Builders of the Future

By London Clay

There have been better days, I suppose, than Friday, the 8th of May. But there ye go. Ye win some, ye lose some. Ye roll wae the punches, or something or other. You try and be upbeat, and realise, mibby you’re only down because your hopes were in the wrong place.

I was guilty of hoping for too much I’d say, when the writing was on the wall. The writing, was actually all over Cricklewood, UKIP everywhere daubed in black marker pen, in crude letters on every bus shelter and billboard on the most cosmopolitan Broadway in the world.

It didn’t make that much difference in Cricklewood, but everywhere in England and Wales the people spoke, and they spoke in a language the left did not understand, they spoke in a language that split the Labour vote, and everywhere allowed the decrepit Tories an encore, yet another last, demonic dance, in flames of labour movement history.

I long ago turned off the histrionics when encountering UKIP voters, the histrionics that Labour has been particularly guilty of, Labour, our beloved, stale party of plutocrats. We’re out most days or nights, our cosmopolitan London railway civils gang, laying troughing for the plutocrats, their fibre optic cables, their rails for their trains. We don’t really use them ourselves, and in point of fact, our existence is almost wholly separate from theirs.

Though they swarm around us everywhere in this London, their suits and their bicycles and their mystery jobs, and on shortcuts home to our boxrooms and council flats and mortgaged single-ends, through their leafy streets we see the posters in the bay windows of their Victorian four-bedroom semis: Vote Labour; Vote Conservative; read the Guardian, read the Mail, drive a Jeep, or take the train, pay for private tuition, for pilates, for personal trainers, nutritionists, clarinet lessons, au pairs. Left plutocrats, right plutocrats; like Steve Coogan and the Mansion Tax their politics is itself a lifestyle choice.

And elsewhere, not so visible, there’s the Green voters, the broad left, and they’re enough of them here, the folk like me, the graduate types in working class jobs or working class salaries, the boxroom crew, the folk who talk about cosmopolitanism, or multiculturalism even, like it’s a reason to live in London, like work, or opportunity, this is what marks them out. They are the folk who, even if they don’t have the choice that the plutocrats do, well they’ve been reared on believing they do.

And elsewhere still, you can see the housing estates still come out for Labour, for the ghost of Labour past, the throngs of folk, young and old, a 7pm rush on the polling booths, mostly in London, you have to say, the folk who are less white on the whole. But then still the bulk of the voting, working class, here and across England, and Wales. The bulk though, that as the years go by, looks more and more the rump.

I turned off the histrionics a long time ago, the outrage you’re told to feel when you meet a UKIP voter, I turned it off when I realised I’d to work with them, live with them, join with them and recruit them. I think I saw it then, the writing on the wall in its crude letters, though I didn’t want to believe it at the time, the ghostly hand, in the midnight darkness of the trades hall.

The gang was disinclined to vote Labour. And Michael King says he voted UKIP, his soft Connemara accent, The immigration, it’s fúcked. I’m gettin the same (hourly) rate I got, fifteen years ago, and you know, I’m only workin three days now.

And Cedric the Jamaican chimes in Truss, he don vote in na bladclart Babylan, but dem Eas Europeans, dem ffuckin it all up, for like his Irish brother, he is a plasterer to trade, reduced again in his middle age to pick and shovel.

And behind it all, the spectre whose same ghostly hand is doing all the writing, the spectre of Capital itself, it looms over us all, on this year, the busiest on the Project, this biggest building site in Great Europe.

Our wages stable now, Capital cannot find enough of us to build and refurbish the great new stations it requires to facilitate its City and her plutocrats of left and right.

So Capital in its freedom of movement relies again on the freedom of movement of labour, and once again to the Continent goes its gnarled and knuckled digits and from thence it plucks new gangs of toilers, Magyars, Slovaks, Romanians, new souls to sleep and dream in London boxrooms of better worlds.

And Paddy and Jamaican know as well as Jock how well it’s all going back in Hungary, how cozy those boxrooms may have grown on our brothers by such time as they’ve slapped the last tile on Tottenham Court Road, how this time next year, when they’re all out of work, wages will plummet again, and the tormented mind of every power-giddy gaffer will make gleeful threats anew, the army of surplus labour at his beck and call.

His cruel and wrinkled hand, it waves its finger softly at me, I protest: It’s the law that hammers our wages, the law that says we can’t strike without a ballot, without a month’s notice, the law that let’s them employ us like this, contracts they can terminate, not people they can sack… It’s the law, it stops us organising, and so the finger waves softly, in the grim glower of the Jamaican’s eye, the man too scared to join the union.

In Erwägung unserer Schwäche machtet, etc… Knowing we are weak you make new laws, says Brecht, Laws to keep us weak and make you strong. Knowing our fear, intimately, with the studied contempt of centuries, understanding we your serfs and our hatred of the plutocracy, better than Labour, we become the victims of Tory chicanery, of this ancient party of governance and experience.

We English and Welsh toilers, we vote in our millions for UKIP, the only party that speaks to our hearts, itself an establishment plot, as if UKIP is not as wedded to the low wage economy, as if UKIP will not just replace European labour with Commonwealth labour, as if UKIP will reform labour law, and not reinforce it.

And we split so the Labour vote, a masterstroke of Tory strategy, a victory for them all the more complete in that we do not care, anymore, for we decided, continues Brecht, henceforth to fear our poor lives more than death, we were incapable of going on in the old way.

And Miliband, less perfectly contemptible in his ignorance of his electorate only perhaps than Gordon Brown, Miliband vanishes a cloud of nothing, but complains for the last that Labour has fallen victim: to Nationalism. It is all he has to say, all we need to hear.

Diane Abbott says fair enough, things are bad for Labour in Scotland, but Gordon, he could save it for us, like he did the Referendum… So we overturn Brown’s old seat, with a 35% swing, this hero of the Labour soft left, we humiliate him forever, we rub his sagging face in the mud. They tell us Wullie Bain’s seat is the safest Labour seat in Scotland. We turn it into the biggest swing, we break all records, as if the limits of our spite, our vengeance, were bound only by the extent of our democracy.

This is what we think of the City of London and her plutocracy, her gravy train, and they make it easier to hate them so, for their only answer is to call us Nationalists, xenophobes, the same language on both sides the border, whatever the difference in politics. For we are fighting for our immediate class interests, and they for theirs.

In Scotland, we look to the immediate source of their sustenance and our misery: oil, the oil that props up their City and Pound, parasitic finance capital and its bleeding of the North. We launch an historic fight to control it. In England again, we look to the immediate source of their sustenance and our misery: the unelectable, the unaccountable European Union, the architecture of the low wage economy.

We vote on either side the border for very different parties, for in our rudderlessness, without our own leaders, we are the formless, surface clay in the hands of the right, we vote UKIP in our millions, we let the Tories in. Labour, party of left plutocrats, incapable of understanding us, their class enemy, Labour can understand this only as Nationalism, and in all constituent parts of the UK, turns in response to its identitarian right.

And yet this was the moment of our quiet, but terrible, working class radicalism. This was in England the milder form of what happened in Scotland, the less enthusiastic form, for the great visionaries of our movement were, in England, elsewhere. Not fanning its flames, not directing its fire, but gone the same distant way as the Labour leadership, squeaking at us the same curses bellowed by Miliband and Brown: Nationalists; xenophobes.

Mene, Mene, Teqel, Upharsin. They couldn’t see the writing on the wall, we couldn’t even understand the language it was written in, nor that the wall was no mouldy edifice of some ancient labour club, but the rheumy, cold stone of Belshazzar’s Palace itself.

