“Quite simply Britain makes Scotland bigger, while Scotland makes Britain broader. This Union which we helped build allows us to maintain our identity and be part of a larger whole. We trade more with England than our total trade with all the other 195 nations of the world combined. We are game-changing players in the UN, EU and G8. In truth, within the UK, we are probably the most influential small nation on Earth.”
Halftime in America
18 minutes ago
Hope you had a good xmas SU..!!
Now.."Quote of the day, by Jim Murphy, writing in today’s Scotland on Sunday:
“Quite simply Britain makes Scotland bigger, while Scotland makes Britain broader"
............................
So what Jim Murphy is really saying is Scotland makes Britain fat ? Bad start to the new year for labour i think!! BTW have a wee look at Nikos blog lol
Oops Niko has 2 blogs, one dormant and the other, well check for yourself..
http://nikostratosii.blogspot.com/
"...Labour is to begin a campaign to wrest back the saltire from the SNP and make it available for use by every political party in Scotland. Jim Murphy, the Scottish Secretary, signalled his intentions in his new year message, saying that the saltire “belongs to every Scot, regardless of politics”
The Times
Why hasn't Labour used the saltire before now AM2?
Why hasn't the Tories?
Why has the Liberals?
Why have they waited until now to promote the saltire?.... why don't they feature the flags on their websites?.... there isn't a single Saltire!
Why has none of the political opposition got a link to 'Homecoming 2009' AM2?
I'm confused.com, can you clarify?
Wardog,
That's simply inaccurate. Whilst First Minister, Jack McConnell initiated a policy of daily display of the St Andrew's cross in all Scottish Executive buildings. The current flag-flying arrangements are inherited from Labour - yet, to my mind, are illogical and unreasonably pro-Saltire. All the various iconography of devolved government in Scotland was Saltire-heavy from its first days, including all the patronising yet omnipresent little symbols on this website: http://www.infoscotland.com/infoscotland/41.1.1.html
As for 'Homecoming 2009' - the Labour UK Government are promoting it where it matters: in UK embassies, as the Scottish Secretary revealed he intended, even without being asked by the First Minister.
I don't agree with it myself: reclaiming the flag is one thing, making a ridiculous show of it is quite another - and that's what I feel Labour have done.
The cut and paste merchant par excellence- Wardog of Buckie (domicile or beverage of choice? I'm not certain which) inadvertently lets the cat out of the bag by asking why the Labour, Lib Dem and Tory parties don't feature the saltire on their websites?
The answer of course is that these parties don't view the flag as the property of a political party The SNP do. It is one of the oldest tricks in the book. The right wing in almost every country tries to appropriate national symbols and then accuses the left and centre of not being patriotic.
And in Scotland it is the SNP which plays the role of the French Gaullists, the US Republican Party, Forza Italia.
Jim Murphy's suggestion is not a new one (I once heard a Communist in the 1970s advocate reclaiming the union flag from the National Front and was laughed at for so doing) but it is the right one.
As was said in another context, 'why should the Devil have all the best tunes?'
Love the idea of the SNP as right wing neo cons. While at the same time being in hock to Muslim extremists.
You guys really have to get your narratives sorted out!
Love the Nat idea that Muslim extremists who think women should be subservient to men, gays should be murdered, jews exterminated and their holy book obeyed at all times are somehow not on the far right.
You guys really have to get your heads sorted out.
Then again I don't love it quite as much as the Nat propensity to ignore valid criticism by introducing a totally different matter entirely. All courtesy of the Alex Salmond School of Hopeful Old Loony Eejits. Or A.S.S.H.O.L.E. for short
Why so bitter Scotleag? Was your mother startled by a juvenile Alex Salmond or what?
Thanks for the info that George W Bush and Al Queda are on the same side though. I am sure that will come as a great consolation to the people of Iraq.
Has AM2 had an epiphany on Epiphany?
He has been silent too long.
There have been allegations on Spooks blog of foul deeds...
Or turkey flavour catfood.
Indy, if the adult version is anything to go by then the juvenile Salmond must have been a frightful sight indeed. Melt down the brass on that neck and we'll be out of recession in no time
Thanks for confirming I was right when I wrote about "the Nat propensity to ignore valid criticism by introducing a totally different matter entirely" Who equated either the SNP or Bush with Al Qaeda? Only you. All I did was mention some of the more unsavoury European parties and politicians who like to indulge in the same kind of flag-waving as the SNP. I can understand you not liking the comparison but you have said nothing to suggest it was inaccurate.
Still, in the week when a £40 parking fine for nurses is termed "abolition" of car parking charges by Nicola Sturgeon I shouldn't really be surprised by anything.
Jim seems to be have been very very quiet over the inexplicable debacle of the Treasury blowing PFI out of the water and denying a sustainable and reasonable funding mechnaism of public procurement as proposed by the SNPO
Maybe he knows sowmthing we don't.
