The Scottish Politics Thread

[I like neeps]

I can't seem to attach the graph comparison but holy hell this is bad.

[Biffer]

Is that what you were looking for?

Pretty awful. I don't really understand the reason for it being so much higher, and I think it's difficult to say what'll be successful if you don't understand that. No doubt there are plenty of opinions out there but hard facts are not so easy to come by.

[I like neeps]

Is that what you were looking for?

Pretty awful. I don't really understand the reason for it being so much higher, and I think it's difficult to say what'll be successful if you don't understand that. No doubt there are plenty of opinions out there but hard facts are not so easy to come by.

Indeed. That's absolutely shocking.

I grew up in Dundee and have a little bit of knowledge from voluntary work and reading about it since. Which is of course a dangerous combination as I'm far from an expert.

But, in Dundee it seems to be a mix of sh*t life syndrome causing addiction. And then street benzos being extremely cheap (as little as a quid a tab) mixed with harder stuff.

I think also people got used to the grim reality of it and didn't see how abnormal it was. Vividly remember my school being in the centre of town and walking in past boots which had the users collecting their methodone. Used to see people passed out in the streets and it wasn't unusual.

[Jock42]

Is that what you were looking for?

Pretty awful. I don't really understand the reason for it being so much higher, and I think it's difficult to say what'll be successful if you don't understand that. No doubt there are plenty of opinions out there but hard facts are not so easy to come by.

Indeed. That's absolutely shocking.

I grew up in Dundee and have a little bit of knowledge from voluntary work and reading about it since. Which is of course a dangerous combination as I'm far from an expert.

But, in Dundee it seems to be a mix of sh*t life syndrome causing addiction. And then street benzos being extremely cheap (as little as a quid a tab) mixed with harder stuff.

I think also people got used to the grim reality of it and didn't see how abnormal it was. Vividly remember my school being in the centre of town and walking in past boots which had the users collecting their methodone. Used to see people passed out in the streets and it wasn't unusual.

You need a new supplier. 50p these days.

There's recently been an issue with insulin being cut into street valium.

[Biffer]

Is that what you were looking for?

Pretty awful. I don't really understand the reason for it being so much higher, and I think it's difficult to say what'll be successful if you don't understand that. No doubt there are plenty of opinions out there but hard facts are not so easy to come by.

Indeed. That's absolutely shocking.

I grew up in Dundee and have a little bit of knowledge from voluntary work and reading about it since. Which is of course a dangerous combination as I'm far from an expert.

But, in Dundee it seems to be a mix of sh*t life syndrome causing addiction. And then street benzos being extremely cheap (as little as a quid a tab) mixed with harder stuff.

I think also people got used to the grim reality of it and didn't see how abnormal it was. Vividly remember my school being in the centre of town and walking in past boots which had the users collecting their methodone. Used to see people passed out in the streets and it wasn't unusual.

Yeah, but the thing I don't really understand is that there are shitty post industrial cities with deprivation and poverty all over Europe. I understand why we have a drugs problem, I just don't understand why we're such an outlier. Why aren't the multiple drug cocktails in other cities with similar social problems or are they and they don't have the same effect? I sometimes think policy makers are a bit too keen to accept the 'poverty, crime, yep' explanation when it doesn't really tell us why it's so much worse than other cities in the same condition.

[Blackmac]

The Scottish government have scored a horrific own goal in the way they record drugs death and it varies from every other country in the world. A drug death is recorded if there is the slightest suspicion that drugs may have contributed to the death, whether that contribution is significant or not.

A person dies in a car accident and is found to have a previous conviction for cocaine possession, drug death. A person commits suicide and is found to have a small amount of cannabis in their pocket, drug death.

All drug deaths are treated as suspicious and investigated by the CID and a post mortem is carried out and toxicology samples obtained and sent away for analysis. When I retired toxicology results were taking over 6 months, I believe it is now more.

When the result is eventualy obtained it is sent back to the investigating officer. If the toxicology result is completely negative the investigating officer should liase with COPFS to try and have the drugs death re classified. 6 to 10 months after the event an overworked detective has moved on and has at least 1000 more important things to do, so generally they just shrug their shoulders and go "so what, no skin off my nose".

Even if they are motivated to try and get it downgraded it is often impossible as the level of oversight is far too great and no one in the system wants to get accused of manipulating figures. The result is a perfect storm of totally exagerrated statistics

[tc27]

The Scottish government have scored a horrific own goal in the way they record drugs death and it varies from every other country in the world. A drug death is recorded if there is the slightest suspicion that drugs may have contributed to the death, whether that contribution is significant or not.

