Today, the first day we are totally divorced from the European Union. I post this Facebook memory at the foot of the page, from this day in 2017. Are things any better?
Well, the situation in Syria is a hell of a lot better for the people there, thanks to the intervention if Russia, otherwise had the West continued the route they were taking, then today Syria would have been part of a greater Israel and there would have been an even greater refugee problem in Europe.
As far as independence goes, despite a whole stack of mandates the SNP have done nothing to free us from the control of England and have in fact spent the last 4 years trying to save the UK from the stupidity that is Brexit.
The only thing that will now rectify the situation is a change of leadership in the SNP or as I was suggesting 4 years ago a new independence party. Had we done that then, we would not have been in the situation we are now.
2020 was the year of the Pandemic, a pandemic which was handled, both by the UK government and the Scottish government in the most inept manner possible, resulting in thousands of unnecessary deaths. They were both warned about this and took no action. There was an operation in 2016, called Cygnus which was laid out to prepare for such an invent. a flu pandemic. Thus, highlighted serious shortcomings in governmental preparedness for such an invent.
Both the UK government and the Scottish government ignored the findings of this report. One of the main areas of concern was care homes. Well, we all know what happened there, do we? Not only did the Scottish government ignore the warnings in Cygnus, but they seeded care homes with infected hospital patients. Yes, that was what they in effect did.
once this is over there must be an independent investigation into government actions surrounding the Pandemic and those responsible must be punished.
As far as the independence cause is concerned this pandemic has been used as yet another excuse for inaction, meanwhile allowing the British government plenty of time to put in place measures through, for instance the single market bill, which in effect removes many of the reserved powers of the Scottish Government. This will eventually reduce the Scottish government powers to that of a local authority.
Yes, there has been a pandemic and people will say that Nicola Sturgeon has had her hands full. Well, the same should have applied to the British government but they have been working away reducing the powers of the Scottish Government. There is also a direct comparison with countries like New Zealand whose Prime minister has managed to virtually wipe out the virus, bring up a young child fight a general election and have two referendums all during this pandemic. Nicola Sturgeon meanwhile has failed at fighting the pandemic and has failed at her post as the leader of the party of independence.
Nicola Sturgeon and her husband, Peter Murrel are at present mired in accusations of lying and conspiracy to deprive an innocent man his freedom for what could have been the rest of his life.
So, as we usher in the New Year, we the people of Scotland seriously need to take stock of the situation, we need both to look back and also look to the future, we have a Scottish election coming up in May. By the looks of things now, Nicola Sturgeon is intent, on once again dangling the carrot of independence in the hope of once more the SNP being returned to Holyrood with a majority with the promise that she will once again ask the British government for a section 30 which is a derogation of a part of the Scotland Act which facilitates a referendum on independence. She called it the “gold standard” but there has never been a single country of all the 66 countries who have declared their independence from Britain, done so by using a section 30 or anything like it.
It is obvious to me that Nicola Sturgeon has no intention whatsoever in achieving independence and I have a feeling that in the coming months it will be clear that she actively tried to remove the very person who would have taken the independence cause forward from the political scene, Alex Salmond.
The simplest and most direct and democratic way we could achieve independence is to make the May election a plebiscite election with a one scenario manifesto, that of independence and if a majority is achieved then that satisfies the UN Declaration of Human Rights as far as ascertaining the will of the people as to a requirement to be an independent country.
So, there we have one person’s opinion of where Scotland stands at the beginning of 2021. We have two major conflicts to surmount. The pandemic hopefully will be under control within a few months with the emergence of several vaccines. Independence, it seems is more difficult than the pandemic, as we have been trying to achieve that goal for a lot longer and at present, it would appear that the person mandated to attain that goal is the very person who is setting up the roadblocks to it.
Yes 20021 is going to be an interesting year so, to all my friends in the four corners of the Earth, I wish you a very happy new year
Positing from 1 January 2017.
Well folks as 2016 draws to an end , I suppose it is time to reflect on the year past . It is a year we have seen great changes in the order of things . here in Scotland we saw the SNP victorious in the Scottish parliamentary elections but with the loss of an overall majority. I wont go into that because I have covered it at length in various blogs, disappointing but inevitable.
We have seen a stop start attitude to a future independence referendum and we have seen the starting gun fired in the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union with the vote to exit the union that has served us well for many years. A union which is far from perfect but better than the alternative which is speedily dawning on the people of these islands.
