One of the main techniques extremist groups like Nationalists use to make themselves appear normal is to label their opponents something they would like them to be and then attack that label.
By labelling their opponents as “Unionists” or “Yoons” they associate them with Union Jacks, British bulldogs, Churchill, and The Queen.
(Of course the Union that the Nationalists almost always imagine is English — they never include Northern Ireland or Wales, or the Scottish people who are part of Britain.)
#5 She deprived 300,000 children of their new hospital
Edinburgh's new Sick Children's Hospital was supposed to open at the end of 2012. You didn’t misread that: it's just one example of the level of incompetence we must live with under the SNP in Scotland.
The project has been so delayed it has even outlived three previous health secretaries who were looking after it, making Jeane Freeman the fourth. I hear you all breath sighs of relief at that...
Yesterday, I was talking to a female ex-Labour supporter, and new Nationalist. While claiming she was 'for social justice', she said that she was all for anyone being Scottish, except for JK Rowling. When I asked why, she told me that Rowling should be excluded because of her political views.
Whatever you think of Ms Rowling, or transgender activism, this woman, who presumably thinks she is a decent person, told me straight up that someone with a different political opinion from her has no place in Scotland.
#5. The Sun pulled an article about the Health Secretary’s complacency…during a pandemic
Despite being months into the Coronavirus pandemic crisis, when frontline workers are still not being routinely tested and PPE shortages are still troubling, the Scottish Health Secretary, Jeane Freeman, had time in her schedule to tweet she would chase up ASDA for Nationalist journalist Angela Haggerty’s groceries.
This, rightly, attracted much scorn and derision. The Sun ran a perfectly legitimate article, which they then deleted, leaving little trace that this story ever existed - an airbrush job the Ministry of Truth would be proud of.
Stephen Daisley, writing on his blog, says that frustration is rising as Scottish Nationalists fail to deliver results after 13 years in power.
Three terms of Nationalist rule have produced little of substance and on education and health we have seen progress stall and even go into reverse. Meanwhile, sizeable reserves of political capital, parliamentary time and government resources have gone into a constitutional war of attrition. What exactly about the past 13 years would make anyone want another five?
The camera shakes. A young child comes into view, the first of many, their gleaming eyes open and eager. They start talking in the coached manner of totalitarian regimes:
The children of North Korea would like to say ‘thank you’ to our Dear Leader. We are so grateful, thank you for always keeping us safe, working so hard, for being strong for us. Thank you for caring for every individual life and for always thinking about the children. Thank you, Dear Leader, thank you, thank you, thank you….
On our daily trawl through the nether regions of Scottish twitter we came across this thread by @AOUBAlba. As you may recall, All Under One Banner organise pro-Separation marches for 99.99% of the Scottish population who stay home.
I've been in chats with quite a few of these marchers who claim their Nationalism is "civic and joyous". Yet is that really true? Yesterday, AUOB asked the question, "What's the first thing that should be changed once Scotland regains independence?"
The words "Beer Garden" and "Scotland" are not often heard together, but they have sparked a storm in Scotland as Nicola Sturgeon has refused permission for them to open for another two weeks, despite giving earlier indications that they could open now.
Why not?
We were told from the beginning that the purpose of the lockdown was to save the NHS being overwhelmed. Even at the height of the crisis, the NHS, staffed by our amazing carers, was never in any real danger. The Louisa Who? temporary hospital was, thankfully, never used.
It is against that backdrop that the SNP need a bolder drive and ambition to get Scottish school children all of the classroom time they can. Nicola has had since March this year to plan for this provision, and that is precisely what is happening in the Scottish public school sector, but the SNP are letting down the majority of pupils who attend state sector schools.
It has been 22 years since the Good Friday Agreement was reached. After the 1997 General Election and the subsequent referendum on reconvening the Scottish Parliament for the first time in nearly 300 years, the April 1998 event was probably the third earliest political moment that I remember. At my tender age, I didn’t fully understand the details of the peace accord, but I knew it was a significant moment in the history of our country.
To my fellow anti-Nationalists: With the deepest of respect, you're doing it wrong.
Every day, I see people arguing on Twitter, trying to counter Nationalist arguments. One thread I've been following on Twitter has literally hundreds of responses trying to convince Nationalists that they are wrong about Scotland’s finances. Of course the Nationalists are wrong.
But has all that discussion done any good? No. Has anyone been converted? No. Has it taken the fight back to them? Rarely. Has a lot of time been wasted. Yes.
Over the past 24 hours there's been quite a bit of discussion about closing the border from England, led by a shameless front-page headline in The National.
There is about to be a massive second wave of this new virus in England due to Tory ineptitude. The borders of both Scotland and Wales should be closed to all but essential traffic ie commerce. Not casual trips that are in fact international from a COVID hot spot about to get worse.
When will the opposition parties in Scotland learn to fight? Today I was appalled to see yet another weak and compliant message from Jackson Carlaw, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, praising the Nationalists for their response to COVID-19.
This comes on the heels of an earlier tweet where he did the same:
Confidence in the First Minister? W.T.A.F.
Jackson, a wee clue: they are not your friends. They are Nationalists who are destroying our country. Every move they make, every breath they take, is designed to further their ugly Nationalist goal of separation. Everything they do causes division.
In a recent commentary, ‘Ireland’s past is not Scotland’s future’, Damien Scott talks about his upbringing in a mixed Catholic-Protestant home. Damien says he is now an atheist and that as religious belief has dwindled in Scotland, politics has replaced it as an article of faith. In effect, he says politics is Scotland’s new religion.
However, as a practising Catholic, I believe my faith does play a fundamental role in shaping my political beliefs, including my view that Scotland is better off as part of the United Kingdom, and that the world is better off because of the United Kingdom.
The video above has been viewed over 40,000 times on social media.
Hi I’m Mark Devlin,
We’ve all seen the hideous scenes at the English border where a group of flag-waving Scottish Nationalists, thought it would be fun to tell English people coming to Scotland to f-ck off.
But, really, why should we be surprised when Nicola Sturgeon openly talks about closing the border to the English? Why would we think her followers wouldn’t take action?
With polls indicating a win for the SNP in the Scottish elections in 2021, and widespread dissatisfaction with the Conservative leadership, Andrew Waddell outlines six things he believes the Scottish Conservatives can do to get back on track.
For some time now, the SNP, under Nicola Sturgeon, has attempted to portray itself as a paragon of virtue and truth. The party proclaims itself as anti-discriminatory, anti-racist, anti-sectarian, and anti all-things-objectionable-to-a-tolerant-and-civilised-society. Defender of the bastion of Jocktopia.
When Nicola Sturgeon strutted her rant at George Square last December, she advised us of her ‘vision’ for Scotland. Apparently, the ‘New Scotland’ is to be open, welcoming, tolerant and inclusive (no Tories please!).
On Wednesday afternoon, the Chancellor of Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, delivered a typically impressive performance in the House of Commons. Outlining the next phase of governmental support for the British people, he spoke passionately about protecting livelihoods before announcing an imaginative set of measures intended to kick-start the UK economy.
The speech – entitled ‘A Plan for Jobs’ – contained several notable soundbites. The measures themselves were eye-catching, with a floundering hospitality sector receiving special attention in the form of a VAT reduction and a new policy dubbed ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ – cue much innuendo on Twitter.
It’s only been a few weeks since George Galloway announced his return to Scottish politics, with the aim of taking on Scottish Nationalists in the 2021 Scottish elections. In that time, he has formed a new party @Alliance4Unity, which has gained over 7400 Twitter followers in a week, and received over 1800 letters from would-be candidates (which he says he is having some difficulty processing).
Do you know the Mull of Galloway? The chances are that you don’t; even people who live in Galloway have probably never been there, unless they have a passion for sea birds, or lighthouses. I can recommend it for these two things, plus the seascape, but mainly as a way of exploring one’s inner sense of Britishness.
There, standing on the southern-most tip of Scotland, gazing across an empty Irish Sea, once the nexus of trade in these islands for early Britons, you get the sense that, having travelled miles to be somewhere really isolated, you have actually located the centre point of the United Kingdom.
This article was written on September 11, 2014, a few days before the Scottish Independence Referendum. It is just one of many possible pasts or futures. Let me know what you think would have happened in the comments.
On September 18, 2014, Scotland votes 'yes' to independence by 51%. Independence supporters claimed they wanted a more democratic system, but now 49% of the country is living under a system they don't want.
The very first article on this site, Nicola Sturgeon’s five biggest failures, got a huge response, with over 14,400 views so far. But, so many of you said ‘Only five..?’ And we agree, so here’s some more of our First Minister's failures. Share widely...
In a video interview, conducted for Scotland Matters, on how an independent Scotland would have dealt with the Coronavirus crisis, leading health experts have slammed Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government, rating their efforts as only ‘five out of ten’.
Due to constant TV exposure, the general public has a mostly positive view of Sturgeon’s handling of the crisis, and is favorably comparing Scotland’s perceived performance with that in England, despite similar infections and death rates.
There's something awry in Scotland. The mood is changing, and nasty bigotry is becoming more mainstream. I love it here, but recently, based purely on the way I sound, I have felt judged and not welcome in the country I call home. And it breaks my heart.
I have lived in Scotland for four years, and before that I worked here for a few months of the year for four years. I represent a mix of nations that is modern Britain. My family history and name are Welsh and I represented Wales at rugby when I was 17. But I grew up in England, and was lucky enough to get a scholarship and bursary to go to a private school. So I have what some people think is a “posh” English accent.
Did you hear the one about the lifelong Rangers fan who spoke to George Galloway and decided to work with him to help redefine the Scottish political landscape?
It’s not a joke, it’s exactly what happened to me two weeks ago.
Until this time, I had never interacted with George Galloway and had never felt any wish to do so. From nowhere, a series of tweets appeared from the former MP, urging pro-UK political parties to form an alliance to defeat the SNP. Intrigued, I contacted Mr Galloway, not expecting a response.
This morning, like many parents in Scotland, I was up early for results day. A few minutes after 8am, my daughter appeared to relay the news. But, something didn’t seem right. Instead of As, two of her results, for Physics and Computing Science, were Bs.
My mind went back to her last parent-teacher conference, just as the Coronavirus crisis was starting. Her Computing Science teacher was effusive in praise. ‘I’ll be recommending an A,’ he said.
The heart-breaking stories flooding social media yesterday, demonstrated a scandalous truth: that the life chances of many Scottish children are doomed, regardless of individual effort and ability. They evaporated the illusion of free will, the idea that through grit and determination you can transcend the disadvantages of multiple deprivation and poor schooling.
