Capeesh

This might work, might need to scale it up a bit for flies though.

I find it very telling that these stuck in the past ministers still believe they can strut over to Australia like imperial overlords. Looking down their noses and insulting their Australian counterparts is seriously counter-productive as we have just found out to our great cost. To the disbelief and amusement of the Australians, the highly experienced Australian trade envoy has dug his heels in, tied Liz Truss in knots and managed to get everything they were looking for in the trade negotiations. If you read this link, you’ll see the British exceptionalism dripping from these pompous morons. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/liz-truss-australia-trade-talks-b1835072.html?amp From the link... “She plans to sit him down in the Locarno Room [in the Foreign Office] in an uncomfortable chair, so he has to deal with her directly for nine hours,” said the source. The source reportedly described Mr Tehan as “inexperienced” compared to Ms Truss, adding: “He needs to show that he can play at this level.” Australia’s ABC News said the comments were greeted “with a mixture of disbelief and laughter” in Canberra. The inexperience jibe was regarded as all the more peculiar as before entering parliament, Mr Tehan worked from 1995 at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and later as senior adviser to the trade minister, before serving as director of trade policy and international affairs with the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

What has the NFU really worried is if they throw farming under the bus in the Australian trade agreement it means any future trade agreement has that as a benchmark. When they approach USA, Canada, Brazil, New Zealand etc the first thing they’re going to say is “we want what you gave Australia and we’re not budging until we get it”. Economies of scale will lead to even the largest UK farmers struggling to compete.

Good point. I’ll give it some thought while I’m tucking into my rubbery, chemically filled Australian lamb roast, quietly wondering why the dogs are turning their noses up at the scraps. Maybe you’re right, I really do struggle to find any positives from Brexit Britain. There’s probably loads of other plus points to take from Shetland’s crofters getting bludgeoned by the Brexit sledgehammer. Let me try and think positively... No noisy baaaaing, especially at this time of year. mmm..... OH! No sheep on the roads, that’s a good one... mmm... struggling here.... No more itchy gansey’s? Not sure about this one, wool can be bought. That’s all I can think of for me personally but I’m not a crofter. I can’t see it giving much comfort to those friends and family who either make a living from crofting or supplement their income from it.

Australia free trade deal seems to be the beginning of the end for crofters in Shetland. Cheap meat imports galore! Another industry and way of life on the brink of destruction thanks to Brexit.

This is completely on Boris and his useless ‘Red List’ (countries who are required to quarantine when arriving in the UK). All the hard work and sacrifices people are making wasted by an incompetent at the helm. In direct comparison, Scotland decided to make all international arrivals quarantine, this itself might have helped a bit but when we have no control over people taking a flight to England and crossing the border it looks like it has been a waste of time and effort.

The NHS is very last thing of any value left, the final bastion of the post war consensus. The greedy Tories of today are a different breed from those from that period, of course they’ll sell it. The depressing thing for me is when people eventually realise they’ve been conned, it’ll be too late to save it.

^^Why not make it 100%? That would mean your 2 votes would be enough to save the Union. That would settle it wouldn’t it? I’m sure all those independence supporters would just shrug their shoulders, congratulate you both and forget about the whole thing.

The sums don’t add up to form alliances with other parties at Westminster and make any kind of difference. The Tories have a working majority of 85 seats, that means if every single opposition MP miraculously agreed on something it would still get outvoted by 85 votes. You’re saying the best thing to do then is hope you get elected to government by coming up with ideas that are appealing to voters, the SNP did that, they won almost every seat they stood in but they’ll never become the government in Westminster simply because they don’t stand candidates in England, Wales or Northern Ireland for obvious reasons. Even when that’s not the case the same problem exists. I’m old enough to remember when Scotland was almost exclusively Labour red, what happened? Thatcher and Tory governments from 1979-1997, again just basic maths, Scotland only has 59 out of 650 seats. The only way Scotland can get the government it votes for is if England and Wales agree. (Northern Ireland have their own parties).

There’s a small country who found oil at the same time and have extracted around the same amount of oil as us a few hundred miles away. Norway now has a trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund, the UK spent the lot.

I agree, our representatives are wasting their breath there, instead of being ignored, ridiculed and treated with contempt they should come home and help Scotland run its own affairs as an independent country. Brexit Britain’s going backwards.

We voted for Alistair Carmichael MP who was a cabinet minister of the LibDem/Tory coalition UK government. The only things I remember him achieving for Shetland was austerity, foodbanks and flogging the Post Office for buttons. If a member of the government in power can’t do better than this how do you think opposition MP’s who are facing a government with an 80 seat majority are going to manage?

An independent Scotland could learn a lot from the Scandinavians. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland all seem to have the balance between free market capitalism, a comprehensive welfare state and a unionised workforce spot on. Taxes are higher but quality of life from cradle to grave is streets ahead of what we have as part of the UK. All prosperous small to medium sized independent countries. Some of them even have massively populated countries on their southern border, just like Scotland. I bet if you asked a Dane or Finn if they would prefer to be a Northern region of Germany or Russia they would laugh in your face and think you were on drugs.

