LibDemmery

Michael Moore, Colonial Governor and representative of nothing but a failed and discredited political party, will attack the SNP today. We don’t need to know anything else, because he and his party don’t matter to Scotland or Scots. I thought of saying more, but Ian Bell has said most of it today in the Herald, as have others, including letter writers.

I occasionally get correspondents saying that I don’t have enough discussion and comment on my blog, and that this is a factor of my moderation constraints, .i.e. Google or other ID required for comment. No such requirement exists on my YouTube channel, TAofMoridura, and that’s YouTube’s lack of constraint, not mine. So a lively debate rages on some of my YouTube videos, sometimes for months or even years after they have been posted, and believe me, there’s a helluva lot of work involved screening out – by pre-moderation - the incoherent, incomprehensible, obscene, obsessive, libellous, repetitive, irrelevant and sometimes just plain vicious comments that come in my inbox each day. I can of course, block all comment, but it is something I’m reluctant to do because there’s so much good stuff.

I posted a video clip of Michael Moore three months ago. The comments keep coming, and I have screened out at least as many – from all sides of the argument – that were unacceptable in any civilised discourse. As for my older clip on David Starkey and Brian Cox – well, I could fill a week’s blogs with those …

 

A lot of postulation and conjecture in this unionist litany

Alex462047 6 hours ago

A parcel of rogues in a nation.

Does anyone in Scotland still vote for the Lib Dems?

Thumbs up for Scottish independence.

scotsskier 3 weeks ago

Michael Moore, like most unionists, is an enemy to Scotland.

segano1 1 month ago

Michael Moore is better known as The Secretary of State AGAINST Scotland, he just stands by while his Tory Hatchett man colleague Danny Alexander lays into Scotland. SNP, SDA, Solidarity, SSP and Scottish Greens are all working to free us from the shackles of this union, good on them.

iamtehmunkie 1 month ago

Inertia in people is much the same as inertia in objects, as the body in motion will tend to stay in motion, the old thought process and habits will continue without a good reason, or a “safe” way to ensure change.

segano1 1 month ago

The SNP argument is that it’s just a natural step to take. The Unionists argue it’s a chasm. The conservative voter, for the most part, will not step. That is a fundamental definition of conservatism. The Union argument is more fear and scare tactics, these will often work with the more conservative voter.

segano1 1 month ago

Support on union is based on negativity simply because there's not much positives for Scotland to stay in the union from a Scottish perspective. Scotland paying it's neighbours to speak on it's behalf while claiming in public that Scotland contributes nothing and is a 'subsidy junkie' nation.

Britain is an ailing bankrupt state.

Time this rancid Union parasite was removed once and for all from the body of Scotland. Only with this parasite cleansed from Scotland, can we as a nation succeed.

segano1 2 months ago

Maddening! Westminsters approach each week, each year, each decade, is to tell Scotland that we're getting an, unfairly, good deal from the union, that our economy is not strong enough to support ourselves and to promise that London is on the case to make that economy stronger in the future. Within the UK Scotland will never be able or allowed to fulfill it's potential and all the double talk from London won't change that.

Westminster also allows our most popular party to be called neo fascist

mesmiths 2 months ago

A Lib Dumb and a Tory as colonial governors for Scotland, could you have any other two figures who are less representative of the Scottish people?

BonnieBlueFlag1314 2 months ago

RBS Successful = British. RBS Unsuccessful = Scottish. Bailing out a bank with more English employees than Scottish was a wise move for the UK. Making themselves sound so generous to Scotland for doing it, is simply ludicrous.

dauntless111 2 months ago

Crack open the champagne! Light the fireworks!

Ipsos-Mori poll - August 2011

 

Thank you, Michael Moore, Danny Alexander, Jim Murphy, Tom Harris, Iain Gray, Annabel Goldie, Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling, David Cameron, Eddie Izzard, Sally Bercow, Andrew Neil, Jeremy Paxman, David Starkey, Tavish Scott, John McTernan, Bill Jamieson, Michael Kelly and countless others, too numerous to mention, for your sterling contribution to these poll results. The roll of honour is endless …

I only know one word that conveys my emotions – Freedom!

Scottish Unionists in disarray–campaign shambles - Newsnight Scotland

It would take a heart of stone not to laugh …

Michael Moore - what a left hand! What a ******!

Buddy, can you spare a dime? Will the anthem of to ‘30s return to haunt Scotland?

"... financial perspicacity and political perspicacity are inversely correlated.
Long run salvation by men of business has never been highly regarded if it means disturbance of orderly life and convenience in the present. So inaction will be advocated in the present even though it means deep trouble in the future. ---
It is what causes men who know things are going quite wrong to say that things are fundamentally sound."

J.K. Galbraith - The 1929 Crash

"The power and almost the memory of the Picts have been extinguished by their successful rivals:" (the Scots) "and the Scots, after maintaining for ages the dignity of an independent kingdom, have multiplied, by an equal and voluntary union, the honours of the English name."

Edward Gibbon

Volume III of the OUP Gibbon, Henry Frowde edition by the Ballantyne Press

REPRISE

Here’s what I said in the spring 0f 2009, mid-term in the SNP’s first government, and just two years away from their decisive endorsement by the Scottish people on May 5th, 2011. I hold to all of these ideas more than two years on …

MRIDURA BLOG - Saturday, 18 April 2009

Why does the UK want Scotland?

Scottish independence and the UK. We know why we want to go? Why do they want to keep us? Why do many Scots want to stay in the Union?

To answer these questions, we must distinguish between why the Labour Party wants to keep Scotland in the UK, why any British Government wants to retain its control over our little nation, and in the process of answering these questions, examine how the people of the UK view the independence question.

Let's dispose of the Labour Party quickly, as I hope the electorate will dispose of them sometime in the next year.- (It did, decisively on May 5th 2011) - This failed, corrupted, amoral, values-free political entity wants to hold Scotland because it cannot survive without its Scottish power base.

This is, and always has been the electoral reality for Labour. We can be sure they are not motivated by any sense of affection for, or loyalty to the birthplace of the Labour movement, since the first impulse of any really ambitious Labour politician has been to escape from his or her native land into the Palace of Westminster and the heart of the empire, such as it is.

The reasons why the United Kingdom - and therefore any British government - wants to hold on to Scotland are more varied and complex than Labour's narrow little agenda.

Firstly, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are the last remnants of the British Empire, and the self-image of the British establishment is almost totally dependent on the maintenance of that rump of Empire, with Scotland being the most important component by far. The whole panoply of the Crown, the ceremony, the pageantry and the patronage depends heavily on that nostalgic, romantic image.

