Bits and Pieces – Tuesday 1t March 2022

All Gentrified and Tory – Nothing like a stroll in the country for Comfy Slippers Wishart and Mhairi ‘huge disappointment’ Black with their Boss Scottish Tory Branch Manager Douglas Ross. Nice wee campaign leaflet photo shoot as well. Look how happy Comfy Slippers looks, how comfortable he looks on the estate, wee Mhairi at the back being dutiful to the last, women at the back and the men folk at the front, the way of the world for the Tories with Comfy Slippers digging the first spade of the spring planting season. Lifts the soul it does lifts the soul.

Carnage – As the civilian death toll mounts in Ukraine, as the Ukrainian people fight for their lives the West should hang it’s head in shame. The sanctions imposed to date are pretty much useless and show that people like Johnson and Biden are cowards. Sanctions include –

A ban from Swift will delay the payments Russia gets for exports of oil and gas.

Western leaders have agreed to freeze the assets of Russia’s central bank, to limit its ability to access its $630bn international dollar reserves.

In co-ordination with the US and the EU, the UK government has also banned British people and businesses from making transactions with the Russian central bank, its finance ministry and its wealth fund.

The UK has also announced laws to stop major Russian companies and the state raising finance or borrowing money on UK markets, and placed a limit on deposits Russians can make to UK bank accounts.

The UK, EU, US and other countries have announced curbs on products that can be sent to Russia. These include dual-use goods, which are items that could have both a civilian and military use, like high-tech items, chemicals or lasers.

Western government have also imposed sanctions on some individuals.These include Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, whose assets in the US, EU, UK and Canada will be frozen and, in the case of the US, a travel ban imposed.

It is simply not enough is it, key words being some curbs, some individuals, limits, NOTHING near enough. They should be seizing assets, seizing companies, seizing bank accounts, blockades of ports, ban all Russian flights, remove Russia from the UN Security Council and any countries like China and India who are facilitating Russia, they could hand all seized assets to the Ukraine Government but they won’t, they are hedging their bets for the day, probably very soon, that they will welcome Russia back into the fold. The West and the EU are not serious, all just a game to them, while innocent people die.

You can say what you like – Alex Salmond is a proper politician and a real political leader . Read his article printed in the National today, when you see the stupidity of Johnson, the bile of Sturgeon, the hate of Patel, the uselessness of Davie and Starmer, and the infantile politics of Sarwar and Cole-Hamilton we are reminded of what a real politician should be by Alex Salmond. It just shows what the Salmond stitch up robbed Scotland of in so many ways, in a time of crisis, at a time when Scotland needs a real leader for what lays ahead in the next few months, what do we have, we have Sturgeon and her hate and bile. The cost of living crisis is really going to hit home in the next two months, my rent went up by 4.1% yesterday and that is in social housing, my council tax will rise by 2.1%, national insurance and energy due to rise next month, food prices and fuel on the fore court going up weekly, does anyone out there out there believe that Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP / Greens at Holyrood, or Johnson at Westminster are the answer to these issues, I certainly don’t. In the May elections we had all better hope that Alba can make some inroads, they are our last hope.

They Still Don’t Get It –  The question now is not what the SNP would do if Johnson says no. The question is what will he do when Scotland’s parliament insists on giving the Scottish people what they have already voted for — the right to choose how they are governed. (Mike Russell)

A very valid question but the answer from Russell just shows how out of touch he is, and the SNP, he states –

To successfully make its case the independence movement must continue to exhibit what is called in Scots a constructive “calm sough”. We need to confidently explain that for a small, talented, well-educated, hard-working and potentially wealthy country independence is normal, as demonstrated in the EU itself.

No Mike, the SNP need to get off their arse, get the referendum bill (no matter how misguided an approach) through the Scottish Parliament and take on Westminster to give Scotland the right to choose. Are the SNP the independence party or the talking and talking and talking shit party, it can’t be both.