In the Telegraph today, Cochrane confuses and, typically for a Tory, resorts to the talk of the physical violence they are all so fond of, talking about, from Johnson and throughout the Party.
Ill come back to that but first, read this:
Despite Nicola Sturgeon’s woeful record in office, affluent people north of the border have allowed themselves to be bribed. By any standards, the year just ending was pretty dreadful for Nicola Sturgeon, so much so that lesser mortals might well concede that they deserved a good political kicking for all the mistakes they had made.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/30/scotlands-complicit-middle-class-have-lot-answer/
Wait, I though the ‘affluent’ were being over-taxed by Sturgeon and planning flight? Make up your mind?
Back to the Tory ‘kickings’, then. I write as one who knew numerous routes home from school so as to evade a ‘good’ kicking of the kind statistically more common in the 60s, and, looking at Cochrane, I see a face I might well have encountered using the same diversions. If Cochrane ever gave a kicking, it must have been to a puny junior lad or, a girl?
In July 2020, I wrote:
For someone who often sought sympathy for her experience of depression after being bullied and who complained of the toxic environment for women politicians, the former Tory leader in Scotland seems to have an unhealthy attraction to the language and the images of street violence.
Today in the Herald we read:
RUTH Davidson has said she regrets “not putting the boot in” to the losing side in the 2014 independence referendum. The former Scottish Conservative leader said it was a “huge strategic error” by the Unionist side not to press home its advantage and keep undermining the Nationalist cause.
What sort of language is that? Davidson conjures for us the merciless kicking to death of a helpless victim by thugs. Why can she not find words to describe winning a democratic contest without imagining a bloody-broken face and the heartless brutality of a victor? Does she derive some erotic pleasure from this kind of imagery?
Just over a week ago, she was in the same mood. Less violent but still with a mindset that loves domination by a leader, expressed in words bellowed in a victim’s face, Davidson imagines an implausible relationship between two educated professional women. Do any of us, for one moment, think the FM would even raise her voice after disagreement with an adviser?
There’s a trail. In December 2019, Davidson delights in claiming that Scottish voters refer to the FM as that effing woman. She has no evidence but clearly wishes it were that way. She likes the feel of that word.
A few days earlier, on December 3rd, after an interview with Andrew Neil, the First Minister’s experience was described by Davidson as:
Well that was an absolute doing from @afneil. A doing on the growth report, a doing on the hypocrisy of her Brexit vs Indy position and a doing over her domestic record in health.
Neil was bit over-bearing and shouty but a ‘doing?’ Once again she seems drawn to the words and the imagery of extreme violence.
I dislike Ruth Davidson intensely but I would not wish to see her shouted at in her face, described as an effing anything and I certainly could not watch her get a doing or a kicking. I like to think I might step in to help her.
So, back to Cochrane: Stop the tough talk you big bottom.
Talking-up Scotland 
“So, back to Cochrane: Stop the tough talk you big bottom.”
Nice understated retort, and more effective than his!
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Cock-a-Leakie.
The House-Jock for a colonial English newspaper.
Yes-English. It makes no pretence to be considered otherwise!
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Happy New Year Prof, to you and all the other article writers in 2022. Many thanks for your invaluable work.
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Thanks exile
All the best to you too
Have I asked before is your address on Main Street?
John
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Thanks for your email. I don’t live on Main Street – but I think I’m missing an allusion here 🥴! All the best for 2023.
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Firstly a very good New Year to all at TUS and your followers. Lets all hope this year brings us a step closer to Independence as a fitting testament to your efforts.
Yes it is a common theme amongst Tories. Was in the same year at school as Cochrane when he was in the debating team (clearly his parents had his future career already marked out for him). He was a loud mouth prat then and clearly that trend has contined into his later years.
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It’s no excuse for the baroness or for cockers, but this is normal for at least a certain kind of unionist. Some highlights
Ian Davidson’s outrageous “count the dead and bayonet the wounded” remark. https://newsnet.scot/archive/outrage-at-labour-mps-bayonet-the-wounded-referendum-remark/
His ‘interview’ with Isobel Fraser about the same time, demonstrating with all the charm he was known for that if you’re not with us you’re against us
In passing any ideas why Mrs Fraser – spouse of Douglas – largely disappeared and left
Then there’s this which needs no comment
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2022/aug/01/liz-truss-says-she-would-ignore-attention-seeker-nicola-sturgeon-video?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
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‘A very good New Year to all at TUS and your followers’
Indeed and to the contributors
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When reasoned argument fails , then telling lies fails , then ad hominem attacks fail , the tactic is to turn to violence .
