Whether Alba will get off the ground remains to be seen. Plainly there is a need for the electorate to be offered the chance to vote for people who really do believe in Independence, as opposed to the current SNP troughers.
I understand the desire in 2012 to avert security service and US hostility by the SNP adopting a pro-NATO stance, but I think it was a mistake.
Yes, anti-nato, anti-nuclear, anti-Europe and anti-(pseudo) capitalist. You need a new currency too.
New currency as well go for it. That McCorbynite package will probably ensure that Alba get “Neoni” next time as well 🙂
‘Ow dare you! I have no truck with that right-wing deviationist and craven poltroon. ;O)
I agree and in general, have pointed out that the many overtures and concessions made to establishment institutions haven’t yielded a single ounce of reprieve for the cause of independence. Not. One. Ounce.
This should give pause for thought in anyone who thinks Sturgeon’s continuing appeasement of mainstream media, etc. will yield a different result.
Whether she delivers independence or not, she seems to have succeeded already in turning Scotland into the kind of nation approved of by UN, Nato and NGO bigshots. That is, a simulacrum of Corporate Democrat America, where you’re more likely to be prosecuted for putting a hand on Sturge’s ass than for facilitating mass slaughter of Arabs. Far more likely.
Carl
Alistair Campbell did both.
Haha, indeed he did Giyane!! And her eyes twinkled with delight on both occasions!!
> It was a great shock to discover that UN offices were often staffed by cynical time-servers who had been put into the gig by the ruling class of their home state.
It surprises me that this surprises you, Craig. Jobs at the UN or the European Commission are given to has-been losers – rather like peerages, to get them out of the way (Mandelson?) You don’t even need to be an effective manager to do one of those jobs; in fact, you don’t even need to be polite.
Gee, Craig. It’s almost as though the more expansive and professionalized government becomes, the more corruption you can expect to find in a society or an international system. Just like the American right has always said.
“It’s almost as though the more expansive and professionalized government becomes, the more corruption you can expect to find in a society or an international system.”
But which is cause and which is effect?
O/T.
This article is not good for your blood pressure.
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2021/12/15/whysome-questions-to-ponder/
Excerpt
… Scotland, the top exporter in the UK is forced to trade with the World via ENGLAND. This can lead to some staggering anomalies. For instance ENGLAND exports more whisky than Scotland. The most popular route to export Scottish salmon is via London Heathrow.
THIS IS WHAT YOU CALL COLONIAL POWER BEING FULLY EXERCISED. WHY SOME SCOTS CAN’T SEE IT IS BEYOND ME.
As Ireland was mentioned earlier in the post here is a speech given by Michael Collins in 1921 in Dail Eireann, the Irish Parliament. To give some context after the irish “War of Independence” a truce ensued and a treaty was negotiated by Collins and his team. It didn’t give Ireland the full republic that was wanted and there was a lot of antipathy to the treaty. Collins was one of the prime figures during the war of independence and is famed for his intelligence network that infiltrated the then British security infrastructure. This speech was pro treaty and given during the debate on that treaty before it was in the end ratified by the Dail. This link is that speech in full:
https://www.generalmichaelcollins.com/life-times/treaty/treaty-debate-michael-collins-speech/
“The history of this nation has not been, as is so often said, the history of a military struggle of 750 years; it has been much more a history of peaceful penetration of 750 years. It has not been a struggle for the ideal of freedom for 750 years symbolised in the name Republic. It has been a story of slow, steady, economic encroach by England. It has been a struggle on our part to prevent that, a struggle against exploitation, a struggle against the cancer that was eating up our lives, and it was only after discovering that, that it was economic penetration, that we discovered that political freedom was necessary in order that that should be stopped.”
Of note also at that time America didn’t recognise the Republic Of Ireland that had been founded by a provisional government in 1919 which had kicked off the war of independence in the first place.
The treaty was ratified by the Dail and a civil war ensued in which Collins was killed along with a number of other talented people by former brothers in arms, a great loss for Ireland. There were three naval ports in Ireland that were, as part of that treaty, still held by Great Britian. The full Irish Republic wasn’t declared officially until 1949 some 28 years later. It took until the 1990s for the Irish economy to become truly independent of Great Britian (and instead become dependent on US tech and Big Pharma – go us!). Irish politics took nearly as long to move away from the pro/anti-treaty camps. Please don’t make the same mistakes in Scotland. An independent Scottish economy is the fundamental freedom: secure that and the rest will come.
