Negative recollection
The longer this site goes on, the more we realise we could really do with some sort of proper indexing system, rather than relying on our bullet-riddled memory to be able to recall the details of something we wrote a year ago.
So in the week that the “Better Together” campaign celebrated its first birthday, and we learned that it refers to itself internally as “Project Fear”, we thought we’d collect a few of our favourite impressions of it from its own supporters (and the odd neutral) in one place where they might be easier to find.
“Constantly lining up people to denigrate Scotland’s options and capabilities could easily backfire and there are already signs of this.”
(Pro-Union businessman Robert Durward, the Sunday Times, December 2012)“The real failure of the “no” campaign, thus far, is in terms of tone. This, as will be clearly to anyone keeping half an eye on the debate, is largely negative… Behaving as if the SNP and support for independence is some sort of historical aberration, as certain Labour politicians have done since 2007, not only shows contempt for democracy but also debases Scottish politics.”
(David Torrance, ThinkScotland, January 2013)And this, for me, is a new experience in politics – to enter a debate with a strongish view on one side of the argument, and to find myself so repelled by the tone and attitudes of those who should be my allies that I am gradually forced into the other camp.”
(Joyce McMillan, the Scotsman, January 2013)“The No campaign needs to start explaining why the Union can make Scotland better not why independence will be a terrible thing as Scots, mired in a swamp of endless negotiations, wander between our mud huts borrowing cups of woad. If, as their campaign claims, we will be better together, they need to start telling us why.”
(Editorial, Sunday Mail, February 2013)Months of telling people that, unlike Ireland, Denmark and Luxembourg, Scotland is simply not strong enough may exact a toll on Better Together volunteers well before it takes a toll on the voters.”
(Kevin McKenna, the Observer, March 2013)“Here’s a radical idea for the Better Together campaign. Just once, just for a change, let’s hear something positive about why Scotland would be better staying part of the United Kingdom. Because frankly, the scare stories are wearing a bit thin.”
(Editorial, The Scottish Sun, March 2013)“The long campaign to 2014 is negative, acrimonious, partisan and uninspiring. Fear is being used to such an extent that it insults our intelligence. The gun-to-the-head politics is clumsy and potentially counter-productive… The Better Together campaign hasn’t worked out a future for Scotland within the UK. Being so relentlessly negative is not a strategy.”
(Henry McLeish, former Labour First Minister, April 2013)“The Better Together campaign has many faults. It is tedious, piecemeal, relentlessly negative, and a factory for an endless supply of scare stores.”
(Sunday Herald, April 2013)“I think Alex Salmond is offering something in terms of independence, whether you like it or not. The Unionists are not offering, in my view, anything. And you can’t go into an independence poll in 2014 saying, you know, ‘We’ve been together since 1707, let’s be together for the next 300 years’. For a lot of young Scots in particular, that’s not an attractive proposition.”
(Henry McLeish, former Labour First Minister, June 2013)
Have we forgotten any?
What about the pandas? We’ll lose them and our airports will be bombed!
The only logical conclusion is that there are no benefits to Scotland remaining in the Union. Hence the move by the heid yin of Better Together talking about more powers for The Scottish Parliament in the event of a NO vote.
In other words they are moving onto an agenda of deception.
Or the RBS rescue that Scotland couldn’t have done without big Gordon Broon and his London pals. Er oh yes we wouldn’t have bailed out RBS as 90% of it’s assets were in London.but they don’t like to talk about that!
These comments really put the Better Together campaign in perspective.
And in reality, Better Together is really only Scottish Labour, who are fighting two battles, ‘Party Survival’ and ‘Staying in the Union’. Although these battles are related, winning of them is mutually exclusive. Think about it.
The only SLAB strategy that accommodates both battles, is ‘Project Fear’.
They must be panicking in the SLAB camp.
If a Yes to Scotland supporter is negative about the negativity of the BT campaign then that must be a positive. I’m thinking back to O level maths.
“What about the pandas? We’ll lose them and our airports will be bombed!”
“Or the RBS rescue that Scotland couldn’t have done without big Gordon Broon and his London pals.”
This piece is about people’s descriptions of BT’s fearmongering, not the fearmongering itself. PAY ATTENTION, READERS.