A person dies in a car accident and is found to have a previous conviction for cocaine possession, drug death. A person commits suicide and is found to have a small amount of cannabis in their pocket, drug death.

All drug deaths are treated as suspicious and investigated by the CID and a post mortem is carried out and toxicology samples obtained and sent away for analysis. When I retired toxicology results were taking over 6 months, I believe it is now more.

When the result is eventualy obtained it is sent back to the investigating officer. If the toxicology result is completely negative the investigating officer should liase with COPFS to try and have the drugs death re classified. 6 to 10 months after the event an overworked detective has moved on and has at least 1000 more important things to do, so generally they just shrug their shoulders and go "so what, no skin off my nose".

Even if they are motivated to try and get it downgraded it is often impossible as the level of oversight is far too great and no one in the system wants to get accused of manipulating figures. The result is a perfect storm of totally exagerrated statistics

The content of your post seems to line up with a claim from nationalist blogger 'Hope over Fear' that Scottish drug deaths appear to be higher purely because of the way the data is collected. It looks like this is something that belongs firmly with the 'secret oilfields/GERS is a conspiracy' category of misinformation.

There are a small number of deaths which would be recorded by Scottish statistics but not in the rest of the UK, because of the way data is collected. For example, a person might intentionally overdose on a legal substance, but also have illegal drugs in their system. This would be counted in Scotland and not in England.

However this accounts for a small number of deaths each year (around three), so would not greatly affect the any comparison between the rest of the UK and Scotland.

https://theferret.scot/scotlands-drug-r ... omparable/

[Caley_Red]

The Scottish government have scored a horrific own goal in the way they record drugs death and it varies from every other country in the world. A drug death is recorded if there is the slightest suspicion that drugs may have contributed to the death, whether that contribution is significant or not.

A person dies in a car accident and is found to have a previous conviction for cocaine possession, drug death. A person commits suicide and is found to have a small amount of cannabis in their pocket, drug death.

All drug deaths are treated as suspicious and investigated by the CID and a post mortem is carried out and toxicology samples obtained and sent away for analysis. When I retired toxicology results were taking over 6 months, I believe it is now more.

When the result is eventualy obtained it is sent back to the investigating officer. If the toxicology result is completely negative the investigating officer should liase with COPFS to try and have the drugs death re classified. 6 to 10 months after the event an overworked detective has moved on and has at least 1000 more important things to do, so generally they just shrug their shoulders and go "so what, no skin off my nose".

Even if they are motivated to try and get it downgraded it is often impossible as the level of oversight is far too great and no one in the system wants to get accused of manipulating figures. The result is a perfect storm of totally exagerrated statistics

That's absolutely moronic, has that always been the case with the recording methodology?

[Blackmac]

The Scottish government have scored a horrific own goal in the way they record drugs death and it varies from every other country in the world. A drug death is recorded if there is the slightest suspicion that drugs may have contributed to the death, whether that contribution is significant or not.

A person dies in a car accident and is found to have a previous conviction for cocaine possession, drug death. A person commits suicide and is found to have a small amount of cannabis in their pocket, drug death.

All drug deaths are treated as suspicious and investigated by the CID and a post mortem is carried out and toxicology samples obtained and sent away for analysis. When I retired toxicology results were taking over 6 months, I believe it is now more.

When the result is eventualy obtained it is sent back to the investigating officer. If the toxicology result is completely negative the investigating officer should liase with COPFS to try and have the drugs death re classified. 6 to 10 months after the event an overworked detective has moved on and has at least 1000 more important things to do, so generally they just shrug their shoulders and go "so what, no skin off my nose".

Even if they are motivated to try and get it downgraded it is often impossible as the level of oversight is far too great and no one in the system wants to get accused of manipulating figures. The result is a perfect storm of totally exagerrated statistics

The content of your post seems to line up with a claim from nationalist blogger 'Hope over Fear' that Scottish drug deaths appear to be higher purely because of the way the data is collected. It looks like this is something that belongs firmly with the 'secret oilfields/GERS is a conspiracy' category of misinformation.

There are a small number of deaths which would be recorded by Scottish statistics but not in the rest of the UK, because of the way data is collected. For example, a person might intentionally overdose on a legal substance, but also have illegal drugs in their system. This would be counted in Scotland and not in England.

