A valid point...

I'll just leave this here:

I think Scottish politicians should use terms like "fake news" or "alternative facts" sparingly. We diminishing the reality of Trumpism. https://t.co/yZ0xW4QFbu

— David Leask (@LeaskyHT) 25 January 2017

It's Official...

So…Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are not really all that important when it comes to matters of the UK.  Thank you Supreme Court for clearing that up.

Just what is the UK?  We were told that we were a family, a collective, a better type of togetherness.  Well, I think we can safely say that the cat is out the bag and we really aren’t anything at all.   We can do what we’re told, we can go where we’re told to go, but make our own political decisions?  Hell no!

If today’s decision is not enough to sway any Unionists in Scotland to finally see that they are thought of as nothing more than a subject by the British State and they’d be better off in an independent Scotland, then nothing will, and I will always feel sorry for them.

What now though for the SNP, Greens and the broader Yes movement?

The SNP need to really consider their word carefully and make their next move decisive.  Do they or don’t they push for a second referendum?  Sooner or later (preferably sooner) they are going to have make that decision.

The Greens need to keep doing what they are doing: support where necessary and criticise where it’s warranted.

The Yes movement…hmmm well that’s a completely different puzzle altogether.  It can’t be seen to be centred around the SNP, but at the same time I don’t want to see it hijacked by the vacuous mouth-pieces that are Cat Boyd or Angela Haggerty and their ilk.  Who should head it up?  Finance it?  Give it direction?  When some made the battle cry of ‘get the old band back together’ my initial reaction was ‘No! Let’s not”.  They failed the last time.  They didn’t resonate enough with the public.

The Labour Party in Scotland are in terminal decline, The Conservatives in Scotland are very arrogant considering they have 1 MP and a bunch of list MSP’s, as for the Scottish Liberal Democrats, well, one word sums them up – woeful.  We need to look to the SNP, Greens and any independents to look after the best interests for Scotland.

This really is a crucial time for Scotland.  She’s being pulled out of the EU against her will, she’s been slapped down and told that her voice, where Brexit is concerned, is not important.

What happens here, today, will determine the type of country that Scotland will be in the future.

Well...

BBC Question Time…what can I say?

I could go on for hours about the shambles that was last night’s show from Stirling but there are just a few things that I want to highlight.

I’m going to start with Cat Boyd…what can I say about a political activist who couldn’t even be bothered to vote during the Brexit referendum?  Her flimsy excuse about being abroad at the time just made her look even more stupid that she did.  Has she not heard of postal votes?  Her banality and lack of substance during the whole show last night just confirmed what I thought of her since 2014, which is not very much to be honest.  She’s one of those creatures from the Independence Referendum who thinks that her opinion is greater than others.  Well, it isn’t and she is nowhere near as smart as she thinks she is.  I grew tired of her and others like her, Loki being another one, who seemed to think that they were the real voice of Scotland.  They aren’t.  Before the show I was not one of her fans and that has not changed at all.

Secondly, Unionists.  Not only were they rude, shouty and just downright nasty, but their hatred of Scotland just leaves me gob-smacked.  One woman has the audacity to scream that the Brexit vote was a UK as a country vote, not a regional vote.  Regional?!  Regional?!  I wouldn’t care but she was Scottish.  Let that sink in…she was Scottish!  What makes a person hate their own country so much that they’ll sell it down the river for the sake of a corrupt political union?  A union that should have been put to rest many years ago.  Who let the UKIP / SDL morons in?  They were the shoutiest of the shouties.

I don’t care what your voting allegiances are when it comes to Party politics but, and I can’t stress this enough, if you are a believer in Scottish Independence then you are going to have to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with each other, because the moment Indy Ref 2 is called, and it will be called, the Union is going to bite hard and their lap-dogs from the MSM will come out snarling at anything and anyone that votes Yes.

Scotland can’t afford to lose Indy Ref2, if it does a whole generation or more will be lost to the seemingly unstoppable march of Right Wing Fascism that seems to be stamping all over democracy throughout the Western World right now.

Stand strong.  This is not about holding a referendum because we didn’t like the result of the first one, it’s about Scotland and her democratic right to be what she wants to be…a country in the EU.  The UK is not a country, anyone who claims it is spouting nothing more than jingoistic nonsense.

Stand tall, stand proud and most of all stand together.  Scotland’s future is at stake.

Good Friday...

I enjoy Easter, but I used to think of Good Friday as a very solemn day, as it is the day where we reflect on the suffering of Jesus ending with his death on the cross.

That all changed this year...

I went to the service at Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral and expected it to be a solemn occasion, I couldn't have been more wrong.  The service was very moving; the choice of music from the choir throughout was simply beautiful and their singing was stunning, but, throughout the service we celebrated the cross and all that took place there.

I came away from the service feeling renewed in my faith, a faith that has taken a bit of a battering over the last few years.  I had a new sense of hope, hope in a God that I know loves us.

2016...

This post is really one big long rant at all the personal annoyances from 2015:

Scotland voted overwhelmingly for the SNP in the General Election and that support seems to be increasing, which is a great thing, however, told you his is a rant, there are a few things that have annoyed me about all this.  The first one is that the Labour Party in Scotland seem to have nothing more to offer Scotland now other than an SNP Bad mentality.  The recent closure of the Forth Road Bridge, which was totally justifiable, was used by Labour to try and make the SNP look incompetent.  If Labour have nothing positive to add to the political landscape in Scotland then they should just shut up shop and leave.  The second aspect of the General Election result was the ridiculous swearing in of the SNP MP's that we had to endure.  I am an SNP supporter but I found the whole thing to be a complete joke and a total embarrassment.  Was it really necessary for them to make such a pig's ear of it all?

On the plus side, they have been a very good Party in opposition maintaining their discipline and Party unity where others have failed.  This is where I have to mention Labour.

Labour don't seem to really know who they are any more.  Their membership overwhelmingly voted for Jeremy Corbyn as leader and yet their Parliamentary membership don't seem to be able to grasp this.  The fiasco over the bombing of Syria was the lowest point this year for them as a Party.  Those MP's that refuse to get behind Corbyn need to be removed.  It's a simple as that.  Labour needs to get its act together and pretty soon, because, their current weakness, if maintained, could condemn the rest of us to another Tory government after 2020.

The Conservatives have shown themselves to be arrogant and ant-democratic.  Their changing of boundaries (to suit them) and their attempts to curb to the House of Lords after the HoL gave them a bloody nose recently angers me.  No one Party should have the power to make such drastic changes for their own political advantage.

England's recent lurch to the right also angers and concerns me.  Whether Tory or UKIP, the English seem to think it's ok to be selfish and xenophobic at the same time.  There is an increase in the support for the UK to leave the EU.  Do the English really believe that leaving the EU will sort out their problems?  Personally, maybe we should concentrate on ensuring that the big companies such as; Google, Apple and Amazon should pay their proper share of taxes.

I'm hoping that 2016 will be better and we'll see a credible Labour Party in West Minster and that they'll start to hold this government to task.