For the great visionaries of our movement, the socialists, the proselytisers, if not already part of the plutocracy themselves, then they were there, waiting on its left wing. They hang around with Green voters, and avoid UKIP voters. They steer clear of the workers, the workers, with their terrible politics and terrible vengeance, their backwardness that marches arm in arm with their thunderous, relentless, unconscious drive to transform the world for the better. The toilers, the folk without a choice nor the illusion of one, the only secure foundation upon which a free nation can be built.

They weep then, the visionaries, the socialists, they wail in their ignorance, cast out in the cold from labour hall and Palace alike, they beat their breasts and grind their teeth, trying to understand why the Tories got in: blame the Scots, blame the English, blame everyone but yourselves, who deserted your people.

But they can, and will, dispense with their histrionics, the left. You can, you will, emerge from your ghettos, the safe spaces you carve for yourselves away from a class that is alien to you, that you have grown to hate, and that hates you back.

You will come forth, and you will change. What is behind, you will leave behind you. I have every faith in that, you pioneers, you navigators, you builders of the future.

Because if you don’t, you know you will hold us back, drag us back, smother us, kill us. You know your ghettos are more pervasively reactionary a social force even than those less sophisticated ghettos of the right.

But no, these questions are not even worth considering. An iron certainty you will turn your cowering subculture, into an aggressive counterculture, an infrastructure for a labour movement reborn. A movement not of grey discussion circles on campuses or upstairs in pubs or content in toothless public sector trade unions.

But a movement, rather, of boxing clubs and football clubs, of community centres, of organisations of the unemployed, of adhoc libraries, food banks and cafés and club nights. A movement that brands the new class identity with the name of socialism, that takes those folk, those Green voters, those UKIP voters, those Labour voters, that forges them anew, a mighty weapon, with the stark, sure creed of a knife.

For the working class are your people, and you are their conscience. We are flesh and blood, together, and our flesh and blood tears iron from concrete from clay. Our terrible, our gruesome power for change, our capacity to act as one, it was everywhere visible in this election, only used against us this time by our ancient nemesis with a cunning of ages. Next time, next time we will see.

70 years ago today, my ould man threw his uniform into the sea at Durban, and looked out on the Indian Ocean of peacetime thick with ships, a war survived, a future to be built, a Welfare State to be forged on the vengeful, suspicious hopes of those thousands of servicemen and women returned to Britain and battle trained.

My colleague Sacha alongside me, the Romanian railway chippy, we send a video, by way of apology, to a meeting neither of us are able to attend, an humble gathering last night to commemorate that great victory against Fascism.

70 years ago today, Sacha’s grandfather, the Georgian Red Army man a chippy with a gun, gazed out over the serene ruins of Berlin still smoking. He gazed out and wondered on the accident that was his life, that brought him here this bright May morning in dark clouds of mortal smoke, through thousands of miles of blood and shit and snotters and bits of women and men and weans and dogs.

Barely a bird left alive to whistle, so a sparrow came and stood a while beside him, and as he looked back before him, he saw not ruins, but foundations. By his side a gun, his hand reached not for grenade nor bayonet, but for his hammer, for wire and nips.

We are still here, us folk, still our parents and grandparents, just with different faces, all their histories, all their wisdom, all their experience combined in ours. The Internet, the Great Library of Alexandria at the fingertips of every child with a half decent phone, shines a Morning Star of enlightenment unstoppable in its implications. We have fought through worse, we have built from less, there have been worse days than Friday, the 8th of May, and there will be better.

There will come a day when we will drop our standard over the ruined Reichstags of the past, of Belshazzar’s Palace, of Berlins and Babylons and Londons. Our power, our thunderous, our clamorous power, is everywhere to be seen.

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  1. Andrew Skea says:

    So the left is now split in half (into Labour and SNP). And the left has never won when it’s been split.
    Labour knew it could not win when the Loony Left of Derek Hatton et al scared the middle ground into the arms of the Tories. Labour created ‘New Labour’ not to forget about the poor, but to get Labour in to power so that it could help the poor. Now the SNP are the new Loony Left – and once again the middle ground of England has been scared into the arms of the Tories.

    The SNP have won GE2015 for the Tories – thanks guys! (and before anybody says – my figures don’t add up – my point is that Labour could have won 30 more seats in England had the SNP not scared Labour’s English voters in to the arms of the Tories).

    There is space for only one left wing party in Scotland – in the same way the SDLP are a ‘sister’ party of Labour. But that is not going to happen – Labour and SNP are going to “out left wing” each other to claim to be the party of the left – but the more ‘out lefting’ you do, the more you scare the centre ground into the arms of the Tories.

    The SNP have cocked up badly!

    1. IAB says:

      You didn’t go through the same GE as me. The Tories used wedge tactics against their opponents – Sturgeon avoided the trap, Miliband walked right in. Blame the Tories, blame the right wing media but don’t be brainwashed into blaming the SNP.

    2. Jim Bennett says:

      “The SNP have cocked up badly”. Indeed, Andrew. The silly bastards only won 56 out of 59 seats. Total cockup: a cack handed failure of epic proportions. The SNP failed miserably. Eh, Andrew? Why did the SNP fail so badly in England. Why didn’t they win a single seat there? What a cock up! Who made that stupid decision for the SNP not to stand there?
      Bunch o’ bloody Trotskyists with their end austerity schtick.

      1. What Cameron and the other pro-union appeasers of Scotland do not seem to realise is that each granting of extra powers to the Scotland is simply preparing the country for eventual independence.

        The way to tackle the SNP is to give them nothing more and plenty of it. Cameron should leave the SNP to twist in the wind of their political impotence which the present circumstances have created, because time is what the unionist side needs, time to allow the general mess that the SNP are creating in Scotland to come to its full fruition. I always include stories of the domestic policy failures of the SNP in these emails to show how inept the SNP are when it comes to governing and how disturbingly authoritarian as is shown by the raft of politically correct measures they have passed and the things such as the centralisation of Scottish Police in a single national police force, the state gestapo to oversee every cild and the banning of sectarian chants and songs. Sooner or later the Scots will start blaming the SNP for the policy failures and restrictions on liberty.

        https://englandcalling.wordpress.com/

        1. Guy from exotic Bristol says:

          I agree – simply let this almost one-party state to wallow in its own juices and rest assured within two years the Scots will transfer their hatred away from Westminster and direct it towards each other.
          They are an odd bunch at the best of times – last September they voted against independence then eight months later they all vote SNP!

          1. The Scotch are essentially a nation of five year olds grabbing any pretty bauble which takes their eye and dropping it when the next meretricious bauble captivates them.

        2. Gordon says:

          Aye, the Scottish Government is so incompetent it got re-elected by PR with an absolute majority. Unlike the Westminster lot, it managed to balance its books, and managed to increase the number of police officers by rationalising the admin into one force. Plus there’s no sleaze.

    3. CJK says:

      No. The SNP got the votes in bucket loads. Labour in Scotland has had its day, your right there is no room for two centre left parties and Labour have left the stage. We do not have to be subservient to a blairite London Labour Party (because that’s what’s coming) for the sake of a corrupt and faithless UK. Let the left thrive in Scotland with the SNP being the new centre and an invigorated left (Green) taking up the opposition in 2016 at Holyrood. We can then clearly demonstrate that we are done with Westminster and its tainted pretend democracy once and for all.

