Guilt Free Railing 20

[WouldBeGood]

The curtain call.

May this thread be empty 😃

All good news welcome too, to go along with railing, guilt free

They are still banging on about Westminster paying our pensions if we split, because of “the pot” and how expats have theirs paid.
The fact they don’t understand there is no “pot” and expats are British citizens is astounding.
I actually think they are so blinkered now they are actually completely blind.

That's depressing @Blimeyherewegoagain . I’m assuming there was no mention of pensions in a different currency?

Anyone with a single brain cell knows pensions are paid from current workers.

The fact they're spouting such bollocks on such simple matters really should be ringing alarm bells for all but the (utterly deluded) staunch nationalists.

IF there was a reasonably accurate proposal for how an independent Scotland would actually work there wouldn't be a fraction of the vitriol (of which I'm aware I'm adding to, but honestly how can we go through all this after that brexit omnishambles)

😡😡

@imstilljenny2 I feel exactly the same way. The last couple of years have been very difficult mentally (although not from the acute stress of working in ICU) to the point where I developed an anxiety disorder. I've made massive progress since the restrictions ended and everyone stopped wearing masks, but this week I'm really starting to struggle again. Why can't they just give us some peace? Two thirds of the country agree that this is the wrong time so we are literally being put through this to appease their voter base. It shouldn't happen because Westminster won't grant a section 30 and there's no legal route according to most experts, but that doesn't stop the stress of having them opening up all these wounds again.

I just remember how bad it was last time for people who didn't want independence - I didn't personally experience some of the more aggressive responses (although I know plenty of people who did) but there was this constant undercurrent of nationalism, flags and marches everywhere, 'Are you Yes yet?' and a general lack of respect/understanding for people who want to be the UK. In private most people I knew were No voters so I just kind of nodded along politely to avoid an argument (I know a lot of people did the same), but I think this just gave a lot of undecideds the impression that there was no opposing view and I was surprised that Yes was as high as it was given the lack of concrete plans. Clearly capturing momentum is important and I don't feel safe just letting the Yes side control the narrative if it were to happen again, so I'm going to be having a lot of difficult conversations.

Dd had some sort of mock political election at school this week and managed to get no votes talking about Scottish independence being a bad idea (she didn't discuss this with us beforehand or we'd have told her to run on saving all the world's tigers or some such)- the problem is, no voters don't find this exciting or want to think about it anymore.

We had to go over the old line with DD about never talking about politics with friends IRL - and rinse and repeat for the next n years.

I've got several great friends who are firmly convinced indy is going to be some sort of paradise, Nicola is amazing etc.

Just time to retrench to zero discussion of it. I wouldn't have a problem with it if I thought the SNP had a decent plan, executive competence, and the time was right particularly. I don't agree with it but I can understand it's emotional appeal to some.

Goodness knows Boris holds no emotion appeal!

I actually think they are so blinkered now they are actually completely blind

This sums it up for me.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-61816859

Another day, another issue with SNP spending decisions which won't be properly addressed

I’m going to rail against it loudly I’m real life as I agree people were embarrassed or scared to do this before.

The allegation is always that you are not a proper Scot, or a Tory, if you don’t support this pish. I was a bit scared before, but now I’m angry too

We have also had to teach DD not to talk about politics outside of the house.

I also worry that if an illegal referendum is held, no voters will decide not to vote, meaning the outcome is 'yes', and then all hell lets loose as to what happens now and if anything can actually happen.

As per Catalonia? Is that not what happened there?

An illegal referendum that is boycotted by vast numbers of unionists would have no standing internationally, which Sturgeon knows full well and which is why she's always insisted that it has to be legal. All that would happen is an awful lot of unpleasantness at home, certainly not independence. Of course the problem she has is that there isn't a clear path to a legal referendum if Westminster says no, as the Scotland Act is pretty clear that the power lies with the UK (the opinion of most constitutional lawyers). She can wail as much as she likes about 'denying democracy' and how unfair it is even though unionist parties actually got more votes but that doesn't change the legal position, which is probably why she hasn't tested the question in the courts already. If the courts rule against her it would kill any chance stone dead, and she needs to keep stringing her supporters along with the hope that there might be another referendum so that the SNP continue to get votes. God knows no-one votes with them for their competence in government!

