Yearly Archives: 2024

DISILLUSIONED

Five decades I have spent pursuing Scotland’s Independence; today was not a zenith. 

In the first instance we have Annemarie Ward requiring help from Tories to promote her eminently sensible Bill on the Right To Recovery; Scotland’s drugs deaths are the shame of Europe – 1200 last year; 16 times more likely in a poor than an affluent area. Why is the health aspect remotely controversial? It is so because the Gov’t of the last 2 FMs dabbled in projects where views promoted were those of the captured peddling the party line. I listened to Angela Constance in George Square a couple of years ago when she promised change but the numbers of rehab beds stagnated. My ears, unlike ferry windows, are not painted on. I heard those who explained that when you’re skint and all out of hope the easiest way to get a heat and to escape hurt is half a dozen street vallies at 20 pence a pop. Rehabilitation and recovery are possible – when Scotland has a government actively promoting recovery and abstinence, led by those who understand addictions, Scotland will become a better place. Parking on methadone and promoting mainly drug consumption rooms won’t create the fundamental change which is deserved and overdue. 

This episode was followed by an admission that it was foolish to abolish funding to the Scottish Men’s Sheds Association; a paltry £75,000 is all that is available – a mere bagatelle in comparison to the cost of taxis and limos for the Green Ministers these last few years but you don’t want me to get started on that! The public outcry has led to reinstatement of this funding. A responsible competent government would do what we did when I was an Alba member two years ago and ask what the service provides, to whom, its 

results and the cost to society were it absent. It is a no-brainer, particularly for the switched on amongst us who understand about mental health and male vulnerabilities.

The finale for now to this trio  is the declaration of a Scottish national housing emergency. By God, I could greet. This comes weeks after the Scottish Gov’t removed £200million from the Scottish housing budget. I don’t know if any SG Minister knows what it is to be homeless, rootless, to feel forgotten, invisible, unimportant, worthless, but I am increasingly angry that those elected to protect us fail to step up. 

30,000 Scots declare homelessness each year. 

We grow trees.

Scotland has wide open vast spaces which are empty.

Why are we not building houses in Scotland with wood? Makes me want to swear. Instead I will huff and puff and I hope that collectively those in Scotland with brains, vision and determination will bring the whole house down.

ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK

Politicians who spoke this week about Scotland returning to 1950s values need educated and replaced forthwith for they are either clueless or uncaring about the rights of women in Scotland and how those have developed over decades but remain insecure.

1950s battered wives had no place to find refuge unless family could provide this; there were no safe houses, no benefits available for women fleeing violence and no protective orders for courts to grant. The oft repeated phrase was ‘you’ve made your bed’ – you know the awful rest.

1950s women struggled to open a bank account let alone find paid work where their wages could be made over directly to them as individuals. Child care was non existent. Maternity leave and pay likewise. Menopause support not yet invented, much like pain relief in childbirth. 

Whilst the 1960s brought the liberation of The Pill and abortion, in limited circumstances, where medically necessary, women remained second class citizens unlikely to have their names on a rent book let alone a title deed or a mortgage. Some still had their pockets stitched up, survived on paltry housekeeping and recalled grannies whose teeth were removed before marriage to save husbands the cost of dental treatment.

The 1970s saw Scots women find work in mills and garment factories, they started to get to college and Uni and some became cops, prison officers, doctors and lawyers in greater numbers than the few sisters of earlier decades.

Thankfully, as the result of efforts of a handful of brave women, by the 1980s there began to be Rape Crisis Centres and Women’s Aid refuges – lifesaving and providing welcome solace beyond the gaze of the male abuser, the bruising fist, cruel tongue and worse.

1982 saw the criminalisation – at last – of rape within marriage.

The following three decades confirmed Scotland as a trailblazer with opportunities for women and girls, action on the pay gap, childcare provided by the State, attempts to get girls into studying STEM subjects, political representation for both sexes, women slowly but surely breaking into the top jobs.

Then – boom – as if Thatcher hadn’t made the image of women leaders sufficiently poisonous, Scotland went one better with leadership by a woman who decided to redefine the very meaning. Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory once more. 

