What is it about lying?

The rules are simple, they lie to us, we know they are lying, they know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we know they know we know they are lying, but they are still lying.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.” Goebbels

When truth is replaced by silence ,the silence is a lie.”
― Yevgeny Yevtushenko

There are times when I watch some Unionists dissing Scotland and or nationalism and I wonder if they believe the words coming out of their mouths or if they know we know they are lying but it’s become so ingrained in them that they cannot stop?

There are lots of lies unionists tell, many encapsulated in the “too wee, too poor, too stupid” line. The two which annoy me the most perhaps because I think they have really cut through to people are the “Scottish education and schools are rubbish” and “Scottish Government debt”.

When Larry Flanagan retired as EIS general Secretary, he said “I completely reject the narrative of failure that sometimes comes from politicians and one of the constant problems that education faces is that it is in the crosshairs of the binary political debate – which basically means anything positive about what the Scottish Government does is seen as endorsing independence and ­anything critical goes in the opposite direction,” 

He went on to criticise in particular Jamie Stone MP, (sometimes known as the Stone of Density) who asked Tory education ­minister ­Nadhim Zahawi “to share best practice with the Scottish ­Government” so the “scandal” of Scottish education could be “sorted out”. 

Flanagan said “I was absolutely appalled because Scottish education is way ahead of the English system,” He added “Most parents – and prior to ­Covid, HMI surveys indicated this – ­understand what the schools do on behalf of their children so this critique of Scottish education as somehow in decline drives me to despair,”

Outgoing EIS chief Larry Flanagan bemoans ‘political football’ | The National

I am pleased that he said these things but I have to wonder if they might have had a much greater impact if they had been said loudly and clearly each and every time education was attacked rather than when he was leaving office. The silence of the EIS in defence of education was deafening!

The other big lie is that Scotland, and by extension the Scottish Government runs a huge deficit!

There are lots of lies in there primarily because the Scottish Government does not have the legal powers to do so. Indeed, when I served on Falkirk Council, until 2017, we had more borrowing power than the entire Scottish Government! And like every Council the SG is required by law to run a balanced budget!  

It can rightly be claimed that Scotland has a share of the UK deficit but that is because the UK Government is incapable of running a balanced budget. There is much talk of an Independent Scotland having a deficit of approx. £180 billion but that figure is”our share” of the UK deficit of over £2 trillion. It also makes the gross assumption that despite the Unionist elites doing everything in their power to make life difficult, we would still cough up “our share”. 

Actions have consequences folks!

In the months before the vote, we must hammer home the fact that unionism is based on a fabric woven from lies.

We must simply tell them on every tv interview, newspaper column and radio discussion that they are liars. That they know they are lying, we know they are lying even though they are unable to do anything else. There simply is no honest and positive case for the Union. 

It’s time!