What is an empire without its subject nations?

There must be someone to patronise, someone to bend the knee, to doff the cap, to pull the forelock. And Scotland, as a subject nation, supplies an essential component of that romantic and nostalgic image, especially as presented to the former colonies of Empire, the United States and Canada in particular, with a significant proportion of their people claiming a Scottish heritage. Scotland can be treated with sentimental paternalistic affection when it suits, and patronising contempt when it doesn't.

(Spluttering knights of the shires and Tory backwoodsmen, in the unlikely event that any of them read this, will be reaching for their P.G. Wodehouse quote about not mistaking a Scotsman with a grievance for a ray of sunshine. As a huge admirer of Wodehouse, I freely acknowledge - with a smile - the accuracy of his insight.)

REALPOLITIK ARGUMENTS BY THE UK

Let's look now at the hard, realpolitik arguments of a UK government for retaining the UK. The UK has a population of maybe 61m at the moment (60,587,600 in mid-2006), and of that, Northern Ireland accounts for about 1.75m, Wales almost 3m and Scotland 5m. The loss of Scotland would mean a 8.2% reduction, and if all three departed, a loss of about 16%.

No empire, however shrunken from its glory days, can contemplate such a loss with equanimity.

From a defence standpoint, the case can be made that the loss of its northern frontier on the island of Britain is intolerable, especially because of the size of the Scottish coastline. To a nation, the UK, that exalts and celebrates its militaristic identity and its military role in world affairs, one that is paranoid about threats to its security - for paranoia is a necessary component in a state whose organising principle is war - an independent Scotland is intolerable.

And of course, the critical consideration is the requirement to continue basing the monstrous and irrelevant Trident in our Scottish waters, weapons of mass destruction that serve no purpose whatsoever, other than to allow our demented UK government ministers to strut and posture on an international stage, drawing a form of credibility from their possession of these nightmare instruments of mass murder.

The Scotsman
Trident 'increases threat of nuclear attacks on Scotland'
Published Date: 04 February 2009

A LEADING authority on international law has warned that nuclear weapons in Scotland increase the risk of a nuclear attack on the country. Judge Christopher Weeramantry, former vice-president of the International Court of Justice, told a conference in Edinburgh that the issue could not be left in the hands of Westminster. While agreeing that international relations were reserved to the UK Parliament, he insisted the Scottish Parliament must uphold international humanitarian and legal obligations.
SNP defence and foreign affairs spokesman Angus Robertson said: "Judge Weeramantry's comments add further weight to the argument for removing Trident from Scotland."

Lastly, the rump of the United Kingdom (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) - given the present mindset of its politicians - cannot tolerate an independent nation on the island of Britain that is highly likely to be culturally and economically dynamic and successful. The British Establishment were prepared to go to any lengths (see 'Diomhair') to stop Scotland having control of its oil, were prepared to misrepresent, to lie, to re-draw the borders of international waters to achieve their ends, not just because they wanted the oil revenues, but because a rich, successful, independent Scotland would have represented an intolerable comparison.

Of course, none of the above reasons can be advanced to Scots to persuade them to remain in the UK, except perhaps some appeal to nostalgia and the fading image of empire. So the Scots must be infantilised, persuaded of their inadequacy, of their dependency, of their inability to manage their own affairs competently. They must be persuaded that they need the Union to survive, to be secure, to be protected from nameless threats, to have status in international forums.

And the powerful state weapon of patronage must be deployed ruthlessly. Ambitious and capable Scots must be courted, flattered, bribed with the prospect of honours, promotion and preferment, and subtly led to despise their nation and their heritage, their language, their accent and their culture.

All of the above criticism I apply to political leaders in the Westminster Parliament and the British Establishment.

But I maintain a vital distinction that must always be maintained between the current corrupt leaders of a nation state and the people of that nation.

When the world condemned the America of Bush, Cheney and the neocons, they were not condemning the American people, and now the people of America have thrown off that pernicious leadership and have embraced a new vision of America and its world role, personified in the new presidency of Barack Obama.

When I condemn Blair, Brown, the Labour Party and the British Establishment, – (and now in 2011, Cameron, Clegg and Miliband) - I do not condemn the people of England, the true heart of a great nation, with a fundamental instinct for justice, freedom and real democracy rooted in its history and traditions. I believe that the English electorate want England to be independent, to stand free and proud as a nation, a nation that will celebrate its history and culture without the trappings of empire, and a nation that will co-exist happily with its northern neighbour and long-time friend, Scotland.

If England can have a special relationship with its former colonies, with Canada, with America, with India, with Australia, with Africa, it can certainly live happily with its Scottish brothers and sisters.

England, you have nothing to fear from Scottish independence, and everything to gain.

Defining Scotland’s independence

Before defining independence, let’s define dependence …

To depend is to be controlled by, or have an outcome or outcomes determined by something or somebody else.

To be dependant, a person or group of  people are reliant on another, especially for financial support, and be subordinate in some way to another.

Dependence is the state of being dependent and reliant on something or somebody else, and dependency is anything subordinate or controlled by another.

Scotland is currently all of the above, with some reduction of the the state of dependence resulting from The Scotland Act of 1998 and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. This partial reduction in dependency is called devolution – statutory granting of certain powers by the central state, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, to Scotland, which up to 1707 was a kingdom and independent state.

This devolution of powers is de jure unitary and the enabling legislation can be amended or revoked entirely by the central government - Westminster - by another act of the UK Parliament. Scotland has therefore a limited, and conceivably temporary reduction of its dependence.

Independence is the fact or process of independence – it is the state of not being dependent, or the process of ending a state of dependency.

Independence is the natural state of free individuals and free peoples, and the history of the human race on our planet has been in large part a history of struggle to achieve that independence or recover an independence lost to another.

But individuals always recognised their vulnerability in a hostile world, and that brought a recognition of the values of cooperation with others and the reality of a state of interdependence. Accepting therefore the necessity of a measure of dependency to achieve true independence was inevitable, providing the individual could opt out at any time, sacrificing the benefits of interdependency for personal freedom and accepting the vulnerability that came with that freedom.

Such early interdependent groups were always significantly influenced by two things – family and location. The bonds of kinship and the emergence of stable communities - when a nomadic lifestyle was supplanted by one based on agriculture - allied to geographical features and natural boundaries of territory led inevitably to the idea of a country and nation.

