Time will tell – It’s a bit galling that we have to look to Patrick Harvie for an update on the state of affairs regarding the independence planning process but it is what it is in the new Scotland. Patrick Harvie has said to The National that
“LEGISLATION to hold a second independence referendum using Holyrood powers is to be introduced into the Scottish Parliament soon”, “There are one or two hoops the Scottish Government has to jump through before formally laying a bill like submitting it to the Presiding Officer. “So you will hear before very long what the timescale is for that but it will be fully in line with the intention to hold an independence referendum in the timescale that we promised.”
While I would like to believe this there is a huge part of me that just thinks we have been here before too many times, we’ve been up that hill and back down again far too many times. The simple reality is that this legislation should have been out at least 3 years ago and we should have been through the courts by now but I guess time will tell.
Nut Job – Putin is a nut job and I won’t apologize for using that term. Allowing the Russian Army to strike so near the Polish border is the height of stupidity and of a man not in control of all of his marbles. As sanctions start to really bite in Russia the hope that the Russian people will take action against this clown I fear will result in Putin becoming even more desperate and he will make a stupid move against a NATO member. I have scoffed when I have heard the term WW3 being used by the equally unhinged in the UK, mainly from right-wing Tory nut jobs, you know the ones who seem to thirst for war at every opportunity for some stupid reason. But we are entering a dangerous phase now and I do fear that NATO will get dragged into this war. I think it would be a huge mistake for Russian, the combined might of NATO would eventually crush Russia but Putin has a finger on the button and who knows what this f idiot is capable of.
Appeasement won’t win the referendum – The SNP’s leader at Westminster rejected claims there would be a referendum on whether to retain the monarchy if a majority of Scots backed ending the Union in the future. Blah blah has said that “The Queen will remain head of state in an independent Scotland.” “I think it has been a challenging time for the Queen, hasn’t it?
Not as bloody tough as it’s been for the rest of us
Like keeping the pound, this strategy is stupid to say the least. If there is no clear water between Scotland and the British state why should people on the margins vote for an independent Scotland? The SNP need to be clear that it will be for the Scottish people to decide the future of the monarchy in an independent Scotland via a referendum, there doesn’t have to be a time line for this, but to say that an independent Scotland will retain this disgusting institution is folly at best and stupidity at worst, but what’s new from the SNP. This is about appeasing the yoons.
The spiteful horror never left in the first place – Richard Murphy noted that “there is no such thing as public money, there is only taxpayers’ money”. It was Margaret Thatcher who said that of course. She used that claim to justify her attempts to cut state services, as has every Tory ever since. Richard goes on to explain “Over the last two years, £400 billion of state spending took place without any taxpayer or borrowed money being involved. The whole Covid crisis was paid for with money created by the Bank of England, which is part of the government. The evidence is plain to see. When it comes to what government can do, taxpayer money is not the constraint”.
Unwrap the warm words that these politicians use, and they are offering austerity, hardship, services that must be paid for, and brutality from the state as essential support is denied to those who need it.
The Tories will use every single thing they can to reduce and privatise the state. Trickle down and all of that crap is bullshit, the UK has some of the lowest social protection in the western world yet people fall for this shit year on year, Thatcher used oil money to devastate Scotland, a process that continues to this day with the actions of Thatcher admirer Sturgeon. I grew up in the 80’s despising Thatcher and everything she stood for and that continues to this day, the fact that the SNP have morphed into a BritNat Party with sympathies for Thatcher just shows that horror of a woman who never left in the first place, some people survive a prolonged death, Thatcher through Sturgeon is one of them.
grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com 
At a time when the British state has never been more toxic, the SNP should be showing that there is clear blue water between them and the UK parties. They need to be demonstrating how devolution threatens every achievement that it has also created, and they simply aren’t doing so. They need to be clear that the discredited monarchy is not part of Scotland’s future.
If there is no difference in their vision from what we already have, who is going to go for it?
Jester
I totally agree, of all the SNP do is keep the trappings of the British State what is the point and how will that convince anyone on the merits of independence, I have no faith in the SNP at all anymore, or the Greens.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
Harvie’s Independence:
Too many caveats, too many provisos, too vague, too late.
Blackford’s Monarchy:
He doesn’t get to decide – WE do.
Thatcherism:
Like a vampire it is not alive but cannot be destroyed. The Living Dead as in Blair, Cameron, May, Johnson, Surgeon …
Putin:
In my opinion he’s bad but not mad. He’s calculating … but he may have miscalculated.
The invasion is inexcusable and thousands of innocents have died (as usual in armed fighting) but I can understand – NOT agree with – why he has done it. If anybody in the West had been listening he said before the war started “you may not wish to be Russia’s friend, but you don’t need to make us an enemy”. He was alluding to the encouragement of bordering states to sign up to NATO over the last 30 years, breaking promises made by Reagan to Gorbachev after the Reykjavik agreement to disarm (1987) that there would be no expansion eastward. Since then the Baltic states, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, Albania, Romania, Slovakia, North Macedonia and Montenegro. That hasn’t helped hos paranoia.
If the leaders of the West was in any way astute then they would have arrested the expansion. Instead he was given an excuse … and he took it as justification of the war (at least at home in Russia).
But war was not the answer and it is now a complete mess. A dangerous one as you say.
Duncanio
Harvie I agree, too many if’s and but’s with him and his party.
Blackford total clown and it’s not his call I agree, his level of stupidity seems to grow by the day and of we keep the trappings of the British State what is the point.
Thatcher , God that woman will never die.
Putin / NATO – I see what you are saying but it is up to individual nations to decide their own foreign policy without invading others. If Russia hadn’t been re-arming over the last 20 years then the West maybe would not be as paranoid about Putin.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
An excellent comment, Duncanio. I agree with everything you say, including about the situation in Ukraine (sorry Bruce).
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.