Radical Times

The current debate among Scottish nationalists appears to be about whether or not it might be best for the SNP to lose next year’s Scottish elections, leaving the Labour Party to take the blame for implementing London’s impending budget cuts.

The argument appears to be that if the SNP wins the May 2011 elections, they will be forced to pass on Westminster’s promised budget cuts, and the Scottish press will paint the SNP as willing Vichy partners in the Tory devastation of Scottish society.

So if the SNP were to lose this election, so the argument goes, it wouldn’t really matter. Labour would get the blame for the subsequent cuts, and Scots would remember they were offered an alternative, and avoid making the same mistake in 2015.

At first sight, this argument appears to have merit. For a moment I started to believe it myself. After careful consideration, however, I now see there are huge flaws with this strategy. One is that it relies on Scots coming to blame Labour for the Tory cuts, when for four years the Unionist press in Scotland would be singing in perfect harmony that it is not Labour’s fault, but the Tories.

But there is a bigger problem. This strategy would lead many in the SNP to conclude that it’s better simply to give up now without a fight, to stop campaigning and take a break.

The Labour Party, not to mention the British Establishment, would like nothing better.

Consider this: if Labour knows that savage cuts are coming in Scotland, why on earth do they want to win this election so badly? Because they know that an SNP victory will probably mean more SNP seats in Holyrood. Which will be one step nearer a majority, and Scotland will be one step nearer a referendum and independence.

But if the SNP were to lose, everything that has been achieved in the past three years will be swept away as if it never happened. A massive opportunity will have been missed. Momentum will be lost. Scottish independence will be taken off the political agenda for four more years, possibly longer.

That is what is at stake here. That is why the SNP and its activists must do their utmost to win this election, fighting tooth and nail, down to the wire.

Whatever happens, the SNP must hold Holyrood, and Labour must never be allowed into power in Scotland again.

The question is, though, how to achieve this? How to fire up the troops, especially with so much self-doubt in the air, after deciding not even to demand a referendum?

On the referendum, let me say that Alex Salmond was absolutely right to take it off the table for now.

First, this move has caught the Unionist parties off guard. Their printing presses were already set to say ‘Waste Of Money At Such Hard Times’, and ‘Salmond’s Vanity Project All In Vain,’ etc. They thought they knew what was next, and they were wrong.

Second, it has made the SNP rank and file wake up. Many were quite happy to sit back for the next eight months and ‘leave it to Alex’. The rigmarole of the voted-down referendum would fire up Scotland to vote the SNP back in. Sure. That’s all it would take. And all the voted down legislation for the past three years has had exactly the same effect. Scots are simply livid about Unionist obstruction on a minimum pricing for alcohol. They are marching in the streets for more borrowing rights for the Scottish Government. Can’t you feel it in the air?

Keech.

What is called for now is a series of bold, dramatic, game-changing political moves that seize the initiative once more, energizing the SNP activists to make this election about Scottish independence. And then to win it.

At very least, the SNP should do the following:

1. Stop complaining about the Unionist media in Scotland. Bypass it. Issue press releases, policy statements and interviews exclusively to Newsnet Scotland and STV. Nurture them as alternatives to the BBC and the Unionist dead tree press. Foreign-based contributions are restricted to political parties, but not to media organisations. Advise your cashed-up non-dom supporters to tip their millions into Newsnet Scotland.

2. Start thinking like a radical NGO. NGOs take a hostile and indifferent press for granted. Learn their tactics. Hire creative people with this background to plan media campaigns. Get them to teach your members how to form activist cells. Pull off a breathtaking and ever-building series of spectacular media stunts that exposes the true exploitative nature of the UK presence in Scotland and, by extension, teaches Scots how much better their lives could be in an independent nation.

3. Unleash the party activists to start using the tactics of creative disobedience and nonviolent protest against London rule. Turn Scottish independence into a moral issue. Get activists to study and adopt the creative protest tactics of Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi and Saul Alinsky. These tactics work. They are unstoppable.

4. Label the BBC a foreign news agency and that as such non-payment of the BBC licence fee will not be prosecuted. Boycotts are a core strategy of nonviolent protest. The people of Scotland will rally to the cause. It will politicise Scots of all backgrounds, especially the unemployed. The courts would be powerless to handle the number of cases. Those that feel guilty can regain the moral high ground by donating their licence fees to charity. Or to Newsnet Scotland. I’m sure it could find a use for £300 million a year.

5. Win Glasgow’s heart. Take a leaf from Old Labour’s book: create a powerful emotional bond between the people of Glasgow and the SNP as their protectors. The SNP is the only major political party that is prepared to defend Scotland against London’s cuts. Hold two or three meet-the-people cabinet meetings every year in the heart of Glasgow. Forget persuading the long-term unemployed – they don’t vote. They will gain from Scottish independence by getting jobs, but most won’t thank you for it. It’s the working and middle class who vote New Labour. Talk to them. Recruit for the party amongst their community leaders. And then win Glasgow Council.

6. Get Scottish teenagers engaged in politics. Get MSPs to visit schools to talk to students like adults. Recruit more students to the party. Get them to help with by-elections. Build a grassroots organisation that grows organically. Play the long game.

7. Go on the information offensive. Work with Newsnet Scotland to hit Whitehall and the BBC with a hailstorm of freedom of information requests. What exactly did the Scotland Office spend its £7.2 million a year on under Jim Murphy? What directives have BBC management given to IT staff on censorship of nationalist comments on BBC blogs? What is the true nature of MI5 Operations in Scotland? Which political activists in Scotland are under surveillance? Publish the findings on Newsnet Scotland.

8. Walk away from Westminster. Announce that the SNP will no longer contest Westminster seats. This will resonate powerfully with Scots and will be the first stage of Scotland ending its association with London. Explain why – that Westminster is a waste of time and resources and that the SNP can achieve nothing there, even if they win every single Scottish seat. Leave Westminster to the New Labour piggies as their path to peerage. This handful of Scottish seats is a potent symbol of the slavish incorporation of our political class into a greater political establishment. England has refused to accept it in Europe. Why should we in Britain?

9. Fix the message. Ruthlessly, relentlessly and repeatedly push the following positive and negative messages in front of every offered microphone:

A. Independence is the only way to stop the proposed cuts to Scotland's pocket money. The cuts stop the moment we become independent.

B. The Tories have no respect for Scotland. They never did. They never will.

C. New Labour is not the answer to the Tories. The SNP is the only major party with Scotland’s interests in mind. The SNP = Scotland.

D. The Labour Party that gave us the National Health Service is dead. New Labour is the party of Tony Blair, greed, corruption and illegal wars.

E. New Labour corruption is killing Glasgow.

F. New Labour is a British party, not a Scottish one. New Labour is keeping Scotland in the UK for its own political ends. New Labour is a self-serving UK political party whose only goal is power for power’s sake. Joining the Labour Party is a career move. Most people in it have never had a real job.

G. New Labour's policies are the root cause of Britain’s financial woes. New Labour must never be trusted with power again – in London or Edinburgh.

H. New Labour let in the Tories, walking away from forming a perfectly viable UK government, just to keep out the SNP.

I. The UK is having a referendum on its voting system. Wales will get a referendum too. Where is Scotland's referendum? What is London afraid of?

J. Norway is our model. Same population size. Same landscape. Same climate. Same economy. Forget Ireland. Forget Iceland. Forget Australia. NORWAY.


That's only a start. There is so much more.

If for no other reason, these steps will give a good boost for party morale, which will be sorely tested in the times to come. You don’t win wars by ignoring your enemy. We are not children or saints: counter-punches have their place. As does creative attack.

The SNP is now fighting for the very soul of Scotland.

It’s time to get radical.

‘Significant’ UK Scientific Breakthrough

Reuters - Details are still sketchy, but, in an astonishing scientific breakthrough, it appears that British scientists have finally discovered the gene that actually prevents Scots from governing themselves.




