Quoted for truth #13
Scotland on Sunday, 14th April 2013 (our emphasis):
“[A Labour] MP pointed out that any further devolution would need support from the Labour Party in England: ‘Johann can’t just say to Ed [Miliband, the Labour leader] this is what I want. These decisions and policies have consequences for the whole of the UK. There are Labour MPs in England now who are getting fed up with it, not just Tories.'”
We hate to harp on. But it may be that there are still some people stuck in a cave somewhere in the Hebrides who think Johann Lamont is the “leader” of a political party called “Scottish Labour” rather than a regional branch manager of one based in London, and who imagine that the findings of her commission on devolution – should there actually be any before the referendum – will become official Labour policy.
And for those people, we have four words.
I see Dennis Canavan in the Herald says that it was Maggie herself, who broke the Union, and that he quietly hints at Independence. Same with Ian Bell in his piece.
I’m really hoping that Dennis, and a few other Labour politicians and councillors begin to hint that Independence might be the only way to go this time. I think if they did, then seriously …it would be a huge game-changer!
Rev,
As to your 4 words… you realise we could sit here and play a game of trying to come up with the best 4 words to describe Labour, their attitude and the whole Bitter Together campaign!
JLT
D.Canavan is solidly behind independence He holds a prominent post in the Yes campaign
I wonder if JL will get the message that she is being suckered by Milliband who, I am beginning to think, also wants Scotland to break the Union.
He will the be free to turn Labour into the Democrats (US style) without the pesky inconvenience of socialism, social justice and other such oiut of date concepts that the Jocks seem to be reluctant to let go?
Red Pill Blue
Dennis Canavan has been doing more than “hinting”, he’s part of the official Yes Scotland campaign. I listened to him myself a few weeks ago in Kirkcaldy and he’s good at bringing people around. Kirkcaldy mind, not exactly a Nationalist territory. There was a woman who spoke to, also from the Yes Scotland campaign. I thought she was wonderful! No idea what her name was though. There was another Labour gran too but I got the impression he didn’t hit hard enough judging by the audience reaction.
Hail Alba!
4 words
Vote No get Nothing
@Gordon Bain
Shirley-Anne Sommerville.
Alan Grogan, instigator of Labour4Indy.
Keeping with the road sign theme. The road to devolution is a bit like the A83 “Rest and be Thankful” one little slip and we are all f****d!
Good piece here by G.A. Ponsonby at NNS – worth a look if only for the incredible ‘excuse’ given by the BT ‘head of communications’ when they tried to speak to him about the McDougall smears.
Honestly, ye couldny make this stuff up…
http://newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-politics/7181-the-smear-and-fear-of-better-together
@ianbrotherhood – Totally agree and surely the apology should be broadcast firstly on Scotland Tonight (STV), after all that is where the accusation was made. However, I am not holding my breadth.
@ianbh
From that NNS article:
For those who do not know, Mr Shorthouse is the former communications chief at Strathclyde Police who, according to the Herald, was recruited by Better Together last year on a salary of £100,000 per year.
I wonder how many other people in BT are on such ‘generous’ salaries. Might help explain the reluctance to hand back Taylor’s donation.
The Herald really didn’t enjoy that letter did they? I’m gobsmacked at today’s edition, you couldn’t ask for a better response to the vile attacks by the BT camp. Two or three positive articles and a fair dose of even handed and objective, (the latter type, I’m more pleased with by the way).
@scottish_skier-
Aye. £100k a year. And this ‘Head of Communications’ can’t communicate because of the crowd noise at Ibrox?
This is beyond satire – it’s the equivalent of a lazy student calling his teacher and saying, ‘the dog is eating my homework’.
Another good article in the Herald showing those who live in South Lanarkshire how Labour spend their money while cutting services
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/opinion/council-risks-200k-on-unfair-pay-case.20776148
Like you Macart I cannot believe the even handed articles today Has the penny finally dropped or do you thinkl normal service be resumed next week We will see
As others have been noting, the Herald is full of good, balanced articles today and once again battering BT over Taylorgate.
I shall by buying a copy as a small token of recognition. If they keep it up, I might do so again.