The outcry has been predictable, from individual pupils and parents, politicians on all sides, and educationalists. The latter group warned months ago that the SQA moderation process was dodgy. Unlike the equivalent examining body in England, the SQA was allowed to hide its methodology from scrutiny, despite suggesting to the Scottish parliament that they would explain their methods and discuss adjustments with teachers.
How much does it cost to change a lightbulb at Holyrood?
A few quid perhaps? Maybe ten or twenty quid at a stretch? No… in fact it turns out it costs £357 to change a lightbulb at the Scottish parliament building. Some £1.75 Million was spent on upgrading lights in the devolved assemblies’ debating chamber in 2016-7, working out at an astonishing £357 apiece.
That same year, costs ranged from £25.6 Million in staff salaries, to £15.8 Million in parliamentary expenses. All in all, the total bill for the devolved assembly came in at a whopping £95,600,000. Perhaps such largesse should not be surprising; after all the ugly carbuncle that is this Scottish parliament building famously came in at a total cost of £414,000,000 to construct; roughly ten times over budget and three years late, to boot.
When the history of the last decade in Scotland is written, the role played by the Scottish Green Party will come in for special criticism. I had never really thought much about the Green Party. While serving around the world in the Army, I had formed a hazy impression of them as well-meaning eco-eccentrics, the recipients of the none-of-the-above vote at elections and recently led by Caroline Lucas, who seemed to punch above her weight, and occasionally say something sensible on Question Time.
I have never, under any leader, felt more positive about our chances of winning the next Holyrood Election.
I believe Douglas Ross is a political nuclear weapon that can not only strike fear into the Scottish National Party, but can stabilise this country financially and restore the power to the people, from a centralist Government in Edinburgh.
Living in South Lanarkshire, for me, Edinburgh often feels 550 miles away from home, while London feels 30 miles away. Holyrood and the devolution settlement, to this day, has been a complete failure. Tony Blair destroyed our United Kingdom’s unity by handing the Scottish Nationalists a parliament to breed dissent and grievance in.
The SNP is certainly not a party in the conventional sense.
It is a post-national movement that defines itself by creating enemies and enmities. It tears through Scottish society, because it sees Scotland very differently from the rest of us. It is an ugly, frightening imagination of our country that is created through collective narcissism.
Narcissism is the inability to distinguish self from an internalised ideal. It is pathological, unhealthy and dangerous. You could describe it as an eggshell personality, that rapidly fractures under pressure of criticism. So how do these poor narcissistic souls manage their lives?
I hate Nationalism. The damage it wrought in Europe in the twentieth century should have inoculated us all against it, but, once again, it has raised its ugly head. In Scotland, it has become a virulent force and made many converts in the last ten years.
I do not hate Scottish Nationalists on principle. Those who want Scotland to leave the UK are entitled to their opinion, and I respect those who say that that is what they want, no matter the consequences. If they would accept living at a singularly lower standard of living than we currently enjoy – which is what would happen – in order to leave the UK, then that is their choice.
Nationalists love to point to Scandinavia as their vision of sunny, snow-capped uplands, and of joining their dream team of small economies as part of a ‘Northern Arc of Prosperity,’ as Salmond used to call it.
However, we are never told how the journey will happen. Everything is sunny. There’s never any possibility of long detours, dangerous events, and dreich weather. Comparing Scotland to Nordic countries is simply a cheap trick that deflects from the reality of where we are now.
Four of the candidates who will be standing for the Alliance for Unity, in a bid to maximise the anti-Separatist vote in next May’s crucial Scottish Parliament elections, have delivered Monday evening broadcasts which can be found on You Tube.
George Galloway, Jamie Blackett, David Griffiths and Alan Sked spoke with clarity and conviction about their formative experiences. An ardent socialist, a conservative-minded businessman, a Leaver and a Remainer, as well as two supporters of Glasgow’s highly competitive football clubs, can be found among the four.
Hello Majority fans, Wee Nicola here. As you know, I love books. I’m always reading books. Book, books, books! So here’s some of my favourites, hope you love them too... #NicolasBookClub...
A few months ago, a little-noticed poll by Wings over Scotland caught my attention. The headline result of the poll was that there was a 50-50 split in support for the question ‘Should Scotland be an independent country’. In fact, the results were:
Yes: 46% No: 46% Don’t Know 8%
While I’m sure many of you will take issue with the question wording, the fun starts when the following question is asked:
Richard Leonard, Scottish Labour’s leader, has now been in the job for three years, during which time he has presided over multiple election defeats. In the European elections in May 2019, the party slumped to fifth in Scotland, polling less than 10% of the vote. The party then fell from seven seats to one in November’s General Election.
A YouGov poll for The Times puts support for Labour at 14 per cent in Holyrood’s constituency and list vote. And 53 percent of voters could not recognise Mr Leonard.
Time was when people could disagree about politics and remain civil. Taking a different view was a matter of opinion, not of moral superiority. Certainly, there were some politicians who cast moral aspersions (in Scotland, Labour against Tories), but public personal insults were not the norm. The referendum of 2014 changed all that.
The tone was set by Nicola Sturgeon, whose idea of debate was to shout down opponents such as Johann Lamont and Alistair Carmichael. This was done on TV, with the ‘moderator’, Rona from STV, doing nothing to restrain her. No wonder some of us called it ‘Salmond TV’ at the time. I mention this because I am in no doubt that the deterioration of public discourse has been the result of SNP politicians deliberately giving a nod and a wink to their followers.
In an article in The Critic, Alliance for Unity’s Deputy Leader, Jamie Blackett, outlines eight ways which a UK Secession Clarity Act could clarify requirements before any secession referendum takes place. With many years before the next 'once-in-a-generation' vote, Blackett argues that it makes sense to work out the rules in advance.
These rules would apply to any Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish referenda and should be seen, not as roadblocks, but as paths to legitimacy. The Act should:
Yesterday, Fiona Hyslop, Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Fair Work and Culture, was asked in Holyrood about when the 28,000 green jobs, that were promised by Alex Salmond in 2010, would be delivered. She answered, “When we have the powers of ‘independence’.”
In other words, the SNP-controlled Scottish Government has been unable to create the jobs they promised, but, somehow, will be magically free to create them after Scotland separates from the rest of the UK.
It’s difficult to believe that it’s only been four months since I started the Majority. At the time, I was amazed that there was no media that represented us, the silent majority of anti-Nationalists in Scotland.
In four months, thanks to your support, The Majority has grown to over 8000 Twitter followers and 2500 Facebook fans, our articles have been read over 200,000 times and hundreds of thousands of you have watched our videos and memes. Some highlights:
Most of us have seen the Mitchell and Webb sketch, where a Nazi officer, worried about the skulls on his cap, ends up asking his fellow Nazi officer:
Are we the baddies?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU
The sketch strikes home because everyone thinks they are a good person, doing good things for good reasons. But sometimes even good people can find themselves doing bad things for bad reasons. Sometimes they can even be its cheerleaders. Until they start to question...
In his weekly broadcast, George Galloway, leader of the fledgling Alliance For Unity Party, covers many of the issues in Scottish politics today. We have transcribed the best parts for you.
#1 Significant Labour figure to join Alliance For Unity
We are building a stable of parliamentary candidates that are really thoroughbreds and I can't tell you who right now, but I have been talking for the last day or two to a very prominent twice Labour party parliamentary candidate about joining us on the lists for the Holyrood elections in May.
Fury broke out last night in the deadlocked Scexit negotiations. With Scottish independence officially set for Hogmanay 2024, the ‘divorce settlement’ is reaching the end game. The latest row exploded when Scottish government sources insisted on a share of the British Museum’s Egyptian collection. Officials stressed they were simply adapting the Salmond principle: “After all, it’s Scotland’s loot too.”
Last month, the Post reported on the controversial deal to divide Lord Elgin’s historic bequests to the museum (see ‘Don’t Lose our Marbles,’ 25th Oct 2024). “Unfortunately, we had to give up some of the Greek stuff,” a negotiator admitted, after protests from Athens. Diplomats hint that Scotland may donate three torsos and a winged messenger in return for the Greek government dropping a threat to veto the country’s EU membership application.
Chaos came to Princes Street yesterday after Mac Lives Matter campaigners targeted Edinburgh’s iconic Scott Monument. The 197 foot ‘gothic rocket’ survived the attempt to drill through its supporting pillars, but Sir Walter Scott’s head did not.
Police cordoned off the scene as engineers inspected the damage. The attack is the most daring act so far in the unofficial MLM campaign to cleanse Scotland’s capital of ‘colonial’ symbols ahead of the first anniversary of independence in December.
The biggest single thing that could be done to cement the union between Scotland and England would be for Celtic and Rangers to join The Premiership. I have pressed this case upon every Prime Minister since Tony Blair.
You may say I have a taste for hyperbole from time to time. It is true I have sometimes hailed a starling as an eagle or even denounced a blackbird as a vulture but this time I'm not exaggerating.
Last night, I published a video I had been forwarded of a group chat in which Nicola Sturgeon’s sister says that although Nicola is very tired she won’t delegate to her deputy because she is a ‘total control freak’.
Personally, I think she needs a day or two off, and hand it over to her Deputy. But that's not Nicola, she's a total control freak. She wouldn't do that.
This video confirms rising concern by both Sturgeon’s opponents and admirers that her Government has become a one-woman show.
We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Alfred Tennyson, 1833
In his description of the social paradoxes of late Soviet social life, the anthropologist Alexi Yurchak expounds on the concept of "hypernormalisation”, a social condition in which the established ideological paradigm has grown to be so total that it becomes impossible to imagine a situation in which it does not apply. It becomes so overwhelming that individuals inside the ideology cannot see beyond it.
This article is an edited version of the above video, first broadcast on Monday, 19th October.
Having spent most of my life running my own businesses, in Japan, the United States and now in Scotland, it makes me really angry to see how the Scottish Government treats businesses here in Scotland.
I remember starting my first business in Tokyo, making what became Japan’s number one English magazine. Like a lot of business owners, we used all our savings to get started. It wasn’t enough, but we worked really hard and took huge risks, taking on credit and debt. Slowly, over many years we built a profitable business employing 40 people. It was hard work, extremely stressful and full of risk—which is why I really feel for a lot of businesses in Scotland today.
It’s official: Dennis the Menace – and Gnasher – have been nationalised. In a milestone for Scotland’s post-Independence industrial policy, ministers raised a dram yesterday as DC Thomson was finally brought under public ownership.
