A Year Already ?

Prob'ly won't have many more till the eventual divorce.  Thanks DC.

Tony, Tony, Tony

Wait, Tony Blair actually admitted to being wrong about something ?  That can't be right, surely ?  That Tone ?  Our Tone ?  That lying corrupt egotistical pile of human excrement ?  Never.

Tony Blair has admitted his government made a "mistake" by failing to do enough to ensure that devolution of powers to Scotland did not undermine the United Kingdom's national identity.

The former Prime Minister insisted that he still believes he was right to create national assemblies in Edinburgh and Cardiff in 1999, arguing that resisting demands for the devolution of power would have stoked up demand for outright independence.

Bullshit !  There was more no urgency for devolution specifically in your time than there was for reform of the Lords, and your response to the one was as cack-handed as the other.  As always, you were looking more to your own legacy as the great reformer, seeking to re-make British 'democracy' in your own image than you were thinking through the long-term consequences of your actions.  In the case of the Lords, you could have left things as they were, could have engaged in a long-term review of the options available, could have respected the consistent will of the electorate for an elected House.  But no...Tony knew best as always, and so the great overcrowded House of Political Cronies was born.

If you wanted to a) deflate the movement for independence in Scotland*, and b) address the broader concern of lack of representation across the UK** (including in England) by the ever Home County-centred government in Westminster, you could have come up with a plan for more regional and citywide devolution.  Instead of which, you completely ignored the English question, which has led us today to this EVEL nonsense, whilst you established 'national' assemblies in Scotland and Wales based upon largely arbitrary borders dating back to Norman times.  And then what ?  At best, perhaps you could buy the unionists some time whilst you re-thought a broader strategy...

But, in a new book entitled British Labour Leaders, he acknowledged that he did not understand at the time the importance of maintaining cultural unity between the different parts of the UK.

You didn't have any strategy, whatsover, did you ?  You created 'national' assemblies, and what, you thought they would tire of power after a few years and beg Westminster to re-absorb their responsibilities ?  That the Scots & Welsh seeing functioning assemblies governing over their respective 'nations' wouldn't beg the obvious question, why not more powers ?  Why draw the line here and not there ?  Why be governed by an unresponsive body tucked away in the furthest regions of Southeastern England at all ?

His admission came after a new poll, published almost a year after the referendum, showed for the first time a majority of Scots would support independence if another vote was staged now.

Don't fuckin' blame 'em !  Especially after how they were treated not just by the increasingly fascistic 'Conservative' party, but also by members of yer so-called 'Labour' party in the last election.

...Mr Blair admitted in his 2010 memoirs that he was “never a passionate believer” in devolution and he always thought creating a Scottish Parliament was a dangerous path.

Yes, yes it was.  Arsehole.

...Mr Blair said: "I did feel that we made a mistake on devolution. We should have understood that, when you change the system of government so that more power is devolved, you need to have ways of culturally keeping England, Scotland and Wales very much in sync with each other.

“We needed to work even stronger for a sense of UK national identity. But I don't accept the idea that we should never have done devolution. If we had not devolved power, then there would have been a massive demand for separation – as there was back in the 60s and 70s."

Funnily enough, people who are part of the same country, with the same basic culture, speaking the same language, and with a strong shared history, including shared sacrifice in war, tend to develop a pretty decent shared identity...until nationalist radicals seek to divide them, and find their efforts enabled by incompetent overconfident ego-mad politicians.  Politicians have many ways of dividing people, but building up cultural identity artificially from your spindoctors' offices in London...not so easily done.

Aw, feck it !  I wish the eventual independent Republic of Scotland well.  And Wales too, if they go that way.  Blair, Brown, Cameron, and their ilk, on the other hand can go fuck themselves.


* Not that I believe for one moment you respected the absolute right of the Scots to independence if that be their choice.

** Nor that you ever gave a damn about that issue either, given your consistent anti-democratic decisions.

Performance Art ?