What about the pandas? We’ll lose them and our airports will be bombed!
That’s on even numbered days. On odd numbered days, we’ll lose our airports and the pandas will be bombed.
” in the event of a NO vote” –
‘There will be no vandalism’
‘There will be no bevying’
and there will be no ‘NO’ vote.
Out of interest what has become of Joyce MacMillan?
Has she become a victim of the ‘Isobel Fraser’ effect?
There all the time yesterday and gone today and tomorrow?
Project Fear will be wound down around June next year.
To be repalced by Project Panic.
“The emperor does not share you optimistic appraisal of the situation”
-Darth Vader on Better Together
“Following a Yes vote, the Scottish government has promised that all parties will play a role in the negotiations for an independent Scotland. Because of this it is important that all parties set out their vision of an independent Scotland. In light of the refusal from Labour HQ to do this, Labour for Independence will set out what we believe are real Labour poliices”.
Labour for Independence website.
The Better Together Campaign – yet to explain how its only Politicians and SPADs and Consultants who are Better together. No wonder they can only moan.
Two simple words will be the downfall of their constant negative campaign…that lovely moment when Undecided or bored YES people get fed up and ask “But how?”
Isn’t it interesting to see those rare newspaper quotes (showing what they really think) and yet they all constantly spin any Scottish Gov’t success stories into negative ones; constantly trying to spin the lie that we really are ‘Better Together’.
I received a warning from the Herald about a comment I left about their article being part of their ‘daily scaremongering campaign’.They suggested I was criticising their journalistic standards to which I replied that that was exactly what I was doing. Er..doh.
And, yet, this article alone shows eight quotes from so-called ‘influencers’.
People have asked BT representatives constantly on FB, Twitter, TV, Radio etc to give just one example of why we’re Better Together and all that is offered is soundbites: ‘stronger together’, ‘bigger voice on world stage’, and the latest classic ‘countries round the world envy the UK’ FFS!
We all know by know if there were advantages the MSM would’ve been screaming them from the rooftops of the highest ivory towers
I paraphrase, but this has been said by Margaret Curran, Alastair Darling, David Cameron and many others
SCOTLAND CAN BE AN INDEPENDENT COUNTRY
These are excellent ‘wordbites’ to keep and expand. I suggest that we send you more as we unearth them.
OT but I promised to post my reply from the BBC following my complaint to them re Question Time from Edinburgh. Here is my complaint (based largely on the piece from Wings) and their answer.
I wish to complain in the strongest possible terms at the selection of the panel for tonights QT. Tonight’s programme is -according to the BBC, specifically to do with the referendum on Scottish independence, but the show’s guest list tonight will uphold the BBC’s standard debate policy of four anti-independence politicians (Farage plus George Galloway, Anas Sarwar and Ruth Davidson) against a single pro-independence one (the SNP’s Angus Robertson) with a token neutral (Scotsman journalist Lesley Riddoch). UKIP have no Westminster MPs, no Holyrood MSPs and no Welsh AMs, and attract a microscopic proportion of the vote in Scottish elections, yet their leader Nigel Farage has made more appearances on Question Time (14) than any other politician since 2009. The Greens have representation in both Westminster and Holyrood, but the Scottish party has been invited onto QT just once in the same period.
If this is what the BBC calls balance, then all I can say is the BBC gets more like Pravda every day. We get more balance from Russia Today. It is quite frankly a national disgrace.
Dear Mr McCann
Thanks for taking the time to contact the BBC about Question Time, broadcast on 13 June 2013. We forwarded your concerns to the Executive Editor who passed on the following response:Question Time is a current affairs programme that covers a range of subjects and debates issues in a UK context. It chooses panellists carefully across the series. We regularly invite politicians and non-politicians from one part of the UK to appear on the programme in other parts of the UK. This programme was no different – it was not an independence special discussing exclusively issues related to the independence referendum. It dealt with a range of topical issues in the news. We aim to offer the audience across the UK as well as in the room, as wide a range of voices and opinions on the issues being discussed as possible. The only difference in this edition was in the makeup of the audience. 16 and 17 year olds have been given the vote for the first time in next year’s independence referendum and we wanted to look at what sort of things were of interest to and influenced this age group, to acknowledge why these people were being given the vote. The composition of the audience reflected both those for and against independence, and contained a number of people who were undecided. It was also broadly representative of voting patterns across the party political spectrum.The Green Party has been on the programme twice since March, and we have offered the Scottish Greens a seat on the panel the next time we come to Scotland in the next series. Nigel Farage represents a party with growing UK support and their recent electoral gains since the 2010 general election makes them of interest to our audience.Thanks again for contacting us.