Scotland is a country and a nation, but it is not presently a state. Independence - and only full independence – will make it a state again. As the independent state of Scotland, it will still be interdependent, and that interdependence will be expressed through agreements on trade, commerce, culture and defence. Scotland will be part of the communities that we share these islands with, the English, Welsh and Irish peoples, of the European Community as a member state, of the Scandinavian communities as their near neighbours, and with the global community of nations through a seat in the United Nations.

But Scotland’s relationship with others will be by free and voluntary agreement as a sovereign nation state, and the agreements regulating its interdependence with others will be determined by negotiation and sealed by agreements and treaties that will last until Scotland decides that they no longer serve the interests of its people.

Such a relationship was intended by the Act of Union of 1707. That Union, initially of two free and sovereign kingdoms, has ceased to serve any purpose it may have had in its highly controversial and bitterly contested beginnings.

It will be ended when the Scottish people decide that they wish to be free of it, and they will make that historic choice soon, after full democratic debate, in a single referendum expressing their democratic will.

Any attempt to distort and misrepresent facts by biased and inaccurate media coverage, or attempts to frustrate that democratic will by the profoundly undemocratic forces of the British Establishment, or attempt to gerrymander the results or distort and pervert the process by the Westminster government will be recognised as such by the Scottish people, and they will respond appropriately within the law of Scotland, the spirit of international law and principles of liberty and equality.

 

MY POSITION AS A VOTER AND A SCOT

The only principles I need to guide me in my choice are these -

Independence is the fact or process of independence – it is the state of not being dependent, or the process of ending a state of dependency.

Independence is the natural state of free individuals and free peoples

I want a nuclear-free Scotland – free of nuclear weapons and bases

I want a Scotland with full fiscal and tax raising powers

I want a Scotland with full control of its foreign policy, defence capability and the decision to commit its defence forces

I am prepared to trust my elected government to negotiate all matters relating to these objectives. I expect them to consult with the Scottish people on detailed measures only to the degree that it does not prematurely show their negotiating hand or constrain the necessary flexibility that all negotiators must have.

I do not require a second referendum to ratify the agreement reached on the detailed terms of the independence agreement, providing none of the deal breakers above are compromised.

I reject totally the rights of any other country or nation to vote in that referendum, or to claim a right of veto over it, or its results in any shape or form.

I am one voter and one voice, and I can only hope that a majority of those eligible to vote in a Scottish referendum will share my position. I will abide by the democratic decision of that referendum, providing it is conducted legally and properly in accordance with principles of Scots law, UK law where relevant under the Act of Union, and the principles of international and European law.

I will live with a result I don’t like providing these conditions are met, but I reserve my human right and my rights as a free Scot to reject any outcome where these conditions are not met.

The English riots - weekend thoughts …

The riots have subsided, but the danger has not. The Government, who should be relaxing with a post coital cigarette, blowing smoke rings after their heroic efforts to save the nation, are instead engaged in an unseemly spat with the Metropolitan police, who are accusing the Cameron/Clegg Gang of blowing smoke in the faces of the people by claiming that they had saved the nation from the rampaging, Blackberry-inspired mob and police incompetence.

Little sense has been talked on the media, with elderly historians like David Starkey (last night on Newsnight) displaying their complete failure to understand the present, whatever their understanding of the past may be, Kelvin McKenzie spluttering his tabloid rage and indignation in a studio discussion, and John ‘The Baron’ Prescott in equally pop-eyed, incoherent populist mode on the Question Time Special (whatever it was, this edition certainly wasn’t special!), railing against the Government and the Establishment as though he hasn’t been part of it for far too long for most of us.

Such logic and calm analysis as there has been has come almost exclusively from the young, especially the articulate young people who actually live in places from which the violence has sprung, and these young voices were able to effortlessly demolish the wet-lipped, uncomprehending incoherent, and  blustering  outpourings of the Starkeys, McKenzies and Prescotts. These young commentators maintained their effortless cool and their logical thrust in the face of their elders-but-most-certainly-not-betters, and they made a fair showing of trying to conceal their amused contempt for the more ludicrous demonstrations of how out of touch they were with street realities.

In fact, one of the most-wet lipped (mainly the lower lip) tirades of the week came from Michael Gove, who was born to be an old fogey and has already perfected the style. Directed against Harriet Harman, who could have been vulnerable to properly directed arguments, Gove’s rant was totally ineffective, but delightfully amusing, as he came close to spontaneous combustion in the studio.

THE MEDIA

This has been a strange week for the broadcast media. In terms of instant visual coverage of events, they were in their element, and excelled themselves. As far as political analysis went, they resorted to clichéd interviewing styles and clichéd questions, and their selection of commentators consisted in the main of rounding up the usual suspects to deliver their confident banalities.

When they did get a least some of the right voices on their programmes, the presenters were often poor at directing and controlling the debate. Such real people as they did find seem to have been the result of accident, rather than design. When they did stumble across reality, in fairness, they recognised it and made the most of it, but to the point of repetitiveness on occasion.

The politicians whose greed, lack of vision and lack of humanity had led to the riots, predictably seized upon selected instances and individuals to bend them to their pathetic narrative of excuse and blame.

Print media, as it does in the face of such rapidly unfolding events, ran desperately behind the story, and mainly failed in what is their new primary role of providing the kind of detailed examination of facts and sober, cold-light-of-day commentary. Instead, they tried to ape the television coverage, and failed miserably.

Neither television nor the print media showed any evidence that they really understood the nature and implications of the new media.

Our politicians and pundits certainly don’t understand it, in spite of their cack-handed efforts at using Twitter, Facebook, etc.

We had a former senior police officer, Brian Paddick, asking why the police had not been “on Twitter and Blackberries” in advance of the riots. He seemed unaware of how these two manifestations of the new media actually worked. It would require something on the scale of GCHQ to monitor them, not to mention a radical change in the law, and the monitoring would be nullified by instantaneous modification of behaviour by the young. Young people find it difficult to contain their amusement and contempt for this kind of nonsense from those in authority.

There are only two choices that I can see open to governments, intelligence services and the state apparatus in the face of the new media -

either accept that we now live in a world of totally open communication, much of it rubbish, much of it inaccurate, some of it pernicious and dangerous, and deal with the criminal aspects and egregious abuses while recognising and accepting that everybody will know - or think they know - everything at all times and on all issues

or

adopt the repressive control and censorship of all free communications, technology and media that characterises totalitarian regimes across the globe, including those regimes that we condemn, and have committed our armed forces to destroy.