However this accounts for a small number of deaths each year (around three), so would not greatly affect the any comparison between the rest of the UK and Scotland.

https://theferret.scot/scotlands-drug-r ... omparable/

I would never suggest that we do not have a horrific problem, just do not believe that it is as bad as these figures suggest. Even using the example they quote, intentional overdose on legal substance with illegal drugs in the system, to suggest that only counts for 3 of the deaths each year is ridiculous. That is quite a common scenario.

In England they do not record it as a drugs death until after the toxicology has been confirmed and the coroner has concluded it is a drugs death. The problem we have is we classify them far too early and then do not have enough oversight to ensure that they are corrected at a later stage. No one will ever honestly acknowledge just how ineffective the process is but as someone that spent many a year at that particular coal face I can assure you it is.

[Blackmac]

The Scottish government have scored a horrific own goal in the way they record drugs death and it varies from every other country in the world. A drug death is recorded if there is the slightest suspicion that drugs may have contributed to the death, whether that contribution is significant or not.

A person dies in a car accident and is found to have a previous conviction for cocaine possession, drug death. A person commits suicide and is found to have a small amount of cannabis in their pocket, drug death.

All drug deaths are treated as suspicious and investigated by the CID and a post mortem is carried out and toxicology samples obtained and sent away for analysis. When I retired toxicology results were taking over 6 months, I believe it is now more.

When the result is eventualy obtained it is sent back to the investigating officer. If the toxicology result is completely negative the investigating officer should liase with COPFS to try and have the drugs death re classified. 6 to 10 months after the event an overworked detective has moved on and has at least 1000 more important things to do, so generally they just shrug their shoulders and go "so what, no skin off my nose".

Even if they are motivated to try and get it downgraded it is often impossible as the level of oversight is far too great and no one in the system wants to get accused of manipulating figures. The result is a perfect storm of totally exagerrated statistics

That's absolutely moronic, has that always been the case with the recording methodology?

Common sense went out of the process about 10 to 15 years ago.

[tc27]

Blackmac - accepting fully your experience of this (and that you are not denying the existence of the problem just to extent to which the NRS figures are correct) I think you need to read the article and the NRS report as it explicitly refutes some of your points.

For instance from the Ferret article:

The Hope Over Fear post is incorrect to state that “people who have died due to a heart attack or car crash are included if they had any type of drug in their system, even if the drug did not contribute to their death.”

Car crashes are explicitly excluded from the definition of drug-related deaths, and heart attacks are included only if the underlying cause was listed as drug use.

Sections G9 and G10 of the NRS document address the methodology differences...the salient paragraphs:

Such differences may affect the comparability of drug-death rates for Scotland and the UK
as a whole, but are unlikely to account for the majority of the difference between those
rates. For example:
 if the numbers of drug-related deaths were rising at 10% per year, their being
registered (on average) six months earlier in Scotland than in England would
© Crown Copyright 2019
48
increase the Scottish drug-death rate by only 5% (relative to the English one), all
else being equal (because one would be comparing the Scottish number of deaths
which occurred, broadly speaking, in [say] 2015 with the English number of deaths
which occurred, broadly speaking, between [say] mid-2014 and mid-2015 – a period
when drug-death rates were lower).
 on average, Scotland had only around 3 deaths per year from intentional
self-poisoning by an uncontrolled substance for which a controlled substance was
present in the body but was not believed to have contributed to the death. Such
deaths are included in the drug-related death figures for Scotland, but not for
England – but are too few in number to have much effect on the comparability of
drug-death rates.
 ‘drug overdose’ and ‘opiate’ deaths in England are counted as drug-related/’misuse’
deaths, so the lack of information about which drugs were involved does not affect
the comparability of the overall drug-death rates. (However, it could have a
noticeable effect on any comparison of figures for deaths which were caused by
particular drugs, of course.)
It follows that the Scottish rate could well be at least 2½ times that of the UK as a whole
even if there were no methodological differences.

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files//st ... df#page=48

[Blackmac]

I have to admit that makes quite an educating read tc27. Whilst I know that my description of COPFS's recording process is accurate and would also suggest that some of the information in relation to police procedures is wildly off the mark, I can see that the report clearly shows that someone beyond the criminal justice process is at least applying a bit of sense to the evaluation of these deaths. That is quite reassuring in one way and I agree, debunks my theory about inadequate COPFS processes inflating the figures.

Given the above, its worth taking a minute to imagine the resources that the police waste because of the drugs death definition they are being forced to work to and lets hope no one ever releases that figure.