Kind Regards
BBC Complaints
F – Facile
E – Embittered
A – Acrimonious
R – Reactionaries
“There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” – F D Roosevelt
The unionists are depending on fear for Scots to vote NO. We should constantly remind ourselves of that fact.
I think the biggest thing I will miss if we become independent is the opportunity to randomly invade bomb and otherwise dismay some unsuspecting country on spurious grounds that wouldn’t convince an intellectually challenged tape worm….that and the terrifying prospect that I would be a foreigner.
Full circle?
Just reading an interesting article by Dunwoodie in the Herald about the Unite Union and the labour Party. Must have made a few labour People squirm.
The thing that is worth looking into though, is all this squabble has exposed the Labour Parties membership numbers in the Falkirk constituency: about 200.
I think it would be worth finding out the exact numbers and baring in mind that this is a Labour stronghold, calculating the membership numbers throughout Scotland.
If say the Falkirk area had a population of 100,000 and Scotland has a population of
5 million then the absolute maximum membership for labour would be 10,000, but that would only be a realistic number if the whole of Scotland was a labour stronghold!
Maybe something for you to look at rev ?
Take a look back and see how British Airport Authority deliberately destroyed air travel to and from Scotland . They had control over (at one point) four of our airports , It was deemed that owning seven airports in the UK was a monopoly !!!!!! yes Westminster decided that, it was never mentioned when BAA owned four in Scotland . In the early days Prestwick was a hub airport but as air-travel progressed it became clear that Prestwick was a threat to those farther south and we all know what happened . There are plans for a new large Airport near Stirling with already excellent road and rail links nearby, closing Glasgow and Edinburgh would annoy some but it would be a huge boost to the Scottish economy, with direct links all over the world. Lets all say YES.
@ Partick Roden
have a look here for some numebrs on Labour membership:
link to wingsoverscotland.com
I’m sure I read more about the subject somehere, will try to remember…
“This referendum has questioned the very foundations of science.
Lord Kelvin will be spinning in his grave at the thought of Better Together blowing wide open the laws of thermodynamics. They have taken negativity beyond absolute zero and down into unchartered depths”.
Me June 2013
These pro-union commentators are getting mightily frustrated by Better Together. They can’t come up with a positive campaign for the Union so they need the official pro-union mob to come up with the ideas for them so they can generate the column inches and fly the butcher’s apron. But it ain’t happening simply because there isn’t a positive case for the Union that exists and is not helped by the unimaginative grey-suits running the NO campaign. Fear, smear and jam tomorrow is the only gifts from Better Together to the MSM. In the meantime there are still a few gears for the YES campaign to move up through over the next 12 months with, hopefully, a game changer of a White Paper.
@ Partick Roden
Could also look at the SLAB accounts filed at the Electoral Commission. link to pefonline.electoralcommission.org.uk
Last SLAB accounts published 01/08/2012 show membership income at £106,644 for the year 2011. If you took an average membership rate of £10-£15pa then you are talking about 7,000 to 10,000 paying members.
‘Could also look at the SLAB accounts filed at the Electoral Commission. link to pefonline.electoralcommission.org.uk
Last SLAB accounts published 01/08/2012 show membership income at £106,644 for the year 2011. If you took an average membership rate of £10-£15pa then you are talking about 7,000 to 10,000 paying members.”
This is an extremely interesting avenue of exploration. But how are you accessing those figures? The EC website doesn’t allow direct links, so how does one negotiate to that info from the search page? And how are you getting “Scottish Labour” figures when the party isn’t listed in the drop-down menu?
EDIT: Never mind – figured it out, they’re listed as an “Accounting Unit” of the main Labour Party and those are the 2011 accounts.
