Anyways getting back to the original subject how pi55ed off with Salmond is Sturgeon?
Given that he ignored her advice on his Russian TV show as did a few SNP MPs are the rumours of a split in the ranks true?

I don't think anyone with an open mind is in any doubt that over the years the BBC has become a lefties haven.

I don't think anyone with an open mind is in any doubt that over the years the BBC has become a lefties haven.

I don`t dispute that and never have done.

We are living in a different world than the one we were brought up in and like your good self, there is a lot of things I can`t comprehend or ever will do.

Because you are obsessed with the SNP and no matter what they do, you will never give them credence for it.

Not obsessed Mac just detest the party for how it has badly split Scotland.

Well Sturgeon certainly has a brass neck, I'll give you that.

Nicola Sturgeon is a strong leader, unlike May.

... was that a half hearted compliment

You can't fault Sturgeon on her public performances.
Even when confronted with truth over fiction she never wilts.
Take fracking. Told us it was banned in Scotland.
Turned out it wasn't. Her response? It was the SNPs preferred position, move on.
Salmond the same but it doesn't alter the fact that the SNP haven't delivered in Scotland.

Love him or hate him, Wee Lec has played a blinder here in the first leg and I hope he's innocent in the second

Here's the full sp for those not quite sure of exactly what's happening …

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-46428570
.
Who is Leslie Evans, permanent secretary to the Scottish government?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-46797441

He is 100% correct when he says Evans needs to step down for prior involvement, bias and (imo) possible collusion.

Gawn yersel ya wee sleekit!

I knew before I bothered to educate them that the chances of any Scottish natioanlist changing their fixated mind on one of the favourite little grievances would be mission impossible. I did not as such quote "the bbc" I quoted Malcolm Rifkind who was REPORTED in the BBC. A very basic understanding of English comprehension when reading the link would have helped I suppose. He was the Scottish Secretary when the Poll Tax was introduced, so knows something about why it was introduced 1 year earlier in Scotland, or so you would think. That is what he said.

Let's introduce Occam's razor to this. Did the Scottsh Tory MPs demand the Poll Tax be brought to Scotland 1 year before the UK because
1. They thought it might do them good and was fairer and would be popular?
2. They are nasty Tory villains who hate Scotland and wanted to commit electoral suicide but their sick desire to "experiment" on Scotland was too much?

The head Scottish Tory at the time says it's 1, any common sense at all would indicate it's 1 but of course in the unshakeable frozen mind of the Scottish separatist, it HAS to be 2 as 2 is what they want to believe. The SNP and dominant Labour at the time would have encouraged this no matter how untrue as this is of course politically helpful, and as we all know, there is NOTHING the petty sh1ts in the SNP won't turn into a chippy "we're being treated unfairly" grievance.

No one doubts it was unpopular, that's not what I said ..

It's always very difficult speaking to an SNP supporter, you have to explain everything at a basic slow level...

Dear ****ing god the fact it's on the BBC is a total irrelevance, it's not a BBC opinion or them spinning things, it's them quoting verbatim what the person in charge said. To say I now support the BBCs journalstic stance because of them repeating what someone said 15 years ago is frankly idiotic, anyone can see that.
If you think they are misquoting him then that's just blind rejection of facts you don't like and totally mental, and you have absolutely no grounds to believe they are other than the usual behaviour of Scottish separatists to deny anything they don't want to believe, and a stubborn refusal to actually deal with reality.

"digging myself a hole". No I'm using facts, citing links, and a coherent logical argument to back up why the facts available seem to stand up to what most likely happened. You have "waaaaaa the nasty Tories hate Scotland". Well done, that's the impartial observer convinced...

So ok let's assume they did try it to see how the public reacted. The public absolutely hated it. They then implemented it in England without changing a single aspect of it. So how does that make any sense? How does "they used Scotland as guinea pigs" tie in with "they payed no attention to the response"? It doesn't make any sense.

The poll tax actually made a lot of sense. As touched on above, why should an old widow in one house pay same as their neighbour with a similar house containing 4 working professionals? How is that fair? You can see why the Tories thought it might be liked, there is clearly and element of fairness to it.

Yes and if you google that you'll see that Scottish Conservates and George Younger were pushing for it and wanted it and talked Thatcher into doing it. That some others in her government agreed with it is absolutely irrelevant,and that Labour and the grievance obsessed bigots in the SNP ignore the former and focus on the latter is irrelevant.

Did the papaers reveal Scottish Tories were strongly pushing for it? Yes. So why did they do this? Becuase they thought wrongly it would be popular? (Makes sense) or that they deliberately wanted to become far less popular? (Makes no sense).