Joe Fitzpatrick MSP has just been on 'Scotland tonight'. In summary "the problems stem from way before we came to power, we have no idea how to deal with it, but I can state that it is not the governments fault." It was pathetic.

[Caley_Red]

The second worrying intervention I've read on the SNP's history curriculum (following on from Tom Devine's comments a few weeks ago); falsehoods, misrepresentations and, in some cases, outright propaganda.

Judge her by education, she says. .

The subversion of history education in Scotland

No school subject lends itself more readily to political manipulation and propaganda than history. This is especially the case in Scotland, where the purpose of history education has changed beyond recognition since the SNP came to power.

The subject is no longer about encouraging critical enquiry and dispassionate analysis; it is there to guide the socialisation of children into Scottish society. This involves an emphasis on identity and empathy, with Scots cast as perpetual victims.

In the past, it was undoubtedly wrong that little Scottish history was taught in Scottish schools. Instead, there was a depressing emphasis on the world wars and Nazi Germany. Now, the balance has swung the other way, and Scottish history has pride of place in the Curriculum for Excellence. But it is history with a clear agenda.

Terminology, such as ‘English domination’ and ‘unfair’ is frequently used in teaching materials, despite this being emotional rather than evidence-based language. Paradoxically, Scots are also portrayed as ultimately triumphant, with the establishment of the devolved parliament and electoral victories by the SNP listed as recent victories.

From the moment a recognisable polity called ‘Scotland’ appears in the history books (during and after the wars of independence in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries) the curriculum portrays Scottish history as a long march towards nationhood.

Education Scotland recently created a ‘timeline’ of Scottish history to be used in classrooms, called ‘The Road to the Scottish Parliament’. According to the 27-page document, the evils of the English began with Edward I of England (1272-1307) and continue to the present. The document has a number of references to Scots being poorly treated by the English, and writes that 'for 800 years the Scots have been struggling against English oppression.’

Moreover, in this ‘timeline’ Scotland’s achievements within the Union, such as those during the Age of Enlightenment are disregarded, as is the participation of Scots in the British Empire, despite Glasgow’s position as the ‘second city of the Empire’. It is estimated that one third of slave plantations in the Caribbean were owned by Scots, while 75 per cent of tea planters in Sri Lanka were Scottish. But these facts do not fit the SNP’s narrative, and so are simply discarded. It is no wonder the document has been criticised by historians such as Sir Tom Devine, who has described it as ‘arrant propaganda’.

The Jesuits were believed to have said: ‘give me a child till he is seven and he is mine forever’. The SNP has learned this lesson well, although in its case it is, ‘give us a child till he is 16 and he will vote for us forever’.

Often the anti-English grievances peddled in the Scottish education sector are pure mythology. There are Scottish nationalists who clearly regard the film Braveheart – which appears on Education Scotland’s timeline – as a documentary rather than the parody it undoubtedly is.

The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), the government’s awards and accreditation agency, was recently found to be prescribing credit to pupils who wrote that Winston Churchill sent tanks and thousands of English soldiers to Glasgow in 1919 to suppress a demonstration. However, this is a long-standing historical myth. While the Sheriff of Lanarkshire deployed police against the protestors and Scottish soldiers were on standby – after a panic about insurrection in the wake of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia – there were no tanks and no English soldiers in Glasgow’s George Square, where the demonstration took place. Winston Churchill was also not involved in the incident.

Nevertheless, this myth not only made its way into Scottish exams, but also appeared on Education Scotland’s historical timeline. To scotch this vexatious lie, the authorities should prescribe the work of the historian Dr Gordon J Barclay, whose painstaking research has demonstrated that the victimhood myth of the ‘Battle of George Square’ is what we call fake news.

The SNP has a similarly cavalier approach to its own history. After Alex Salmond was charged in 2018 with sexual offences (and subsequently found not guilty), he was completely written out of the SNP’s official history on its website.

In the SNP’s version of history, Nicola Sturgeon is credited with leading the campaign for Scottish secession in 2014. But the man who had been party leader for most of the previous quarter of a century, and who first led the SNP into government in Scotland in 2007, does not get a single mention. If anything resembles the air-brushing of Trotsky from photographs of Bolshevik leaders at Stalin’s behest, this is it.