Thank you for the Link ET, Ireland’s titanic struggles against the British empire back in the day, and indeed now via Brexit and the GRA, shows that Scotland can leave this union and, like Ireland, flourish.
R o S
” colonial.power being fully exercised “
One small philosophical question about symbiotic power relationships.: We know that the English use Passive Aggression by keeping attack dogs , while remaining polite to all humanity themselves. But is the dog co-operating with the human in order to get the Fred Bassett treatment in the luxury of a warm , safe house instead of living the wild life of the urban fox ?
Is the Man keeping the dog, or the dog keeping the man?
And a second entirely philosophical , but related question about symbiotic power relationships, please. I don’t know if this has any pertinent to the relationship of the Scottish Union: Does the English man keep the fighting human, for example the Islamist Jihadist, or does the Islamist Jihadist keep the English man because of the shelter of a nuclear umbrella , the bigger Elephant, to protect his interests?
My point being, that the quickest way for the Scots to escape British colonialism , or indeed Muslims to escape the jackboot of the West, is for all Scots / Muslims to stop longing for the shelter and protection of the evil colonists..
It isn’t just Nicola Sturgeon who wants the luxury of symbiosis, it’s all Scots, and sad to say all Muslims in.my own case.
Stop exercising the dog , and the dog will stop exercising you, or us.
Giyane.
Sturgeon’s treachery aside, the entire media machine in the UK which pumps out its propaganda is against Scottish independence, its difficult to get the knowledge out to folk of how this bucket of sewage union is actually ran by London with Scotland in mind. Scotland has no powers over broadcasting, that is reserved to Westminster it will never be devolved, Catalonia and a small enclave in Moldova have their broadcasting powers but Scotland doesn’t which makes it incredibly difficult to get the message across.
I thought ,in the absence of exact figures, most of the profits from Scottish salmon farming ended up in Norway.I am also far from convinced that the industry offers a net benefit to the country
.As for whisky, it is the image rather than the excellence of the spirit that sells big timre and that image is unfortunately rather more Anglo American , so to the image makers accrue the profits.(Jameson and other Irish whiskeys are successfully targetting a younger demographic , notably in Asia.)
Engineering and manufacturing,as well as oil and gas extraction ,are more convincing areas where the case can and should be made.
Craig will know better than me on this but I think British embassies once promoted Scottish whisky, then they began charging a fee and they threatened or stopped promoting it altogether with the 2014 indyref in mind even though Scottish taxpayers contribute to Foreign Office hospitality.
https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2014/05/snp-slam-uk-whisky-costs/
Er, how is Scotland “forced” to export through England? Has it no airports and docks of its own?
Read the article Tom.
You’ve seen through the pocket of smoke to the dirty reality but the Snats can only maintain this for a while. Someone ought to start chipping away at Snat hegemony by pointing out that the Snats have got what they wanted.
‘There simply is no route to Independence that leads through London. Yet Nicola states the path through London is the only path and no Plan B may even be considered.’
Well, I guess the test of that is whenever the next time that Scots are allowed to vote members into Holyrood.
If an alternative party says ‘We won’t go to London to ask for Independence: if you, the Scottish people, vote in majority for our candidates by total votes cast. Particularly if it is over 55%, then we will simply declare UDI and challenge the UK Prime Minister to prevent it. If Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe managed it back in 1978 or so from the bush in Rhodesia, it wouldn’t be beyond the bounds of possibility for 7 million Scots to achieve it in 202x….'(I realise that UDI was actually declared in the 1960s, but that was in a semi-apartheid state where black majority rule was not to be countenanced).
I can make such an analysis as I have no Scottish blood, live in England and am a firm believer in the will of the people being sovereign. I consider Scotland to be a beautiful land and wish that fewer Scots actually hated the English.
There are actually quite a lot of English voters now in favour of Scottish Independence too – you only have to read certain blogs to be aware of that.
If Scotland does achieve independence, though, I would not advise any economic adventurism: the chances of the English rescuing you a second time is not great given current sentiment south of the border….
I know many supporters of Scottish independence, I myself am one. I know very, very few who hate the English. Westminster yes, the English people, no.
I agree with your assessment that the next election will be the test though, one I suspect the Scottish electorate will fail.