If confirmed, the project, completed in the final days of the last UK Labour administration, will amount to nothing less than the Holy Grail for those Scots who argue that an independent Scotland would be a violation of the laws of nature. As such it will also be a godsend for those in the UK Labour Party and the Scottish and British media – especially the BBC, the Scotsman, Glasgow Herald and Daily Record – who until now have been forced to argue this without evidence.

Called traitors by their own countrymen, these Scottish ‘unionists’ – an assorted rabble of politicians, hack journalists and second rate economists, all with a vested interest in keeping their jobs in the UK political machine – were last night jubilant that they could finally explain why Scots were able to act as British prime ministers, British Empire governors, founding fathers for the United States, New Zealand and Canada, heads of banks and corporations around the world today, and yet be strangely incapable of running their own affairs.

A visibly shaken Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland and champion of Scottish independence, was devastated at the news.

“It’s a total bombshell. Think of all the years we’ve wasted campaigning for something that was always beyond reach. Of course, we’ll be disbanding the Scottish National Party within a few days. I feel like we’ve let every North British person down. There was just no way we could have known.”

When asked if he had any specific comment on the findings, Salmond was reflective.

“Och, well,” he sighed. “At least this solves the puzzle of what Labour’s Scotland Office was actually doing with its £7.2 million budget. We thought it was trying to prove the existence of alien life, but now we know.”

An ecstatic ex-Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy last night explained the true significance of the discovery, on a hotline from the wilderness:

“It’s what we’ve been saying all along. We’ve finally proved beyond doubt that Scots need exposure to English culture to learn governance, which is England’s gift to the world. Thank God Gordon Brown and I got our English culture from our wives. Without that contact, our genetic makeup would have put us at a serious disadvantage. We’d both be wife-beating alcoholics by now.”

When asked about Scots’ solid record of leadership over the centuries, Mr. Murphy was defiant:

“Yes,” he yelled hoarsely, struggling to be heard over the tundra gale, “but England gave those countries their culture. So indirectly, it’s the English context that Scots needed to succeed, not our genes, which in fact hold us back. It’s only our acquired English culture that allows us to succeed.”

And the fact that Scotland was an independent nation for over eight centuries before the Union, and as such one of the oldest nations on earth? At this point Mr. Murphy seemed to grow irate.

“Look pal, don't give me that medieval pish. We were never a real country. And any real leaders we had all left to settle the Empire. It’s only the genetic dross that’s left.”

When asked if he included himself in this category, Mr. Murphy abruptly terminated the interview.

Breaking Down the Scottish Labour Mythology

During the recent election, the local Labour candidate came to my parents’ door and introduced himself. My father later told me what happened, sounding quietly honoured that someone like an MP would come to his little corner of the world and knock on his front door.

This was how he described the conversation:

‘Can I count on your vote in the Election?’
‘Oh, aye. We’re Labour folk fae way back.’
‘Really?’
‘Aye. Mining stock. Baith sides ’o the faimily.’
‘Really? Whar fae?”
‘Motherwell and Kilmarnock.’
‘That’s marvelous. It’s aye nice tae meet people wha ken whar they’re fae. Ken whit ah mean? People wha can mind the auld days.’
‘Oh, aye. Different times noo, though.’
‘Aye. And there’ll be big changes again if they Tories get back in.’
‘Aye, you’re no’ wrang.’
‘Will ye be needing a lift tae the polling station?’
‘Ach, no. Wur getting oan, but we can still get aboot. A freen's geein us a lift.’
‘That’s the spirit! Still soldiering oan, eh? It’s been a real pleasure tae meet ye. Cheerio, now.’

The hypocrisy of this exchange gave me bile. My father retired a couple of years ago and was disgusted to find that the pension he had contributed to all his life was almost worthless. I tried at the time to explain that it was Gordon Brown’s scrapping of tax relief on pension fund dividends that had destroyed his pension, but to no avail. That was one argument.

He often tells me about confrontations with local junkie neds, whose cheek he claims to find amusing, in an I-can-still-take-it, razor gang chic kind of way. He told me the story of the junkie asking for flavoured methadone from a terrified young chemist assistant and was bemused when I didn’t find it hysterical.

When pushed, he thinks we need a war to bring back some respect for authority. This is where I try to explain that we’re already in a war, that the lads who are dying in Afghanistan are just normal kids, and that these wasters would not be the type to join up anyway. And besides, what difference would a war make? After all, he hadn’t been a soldier himself – that was not where he had got his values from. That was another argument we had.

My mother was sick last year. She got the best of treatment in a hospital about two hours away. He visited her every day for a month, leaving the car for free in the car park, sometimes for hours at a time. I explained this was an SNP idea. ‘Aye but they stole the idea off Labour. And the free tolls on the Forth was just populist nonsense. Just a bunch of bloody Tartan Tories.’ Straight from the Daily Record songsheet.

He spent a small fortune on fuel on these trips, and grumbled at the time about the price of petrol. He was getting to the stage where he couldn’t even afford to run his car. The idea that we should be one of the richest countries in the world with cheap petrol is a fantasy he refuses to even contemplate. ‘If Norway is so bloody great, why don’t you bugger off and live there,’ he says.

The inconvenient truth for the SNP is that supporting Labour in the West of Scotland is part of Scottish workers’ identity – whether or not they still work. This is what the SNP are up against. The mainstream Scottish media have nurtured this identity for years. They feed Glasgow and the South West a steady stream of Old Firm rivalry, Scotland’s salt of the earth industrial toughness, and myths about her former glorious role in Empire, alongside the same celebrity tat that’s served up around the world. Not to mention any chance they get to make the Scottish Government look either incompetent or useless. And the central westies lap it up.

The tragedy is that Scottish working men and women are utterly unaware of the complete disconnect between the Labour Party of old and the slick PR operation of today. My father used to tell me when I was younger that I should get down on my knees and thank Harold Wilson for giving me my free university education, and, while I was at it, Clement Atlee for the NHS. To a certain extent, I agree. But these things were achieved decades ago. New Labour and old Labour are not the same thing.

To my father, the idea that the Labour Party has become a self-serving power structure that might actually have a stake in men like him staying poor is incomprehensible. He could never even begin to understand that Labour and the Tories need each other at Westminster, that they are both deeply conservative parties committed to the status quo, and that they must appear to be enemies to create problems for the other to fix up every fifteen years or so. Thirty years of Labour would be just as destructive as thirty years of the Tories. It is an oscillatory system of elected absolute power, periodically delivering up heroes and villains to satisfy everyone, and giving each side a bite of the cherry. Like an old German clock, rolling out different puppets every hour, both waving the British flag.

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea how to change my father’s mind about Scottish independence.

Perhaps all politics are local after all, and the answer lies in delivering high profile health, social and transport programs that are clearly seen to be SNP policies. If so, continuing the battle to control the councils must remain core SNP policy. Fortunately, this is a war of attrition the SNP is winning.

The SNP must also learn to counter the non-stop scare-mongering in the Scottish unionist press, of the type ‘SNP denies plan to hand out free heroine to children.’ This is serious stuff. If Joseph Goebels proved anything it was that in absence of any dissenting voice, any intelligent, literate society starved of real news can be made to believe almost anything. The owners of the Daily Record know this. Scottish Government and SNP press releases on their pretty web sites are simply not getting through. This is a media war that Labour is winning.

Something has to give.

My father lost his licence this year because of his health, and can no longer drive himself to the fishing. Luckily, he’s well liked and one of the younger lads will often drive him up to his favourite loch when he feels the need to drop a line in the water. He might not get the place to himself anymore, but he’s still catching fish, and it puts a smile on his face.

I once asked him how the Scottish Government could help him.

'Change the law about Sunday salmon fishing,' he replied. 'The working man has aye been denied fishing for salmon on Sundays, so the toffs dinnae hae their rivers over-fished by the workers.'

