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.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Help Force the Demon Blair’s Knighthood to be Rescinded.
SIGN HERE
As of this post, 456,854 have so far signed.
Is there one for the Horsemen/women of the Covidian Apocalypse too? They are equally undeserving of any ‘honour’.
If anyone has an MBE they should send it back in protest at Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war and Tony Blairs’ knighthood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m0glhvwhdI
Not worth the postage – these gongs are now worthless in every sense ( and probably even stamped ‘Made in China’)
Done yesterday – and, my goodness, it is charging upwards!
Excellent likeness of the man himself!
Are they going to reinstate Jimmy Saville’s honour?
Why not?
Now that really is exponential growth.
Off-topic balderdash and spam.
As of 23:29 p.m. 516,749 people have signed to get the demon Blair’s knighthood rescinded.
By 24 hours, it will be over 1,000,000 signatures against Blair and toadying sock cuckers like you. A good many of these signatures will have come from sites like this.
A comic fantasy series inspired your handle! That in itself tells people a great deal about you and your easily triggered ineducable mentality.
Your post has precisely nothing to do with the subject at hand.
You stupidly assume I support Tony Blair being knighted because you read words I didn’t write.
There is no toadying in my post, you see toadying because you are illiterate.
There’s a strong personality disorder in this one.
I rarely ever bother with idiotic trolls like you. But for you to believe yourself able in this case to claim that …
… has tickled my nucleus accumbens.
The essence of the above article is about populations following and obeying unreasonable diktats issued by tyrannical authorities.
In light of this essence, the article has broad appeal outside of its Scottish orientation. As such, its comment’s thread is an ideal and perfect forum to share Change.org’s petition to have an honour withheld from what many believe to have been a tyrannical UK PM.
I believe your claim that my comment is “off topic” is based on your thinking that as the article is primarily focused on Scotland, that no issues from outside Scotland should be mentioned in the comment’s thread.
Which denotes the mental processes of an imbecile.
By the way, I like the way you said “ … subject at hand …”! Where do you think this is moron? An academic seminar where the participants are obliged to focus on one particular subject at a time?
I hope all this is literate enough for a ‘genius’ like you to understand. Now, please take your minus-90 IQ and go pollute the Guardian’s threads. I don’t believe there are many people on here that want any interaction with a fool like you.
There is a strong illiterate in you, you attribute leftism to me because you read words I didn’t write.
Tony Blair has precisely nothing to do with Scotland and nothing to do with Nicola Ceausescu.
If Tony Blair were stripped of his knighthood, it wouldn’t affect Scotland nor would it affect Nanny Ceausescu. That is why your original post was spam, it is trolling and you will continue to lie by attributing imaginary views to me.
Your post is the pot calling Edgar Winter black.
If you were literate, you would understand this but you aren’t, so you won’t.
Go away you halfwitted oaf.
First know thyself, well done.
His post is off-topic
It needs to be on the official government website for them to even think about taking any notice of it.
All the Change It petition site will do is create yet another saleable marketing list of names and email addresses.
Sturgeon modelling the totally ineffective mask as a fashion accessory/political statement.
Has the world gone stark raving mad? God save us.
No, not the world, our infected leaders have – the poisonous air of WEF Davos has destroyed their minds ( see Trudeau’s evil and poisonous comments today! How can this man run a Western democracy?)
The world has absorbed green ideology and doomsday cultism, Scotland has absorbed more than nearly everyone else.
Because many of the 18-64 year old’s are simply… well how does one best put it…
DYING
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/life-insurance-ceo-says-deaths-40-among-those-aged-18-64-and-not-because-covid
18-64 is a very wide range to have death statistics, Willing to bet that the majority are over 60. with the 18-30s being very much the minority.
40% though ? Even if the vast majority are over 60, that’s a huge uptick in deaths twenty years short of normal life expectancy.
Yeah but it saves on pensions and social care costs eh?
But not on Life Insurance pay outs!
…and they’ll be rubbing their hands with glee…. unless these posts are all false?
https://twitter.com/theysayitsrare
Except I can add my sister’s gym freak MIL going soon after AZ jab 2 with a massive brain hemorrhage… and a client having a stroke after booster jab back in Nov. So many rare coincidences…
So line up… line up…. jabs 4 & 5 rolling along come spring and summer…
Coffin makers rejoice!
