MartinJTaylor 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

4 lights. Prole. Fifer.

[LustraSkye @LustraSkye]

To SNP members & delegates soon heading to your conference:

Look closely at the £300m DataVita AI project in Lanarkshire.

Backed by the UK National Wealth Fund, it’s a textbook example of Westminster agendas defining Scotland’s resources leaving our communities to bear the environmental and grid costs while real control sits elsewhere.

Mass data centres demand staggering amounts of power, land, and continuous backup energy.

When Westminster directs the strategy, Scotland risks becoming an energy battery for external corporate priorities.

The reality for rural Scotland? Massive grid strain, vast land use, diesel backup banks, and biodiversity pressure with barely ~200 permanent operational jobs.

If rural communities feel our environment and energy are being exploited without democratic control or lasting local benefit, the political fallout will be long term.

Voters will not back a transition where corporate hyperscalers drain our resources while local energy bills stay high.

Holyrood has environmental levers, but zero say over the macro grid or market design.

Scottish Ministers are constantly forced to mitigate Westminster’s framework:
John Swinney & Stephen Flynn managing inward investment vs net-zero realities
Gillian Martin & Stephen Gethins balancing grid constraints, water use, and renewables
Jenny Gilruth & local planning boards facing the brunt of community backlash

Mitigation is not power.

Under an independent Scottish energy strategy, we wouldn't just manage the fallout of UK industrial policy.

We would:
Mandate true 1:1 renewable additionality and local co-ownership from day one
Prioritise domestic grid capacity and community wealth over speculative private wire
Fully protect rural environments and water supplies with enforceable national mandates

That is why the de facto referendum / plebiscite motion at your next conference is not an abstract constitutional debate it is our immediate practical necessity.

Every month we delay establishing an explicit electoral mandate is another month our land, water, and energy grid are leveraged under Westminster priorities we do not control.

When you vote on the plebiscite/de facto motion in the hall, push for it with us your neighbours and communities in mind

No half-measures, no kicked cans down the road.

If we want an economy that serves Scottish communities rather than external corporate extraction, we need the full powers of independence now.

Pass the motion.
And let’s mobilise immediately.

[🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿DavoM🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @Davo_Mack]

If the Union is voluntary, what is the route for leaving it?
If the answer is “only when Westminster agrees”, then the Union begins to look less like a partnership of consent and more like a constitutional arrangement controlled by one side

[Power to the People ☭🕊 @ProudSocialist]

New study shows the stress of being poor and struggling to pay bills causes long-term brain damage. They programmed the public to fear socialism to deflect from the fact that capitalism is destroying our nervous systems and damaging our brains all to make the rich even richer.

[Lauren Milberger @LaurenMilberger]

The women of The Actor’s Studio:

[The Braes o' Bonull. @weirb]

The late Derek Bateman, a wise man taken too soon.

[Lost In Film @LostInFilm]

A scene we love from Wim Wenders' 'Paris, Texas' (1984) with the phenomenal Harry Dean Stanton, born 100 years ago today ❤️

[scorsese spam account @PhilmFreak]

Underrated Harry Dean Stanton performance & fits in Straight Time (1978)

[MartinJTaylor 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @fletcherpost]

@Kevmath @WSOP @Ali_Nejad @NickSchulman @Winamax Any chance of an explanation? Seems weird to not have the youtube stream (for those outside the US) this deep in the main.

[Cinema Tweets @CinemaTweets1]

The Invite (🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟) should be taken seriously as an Oscar contender. I wrote about this at length in my review (pinned to my profile) but I think Best Adapted Screenplay is nonnegotiable. I also think Best Picture & Best Director are on the table- it’s that good. I strongly recommend hitting this in theaters, folks.

[Chris Corney @ChrisCorney1]

So long as the Scots are waiting for permission from the English to hold a referendum then they are still thinking like subjects, not an independent people.

Just get on with it FFS.

[Craig Murray @CraigMurrayOrg]

Palestine Action Proscription: We Fight Back - I publish below in full the Note we have submitted to Court today to re-establish the separate Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action. Not only is the state doubling down on https://t.co/UEmaluRVjh

[Heather Mendick @helensclegel]

"Perhaps it will be wise to approach the subject cautiously."

[Lisa Give Peace a Chance Tucker-Clemens @TuckerClemens]

This is the tragedy of the world we live in. Too few control too many. 😤😡🤬😢😢😢

[Chris Hedges @ChrisLynnHedges]

An audience member at a Q&A recently asked me why I'm so apocalyptic. The genocide in Gaza, beyond being a tragedy, marks an irreversible shift in the global world order. Before the genocide, the imperialist ambitions of the Western oligarchic class were partially constrained by the utopian ideal of the rules-based order. Now that ideal is gone, and unrestrained barbarity will characterize the methodology of the war-making ruling class. In other words — our future is an apocalyptic one.

[Simon Forrest @SimonForrest11]

Tonight's meeting in Auchtertool about the 600MW AI data centre.
Fifers are furious. Looks like Fife Council fast-tracking data centre despite it:
- Consuming half of Scottish household electricity
- No Environmental Impact Assessment EIA
- Looking like it has landed from space

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

Whenever you see someone going “I don’t understand why people are complaining about the economy, the economy is better than ever,” it’s because they’re staring at the data from the second line while ignoring everything about the first line.

[MartinJTaylor 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @fletcherpost]

@gknout Great news James, well chuffed for you.

[Bonnie Prince Bob @VoteBPB]

The people are speaking and they’re asking for The Bonnie Prince!

[MartinJTaylor 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @fletcherpost]

@gknout Hope you get your channel back soon mate and that your hackers have their drinks pissed in by the ghost of Falstaff for all eternity.