There is a further resemblance to the Bolsheviks in the way that the Scottish education secretary, John Swinney, regularly proclaims that Scottish schools have overfulfilled their quotas for tractor production. Well, not quite. But facts such as a fall in exam pass rates and the failure to narrow the attainment gap between schools in affluent and deprived areas are glossed over by Swinney with good news of ‘steady, incremental gains in attainment across the broad general education… according to international experts’. In reality, Scottish schools have fallen down the PISA international rankings – and now score lower than English schools in key subjects. The Scottish government has also abandoned its Survey of Literacy and Numeracy, because the results were becoming embarrassing. According to Professor Lindsay Paterson, ‘Scottish education is now a data desert’. What you do not measure cannot be assessed and shown up for the failure that it is.

History in Scotland has become a political tool for the embedding of a particular kind of Scottish identity, an emphatically nationalist one. It is one where virtue is ascribed to Scots, who are portrayed as being morally superior to English people. You can hear it every time Nicola Sturgeon claims (unjustifiably) that her government has dealt better with Covid than the government in the UK. History is used by Scottish nationalists to present a picture of a victimised but plucky nation struggling for centuries against a larger ‘neighbour’, but in the end succeeding against the odds. It is what we used to call, in German history, ‘looking forward to a better past’.

WRITTEN BY
Jill Stephenson
Jill Stephenson is Professor Emeritus of Modern German History at the University of Edinburgh

[Slick]

Whilst there are some worrying things in there, I find it a little far fetched that the SNP are actively trying to promote this or remotely capable of pulling it off

[Tattie]

Jill Stephenson has form, her extreme views and utter hatred of anything to do with the SNP or Scottish nationalism is easy to source. Wasn’t she the one who called Mhairi Black a slut a few years ago?

She and others seem to be unable to differentiate between being pro Scottish and being anti English. Surely teaching kids about their own history is a good thing? as long as it’s warts and all.

[robmatic]

Whilst there are some worrying things in there, I find it a little far fetched that the SNP are actively trying to promote this or remotely capable of pulling it off

Also perhaps a case of a history educator overestimating the impact of history education in schools. Given the limited time devoted to it, teachers with let's say varied abilities and student disinterest, I can't imagine much successful cultural indoctrination happening. I was top of my year in GCSE History and actually quite interested in it, and I still forgot most of it immediately after the exams.

[Paddington Bear]

Jill Stephenson has form, her extreme views and utter hatred of anything to do with the SNP or Scottish nationalism is easy to source. Wasn’t she the one who called Mhairi Black a slut a few years ago?

She and others seem to be unable to differentiate between being pro Scottish and being anti English. Surely teaching kids about their own history is a good thing? as long as it’s warts and all.

'800 years of English oppression' seems pretty clear cut anti-English, no?

[Bimbowomxn]

Jill Stephenson has form, her extreme views and utter hatred of anything to do with the SNP or Scottish nationalism is easy to source. Wasn’t she the one who called Mhairi Black a slut a few years ago?

She and others seem to be unable to differentiate between being pro Scottish and being anti English. Surely teaching kids about their own history is a good thing? as long as it’s warts and all.

'800 years of English oppression' seems pretty clear cut anti-English, no?

And historical nonsense becoming the Scottish mainstream teaching,

Evil.

[Paddington Bear]

Jill Stephenson has form, her extreme views and utter hatred of anything to do with the SNP or Scottish nationalism is easy to source. Wasn’t she the one who called Mhairi Black a slut a few years ago?

She and others seem to be unable to differentiate between being pro Scottish and being anti English. Surely teaching kids about their own history is a good thing? as long as it’s warts and all.

'800 years of English oppression' seems pretty clear cut anti-English, no?

And historical nonsense becoming the Scottish mainstream teaching,

Evil.

It's a clever tactic - I wonder where they got the idea for 800 years from...

[Tattie]

Jill Stephenson has form, her extreme views and utter hatred of anything to do with the SNP or Scottish nationalism is easy to source. Wasn’t she the one who called Mhairi Black a slut a few years ago?

She and others seem to be unable to differentiate between being pro Scottish and being anti English. Surely teaching kids about their own history is a good thing? as long as it’s warts and all.

'800 years of English oppression' seems pretty clear cut anti-English, no?

I don’t know enough about what’s being taught in Secondary school history but is this literally what is being taught or her interpretation? I find it hard to believe that the entire Scottish education system and all of the history teachers would be prepared to use such language without question or challenge. I’ll have to ask my S1 age son about what’s being taught.

Seriously, look her up, she’s a nutcase.