8-30s being very much the minority, unless professional soccer players…
Methinks premiums are on the ascendant… as I type…
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health-news/why-are-heart-attacks-becoming-common-among-seemingly-fit-people/articleshow/87515634.cms
I expect your supposition is totally incorrect. The 40% figure comes from a US insurance company. Something more significant than age is at work here. The 40% surge in deaths for 18-64 year olds applies only to 2021 and not 2020. The difference of course the very unsafe and wholly ineffective “vaccines”introduced around the beginning of last year. Being “vaccinated” seems to increase all cause mortality by 40% in working age people. Increased mortality is also apparent for other age groups but these are not being looked at here.
Only Blair’s life matters to Blair.
Hmmm.
As someone who takes funerals, I would point out that I have actually had less funerals in the last two years than ever before. Not sure how that fits this picture. Not to say that things won’t go that way, soon, of course.
Because, regardless of what the Scots living in England will go out of their way to tell you (while supping an English beer in an English pub), they ARE compliant. They just talk a good game… particularly in England
Shouldn’t that have read ‘oppressed’ society?
She looks like an utter fool, almost as bad as Starmer kneeling
Six of one, and half a dozen of the other.
Looks like one because she is one..
Fixed it for you…
Scary!
Almost as scary as the unmasked version.
I see our resident downtick £uckwit is on post.
The 77th seem to have been back at work for a few days now!
They never sleep,
77th Brigade always shilling hard for the globalists and paid with our money to boot.
Quite an improvement!
The next Glasgow demonstrations are on Saturday 8th January at Nelson’s Monument and 22nd January at Commonwealth Monument, both on “Glasgow Green” starting at 1.00pm. I will be wearing my Yellow Spot.
Organised by Scotland Against Lockdown
How to get face nappies banned in one easy lesson….
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end…
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/new-variant-46-mutations-discovered-southern-france
Definitely a factor
“In March 2021, there were 579,400 people employed in the public sector in Scotland, accounting for 21.9% of total employment. In March 2021, employment in the public sector was 16,810 (3.0%) more than in March 2020″
Wink – wink… I won’t tell anyone….
As for the numbers? Yes, there is no way that those spongers are going to do anything to threaten their pay cheque now or their pension in the future.
579400 out of 5 million… Take out those too young or old to work, leaves about 3 million. Getting on for 20% of the working population. Given that another million are probably pension age, also having to be supported by the workers, the balance sheet looks decidely iffy.
This ends when energy bills get out of hand and nobody other than a civil servant is allowed out to work. My concern is Kill Bill has already said the ‘next one will be worse’.
They made the Sturgeon snp bed, they can lie in it forever more…
Yes, people don’t realise that the independence referendum campaign is largely a red herring – Scotland already is 80% independent. As this is irreversible, I would not therefore be concerned if they went the whole hog and ceased to have England to blame for their self-imposed misery.
And to raid for funds!
Cut the purse strings and Sturge will be in the smelly stuff in hours..
Only to the extent that many of the regional assemblies powers were once administered at shire level.
Go back 75 years and each shire had as much independence as Scotland or Wales has now.
The Natzis are actually great centralisers.
Also bear in mind they are a minority admin, kept in power by the watermelons.
Its the problem of a split opposition vs a fairly unified Natzi front.
Yes, all the Scots who didn’t vote for her should be punished
Nutrient deficiency.
Scotland is a notoriously unhealthy place.
Eat too many big macs and your brain turns into one.
Forward Soviet!
Scots have been compliant for the same reasons that everyone else has been compliant – the incessant deluge of misinformation and propaganda from the media and Government.
The Scots are being sacrificed on the altar of Covid. For that, Sturgeon thinks she will be awarded a place on the globalist’s ark when the SHTF, but would they really want her onboard?
Don’t be so hard on the Scots most English are just as supine, just as weak.
If Boris announces that we are in the strictest of lockdowns as of tomorrow (because Professor Ferguson has done a forecast that the omicold might kill a 98 year old with stage four cancer), most will gladly obey.
An interesting discussion which has many facets, however the similarities between all the ‘Celtic’ fringes if you like and I include ROI here as well is how much peer pressure has been brought to bear on people to conform which is much greater in smaller communities where people tend to know each other well, often with a relative in the health service, etc.(and by communities I don’t just mean geographic but particular fields, eg ‘the creative industries’ where it’s pretty common for most people to know each other)
Unfortunately the opposition to Sturgeon in Scotland is pathetic, even worse than against Boris Johnson in England and from a purely calculating political point of view it plays very well to be against Johnson to distract attention away from the dismal way the SNP have been running Scotland.
