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Better Together ?


Kingsmills

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17 minutes ago, ymip said:

Someone, anyone please ban this trumpet Bannerman from the forum.  The man is an utter dick on every conceivable level. 

 

I take it that your desire to suppress opinions which you don't like indicates a Nationalist leaning? Perhaps you also take politics - and in particular politicians - just a little bit too seriously?

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5 hours ago, Gabby said:

On the upside, just got a massive boost in the exchange rate for my trip in August :smile::smile::smile:

Just as well cos its going to cost you more. That is if the currency trading suspension has been resolved by then. Who else noticed that, as a result of outcome, petrol rose 4p this morning. Not reported on MSM though.

All I'm saying on this result is hell mend those who engineered it. We will all suffer. Pension values are already being hit. Pound is unstable to the point that many currency exchanges (RBS, NatWest etc) have suspended dealing. Your British cash card will not give you currency from foreign ATM's. Share prices, and therefore my standby finances, have taken a serious hit.

Some EU spokespersons have more or less told UK to get on with leaving and that there will be exit repercussions. I fear that this outcome is a disastrous one for all of UK. Already Wales and Cornwall are demanding WM provide all the various subsidies they received from Brussels. The rest of the UK and NI will follow suit. That cash is not available to WM so we're all in the mire. Reduction in credit rating and 1.7 trillion of debt. Welcome to the isolated United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Latest member of the third world.

As for Mr Bannerman, I don't think ymip or anyone else is trying to suppress opinion. I think what that person, and others, is trying to say is that you don't post opinion. You make it your aim to totally spoil serious and reasoned debate with your stupid infantile comments. Your comments on these forums are what suppress debate

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6 minutes ago, Alex MacLeod said:

Who else noticed that, as a result of outcome, petrol rose 4p this morning.

Can't say I did but it's sure as hell not because the oil price is approaching what your chums in 2014 told us it was going to be in the "second oil boom":amazed:

As for my comments - they are largely based on that variation on Animal Farm which says "All politicians are disingenuous chancers, but the SNP are more disingenuous chancers than others." They are all taken FAR too seriously.

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One of the many things I find puzzling about all this is that I don't knowingly know a single person who supported Leave - family, friends, neighbours folk on Facebook - none of them. And whilst it's easy to flippantly say that Scotland voted Remain, almost 40% of us didn't and that's a helluva lot. In fact, as many Scots voted to leave as voted for the SNP in their latest Holyrood landslide, and yet I know plenty of them (I still actually speak to some of them :lol: ).  So who are these people?!

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51 minutes ago, Alex MacLeod said:

Charles why don't you just zip it

Another Nat offering the standard, inarticulate Party response to statements which conflict with received dogma.

Is that - Grand Theft Auto excepted - the best you can do?

Edited by Charles Bannerman
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11 hours ago, Yngwie said:

Whilst the 62% result in Scotland is indeed pretty clear, it's interesting to note that over 2m of us voted to remain in the UK but less than 1.7m voted to remain in the EU. I suppose it implies that we are less bothered about this one.

Correct.  Whether or not we are part of the UK was clearly seen as a far more important issue than whether we remained part of the EU.  The almost complete lack of the fervent campaigning and flags and posters on the street and in the windows was further evidence that this was not seen as so important.  It is all very well to argue that campaigning was low key because the result in Scotland was a forgone conclusion, but that argument simply doesn't wash.  There can surely not be too many voters who didn't understand that this was a UK wide referendum and it was too close to call - so get out there and f"cking vote! 

The fact is that more Scots voted for us to stay in the UK than to stay in the EU.  We've had 2 referendums and we remain in the UK and are going to leave the EU.  Lets just accept the will of the people and move on.

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32 minutes ago, DoofersDad said:

Correct.  Whether or not we are part of the UK was clearly seen as a far more important issue than whether we remained part of the EU.  