[tc27]

Things I have being told completely straight faced by nationalists:

1. Churchill sent in tanks to crush 'Red Glasgow'
2. Churchill planned to abandon Scotland to the Nazis in the event they invaded err South East England in 1940.
3. The 51st Highland division was deliberately left behind in France in 1940.
4. Scotland was and still is a colony of the British empire.

Its fucking nuts.

[Paddington Bear]

That the 51st being 'abandoned' hasn't been killed off astonishes me, the most basic look at the facts would show it for the complete bollocks it is.

[Paddington Bear]

Jill Stephenson has form, her extreme views and utter hatred of anything to do with the SNP or Scottish nationalism is easy to source. Wasn’t she the one who called Mhairi Black a slut a few years ago?

She and others seem to be unable to differentiate between being pro Scottish and being anti English. Surely teaching kids about their own history is a good thing? as long as it’s warts and all.

'800 years of English oppression' seems pretty clear cut anti-English, no?

I don’t know enough about what’s being taught in Secondary school history but is this literally what is being taught or her interpretation? I find it hard to believe that the entire Scottish education system and all of the history teachers would be prepared to use such language without question or challenge. I’ll have to ask my S1 age son about what’s being taught.

Seriously, look her up, she’s a nutcase.

The paragraph reads
Education Scotland recently created a ‘timeline’ of Scottish history to be used in classrooms, called ‘The Road to the Scottish Parliament’. According to the 27-page document, the evils of the English began with Edward I of England (1272-1307) and continue to the present. The document has a number of references to Scots being poorly treated by the English, and writes that 'for 800 years the Scots have been struggling against English oppression.’

So her inference is that it is in the document from Education Scotland itself. I'm happy to be corrected as I haven't read it myself.

[Biffer]

Jill Stephenson has form, her extreme views and utter hatred of anything to do with the SNP or Scottish nationalism is easy to source. Wasn’t she the one who called Mhairi Black a slut a few years ago?

She and others seem to be unable to differentiate between being pro Scottish and being anti English. Surely teaching kids about their own history is a good thing? as long as it’s warts and all.

'800 years of English oppression' seems pretty clear cut anti-English, no?

If anyone could find the document she’s talking about and provide a link to it, maybe we could form our own opinions, but I haven’t been able to locate it.

[Paddington Bear]

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/c ... on-3065384

Key bits:
On Wednesday, this despicable, dishonest, crude propagandist “timeline” was removed from the Education Scotland website – an admission of guilt. A spokesman for Education Scotland said primly that it was to ensure “our resource is not open to misunderstanding or misinterpretation”. Aye, right.


Sir Thomas Devine denounced it as “arrant propaganda” and “dangerous nonsense”. Professor Chris Whatley of Dundee University described it as a “perversion of history… frightening as it was blatantly political and clearly designed to support the cause of Scottish independence”.

[Biffer]

Things I have being told completely straight faced by nationalists:

1. Churchill sent in tanks to crush 'Red Glasgow'
2. Churchill planned to abandon Scotland to the Nazis in the event they invaded err South East England in 1940.
3. The 51st Highland division was deliberately left behind in France in 1940.
4. Scotland was and still is a colony of the British empire.

Its fucking nuts.

There were six tanks sent to Glasgow during the Red Clydeside strikes, but they weren’t deployed against the strikers, I think they were inside the cattle market. There were machine gun nests in George Square and I think the Maryhill troops were confined to barracks, with troops from the North of England, Aberdeenshire and other areas being deployed.

The others are clear bullshit and I have no hesitation in calling people out about them.

[Biffer]

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/c ... on-3065384

Key bits:
On Wednesday, this despicable, dishonest, crude propagandist “timeline” was removed from the Education Scotland website – an admission of guilt. A spokesman for Education Scotland said primly that it was to ensure “our resource is not open to misunderstanding or misinterpretation”. Aye, right.


Sir Thomas Devine denounced it as “arrant propaganda” and “dangerous nonsense”. Professor Chris Whatley of Dundee University described it as a “perversion of history… frightening as it was blatantly political and clearly designed to support the cause of Scottish independence”.

Still not the document itself, seeing as it’s been withdrawn. I wouldn’t trust Brian Wilson’s opinion on anything tbh, he’s one of the most rabid SNPBAAAAAAADDDD mouthpieces that’s available. Shame we can’t see what was in the original, I’d like to understand what the fuck was going on. None of us achieve that by only listening to the more rabid voices from one side.

