The Enterprise engines now have warp drive back online- A George Laird Production

Hi Folks

In an earlier cgi clip, I showed the Enterprise leaving spacedock, but I didn't know how to animate the engines glowing.

After a bit of studying, like Mr. Scott, I finally have the warp engines online, whoopee, although self taught, it shows how education and life long learning works wonders.

If you play this clip, go full screen and full HD.

George

The Newly Created Lost Generation of Scots, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon demands that Scottish children get 50% face to face learning time in Schools, her empty words and rhetoric show how little she and the SNP leadership care about the life chances of working class children, 50% is not good enough, Sturgeon’s education intervention is part of the SNP’s carefully staged managed persona for her since the PR mileage of ‘Nicola saves Scotland from coronavirus’ is literally is dying a painful death

Dear All

Any country that wants to progress must invest in its most important and valuable resource, that resource is people. The way to invest in people is through education. Education is the route that helps to ensure that working class kids have options. In return for having an educated population, we as a society see benefits, such as tax returns, social cohesion, social mobility and the raising up of society as a whole. If a country doesn’t invest in education it is the worst political decision it can make in both the long term and the short term. The creation of an underclass is one of the most damaging things that a country can produce and then allow to fester. In the wake of coronavirus, we are now seeing how SNP mindset is working to push further back the life chances of the most vulnerable in society.

The greatest lie that Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP ever played on the Scottish people is that they cared for Scotland’s people. Many young Scots who hoped to go to University are going to see their hopes for getting a place in a shrinking quota further diminished by not having the tools to get into higher education. If you didn’t know better you would think judging by the rhetoric that the SNP were a party in opposition instead of controlling the levers of power of the Scottish Government. An example of what I have written is Nicola Sturgeon is ‘warning’ councils she expects pupils to be taught at least half the time in a classroom when schools return in August.

Working class Scottish kids need to be in school 100% of the time, plus they also need access to private tutors, private tutors are still the preserve of the rich. As someone who uses the Glasgow libraries, I have seen private school kids getting further education from private tutors even before the coronavirus hit Scotland. Working class Scottish kids from the most disadvantaged backgrounds aren’t being given a level playing field.

And they never were!

The hypocrisy of Nicola Sturgeon saying she has “concerns” about anything less than 50 per cent face-to-face teaching time is a sick joke. Under the SNP, the downward trend for Scots kids continues. Whatever measures are put in place by councils will not be enough, and the idea that the Scottish Government wants class time “maximised” is meaningless. You see when it comes to learning, people learn at different speeds and a key element in learning which opens up the wonder of understanding a subject is the ability to analyse. The ability to analyse, to breakdown a subject is crucial, you might call it ‘getting a hook’ where suddenly everything basically lines up in your mind and with that bedrock, you can achieve comprehensive understanding.

What is proposed by the SNP as help isn’t really going to be effective unless they can bring back 100% teaching time. Ideas like teaching on a Saturday and working through the October holiday isn’t going to make up the additional 50% of teaching time lost. Years ago, I came up with an idea of Scotland having, ‘community colleges’, this idea wasn’t new but new for Scotland, the community colleges would be run out of schools. This idea was all about bring the Japanese method of ‘cramming colleges’ to address the fact that poor kids couldn’t afford private tutors. The Japanese see the value of education at a young age as the best platform to prepare their kids for higher education or the world of work. Such an idea never came to the UK because the politicians found no value in it because they send their kids to private schools.

John Swinney, the SNP Education Minister prior to coronavirus has done a bad job of protecting kids’ futures. Nothing he has done in my mind shows he has Scotland’s best interests at heart. He failed to overturn CfE, a botched project on learning, and like the rest of the SNP leadership, he is more keen on bring an lgbt agenda into schools so that very young kids learn about anal sex among other things. John Swinney is too all intensive purposes a front man for the lgbt community of the SNP, the ‘enlightened heterosexual’.

So, what is the intervention of Nicola Sturgeon about when education secretary John Swinney said it was “unlikely” schools would be back to normal by summer 2022? It is all about a PR stunt to give the impression to the public that ‘Nicola Cares’. This is the continuation of slick PR scheme that the Nationalists have run with since she took over the leadership from Alex Salmond. Sturgeon, an angry bitter poisonous wee woman was given ‘make over’, hair, clothes, shoes and media training in an attempt to appear likeable. But the reality is that Nicola Sturgeon isn’t likeable as a person, there is something deeply rotten in her soul which she struggles continually to stop bursting out.