Of course it was. But now the Nats (including "Serially Offended, Aberdeenshire") have jumped on this apparent inconsistency as the biggest political injustice since their fellow oppressed Highlanders got sorted out by Cumberland - who, by the way, had more Scottish blood than Bonnie Prince Charlie.

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Well that's the second referendum I have voted yes in and lost, could it be third time lucky for me?  We should all get a better sleep tonight knowing that Boris and Nigel will take care of things with the backing of Donald Trump! 

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3 hours ago, Yngwie said:

One of the many things I find puzzling about all this is that I don't knowingly know a single person who supported Leave - family, friends, neighbours folk on Facebook - none of them. And whilst it's easy to flippantly say that Scotland voted Remain, almost 40% of us didn't and that's a helluva lot. In fact, as many Scots voted to leave as voted for the SNP in their latest Holyrood landslide, and yet I know plenty of them (I still actually speak to some of them :lol: ).  So who are these people?!

I know what you mean.  I have spoken to a lot of Americans in the last few months and none of them have had a good word to say about Trump.  I think what is going on here is that there is a large number of people who don't want to express their views or own up to them because the other side demonises them.  The two big issues in the EU referendum were immigration and the economy.  As soon as people expressed concerns about the level of immigration some from the remain side would accuse them of being xenophobic and racist.  For most people it is simply a concern about pressures on public services and the impact on wages but they keep quiet in order to avoid the accusations.  On the economy, people felt that we would do better outside of the EU but were again demonised for not wanting to work collaboratively for the common good of a wider Europe.  On both topics they were made to feel they were deserting the moral high ground.  Rather than suffer the rather self righteous lecturing from many in the Remain camp, those supporting leave just kept their views to themselves.  This is a particular problem with social media where someone can express a perfectly valid opinion on Facebook and suddenly have several family and friends jump on them with a more PC view.  Rather than expose themselves to that many folk just say nothing.  

In fact, I suspect that this arrogance amongst Remain supporters may well have cost them the result.  Farage was a subject of particularly vindictive behaviour and whilst folk may have got a rousing round of applause for ridiculing him, the fact remains that a lot of people agree with him.  Attacks on Farage will have been taken personally by these people and will simply serve to make their views more entrenched and to make them less willing to discuss them.  He and UKIP were vilified in the General Election but still got over 3.8 million votes.  You would have thought that politicians from other parties would have got the message - but no.  Had Remain treated Farage, and therefore his huge silent following, with a bit more common decency rather than appealing to the mob, they might have been able to address the concerns of some of those marginalised and vilified voters and we might now be celebrating continuing membership of the EU.  

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55 minutes ago, IBM said:

Well that's the second referendum I have voted yes in and lost, could it be third time lucky for me?  We should all get a better sleep tonight knowing that Boris and Nigel will take care of things with the backing of Donald Trump! 

If you voted "YES" in this last one it will have been counted as a spoilt paper!  :smile:

 - It should have been in the one before as well  :hiding02:

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On 6/24/2016 at 6:20 PM, Charles Bannerman said:

Remember also 1963 when de Gaulle - despite what we and the Americans, at great financial and human cost, had done for his country - said "non" when we first asked about joining the group of six Common Market countries, four of which we had liberated from the other two.

Been a while since you mentioned 1963. Finger on the pulse as usual. 

Edited by Whippet
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On ‎6‎/‎25‎/‎2016 at 0:35 AM, DoofersDad said:

 Rather than suffer the rather self righteous lecturing from many in the Remain camp, those supporting leave just kept their views to themselves.  This is a particular problem with social media where someone can express a perfectly valid opinion on Facebook and suddenly have several family and friends jump on them with a more PC view.  Rather than expose themselves to that many folk just say nothing.  

 

You may very well be right there DD. I think the same thing happened during the Scottish referendum where, rather than suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous Cybernattery, a lot of NO voters just kept themselves to themselves but quietly entered the polling booth and - interestingly in parallel with their Leave counterparts - voted for the integrity of the United Kingdom.