Lots of commentators have pointed all of this out. I assume that this particularly noisy piece of substance-less theatre is because Alex Salmond told her to hurry up at the weekend and the faithful are getting very restless. Maybe she's hoping that the public will be so outraged by Westminster 'denying their right to choose' that it'll increase support, but it didn't work last time and people seem particularly scunnered right now, so I suspect we'll remain stuck at this impasse. Even her own supporters are saying Indyref2 next October looks pretty unlikely, so she'll probably find some way to turn that into grievance for the next election, like it's Westminster's fault she keeps wasting money and political oxygen on this, promise the faithful milk and honey if she gets 'just one more mandate', then find another excuse to back burner it for a few years until the next election comes around. Got to keep the gravy bus running!

I do think even if it's not a legal referendum everyone should vote to avoid there being any doubt as to how people feel.

I would vote "no" but share the concern that other no voters won't bother to vote.

Great summary @Y0uCann0tBeSer10us

I can't believe even the most die hard nationalist thinks this is a good time.

We've just seen bank of England raise interest rates again in a bid to control inflation.
We can wail "it's our pound too" all we like but we'd have no mechanism to right our own economy if it's out of step with rest of UK (which apparently it will be because all is going to be wonderful up here!)

But I cannot face trying to argue the logical against a load of flag waving again. It was really bad for my mental health last time.
I love where I live, I don't want to move but I just don't think I can go through it again.

I was yes last time but definitely don't think it's the right time for another referendum. It'll be catastrophic; current issues have pretty much guaranteed it won't be a yes; and people will become even more bloody scunnered with politics.

I want at least 5 years where I barely have to think about politics, beyond bin collections and cursing bloody Boris. (Who will still be clinging on to power when we are all long gone).

Look what happened to the organisers of the illegal vote in Catalunya. The government rounded them up and threw them in jail.

We can but dream.

Yeah would be good. Seen you on that thread we were on. Them people never answer questions. It’s all theorical for them. Seems like they don’t live in Scotland

I need to step back from that thread for a while…

I was a yes last time but with no real thought process or real opinion if you know what I mean. Bit of a yeh might be a good idea.

Now I know better. After the past two years shit show there is no way on earth I’d be voting yes.

When’s the next opportunity we have of dethroning Nic? I’m sick of seeing and hearing her.

Im living in fear that everything will get taken away again. Emails for events for example my first thought is it’s cancelled. When actually it’s just a reminder or update type thing.

That would be lovely!

Oh glad I've missed that thread - coming off Twitter and that kind of thing has been restful. I don't know how many people Twitter persuades.

I'm railing about the fact Scotland STILL has the highest covid cases in UK! It's been like this for months now.

Recent ONS shows 1 in 30 in Scotland compared to 1 in 45 wales and NI and 1 in 50 England

I know cases don't really matter if people aren't too unwell. But it's the effect on the NHS trying to recover when we will have substantially more staff having to cancel clinics as they're off isolating

That’s so depressing @HarvestFly

And yet still hospitals are requiring people to travel 20 miles to a hospital for a covid test two days before day surgery with two days self isolating afterwards. It’s insane

I know what you mean @HarvestFly , it’s so wearing even if it doesn’t matter that much. I struggle to understand it at this point, we actually have the highest vaccination rate in the UK (more than twice England’s 5-11 rate, although whether that’s a good thing is debatable), but ONS (random sampling so independent of testing level) shows us to have the highest infection rate for most of the last 6 months. We just don’t seem to have as much resistance to the new strains, which I guess kind of makes sense given we depended much more on vaccine mediated immunity during our protracted ‘maximum suppression’ phase, and the vaccines are a pretty poor match to the virus now. Natural immunity is more resilient in the face of new variants by all accounts, and we did go longer and harder with restrictions do didn’t build up as much early on. But still, I’m surprised we haven’t caught up yet - we’ve had higher infection rates for quite a long time. Maybe something else is also making us less resistant up here, less Vitamin D maybe? I don’t know.

According to scientists previous infection is less good than vaccines at protecting you from the effects of this latest variant

People are catching it / it the death and hospitalisation rates that will matter

Where Scotland has so far done better than England and Wales