The Judge RANTS!
Date: 04/05/21
Colonialist Zoomers Redux
Following on from this, I should point out that, a further week on, the correspondents to the abuindependentski are still at it.
On (I think) April 29, there were:
- A letter from someone in Bristol going on about the, "mind-boggling complexities of unpicking such a well-established Union" (as if the last five years had never happened to give the people of Scotland at least a good working idea about how not to do it), and how it would, "...dominate our national conversation for decades..." (note once again the 'our' and the baseless assumption that there is such a thing called 'the British nation') when we should be focussing on, ooh, climate change, child poverty and recovery from the pandemic. You know, the issues which are always uppermost in the minds of those selfless and self-denying souls who have so reluctantly accepted the mantle of power over us.
- A pearl-clutching missive from someone claiming to be in Kilmarnock which oscillates between the tourist-board clichés of, "...our great country..." and, "...this beautiful country..." and the, "horrific thought of [...] Scotland being ripped out of the heart of the UK..." (presumably being torn out of the EU totally against its democratically-expressed wishes isn't of similar import) and, "...we simply cannot risk the Nationalists dragging Scotland off the road and into the ditch". So, basically, "Scotland's a grand country but if it behaves like one, it's shite!".
(He makes some marginally valid points about the languishing nature of Scotland's economy, but those problems pre-date 2007 and fails to take into account that key areas of power which effect the economy - such as macro-economic policy, immigration policy and the like - are held and guarded jealously by the Sovereign State of Westminsteria, which refuses to relinquish any part of them to the lesser regions).
Onwards and sideways to April 30. Here we have just the one eructation from one of the heads of this Hydra of Hysteria. In it, some bod from Dorset (the pattern reasserts itself at this point) resorts in desperation to ALL CAPITALS to hammer home what he thinks is his point, rather like those loopy rightists who think that ending a highly bilge-laden statement of unreality by pointing at their opponents and shouting, "FACT!" gives validation to their nonsense.
So, have the SNP delivered on (list of policies)? "NO!". Give the SNP another majority? "NO!" (as if it was anything to do with - or would have any effect on - anyone in Ferndown). He then finds his SHIFT key in time to refer to, "...Scotland's wonderful people..." (so wonderful that they shouldn't be allowed to rule their own wonderful country) being led onto, "...a slippery slope down to [...] woe." (I'm surprised he didn't engage the CAPS LOCK again for that last word).
There is then the standard proprietorial trope about breaking up, "...our Union..." along with a quite amusing pout about, "Our borders would melt away...", seemingly unaware of the disconnect this creates in his argument; he wants borders it seems, except between two sovereign states on this island. Then the 'threat of Johnny Foreigner' card is played once more, stating that independence would be, "[A]n open invitatation for hostile nations to harass [...] the United Kingdom.". As if the PLA and the Cossacks are massing on the Danish coast again, cunningly plotting the Sacking Of Cromer.
Then, having insulted the intelligence - and deeply dented the credulity - of the people of Scotland, Mr(?) Beesley proclaims, "We love Scotland!". Of course you do, old thing. But your true attitude is expressed in the very next two sentences. "...the Union needs Scotland..." Yes, you need it for your holidays, your cheap oil and gas, and for somewhere to park your really-independent-no-really nuclear 'deterrent', "...for security..." (see under 'post-imperial virility symbol' above), ..."for prosperity..." (see under 'resource grab' above), "...for company.". What? Can you not contact Hampreston Women's Institute to come and give you a little visit a couple of times a week to save you from being lonely? I hardly think that that's a job for Fiona McLeod in Garscadden.
(S)he ends with what has come to be known as the 'abusive partner argument' (with just the slightest wee touch - appropriately enough - of Private Frazer: "Without the Union, Scotland is doomed". "Yer, yer nuffink wivvout me, you wouldn't last five minutes out vere! Nah come 'ere or I'll give yer a fick lip again!".
There's then a short gap on May 1, except for an Englishman who has been in Scotland for nearly forty years and has no intention of moving back (in addition to pointing out that Joanna Lumley has a holiday home in his village).
The respite doesn't last, however. May 2 gives us a brief insight into the mind of someone from another well-kent part of Caledonia, i.e., Bedford. A Mr Denny breathlessly informs us that Scotland has benefitted from, "...314 years of successful political union", the break-up of which would be, "...to the detriment of the Scottish people whom we love..." (presumably in the same way that you love your budgie; you like having him around the place being entertaining for the neighbours, but you would never let him fly free). "It does not", quoth Mr Denny frae Bedford, "take a mathematical genius to see that independence is going to come at a cost to the Scottish people". And? If the sovereign people of Scotland assess that they would rather bear that possible short-term cost in preference to the certain long-term burden of being shackled to the bed in the attic of a house which is falling down around them, who might you be to say they shouldn't, even if yer Ould Granny was fae Dundee?