One thing, I don’t buy into is when the Scottish Tories claimed Sturgeon was “desperate” to wrestle back control of the subject from Mr Swinney. The SNP operate under the ‘Cult of Personality’, where the leader has full control and Ministers are autonomous up until the leader makes a decision which must be carried out. What the Scottish Tories got right that that the SNP are sowing confusion. The confusion is part of an act or mini play in which the ending is already written before the first act, the leader Nicola Sturgeon steps in to provide almost fairytale wisdom. In this case, like Swinney, Nicola Sturgeon is out of depth regarding education, how it is taught and how the provision of how it is delivered.

Both Swinney and Sturgeon don’t have real teaching experience!

Sturgeon saying her Scottish Government would now scrutinise council school plans and ask them to “reconsider and revise” to me is a superficial understanding of the real deep seated and systemic problems. The SNP are a party which pretty much exclusive operate on short term strategy, in the 13 years of government, Scotland is not a better place for people who are working class. Sturgeon thinks that throwing money at a problem is the solution to everything, which the analysis of how it is spent, when it is spent, who is spending it, and what is the overall effect of the spending of cash.   

Sturgeon’s intervention now is a rebuke to councils who have angered parents by already announcing plans for pupils to return for one day a week or for a third of the week. Her stepping in is all about seizing an opportunity to garner votes ahead of the 2021 Holyrood election. Apparently ‘Nicola saves Scotland’ from coronavirus might not be panning out as she and the SNP hoped for, the care home deaths and the overall total of deaths in Scotland isn’t an endorsement of her leadership.

Last Friday, John Swinney said he would like to see the face-to-face teaching “being applied at as close to 50 per cent as it possibly can be”. In contrast SNP-led Edinburgh City Council told parents only 33% of a school’s roll would be in school at any one time, and schools would only open Monday to Thursday. To me, this looks like a staged event undersell and then in comes Sturgeon to raise expectations. What sells this nonsense is a timid and compliant press, so we have at her daily briefing, Sturgeon being asked if the one day in three was good enough and whether she would consider a Scotland-wide minimum for face-to-face teaching in schools. For many who follow football, they will be familiar with the ‘set piece’, and this little episode has all the hallmarks of a staged little drama.

Sturgeon said:

“I would say very clearly, No I don’t think that is good enough. I said very clearly in my opening remarks we have to start from a point of seeking to maximise, absolutely maximise, the amount of time children will spend in a school environment having face-to-face learning with their teachers. While we have necessary safety constraints in place, that will, for a period mean that is not 100% of time being spent in school. But one of the things we will be looking at as we scrutinise the plans is whether there should be a minimum that we seek to have. That’s work we will consider in the days ahead.”

So, a lot of jargon, meaningless jargon at that with no promises, so also not the use of words, “  we have to start from a point of seeking to maximise, absolutely maximise, the amount of time children will spend in a school environment having face-to-face learning with their teachers”.

This is hope with no substance, designed to get Sturgeon over a low bar hurdle, no real pressure from the press in her carefully staged managed interviews. Nicola Sturgeon added teachers, pupils and parents had to be confident that schools would be safe, and the Government would ask its education experts on lessons from other countries. This means she intends to copy others which is another hallmark of her SNP Government, and shows a lack of knowledge in depth or the ability to be creative.

She also said:

“I want to get as quickly as we can, and as quickly as is safe and feasible, back to a position where young people have normal schooling just as quickly as possible. We will do that in absolute good faith. The priority for all of us must be the highest quality education for our young people, and to do everything we may be required to do to ensure that any impact on children’s education does not adversely affect them in the longer term. I cannot stress enough how much that means to me personally and the Government.”

One thing if you observe the SNP in action is that they don’t operate in ‘good faith’. In her threat to compel councils to offer a minimum standard of face-to-face learning, the issue is time. Smaller classes will mean more classes, and more classes mean longer hours for teachers. Compelling councils who either don’t have the money or the staff doesn’t really solve the problem, because the problem is time.

The problem is Time!

Scottish Tory education secretary Jamie Greene said:

“We are now several months into this crisis and that’s more than enough time for the SNP to have come up with a nationwide plan to maximise in-class schooling. Instead, all we’re seeing is more confusion, mixed messaging, and a chronic lack of leadership. Parents and teachers won’t know who to listen to – the First Minister or the education secretary – as their stories are increasingly different. Councils are being left in the dark and left in the lurch. This was a desperate attempt by Nicola Sturgeon to wrestle back control of this issue from John Swinney, who she clearly thinks has made a mess of things in recent days. As a result of this shambolic incompetence, right across Scotland children will miss out on huge swathes of education, and parents will simply be unable to return to work under current SNP plans. This is much than attainment; this is going to hamper Scotland’s economic recovery in the short, medium and long-term.”