Better ~Together believing in a future that the present couldn’t possibly justify. NO VISION
To paraphrase Gandhi:
First they try to scare you,
Then they try to deceive you,
Then they fall silent,
and then you win.
On Falkirk they have an electoral roll of around 117,000 and the electorate of Scotland totals 3.929,000
Falkirk therefore represents 2.98%. So if they have 200 members and that is replicated across the board then they have 6,700 members.
Just a bit of fun – no idea how representative Falkirk is – many may have left the Party there in total scunneration.
I can think of at least two positive cases for the union and we should be think of more so that when BT produce them we have rebuttals ready.
1) The socialist “Liverpool granny” case that we must not abandon our fellow to the depradations of the Tory but must stand together with them.
2) The “pooling” case that the consequences of a disaster are less for any one if the consequences are shared by many.
To believe that there is no positive case for the union is to be caught napping when one is sprung on us with the full weight of the MSM behind it. There must be more and we should think seriously about what they are. Forewarned is Forearmed.
@ Murray McCallum
@ Partick Roden
Standard SLab membership is £44.50 which gives a total membership of 2396! Ok a bit more as there are concessionary rates for students, etc.
Apparently “Campaigning for a fairer Britain costs money” LOL
link to www2.labour.org.uk
Rev Stu says
This piece is about people’s descriptions of BT’s fearmongering, not the fearmongering itself. PAY ATTENTION, READERS.
However, one of the chief architects of Labour’s Fear strategy, is one John McTernan who said after the last Holyrood GE that the reason Labour lost was that they weren’t negative enough!
He left to work in Australia for Susan Gillard, yes the ex PM of Oz.
I wonder if he will be coming back to Scotland to continue his good work as Fearmaster-in-Chief of the Bitter Together mob.
That would be very nice I think, for the YES campaign.
@Handclapping
1. What if your granny lives in Marseille?
2. Sounds like Scotland continuing to subsidise rUK.
@BtP
So BT is populated by lifes losers and yet Yes is only 1 in 3. Odd isnt it or is it something we need to worry about.
@Albert Herring
I didn’t say they were not capable of being shot down. I was suggesting
1) we shouldn’t use no positive case for the union as a comfort blanket
2) as BT wont we should look for the positive cases so we are ready for them
If BT’s own support in the MSM is sick of the negativity who knows what the support in the MSM will be like after another year of ‘project fear’. Point and laugh
@HandandShrimp,
The 200 is only in reference to Eric Joyce’s seat, there is another Labour trougher sitting in the other Falkirk seat?
Michael Connarty, and if my memory serves me correct he was vying for position with Joyce as the top expense claimer for a few years.
The other seat is Linlithgow and east Falkirk and as the Falkirk area section is larger by population it was deemed that an important place like Linlithgow couldn’t be nameless in parliament. West Lothian & Central region, strange, but true.
The same use of the Falkirk area in parliamentary seating was also for Clackmannanshire, I don’t know if they still use parts of the Falkirk area for clacks though.
The dates of these extracts are revealing.
It might be impossible to find similar narratives from a year ago but in the last six months or so, there has been an increasingly frequent critique of the better Together’s bitterly abusive narrative.
The strategy of slow, measured argument for independence by the YES & SNP camps is clearly working. By allowing the NO camp to empty its magazine of puerile scare stories, it hopes to have cleared the way so that the white papers coming in the autumn can be consumed without the noise & smoke of an artillery assault of scaremongering.
The commentators in the media recognise this.
This is a gamble of course; the expectation is that the electorate will be so scunnered by the NO camp, the undecided amongst might just have the ear for it after all. And it assumes that the NO camp has already reached its zenith of incredulous comic book ramifications for post independent Scotland.
I’m not so sure such is the will & apparatus of the British State to undermine anyone who turns their back on the Empire. References to any number of colonies that argued for independence confirms the British habit of rubbishing indigenous peoples desire to run their own affairs as if only the British Establishment is uniquely qualified. we know it isn’t. Actually we know it is deeply incompetent & corrupt & self serving. But of course when you are already in power, perceptions about your incompetence are easy to negate.
It is this negation through the use of ridiculous tests, pompous claims & pointless questions that the British State uses to undermine the authority, sovereignty & intelligence of the Scottish electorate.