The barrage of bollocks continued yesterday (May 3), and the testicular exudations of someone called Hill in Swansea. (S)he, like almost all the others, refers to the possibility of, "...another damaging and divisive Independence referendum...", and calls on the people of a country he may well never have visited to, "...reject[...] pointless constitutional wrangling...". This, ironically, after he had said that the imperial parliament election of December 2019 was, "...a referendum on whether the electorate wanted to get Brexit done and move on.", when it wasn't and - nearly eighteen months later - Br***t is still causing 'constitutional wrangling'. Such lack of self-awareness is par for the course though, as we have seen.
Bringing us right up to date (at least for now), in today's (May 4) letters column, we finally have the long-awaited intervention from Jill Stephenson. Now, the name will mean nothing to anyone outside of the actual argument, but Stephenson is a retired professor of history whose specialism was the history of Weimar Germany. Goodness only knows what she must have taught her students given that her contribution to the constitutional debate in Scotland in recent years has been to make regular comparisons between the electoral rise of the Scottish National Party and the coming to power of Hitler. This is why she is known in pro-indy circles as 'Batshit Jill'. On this occasion, however, she has confined herself to excoriating the Scottish government for spending money on things that will improve the lot of the most needy in Scotland (such fripperies as free dental care and a proper rise for health workers; you know, the things which really aren't necessary at all), and to claiming that the only reason these things can be provided is the largesse of HM Treasury, leaving aside the inconvenient truth that all that Betty's Peggy Purse ever does (as I said last time) is reluctantly hand back to the people of Scotland a mere fraction of what said fiscal sinkhole grabs from them in the first instance.
Further down, we have a letter from the bonnie banks and braes of...erm...Suffolk, from whence one D A Glass makes a set of silly false equivalences between the so-called 'United Kingdom' and the USA. Silly, because he is comparing not so much apples with oranges, but raspberries with pumpkins. He throws around figures about the relative distances and population sizes as if that makes any difference to the inherent right of all nations to self-determination. He then tries to claim that we have four 'states' covering a far smaller area. This too is a bogus argument. We do not have four 'states' (even in inverted commas); we have two (let's leave NornIrn out of this; it's a law unto itself in this regard as in every other) parliaments which are in all key respects subsidiary to that of England, and whose powers can be taken away by ministerial fiat from the imperial capital at any time, as we have seen in the last couple of years or so. There is no valid comparison to be made with any of the states of the US, even the smallest of which has powers over such crucial areas (amongst others) as taxation and penal policy way beyond anything that Westminsteria would ever be willing to 'permit' (note that word) to the 'devolved' pretendy parliaments in Edinburgh and Caerdydd. Hell, the governors of states as small in area as Rhode Island or as tiny in population as Wyoming have joint control of their very own militias (the US National Guard)! Can you imagine the fit of the vapours which would be produced by even the slightest suggestion that the elected governments of Scotland and Cymru should ever have such power (here in England's First Colony™, we don't even have power over policing)?
Mr/Mrs/Ms/Mx Glass (you can't be too careful with nomenclature these days) ends his/her/its (See? I told you.) letter by asking us to, yes, "...pull together to make it work for all." I say, chaps, it's the Blitz Spirit (make mine methylated)!
I promise I won't come back to this again, even if the letters page of the Saudipendent on Wednesday contains nothing but more examples of this tripe. I'm confident that all these terribly concerned people in southern England will mysteriously vanish after tomorrow anyway, especially if the pro-independence parties gain their expected majority in Scotland on Thursday.
But I say again; isn't it curious that so many letters saying almost exactly the same thing and in much the same tone should be published in the same rag over a period of three weeks or more without anyone apparently noticing, least of all the editor? Something is clearly going on, the sinister nature of which is more than somewhat dulled by the utter obviousness of the campaign (for such it surely must be) and the clear lack of awareness of those behind it in thinking that they would have any effect by publishing all this tat in a paper which has almost negative reach to what one assumes is its intented audience.
Perhaps after all it's merely a group of 'concerned' Brit Nats who are huddling together for mutual warmth and support as they see their quasi-colonial delusions disappearing over the horizon of History. So long as they don't forget that poor old Mr Beesley in Ferndown is desperate for company.
