Apologies

[Kingsmills]

As a nation we spend far too much time looking back at some conveniently distorted view of history.

Indeed, there may well have ben times in the past when the union was of benifit to many, if never all, Scots.

In my opinion, however, it's long since past time for us to take control of our own affairs or at least as many of them as the constrainsts imposed by the, probably necessary, evil of membership of the EU will allow.

[The Mantis]

Love him or hate him (and I can see how he can have both effects on people) Salmond is never anything but positive and never blames anything on 'The English'.

In my workplace the most scandalous anti-English comments have come from one or two alleged socialists. The nationalists have worked out their intellectual arguments years ago- indeed I have a few English pals who vote for the nats.

At my advanced age (as two old gitsscoundrels have alluded to in another thread :015: :015:) I can remember nationalism being petty and whingeing at one time but it seems there are signs of us maturing out of the chippy mentality at long last. Having said that you have to stand up against such as our 'national' broadcasting service when at times they display breathtaking ignorance.

I actually found myself agreeing with Annabel Goldie the other night when she says you can be positive about the Union without doing down Scotland, which is what the Labour party are doing at the moment as they dig themselves into an intellectual cul-de-sac. Apparently if you visit Labour's website it's all about the SNP these days...

[Heilandee]

Cant we just play them at fitba,winner takes all.......

then again,mebbes no eh?

[buckett]

As I said, a device for opening curtains - clearly my euphemism went over your head, Charles.

I agree, however, with your interpretation of the corruption of history. I well remember my primary school teacher in Dalneigh leading a baying mob of 11-year-olds (of which I was one) in an ill-informed rant against the injustices suffered by the poor down-trodden Scots at the hands of the English at Culloden. Years later I was better informed about these events but through the years she must have been responsible for a considerable amount of unnecessary anti-English bigotry. Sewing the seeds at an early age.

Teachers, eh!?  :006:

[tm4tj]

Aye chaps, theres lots of chips on lots of shoulders.

Culloden has been misrepresented over the years as Scotland V Englandshire....................we as a nation need to move on and get this massive chip off the shoulder, the poor wee oppressed country that we are.

We are a proud nation, that can not be taken away, but in the modern world we must progress and leave the past behind.

Hey, I heard a rumour it was Charlie Christie's fault.......................................

[Charles Bannerman]

buckett.... do you not mean a device for supporting curtains!?

[Glebeict]

  I hear lots of rumours that it was charlie stuarts fault. I wonder who started them?

[clacher_holiday2]

most of the problems were inflicted by fellow Scots such as one Patrick Sellar.

aye they even named a supporters club after him the bass!

..scotland is better equipped for independance now than any european country ever has bee... its coming if charles bannerman wants it or not

the upsurge in support for independance; possibly more to do with bert vogts getting sacked and us a year or two later moving to 16th in the world than anything else?  :015:  or maybe the population in general is starting to realise that we already can support big business, academic insitutions which are recognised globally, can be trusted to run a parlament in edinburgh and potentially can p1ss off into the distance in terms of quality of life for average punters compared to those south of the border where racial/migrant tensions, crime and poverty are starting to take over?

who knows.  i blame walter smith and thank him for it.  if scotland had beaten italy last week then the snp would be 10 points clear ahead of labour by now instead of 6

[Johnboy]

Well said Clacher -  :022:

What a pity no one can convince you CC was an inspired choice of manager for ICT.... :024:

[buckett]

More a lazy than an inspired choice, but one which, in my opinion, has worked out well, generally!

[The Mantis]

the upsurge in support for independance; possibly more to do with bert vogts getting sacked and us a year or two later moving to 16th in the world than anything else?   :015: 

Never underestimate the importance of sport in the morale of a nation.....

Never met you Clacher but I think you're probably a bit young to remember Argentina 78 and the first devolution referendum of 1979.......

It took us a long time to recover from having belief in a superb team in late 77, to being shown up as losers/junkies/alkies in front of the whole world 9 months later.