[Paddington Bear]

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/c ... on-3065384

Key bits:
On Wednesday, this despicable, dishonest, crude propagandist “timeline” was removed from the Education Scotland website – an admission of guilt. A spokesman for Education Scotland said primly that it was to ensure “our resource is not open to misunderstanding or misinterpretation”. Aye, right.


Sir Thomas Devine denounced it as “arrant propaganda” and “dangerous nonsense”. Professor Chris Whatley of Dundee University described it as a “perversion of history… frightening as it was blatantly political and clearly designed to support the cause of Scottish independence”.

Still not the document itself, seeing as it’s been withdrawn. I wouldn’t trust Brian Wilson’s opinion on anything tbh, he’s one of the most rabid SNPBAAAAAAADDDD mouthpieces that’s available. Shame we can’t see what was in the original, I’d like to understand what the fuck was going on. None of us achieve that by only listening to the more rabid voices from one side.

We'll have to accept that we are unlikely to see the the document itself to settle this and am happy to accept columnists always have axes to drive. Devine and Whatley are to be taken seriously, however.

[Tattie]

'800 years of English oppression' seems pretty clear cut anti-English, no?

I don’t know enough about what’s being taught in Secondary school history but is this literally what is being taught or her interpretation? I find it hard to believe that the entire Scottish education system and all of the history teachers would be prepared to use such language without question or challenge. I’ll have to ask my S1 age son about what’s being taught.

Seriously, look her up, she’s a nutcase.

The paragraph reads
Education Scotland recently created a ‘timeline’ of Scottish history to be used in classrooms, called ‘The Road to the Scottish Parliament’. According to the 27-page document, the evils of the English began with Edward I of England (1272-1307) and continue to the present. The document has a number of references to Scots being poorly treated by the English, and writes that 'for 800 years the Scots have been struggling against English oppression.’

So her inference is that it is in the document from Education Scotland itself. I'm happy to be corrected as I haven't read it myself.

It’s all about context. You, and I, would have to read all the documentation to get the full story. Do you deny that there have been instances in the past 800 years where Scotland/Scots have been poorly treated? I’m sure there are also references to instances of Scotland/Scots being the oppressors. You can’t just cherry pick to try and make a point and that’s exactly what she would do knowing her views. All history should be taught - events of which we should be proud of and ashamed of and angry about.

We can’t airbrush awful things that happened from our history just because of our current individual political views.

Also, To address another point made here - I have heard some ludicrous guff passed off as fact from unionists, but that doesn’t mean that I think that’s what ALL unionists believe.

[Slick]

I don’t know enough about what’s being taught in Secondary school history but is this literally what is being taught or her interpretation? I find it hard to believe that the entire Scottish education system and all of the history teachers would be prepared to use such language without question or challenge. I’ll have to ask my S1 age son about what’s being taught.

Seriously, look her up, she’s a nutcase.

The paragraph reads
Education Scotland recently created a ‘timeline’ of Scottish history to be used in classrooms, called ‘The Road to the Scottish Parliament’. According to the 27-page document, the evils of the English began with Edward I of England (1272-1307) and continue to the present. The document has a number of references to Scots being poorly treated by the English, and writes that 'for 800 years the Scots have been struggling against English oppression.’

So her inference is that it is in the document from Education Scotland itself. I'm happy to be corrected as I haven't read it myself.

It’s all about context. You, and I, would have to read all the documentation to get the full story. Do you deny that there have been instances in the past 800 years where Scotland/Scots have been poorly treated? I’m sure there are also references to instances of Scotland/Scots being the oppressors. You can’t just cherry pick to try and make a point and that’s exactly what she would do knowing her views. All history should be taught - events of which we should be proud of and ashamed of and angry about.

We can’t airbrush awful things that happened from our history just because of our current individual political views.

Also, To address another point made here - I have heard some ludicrous guff passed off as fact from unionists, but that doesn’t mean that I think that’s what ALL unionists believe.

Go on.

[Paddington Bear]

I don’t know enough about what’s being taught in Secondary school history but is this literally what is being taught or her interpretation? I find it hard to believe that the entire Scottish education system and all of the history teachers would be prepared to use such language without question or challenge. I’ll have to ask my S1 age son about what’s being taught.

Seriously, look her up, she’s a nutcase.

The paragraph reads
Education Scotland recently created a ‘timeline’ of Scottish history to be used in classrooms, called ‘The Road to the Scottish Parliament’. According to the 27-page document, the evils of the English began with Edward I of England (1272-1307) and continue to the present. The document has a number of references to Scots being poorly treated by the English, and writes that 'for 800 years the Scots have been struggling against English oppression.’