Perhaps he is right. This might win a few over. It sounds like a good idea, even though, dare I say, a tad populist. But how would this help lift the people in Glasgow out of poverty? And, just as importantly, how many would be persuaded by this measure to stop voting to stay in poverty? Not too many, I would think.

My mother doesn’t answer the door when politicians call. And like me, she’s learnt not to debate politics with my father. She knows he doesn’t like her voting differently to him and that he considers it a wasted vote if she does. She did it one year and told him, and he was furious.

Today, as far as my father is aware, she votes Labour too, and there are no arguments on polling day. But my mother and I always have the last laugh.

Mum votes SNP.

UPDATE

Unions Review Links With 'New Labour'

Union poll shows majority in favour of independence

Labour Have Put Scotland’s Head in the Tory Noose

In a former post, I argued the case that we cannot realistically call opponents of Scottish independence ‘traitors’ for two reasons: first, Scotland is not yet an independent state. Second, there are only 5 million of us. Slightly more than Norway, a wee bit less than Denmark. Unless we plan to shoot people to improve the polls, those who disagree with us have to be persuaded, until those in favour of independence are in a healthy majority.

This means that the case must be made to those Scots, English, French, Chinese, Irish, Poles and Pakistanis living in Scotland that their quality of life would be vastly improved outside the financial and cultural straitjacket of the United Kingdom. To browbeat fence sitters by calling them traitors and fools sounds arrogant, and can only serve to harden attitudes.

Recent events, however, have changed my mind about one particular group of Scots. It is now beyond any reasonable doubt that the Scots of the Labour Party are traitors to their own people. I refrain from saying the ‘Scottish Labour Party’, an entity which does not actually exist. I mean the UK Labour Party in Scotland. (1)

If the post-Election negotiations proved nothing else, they proved this: that, knowing full well what the Tories will do to Scotland, a cabal of Scottish Labour Party members preferred to let the Tories back into power to wreak havoc on Scottish society, rather than work with the LibDems and Scottish and Welsh nationalists to form a progressive, social democratic alliance. They lined up to shoot down the idea of an anti-Tory alliance live on television. This while the leaders of their party were still in talks with the LibDems on forming a coalition.

No concessions on referendums or special powers were asked for by the SNP as a price, yet these Labour Scots slapped away the SNP hand, unwilling even to discuss the possibility of cooperation.

The central proposal on the table was to keep the Tories out. Yet it’s now clear for all to see that Labour’s priority was something quite different: to keep the Scottish Nationalists out.

So maybe now at last we can put to bed the tired old Labour mantra that the SNP let in Margaret Thatcher in 1979. In 2010, the Scots of the Labour Party – with living memory as a guide for what to expect from the Tories – walked away from a viable alternative UK government and let the Tories back into power. This government would have held a UK majority, just as Labour likes to claim that Unionist parties form a majority of opinion in Holyrood.

Think about what this means: that the Labour Party would rather sit out a decade in paid but impotent opposition under a UK Tory Government than give 1 second’s consideration to working with Scottish nationalists.

The Labour Party Scottish footsoldiers evidently have stronger attachment to their Westminster salaries, benefits, expenses, titles, privileges and pensions than their own people. Protecting those eking out a living in Scotland in the face of impending Tory cuts is a long way down their list of priorities.

So let us lay the blame for everything that now happens to Scotland under this Tory-LibDem regime fairly and squarely at the feet of the Labour Party in Scotland.

Thank you, Scots of the Labour Party, for putting Scotland’s head in the Tory noose.

NOTES
(1) The London-based British Labour Party is probably in violation of British electoral law by representing their party in Scotland as the Scottish Labour Party, a name that is an invention of Labour’s spin doctors.

UPDATE

Labour MP admits being 'relieved' when Tories got in

A Good Time for England to Ditch Scotland?

In David Cameron’s mind, the LibDem demands for proportional representation as the price for forming a government must surely be balanced by the knowledge that his refusal to do so would force them into coalition with the Labour Party, who would then be obliged to clean up the financial mess they helped create.

This would have a number of consequences. First, Cameron would avoid having to bear any of the inevitable popular backlash against the government that has to make the essential cuts.

Second, the Labour-LibDem coalition would be massively unpopular. Labour would of course seize the chance to stay in power, but its lack of electoral or moral authority would create huge hostility in England against (1) the Labour Party, and (2) Scotland and Wales, both for their Labour MPs, and the SNP and Plaid Cymru MPs needed to prop up the coalition, if only on a vote-by-vote basis.

Due to the diversity of this coalition it would only be a matter of time before it fell on some pretext or other. It would almost certainly fail to pass a PR bill before its dithering demise - in a two party FPTP system, Labour stands to lose as much as the Tories if a PR bill were to succeed.

The subsequent election would return a Conservative government. Whether it had a majority or not is irrelevant. What is important is that this Conservative government would be under intense popular pressure to either pass a PR bill (very unlikely) or do something about Scotland so that England gets the governments it elects.

In other words, it would have an English mandate for Scotland to become independent.

Cutting Scotland loose would be a relatively simple matter. One way would be for Cameron to instruct the Conservative MSPs in the Scottish Parliament to vote with the SNP Government to pass the proposed referendum on Scottish independence. This would not need the support of his Westminster coalition partner(s). The Scottish Greens are already on board to achieve the numbers. With the Conservatives in power in Westminster (and some orchestrated support from the Scottish media) the referendum would stand a good chance of success.

Another way would be to hold a UK-wide referendum on Scottish independence. This would be hard to pass in Westminster via a coalition, but with a narrow Tory majority government would pass easily and be likely to succeed given the anticipated rise in English antagonism to Scotland, and could be pursued if the Scottish attempt failed.

Either way, the result would be England waving farewell forever to 50-odd Scottish Labour and LibDem MPs, Scots voting on English issues, and Scottish Prime Ministers.

The Conservatives could then easily form a government without any need for the wishy-washy compromise of a coalition. Strong uncompromising government - the current system of elected dictatorship that routinely shuts out minority voices - would be preserved, and the banks, City and industry would be happy.

And David Cameron would be the foundational leader of a newly independent England. An immortal name for schoolchildren to remember in the centuries to come.

The real question then, Mr Cameron, is how do you want to be remembered? One of the last leaders of a withered imperial state, clinging on to the bitter end in a cobbled-together series of toothless coalition governments, or the architect of the great English nation reborn?

Decisions, decisions…

____________________________________________________

NOTES:

In the recent UK first past the post (FPTP) General Election, without Scotland or Wales, out of a total of 533 seats, the English result would have been:

298 Conservative (last seat to vote on May 27th)
191 Labour
43 LibDem
1 Green

A massive Conservative majority of 107 with 56% of the vote.


And for England and Wales, without Scotland, out of 572 seats:

306 Conservative (298+8)
217 Labour (191+26)
46 LibDem
3 Plaid Cymru

Still a strong Conservative majority of 89 with 53.5% of the vote.

____________________________________________________

THE MOMENTUM GROWS:

Iain Martin, Union Between England and Scotland May Soon Be Toast, Wall Street Journal, May 8th, 2010

Minette Marrin, Cut Scotland loose – then we’ll have a fair voting system, Sunday Times, May 9th, 2010

Iain Dale, Celtic Fringes Wot Lost It Iain Dale's Diary, May 9th, 2010

Benedict Brogan, How do you solve a problem like Scotland?, Daily Telegraph, May 10th, 2010

(Labels Scotland 'a troublesome province', and believes 'England has had its fill of Scottish politicians.'

The LibLab Con Cannot Claim a Mandate, Campaign for an English Parliament, May 10th, 2010

Keeping Scotland a Colony

By any measure, and despite the 2007 victory of a nationalist government in Scotland’s pocket-money-parliament, Scotland continues to be a colony of England.

A former post presents the compelling historical evidence for this claim.



