tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-930120922627919768.post7530642412781274569..comments2024-03-29T07:48:22.768+00:00Comments on SCOT goes POP!: Dragon-fire and moon-howlersJames Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01516007141763230886noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-930120922627919768.post-50214605556011655852012-01-07T01:46:48.711+00:002012-01-07T01:46:48.711+00:00"despite the fact that Callaghan refused to w...<i>"despite the fact that Callaghan refused to whip the Labour party to oppose the Repeal Order on the Legislation which was all that Cunningham's amendment demanded they still expected the SNP to support the Labour Government"</i><br /><br />And of course the main reason Callaghan refused to do that is he knew that enough anti-devolution Labour MPs would defy the whip to defeat him. Which tells the real story of who it was that actually sabotaged the Labour government.James Kellyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01516007141763230886noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-930120922627919768.post-7806460749403880072012-01-06T22:24:44.408+00:002012-01-06T22:24:44.408+00:00Excellent analysis, Doug. I'd almost say it sh...Excellent analysis, Doug. I'd almost say it should be required reading for anyone interested in the recent political history of Scotland.<br /><br />Wee Jimmy's appointment of Admin represents a ramping up of Scottish Labour's hostility of the SNP, this time with the view to taking the battle to the nats in cyberspace. The irony, of course, is that nats can point to the likes of Duncan over on Labourhame to see the type of bile yoonyoonists spout to illustrate that it's hardly a one way street (not to mention posts from the good Admin himself).<br /><br />The question about a tory government within the UK or an independent Scotland is one that Wee Jimmy & co should be forced to answer (even though we all know what that answer would be). They should be hit with this question at every opportunity. If Murphy does take the stand next to Cameron,it would neutralise any of his usual rhetoric if he's forced to choose between rule by Call-Me-Dave or an independent Scotland.Don McCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-930120922627919768.post-78784986907156445962012-01-06T19:08:58.601+00:002012-01-06T19:08:58.601+00:00Tris,
I should say that my question wasn’t only d...Tris,<br /><br />I should say that my question wasn’t only directed at Tom Harris but at all members of ‘Scottish’ Labour today. Of course, we don’t need to ask them this as an entirely hypothetical question really, do we? After all, with a Tory government back in power at Westminster today and with ‘Scottish’ Labour arguing that we’re ‘stronger together and weaker apart’ and criticising the SNP for ‘picking fights with Westminster’ they’ve given us their answer. If ‘Scottish’ Labour today could be transported back to 1979, they’d put us through it all - Thatcher, Major and New Labour - all over again without hesitation.<br /><br />DougtheDug,<br /><br />Well said and beautifully put.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-930120922627919768.post-12350745741249716892012-01-06T18:32:48.587+00:002012-01-06T18:32:48.587+00:00The 1979 no-confidence vote on Callaghan's Gov...The 1979 no-confidence vote on Callaghan's Government which brought it down still rankles with Labour.<br /><br />I suspect that part of the reason is that despite Labour happily hobbling the 1979 referendum with the 40% rule courtesy of scottish born Labour MP George Cunningham and the votes of Scottish Labour MP's Robin Cook, Peter Doig, Willie Hamilton and Bob Hughes among others and despite the fact that Callaghan refused to whip the Labour party to oppose the Repeal Order on the Legislation which was all that Cunningham's amendment demanded they still expected the SNP to support the Labour Government.<br /><br />The outrage the Labour party in Scotland still feel is that after bullying the upstart SNP new boy whose presence had caused all the devolution legislation he didn't sit in the corner and whimper as he should have but stood up and whacked the Labour party on the nose.<br /><br />Callaghan's Government was a dead man walking and unelectable after the Winter of Discontent and nothing the SNP did could have changed the fact that the Labour party in England was unelectable for 18 years until they elected a Tory as their leader and adopted the Tories' clothes so I think that punch was worth it from the squeals that still emanate from time to time from Labour.