On:
In: Aileen Orr

I know you’re thinking here we go, but actually I’m concerned about campaigning for the next election.  For those who brace the elements, gather intelligence, and attend branch and campaign meetings.  Then proudly put up on social media about where you’ve been and how much fun you had.  Only to be met with a barrage of Unionist hatred.  Well, that’s what we are fighting against, but it would be good not to join in. We are expected to act in a respectful and intelligent manner, however, there are times when the red mist descends and the normally calm and considerate amongst us just can’t takeRead More →

On:
In: Margaret Hamilton

Debate on the radio recently has made me wonder. Do the fiercest defenders of everything to do with the union and the associations with the Great in Britain, come from certain backgrounds? Parts of society who defiantly oppose any form of change or modernisation.  The debate that got me thinking was about the future of the Commonwealth Games. I grew up in a time when the Commonwealth was fairly prominent in our lives. I even did the Commonwealth Knowledge badge when I was in the guides. Listening to the people in athletics being interviewed, there did not seem to be the same enthusiasm at insisting that these games continue.Read More →

On:
In: Michael Hance

In the Joint Declaration on Peace issued on 15 December 1993 the UK government stated that it had no ‘selfish strategic or economic’ interest in Northern Ireland.  Westminster certainly isn’t getting the kind of economic or strategic benefits from Northern Ireland that it gets from Scotland but it’s not certain that they are ready to give up the territory quite yet.  When the DUP finally got round to accepting the results of the last Northern Ireland Assembly elections in February, the British press was full of articles assuring its readers that a united Ireland was never going to happen.  Contrary to its usual complete disinterest,Read More →

On:
In: Aileen Orr

I can’t really say anything this week which would ignore George Galloway.  Dear old George, he’s made it to the benches far far away in the turrets of craziness.  He doesn’t want independence for Scotland but Independence for Gaza and just about everywhere else in the World.  So what do we do with these Scots who just can’t see the hypocrisy in all of these calls? With George it’s just politics.  He has hit on a hot topic and milking it.  He is not mad, he has just manipulated a situation ripe for a rebel, he just morphed into the void that needed filling, byRead More →

On:
In: Stephen Bird

Over the years there have been many good arguments put forward for why we need a written constitution but none have been as persuasive as the utter farce we witnessed as the SNP’s Gaza ceasefire motion was “debated” in the Fun Palace on the Thames calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. That place defends itself on the grounds that it works because of “conventions” and “precedents”! Aye, right! Just as a wee background. The Government of the day, usually Tory, allows the Opposition parties to command the agenda on a whole 20 days in a Parliamentary session. Of these Labour get 17 days and the SNP get the other 3. The idea is that the opposition partyRead More →

On:
In: Margaret Hamilton

Another Scottish Unionist takes up a seat in the house of Lords. This results in a Moray tory MSP slipping in from the Highland region list. This is the person who, when a tory Councillor, described things like free school meals as wee treats. I’ll bet he has never stood behind a young parent in a shop and saw them asking the assistant to take back some basic items. I have seen it in my village shop. Have you ever had the pleasure of visiting your MP at Westminster? The dining room is full of people who get to claim expenses, getting top quality subsidisedRead More →

On:
In: Neil Fergusson

When I went to work in the European Parliament in the early eighties, I learnt that the Burns Night Common Policy of 1983 was designed to protect the job descriptions of Celtic MEPs as full time representatives of our own peoples, as full time representatives of our own biological species and as equal partners in the European dream. Because the Brits tried to amend the policy’s fundamental founding principle and Spain’s entry terms on fisheries under qualified majority voting, Celtic MEPs were miraculously transformed into something other than full time representatives of our own peoples, into something other than full time representatives of our ownRead More →

On:
In: Stephen Bird

Right now, the UK reminds me so much of that old cliché of “A dead man walking”. The strangest thing about it is that there’s no secret, we have many people recording the final stages, the terminal decline but no-one who can hear the death rattles is paying the slightest bit of attention. I first started to really consider that its end was nigh when I read “How Britain Ends” by Gavin Esler with its descriptions of institutional decay throughout the British “Establishment”. I was encouraged by his conclusion that of course Scotland would become Independent although he believes that the driving force will not be our movement so much as England’s inability toRead More →

On:
In: Michael Hance

The UK msm are determined to pretend the DUP refused to go into the NI government because they were against post Brexit trading arrangements. The truth is they wouldn’t go into government because Sinn Féin won the election.  They refused to accept the result because of what it revealed about the changing nature of Northern Ireland and their place in it. They couldn’t bear the prospect of playing second fiddle to people they consider to be their social and ethnic inferiors. And they can’t accept what SF’s win says about the future of Ireland. Whatever deal they’ve agreed to it’s unquestionable they’ll find a wayRead More →

On:
In: Margaret Hamilton

– information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view: My goodness, have we been subjected to this of late! I remember the Covid period (it hasn’t gone away by the way) where it was highly contagious, and we were guided by governments.  The UK government were all over the place, being led by the Prime Minister of the time, who could take nothing seriously and could not follow advice. Meantime, in Scotland we had a team who took the situation very seriously. Politics were thrown aside in the interest of keeping the people safe. Programmes like OffRead More →