Rhys. That’s a bit unfair. All those years of Scottish oil helping the Thatcher government for starters, when the “rescuers” were Scots…
Rhys, don’t confuse the English people with the ruling classes. If there is any hatred, then it is towards the ruling classes, who may well be Scottish. The MSM like the stereotypical ‘hatred’, but that’s just tabloid shite, stirred up with the fact that English commentary is piped into Scottish homes for any major sporting event. If a microphone was pushed in my face during any sporting event, I’d probably comply with the stereotypical response expected but the reality is one of indifference. Living in Edinburgh, my favourite home game was with England, because the crack was great – until TV money changed the games from a Saturday afternoon… but I’m rambling now – I’m just posting to say that the Scots (muppets aside) do not hate the English. Slainté
i see the future and it scares me
I’m not sure McHarg does state a case at length, it seems to me to be mostly mibbes aye, mibbes naw. I think for many lawyers – who by definition must work within the legal framework – it is easy just to accept the assertion of Westminster sovereignty as the platform on which all else is built. It would be a brave lawyer who looked under the platform to examine the shoogly foundations. However as you have said so often, Independence isn’t a matter of UK law & until we are prepared to face down the assertion that it is we will be beaten before we even start.
I believe what you have written about self determination to be true. Based on that, why is there condemnation of Russia for accepting the Crimean people voting to be under the auspices of Moscow?
John Leon. What ever the interpretation of International Law, and Craig is a strict advocate of it, I can’t see Russia ever allowing Sevastopol and its naval base being taken over by US NATO. It has been a good stick to beat Russia with for the collective west. Organise a violent Midan Coup, impose sanctions by engineering conditions for Russian reaction to protect its own security. The Helsinki accords and Minsk accords are totally ignored by our media. US and NATO won’t stop till they achieve what both Napoleon and Hitler failed to do. What they will achieve is, at best, an economic collapse of the world economy or west a nuclear war. We have crazy people believing in the Rapture in power in US.
Russia, and China, are masters of the long game having intelligent leaders. The manufactured threats relating to the dollar, SWIFT and the Internet have been addressed and neutralised. Sleepy Joe and his mad war dogs and sycophantic puppet regimes will lose out. The world will be a better place without those b@stards.
Brian mulrooney. Big news. Putin has persuaded Modi to have a sumit with himself and China ! US is hopping mad, having hoped to recruit India in its war with China. I hope India realises that its better to be friends with your neighbour and settle border dispute than to be used by US.
Russia and China are taking a defensive posture (for the time being) in the face of increasing erratic and aggressive multi-lateral attacks from the septic tanks and their neoliberal natostani gang bangers. Main reason for this?…..the US and it’s vassals are slowly disintegrating the socio-economic fabric in their own back yards. No need for Russia or China to do anything ‘aggressive’ (yet).
Chess players v rock, paper, scissor players.
Really excellent analysis. Very informative
……. and finally after the supreme court rules she will resign in disgust having tried her best, her stock will rise further still, after a couple of months she will turn up in some plum position.
Just like Milliband the greater or little Danny.
Yes I think a good call Craig.
But what a piece of work she is:
“Appearing more in control than Johnson has not been difficult; nor has the continual adoption of just marginally more restrictive measures than England”
Lockdown is widely acknowledged to have caused massive wellbeing issues; mental health, loneliness, suicide, poor nutrition and obesity, alcohol abuse, domestic violence, delayed diagnosis and treatment of all manner of medical conditions. To inflict “just marginally more” of all that on millions of Scots just to polish her reputation is a crime so disgusting I can hardly comprehend.
If you attribute that damage to lockdowns rather than the pandemic, you have misunderstood the problem.
Covid makes a lot of people who get infected so ill that they need hospital. Without social restrictions it also spreads very fast, sending lots of people to hospital at the same time. If a million or so people all need hospital in the same month, what do you suggest be done with them? Post the army at hospitals to send away anyone with breathing difficulty?
Johnson and Sturgeon have indeed been almost identical in their misrule. Both have dithered, whereas social restrictions need to start promptly, to stop infection from spreading. Social restrictions also need logistic support; universal kerbside delivery of household supplies so that infection isn’t spread by people doing essential shopping – ‘evil’ China managed this so why can’t the “free” countries? It is also wrong to keep people confined to their homes; infection barely spreads outdoors in fresh air so long as people maintain social distancing. Proper managed quarantine facilities funded by government are required – sending the infected home usually infects everyone in the same household. Done properly like this, social restrictions should need to last a maximum of five weeks. One lockdown in Melbourne, Australia, imposed immediately upon the detection of just nine positive tests, lasted just five days before track and trace got everyone infected into quarantine.