If Scotland votes NO next year, I’m not sure who I will feel more pity for; the imperial minded buffoons who champion the British way or the indifferent, couldn’t care less Scots who either think the status quo is as good as it gets or indeed those Scots who enjoy being subservient to a government they didn’t even vote for.
@handclapping
But both of these are old hat, most recently aired by Galloway & Brown respectively, and thoroughly debunked here and elsewhere.
I agree with your point though, however I’m really struggling to come up with anything!
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
‘Could also look at the SLAB accounts filed at the Electoral Commission.
Yes a good but quirky site. I got the accounts information from the EC homepage – Party Finance – Statements of accounts (link down the page) – PEFOnline – Statements of accounts (left hand menu). Select Party name (Labour Party GB) then select “Reported by (accounting unit)” Scottish Labour Party.
You can actually download and view the paper accounts filed. I looked quickly through the notes but could see no reference to membership numbers. A financial nerds paradise.
If you are scared of political and financial Independence –
Vote ‘NO’
Just remember, the people that are urging you to vote No are the people that are in power now.
These are the people that think we are incapable of running our own affairs.
Is it any wonder that Scotland has been held back and put down over the years.
These people have no positive vision for Scotland; none whatsoever.
Vote YES for a better future.
When Blair McDougal is being interviewed it seems to me that when he is pushed he is less confident, and a good hard interview with perhaps Bernard Ponsoby? would take him apart. STV get it done!!
O/t Watched a bit of TV last night and saw several interviews with Margaret Curran, oh god help us.
On the good side I guess we will have had a few more YES votes !!off the back of her!
“When Blair McDougal is being interviewed it seems to me that when he is pushed he is less confident, and a good hard interview with perhaps Bernard Ponsonby? would take him apart. STV get it done!!”
He falls to pieces under any concerted pressure, just like Sarwar and Darling do. Ponsonby would mince him up and feed him to stray dugs.
Alexicon
Fair point I was using council rolls – Doh!
The new Falkirk seat of 2005 has a roll of about 82,000 – using the same methodology that puts membership around 10,000 – which I think chimes with a few other estimates.
Les
What is it with Magrat and Johann? Off script they automatically plump for car crash mode.
On Blair – the photo the Rev has of him here is actually way scarier than any of their scare stories. Vote No or this man will visit your house
A lot of good comments re: Labour Party memberships numbers, the figure of 10,000 would be accurate if the whole of Scotland voted in the same way as Falkirk, a labour stronghold!
We know it doesn’t though, so I’d say maybe 7,000 would be a better guestimate.
Jonny Mac says:
27 June, 2013 at 1:42 pm
“Take a look back and see how British Airport Authority deliberately destroyed air travel to and from Scotland . They had control over (at one point) four of our airports , It was deemed that owning seven airports in the UK was a monopoly !!!!!! yes Westminster decided that, it was never mentioned when BAA owned four in Scotland . In the early days Prestwick was a hub airport but as air-travel progressed it became clear that Prestwick was a threat to those farther south and we all know what happened . There are plans for a new large Airport near Stirling with already excellent road and rail links nearby, closing Glasgow and Edinburgh would annoy some but it would be a huge boost to the Scottish economy, with direct links all over the world. Lets all say YES.”
An airport, plus moving the parliament to Bannockburn, build it as a multi story, 300 ft high with the biggest saltire on earth flying from the top, a message to London. “Get it right round ye.” Have it lit all night so it can be seen from the airport as they land and see what they lost. Holyrood should be demolished and turned in to an extension of the park, the palace will make an excellent museum to remind us of our 307 years of purgatory, no need for Kings and Queens in Scotland.
Gaavster says:
27 June, 2013 at 1:01 pm
Out of interest what has become of Joyce MacMillan? Has she become a victim of the ‘Isobel Fraser’ effect? There all the time yesterday and gone today and tomorrow?
I expect that Lesley Riddoch will get the same treatment and her appearances on any BBC programme will suddenly vanish.
We cannot be having anyone on TV to say anything positive about Scotland ,or voting YES.
Would todays FMQs come into a fear mongering role, as labour in Scotlands leader Johann Lamont tried repeatedly to accuse the SNP of trying to drag Scotland into even more austerity with independence.