Making political capital out of …

The following tweet yesterday provoked a little exchange between Angus Macleod and me, and an ironic reference by  Rolf Rae-Hansen to Angus’s proclivity for referring to ‘cybernats’ …

AMacleodTimes Angus Macleod

What I cannot fathom is why some people think it is so vital to refer to English,rather than UK, riots .

moridura Peter Curran

@AMacleodTimes Because riots don't take place in a state, Angus - they happen in a city, or cities or a country. Info: four countries in UK

moridura Peter Curran

@AMacleodTimes Of the 4 countries in the UK, only one has had riots so far - England. Useful to tourists headed for one of the other three?

rolfraehansen Rolf Rae-Hansen

@moridura Don't worry, I think @AMacleodTimes understands full well, he is just one of those CyberUnionist wind up merchants. :)

moridura Peter Curran

@rolfraehansen @AMacleodTimes I thought there was a little faux naivety in his question - he fathoms, all right - and so do I ...

Since then, of course, Alex Salmond made his statement, the BBC mended its ways, and started referring correctly to English riots, and a wave of unionist - and it is unionist - protest came, accusing the First Minister of ‘playing politics’ with the riots, with the Scotsman feeling that it warranted the front page and most of page two.

The Prime Minister of the UK, David Cameron, has stated, as civil order crumbles in English cities, that the riots are “criminality, pure and simple.” The riots of course, are neither pure nor simple - they are a deeply debased manifestation of what has gone wrong with the society created by Thatcher, Blair, Brown, Mandelson, whose gross political errors are now being fatally compounded by Cameron and Clegg and their benighted coalition.

The situation is political, because every manifestation of our society stems from either political action or inaction. Life is politics, and no amount of moralising, demanding that parents behave responsibly, advocating a return to traditional values, etc. will make a blind bit of difference - they are a smokescreen thrown up in a vain attempt to conceal the poverty of idea and vision of our leaders, and to try to cover their tracks and evade responsibility for what they have done for the last thirty years.

And what they have done for the last thirty years has been done by Westminster, in the name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,  the failing, crumbling, stitched together political state called the UK, the rump of a failed empire.

Every word that has been uttered by politicians, and by their creatures in the media since the Tottenham riots has been political - by the Government in an attempt to defend themselves, by the Labour Party in an attempt both to evade blame for their 13-year role in creating the social mess, and to make expedient political capital over the Coalition’s misfortune. Every word from politicians in Scotland has been political, and the comment has divided sharply and entirely predictably along the Scottish San Andreas fault line of unionist/nationalist sympathies and political philosophies.

Of course it’s political - politics created this bloody (literally) mess, and only politics and political action will get us out of it. Scotland must help the English people in any way they can, with understanding, with deep respect, and with resources and practical help, of which the police resource is only one immediate example.

Scotland must listen to the voice of the English people, in all its ethnic, cultural and class diversity, to its young people, to its academics - such as Dr. Clifford Stott (see clip below) - when they have something pertinent and helpful to say.

But we must distinguish sharply between the country of England and its people - our neighbours, friends, colleagues and relatives, to whom we are linked by a shared language, a shared history and a shared archipelago - and the failed State of the UK, which is the root cause of the troubles of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Only the independence of Scotland will solve the problems of Scotland, and in the process, lead towards the necessary independence of England and the people of England. Scotland is different - we know it, and our English neighbours know it. Neither country should shrink from recognising these difference, nor from examining them.

The fundamental difference is that Scotland is committed to a social democracy that cares for all of its people, especially its vulnerable people, and every political argument nationalist Scots have with unionist Scots and with Westminster politicians centres around that fact.

So when you hear a unionist politician or media sympathiser, especially a Scottish unionist politician or media sympathiser say “stop playing politics” with this or that burning issue, remember that what they are doing is playing politics - unionist politics - and what they are saying, with increasing desperation is “Don’t call attention to anything that reveals the progressive failure of the UK, the Westminster Government, and the greedy, amoral conspiracy against the people of these Isles called the British Establishment”, a conspiracy of inherited or ruthlessly acquired wealth, power and privilege, totally undemocratic, self-serving, amoral, and utterly opposed to the independence of Scotland, the independence of England and the independence of Wales.

Perhaps the new Jimmy Reid Foundation can ask themselves some searching questions as they try to give a voice to the Left in Scottish politics. First among them should be -

1. What made Jimmy Reid, a lifelong Socialist and internationalist, become a nationalist in the last years of his life?

2. Where does the ‘new’ Scottish Left stand on the nuclear deterrent and nuclear power?

3. Where does the new Scottish Left stand in the independence of Scotland?

If they duck these questions, or put them on the back burner because they are too controversial, then they will, of course, become yet another irrelevant talking shop of old lefties, mildly amusing and good chat show sofa material.

They might also ask themselves why the Scottish Left ignored and betrayed the people of Dalmarnock, as the Games juggernaut rolled over their lives …

Saor Alba!

The UK - and a word from a great Englishman …

Shakespeare, a great Englishman, some say the greatest, although my affections lie with Geoffrey Chaucer, put the following words in the mouth of Hamlet, who was deeply unhappy about his nation and what it had come to -

Fie on't! ah, fie! 'tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.

and Marcellus later observes that

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

If Shakespeare and Chaucer were alive today, I feel that they both would feel the same about the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, that it has become an unweeded garden, possessed by things rank and gross in nature, and that something was rotten in it. But they would take heart from the signs all around them that the English people were beginning to assert themselves against this endemic corruption of their institutions, and they would recognise that in part, this was prompted by the Scots attempting to free themselves from the UK’s clammy embrace, while retaining their respect and ancient ties of blood, friendship and common interest with their English brothers and sisters.

The conspiracy of hereditary privilege, the unelected power of the British aristocracy and Establishment and the military/industrial complex seemed to have an iron grip of the peoples of these islands of Britain, a grip secured by control of media and patronage and, through them, the exploitation of myths of imperial glory and a romanticised ideal of Great Britain that has always been far removed from the lives of the people.

But this rickety remnant of a global empire has badly over-extended itself, and the rapaciousness and greed of its ruling class has peaked at the same time, in an unfortunate confluence of events that resulted in the Parliamentary expenses scandal, the collapse of the banks, the incompetence of the Ministry of Defence allied to the greed of those who profit from it, the failed and failing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now the spectacular collapse of the media empire of Rupert Murdoch, an empire that has corrupted the highest levels of government and the Metropolitan Police.

Private Eye has been chronicling for decades the financial and municipal corruption of the powerful in the centre of UK power, the South East of England, and the associated incompetence of the regulatory and legal bodies that have been so spectacularly - and in some cases, suspiciously - unable to check it.

