A Song or Three for St Andrew's Day

In two years, this day could be fkn huge. The mother of all independence days. In the meantime, pour yourself a Laphroaig and sing along.

First up, Frightened Rabbit. The sentiments of this song could only be more Scottish if they were sung with alternating verses in Gàidhlig, Pictish and Brythonnic.



Next up is the (haggard) face of new Gaelic music. Except, it's an auld song in English. The topic though is one that is still sadly current. As long as we still have native Scots living in damp caravans in Lochaber or Skye while the rich of many nations own acres of land, we won't be free as a nation. Independence is our chance to solve this injustice.



Lastly, we have a Sasannach and ex-Labour supporter reminding the current Scottish Labour leader that pensioners, the sick, disabled, unemployed and students don't wan't "something for nothing". Especially while London's governments, both Tory and Labour, plough £billions into war.



Slàinte mhath. Air adhart do Alba shaor aig a bheil ceartas na crìdhe.

Homegrown Horrors for Halloween

On Oidhche Shamhna - the night before Samhain - the door between 'our' world and the world of the dead was reputed to open, allowing for all manner of supernatural beings to pass into the realm of the living. As per usual, it is an apt time to run an eye over the make-believe horrors that those in power, or those in the tabloids, deem to be a threat to our way of life.

Foreigners are usually a good bet. Especially those we see as immigrants - not 'ex-pats' like the English abroad - and asylum seekers. Last year though, saw 'the enemy within' take the limelight.

This year, its a bit of both.

Taking our jobs, having our babies, not going home.

Foreigners. There's nothing quite like a bit of bother from others to get the Great British knickers in a twist. This year, its the shocking news that 25% of all Brit babies are born to at least one foreign parent. Not mentioned is that these figures include parents from the likes of Ireland, the US, Canada - and other 'nice and white new world nations' - France, Spain and the rest of Europe. Let's face it, almost all of us must know one Scot who has a partner from one of these nations. Are we concerned?

The implication obviously is though that these foreign parents are more than likely bleck. Or maybe Asian. Or.... SLAVIC!!! And sure enough, read further into this Metro report and we see 'Eastern European' immigration getting the neep-lantern treatment. Not only that but the shadowy 'Migrationwatch' gleefully dispute the official figures and are adamant that NONE of these Slavs intend to return home after a year or two here doing the kind of work that some Bwits are too lazy or incompetent to do anymore.

On a slightly different note, one has to wonder why the English-based Migrationwatch who seem to take umbrage at the migration of Slavs, Blecks and Asians are credible sources for the media whearas the likes of Settler Watch, Scottish Watch and Sìol nan Gaidheal who highlighted mostly white and well-off English migration to Scotland were slated as 'racists'?

Lastly though, its the horrors at home that we really have to worry about. And everyone from David Cameron to Ed Miliband to Johann Lamont has been warning about them.

It's those of us who want 'something for nothing'. No, not the MPs and their expenses. No, not the bankers. No, not the Royal Family. No, not the arms dealers. No, not those in House of Lords.

There are many but old people seem to be especially scary this year. Labour have suggested that they should pay for their travel, care and prescriptions. The Tories suggest that they should work for their pensions. What the fck these old folk have been doing all their lives, I don't know. But somehow, the entire population of pensioners has reached a ripe auld age without working nor paying taxes! Incredible! Are they all Barclays or Starbucks shareholders?

Get on yer bike, coffin dodger.

Joining the elderly on the Jimmy Savile roll of dishonour are the unemployed who not only need their benefits cut but should not be allowed a chance to gain an apprenticeship according to Labour. Students too think that education should be a right and not a privilege for the likes of David Cameron, Nick Clegg, George Osborne, Tony Blair or Alastair 'Black Dwarf' Darling who were all lucky enough to go to very posh schools indeed.

There are indeed two worlds and the spectres, hobgoblins and bloodsuckers of Tory and Labour take full advantage of that open door to keep their Westminster gravy-train on the go, to stockpile their weapons of mass-destruction and to keep that gap between rich and poor from narrowing.