Have you seen the renovation? It looks like someone on mind-bending drugs had a bad trip and plastered the place with tunnock tea cake wrappers, I wouldn’t pull that couch out of a skip! https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ten-ways-to-recreate-carries-10-downing-street-decor-fjqd5vvk0 Edit...It was the wrong Urabug quote, it was meant to be the one about him taking the furniture with him when another PM comes in...I found it funny after seeing the furniture in question.

He seems to be under the illusion that the ‘block grant’ is a handout. He also conveniently forgets to mention that dozens of small independent countries manage to provide free healthcare without receiving imaginary handouts from Westminster. This bit doesn’t have an ounce of truth... “The SNP know full well that ‘independence’ will mean an end to the NHS as we know it. That’s why they don’t want to build Shetland a new hospital or pay for our MRI scanner” The use of the word “partitionist” made me spit out my coffee in a stifled laugh but apart from all that it was ok, the stuff about Ireland was mildly interesting.

Covid’s another example of the need for independence. As GR rightly points out the biggest risk right now is Covid variants, on this the scientists agree. So what do we do about it? How do we prevent or control potentially vaccine busting variants entering the country? Do we... a)Make all international arrivals quarantine for 14 days. Recommended by scientists. or b) Have an ineffective Red list of countries where international arrivals only have to quarantine if they’re coming from a listed country, as an example of how useless the list is, India was only added to it 5 days ago. Quick quiz... Which UK based government chose a)? Holyrood or Westminster? and another... Which UK based government chose b)? Holyrood or Westminster? I’ll give a clue, The leader who chose b) doesn’t care if the bodies of his fellow citizens “Pile high in their thousands”.

Surely an independent Scotland could manage things better than this, lets be honest here, they’ve set the bar pretty low, especially when you compare with small independent countries like New Zealand, pop 5 million.

So half the voting population of Scotland are Delusional and bigoted...sigh

Lets just look at the last year for a few examples of bad governance from London... One of the worse covid responses in the world, we’re sitting in the bottom 5 with USA, Brazil, Mexico and India. Hard Brexit. For those who, like myself, worry about trade, the UK government has just erected trade barriers with a market of 500 million relatively rich Europeans living on our doorstep. Serious corruption with Billions of £££ of public money going to chums who have the PM’s personal number on speed dial. Lies and misconduct from the UK government has become commonplace, there’s been multiple ministerial code breaches with no repercussions. An embarrassing oaf representing us on the world stage.

^^The same was said to every single one of the 60 countries that've gained independence from Westminster rule. I wonder why none of them have ever asked to give it up again? They can't all be delusional can they?

Is it safe to watch or listen to the BBC yet?

The guy has worked wonders securing the investment and I, like most Shetlanders, support any inward investment especially in Unst where they've had to contend with the loss of the RAF base. When I first heard about planning being refused for what I thought was a few ruined buildings my first reaction was WTF??? Probably like most Shetlanders. but... The developers knew the site was a scheduled monument, it was given this status years before Shetland Space Centre was even thought about. Former WW2 radar stations the length of Britain have been given the same designation. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know there was going to be significant obstacles developing on it. Whether you agree or not with the designation, once it's been given HES is bound by law to try and protect them. I read various politicians quoted as being stunned, surprised, disappointed etc and slamming HES for the decision but they're just following rules that've been set out in law. The surprising and disappointing thing for me was why didn't the developers consult with HES earlier? They seem to have done the environmental due diligence well but neglected this side of it until it was so far along they've had to cobble together something that evidently hasn't satisfied HES. Maybe they'll find a compromise, maybe Scottish Ministers will overturn the decision on appeal, maybe they'll stick it a mile down the Unst coastline, who knows?? I do hope it goes ahead though.

They only applied for consent on the 2nd February this year and it states in the HES portal decisions take 8 weeks. Link...http://portal.historicenvironment.scot/decision/900032088 Look at this motion in the Scottish Parliament welcoming the decision to locate a Space Centre on Unst, more than half the cross party support came from representatives of the Scottish government. https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/votes-and-motions/votes-and-motions-search/S5M-23102 Same in Westminster. https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/57618/creation-of-shetland-space-centre It seems to me the problem isn’t some far-fetched conspiracy, more an issue of bad planning from Shetland Space Centre.

Another obvious flaw for the conspiracy theorists who believe this is some heinous Holyrood plot is the Skaw Radar Station was designated a monument of national importance back in 2012, way before there was any mention of firing rockets into space from it. Link...http://portal.historicenvironment.scot/designation/SM13097

If this is some plot by the Scottish Government to deny Unst a space centre why does Historic England also designate former WW2 radar stations as monuments of national importance? Link...https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1020544 Could it possibly be true that the only people politicising the decision are those who are trying to blame the Scottish Government for it?