Sick

Today is St. Andrew’s Day. This is how Google, the world’s most popular search engine, chose to mark the day.

This is how BBC Question Time chose to mark the day. “A nation of equals” with no representation of one of the “equals” on a UK-wide TV programme, on one of their national days. “Lead, not leave.” “We will never have been so popular.”

Except we’re not. We never were. We never will be. Not when the needs & wishes of England are more important – after all, there’s more of them, isn’t there? Needs of the Many, and all that. So Grimsby and Cornwall and the Fishers and Farmers and Wetherspoons and all the other places that voted or advocated leaving the European Union can demand exemptions, but Scotland, where every counting area voted to Remain, & multiple European figures asserted their enthusiasm for Scottish EU membership, gets nothing.

This is every single day in Scotland for independence supporters. The rest of the world looks on us as a de facto real county, if not de jure, inviting our elected representatives to speak at Arctic Circle conferences, UN talks, the European Parliament. Our own “public broadcaster” harangues us with the drip-drip-drip of mediocrity & inadequacy, about how other elected representatives call our government a failure at everything from broadband to bridges to schools to pensions, regardless of whether our government is even permitted the ability to affect those things in any real way.

I had a bit of a meltdown elsewhere on Social Media:

Several outright, brazen untruths in the past few days, unquestioningly repeated by media. Silence from other parties. SNP respond – react – on the defensive. They’re distracting us. Preparing. Something’s really scared them.

The pseudo-generosity – “£2billion for Scotland! VAT exemptions! All thanks to Scottish Tories!” – suggests groundwork being laid for 2 possibilities: – Snap Election 2 – Breaking Sewell Convention

If it’s Snap Election 2, clearly trying to present Scots Tories as “honest brokers” with UK Gov – when promoted by media & met with silence from other parties, easy to push a Big Lie like that.

If it’s breaking Sewell, then Scot Tories can just say “look, we got an extra £2billion & VAT exemption, you can trust us, right?” for everything from overruling Holyrood, to repatriating powers, to even more. Notice the rise in “abolish Holyrood” vox pops?

There are 3 Big Lies for each of the major UK parties’ Scottish branches: Scot Tories: “we can reason with the UK Gov, & Deliver for Scotland!” Scot Lab: “we can ensure a Corbyn Gov, For the Many!” Scot Libs: “we will do anything to stop Scotland leaving the EU!”

Tories do what their party (or a major subfaction within) tells them. Lab could never guarantee a Lab government even if they won every Scottish constituency. Libs reject even considering independence as a possibility to maintain EU membership.

I’m just so utterly tired of it all. I’m sick of their lies. & their cruelty & their hate. I’m sick of everyone falling for it. I’m just sick of this twisted, hateful mockery of a democracy.

I’ll be away for a while longer – not long, I hope, but enough to recharge. I’ve had a helluva time of it the last few months, & it’s likely to continue for a bit. A minor illness means I can’t grin & bear it anymore. So, a break from the siege.

I’ll be back.