This...is kinda brilliant.  And also likely to drive me insane.  Blame (and/or credit) Wings Over Scotland...and Gordon Brown...not me.

Does the Grauniad Only Exist to Piss Off Non-Wankers ?

So, a British Olympian tweeted his disappointment in the new kit for the Brits...

Well this isn't right... Where's the Union Jack!?!? @BritAthletics (this is the kit for worlds) pic.twitter.com/RAVoi6yRex

— Greg Rutherford (@GregJRutherford) August 13, 2015

I was inclined to agree with him, especially given the inclination of the government to shit over both the flag and other traditional designs in recent years.  And given the recent (although increasingly due to DC & Co., sadly seemingly temporary) vote on Scottish independence, why not celebrate the flag ?  But no biggie, really.

So, how does the Graun. respond to this shit ?  Why by having some asshole shit all over not just 'Team GB's kit, but the Union Flag itself...of course...As one does.

The trouble with the United Kingdom’s flag, when you come to think about it, is that it is really quite ugly. I have every sympathy for the designers who removed it from the British athletics team’s vests for the imminent World Athletics Championships in Beijing. Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford has complained that “it isn’t a British kit any more” because it hasn’t got the union flag, but the decision makes sense aesthetically. The new vest is an elegant flowing dance of red, white and blue – the flag’s colours, remember – and has Great Britain written on it in big letters. It just doesn’t have that jagged, explosive, aggressive flag.

So, your problem with the Union Flag is an aesthetic one, right ?

I don’t mean the union flag is aggressive because it embodies an imperial arrogance or a coercive union that keeps Scotland in its place. No, it just looks as if it does.

Nothing to do with divisive politics then...Go on, do say...

Look at it, if you can bear to. With its cluttered burst of both right-angled and diagonal radiating lines, the British flag is heavy and overbearing, forceful and strident. On a battlefield it would make sense. Sure, this virulent standard served to rally regiments at the Battle of Waterloo. But today? At sporting events? It looks crap. Instead of suggesting unity, its sharp-angled divisions imply fragmentation. In fact, the relentless dynamism of its design evokes the shock and shatter of a cannon ball smashing into a French ship at the Battle of Trafalgar.

Who wants a dynamic flag, with any sense of urgency or purpose, huh ?  And those 'sharp-angled divisions' sure as hell put me in mind of a 'cannon ball smashing into a French ship at the Battle of Trafalgar'...wait, you meant that as a...bad thing...right ?  So, anyway, go on with your aesthetic critique...

This was fine when Britain ruled the waves but its military hysteria makes no sense nowadays. To see how visually repellent* the union flag really is you just have to contrast it with a truly great national flag, that of the United States. The American flag is beautiful, as the artist Jasper Johns saw very clearly when he made one out of collage and waxy paint. The stars and bars** are soothing and reassuring to look at. Those layers of repeated lines have a quality of minimalist art, although they date from long before such art was invented. Perhaps America’s flag has had a hidden influence on all its art movements, not only on Johns. The bars hang there in harmony and peace, and the stars float majestically in their blue ether.

You.Have.Got.To.Be.Shitting.ME.!!!  The American flag, scraped hastily together out of scraps of its own forebear ?  That stripey-assed Waldo-esque remnant of centuries past ?  I'll acknowledge that there are in fact worse flags...by far...but, as a symbol of the supposed leader of the free world, the US flag is a joke.  I could take your argument seriously if you acknowledged just about any other iconic flag but that one...

...The same goes for the French tricolour, another of the world’s most attractive flags. Its simple rectangles of colour are bold but beautiful. No wonder it has been imitated by so many other nations in varying colours.

Erm, yes.  Yes, indeed.

You don’t see many other countries imitating the British flag.