Finally, Scotland used to have one of the best educational systems in the world; those days truly are long gone and seem permanently to remain as part of a bygone era. The claims of Nicola Sturgeon standing up for Scottish kids regarding their education are nonsense, as fake as her claims about standing up for Scotland. Over 13 years, the SNP had an opportunity to fix the broken system of education but instead choose to put others above working class kids at every opportunity. Whether it is 33% or 50% of face to face teaching time in Scotland’s schools, it isn’t good enough. What is needed is a return to a minimum of 100%, then that is the start point for the debate on the educational inequality which exists and is never tackled. We are seeing another lost generation of working class kids who have no real future; this has been solely created by Nicola Sturgeon and her SNP cohorts.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University 

Candidate for Immediate Resignation, Bungling SNP Health Sec Jeane Freeman is a burden that Scotland can no longer afford to carry, Freeman is forced to admit that 1800 people were infected at Scottish NHS Hospitals, this was reported as 125 Covid-19 incidents, Holyrood has lost confidence in Freeman as calls for her to resign mount, for a party that says it wants a ‘grown up’ conversation with the public, ‘their version’ of the truth stinks to high heaven!

Dear All

In a recent poll, some people thought that the SNP should have more powers to control who comes into Scotland via our ports and airports. The question put to people was:

"Do you think people in Scotland would be more safe or less safe if the UK Government’s decision-making powers relating to the lockdown were transferred to the Scottish Government?”

I see this as a loaded question because people instinctively will think that local people on the ground would have a better understanding of what is needed. That theory might have appeal but the reality in Scotland is that the SNP under Nicola Sturgeon and Jeane Freeman, the health Secretary are not having a good pandemic. What they did was allowed untested people to be placed into care homes, they were in effect ticking time bombs of disease, or if you prefer, booby traps lying in wait for people (staff) to pick up the disease then spread it to other residents and staff.

It was well beyond the mental capacity of the Health Sec Jeane Freeman to understand that a virus can spread, and putting untested people into care homes is a danger, apparently it is said that she is ‘learning’.  

The latest poll by panelbase is dogwhistle politics; it has been commissioned by an independence supporter, James Kelly.

 http://scotgoespop.blogspot.com/

I would say that the real agenda of the Nationalists is to use the pandemic as a cover, to promote the idea and allow the narrative to germinate that the SNP should control the borders, then move on to control of inward immigration to Scotland. Once the SNP have control of immigration, they will gerrymander an independence vote in their favour by flooding the country with low skilled and poorly educated immigrants. The way the SNP work is to try and engineer voter caches, such as they have done with the Muslim vote. The UK Government is wise to this tactic and they aren’t going to give the SNP control of the borders, and they are not going to give them control of immigration either. I would say the panelbase question is worded to create a positive response in favour of the SNP Government.

If people think that Nicola Sturgeon and Jeane Freeman are doing a good job, they are so wrong and out of touch; Sturgeon’s daily TV show is all about presenting certain figures which paint her in a good light. What her TV show is about now is campaigning for the Holyrood 2021 election, which the opposition should be speaking out against, in parliament and in the press.

The true figure of deaths in Scotland is circa 4,000, given the UK death toll of 40,000 plus, there is no evidence of a good job being done by the Nationalists, quite the opposite in fact. What we have here is SNP media manipulation where they are the only ones doing the talking, while at the same time limiting the ability of the press to question them. Pretty much the press questioning of Nicola Sturgeon has been uniformly weak at the daily briefings.

Here is how they have done it using the figures; around 1800 people could have been infected with coronavirus during the hospital outbreaks which killed 218 patients in Scotland. But the SNP manipulated the truth by saying that there had been 125 "incidents" of Covid on non-Covid wards. They did not say how many people were involved; people thought that meant 125 patients and the SNP let people continue to think that. What the SNP done was put their spin on it in order to look good and give the impression that our hospitals were safe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Scotland

The SNP position is that they told the truth, they told ‘their version’ of the truth and then by omission left out information which the Scottish public would reasonably expect to be told. As the news emerges that 1800 people and not 125 were infected in hospitals, this has led to the Scottish Tories to stepping up calls for Health Sec Jeane Freeman’s dismissal. Freeman however won’t be fired and she won’t resign, her ‘job’ in the pandemic now is as a political bullet magnet so that Nicola Sturgeon remains untarnished. Health Sec Jeane Freeman is having a seriously bad pandemic, the fact it took the press putting pressure on the SNP Government who then cracked and said the 125 incidents had involved 908 patients shows you a stark picture of a government in decline and willing to practice what some might term as deceit.

Scottish Conservative Miles Briggs had a run in Freeman over why the full details had not disclosed at the outset. Her excuse was to say that the data has been un-validated. Each day at Sturgeon’s press conference, you hear a multitude of facts and figures, but suddenly these figures cannot now be validated, does she really think we, the people of Scotland are mugs? I suspect she does hold us all in contempt because after getting caught, she said, she had published the data (forced) in an effort to be helpful, but said she would not be doing so again.