To make it worse, the 'British' media didn't have England to cover so they just made up stories about the Scotland players instead. Same in 1974- I've still got some footage of the Essex boys from the tabloids trying to wind up Willie Ormond at training one day.

[Action Man]

In the one sentence Charles the B says he is "apolitical" and then has a go at Alex Salmond. Excellent.

Even the soon to be opposition parties can talk about nothing else but the SNP.

Bring it on. :022:

[clacher_holiday2]

the upsurge in support for independance; possibly more to do with bert vogts getting sacked and us a year or two later moving to 16th in the world than anything else?  :015:

Never underestimate the importance of sport in the morale of a nation.....

Never met you Clacher but I think you're probably a bit young to remember Argentina 78 and the first devolution referendum of 1979.......

It took us a long time to recover from having belief in a superb team in late 77, to being shown up as losers/junkies/alkies in front of the whole world 9 months later.

To make it worse, the 'British' media didn't have England to cover so they just made up stories about the Scotland players instead. Same in 1974- I've still got some footage of the Essex boys from the tabloids trying to wind up Willie Ormond at training one day.

born 25 of january 1983 at 6.05 ante meridiem i believe..

that comment about the football team doing better having a direct effect on national confidence wasnt really a joke, i was doing this  :015: more because the connection itself is ridiculous

[Charles Bannerman]

Apolitcal and also to a very large extent antipolitical. I really have time for very few of them. Yes, I think Salmond is supercilious and self satisfied and this emerged above because I was examining the issue of historical misinformation in the context of nationalism.

But there are plenty others as well... for instance we need look no further than one Peter Peacock who, at a time when the best way to get to the top in Highland Council was to be an Independent, was a "lifelong" Independent.

Then, when the first elections come along for the Scottish Parliament, does Public Spirited Pete stand as an Independent? Behave yourself! New Labour (you know... the ones that used to be Socialists) becomes the only party Pete ever wanted to be a member of.

And Pete does very well out of it too. Standing as part of the Labour "list", he becomes Education Minister without any voter ever having put an X directly against his name as a (New?) Labour candidate. And when he gets that job, he's pretty quick to criticise the lack of PE in Primary Schools.

Now, who was Convener/ Vice Convener of Highland Regional Council in the mid 90s when they slashed Primary PE?

But whatever the outcome of this election for what Billy Connelly calls "the wee pretendy Parliament" (it was known in Westminster Labour circles as "The White Heather Club") I will REALLY miss that outstanding cabaret which was the Scottish Socialist Party!

Next week we feature the Greens, the Tories and those "Bloody Nice Blokes" otherwise known as the Liberal Democrats....

[maimie]

What happens on 3rd May???

tell me your joking CD.... :010: :010: :010:

[Guest donmac298]

Which is the reason we need change, Charles.  I am of an age where I have seen many different Cabinets, both Tory and Labour and I have yet to see where Scotland has prospered under any of them.  I could give you many examples but I will not bore you.  Don't believe everything you read or hear - Scotland has always been second-rate in Westminster eyes.  Having said that, England has for quite some time now been going down the tubes and they are dragging Scotland with them.  It is a sad fact that when Scottish MPs go down to Westminster they have to toe the Party line or they are "out".  The same could be said for some clan chiefs during the Clearances, "clear the people off the land or we will do it for you, and you will also be included" - they didn't really have much choice in the matter.

I dread to think what it's going to be like if Gordon Brown is prime minister - leopards don't change their spots!

[Charles Bannerman]

Donmac... that's scared me when I think back and realise that I was born when Winston Churchill was PM (his SECOND ministry I'd hasten to add) and I've seen NINE Prime Ministers come and go (well eight if you allow for the fact that Churchill had already "came" and Blair has not yet "went" as we say in football.)

That's a lot of hot air.

[Guest donmac298]

It's not a lot of "hot air" at all Charles, you have to realise that you are not right all the time much as you would like to  think you are.  I have now sussed out where your sympathies lie politically.

[Charles Bannerman]

Well you've done a whole lot better than I have!