The takeover was agreed after a Nationalist boycott of the traditionally Unionist company led directors to raise the white flag earlier in the year. “We used Bash Street Kids tactics against them … heh-heh-heh,” admitted a Culture Ministry official on condition of anonymity.
To highlight what the other side has done is one of the commonest forms of evasion of personal moral responsibility"
-- Cardinal Cahal Daly
In my previous article for the Majority, I spoke about how nationalism and nationalists rely on paradoxes to both validate their own opinions and dismiss the facts of others. It is time, therefore, to dissect and discredit their preferred technique, "whataboutery", or the Scottish version, "whitabootery".
Simply put, whataboutery serves two functions, firstly to try to put the person who asks the question on the defensive, and secondly to allow the person using whataboutery to deflect away and avoid answering the question asked.
As a gathering of the clans, it was a pretty rum affair. Two hundred and more Galloways stood on the slopes of The Merrick (2766 ft) to select their new chief after the ancient post lay vacant.
The vote, by acclamation, was unanimous. Swathed in plaid, the victor – known hereafter as The Galloway – beamed benevolently in his lizard-green regalia after officials at the Court of Lord Lyon, King at Arms, confirmed his appointment.
Who remembers all the fanfare and controversy surrounding the Scottish Government Citizens' Assembly last year? Joanna Cherry and Lesley Riddoch bigging it up and Labour ex-MEP David Martin heading it up, then giving it up (he resigned for “personal” reasons). Less and less about it in the papers till a little noticed announcement two weeks ago saying it would finalise its vision on 10th October.
Scotland has a Justice Minister with no experience of the law, beyond a conviction for driving without insurance. Perhaps this is why he is introducing a bitterly contested bill to ban and to criminalise ‘hate speech’, especially speech that is incitement to hatred, in people’s homes. There is also a convoluted plan to criminalise playwrights and perhaps also actors performing in plays where Mr Yousaf deems the text to be likely to incite hatred.
Imagine two salespeople at your door. One sells apples, the other oranges. Both fruits cost the same.
The apple salesperson says, ‘Buy this apple, it’s tasty!’. The orange salesperson, worried at this simple message, tries a different approach, ‘You like apples? This orange is just like an apple’.
Which one are you most likely to choose?
If the orange salesperson doesn’t believe in their product, why should we? There are many selling strategies, but dissing your own product never works. The customer says, "I was actually thinking of buying an orange until told me it’s not as good as an apple, so I’ll just take that."
Once thing is certain: the polls were wrong, again. There was no Blue Wave. There was no Biden landslide. Despite being a 'racist', Trump increased his vote among Latinos and Blacks.
One would think that the media would know better by now. In 2016, The New York Times' favourite pollster, Nate Silver, famously predicted that there was only an 8% chance of Trump winning. It was in the bag for Clinton.
Nationalists love to tell us that ‘independence is normal’. They will use false equivalences, manufacture grievances and exaggerate the most minute things, including chocolate bars, all in an attempt to further their narrative that they are singularly oppressed and that the cure for all lies in independence, even if that “cure” leads to even greater suffering.
They point to other countries, demanding to be like them, “independent”, without the slightest realisation of the errors or ironies of the comparison. But, as we have repeatedly seen, Nationalists don’t acknowledge reality and fact, they only see that which suits them. Their own echo chamber isolates them from the world and its uncomfortable truths.
This morning, Sunday 8th Nov, at approximately 1045hrs, I took the final steps to the Black Watch Monument that overlooks the Fintry area of Dundee. This act of remembrance to the fallen, has become a regular feature in my life for many years – missed only when I have been working overseas.
Under the grey skies, I paid my respects with other service veterans, while socially distancing. We refrained from shaking hands and hugging, but weWill Remember Them in the time-honoured fashion, regardless of the Scottish Government ban on gatherings.
Two years ago, a few Aberdeen City and Shire Better Together veterans, including the two chairmen, Ian Lakin and Professor Hugh Pennington (better known as Nicola Sturgeon’s COVID bête noire), got together to create Scotland Matters.
We were all agreed that the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections would be the Scexit High Noon and unless Labour, Lib Dem and the Conservatives started looking like an effective opposition and alternative government, the SNP/Greens would again win a majority of seats with a minority of the total vote. Then they would agitate for Indyref2, even if they don’t actually mean it.
It’s worth reminding ourselves that the SNP have had complete control over Scotland’s Health Service for the past 13-and-a-half years, and that prior to becoming First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon was Health Secretary. In that time, the number of GP and consultant vacancies has increased dramatically.
As a GP, I have seen firsthand the effect of how the SNP’s chronic underfunding, higher taxation and lack of university spaces have combined to create desperate shortages in Scotland's health service. Yet the SNP, distracted by constant agitation for a second referendum, and lacking competency, is simply not doing enough to improve the situation.
I want to be a part of an America that continues to stand up for all of us, not bail on all our friends across the country.
Mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti.
In the wake of the American elections, there has been increasing talk about where a Biden presidency would stand on Scottish secession. The short answer: it will be unchanged from Obama in 2014 and all modern US presidents.
I have never been someone who has stuck to convention and blindly followed accepted normal practices, either in my work or, indeed, in my private life. Don’t get me wrong - I don’t break laws, but I am prepared to ‘think outside the box’ and look at things in a different way, if something doesn’t feel right. And I am not alone, as many of the great inventions and medical/scientific breakthroughs have happened because someone dared to look at things differently from the general population and the peers in their field.
The Scexit Files: BBC News Online 11 November 2021
Like a tank with a flamethrower, President Trump has set the heather ablaze from his golf buggy at Turnberry.
With legal battles still ongoing to decide the winner of the 2020 election, The Donald startled photographers as he trundled down the fairway, wearing a blue baseball cap with the striking message: Make Scotland Independent Again.
Experts agree, not since De Gaulle ended a state visit to Canada with ‘Vive le Quebec libre' has anyone let loose with such a rip-roaring, undiplomatic stinker.
With six months to go to the Holyrood elections, Mark Devlin talks to John Mortimer, of the Abolish The Scottish Parliament Party, about the party’s progress and goals.
What is the aim of the party?
The party’s flagship policy, of course, is to abolish the Scottish Parliament, which we consider to be a divisive waste of money. We believe that the £100 million running costs each year would be better spent on health and education, and that the powers and funding that the Scottish Government has centralised in Edinburgh, should be returned back to local authorities. The grounds of the Parliament building should be turned into homes for veterans.
A Scotsman, an Englishman, a Welshman and an Irishman walked into a country, and they all took it.
At 18.15 HKT on the 30th of June 1997, the "sunset" handover ceremony for the territory of Hong Kong took place on the waterfront. To the cheers of the watching crowd, the Black Watch marched onto the parade square for the final time, in an event that, for many, symbolically marked the formal end of the British Empire.
Whether you like, or even agree with, Boris Johnson or not, he has done us all a huge favour by igniting a discussion on whether Devolution is a 'disaster' or not.
In its 20th year, we are now in the ridiculous situation where the SNP, a party that never supported Devolution and wants to destroy it as soon as it can, is saying they support Devolution (they don’t), while Scottish Tories, who also never wanted Devolution, and who are appalled at the SNP takeover of the institution, are also saying they support it (they don’t). So who actually wants it?
Commentators on Scottish politics have tribal allegiances, just like the rest of us. They tend to be very dismissive of any new parties threatening to muscle in on the comfortable three-party opposition at Holyrood.
They cling to the dream that their preferred leader, Douglas Ross or Richard Leonard, is going to lead the long-awaited recovery in the Conservative or Labour vote and sweep the Nationalists from power, or that Willie Rennie will become kingmaker in any coalition.
The SNP are a MINORITY party that wins because the anti-Nationalist opposition vote is split three ways. Of the 73 constituency seats in the Scottish Parliament Elections, 59 are currently held by the SNP. That’s an astonishing 81% of seats from just 46.5% of the vote.
Talk about not getting the government you vote for!
But how will tactical voting help? First we need to discard the two sets of seats where tactical voting won't make a difference. The first set is the 28 seats where the combined anti-Nationalist vote is still less than the SNP vote. Even if 100% of the anti-Nationalist vote swung to the second-place candidate, the seat would still remain in the hands of the SNP. In these seats the priority must be to increase the anti-Nationalist vote share.
In a recent speech to the Irish Dáil (parliament), Heather Humphreys, TD of the Fine Gael party, reproached Sinn Fein, saying that with Sinn Fein "it is always a case of do as we say and not do as we do". The masterful speech echoes in the current debate on nationalism within Scotland, for with the SNP it is also always a case of "do as we say and not as we do" and that is most obviously visible in their demands for a second independence referendum.
Karl Marx famously stated that "religion is the opiate of the people", claiming that the ruling elite used religion to subdue the proletariat into accepting their place in society, in the mines and in the factories, by convincing them that God had ordained their lot in life.
If they did not upset the social order, they, the meek, would inherit the Earth in the afterlife. If they resisted, they would be punished with eternal damnation for questioning the will of God. Countless suffered and died under this theocracy, waiting for a salvation that never came.
If, as we are told, Andrew Wilson, ex-RBS PR man, is the SNP’s ‘leading economist’ and 'the Yes movement’s leading intellectual', the SNP is not in good shape at all. Wilson has been given air space in the public prints recently, no doubt at the behest of Nicola Sturgeon, who gave his latest article, in theSpectator of 21 November 2020, a puff on Twitter, saying it was ‘on the case for independence – and the paucity of the case against – excellent and well worth a read’.
It seems to me that there is a gap between presentation - very, very good presentation - and the reality. When it comes to Coronavirus data, when it comes to education, when it comes to the Alex Salmond issue. There is a gap between how you present yourself - very, very effectively - and what’s really been going on in Scotland.
Andrew Marr, questioning Nicola Sturgeon - 29th November, 2020
On Thursday, I read an article by Adam Morris in the Independent (If Boris Johnson wants to save the Union, he should stay far away from Scotland) which seems to encapsulate the appeasement and cowardice of the so-called Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party. So, I thought I’d go through it line-by-line and highlight the loserthink it embodies.
Morris starts by trying to claim that the departure of Michelle Ballantyne is a gain for the party.
In my last commentary for The Majority, I spoke about how the SNP, and Nicola Sturgeon, in particular, treat us — the Scottish electorate — as nothing more than stepping stones towards the realisation of their immature, teenage dreams.