I do suspect though that underneath there may be more quiet resistance than one might think.A friend was in the borders recently and had the impression that there was a fair bit of scepticism about with little attention paid to mask mandates.
Take note of the sociopath’s face mask. Sturgeon buys her tweed or light wool masks from Slanj at about £25 a pop.
The standard disposable masks that most compliant subjects wear have a filtering ability that extends downwards to 2.5 microns (µm). Anything smaller just sails on through.
Then there are medical standard masks with a filtering ability that extends downwards to 0.3 µm.
Tweed, of course, does not have a filtering ability worth talking about, unless you need to protect yourself from inhaling brussels sprouts. The type of tweed masks Sturgeon favours do, though, come with a filter insert.
This is where it gets interesting. The filter attachments that come with these tweed masks are normally classified as PM 2.5. The 2.5 stands for 2.5 µm.
The filters in a £25 tweed mask have the same stopping power as standard disposable masks, both types are unable to filter particles that are smaller than 2.5 µm.
As for any of these masks stopping Coronaviruses, these molecules tend to be about 0.1 µm. That’s 0.1 microns in diameter. Most Coronaviruses can travel through the filters in above described masks at 24 abreast, without any of them rubbing their shoulders or stepping on each other’s feet.
Using tweed, PM 2.5 or standard disposal masks to stop SARS‑CoV‑2 is very much like erecting a chain-link fence around your home in order to keep out flies.
As for the surgical/medical standard masks with a filtering ability that extends downwards to 0.3 µm. These were not actually designed to filter airborne viruses. They are designed to stop only large droplets that might be sprayed out by an ill patient. And to stop droplets falling from a doctor’s mouth into the sterile air in an operating room.
Spot on. But don’t expect the cultists to understand or care about these facts.
The mask, it’s just fish face virtue signallling yet again. She’s confused VS for policy making. Most likely the result of the declining standards of the Scottish education system, courtesy of the SNP
Just one mistake in your excellent piece and that’s the bit about Sturgeon buying the mask, I expect the Scottish taxpayer has actually bought the mask she’s just modelling it for them.
1.Some people, who might have fought against these measures in some another time decided that the country today wasn’t really worth going to the bother of fighting for 2. Many people work in the public sector and are not worried about their income and benefited from working from home. 3. Emotional arguments were powerful in a country where most people know a sick or vulnerable person. 4. Some people’s unreserved love for SNP and everything they do continues to be a huge influence in the country.
I have to confess I crossed the border into Scotland today and was very glad to get safely back to England a few hours ago. I have always found Scotland vaguely depressing; the identikit housing, the obsession with doing as much as possible differently to England just Because etc.
There seemed to be a lot of vehicles going south to England rather than the other way (!), but I found the covid experience mixed. Mask rules still apply liberally but people are clearly ignoring them, particularly younger people. I didn’t wear one and no-one batted an eyelid. So maybe there’s hope…
On the mask-wearing front, I was in a supermarket today and sadly only one other was maskless. That’s pretty much what it’s been like throughout it all, in my experience.
Well, Nicola, that worked ok then… LOL, LOL,LOL
Covid in Scotland: Cases hit record high of 20,000 – BBC News
From our Government propaganda BBC.
We (I) haven’t.
It’s a Celtic thing – same in Wales and Ireland. Their entire culture and history is based on servitude and victimhood. They want to bow down to something (England, the Church, Covid) then cry about it and write songs in which they are the victims. Since devolution they’ve been a bit lost and Covid has come along as their new god and master.
In a pub in Glasgow a tourist announced that he had lost his wallet containing £10,000 and that he would give a reward of £100 to the person who found it.
From the back of the pub a Scott shouted, “I’ll give £150!”
I have had similar discussions here in Ireland about the over whelming majority’s unquestioning trust in the government and public bodies. The total cultural control the state-church combo imposed, by fear, post independence, until well into the 1990s, surely must have contributed to instilling a culture of compliance; do as your told and if you stray you will be shamed.
Boudica was the last Celt to make a serious stand against slavery- she died with 35,000 of her tribe -men, women and children – minced by the Roman meat grinder at Mancetter.