I think it’s even worse than “Vote no, get nothing”. It’s more like “Vote no, go backwards”.
I too this morning renewed my subscription to the Herald, in recognition of today’s better standard of journalism. I had let it lapse over several months in a small protest at the generally questionable standards. I think the penny has dropped, and I think they are taking advantage of the storm or zeitgeist created in this last bizarre week, in order to create a departure from their rival. It has given them a useful turning point by which to effect a change in tone and content – and, importantly, to be seen to do so by the online pro-indy observers.
I am not holding my breath, but if this a sign of one element at least of the MSM waking up and smelling the coffee, then I will be happy to support it.
I hope I don’t end up eating my words. There are others, for example, who must be choking on theirs this morning.
It would be nice if the Herald became a more balanced paper again. I used to buy the Scotsman all through the 70s and 80s and was devastated when Neil turned it into a second rate Mail clone in the 90s. I left (a wrench, I loved doing the Scotsman crossword). I shifted allegiance to the Herald and bought the Herald everyday until relatively recently. However, increasingly I felt I was buying a paper than just didn’t chime with how I felt politically. The answer was simple and now I don’t buy any papers at all. I don’t even bother with the on-line versions as the journalism is so one-eyed, and in some instances just poor, as to be little more than propaganda for BT. There isn’t even any fun to be had on their message boards as the Scotsman is infested with some sort of Chinese worm and the Herald is moderated by Olga Klebb.
Yes, I bought the Herald last Sunday because it highlighted the BT donations issue. And I will buy it again today (if I can find a copy).
I hope the editors of the Herald are taking notice that people are prepared to pay for trustworthy news and objective opinion (as those of us ‘f%&kingidiots’ that donated to the Rev have done at WoS).
The bottom line is that all we want is grown-up and honest coverage and we’ll start buying your papers again.
“I’m a fucking idiot!”
@ianbrotherhood – “Aye. £100k a year. And this ‘Head of Communications’ can’t communicate because of the crowd noise at Ibrox?”. Wonder who he was communicating with at Ibrox? Better Together, right enough!
Just a thought. Wouldn’t it be really funny if, in time to come, when the analysis is done, it turned out that the fortunes of the Herald and Scotsman were seen to be travelling in opposite trajectories, and the watershed moment was identified to be Swastikagate after all? With Euan’s self-hoisting-by-own-petard moment to add a bit of added comic relief?
What a sweetly ironic moment that would be. Something akin to losing a sixpence under a smelly rock, crawling underneath it, and finding a bag of gold coins!!
Oops meant to put that in “and-finally-31”. Must be true then!
The Sunday Herald was sold out at my local newsagents this morning.
“And this ‘Head of Communications’ can’t communicate because of the crowd noise at Ibrox?”
Odd, isn’t it, that even though he was at Ibrox and the crowd was noisy, he still rang back immediately, thinking it was the BBC he’d be talking to?
No, sorry, not ‘odd’. ‘Predictable’. As predictable as him suddenly having nothing to say when he realised it was a less receptive audience.
I confess I bought the Sunday Herald for the picture.
I also searched the Herald online archive using “Gardham” as key. Lots of hits up to 8th April then none.
Interesting.
I’ve said it elsewhere, but if Herald ditch Gardham I will take out an online subscription.
Quinie frae Angus
In my opinion there is a world of difference between the Sunday Herald and the weekday Herald.
Marcia
I take your point. Maybe I should “un-renew” my subscription and just buy hard copies of the Sunday Herald instead. Would that make more of the point, do you think?
O/T an arrest has been made:
https://twitter.com/frankiet67/status/323401729783771136/photo/1
Quinie frae Angus
I think it would.
Ok, good shout, Marcia, thanks.
@mato21
Worth keeping an eye on mato. The only real problem for me with the Herald is Mr Gardham. It was his appointment which saw me buy my last Herald and should he move on would signal my willingness to start buying again. As I said it wasn’t the positive articles which drew my eye but the one’s which normally would have carried a Gardham like slant being written with a view toward neutrality.
Eyes open. 🙂
I bought The Herald today, primarily on the basis of the photograph on the front page which looked to me like a two fingered response to last week’s SoS.