I have always disagreed with you on COVID issues. We just seem to have completely different thinking processes and assumptions.
But I if you can put that aside, my point is this; that if England did “enough” based on CMO advice etc. Sturgeon turning the screw just-ever-so-slightly-more for the sole reason of looking good is a sign of a very disturbed psyche.
By the way I live in China (about 300 km from Wuhan actually) and have done since CNY 2018. I was here for the 2020 lock down. You may ask questions about my experience if you would like to know how it was or is now.
I try to avoid holding assumptions, and instead seek out evidence.
I agree that Sturgeon doing “just-ever-so-slightly-more for the sole reason of looking good” was entirely wrong. Following the Johnson government’s lead on anything is dumb; surpassing it on covid was idiotic. Westminster lurched from trying to ignore it and do nothing, to attempting to show off with the Nightingale Hospitals but that couldn’t be staffed, abolishing what little parliamentary scrutiny we had left, and inflicting authoritarianism upon the public, while using the whole sorry débâcle to award vast public contracts to their best friends.
Yes, I am interested in your experiences in China; I suggest you start a new topic in the discussion forums, the “Create New Topic” form is at the bottom of this page:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/forum/discussion-forum/
Andic, please take a look at this:
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1139035/v1
– SARS-CoV-2 infection and persistence throughout the human body and brain
– COVID-19 is known to cause multi-organ dysfunction in acute infection, with prolonged symptoms experienced by some patients, termed Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC). However, the burden of infection outside the respiratory tract and time to viral clearance is not well characterized, particularly in the brain. We performed complete autopsies on 44 patients with COVID-19 to map and quantify SARS-CoV-2 distribution, replication, and cell-type specificity across the human body, including brain, from acute infection through over seven months following symptom onset. We show that SARS-CoV-2 is widely distributed, even among patients who died with asymptomatic to mild COVID-19, and that virus replication is present in multiple extrapulmonary tissues early in infection. Further, we detected SARS-CoV-2 RNA in multiple anatomic sites, including regions throughout the brain, for up to 230 days following symptom onset. Despite extensive distribution of SARS-CoV-2 in the body, we observed a paucity of inflammation or direct viral cytopathology outside of the lungs. Our data prove that SARS-CoV-2 causes systemic infection and can persist in the body for months.
Good news – Lib Dems just won N Shropshire from the Tories:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-59687316
Lib Dems are functionally indistinguishable from the Tories and Starmer’s Labour. All three are Establishment parties promoting the same neoliberal ideology.
I believe the LibDems would seek to restrain the excesses of free-market capitalism.
“I believe the LibDems would seek to restrain the excesses of free-market capitalism.”
Why?
They proposed a permanent budget surplus at the last election. Permanent austerity. Hardest right economic agenda of any mainstream party.
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/general-election-2019-liberal-democrats-permanent-spending-surplus-363716
Johnny c’s q was a good one. I think entering a coalition with Tories was a bitter lesson for the LibDems. They got blamed for Tory austerity (which they were probably none too enthusiastic about supporting) and decimated at the election. Hopefully they’ll stick to their principles, by which I really mean outlook, more conscientiously in future.
Their principles are now firmly to the right of the Tories. Ed Davey under no pressure from anyone at the last election expressed disgust at the Tories for ending austerity and in his words for making “Santa Claus seem like Scrooge”.
That strongly resonated with ordinary Lib Dem members because they then elected him party leader. Their outlook and principles are crystal clear to anyone interested to see.
I think Ed Davey needs to be careful. Trying to outdo the Tories in austerity could back-fire. To me moderation is the LibDems’ strength.
“I believe the LibDems would seek to restrain the excesses of free-market capitalism.”
Also, this assumes we have axtually got free market capitalism rather than a system of semi-monopolies.
That North Shrops fake by election result in full
47.2% of a 46.3% turnout = 21.3% of the electorate. Abstainers win again.
Turn up or don’t be counted!
Jay up to a point that is close to true but the by election defeat is symbolic of the crumbling of the Johnson cult. Unfortunately (or fortunately) there is no quick way to reform. Although all three parties are essentially chasing the same brain zone of the same voters and offering slight variations on the principles of continuity and caution, a new consensus will emerge and a different consciousness will be shaped.
