Nezavisna Crna Gora - Nezavisna Scotland

Every so often I look at BBC Scotland's response to potentially damaging stories for the Labour party and their lack of reporting and being a fair sort of chap give them the benefit of the doubt. I ponder that perhaps these stories that so inflame my pro-Independence chums are not that big a story, that perhaps we're guilty of being desperate to see an institution we're all share holders in, stand up and give us some unbiased reporting on the latest Labour slip up, faux pas, blatant piece of political chicanery or outright corruption. Sadly, we've become so accustomed to being on the kicking end, that just once it would be nice to see the shoe on the other foot and our viewpoint perhaps get a bit of fair coverage.

The Rami Okasha story, where  former Secretary for the State of Scotland, Jim Murphy's senior aide actively tried to smear a member of the public for having the temerity to submit a Freedom of Information request on the whole Wendygate £995 donations, I felt was something that at the very least deserved a little bit of the notorious grilling that the beebs permanently aggrieved political journalists and morning disc jockeys dish out to their SNP counterparts. Alas not to be, never reported, nothing to see here move along please. After Baroness Dreich and Douglas Murray's deeply offensive anti-Scottish comments on Radio 4's 'Any Questions' I considered the reaction from the English audience as excellent, the majority of the Sutton Coldfield appeared to cheer Murray and Dreich inane dribblings. My thoughts were along the lines of, good let them believe the bollocks these people have just spouted, let the middle England resentment that all of us Scots are alcoholic, benefit scrounging wannabes living off English largesse flourish, let them foster that discontent and actively end the Union from the English side. Let the insults from English BBC grow to such a crescendo that eventually a Scottish voice in BBC Scotland might say enough is enough. Again not to be.
 
Which brings us neatly to the latest Iain Gray farrago. It may not quite be the smoking gun we'd want it to be, but it is something that one might expect BBC Scotland to cover following the Sunday Herald, Scotland on Sunday and Sunday Express coverage. When nothing appeared on BBC Radio Scotland morning news or their online presence. I sent a message to a BBC presenting friend asking if the item would be covered in the news. So far, sadly no reply.
 
I suppose I'm in quite an unusual position in that I have friends who are Montenegrin and I have actually visited this beautiful little country. 

My wife and I met brother and sister Milica and Branko on a beautiful beach on the Florida Keys nearly 20 years ago. We all hit it off, finding shared interests and things to laugh at in a sterile straight laced American atmosphere. Particularly a park ranger who looked remarkably like Leslie Neilson of the Naked Gun movies, who gave Milica and I a ticket for 'failure to wear appropriate swimwear in a swimwear designated area'. She was topless, I was err bottomless... Camping, imported beers, racoon dodging and shrimp gorging are some of my memories of our short time together. Their English was excellent, they had driven from Montreal to the Keys in, if memory serves me correctly, a gas guzzling late 1970's Oldsmobile Cutlass sedan, piloted by Milica's Dutch boyfriend, Johan. 

They were surprised to discover that a few years earlier we had driven through Montenegro en route to Turkey, driving a tiny Fiat Uno. Yes, we did drive it through the Paris peripherique, and no we didn't bump into any black Mercedes...

Our Montenegrin chums were confounded at the news that an Uno could drive that far but were utterly gobsmacked to discover that we'd not only stopped in Titograd but stayed the night, in what was then a featureless town almost enirely devoted to Soviet era architecture.

 
 Over the years Milica and I have kept up correspondence. Thanks to the arrival of the internet, communication is easier, photos and stories are now shared on facebook and by email. Two years ago family illness prevented us from visiting Branko in Montenegro. Milica lives in the USA these days selling exclusive jewellery for one of those companies whose shiny baubles are beyond the reach of 99% of this planets mortals. 

So when Iain Gray, Scotland's own International Man of Misery, put both his size twelves in it by erroneously inferring that Montenegro was involved in 'ethnic cleansing' and made reference to a war crimes tribunal and a peacekeeping mission, I sought Milica's opinion on this slur on her homeland.

