Amazingly (or not) Strathclyde Partnership for Transport had agreed with the complainant that this is a political poster and has pulled them. (I wonder what the make up of the executive of the partnership is.)
What I see is a series of facts about the number of newspapers in Scotland together with undeniable statements that the bulk of them are foreign owned, and that none has indicated that supports independence.
I also see an invitation to read a blog which will give you facts that the papers leave out and a suggestion that you might like to hear the other side of the story. I would think that any intelligent person would want to have all the facts and that any responsible government would be anxious that they did.
I'm sure that over the years there have been many newspaper or magazine articles which have offered people pretty similar opportunities.
I don't see any evidence that the advertiser is urging one political view or another on its readers; nor do I see any note of affiliation to, or endorsement of, a political party on the part of the publisher of the journal.
I wonder if they take advertisements for squirrels on the Glasgow metro...
I have written a letter of complaint to SPT regarding adverts on the subway for "Imodium" which I believe to be a subtle attack on comments made by the Better Together campaign.
ReplyDeleteHa ha ha ha... :)
DeleteTris
ReplyDeleteJust shows you how insecure and desperate the NO sayers camp is now, the pressure is getting to them big time. Loving it.
Bruce
Yes, they don't even want people to know that there is an alternative to the BBC and other London press organisations.
Deleteправда Pravda
PS Bruce. I've read your piece on Lamont. I can't comment on it, but I'd like to so I'll put it here.
DeleteI don;t know if Lamont actually meant it as a slur on Moira and Alex not having children. But if she...or her speech writers had stopped to think, she, or they, would have seen the possible connection and immediately removed the piece. it's the kind of thing a decent person from which would immediately recoil.
She could easily have made the point without being personal.
But she can't fault the SNP policies because they are, by and large, decent centre left politics which, if her boss wasn't right wing and sucking up to the toffs of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, she would be pursuing herself...so she plays the man, and not the ball.
This time she was potentially offensive. I've no idea if it was intentional. If it was she should resign because she's a cheap nasty woman.
If ours was an unforeseen interpretation, she should still resign because clearly she's far too thick to be the leader of a political party that is supposed to be the official opposition, and in a position where she could one day represent Scotland as its leader.
In any case she is a bitter nasty old woman, and her bitterness shows all over her thrawn face.
Tris
DeleteThanks for commenting. I just think that given her record to date this has to have been a calculated comment aimed at hurting AS politically, I would hate to think that she actually meant to hurt AS and his family personally, but I am not so sure given her apparent hatred of him.
She comes across as so full of hate now, it is so very sad and it lets us all down and I for one am just sick of it to be honest. When you think of what Alan Grogan does and says, the conviction and the dignity that he has you can see that there can be hope for a Scottish Labour Party but then compare to Lamont and the hope is gone and the old anger at what is a shocking hate filled movement comes back.
I just thought the comment was beneath what a lot of us hope that Scotland could be. Between Lamont and Westminster we really live in a country that would appear to hate 90% of it's people, this has got to change because what might come if it doesn't will be worse.
I was speaking to a recent YES convert last night and I was saying a no vote this time will result in a fight on the streets once people understand the mistakle they will have made because there is no way that Westminster will ever agree to another referendum. Any change in the future is going to have to be fought for and that , while a price worth paying many will believe, can be avoided with a peaceful YES vote now.
I am not someone into conspiracy but I just would not put anything past the likes of Lamont anymore.
Bruce
Aye Bruce. I can be nasty and rude about some of them (but of course I'm not a VIP like her and I'm only talking for me, not a political party as I am a member of none.
DeleteBut I draw the line at being personal like that. Not about Cameron or Brown or Lamont.
I might say that Darling is the most boring speaker that I've ever heard; that he was either an idiot or a thief when he flipped his house 4 times and put in claims for tax lawyers to help him avoid paying tac. But I'd not comment on his family or kids.
I don;t think though that the big event, if there is one, will have anything to do with Lamont. She's not bright enough, or powerful enough, to carry it off.
This will be from London if it happens. if they are pretty sure that they are going to lose the revenue from Scotland and the docking place for their leaky bombs, I'm thinking that it wouldn't be past them to organise something ... I dunno what... maybe along the lines of David Kelly...
Labour do not like democracy.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant...
DeleteDo you know the make-up of the SPT board... is it predominantly Labour councillors getting a bit of extra time at the trough?
Think I read a post on one of Stu's articles yesterday Tris that pointed out the numbers. Let's just day that the ELEVEN Labour councillors on the board of SPT is the biggest number. Nuff said! LOL
DeleteUPDATE!
