Scottish Sceptic

The libdem vote collapse UK wide, the Tories have long been a toxic brand in Scotland, so what marked out this last election was the collapse of the labour vote and the rise of the SNP.
The left one must understand is largely about “collective action” and opposed to people thinking for themselves. And it works so long as people have a common goal and purpose.
What I would like to suggest, is that the left of Scottish politics was not as unified as those south of the border would like on Scottish independence. (And a few other issues probably niggled). That the independence campaign effectively split the left between Unionist and independents.
Usually, these two got along quite happily – because if independence wasn’t an issue – there was little difference between being for the working class, and being for the working class of Scotland.
But the independence campaign must have created divisions. People who formerly worked well together must have found themselves at each other’s throat. And those who normally did not work together (the independence group) found themselves getting on well together.
As such, the campaign may have made a lot on the left realise that what mattered to them most was not “working class politics” but “Scottish politics” and the massive increase in membership of the SNP may well have been a huge chunk of the left upping sticks and moving to the SNP.
As a result of the shift in membership, they may in turn have caused the SNP to shift to the left.
In contrast, the same didn’t happen on the right. The Tories have always been obstinately Unionist to the extent that people like me can’t vote for them even if I voted no at the referendum.
The right wing of the SNP (tartan tories) was always divided from the right of the Unionist (and conservative party).
Alternative (repeat of my comment to StewGreen) Continue reading →

For several years I’ve been finding that there really is no political party I can support – note, not “I would like” but “none I can”. Several times I’ve desperately looked through a list of Scottish political parties trying to find one that even vaguely suitable to see whether I could join. But not one is suitable.

So, I wrote down a list of my “red lines” which I wouldn’t cross if I joined another party:-

1. Scottish Based
   The party must be based in Scotland. After my experience in UKIP and seeing the way Scottish labour was destroyed by its “branch office” status and how the Tories are a complete failure because they are run by and for England, it would be a waste of time joining another “branch office” party.

2. Free Health & Education
   I stood down from the Green party because they would not support local hospitals. I believe that healthcare and education, which primarily supports the young and old who cannot earn the money they need to purchase these service, must be largely free at the point of delivery. The absolute red line is that if you have an illness which means you cannot work, then healthcare must be free. But where possible people ought to be responsible for their own health – particularly working people, so I’m not in principle against charging for prescriptions.
   Likewise, under 18 education should be free (but that doesn’t mean cheap and where possible controlled by parents and not politicians). However, I’m not in principle against adults who gain from education paying for that education. It’s only what works best for society.

3. Scottish Independence (against dogmatic views either way)
   Where possible people should have self government. But that applies as much to EU membership as UK membership or even local councils being dictated to by Edinburgh.
   So, I have a pragmatic view of Scottish Independence: any political group whether a council or nation has to work with other similar groups. The best form of co-operation may be a formal union. But it may not. There is no hard and fast rule or principle governing what is or is not the appropriate relationship between peoples and the appropriate working relationships are likely to change over time.
   So I want to see a pragmatic view on Scottish independence – in other words it should be up to individuals to decide and I don’t want to be party of a party telling me how to vote. Indeed, in my view, the whole dogmatic focus of the SNP and Tory focussing so much on this one issue is why so many issues of such importance to Scotland get ignored.

4. Democratic

   Democracy means giving power to ordinary people. OK, elections, aren’t a panacea (they can be bought or fixed by large interest groups) nor are they the only way to give ordinary people power; but any party I belong to must be democratic which means free and fair election of officials and for example yearly AGMs (unlike UKIP Scotland).

5. Pro-business, engineering and enterprise

   The party must support business, it must be for cutting red tape.

6. Energy

   Energy is key to a vibrant economy. We need secure and cheap supplies and decisions on energy should be taken by those with knowledge of the economic impacts of energy policy and based firmly on the evidence (i.e. not on speculation and failed theories from academics who are as clueless about the science behind climate as they are about the economy).

7. Equality & Political correctness
   

   I’m fed up of political correctness. Equality does not mean treated everyone the same but instead giving equal respect for who we are and giving equal protection under the law. Just as we treat children differently from adults and adults differently from the elderly, so for example men and women have different needs and any party I join would respect that (and not pander to the politically correct bigots like the BBC).