What follows is a detailed description of how this colonial system works, divided into (1) the problem itself, and (2) the means of control the British state uses to keep Scotland in this unique constitutional configuration we call the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The Problem

1. Scottish troops continuing to die in Britain’s wars.

2. The continuing recruitment to the British army of Scottish economic conscripts from some of the most socially deprived areas of Scotland, direct from high streets, schools and colleges.

3. The complete lack of control the Scottish Government has on immigration to Scotland, regardless of whether it wishes to increase or decrease it.

4. The continuing pillage of Scotland’s oil reserves to prop up the morally and financially bankrupt British State, with not a penny returned to Scotland.

5. The prolonging of Glasgow’s social deprivation to maintain a benefit- and Labour-dependent voting core in Scotland. Middle class voters don’t vote Labour. This has been Labour’s policy since it first assumed UK power in its minority administration of 1922, when it also quietly dropped its long held demand for Scottish Home Rule.

6. The complete lack of Scottish Government control of thresholds for income tax, corporation tax, VAT, stamp duty and capital gains tax levied within Scotland, all contributing to support the British state. All tax thresholds and levels are set by the UK Govt to suit the economic conditions in the south of England. Should the Scottish Government implement the Calman Commission proposal and vary only the income tax rate in isolation – leaving aside all other taxes – it would have devastating economic consequences.

7. The continued and growing presence of Britain nuclear submarine bases in Scottish lochs, close to major population centres, with no accountability to the Scottish Parliament or people.

8. The continued presence of Royal Air Force bases in Scotland with no accountability to the Scottish Parliament or people.

9. The continuing imposition of UK customs duties (tariffs) on all goods imported into Scotland. This prevents the Scottish Government from establishing and fostering any domestic industry, the standard practice of all industrial nations when establishing their native manufacturing bases - including the UK and US - despite all the free trade rhetoric since achieving economic supremacy. In Scotland's case, the goal will be to create 21st century industries to replace the healthy industrial base that Margaret Thatcher was so successful at destroying.

10. The continuing UK imposition of low alcohol prices on the Scottish population - despite attempts by the Scottish Government to combat this practice and its appalling social consequences - to keep Scots who are out of work dull-witted enough to keep voting Labour - the party that promises to keep their unemployment and disability benefits flowing.



How Colonial Control is Maintained

1. Routine rendering Top Secret of any UK Cabinet documents or committee precedings that might inform Scots of their situation. Routine blocking of any freedom of information requests that may expose the entrenched hostility of key British government ministers to Scotland.

2. The continued status of the UK Supreme Court as the highest court of appeal for Scots civil law.

3. The UK’s Anti-Scottish Propaganda Office, commonly known as the Scotland Office, whose £7.2 million budget is used to convince Scots that any economic successes are due to the UK Govt, and to discredit both the Scottish Govt and Parliament. The Scottish Office Minister has consistently refused to account for his time or how he spends his massive budget.

4. British TV broadcasters – including the commercial channels but especially the BBC - starving Scotland of investment, leading to a minimization of Scottish content on Scottish television. This could easily be corrected by legislation to define their broadcasting mandates, but will never happen.

5. Continuing Unionist control of Scotland’s print media. In spite of their patriotic names, not a single print media outlet in Scotland reports the work of the nationalist Scottish Government impartially, let alone favourably. The not-so-subtle purpose of the strong anti-Scottish Govt and anti-Parliament message is to make ordinary Scots conclude that their own parliament is a failure, and that the UK Parliament is somehow superior, despite overwhelming recent evidence that it is corrupt from top to bottom.

6. Conspicuous placement of British military facilities and contracts in Scotland to create the idea that Scottish jobs depend on the continued goodwill and patronage of the British military establishment.

7. Rich and poor Scots alike all paying £142.50 a year (currently about €160 or US$215) for a British TV licence, going exclusively to the London-centric BBC, which habitually refers to Scots as ‘they’ and ‘them’, and returns less than a third of these funds to Scottish programming. This is effectively a UK poll tax on Scots to pay for their acculturation as Britons, with little return on investment to Scotland.

8. The reduction of Scottish funding by the British government in response to economic downturn in England, regardless of how well the Scottish economy is doing. Use of the Scottish media to blame Scottish Govt policy when it passes on these budget cuts to Scotland.

9. The theft of Scotland's charity funds to pay for London's Olympics infrastructure.

10. Continued control of the Scottish electoral system, issuing whitewash reports of any electoral fraud cases in Scotland that have favourable results for Unionist parties.

11. Periodically wheeling out celebrities and minor sports personalities to state their opposition to independence in an effort to sway Scottish public opinion. British media coercion of Scottish sports stars to proclaim their Scottish-but-British identity.

12. Unionist political parties in the Scottish Parliament regularly combining to vote down key Scottish legislation, despite their supposed ‘ideological differences’ and their parties' subsequent acknowledgement of the legislation's merit. Knowing however the popularity of the nationalist Scottish Govt, they ensure they pass the annual Scottish budget to avoid forcing an election and losing further seats.

13. The smirking mockery of Scottish culture by the London-based British media at every opportunity, the denial that Scots is a language rather than a dialect (A), and repeated criticism of Gaelic as a language not worth saving, let alone supporting.

14. Encouragement of religious bigotry by the Unionist establishment in Scotland to keep Scotland divided. Opposition to Scottish nationhood by the Orange Order. Nearly 200 Orange walks in Scotland every year, with violence never far away. Sports fans are fed an almost continual diet of Old Firm rivalry all year round. Many Scottish players and managers consider serving Celtic and Rangers more important than their country.

The purpose of these methods is to constantly reinforce the idea in the minds of ordinary Scots that Scotland is a dependent region rather than a self-sufficient country, and that we cannot govern ourselves because we are either too small, too poor or too stupid to do so. (B)

This in spite of Scots having at various times governed much of the British Empire, acting as founding fathers and early national leaders for nations all over the globe, having been UK Prime Minister on a number of occasions, and today managing major multinational corporations and NGOs around the world.



Please feel free to comment if you think I have missed anything.



(A) Alex suggested this one.
(B) This one came from Doug.

See below for the full text of their comments.



UPDATE
Independent Scotland should have Supreme Court, says report

Many thanks for all the LINKS TO THIS POST.

Here are the ones I know about:

BBC Blether With Brian
Subrosa Super's Seven
The Blood is Strong
Joan McAlpine's blog Go Lassie Go
Siol nan Gaidheal
Aangirfan
Lallands Peat Worrier
Bella Caledonia

Plus whoever posted it on Facebook and StumbledUpon. I have no idea where.

Apologies to anyone I've missed.

Salmond’s Worst Nightmare – Independence Without Him

Consider the following scenarios:

1. The New Labour project is dead in the water after losing the next UK General Election in 2010. They suffer devastating losses in England and Alex Salmond’s nationalists take around 20 seats at Westminster, give or take, but do not hold the balance of power in a hung parliament.

2. Many of the Scots in New Labour’s cabinet lose their parliamentary seats, including London’s Nullipotentiary for England’s last remaining colony of Scotland, Jim Murphy (above). Ex-PM Gordon Brown resigns from politics.

3. With the massive Tory victory, the demand for independence surges by 25 points in the polls. Independence looks certain to succeed. All that stands in the way is an unholy alliance of Unionist parties at Holyrood blocking the referendum. It seems only a matter of time before one of them breaks ranks and allows it to proceed.

Which party will it be?

4. With the New Labour jackboot now removed from their necks, the Scottish Labour party at Holyrood is soon in open revolt, unafraid of criticizing the former policies of London Labour.

5. A Labour ex-First Minister raises the flag of a New Scottish Party, independent of London Labour, and proclaims his support for old-fashioned socialist values in Scotland. Attacking the record of New Labour, he distances himself from the lies told to invade Iraq, politicians fiddling expenses while soldiers face enemy fire with inadequate equipment, support from the Orange Order, nuclear power stations in Scotland, Gordon Brown’s culpability for the UK economic crash, subsequent banking bonuses, and the idea of Trident on the Clyde.