DeleteYou can find the full list of SPT members here.
http://tinyurl.com/olta2x6
Don't you just love living in a free country. I'd hate to live somewhere like North Korea where political figures can control the information the people get to see and hear!
ReplyDeleteWouldn't that be just terrible...
DeleteWell, I said they'd play dirty.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I'm expecting worse to come.
I'm still expecting a "state of emergency" to be manufactured around the end of august (or maybe sept11, it would be crass and obvious, but with the big war party in Glasgow I don't put it past them). Maybe some patsy will be talked into bombing the London underground again?
Let's not kid ourselves, this is a civil war, the fact that it's currently a cold civil war just means we're not likely to see troops deployed yet. I fully expect Westminster to escalate as they realise that they're losing.
This isn't half as dirty as they will get when they see the wealth of Scotland slipping away from their greedy grasping right wing fat fingers.
DeleteI believe that there is nothing they won't stoop to. They never thought it would come to this. They were sure that obedient jocks would simply to the right thing and admit that they were indeed too wee, poor and incredibly stupid...
Of course anything wild is always dismissed as conspiracy theory, but I genuinely believe the British government is an evil organisation which will do whatever it takes to get its own way regardless of the cost, and regardless of the situation.
We were warned the other day that there is a threat to the Queen. I wonder who is at the back of that... I mean it says Al Qa'ida but who is it really?
http://www.socialni.com/lone-wolf-terror-threat-to-queenour-front-page/
They wouldn't have to kill her...just fire a shot and be captured... then they could be "kill themselves" in their prison cell and be shipped out in a coffin with a few million and a chance to start a new life somewhere.
Everyone would be outraged...especially if it happened in Scotland tat their shindig of Britishness.
I'm not saying that they will, but I certainly wouldn't put it past them. Posh boys don't like oinks getting the better of them.
I could believe it would be "Al Qa'ida"
DeleteThere are *SO* many examples of the FBI, CIA, etc.. finding some numpty, coaching him along to the point where he's about to do something dangerous while they have agents pretending to be "against the man" and then arresting the fool just before they do anything. And then claiming that they've arrested a terrorist, without mentioning that they created the terrorist in the first place. Same stratagy used in the middle-east, but on a smaller scale.
I could easily see them letting another one go just a little bit farther if they need another excuse.
"Conspiricy" is unneeded, all that needs to happen is for the incentives to be set up in a way that people do things in their own self-interest that make the world worse.
I wouldn't expect them to be captured until October, a national manhunt is a far better excuse for shutting down the referendum than "look at these scarey people we caught, they might have friends!"
---
If you're not aiming for utopia, you're doing politics wrong.
Well I expect something Illy... They are desperate. If the commercial polls are showing such good results, the private polls must be really frightening.
DeleteAnd having a go at someone because they are childless is hardly
I read your blog every day and but this is the first time I have made a comment.
DeleteWhat worries me is the commonwealth games - that would be a prime time to create a 'disturbance' which would allow a clampdown and a refusal to let the indy ref take place on the ground of 'national security'.
I'm right there with you expecting something, I just don't expect them to let "the event" be resolved quickly or quietly, as that would defeat the point of having an "event" in the first place. If they've got any smarts they'll either drag it out, or spring it Sept 16th.
Delete---
If you're not aiming for utopia, you're doing politics wrong.
Hi Anon... I'm glad you enjoy the blog and doubly pleased to see a comment :)
DeleteI reckon that's not a bad guess.
The n it will be for security reasons that they feel it would be dangerous.
I wonder what dignitary is opening/closing the Games
SPT subway under fire after pulling advert for pro-independence site
ReplyDeleteBBC /Labour Scotland news oh look squirrels.
I love the way SPT appear to be scrambling to cover their *ahem* political earse! SPT know fine well that the advert from Wings is NOT political but as Stu said in the STV piece they are more than happy to allow NO political comment on their sites. There is only one phrase that can adequately describe SPT's actions here..."denial of freedom of speech!"
DeleteUpdate BBC now reporting it reluctantly at last.
DeleteScottish independence: Glasgow subway operator SPT removes 'political' posters
So he ends up with more publicity than he would have got from the ads, and he will surely get him money back ... I bet he does.
DeleteThe plot thickens.
DeleteI wonder if that is why the BBC eventually reported it, covers backside.
UPDATE!
DeleteTris he DID get his money back. LOL
I thought he would. I'd not mess with Stuart... It just wouldn't be wise. His pen (or keyboard) can cut through tungsten carbide!.