At the moment the Brexit fantasy holds sway in England which, like it or not, is the overwhelmingly dominant demographic, technical, economic and political infrastructural component of the UK.
England is in the grip of a fantasy related to its colonial past. It’s an empire without an empire, just as Scotland is a monarchy without a monarch and Wales is a principality without a prince.
The whole political system is utterly divorced from the challenges we all face over the next decade. By that I mean the unserviceability of our politics to deal with immense big issues. (Nato – touched on elsewhere in comments – is one)
Johnson is a symbol of the denialism that provides the fraying threads that hold the fantasy together. Johnsons position is clearly untenable already. When that strand snaps just watch for the flood of rats and ‘mees mogs’ running for cover. The Tories, despite their parliamentary impregnability, are very very fragile philosopically and woefully equipped to deal with looming crises. One crisis in waiting is Scotland and independence. The general position is untenable and no amount of SNP Olympic standard prevarication will be able to avoid the chasm between Scotland and England, and indeed the north of England and the south of England.
Aftrr the latest round of yet unreasoned restrictions all of Nicolas cohort and cabal should be denied hospitality everywhere, which would encourage her to a more mondane activity called cooking at home.
I am sure that the most lucrative and most pressed industry in Scotland would at least speak with a common voice.
‘Sorry Nicola, no fine dining for you here whilst good food in warehouses, destined to be cooked and consumed over the holidays and yule, are running out of date/ rotting away.They should now be given out to those who have very little, and you Nicola, should be given the instructions to do so.’
Not to SNP wokies and well off middle classes, but to those who cant feed themselves for price rises and inflation.
Rhys Jaggar. You advised Scotland not to practice “economic adventurism” if it gains Independence. Surely printing fake money limitless “Quntative Easing” is economic adventurism on steroids. The world trading currency Dollar has been a free lunch for US for decades with nothing to back it up except IOU’s in the form of US Treasuries. China and Russia have instead been buying gold and yesterday announced they have an architecture in place to trade with each other in their own currency not using the Dollar. Victoria Nulan threatened Russia with removal from SWIFT, weaponising the Dollar as usual. As US did by sanctions on Iran. Well the world is dividing slowly into two camps, those who want to trade with each other without using a politised Dollar (debt ridden) and those who have bought gold to back their currency, rather than QE printing. I hope a truly Independent Scotland indeed does not follow the “economic adventurism” you mention !
Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of US World Domination by Professor Michael Hudson.
I agree with you and I don’t think you ever heard me promoting Boris Johnson’s economic policy since December 2019. I have sent him and his colleagues plenty of nuclear missiles via electronic ranting, mostly about wasting $400bn on the plandemic.
You need to distinguish between what ordinary people in England think and what politicians do.
The disconnect is as large as the disconnect between nationalist voters in Scotland and Nicola Sturgeon right now.
“Plandemic”? Oh dear.
Latest UK deaths from all causes –
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/10december2021
See those huge peaks in that graph? Something killed all those people; I wonder what could have done that? Clues – most doctors don’t falsify “cause of death” on death certificates, breathing difficulty not test results are a criteria for hospital admission, and the chances of dying in any given month are relatively low.
Spot on Craig. Her talks in Georgetown and at the CFR should have been a wake up call for most of us.
I’m Really depressed about Scottish indy Chances Right now. UDI..NOW
Forgot Where I seen This. a few days ago ..It was – Grouse Beater – with letter from The Scottish Sovereignty Research Group (SSRG)
A Referendum Fail
November 10, 2021 by Grouse Beater
“The main thrust of SSRG thinking is, the Scottish government has been given enough mandates, saw Brexit drive a bulldozer through the Treaty of Union, and must now sieze the initiative to declare the Union a dud and begin organising Scotland to restore autonomy and a new accord with a troubled England. The UK is at its weakest, with the Tory party suffocating in its own corruption, self- harming by isolating from the EU and the USA, fearful of an ‘Irish’ President Joe Biden, and witnessing Northern Ireland return to violence. You can hear the Tory party desparate to invoke Article 16 and ditch the Brexit withdrawal agreement entirely. For England to take action against Scotland in any retalitory or vindictive form will kill dead what integrity and status is left in the ‘mother of all parliaments’.”
https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2021/11/10/a-referendum-fail/?
