Alibi

Deleted as appeared twice.

Where did you get that idea? He doesn't like the way the SNP has seemingly deliberately fucked up everything related to achieving indy in recent years. Seems to me that his argument is with the SNP, not with the idea of independence. As for your "swivel-eyed loons" comment, did someone at SNP HQ tell you to put that one in? Unfortunately for those of us who have supported indy since before Sturgeon was born, Wings has tended to be ahead of the game on most things, and things do seem to be panning out much as he has been predicting. The SNP needs a major clear out, and soon.

Scotland isn't an option on drop downs with Microsoft at least, but you do sometimes see it on forms which have multiple options to choose from. HMRC options never include Scottish for nationality, so no idea how Salmond managed that - is it possible it's been faked?

Yes, the degree of contortions that these unionists will go through to do down Scotland is beyond belief. Once they put this new cable in, we'll no doubt still be paying the highest electricity prices in the UK and have the highest transmission charges. Unionists just love being in an abusive relationship. Happy family? Not a chance.

As a chartered member of the I.C.E. I can comment on that article. needless to say I have done so, pointing out that this is a blatant theft of our resources. Will be interesting to see if they allow the comment to remain. If they don't, I'll be asking why.

Foote should be nowhere near the CEO position. You could maybe argue a case if the leadership had been someone fresh rather than the continuity clown, but this is taking the piss. What next? Douglas Ross at comms and Anas Sarwar in charge of organising the next conference?

That was my thoughts after attending a local branch meeting a few months ago. They were just going through the motions, reporting on branch membership numbers, all the usual utterly tedious trivia about which nobody gives a fuck, stuff about town centre market stalls handing out leaflets (it's not the 1970s any more). After NS resigned, they invited folk to come along and sign a grovelling thank you card. Oh, and Alex Salmond was officially persona non grata. I haven't been back since.

I don't think that's what is meant by a "Karen" at all. I always interpreted it as a sort of generic insulting term. It's one of those words that has become fashionable, much like "gaslighting", the meaning of which is often distorted - and don't get me started on when it's used as a verb and someone says he "gaslighted her" when to my ears it should be "he gaslit her". But when so many people say things like "I have went" and "I done", I would expect nothing less.

As is often the case, you have attempted to deflect and completely missed the point I was making. Your response there is frankly a bit of a word salad.

Oppenheimer is a bit too long - it's almost two films in one, the first bit being about the development of the A-bomb and the second part being about the McCarthyist demonisation of Oppenheimer and the witch hunt against him. I think a large proportion of the population won't particularly enjoy it, but the acting is excellent and it's worth sticking with it.

Re-arrange that as "I think that a young lesbian woman telling middle aged straight men what they can and cannot say isn’t a great look". That way round it perhaps highlights an implied ageism and heterophobia that underpins your post, and to be clear I don't actually ascribe such views to you. People can't help becoming middle aged and what's wrong with being heterosexual? Mhairi Black is entitled to her opinions but it doesn't mean she's necessarily correct just because she's a lesbian.

I'll bow to your superior knowledge on this, although that's not what's being reported in some of the papers. Which to be fair are prone to distort things to suit their own agenda.

I have no doubt that a lot of the extreme anti-SNP voices are British state actors. However there are a lot of remaining SNP members who are genuinely appalled at what the leadership has become since about 2017. It's as if the leadership is trying to destroy the party from within by coming up with unpopular policies and daft ideas - the greens are a big part of the problem but that article above rings true.

Pretty much sums up my own view. Although Salmond was innocent of all charges, enough of the mud thrown at him by the MSM will stick. Crazy when you think how ridiculous most of the charges were. I can't see Alba becoming mainstream in the near future, despite their activism and enthusiasm. We need to recover the SNP from the control of the folk who seem hell bent on making them unelectable. Certainly, Yousaf is a dead man walking as far as leadership is concerned. Utterly hopeless, unpopular, clueless.

