We’re publishing a guest post today by two Scottish academics, Professor Roger Watson and Dr. Niall McCrae, about why the Scots have proved so willing to comply with the SNP’s draconian Covid restrictions. Their unprotesting acceptance of the cancellation of Hogmanay is particularly mystifying given that the latest data suggests only one Omicron patient has been admitted to intensive care in Scotland.
Hogmanay has always been a special night in the Scottish calendar. But looking forward to ‘the bells’ at a Glasgow bar, dozens of revellers were taken aback by the sudden arrival of a troop of police officers. The Avant Garde bar was known to be relaxed on Covid restrictions, and the police had apparently been tipped off that a couple had taken to the dance floor. Six vans arrived, and the ensuing scenes (later reported by the mainstream media but only after going viral on Twitter) showed that in Sturgeon’s Scotland the priority is not protecting public health but ensuring full compliance with the draconian rules. As in the film Footloose, set in a religiously rigid American town, dancing is considered a danger to public order.
How did Scotland become such an oppressive society? This, we believe, is rooted in two potent forces: first, the engrained sense of subjugation (actual or perceived) by the English; and secondly by a predilection to Calvinist discipline.
Scots, especially SNP voters, tend to see the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 as the defining point of Scottish history. This is reflected in that dreadful dirge Flower of Scotland that passes for a national anthem. But perhaps the defining moment in Scottish history was much later in 1746 when, in less than an hour, the Jacobite army of Bonnie Prince Charlie was wiped from the battlefield at Culloden. As the muskets cooled, with the smoke from the campfires still rising from the encampments, the largely English troops slaughtered the wounded and chased the rest to ground and summary execution. Highland dress was banned and the powerful clan structure was dismantled.
Soon a prolonged genocide took place as the Highlanders – and many Lowlanders – were driven from their crofts to make way for sheep farming. As in the Oklahoma dust storms depicted in John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, great swaths of Scotland became infertile for crops and rural dwellers fled by the tens of thousands to North America. Although not quite as devastating as the Irish potato famine, Scotland has never fully recovered from this experience.
Then the religious habit of the Scots is interesting. Back in 1562 Calvinism was made the official state religion, leading to the Protestant work ethic that made Scotland so prominent in the Industrial Revolution and the British Empire. But it also brought God-fearing puritanism. King James VI of Scotland – baptised a Catholic but turned to Presbyterianism – was obsessed with the threat of witchcraft, writing a treatise Demonology and persuading educated people that dark forces lurked everywhere. After accession to the British throne, he passed a law in 1604 stiffening punishment for witches. He was keen on the drowning test, whereby the woman was guilty if she survived.
An important development was the Free Church, which split from the Church of Scotland in 1843 and swept across the highlands and islands. A good illustration of the severity of the ‘Wee Free’ was in the remote island of St Kilda, where the small community was under the spiritual guidance of Reverend John Mackay. As noted by Charles Maclean in his book St Kilda: Island on the Edge of the World:
Shortly after his arrival on the island in 1865 he established a vibrantly harsh rule over his parishioners. Services on Sunday at eleven, two and six o’clock were made to last from two to three hours each. Mackay preached long, repetitious sermons in Gaelic, which invariably included the same message of hell-fire and eternal damnation to all sinners. Complete attention was demanded throughout these dim effusions. Children were brought to church from the age of two and trained to keep absolutely still and silent.
At least the children were not masked, as they have been for nearly two years in the Scottish Covid regime. The Sabbath was strictly observed as a day of nothing but worship. No work was permitted. Also strictly forbidden from Saturday evening to Monday morning were conversations between islanders, singing and whistling. This culture is reflected in the award-winning novel His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet, set in the highlands in the 19th century, where church on Sunday was a reprieve from the battened hatches in the ‘black months’ of winter.
Some of this may be explained by remoteness and hardship. But the Scots, in contrast with the more permissive society south of the border, are a rule-bound people who seem to like policing themselves. Do something mundane like drink beer on a park bench, and someone might admonish you: “You cannae dae that!” (unless you’re in a carriage full of football fans, which nobody would dare interrupt). Until recently the ferries from the mainland to the Hebrides stopped on Sundays, to the detriment of the tourist trade. Scots also have a remarkable ability to scythe the tall poppies. No matter what someone’s achievements in life, a dissenter is always within earshot to announce: “Aye, but I kent his faither,” implying that nobody is allowed to be really different.
One of us (NM) wrote Echoes from the Corridors, a history of the mental hospitals in Britain, and found a distinct difference between the asylums of Scotland and England in the Victorian era. In the latter, the harsh conditions were alleviated by weekly dances and beer at every meal, but Scottish institutions were much stricter. Alcohol was banned, and like the current government’s dislike of anyone letting their hair down, a sign on the wall of the main hall at Murray Royal Asylum in Perth stated:
No attendant, servant or other officer, shall dance with any other attendant, servant or officer.
It is sometimes hard to believe that Scotland was the seat of the Enlightenment and had an education system that was the envy of the world. Scotland has punched well above its weight on the international stage for centuries with Scottish scientists, inventors and engineers such as John Logie Baird, Graham Bell, James Watt, Alexander Fleming and others making notable contributions to progress and the well-being of humanity. But those days are over, and the Scottish education system has gone the way of the rest of the U.K. Before one of us (RW) left Scotland in 1999 he chaired the local Catholic primary school board but found that it was impossible to resist the educational dogma of the Scottish Assembly in Edinburgh, with astonishing obedience and kow-towing by educators to the whims of their political masters – long before the SNP took control.