    4. bringiton says:

      The choice in Scotland during the 2015 election was between English based neoliberal parties and a social democratic SNP.
      If you think that there was a left of centre political prospectus on offer in England then you need to go back to school.
      There hasn’t been a left of centre political party in England since you voted Thatcher into power and looks like it is going to be a very long time before that mind set changes.
      Meanwhile,here in Scotland……

    5. John Mooney says:

      Total PISH,you are making a complete arse of yourself,are you Jim Murphy in disguise?

    6. Did you even read it? Did you even analyse Labour’s results in England? Labour lost seats in England mainly because they lost voters to UKIP, particularly in northern ‘strongholds’. The threat of the SNP didn’t push voters into the arms of UKIP. It may have pushed voters towards the Tories in some seats but that wasn’t what cost Labour the election. Take Ed Balls: he lost in his seat because the traditional Labour vote haemorrhaged towards UKIP and he never had a large majority in the first place! Labour made GAINS in London.

      I won’t say your ‘figures’ don’t add up, since you haven’t actually given us any figures other than an arbitrary estimate of the number of seats you think Labour could have won!

      Labour hasn’t been a party of the left for a generation. This is the ONLY reason they find themselves where they are. They’re in the midst of suffering the same fate as PASOK; as the Spanish Socialists; as the Socialist Party in France soon will; as Socialdemokratic in Denmark soon will. When you abandon your core; when you lose sight of your principles in a relentless pursuit of power for power’s sake; when you forego strategy and base your entire campaign on tactics and knee-jerk reactions; then your core abandons you. The Tories haven’t stolen millions of Labour voters. Millions of people who might have voted Labour have decided they have nothing to vote for and have stayed at home. Others have gravitated towards UKIP, while others – particularly the young – have gravitated towards the Greens.

      Let’s talk about UKIP. How was it they were able to come from being a lunatic fringe to a party that could command almost 4 million votes? Can you remember? Can you remember how the BBC gave them an ever increasing platform even when they had no MP’s and a were polling less than 5%?

      And the Greens’? Who was it who demanded that the Greens’ be given a debate platform? Was it the fair-minded Ed Miliband? No, not Ed but a certain David Cameron.

      This is known as “divide and rule”. It’s the oldest trick in the Tory playbook and it was wilfully abetted by our old friends at the BBC, an organisation we’re constantly reminded is full of lefties despite the fact that almost all of its senior political journalists are dyed in the wool Tories (Robinson, Marr, Neil, Peston, Keuessberg, Davies, and so on and so on). And Labour never saw it coming. Their amateurish campaign found itself pandering constantly to Tory narratives amplified by their allies in the BBC, SKY, and the rest of the vitriolic right-wing press.

      How arrogant does a person or a party have to be to assume they have a God given right to expect the poor and the vulnerable (and those who are neither but feel a responsibility towards them) to vote for them regardless of how they behave in government? What kind of person or party points a finger at a rival party – a party which has put its money where its mouth is in terms of trying to mitigate the worst excesses of the Tories during the past 5 years – in blind ignorance of the fact that when they do so they’re actually pointing the finger at the 1.4+ million people who voted for them. I know what kind of person and what kind of party but I’ll temper my language lest I offend the good people who might happen to read this.

      Scottish Labour is dead. UK Labour is on life-support and will soon follow should it choose the path of Umunna and his ilk. It’s voters can only take so much; can only take so many lies; can only take so many failures to stand up to the naked self-interest of the right. Pasokification awaits and will hastened if Labour adopts the kind of ignorant, conceited attitude you demonstrate here.

      It’s Labour that has cocked up badly. If you’re any reflection of its thinking then it’ll have died of natural causes before it’s enemies have had a chance to sharpen a bayonet.

      1. Dean Richardson says:

        Andrew Marr a Tory? That’s news to me, and it’s probably news to him as well. His wife (daughter of the late Labour MP, Jack Ashley) writes for the Guardian, and almost certainly votes Labour herself, and it would be no surprise if Mr Marr also votes Labour.

        1. What his wife does is largely irrelevant. Having spent a large part of my life in relationships with ardent Tories – a farmers daughter and small businessman’s daughter – I can assure you neither affected my politics (though my relationship choices may say something about my own judgement). Believe it or not, there are more than a few serving politicians whose spouses don’t necessarily follow their party line.

          Marr is certainly shy when it comes to professing his own political leanings, for obvious reasons, but a lot can be learned by looking at the company he keeps and the access he enjoys. He’s effectively a one-nation Tory of the Disrealian tradition, a tradition somewhat removed from Thatcherism. Perhaps he *has* been persuaded to vote Labour on occasion but that would hardly have required him to abandon his own beliefs entirely – the demarcations between one-nation conservatism and Blairism are practically indiscernible.

          You can add Paxman and Neil to that list, by the way. Just don’t allow yourself to be confused by modern Tories such as Cameron and Johnson professing adherence to the one-nation mantra. They’re actions betray their ideologies; they’re Thatcherites to the core.

    7. jimnarlene says:

      Labour, on the left, yer having a laugh.

      1. broadbield says:

        If Miliband was the face of the left, heaven help us, socialism is truly dead. But the failure of Labour to come to terms with the causes of their defeat, brilliantly enunciated by Philip Thomas, and to start re-writing history illustrates that they have forgotten everything and learned nothing from this election and are not only politically extinct but intellectually extinct as well. In the UK they have nothing to offer other than Tory-lite. In Scotland maybe it could be different if they can get rid of the toxic Blairite faction and return to their roots.

    8. Clootie says:

      Andrew

      You are either an idiot or a troll. I suspect you are not a troll.

    9. SNP had nothing to do with the decline of Labour, it was Labout following the Tory lead and abandoning its roots that drove people to the SNP. There was no where else to go to vote against austerity and the ever increasing cuts. The death of labour started long ago when they stopped being the party of the left. Plus, re those supposed 30+ English labour searts; it’s not the fault of the SNP that people in England chose to vote Tory and embrace more austerity rather than vote for a labour party that would be led back to the left by the SNP. It seems to me, the real reason, the only reason, we have yet another Tory government is because austerity, more cuts and an extreme right Tory government is exactly what the good people of England wanted.and voted for.

    10. Who you going to blame when Scotland is independent.

    11. Stop blaming Scotland choosing a genuine left wing moderate alternative for English voters incompetence and political illiteracy. Follow our positive example (and vote green)- don’t criticise us for rejecting the party and policies that you should too. P.S. its Labour party that s betraying the left, not the Tories.

  2. Two points to Anfrew Skea:

    1. There is no longer a Labour party in Scotland, so there is no split of the soft left betwen Labour and SNP, we’re done with that.

    2. You say “Labour could have won 30 more seats in England had the SNP not scared Labour’s English voters in to the arms of the Tories”. We say get your house in order and we’ll help you, but not if you fall for the Tories lines and repeat them for them, instead Labour could have won 30 more seats in England had Labour stood up to Tory lies abut the SNP, and so not join the Tories in scaring Labour’s English voters in to the arms of the Tories.

    1. Guy from exotic Bristol says:

      it’s really the only thing we have left in common – we both hate the Labour party! To be fair any party which bankrupts the nation three times in barely 60 years (1951,1979,2008) should be disbanded by law!

  3. IAB says:

    Bella – please remove that photo

  4. stilbury says:

    Interesting article, but Andrew Skea’s comment is so typical of the arrogant, entitled Labour attitude that helped bring about their demise in Scotland. Scottish Labour MPs have been pretty useless, now they’re out of work, and the Labour party has only itself to blame.

