Eu

The Scottish Independence Podcast 137 – You Can’t Have Your Cake And Eat It

For the 137th episode of The Scottish Independence Podcast, I didn’t speak to anyone.

rock-and-a-hard-place-resized-600It is instead one of those episodes where I am bringing you a bit of an interview by and with someone else because I think it is of importance and should be heard.

That someone else happens to be Manfred Weber, head of the largest group in the European Parliament. When pressed on Brexit by BBC Hardtalk, he took a fairly strong line, best summed up by the title of this episode.

Whether you voted to leave or to remain, I think his comments are important to hear.

He also had a few words about Scotland and the levels of (dis)organisation and (lack of) direction being shown the UK government.

Hope you enjoy.

You can download here if you click THIS LINK .

You can listen online on the spreaker webpage, or you can subscribe with itunes. We can also be found on youtube and on facebook.

The Scottish Independence Podcast 110 – EUr Left Hand In, EUr Left Hand Out

For the 110th episode of the Scottish Independence Podcast I spoke with Neil Davidson, an academic and writer, and Colin Fox, leader of the Scottish Socialist Party.

It’s a slightly different episode in that it is 2 discussions about the EU, both from a socialist perspective. motivator1228853One of the interviews makes the left wing case for leaving the EU, and the other makes the left wing case for staying in the EU.

These interviews were conducted a couple of months ago for the SSP podcast, who asked me to do a few interviews for them and I accepted (NB – as ever, the Scottish Independence Podcast is unaligned with any party or group and regular listeners will know we regularly feature SNP, SSP, Greens, Labour for Indy, Libdems for Indy and all sorts of unaligned people and independent groups).

The reason for doing these interviews is that in the coming months we are going to hear a lot about the merits and problems of the EU, but they are mostly going to come from rightwing persIMG-20150308-WA0028pectives – this is why it is important to start giving some perspectives from the other side of the argument early.  I suppose you could call it a bit of public service broadcasting, given that official public service broadcasters don’t seem to do that much of it anymore.

Hope you enjoy…

You can download here if you right click THIS LINK and “save as”

You can listen to the show online at its web page

Or you can subscribe with itunes

We can alse be found on youtube

These podcasts are independently minded and independently funded, you can help to keep them going by making a donation.

EU’ve Been Misleading People Again

In the video below, aside from his usual spluttering rage, Everybody’s Darling™ decided to talk about Scotland having a stronger position in the EU as part of the UK. If you don’t want to listen to him, a position I could easily understand, just go below the video.

Time for me to point out three quick things again.

Firstly, let’s play spot the odd one out (statistic a couple of years old but the point holds)…

  • Malta = 403,532                MEPs = 5
  • Luxembourg = 486,006    MEPs = 6
  • Cyprus = 792,604              MEPs = 6
  • Estonia = 1,307,605           MEPs = 6
  • Slovenia = 2,007,711          MEPs = 7
  • Latvia = 2,245,423             MEPs  = 9
  • Lithuania = 3,700,000       MEPs = 13
  • Ireland = 4,156,119             MEPs 13
  • Scotland = 5,062,011          MEPs = SIX
  • Finland = 5,244,749           MEPs = 14
  • Slovakia = 5,455,407         MEPs = 14
  • Denmark = 5,484,723        MEPs = 14

Secondly, BeK0Lc4CAAEN-JBthis image seems rather at odds with what Darling was saying, doesn’t it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thirdly, BeKy_qzCcAAgeh-this doesn’t seem a good look out for the fishing industry, does it?

WHEN CAPITALISM DOES PHILANTHROPY

A member of the European parliament (Daniel Cohn-Bendit) has alleged that Greece will be forced to buy arms in order to get its bailout.

Bear in mind that one condition of the bailout is enormous cuts in services. IF this is also true it is a great indicator of the thought processes at work. Cut services, get debt, buy guns.

Great.

FEELING WELL REPRESENTED?

I think this should be a useful reminder before tomorrow of how well the Unionist parties have represented Scotland in Europe.

These are the populations and number of people in European parliament for some of the smaller countries in Europe.

Can you see which one appears to be different? If you can, can you work out why that might be?

Malta = 403,532                   MEP’s = 5

Luxembourg = 486,006    MEP’s = 6

Cyprus = 792,604                MEP’s = 6

Estonia = 1,307,605            MEP’s = 6

Slovenia = 2,007,711         MEP’s = 7

Latvia = 2,245,423              MEP’s  = 9

Lithuania = 3,700,000     MEP’s = 13

Ireland = 4,156,119            MEP’s 13

Scotland = 5,062,011 MEP’s = 6

Finland = 5,244,749          MEP’s = 14

Slovakia = 5,455,407        MEP’s = 14

Denmark = 5,484,723       MEP’s = 14

GOOD LUCK GREEK STRIKERS

Before everything resolves into election chat today I just want to point out that there is a general strike in Greece.

Good luck Greek strikers, I hope you win.

“There are other things the [government] can do, before taking money from a pensioner who earns 500 euros (£430) a month,”

– Spyros Papaspyros

(Photo from older protest)

Cartoon by THE PLEB