My own position on Brexit is still far from settled and if anything, although I voted Remain, I have drifted slightly back in the direction of Leave. I have also had the moral debate with myself over how much of my decision to vote Remain was influenced by the need to deny the SNP a chance of a second Scottish referendum (on which subject I have already written to Ms Sturgeon asking her what she would consider the necessary "material change", after any second vote that might go "yes", to justify a third referendum.)

So we could indeed have a second Scottish referendum now, although once "Pure Dead Bilin', Drumchapel" has calmed down again in a few weeks, I suspect the figures will have returned to the kind of levels where they wouldn't dare risk it. Hence the best thing to do might be to focus on the positives of Thursday's outcome, such as for our fishing industry but also including that we are no longer going to have our affairs dictated to us by a bunch of foreigners from 28 other countries in Brussels in a bloated bureaucracy where we do have a tiny minority of representatives, but I and most others couldn't come close to naming even one of them.

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12 minutes ago, IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER said:

Present for Mr Charles Bannerman :groovy:

image.jpg

That's one of the problems - the Nats haven't had the bottle to suggest ditching Britain's most prolific benefits recipient and largest scale occupant of social housing, Mrs E. Windsor!

Edited by Charles Bannerman
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On 6/24/2016 at 10:53 PM, Charles Bannerman said:

Of course it was. But now the Nats (including "Serially Offended, Aberdeenshire") have jumped on this apparent inconsistency as the biggest political injustice since their fellow oppressed Highlanders got sorted out by Cumberland - who, by the way, had more Scottish blood than Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Complete bunkum Bannerman and you know it. I laboured under the illusion that you were a highlander by descent but I suppose being associated with nats would rule that out and explains the peculiar wording of your second sentence. Anyhow, the obese and allegedly homosexual Duke's mother was German (Caroline of Ansbach) and his father nominally English. His house was of Brunswick - Luneberg (Hanover), his Godparents the King and Queen in Prussia and nominally English Dad was actually an elector of the Holy Roman Empire. He has not a drop of Scottish blood, ancestry or tie. I look forward to the day that you get down from your high horse and give it a fair opportunity to hoof your disingenuous  *rse :wink:

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29 minutes ago, davie said:

Complete bunkum Bannerman and you know it. I laboured under the illusion that you were a highlander by descent but I suppose being associated with nats would rule that out and explains the peculiar wording of your second sentence. Anyhow, the obese and allegedly homosexual Duke's mother was German (Caroline of Ansbach) and his father nominally English. His house was of Brunswick - Luneberg (Hanover), his Godparents the King and Queen in Prussia and nominally English Dad was actually an elector of the Holy Roman Empire. He has not a drop of Scottish blood, ancestry or tie. I look forward to the day that you get down from your high horse and give it a fair opportunity to hoof your disingenuous  *rse :wink:

Which, unlike CB's 'bunkum' is at least factually correct but still does not have the remotest relevance to ongoing events in the twenty first century.

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8 hours ago, davie said:

Anyhow, the obese and allegedly homosexual Duke ...... has not a drop of Scottish blood, ancestry or tie.

"Fumin', Fintry" (or is it "Loupin', Lochee?) .... you seem to have forgotten that the Duke of Cumberland was a direct descendant of that well known Scot Scottish James I (OK - just to preserve the sensitivities of "Serially Offended, Strichen", I'll call him "and VI" as well).

However the Hanoverians were all effectively as German as a mouldy bit of Bratwurst to the extent that the Duke's grandad  (Geo I) could barely speak English. I can appreciate that it perhaps suits your point of view that you would want to call the Duke's dad "nominally English" but that simply doesn't hold water. He was as German as the Brandenburg Gate with a little bit of Scottish blood.

