Build Yes

Something for the May Day weekend……

The May Day Bank Holiday weekend is upon us and traditionally there are May Day marches to commemorate International Workers Day and Spring. This Saturday sees the first of the bigger All Under One Banner Independence marches. Although Stornoway ‘stole a march’ on Glasgow last weekend. There will be some friendly rivalry between Edinburgh ( salt and sauce) and Glasgow ( salt and vinegar) over who can get the most people taking part but its the Union that will have had its chips at the end of the day.

Plenty of routes to assembly point such as subway to Kelvinbridge and just follow the crowd.

The march will leave Kelvingrove Park at 1.30 and All Under One Banner have put out a call for volunteer stewards. Please answer the call if you can by approaching an existing steward.

The requirements for being a volunteer steward are very simple and joining the team will in no way hamper your enjoyment of the big day with donning a Hi-Viz vest and following simple instructions all that will be asked of you. You do not need any experience whatsoever (even though naturally any previous experience either voluntary or in a professional context is obviously good) as full guidance will be given on the day via Steward briefings running every 30 minutes from 12.00 am, 12.30am, 1pm, as we approach the 1.30pm prompt start time for the March.
All Under One Banner

This is a family friendly march and people are encouraged to bring flags including flags of their country of origin to show we are altogether in the struggle for independence as all Scots old or new. A mark of previous marches has been the great turn out from older people and people with disabilities who know what it is like to suffer Tory austerity and dehumanising DWP assessments.

The procession route is:
Kelvingrove Park; Kelvinway; Gibson Street;Eldon Street;Woodlands Road
Sauchiehall Street;Pitt Street;West George Street;Blythswood Square (S)West George Street;Nelson Mandela Place ( shout Amandla! passing through here); West George Street;George Square;High Street
Saltmarket;Glasgow Green

The march organisers facebook page is Here to check for any changes.

Many thousands of people will walk the whole march while others may meet marchers at the Glasgow Green Rallying point. Remember to bring your flags, dugs are also very welcome! Its going to be massive so bring a peece, sun screen and a bottle of juice, but because its May there could be hailstones!Lol.

Check AUOB pages for details of other scheduled marches near you……

Last weekend saw the SNP conference in Edinburgh being virtually ignored by the main stream media. Not only was it massive for a political party conference in Scotland, it was huge in terms of both size and content. The speech Nicola Sturgeon gave was world class. It set the week off to a great start and the Tories and the media were really showing their fear of our determination.

This weekend will see the Scottish Tories conference in Aberdeen. It will have mainstream media coverage even though it will be tiny by comparison. Potential future Tory leaders will be paying Aberdeen a visit although Ruth Davidson, that super mum returning from maternity leave that the media have been fawning over all week is playing down Boris’s visit.

Although Gove and other Tory ‘stars’ will grace the conference Boris Johnson will also be up campaigning helped by his pal local MP Ross Thomson. Ross will no doubt be showing Boris all his favourite fiddling venues in Union Street and we don’t mean the ones Robbie Shepherd likes.

One thing is for sure the Tories have taken a beating in the English local government elections and Ruth Davidson did not pick a good week to return to politics. But with most of the state media on her side she can still say and do what she likes and the media will report it as if she is the First Minister.

This is why marches like tomorrow are so important.They burst the media bubble and show the people of Scotland mean business.

Sunday will also see the more traditional workers day march in many places. Thousands of trade unionists and supporters will march through Glasgow to celebrate the international workers day. Organised by Glasgow Trades Union Council this celebration looks to reach out to all those striving for justice peace and equality in our city. This year theme is on young people as they face the brunt of unjust austerity enduring insecure low paid employment, zero hour contracts and cuts to educational services.

Enjoy your May Day Bank Holiday Weekend .

Tomorrows march will be covered by Independence Live , indylive.Radio and Yes Scotlands Future

Peace Love and Scottish Independence!

Indylive.radio can be listened to online —-> here

Team Yes Scotlands Future

Spreading the Yes word

This week in response to ‘that’ significant announcement we have noted an increase in page interaction. That is in itself a significant change as it means people are giving voice to the Yes movement. People have literally been ‘champing at the bit’ waiting for the next phase and now it is here. So this weekend we have decided to pick out a few choice comments from you our readers and page followers. You have had a lot to say and what you have said demonstrates the strength and power of the people of Scotland to take us forward as we write our own story.