<br /><br />One interesting fact is that the Liberals, as they were at that time, voted with the SNP to take down Callaghan's Government but you never hear about their part in the vote from Labour sources and Labour were happy to cosy up to them in the Lib-Lab coalition in the Scottish Parliament.<br /><br />The silence on the Liberals part in the vote is telling and the outrage is all about how Labour still can't get over the fact that the SNP stood up to them and their dirty tricks in 1979.<br /><br />Braveheart is an interesting film simply for the effect it has had on a large segment of the Scottish population.<br /><br />Strangely enough it's a segment that most commentators ignore when they talk about Braveheart and that is the Unionist community in Scotland.<br /><br />For most nationalists a film which, although essentially cowboys in kilts, treated Scotland as a nation not as a regional accent or regional rebels was uplifting but not dramatically and the idea of Scotland as a nation not a region was nothing new to them.<br /><br />For the Unionist community it was traumatic and that's the the reason Tom Harris and all the unionists can't get it out of their heads.<br /><br />The film came out in 1995 but the wound in their psyches from a film which described a non-British history for Scotland is still bleeding.DougtheDughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02952281599715356995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-930120922627919768.post-88531974324123227402012-01-06T16:17:56.100+00:002012-01-06T16:17:56.100+00:00Callaghan had a shout if he'd gone for an elec...Callaghan had a shout if he'd gone for an election in October 1978. I seem to remember there being a call for him to do exactly that. He bottled it, we got the Winter of Discontent and Callaghan and Labour were finished after that, whether they went under the vote of no confidence or waited for the inevitable election later that year. We got Thatcher for the same reason we got Cameron.EricFnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-930120922627919768.post-5270591945068545672012-01-06T13:18:43.729+00:002012-01-06T13:18:43.729+00:00Anon: The true answer would be: 'absolutely ye...Anon: The true answer would be: 'absolutely yes', and the reason: 'because I'm pretty much a Thatcherite'. But he'd probably not put it quite like that! In fact he probably wouldn't put it at all.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-930120922627919768.post-78880334628436394192012-01-06T12:09:42.083+00:002012-01-06T12:09:42.083+00:00Tris,
“I wonder if any of the supporters of the n...Tris,<br /><br />“I wonder if any of the supporters of the notion that Salmond caused Thatcher to come to power, have explanations for why she won subsequent elections, and the Tories won yet another after she was gone?”. <br /><br />What a brilliant question. And let’s not forget that Mrs. Thatcher also increased her Westminster majorities in her period in office – from 44 in 1979 to 100 in 1983 and 144 in 1987. While we’re on the subject, let’s remind ourselves that while this was occurring in England, Labour in Scotland won the 1979, 1983, 1987 and 1992 general elections both in terms of their share of the vote and, more emphatically, in terms of seats.<br /><br />If I didn’t strictly observe my position that nationalists should boycott LabourHame, I’d post the following question on that site:<br /><br />Suppose that we could transport you back to 1979. Knowing what you do now about Scotland’s experience as part of the UK over the last 40 years, would you still argue that Scotland should remain in the UK? Give reasons for your answer.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-930120922627919768.post-60341637537189980982012-01-06T11:45:35.539+00:002012-01-06T11:45:35.539+00:00Incidentally, I voted for 'Flower of Scotland&...Incidentally, I voted for 'Flower of Scotland' too.<br /><br />I can't see the population taking to anything new after so long of accepting it as a quasi anthem.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-930120922627919768.post-66024087495084536832012-01-06T11:43:44.153+00:002012-01-06T11:43:44.153+00:00Great article, James.