I was also fairly impressed by the more balanced content. Keep it up Herald and I just might buy it again. I’ll still reserve judgement on the daily edition though.
I also bought the Sunday Herald today. Several really good articles, particularly the one with the Irish military dude showing how a respectable Scottish Defence Force could be maintained for even less than the SNP intend to spend on defence. This is the sort of stuff we need the media to be doing – getting independent sources to discuss how Scotland could do things differently with independence. Instead, we tend to get the BBC version today, which was basically some American Bush-era guy giving it the usual imperialist crap.
One thing confused me about the Sunday Herald though. The Dennis Canavan column said “read the full column on the website”, or words to that effect. Isn’t that the wrong way around…?
What on earth are “Scottish” Labour playing at? They must realise they have no say whatsoever on what happens at Westminster, even if their own party get in. So why are they going against MPs, who will be the ones in charge of implementing anything UK wide? What’s the point of that? Is it purely a lie to the Scottish people, and if so, why have they been unable to sell the concept of “look, we’ll just lie through our teeth about more devolution and people up here will be stupid enough to buy it, then if we get in we screw them just like 1979” to the MPs at Westminster?
I can’t imagine Labour MPs at Westminster are somehow so moral they’ve refused to take part in such a deception. But whether they are drawing that line and refusing to take part in what is essentially a deception, or whether Lamont has tried to push them into a position and they’re slapping her down over it, what is the point of Labour UK and Labour Scotland saying entirely different things when they know they have zero ability to implement their ideas?
Surely at some point, MSPs, councillors and active members will have to take a position that isn’t entirely illogical and either back what the UK-Westminster party is saying, or back full independence, which is the ONLY other option on the ballot paper, and the only one which allows Labour up here to be independent, and Scotland to take its own future in its hands. There just isn’t another option now.
I guess this must be very difficult time for many in Labour – they’re being put in a pretty hellish position by their own leadership, who’ve been essentially backing them all into a corner for years now. But this position just isn’t credible.
Doug
This is the sort of stuff we need the media to be doing – getting independent sources to discuss how Scotland could do things differently with independence.
This is absolutely the nub of the whole debate.
I do not want papers to say Vote For Independence; I want newspapers and the media to say, “This is the biggest opportunity in 300 years to map out a future which is beneficial to Scotland. We will look at best practise around the world, successful economic models and discuss, in a non judgemental manner, the pros and cons of what the future could be like”.
Today in the Sunday Herald actually felt like a step has been taken in that direction.
I sincerely hope that they keep this up and the rest of the media falls in behind.
Surely at some point, MSPs, councillors and active members will have to take a position that isn’t entirely illogical
You would think so, wouldn’t you? Because you’re not a politician, practised in taking six illogical positions before breakfast.
@ handclapping
Thanks very much for the info. Shirley-Anne was superb I thought. I remembered Allan Grogan’s name when out with the hounds but too late. He was good too but I’m always a tad sceptical about Labour men.
Hail Alba!
@ Doug Daniel
Yep that article on the Scottish Defence Force was very good. Did anyone see the report on the BBC last week that there is a major military training exercise happening from tomorrow in Scotland ?
It will involve troops from Sweden, Brazil, the US and Germany as well as our own forces. The BBC had a small headline the other day on the Scottish website pages, but the full article is hosted on the UK pages:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22108047
So if NATO are so keen not to have us according to Jim Murphy, where the heck are they going to bomb the shit out of in future training exercises ? Salisbury Plain ?
Cath + Jiggsbro,
I think there is a power struggle going at the moment in the various Labour factions in Scotland as discussed by the Reid Foundation and a few others recently. I suspect response to the income tax announcement is something to do with it given the Labour MPs over reaction. I mean, Labour have been hinting at Jam tomorrow for ages but the MP group have never reacted to it like this before. Perhaps this announcement is a step too far, perhaps thats the point, or perhaps I am reading too much into it all.