She was not best pleased. Milica is not into politics. For your elucidation I've included some of the relevent text from her response below. For the uninitiated CG is an abbreviation of Crna Gora, the real name for Montenegro.

I took a quick gander and that lady from the Embassy had a point. I got a bit irritated when I read his retort so spoke to Mom about it and she said that all it really took was the vote. Yes there had been World Wars, but that didn't have anything to do with independence of CG? What kind of reference was that.. Didn't the rest of Europe suffer through the wars also? geez... The guy yapping on about the crimes and cleansing is an ass who should look up his info a bit better before he spews BS. Uninformed politicians are not my thing as you can see. I usually keep my opinions to myself and don't really like to talk about politics, but when someone is being stupid and since you were asking... :)


Milica goes on to illustrate something that I am sure will bring bells for those of us in Scotland and our relationship with England.

It always irritated me to get clumped in with the neighboring country. I know I don't like to be called something I'm not, which is probably a common thing and is likely what brought about the separation for Montenegrins I suppose... It was one thing to be Yugoslavian. Everyone was united as a country and yet also kept their identity. People were Yugis, and whatever else it was, and nobody really seemed to mind one way or the other, but even then, the people of Montenegro were NOT Serbian. We may have all spoken " Serbo Croation"  throughout the country but we all also spoke our own language and were proud to be who we were. 

When the country started splitting up, and Yugo was done, the Montenegrins were not going to get lumped in with Serbia. The Montenegrins were not Serbian. There is a difference between them and for some reason Serbians always liked to say that Montenegrins were the same thing, but the folks in CG don't feel that way... Obviously or they would not have voted to separate...

It was quite simple and quite fast when it came down to it. The people were ready for it. They just didn't want to do it like savages and waited out there time, then took back their name. We did have our own Royal family before the country was made one based on external war time negociations, so I still don't understand why the Serbians seem to think that Montenegrins should have remained part of their little clump, but oh well... what do I know...



I still think that guy is full of S--t though...
Really irritates me... He should research the facts and look into who was in Den Hague before before he says stupid crap. I always loved how people would write history as they pleased without all the facts... Sort of why I don't get into politics and I don't usually comment on any of it... 

Then again isn't it the winners of a war that write the history books... even if all the details were not correct, and much of what was said during that time was not completely truthful or evenly discussed about ALL sides... BUT I'm not going to get into that now :) It would turn into a long dissertation



The chances are that Iain Gray, in his ignorance intended to sympathise with the people of Montenegro being simply bracketed with other Independent countries who had achieved normalcy. His spin being that Montenegro suffered for Independence, that it didn't just take a bit of baby kissing, some fancy posters and a mere 40 days to settle the will of a people. By conflating that with war crimes, etnic cleansing and UN tribunals he misjudged a wonderful people who have witnessed horrors on their borders, suffered great privation and shown extreme generosity in opening their borders to the suffering. Most of all the Montenegrins I've met are funny and not afraid to poke fun at themselves. Iain Gray owes them an apology for trying to score cheap political points against an opponent who out thinks him at every encounter. Most important of all, when he does find a selection of words that placate Montenegro, BBC Scotland should report it.

Kirsty Wark : an aide-mémoire...

Lest we forget. Let me take you back to thursday the 7th of June 2007. The Tartan Overlord called for an emergency session in Holyrood to read out and answer questions pertaining to a 'memorandum of understanding' that Tony Blair, the then PM, had signed with Col Gaddafi in Libya about an exchange between each countries nationals held in the other country's prison. As we all know, there was only one Libyan national held in a Scottish prison. 

Blair, his spin doctors and lackeys in the British media kicked up an almighty fuss claiming that this was nothing to do with Mr Al Megrahi. The Libyans went on record saying that Megrahi's case was the whole point of the meeting. Gaddafi's son claimed "When Blair came here we signed the agreement. We signed an oil deal at the same time. The commerce and politics and deals were all with the prisoner transfer agreement."