I wonder if any of the supp...Great article, James.<br /><br />I wonder if any of the supporters of the notion that Salmond caused Thatcher to come to power, have explanations for why she won subsequent elections, and the Tories won yet another after she was gone?<br /><br />Has any of them have given consideration to the fact that an independent Scotland would not have had to tolerate what Malcolm Rifkind, no less, described as 'that bossy English woman'.<br /><br />And what, indeed, from unionists points of view, is wrong with Mrs Thatcher and her kind of government? It is exactly what the bulk of the UK population tends towards.<br /><br />If you believe in British style democracy, and in the union, then, regardless of your politics, you should be resigned to the fact that for most of the time the Camerons and Thatchers of this world will run the country.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-930120922627919768.post-17211534035761205862012-01-06T10:47:45.403+00:002012-01-06T10:47:45.403+00:00James,
Excellent post and glad to see that you’ve...James,<br /><br />Excellent post and glad to see that you’ve got your mojo back.<br /><br />One of the reasons that the dullards in ‘Scottish’ Labour have got away with this ‘Thatcher was all the fault of the nats’ lie for so long is because most of them themselves don’t understand this period of history and, of the few that do, they know that most people in Scotland aren’t familiar with many of the details. <br /><br />It’s a convoluted tale (one of the reasons that it’s difficult for nationalists to provide a coherent counter to it). So, for those few in ‘Scottish’ Labour who do understand the period, it’s easier to collapse it into a soundbite (i.e. a lie). That way, they are safe in the knowledge that the MSM won’t provide any nationalist with the time to tell the truth and draw attention to the sheer incompetence of the Wilson and Callaghan governments in the period 1974-79.<br /><br />Curiously, if you read the memoirs of many of the senior English Labour and Conservative politicians of the period, they all address these and other events as causal factors in the rise of Thatcherism, but none of them make more than passing reference to the role of the SNP. Why might that be, I wonder?<br /><br />As for LabourHame, think about it. Why do you think that LabourHame publishes so many articles that bait nationalists? Could it be because they realise that, without the contributions of nationalists, LabourHame would be the most unbearably dull read on the Scottish blogosphere? They need us more than we need them. These people don’t want to have a ‘debate’, they want to win and get back into power and they will say and do anything to achieve that objective. <br /><br />As for Diane Abbott, you would think that a woman who sends her son to a private school would have the decency not to take the high moral ground on any “divide and conquer” argument. You’d think that someone like that would keep quiet and hope that no-one notices that she’s a hypocrite. It is an indication of how far Labour has moved to the right that you can still read commentators in the MSM who, without a trace of irony, refer to Diane Abbott as a ‘rebel’ or, (God help us) a ‘radical’. <br /><br />As it happens, Abbott was right, many white people have, and still do, use “divide and conquer” tactics to control ethnic minorities but it’s equally the case that many black people, like Abbott, use race as a power bid. The indecent haste with which Abbott provided her ‘apology’ to Ed Miliband and retracted her statement only demonstrated that, as with so many people in the Labour Party, she was only too happy to sacrifice her ‘principles’ to save her career.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-930120922627919768.post-27261825602207706532012-01-06T09:33:33.173+00:002012-01-06T09:33:33.173+00:00Independence for Celtic should be Independece for ...Independence for Celtic should be Independece for Scotland, the perils of posting when you can't sleep and it is silly o'clockAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-930120922627919768.post-84264606179483951622012-01-06T09:12:52.213+00:002012-01-06T09:12:52.213+00:00Labour also provided the weakest opposition to Mar...Labour also provided the weakest opposition to Margaret Thatcher imaginable, first with Michael Foot and then with Neil Kinnock, two of the most unelectable people it is possible to imagine. Who can forget Kinnock’s memorable defeat by John Major in 1992. They seem intent on repeating this mistake with the truly ghastly Ed Milliband, who is doing considerably worse for Labour in the polls than they did with no leader at all!<br /><br />How the new Scottish Super-Leader JL will do remains to be seen. Hardly very high profile so far but its early days.<br /><br />As for “Admin” why are we even bothering to listen to this failed hack? He aint got that many greasy poles left to climb to the bottom of, as far as I can see!<br /><br />And the Scotsman (printed in England) if the cyber Nats did not read and comment on it all its second rate hacks would be out of a job, because God knows nobody else does. Just as well SNP support, membership and finances are so healthy then!Munguinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16475165830302054002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-930120922627919768.post-90607789538724636042012-01-06T09:04:00.572+00:002012-01-06T09:04:00.572+00:00This comment has been removed by the author.Munguinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16475165830302054002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-930120922627919768.post-65710871926294962122012-01-06T04:42:49.098+00:002012-01-06T04:42:49.098+00:00BTW, I am third generation immigrant from Ireland ...BTW, I am third generation immigrant from Ireland and an SNP voter who wants Independence for Celtic AND who supports Celtic<br /><br />Just for some contextAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-930120922627919768.post-51903898776651192292012-01-06T04:40:55.239+00:002012-01-06T04:40:55.239+00:00The whole Michael Kelly article is framed around a...The whole Michael Kelly article is framed around a cheap shot at the FM's weight, but, of course, Harris has an inability to see the nastiness from his own side.<br /><br />He's also selective about that post, and I thought Labour folk were all about the context after the Diane Abbot tweet. The poster was stupid, but the mlication in the rest of the message is of the dichotomy of the Celtic man, with all the connotations f support for Irish Home Rule that club has with some of its fans, also being an Arch-Unionist<br /><br />Yes, it should not have been said, but there's your contextAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com