We’ve got men in women’s prisons, women’s wards, women’s changing rooms, women’s refuges; boys in girls toilets, sports teams and hobbies. There’s an epidemic of girls seeking trans health care as the result of social contagion and dodgy proclamations from politicians who shouldn’t have the care of a hamster let alone the ear of the nation. Women who have been abused and raped told to leave their trauma at the door and excluded from vital services if they won’t pander to men who express a desire to participate in what were designed to be safe spaces for women only.

Women didn’t wheesht and women of Scotland never will. Scotland’s women have conquered and overcome every obstacle put before us and we will continue so to do. 

Regardless of any legal fiction, there is no escaping biological scientific reality. Telling the truth in Scotland today may be a revolutionary act, but it is not bigoted or false. 

I do hope that our new FM is able to be honest about what  legal fiction comprises and that we can reset our country to become one where we are proud of the progress made so far, honest enough to roll back the errors and determined to see that future progress is fair to all. 

We don’t need retrograde steps, simply recognition that there are, and will always be, only two sexes. Services and protections can be provided by sex or by gender where those are male, female and gender neutral. What we can have no longer is a pretence that a man can become a woman and gain access to female spaces by dint of self identification, surgery or delusion. Everyone in Scotland deserves better than this. We’ve come far, but have a distance to go – that will be achieved when there’s a common understanding as to what we wish to achieve and why. It won’t occur as the result of bullying and deluded attempts to shame those with genuinely held views of what comprises decency and respect. 

Gender ideology divided the Scottish Independence movement. Its removal from the political agenda can contribute to the resurgence and success of a united campaign towards self-determination; necessary as clearly the majority of Scotland desires our country’s independence. Let’s make that happen. All of us, together.

Scotland’s children deserve better

 Eva Comrie, Independent for Independence candidate for Alloa and Grangemouth in the forthcoming General Election, has demanded that the Scottish Government and the Councils of both Clackmannanshire and Falkirk take cognisance of the findings of the Cass Review of gender services within the NHS in England for children and young people. Such a review has not yet occurred in Scotland but is undoubtedly required as the numbers of youngsters referred for gender services have rocketed. This is especially so in the case of teenage girls where indications are that the vast majority are same sex attracted, leading to claims that gender ideology seeks to ‘trans away the gay.’

In recent years the Scottish Government provided to all local authorities a set of instructions for schools described as ‘Transgender Guidance’ where staff are enjoined to respect a child’s choice of gender and enabled to keep changes of such secret from a child’s parents or carers. This has been part of a suite of controversial measures promoting gender ideology. 

Investigations conclude that there is no positive evidence to show that puberty blockers are safe to use to arrest puberty and what began as a clinical trial has become a process rolled out, including in Scotland, without reliable initial results being available for review. 

Puberty blockers remain prescribed to children in Scotland despite mounting evidence to the effect that they can lead to devastating consequences including failure to develop and infertility. Other hormones regularly prescribed can cause defects in bone growth and structure similar to osteoporosis.

It is known that dozens of young Scottish women have had double mastectomies conducted in England following NHS referrals with diagnoses surrounding gender identity issues. There are growing numbers of such patients expressing regret that radical surgery of this nature was conducted without adequate assessment and in the absence of accurate information as to the long term implications.

Eva, a lawyer who specialises in child and family law, referred to the particular findings of Cass to the effect that children being referred should benefit from a ‘holistic assessment’ including screening for neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism and a mental health assessment. She noted that support for puberty blockers and the concept of the transgender child are supported particularly by organisations including Stonewall and Mermaids and suggested that their influence and appearance on the websites of or links on all local authority websites should be removed immediately. That includes Clackmannanshire and Falkirk who both appear to have accepted advice from and promoted links to Stonewall. ‘Rather than agree with a troubled child that he or she was born in the wrong body as gender ideologists would have us do, in a caring, responsible Scotland we must strive to ensure that our children are cherished, protected and provided with the highest quality of nurturing and therapeutic care; that must exclude the provision of life altering medication whose benefits are as yet at best unclear, at worst deleterious, and we should avoid all question of mutilating, permanent surgery at a time when young people are vulnerable and not yet mature enough for the taking of decisions they may come to regret’ concluded Eva, in her plea for the restoration of holistic, responsible care. 