Miles Briggs was apparently jeered by SNP MSPs when he said Ms Freeman should apologise to families for the “misleading picture” that had developed around the spread of Covid in hospital wards. Jeering people is a trademark of the SNP politicians, they sit behind Sturgeon, say and do nothing for the people of Scotland, but when their leader is attacked, they suddenly find their voice. Holyrood controlled by the SNP is a farce as a parliament; it is a body which now serves the SNP.

He added:

“Why did ministers decide to define almost 1,000 people as incidents? Will she now commit to publishing more accurate figures so that Parliament can have the true picture of what is happening in hospitals?”

Freeman replied:

“In publishing un-validated data, I was attempting to be helpful. It is a lesson that I have now learned.These are suspected transmissions, suspected cases and suspected deaths linked to them, and the validated data will be published by the end of the month, I hope.

Mr Briggs has chosen to take un-validated data and pretend that it is validated. That is inexcusable. If anyone needs to apologise to the people of Scotland for sending them off with un-validated nonsense, it is Mr Briggs. It is certainly not me.”

When held to account, the modus operandi of the SNP is to attack the messenger and attempt to push the message into the background. In a series of bad-tempered exchanges, Freeman also accused Miles Briggs for "mumbling at me; he should be listening".  This exchange is why Holyrood opposition MSPs need to stand up like Miles Briggs has done and ram the truth down the SNP’s throats and do it publicly.

The people of Scotland need to know the truth, to go get the truth, you have to force it out of the SNP.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said the drip-drip way the information had been disclosed had “shaken my confidence in what the Government is telling us”. 

Do you think from reading this latest sorry episode of SNP failure that this is a government you can trust with your health, your family’s health, with the health of the wider community?

Finally, the opposition has lost faith in the Health Sec Jeane Freeman, the calls to resign will not be heeded, but in a post pandemic Scotland, once the dust has settled, there will be a lot of families who lost mothers, fathers and grandparents in Scottish care homes. These people could have been saved, but the health sec wasn’t bright enough, didn’t act fast enough and although the body count is circa 4000, do we really want Freeman in post if and when a second wave of the coronavirus hits us? Does anyone know or has asked her what prep has been done for a possible second wave, after all planning saves lives. 

Something that health sec Jeane Freeman found out coming rather late to the coronavirus party.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

The End of a Political Saga: Former socialist MSP and Independence campaigner Tommy Sheridan fails to overturn perjury conviction, 14 years of time, money and effort ends in total disaster at the UK Supreme Court as Sheridan is told, application refused, his demise was a bitter pyrrhic victory for his former party, the SSP who lost all their MSPs, as the smoke clears Sheridan emerges £376,000 better off, a decent house in Glasgow, a law degree, a career on Kremlin-funded propaganda outlet Sputnik, what is the SSP tally of success?

Dear All

When Tommy Sheridan started his epic journey with his criminal trial for perjury conviction, I wrote that he needed a trial lawyer. Sheridan on the other hand after sacking his lawyers decided to fight his case by himself; having used this tactic previously in his civil case. It was Tommy Sheridan against the World (the establishment) which is why his case attracted so much press attention. He thought wrongly that showmanship could win the day; the Crown Office went with evidence and witnesses. Although in cases of this type, it is acceptable to show support for the victim, the victim on this docket was the News of the World who was mired in its own troubles over phone hacking.

Sheridan and the News of the World had history together, and neither liked each other. Tommy Sheridan railed against ‘the Murdoch Press’ who he despised because they generally publicly backed the UK government of the day. Rupert Murdock has been pro Conservatives and pro Labour in his time, but the truth is that his newspapers didn’t really change minds. The affect newspapers have on public opinion has diminished as the internet has opened up so many other news sources, the internet effectively killed off the printed press’s power. You could also add; the fact that the mainstream media was seen to be biased also did for them as well, when you present opinion as fact, massage the truth or paint a one side picture under the guise of impartiality, you are on a very slippery slope to demise.

After a lengthy stint in prison which the judge thought was necessary, I didn’t, Tommy Sheridan emerged from the clink with passion, renewed passion for Scottish independence. His political career in total shreds, refusing to accept his guilt; indy seemed an ideal vehicle to rejuvenate himself with the public. The SNP and the Scottish Greens shunned him and his indy campaign because of the way he allegedly treated women, but I think this was more to do with the power dynamic of who speaks as the ‘voice of Scottish independence’. It was claimed during his trial that Sheridan had allegedly ‘done’ a few women while party leader of the SSP. Cheating on your wife as we have seen by some party leaders and their senior leadership chums seems to be rather in vogue in Scotland. Some however prefer to operate in a quieter and less public way than others; female staffers for some seemed a good hunting ground, as were the female press and of course political ‘groupies’. On the one hand, we had some politicians creating a public image of “nobleness” around their person while in private trying to slip between the sheets with younger, firmer flesh. All the while the dear old wifey was nicely tucked away safe at home, keeping the house clean and hanging out the laundry, basically holding the fort down.