There is nothing, and no one, they would not sacrifice, take advantage of, exploit or attack in this all-encompassing obsession. An obsession that has divided our country, communities and families for the last decade.
I have met a few Scottish nationalists, certainly a minority, who acknowledge the upheaval, to put it lightly, that the first decades of Separation would inevitably bring. They acknowledge the financial, social and political risks, the defence issues, the global and local problems - and to them, it is still worth it.
They are willing to undergo all that may happen because they fundamentally believe their sacrifice is required for Scotland to break away from the United Kingdom. They do not hide away from the difficulties and do not attempt to conceal them, and in such, I have no problem with them. We are each entitled to our own opinions and beliefs, at least until Humza Yousaf’s hate speech law comes into force, and it is in no way my prerogative to deny them the expression of their honestly-held beliefs.
The Reverend I. M. Jolly is not his normal sunny self: “We’re doomed, I tell ye … doomed.”
The minister’s eyelids have been fluttering like moths since the Church of Scotland was stripped of its status as the official religion in Scexit Scotland. “And to think I supported Indy,” he groans.
“The referendum asked ‘Do you believe' …,” the wistful clergyman recalls. “So, of course, I answered YES,” he admits, “… at least on Sundays.”
His lab at Heriot Watt has just unveiled the latest big data computer project that will revolutionise political campaigning. With cutting edge artificial intelligence, The Eye aims to win – and win big.
“Remember how Dominic Cummings scribbled for hours to come up with ‘Take Back Control’,” Bowman says. “Now, The Eye can pump out a killer slogan in 0.03 seconds, with 250 other ones to spare.”
I used to play Jenga as a child, and I have always remembered how often the most stable-looking tower would crumble, when a single, seemingly unimportant block was removed. That tower reminds me of the current SNP, as Nicola Sturgeon and her cronies pull the blocks out from under themselves.
In a recent contribution to the Spectatorit was noted that, despite the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon's woeful handling of a myriad of domestic issues, she and her party remain popular amongst Scottish voters, seemingly defying electoral and political gravity.
The Scexit Files :(Scottish Review of Books, 20th Dec. 2030)
“Bloody humbuggery!” muttered McScrooge as the lights flickered ominously. Rob McCratchit, his so-called ‘special advisor,’ had taken a day off and now – dammit – the Finance Minister had to write his own seasonal message.
‘Happy Scotsmas to one and all …’
Crivvens!! Stuck already. Where the hell was McCratchit when you really needed him? Sighing deeply, McScrooge rested his leaden head against the monitor until his thoughts drifted onto …
For those who, unfortunately, spend their time trawling through the endless toxic abuse and conspiracy theories that make up secessionist Twitter, you may have, aside from the usual whataboutery and false comparisons, noticed a common retort to questions on how exactly a separated Scotland would establish its organs of state.
Many of these supposed “examples” reference the nations which were established after the collapse of the USSR between 1989 and 1992. A period of turmoil, economic collapse, uncertainty and even bloody warfare in many parts of the former union, the scars of which are still keenly felt in places such as Armenia, Azerbaijan or Tajikistan.
Since the 2016 Brexit referendum, uncertainty and pessimism have been the SNP's strongest allies, allowing them to recover their electoral losses and encouraging them to stir up evermore grievance for their own advantage.
If they were really committed to European ideals and the common market, they would have supported Theresa May's failed deal. However, they thrive on uncertainty. They were willing to sacrifice the stability, prosperity and social well-being of Scotland, and the UK, in pursuit of that uncertainty.
Hi, welcome to my review of The Majority's highlights of 2020, AKA The year of staying at home and arguing with people on the internet.
In May, after seeing the frustration and anger of NO voters, as the SNP continued to defy the 2014 referendum result and the lack of effective opposition, I decided to start The Majority.
I contacted Ian Lakin (@HighlandChief) through Twitter, to ask advice on my plan to create a new anti-Nationalist media. To my surprise and everlasting gratitude, he gave me a donation to get started. Soon after, I started The Majority Twitter account and was again surprised when Maureen Johnson (@Maureen6Johnson) tweeted in support.
When? It’s the perpetual separatist question. A question that seeps from every utterance. When will our ‘independence’ come? When will we be ‘free’? When will we get a second referendum?
I was asked recently, when I believe it is the right time to hold a second referendum and I gave it some thought. I said that I didn’t believe it should be this year or, for that matter, this decade. Perhaps after then?
Not since independence have ministers been so upbeat. The spike in second thoughts has continued to spread across Scotland, but finally the long-awaited Anti-Unionist vaccine (ANTI-U 27) has been given emergency approval by regulators.
Officials welcomed the announcement. “As we have said repeatedly, the Scottish government has always followed the ideology,” a spokesperson insisted. “But now I am pleased to say we have five million doses of hope.”
Today, Alex Salmond’s submission to the Holyrood inquiry was released in unredacted form (link). In it, he says that his legal team has identified 46 documents out of nearly 400 that were released by The Scottish Government that neither he, nor his legal team, had previously seen. He says that many of these would have been ‘crucial’ to both the Judicial Review and his criminal trial.
Salmond says the documents, which the Scottish Government not only have a duty to disclose, but also failed to disclose, despite a search warrant, would have reinforced the Judicial Review’s review of bias, not just of the Investigating Officer, Judith Mackinnon, but of the Permanent Secretary, Linda Evans.
A curious paradox is occurring within the SNP and the broader Separation movement. The more secession becomes impractical, and even prohibitively so, the more they are determined to talk about it.
The SNP have failed to stop Brexit. Their alternative offers even more disruption. Their vaccination policy is lagging behind other parts of the UK, even though they claim the opposite. The COVID payouts they are responsible for have failed to materialise; the E.U. has rebutted their advances and their prized First Minister, their only person of note, is facing a civil war and a fight for her political existence.
The launch of a new political party can be explosive. When viewed with hindsight, such events can be seen to have defined a political era. The 1981 launch of the SDP, for example, represents a time when the UK electorate sought a halfway house between merciless Thatcherite market reform and stubborn, electorally toxic hard-left Labour ideology.
That said, the launch this week of Reform UK Scotland is unlikely to take up more than a couple of lines in the annals of Scotland’s political history. Its leader, former Conservative MSP for the South Scotland region Michelle Ballantyne, is altogether more interesting than her new party.
In a recent conversation with a dear friend of mine, politics came up. I have known this man most of my life. We have similar political perspectives. We are employed in very similar fields; in fact, this man is almost identical to me, as many have noted, except he is English and I, Scottish.
As we discussed the state of the nation, he turned to me, and with a sigh, said: "I've really had enough of all this bitterness, it may just be for the best for Scotland to go". This man is not in any way a nationalist, far from it. Still, he has become a thriving subject in the SNP's ventures into foreign policy.
In collaboration with Scotland Matters, The Majority presents a video interview series with George Galloway, covering his return to Scottish politics, his plans for Alliance For Unity, tactical voting and his views on Nicola Sturgeon. Watch them all.
#1 - Why have you come back to Scottish Politics?
https://youtu.be/iSLyTD9Cu1Q
#2 - Why is the UK important to you?
https://youtu.be/skM3XRzmCVc
#3 - Given your past causes why should people support you now?
https://youtu.be/hYT7QtfUjTA
#4 - What is Alliance For Unity proposing?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72CFt4eLSMc
#5 - How would tactical voting work in practice?
https://youtu.be/ZtnlyEnH7Lk
#6 - What about people who don't want to tactically vote?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0vcuu6_QK4
#7 - What is your mesage to the other parties?
https://youtu.be/DK_DUKR28oA
#8 - What if the other parties don't cooperate?
https://youtu.be/YQSlVfWPJU4
#9 -How are you getting the word out?
https://youtu.be/y3lhnXPU4Jw
#10 - What do you think of Nicola Sturgeon?
https://youtu.be/RNIUaduBYlU
#11 - What will you do if elected?
https://youtu.be/cOWrhl4i5Aw
#12 - Aren't you just in this for yourself?
https://youtu.be/ePXtpmd8tQ0
#13 - Final Thoughts?
https://youtu.be/LnWDDSBQjKs
#14 - Quick Fire Round
https://youtu.be/d3-Hj4Q7KsM
Help us do more
It takes a huge amount of time to create content like this. If you'd like to see more interviews please help us grow by pledging a monthly donation. Thank you!
In a major WORLD exclusive, The Majority has managed to get hold of Mike Russell's first draft of his 11-point plan for a referendum. See his orginal 12 points here, before they were massaged, soothed and tickled by an army of spin doctors...
The SNP's 12-point plan for an illegal referendum
1. We intend to fool our followers by proposing that we can hold a referendum on Scottish Separation.
2. A bonus is that we can distract them from Sturgeon’s problems in the Salmond inquiry.
Old Mac is proud of his scapegoats. “My herd can be blamed for pretty much everything – from wars to waiting lists. Anything that gets your goat, really.” The old breeder is especially fond of his ram. “He’s a pure Old English. In great demand, these days.”
Prices have duly soared since Scexit. “It has been great for business,” he chuckles. Ever since border checks were introduced, you can’t get UK scapegoats for love nor money.
Do you remember, just a few months ago, when statues were being toppled around the world? Men who had been venerated in their time were now exposed as having profited from slavery or other ignominious acts. What was surprising was how quickly it all happened. One day nobody cared; the next statues were being pulled down. How quickly times change.
The esteemed German sociologist Max Weber says leaders, in the past or today, derive their authority from three different sources: legal authority, traditional authority, and charismatic authority.
It seems that there are no depths to which the SNP and other separatist propaganda groups will not sink. Lies and chicanery are their customary modus operandi. One of the most recent comes from Chris Law, an SNP MP for Dundee, who has tweeted: ‘The Barnett Formula Myth Destroyed – it does not subsidise Scotland’.
He bases this on a blog post by Gordon Macintyre-Kemp, leader of ‘Business for Scotland’, the sham business organisation which is nothing more than an SNP propaganda front.
Today, Craig Murray, who is on trial for contempt of court, accused with revealing the identities of Salmond's accusers, submitted evidence in his defence. Extracts of his major revelations follow...
After a preamble about his background as an ex-ambassador, diplomat and author, Murray says:
'9. I discovered with a high degree of certainty that the leaker was Liz Lloyd, Chief of Staff to Nicola Sturgeon.'
'12. Alex Salmond, with whom I had only very slight prior acquaintance, invited me to meet him in the George Hotel in Edinburgh. Here, for the first time, he told me that Nicola Sturgeon had been behind the process designed to generate false accusations against him. He said as well as Mackinnon and Evans, Liz Lloyd was responsible for the actual orchestration.'