DeleteOh that's mysterious Cynical.... hilarious... Maybe they should have had a Butter Together logo... or a picture of Johann Lamont kissing Anas Sarwar... or Davie Camergoon kissing President Obama...
DeleteOK, that's my guesses all used up....
'Democracy' and 'UK'?
ReplyDeleteDoes not compute.
Is that the democracy filled with bishops in the legislature? You know, that one with over 90 hereditary aristocrats sitting in parliament? That one? The one without any constitution?
Makes Austria-Hungary look like a constitutional role model of epic proportions by comparison!
That's the one, Dean. It also has a head of state and her eldest son who can mess with legislation, but we aren't allowed to know about the messing that they do...
DeleteThe also have first past the post elections in which 60% of seats never change hands and patties are whipped which makes the prime minister of the day an elected dictator.
One of the least democratic democracies in the world I'd say.
Yeah, I think I know about that one... don't they place children into immigration & asylum detention centres? Keep WMDs in places against the sovereign will of its people and hound jobseekers via unaccountable private firms too?
DeleteVery democratic...
Yes Dean... that's the very same one.
DeleteNorth Korea's wee brother only the leader isn't quite so good looking.
Hey, the UK *invented* the concentration camp.
DeleteIt's not like Westminster doesn't have experience in these sort of things.
I think SPT will come to regret this decision; there's going to be a lot of advertising money about shortly from both the YES and No side. They've cut off a valuable income stream.
ReplyDeleteAnd now they won;t be able to have any of it... Pffff Labour. Couldn't run a booze up in a brewery., even with Tory money.
DeleteIt is easy for Westminstet to stop the regerendum, shut Holyrood, etc, If they create a black flag outrage.
ReplyDeleteThey shut Stormont during 'thr troubles'.
Exactly...
DeleteThey can and have taken powers back to London.
They are taking such risks with their stupidity.
Those b*stards at the SPT, I use the subway every day, but not anymore,those hypocrites, won't get one single penny from me, or any of my yes friends, its bus or bike from now on, I advise everyone to boycott the Glasgow underground, hit them where it hurts.
ReplyDeleteBravo Anon...
DeleteI've only ever been on it once and that was because I like trains and I wanted to try it out. I think I went round in a circle!!
I did much the same in Newcastle and Brussels...
They will lose business through this, because it was petty. Labour councillors at their best.
Perhaps we should direct our questions to the GMB Union. Jim Coleman and David Fagan are both members and they are on the board of SPT. The GMB doesn't support Scottish Independence. In fact, it doesn't do democracy. I recall there was no vote on this subject. I wonder if they approve of their colleagues sticking the oar in against free speech over at SPT? I'd bet they are proud!
ReplyDeleteYes a few people in smoke-filled rooms made the decision for the members. They obviously think that their members are too stupid to cope with democracy... or rather they feared that like some other unions who did give people the vote, they would vote for a left agenda instead of the right wing, batter the poor agenda of Westminster.
DeleteDirty work somewhere I'd not wonder... wheels within wheels ... troughs within troughs.
All this talk of black flag incidents is missing one important fact. There have never been any violent events associated with the independence campaign (save the blowing up of EIIR post boxes in the 1950s - to which a policeman admitted in court to being an agent provocateur). There is no credible terrorist organisation for the state to manipulate so they can instigate a clamp down.
ReplyDeleteAny black flag event will, in my opinion, be so out of character with the debate so far that people will immediately suspect foul play.
I would still entertain the possibility of the British state acting out of sheer spite against Scottish interests, but they will have to be very subtle - post referendum, however, is a different matter.
Because they will be desperate to keep hold of the oil. If the Northern Isles vote no, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that pre-2016, the UK could bounce Shetland into a Crimean style 'staying in the UK' vote...
The false flag event doesn't have to be in Scotland, or blamed on any Scottish independance movement members.
DeleteIt would work just as well if they blame it on some random group from the middle east, and I could see them staging it in London.
I don't think it would be very effective in that case. Would the 7/7 bombings have stopped an independence referendum? Did the death of Diana deter voters in the devolution referendum?
DeleteI'm not suggesting that they will do anything really drastic.
DeleteBut I imagine that if they did stage something to bring the waverers back to Britannia, they would use a terrorist threat from abroad. And stage a rescue by BRITISH forces, which they would then reassure us were the best in the world, hoping that people would believe that the only way that can be kept safe was to be under the protection of Philip Hammond and his ilk.
I'm really not saying they will, but I wouldn't put anything past them. When they want something, they don't let anything get in the way. It's the British way.
