<\/p>\n
As I have said, I will publish the Editorial from the preceding month\u2019s Scots Independent.<\/strong><\/p>\n Here is the Editorial from January; it does not seem dated, as the Unionists\u00a0\u00a0 keep repeating their behaviour<\/strong><\/p>\n The Leveson Report is published on the day of writing.\u00a0 We had some repartee at First Minister\u2019s Questions, calmly spiked by Alex Salmond\u2019s proposal that as no one had actually seen the report it would be more sensible to have the debate next week.\u00a0 This very reasonable approach was somehow not to the liking of the \u2018earnest concerned\u2019 leader of the Liberal rump, who castigated Mr Salmond for not bringing the complete report to the Scottish Parliament!\u00a0 This naturally allowed Mr Salmond to comment that it was Mr Rennie\u2019s boss, \u201cI agree with Nick\u201d who refused the Scottish Parliament the report, or something like that.<\/p>\n As far as I have been able to gather from the snippets I have come across, Lord Leveson exonerates\u00a0 Alex Salmond;\u00a0 he has done nothing wrong.\u00a0 This of course is totally unacceptable to the Unionists and we can expect howling for blood, criticisms, calls for resignations, and all the opposition\u2019s usual contributions to reasoned debate.\u00a0 They are more concerned with Alex Salmond\u2019s 5 meetings with Murdoch over 5 years, than\u00a0 with Gordon Brown\u2019s 17 meetings in 2 years or David Cameron\u2019s 18 meetings over the same timescale.\u00a0 Whether Mr Salmond\u2019s appeal for a\u00a0 reasoned discussion will fly or not is up to the sourfaced opposition.<\/p>\n The root of this is Scottish Independence;\u00a0 the Unionists have lorded it over Scotland since the Treaty of Union, a false Union, as voting only existed in a limited\u00a0 way in 1707, and those Parliamentarians who voted, Lords mainly,\u00a0 were bribed.\u00a0 There was also an English army camped on Scotland\u2019s border, in case the placemen did not vote the right way; the people rioted in the streets in protest against the Union.<\/p>\n This is the beloved Union today\u2019s placemen\u00a0 – and women \u2013 are defending.<\/p>\n Actually, when I read and listen to all the attacks on Scotland, it would be easy to think \u201cAch well, we got it wrong.\u00a0 It will be too difficult, the other countries will never let us get away with it, and all this about the Royal Navy (what Royal Navy?), Trident,\u00a0 massive aircraft carriers (without planes)\u00a0 Sterling or the Euro, in the EU or out, and how could puny little Scotland survive in the big world?\u00a0 Let\u2019s just all go home.\u00a0 The cause of Scottish independence cannot be right, because the Unionists say so \u2013 those honest impartial people!\u201d<\/p>\n Except, except, all the bluster is because England will have great difficulty standing on her own two feet without Scotland backing her up.\u00a0 It is known that the UK financial situation is every bit as bad, if not worse, than Spain and Ireland, to name but two.\u00a0 What gives the UK her credit rating is the \u00a31.5 trillion oil fields in the North Sea;\u00a0 we are her collateral, and faux concern for our wellbeing is England\u2019s own concern.\u00a0 They also know that their seat on the UN Security Council is only there because \u201cthey\u201d are a nuclear power;\u00a0 just very handy that the largest nuclear arsenal in Europe, if not the world, is 30 miles from Scotland\u2019s largest centre of population, and strangely enough, 650 miles from London!\u00a0 Fancy that.<\/p>\n Going back to the oil for a minute, the McCrone Report should be getting another airing shortly.\u00a0 Remember what all that was about?\u00a0 Successive Tory and Labour governments\u00a0 knew 40 years ago that Scotland would have been a wealthy nation, but they kept it a secret.\u00a0 Now they have a new story, the oil is running out, and an independent Scotland would be too dependent on it and would face ruin!\u00a0 What they mean is that oil revenue has been allowing successive Westminster government to strut their stuff, and they do not want to do without it!\u00a0\u00a0 And do not believe all the tosh that the oil is running out;\u00a0 there is more oil left than has been taken out, and more is being discovered as I write. The oil revenue which props up England is depreciated and deprecated in Scottish hands!\u00a0\u00a0 Early this year I was speaking to men in the North East who worked on the rigs, and the comment was \u201cYou have no idea just how much oil there is!\u201d<\/p>\n So the independence stakes are high and we can expect the methods to get dirtier, and more vicious, and are not concerned with Scotland\u2019s welfare, but England\u2019s, and that of their Scottish hangers \u2013on.<\/p>\n I joined the SNP in 1966, long before oil was discovered, and was convinced then that independence would make Scotland thrive and prosper;\u00a0 all that oil did was to make our recovery from centuries of neglect quicker.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n One of the points I made last month was that having a fortnight\u2019s holiday in Tenerife produced an added bonus I had not appreciated heretofore; well I had the bonus before but did not appreciate it.\u00a0 This was that for two full weeks I did not have to read a Herald headline;\u00a0 this made my breakfast much more enjoyable.