Cradle to Grave

It’s no secret that I’m no stranger to the SNHS; Scotland’s nurses and doctors have saved my mobility and life more than once. I’m on at least my ninth, though not my last, life. Leg number 22 I think though lost count a while ago. Titanium spine, bionic leg etc. Not everyone is so lucky and I’m fizzing today. My immortality sustains me, but I am not so sure about your chances. 

Something is very far wrong in the SNHS, not with staff on the front line, but with management and recruitment. 

Bairns in desperate need of life saving life enhancing urgent spinal surgery are having ops postponed because staff aren’t available despite ops being booked and confirmed weeks in advance. You’ve all seen today a distraught Mum explain the awful tensions and worries her family has for her bairn when her op was cancelled as she was en route to theatre. We all hope for a quick and positive outcome.

It’s not meant to be this way in Scotland; we’d world renowned training schools and Unis; Sir Alexander Fleming etc. If we have to be macabre, Burke and Hare. When did we become so bloody inept as we appear to be now? And why ? Who benefits when ortho oncologists like mine explain that pre Covid their colleagues did five hip and knee replacements a day and now they can do only three as they don’t have the staff and the waiting lists are getting longer?

All of us know of friends paying for private hips and knees from pensions and savings; we talk at school gates of delays assessing bairns who may be on the autism spectrum – those delays run into almost three years for far too many. That diagnosis has a significant impact in terms of advice and support as well as welfare benefit implications.

I wish to hell Scotland had a reset button; what we could do with a blank canvas. And while the ordinary people of Scotland worry about health care those elected to lead us to Independence, that silver bullet delivering us from evil, are in California, dreaming, space cadets that they are. Others are in New York and Washington munching lobster. Settling down and selling out as fuel debt rises, supermarket shelves empty and faithful good people phone the GP at 8am and hear the recorded message that there’s no appointments left and they should try again tomorrow. 

Tomorrow never comes; let’s create change today. For we fight not for space travel, lobster or Tartan Day, swanky photos and publicity; but only and alone for freedom. And no man or woman gives that up but with life itself. Let’s get the job done, despite them. 

It’s Closing Time

It’s a fair bet that a good 70% of the Scottish electorate are worn down by apathy and disinclined to vote at this year’s GE. With good reason.

We’ve watched our country rise, from 1999, when devolution restored to Scotland’s people some powers, and we saw good things happen. There were mistakes made, money returned, wrongly, to Westminster, but robust healthy debates in the Labour and Labour/LD years included those leading to the smoking ban. I was a smoker then and cursed Jack McConnell, but he was right. You won’t hear me say that too often, but his efforts in Malawi are superlative and an achievement of which he should be proud. 

Through the Salmond years, Scotland thrived and set on its way to becoming the equal society we strive in our best moments to be. Delivery of equal marriage and free access to tertiary education were high points. Free prescriptions save fortunes in red tape and universality remains laudable, economic and levelling.

The current political landscape of Scotland is not one to give any politician pride. All should be alarmed at division, loss, want and at times sheer incompetence. The blame for this lies within the party political system where loyalty is rewarded, not ability, experience, vision.

But it’s easy for someone like me, no longer aligned to a party, to point the finger. I’d rather suggest solutions. 

However daily now I see my views critical of the Scottish Government align with Unionists whose other values are not mine. That’s especially so in regard to the rights of women and the damnable Hate Crime Act. It is as plain as the nose on my face that the Greens have no place in government; they’ve cost fortunes in money and credibility and have to go, now. 

There’s no glory in being dragged out of office in ignominy and shame. Far better to retain a little pride and admit where there is fault and blame. This applies to all those who voted for the Hate Crime Act and GRRB. 

For the sake of those in our country who are hungry, cold, addicted, unwell, and those upon whom those privations have yet to be visited, the best damn thing Humza Yousaf can do is lift the phone to the leaders of other independence parties and movements, including civic and popular leaders, and talk tactics – tactics designed to create a democratic People’s Convention, a drive towards Scotland United and the determination to create overnight the positive, competent, optimistic country Scotland should be. 

Nothing less will do.

Clinging on by the fingertips in the face of deserved ridicule and collapsing polls serves no party well and damages our country and her people. A courageous leader would admit such now and face reality. History will record courage of that nature. It is sorely needed today. 