In a livestream broadcast on All for Unity’s (the new name for Alliance for Unity) social media channels, George Galloway doesn’t mince his words when talking about the Sturgeon-Salmond scandal.
£24 million of Scottish taxpayers money is about to be paid out because of a malicious prosecution mounted by the Scottish Law officer. And the man who is going to apologise for it , sits in Nicola Sturgeon’s cabinet.
The rats – gazillions of them – rampaged through the town, devouring every scrap, morsel and crumb. Ever since the financial crisis, the townsfolk had been plagued with them. But “… whazzzat?” A volley of drums crackled as the skirl of chanters blasted up street and alley, louder ‘n’ LOUDER till the pipers were marching inside your head … or so it seemed.
Nationalists, the world over, love to think of themselves and their causes as unique, special and a product of their own "glorious" history. Still, as always, reality is far from their fevered imaginations.
For example, Separatist claims that "independence is normal" are easily dismissed by pointing out that many of the countries they claim to admire are, in fact, political unions, often far more recent than the UK.
As time goes on, and their desperate cries for secession are revealed as a gargantuan political squirrel, I am reminded more and more of other Separatist movements that have done exactly what the SNP have done and got just about as far as the SNP will.
There is a parallel universe where the SNP respects democracy.
In this alternative world in 2014, post referendum, Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon acknowledged that two million people in Scotland had voted for Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom and that the 10% winning margin — which meant 24% more people voted NO than YES — was clear and decisive.
To show their acceptance and heal the wounds of the divisive, “once-in-a-generation” referendum, three days after the referendum, they attended the service of reconciliation which the Church of Scotland had organised at St Giles Cathedral. Salmond and Sturgeon then returned to the Scottish parliament vowing to devote all their energies to the public services of Scotland, to demonstrate the competence of the SNP in government. They spend the next six years on ‘the day job’ improving Scotland’s health, education and economy.
Like many of us who now find ourselves locked inside for most of the day, I have been watching more movies than usual. A few nights ago, one struck me with its resonance to current Scottish politics. It was about an aircraft that, mid-flight, suffered a catastrophic malfunction to its tail assembly, causing it to roll over and enter a steep dive that inverted all of its controls; actions that would have previously lifted the nose of the aircraft would only push it down further. As the pilots fought the controls, a clear but plaintive mechanical voice repeats, "Pull up. Pull up," as the plane hurtles to the ground, as if the pilots hadn't already realised the situation which they were now powerless to stop.
The story goes that in 1787, as Russian Empress Catherine the Great travelled in the Crimea, her minister Grigory Potemkin erected fake portable villages along her route as a façade to hide deep-seated poverty in the region.
The Potemkin Villages, as they became known, were the means by which the gilded monarch was persuaded that all was right with the country under her gaze even though the truth was the opposite.
Another new poll! It seems that almost every week there's a new poll on Scottish 'independence'. But, what's the deal? Why are there so many, and do they really mean we're on the inevitable road to 'independence'? Short answer -- Nope. Here's how Nationalists manipulate polls, and why.
#1 Choose a pollster that gives them the result they want
James Kelly (@JamesKelly) of Pop Goes Scot admits that he uses Panelbase polls to get a better result for Yes.
The SNP’s obsession with being perceived as morally superior is the glue they collectively sniff before composing any public messaging. No matter the issue, rest assured that it cannot possibly be the SNP’s fault. Gone are the days of accountability, gone are the days of owning up to something and the days of transparency are but a faint memory.
Following the resounding ‘once in a generation’ 2014 referendum defeat, what did the SNP do? They schemed: what would be the best way for us to make the numbers up and get Indy over the line? They landed on the quagmire of identity politics — using people’s identities as political weapons — a foray that now threatens to destroy them.
With those words, Dr Jim Heckle, the Minister for Strategy in the post-Scexit cabinet, abruptly quit the Scottish government yesterday, citing mental health issues.
“Since Indy, it’s been absolutely pile-driving,” Heckle explained in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Herald. “But the real problem with … y’know … cracking up,” he sobbed, “is that you don’t see it yourself.”
I have spent most of my life as a soldier. I served six tours of duty in Northern Ireland between 1975 and 1995 before retiring as Regimental Sergeant Major in the Black Watch. I have seen a country tear itself apart before and I fear that we, as all who fail to learn from history, may find ourselves repeating it. I know that nowadays marches and large public gatherings seem like a distant memory, but those days will come back and with it, possibly, may come the start of our repeated history.
In politics, the end always justifies the means. People are nothing but tools to advance causes and ideologies. Due to this inevitable fact, political history is littered with "useful idiots", people who champion and support a cause without knowing the full story behind it.
Scottish politics is no exception, and has more useful idiots than many other places. The EU used the SNP during the Brexit negotiations to leverage the British government. When they were no longer needed, the SNP found themselves abandoned by an organisation that now says Scotland cannot join the Erasmus scheme because it is "not a country". The SNP were the EU’s useful idiots.
A festival of penny-pinching opened yesterday, as the newly appointed Finance Minister, Kylie Krankie, launched the inaugural Queen's Awards for Belt-tightening on behalf of the post-Scexit government.
“I’m just bursting to tell everyone!” exclaimed Valerie Spark, after scooping the energy award. The young entrepreneur has plans to re-configure running machines in gyms across the country to supply the Scottish National Grid. “It’s a great way to tap into our extensive resources of obesity, after North Sea oil starts running out.”
Comedy is at its best when it reflects tragic reality. In the tragedy of Scottish politics, the comedy is becoming absurd. The SNP, mired in a civil war that is very much the Judean People's Front against the People's Front of Judea, are now seeing the arrival of the Judean People's Front crack suicide squad, as always confident that "that will show 'em".
For years the SNP have shared, encouraged and supported Wings Over Scotland, a Nationalist website run by Reverend Stu Campbell (residence Bath, England). It is the most viewed political website on Scottish government computers. And it is a sewer of outlandish comparisons, whataboutery and misinformation.
Scotland’s new parliament is revealing itself as a weak institution, incapable of holding the executive to account, and not good at representing the citizen against the state. How does this performance compare with its predecessor, the old Scots parliament?
When the new Scottish parliament first met, on 12 May 1999, Dr Winifred Ewing, the “mother of the house”, opened the proceedings by saying, “The Scottish parliament, adjourned on the 25th day of March, 1707, is hereby reconvened.”
This week, CelebrityGogglebox is in Cawdor with retired assassins, Lord and Lady Macbeth, as they cosy up together on the sofa. They’ve just been watching the latest news report from their homeland on Scotland’s current power couple.
“What the ????☠⭍ !!!,” grunts Macbeth to his wife. “Don’t they ever learn?”
Her ladyship nods. “That fishy woman can’t even organise a couple of witches.”
Time is a unique concept; it is a variable constant that has come to dominate everyone's lives on this planet. Be it by the sun's movement and the need to care for cattle or the morning commute to your 9-5 job, time impacts us all, but we experience it in different ways.
One concept is that of time dilation, where the passage of time is different in two bodies depending on the velocity at which they travel; think of the masterful movie Interstellar, where the protagonist in space experiences time much slower than his daughter on earth so that when they meet again, he seems not to have aged at all while his daughter is on her death bed from old age. As abstract as this may seem, time dilation is very relevant to politics, especially in a time where our days seem to drag on.
Today, The Majority, with the support of Scotland Matters, UK Union Voice and over 250 donors who contributed to a crowdfunding campaign, launches the #ResignSturgeon campaign, the first in a series of campaigns leading up to the Scottish Elections on May 6. The campaign starts with:
Three digital billboards
Glasgow - Clydeside Expressway (access near Lidl on Castlebank St)
Edinburgh - Slateford Road (next to Jewson)
Aberdeen - Market Street (at Union Square)
A #ResignSturgeon banner towed behind an aeroplane flying over:
The Scottish Parliament Building in Holyrood and Edinburgh City Centre (Friday, 5th March: 12:45- 1:30pm)
Glasgow City Centre and Finnieston Crane area (Friday, 5th March: 3pm-4pm) weather permitting
The campaign is a message to Nicola Sturgeon to take responsibility for her Government’s catastrophic handling of the Alex Salmond Harassment Inquiry, which cost the taxpayer well over £500,000 in damages to Salmond plus hundreds of thousands of pounds more in Scottish Government legal fees, as well as the cost of the ongoing inquiry.
Controlling the narrative is vital to any information, or disinformation, campaign in politics and in policy. To achieve this, a political party will use several different tactics, such as catchy slogans, announcements, cover-ups and more. All these tactics fundamentally rely on someone to convey them from the party to the public: journalists and influencers that dominate the media and the online world.
The SNP have been able to control the narrative well, hiding their overtly divisive nationalism and objectively terrible record in government, which has allowed them to convince, or at least dissuade, criticism from most casual readers. The SNP has relied on many things to achieve this, but above all, they have relied on a sympathetic Scottish media establishment that they have, in turn, given either preferential access or outright bullied.
The Scexit Files: Business Scotland, 10th March 2030
“Ffffwwhaa!!” the man spluttered, “£17.49 for a pint!” almost choking on his own tongue. “Are you oot o’ y’r mind?”
The CCTV camera caught it all. Facial recognition soon identified him as a Mr Rip Van McWinkle, ‘innocently’ ordering a well-deserved drink at the Glen Laggard Inn.
“Scots pounds,” the landlady explained.
Rip was too busy grumbling to listen – “rassinfrassin-poundzapint” – as he fished through his coins one by methodical one.
As a young man, I was given the kind of advice you never forget, but hope you will never have to prove right. I was driving with a colleague, through a volatile part of the world, on a research trip, where landmines are very common. As we got into the truck, he turned to me and said, "Keep your feet as far apart as possible." I asked why and he replied, "That way, if we drive over a mine, you have a better chance of keeping at least one foot." I have all the flexibility of a pane of glass, but I spent the rest of the drive doing the splits. To this day, I am glad to say I still have two feet, unlike the SNP, who are shooting themselves in the foot, repeatedly.
Indy supporters were whipped into a frenzy yesterday as S&M for Scotland officially launched under the eye-catching banner ‘PAIN IS GAIN.’
The group’s Master-dominator, Donny Frank, was unrepentant. “Indy is KINKY” he proclaimed to supporters at the Cockburn Centre in Edinburgh. The campaign draws on the Marquis de Sade’s principle that psychological satisfaction comes only through enduring and inflicting sustained bouts of carefully controlled agony. “That's why we stand in vats of cold porridge on a wet weekend,” he insisted. “Trust me, we’re the only intellectually honest campaign out there.”