All of which resonates strongly around Scotland.

6. Scottish trade unions announce that they will fund the New Scottish Party directly, rather than sending their donations through London Labour.

7. Seeing this as their only chance of avoiding the political oblivion of their UK counterparts, Scottish Labour MSPs declare their support for the New Scottish Party en masse.

8. What is left of New Labour cries foul, only to be ignored by the New Scottish Party.

9. The nationalist lead in the polls is wiped out overnight. The New Scottish Party is immediately neck and neck with the SNP, and independence is no longer inevitable.

10. The New Scottish Party leader calls Salmond’s bluff and declares his desire for a referendum to settle the matter once and for all. “Independence is a matter for the Scottish people to decide,” he says. “We must respect their democratic will.” Both the Unions and the Scottish media, seeing the chance to kill off independence, immediately back the challenge.

11. London Labour protests, and, now seen as a separate party, is again ignored.

12. Salmond accepts the challenge and the referendum is on.

13. The whole country gets behind it, seeing it as an exercise in democracy that will settle the independence question for a generation. The other Holyrood parties are beside themselves with panic.

14. The referendum is held and one of two things happens:


Scenario A: Scotland votes NO to independence. The debate is passionate but the poll is seen as fair, and Salmond’s central policy is shown to be a fizzer. In 2011 the Scottish electorate, recognizing the old fashioned socialist values the New Scottish Party now represents, and the leader's toughness in taking the fight to Salmond, elect the New Scottish Party as the next devolved Scottish government in 2011, with the SNP in opposition.
Result: the members of the New Scottish Party are back in power and Scottish independence is averted.


Scenario B: Scotland votes YES to independence. Salmond and his nationalist government negotiate an end to the Union, and Scotland becomes an independent country. The first election in an independent Scotland for over 300 years is called in 2011. Similar to what happened to Churchill after WW2, the Scottish electorate sees Salmond as having done his job and vote him out of power, and the New Scottish Party becomes the first government of Scotland, with the SNP in opposition.
Result: the New Scottish Party is the party of power in a newly independent Scotland. Salmond gains his place in history as the deliverer of independence, but not as the architect of the independent Scottish state. The Tory and LibDem parties are suspected by the electorate of still being part of their UK parent parties and their support is obliterated for opposing the referendum.

RESULT EITHER WAY: after the Tories are elected in 2010, the best chance Scottish Labour have got of keeping their jobs in Holyrood is to distance themselves from London Labour and to agree to the referendum.

OR

Scenario C: In May 2011, with the Tories having been in power in London for a year, the SNP appears as the only party that has stood up to the them and fought Scotland's corner. Labour's attacks on the Tories have sounded impotent, and have only served to underline what a mess they left for the Tories to sort out. After years of the Unionist parties point-blank refusing to hold the referendum, the May 2011 Holyrood election becomes a de facto referendum on independence, and Labour, the Tories and the LibDems ALL lose A LOT of seats to the SNP.

The SNP is very close to forming a majority government and independence draws even closer.

UPDATE

Unions Review Links With 'New Labour'

Union poll shows majority in favour of independence

Did the SNP Throw Glasgow NE?

So now we’ve had two Scottish by-elections in twelve months with suspected electoral fraud. And, if true, both perpetrated by the same party running the government of the United Kingdom.



It appears that Glasgow’s Labour-controlled Council added nearly 2,500 new voters to the electoral role in October alone. In addition, over 6,000 applications for postal votes were received. Postal votes are one of the easiest ways to commit electoral fraud in Britain.

It gets worse. From The Scotsman:

It emerged last night that police were called to two polling stations, St Dennis's and Alexandra Parade, yesterday, after voters arriving to cast their ballot were told their names had already been crossed off. The ballot boxes were handed over to the police, but the disputed ballots were still counted last night. Officials at Glasgow City Council said only three ballot papers were involved.

If things are as bad as they seem, Glasgow NE may turn out to be another Glenrothes, surely the most single minded act of political will in history. In case you have forgotten: a year ago, and with no assistance from any political party activists whatsoever, the good people of Glenrothes painstakingly filled out nearly 6,000 postal voting forms in the privacy of their own homes before carefully mailing them at their nearest letter box personally. The post office then conscientiously delivered them by normal mail to be counted on election day in the counting room. And, rather than reflecting the same spread of votes for all the parties reflected at the polling stations, every single one of them was for Labour.

Imagine that.

Humbled by the unanimity of the Glenrothes postal voters’ rejection, the SNP chose not to make a legal challenge at the time, thereby avoiding the accusation of sour grapes.

Or it may have been because the marked-up electoral register from the by-election went mysteriously ‘missing’ and, lacking a record of who had actually voted, it would have taken too long to prove what had happened and by which time nobody would have cared. Over a year since the by-election, it has still not been reconstructed.

The point is this: the SNP suspected Labour of massive electoral fraud at Glenrothes, but the hard evidence went missing.

Fast forward six months to May this year. The Commons Speaker Michael Martin resigns for expenses irregularities, and Glasgow is due another by-election. Having already proved that they could unseat Labour in Glasgow East in 2008, the SNP could afford to lose it. There was less to be gained from winning such a by-election at all costs, six months out from a UK general election in which Labour are facing annihilation. With Gordon Brown expected to hang on for as long as possible, an SNP victory would not have brought this day one second closer.

Think about it. In the coming UK election, the head of Scottish Labour – the present UK Government – will be removed from its shoulders regardless of how many seats the SNP wins at Westminster in May. After the election, UK Labour will be an irrelevance, regardless of how many seats it has on the opposition benches.

And regardless of whether London is ‘dancing to a Scottish jig’ or ‘hung by a Scottish rope’ after May 2010 – even if the SNP wins every single Scottish seat in Westminster – Scotland would still be no nearer getting its referendum over the line. In fact, if the SNP starts calling the shots in a hung Tory government, the present constitutional arrangement may well start to look remarkably beneficial for Scotland.

Which might make it preferable for many to independence.

So, what am I saying? That the SNP deliberately threw the Glasgow NE by-election?

No. But they did certainly did not throw everything at it.

Until independence, the SNP main game will be the referendum. It needs four things for it to succeed: a Holyrood budget to fund it, the parliament to allow it to happen, a cleaned-up electoral system for a fair run at it and, of course, the political will of the Scottish people to vote for it.

When the Glasgow NE By-election was called, SNP was faced with a dilemma: fight Labour tooth and nail for several grueling months for a by-election that changes nothing, or put up a high profile candidate with enough credibility to once more draw out Labour’s suspected electoral fraud machine, which would be mobilised to make damn sure Labour did not lose its second safest seat.

The SNP strategists knew Labour would fight dirty. A hard-won by-election would have sapped the SNP of funds with no return on investment other than being one voice louder on Westminster’s opposition benches for the next six months. In the event, Salmond chose to keep his powder dry for the referendum, running a by-the-numbers by-election and saving party funds for when it mattered. David Kerr was the bait and Labour took it.

Whole.

Kerr should feel no sense of shame or failure for how he performed. He may even be aware of why he was running. He is certainly no fool.

In the event, Labour won by 8,111 votes over the SNP’s 4,120. The irony being that electoral fraud – if indeed it was committed – was unnecessary, and Labour might have still won had they chosen to campaign cleanly. Or, at least, by only telling outright lies and utter fabrications about the SNP record in Glasgow.

So what was the point of all this?

The Scottish Government desperately wants to clean up the Scottish electoral system before the referendum on independence. However long it takes. With the evidence now gathered from possibly the second fraudulent by-election in twelve months, steps can now be taken to neutralise Labour’s suspected electoral fraud machine in Scotland.

Unless another marked-up electoral register going missing.

Is Scottish Unionism Treachery?

Treachery has been a reviled and despised quality as long as history and literature have been recorded. In his Inferno, Dante went so far as to reserve the ninth and lowest circle of Hell for traitors.