This page has always encouraged people to write, to draw, to express themselves and the Yes movement by becoming our own press. We need to do this more and more and our very own citizen journalists are already showing the way.

This from ‘the sage of Auchtermuchty’ commenting on this article

And what of the issue of Independence for Scotland? That is a matter for Scots to decide. And that decision must come AFTER Brexit is settled. Scotland must not be rushed or stampeded in going for a second Indy Ref. too early. If Bruce can be patient – so can we. And all Scots, of all political persuasions, must discuss the independence issue in friendly, reasonable terms, as difficult as that can be when emotions run high. The first Indy ref. was amazing in that – despite exaggerated reports from the right-wing press – there was very little trouble. And when the result came, IN sighed with relief, OUT sighed with disappointment, and we got on with our lives – together.
The slogan for all of us should be – SCOTLAND TOGETHER – and this includes Scots throughout the UK and Overseas. (JP Creton)

…….and there was more

The SNP won the most seats at Holyrood in the 2016 Scottish general election on a manifesto that set out that the Scottish Parliament “should have the right to hold another referendum … if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances which prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will”.

Theresa May’s handling of Brexit has proved “beyond doubt” that independence is the only way to safeguard Scotland’s future. Brexit has highlighted “the very fragile position of Scottish autonomy and decision-making”, with Scots having overwhelmingly voted to stay in the European Union in 2016. Brexit has not only created the context for a reconsideration of independence but by the means of its delivery has also created the necessity for such a change.

It is now beyond doubt that there can be no guarantee any time and on any issue, even on any devolved issue, that Scottish views and the actions of Scottish institutions are safe or respected within the current United Kingdom. Theresa May has bordered on treating Scotland with contempt until desperation drove her to invite the First Minister for talks. But at these talks Theresa May offered not a single compromise nor did she even recognise the Scottish will as expressed by the 68% who voted to Remain in the EU.

As for the Scottish Tories, who have failed to support Scotland’s best interests every step of the way, they will base any election programme they have NOT on offering Scotland a variety of positive policies, but on harping on endlessly about the SNP’s ‘obsession with a second referendum. They will also fail to mention that they are the ‘Scottish Conservates’. Their entire campaign will be called ‘TEAM RUTH’ hoping Scots voters will be gullible and stupid enough to forget what a consistent support she is and has been for Theresa May’s disastrous deal as if there were no such thing as the LONDON running a TORY BRANCH OFFICE from EDINBURGH. Let us insteaed call them TEAM RUTHLESS.

Next up was this mornings comment from Fraser Darling on this one…..

There will not be a 3 year campaign this time. There may not even be 3 months.
So, we need to act quickly to do the groundwork right now.
We also need to be public again, even bigger rallies, to show that there is not just a surge, but a tsunami of support.
If 100,000 are expected at a rally we should bring friends along and turn up with 300,000.
Nicola has now, on several occasions, told us that she needs our support to prove the demand for a second referendum. I don’t think that we have delivered to date because she has not fired the starting pistol.
She is telling us that the starting pistol is in our hands and we need to pass it to her.
An independent Scotland is about handing power to the people of Scotland. Let’s show that we are up to the task.

But sometimes the comments are not as long but can be equally welcome and effective, like this one…..

And please stop arguing with trolls. A lot of them are so obvious when you check their FB pages. Admin please keep banning. It’s frustrating and pointless.

Mae Allan

We couldn’t put it any better May. Ours is a volunteer run page but we do try to monitor and block Trolls and loud sweary rants. If you do lose your temper and start writing abusive text it is likely your words will not get through our sweary filters and nobody else will see your comment.

We would like to thank all of our readers and page followers for your continued support and especially for your continued comments and page interactions. Discussions like this are what the page is all about and are the reasons why we will win this time.

The sleeping giant has awoken.

The Silence of the Lambs.

Easter this year will be so close to Brexit that Scottish sheep farmers and English and Welsh ones for that matter will be waiting nervously to see if many of them will still be able to sell the lambs they have worked so hard to grow. Europe is the major market and if a no- deal Brexit occurs it will have disastrous consequences. A fall in the £ and tariffs of 40% on our lamb being sold to EU (the biggest market) will mean they wont be able to sell it.

The price will drop so much that it wont be economic to feed and keep these lambs – this will lead to the biggest mass cull of lambs out-with a disease containment incident like ‘foot and mouth’.