From the Inland Revenue through the Serious Fraud Office, the Department of Public Prosecutions, the Metropolitan Police, various supine financial regulatory authorities to the pathetic and supine Press Complaints Commission, the sordid record has been detailed by Private Eye, a publication that has been unafraid of the powerful, both their blandishments and their legal bludgeons, while the mainstream media has been muzzled and trivialised, with honourable exceptions such as the Telegraph in the MPs expenses scandal, the Guardian in the phone hacking conspiracy, and Channel Four News.

But the pressure of the new media, social networking and Wikileaks has fractured the the wall of complicit silence, a pressure powerful enough to trigger the Arab Spring and global events of incalculable significance.

Here in Scotland, we have had our own little Celtic Spring, in the May election of the Scottish National Party for a historic second term. And the summer of independence beckons …

POSTSCRIPT
Sir Paul Stephenson, Head of the Met, resigns, and says he "will not lose sleep over his personal integrity". Clearly, he never has in the past - but the rest of us have, especially the victims of phone hacking. David Cameron appears not to be losing sleep over his personal integrity either, but then Old Etonians never do ...

But Nick Clegg may well lose sleep over the loss of his party's integrity. But not enough to resign and bring down this benighted Coalition ...

Inverclyde - UK and Scottish politics

Despite the inclusive blog title above on these topics today, I have virtually nothing to say, since Ian Bell has said everything I want to say in today’s Herald, and infinitely better than I could ever have said it.

Pyrrhic victory for Labour 

His piece illustrates the real difference between a truly professional political journalist and a blogger like me. Regrettably, his depth of analysis, prescience and perceptiveness is rarely matched by other Scottish political commentators, with one or two exceptions.

I take issue with Ian Bell only on his closing remarks on the death of the Scottish Labour Party, that “we (I take him to mean all Scots) do not yet own an alternative.”

If he means a party of the left that is internationalist in outlook and values, yet deeply committed to all the people of Scotland, especially to the poor, the sick and the disadvantaged, we do own such a party - it is the Scottish National Party, and he is wrong.

If  he means a party that is all of the above things, but that is also committed to the Union and hostile to the independence of the people of Scotland, then he is right.

And there will never again be such a party, because its time has irretrievably passed.

Allan Massie and patriotism - who are the scoundrels?

Allan Massie had a piece in The Scotsman yesterday entitled False patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

His piece was inspired, if that’s the right word, by Ian Davidson’s description in the Commons of the SNP as neo-fascist. Massie appears to set out to defend the SNP against the charge. I waited for the ‘but’: it turned out to be a ‘nevertheless’, when he finally gets to his real agenda in the third column and the sixth paragraph.

“Nevertheless, there is one respect in which his accusation, however offensive, merits consideration.”

He focuses, not on SNP party officials, MSPs, MPs or commentators sympathetic to the SNP to support his charge, but on cybernats, a blanket term used pejoratively by unionists for any online commentator sympathetic to the nationalist cause. Since by definition online comment includes the spectrum of opinion from the moderate and considered to raving abuse, he will have no difficulty in finding such stuff, especially in The Scotsman’s online comment, which is ineptly and badly moderated by the newspaper itself, apparently using post moderation (and not much of that) rather than pre-moderation of comments. I stopped contributing online comment to The Scotsman for this very reason some time ago, after complaining unsuccessfully about this.

(The SNP government is bringing in a bill, the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications {Scotland} Bill, to create two new criminal offences, the second of which concerns the sending or posting on the web of threatening communications of a religious nature, just one pernicious aspect of online abuse.)

Massie manages to ignore the fact of equivalent raving abuse from supporters of the union in The Scotsman, not to mention that mouthpiece of the Union, The Telegraph, where it even invades the letters section of the print edition. He takes issue with one aspect of nationalist comment,  the questioning of the patriotism of non-nationalists, and the tendency of nationalists to describe unionists as quislings.

This ugly word  entered the language during and after the Second World War, derived from Vidkun Quisling, a Norwegian politician who collaborated with the Nazi occupation of Norway, ran the Quisling Regime on behalf of the Nazis, and was executed for high treason by his countrymen in 1945. The word now means a person cooperating with an occupying enemy, a collaborator, a traitor. It is certainly too extreme an appellation to give to a political opponent or to someone holding an office, such as Secretary of State for Scotland, that is perceived as having some parallels to the Quisling role.

I don’t think of myself as a cybernat, but I confess to having been tempted to draw such a comparison, and on occasion may have yielded to it, or come close, by loose use of the term.

For the comparison to be valid, the end of the Union and the independence of Scotland would have to be demonstrably the democratic wish of a majority of the Scottish people, that wish would have to have been denied or frustrated by the UK government, by either ignoring a democratic mandate or gerrymandering the political process, e.g. through the mechanics of a referendum, and the Secretary of State for Scotland would have had to be complicit in that process, something that hasn’t happened - yet.

So, I join with Allan Massie in condemning the indiscriminate use of the word quisling to describe the office of Secretary of State for Scotland, although I find nothing to admire or respect in that institution, the contemptible record of which has been documented in Diomhair and elsewhere. I have no respect whatsoever for Scots who choose to accept that office, and will rejoice when it disappears. Until that happens, I will continue to treat it and its incumbents with the contempt I feel they deserve.

I make an exception for the honourable memory of Tom Johnston, wartime Secretary of State for Scotland, the last and perhaps the only incumbent of that role to have acted totally in the interests of Scotland. A socialist, an internationalist and a great Scot by any measures, the things he achieved for his country - and he was never in doubt that it was Scotland - are beyond question.

Allan Massie manages in his piece to move seamlessly from appearing to condemn Ian Davidson’s unfortunate remark, as a Member of Parliament under privilege in the House of Commons, to conflating the most extreme remarks of sundry anonymous online posters to draw parallels between  some Scottish nationalists and Hitler’s Germany, anti-semitism, Franco’s Spain, and to describe them as “at least proto-fascists”.

I have something to offer Allan Massie that may assist him in understanding fascism, and identifying political behaviour that tends towards that ugly and, George Orwell notwithstanding, completely identifiable tendency.

Fascist states are obsessively militaristic in character, consuming a wholly disproportionate part of their national resources on armaments.

They appeal to a nostalgic and glorious past that has little to do with present social and economic realities.

They exalt the Head of State, whether monarch or dictator, and claim either a hereditary or nepotistic right to succession in key offices of state.

They maintain the semblance of a democracy, while effectively nullifying, or as they describe it, ‘balancing’ the democratic institutions with non-democratic, unelected bodies.