    1. Andrew Skea says:

      I certainly don’t care for the attitude that Labour are entitled to anything; in fact I think you have a bigger problem in that you think ‘the Left’ is entitled to something – your attitude is so similar to the Labour attitude of entitlement that you despise!
      Would it make any difference to your view of my comment if I clarified that I’m from the Centre Right and am quite delighted to see ‘the Left’ split and unelectable. As a democrat I do believe that we need an effective opposition and we certainly won’t get that from a split Left.

  5. ian says:

    Get a grip Labour have had more than enough time to get it right.They have taken Scotland for granted for more than fourty years and left behind the same problems when they arrived.We at least now have a party which will fight for us with a socialist agenda Blair took labour to the right and there its remained.
    You seem to have that Labour disease of not taking responsibility for your own actions.

    1. Andrew Skea says:

      Surely in any battle you need to take the fight to the front line and you need loyalty and support from your strongholds. If anybody thought Labour in Scotland was doing wrong they could have joined Labour, and strengthened Labour to allow Labour to take the fight to the front line.
      Instead, the SNP have destroyed Labour’s stronghold thus giving Labour no platform to build on. The Left is now split and unelectable – the SNP have put the Tories in power for 10 or 15 years – just as they did in 1979.

      1. JGedd says:

        Now you are just mischief-making, you naughty little unionist you. The SNP did not put the Tories in power in 1979. That was the electorate that did that. I take it you are referring to that hoary old chestnut about the fall of the then Labour government? The Callaghan government was staggering to the end of its term in office when there was a vote of confidence motion. The Liberals voted against them too, as well as SDLP and yet the myth put about by Labour (usually) is that it was all the fault of the SNP. This is a Labour myth, though, which you are slyly propagating for spiteful ends against the party you truly recognise as being the danger. Methinks you simply wish to spread a little poison.

        As centre right, why would you be disappointed about the defeat of Labour, if it is of the left? Oh yes of course, because Labour is on your side of politics. You know nothing of Labour then if you think that it was just a matter of changing the Labour party from within. It became impossible to do that because of cronyism and careerism in their ranks. They simply joined the neoliberal consensus and abandoned the left which is why many people like myself, having voted for them for many years could no longer vote for them.

        As someone who gave up on Labour on realising that they were beyond hope, I find your argument – which tries to pretend that it was some act of disloyalty for people to decide that Labour no longer represented them and voted accordingly – is quite frankly, dotty. They left us first and now they are being repaid for the self-serving choices they made.

        1. Andrew Skea says:

          Ok, fair cop – a little bit of mischief making – but seeing the smile knocked off the faces of the SNP when they see how powerless they have made the left has put a smile on my face.
          I don’t agree that Labour are on my side at all – the policies of Labour and the SNP are very similar – despite the SNP rhetoric that they are different.
          You have two facts to deal with:
          1) we’ve had a referendum to confirm the Union, and the SNP need the Barnett formula to fund the lifestyle of their party members – so they are not going to call another one.
          2) the left is badly split due to Labour vs SNP fighting – and until this is fixed the Tories will stay in power.

          The SNP can shout all they like about more powers – but the only thing they can give the Tories in return is the ending of the Barnett formula. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

          1. JBS says:

            I take it that you’re happy with the Tory majority at Westminster, then, because it spites the SNP. Is that right?

  6. me says:

    Brilliant. Went deep to my soul. The ‘ragged trousered philanthropists’ just need some ‘hope over fear’. And some regional equivalents of progressive YES movements to guide them. I trust the foundations are already being built!

  7. Jim Bennett says:

    Really enjoyed that. Thank you.

  8. Craig Vint says:

    I am sick to death of Labour (new and old) supporters claiming that the SNP frightened the voters in England and “Stole” the vote in Scotland. In a democracy you can stand for election as an independent or start your own party. The line being fed is that the SNP had no right to question Labour, to cause trouble. Jackie Bailie said as much last night.
    That is the problem in a nutshell. How do you keep the politicians honest? You need opposition. Competition keeps you on your toes. Labour lost this election because they lost their nerve. We the party of the UK for all the UK will work with whoever for the benefit of the UK. That’s what Milliband could have said, after all, we are better together! But Alas, I will not work with anyone was his line ( fed to him by the Tories). Balls; I would not change a thing about the Tory budget.
    The election outcome is NOT the fault of the SNP but the fault of a naive player in a ruthless game.

  9. Jim Chalmers says:

    Eighty-odd years ago the working class in another country was in despair. Their lives were being destroyed for the benefit of plutocrats, too, both in their own country and abroad. Many turned to the soft left in Germany in the early thirties, but the social democrats there were too wedded to their positions in society and failed to hear the cries for help. In despair, the workers turned to the only group that seemed to want to help them. Is that what UKIP looks like in England today?

    1. It’s exactly what it looks like. And if Syriza fail in Greece, then the only options left to its citizens are the far-right parties (God forbid, Golden Dawn whose leader currently finds himself sitting in a prison cell). Even in Denmark, Socialdemokratic faces similar charges from its supporters – that it too is pandering to corporate interests – and Pia Kjaersgaard’s Danske Folkeparti (UKIP’s spiritual counterpart) finds itself on the rise. In France, the failure of Hollande heralds the rise of Front National.

      Be thankful that we have the SNP. Be thankful that the soft-right right is in a minority in Scotland and that the far-right is no more than an after-thought. But don’t any of us be complacent. If UK Labour takes the path it seems set to take then UKIP will continue to rise and one day soon Scotland may find itself entwined within a toxic and dangerous political environment entirely alien to almost all of us.

      1. Andrew Skea says:

        The ‘soft left’ that you refer to is the cause of the ‘soft right’ that you speak of and visa versa. By putting the ‘soft left’ in power you strengthen and encourage the ‘soft right’ – if we can’t defeat the soft left AND the soft right it will all end in tears.
        The Greeks need to realise that they need to solve their own problems by restructuring and they must learn from the lesson of the recent past (regarding living beyond their means by means of debt).
        Scots need to avoid the same mistakes that are already apparent in Greece – we have the power to solve most of our problems – we must stop blaming others – and we need to work with our neighbours where solutions are not in our power.

        1. If I’m understanding you correctly then perhaps there’s some common ground between us. One of my main contentions is that, for both Labour and the Tories alike, the ‘centre-ground’ is a distasteful compromise and each wears it like an ill-fitted suit. Each ascribe to it because each believes that there is neither a clear and effective majority for a principled left-wing position nor one for a principled right-wing position, and so they must reach out to the ‘moderate’ so-called middle-ground.

          My own view is that the moderate middle-ground is so minuscule as to be almost illusory. The Liberal Democrats might be considered to represent this middle-ground but, then, the Liberal Democrats have never acquired significant support from the electorate and the notion of ‘hardcore’ liberals is almost counter-intuitive. My notion of most liberal voters (what’s left of them) is of a passive element who just don’t like to rock the boat too much; not a group who prescribe to a core ‘liberal’ belief-structure.

          This pursuit of the illusory centre-ground creates issues for both left and right. In truth, many core Labour voters remain socialist in outlook, while many core Tory voters believe in fully unfettered free-marketism. Both constituencies are forced to make what they consider to be ugly compromises and these create tensions both within those parties and within the electorate themselves but, nonetheless, most eventually adopt a kind of temperance knowing that having the power to make *some* things more to their liking is better than having no power and letting the other lot in.