The wreckage of Brexit will have caused this.The Tory infighting that is at the heart of Brexit and could bring this about could also be the trigger which ends many rural businesses linked with farming. We can accuse the farming community of having their heads in the sand and even for supporting the Tories, but we cannot accuse them of creating the conditions and crazy economics which sees hundreds of thousands of animals culled and buried in pits unsold all in the name of Westminster Tory political posturing. G

Think before you click…….or stop sharing posts from Unionist press when we are winning. (you are keeping them afloat)

Yes Tactical post # 4236

Just occasionally we feel moved to make a post like this.

While the Tories have just about shot most of their toes off over the Brexit crisis and both Scottish Labour and UK HQ main branch Labour are falling over themselves to help the Tories to achieve a fantasy Brexit deal we in Scotland need to develop some discipline.

There will be tough times ahead but those times are going to be fruitful because we will soon be an independent country.

However we are our own worst enemies.

Quite often we do things that hurt our own movement. Despite being passionate about achieving independence we can be inadvertently undermining our own cause.

We have seen multiple posts of articles from mainstream unionist press being shared urging us to take part in an online poll on independence usually with a picture of Nicola Sturgeon. These are designed to get folk clicking and sharing because we all know that independence doesn’t get much main stream press attention. Well here is the problem. They are taking the piss and laughing all the way to the bank.

Here is how they fool people.

They put an article up with some obvious Unionist sourced text from a ‘pro-Union’ group. Then they invite readers to take part in an on-line poll on Scottish Independence and how you would vote now.

A new poll has found 60 per cent of Scots would vote against independence if they were asked whether to leave or remain in the United Kingdom, a landmark poll has found. The Survation poll, commissioned by a pro-Union group, found that if a referendum were held now, the majority of Scottish voters aged 16 and over would choose to stay in the UK and just 40 per cent would choose to leave, once the don’t knows are removed.

The Yes troops rise to the bait and BOOM they get over 45684 clicks on their otherwise skint newspaper that in economic terms is hanging by the proverbial baw hair.

By clicking on this ‘clickbait’ , because that is what it is, you are keeping them going. Online newspapers earn by following ways

Publishing google ads
Publishing ads for page per impression
Paid editorials for businesses
Selling media services for any specific events

So every click is income for these papers.Papers that day in day out undermine Scotland (except when it makes them money). Here is what the Indy press had to say about the poll. Incidentally the offending post came out in November 2018 but was still being circulated by Yes supporters as recently as yesterday.

The Scotsman’s rabidly pro-Union stance meant there was little sympathy amongst pro-independence social media users last week when it went into administration. The newspaper was subsequently saved. However this latest front page is unlikely to lead to an increase in readership amongst the independence movement.
Comment from Indyref2 blog at the time.

Based on figures on newspaper circulation for 2018 most unionist press outlets are in terminal decline. Press circulation figures are released every year. If you want to look at it in detail you have to pay.We are not about to do that so that is why we will use 2018 figures

The ABC figures for 2018 show the real reason why the Scotsman is pulling the wool over peoples eyes.

The only paper keeping a steady position is the free paper the Metro, from the Daily Mail stable and heavily reliant on adverts. The Metro’s circulation – presumably because no-one pays for it, remained steady at 1,476,169 copies for May 2018. This represented a slight decline of 0.24% on the same month in 2017. To show where the ‘UK’ newspaper readerships heads are at the Daily Mail is still the UK’s third biggest newspaper, selling 1,277,409 per day – although a chunk of these were bulk sales (airport distribution etc). This figure represents a year on year decline of 11.49%.

The Scotsman gives lots of papers away free, as do many other titles.While most of this is down to people changing the way they get their news, it also represents a significant switching off away from politics and seeking information and questioning things. The dumbing down of politics over the decades is working for the Tory press. This is why they continue to get away with murder.

Support for Indy media sources is on the rise -dont click while we are winning!

The current post reach of the Indy page we are posting from is measured in post reach on facebook and page followers. At the moment we have a post reach for the last week of 342,095. Over the last month our post reach was over 1.5 million. That’s just from a page follower base of just 32,000 and a group of volunteers.

Imagine what it would be like if those 45684 clicks went to Indy media pages instead? Some of these papers are loss making and we should not be keeping them alive.It is only prolonging our own oppression.

Support citizen journalism and think before you click.Remember they all answer to London.