Any bets on anticpated UK PFI Debt?
Will it take us above 85% GDP Debt?
I thought one of the unionist crutches was that the UK was such a strong economy...... whatever happened to that myth?
Erm Scotleag - you specifically compared the SNP to the French Gaullists, the US Republican Party and Forza Italia.
I must admit the idea of the SNP sharing an ideological space with the Republicans - while at the same time being accused of being in tow with extremist Muslims - did amuse me. Maybe it's just my sense of humour.
But for the record the SNP are not soulmates with George W Bush!
Forze Italia and the Gaullists are in the same Cristian Democrat group as the Tories are.
The SNP is part of the Greens/European Radical Alliance Group les by Daniel Cohn-Bendit if you remember who he is.
I stand by every word I said about the SNP trying to claim the flag for themselves and damning others for alleged lack of patriotism. Calling themselves "Scotland's Party" is a particularly gross example.
You have yet to explain just what the difference is in this respect from the parties I mentioned earlier or indeed how anti-women,anti-gay, religious fanatics are somehow 'left-wing'
I'm old enough to remember Danny the no longer Red but you should be a bit more honest about the SNP's European dealings. Seeing as you mentioned it, let's have a wee look at what the SNP have been up to in Europe.
For a group to be recognised and the consequent access to staffing and funds group status brings they need to have a minimum of 20 MEPs from six different countries.
Since the SNP's "group of choice" the European Free Alliance consists of just six MEPs from four countries they had to be taken under another wing which being the kind-hearted souls they are, the Greens decided to do.
The actual EFA consists of 2 SNP,one Plaid Cymru, a Basque "nationalist" who doesn't believe in a Basque nation state, a Hungarian-speaking independent from Romania and a pro-Russian MEP from Latvia whose own party won't join the EFA..
Odd, is it not that the only MEPs in either the EFA or the Greens who believe in seceding from their existing political set-up are the SNP?
But if you want to take a look at the SNP's history of collaboration with some nasty elements of the Right in Europe that's fine by me.
Winnie Ewing joined the bloc led by the Gaullists before helping set up the EFA along with the Italian Northern League, a Flemish party which later split producing a nasty right-wing rump, and som non-nationalist but anti-EU Danish leftists. The vast majority of nationalists in the European parliament left well alone not wanting to be tainted with the brush of Northern League and/or Flemish extremism.
But Winnie didn't mind that. There were no English in it, see.
What a happy bunch they were The Basques defected and the rest finally took action against the Liga Nord when they joined the fascists in government in Italy.
That was when French radicals threw the remaining ragbag collection a lifeline in 1994, letting them join them. These radicals were led by Bernard Tapie. Unfortunately he was sent to jail shortly afterwards for corruption and match-fixing in French football
Then in 1999 the Greens took pity on them.
Still, fair play to them, eventually the EFA got round to realising that one of their affiliates was just a racist party from the South Tyrol. They expelled them - a few months ago. But hey, it's difficult to tell the difference between Germans ranting bout uniting the fatherland and your ordinary everyday "civic" nat isn't it?
So the SNP, plad cymru, and the three distinct oddballs alongside them will have to wait until their oter allies can elect MEPs of their own. Then we cna welcome these official allies of the SNP into the European Parliament:
The Occitan Party
Aragonese Junta
Socialist Party of Majorca Nationalist Agreement
Savoyard League aka Judean peoples Front
Savoy Region Movement - aka Peoples Front of Judaea
Party of German-speaking Belgians
Flemish Progressives (not to be confused with the above)
Four different Italian parties
Five diffeerent French parties
Catalan Unity (France)
Republican Left of Catalunya (not France)
From Lithuania there;s the Lithuanian Polish Peoples Party.
But from Poland we ahae the Silesian autonomy movement
There's an Italian party for Slovenes and an Austrian party for Slovenes but sadly no Slovene party for Slovenes
Yes - the history of the SNP in the European Parliament and inter-action with other European parties is an interesting one.
But on the whole 'm not surprised they keep pretty quiet about it.
yawn
How long did you spend composing that drivel?
"...Calling themselves "Scotland's Party" is a particularly gross example....."
Can you clarify whether there is a registered party on the electoral roll called 'Scottish Labour' or indeed 'Scottish Liberal Democrats".
At least the Tories have the decency to say exactly what they are with their 'unionist' tagline.
In the end Labour are a UK Party, so why do they feel it necessary to tag a 'scottish' strapline to their name in a cheap Daily Retard way?
Why don't they setup a federal party system that allows their MSP's to really deviate from the UK Party?
What are they afraid of?
Excellent post.
Scotleag, that is.
"...In truth, within the UK, we(sic Scotland) are probably the most influential small nation on Earth....."
So where is England in all this.
As a Scot, I can't help but feel that Jim is being incredibly derogatory to our neighbours.
He makes it sound like a Scottish Raj Empire