Like Bob Geldof and the Boomtown Rats, I don’t like Mondays, but today has been more depressing than usual. The first setback was hearing the BBC describe Nicola Sturgeon being cleared by an ‘independent’ inquiry. The second was reading an op-ed in The Times by Alex Massie, the Spectator’s Scottish editor, describing the SNP as “exhausted but irreplaceable.”
The riposte to the first has to be that if this was an inquiry into Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin, or almost anyone else, the BBC would not use the word ‘independent’ about an inquiry by an inquisitor carefully selected by the accused and limited by very delicately confined terms of reference before delivering a report that is at odds even with the leaked conclusions of the Kafkaesque Parliamentary Inquiry, which is then so heavily redacted as to be meaningless.
Today, The Majority, with the support of over 480 donors who raised £12,000 for their Let’s Put Up Billboards!crowdfunding campaign, launches the second stage of its #ResignSturgeon campaign, in a series of campaigns leading up to the Scottish Elections on May 6.
After a hugely successful campaign that flew a #ResignSturgeon banner over Holyrood and saw #Resign Sturgeon billboards appear across Scotland, The Majority now takes the fight directly to Nicola Sturgeon’s constituency in Govanhill, Glasgow and to the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood, using mobile digital ad vans carrying the message, ‘We don’t believe you Nicola’ and ‘#ResignSturgeon’. The schedule is:
George Galloway and I launch our campaign by filming a ‘Potemkin rally’ in the pub carpark – all that we can do during lockdown.
We are met by the village loudmouth, ostentatiously masked by a black scarf against the Covid on the cold March breeze. “What’s going on here? Did you no see the saltires as you drove in? We don’t want you and your Union here.” He patrols the one street in the village while we are filming, just in case any ‘Yoons’ think about joining in.
Yesterday, following the widely covered announcement of Alex Salmond's new Alba party, those who listened very closely would have heard two distinct sounds: a pained groan and a jubilant celebration. For the SNP, it was a knife thrust deep into their back, and for Unionists, it was the joy of watching an enemy devour itself. Alba's hype — that it will somehow game the system and end up with an unchallengeable majority — is the ravings of a vindictive and ego-driven man high on his own supply.
At a tense briefing yesterday, SNP sources strenuously denied that any detergent was used to enforce ideological purity during the ongoing Sturgeonista-Salmondite split. The allegation emerged after a recording of a recent internal strategy meeting was obtained by The Spectator.
An extract has now been published below in the public interest. (Identities have been amended for legal reasons).
IAN: “TRAITORS!”
RUTH: “The Salmondite front is a total irrelevance now. We must focus on our campaigning as planned…”
“A week is a long time in politics” is a trite opening sentence but it has been true this week, as Salmond’s forced entry into the race has left things ‘all changed, changed utterly’ as WB Yeats wrote 105 years ago in a rather similar context. It is what we have feared all along: the formation of a ‘Nationalist Front’ and a creeping Ulsterisation of Scottish politics with Salmond already talking about ‘street protests’ as part of their campaign for secession. The big question is: will a nationalist monster with two heads be harder to slay, or will those heads devour each other?
Solidarity, collective resources, having more in common than differences, and working together in a shared identity and future. This is the basis of my political beliefs and my commitment to Unionism and the British family of nations and people.
They are powerful arguments that we, a country welded together through shared pain and happiness, are "better together". That we are even bigger, even stronger and even smarter than we could ever be apart. These arguments for the UK, are made real in furlough payments, the vaccine rollout, the British Armed Forces, the NHS, and people coming together during the pandemic. They are also arguments that Labour has used since its birth.
Scotland is about to undergo the biggest rebranding since the abolition of Pictland in the 9th century, according to documents seen by STV.
The Alba-SNP government has refused to comment on leaks that the post-Scexit Rebranding and De-Britification Commission has recommended a change to the country’s name, aiming to reposition it within the global marketplace.
Rumours that Alba would be incorporated into the official nomenclature have been circulating for months since the SNP was relegated to junior partner in the ruling coalition. But officials are still wary. “How long before it becomes Albatross? You’ve got to be so careful with these things. It’s even the name of a waste disposal company in Singapore.”
Famed polling guru, John Curtice, tells us Scotland is "split down the middle" on the constitutional question. When the undecideds are excluded, the polling for either side is within the margin of error of each other (about 3% in a poll of 1000 people). This is essentially where we were right before the vote in 2014, when the vast majority of undecided voters voted to remain part of the United Kingdom.
They say, with penetrating accuracy, that once you become a parent you are only as happy as your least happy child. And, sad to say, since we got the Alliance for Unity going last year it has been like having an extra child. The party’s triumphs and disasters have produced the same reaction in me as my children’s and I find myself worrying like a parent about our progress.
The anxiety to start with was not finding enough people of sufficient calibre to join us; then it was that the Electoral Commission would find excuses to keep turning down our application to be a political party until beyond polling day; then it was that we would simply be ignored by everyone; then it was that we would never feature in any polls. So the Sunday Times poll putting A4U on 4%, one percent behind the Liberal Democrats, is a bit like seeing one of the children winning their first egg and spoon race: It is heartening and frustrating at the same time.
Sir – Enough is enough! We have ferries that don’t float, an education system that’s sinking and we’re still top of the Champions League for drug deaths and child poverty. And if that wasn’t enough, ministers in Holyrood are dishing out ‘pork pies’ while their friends have a hand in the till.
So, why-oh-why hasn’t the SNP found a proper scapegoat for all these shenanigans? Boris is a pig’s bladder on a stick, but even he can’t be blamed for this.
Today, The Majority, with the support of almost 600 donors who raised £14,500 for their Let’s Put Up Billboards! crowdfunding campaign, launches its final elections campaign, before the Scottish Elections on May 6.
After a hugely successful campaign that flew a #ResignSturgeon banner over Holyrood, and took ‘We Don't Believe You NIcola’ ad vans to the Scotttish Parliament, The Majority now takes the fight directly to the Scottish people, via billboards and mobile digital ad vans carrying a message highlighting 14 Years of SNP failure and promoting tactical voting:
With a grand fanfare, the SNP released their manifesto. Never have I seen such desperation and cynical attempt to pass off a promise that "we will try to fix what we broke" as something new and revolutionary, done in such a fundamentally self-contradictory manner.
No doubt you will have heard the headline that the SNP will now give you a free bike. Well, one kid somewhere may end up getting their photo taken with a bike. A closer look at this fabulous generosity reveals a manifesto that combines the policies of Jeremy Corbyn with the outlandishness of Willie Wonka and the financial sense of Wesley Snipes.
I decided to do my bit for the television party political broadcast in a field with our dairy cows in the background. The sun is shining and, by chance, they are grazing one of the paddocks that has Criffel, the South of Scotland’s most beautiful mountain, in the background.
Gayatri (George’s wife) is behind the camera and despite being outside her comfort zone, gamely scrambles under the electric fence and gingerly picks her way in patent leather ankle boots between the cowpats to set up.
It has not been a good election campaign for Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP. Whilst the Conservatives continue to have a robust and loyal following, and Labour is increasing their vote share, with an energetic leader who, perhaps, became the first politician in history to dance in the street and not make a fool of himself.
The SNP magic is gone. Dogged by damaging scandals and bitter feuds over the last six months, the party desperately needed a charismatic and energetic campaign, something they currently seem incapable of. The SNP, perhaps knowing they can no longer persuade fresh voters and scared by Alex Salmond’s Alba Party, have adopted a failing hardline core voter strategy.
As the election enters its final week, All For Unity has come under sustained attack from people on Twitter, led by Tory party activists, who, scared of losing list seats, have briefed candidates to launch personal attacks on George Galloway.
To be honest, I was initially sceptical about George too. However, I had been awestruck by his debating skills in the US Senate, his passion in 2014 on the pro-UK side, and his commitment now to strategies that could beat the SNP and beat back the ugly and tiresome Nationalism that has brought Scotland to its knees. All of that is what got me talking with him about a new party to help break the stalemate.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, if at times a depressing one. It enables me to see now that one man has been responsible for the dire state that Scotland is in. His name is David Cameron. As British Prime Minister, he played a strong hand as if he were on the defensive, and has consigned us to Neverendumland. He did much the same over Brexit, but that’s another story.
Cameron took the SNP’s electoral win in 2011 at face value and did not consider its detail and ramifications. Indeed, the SNP won a majority of seats, a result which the – now widely disparaged – D’Hondt system had lumbered us with. But this ‘landslide victory’, as Alex Salmond the showman characterised it, was less than it seemed. It amounted to a win of 45 per cent of the votes on a turnout of 50 per cent. That is, 22.5 per cent of those entitled to vote supported the SNP. Further, only a mere half of eligible Scottish voters could be bothered to turn out to vote in an election for their own parliament, about whose creation there had been so much song and dance in the 1990s. The other half demonstrated their lack of interest with their feet.
“You know there was no word for dildo in Gaelic until the SNP invented one? They have paid translators to come up with the full suite of words to cater for all sexual tastes.” The breadth of George’s grasp of current affairs never ceases to amaze me. We are blethering in a café in Stranraer on our soap box tour of the South of Scotland. This conflation of the SNP’s fake Gaelicisation, warped morality and waste of taxpayers’ money would have been a gift for opposition politicians and the media in most countries. The fact that it has barely permeated the public consciousness in Scotland, let alone provoked an outcry, is yet another reason why Holyrood needs George Galloway in there speaking out against the SNP’s corruption of society.
Back on the trail. and I arrive on the seafront in Troon just as George is mounting the soapbox. Getting out of my car is a blessed relief. My little car was only ever designed to be a run-around and I have been bent double for two and a half hours, all the while imagining Douglas Ross, Anas Sarwar and Nicola Sturgeon sitting on their battle buses, sipping coffee and checking their Twitter timelines. Still, there is something virtuous about being the underdog in this fight. When it’s my turn on the soapbox I talk about what has been on my mind while driving. The lack of posters for any party, even the SNP, on my way here raises questions. Are the people of Scotland not going to vote? Have they lost interest in politics? Or is it that they are resigned to the outcome?
Holyrood is not a functioning parliament. In its place are 129 Homer Simpsons clinging to a donut. What Scotland needs more than anything, from COVID19 to unfinished hospitals to rusting ferries to fiscal blackholes is a turnaround team.