Wha...wha...what ?  Never mind how many flags explicitly incorporate the Union Flag directly, such as a certain US state, or are otherwise symbolically based upon elements of the Union Flag, such as the flag of the United States itself, or use similar motifs such as Jamaica.  Just WTF are you talking about ?

The flags of the United States and France are the results of 18th-century revolutions that gave their creators a sense of starting afresh. No ghosts of the past or compromised histories influenced the design of these revolutionary standards. On the contrary, they needed to be totally new, to symbolise new constitutions, new beginnings. 

Bull-fucking-shit !

...Perhaps Rutherford’s objection to the British flag’s disappearance from the national British athletics team’s kit reflects an anxiety about insidious anti-union propaganda, as if in the age of SNP triumph it is becoming politically incorrect to sport unifying British symbols too proudly. But I would argue it the other way around. Perhaps the union flag itself is a psychological boost to nationalists who want to break up Britain. Its sheer pompous ugliness unconsciously damages the image of the union.

Fuck you !

So here is an idea to save the United Kingdom as a political, emotional and cultural entity. Let’s invent a new flag. Let’s visually forget the history of internal compromise and external violence this flag so unattractively embodies. A new flag for a new Britain might help us love our – whole – nation again.

Like you give a flying fucking shit about the union...I just shat all over the evil emperialist entity that is the English, and would much rather see the damn thing dissolved, but yeah, let's fantasise about a new 'Union Flag' that we could all celebrate after we finally killed the beast...  Not that we need bother given said arsehole's fondness for the flag of the United States of America:

US Flag with 51st star for additional state, such as Puerto Rico

One single solitary identical star added for each soulless entity added.  That's it.  That's your glorious national identity right there.  Inspirational, isn't it, that slight adjustment in the field of stars ?...

Far far more inspirational than a simple symbol of the union of three*** nations thus:

I've said it before...I'll say it again... I hate the fuckin' Guardian.


* He actually said this; If he said this in, and regarding the country whose flag he apparently worships, he would likely be shot dead on the spot.

** You really do not want to use that phrase regarding American flags.

*** The Welsh were fucked with the flag, I will admit that much.  And the flag would be much cooler with a dragon.  No...Doubt.

I'll Say It Again: Cameron Killed the Union

This thing with EVEL (English Votes for English Laws) is just stupid and petty.  With English MP's already making up the vast majority of seats in the House of Commons, it isn't likely to have any practical impact, and is essentially just a sop to English nationalists* and Tory MP's, as a sort of 'revenge' for the degree of powers devolved to Scotland, and as an attempt at placating the anger at the concessions that were desperately made during the last minutes of the referendum for independence.

More than petty, it's childish.  And it was utterly insane at the time to start talking up EVEL when the votes of the referendum had scarcely been counted, but the Tories could have quietly dropped the matter after the election, were they serious about maintaining the union, which increasingly, it would seem they are not.  And were they a party of grownups, which also, clearly they are not.

And to push it through by simply changing the rules of parliamentary procedure, when this is something of such constitutional significance is disrespectful not just of the Scots, but of the entire nation.

But I'll let the Indy speak to the matter, in this Q&A from an article which they have headlined 'Nicola Sturgeon threatens second independence referendum over 'English votes for English laws', which is the way everyone seems to be framing it, though I haven't seen an exact quote to support the assertion of a threat, beyond that she suggested it would increase support in Scotland for another referendum.  Which it obviously would.

Q&A: English votes for English laws

Q. So is that it – the West Lothian riddle, finally solved?

A. Not quite. Grayling has merely restructured Westminster’s political games  rather than deliver a  genuine solution. The Tory MP Martin Vickers asked where Grayling’s “stumbling” was heading towards. The answer is either a federalist UK, or Scotland leaving the UK.  No democratic chamber where there are two classes of members is likely to endure.