They have key linkages between the military and relevant sections of industry in a military/industrial complex. Defence procurement is perceived by the public as incompetent, when in fact it is mainly corrupt, and unfailingly enriches the politicians associated with it.

They claim a right to intervene by force in the affairs of other nation states, and occupy them, always with the claim that they are acting in the interests of the people of the occupied territories.

They have a cult of blood, death and sacrifice in which the Head of State plays a major role. They exalt the dead as heroes of the nation: the children of the governing elite are rarely if ever among the dead. They drape the coffins of the dead with flags.

They are given to militaristic displays at any and every opportunity. They blatantly use military contracts and jobs as a political lever to influence the vestiges of true democracy that remain in the state apparatus.

When the voice of the people is heard, either through popular protest or electoral success, a sustained attack is made by the fascist state on the legitimacy of such protest and electoral success, and the democratic mandate is challenged frontally. The fascist state exercise significant or total control over media.

The fascist state has an elaborate system of patronage, titles and honours to sustain its power and to limit the democratic mandate where it exists.

The fascist state will sacrifice any public service rather than contain its military ambitions or curtail the profits and privileged of the rich and powerful. It deeply distrusts the public services of the nation. It readily blames the poor and the vulnerable for the ills of the nation and holds them responsible for their own miseries.

All of the above characteristics are either currently present or developing in the state of the United Kingdom.

None of them are present in Scottish nationalism, the Scottish National Party, nor in the vast majority of its supporters.

Let me end by saying that I am in fundamental agreement with Allan Massie on one thing - false patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, and I am clear on who the scoundrels are, even if he is not.

Why the SNP won in 2011 - and why the unionist parties lost

A fascinating analysis, and one we must study closely. The electorate liked the SNP and the SNP team, and regarded them as competent to run Scotland under the present constitutional settlement.

Now we must extend that perception into a recognition that an independent Scotland can be run even more effectively by Scotland Party - the SNP, and only a decisive referendum vote by the Scottish electorate - and by them alone - will deliver that.

The ludicrous farce that is the British Empire and the UK - by an American

(I first posted this on February 11th 2011, but it has a vital new relevance since the renewed historic mandate of the only party committed to freeing Scotland, and because of the impending referendum. Watch and laugh, but most of all – LEARN! We’ll need all the history and all the arguments to convince the people of Scotland to free their nation. This should make Lord Forsyth’s wee kilt birl roon his ears and his sporran go richt up his nose …)

Superb - wonderful, accurate, funny! A spot-on hilarious but hugely informative account of the long-running farce called the British Empire.

Scotland wants out - I want out - anyone with any sense wants out.

Congratulations, USA - you got out a long time ago.

The UK Supreme Court, the judges–and the Union’s future

I an indebted to an email from John Higgins for prompting the following reflections on the UK Supreme Court debacle.

I mustn't murmur against the judiciary, but with all due respect to the rule of law, it has never achieved the ideal of entirely standing outside of politics, nor has any judiciary in any country or kingdom or empire at any time in history. By the very nature of the ancient concept of judges, the process of appointing them is not, and never can be truly democratic (it doesn’t for a moment pretend to be in Britain) nor can it ever be free from the culture and the political climate within which it exists.

Of course the supporters of the UK Supreme Court and its recent human rights judgements argue that this is just what they are trying to do – stand outside politics - and that the Scottish Government and Alex Salmond are the nasty, sordid face of politics trying to pervert that aim. But then, they have that UK in the title of the Court to contend with. One only has to look at the most vocal supporters of the Supreme Court to realise that most – but not all - of them come from an anti-independence, unionist position, and that their opposition is in fact highly political. Last Thursday’s FMQs demonstrated that fact unequivocally, despite all the high-minded rhetoric – and unintentional low comedy.

(There was a documentary on the BBC Parliament channel  some time ago on the formation of the UK Supreme Court that I recorded - but now can't find – that referred to the mysterious process of selecting and appointing judges, and I must track it down.)

The bottom line is that Scottish Law and the Scottish judiciary exist within a complex and confusing legal structure created by the Union of 1707, and the creation of the devolved Parliament and Assemblies, and membership of the EU has multiplied that complexity exponentially.

The UK Supreme Court is in effect UK law, yet there is no such thing as UK Law - this is the contradiction that Alex Salmond sees, and he is determined to highlight the dangers that he sees flowing from it.

The most jaundiced interpretation of the situation is that the UK Supreme Court was created to keep the devolved nations in check. The less extreme interpretation is that it was created with totally honourable and high-minded intentions, but that its purpose may be perverted by politics. If this happens, it will be the politics of the dying empire - the UK - that does the perverting. Failing empires do not go quietly into that good night – they rage, rage against the dying of the light. (My apologies to Dylan Thomas!)

One only has to look at how United States Supreme Court judges are appointed - a highly political and polarised process - to realise that not even the most exalted, altruistic individual is free from political influence or pressure. And remember, judges were all members of the legal profession before they were appointed, a profession that  is heavily represented in the Westminster Parliament.

The break-up of the Union threatens the entire British Establishment - the aristocracy, the Monarchy (in its present dispensation) and the military/industrial complex, and the ramifications reach into European and American foreign policy. 

The judges, however principled, cannot detach themselves from the society within which they reach their judgements and of which they themselves are a part,  nor can they stand apart from great historical and constitutional movements - and we are in the midst of one right now.

I am not a lawyer, and have no legal training, so what the hell do I know? What I do know is that if a citizen cannot question the law, in all its aspects, then what is the point of law?

As the old Chinese curse goes - may you live in interesting times! And we do ...

Stream of consciousness … and the BBC

I like to have a specific topic to address, but today I haven’t. But since I didn’t blog yesterday, and since some regular readers rapidly reach the reasonable conclusion that I’m dead if I don’t blog for a couple of days, I feel obliged to give proof of life …

So I sit at the keyboard with no plan, in the hope that something will come from the Id at least as far as the Ego and perhaps even reach the Superego. I’m not entirely certain that I have an Ego or Superego anymore, but I’m in regular touch with my Id, something closely resembling its manifestation in Forbidden Planet.