Come on, Brian, we’ll get there… in the meantime, hope this helps lift the depression!
Peat & Diesel Feat MAIREAD – Fairytale of Stornoway (YouTube, 4m 2s)
Thank You JOML..I really Needto go HEB -CELT Somtime..Mean
Time..You Get To DOUNE… >>Have a pleasant 2022.
Hi Craig,
Firstly, glad you survived that ordeal, it must have been hellish for you and your young family.
On Scottish independence. The trappings of power have undoubtedly dimmed the independence flame and enthusiasm in large parts of the SNP. But isn’t it fair to say, that even if Sturgeon were secretly 100% pro-independence, wouldn’t she ,and they, have to let the whole Westminster refusal process play out anyway? For support, while strong, needs its own booster in the form of the Westminster’s categorical rejection. Any UDI moves would be far too radical a step for this SNP. And wouldn’t all elements of the UK security state and other parties, feel free to interfere in any non-officially sanctioned confirmation vote to delegitimize that? It’d be a bumpy ride, with Rumsfeld’s ‘unknown unknowns’ coming into play.
On the subject of Nato, it’d be interesting to hear your views on Nato’s Strangelovian chief Jens Stoltenberg, mooting the possibility of Ukraine joining Nato. It seems like a recipe for disaster. A country in the midst of a civil war joining Nato with all the obligations that entails. Does Crimea technically join Nato at the same time as Kiev? Would Stoltenberg have Europeans fighting to force resistant ethnic Russians in the east and Crimeans back under Kiev’s rule? The idea being pushed by our MSM that Putin is about to march on on Kiev, to rule over a hostile Ukrainian population, and run their basket case economy in order to fulfill some vainglorious personal dream of recreating the USSR, also seems like absurd propaganda nonsense being pushed by intel people and fed to our media. I’d guess Russian troops are stationed across the border to prevent an all-out assault on the East by the Ukrainian govt, and that’s all.
Goose. Yes, I think Russia is prepared to protect the Russian speakers in East Ukraine. Putin is trying to reason with NATO that Helsinki points out that every nation is allowed to arrange its security, but not at the expense of others. Ergo, Russia does not feel secure with NATO and its missiles in Poland and Bulgaria. Moving bases and missiles into Ukraine is a Red Line. To this end he is trying to have negotiations to come to sensible compromise. He quotes the arrangement agreed to over Austria, where it is pro West but not in NATO and neutral. Why he says can’t all the ” buffer ” states be neutral? I don’t think NATO is interested and positively hostile to any scaling back of its role in militarism. To that end Russian Generals, in my opinion will no longer accept NATO encroachment, with missiles on its door step, five minutes flight time to Moscow. A reverse Cuban missile crisis due very shortly !
Wikikettle
I hope big and wise adults may negotiate and prevent a military conflict.
It’s a very tense and dangerous situation, the news is frightening.
On Wednesday, Russia handed over to the United States its draft treaty on the non-expansion of NATO to the East. The US administration has commented that they are not ready to discuss this with Russia publicly. The European Union said that there are well-established platforms for discussing this issue, such as the Russia-NATO council.
This makes one think that the US is thinking on some non-public agreement. Definetely, that would be not in the interest of the EU. Russia doesn’t want a non-public agreement either, since one of the requirements is a legally enshrined agreement. And most of all, that would not suit Ukraine, whom I feel most sorry for in this conflict!
They were offered only the status of a NATO partner country, but not membership, which means that Ukraine allows the deployment of NATO facilities on its territory, thereby becoming the target of strikes in a possible war, but at the same time NATO is not obliged to defend Ukraine itself, since it is formally not a member country !!!
Today Russia is withdrawing from the open skies treaty, saying that the United States withdrew from it in 2020, and European countries refused to guarantee that they would not transfer the information collected by this way, to Washington.
Wikikettle
I really don’t understand why Nato and Stoltenberg and other EU leaders are being so insensitive to Moscow’s genuine security concerns here. You don’t have to be sympathetic to Russia in other areas to see their point over this.
Stoltenberg claims Nato membership is solely a decision for the countries involved, he includes Ukraine in that view. But one look at the map shows why Ukraine and Belarus are simply off-limits for Nato deployment as far as Moscow is concerned – Nato missiles would be in Russia’s backyard; the flight time would be cut to minutes with missiles bearing down on the capital Moscow. It’d be like holding a Nato gun to Moscow’s head.
