The World This Week From Mennies

Saturday 7 August 2021

Sturgeon is no Bruce

The SNP under Nicola Sturgeon have descended into a morass of incompetence, scandal, conspiracy, and manipulation of the legal framework of the country.

The one thing it cannot be accused of is furthering the cause of independence and let’s face it, that, according to their constitution is their function in life.

There is what seems, an avalanche of ex-supporters realizing this and leaving the SNP, they are people who threw all of their hopes for independence at the feet of Nicola sturgeon who came to power in a fanfare of adulation and expectation, on the back of the failed referendum in 2014.

I must admit that I too, initially had high hopes for her and hoped that the relatively small amount of negativity which attached itself to Alex Salmond during the campaign would disappear with a woman leader.

I did have a few niggling negative feelings surrounding the efforts put in by the SNP in Dundee during the campaign in Dundee and I have written about them in the past, however, I put these negative feelings to one side and decided to, give full support to what I assumed would be a continuance of the campaign, all be it, in a lesser manner, to educate on the advantages of independence and address the mistakes of the previous campaign. Little did I realise just how immovable a brick wall was to be in the way of any progress to independence.

I, along with others in the Yes bus team organised rallies in Dundee City Square with the intention of attracting speakers from across the political field to put forward their case for independence and in doing so quite possibly addressing some of the major problems which surfaced during the previous campaign. I even offered to include speakers from the no campaign, as it is just as important to address the fears they most rightly had.

I append below a posting I did on the 6^th August 2016 when I had to cancel one of the rallies because of the blatant obstruction of Dundee SNP and you will note that I have related a previous experience, where the event did eventually go ahead despite the efforts of the SNP, especially employees and office bearers based in SNP Dundee West office.

All of this came about soon after the coronation of Nicola Sturgeon, she does not want independence and I am terrified that as a last resort she will actually declare a referendum but because of a wasted 7 years in lack of preparation and indeed possible sabotage we will lose it .

In 1320 the people of Scotland wrote a letter to the pope explaining that Bruce had delivered them from the oppression of the English kings and he should be recognized as the true leader of Scotland, under explanation, that if he or any future leader was to turn away from the people of Scotland, they would be cast aside and a new leader chosen. In doing so they declared that the people of Scotland were sovereign.

We still are, and we need to choose a new leader Sturgeon is no Bruce, in fact I would put her in the category of a Mata Hari.

With a will, we can get back on the road to independence, but we need to get rid of the baggage first.    

     Posting of 6^th August 2016

Yes, Bus Scotland’s Dragon for independence Event on the 27th of August Dundee City Square, family cèilidh in the Square and parade around Dundee to show support for Scottish independence.

It is with great regret that I must announce the cancellation of this proposed event in its present form. This because of (in my opinion) the willful obstruction of the event by SNP controlled Dundee council.

I will layout my reasons for this opinion below and leave you to decide on the merits or otherwise of my reasoning.

Last Monday I applied for the necessary permissions to hold the event in the city Square together with a parade around the town. There is a 28-day notice requirement for this together with a facility for late applications to be considered by the convener of the licensing board. The reason for this built-in option is that one of the main benefits to the local community of having events of this nature is that they attract a great many people into the center of the City from outlying areas and also from other towns meaning that these events have a very positive impact on the local economy, therefore it is the duty of the council to facilitate in any way possible the success of these events.

The notice period is there to facilitate the necessary permissions from the various Council departments such as building control, Roads and indeed the police. Now in effect, these permissions can take place very quickly, in fact, I have been involved in many events which have been organised within a matter of a few weeks to as little as two days and it is very rare for late applications to be refused, especially ones of this nature that would bring a huge economic benefit to City Centre traders.

So, deciding on the 27th as being the best date for the event, taking into consideration the availability of two of Dundee’s leading bands and a list of top-quality speakers I went into the council offices on Monday the 1st August to make the application, which I did for both the City Square and the parade. I was 9 hours into the 28-day period, so in other words, I gave only twenty-seven days and fifteen hours’ notice.

I received an email from a council officer stating that SNP Councilor Stewart Hunter (convener of the licensing board) had refused to apply his discretional powers to grant the permission for the event to take place. The reason sited was that the last time I organised an event in the square, there were several complaints made and, in any case, the council were not prepared to make electricity available, which in itself would have made the event envisaged, impossible.

I found this very strange and indeed the statement that electricity would not be available rather concerning as I knew that electricity is available and indeed, we had had the use of this facility on previous events. I took exception to this statement and questioned as to why I was being singled out for this refusal to supply electricity facilities and received a reply from the council officer saying that he had meant that there would have to be special arrangements made, which I already knew of as we had done this in the past.  Had I taken his statement that electricity would not be supplied at face value, then that in itself, would have been enough to stop the event going ahead? 

I inquired as to why I as the organiser of the event had not been informed of these unspecified complaints ( if indeed they had been made at all) and believe it or not the officer said that at the time he “saw no any useful purpose would be served in doing so” This I found very strange as he was at this point making as he saw it a “useful purpose “ in attempting to use these suspicious complaints to stop this event and by depriving me of the ability to have defended my responsibility in these complaints he had taken it upon himself to act as both Judge and Jury to my detriment.  I thought this to be a very strange manner in which a high-ranking council officer should carry out his duty as a public servant.