That is the stage we have reached as far as anti-Independence individuals like Cochrane , Davidson , et al are concerned .
Yet , were independence supporters to employ similar attacks on unionist opponents then they would be off crying ”foul” to matron .
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I recall attending a hustings in a village in Perthshire during the 1970s, or thereabouts, when the late Nicholas Fairbairn was standing ‘in the Conservative interest.’
He was introduced as a person, who as a young man, when Labour won the 1945 General election, ‘went out and broke all the windows of the local Co-op’. This was received with cheers and applause.
In his address, Fairbairn immediately launched into a rant about young thugs and vandals, who need a sort sharp shock in a boot camp, where birching was an option.
This, too, was acclaimed by the audience.
When a questioner referred to Fairbairn’s vandalism in breaking the Co-op windows, he was booed, and, when he persisted in his questioning, he was ejected from the meeting.
Clearly, Tory violence is justified, but anyone else’s is thuggery.
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Cochrane seems to live in an imaginary world where there are hordes of Scots just waiting for the starting gun to get Sturgeon / the SNP out. It’s a world of his own making for the benefit of who? Scots Tories? English readers?
I loved this wonderful observation from Cochrane in his piece;
“Middle-class voters may look down on the working-class SNP followers in the party’s strongholds of Glasgow and Dundee as the “lumpen proletariat”, but it is they who are making full use of Sturgeon’s free bus fares to take their children to their private schools like George Watson’s in Edinburgh and Hutchesons’ Grammar in Glasgow.
Yep, that’s it, gave over boys.. My bus pass is going right back in protest.
Anyway have a Happy New Year to you all and to you too Alan, sounds like you really need it.
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Voters, or followers of the ‘SNP’, depending on which ‘class’ they attribute you should belong to. A bit like ‘rentiers’ (seemingly a new term for tenants) and ‘owners’.
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My granny if asked to describe the Baroness had the right word for her. She would have said she is ‘coorse’. No violence but spot on.
Happy New Year to everyone on TuS.
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Happy New Year to all at TuS, and thanks John for all you do for Scotland.
The Brit state would like nothing better than to see violence on the streets of Scotland, and they will orchestrate that if they deem it necessary to oust the FM and SNP, and then send in the ‘British’ army, agenda being to put a stop to Scotland’s democractic right to decide whether to be independent or not.
Put nowt past the BritNat state.
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Time the Tories in Scotland accepted that they are a minority political party which represents a minority view.
If the recent polls are correct,even with the support of their pals in the Labour party,they still represent a minority view.
The fact is,that it is only because of English votes that they have any sort of platform to spout their nonsense in our country.
English voters appear to like “strong” governments,a bit like the Russians,but here in Scotland I would hope that we have moved on from mediaeval practices and accept that arguments should be won through discourse and not by threats of violence.
A belated Happy New Year to all.
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Tories on 4%. They will be voted out. Davidson and Neil a distant memory.
Since 1928 because it could. More folk need to get out and vote every election. A highe4 turnout will get rid of the opposition. Local council, Hokyrood, GE. A higher Independence supporting turnout, use it or lose it. Not practical. No need for violence, just vote them out. Simple and easy.
Cochran’s supports Labour. Illegal wars, killing millions, taxevasion and financial fraud. A disillusioned unionist. Soon to be forgottened memories. Labour unionists got the world 8nto a mess. The Telegraph. Barclay brothers. On3 dead. One threatened with jail for contempt. Put up Tgatchet at the Ritz dying homeless and friendless. Even her thieving Tory mates deserted her. A failed Millionaires. All the loot when to Mark. Listed in the desert. The Tories into the wildness and oblivion. Cochrane and the wife backing the wrong horse, again.
Scotland has always gone through the Ballot Box
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O/T Did anyone else notice the piece on the front page of the Telegraph today headlined “Taxpayers foot bill for Wales’ ‘ghost offices'” the opening line of which is “English taxpayers are bankrolling ‘ghost’ government offices in Wales …”
The narrative here is clearly that celtic nations abuse the goodwill of our anglo-saxon neighbours by living off handouts all the time, they seem to ignore that we pay taxes as well
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Wales get far less than they are entitled to. £Billions less. They voted for Brexit. Yet where funded by the EU contributions. They also have to endure Westmibster poor bad decisions.
Westminster reneged on a £Billion energy tidal project in Swansea. People can live in Wales and commute to London. Better remuneration and jobs, although it takes a longer journey. Wales is underfunded by Westminster and held back from growth. By Westminster poor, bad decisions and lack of growth. Ruining the economy and prosperity.
to
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