The Night Before Hatemas

Twas the night before Hatemas, in every Scots house,

Not a transphobe was stirring, nor even a louse,

Ribbons were hung, on fences and pillars with care,

In hopes that soon playground monitors would be there. 

The TRAs were snuggled, all cosy in bed,

While visions of online pro formas danced in their heads.

My mum in her dotage and I in my ward,

Scrambling brains attacked by the hordes.

Outside in the street rose such a clatter

I dashed out to see what could be the matter

Their eyes how they twinkled, their faces so merry,

Until they read the words of our brave Ms Cherry,

Now, Patrick, now, Lorna, now Ellie and Beth,

AC-H, Kaukab, Alison and the rest,

Mind our Rev Stu and all his hard work,

He’s ticked all the boxes, he ain’t no jerk;

A wink of his eye, a twist of his head,

Counsel’s opinion, nae need to dread.

When Scotland is free, there’s nae need to whistle,

 Hate Crime Act flies off like down fae a thistle,

And Scotland will cry as it’s kicked out of sight,

Your hate crime act is nothing but shite.

#Indy1st #AyeItsComing
The sma’ folk are on the field.

25 March is an auspicious date in the Scottish calendar for it is when Robert the Bruce was crowned King of Scots, in 1306. His leadership led to Scotland regaining her independence; that resounding victory at Bannockburn on 24 June 1314 was ever more sweet because of the role played by the sma’ folk. So we launch #Indy1st today, determined to replicate the achievements of the last man to unite the Scots and attain our country’s Independence. The sma’ folk are today, as they were 710 years ago, vital to the achievement of our goal. And it is the sma’ folk who will benefit most when we realise it.

Today Scotland stands at a political crossroads similar to those faced by Wallace in 1297 and Bruce in 1314.

I am a daughter of the Rock having been born in Stirling, living and working for most of my life in Clackmannanshire and the Forth Valley. The landscape is stunning, the history blood curdling and inspiring in equal measure. But my friends and neighbours are skint and cold, worried about the future, in this land of plenty. Climb the Ochil hills behind my home and see Grangemouth and the bridges – Kincardine, Clackmannan, Forth road and rail and the Queensferry Crossing. Marvel at the engineering skills of our people yet observe in the same panorama abject poverty and deprivation, a multiplicity of food banks, baby banks and school clothing banks – testament to a laudable community spirit but also to the absence of political will or strategy for change.

Consider the prospect of the continued deadly de-industrialisation of Scotland that the loss of the Grangemouth oil refinery will comprise; from the top ten oil producers reduced to the status of a third world country, reliant on England refining Scotland’s oil! Scotland – the country that discovered oil and became a desert. No stetsons, diamonds, ranches or multi million dollar oil funds for us – just dole queues, drugs deaths, drinking dens and dunces. It doesn’t have to be this way – and it won’t be when we grasp that thistle and unite in our common cause.

With #Indy1st and the #AyeApp we will chap every door and speak with every voter in every scheme and estate in Scotland; we will record those who support our cause and we will engage with those yet to be persuaded.

#SchemesForIndy will encourage the disenfranchised because we will explain that their views matter, that with Independence they will have hope, the chance of equality and respect and for once in several generations the ability to break the cycle and release the power of Scotland’s greatest resource – the potential of our people.

#NoMP is for those who have no independence supporting candidate to vote for and who want to register their dissent and disapproval for Westminster rule. It’s a worthy stance to take as ballots marked this way are shown to the candidates – they need to know the extent of public disdain for their performance.

Today though is a positive day where we look forward to the realisation of our dream – Scotland will flourish when we reap our own harvest and ring our own till.

Join us today in #Indy1st. Now is the day. Now is the hour. Break the servile chains, the woes and pains of oppression and set Scotland free.

 NATIVES, RESTLESS AND REVOLTING 

That film, with two bampots on a motorbike holding bus trippers to ransom, is a belter. So is ‘That Sinkin’ Feelin’” and of course ‘Local Hero’ is superlative in content, image and the joy, pride and hope it brings.

Hard to beat ‘Gregory’s Girl’ as we all reminisce on our lost youth and the hopes we had.

Isn’t that place now where Scotland’s Independence movement finds itself ? Like a stuck or broken record? An adolescent on the brink of adulthood but lacking the courage to make a move. 