My background is in medicine and surgery but also in health economics and management. One of the biggest challenges for health managers is turning around a failing hospital, or several hospitals, or even a whole organisation. To turn around the failure we need to identify that the Scottish Parliament, not only the Scottish Government, is failing. That failure needs audited from top to bottom and skilled professionals brought in to both run the government and strip out the waste and the harm in Holyrood's culture. That needs experienced minds, clean hands of devolved politics, and the will and means to sack the board.
It's over, finally. After a few nail-biting days, we know our election results; the SNP has gained a seat, a single extra seat snuck in on the lists. It was stressful. I spent the two days glued to my computer, sweating and fretting for the future of our country. I groaned with pain at the loss of East Lothian and Ayr; I yelled with relief at Dumbarton so loud my wife thought I was dying, and I breathed a sigh of relief at Aberdeenshire West. Exhausted but relieved and determined to claim the head of whoever started the rumour that Jackie Baillie was 25 votes short in Dumbarton, as they have taken a fair few years off my heart.
Last Thursday, working-class voters in England gave a resounding vote of confidence in Boris Johnson and an incumbent Tory government. Just a few miles north, though, here in Scotland, the Scottish Tories barely managed to hold on to their seat total.
The Scottish Conservatives are valiantly trying to portray this as a win, but they’re like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, on the ground with their legs and arms cut off, saying ‘tis but a scratch. (it seems The Holy Grail is replete with go-to-metaphors for Ross and his team).
Across the street from the Scottish Parliament, on Calton Hill, is buried one of the greatest Brits who ever lived. David Hume was a pioneer of the Scottish Enlightenment – a philosophical movement which helped lay the foundations of classical liberalism, a way of thinking about society that would come to define the modern world.
Hume was born when the United Kingdom was in its infancy, just four years after the 1707 Acts of Union which brought Scotland and England under the governance of one parliament. Over the next three hundred years, these newly united islands would advance and defend the principles of classical liberalism imparted by Hume and his contemporaries, perhaps more than anywhere. But the Union is now on its knees. On Thursday, just over a million Scottish voters turned out to fill Holyrood with candidates from pro-independence parties in what they hope will validate a second independence referendum. At this critical time, David Hume’s ideas are as important as ever, highlighting the contradictions at the heart of the independence movement.
Since the founding of the SNP 87 years ago, in 1934, they have had the ambition of breaking Scotland away from the rest of the UK, even during the darkest days of the Second World War. That seems hard to believe, given that Nicola Sturgeon admitted, less than two weeks ago, that she and the SNP still have no plan for the economic consequences of what would happen after a successful vote for separation. She gave no plan or vision for how her separated Scotland would manage its affairs, other than vague and completely ludicrous statements. She has no answers on border control, currency and defence or to other quite important questions that voters might ask.
To those with even the most superficial understanding of Scottish politics, secrecy and cover-ups have become routine and embedded within the institutions of government and society. Within the past couple of weeks, we learned that the primary responsibility of Public Health Scotland is not, as some may have assumed, the public health of Scotland but rather the protection of SNP ministers. Furthermore, we learned that highly-touted “world-leading” policies on education, climate policy, transport and a myriad of other departments all fail, with no oversight. It’s a protection racket that’s crippling Scotland’s services, economy and reputation.
We live in a world saturated with media. It allows us to be ever more informed about the world around us, which is undeniably a good thing; but the media is a voracious beast that must be filled with constant opinion pieces, rehashed endlessly with never-ending arguments.
This is undoubtedly the case in Scotland, where the Separation question is perpetually discussed in articles which have become repetitive in the extreme and serve little more than justifying the wage of the writer. After a decade of argument, surely everything that can be written has been written on the subject. And yes, before you mention it, I understand the irony of using an opinion piece on secession to comment on other opinion pieces on secession.
Contrary to their claims, I have not received a single email or telephone call from the National asking for comment. This is not only UNPROFESSIONAL, it means the journalist LIED multiple times in each article. I will be reporting this unprofessional conduct to IPSO.
We won the battle, now to win the war. We’re working on lots of new projects and need your support. Please help us grow and continue our fight against ugly Scottish Nationalism with a monthly donation.
Also, please sign our petition to get Newsquest and Gannet to cease publishing The National’s anti-English hate.
The Longer Version
It is difficult to believe that it’s been almost two months since the drama of the Scottish elections. We are proud to have had your support in fighting to deprive the Nationalists of the majority they so desperately needed.
A response to online bullying, based on false accusations of harassment, made against me by LEN PENNIE and JANEY GODLEY
It’s not easy to publicly admit that you’ve been bullied, but a stand has to be made.
On August 24, Len Pennie, a 21-year-old woman who posts poetry and 'Scots Word of The Day’ videos on social media, under the name Miss PunniePennie (@lenniesaurus), made a false allegation that I harassed her, while claiming I am ‘creepy’ and ‘hateful’. Previously Pennie claimed I was a ‘bigot’ and a ‘bully’.
The UK Government should stop gambling with its territorial, economic, cultural and social integrity.
A couple of weeks ago, Alister Jack, the Secretary of State for Scotland, said that Scots could have a second ‘independence’ referendum if polls showed a consistent majority of 60% of Scots in favour of it. Gambling your country's future on the basis of opinion polls is certainly an interesting strategy, but, as I was getting ready to publish this article, the UK Government finally pushed back on Jack’s comments, saying, ‘We’ve never set a position on that. We haven’t said any sort of target. Our view, as set out, is that now is simply not the time to be dealing with this.’
It is often said in these post-truth times, that a lie has gone half-way around the world before the truth has put its boots on. Why do lies, fake news and misinformation gain so much more political traction than evidence-based facts? The answer to that question can be found in the world of tribal epistemology.
In 2017, David Roberts of Vox news coined the term ‘tribal epistemology’ to describe a state of mind ’where you believe not what facts or reason or top experts say is true, but what your group or tribe say is true, especially its leaders’. Why bother going to all the effort of seeking the truth out for yourself, when you can hand that time-consuming, tedious task to someone in power, who you believe in and trust and then agree unquestioningly with whatever their version of the truth is instead? But, what if those leaders don’t go to the trouble of seeking out the truth. What if they abuse your trust and lie, would you still believe them because you are one of their tribe?
Yesterday, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) upheld a complaint brought by Mr Neil Lovatt against The National newspaper. IPSO concluded that The National newspaper fabricated tweets and breached the Editors' Code in a video and article it published in April. The Majority was made aware of this case a few weeks ago, but was not able to publish until it had been appealed and concluded.
The ruling is part of a pattern of hideous behaviour at Newsquest, The National’s publisher, which not only publishes anti-English hate; it has provided platforms for two of Scotland’s most odious commentators. The newspaper, under editor Callum Baird, also intimidates those who stand against it, as evidenced by the flimsy articles he has published in an attempt to smear us and our writers. (We expect even more after this article).
Yesterday, Reverend Stuart Campbell, the blogger known as Wings Over Scotland, declared, in a 4300-word suicide note, that his blogging days are over. Campbell had previously said that he had retired, but this apparently, is the ‘last, last’ time.
To signify the end of the independence movement, Campbell used a somewhat laboured metaphor of the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont in December 1969, which, due to a murder of an audience member by Hell's Angels, signalled the end of the swinging 60s. Apparently, Sturgeon is a Hell’s Angel, stabbing the 'peace and love' of the indy movement to death, while the Stones play ‘Under My Thumb’!
This is a story of three artists, all leaders in their fields: an actor, a musician and an author. They are known, not just for their world-leading skills, but for their authenticity. These working-class men have developed and promoted their talents to the top of their fields and have gained as much respect from the quality of their work as from their uncompromising attitude to their craft. No-one can say that their work, and attitude to it, is not authentic.
Lately, I haven’t been able to work on as many articles as I’d like. Setting up and running our podcast was a lot of work. Now that’s more settled, I hope to get more articles out regularly. Thank you for your patience.
—
The SNP pensions brouhaha rumbles on, with the reality-based community trying vainly to impress upon delusional nationalists that they are living in a fantasy world. A ‘fact check’ in The National newspaper presented two options: the UK will continue to pay Scots pensions because 1) the UK currently pays the pensions of UK citizens who live overseas 2) If you claim dual citizenship i.e. remain a UK citizen, you can still be paid.
Normally, I wouldn’t write a whole article on some internet rando, but in a video posted on March 3, Gordon Ross, a driving instructor from Partick, who styles himself with the bad pun ‘Inde-car guy’ (on Twitter as @PartickDriver), claimed that he has been given the answers to how the SNP will conduct its second referendum campaign, directly from Mike Russell, the party’s President and former ‘Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, Europe and External Affairs’.
So the SNP is intending to “extend the right to stand for election to sixteen year olds.” Who knew? I had assumed that they already were but maybe Ross Greer, the wokier-than-thou Scottish Green MSP only identifies as sixteen.
It is, I am forced to admit, a brilliant strategy. At a stroke ‘gammons’ and ‘boomers’ like me will be focused on this latest provocation rather than asking how the Scottish ‘government’ could possibly have committed around £240,000,000 in the shipyards and still have no ferries; or where the allegedly missing £660,000 from the SNP’s ‘indy fund’ is; or how it is that Nicola Sturgeon’s publisher allegedly received over £295,000 of public money prior to the publication of her ‘inspirational’ selected speeches Women Hold up Half the Sky (a title borrowed from Chairman Mao); or what has happened to the £5bn Covid support money destined for Scottish businesses that Audit Scotland think is unaccounted for?
This is a topic that many of you don't want to hear. But, as committed as we are to destroying nationalist delusions, we must also assess anti-nationalist delusions as well, of which the main one is that the only strategy to beat the SNP is a Labour-Tory alliance.
Not only is an alliance not going to happen, Labour’s strategy of not forming an alliance with the Scottish Tories is correct. This also means that recent attacks on Tories by Labour are also correct.
UPDATE: Our billboard campaign has been delayed. Apparently, the billboard company have a new policy that means direct criticism of political parties is not allowed (despite that being fine last year). We're submitting redesigned ads now.
UPDATE 2: We changed to a different company and the ads are now running, without any text changes
Today, The Majority, with the support of donors who contributed to its crowdfunding campaign, launches the SNP COUNCILS ARE RUBBISH#BinTheSNP campaign for the upcoming Scottish Council Elections on May 5. The campaign includes digital billboards in Glasgow, Edinburgh and, Aberdeen (see locations/dates below).