Today’s Radio Times confidently states on page 56

BBC1

12.00 The Politics Show  Analysis and debate. Includes News at 12.00 and at 12.30 Scottish stories.

Good old reliable BBC - my trusted public service broadcaster, telling the truth to the four nations of Britain, calling the rich and powerful to account, champion of the ordinary people of these isles, in this great united kingdom - Dunkirk, Churchill, muffins for tea, cricket on the lawn, stiff-upper lips, guardian of the free people of the world, men in fancy dress in great cathedrals, monarchs, Royal weddings, knights, Lords, Ladies, colourful ritual and spectacle, stronger together than apart, etcetera, etcetera. You know the rest …

No need to consult the online guide on my television - after all, it’s not a public holiday, although something called Pentecost has knocked The Big Questions out of its 10.00 slot. The Andrew Marr Show was the predictable load of old Westminster village pap it has become since not-so-super injunctions have killed the mojo of its eponymous host.

I switch on just before midday and wait expectantly, laughing in sardonic delight because the tennis has been rained off. May it piss down on that tedious game for evermore, a game that is healthful exercise and a legitimate pursuit for those who actually get off their arses and play the game, but an exercise in mindless voyeurism for those non-players who watch it …

I should have been warned by the fate of The Big Questions. Midday passes, and the mindless chatter of those under the umbrellas continues, with the kind a vacuous gossip and idle speculation that characterises acres of sporting commentary. Panic-stricken, I switch to BBC2, only to find more crap, so I belatedly consult the online guide. Nae politics today, mate. If we can’t have tennis, you’ll have to be content with Country File, or some such rural idyll.

So at the end of a week in which we have seen the care of the old and vulnerable across the UK threatened by the rabid greed of speculative capitalists, the continued revelations of criminal behaviour by our UK newspapers, a week in which the implications of the behaviour of the UK Supreme Court for the Scottish Justice system becomes even more worrying, a week in which more young men and women are dying in misconceived foreign wars, a week in which we contemplate yet another involvement in Syria, and a week in which the Brian Rix Whitehall farce that is called the UK Government - the ConLib Coalition - move seamlessly from one disaster to another, a week in which Miliband Minor’s relevance to his party and to the nation is placed under question, the main political vehicle for examining events and placing the powerful under scrutiny - and where Scottish affairs get a real discussion platform - is sacrificed to a tennis match that didn’t take place and some countryside rambles.

I’m your long-term friend and defender, BBC - but when you behave like this, I shout aloud for independence, for  a free Scotland, with its own public service broadcaster, employing the fine journalists, presenters, creative artists and technicians that make up the present BBC Scotland, but freed from the dead hand of London.

And by God, we’ll have it, sooner rather than later …

Here to the Scottish Broadcasting Corporation - the SBC!

POSTSCRIPT
Roseanna Cunningham tweeted me to say it (?) was broadcast at 11.30 am. If so, I kick myself for missing it - but the criticism stands.

Stop press: I've now checked - it was broadcast at 11.00 am - now watching on the iPlayer. Will I apologise to the BBC? Will I ****! You ruined my morning - am I suppose to plan my day on not believing the Radio Times and cross check the transmission time of every programme if there's bloody sport on?

A message from one battered old Scot to Westminster - don't try to pre-empt our referendum timescale!

From PC pics May 12, 2011

Iain Gray’s obsession - independence

If I may quote myself, from yesterday’s blog -

The Scottish National Party’s raison d'être is the independence of the Scottish nation by the free democratic choice of the people of Scotland, a choice that will be offered to them during the life of the next Scottish Parliament, the electorate and May the 5th permitting.

Could anything be clearer than that? One would think not, but it is not clear enough for Iain Gray. But then, not much is clear to Iain Gray, as his flagship policies and dodgy statistics have made abundantly evident over the last few weeks.

Gray has now adopted the advice, offered by several commentators anxious to help him revive his campaign, to ‘go negative’ and attack Alex Salmond and the SNP on the independence issue. Let me explore the rationale behind this. I hope Kenny Farquarson of Scotland on Sunday will forgive me for using some of his arguments in yesterday’s paper to aid me in this.

Kenny’s first paragraph in his first of six steps is very revealing, and I think it may fairly be taken as representative of the Unionist opposition arguments. (The red highlighting is mine.)

1.Talk up independence. No-one predicted that this was going to be a factor in this election. But with the polls now pointing to an SNP-Green majority at Holyrood - and consequently a majority for a referendum - independence is now front and centre.

This paragraph fascinated me by its realpolitik frankness. It doesn’t need any decoding, just paraphrasing - “We unionists thought they were going to lose and now they might win - time to panic!”

In the next part of the argument, I will use Kenny’s figures, even though they can be challenged, because frankly, they suit me. (I can do realpolitik too!)

The problem for Salmond is that only a third of Scots favour breaking up the UK. In fact, more than one in four SNP voters is against independence.

First, a purely technical point. Scotland securing its independence would not ‘break up the UK’ - it would become, de facto, the United Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Of course, it would lost that term highly valued by unionists, Great Britain, and continuing to call the England and Wales part British would not be entirely accurate, except perhaps geographically.

The problem with Kenny’s stats is that they are actually a problem for Iain Gray, Annabel Goldie and Tavish Scott, David Cameron and Ed Miliband, not Alex Salmond, and for a couple of very good reasons.

1. If the stats are accurate, then Iain Gray and his fellow unionists have nothing to fear from a referendum, since the Scottish electorate would reject independence by a substantial majority, one that wouldn’t even requiring playing around with the rules after the event, as happened the last time. Iain Gray’s best strategy would then be to adopt the Wendy Principle, and demand that the First Minister “bring it on". Independence would then perhaps be off the agenda for a generation.

2. If Alex Salmond believes the stats, he has two choices - either renege on his explicit promise to ask the Parliament to let the Scottish people decide within the life of the Parliament, or go ahead in the full knowledge that he would lose.

All of these options should logically be attractive to Iain Gray and the unionist, but there is a worm in the unionist apple - they don’t believe the figures themselves, and they fear that a referendum might just yield a majority for an independence vote.

This leaves them with the difficulty that they appear to be denying the Scottish people their right to choose, including those voters who are against independence - unionists.

In the past, the unionist politicians have attempted to deflect the flak on the basis that the Scottish Government can’t afford the costs of a referendum, and that the time and resources devoted to it are a diversion from other more pressing matters. Whatever force this argument might have had, it is now totally discredited because the UK ConLib Coalition are fighting like ferrets in a sack over the AV - Yes  or No referendum - costly, damaging to the unity of the UK government (it may precipitate a general election later this year) at a critical time for the economy, and one for which there was no demand whatsoever from the electorate, who are treating it as a great irrelevancy.

The Scottish electorate are not fools - they can see who is obsessed by an independence referendum, and it is patently not Alex Salmond, but Iain Gray.

Alex Salmond consistent focus is - and always has been - the Scottish economy, effective public services and law and order, employment, renewable energy and a revitalised Scottish private sector.