Cath
They are fully aware of the facts but it suits their purpose to maintain the myth that a vote for no will bring further devolution
If you do not take a close interest in what’s going on and only read or hear the headlines you can be very easily conned into thinking that this is what will happen and I think this is what they are counting on, and like you, I do not think the Westminster troughers have any compunction about lying through their teeth but they will always be able to claim that they made no promises so cannot be held responsible for what Ms Lamont and co said, their get out of jail ticket so to speak
It is surprising how many people fall into this category I know this as I have a friend who is now a Yes but it was hard work for a while debunking the “news” from the papers and BBC
?? Your comment is awaiting moderation Why after all this time
All this nonsense being talked about NATO. If the SNP had decided not to join NATO can you imagine the hoo ha. “Leaving NATO`s North Sea and North Atlantic approaches undefended”. They would be demanding that an independent Scotland join NATO. Immediately!
Same as the rubbish about the EU.
@tartanfever
No one seems to have remembered that the Cape Wrath firing range is the only place in the northern hemisphere where NATO can carry out combined land/sea/air live fire maneouvres. This has been the case since 2001 when mighty Puerto Rica told the US of A to sling its hook and shut down the Vieques firing range.
“?? Your comment is awaiting moderation Why after all this time”
I’ve been out. You’re showing as 0 posts, so you must be logging in from a different address or something.
What’s interesting about supporters of independence is that none of us are arguing that every Scottish newspaper and broadcaster should be banging the drum in favour of independence. Having said that, it would be nice to have one, just one, daily Scottish newspaper that did so. though this in itself would hardly constitute ‘balance’, given the universal unionist bias in the Scottish media.
The problem is that the Scottish MSM are relentlessly banging the drum in favour of unionism to the extent that, on the rare occasion that a Scottish newspaper does suggest that there might be something in this independence malarkey after all, supporters of independence rush to buy it. What people are looking for is balanced and fair coverage, nothing more, nothing less and we’re not getting that or anything like it. It speaks volumes about the Scottish press that while the rest of us are waiting to hear the elusive ‘positive case’ for the union, the Scottish press has already made its mind up and has dedicated itself to its endeavours to discredit the Scottish government, Scottish ministers, the SNP as a party and the very idea of independence.
The MSM is still important. Recall how, in the 1980s and 1990s, the British Labour Party consistently claimed that the ‘British’ press were biased against Labour and how the press played a crucial role in securing the 18 years of Conservative government between 1979-97. Let’s not also forget, though, that throughout this period, there were at least two newspapers – The Guardian and the Daily Mirror – with large circulations, which were supporting Labour and opposing Thatcherism. Imagine how justified Labour’s claims of press bias in the 1980s and 1990s would have been if, like supporters of independence today, they had been able to say that every single newspaper and broadcaster were opposed to them.
“[A Labour] MP pointed out that any further devolution would need support from the Labour Party in England: ‘Johann can’t just say to Ed [Miliband, the Labour leader] this is what I want. These decisions and policies have consequences for the whole of the UK. There are Labour MPs in England now who are getting fed up with it, not just Tories.’”
The simple truth that devolution can only be delivered by Westminster and that it can only happen if English based MP’s approve of the powers to be devolved has been reported from the nationalist side for ages.
It’s interesting that as the result of Labour infighting it is now being reported by Labour. It rather sticks a spoke in the wheel of the jam-tomorrow bicycle and devalues the report which has been done by the Scottish region of the Lib-Dems and the reports which are to be produced by the Scottish regions of Labour and the Conservatives. It has always been true but now it is obvious that a Scottish report means nothing unless it becomes the policy of the UK party concerned.
All the devolution schemes proposed so far are exactly the same in principle and operation as the original Scotland Act 1998. That includes the Calman inspired Scotland Act 2012, the Lib-Dems report “Federalism: the best future for Scotland”, the Devo-More report and the Devo-Plus report.
Add together the mix of controlled taxes, assigned taxes and block grant in any of them and it turns out that Scotland will be funded to the Barnett formula level just the same as the original devolution act.
If Scotland wishes to raise money above and beyond that level the only way to do it is to increase personal taxation, just the same as the original devolution act.
I’ll be interested to see what the Labour Scottish region commission has actually recommended.