Scotland is a beautiful country, with lovely people and amazing history. It is badly let down by fringe political parties, given more authority than they should, and by even worse Westminster politicians who care less than they should. + history advises that Tony Blair is to blame for Scotland’s situation as much as Sturgeon.
Blair was ‘instructed’ by his Globalist minders to break up the UK …in preparation for this very moment!
just following orders does not justify, one day Mr Blair will face justice one way or another.
Which fringe political parties do you have in mind? The SNP is definitely not fringe, and although it has never won a majority of votes in Scotland (all Scotland-wide votes have always resulted in a majority for unionist parties, including 12 times in the 21st century) it has certainly won a large plurality. It currently has more support than any other political party in Scotland. We should not let the boneheads and racists who have voted for these scum off the hook. Many of them are batshit, consumed by ethnic hatred of the English, to just as great an extent as saddo white racists who can hardly open their mouths without going on about “the P***s”.
PS When you refer to (Edinburgh-born) Tony Blair are you alluding to his government’s support for establishing a Scottish parliament? Agreed that was a very bad move, but it was a long time ago now and it’s not an excuse for anyone to vote fascist or have fascist attitudes.
Our healthcare system is about to experience a tsunami! Potential side effects of jabs include chronic inflammation, because the vaccine continuously stimulates the immune system to produce antibodies. Other concerns include the possible integration of plasmid DNA into the body’s host genome, resulting in mutations, problems with DNA replication, triggering of autoimmune responses, and activation of cancer-causing genes. Alternative COVID cures EXIST. Ivermectin is one of them. While Ivermectin is very effective curing COVID symptoms, it has also been shown to eliminate certain cancers. Do not get the poison jab. Get your Ivermectin today while you still can! https://ivmpharmacy.com
Massive Scottish police assault on middle-aged, unmasked pub goers shown in GBNews video – 5 police vans and vehicles as Sturgeon’s brutal Fascist rule hardens up.
How are the drug busts going I wonder, in drug infested Scotland?
Hi, is there any way to compare the Scottish secondary school case rate against that of Englands. I ask this as Scotlands schools have had mask dates in place for longer and in light of England making it mandatory for children in English schools to wear masks I wonder if the comparative figures will actually prove or disprove mask wearing cuts down infection rates.
I daresay the figures are so tiny where child infection rates are concerned, it’s difficult to draw a definitive conclusion.
Unionist or nationalist, nearly every Scot wants a totalitarian state, it’s a secular religion.
Roger and Niall are right to emphasise the role played by Calvinism in the whole “miserable git” aspect of Scottish culture.
Calvinism doesn’t work without a distrust of outsiders (one of the words used in the religious doctrine is “depraved”) who are also viewed as fair game. If God shows how much he loves you by how rich he makes you (the central Calvinist belief, sanitised as “predestination”), then you might as well pinch stuff from people outside your fasces who are of course doomed to damnation. The Broederbond in South Africa (to which every prime minister during the white supremacist period belonged) was Calvinist through and through. The Ku Klux Klan was also influenced by Scottish Calvinism. One can trace influences of Calvinism in various other countries too, but space here does not permit.
The SNP’s ideology and the culture it has fuelled are all about ascendancy. Voting for any of the main unionist parties is preferable to voting for those fascists.
The Scots are a repressed, collectivist nation. They are tribal; and if the tribe leader says “jump” you do as ordered.
The English are far more individualistic and, over the centuries, rebellious.
I seem to recall reading that there were more Scottish troops on the English side than there were Scottish troops belonging to the Bonnie Prince. The lowland Scots did not like the Highlanders at all and seized this opportunity for a massive pay back. It does not suit the current political climate to mention this fact though.
Why don’t they just seal the border with Scotland and continue to let the idiot in charge run roughshod over her congregation. They seem to like it.
An amusing read but the truth is that there are few limits as to what a population will tolerate including the English if Governments and the news media tell them that this is the right thing to do. Historians have speculated for decades on why a highly educated and cultured German population offered so little resistance to Hitler and the Nazis once in power. I think they have a definitive answer now.
Making a cross between Jimmy Cranky and Adolf Hitler and a gerbil managing director of Scotland was always going to be a disaster, its testament the the sense of humour of the Scots that they put her in power.
FFS… and people think Australians have allowed themselves to be herded like sheep. Scotland leaves us in the dust.
Disappointing to see Calvinism misrepresented in this manner.