The US would find any equivalent build up of Chinese/Russian missiles in close proximity to Washington, D.C. wholly unacceptable, that’s certain. Staggeringly inconsiderate stuff from Stoltenberg and the US. I genuinely believe European citizens would be angry if they knew this game of Russian roulette Stoltenberg, Nato and the EU are seemingly intent on playing.
And yes, it’s the Cuban missile crisis in reverse, on steroids, and we know how the US reacted at the prospect of that. Did they see that as purely a sovereign decision for Cuba?
Obvious elephant in the room, NATO is NOT an independent organisation, it’s an extension of the US.
NATO – North American Terrorist Organisation !
Yes – it’s why I and plenty of other normal European citizens want NATO dissolved and, if that won’t happen, they want their own countries to cancel their membership.
I don’t want my whole life dominated by nutcases in the USA and that is the effect of being in NATO the past 20 years.
I think that the problem with a UDI is that the declaration has to be defended and as we saw with Catalonia, if the people will not fight the central state’s attack then the secessionists are made to look ridicoulous.
Were they ridiculous? ?Not so sure. It revealed the oppressive nature of the Spanish state. Whether that encourages or suppresses activism is questionable. Its a moot point. I personally think it may strengthen resolve. I return to the point made earlier that Scottish independence will be contested to a bitter conclusion, The UK state ends with the formnation (typo but an appropriate one given the topic) of an independent Scotland. When the UK ends, all the favours, privileges and benefits and status of the elites are made questionable or threatened. All the major institutions are greatly weakened. Some of the indefensible legal principles are eroded or made questionable in an international context. Its economy and revenue streams are made less secure. The incumbents will resist with every fibre of their being. Indy Scotland is an existential threat. An Indy Scotland within the EU would be an even more serious problem for the rump uk. The dangers are huge and I think that explains the Sturgeon reticence more than some secret unstated unionism or capture by the security state..
Ken-
Yep, a very real prospect if the people simply don’t share your revolutionary zeal.
“Scotland must declare Independence through a National Assembly of its combined Holyrood and UK parliamentarians, and hold a confirmatory plebiscite as an independent state.”
Seems superficially attractive, but that assumes any plebiscite would result in an overwhelmingly approval by the Scottish people. I’d fear that the well-organized, well-funded UK state apparatus + MSM supported unionists could mount a campaign to boycott any confirmatory vote in an attempt to delegitimize the whole thing. In that scenario, separatists could be left high and dry and Scotland left in weird limbo. The SNP leadership aren’t exactly the types the people to put their necks on the line like that for something that could go either way. I’m sure people would agree that in such a scenario, and the recriminations could kill the independence movement much as the bitter recriminations did for Québec post their 2nd vote.
Whether due to SNP inactivity and silence, or some other reason, independence support hovers around mid-50s in terms of popular support, at best. It’d probably rise in any campaign, but it’s stubbornly below the 70-80% you’d need to be absolutely confident when pulling a bold move like that.
Since support is stubbornly stuck <60% , would true Devo-max – incl. true fiscal autonomy, be such a terrible way of proving to the skeptics Scotland can perfectly well go it alone?
I don’t know Nicola Sturgeon. I don’t know if the accusations against her are true or false. I don’t know if the evidence Craig and others level against her has any merit, or if the “evidence” could also be interpreted in a way which does not imply she’s a British agent.
In my opinion, a group of folk (a tiny group) have decided that she is guilty, and interpret every action and every inaction as “proof” of her malfeasance.
That’s fine. Each to their own. What I DO know, is that the POSSIBILITY that Sturgeon might WANT a job with the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, NATO, The Council of Europe, the OSCE, or the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, sometime in the future, is NOT “evidence” in any way, shape or form.
This is desperate stuff, Craig……
Moorov doctrine anyone?
Good on you Alex, spot on and when Nicola does go for Independence we will win it. If she gets a job at the top tables after we gain our freedom from the corrupt government in London I for one could not begrudge her.
I voted for Craig as President of the SNP, I’m glad he lost.
Craig is trying to give you a head’s up, do not shoot the messenger. Be angry at yourself for vesting trust in one of these self-absorbed sociopath politicians.
Fonso, I’m not shooting any messengers. I’m criticising the message. Are we seriously suggesting that Sturgeon is a bad actor, because of a completely imaginary series of events, which MIGHT happen in the future?