Q. Surely the government has thought hard on this?

A. No they haven’t.  After the panic-ridden deployment of the “vow” to keep Scotland in the UK club, it took Downing Street only a couple of hours to wreck any post-referendum unity. William Hague was quickly despatched to sketch out a plan to placate English Tories angry at the concessions Scotland was about to be handed. John Redwood offered a plan strikingly similar to what Grayling told the Commons, suggesting not much more thought has gone into this.

Q. The SNP members in the Commons, all 56 of them – they’ll be furious?

A. Furious at what?  The SNP have a vested interest in seeing the union fail, and Pete Wishart  is entirely correct in forecasting Grayling has helped the nationalists’ cause. Extend the consequences of what this means and it’s hard to see how a Scottish MP can ever again become prime minister, or indeed hold many of the top ministry jobs. Limit the ambition of members of any club, and they’ll take their business elsewhere – in this case out of the union.

Q. Is the change really that big?

A. There will be three new legislative grand committees: one for English MPs, one for English and Welsh MPs, and one for English, Welsh and Northern Ireland MPs. They will dictate what a lot of the full House gets to vote on.

Q. So where are the Scots?

A. Exactly.

Q. The SNP MP Ian Blackford asked why the Conservatives are bothering with all this - why not just create an English Parliament ?

A. Good question. Scotland already resembles a one-party state.  The nationalists have tight control of Holyrood.  Labour, the LibDems and the Tories all have only one MP north of the border. This isn’t an English Parliament, but it’s close.

Hundreds of years of unity destroyed in such a short space of time.  And peoples who have intermingled (genetically, culturally, linguistically) for generation upon generation upon generation, now likely to be artificially divided along the lines of ancient arbitrary borders that haven't held that much significant relevance for centuries.  And David Cameron's party would seem to have destroyed it in the course of just one electoral cycle.


* And it still seems a little bizarre to me that there could even be such a thing as English nationalism.  The degree to which a truly Welsh or Scottish identity exists separate from a British identity is vastly overstated, never mind the degree to which one could separate out an English identity.  Other than geography, what does it really mean to be 'English' and not 'British' ?  No-one seems to know.

Drill Baby, Drill...

Nicola Sturgeon will today call on the UK Government to consult urgently on incentives to boost exploration in the North Sea.

The First Minister will make the demand at the annual Oil and Gas UK Conference in Aberdeen.

Figures show that North Sea exploration last year reached its lowest level in at least two decades, with 14 explorations wells drilled compared to 44 in 2008.

The Scottish Government claims the Westminster Government has yet to deliver any follow up action after committing at the end of 2014 to further work on options for supporting exploration through the tax system.

The First Minister will today suggest that financial incentives, such as a new exploration tax credit or an expansion of the investment allowance, will help companies to find new oil.

She will also point to the example of the Johan Sverdrup field in Norwegian waters, which was discovered in 2010 in a mature area which had previously been explored without success.

Speaking ahead of conference, Ms Sturgeon said: “North Sea exploration needs urgent support. You only need to look to Norway to see the impact that effective stewardship and the right policies can have on exploration, where more than 40 exploration wells were drilled in 2014. 

Of coouurrse she will.

Y'know what it is, don'tcha ?: The evil English are blocking new exploration because they want to deny you the revenues for independence.  That, or maybe the oil isn't there to find.  If it were, we'd be drilling.

From the Arctic to the Falklands, from Canadian oil-sands to fracking, energy-companies are looking at just about every possible option to extract every possible molecule of fossil-fuels from the Earth (Never mind the fact that doing do so will likely doom humanity).  And we've been drilling in this part of the world since the 'sixties.

Although, actually, now that I think about it, I'm torn: On the one hand, I do think we need desperately to move away from fossil-fuels.  But, on the other hand, maybe if we gave you your exploratory rigs, and they turned up dry, you might realise how quixotic your dream of an independent Scotland truly is.  Come back to Britain, Nicky !

Is David Starkey Senile ?