The question is: is the language of treason entirely appropriate in a supposedly healthy debate on Scottish independence, considering that the Scots in the Labour Party are not technically betraying their own country by opposing Scottish nationalism?

Nationalists may argue that it is their own people and the nation of Scotland they are betraying, but to the paid-up Labour Unionist, his or her country is the United Kingdom.

What about ‘Vichy’ and ‘Quisling’? Are these charges too strong, considering Scotland is not yet an independent country, and not at war? In the online forums of the press, we often hear these words leveled against Labour politicians – those who would aid and abet London’s continuing colonial control of Scotland for their own personal gain. Personally, I consider Scotland’s SUKCUP press fair game.

But do these words alienate undecided voters, rather than persuade? How much does this level of invective hinder rather than help the cause of Scottish independence?

To help answer these questions, I thought it would be useful to summarize the different forms of traitorous accusation, putting them in their original historical context, to determine if indeed they are appropriate to Scotland today, or simply over the top.



1. Judas


Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus to the Romans soldiers for thirty pieces of silver by identifying him with a kiss. He died alone, probably by hanging himself.

Not particularly relevant to Scotland, since Unionists are quite open in their allegiances. They do not see themselves as traitors to a country which they deny even exists.

Fair enough, I say.

In the same vein, Judas betrayed a friend, whereas Unionists are utterly loyal to their London masters. They may be servile colonial lickspittles in the eyes of nationalists, but they are not betraying any friendships by their actions.



2. Benedict Arnold

American Colonial War of Independence (I refuse to call it a revolution). Arnold was a successful general in Washington’s army who switched sides. Still regarded in American history as the embodiment of treachery. Even though he lived out the rest of his life in Britain, he was never entirely trusted by anyone. He had, after all, fought on the other side first. A reformed rebel is still a rebel.

And the reason he switched sides? Wait for it…he had been passed over for promotion and ordered to repay expenses.



3. Fifth Columnists

Spanish civil war. Not strictly traitors (although they were opposing the elected government in a civil war) but rather an enemy within. In 1936, as four columns of Franco’s fascists approached Madrid, Fascist radio claimed that a ‘fifth column’ of supporters inside the city would help them take it. The campaign failed, and the Spanish government forces held off Franco for three more long years.

The term gained currency during WW2 in relation to the Germans living in Britain. Fearing a ‘fifth column’ within, Churchill gave his famous ‘collar the lot’ command and they were rounded up and held on the Isle of Man until the end of the war. The term is often used in Israeli press today to describe Israeli Arabs, whose loyalties lie with the Arabs in the occupied territories.



4. Quislings

Norway’s greatest ever traitior, Vidkun Quisling, led the Norwegian Nazi Party, and was set up by Germany as Norway’s puppet leader during their occupation. His fate? To be found guilty of high treason and shot as a traitor after the war.

His greatest grammatical achievement was to be both nouned and verbed. One can be a Quisling, or one can quisle. This is a verb that should be revived.

Incidentally, ‘Quisling’ sounds a lot like usling in Norwegian – a slippery, deceitful, slimy person.



5. A Vichy Regime

Also from the Second World War. Still a sore point in French history, and one that excites much scholarly debate. After surrendering in 1940, France agreed to become a client state of Nazi Germany and the central and southern region was left to run its own affairs, unoccupied by German troops, run from the small spa town of Vichy. De Gaulle tried to rally the Resistance from London, but the indisputable fact is that many French collaborated with the Nazis.

I got an interesting take on this from one of my French amis: if France had fought tooth and nail for every centimeter of la patrie, all those pretty French villages that we love to visit on our driving holidays would have been destroyed. He believes that surrender was the best policy at the time to save France’s architecture and culture, given the overwhelming odds stacked against it.

Cheese eating surrender monkeys, or the pragmatic rationalizers of the military reality at the time?


Are these terms appropriate?
From a nationalist perspective, the fifth column idea of an enemy within seems most relevant to the role Unionists play in maintaining Scotland’s position within the Union, but since the relations between Scotland and the rest of the UK are peaceful, it is still too strong.

Indeed, none of these terms would therefore seem suitable for the debate on Scotland’s independence, considering (1) Unionists happen to believe in a different identity, and do not see themselves as traitors, and (2) there is no secessionist war between Scotland and the UK.

That is why I believe that the most appropriate historical equivalent for our Scottish Unionists friends – be they Scots in the Scottish Office, members of the UK government, or Unionists employed by the Scottish TV and print media to talk down Scotland – is that of a besieged colonial elite in its last days of colonial rule.



The Colonial Elite
No colonial power in history ever ruled without the help of a local elite in the subjugation of its own people. The key to understanding their essential bridging function is that the colonial power cannot do it without them, and that once the colonial relationship is over, they are without exception despised by all sides – by both their own people and by the ex-governing power. They are usually remembered by the ex-colonial power as failed flunkies, and by the newly independent country as former collaborators in their own people’s subjugation.

For these reasons, this is the group that always fights hardest for the colonial arrangement and their colonial privileges to continue: they know full well that once independent comes, the game is up. They will become pariahs, despised by all, with no part to play in either the new domestic political scene or in future diplomatic relations between the ex-imperial power and its newly independent former colony. In summary: useless, washed up, redundant.

If there is a violent transition to independence (as there was for the United States, Ireland, Algeria and Kenya) they tend to die either at the hands of their countrymen, or like Benedict Arnold in exile as old men in the imperial homeland, trusted by no one, hated by their countrymen from a distance, passing away in obscurity and exile as bitter, friendless, alcoholics, ‘unwept, unhonoured and unsung’.

If on the other hand the transition is peaceful (as it was for Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and as it will be for Scotland) former Unionists can quickly become absorbed into the political structure of the newly independent country and play their part. The challenge in forming new states is in incorporating all the former factions into the newly independent political spectrum. They are usually intelligent men and women who have much to offer a fledgling nation.

Whether or not they choose to depends a lot on the level of rhetoric used against them in the run up to independence.

It also depends on whether the newly independent nation can ever bring itself to trust them, based on how vehemently they opposed independence as Unionists in the colonial regime.

Operation 'Scorched Earth': Progress Report

Another fresh leak from my source in Westminster: this was received in the form of a typed memo, printed off on a blank white sheet of paper with no letterhead. The italics refer to handwritten notes made on the page.






Status of Operation 'Scorched Earth'
July 31, 2009
PRESENT: GB, AD, JM.

Only Lurch and Ali-D could make it. Fat George is too busy making bloody FOI requests!

Original Action Plan from July, 2007:

1. Starve Scotland of funds, making it look as if the Scottish Govt {^Executive} is picking fights and always asking for more.
STATUS: Ali-D says he is tightening the screws. It might backfire and lead to independence, but ok so far – and what the hell have we got to lose, anyway? Role of subservient Scottish press proving crucial.

NOTE: Talk to secretary about not using the phrase 'Scottish Govt'.

2. Work with other Unionist parties to block all Nat legislation in their pathetic minority government.
STATUS: Not working! Bastard Tories, Greens and LibDems won’t play ball, and seem to be making deals with the Nats to pander to their electorates.

3. Maintain UK policy of keeping the West of Scotland poor, maintaining Labour loyalty from section of population on benefit.
DANGER. Strategy seems to be failing – no longer possible with Nats in power. Seem to be getting their message through that Glasgow could be better off without us. Nats’ populist health and transport policies a blatant attempt at giving Scotland better services than England!
FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to continue to reveal the cynical nationalist agenda that lies behind the Nats’ economic strategy. If all else fails, see next point.

4. Keep a tight hold of by-elections in Scotland, using ‘enabling’ machinery to win every by-election, regardless of the result.
STATUS: Screwed up in Glasgow East, but Lurch says Glenrothes proves we’ve got it under control.
FURTHER ACTION: Lurch says Nats may be onto our methods, but putting Glasgow North East back to November should give us time to do whatever it takes to ‘take care’ of things.