Support Indylive.Radio -Peace, love and Scottish Independence

London calling, yes, I was there too
And you know what they said? Well, some of it was true!
London calling at the top of the dial
And after all this, won’t you give me a smile?
London calling…
Joe Strummer.

Fiddling while Rome burns.

Scottish Tories re-ran their Party Political Broadcast tonight.It is full of clips of some of Theresa Mays most faithful MP’s doing and saying ‘couthie’ things like lifting litter and talking to shoppers on the street about how plain and ordinary and dare we say it ‘working class’ they are.

I doubt that they timed the broadcast to counteract last nights antics in the “Strangers Bar” in the House of Commons when Aberdeen South Tory MP Ross Thomson was removed from the bar by police.That said BBC can be very obliging when it comes to counter propaganda.

It has been quoted that Ross Thomson was very drunk and had engaged in touching people wearing visitors passes. A statements from a witness reads-

“He was in Strangers last night drunk and was groping young men who had guest passes on. Grabbing their backside and genitals and trying to put his hands down people’s pants.
Many people watched on in disgust and I saw someone pull him to one side to ask him to leave. He returned around four times after being chaperoned out and carried on groping people.
It became so unpleasant that the police had been called and eventually escorted him out of the bar after taking statements in the corridor. I believe the Sergeant at Arms is also aware of the incident.”

This took place last night and so far he has not surfaced to defend himself but some of his colleagues have.

Tory MP’s have said that the stress of Brexit is the explanation of his behaviour.

Here was us thinking that the heavily subsidised bar on an otherwise boring wet Tuesday night in Westminster might be more of a reason to get absolutely legless and start shoving your hands down strangers underpants?

Brexit has been stressful however.

It been very stressful if you have lived here for decades and brought up a family but now have to apply for the right to stay in your own home.
It’s stressful if you are a car worker in Sunderland who was counting on Nissan building their new car models in your home town.
It’s stressful if you have a life limiting illness which depends on a regular supply of life giving medicines.
It’s stressful if you are a small business in Ross Thomson’s constituency which is uncertain if it is going to survive a no deal Brexit.
It’s stressful if you are a student and hoped to go on an exchange programme to Europe that will not exist after Brexit.

We don’t believe it is that stressful for MP’s like Ross Thomson an MP unless he realises he has as good as lost his seat over Farming and Fisheries issues.But the penny has dropped too late.

We prefer to think that Ross was born out of time. He would be better off in Roman times having a bacchanalian bevvy after a hard day at the House/senate.

We can only conclude that he was just fiddling while Rome burns.

Team Yes Scotlands Future

Support Indylive.Radio -Peace, love and Scottish Independence

This week saw a new arrival on the Indy Media scene. Indy Live Radio was launched and for all of us who complain about the biased and downright boring mainstream media this should be a thing to celebrate.

Many a morning in the past I have listened to radio on the way to work or at home and felt moved to switch off just before ‘Call Kaye’ came on to discuss some banal BBC Scotland take on the state of Scotland. It usually has a distinctive, SNP-bad sub plot and is designed to set people up to undermine any positives about Scottish society and to sow the seeds of doubt and fear into people.

It is constant.The output on BBC Radio Scotland is dominated by news and ‘opinion’ until about 1.00 p.m. when it starts to ‘loosen up’ and you get the occasional arts programme and god forbid the odd track of music is played. (Thanks Janice!)

By contrast switching from BBC Scotlands output to a national BBC channel like Radio 2 it is like Scotland is a country under occupation. Turgid stories are churned out about the latest manufactured FOI driven ‘crises’ in NHS Scotland when we know we have some of the best health care and the most dedicated health care staff on the planet.

It’s like a more subtle version of the Lord Haw-Haw and Tokyo Rose propaganda broadcasts from Germany and Japan during the second world war.

Meanwhile over on Radio2 its all ‘Happy’– Pharrel Williams or ‘I feel love’– Donna Summer. Then you come home from work midweek to find that Orwell’s 1984 has become a reality and ‘compulsory sport’ is on the television and its English Premier League.Prime time evening television.

Why shouldn’t we have a little fun now and then?

Well now we can and we will be supporting an independent citizen media broadcast outfit at the same time.

Do not expect adverts or even regular chat from a DJ or presenter. You will hear track lists of music. Pretty good uplifting stuff too.Its a good mixture. Occasionally there will be guest speakers on talking about indy related topics. Its very new and they are still testing everything out but its well worth supporting.