That’s it

So, why’s it so difficult to find a party?

I’ve been searching the news sites trying to find even one article about the SNP landslide that makes sense and I’ve drawn a blank. So, I’m going to make some suggestions albeit very tentatively.
It has been suggested that Cameron’s “English votes for English laws” put off Scottish voters. Frankly I think that’s tripe. If anyone thought about it for one second, they know it makes sense.  So, I don’t think it’s what he said but how and why it was said.
Another suggestion is anti-Scottish racism. But to me that smacks more of a symptom than a cause.
Instead, I think something changed after the referendum. The thing that struck me about the referendum campaign was that Scotland was very much left to get on with it. The English parties and politicians largely ignored us so long as it appeared we were going to vote no. It was only when the polls started suggesting that Scotland was going to leave the Union that suddenly Scotland was filled with politicians & journalists from England most of whom never seem to have been here before.
And then when the referendum was over – to use a metaphor –  they just got out of bed – put on their clothes, put £5 on the table and said “thanks Scotland” and left. And using that scenario, what Cameron’s “English votes for English laws” looked like was finding a notch on the bed post – or overhearing them boasting of their conquest. As for the promises of “I’ll respect you” – like the “I’ll call in the morning” – the behaviour of the English just didn’t make them believable.
So, that’s why I think Scotland turned out in force to vote SNP.
And so the problem for this Union, is that having let Scotland make it’s own decision on independence, the Scots now have a new self-confidence that we should be treated as equals in this Union. So, we find it extremely insulting to find English news-media and politicians in effect saying “you’re just a kept woman who should be thankful that we keep paying your bills: And NO! There’s no way on earth we are letting you anywhere near running the place you slut”.
That kind of attitude from the English is no longer acceptable. Because not only did Scotland decide to be part of the Union, but we decided that the present Union was not treating us fairly: that England had to change otherwise there will be no Union. That message has not sunk home with the English.
But unlike before, when Scots threatened to leave the Union, the difference this time is that Scotland is not threatening. We are not saying we may leave. We are just offering England a final chance: stop treating us like a kept woman, stop thinking you can ignore us until you want something from us. Treat us like equals, give us our fair share of government and British institution jobs. Stop spending all the public sector money in London, stop focussing economic policy on what benefits the square mile of London – or pack your bags and get out of the Union.

I came across this video by the well known climate alarmist John Cheese:

My advice to John: if you’re going to use a fake Scottish accent, best use one appropriate to the constituency and not one located somewhere between Braveheart and Whisky Galore.

In no particular order here are the issues I think are dividing Scotland and England

1. The manufacture of a false Scottish identity based on the fiction of “Celticness”.
2. EU policies designed to undermine the UK union, so that people could seriously argue that they wanted out of “The Union” – by which they meant “Out of the UK union – but deeper in bed with the even worse European Union”.
3. Public policy designed to benefit those south of the Oxbridge line and particularly London – which unfairly spends UK money pumping up the economy in this area to the serious detriment of the population north of the Oxbridge line and particularly Scotland.
4. All British institutions being located outside Scotland (as far as I know). For example, if politicians were serious about the Union then one in 10 “British” institutions would be moved to Scotland. That would mean for example that something like MI5, MI6 or GCHQ would be moved wholesale to Scotland bringing with it all the jobs and because the head office would be in Scotland, it would massively favour local companies. But Scotland isn’t allowed to get any of these benefits from “British” institutions.
5. A transport network focussed on London. Why e.g. is there no road link from Scotland to Ireland? Why is there no motorway north of Perth? Why is there no dual carriageway up the west coast of Scotland? Why do road taxes so penalise us in Scotland where the population centres are so far from each other? (And please don’t repeat the lie that motorways are a form of local travel getting people into and out of London and are not for long distance transport links)
6. The stupidity of devolution with no fiscal responsibility. The stupidity of politicians who allow Scotland to be turned into a wind-estate for EU anti-science climate policy. The stupidity of giving the English parliament all responsibility for the costs of SNP policy and giving the SNP all the credit.
7. An uncritical Scottish media – and a biased English media who are not trusted in Scotland.