I inquired as to what these complaints actually were, and this is incredibly what he came up with and what my answers to these allegations below.

Ice cream van there without permission: – Nothing to do with me and if that was the case then why didn’t the City Square ambassadors who were on duty ask him to move.

Someone sick in the toilets of Hendry’s coffee shop: – The contents of someone’s stomach are hardly my responsibility and quite possibly more to do with Hendry’s who had probably sold him food. Perhaps a visit from the environmental health officers of the council would have been in order.

Some people were drinking outside and this is against by-laws:- nothing in the conditions of use of the square concerning this and how did he know that these people were at the event and as this was not a closed event this was not my responsibility. Why did the City Square Ambassadors not do anything about this as it was their responsibility?

There were no Stewards at the event: – there were 20 stewards at the event all with hi-vis vests on and Steward written on the back but as the council had refused permission for the parade, there was actually no requirement for stewards as it is not a requirement of the use of the City Square.

These, believe it or not were the so-called and quite possibly fictitious complaints that were supposedly used in the thought process by Councilor Hunter in his decision to refuse to apply his discretionary power to allow the event to go ahead, an event that the application had been made 9 hours late out of the 28 days required. Even if these so-called complaints were genuine, how could I have defended them if I had no knowledge they existed. I was of course at the event and did not witness any of these alleged incidents taking place, I spoke to the police all throughout the day and again at the end of the event and they were perfectly happy at how it had gone.

Now let me address what is possibly the real reason for this application being turned down, and for this, I must go back first to the previous event in October last year and a previous event which took place two days after the general election in 2015.

Now at the event in October last year I had invited Tommy Sheridan to speak, as he had been a staunch advocate for independence and was actually the first person of any note that I heard advocating people to join the SNP as they were the best conduit to independence just after the referendum. Also, when he came to Dundee during the campaign, he filled the Marriott hall and had to go outside and speak to a large crowd of people who could not get in. I asked people from all parties also to take part. There followed one of the most comical episodes in the politics of Dundee when a politician who had been put forward by the SNP to speak went on to Facebook to ask all and sundry whether he should speak on the same platform as Tommy Sheridan, certainly a novel departure from the normal procedure of voting for someone who can presumably make their own mind up about when and where they speak in public.

This as you can imagine caused quite a kerfuffle with the sheeple, aided and abetted by employees and SNP officers posting adverse comments in order to give this politician an excuse to withdraw, which he did.

Now because of confusion at the council office I had not applied for the parade element on time so found myself in much the same position as now, having to depend on the good offices of Councilor Hunter, which of course he refused and this is the interesting bit. He refused on the grounds that the previous time I had organised an event he had only approved it at the last minute. Now the point here is that the event he was speaking about was nothing to do with me I had not applied for permission and had not organised it, I had however agreed to put the Yes Bus there.

This event was to take place the week before the General election in 2015. A few days before the event I had a visit from an SNP politician, Chris Law, who asked if I could use my influence in having the event postponed until the weekend after the General Election. I asked why, and incredibly the answer I received was “we can’t have saltires and yes signs being waved about the City Square the week before the General Election”, this statement he attributed to Stuart Hosie.  I could not believe what I was hearing. I said that if it was moved then there would be no council permission in place for the new date and was told that this would be “taken care of”. Before I had a chance to speak to the organisers they were approached by the politician and an SNP political manager. Who put to them the same proposition of moving the date, they also mentioned that there was no permission in place for another event and were told that it “would be sorted. “

In the event, the SNP did not apply for the event change, and it was only on the morning of the event that they had to scurry about getting Councilor Hunter to sign off and give permission for the event to take place. That was not the 28 days it was not even 27 days and 15 hours as this one was, it was not even 28 hours and was more like 28 minutes before the event took place 

So, there you have it, a tale of two entities the SNP and an ordinary citizen of Dundee and two sets of rules.

You might have noticed that the common thread going through this story is the fact the all of these events have had an independence theme, you might also realise that at every one of them there has not been a single SNP speaker, apart from the one just after the General election where Stewart Hosie was prevailed upon to say a few words as he was passing by and instead of trying to make out that he had made the effort to speak to the people, he comically told them that he shouldn’t really be there but was shopping for a pair of trousers and was hijacked into speaking.

 Given events which unfolded into Hosie’s love life, one can only assume that he did not purchase a belt for his trousers that day as subsequent events would indicate that he had a problem keeping his trousers up.

The SNP in Dundee have a problem regarding their sole purpose in life and that is to assist in the process of moving towards independence, they allow themselves to react to personalities instead of keeping their eye on the ball, they display a lack of understanding of basic strategic thinking.

My experiences of them lead me to believe that they are a threat to independence where they should be an asset.

They need to wake up and smell the coffee.

We will arrange another independence related event soon and once again my sincere apologies for the cancellation.