          Thus Labour appeal to big business and rather than tackle low pay they subsidise it with tax credits. They don’t believe in austerity but force themselves to. Meanwhile, the Tories allow creeping marketisation into public services instead of allowing the markets unfettered access. In the end, no one actually truly believes in what they’re doing and everyone – absolutely everyone – is left with a sour taste in their mouths; in terms of creeping marketisation, the ‘hard’ left recognise what’s happening and cry foul, while the ‘hard’ right see the act of creeping as a submission to the left. Many see their party’s compromises as acts of betrayal and grow disillusioned. Frustrations build.

          In truth, most of us do not sit in the centre-ground. For whatever reason, we’ve settled upon a core belief-structure and we all tend to hold strong views one way or the other. And as time has gone on, we get more and more tired of the pretence; more and more tired of listening to the weasel words that emanate from our supposed ‘champions’; more and more tired of witnessing capitulation after capitulation.

          As for the Greeks, well that discussion would be lengthy and somewhat off-topic. I don’t agree with much of what you imply. Millions of Greeks who had no influence or knowledge of the actions of their political and corporate elites are now living in penury. They paid their taxes; they worked hard all their lives; and, they took retirement when the government said they could. What is it you propose to teach them that they don’t already know? That allowing the free-market to buy their public assets on the cheap will release them from their poverty? It won’t.

          In fact, the more I consider your assertion, the more ridiculous it becomes. How can you seek to lecture the Greek populace about debt when they as individuals have little to no private debt while we in the UK have the highest private debt levels in the world? It’s absurd. What you really mean is that those who’re starving and going cold must continue to do so to pay for the mistakes of a plutocratic mafia who lost a game of roulette with our own plutocratic mafia. It’s petty and vengeful and in the end it will be utterly futile since the country’s debt is unserviceable. Everyone knows they won’t be able to pay it back but those who continue to demand payment are only interested in gaining access to their national assets. After that, who cares?

          I’ve lived and worked all over the developing world, from south-east Asia, to the middle-east, to north and west-Africa. I was involved in setting up corporate entities in many of those countries and getting multi-billion dollar contracts off the ground. I’ve met with government ministers and so called ‘local-sponsors’ on many an occasion. I’ve seen what ‘international development’ actually means with my own eyes. It means taking loans you can never pay back in the form of foreign capital used to build expensive infrastructure you don’t need using foreign labour and foreign construction materials you could provide yourself. Once it’s recognised that you can’t pay, it means selling off your assets at a knock-down price. In short, I know how to exploit a country that finds itself in Greece’s position. I may never have instigated the problems in those countries but I was certainly a *part* of those problems at one time. I sense you know very little about how these things actually work considering you take such a blaze attitude to it all.

          There is no chance of Scots repeating the ‘mistakes’ of the Greeks. There are few if any similarities between the bureaucratic and corporate landscapes of Greece and Scotland. Our economies and our societies are so different so as to almost incomparable.

          1. What I’m trying to say in the above is that if you want to carry an electorate then you have to believe what you say and people have to believe you when you say it, and both ‘big’ parties fail miserably in this regard. Hence, the levels of trust in politics and politicians are fatally diminished.

            I’m a social democrat. I believe in business and I believe in markets, but those markets need to be regulated; the free movement of capital and labour needs to be regulated; and banks need to be strictly regulated. Economics should be a means to an end and that end is the type of society you’re trying to create and nothing more than that. As things stand, our society is a product of an economic system that moves in directions we can’t reliably predict other than to say its moving in a direction that’s to the detriment of our mental and physical well-beings and to our natural habitat. It ascribes value to things that not only have no value but that actually destroy real value, so that an oil spill may be judged to have value because it results in an injection of finance capital to an area in which an oil spill occurs (madness). Most of the wealth generated by the free movement of capital and labour has little value to a society or, when it does provide value, it does through the means of transferring value from one place to another to the detriment of the society from which its transferred. Carers and other domestic workers are ascribed no value because we can’t agree on a way to measure their massive contribution to our economy and our society. There are so many human factors currently excluded from our economic thinking that thinking at all is little more than an exercise in futility. Most models collapse; most predictions are proven wrong.

            This is not to say that you should overthrow the system. You can’t destroy markets. Markets are a part of human nature. But human nature can be ugly, as Freud discovered long ago. Smith was well aware of this. Keynes was well aware of this. The models of Smith and of Keynes can’t be applied simplistically to the modern world but nor can those of Friedman – his model of unfettered free markets and low tax economies has proven to be the biggest failure of them all, but then no one seriously believed it was a model that would benefit the many. We have much better examples of societies in which the citizens and the markets can work together in a more complimentary fashion. They are the Nordic societies, in which the so-called centre-ground sits well to the left of the centre-ground of the failed Atlanticist economies. Scotland has all the necessary attributes required to pursue a Nordic economic model but it needs to cut loose the rest of the UK in order to achieve it. This election result will help to hasten us to that end so any sadness I feel for people in EWNI who are going to experience a more prolonged suffering at the hands of the free-marketeers is tempered by that fact and by the belief that once they see what unfolds in the new Scotland they will recognise the deep flaws inherent within their own societies.

          2. Wul says:

            Philip,
            I agree with a lot of what you say. I think a big bit of information is missing from most people’s analysis of politics and that is that vast amounts of most countries’ wealth are diverted into a few pockets. This leaves the rest of us arguing over who ate the last slice of bread without noticing that the roast beef never even got to the table.

            Is there a name for this process? If we name it, we can fight it. Can we agree that the purpose of a country is to trade and create enough wealth to run a healthy society and then bank the rest for the common good, or spend it on useful infrastructure.

            We need trade to be as free as it can be, up to the point of societally destructive greed, and then be heavily regulated towards fairness for all.

            I don’t really see this as being truly on offer just now (e.g the “progressive SNP, who I voted for, recently had a leader who courted Donald Trump and was happy to schmooze with Rupert Murdoch)

            I’m confused and trying to steer a way to something better.

      2. Jim Chalmers says:

        Dansk Folkeparti’s social programme is, in fact, pretty social democratic; adequate state pension, a public health service free at the time of need, free state education, including Tertiary education and student grants, free travel for the elderly etc. Where they differ is that all of this should be available only to “us” (Danes and incomers from similar western countries).

        I worry that this approach could become more an more attractive in countries where the formerly left wing is abandoning its traditional voter base – countries like England. The danger is that withdrawal into isolationism can lead to both racism with all its dangers and to the collapse of free trade.

        Incidentally, it’s some years since Pia Kjærsgaard was leader of DF. The current leader is Kristian Thulesen Dahl.

        1. You’re correct, Jim, but then the BNP’s economic policies might also be considered very left of centre. There’s also the fact that the policy positions you describe are in line with firmly established principles in Denmark and it takes a huge amount of political will to challenge them. My own belief is that some of Dansk Folkeparti’s policy positions are taken for political convenience rather than out of principle.

          Your worries are my worries and they’re not without foundation. It’s happening all over Europe right now as I’ve alluded to above. When there’s no effective voice of the left to speak for the economically insecure and vulnerable, the right are always there to step in.

          p.s. I know Pia isn’t leader any more but she casts a long shadow.

          p.p.s. I remember when I’d only lived in Denmark for a couple of years or so and hadn’t yet mastered the language, I’d become vaguely aware of Danske Folkeparti through friends active in both Socialdemokrat and Venstre – they saw them as racist xenophobes “obviously”. I was heading to dinner with a friend one evening when I saw an election poster featuring famed musician and oddball politician Morten Messerschmidt. My first reaction to the (Danish) girl I was walking with was “you have got to be ****ing kidding me: that’s the name of a DF politician?” His face had been touched up with a ‘narrow moustache’ and his coat pocket was marked with a swastika. It would be hard for me to shake off those perceptions of Danske Folkeparti now.