Reality of Scottish Independence

Whilst I don’t support the SNP and certainly not labour, what this election has revealed is blatant English racism in that many in England – or at least many in the chatterarti class – could not tolerate the idea that a Scottish party might be part of a UK government.
This contrasts sharply with the lack of interest in the fact that the “UNIONIST” party of England-in-Scotland (known in England as Tories – but revealed in its true colours in Scotland as the Unionist and conservative party) has effectively run Scotland much of the last century.
So if it’s OK for little Englanders to run Scotland with almost no comment, but apparently it is beyond the pale for little Scotlanders to have even a part in a UK government. This clearly shows that MUCH OF THE ENGLISH ESTABLISHMENT ARE STILL ANTI-SCOTTISH RACISTS. It still seems the attitude in England is that of the English national Anthem says: to repress the rebellious Scots.
Practically, I can’t see the English establishment either caring or wanting to doing anything I think that needs doing to keep Scotland in the Union. That means we in Scotland really have no choice because public opinion will inevitably drift toward independence more by default than intention. So that when the next referendum takes place – and it may well be sooner than later – Scotland will be more or less forced to vote for independence largely because of the English racism this election has highlighted, rather than any benefit to us in Scotland.

I was disenfranchised in this election because there was no party I wanted to vote for. Here’s why:

• SNP are just nutters on wind. They are hypocrites on energy. They are anti the scientific evidence showing no warming in 18 years on climate.
• Labour are everything wrong with the SNP and they would have destroyed the British economy if they had any control over government.
• Tories in Scotland are just union obsessives. They are a mix of a thoughtless anti-Scottish sentiment and the quintessential public school people who are anti-most ordinary people in Scotland whose parents didn’t sleep with some English King to gain their shooting estate.
• Lib Dems are no better than the SNP and run by another Eton twit.
• UKIP are run by English people who have deliberately sought the little English vote by stoking up anti-Scottish feeling and who have no respect for democracy in the Scottish party.

But, since I don’t trust the English media particularly the Biased Broadcasting Company and haven’t discussed the election with people from England, I’ve no idea why England voted Tory.
But I can see why the Scots voted SNP. What the referendum revealed is a general consensus in Scotland that we have done badly out of the Union and that Scotland continues to be treated with contempt by the English media and English politicians. UKIP and much of the Tory sentiment are a prime examples of that. In particular the hatred revealed when it appeared that the SNP might by part of the supposed “UK” government. This shows it’s not a UK government but an “English only” government. That shows why people gathered around the Scottish party [see next article].
But the Tories have also created a party of “Unionist bigots” in Scotland. They are not a pro-business, self-reliance party that anyone on the right of centre wanting good fiscal government would want to vote for. Labour are reckless in the UK – but in Scotland their supposed hold over politics has made them corrupt and reckless – and anti-Scottish and/or they just use Scotland.
As for the LibDems. Let’s put it this way: Jo Swinson my MP ran a campaign of anti-male hatred (aka feminism). She then rejected the evidence of climate, couldn’t care less for the problem of cold and fuel bills in Scotland, couldn’t care less for the 1million extra winter deaths in the UK during this madness and in one interview with Andrew Neil both lambasted everyone else for not being more green and praised the frequent shuttle flights from London city to Glasgow. She was a fantastic marketeer but totally gormless on the issues that matter. But perhaps her biggest problem – was that the public sector, who are largely clueless on the real economy so vote Liberal Democrat – and which was expanded well beyond the ability of the UK to support by Total Blair – bore the brunt of the austerity measures which only went ahead because of Lid Dem support.

Prediction

The Tories look set to get an extremely thin majority. That majority is so thin that realistically there will be always more rebels in the Tories on any important issue than their majority allows.
So, the Tory administration will not practically be able to run without support from those “in” minority parties. Because one key feature is that votes will be won, not so much by party majorities, but by individuals willing for whatever reason to vote with the government.
And more than likely that issue will get worse, because it would appear that the “protest vote” for most by-elections will go to UKIP.

Prediction – Scottish parliament elections

The SNPs may well suffer a humiliating defeat at the Scottish elections. At the very least, compared to the UK election result, it will look like a humiliating defeat. It will certainly attract many former MPs who had a high profile. Also it may well see the first legitimate UKIP politician in Scotland (i.e. one selected by members in Scotland and not foisted on Scotland by England).
 