We need a reset, with drive, guts and sheer determination. It’s not about whether Independence is better or best; we know it’s the only way our country and people have a chance to survive and the mechanisms to ensure our national prosperity.

There’s been clearances, battles, torture, rebellion, executions and theft. In today’s modern times we require democracy. A vote, a democratic event, leading to a majority of seats and votes for the restoration of our country’s status as a normal independent country. No better and no worse than any other world player. Between Saudi Arabia and Senegal. 

With that independent status we will remove WMDs from the Clyde; there will be a national energy company, a national house building corporation; every airt and pairt will have a community garden, children will have holidays in the Trossachs or the Highlands in publicly funded hostels ; pensioners will eat and heat; working men and women, single or in family, will have pride at the end of a working week when they’ve money left for a treat, a decent new pair of boots or a wee day trip or holiday. 

It’s time to ring our own till. Scotland will flourish. Let’s revolt. Today. 

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2024

I’m a bit late posting this but as ever there’s a good excuse, apt for today. It involved a full day appointment, in Glasgow, for a fitting for a new leg where my prosthetist was a woman, as were the receptionist, physiotherapist and the cleaner. 

In the waiting room beside me were other mothers, daughters, sisters and friends. United as limbless but otherwise from the most diverse of backgrounds and experiences. Each of us though recognises the vulnerabilities and fears of the others and understands the sisterhood that comes when paralysed or marooned by disability accompanied by fear. It’s a different experience for a female amputee than it is for a male, for reasons too numerous to detail.

My clinic has treatment rooms divided according to sex because donning and removing false limbs require privacy and dignity. I haven’t yet met a woman in there who stares at other women in states of undress but we’re all there to blether with each other about the lives we used to have and the lives we now live. The introduction into that haven of a male posing as a female would render that gentle supportive alliance asunder.

Worse still have been the experiences of women seeking help from rape crisis services learning they can’t be guaranteed single sex spaces and services free from men; parents of disabled daughters living in fear at the outcomes for their daughters once they are gone; abused and traumatised women in our jails, for punishment and rehabilitation, accommodated beside men expressing female feelings or joining them for a day’s practice on how to woman.

There’s much battling still to be done in Scotland if women are to have equality. Use of the word ‘gender’ as opposed to ‘sex’ sets us back by decades when there is promotion of self-ID by stealth, including by newspapers who claim to feature women only but include a man self identifying as female. 

So tonight I take my hat off to the famous women we follow and applaud for their efforts challenging warped ideology and politicians naive, deluded or corrupt, but most of all I say a huge thank you to my Mum, my aunties, cousins, sisters and friends who held me up when life was hard, washed my ill body, fed me, cleaned up after me, built my legs and kept me alive and upright, able to shout, challenge and demand for Scotland’s women and girls. You know who you are. Thank you. Happy IWD. #WomenWontWheesht. 

Our Goal – within reach. 

I’m neither politician nor leader; I’m a lawyer and love my work: also a mum, a daughter, partner, friend. Nothing in my life or experience is any better, braver or more special than the  thousands I went to school with, played or danced with, shared a few Embassy Regal or stinking Spanish cigarettes with. But what I believe I have in common with all my friends and colleagues now is an understanding that Scotland’s government is amateur, divisive and indolent. That assessment is especially horrible when we bear in mind that this self same government was elected to achieve the independence of Scotland.

Scotland has I think 46 SNP MPs seeking re-election; they can’t tell you or me what they will do to advance the cause of Scotland’s self-determination. All they say is we have  to make Scotland Tory-free. That baffles me. We were Tory free in 1997  but that status didn’t confer independence. In 2015 we elected a handful of Tories and did so again in 2017 and 2019. Making Scotland Tory free is not the end game; it’s not even the beginning. 

The real and only game in town is getting the band back together again.

I have neither interest nor support for those of our movement who seek fame beyond Scotland’s shores. Our nation’s independence will be won, or as I prefer, regained, on the doorsteps of our schemes, on the football parks, in the bowling clubs, bingo halls, men’s sheds, pubs, clubs, the queues of parents at nurseries and primary schools. Those who genuinely seek to create an independent Scotland will redirect their efforts towards self determination and a united campaign for this where party affiliations matter naught and always is the priority of #CountryBeforeParty.

#AyeItsComing. #IndyFirst.