There is of course absolutely no possible argument you'll accept that will shake your unflinching belief in your grievances. This is the mind of a Scottish Nationalist.

You've proved nothing. I'd have more sense debating a rock.
Fact: The Scottish Tories desperately wanted the Poll TAx.
Fact: Any common sense would indicate they must've thought it would be popular.
Scotsman: "However, the government papers from 1985 published today by the National Archive reveal how the Scottish Conservatives and then Scottish secretary George Younger persuaded Mrs Thatcher to introduce the community charge – known to most as the poll tax – rather than an alternative levy based on property."
BBC:"Secret cabinet papers have now confirmed it was Mr Younger, Mrs Thatcher's Scottish Secretary from 1979 to 1986, who fought to introduce the community charge early.
A memo written by Mr Letwin in 1985, four years before it came into force, states that Mr Younger, who died in 2003, was "extremely keen to use Scotland as a trail blazer for the pure residence charge".
He was also keen to avoid a further disastrous revaluation for the domestic rates system."

It's obvious from this it was the SCottish Tories pushing for it which I've repeated many times and you are incapable of accepting, and this ties in with the 100% reasonable conclusion they thought it would be a good thing.

If you're going to use the word "Trail Blaze" as implicitly negative in some way that just shows your mindset. Can't take away the chippy can we.

Check the National Archive. The documents are all there where Thatcher and Letwin decide to use Scotland as a "testing ground" - there words not mine, but hey ho, they are all fakes and history is wrong. Not Checking told us so. And the Thatcher government in Whitehall did not refer to it as the "Scottish Experiment" - Why? - because Not Checking told us so.

Or google "Scotland Used As Testing Ground For Poll Tax" and every single report or editorial concludes the same as The Scotsman did. But, all of them are obviously wrong. Why? Because NC states so.

I give up this is, as expected, impossible. Any reasonable person can see what I've said and all the many quotes backing it up and the coherent argument as to why.
YOu'd have to be totally mental to think the SCottish Tories demanded the Poll tax not because they though it might be good for them, but to punish Scotland in some bizarre nasty irrational way as all Tories hate Scotland, but that's where we are. That's what SNP guys believe, professional victims, and nothing will shake that.

So the lie is that the nasty tories trialed it on the Scots in some sort of display of contempt for Scotland. This is the sort of rubbish the hysterically chippy individuals who are Scottish nationalist believe...

The Tories did use Scotland as a testing ground for the Poll Tax FACT

The evidence is all contained in the National Archive documents which even you should be able to read, if you took the time to locate them instead of quoting excerpts from the BBC to suit your argument.

Here is the text from just one of the documents from Oliver Letwin to Thatcher in November 1985 which proves so.

"You could make all the changes to grants, non-domestic rates, capital controls and housing benefit in England and Wales, but try out the residential charge in a pure form only in Scotland, and leave domestic rates intact for the time being in the rest of the country."

He added: "This has obvious attractions: No-one can say you are being insufficiently radical, since you will be curing the disease of the non-domestic rates (which was the worst element of the old system) and trying out an extremely radical system in a significant part of the country.


"By the same token, no-one can accuse you of being rash, since you will be reserving your options on domestic rates in England and Wales."

"If the Scottish experiment worked, it could make a pure residence charge look sensible rather than extreme, and thereby pave the way for its introduction in England and Wales."

"I therefore recommend that, if you are not willing to move to a pure residence charge in England and Wales immediately, you should introduce a mixture of taxes but should rather use the Scots as a trailblazer for the real thing."

Whether Thatcher`s government did this out of pure contempt for Scotland is unlikely (only you claim this) and the main reason was as stated, by Letwin in his memos to Thatcher, as a test or experiment.  

Even a Viz reader like yourself should be able to read and comprehend this but I am now beginning to doubt it.

I have come across some dumplings over the years but you take the biscuit. Your arrogance is beyond comprehension.

You are incapable of acceping the Tories would do anything for what they believe is a good and positive reason, despite all the evidence, and are convinced everything is "anti Scottish". Tories are the bogeyman. You probably check for them under your bed just before your pass out. End of story.

I think there was a memo to that document that claimed that Scotland
@ “ have their snouts well and truly in the trough “

The mightymac seems to have left that bit out ..

That's what I've said many times above LFC, but MM won't accept it as it doesn't portray the tories as total b&stards. Doesn't fit the SNP grievance.

We're not getting much sense out of Mac now what's he going to be like after a night in the pub.