Category Archives: Politics

Unjust Jottings

Scottish Independence – Economic Myth

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Scotland will be wealthier as a independent nation. An independent Scotland will be one of the wealthiest nations on earth.

Statements that nats would have you believe. An intelligent friend of mine repeated these to me. So for her, and reprinted from David Smith’s article in the Sunday Times 22nd September (and not subsequently denied by the go-loners):

1. The UKs oil production has fallen steadily from a peak in 1998 of 125m tonnes to 40 m tonnes last year and is (independently) forecast to continue to fall
2. Scotland’s per capita public expenditure is 11% higher than the rest of the UK
3. Scotland has over 50% of GDP in the public sector (generating wealth?). This is 5 percentage points higher than the rest of the UK
4. Scotlands trade is 60% with the rest of the UK. In five years since split Czech and Slovak trading with each other fell by more than half. Over the decades since Ireland split with UK trading fell by more than 70%

Divorce from the UK that the Scots eg Keir Hadie built with the
rest of this island – fair enough if openly willed. Do that to be richer? I don’t think so.

We would all be impoverished. Oh, and yes I have an agenda. A man born in England – at home in Scotland over almost 30 years – I fear for an unnecessary release of racism. Continue reading →

Each man is an island

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As you global population grows, so apparantly does our isolation from nature, and each other.
worldPopulationGraph_year1to1075_cartoonGreenberg_490x354200,000 move from the country to a city each day
Over half global the population now lives in a city
Electronic connection (email, twitter, txt) rises inexorably
Whilst western children speak to each other less and then less face to face.

“The power of population is infinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man” (Reverend Malthus)

Ironic, that as we crowd closer we live more separately (it seems to me).

Hypocrisy and Political Correctness

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Political Correctness. What a distasteful phrase.

What is it ? A system of morals – no more no less; but what underlies and underpins it? A belief in God, the sanctity of the individual, a humanist philosophy ? Who knows. Strange then that western society is increasingly bound by its repellant ways. Yes, repellant because it stifles freedom of speech and it makes an outcast of the eccentric. And it does this without having a stated core set of principles that can be rebutted or engaged.

So where is its well-spring? I have a hunch that it flows from socialist atheist cognoscenti. The archetype would be gathered in the Hamstead Borough of Gemuetlichkeit.

I have no problem with many of the apparent mores. I support fairness, equality, loving-kindness. But I can’t abide the dead hand it lays over debate. To be honest I also suspect a hypocrisy at the centre. Socialism espoused by those living in multimillion pound houses, atheism standing on the shoulders of a society won by believers, cognoscenti who perhaps don’t know what they don’t know.

There are good old fashioned systems of morals with well stated values.

Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism to name a few…..

Scotland is an idea…

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… a dream and a gift. Outgoing, passionate, vibrant, edgy, generous, educated, intellectual, yeasty.

What loss to the world if this were once again to be bound to the rock of jingoism and re-contained in the economics of a small land, with a declining and ageing population on the rainy margins of Europe.

Letter to Nicola Sturgeon

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Dear Nicola

You said on Question Time that “after Scottish independence Scotland and England would be the best of friends and the closest of allies”.

You’re wrong. You must know this.

It is of course possible for a relationship to end and the partners to be friends. Is that not most likely if the feeling on both sides is mutual and the process handled openly and fairly? Do you honestly feel that your approach is consensual and involving of your English partners?

How often do divorcees end up as “the best of friends and the closest of allies” when one party has forced the break up of the marriage.

In this case I strongly suspect that any Scotland-led divorce would be launched on a wave of nationalist fervour. Anti-English racism is bound up with that, particularly when the fight would be over the post-divorce financial settlements between these two new nations. Strong emotions beget intense reactions.

You and your party are being disingenuous and manipulative. Shame. And shame on you.