All this heterosexual sex flying about the place in Scottish politics created such outrage!

In a sense, Tommy Sheridan had a decent independence campaign with more opposition against him coming from the self righteous SNP and Scottish Greens. His cloth cut, Sheridan sailed on regardless, his oratory skills being much better than some of the main front men and women put forward the Yes Scotland, SNP and Scottish Greens side. His former colleagues of the SSP such as Colin Fox didn’t want Sheridan in Yes Scotland, and neither did anyone else. Tommy Sheridan was colourful in a way that others weren’t, he could hold a crowd were others struggled to find a voice.

Oh how the, SNP, Scottish Greens and SSP hated him!  

So, Sheridan, an outcast ploughed his own field, as to the pro UK side, they really didn’t care about Sheridan and his redemption mission, they were fighting hard, one more to the opposing team really didn’t make much difference to them. My view was if he wants to campaign, ‘on you go’, his campaigning was tarnished and the fact he had been in the jail for perjury was like an anchor round his neck. In Sheridan’s case, a lot of his troubles were all self inflicted and so it was as to his political downfall. Let’s face it, when the News of the World story broke about his antics, he could have played the ‘troubles in the relationship’ card. He could have waited till the heat died down and the press moved on. In a post Sheridan downfall world, many current politicians have been caught trying to get extra sex rations, they survived, in a sense Tommy Sheridan’s demise showed a clear blueprint and route out of cheating on your wife.

Don’t do what he did, stay silent and stay out the road!

In the movies, you mostly see the ‘good guys’ fighting the ‘bad guys’ and in such movies, the bad guys always lose, especially in big budget movies where the telling of a moral tale is seen as essential for commercial success. As the Sheridan criminal trial went along, I found myself wanting Sheridan to get off, not because I believed he was innocent, but because I found the whole thing a waste of time, money and effort. Did the jury get it right, well yes, they did, but this sordid tale was so farcical that I thought the Crown taking a hit would be a hoot. As Charles Dance said to such joy in the movie, ‘The Last Action Hero’, “in this universe, the bad guys can win”, he might have also qualified that statement by saying, it ‘depends status’!

‘God loves a Trier’, and Sheridan certainly is that, which is why he has fought so long and so hard to get his perjury conviction overturned. You have to admire the enormous effort he has put in over the course of his 14 year saga. He was taken his claim all the way to the UK Supreme Court. Three justices of the Court however have refused his recent application as it did “not raise an arguable point of law”. Personally, I am amused that he didn’t try the; ‘I did it but I don’t like the verdict’ option because it was probably just as viable as any other defence he has put up. In the grand scheme of things, it is time for Sheridan to ‘own that shit’. If there is an apocalypse tomorrow it wouldn’t matter anyway or even to the Scottish people now, only the press and his political enemies see mileage in it, for their political benefit.

I seriously doubt that it will affect his relationship with the Russians and his job as a fixture on the Kremlin-funded propaganda outlet Sputnik, his ‘Scottish Roubles’ to me in my mind seem secure. If you haven’t seen Tommy Sheridan’s house on the southside of Glasgow, it looks pretty good for a guy who has been in the nick. The Russians probably see value in having Sheridan in their employment, just as they see value in having Alex Salmond on RT. Salmond and Sheridan are both good speakers, and for a time, I thought if things went bad for Salmond in his criminal trial, then Sheridan might have got a shot on RT in The Tommy Sheridan Show.

Like football, anything can happen!    

In his day, Tommy Sheridan attracted a lot of attention for his poll tax stance, he made a real name for himself, but as with a lot of figures from the left who preach to the working classes, he destroyed himself. He has rebuilt his life, he has a career, decent house, and he is still someone who can argue and amuse, unlike our current political class. The current political classes are really boring, lifeless and robotic, people don’t expect help from them as constituents anymore; Sheridan did bring a certain sense of change which turned out to be a false dawn for Scots.