Then we have the Prince who, apart from his own small sprinkling of Scottish red corpuscles, was principally Polish-Italian. And that's what the Jacobite rebellions boil down to - rival cabals of foreigners fighting religious and dynastic wars among themselves over who should rule the British Isles. And who get principally shafted? The poor bloody Highlanders, bound by antiquated feudal obligations to fight - just as "the people of Scotland" did at Bannockburn - to decide which bunch of despots would lord it over them.

In fact if you are looking for English blood to blame, you have to go a further three generations back from James I....(and VI!!!)... to the marriage of the Thistle and the Rose of 1503 between James IV (and IV) and Elizabeth Tudor, although even this is fairly heavily laced with Welsh. So reality is that the Hanoverians, although largely German, had considerably more Scottish ancestry than English.

Meanwhile "Angst-ridden, Aberdeenshire" should realise that all of this does actually have a lot of relevance to the 21st century since one of the foundation stones of the Nationalist Grievance Culture, on which the current popularity of the SNP is largely based, is the simplistic myth that "we got done in by the English at Culloden". An understanding of history is therefore needed to debunk this nonsense which has among its descendants Wee Nicola embarrassing us all in Brussels with delusions of being a Foreign Policymaker, based on the equally disingenuous implication that 5 million Scots are unanimously Pure Dead Bilin' at being wrenched out of Europe by the English. The reality is that, even of the 62% that voted Remain (*), a fairly large number won't actually be all that *rsed either way and - as strongly suggested by the low turnouts in the People's Caledonian Republics of Dundee and especially Glasgow (56% I think) - it rather looks as if much of a large slice of Nationalist Brexiteers didn't actually vote in an attempt to get the best of both worlds. The proportion of the population which is genuinely Pure Dead Bilin' at Brexit is hence probably quite small - as the pitifully weak, kneejerk and very temporary swing towards separation suggested in post referendum polling.

But let's not allow reality to get any more in the way of this grievance than of its many predecessors.

 

(*) Note - that 62% for Remain was on the basis of the UK's CURRENT arrangement with the EU. Any separate Scotland would have to negotiate its own deal - hence no Rebate, no Opt Outs, use the Euro, subscribe to the Full Monty including tendering arrangements which could put chunks of the SNP#'s sacred NHS into private hands etc etc. Arguably that would leave Holyrood with FEWER powers devolved from Brussels than it currently has from Westminster. So, adding that into the marginal Remainers and the abstaining Leavers, how genuinely pro Europe can Scotland really be said to be?

And any second Scottish referendum would have to be fought on the basis of the above European model, not the current one - although if that was ignored, then in the unlikely event of a yes, the "material change" of a completely different European deal would, like the second, be grounds for a third referendum. Gander, goose, sauce.....

Edited by Charles Bannerman
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We've really got ourselves into a constitutional mess with these referendums.  We are leaving the EU despite the fact that a minority of the electorate voted to leave.  Then, because more people in Scotland voted to remain in the EU than to leave, we are now threatened with a second independence referendum.  This is despite the following facts

  1. A minority of the electorate in Scotland voted to remain in the EU
  2. Approximately 300,000 more people voted to stay in the UK in the Indy referendum than voted to stay in the EU in the EU referendum.
  3. People voted in the independence referendum in the full knowledge that there was a high likelihood we would soon be having a referendum on EU membership and leaving the EU was a real possibility.  Clearly, if membership of the EU was more important to people than being part of the UK they had the option to vote for independence - but they didn't.

All of this mess could have been avoided if we accepted a simple principle for major constitutional change.  This is that there should be more than 50% of all those eligible to vote, actively voting for change before change is implemented.  Such change is too important to be made on the will of a minority of the electorate and the apathy of another minority.  It should only be made when at least half the electorate positively want that change.

Had we applied this common sense principle, support for independence would be seen as nowhere near the level required for change and the numbers voting to leave the EU would also have been well below 50% of the electorate.  Life would now be moving on smoothly without any constitutional or financial crisis. 

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