Nationalists have waited a long time for independence, and although they have their eye on that bright horizon one day, their focus right now is to get Scotland out of the monumental mess created by the Labour Party over decades, the last Westminster Labour Government’s disastrous incompetence in running - I would say ruining - the economy, and the lethal compounding of these giant problems by the inept and squabbling coalition, now on the verge of breakup within the year.

I have a closing word for all Scots voters. You are currently near a watershed on May 5th in a great historical process, one that has ramifications, not just for Scotland, but for everyone who lives in these isles, for the people of Ireland, for Europe and for American foreign policy, and therefore for the world.

It is a process that has been taking place for centuries - the unstoppable urge of a people for independence, for their right to stand up as free men and women in their own nation and run their own affairs. The natural state of a nation is democratic independence by the will of its people.

Be sure to be part of that great liberating process in Scotland - vote for the Scottish National Party on both ballot papers on May 5th. Two simple crosses will determine your future - make the right choices.

Both Votes SNP

George Washington's Farewell Address 1796

So spoke a great patriot, the first President of the United States, who freed his country from the corrupt and venal grasp of the British Empire. (I hope he will forgive my spell checker changing favorite to favourite.)

He could hardly have foreseen the continuing relevance of his words in the 21st century - or maybe he knew, as all truly great men know, that they were for every age and every time.

They resonate ever more strongly today, especially in relation to America’s relationship with the United Kingdom - and the UK’s with America - and the poisoned seeds that the creation of the State of Israel - aided and abetted by Great Britain - planted in the heart of the Middle East.

Washington's Farewell Address 1796

So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils.

Sympathy for the favourite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.

It leads also to concessions to the favourite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld.

And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favourite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot.

How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils.

Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.

Every word, every line of the above is directly relevant  to our tortured planet, and to Scotland’s wish to free itself its poisoned union with the United Kingdom.

Saor Alba!

Did Gadaffi order the Lockerbie Bombing?

Certain things cannot be re-stated too often -

1. Megrahi was found guilty by a Scottish Court.

2. Megrahi was released under Scottish Law on compassionate grounds only, in the belief that the verdict was sound and that he was guilty.

3. No commercial considerations influenced the Scottish Government: there were no negotiations over his release with the UK government: Scotland was not influenced by the UK Government of Tony Blair or  Gordon Brown.

These are the only crystal clear facts in the whole Megrahi/Libya affair. The behaviour of the last UK Labour government was deceitful and contemptible throughout its term in office, influenced by expediency and commercial considerations.

The hypocritical behaviour of the Scottish Labour group in the Scottish Parliament has  been beneath contempt, characterised by utter hypocrisy and political posturing.

The behaviour of the UK Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition government has been no less hypocritical and expedient. As cynical arms dealers to Middle Eastern dictatorships and suppliers of instrument of repression and death to be used against to their people by dictators, Cameron's government - driven into action by the Wikileaks revelations - has been motivated by a wish to secure short term political advantage against the Labour Opposition, and a parallel wish to smear the Scottish Nationalist government with lies about their role in the Megrahi Affair.

In this shameful politicking, they have been aided by the Cabinet Secretary to both the previous and the current UK  governments, Sir Gus O'Donnell.

The latest allegation by a Libyan politician,  that Gadaffi ordered the Lockerbie bombing, which to date is not supported by any facts, and may well be driven by a simple wish to gain favour in the US and UK when his political career is threatened, comes as no surprise to the Scottish Government, who believed that anyway throughout, based on the Scottish Court's guilty verdict.

However, it is not what those who believe Megrahi is innocent wanted to hear, and they are likely to retain their belief that he was either innocent, or did not act alone.

The majority of British newspapers seized on the so far unsupported allegation of Gadaffi's involvement with glee, and published it as a fact on their front pages, motivated by God  knows what agenda, since their thinking  has been marked by a lack of clarity and a total disregard for the facts so far.

One can only assume that the ConLib supporting press hope it will damage UK Labour, the Labour Press hope it will damage Scotland, and both of them think it will somehow protect the rotten, failing political entity known as the United Kingdom.

(Some prominent Scottish bloggers, who ought to know better, have also accepted the Libyan politician's unsupported allegation at face value.)

Whatever the outcome, the central clarity and human compassion of the Scottish Government's decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds, and on that alone, will remain unaffected - the only clear, principled decision in the whole sorry affair.

The ludicrous farce that is the British Empire and the UK - by an American

Superb - wonderful, accurate, funny! A spot-on hilarious but hugely informative account of the long-running farce called the British Empire. Scotland wants out - I want out - anyone with any sense wants out. Congratulations, USA - you got out a long time ago.

Saor Alba!

The Scottish Secretary of State – a colonial governor in an ignoble role

Another sordid chapter in the history of Scottish Secretaries of State - a sad procession of men who, with a very few remarkable exceptions, consistently betrayed the interests of Scotland in favour of the Union, but benefited personally from having held this colonial governors post, even if only briefly.

In the period of the closures of companies and the destruction of entire Scottish industries in the video, three Tory Scottish Secretaries were in post -

Malcom Rifkind, now Sir Malcom Rifkind, now cosily ensconced in the safe Tory seat of Kensington, as far as possible from his electoral failures in Scotland

Ian Lang, now Baron Lang of Monkton, safely ensconced in the House of Lords.

Michael Forsyth, now Baron Forsyth of Drumlean, a sworn enemy of Scottish devolution and the Scottish Parliament, also safely ensconced in the House of Lords

The Labour Scottish Secretaries, with a couple of notable exceptions - exceptions that prove the rule - have been as bad as the Tories, and have tended to have a close, sometimes intimate association with defence matters and defence companies.

Why? Because the UK exists to perpetuate the concept of war as the operating principle of the state, and war and armaments are very profitable businesses.

(Jim Murphy, last Labour SSforS but one (the brief Danny Alexander), is now predictably Shadow Minister of Defence, following the template closely.)

And what of Michael Moore, the current incumbent? He is quoted as saying -

"I've just done (sic) the worst crime a politician can commit. It's one of the reasons most folks distrust us as a breed"

Brian Taylor, BBC, asked him today what on earth he was doing in coalition with the Tories in the light of Moore's previous criticisms of them?  Moore glibly replies that he was talking about the situation 30 years ago. Will he resign? Of course not - there's the ministerial salary car, the illusion of status and the guarantee of reward at the end of it all.

Join the ancient and contemptible club, Michael - you deserve the perks. But Scotland doesn't deserve you or your ilk.