      3. Jim Chalmers says:

        With regard to the Danish Socialdemocrats pursuing more and more right wing policies. Is it surprising, when the Danish Prime Minister is married to a New Labour MP – Stephen Kinnock, Neil Konnock’s son.

  10. Heiniken says:

    All talk of lefts and right…. Labour sits to the left of the tories but on the right claiming to be left of center making it look as if SNP, Greens are far left when actually they are left of center. The center has shifted so far right, you believe leftist socialist principles are getting closer to that of Stalin.

  11. mike cassidy says:

    So the election can be summed up in one sentence.

    Read and learn Mr. Skea!

    Cameron gave Milliband a wedgie!

  12. Fran says:

    The SNP didn’t scare anybody. It was the Tories and Labour that did.

    1. Guy from exotic Bristol says:

      what choice is there: Tory outright victory or a SNP/Labour coalition – I’ll settle with the former anyday!

      1. Portjim says:

        And that says it all! Scotland no longer has a place in the UK.

        The sooner Independance is achieved, the sooner Scotland can make it’s own choices and sink or swim by them. At the same time rUK can work out it’s own salvation (since it obviously doesn’t want any help from Scotland – too scary), or settle further into government of the people, by ConDemLab, for the multinationals / banks, if that’s really what they want!

        1. Guy from exotic Bristol says:

          Scotland indeed needs to go it’s own way so it “can make it’s own choices and sink or swim by them” (i.e and stop blaming Westminster for all your misfortunes) !

          1. ian says:

            Obviously you have a very light understanding of the situation Scotland is in re the devolved powers it has.Unless you have complete control over all taxation you cannot grow your economy this was even made clear as far back as 1973 in the Croin report.Its quite clearly WM fault and always has been, we would like to change that.

  13. Les Wilson says:

    Labour lost, because they lost their souls. The SNP did not cause them to lose them. They willingly discarded them for a myriad of self centered reasons.

    Who they failed were their real grass root supporters.
    All in the quest to mirror the Tories. Scotland is not interested in center English votes, so after many let downs Scotland recognized what they have become. We chose a better way.

  14. emilytom67 says:

    Big demo in Londonstan against austerity and another 5years of tory rule,OUR message is getting through to the ordinary English people,we can turn things on it,s head and completely change our world,this they fear more than anything else the unifying of ordinary folks across the border,they escaped it at the time of the French revolution with a bit of luck they won,t this time around.Alba go bragh/Erin go Bragh/Plai Cymru go bragh.

    1. IAB says:

      They have to build a grassroots organisation and tear the country away from the insular Little Englanders – meantime I’m having fun on the Daily Fail’s comments section.

      1. Guy from exotic Bristol says:

        (a) seemingly endless Tory governments
        (b) Labour drifting ever more to the right in order to become electable (something which started under Kinnock)
        (c) You mention the Daily F/Mail – once again right-wing papers have a far higher circulation than the three left ones.

        Conclusion: due you ever consider that most of the electorate is by nature right-wing or do you put it down to the usual suspects: the working class being too thick to realize that the Tories don’t care about them, first past the post system is unfair etc

        Just wondered…

        1. if the electorate is by nature conservative, then what leads to that conservatism
          – being expressed through political parties that want to conserve a liveable society and planet, or
          – expressed through political parties that put short term profit for the few ahead of ensuring a healthy society for all?

          you underestimate both the intelligence of voters and the manipulating power of the elite, the former sees through the latter but the question is:

          is it before or after the damage is done?

          (Iraq War, Financial crisis driven by unregulated markets/ ‘cutting red tape’, suicides of former soldiers returning to a society where they are treated as dirt, the child-abuse rings of the elite protected by those in power, etc, etc)

  15. Dylan Fernley says:

    Uplifting and insightful comrade, the Labour party long ago abandoned any pretence of socialism, its purpose not even clear any more, Tory light in its leadership, disillusion in the ranks, but history shows that new forms of resistance emerge through struggle ,the class consciousness of old has altered with the new forms of exploitation, the fear and hopelessness of casual work, the lack of security, homes to live in and a future that is better than ones past, but history also teaches us that things change very rapidly, violently even, when the class moves as one!
    The future is socialism.

  16. Derek Henry says:

    All Labour had to do when the Tories started their campaign of fear against the SNP was say…

    “No ! We’ve fought for 2 years to keep Scotland within the union and we all promised to work with them for a better future. Even you Mr Cameron promised you would work with Scotland when you begged them to stay. During the referendum we all wanted you to stay – so Yes we are going to work with you and the voices from Scotland.”

    If I was Ed I would have said it infront of one of those large posters in England that slagged the Scots to hammer the message home.

    It would have stopped the Tories with their campaign of fear. All Ed and every Labour MP had to do was read out better together sound bites like they did in the referendum. It would have painted the Tories as back stabbers and deceitful.

    Ed made a huge mistake by not doing this. Knowing Scotland was lost Ed was calculating and decided to try and win the marginals instead. Hours later he came out and joined the Cameron campaign of fear and said the Scots were illegitimate a he sung to the marginals.

    The rest is now history.

    He wouldn’t have saved Scotland but would have probably saved England. Since most of the English wanted us to stay.

  17. jockgeorgetaffymick says:

    Labour – I remember when I used to vote for them. I also remember shipyards, steelworks, foundries, forges, goods yards, factories, cod liver oil, orange juice, but most of all, people. I remember: they forgot. As a party, they deserve everything they got. The SNP didn’t let the Tories in – Labour did. God (whoever he/she/it it is) help us all.

    1. Guy from exotic Bristol says:

      ….because of course the decline of heavy industry could have been avoided eh? No doubt Thatcher went out of her way to close them all down in favour of mass unemployment.
      A conversation like this usually ends up with the closure of the coal mines – the big one liner of course is that more pits were closed under Labour governments in the mid 1970’s than under Thatcher (that fact always brings a smile to my face!)

      1. Andrew Skea says:

        And 83% of of dairy farmers have ceased production in Scotland in last 100 year but the Left care nowt. The world moves on. Towns used to pay people to go round lighting gas lamps every night. The left would take us back to the Stone Age if they implemented their entire logic.

        1. bellacaledonia says:

          ‘The left’ brought you the weekend. The right has recently returned us to Dickensian levels of poverty.

          1. Guy from exotic Bristol says:

            …….hence we need to have a centrist progressive party appealing to the better side of each of the political divide. It is of course far too late for all that as nationalism has quite clearly crept back into politics, only the wealthy vote in ever greater numbers while the working classes are still trying to get themselves back together after the 1983 election still unaware that the only party looking out for them is busy chasing the aforementioned wealthy voters!

            Can you explain to us south of the border why I would want a government in coalition with a political party which wants out of the UK altogether? Nicola Sturgeon denying the SNP was the reason for the surge in Tory support was the funniest thing I saw on election night – actually come to think of it a close second to George Galloway being defeated !

        2. Me says:

          Milk quotas were assets introduced in 1984; they could be bought and sold and there was a ‘market’ for them (well done big monopolising agribusiness) which was only withdrawn March 31 2015 .My friend, given his freely in 1986, sold it for 150,000 grand in 1989. Thatcher didn’t mind the subsidising of farmers – mines, steel, shipbuilding… not so much. ‘Free Market’? Aye, when it suited thum.

      2. It brings a smile to my face too to see you choke on your own intemperance, Severnsider. By all means make your points, but without the vinegar, please.