By having a PRS licence the station can play music all day long. The technical stuff is below but it is very easy to connect. You can either listen on-line on your laptop or computer, or you can download an app for a mobile phone and listen anywhere.

This ability to take Indy friendly media with us anywhere we go is vitally important. Building up a network of Yes facebook pages, Live streaming events, Twitter feeds and now radio broadcasts will assist our movement to not only connect with each other but reach out to a wider audience. Yes people should keep all their apps on their device handy in one place. This is how we will connect with people.

This is how we will win independence by sharing information over networks we have created ourselves.

Technical bit.

Indylive.radio can be listened to online —-> here

Simply bookmark the link to keep returning. OR you can download the app from the Google Store or Apple Store for free by searching for Indylive radio

Once downloaded you can take it with you anywhere……its important, get it now.

You can maybe comment on suitable playlists for an Indy radio station. Here are few for starters.

‘Kiss this thing goodbye’ – Del Amitri

‘Living on a prayer’ -Bon Jovi

‘Let me go’– Avril Lavaigne

‘Iron Sky’ Paolo Nutini

‘Cap in hand’– The Proclaimers

‘Son I voted Yes’– Stanley Odd

The Yes Movement needs to lighten up and you all need IndyLive Radio in your lives.

No more crabbit faced BBC Tokyo Rose in the mornings for me…..go on give it a go and tell your pals and get it shared!

Let’s get their listening figures boosted.

Peace,Love and Scottish Independence.

#PLASI

Labour still isn’t working for Glasgow and has left a poisoned legacy

The closure of the Legacy hub on Springfield Road Dalmarnock has been on the Scottish news. The Peoples Development Trust (PDT), the organisation managing the hub has gone into receivership. It is a high profile building part of the Commonwealth Games legacy in the local area and also houses a GP surgery and a dental surgery.

The media coverage has been interesting. A small but vocal protest took place on Sunday and many of the children and young people who use the child care and youth work provision were there as part of the protest.

The coverage today however is very interesting in one respect. It is what main stream media has left out of its reporting that is the most important thing..

Any community based organisation will struggle to make a go of things but this one has its roots in Glasgow City Council pre-2014 when the Commonwealth Games came to that part of the city and the local councillors were in charge also took some nice paid jobs for themselves and their relatives and friends. Frank McAveety was the leader at the time.

It seems the press reporting today have forgotten a whole swathe of history associated with the management of the building. They only had to look into their own archives to find the evidence.

The opening of the Legacy Hub in Dalmarnock ex-Councillor Kucuk second from right

A £3.5 Million Commonwealth Games legacy project is embroiled in nepotism claims over a string of posts occupied by a local Labour councillor’s friends and family.
The project was overseen from the beginning by the People’s Development Trust (PDT), a charity that runs the Hub and which hired Kucuk as the £35,000-a-year regeneration manager. Another Labour councillor, Maureen Burke, also declares a paid job at the Trust.
Kucuk took up her post in 2011 and her cousin Alan Kennedy was appointed to the P.D.T. board in the same year. He left in July 2014 and his son Robert joined the board weeks later. Kucuk’s husband is also working at the Hub.
Calton Jock March 2016

It seems the alternative citizens media have a better record of reporting on this issue as Calton Jock a local blogger reported as far back as 2016 highlighting nepotism and cronyism gone mad in the East End Regeneration area which was on the receiving end of millions of pounds as part of the Commonwealth Games preparations.

It looks like the building was ‘run into the ground’ by a succession of relatives and friends appointments all stemming from Scottish Labour. In November 2015 this Evening Times article called it out.

Board positions linked to the Dalmarnock Legacy Hub were filled by relatives of Glasgow Calton councillor Yvonne Kucuk, whose husband also works at the centre.
A cousin of Labour’s other ward councillor, George Redmond, also works at the Hub while another relative used to sit on the board.
Glasgow Evening Times , 22nd November 2015

The article also said ‘Kucuk was elected to the council in 2012 and is reportedly thinking of making the step up to Holyrood.’

If the main stream media wanted to something more ‘in depth’ about the buildings closure all they had to do was a google search ( other search engines are available) to reveal a series of articles in the Herald, Evening Times and BBC Scotland websites.

It has been local bloggers who have reported on this more accurately and consistently.