<\/p>\n This thought came back to mind on Saturday past as I viewed the paper;\u00a0 \u201cBute House gas bills soar\u201d on the front page repeated on another page as \u201cGas bills soar at official residence\u201d, \u201cUncertainty claims over EU situation\u201d, \u201cNew phase is promised in Referendum Campaign\u201d,\u00a0 \u201cMay criticises nationalists over security plans after 2014 vote\u201d, \u201cMI 5 is spying on the SNP claims Whitehall veteran\u201d,\u00a0 a big picture of Nicola looking concerned, an opinion piece by the Herald\u2019s political editor \u201cIt won\u2019t be as easy for us to go as it was for Togo\u201d, but on another page George Reid resplendent in kilt receiving his knighthood from Buckingham Palace.<\/p>\n With regard to the first item this was raised by the Tories;\u00a0 no doubt we can expect to see a comparison with 10 Downing Street\u2026 if only.<\/p>\n Togo is among the countries listed as gaining independence since 1960 in a 15 month average; it should be noted that Togo gained its independence from France;\u00a0 if it had been the UK and it had oil then greedy Westminster\u00a0 would have hindered the process.\u00a0 Perhaps that is the game plan?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It would seem from the events this week that there have been a few inaccurate soundbites\u00a0 loosed off;\u00a0 I think Nicola used the word “\u201carrogant\u201d, at the first stage, while our last Secretary\u00a0 of State for Scotland\u00a0 tried gravitas , which made him sound ponderous.\u00a0 In any event, closer reading of the document, read\u00a0 by Derek Mackay \u2013 if not by David Mundell \u2013 disclosed some alarming gaffes by the Unionists, who had commissioned the report as their legal advice\u00a0\u00a0 on independence.\u00a0 There is a bit of confusion as to the exact legal status of Scotland; according to the experts there was not such a thing as a Treaty of Union, but the takeover of Scotland and its incorporation into England.\u00a0 It grieves me, as it grieves most Scots if all the time we have been campaigning for Scottish Independence, we have been doing it as Englishmen and women.\u00a0 How does the Gilbert & Sullivan song go \u201cfor he might have been a Roossian, a French or Turk or Proossian, or perhaps Italian, but in spite of all temptations to belong to other nations, he remains an Englishman.\u201d\u00a0 (HMS Pinafore).<\/p>\n The solitary Tory MP, David Mundell, seemed to agree with that assertion, which is perhaps where the arrogance bit comes in.<\/p>\n However, after the launch of the document, Professor James Crawford of the University of Cambridge, confirmed that Scotland would remain a part of the EU, as we comply with\u00a0 the \u201cAcquis\u201d now, and that we would negotiate from within the EU. In an interview on BBC Radio Scotland, he thought that an 18 month period between the Referendum and Independence Day was reasonable!\u00a0 So the legal advice, which Professor said was only an opinion, as there is no legal precedent for the case, is not really legal advice in the strict sense of the word as trumpeted by the Better Together campaign, but capable of interpretation.<\/p>\n Among the little gems coming out was the Unionists \u201cYou will be a totally new state with no rights to any of the assets of the rUK\u201d.\u00a0 Somehow this brutal assertion dissipated when Nicola said \u201cGreat, you can keep all the National Debt then!\u201d.\u00a0 You really couldn\u2019t make it up.\u00a0 To misquote:\u00a0 \u201cGilbert & Sullivan! thou shouldst be living at this hour; England hath\u00a0 need of thee; she is a fen of stagnant waters.\u201d (I know Wordsworth said \u201cMilton\u201d, but G&S had more the sense of the ridiculous).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Read somewhere about the 100 most powerful women in the UK;\u00a0 The Queen was No 1,\u00a0 Theresa May No 2.\u00a0 Do not know any other names apart from the fact that Nicola Sturgeon comes in at No 20.\u00a0 The list comes from Women\u2019s Hour on the BBC, as far as I can gather.<\/p>\n Just shows how Anglo centric listeners are;\u00a0 Theresa May is the Tory Home Secretary, who wears very posh shoes, and whose Government has only one MP in Scotland.\u00a0 Cannot understand why a Cabinet Minister in an English Government whose writ does not run to law and order in Scotland could be 18 places above the dynamic Scottish MSP\u00a0 who is negotiating the return of independence to Scotland.\u00a0 The result of Nicola\u2019s work will have a greater impact on the UK than her maj and the 18 others.<\/p>\n A Middle England triumph.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" January editorial from Scots Independent As I have said, I will publish the Editorial from the preceding month\u2019s Scots Independent. Here is the Editorial from January; it does not seem dated, as the Unionists\u00a0\u00a0 keep repeating their behaviour Depreciate and deprecate The Leveson Report is published on the day of writing.\u00a0 We had some repartee at First Minister\u2019s Questions, calmly spiked by Alex Salmond\u2019s proposal that as no one had actually seen the report it would be more sensible to have the debate next week.\u00a0 This very reasonable approach was somehow not to the liking of the \u2018earnest concerned\u2019 leader of the Liberal rump,Read More →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=678"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":681,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions\/681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Depreciate and deprecate<\/h2>\n
Claim and counter claim<\/b><\/h2>\n
Shooting from the hip<\/h2>\n
Powerful women<\/b><\/h2>\n