quite terrifying and authoritarian. Yes, I remember you saying in your opener to the original thread that Scotland had become a corrupt nation and our politicians are 'like Putin'. It's a shame that, as someone who doesn't live here, you see Scotland that way. You're entitled to your opinion, of course, and clearly the vast majority of people on this thread agree that it's as bad as that - and worse. However, many don't and for all its very many faults I like living here in Scotland and I'm really proud of our FM, despite disagreeing with her on a number of issues. I've lived in England in the past and I liked that too, but I do remember quite a bit of corruption going on at Westminster, as I think you'll agree, there still is.
as to the astroturfing reference, i'd only just found out what it was - for all the indignation here over others being unquestioning, blindly accepting/cultlike etc there's a very low tolerance for any disagreement - I'm sure you'll have seen, the small amount of 'eh hang on a minute,' posts I've made are miniscule in comparison to the avalanche of people all agreeing with each other. But some can't even seem to tolerate that. I seemed to be being accused of orchestrating some kind of campaign or something. When someone explained what astroturfing is I recognised it as something I've noticed happening from time to time on mumsnet. You'll maybe start noticing it too - health and beauty is the worst, not that I go in there much 
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sorry if i offended with my comments.
and for the umpteenth time, I'm not in the SNP 