I was in a small debate with two SNP supporters who both seemed to claim that if any large investment arrives in the country, not only should it be decided by the ministers themselves, but that it should deffinetly go ahead despite a large amount of people against it. The SNP have come across, like Labour and the Tories, to be suckers for investment. In the future, the SNP will almost certainly approve any investment that is proposed by large international corporations ont he grounds that this is what it will be like in the future if we were to go independent from the Union. I believe myself that Scotland has a right to govern our own affairs like anty other country but could only with full independence. If they carry on with their way and their path to independence they will be ignoring the people who could suffer and that is the people of Aberdeenshire. One man will not sell to Trump. Admirable as it is, he has been regarded as arrogant by many and is annoying the Trump camp with his reluctance. I say, from the opposition of Trump, well done. You have proved that rich billionaires cannot buy everything that they want and i hope he stands firm and sticks to his beliefs.

Scottish ministers have stepped in to decide whether Donald Trump's £1bn golf resort goes ahead, after the plans were rejected by the local authority. The property tycoon's Aberdeenshire proposals were turned down last week by a council committee.

Ministers said the issue required consideration at a national level.
This particular move by the government is thought to be unprecedented.

A Scottish Government statement, issued on Tuesday afternoon, said: "Ministers recognise that the application raises issues of importance that require consideration at a national level," read a Scottish Government statement. Calling the application in allows ministers the opportunity to give full scrutiny to all aspects of this proposal before reaching a final decision."

Earlier, The Trump Organisation's head of international development, George Sorial, said: "At this moment we are not considering resubmitting the plans.

"I will return for the special meeting next week and see what that brings."

Mr Trump's representatives said they would not appeal against the decision last week to turn down the plans for the Menie Estate near Balmedie, which were criticised by some environmental groups and local campaigners.

Several offers have been received from a number of landowners in the UK hoping to secure the project after the refusal.

WHY has the Scottish Government done this? They are giving power to a right-winged billionaire who will not benefit Scotland?????????

British National Party has come out in favour of the postal workers situations.

In a press release on their website (dated 11th October), the BNP writes

"Postal workers have a good case. They are striking to defend their pension scheme. They are striking because the pay deal of 6.7% over two years is actually a pay cut when you take real inflation into account. They already earn £80 a week below the national average wage! They are striking because Royal Mail is seeking to make unfavourable changes to their terms and conditions to compete with private companies who are cherry-picking the most profitable areas."

It continues;

"The Brown regime is hell-bent on continuing the Blairite policy of liquidating the Common Wealth of this country, wrecking public services by turning them into private profit centres for giant corporations. Inconvenient though the postal strikes are, the postal workers are in the forefront of the battle against doctrinaire privatisation."

If the BNP were half-way serious about their support, then where have they been throughout the strike? For a party who claims to be the authentic voice of the white, British working class; it has been notably absent from picket lines outside sorting offices, MDECs, depots, and post offices.

Of course, this support is purely demagogic. It was only a short while ago the BNP were denouncing the CWU for supporting posties' rights not to deliver their poisonous electoral material. This is the very same BNP who said firefighters "must fore go their ambiguous position of using strike action as a means of leverage in pay negotiations" at the height of the FBU's dispute with the government! With friends like these ...

These kinds of opportunistic lurches to the left has a long pedigree in fascist politics. Like all on the far right, the starting point of their politics is the nation or 'the race'. Anything that threatens to sunder the essential unity of that category is a threat that must be dealt with. For example, New Labour are quite happy to dismantle public services and oversee the direct subordination of more and more civil society to the dictates of capital, and the government has had no qualms opening the borders to East European workers. Furthermore the working class as a whole is politically disenfranchised and is expected to forego the few crumbs from the rich's table it could expect in the past. Therefore it appears from this standpoint as if the Blair/Brown regime has time for everyone but the white working class. In "BNP-lalaland' this section of the working class is excluded precisely because it is the salt-of-the-earth repository of the British nation, and so they tailor their propaganda accordingly. This is not the whole of the BNP story as the fascists can also rely on significant support from sections of the middle class, but this discourse has clearly struck a chord in many working class communities up and down Britain. It helps explain how the BNP can poll very significant results in areas it has never stood in before.

But this strategy can only go so far. It's all very well winning support from white working class voters in periods where it has had the political stuffing knocked out of it, but quite another when it moves into action to prosecute its interests. This is why the BNP are never seen on workers picket lines - the logic of class action cuts against their idea of an indivisible nation/race. It's obvious to anyone who has taken industrial action that workers must stand together, regardless of gender, race, and sexuality in order to win. The BNP's nationalist rubbish tries to deny this by posing a common national interest between worker and boss, and seeking to divide workers by whipping up prejudice and hatred.

Fundamentally, however the BNP wishes to dress up, its "radicalism" is deeply reactionary. The British nation it defends is not the one of rebellion, of the general strike, the miners' strike, and the poll tax struggle; but the Britain of colonial brutality, class privilege, imperial bigotry, and capitalist exploitation. They offer the working class nothing but the whip and chain.

Football long ago stopped being primarily a sport and became just another branch of capitalism. Today it is a global $250bn-a-year industry.

No surprise, then, that players such as John Terry – salary: £130,000 a week – paid the same sort of whack as chief executives of FTSE 100 businesses. They are no more worth the money than the fat cats are.

On some estimates, the players who made up England team that crashed 3-2 to Croatia at Wembley can be valued at £200m or more; the Croatians were ‘only’ worth an aggregate £80m. Who seriously doubts Marxist notions of the commodification of labour power in this context?

Despite that, England could not manage even the draw that would have seen it qualify for the 2008 European championship. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland didn’t make the cut, either. This will be the first major tournament without a British team for over two decades.
The fate of football is yet more evidence that the deregulation and Neo-Liberalisation of absolutely everything does have its natural limits.

It actually makes me sad that multi billionaire oil tycoons that pay their workers around £2 an hour are going on a monthly shopping spree and buying a Premiership Football Club. End this for the sake of the beautiful game!