Rutting season

The Scottish word for October is Dàmhair and describes the time of year when the stags would descend from the mountains and rut in the glens and straths. The political stags in the strath of London are also busy rutting at the moment and their descent has been a moral one.

The bewildering pronouncements of Ed Miliband's chosen envoy to Nof Bwitain, Johanna Lamont have been covered in gory detail in many different forums. Seems though as if her sudden swing from apparent-lefite to full-blooded Thatcherite was but a warm-up act for Miliband himself at Labour's annual lecture for the automatons.

Miliband rubbed salt into the wounds by not only demanding cuts - not to the war budget mind - but by imploring all us Bwits to submit ourselves to the One Nation.

Milibland's right-wing froth was the cue for Cameron's compassionate millionaires to again lay the blame for society's ills at the doors of the poor. The message was, once again, if you are poor then you are to blame and all you need to do is work harder. There was no carrot and Cameron presented the poor with the age-old stick of benefits' cuts. As far back as I can remember, London governments have been shaving £millions of the benefits budget. Thatcher and Major were enthusiastic slashers and the trend continued under Blair and Brown's Nu Labour chimera.

And the end result of three decades of cutting benefits?

Who knows? But there's still loads of dough left for new fleets of aircraft carriers and Trident missiles.

Labour is bad for your health.

Which brings me back to Scotchland and the bloated irrelevance that is Jackie Baillie - Labour's representative in the Scottish Parish Council for the porridge wogs of Dumbarton and also, bizarrely, their health spokesperson. Her defence of the nuclear WMDs at nearby Faslane was every bit as conservative and blinkered as Micheal Forsyth's doomed defence of the Poll Tax in Scotland. Poor Jackie when challenged by Brian Taylor on his 'Big' Debate as to whether there could be any moral alternative to using WMDs to provide jobs was unable to offer anything positive and simply stated, 'well that's the way it is'.

This kind of response to the progressive idea of removing weapons of mass destruction from Scotland is typical of the tired and complacent Labour Party in Scotland. It was simply beyond the ken and wit of Jackie Baillie to imagine that the many hundreds of £millions we spend on Trident could be spent on something more constructive and peaceful. Trams for our cities? Equipment for our hospitals? Wind and wave turbines?

Lastly is the bizarre pronouncement that London will, in 2014, spend £50million on commemorating the start (!) of the First World War. In the absence of a royal wedding, jubliee or Team GB, London obviously needs another excuse to foist the Union flag and London's version of patriotic history upon us.

If my history serves me correctly though, twice as many Scots died in their role of cannonfodder in a what was basically a war between Europe's moribund imperialist elites. Something that is certainly worth remembering in the year of the referendum.

As for the LibDems... their unpopularity has finally been eclipsed by Jimmy Saville.

STUC report on cancelling Trident

MyDavidCameron posters

Not in our name - report on campaign in The Independent

The Black Dwarf, the Unionists and their socialist economics

 
The 'YES' campaign's launch this week was greeted with the familiar gurning by those who would have us believe that Scotland 'cannae do it'. Apparently we never did nothing and never will. We need London rule to keep the wolf from the door. Though ironically, as Tristram Hunt spelled out in his recent 'debate' with Irvine Welsh on Paxman, Scotland should seek to be the tail on England's wolf as it prowls the world stage inspiring fear and awe in 'lesser' nations. Without Scotland, England would be a rather strange looking wolf whereas Scotland would only be a small nation minding her own business.

Like Norway or Denmark perhaps?

A Black Dwarf reader.

The whinging in Scotland though came chiefly from Alastair Darling whose first salvo in 'the positive case for the Union' was that a recent Unionist-sponsored poll showed that support for independence was 'only' 33%.

Who is this man Darling? Some may have forgotten that he is Labour's ex-chancellor and is still a sitting MP despite his long bouts of silence. More interestingly, he is an ex-Trotskyist. For those who have forgotten what that is, perhaps it is best illustrated by the fact that had he not forged a successful career in the Labour Party of Great Britain, he more than likely would still be manning a stall on Easter Road, awash with Maoist, leftist and Stalinst pamphlets, defending the policies of North Korea to the hilt. Worse still, he would probably still be wearing that beard. Aye, the one that Labour's PR team told him to lose if he wanted to be taken seriously by middle-England's Tory-voters and the Sun. It is rumoured that Murdoch's empire was about to pillory him as a Suttcliffe lookalike who would take a similarly violent approach to the UK economy.