Finally; one thing, Tommy Sheridan can take some comfort from is that he is allowed to keep his £200,000 defamation award and in 2018 won another £176,000 in interest. No doubt, if there is another Scottish independence campaign, he will have a head start over other indy supporters with his Kremlin-funded propaganda outlet Sputnik. The jealously and bile against him will be in full flood from the LGBT controlled SNP, if indyref 2 ever happens, the SNP will have plenty to say at that time on their new found interest in defending ‘women’s rights’. The irony will not be lost on others when you know the SNP hypocrites have been attacking women’s rights lately.  It seems in politics that women are a ‘tool to be used’ by some, the only difference is how they are used.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University 

NOT A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS; Former First Minister Henry McLeish says ‘Scotland needs to bypass UK on Brexit’ to get a Scottish only extension, the EU can’t grant a Scottish only extension because they can only legally deal with the UK Government, and Boris Johnson will not countenance playing the SNP game, 31st December 2020 should finally see an end to nationalist delusion on the EU once the transition period ends

Dear All

Do you know what a contract is?

There are many types of contracts in law, but the one I want to blog on is the contract between the Common Market which evolved into EU and the UK signed in 1973.

In the UK, the contract is not held by parliament but by the UK government which when we signed was run by PM Ted Heath. You would think that concept is pretty straightforward to understand, but to be even clearer; the contract is not held by the devolved administrations which never existed when we signed up for membership. The devolved administration don’t have a platform in law, or legal standing in their own right regarding matters which are the sole jurisdiction of the UK government as it relates to EU membership. This is clearly set out in the Acts that set these bodies up.

Reserved matters mean exactly that in law…… reserved!

Former Labour first minister Henry McLeish is an independence agitator, his career as FM ended very quickly and very badly. Since he left politics, you would think he was a card carrying member of the SNP as he spouts his independence drivel. At present, he has come up with a piece of nonsense which makes you grateful that his tenure as FM was cut short. He is calling on Nicola Sturgeon to make a direct request to the European Union for a Scottish-only extension. As the Brexit talks flounder due to bad will on the EU side and the risk of no deal Brexit gain traction, McLeish thinks a Scottish-only extension will protect Scotland. There are several issues why this isn’t possible, the first is that the Scottish Government doesn’t hold a contract with the EU, and second, the EU cannot interfere with the domestic politics of member states.

Given those two simple facts, there is no basis, legal or otherwise that allows Nicola Sturgeon to get a Scottish-only extension. And to hammer home another hard fact, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said clearly, he will not be seeking an extension if no deal is reached before the end of the year. Under the current Brexit implementation period, we have six months left; this means the UK remains in the European single market and customs union, allowing free movement of goods, services and people. After that period of time runs out, we should be completely sovereign, and I think that it is obvious why the EU has said it would accept a further extension.

They want another two years of British taxpayer money to shore up faltering EU economies which have been badly affected by the coronavirus.

In truth the EU never really prepared for a British exit, no restructuring of their operations, they thought they would keep milking us for cash and being tied to their rules. They want to drag this out as long as possible since their Plan A failed. Plan B is change of government in the UK, and then present the British people with a bad deal or remain under the former conditions. If you remember what happened in Ireland, the people were betrayed by the politicians after they voted against the EU.

December 31^st 2020 should be the real Brexit day celebration.

At present, the Remainers in the UK are hyping up the fear level, saying that a No-deal means high trade levies on imports and exports. This they argue will potentially pushing up consumer costs, guess what, we can claw back the money by charging the EU countries for our goods and services; we can also cut them out and buy goods and services outside the EU. The EU needs our money badly, and without that, their quality of life goes down. Europe is awash with cash from Britain, that money comes from big business right down to the ordinary Brit who spends, spends, spends while on their holidays.

McLeish said:

“We can’t hang around and wait for the triple challenge to Scotland of a health pandemic, an economic recession and a No-deal Brexit. Nicola Sturgeon could ask for a Scotland-only extension. She could say ‘as First Minister, I am making direct representations to Brussels for Scotland to be exempt from leaving on January 1’ – acknowledging she is only speaking for Scotland – and pointing out Scotland voted to remain. She could be showing the rest of the United Kingdom we are sufficiently concerned about Scotland, that she is making a direct approach. This is beyond UK politics, its beyond UK left or right. This is about the survival of an economy and society which does not need the menace of a [No-deal] Brexit looming.”

So, what did he say there?

He said nothing!

Under the Withdrawal Agreement, it is up to the UK Government to seek an extension for the whole of the UK. A point also worth noting is that there is no goodwill between the UK Govt and SNP Govt. Those bridges went up in flames long before Brexit was even a white paper by the pettiness and nastiness of the SNP.

No UK PM or UK Minister is going to request a Scottish only extension.

McLeish added:

“There are going to be incredible consequences and challenges ahead from the pandemic. We need time as nations and as the United Kingdom to move forward, deal with the issues and then have a long, hard look at what might be a very different future. In that context, I think it is serious enough for the Scottish Government, who lack legal powers in this area, to be speaking to the negotiators in Brussels, to be speaking to the European Parliament, to be speaking to the Commission to make it clear that is about delaying exit, nothing more. The United Kingdom can’t handle, in my judgement, a health emergency, an economic recession with possibly worse to come, and exiting from the European Union.”