We have seen the election of Donald Trump in the US. Who would have thought ? However just another indication of the frustration of ordinary people to the suffocation with corporate greed and a contest conducted by two totally unsuitable candidates to lead the most powerful country in the World.
We saw Britain going to war once again at the behest of the US, this time in Syria and this time to support terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al Nustra( formerly known as Al Qaida).
We have seen Russia give the West lessons ,both in military efficiency and diplomacy in defeating the terrorist organizations backed by the US and Britain, giving the people of Syria the best possible Christmas present, that of the prospect of peace. Hopefully the Syrian refugees can start going back to their homeland, at the same time solving the EU refugee problem.
We have seen the belated conversion on the road to Damascus by the US in refusing to veto a resolution by the UN to condemn Israeli settlements in Palestinian land. However , from the same administration we have witnessed a confused US administration expelling 35 Russian diplomats in a fit of peak for Russia having the audacity to exclude the US in peace negotiations in Syria and a silly accusation of Russia interfering in the American elections by exposing Clintons awful breach of security by using an insecure private server to transmit highly secret state business.
So a very mixed year and one that we should hopefully learn from, as we head into 2017.So to all my friends ,no matter where you be on the planet I would like to wish you a very happy new year .To all my friends in the independence movement, and especially the Yes Bus team in Dundee I wish you a more productive year than the last one as far as our road to independence goes.
This is a photo of three of the most precious people in my small World. These are my grand children. These are the people we want to live in a free Scotland. A free Scotland in a free World. So in the words of our national bard ,Rabbie Burns .For a that, and a that. Its coming yet for a that. That Man to Man the World ower Shall Brothers be , for a that .Happy New Year.
Bob Costello 
i gave voted for indy since i became 18 i will b 72 in 5 weeks, however i dont see indy coming via the vallot box, no ballot box ever crushed servile chains, there is only 2 non violent roads to indy i deel, UDI and civil disobediance giwever the “scottish” police force will certainly foil both of these, as the serve the german monarchy in buck house, as the”scottish” police have sworn alkegiance to said monarchy, their cap badge bears the british/german crown atop ther cap badge, which i believ will lead to indy only through force
Wwll David , that is always the last resort but I hope we do not have to go down that road
Bob
It has started as depressingly as the last one ended on all fronts political for myself. We are governed from Westminster by the most corrupt and useless Tories of all time. I am 52 years old now and most of my life I have been subjected to Tory rule by voters from another country and too many in my own country are so broken they think this is ok because they can’t imagine something better, at least more democratic. I have been following the whole Alex Salmond shambles through blogs, twitter, and watched the Committee today as working from home and to be honest I am convinced that they are mostly lying, they thought they would put an innocent man in jail for the rest of his life because they don’t like him, they lost and now they are all scrambling around trying to cover their ass and protect the Murrells as best they can while not caring that they drag us all down with them. What don’t they get, many of us in the YES community want a better Scotland, not a mini Westminster and if that means Nicola Sturgeon has to fall then so be it. It’s not just about independence it’s about setting a standard that ordinary people can have faith in the system, a system that can be there for all of us if we get it right but some in the SNP are now not that party, they have shown themselves to be as messed up as Scottish Labour are at the top, maybe some policies are better but they have allowed the unionist system and the wokes in their own party to play them and corrupt them and that is what many of us can’t and won’t accept, they just don’t get that.
However, there is hope, imagine. I think the ISP can be a breath of fresh air if voters play it smart. I think the members of the SNP can pull the party back from the brink if they also play it smart. I think the Tories in their over confidence are going to find that eventually even their sycophantic media won’t be able to sit on their hands for ever. Labour members are going to learn that electing a Tony Blair clone, and one without a spine, was a huge mistake, they will see that or their honest left will break away. We are going to see the handling of Brexit for what it was, to protect the wealthy and to humour the far right, there is going to be pain, there is pain, but I have to believe there are enough of us left to get the truth out there, there are enough decent people in all four nations who are being pushed to the edge and will fight back once the hunger really kicks in, I still have faith in people, people who write blogs like this and people on twitter who express their opinion and don’t hide. We might need to take a step back to take three forward, we might have to see the Murrells fall and re-build to a degree but we will because the prize is leaving behind a Scotland that is better than the one we found, dreams maybe but we can’t give up because it just makes us as bad as them.
I agree with every single word of that. It sons up
The present situation and the way forward. I left the SNP in 2015 when I realised that Nicola was not what she promoted herself as. I am thinking of joining the ISP.