[The Mantis]

It's not a lot of "hot air" at all Charles, you have to realise that you are not right all the time much as you would like to  think you are.  I have now sussed out where your sympathies lie politically.

I think he means from the prime ministers, not you  :015: :015: :015: :015:

I'm usually a believer in the '****-up' rather than the 'conspiracy' theories, but I make an exception here.

Under the 30 year rule, we're finally finding the truth of what happened in the 1970s, and the lengths the establishment would go to, when Scotland threatened to go it alone. We're sold this propaganda that only we (uniquely amongst all the world's nations) are too poor, stupid etc to govern ourselves. Yet the British establishment kindly hangs on to us just as a huge favour.

The truth is, there are two explanations why we have never been cut adrift to get on with it:

1) Labour would be unelectable in the UK without Scottish votes. And, more importantly:

2) The civil servants who really run the UK (regardless of which party is in power) are in thrall to the Americans, who in turn need Scotland for strategic reasons, eg Holy Loch and all the early warning stations further north. Not to mention pioneering nuclear power at Dounreay and such like.

Like Charles I have a healthy contempt for politicians, even the ones I will probably vote for, but the people have a duty, once a particular set of numpties have been voted in, to make them accountable (eg the recent expenses scandals).

And I'm afraid the current set of numpties have had it coming for a long time: at least 30 years, since I was old enough to go to the local working men's club with my old man and see these corrupt, arrogant councillors in action, fixing things for anybody willing to buy them drink.

[Johnboy]

Great post....!!

I agree with the Mantis...  :022:

[Charles Bannerman]

Ah! Mantis is obviously far better at interpretation than either Donmac or I. I now, although I hadn't until "Sir's" intervention, follow that Donmac understood my reference to "hot air" to mean him, Donmac. However what I did indeed mean was that it was Churchill, Eden...... Major, Blair who collectively generated it.

[Johnboy]

Ah! Mantis is obviously far better at interpretation than either Donmac or I. I now, although I hadn't until "Sir's" intervention, follow that Donmac understood my reference to "hot air" to mean him, Donmac. However what I did indeed mean was that it was Churchill, Eden...... Major, Blair who collectively generated it.

So now you've taken cognizance of Mantis's excellent post, Charles -  Does it therefore follow you will cast your vote(s) in favour of the SNP come May 3rd..?

[Guest donmac298]

My apologies Charles, I thought you were having a dig at me so I decided to return the favour!

Yes, Churchill did some good but it gets tiring to keep hearing how he won the war for Britain, "we'll fight them on the beaches etc".  You rarely hear of the Polish, Canadians, New Zealanders, Australians, Indians, Americans, in addition to the Dutch, French, Belgian Resistance and so on who gave their lives for Britain.  Churchill was indeed fortunate that Hitler decided to have a go at Russia and that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour which brought the Americans into the war.  Without the Americans Britain would have lost the war.  As an ex military man it grieves me to admit that, but it's true.

Mantis, what you write is very true.  The last time the SNP were shown to be a threat, John Major couldn't get up to Scotland quick enough, and I doubt if he'd ever been to Scotland before!  The same thing is happening again with Blair.  If Jack the Lad is doing so marvellously for Scottish Labour why does he need Blair to pull his strings?  When Scotland has no assets left and is of no further use to England then there will be no problem in getting Independence.

John Major - "back to basics".  Blair - "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime".  That's worked wonderfully well, not only do we now have grannies being assaulted during the hours of darkness it has now spread to broad daylight as well.  Things are getting worse instead of better.  At least being in the Highlands we are away from the worst of it but even that is changing.

[Charles Bannerman]

No problem Donmac! Takes Mantis to sort it out, eh?

Churchill gives an intriguing account of the post Pearl Harbour hours in Volume 3 of his Second World War where, after news got through of the attack, he admits he "slept the sleep of the saved and the thankful".

Britain also tried to warn the Soviet Union of the impending German attack in June 1941, which they knew about from Enigma decrypts but Stalin ignored the warning.

No doubt, though, these two events saved our backsides in the war.