Nobody is blaming Sarwar for Brexit - I am fairly sure he opposed it. however Sir Starmer has now aligned Labour with Brexit and a load of other stuff, and it is not credible for Sarwar to go into an election saying he opposes policies adopted by London Labour. He may still oppose Brexit, and the other stuff like the 2 child cap etc., but his problem is that he has to do what he's told by London. Imagine if the SNP had a half decent leader, someone more like Salmond, Labour would be getting torn to shreds every time they tried to pretend they're different from London Labour. Sarwar can pose all he likes but if Labour get in, he'll do exactly what he's told by Starmer. I know it, you know it, a'body knows it. Yet the corrupt, twisted MSM pretend that Labour in Scotland offer something different. Only absolute mugs believe that old lie.

I think it's fair to say that the SNP are putting out a very mediocre reserve team while people who could get the party back to a strong position seem to be on the bench or on the transfer list - NS admitted to impostor syndrome and I think that's what's behind it. She didn't have the confidence to let anyone who might actually usurp her position anywhere near positions of power. Looking back on her time as FM, it's been a sort of slow motion managed decline. Yousaf is much the same - he has no leadership qualities and comes across as an actor playing a part. That "first activist" label is cringeworthy when he snubs an indy march for a poorly attended local pride diversion. As a long term SNP member & indy supporter, I despair at the way they have pushed forward a lot of really poor legislation that few voters like. If you wanted to destroy a party, that's what you would do. I notice that Sir Starmer has pretty much turned the Labour Party into a Tory tribute act and I suspect they will find their currently improving poll ratings in Scotland dropping like a stone once the electorate in Scotland wake up to what is happening - how is Sarwar going to sell brexit, no FoM, no indy or indyref, etc.etc. to voters in Scotland? The MSM and BBC Scotland can't continue to have a news blackout on that forever.

As an early adopter of Covid, I tend to agree with the not thinking clearly. With vaccines, covid now generally seems to be a lot less destructive on average, but in the early days when I first had it, I was delirious and had weird hallucinations. I can see how she might not have been able to think rationally. The more important point though is that she has been punished repeatedly & still her former colleague are putting the boot in. It's bad enough being abused by the British state which lets Johnson and co. away with so much, but when it's SNP folk campaigning against her, you have to wonder why. Probably didn't support self ID. I see the SNP chief whip at WM is proposing to move the writ for the election rather than the UK govt doing it as per normal practice. What's that all about, trying to demonstrate to their unionist overlords that they're good little parliamentarians?

I agree with this. What she did was wrong, but what Prince Charles did was at least as bad, and don't get me started on the hundreds of other public figures who broke the rules but don't seem to have been treated the same way. Same as all the folk charged in connection with the Alex Salmond trial reporting were on the anti-establishment side. Why is Dani Garavelli not getting her collar felt? On Ferrier, I find the feeding frenzy pretty disgusting. You expect it from Labour, but to see the SNP persecuting one of their own one who has already been punished more than once is disgusting, and even worse they are going round encouraging folk to vote for a recall. Doubly disgusting given the double standards applied to Patrick Grady where they mainly supported him for his sexual misconduct.

Yes, I recall in 2014 campaigning alongside Labour members who wanted indy - they were an organised group, Labour for independence or something like that. Given that in those days, Labour and SNP probably shared a fair amount of common ground, it worked well. Nowadays Labour has moved to where the Tories were about ten years ago so there's not as much common ground, but there still seem to be Labour members who haven't moved to a party more reflective of their own beliefs.