5. Use influence to persuade UK Electoral Commission to turn a blind eye to postal vote anomalies in Scottish by-elections.
DONE.

6. Ignore all demands for transferring control of Scottish elections to the Scottish Govt. {^Executive}
STATUS: WORKING.

7. Keep the Scottish press churning out our press releases verbatim, with a Labour & Unionist slants on all other news. Impossible in England, but relatively easy in Scotland with fewer outlets and almost no Tory press.
STATUS: NEEDS ATTENTION. Lurch says the blatant Unionist slant in the Scottish press is becoming too obvious. Editors of the Scotsman, Herald and Daily Record are apparently complaining that their unswerving Unionist bias on every subject under the sun is becoming ‘tediously obvious’, alienating traditional readership and causing their circulations to ‘freefall’.
FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to have a word with the editors to explore further ways to secretly subsidise them via advertising.

8. Fund Scottish Unionist bloggers to counter Nat lies about Scotland’s self-sufficiency or any successes of the Scottish Govt {^Executive}.
STATUS: NEEDS ATTENTION. Unionist bloggers complaining they aren’t getting any advertising revenue, which is dependent on their sites getting a high number of hits, which are almost non-existent.
FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to increase subsidies via ‘consultancy fees,’ and find ways to increase hits without more actual readers.

9. Build infrastructure to allow the UK to take the oil direct to England in case the Nats pull off independence.

DONE.

Should teach Scotland not to betray Labour, and prove once and for all that Scotland isn’t a viable state – exactly what we said all along!

10. Grab Scotland’s lottery money so that their Commonwealth Games in 2014 look like mince compared to England’s {^Britain’s} Olympic Games in 2012.
DONE.
NOTE: tell my secretary again the difference between England & Britain. I'm sick of explaining it to the dozy tart!

11. Put pressure on Scottish Sportsmen and women to declare their Britishness. Use press, TV and honours to bring them to heel.
STATUS: WORKING: Pretty Boy Hoy and Murray under control. No longer upsetting the English with their Scottish identity.
FURTHER ACTION: Some sports apparently already separated. Doesn’t seem to be any rule about which ones we compete in as British. Talk to MCG about possibility of England cricket team competing as 'Britain'.

12. Explore ways to get polling companies to issue doctored polls on lack of Scottish desire for independence.
STATUS: BBC seems to have remembered which side their bread is buttered and now pulling their weight. Last poll looked good. Shitting themselves that the Tories will get in and cut them back to just BBC1 and Radio 4! Would serve the back-stabbing bastards right!

13. Scottish press to persuade Scots they don’t want independence, and that a referendum is a waste of time in such difficult/ bountiful economic times (delete as appropriate). Demoralise ordinary Scots into accepting the status quo.
DANGER: Lurch warns that a general engagement in politics in Scotland is growing, and that the message that the referendum is a waste of time is starting to fall on deaf ears.
FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to talk to Fat George about continuing to sow FUD on separation/ isolation/ building barriers /dependency via Scottish press to counter the Nat’s cynical message of re-entering the world community of nations/ removing barriers to dealing with the world directly/ ending oil subsidies to England / Scotland's wealth in natural resources.

14. Spin news to make Scots believe their economy is dependent on British military contracts.
STATUS: NOT SURE IF WORKING. Scottish press playing the game but the Nats are on to us. Lurch recently tried to make it look like he saved a big contract, but Nats successful in showing that Lurch did bugger all. Lurch says Nats got the message through that the Tories could still cancel it.
FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to stay on message. Those with defence jobs might still vote Labour from fear of losing them.

Additional Item

15. Respond to Calman Commission findings.
STATUS: Lurch reassures me his fancy footwork to distance us from calamity Calman is working.
FURTHER ACTION: Delay response to findings until it is forgotten. Leave the Tories to deal with it, which means it'll never happen.

Special Note: All meeting actions henceforth to be approved by PM.
Still waiting for the Pink Baron to grant me an audience. Said he was too busy with all his committee work for ‘stupid Scotch stuff.’ Have left him four messages. Secretaries Brett and Hans say he’s tied up in an important debriefing.

Misc Personal Stuff

1. Talk to EU about possible presidential role after election/referendum defeat.

2. Get CV up to date.

Dictatus Peterae – Idle Musings of a Megalomaniac

Newly leaked from my Westminster source is what seems to be a scented page of lilac paper torn from the personal diary of a government minister. The text is in Latin and in the florid, bold hand of one with complete confidence of his power and influence. Labour Party sources have denied its authenticity, while demanding how it came to be in the public domain.


A contact at Edinburgh University has offered the following translation:


It is hereby decreed:

I. That the Labour Party was founded by God alone.

II. That Baron Mandelson of Foy and Hartlepool alone can with right be called universal.

III. That He alone can depose or reinstate ministers and diplomats.

IV. That, in a committee His representative, even if a lower grade, is above all other ministers, and can pass sentence of deposition against them.

V. That He may depose the absent.

VI. That, among other things, we ought not to remain in the same house with those excommunicated by Him.

VII. That for Him alone is it lawful, according to the needs of the time, to make new laws.

VIII. That He alone may use the Prime Ministerial insignia.

IX. That of He alone shall all ministers kiss the feet.

X. That His name alone shall be spoken in the ministries and committees.

XI. That this is the only name in the world.

XII. That it may be permitted to Him to depose Prime Ministers.

XIII. That He may be permitted to transfer ministers and diplomats if need be.

XIV. That He has power to ordain a minister of any portfolio He may wish.

XV. That He who is ordained by Him may preside over another ministry, but may not hold a subordinate position; and that such a one may not receive a higher grade from any minister.

XVI. That no election shall be called a general one without His order.

XVII. That no law shall be considered passed without His authority.

XVIII. That a sentence passed by Him may be retracted by no one; and that He himself, alone of all, may retract it.

XIX. That He himself may be judged by no one.

XX. That no one shall dare to condemn one who appeals to His holy chair.

XXI. That to the latter should be referred the more important cases of every ministry.

XXII. That the Labour Party has never erred; nor will it err to all eternity, the Scripture bearing witness.

XXIII. That His Holiness is undoubtedly made a saint by his merits.

XXIV. That, by His command and consent, it may be lawful for subordinates to bring accusations.

XXV. That He may depose and reinstate ministers without assembling the cabinet.

XXVI. That he who is not at peace with Him shall not be considered for any public office.

XXVII. That He may absolve subjects from their fealty to other power-brokers.




OK, SO WHAT IS THIS?

My Edinburgh University contact tells me that this as a corrupted version of Dictatus Papae, a document supposedly written by Pope Gregory VII (Hildebrand) in 1075. It wasn’t made public at the time, and it has been argued by scholars that rather than just the idle scribblings of a power-hungry pope, it was in fact the church’s wish-list for absolute power. At very least it gives a good idea of just how powerful the medieval Christian Church either saw itself, or planned to become.

For those who seek to defend democracy in Britain in the early 21st century, the truly chilling aspect of this discovery is how little has been changed for this journal entry, if indeed it is authentic, which is yet to be verified.

Nine Ways to Stop Scotland Breaking Free

As Scotland’s minister for the Constitution, Mike Russell’s job is to deliver a successful independence referendum in late 2010. This will not be easy. In the second part of this series, we look at what he will be up against, and what tactics PM-to-be David Cameron might use to hold together what’s left of the remnant of Empire we call the UK of GB & NI.


Over the next two years, the fate of Scotland will be decided in the following three polls:


A. The next British General Election on or before June 3rd, 2010.

B. The planned referendum on Scottish independence, planned for late 2010, and

C. The next Scottish parliamentary elections on May 5th 2011 - if indeed there is still a devolved Scottish parliament by that date: if the above referendum goes ahead and is successful, there won’t be any more elections for a devolved Scottish parliament. The electoral cycle for a newly independent free and democratic Scotland will have begun.


