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Scottish Politics II

Two can play the loopy protestor image game.

BrfosMp.jpg
 
What is it about the SNP that gets your rage face on? Like the guys in pictures I posted? It predates the referendum campaign, what is it?
 
The SNP I recall (in my days as a Labour Party and trades union activist in Scotland, before work drew me south) were a bunch of puffed up balloons, who thought support for the SNP made them cool and interesting. Since then the party has grown a bit but it still seems to attract the same sad bastards. Utterly catastrophic record of the SNP in government since 2007 is a direct consequence of these clowns running the show and having no interest whatsoever in making things better in Scotland - indeed, the worse things get, the more they can blame the English and say everything would be sweetness and light if independence suddenly dawned.

This is indeed the only explanation for Scotland doing worse than England on every conceivable measure for which the Scottish 'government' has responsibility - education, health, business start-ups, drug and alcohol deaths, you name it - for the last 15 years. No party could be quite that incompetent. Not even Boris's Tories.
 
What’s your beef with the democratically elected governing parties in N.Ireland and Scotland specifically? You conjoined the two. When you say you “find the whole Orange thing pretty distasteful”, I’d say the majority of people in Scotland find it highly offensive and they’re sickened by the criminality on display every time they take to the streets. What is it that links religious bigotry, aniti-semitism, far right violence and outrage at the SNP?
 
The two guys in the paper suits they’re not like the ones in the photo of George Square on the night of the referendum, the ones giving the nazi salute and meting out violence. It seems absurd even to have to point it out.

21aZoTb.jpg

“no thanks (to independence)”. Comedic politeness given the context.
 
TheDecameron said:
What’s your beef with the democratically elected governing parties in N.Ireland and Scotland specifically? You conjoined the two. When you say you “find the whole Orange thing pretty distasteful”, I’d say the majority of people in Scotland find it highly offensive and they’re sickened by the criminality on display every time they take to the streets. What is it that links religious bigotry, aniti-semitism, far right violence and outrage at the SNP?
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I grew up going to Catholic schools, in fear of the Orange mob. In recent years, when my wife, an acadamic, was offered a job at Queens in Belfast, I took there there to show her what life was like in Belfast beyond the little area near the university (she's a non-white, non-European and completely ignorant of the situation there). I have no truck with Orangeism or with anti-semitism - as I said, Marco banned me from AoS for calling out some of the vile anti-semitic conspiracy stuff he and some of his acolytes were spouting. (Marco, incidentally, is a committed Scottish nationalist, as well as an anti-vax nutjob). Equally, I have no time for Irish Republicanism having grown up with just how nasty and anti-democratic means-to-an-end, rabid nationalists can be - I saw it at first hand in my own community. Who could possibly cheer a bomb that killed a bunch of musicians, even in army uniform?

I see the SNP as coming from exactly same place as the Orange bigots, anti-semites and IRA thugs, though of course the SNP would claim it's different - but whatever rubbish they talk about 'civic nationalism', at the end of the day their whole raison d'etre is anti-English bigotry. I have lived away from Scotland since 1991, except for two years when I moved back (2002-2004). When I moved back, I had two kids, up till then raised in Somerset, with English accents. Their experience at (Catholic) primary schools and by the kids in the (fairly posh) neighbourhood was appalling - bullied relentlessly for their accents. At this point I had been like many other Scots - broadly sympathetic to all the 'wha's like us?' bollocks (and it is bollocks). I was anti-SNP as I had found them little more than an irritant in achieving political goals, back in my Labour Party days. But this time I was confronted with the reality of all that anti-English, anti-'Westmister' (code for anti-English) rhetoric. Since then things have only got worse, while the SNP have got into bed with Sinn Fein in many more ways than previously. I moved south in disgust after two years. England is far, far less racist than Scotland. My wife would be the first to tell you that based on her direct experience, however nice my family have been to her.