David Starkey criticised after comparing SNP to Nazis

TV historian under fire after likening Saltire to swastika and the SNP's view of the English to Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitism.

David Starkey has come under fire after controversially comparing the Scottish National Party to the Nazis during an interview.

The historian and TV presenter said both groups have a “twisted cross” as their symbol – the Saltire and the swastika – and likened the SNP’s view of the English to Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitism.

The comments were criticised as “irresponsible” and “deeply offensive” by a new SNP MP after the party won 56 of 59 seats in Scotland last month,

Mr Starkey made the comments during an interview with The Sunday Times, saying: “What are the points of comparison?

“Well, we have a political movement that has a single historic explanation for why your country is facing such terrible oppression; it's either Versailles or the Treaty of the Union.

“You have a particular group of people who are responsible for this; it is either the English or the Jews.”

He went on: “You have as a symbol the twisted cross: the saltire or the swastika. You have a passionate belief in economic self-sufficiency: known by the Nazis as autarky and the Scots as oil.

“And also you have the propensity of your elderly and middle-aged male supporters to expose their knees,' he said, passing comment on the traditional dress of Scotland and Germany.”

Nothing wrong in calling out the nationalism of the SNP, or nationalism generally.  Nothing wrong with a bit of hyperbole either, although comparing people to Nazis does generally tend to be frowned upon.

And as for the symbol of the SNP, well yes there was an unfortunate angled version of the clootie at one point, and indisputably, it does rather resemble a noose.  What the logo of the SNP is NOT is...the saltire.  It may be based upon the Saint Andrew's Saltire, yes.  As is...this old thing:

And actually, the offset Saint Patrick's Saltire in that flag could arguably be called a 'twisted cross' if you look at it just right.  Which says what about the Irish ? (Well nothing, obviously)  That flag by the way is the flag of the United Kingdom.  Maybe you forgot ?  What it is not is the symbol of the ruling Conservative party.  That would be this (which in its current incarnation is shamelessly nationalistic itself I must say):

And lest we forget, and I'm sometimes guilty of this myself, half the people of Scotland voted against the SNP in the last elections, however many seats they may have won under first-past-the-post.  The SNP is NOT Scotland.  And the Clootie is NOT the Saltire.

In other words:

≠

One is a logo for a political party.  One is...a flag.


Shit, now I'm starting to feel like Father Ted:

* And yes, I do realise that Starkey was probably speaking about the way in which the flag of Scotland is used a symbol by nationalists, just as the Cross of St. George is used by such disparate groups as the BNP and supporters of the England Football-Squad.  Yes, flags can be used as political symbols, but it's just stupid to conflate a political party with an entire nation, and if Starkey were talking about the Scottish people, rather than a political party, then what would we call that but racist ?

And while it might make some sense to compare the SNP's logo (the old angled version especially) to a 'twisted cross', it just doesn't make sense to me for the Saltire.  'Crooked cross', maybe (not that we know for certain at what angles the Romans placed their wooden crosses for the crucifixion to which all these crosses on flags symbolically refer).  But calling it a 'twisted' cross is just pushing the language to its limits.  Is perhaps 'twisting' it in fact.

Is Labour Listening to This ?

A fine speech from the unofficial opposition in Westminster, by a former member of the Labour party.

Wish I'd Said That...

Hmm, why does this sound so familiar to me ?...

SNP will form the real opposition to the Tories, says Angus Robertson

The SNP will be the “real and effective” opposition to the Conservatives, the party’s Westminster leader has said.

With Labour searching for a new leader since Ed Miliband’s resignation, Angus Robertson said the SNP would be a strong voice for people in Scotland and across the UK.

The SNP are now the third-biggest party in the House of Commons with 56 MPs taking their seats when parliament resumes this week.

Robertson said: “For the sake of people in Scotland and across the UK, it is vital that there is a strong and effective opposition to the Tory government at Westminster – and that is a responsibility the SNP are ready and willing to discharge.