I had a search today to find out whether those involved in Ringberg had finally come to their senses. Reading Climate Etc and some other blogs I was reminded of this scenario:
Wile is running and suddenly finds himself to have run over a cliff. But in the cartoons he still keeps running as if the ground were still there. That’s where we are with climate sensitivity. The ground is the “2C” limit and they still present the same rubbish they always have as if that “2C” limit were written in stone, except the pause shows that all their knowledge encapsulated in those climate models is wrong. They know nothing – but still they keep pumping out the same rubbish … the legs keep going ….
But whether or not Wile believes it or not, sooner or later physical laws dictate what happens next.
Mother earth aka “God” is a climate sceptic. And mother nature dictates what happens next, not a bunch of useless academics with their failed theories at Ringberg.
This is what sorts out engineer-scientists from academic-scientists. We both use the same physical laws of the universe, the difference is that engineers know that they have to be right because if a bridge falls down, we get sued. In contrast academic-scientists like those at Ringberg are purely academic and if their predictions fail – what happens? They have another all expenses paid by the public purse conference like Ringberg to all get around and discuss why they aren’t complete failures and present such wonderful results as this:
The only actual evidence that one presenter gave after which he said “I’m very very very very very very very confident climate sensitivity is over 2C” (I added a few extra very’s for humour – but it was hilarious even without them).

After I examined global temperatures I made a forecast of around 0.35C cooling by 2030 unfortunately, this trend is embedded it much larger natural variation, so whilst cooling is the best bet, there’s still a significant chance of warming.
However, whilst cooling isn’t inevitable, it is the most likely trend in the next few years so I can’t help taking a peak at the global temperature:-

And so I can’t help noticing that on Roy Spencer’s site, whilst small, the global temperature has seen three successive drops taking it from “on the high side of the pack” to “on the low side” and appearing to head toward “zero”.
However, as it’s now dropped around half of the total added cooling I’m predicting over the next 15 years and the 13month average regularly sees swings greater than the prediction, there’s no way I can claim this is anything to do with long term cooling.
But at least it’s in the right direction!
Just looking by eye, there’s possibly a 1 in 4 chance of a significant down swing before the next set of Scottish and US elections!

My hunch is that the most likely ultimate funder of the global warming scam was the single biggest beneficiary: China.
However, I’ve got an open mind and perhaps Saudi and Russian money were also involved. Russian: because they never really stopped the cold war and causing western economies to rot from the inside due to global warming hysteria was an ideal way to destroy us. Saudi Arabia, because paradoxically, the whole global warming fad has focussed on increasing energy prices – thus increasing profits for oil companies and countries like Saudi rather than reducing use and thereby creating a glut.
However, I think the evidence Saudi and other similar groups are funding anti-fracking protests is beyond doubt. And it is very clear that anti-fracking groups are completely gullible and being led by the nose by their commercial sponsors.
As for feminists – I’m sick and tired of the hypocrisy of feminists. I’ve noticed they are only feminists when the issue is against western men. When any other race is being sexist, even in the most extreme way – they seem to endorse the behaviour even when it occurs in their own country.
And it’s also clear to me men are the true victims as the following stats show:

1. Far more men died in WWI and WWII than women. This was a sexist war and I’ve yet to here any mention of women volunteering to die in the place of men.
2. Men still die earlier than women even in peacetime. As a result, by rights men should receive disproportionately more funding on healthcare, earlier retirement, etc. to compensate. In fact, we don’t really have equality of retirement let alone equitable treatment (earlier retirement) for men yet.
3. Far far more young men die from suicide than women. It’s obvious that we need to address this issue by making a society in which male attributes are valued particularly for younger men.
4. Far more men go to prison than women. Again this is clearly a very sexist attitude of society. And again, we need to understand how to give young men the sense of worth and place in society that means they do not commit crimes.

In other words, because men and women are not the same, what we get with feminist based “equality” is a society which is actually totally and wholly unfair to men. Because “equality” doesn’t act equally: it takes away from men what they value: jobs, career, etc. but fails to give us anything “equal” which women have in child care etc. which we value, and so women get equal access to everything they could want from family to career, but men who tend to have a narrower focus have less of what we value … and to cap it all … we still die earlier, retire later, commit more suicide, have more chance of going to jail and for all this how do women treat us? They call us sexist!