I have my own doubts about all politicians, including Sturgeon, and I’m open to real evidence either way, but introducing something that MIGHT happen in the future as EVIDENCE of her motivations for what she is doing today, is just ridiculous!
Even if Craig had suggested that Sturgeon has mentioned that she has such ambitions, I might have given some credence to this, but everything seems to have sprung from his imagination.
I am an admirer of Craig Murray. He is a man of principle. He walks the walk. However, he has a blind spot when it comes to the SNP, and this article indicates that he is just as far along the “I hate Sturgeon” spectrum, as the folk who worship Sturgeon are at the opposite end.
There is little doubt that this “ambition” that Sturgeon supposedly has will become “proof” of her malfeasance in the minds of those who think she is a traitor to independence, because there is no way of disproving it!
“Are we seriously suggesting that Sturgeon is a bad actor?“
Don’t know what YOU are suggesting but if you stick to logic – if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck …
DunGroanin, if you are going to quote, it’s better if you don’t selectively quote. I have said all along that I’m not dogmatic about Sturgeon’s innocence, but I’m not dogmatic about her guilt either, like Craig and others are.
My WHOLE point is that using an imaginary ambition, which Sturgeon has never articulated, about some possible future job as “EVIDENCE” of her malfeasance is just plain ridiculous.
I love reading Craig’s stuff, and he has educated me in many ways, but this is just ridiculous
He has not educated you in any way that I can see.
Fonso your opinion on my state of education is almost totally ignorant. I agree with Craig on just about every subject he writes about – except this.
Craig welcomes comments and – unlike you, never attacks the person commenting.
If you think that Craig is right to talk about Sturgeon’s “future”, implying that it is indicative of her character and motivations, then that is your opinion. Mine differs
You’re not being asked to judge guilt in a situation that might lead to jail time, you’re being asked to judge what is likely to be someone’s motivation, with a view to giving your political support.
‘That would require a leader of the nation for whom Independence is an overriding priority. Which will never be Nicola Sturgeon.’
Thatcher’s children on the ‘progressive’ neo-liberal flank have almost all been motivated solely by personal power and prestige and enrichment. There was never a reason to believe Ms Sturgeon was different to the other deities of liberal media — the Blairs, Cleggs, Clintons or Obamas. The most annoying thing is that even after they step away or get kicked out of power that is not the last we hear from them, despite them leaving virtually nothing of value from their time in charge. Like them Sturgeon is going to be revered forever and turned to as an important voice of reason. We will never be free of her.
Fonso, there was never a reason to suppose that Sturgeon is one of Thatcher’s children, and you’re as bad as Craig, by using imaginary future events as evidence that she is. Compare her to Blair if you will, but try using evidence from the past or the present, rather than the future, eh?
You are overloaded in this article with evidence of her footdragging on independence, of her being an exemplary UK foreign policy hawk. You nay recall she had the blog host imprisoned for daring to report the defence’s case in the Salmond fit up. Politically she is entirely in the extreme centrist New Labour-New Democrat mould and would proudly acknowledge as much herself. If you think you have somehow persuaded me otherwise go ahead and believe it but it hardly alters reality.
Fonso, you are right that there is “evidence” of her footdragging, of her being an exemplary UK foreign policy hawk. The “evidence” is highly debatable, but nevertheless, it exists. Your assertion that she “had the blog host imprisoned” is entirely without evidence, no matter how much Craig wants it to be true. Your opinion of her political stance is also open to debate.
What is NOT open to debate, is that these “prophesies” by Craig about her future career ARE NOT EVIDENCE.
I am open to persuasion when presented with real evidence, but I will NOT consider “prophesies ” about future careers as “evidence” of her character. It would be ignorance on stilts to do so.
Your opinion on Sturgeon is yours (and Craig’s), and you might be able to persuade others with the “evidence” you present. What you can’t do is persuade anybody that future “crimes” should be used to convict folk in the presence. Didn’t a Tom Cruise film posit this idea?
SNP/Labour ran Edinburgh council exploiting Edinburgh and giving London based firms access to the Festival to make millions. The kickbacks must be good.
https://twitter.com/SaorAlbannach/status/1472141420119175169
Where there is money there is corruption, where there is corruption there is politicians, QED.
Unlike the Rep. of Ireland whose people fought for freedom over the centuries and achieved by war not politics , Scotland never had the same hunger after 1745….anyway glad you are free after an unjust sentence