“We will work in partnership with the Scottish government and members of the Scottish parliament, and are prepared to reach out across party lines at Westminster.

“Indeed, I believe that the SNP will form the real opposition to the Tories. Labour are leaderless at Westminster and mired in a leadership crisis in Scotland, but the issue is deeper than that.”

It's a mystery.

God Bless the Unofficial Opposition

This is how it's going to be, isn't it ?  Until perhaps Nicola & Alex finally admit to plans for a second referendum.

If we're honest, the stupid naïve nationalism aside, the SNP is the sort of party would-be Labour-voters (and many Greens and some Lib-Dems) were hoping for when they wrote in an 'x' besides the name of a far less credible and/or far more compromised and corrupted party in Westminster.  Thanks to the last-minute desperate fearmongering of Cameron & co., the Union may only have (last year's seemingly now pointless referendum not withstanding) a few years remaining.  But, in the interim, and with the usual slightly-less-right-wing suspects in Westminster politics utterly impotent, Nicola Sturgeon may well be the Union's best defender of traditional social-democratic values.  Alba gu bràth ?

What Family of Nations ?

Is it really just over half a year since the referendum for Scottish independence ?  Hard to believe perhaps with the Tories and the national UK media tripping over one another in England to come up with ever more outlandish scaremongering claims about Nicola Sturgeon & the SNP.  All the promises, all the pandering, all the out-right bribery...  And with the referendum so soon forgotten, and a general election underway in which the SNP could decide the balance of power, it's throw Scotland under the bus time.  If it weren't for Trident, I'd almost be rooting for the SNP myself at this point.

In Which The Telegraph Trolls Scotland

Oh goody, an editorial by Bruce Anderson in the Telegraph.  This the same 'duty to use Torture', 'Torture the wife and children' Bruce Anderson ?

Last Thursday’s debate will have little impact in England. Scotland is another matter. Nicola Sturgeon’s performance has made it inevitable that there will be a constitutional crisis in North Britain and that we will be arguing about Scottish independence for the foreseeable future. Even the French ambassador’s (disputed) account of her apparent attempts to manipulate the balance of power at Westminster will not damage her.

La Sturgeon was effective: clear, confident, combative without being shrill. One could add a fourth “c” word: cold. It is less a question of a splinter of ice in her heart, as a few scraps of heart tissue clinging to an icicle. She has all the human warmth of a tricoteuse waiting for a tumbril. But that was not so apparent during the debate. There is an irony. If she had given such a display as a Labour politician, she would now be the strong favourite to succeed Ed Miliband. As it is, she has expunged any prospect of a Labour recovery in Scotland.... 

 Not shrill you say.  Just a cold-hearted bitch, huh ?  And...' "c" word'...hilarious !

The Scottish public mood is extraordinary. Over the past few months, millions of Scots have been baying at the moon. The most bizarre fantasies have not only circulated; otherwise sane people have given them credence. There are supposed to be massively valuable oilfields whose existence the English are concealing. Though that is about as plausible as Enoch Powell belonging to a satanic cult, it is now part of everyday discourse.

Wait, WTF ?  So The Telegraph, the paper you are currently writing for, reported some bullshit about UKIP & Enoch Powell, and what ?  UKIP are a 'satanic cult' ?  Is that what you're saying ?

The Nat rumour machine also claims that there are large new oilfields to the west of Shetland. But there are three problems with that. First, oil companies have been prospecting in that area, without success. Second, if oil was found, it would be in rough seas. At anything like current oil prices, extraction would not be economic. Third, if Scotland were to secede, Shetland might try to opt out. Those are easy points to make. Scottish friends of mine have been doing so on the doorstep – and getting nowhere.

See nothing to fault here.  And if I was...