Vote 'No'. Or else.

As his ex-comrade, George Galloway, reveals:

“When I first met him 35 years ago,” Galloway states, “Darling was pressing Trotskyite tracts on bewildered railwaymen at Waverley Station in Edinburgh. He was a supporter of the International Marxist Group, whose publication was entitled the Black Dwarf.

Politically speaking though, his blood is neither red nor black but quite blue and not only because he had the privilege of attending Musselburgh's uber-posh private school, Loretto. This from his spiel on Wiki:

Alistair Darling was born in London^[1] the son of a civil engineer, Thomas, and his wife, Anna. He is the great-nephew of Sir William Darling, who was Conservative MP for Edinburgh South (1945–1957). He was educated in Kirkcaldy, and the private Loretto School,^[2] Musselburgh, East Lothian, then attended the University of Aberdeen where he was awarded a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B). He became the President of Aberdeen University Students' Representative Council.

Before joining the Labour Party at the age of 23 in 1977, Darling was a supporter of the International Marxist Group, the British section of the Trotskyist Fourth International.^[3] He became a solicitor in 1978, then changed course for the Scots bar and was admitted as an advocate in 1984. He was elected as a councillor to the Lothian Regional Council in 1982 where he supported large rates rises in defiance of Margaret Thatcher's rate-capping laws and even threatened not to set a rate at all.

Currently, he is seeking to forge a Unionist alliance with other parties and groupings like the Tories, the Lib Dems, UKIP, Tax Payers' Alliance and presumably even the BNP and Orange Order.

He is also being ably supported by Labour's new 'tour de force' of Scottish politics, Kezia Dugdale. She claims that she was 'surprised' to be elected to the Scottish Parliament and sure enough her few bizarre pronouncements to the media in an attempt to raise her profile tell of someone who is still befuddled.

Hey Kezia, guess what?

In fact, one of Kezia's first rants was against BBC Alba being given a slot on Freeview! Anti-Scottish? Not her! She was apparently standing up for her many constituents who were now going to lose the means to access radio programs like 'Gardening Hour' on their TV set! Her maiden speech to the Scots Parliament was somewhat rambling - she claims to have only recently discovered the blight of child poverty in Scotland and was shocked to find out that some unemployed youths 'hate the police'.

Poverty it seems, and especially child poverty, was unknown during the salad days of Labour rule.

Strange too that Kezia also claims that free prescription charges are 'right-wing' policy on the part of the SNP. Presumably then selling schools and hospitals to PFI pirates, Labour's illegal wars, stockpiling of WMDs at home, courting of rich businessmen (mind Ecclestone anyone?) and tuition fees are hallmarks of the kind of socialism that Alastair 'Black Dwarf' Darling used to champion back in the day.

Which brings me to those 'socialist economics'. As my partner hails from the former DDR, this something that I've learned about in recent years. Those 'Eastern Bloc' nations used the state's wealth to provide jobs for the people, irrespective of whether the items produced were in demand. Hence stories of 'shoe mountains'.

This is exactly the policy which all the main Unionist parties are following when they advocate the maintenance of nuclear bases on the Clyde and the construction of yet more aircraft carriers et al.

Their are some obvious points arising from this. Seems as if the Tories are happy to go socialist when it comes to war. In the case of Labour, what happened to making ploughshares from swords? Scottish Labour must be more devoid of wit than I first thought if it's beyond them to see that the naval bases and construction yards of the Clyde and Forth could be used for more progressive and peaceful means.

Why not a more modern play of words on the old 'shoe mountain' imagery? Wave turbine mountains? Cheap public transport mountains? Reforesting Scotland mountains? Hospital mountains? Non-PFI school mountains?

'Yes' is only the beginning.