Spot on. Electing SNP MPs will keep the Tories out every bit as effectively as electing Labour MPs in Scotland, in fact probably more so as it may also give us some leverage over Labour that could ameliorate some of their neo-Tory policies. electing Labour mPs in Scotland is saying that you want Brexit, oppose indyref2 and indy, oppose immigration, and support a lot of other things that Scotland doesn't want - Labour don't want freedom of movement for example. Give them a strong overall majority and Scotland's energy resources get stoles (but hey, we get a few HQ jobs for a year or so, until Labour decide to relocate the HQ to London. Listen to what Sir Starmer is saying - because no matter how Anus Sarwar tries to spin it, that's exactly what you'll get if Scotland votes Labour. If you're stupid enough to do that, then hell mend you, you deserve everything that follows. I have my issues with the SNP, and they are many at the moment, and I do wonder how much infiltration there has been and why they have been pushing so many daft policies, but there is no way I would ever vote for any unionist party. And I would never stop rubbing it in with anyone who did vote Labour because they are in reality voting for a slightly less deep blue shade of Tory. As for Alba, they have Alex Salmond, who is still the best politician in Scotland by a country mile, but beyond that, they are pretty threadbare. What a pity Alex didn't rejoin the SNP after his acquittal (though I doubt he'd have been allowed to by the leadership). He would have been invaluable in a senior statesman role.

I'm on nodding terms with Chris as he's usually at Morton games, but some of the stuff he comes out with is a bit daft. That one sounds like just trying to find something to complain about. I think Edinburgh Castle counts as a military base and so the museum is probably not a devolved matter, but nevertheless it's a museum and you'd expect to find relevant items in such a place. I'd say a swastika is very much a relevant item in that context.

I'm sure the vast bulk of SNP members still want indy, and it's something like 35% of Labour voters in Scotland who also want indy. Bear in mind that the SNP has been under attack from the MSM for many years now and the ridiculously protracted "investigation" into SNP finances (which has not led to any charges being brought so far) plus the constant "ferries" narrative is bound to affect support at this stage. There was a poll yesterday which apparently suggested the SNP would get about 32.5% of the vote for a UK election if held today, and would only get 14 seats as a result, but frankly that sounds a bit far fetched. As soon a a genuine election campaign starts, Labour will be shredded by the revelation that they are pro-brexit, anti immigrant, anti single market, anti indy, anti indyref2, all matters that many people don't realise at the moment as the MSM keep those things pretty much obscured. Sarwar has looked a total arse trying to defend the two child benefit cap. how is he going to sell pro brexit to the electorate. It would maybe help if Alba would stop some of the more over the top attackes on the SNP and concentrate on what really matters. Salmond generally criticises with a degree of restraint. Worth bearing in mind that we are all supposed to be on the same side. Yesterday there was a story going around about Steven Flynn eating lobster - a sort of let them eat cake story - but the reality was that he was at an event promoting Scottish seafood, an even in memory of a recently deceased businessman in Oban. it wasn't the yoons attacking him; it was Alba supporters, or at least people who claimed they are Alba supporters. I get the feeling that many of them are posting under a false flag. The SNP needs a re-boot. The toxic policies need to be dropped pronto, and we need to get back to sensible, pragmatic governance. I'm not at all convinced the current leadership has the charisma or ability to do that, but they need to get a move on. and for the imminent UK election, they need to tear Labour's evident Toryism tribute act to pieces in the campaign. I'm trying to think who could do that, but unfortunately the obvious name isn't even in the sNP now.

That's true but a wee bit selective. An couple of any age won't get any discount. The other problem with council tax is that other folk living in a house might not chip in, leaving the registered owner to pay the lot. You could have maybe 8 people crammed into a house but council tax doesn't take that into account. It really should be raised from a local income tax which is a far better and more equitable solution and spread the burden more fairly. Even the much-vilified poll tax was more progressive than the current council tax. Needless to say imposing huge percentage increases isn't going to be welcomed by anyone and opposition parties will weaponise it even though they almost certainly won't have any reasonable alternatives to offer.

Funny how police can get something like this done and dusted in a few days, but Police Scotland are still targeting the SNP over whatever it is they are hoping to find after more than 2 years with no charges. You'd almost think that PS were trying to harm the indy movement and weren't actually carrying out a genuine investigation into a possible crime. Throw into the mix that, if I am informed correctly, the complainant was Sean Clerkin, and it doesn't look at all suspicious. Be interesting to see how long they can spin it out.

The proposed increases for bands E to H are ridiculous. I could maybe understand increases to take account of inflation but they're taking the piss with this proposal.