Getting a referendum bill through the Scottish Parliament will be no easy matter. It will be met by the full arsenal of British Unionist resistance: the combined opposition of the British Unionist parties in Edinburgh (Labour, Tory and LibDem), the relentless pro-Union bias of the foreign-owned Scottish media, the death throws of the out-going Labour administration in London, the continued surreptitious spoiling tactics of Britain’s faceless minions in Whitehall, and the full might of the next Tory government at Westminster with its massive English majority.

But now that Labour is facing annihilation at the next British election, surely the task facing Scottish nationalists becomes simpler? Won’t there be a Scottish backlash against the Tories, once they take power at Westminster?

You would think so, but we can’t write off Labour yet. Their plan is to hang on long enough to fire off their last deadly Parthian shot: proportional representation in UK elections. With the prospect of at least a dozen years in power, the Tories will oppose it, but Gordon Brown (or his unelected Labour successor) will push it through as the only thing standing between his party and utter oblivion.

How will this affect Scotland? The referendum is the key, but with an impotent Tory administration in Westminster (as a result of a new PR system), there might not be the backlash against the Union that the SNP is counting on in the coming referendum.

The signs are indeed ominous, and Scottish nationalists might be getting a strong sense of déjà vu. Haven’t we been here before? For those too young to remember, current events bear more than a passing resemblance to 1979, with the SNP calling for the dissolution of the British parliament, Scotland being dragged down by the UK’s increasingly precarious finances, the IMF breathing down the British Government's neck, the Labour Party on the ropes, the Tories waiting in the wings of Westminster, and a referendum on Scottish nationalism in the pipeline.

When the '79 referendum was finally held, Scotland voted YES in a contrived question that would have granted an almost meaningless form of devolution, only to be told the answer was NO on a trumped-up technicality.

It was Europe that eventually forced London to concede real devolution to Scotland via another referendum in 1997 after – despite Tony Blair’s claims of spontaneous generosity – a secret group of Scottish nationalists had pointed out to Council of Europe diplomats that Brussels was in no position to dictate forms of democracy to Eastern Europe when those self-same forms were being denied within Scotland. London was promptly told to get its house in order. Quickly.

It was the supreme irony of Margaret Thatcher’s legacy. Having lobbied for full EU membership for the emerging democratic states of Eastern Europe (to counter attempts by the French-German axis to create a ‘United States of Europe’) her actions led to Scottish nationalists then using her success to seek the same levels of democracy, levels she had been so instrumental in preventing in Scotland.

So what can we expect this time around? Another loaded question in a fixed-up referendum? Twenty more wasted years? What tactics will the combined might of the British establishment use this time to hang on to Scotland for the few remaining years it needs to extract the last of her oil?

To answer this question, and to anticipate the desperate Unionist rearguard action about to be unleashed on Scotland, I’ve decided to put myself in David Cameron’s shoes - assuming he wins the next election. What follows is a step-by-step battle plan, ready to roll for the newly elected Prime Minister of this morally and financially bankrupt British state:

1. Announce English votes for English laws. This should head off English demands for devolution and act as a good band-aid for the inherent unfairness of England not having her own parliament.

2. Make ‘Respect for Scotland’ the Tory mantra north of the border. Buy off the Scottish elites and nationalist-leaning Scottish entrepreneurs with knighthoods and peerages. Move some of the nuclear subs from Scotland to ports in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Re-form the Scottish regiments. Divide et impere.

3. Strict Scottish media management. Control the flow of all non-internet information. Pull the plug on award-winning Newsnight Scotland. Encourage pseudo-intellectual Scottish writers to attack the idea of Alex Salmond’s ‘arc of prosperity’ while ignoring the stunning success story of Norway (1), the closest match to Scotland, and the complete meltdown that is UK Inc. Continue to support blanket pro-Union media coverage via the BBC and the Scottish press. Spoon-feed ‘lobby journalists’ with inside stories, ostracising any journalist – English or Scots – with nationalist leanings. Increase funding to BBC Scotland for pro-Union news and current affairs programming. This could never happen in England, but with Scotland’s well-established, anti-SNP, rabidly pro-Union press and media, it would be business as usual, with a new piper calling the tune.

4. Derail economic arguments for full Scottish independence. Avoid granting full fiscal autonomy, allowing instead the Calman Commission recommendations on Scottish government borrowing. Then go further and announce a fair share of all taxes raised on oil revenues will now be paid directly to Scotland, proportional to its current ratio of the UK population: 8.5%. (2) The nationalist Scottish Government will appear greedy as it condemns the niggardliness of the windfall while spending it on hospitals, roads and schools. The Scottish people will probably settle for this as an acceptable result, allowing the British Government keep the rest for IMF repayments, more London infrastructure, the Olympics and the replacement of Trident.

5. Form an unholy alliance with Labour in Scotland to get access to its up-and-running electoral fraud machine. They too will be playing an end game for their survival as a party, just as you will be for the British state. They will hope to stage a comeback from their old Scottish heartland, and will be willing to try almost anything. Imaginary Scottish Labour supporters voting for the Union in a referendum are better than real ones.

6. Once all this is in place, announce a British-run referendum on Scottish independence to take place before the Scottish Government one, with the pretext that you want to make sure it is run fairly, being such an important issue.

7. Make the referendum question loaded, something along the lines of: ‘Should Scotland break all ties and separate from the rest of Great Britain, or remain within the United Kingdom?’ YES – break all ties; NO – remain in the United Kingdom. The psychology of this is that most referendums tend to vote ‘No’, regardless of the issue, when it is contrived as a vote for the status quo. (3)

8. Hold the referendum on a work day or, even better, a holiday weekend so that the aged and unemployed – those currently dependent on British government handouts – will be over-represented, and more independent professional people will be too busy to vote, or away on holiday. (4)

9. Once the NO vote occurs – as it surely will if all these steps are taken – declare the matter of Scottish independence closed for a generation, at least until well past peak oil, when an asset-stripped Scotland can finally be cut loose.


In this way, despite the unprecedented levels of autonomy granted to Scotland, you, David Cameron, will still be able to claim that you are Prime Minister of a UK that includes the land and seas of Scotland. The UK will then retain its relative importance within Europe, its geopolitical importance in the world, and its seats on the UN Security Council, G8, and NATO, allowing you to continue with the myth that Britain is still a world power.(5)

This will also give your government continued access to 91.5% of Scotland’s oil revenues, essential if bankrupt Britain is to have any chance at all of paying off the unprecedented levels of debt accrued on the watch of your predecessor, the unelected Scottish Unionist Prime Minister, James Gordon Brown.





UPDATE
Brown signals end to ‘first past the post’ voting at Westminster



References

(1) “On the government's estimates, the [2009 Norwegian Government] surplus will more than halve as a share of GDP from 18.9% to 7.4%. That would still be a remarkably good outcome in comparison with the budgetary problems being faced in other European countries, although it is also dependent to some extent on the revised macroeconomic assumptions underlying the forecast.”
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13709932

(2) The current proportion of the UK population living in Scotland is 8.5%, taking Scotland’s latest population as 5,144,200, and the UK as 60,943,912.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/uk.html
http://www.scotland.org/about/fact-file/population/

(3) This has been the case in Australia, where the option for change has always been tied to the YES choice in any referendum. In this way only 8 out of 44 referendums have been carried since Federation in 1901.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_Australia

(4) Labour tried this in Glasgow East in 2008 and still lost. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7522153.stm

(5) Jack Straw revealed the true value of Scotland to the UK during BBC Question Time, September 28 2006: “A broken-up United Kingdom would not be in the interests of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, but especially not England. Our voting power in the European Union would diminish. We'd slip down in the world league GDP tables. Our case for staying in the G8 would diminish and there could easily be an assault on our permanent seat in the UN Security Council.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/5388078.stm