Their has to be some great soundbite’s from her questions as she even called the creating of 27,000 new jobs through a reduction in corporation tax in Scotland as insignificant. Rev, this must fit your requirements for this article.
Also todays FMQ’s is definately required watching as lamont completely lost the plot and made a complete airse of herself with script in hand.
Hail Alba.
Harry Donaldson, Scottish secretary of the GMB, told the union’s conference this month that siding with the Coalition “would betray all we stand for”, and that its presence in Better Together was “an own goal by the Labour Party in Scotland”
Herald 23/06/2013
What would be interesting is to know how many of us on here post elsewhere. I suspect quite a few under different names, including myself.
1. Do you post elsewhere?
2. Which newspapers / blogs / sites?
3. Do you take what you have learned from WOS and disseminate?
4. Do you bring information back into WOS as a sort of intelligence gathering?
5. Do you find you are reaching people?
6. Do you ‘namedrop’ WOS when you can?
Merely curious as to the dynamics. Are we making a difference?
And not forgeting the BT Camps Herald, the BBC, of which an article in the Daily Record today stated that 63% of shows on the BBC last year, were infact repeats, no surprise their then, these figures were disclosed in a FOI request, so why exactly are we paying out TV licence to a biased institution, of whom, their programmes are more than likely to be repeats.
I post on
– Guardian, Glasgow Herald mostly
– Torygraph and Scotsman occasionally
– A huge variety of others (blogs) on Ad-hoc basis.
I do tend to share WOS info and links
I dont tend to bring info back to WOS (but would do if asked)
I think I am reaching a few people each month. Not huge amount, but steady.
They are not going to walk through my mind with their dirty feet
GANDHI TO THE BRITISH
Ericmac, I write comments occasionally on lots of sites, some of which support and some of which do not not support Independence. On the anti-Independence sites I don’t try to ‘reach’ anyone because they are on the whole ‘unreachable’ I just give factual information to correct or add to articles while at the same time pouring discrediting scorn on to the journalists and sources when they are misinforming and quoted in the articles. And I also do my fair share of spinning the info I provide to give the best possible scenario for Independence. I constantly make comments about how biassed are the BBC and other media and I quote Wings, Newsnet other Blog sites and useful sources where more info is available.
To quote an old UK armed forces acronym, it seems to me that the ‘Better Together’ campaign supporters have a dose of ‘NAAFI’ – No Ambition And Feck-all Interest.
No
Ambition
And
Feckall
Intellect
NoAmbitionAndFeckallIntegrity
Jeezo – if this is the calibre of the naysayers arguments:
link to telegraph.co.uk
In all its swivel-eyed, spittle-flecked majesty, then it is going to be a sodding cakewalk.
We really should consider the very best of psychiatric care for Mr Cochrane after Independence is secured though – his mutton-headed delusions have achieved so much for us.
Lamont, McDougal, Darling, Curran, and Sarwar.
Sit them down in a row of chairs (Strap them in if need be to stop them from running away) and have Ponsonby and Riddoch and even Brewer question them on the benefits of the union for two or three hours. Now that’s entertainment.
@Ronnie
Don’t forget another forces acronym WOFTAM
Waste Of Fecking Time And Money!
Lamont, McDougal, Darling, Curran, and Sarwar aka the scream team
With that line up how can we lose? No room for complacency though. In answer to Rev’s question I am sure Owen on The Indie had a couple of paragraphs about the tone of BT campaign. I’ll have a wee scoot and try to find them.
Excellent article. If this was done say once a month publishing dissent within the media towards the No Campaign; it might gradually bring about a change of position within the media towards the Yes campaign.
The Yes campaign must welcome any position that does not slavishly follow the Unionist ‘Project Fear’ model.
Personally, I loved Cameron’s line that our friend in North Korea would be lining up all his pea shooters in our direction if we dared to leave ourselves so defenceless. In response however, here’s my take on the crushing negativity coming our way. http://wp.me/p2Tb57-fb
It would be interesting to know if Joyce McMillan, Lesley Riddoch and Isobel Frazer swap yarns and even touch base with Kay with an E or Kirsty Wark, et al.
The up and fast coming realisation is that the NO ba’s well and truly bust’d.
And thank your lucky stars for that!