Due to the level of incompetence in Scottish politics, you might that this revelation would carry some weight, but in the halls of Westminster, the art of walking, talking and chewing gum has been mastered. In political terms, Westminster is the seat of learning and Holyrood is the pre-school nursery. The fact that the Remainers want an extension to December 2022 is a red herring; they are trying to get to their midterm objective which is an election, in an attempt to oust the Conservatives. The ultimate goal is to rob and invalid the democratic vote of the 2016 EU referendum made by the people.

The SNP haven’t grasped four years down the line, that their plan to bypass the EU membership rules if ever they where to win a Scottish Independence referendum is dead. For their ill-planned scheme to work, the UK has to stay in the EU, and then they think they can simply transfer across, which is not legal. The stupidity of the idea is incredible to try and wrap your head around, it calls for the EU rules to be legally abandoned, it calls for EU member states to be denied their right of veto, which will never be allowed, and it calls for the suspension of belief that the UK will go along with whatever the SNP wants. Think of the SNP plan in much the same way as a square wheel.

Finally, this crass argument by Henry McLeish isn’t new, it isn’t legally, it isn’t valid, and it isn’t workable, it requires other people to agree to something they don’t want and is not in their national interests. Henry McLeish can keep flogging his dead horse, but no amount of flogging will generate life. As I mentioned before countless times on the blog, the EU can have nothing to do with the SNP Government in Holyrood. This is because it leaves them open to the charge of political interference in a member state. When the UK finally finishes with the EU on 31^st December 2020, so should Scotland despite all the stupid concessions the SNP gives to EU citizens and Students. You might ask, who pays for this SNP Govt generosity, Scots, hit both ways, in their pay packets and by a lack of opportunities, especially in things like education. Where was Henry McLeish when it came to standing up for them, where is the wisdom of Sir Thomas More?

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University     

Scottish Labour, 13 Years of Operating Badly; Labour MP Ian Murray says; Labour needs a major revival in Scotland to stand any chance of putting Starmer in Downing St, well leaving aside that he is several years late in reaching that conclusion, what does he have in mind, where does he want to start, and why can’t he see that Federalism would kill a Scottish Labour election campaign stone dead in its tracks!

Dear All

The right wing of the Labour Party has attracted the tag ‘Blairities’, and as much as this group harks back to the ‘success’ of the Blair era as their mantra for ruling the party, they are hanging onto a delusion. The delusion is that there can be a return to Blair-ism; sadly their focus is power rather than an examination of what they did wrong. In a sense, domestically and foreign policy wise, the Blair years were a failure, a house of cards which had no foundations. Tony Blair did much that made people turn away from the Labour Party; the bedroom tax and Iraq are only two examples which led to an exodus by the working class. The Blair years were responsibly for many injustices which is why following this doctrine is a road to nowhere; certainly not power.  

Ex-PM David Cameron gets the blame for Brexit, but the foundations for leaving the EU were laid years before in the Blair era. In the Blair years, a social engineering experiment of unfettered immigration was fostered on the British people under the lie of economic reasons. No one voted for this social engineering experiment of unfettered immigration and it didn’t appear in the Labour manifesto. Brexit was a surprise to the elite but not to the poor and disadvantaged who saw that their quality of life was steadfastly suffering. Having such big majorities, Labour MPs thought they were safe, they needn’t listen to complaints from constituents or really stand up for them against the system.

If there should have been a wake-up call, you might have thought that a decade ago plus when the Labour project lost Holyrood should have sent alarms bells ringing, it didn’t. The direction of travel for the party had been set well before Labour lost Holyrood. Holyrood far from bringing wealth and prosperity, a better Scotland was stuffed to the gunnels with people who were third rate politicians in a second rate parliament. In the 20 years of Holyrood, Scotland remains a country were social divides remain between rich and poor, in jobs, social opportunities, social mobility, health and education.

The direction of travel for the poor has been one way under devolution down.

As the fortunes of the working class declined, so did the fortunes of the Scottish Labour Party. It led people to ask the question, why, why vote for people who will not help you?

So, where did the Labour Party vote go? A large part simply moved over to the SNP, and other parts of the vote split between other parties and apathy as people disliked various issues and stances that the party leadership adopted. The voting record tells a story but the numbers don’t tell the full picture of how at key political moments decline was accelerated.

Blair-ism lost the Scottish Labour Party, the vote in Scotland but like the Democrats in America who re-wrote their history, we have seen the blame along with the help of the media laid at the feet of Jeremy Corbyn. Blair-ism lost Scotland, and various incarnations of it and then Corbyn-ism couldn’t get it back.