It would be hugely risky. Exposure would be fatal.
If they try the Shetland thing, international law would not allow the Shetlands to keep the oil. Exclaves only have 10 miles of coastal water.
Shetland would have to have independence to get the oil. But the most recent figures show that Shetland is pro independence.
Sorry Tris, I'm not as optimistic as you are:
DeleteI *am* expecting something drastic.
They've put tanks on Glasgow's streets before for far less than this, and they've murdered thousands for oil in other countries.
What makes you think they won't do it again?
Id more expect soemthing that will make people feel grateful for being British...
DeleteIt's already been suggested that Kate Middleton is with prince...
Serious illness or death in the royal family... a new baby... a terror threat thwarted by the great British intelligence agency (even if it set it up) ...
As Iain Macwhirter writes in the Herald: “Labour has, through its actions in Westminster yesterday, legitimised the Conservative welfare agenda. The party that created the welfare state has lost the ability to defend its fundamental principles…Last week Ed Miliband accused Alex Salmond of mimicking Tory policies and abandoning social justice; this week the Labour leader stands accused of gross hypocrisy”.
ReplyDeleteI could scarcely believe it, but yes. Amazing.
DeleteWhile I accept that Labour is supposedly the party of the working (working being the operative word) man, they have also always had a responsibility for the old , the sick and the unemployed... not to mention the new phenomenon, the under-employed forced into part time work by the lack of full time work.
There has been too, a change in the kind of work available... from factory and labouring work, which has all but disappeared, to customer service and call centre type work.
Unfortunately the people being born here, haven't suddenly turned from being fitters and welders, fabricators and founders to salespeople, computer literate and customer friendly.
So... where does Labour stand on the people for whom there are no jobs?
Would their leadership and MPs, MSPs, MEPs, coucillors like to employ an out of work guy who's dad was a miner as was his granddad before him, as a diary secretary...? Or what about the hundreds of thousands whose families, all the way back to the union, have been farm workers... and who now see farms being run by the farmer's family alone? Do these MPs fancy them working in their offices? Doing their surgeries for them?
The cap on benefits is simply evil. If they have a war going on (which they almost invariably do) do they put a cap on the amount of money they will throw at it? Would the president allow that?
Party of the working man, my backside.
Tom Harris will be happy. He's pretty much a Tory in a Tory party now.
Brilliant!. Get me a first class ticket!
ReplyDeleteI'm fuming at those Scottish Labour Westminster MP's, for voting to cap welfare, yet in Perth last week Johann Lamont and Anas Sarwar, loudly proclaimed, "Old Labour We're Back" we're hear as the peoples party, what a complete and utter load of Gladys Knight.
ReplyDeleteLabour are and have been for some time now the Red Tory party, oh they can mention Keir Hardie or James Maxton a 100 times a day it won't change one single thing. Independence is the ONLY way to change SLAB, for the better and even then a bloody good clear out of deadweight troughers is required.
To hear Ed Miliband in days gone by after Thatcher's funeral,say that she was his hero, really does send a shiver down the spine,and waht are the options if not a far right Labour party. Well you have the Tories who are going to slash and slash till god knows when, the lib/Dems who'll go along with any other parties policies, as long as they share power, and of course you have UKIP.
UKIP who want to deport anyone with brown skin UKIP also want to leave the EU, and severe trading ties worth billions if not trillions of pounds, looking at Westminster, and their attitude towards anything or one outside London would think that you're trapped in Groundhog Day, they're just isn't any forward progress, under London rule.
Westminster is roughly £1.3 trillion quid in debt and its rising, and its not the fault of welfare claimants or disabled people, no 100's of billions of pounds spent on WMD's that can never be used is a starting point, of the failure of Westminster and their adamant they'll renew the WMD's at whatever cost.
If you want out of Groundhog Day as Bill Murray did, then vote YES, god help us if we vote no.
Unbelievable that they did that. They are the new Tories.
DeleteI hope people start now to understand what these people are like.
OK for Curran, Harris and Sarwar and all the rest of the scumbags on their fat salaries and endless expenses.
I hope all of them are down on their luck sometime and need benefits and I hope that there aren't any and they starve. Certainly won't be me that would put a penny in their hats.
Repugnant hypocrisy .
Labour Has Betrayed Its Supporters by Voting for the Welfare Cap
ReplyDeleteThe cowards like BH and co protected by the Scottish media are all for annihilation at the next few elections as we have had enough of their underhand lies and corruption.
Thanks CH, I decided to post on this, thanks to you.
Delete