“There is a general concern that Labour treats Glasgow as its personal fiefdom, where friends get positions and jobs and not in a transparent way. “It is the councillor’s dual role in this project that is concerning.
You should be a local councillor, or part of the development project. Or, you should have the development role and not be the local councillor. A sensible person would surely conclude that you cannot do both roles. It is about public perception.
SNP MSP John Mason .

The Legacy Hub, located in the shadows of the Emirates arena in the east end, benefited from £3m from the Scottish Government and £1,295,000 from the B.L.F., while Glasgow city council sold land to the Trust for £1. Around £840,000 of the award was to part-fund the Hub’s construction and £455,000 was for four years’ operating costs.

The Big Lottery Fund (B.L.F.) called in outside help after reviewing how its £1.3m award for the multi-purpose Dalmarnock ‘Hub’ had been spent.The quango subsequently launched a review to examine whether its funding had been used in line with its grant agreement. The probe escalated after the B.L.F.’s internal audit department contracted Mazars, one of Europe’s largest accounting firms, to carry out checks.

Another citizens journalist blogger A Thousand Flowers reported on the subject in August 2016. Read the small print in both the Calton Jock and Thousand Flowers posts for the real juicy bits linked to the jobs in building firms and the £500,000 golden hand shakes for outgoing Regeneration Manager.

So, What is the story Morning Glory? It is dig a little deeper. Do your own research or you would be left with a hollow story in todays press that says little of the background and is lamely pointing the finger at the incumbent Council leadership which is the SNP. Main stream media write all of their stories as ‘SNP bad’ stories as a default position and do not do the research.

We call that lazy journalism. We hope the building gets some kind of reprieve for the sake of the users of the building but Scottish Labour need to take most of the blame.

Mon the citizen journalists!

Team Yes Scotlands Future

Yes Scotlands Future social media activists

This is the full text we supplied to the National newspaper for the article about the readiness of the Yes movement in the article printed this morning.

Yes Scotlands Future are a collective of activists on social media who have been active since before 2014.

Our Mantra is positivity, good humour and above all understanding the manipulation and bias in mainstream media.

The Yes movement has been like a group of planes flying in a ‘holding’ pattern above Scotland since 2014.

Some have crashed and burned already, or fallen out with each other, but many have gone on to develop a strong network built on trust , friendship and a common belief in a better Scotland.

There will always be “egos” in any movement but we try to sidestep those and just get on with it.

The Brexit shambles has exacerbated things and made people impatient but it has also revealed the true nature of the union, it is broken beyond repair.

The people who share posts on our pages are ordinary Scots looking to get involved. There is still a role for pages like this to help put information in front of people to help them argue the case for independence.We just need a date to land safely and get a move on.

Team Yes Scotlands Future

The Hills are alive…….

New Year, new chances to sell the electorate of Scotland an old party, the Labour Party.

Its a party that when in power in Glasgow City Council they spent £2.5 million on legal fees to fight women from getting an equal pay award.Richard Leonard, branch leader, was then a full time official for the GMB

The current council have just agreed a deal with the representing agents on a payout to settle the cases.

Labour however are using the media to put out messages of support for the women who have won the case against the City Council, now an SNP administration. It’s as if the past is being rewritten.

The agreement has been reached and as full time official his role in the past campaign is now slowly revealed to not to be so much as ‘organise, agitate and win’ and more like ‘sell out, discriminate , capitulate and lose’.

Questions can be asked of him in the process of setting up an arms length external organisation (ALEO) to allow the council off the hook over equal pay claims, and the discriminatory way a mens pay award was prioritised even though they were doing the same job as the women.

Why the GMB under his leadership didn’t resolve this over 10 years ago raises a whole series of questions. Since the change of administration further reorganisation has occurred to address this.

In the midst of all the Brexit overkill of the week this story seemed to strike a cord with some of our page followers who made some of the following very pertinent comments.

Labour spent 2.5m fighting against the Glasgow women’s pay claim between 2007 – 2017.
SNP under Susan Aitken took a year & a bit to sort out Labours appalling mess.
No mention on any bbc news that it was labour who shafted these women, took them to court and all sorts, and was SNP Glasgow council who fixed it
Labour have the temerity to congratulate the women they previously sued. Pathetic.

……..and most poignantly of all,

Their time wasting also saved them money from poor souls like my mum who didn’t live long enough to get their fare share!