  18. Steve McCarthy says:

    For however long it takes, and it may not take very long now, we sense that Independence coming. Now is the time for preparation. Not that people haven’t sweated blood and tears in preparation. But I can’t be alone in thinking that we could be better prepared.
    Firstly we have to prepare our response to each and every policy that a newly invigorated Tory Party bestows upon us. Community by community there needs to be outstretched arms to catch the victims. I suspect that a clear majority means that the gloves are off. No half decent kid telling the bully to stop kicking the kid on the ground. I’m willing to accept that Clegg might have softened the blows Cameron truly wanted to deliver.
    There needs to be a coherent argument challenging not only the immorality of austerity but also challenging the economic validity. Imagine our new representatives standing up in the Imperial hall as the true opposition. The vanguard.
    Secondly, I have been personally shocked at how little I knew about, economics and even money itself. My apologies to the economics teacher at St. Tam’s, I now accept I should have paid more attention. But I suspect I was not alone in my ignorance. Until very recently, I still believed I could go to the bank and demand my pound in gold. Quantitive easing flew over my head. I’m no expert now, but like the reformed smoker, it amazes me how many people are still in the dark. Having so many seats in Westminster could allow us to hold a light to the secrets that allow the rich to get richer whilst we are told there is no alternative to sanctioning people’s survival. Teach us how the system works and fails to work. More importantly debate a fairer smarter system of economic governance. We are going to have to put our economic vision for Scotland stronger this time than we did in the referendum.
    Finally, thank you all at Bella and Wings for your inspirational education. Hopefully our MP’s will find a vehicle to take this education wider.

    1. Bob Cooper says:

      Thank you for a cracking article – I really enjoyed it.

      I’m thinking it will be some time before we drop our standard on the shell pocked chancellery
      of the JungHerrs – the Bullingdon Club.

      Reflecting on the last few weeks chapping on doors, I think ours was a tsunami of tears.

      Grief from the yessers, scunnered rage and despair against the machine.

      Regret from nawbags, ‘but Broon did a good speech’, my heart told me yes but my pension/job/mortgage/ bills told me no.

      Don’t ask for a re-run indyref – another attempted escape from wolfschanze, until that economic debate is won and we have the ability to at least articulate the argument to all ages.

      I regret that Bella. Wings, Newsnet are not Daystar’s in everyone’s path to enlighenment.

  19. bringiton says:

    When the Tory government in England strips Scots of their human rights,that will constitute justification for holding another referendum and this time it won’t just be about money.

  20. Lachlan McLeod says:

    Let”s have a big collective “how sad” for labour.

    All of a sudden we appear to have many from South of The Border commenting on here from an English perspective, youl are very welcome!

    All I want is Scotland to be a normal country like Denmark, Ireland or Sweden. That vision is nearer since Thursday. Continued westminster intransigence, austerity, trident and EU exit will hasten that vision.

    Once that vision is realised and Scotland is self governed by a government of its choosing, phase one is complete. Phase two is finding our own place in the world minus uk baggage.

    Post independence, and I sincerely hope, Scotland and England are both in EU and best of neighbours, I could not care how England votes providing we maintain goo relations.The only reason I do now is because England dictates how Scotland is governed. I chose the word dictates with care.

    If as many of the new posters on here believe that the uk is something of worth, to be cherished and great to belong to, why don’t you go to Dublin and ask Ireland to rejoin. Loo what they are missing out on, the cycles of labour incompetence followed by tory austerity, followed by labour incompetentce, etc.

    Labour is finished for at least 10 years, very minimum. That means a labour return to government at earliest 2025, if not 2030. Remaining in union for Scotland will mean four more years of austerity, then a give away and bribe to Middle England prior to 2020 election. Moreover, tories will undertake boundary changes, giving them 30 more seats, meaning labour have to win 130 more seats merely to become biggest party.

    It ain’t going to happen, labour are back in Lambeth and Liverpool 1980s territory and its 2015. They have learned absolutely nothing and have no politicians of note to take the helm.

    Scotland and her people should and will not be subject to the buffoonery of England’s political class and party system. it looks that political leaders in England are not listening to Scots and will seek to maintain union without the will of the Scottish people. The results of this approach have blighted England’s exodus from other countries. Have the English people the resolve to have as their number one political issue, keeping Scots in this Union? Is this the sum vision of England and her politicians? Each and every day, week, month and year being fed a diatribe about belligerent ungrateful Scots by the mail, telegraph, express, sun and bbc?

    It should be the number one aim of all politicians, starting now to ensure that Scotland’s transition to independence is smooth and we remain firm friends. There is no alternative!

  21. There is one thing for sure, there will be blood in the street’s. And it will be English blood.

    1. Squirrel Towers says:

      Hey Mike, should this guy be allowed to post this rubbish??

      1. JGedd says:

        I don’t know what James is drinking, but we must assume it’s something very strong to make him say something so foolish and provocative. This is not what anyone I know in Scotland thinks or believes will happen. You can’t be serious, James Dow. What’s going on in your head to make you spout such arrant nonsense?

  22. Guy from exotic Bristol. I can explain one thing to you “south of the border” you live in a failing state, and are truly fucked. That’s why there are hundreds of thousands of social and environmental English refugees residing in their Scottish sanctuary. Some still dreaming of a now non existent, Ye Merry Old England.

  23. HerewardAwake! says:

    English blood on the streets? Any blood on any streets? You are nuts, whoever you are, to be pitied for your bigotry and bile. But gloat on for the moment. Many have written-off the English before and paid a heavy price for so doing.

  24. JBS says:

    I’ll just leave this here:

    “There were claims that Alex Salmond could join the intelligence and security committee as its members are traditionally members of the Privy Council and he is the only SNP MP who meets that criterion.”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/SNP/11595873/How-the-SNP-plans-to-take-over-Westminster.html

  25. emilytom67 says:

    Attended mass this morning,how uplifting it was tho not so much for the spiritual effect,we had representatives of Sciaf collecting all sorts for the unfortunate people of Nepal,we also had a rep from Marys Meals a charitable organisation started in Argyll by 2 brothers to alleviate suffering in the Balkans at their time of upheavel,they have grown hugely and now provide 1sqr meal/day for a million poor kids throughout the world,contrast that with what has just happened south of the border celebrating the victory of a party ot corrupt/selfish inward looking politicians,hardly ever a mention of these wonderful Scots charities of all denominations that provide with unstinting effort for the less fortunate,Scotland has always had a history of caring for the less fortunate of this world,”our day will come”.

  26. broadbield says:

    Do any of the outlier posters on here who think right-wing politics is fine and dandy ever read anything other than the Daily Mail or Telegraph? There is a growing crescendo of books and articles from economists, academics and even some of the more serious journalists demonstrating how disastrous the Cameron/Osborn hegemony has been for the country and particularly for the poor, the disadvantaged, the disabled, for inequality, social justice, public services – you name it’s been bad, very bad. And it’s all built on the LIE that the financial crisis was caused by too much public spending. It was caused by banks and the financial services industry, aided, it has to be said, by the incompetence of Blair, Brown, Darling and Balls.

    Unfortunately this pernicious lie and the characterisation of the economy as household finance has brain-washed many of the public, and the less intelligent of our politicians who rabbit endlessly about “maxing out the credit card”, or “leaving our children to sort out the debt”, or “we have to balance the books”. All this infantile economics, or “fakeconomics” as it has been called by Prof Weeks, is a useful smoke screen for the Tories main policy which is to shrink the state and privatise all state assets, reduce our social security system to little more than “poor relief”, and hand over everything they can to their rich chums in business and the City.