The Unionists in the Scottish Parliament for the one and only time in nearly four years agreed unanimously that Blair had no right to make decisions which directly affected the process of Scots law without consultation with the devolved Parliament. Within hours the London knives were out for Jack McConnell for having the temerity to agree with Salmond.


BBC Newsnight brought out the big guns in its defence of Blair and unleashed Kirsty Wark on an unsuspecting nation.




The question posed was simple, which government was telling the truth the British, Scottish or Libyan? 

 Now thanks to Julian Assange, we know. Libya and Scotland were telling the truth. The discredited Labour Party in England and Scotland were guilty of lying to the electorate, their friends in the media were guilty of bombast, disinformation and promoting the lies of their friends. 

When will Richard Baker, Iain Gray, Tony Blair, Douglas Alexander, David Miliband, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Jim Murphy, David Cairns, Elaine Murray, David Mundell, Russell Brown, Tavish Scott and Annabel Goldie apologise to the Scottish and British electorate?

There's nae Oil, ye cannae cope, yer doomed.

Following the Tartan Overlords less than tub thumping speech at the weekend, where he deliberately refused to walk on water, heal the lame and cure blindness, the Scottish media are set to turn their whinge levels up to eleven and go on the offensive of belittling Scotland and those of us who choose to live here, but want a better country. 

The cries of doom, gloom and the end of the world are already sharing newspaper space with some neddish English footballer and the conundrum of where he'll find his next wodge. Apocalypse noo seems to be the phrase du jour.


Chief among the whingetastic this morning is an article by Brian Currie, formerly of the esteemed Evening Times and now political editor at the Herald, which has as expected, a cringe laden response from three of the finest Unionist Stooges in Scottish politics.

Messrs Gray, Rumbles and Brownlee, take great umbrage at Salmond's comments about Scotland having a 'pocket money parliament'. They decry him as a 'spoilt child' so ner ner ner ner ner, as their level of debate goes. 

Mr Rumbles of Sunderland Poly and Sandhurst College, goes a little further and accuses Salmond of "bombast about his dream of a separate country." Mr Rumbles, the very epitome of a bad weather Geordie, might have been better served making a comment about a little commented or explored story concerning his own Aberdeenshire constituency and emanating from a seat of learning a mere hop, skip and a jump from his Durham primary school.

Professor Jon Gluyas a renowned global expert on CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) & Geo-Energy of Durham University has calculated that oil recovery using carbon dioxide could yield an extra three billion barrels from the North Sea over the next 20 years - enough for all UK power, heat and transportation for two years.


Prof Gluyas report commissioned by DONG energy and Ikon Science Ltd states, "My figures are at the low end of expectations but they show that developing this technology could lead to a huge rejuvenation of the North Sea." The amusingly titled DONG energy are the Danish state owned leading energy company. With revenuue in the region of some £7 billion, they are leading lights in windfarm, biomass, hydro and geothermal power. Oh they also own and operate oil licenses in their small section of the North Sea...

So how did the Scottish media react to this press release sent out by Prof Gluyas and his team at Durham University?

Well a quick online search reveals the story was picked up by an impressive TEN media outlets. Chief among them the mighty Aberdeen Evening Express whose reporter Charlotte Jordan, who normally covers important stories like Dog Bites Horse,
managed to squeeze out an impressive 77 words about Prof Gluyas 'suggestion'. What's that I hear you say, what about the Scotsman, the Herald, BBC Scotland and the plethora of London media titles who become Scottish by adding the misnomer Scottish to their mast, how many of them reported this rather important story? Not a fuc*ing one of them, that's how many.

The other nine titles who picked the story up a mere five days ago are mostly engineering titles oh apart from The Northern Echo who trumpeted, 'Report Aims To Secure Our Energy Supplies For 50 Years'. Similarly nebusiness.co.uk played up the fact that Teeside can expect to exploit this North Sea Oil and Gas boom...