For a number of years, I have said and written that the Scottish Labour Party needs a major revival in Scotland, it needs a new campaigning model, but fixing what it wrong at an operational level isn’t enough. The problems also extend to people and policies. After several Labour MSPs were repeatedly rejected by the public, they were giving MPs slots at the 2019 elections. If the public won’t vote for them as MSPs, why did anyone think they would vote for them as MPs. The Scottish Labour election of 2019 was a disaster much in the same way at the 2015 and 2017 Westminster Elections were also. The party after 2019 instead of asking what went wrong decided to ask members what they did that was right. I don’t know about you, but the opinions of what others thought was right hasn’t the same currency of what was done wrong or badly. You fix problems not what is right! The Scottish Labour Party as I mentioned previously in other posts is in no fit state to go campaigning.

The party leadership doesn’t grasp that or simply chose to ignore it.

In the wake of Keir Starmer’s win as leader, the right-wing of the Labour Party thinks that this is their time, Corbyn is out, his Gen Sec is out, and were asked to believe that Keir Starmer is the solution to the Scottish problem. Well, the evidence so far doesn’t support this; Starmer’s declaration of interest in federalism shows how much he doesn’t understand the Scottish dynamic. You could say his poster boy in Scotland is anti Corbyn MP Ian Murray who is the sole Labour MP in Scotland… again. Murray also thinks as me that a major revival is needed in Scotland, and if there is no revival then the chances of Keir Starmer becoming PM are effectively zero. As it stands at present, the party would need to win at least 10 but in reality 20 Scottish seats would be more useful if it would ever achieve its largest ever landslide victory to put Keir Starmer into Downing St.

Murray says that in order to get a victory, it should be based on a pledge to reject a second Scottish independence referendum; this reminds me of Jim Murphy’s disastrous 2015 ‘buy a pint at a fitba game’ pledge. Poor people rejected the party and here we have Murray thinking that ‘waving a flag’ is going to get them back. Why are the Scottish Labour Party’s pro-UK credentials so bad, well Kezia Dugdale effectively destroyed them, when she was leader of the party in Scotland. This led to the Scottish Conservative revival in Scotland, at cllr level and at MP level. Federalism isn’t going to bring back the working class Scottish vote; that is a delusion which only exists in the minds of people who don’t understand Scotland and why people turned their back on the party.

So, what is Ian Murray also pitching?

He says;

“Jeremy Corbyn was a “disaster” for Labour in Scotland as evidenced by its performance in the 2019 election”.

Hanging the tag for 2019 on Corbyn is unfair, what he fails to explain that it was the right-wing who buried the Scottish Party by a lack of a work ethic at Holyrood.

“he had offered to “wipe the slate clean” with Richard Leonard, the Corbynite Scottish Labour leader, to help improve the party’s fortunes in Scotland”.

Wipe the slate clean as if that means anything, could it be that Murray knows the right- wing of the party aren’t in a position to remove him, I guess he does.  Begs the question, who started it?

“his party had a “credibility gap” with the public on the economy, which it had to close”.

But he doesn’t say what the credibility gap is, presumably because listing things will make people angry, very angry.

*Labour had to crack on to formulate ahead of the next election a convincing policy of “radical federalism” for the UK, which would involve taking powers from Holyrood and giving them to local communities in Scotland.

On this single issue going to the polls saying they want to introduce Federalism with a people’s mandate is enough to destroy an entire election campaign. Think of this as like pouring oil in a water drinking supply and then see if they are any takers to drink.

*Boris Johnson’s Government was the “worst in history”.

A million Scots voted Brexit, Boris is committed to delivering Brexit, and given the help of people during coronavirus such as financial that claim doesn’t stack up.

*under Sir Keir’s leadership the Tories were in the “fight of their lives”.

How do you respond to that affirmation, well quite simply the Conservatives aren’t in a fight, being wise post event about things that went wrong doesn’t make you smart, and it doesn’t make you seem to have a handle on leadership either. What has Keir Starmer achieved as leader, in short, not a lot, he hasn’t fixed the party, he hasn’t fixed the Scottish problems, he hasn’t placed any policies which inspire the public, so again, what has he done?

Finally, what is needed at the Scottish Labour Party is really change at an organizational and operational levels which will encourage the membership to want to come out and support the party in a variety of ways which at present is not happening. A review of staffing in Scotland is long overdue, a series of policies which make sense, and supporting economic growth is a given, while at the same time, shift the dynamic on social mobility.  I also think that there should be an end to positive discrimination and a return to advancement through merit. Positive discrimination isn’t positive; it is a tool of discrimination given legitimacy by the middle class who run the party in leadership positions. So far, other than telling me what I know and many others know about reform, Ian Murray really isn’t saying very much at all. Scottish votes were taken for granted now they have to be fought for, and who is going to do it unless there is change?

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University