Many people also pointed out that little is known about the role of Richard Leonard in this long running and bitter equal pay dispute and that more should be shared so that more people understand the background. Most of the press coverage still glosses over the role of Labour’s leader and former GMB full timer, Richard Leonard.

Not content with congratulating women equal pay campaigners they had previously tried to take to court, Scottish Labour now seems to be getting its geography a bit mixed up.

This weeks Scottish Labour Party Political Broadcast raised a few eyebrows among the geologists and geographers among us. It looks like Scottish Labour got someone in ‘Head Office’ to do the donkey work for them as they promoted Richard Leonard’s vision for Scotland but the image wasn’t Scotland it was actually Snowdonia in Wales.

Top photo-Labours visual representation of Scotland. Bottom photo Tryfan Mountain Snowdonia

The broadcast finishes by restating the now familiar line,

” Labour will rebuild Scotland for the many not the few”.
only slight problem with this is the non existent record of house building by Labour when they held office.

The ‘buildings’ that they were associated with were paid for by costly PFI deals which reports say are costing local councils and other bodies a staggering £30 billion and are now subject to structural checks such as Oxgangs Primary, one of 17 schools closed due to safety concerns.

In its defence Labour says the video was shot using different parts of the UK to reflect Labour as a UK party.( Code for Scotland is not a priority for them. Which will be why Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t mention Scotland in his speeches, only ‘regions and communities’)

Scottish Labour, Scottish Tory- same old story.

Richard Leonard local branch leader has also made a name for himself at Scottish First Minister Questions by asking about subjects that were not covered in the devolution settlement. So much so that various Yes pages rushed to point out what was in the Scottish Parliaments gift and what wasn’t. Murdo Fraser of the Scottish Conservatives has done the same.

Reserved powers in the right hand column are often deliberately misquoted as being powers held by Edinburgh – cut out and keep to remind people of how they are being tricked! (Scot Gov now has some limited powers over Social Security)

This confirms the view that nothing has really changed since the ‘Better Together’ campaign in 2014 when Labour, Tories and Liberals united to oppose Scottish Independence.

In public, especially when the media are present all Unionist politicians display a deliberate ‘blurring’ of what is and what is not a devolved ‘power’ of the Scottish Government. Broadband and railways are old favourites for this ‘party’ trick by Labour and their Unionist pals.

Instead of ‘talking up’ Scotland and showing a respect for democracy and the electorate they rely on a complicit media to help them to lie to the public and create an untrue perspective that the Scottish Government is responsible for a whole range of things it is not.

We have have heard this all before we hear you say. This is true but now more than ever the people who live outside the ‘bubble’ of politics are still being lied to and manipulated on a daily basis. We need to communicate this to them.

Labour’s Kezia Dugdale famously encouraged supporters to vote Tory in marginal areas and now with Jeremy Corbyn we have have seen an outbreak of ‘ pretend socialism’ which will now try and spin the well worn line- ‘Vote Labour to keep the Tories Out’.

“While Richard Leonard might talk a left-wing game, he’s an enthusiastic supporter of housing the UK’s nuclear arsenal just a few miles from Scotland’s biggest city – and he now needs to explain his position on Brexit and whether he supports the Tories’ plans to rip Scotland out of the single market.”
Derek MacKay

Jeremy Corbyn on the other hand has been a life long CND activist against nuclear weapons but now seems to hold opposite views and it is okay for these weapons of mass destruction to be housed on the Clyde.

Be sure to have this detector with you at all times.

Team Yes Scotlands Future

With the sound of Labour bullshit……..

Will an Independent Scotland have an honours system?

The UK honours system is as old as the hills. It dates back to the crusades when people were ‘knighted’ for service to the monarchy. Its been turned into a more ‘civil’ based awards process and since around 1890 there has been a New Years honours list almost every year.

Honours of course are issued at other times and usually at the hands of the Prime Minister.There is a resignation honours list and that one is where all a PM’s political allies get paid off in one go.David Camerons is here. Tony Blair’s resignation honours list was caught up in a ‘cash for peerages’ scandal which meant any lists would be getting vetted by a committee of the House of Lords. He failed to make the deadline. Gordon Brown’s ‘dissolution list’ became a mishmash of some of Blair’s non-runners and some of his. (Rev. Iain Paisley was in there somewhere.) 22 peers were appointed to the House of Lords this year alone.It is what some politicians strive for, that well paid, free day-care place for life.A place where the wine and the food is subsidised and you get paid for just showing up.