How can this be happening? The Scottish Enlightenment represented the triumph of rationalism, always in a calm and restrained fashion. Its philosophers and economists believed in using reason to improve the human condition, not to reshape human nature. They virtually invented free enterprise; they elevated Scotland to the intellectual leadership of Europe. In a splendid setting, the Castle on one side, the sea on the other, their contemporaries laid out the New Town. Calm, rational and beautiful buildings: it is the Enlightenment as architecture.

While it would be absurd to claim that every Scot has read Adam Smith, there were grounds for believing that Enlightenment values had influenced the Scottish character...

Adam Smith.  Of course, Adam Smith, the famous free-market fundamentalist...  A man whose modern-day fictional avatar bears as much resemblance to the original as the Coca Cola Santa Claus to Nikolaos of Myra.

Scots came to think of themselves as shrewd, canny, hard-headed. They persuaded much of the world to accept them at that valuation: a nation of Dickson McCunns. Where is the canniness now?

It was undermined by three historical developments. First came the end of the British Empire. Not only was it often a job-creation scheme for Scots....

Trolling, trolling, trolling...

Once a Royal Duke lowered the final Union Flag, it was easier for malcontents to claim that Scotland was England’s last colony. (Those sentiments are expressed in characteristic language during the film Trainspotting, much the most depressing portrait of Scotland ever written or broadcast.)

There followed the inevitable decline of heavy industry. Two generations ago, most Scots lived within 50 miles of a steelworks, a shipyard, a coalfield – or all three. A lot of Scots regarded that as part of their economic birthright. This came to a rapid end. But it is unfortunate that Margaret Thatcher was prime minister in the final phase....

It was not her fault that globalisation had changed the terms of trade.

Wait, so Globalisation is a thing that...just happened ?  Spontaneously, out of thin air ?  An act of God ?  Something in which the political classes had no hand at all ?

Indeed, on any sensible audit of the Thatcher years, Scotland should regard her as a benefactor.

Still trolling...

Silicon glen, financial services, oil and gas: Thatcherism created the conditions in which the new industries could flourish. But no credit came her way. Her voice did not help; it set many Scottish teeth on edge. That was a childish reaction: there was a lot of childishness about, encouraged by both Labour and Nationalist politicians. It suited them to pour abuse on her and her party, to turn Toryism into political toxic waste.

How dare they ?!!

So there was a quarter of a century of demonisation, which drove economic common sense out of Scottish public debate.

More like a quarter-century of oil-revenues perhaps ?

By the end, many young Scots had come to believe that Scots’ values were superior. Scotland stood for social solidarity, and indeed socialism. It stood for the public sector, not for private enterprise. Mrs Thatcher and her English capitalist friends hated the Scottish ethos, which is why they had set out to destroy the Scottish economy. This brainwashing explains why Nicola Sturgeon will have earned huge applause in Scotland for attacking Ed Miliband from the Left. Scottish Labour helped to sow the dragons’ teeth, never expecting that the dragons would turn on them. They ken the noo.

And still trolling...

Not since the Thirties has a once great nation been in the grip of so many delusions. This is malign thraldom, and it is not clear how it can be ended. Nicola Sturgeon and her party are on the side of Trainspotting Scotland, not Enlightenment Scotland. Yet there is no sign of Scotland coming to its senses.

It's almost like the Tories want Scotland voting SNP, huh ?  And vice-versa ?  But I don't imagine the Telegraph would have any stories speculating upon that particular conspiracy-theory...

Bis: Two Million

I realise this will be my third Bis posting from Return to Central alone.  But fuck, it still kills me that this band never got anyway near its due.

Bis: I'm a Slut

Bis: The End Starts Today

Not even the best moment in the history of what was initially seen/and sadly still remembered as a novelty-indie-pop band:

Bis: A Portrait from Space

Another very promising band that never got their due respect, and were never taken seriously, in their case having established themselves early on with the gimmicky generational references and the cringe-worthy label 'sweet-shop-avengers'.  In another reality, bis would have been modern-day rock gods...