So coming after an exceptional summer of fresh oil discoveries in Scotland's sector of the North Sea, here we have further proof that if we were ever to believe the oft repeated mantra from our Unionist dependence junkie politicians that the our Oil is running out, that all not need be doom and gloom. We need only to start pumping carbon into the oil wells, to displace the previously difficult to get at oil...Don't expect to read about it in our slathering Union loving press, after all we wouldn't want the Jocks to get uppity again...

======================UPDATE===26==FEBRUARY===2012=================

Click photo below to enlarge and read.

Gentlemen actuaries prefer blondes.

With nary a cynical thought in my finely sculpted head, I wish to take this opportunity to praise the erstwhile East Lothian MP Anne Moffat as the most impressive trough swilling Labour MP of her generation. At the delicate age of 51 Ms Moffat has secured a peach of a retirement package that amounts to an approximate £32,000 upfront followed by £30,000 per annum or six Byers as I like to think of it, until her retirement age of 65. 

Her esprit de corps and boot filling capabilities has put legends Baron Michael Martin, Baron Foulkes von Cumnock and former MP David Marshall well and truly in the shade. A follower of this blog, the not so diminutive Eric Joyce, must be gaping in awe at the master stroke that Ms Moffat has pulled off this week. Eric, you're an amateur compared to this dame.

Ideally someone who cares more than me, should sit down and calculate just exactly how much of your money Ms Moffat has extracted from the the public purse since first becoming an MP in 2001. That should include her by now quite legendary expenses claims, her foreign junkets, any questions paid for by outside lobbyists (she does seem very keen on asking questions relating to  the Colombian army) that wasn't a euphemism for any Purcell like behaviour, check out her They Work for You page.

Not only has she managed to secure this wonderful package on ill health grounds, she's managed to kick the Labour Party fair and square in their little balls. The hapless Iain Gray get it full blast, as does fellow Labour MP Frank Roy and Mr Harriet Harman aka Jack Dromey of UNITE who both take an absolute belter with allegations of bullying and intimidation.

I don't know Andrew Sharp, the SNP Westminster candidate for this seat, but after the open goal he's been presented with in the upcoming general election, I suggest he starts picking out curtains for his London office at the earliest opportunity.


Anne Moffat MP, myself and the people of Scotland salute you. 

Little Ms Moffat, a tuffet too far.

Ms Anne Moffat MP, the delightful lady who compared the First Minister to the little moustached German chap who started some unpleasantness in the 1930's, is facing a long drawn out firing squad by her own side.

The poor lady who was attacked by unknown assailants who purloined her jogging jewellery, but not her Blackberry, has had a fraught relationship with the local East Lothian Labour Constituency Party. 

Seen as a 'flown-in' high profile Union member from down south, with links in 'nearby' Fife. An earlier attempt to de-select her after concerns over her eye watering expenses, lack of evidence of any local work, rude and unruly behaviour towards party employees and branch volunteers and allegations of a fondness for the liquid side of life, the local constituency were thwarted by Labour's National Executive Committee who allowed the block vote of the Union to ignore local concerns.
 
Last night she was convincingly rejected by the local branch of her East Lothian constituency 25 - 5. It's rather damning that only five loyal acolytes could be found to support Ms Moffat. It's even more of a poor show, that the largest constituency Labour branch in Scotland could only muster 30 souls to participate in the de-selection of their sitting Member of Parliament. Naturally, rather than abide by local democracy, the dithering, clunking fist of the Labour Party NEC have decided that all 500 constituency members should be consulted.

One would naturally presume that Mr Iain Gray MSP, as a dedicated and high profile constituency member, and a man who knows his way around assembling a Marquee, was in attendance at last nights vote. I find myself pondering as to which way Mr Gray voted in such a terribly important ballot. Will questions be asked by our ever so independent press?