Bringing it bang up to date many observers have slated Theresa May for using honours to ‘buy’ support for her failing Brexit deal, some would go as far as to say that is why she delayed the vote from before Christmas.There are even some companies now that exist to raise your chances of getting on the Honours list. We kid you not. If you have about £3,900 they will knock you up an awards profile and punt it for you increasing your chances of a gong!

Here at Yes Scotlands Future we thought that we would propose a completely new system for a bit of fun on Hogmanay :

The Yes Scotlands Future iScotland Ne’erday Honours List.

In the interests of equality all recipients would receive the award of:

1 fish supper (2 fish) haddock of course
A Morton’s crispy roll
A glass bottle of original recipe Irn Bru!!

We did contemplate different categories of award based on region and status such chips and cheese (Ayrshire) and white pudding (Edinburgh and the Lothians) but in the interests of equality it is a fish supper or nothing!

Now this system is proposed to be self financing and will actually be good for local business. The Honours Committee of the Peoples Republic of Scotland will identify special fish and chip shops ‘by appointment’.These super-chippies will be the purveyors of the awards scheme and in return their businesses will grow with the increased status and they will gladly donate the grub to the successful nominees. This is much the same as the venue Oran Mor ‘pays’ the artist Alisdair Gray for his amazing work on their ceiling, only with fish and chips. We have seen him sitting in the corner tucking into a nice steak pie with a ‘half and a half pint’ on the side, that is for life. It’s a normal way of supporting art in many countries.

Like the UK system some honours can be lifetime awards but let’s face it if you only eat fish suppers you are not going to live very long so it will be a self regulating honours system.There will be no hereditary fish suppers awarded. That is just going too far.

In this first year the committee has proposed two categories of award, one for organisations making a contribution to civic life in Scotland and their community and secondly to individuals who are also doing the same. If it is a big organisation we realise this might mean a hell of a lot of fish suppers but hey why be mean about it!

Organisation Honours List

All Under One Banner (AOUB) for organising all the marches which took place in Scotland last year and giving us all the opportunity to join other Scots on the streets declaring our support for independence. You worked tirelessly to do this and took a lot of criticism in the process but you succeeded. Good luck with the plans for 2019.

Orkney News for being a newly founded community newspaper dedicated to bringing alternative news to the people of Orkney. They are a model of citizen journalism and the committee believes all parts of Scotland deserves a local citizen led media outlet like them. Very best wishes for 2019 and thank you for the encouragement and support to the wider networks trying to build citizen journalism elsewhere.

Independence Live for bringing all the years events to a larger audience. They are great ‘citizen live streamers’ who you are bound to have seen at many of the events throughout the year. From The Hague to Dumfries, Inverness, and Faslane and the big one in Edinburgh they covered them all and most importantly provide a means to share and encourage more people to come out on the street next year. Good luck for 2019 and thanks for all you have done.

Individual Honours List

For this category we take for granted that Nicola Sturgeon deserves more than a fish supper for what she has put up with this year so we have limited the nominations to just two individuals.

Mhairi Black has been the ‘baby of House’ at Westminster, but she continues to act with such maturity and level headedness when it comes to representing Scotland.It must be so annoying working within that environment and yet she does it without being reduced to their level and regularly points out to us just how ridiculous and outdated that system of government is. Keep going Mhairi you are a credit to Paisley and all of Scotland.

Ian Blackford MP and leader of the SNP at Westminster has also had an amazing year of keeping up the pressure on the Tories.You can tell he has got them riled when he was told to his face by Nicholas Soames MP to ‘go back to the Isle of Skye’. We hope our MP’s can all in fact go home to Scotland when we gain our independence from this out dated mess that is Westminster.

All winning fish suppers will of course be wrapped up in newspaper and award recipients will be able to state a preference for salt and vinegar or salt and sauce, no west coast bias here. They will have to buy pickled onions and portions of sauce from their own pocket.

We were considering a special award to Theresa May for services towards furthering the cause of Scottish Independence but we have heard she doesn’t eat fish and chips wrapped in newspaper. She prefers single use plastic.

Have a great time and everyone at Yes Scotlands Future wishes you and your family a Happy and Healthy New Year.

Alba gu bràth-Team Yes Scotlands Future