Hosted by Mark Devlin, David Griffiths and Mary Devlin, The Majority Show (formerly The Majority Podcast) is Scotland's No. 1 anti-Nationalist politics show. We broadcast LIVE to hundreds of simultaneous viewers EVERY WEDNESDAY at 7PM, across YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. The show is then watched by thousands more on-demand during the week.
We love your comments, please tune in live to add them and they may be selected for the show!
Today, The Majority, with the support of donors who contributed to its crowdfunding campaign, launches the STOP WASTING OUR TIME & MONEY, BIN YOUR PRETENDYREF campaign to coincide with oral arguments at The Supreme Court by the Scottish Government, which has asked the Court to assess the legality of an advisory referendum on Scottish independence. The campaign includes digital billboards in Glasgow, and Edinburgh (locations in appendix).
The billboards also have a link to a new crowdfunding campaign, to fund further anti-PretendyRef billboards:
Today, The Majority, with the support of over 150 donors who contributed to a crowdfunding campaign, launches its 2023 #ResignSturgeon billboard campaign, which comprises eight billboards in Glasgow and Edinburgh (see location list below).
I asked Chat-GPT to write an article based on a series of tweets I'd written about Wings Over Scotland's UDI plan. And for good measure, I asked it to weave in the titles of Taylor Swift songs. Why not?
---
Wings Over Scotland recently revealed a plan for a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI), which has been taken on wholeheartedly by Ash Regan, that can only be described as a fairytale, swirling with magical thinking and a total detachment from reality.
It’s said that before a tsunami strikes there are major warning signs to look out for that should alert the public to the forthcoming catastrophe. Warning signs such as an earthquake at sea, or the tide suddenly going out, are usually enough to galvanise the inhabitants of neighbouring coastal towns to immediately head for the high ground.
Political tsunamis have striking similarities to the real thing. For example, there were many early warning signs before the 2015 General Election that alerted all pro-UK parties in Scotland to the very real possibility that they were going to be swept away by a gigantic nationalist tidal wave.
It’s been 25 years since the devolution experiment was inflicted on Scotland, and the result is an unspeakable disaster. It’s a disaster because The Scottish Parliament, which was set up to stop Scottish Nationalism, is now being abused by the SNP to promote a separatist agenda, while Scotland’s services decline daily and scandal mounts up. And it is ‘unspeakable’ because few want to discuss whether the source problem is devolution itself, even its natural opponents.
Before a system can be fixed or abolished, we need a clear understanding of the problems and issues of the current system of Legislative Devolution:
Constitutional conflict
Centralisation
Excessive spending
Lack of accountability
Constitutional Power Grabs
It is a well-known fact that political organisations always aim to expand their power. In fact, devolution was set up, in principle, as a way to stop evermore power accruing in Westminster. What has actually happened, though, is that power has been hoarded in Edinburgh at the expense of Scotland’s local authorities, while the Scottish Government has tried to grab as much power as it can from Westminster, often aided by politicians who are either unaware or uncaring of the problems that would produce.
The first part of this series covered how legislative devolution grew from a concept into the reality of the Scottish Assembly, and talked about how, rather than acting as a bulwark against nationalism, it has become a UK Government-funded vehicle for nationalism and constitutional division.
It seems no matter what constitutional problems the UK has, someone will always propose federalism as a solution. But federalism isn't the benign cuddly sheep it first appears to be. It's the nationalist wolf in disguise, ready to divide and devour the UK. Federalism, like all attempts to appease nationalism, will only further aid the fragmentation of the constitutional cohesion of our country, and should be opposed by all those who want to maintain its integrity.
In the past week, the SNP has been trying to recapture the narrative, away from Sturgeon’s criminal investigation, to constitutional issues. Humza Yousaf has proposed that an independent Scotland adopts a ‘written constitution’:
Westminster has already been able to undermine the devolution settlement, override decisions made by an elected Scottish Parliament...In future, Westminster sovereignty could even allow the UK parliament to repeal devolution through nothing other than a simple majority vote.
In his new book on post-war European leaders, Tom Gallagher assesses Nicola Sturgeon's disastrous legacy, and how her failure provides an insight into Europe’s Leadership Famine.
Nicola Sturgeon definitely merits a chapter in a book on European leadership. It isn’t because she left Scotland a better place than she found it or because under her the independence cause flourished. Neither thing happened. Indeed, many of the 12,000 people who crowded into Scotland’s main events venue, the Hydro in Glasgow on 22 November 2014 to hail her emergence as First Minister of devolved Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) would today bitterly assail her as a fraud who had duped them.
The Domino Effect was a dominant theory (mostly in the US) during the Cold War period – when anxiety about Communism’s real intentions in Europe and the wider world was at its height – that as one country became controlled by Communism, then inevitably, by a process of contamination, states bordering it would also fall under its domination, like toppling dominoes in a row. This theory was the basis of US and other countries’ foreign policy and helped fuel armed conflicts in the post-1945 period.
It’s an often repeated theme of anti-UK nationalism (the SNP in Scotland especially) that there is a popular demand from the UK public to break up the UK. They bleat repeatedly in a monotone like sheep ‘The Union is dead’ in a sad attempt at creating the impression that the UK will inevitably break up. They have to maintain this fiction as any look at the objective, verifiable, empirical facts (data and statistical evidence) gives the conclusion that in ALL parts of the UK, a clear and often substantial majority of the public want to keep the UK together.
Two weeks ago, Reverend Stu Campbell of Bath, aka Wings Over Scotland, proudly revealed an anniversary. It was 12 years, he breathlessly announced in a post called The Longest Lie, since he first debunked the notion that Scottish votes influence the outcome of UK General Elections. The last time it happened was 1964, he told his adoring followers.
Quite a statistic. But is it true?
Not even remotely. As in, not only is it misleading, it is demonstrably false. In every sense. It contains not a scintilla of truth. Unfortunately, it has now entered the post-modernist Scottish political lexicon along with similar myths, such as the Nationalist whine that Scotland never gets the Westminster Government it votes for. Presumably, they mean apart from the 11 occasions post-WW2 when Scotland voted for the party that won the General Election and formed the Government?
It is a commonly touted assertion of the SNP that all elections, Westminster or devolved, will be referendums on independence and if they achieve a majority of some kind then this will give them a mandate for independence. But what does ‘mandate’ actually mean?
A standard definition (via Google) of a mandate is:
The authority to carry out a policy, regarded as given by the electorate to a party or candidate that wins an election.
After 17 years of SNP rule, support for Scexit would appear to be finally on the decline. A recent opinion poll ranked Scexit as only the 7th (18%) most important topic that would decide voting intention at the next General Election. Way out in front was the economy on 64%. This must be gut-wrenching news for independence supporters: 17 years in power and zero progress made in convincing Scots to vote for Independence.
As we head towards a UK General Election, where a resurgent Labour is expected to form the next government by a wide margin, thoughts turn to those hapless SNP MPs who will likely lose their seats. As Warren Buffett said, 'Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.' And in the upcoming election, the electoral tide is going to go so far out against the SNP, it will leave the majority of its MPs metaphorically naked, out in the cold and wondering where their yellow swimsuits went.
Today marks the 25th anniversary of the first session of The Scottish Parliament. As expected, a host of insiders, including Scottish Labour politicians, are saying they are proud of what has been achieved, while Scots wonder if those politicians – who are almost all receiving a salary from the Scottish Parliament – have somehow missed the past 25 years.
So let’s cast our minds back to 1997 and ask the question that is not being asked: What if legislative devolution was not part of New Labour’s manifesto, and it never happened?
With the SNP’s conference now taking place, shortly after the annual Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland Report (GERS) has just been published, now is an ideal time to stop nationalists' lies and misdirections and their dismissals about the state of Scotland’s finances.
These dismissals follow the same forms:
GERS is produced by the UK Government to discredit Scotland
GERS does not give a real picture of Scotland’s finances
The United Kingdom faces a persistent challenge from separatist movements, particularly in Scotland, where the Scottish National Party (SNP) has pursued independence with unrelenting focus. Despite the intentions behind devolution, the existence of devolved legislatures like Holyrood has amplified the separatist agenda rather than diminished it. To secure the UK, a pragmatic dual strategy—a short-term defense and a long-term solution—is required.
The Failure of Devolution to Quell Separatism
When devolution was introduced, proponents like Labour politician George Robertson claimed it would "kill nationalism stone dead." Instead, the opposite has occurred. Over the past 26 years, Holyrood has provided the SNP with a powerful platform to dominate Scottish politics, displacing pro-UK parties like Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Far from reducing separatist sentiment, devolution has given the SNP a megaphone to advance their singular goal: breaking up the UK.
John Swinney, the current SNP leader, and his predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon, have recently resorted to a familiar tactic: invoking youth demographics to justify the party's continued push for Scottish independence. Both have attempted to frame support among 16- to 24-year-olds as proof of an inevitable shift toward separation from the United Kingdom.
In a recent speech at the SNP’s conference, Swinney cited a poll commissioned by The National—the nationalists' propaganda paper —which claimed 63% of 16- to 24-year-olds backed independence. However, he went further, misleading MSPs at Holyrood by implying this figure represented overall support for independence across all age groups. In truth, the majority exists only within that youngest demographic. Sturgeon made similar claims in a television interview, again focusing narrowly on youth opinion.
So called pro-UK politicians from both the Conservatives and Labour often trumpet the "Union dividend" — the extra billions Scotland receives from the United Kingdom — as proof that staying in the UK benefits ordinary Scots. On paper, the numbers seem impressive: according to the Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) 2024–25 report, Scotland receives £2,669 more per person in public spending than the UK average.
But in reality, this dividend is wasted as under the SNP, Scotland’s extra funding is being squandered on a bloated, inefficient, and politically motivated public sector, while schools, hospitals, and local services continue to decline. Ordinary Scots see none of the supposed benefit.
This week, John Swinney launched yet another desperate push to try to break up the UK, this time fronted by a glossy poster declaring:
“Scotland is a nation. We affirm that every nation has the right to choose its own future. We choose a future where Scotland decides its own government…This is our plea, our right, and our opportunity: To place who live here at the heart of our national opportunity: democracy.”
First, a huge thank you. The Abolish Holyrood campaign has taken off because of your support. We’ve gained over 3,000 Twitter followers, been featured in the press, and turned #AbolishHolyrood into one of the most talked-about hashtags in Scotland. Together, we’ve shown that the demand to end this failed parliament is real—and it’s growing. However, die to two important issues, it is not possible to continue to register a political party for 2026 at this time.