The SNP are a poison on the Scottish body politic, promulgating a victim narrative that is utterly ahistorical and in many cases downright laughable. The SNP's assertion of 'alternative facts' meanwhile is delusional and often quite sick - there is no serious economist anywhere that believes secession would be anything less than a disaster for Scotland, at least in the short to medium term. Long term, yes maybe, but not without a period of austerity never before seen in any advanced country.

I happened to vote Brexit, which at the time was an on-balance thing as I thought the EU anti-democratic, and the UK's position within it to be unsustainable in a world of ever-closer union and Eurozone-dominated discourse. I still believe this was correct but I was aware of and still acknowledge the down-sides, especially in the short-term. I don't think we'll really know if it was successful until maybe 20 years have passed. There are many potential up-sides but this useless Tory government has not reached out to grasp any of them. This is a problem of a useless government, rather than of Brexit itself.

But one major reason I voted for it is that I believed it would shoot the nationalist fox - frankly, Brexit makes Scottish seccession the equivalent of taking a shotgun to your head. The more rabid SNP members might well be willing to do this but I doubt very much if a majority of Scots would ever be willing to do the same.
 
TheDecameron said:
I know I once foolishly said you’re far more entertaining when you let your junk hang out but that’s far too whiffy . Touting the notorious British racist Farage on pfm while posing as his critic in the same breath. “some might think he’s a frog faced fascist but he does make some exceedingly good points does he not?”.
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I love the way you've totally ignored the points that I made in the main lump of both that, and my previous posts - because you have no answer to them - and homed, with laser-like precision, into the juicy distraction of Farage, and your favoured bully-boy meme of hanging junk. You are amusingly predictable.

I take it in summary that you do not believe in PR, a written constitution, and the abolition of the HoL?
 
eternumviti said:
I take it in summary that you do not believe in PR, a written constitution, and the abolition of the HoL?
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Instituted in any way farage approved of or had a hand in? You must be joking.
That Mr Hitler, say what you like about him, but he had some good ideas, didn't he?
 
eternumviti said:
I love the way you've totally ignored the points that I made in the main lump of both that, and my previous posts - because you have no answer to them - and homed, with laser-like precision, into the juicy distraction of Farage, and your favoured bully-boy meme of hanging junk. You are amusingly predictable.

I take it in summary that you do not believe in PR, a written constitution, and the abolition of the HoL?
Click to expand...
I don’t believe in touting the pronouncements of a grubby racist like Nigel Farage on the forum. My views on PR, written constitution and the HoL are entirely different matters.
 
montesquieu said:
I grew up going to Catholic schools, in fear of the Orange mob. In recent years, when my wife, an acadamic, was offered a job at Queens in Belfast, I took there there to show her what life was like in Belfast beyond the little area near the university (she's a non-white, non-European and completely ignorant of the situation there). I have no truck with Orangeism or with anti-semitism - as I said, Marco banned me from AoS for calling out some of the vile anti-semitic conspiracy stuff he and some of his acolytes were spouting. (Marco, incidentally, is a committed Scottish nationalist, as well as an anti-vax nutjob). Equally, I have no time for Irish Republicanism having grown up with just how nasty and anti-democratic means-to-an-end, rabid nationalists can be - I saw it at first hand in my own community. Who could possibly cheer a bomb that killed a bunch of musicians, even in army uniform?

I see the SNP as coming from exactly same place as the Orange bigots, anti-semites and IRA thugs, though of course the SNP would claim it's different - but whatever rubbish they talk about 'civic nationalism', at the end of the day their whole raison d'etre is anti-English bigotry. I have lived away from Scotland since 1991, except for two years when I moved back (2002-2004). When I moved back, I had two kids, up till then raised in Somerset, with English accents. Their experience at (Catholic) primary schools and by the kids in the (fairly posh) neighbourhood was appalling - bullied relentlessly for their accents. At this point I had been like many other Scots - broadly sympathetic to all the 'wha's like us?' bollocks (and it is bollocks). I was anti-SNP as I had found them little more than an irritant in achieving political goals, back in my Labour Party days. But this time I was confronted with the reality of all that anti-English, anti-'Westmister' (code for anti-English) rhetoric. Since then things have only got worse, while the SNP have got into bed with Sinn Fein in many more ways than previously. I moved south in disgust after two years. England is far, far less racist than Scotland. My wife would be the first to tell you that based on her direct experience, however nice my family have been to her.