So her inference is that it is in the document from Education Scotland itself. I'm happy to be corrected as I haven't read it myself.

It’s all about context. You, and I, would have to read all the documentation to get the full story. Do you deny that there have been instances in the past 800 years where Scotland/Scots have been poorly treated? I’m sure there are also references to instances of Scotland/Scots being the oppressors. You can’t just cherry pick to try and make a point and that’s exactly what she would do knowing her views. All history should be taught - events of which we should be proud of and ashamed of and angry about.

We can’t airbrush awful things that happened from our history just because of our current individual political views.

Also, To address another point made here - I have heard some ludicrous guff passed off as fact from unionists, but that doesn’t mean that I think that’s what ALL unionists believe.

Do you deny that there have been instances in the past 800 years where Scotland/Scots have been poorly treated? I’m sure there are also references to instances of Scotland/Scots being the oppressors.
1) Of course in the course of the last 800 years the Scots have had a harsh rap at times. If you can name a nation that hasn't I'd be genuinely fascinated.
The point is the clear apeing here of '800 years' is an Irish import where it has limited, but not no, merit. It centres a narrative of an oppressed Scotland, the 'first victim' of 'English' colonialism. This creates a situation that suggests the whole thrust of the last 800 years of Scottish history has been fighting back against the jackboot of the others to the South, with the political conclusions that that would lead you to.

This narrative is without merit in the Scottish context. Scotland and Scots were the key agents of the suppression of Highland independence and culture, and were active and enthusiastic imperialists, and Scotland profited mightily from the exercise.
Scots under the British Empire were poorly treated in the way that the working class were across mainland Britain. The plight of Glaswegian factory workers is not unique, rather a common experience that you'd find in Manchester, Leeds or anywhere else. This was a key factor in Labour Unionism, now in retreat.
2) The clear inference of both articles is that Scots and their role as colonisers/imperialists is either not mentioned or brushed past very quickly. As you rightly say though, we can't be certain as the document has been taken down.

[Slick]

Or as one great historian once said:

Some people hate the English, I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonised by wankers. We can't even find a decent culture to be colonised by.

[Big D]

Joe Fitzpatrick MSP has just been on 'Scotland tonight'. In summary "the problems stem from way before we came to power, we have no idea how to deal with it, but I can state that it is not the governments fault." It was pathetic.

Part of the reason I have little to no time for politicians who blame their predecessors. 13 years is plenty of time to come up with a plan.

[Northern Lights]

I see even Sturgeon isn’t following the COVID rules.

I’m sure the apologists will be along shortly, it’s probably Thatchers fault.

[tc27]

Im not her biggest fan but seems more like a careless mistake than simply ignoring the rules as Cummings or Ferrier did.

[Northern Lights]

Im not her biggest fan but seems more like a careless mistake than simply ignoring the rules as Cummings or Ferrier did.

I’m sure it was but can you imagine the spittle-flecked rage from Blackford and the condescension from Sturgeon if it was Ruth Davidson or Douglas Ross.

[Jock42]

I see even Sturgeon isn’t following the COVID rules.

I’m sure the apologists will be along shortly, it’s probably Thatchers fault.

What's she done?

[Northern Lights]

I see even Sturgeon isn’t following the COVID rules.

I’m sure the apologists will be along shortly, it’s probably Thatchers fault.

What's she done?

Took her mask off at a funeral and was blethering with some folk, it’s on beeb

[Blackmac]

That the 51st being 'abandoned' hasn't been killed off astonishes me, the most basic look at the facts would show it for the complete bollocks it is.

It has to be honest, by anyone with just a passing interest in WW2. The most usual bastardisation of the tale is that the 51st were chosen as the rearguard at Dunkirk because they were the most ferocious fighters. It's always funny to see these people's faces when you point out that they wreren't anywhere near Dunkirk

[Jock42]

That the 51st being 'abandoned' hasn't been killed off astonishes me, the most basic look at the facts would show it for the complete bollocks it is.

It has to be honest, by anyone with just a passing interest in WW2. The most usual bastardisation of the tale is that the 51st were chosen as the rearguard at Dunkirk because they were the most ferocious fighters. It's always funny to see these people's faces when you point out that they wreren't anywhere near Dunkirk

Just most ferocious fighters full stop.

Even now