  27. emilytom67 says:

    broadbield “seek and ye shall find” there is so much info on alternate/truth feeds some of which is really astounding,if you go onto these it will give you an idea of the level of corruption/deceit/paedophilia that has/does go on,if most people took time to dig for the relevant info they would be shocked to their soul.

  28. Calum McRobbie says:

    Sadly our new guests have introduced bile and division into a left of centre pro nationalist blog.

    I think this reveals a mixture of two of England’s least enviable characteristics and traits. Firstly, introduction of Scots being told We must see the world through an English perspective as Scots own perspective is narrow and parochial. Secondly, meddling with a view to control and manipulate, even if that control runs counter to both parties benefit.

    Why must you stay, what do you want from us, you have nothing of benefit to offer Scots and England”s current meddling in Scotland is poisonous.

    In sum, how may ways must a nation tell you to leave before you take note and go?

  29. Justin Fayre says:

    In England Labour Spin Doctors Crap ( take a bow Mr Ed Stone)
    Tory Spin Doctors Not So Crap
    In Scotland Labour Spin Doctors Crap (are you sure you’re not a fifth columnist Mr McTernan)
    SNP Spin Doctots Out of thid World. Hammering home the value of these quaint, archaic almost defunct terms – ethics, integrity, morality.

    Jefferson the Father of the US Constitution declared.
    ‘When the People fear the Government you have Tyranny
    When the Government fear the People you have Liberty’
    In the Uk its
    ‘When the People fear Westminster you have Tyranny
    When Westminster fear the People you have Comedy’
    Result was so predictable

  30. Hereward Awake/ Squirrel Towers/J Gedd I was referring to the inevitable breakdown in English civil society and the fact it will be played out in the streets. The battlegrounds of all civil disobedience movements.
    England is not without it’s own National identities. The National Front, The British National Party, what are they if not ready made front line combatants? And not without practice Bedford comes to mind for one.
    Hereward Awake reference “who ever you are” Unlike you I am not an anonymous troll I am who I say I am, which can easily be verified in previous posts including the address I lived in in Edinburgh, and the pipe band in which I am a piper in Melbourne Aust, And if you like a little closer to home with the Tattoo federation with which I was a registered piper for the 2005 Tattoo.
    Squirrel Towers Another anonymous troll, enough said.
    J Gedd ” foolish and provocative” I seem to remember a lot of recent provocation and it all had a South North direction, and as it turned out it was all very foolish.
    That’s a very sweeping statement . How many peoples opinion in Scotland do you actually represent. Start counting and get back to me. It shouldn’t take you long.
    You never know you might only have a couple of friends or none.
    And in regards to my prediction, stay tuned as they say, it is only a matter of time.

    1. Kenny McKay says:

      I side with James.

      England is heading for a long hot summer, while Scotland sits back, relaxes and spectates with mild amusement at England’s discomforture. “Tut – tut – tut, look at those Engish, out on the streets burning and looting – pass me a frosty one, the garden’s lovely”

      Since 1978, when England has a social problem, people take to streets and riot. It generally starts with a genuine grievance or flash point amongst ethnic minorities, then spreads to the poor and marginalised white sections.

      In Scotland since 1978, we have had zero riots, something to be very proud of!

      So like James, I think many in Englamd need to undertake self examination and not strike out at Scotland. In other words, Englamd needs to recognise it needs to sort out its own country”s shortcomings before pontificating about others and meddling in others affairs.

      James – don”t be put off by foreign usurpers, keep playing loud and proud and extend our friendship to all in your great country!

      P.S. I become an Aussie or Kiwi when your great counties are playing “you know who” at cricket, rugby or what ever!

    2. JGedd says:

      I’m not going to enter into a playground fight over this but I can assure you that during the recent referendum and the recent GE, I was in contact with many people on the pro-indy side. We were a cohesive and committed lot in our local campaign and the national one, at rallies and on the hustings, and did not encounter anyone from our side who expressed your opinions. Yes, there was sometimes belligerence and even an isolated case of actual physical violence from the other side ( that being the Unionist attack by fascist thugs on Yes supporters in George Square after the referendum) but I’m pleased to say, despite black propaganda in the media to the contrary, there was no retaliation. In fact, in spite of the disgraceful incident in George Square, both sides managed to conduct their campaigns in a peaceful manner.

      In the face of extreme provocation in the recent general election coming from the mainly Tory press as well as their democratic representatives (who should know better) in the form of demonising and abusive comments, our side remained calm and did not stoop to their level. I know activists who were insulted and barracked and I experienced some aggressive hostility myself when out canvassing, but I am proud that we kept our tempers and did not respond in kind. Comments like yours do not help our cause and the belligerence of our opponents in the press and media was paid back in the ballot box when the electorate chose the SNP over any other party to represent them.

      By the way, the aggression expressed in George Square and the verbal hostility I, and others, encountered came mainly from Scots. Personally, I feel sympathy for the poor and disadvantaged in England as well as Scotland who will suffer from the policies of this ideology-driven right wing Tory government. My antipathy is towards those policies which cause so much misery and not to the English themselves. You have to be aware of who your real opponents are – the rich elite who have imposed a neoliberal nightmare on their own people. ( By the way, I don’t believe that the ruling elite is nationalistic or patriotic. Their loyalty is to the international elite of wealth and power.)

      It is an age-old trick to rouse up division in the rest of the population to protect the elite from real scrutiny so the Tories and their media ruthlessly exploited English national hostility to Scots with unsubtle abandon. We who support the SNP do not want to be seen as that kind of nationalist. Ours is a civic nationalism which is emphasised again and again by SNP representatives. Perhaps since you are outside Scotland you are unaware of how our politics has been conducted. You should become informed, instead of picking the wrong fights with the wrong people.

  31. HerewardAwake! says:

    Melbourne is more than welcome to you and your vile opinions, James!

  32. HerewardAwake I would like to invite you to join me here in Australia as my contribution to improving Scotland.
    At the expense of Australia of course. But it’s a big country you could hopefully get lost in it, and since you are anonymous not likely to be found.
    What nationality are you? What gender are you? what sexual preference are you? how old are you?
    There you go, a little profiling, and you can still maintain your cowardly anonymous non identity.
    A great vantage point to be dismissed from as irrelevant, and not to be considered seriously.
    And if you want to play mental chess with me bring some extra pieces, your going to need them, as I will allow you to replace your dispatched original pieces until you run out. I know it’s not allowed in the rules, but hey I’m feeling generous towards you.
    I suspect your a displaced English settler, if you are in Scotland,

  33. James Dow says:

    J Gedd I respect your reply well done, we share a common aim Scottish Sovereignty. Perhaps having read my following post you might understand more clearly the thrust of my thought process.
    It’s that in the right environment history repeats, and the Conservatives are certainly constructing one.

  34. James Dow says:

    Kenny McKay reply Thank you Kenny I appreciat

  35. James Dow says:

    Kenny McKay reply Thank you Kenny I appreciate your contribution. I was not seeking an ally, but if I was I would be proud to stand with you.

  36. James Dow says:

    Squirrel Towers reply “Hey Mike should this guy be allowed to post this rubbish??
    What are you? the Lone Ranger of the electronic media, with an embossed tin star which reads censor.
    How the hell did you think we got this far without uncensored free intellectual exchange. Go away, and resist patronising Mike as you did. Oh Mike I’m like you I don’t want this guy in our gang.
    That might be you telt Squirrel

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