The SNP are a poison on the Scottish body politic, promulgating a victim narrative that is utterly ahistorical and in many cases downright laughable. The SNP's assertion of 'alternative facts' meanwhile is delusional and often quite sick - there is no serious economist anywhere that believes secession would be anything less than a disaster for Scotland, at least in the short to medium term. Long term, yes maybe, but not without a period of austerity never before seen in any advanced country.

I happened to vote Brexit, which at the time was an on-balance thing as I thought the EU anti-democratic, and the UK's position within it to be unsustainable in a world of ever-closer union and Eurozone-dominated discourse. I still believe this was correct but I was aware of and still acknowledge the down-sides, especially in the short-term. I don't think we'll really know if it was successful until maybe 20 years have passed. There are many potential up-sides but this useless Tory government has not reached out to grasp any of them. This is a problem of a useless government, rather than of Brexit itself.

But one major reason I voted for it is that I believed it would shoot the nationalist fox - frankly, Brexit makes Scottish seccession the equivalent of taking a shotgun to your head. The more rabid SNP members might well be willing to do this but I doubt very much if a majority of Scots would ever be willing to do the same.
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Again, with more feeling. Chris Pincher style.
 
ff1d1l said:
Instituted in any way farage approved of or had a hand in? You must be joking.
Click to expand...

I think you might be putting words into my mouth. Sneaky, that.

ff1d1l said:
That Mr Hitler, say what you like about him, but he had some good ideas, didn't he?
Click to expand...

The autobahn network thing certainly caught on, though the use of forced labour to build them certainly didn't prove as enduring.

'Volkswagens' to drive on them proved a bit of a hit too.
 
TheDecameron said:
I don’t believe in touting the pronouncements of a grubby racist like Nigel Farage on the forum. My views on PR, written constitution and the HoL are entirely different matters.
Click to expand...

It seems that they're quite possibly not. I suspect you find that a bit awkward. The bubble of condescending moral fundamentalism often gives a more pleasing 'pop' when the pin goes in.

As I said, strange times, strange alliances. Whilst I happen to find most of the views of the unmentionable Mr Farage thoroughly disagreeable, he was routinely right on the EU institutions, and it appears that the EU was roughly in the frame with him on immigration, content as it is to pay vast sums to nice 'third countries' such as Libya and Turkey to keep would be immigrants in comfortable 'holding' camps in those countries. Why, even the saintly M.Barnier retired from virtual Beatification as the remainers' most adored EU functionary, and campaigned for the French Presidency on a ticket of calling a 'moratorium' on all immigration!

And here we are, you and I - and Mr Unmentionable - at the very least broadly in accord on matters of the UK constitution and electoral methodology. It's a real bugger.
 
Anyway, it appears that I've allowed myself to be drawn, in characteristic pfm bunny holeism, a bit off-topic.

There were questions about Scotland, by means of some miraculous conjuring of long spent oil revenues that didn't anyway belong to her, meeting the strict economic criteria of EU entry, and thus having to place a hard border against its biggest export market.

They didn't, by means of above-mentioned bunnyholeism, ever really get addressed. It is a not unimportant point.
 
I realise Question Time is beneath many here but Angus Robertson last night was eye opening. He doesn’t GAF about the actual issues Scotland faces, he’s only interested in independence. I sense quite a sinister, fanatical side exists amongst the SNP and its supporters. There was a guy in the audience who was hell bent on independence and his solution on how to pay for it was ‘tax the rich’. Good luck with that, they’ll have cleared off. A Scottish comic on the panel (forget her name) suggested the solution to Scotlands horrendous drug problem is to legalise hard drugs, which can only happen with independence. Quite staggering.
 
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