The Covid pandemic was just the opportunity that the SNP required. Nicola Sturgeon exploited the virus for nationalistic fervour and issued a massive virtue signal: “Look at us, we care about each other, not like the callous English.” The Scottish media seems to live in fear of the SNP and has been remarkably uncritical and compliant throughout its reign, particularly during the pandemic. Scotland also has a highly politicised police force ready to do the bidding of the First Minister. Nicola Sturgeon was given a remarkable amount of airtime to browbeat the Scots into submission and advertise her moral superiority. To ensure that she is not challenged by any contrary experts she relies on the photogenic but medically vacuous ‘expert in global health’ Professor Devi Sridhar for covid panegyrics.
We cannot quite fully explain why our former compatriots have rolled over so readily in the wake of COVID-19. But they have, and Nicola Sturgeon continues to take advantage. As we write, Covid-related restrictions – in common with those other Celtic fringes Wales and Northern Ireland – are much stricter than in England with no end in sight. After thousands of Scots crossed the border to celebrate New Year to enjoy an atmosphere at odds with their stifled homeland, Professor Leitch, Scotland’s National Clinical Director, called for even tighter restrictions and Professor Sridhar, from the comfort of her well-appointed domicile, reinforced the new normal of doom and gloom.
It is customary for us Scots to give le mot juste to our national poet Rabbie Burns.
O, wad some Power the giftie gie us
Holy Willie’s Prayer
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion.
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Thanks very much. I have been struggling with this. Hopefully, there is enough info for the technically useless such as me. Too many websites assume competence levels at the same standing as the site designers.
I have two regular payments going out to other Sceptic sites so I need to organise alternatives first. It’s a right ball…Perhaps though we can shut PP down.
And then on the other side of the scale we have the Swiss Banks and the Bank of International Settlements…
“How may we help you, Sir?”
“I have a war to finance, and need somewhere to hold the wealth of my victims, and I will not tell you my real name nor anything else about me, and if you try to make enquiries about me I will surely find out and make your last few moments very… difficult.”
“Yes of course, Sir, please step this way. Kaffee und Kuchen?”
Ah, what a strange world we live in…
Having said this, not to be unfair to the Swiss, many BSV-related operations are registered there.
‘A reader reports that when he tried to close his account he got a message saying: “We’re sorry, we’re not able to process your request right now. Please try again later.”
I encountered this, also another message about a pending transaction. What was stopping closure I discovered was there was a Direct Debit Mandate which had been set up when I linked PayPal to my bank account. I was not aware of this.
Once I had cancelled this with my bank – I did it on-line – I was immediately able to close the PayPal account.
Toby, add a Stop Press 2!
I wonder if the ‘banning’ of numerous accounts – and thus holding on to the money for six months – has been a way for PayPal to try to keep money in its coffers. It’s possible PayPal simply no longer has the funds to reimburse all the people closing their accounts or even those moving across money on a normal basis. Woke capital is living up the the ‘Get woke, go broke’ saying!
Just checked their Trustpilot rating. Pretty bad and it’s not all due to recent events
Brilliant! I expect the 8% giving a rating of five work for the company.
My experiences of trying to close my account…first you have to cancel all automated recurring payments via Paypal. I think to do this I just went to ‘Payments’ within Paypal. When you’ve done this, and try to cancel, you may get a message saying that the account can’t be closed because there’s a transaction in progress/pending transaction. Wait a few days then try again. If there’s still a transaction in process wait a few more days then try again. Eventually you will, as I did, find that you will be able to cancel. Oh and before you cancel remember to send a complaint saying why you’re cancelling. And here’s one advantage of cancelling – all those ‘Paypal’ debits on your bank statement – it’s wonderful to see after all these years the retailers’ names! I haven’t found it ‘inconvenient’ to go back to using my Visa card for online purchases (in the circumstances, it’s a pleasure).
👍
PayPal going under would be a nice start.
You also have to delete any payment link apps using Paypal. I had this set up on Quickbooks so my customers could pay their invoices (yes bad luck Paypal your piss-poor-practice just lost a fair few quid each year from my business) and I had to delete the app in Quickbooks before Paypal would allow me to close the account.
I only hope enough ordinary decent folk get their money out before the house of cards collapses.
Netflix, Amazon, Apple and co better watch out as well. General Tobes is on a war footing!
Go analogue! Especially with your assets. Before the choice is removed altogether.
Thanks for the explanatory notes above.
Account now closed.
Now to set up new payments for Off-G and The Light.
Every little act, a million little cuts, it all counts.
I now wish I had a PayPal account, just so I could go and close it!
I have just successfully closed my PayPal account that I have had since 2003 – but not without some apprehension.
It must be clear to PayPal – and whoever they are connected to – that such behaviour would cause people to leave. So would cancelled accounts be a financial corporation’s desired objective? What if people began to predictably cancel other accounts when faced with similar corporate behaviour? Would it hasten the end of fiat money? Would it pave the way for something more unpalatable?
I am just speculating here, of course. But I am always wary about going down easy paths that seem to have been opened up by untrustworthy organisations.
When a misinformation policy goes out in error, it brings irony to a whole new level.
Someone in PayPal admin is quite the butterfingers!
Who do they think they are – PayPolice?
Had an account since 2011 but they’ve slashed on their pomme frites good and proper. . Closed it last week.
I’m quite annoyed because I can’t cancel my PayPal account twice. Having done it in solidarity with The Daily Sceptic, I now can’t cancel it again over their proposed THEFT of my money because they don’t like my opinions.
Also, make sure you delete your bank card from Paypal. Don’t want them having your debit card details.
The $2500 charge on your account if you are naughty is still in the Acceptable Use Policy for USA Paypal users:
https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-full?locale.x=en_US#s4-restricted-activities.
Some ‘mistake’.