Re The Herald, its coverage has of course been more balanced this past week or so. Alas, given the timing I suspect the reason is simply because Gardham has been on Easter holiday with his family.
Expect normal service to resume as of tomorrow …
Robert Kerr says:
14 April, 2013 at 12:50 pm
‘I confess I bought the Sunday Herald for the picture.
I also searched the Herald online archive using “Gardham” as key. Lots of hits up to 8th April then none.
Interesting.’
School holidays.
Rev
Thanks for the info re post but no I only have the one address one computer Not to worry I just wondered
Can I ask what the story is regarding Shorthouse, Ibrox and the BBC/Not BBC?
As for 4 words -: vote No, get Shafted!
@themadmurph-
Here it is:
http://newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-politics/7181-the-smear-and-fear-of-better-together
Popped out to the shops and picked up my first copy of the Herald in some time. It was actually quite good. None of the tedious “Salmond accused” drivel that had become an almost regular feature. Pity it might all go back to pot. Editorial on NATO was short and silly but that was about it gripe wise 🙂
If you read Jim Callaghan’s memoirs, “Time and Chance”, you will see that the then Prime Minister noted: “in Michael Cox, Labour’s Chief Whip, view the difficulty within the Party, was much greater than any from the Scottish National Party, and the Whip’s judgement was that the government could not rely on the votes of Labour members from the north”
i.e. Labour MP’s were prepared to vote down their own government, rather than support a Scottish Assembly.
During the rigged Assembly referendum in 1979 most Labour MPs in Scotland did no campaigning and many were very hostile including Brian Wilson who was chairman of the “Labour Vote No Campaign”,
In West Lothian for example Labour Party members were delivering NO leaflets and local Trade Union officials dumped the YES newspaper produced by the STUC and it was left to the SNP, including a youthful Alex Salmond, and others to deliver a locally produced YES newspaper.
The 1979 Assemby vote produced 51.6% majority Yes vote but was defeated by Labour’s 40% rule.
In the wake of the referendum the disappointed supporters of the bill conducted a protest campaign under the slogan “Scotland said ‘yes'” as the 40% rule was undemocratic and that the referendum results justified the establishment of the assembly.
In particular, the SNP carried out a survey of the electoral register in the Edinburgh Central constituency. This appeared to show that the register was so out of date that even in an area where major support for a “yes” vote might be expected, achievement of 40% of the electorate was virtually unattainable.
This was because the majority of electors lived in older tenements or newer Council blocks of flats where specific flat numbers were not specified. The work of electoral registration staff to obtain an accurate current register was almost impossible, and the same was true of most of Scotland’s inner cities and larger towns.
Devolution was, however, lost from the mainstream political agenda for a decade. Lets not get fooled again.
OT so sorry
The Labour connection with Ian Taylor appears to be strong one. Mr Taylor and former Labour minister Brian Wilson along with former Labour MSP and BBC journalist Alisdair Morrison are non executive directors of Harris Tweed Hebrides Ltd.
worth digging a little further
@ianbrotherhood
Not a bad piece that Ian and you can see a part two coming from it. If the police response which NNS sought out was a negative on complaints or cases, then BTs claim won’t just be looking shaky, it’ll be blown out of the water. The accusations were quite specific of daily attempts at sabotage of BT aimed at the SNP and ‘cybernats’. An accusation then would fall on BT that they have publicly slandered the SNP members, independence supporters, mislead the general public and their own support. That’s a hefty list.
2 weeks of half arsed attempts at balance wont undo months & years of comic book drivel, propaganda & lies published by the Herald.
So I shall repeat my recommendation to avoid this title until it collapses under the weight of its own debt.
After all, its hard to forgive a paedophile just because he built his neighbour’s kids a tree house after he was paroled.
“So I shall repeat my recommendation to avoid this title until it collapses under the weight of its own debt.”
I think we all know your views by now, GH. Please don’t repeat yourself any further, it doesn’t get us anywhere and people are perfectly capable of working out for themselves whether they want to buy a newspaper or visit its website. It’s slightly insulting to suggest that people don’t know web traffic drives ad revenues.
“Thanks for the info re post but no I only have the one address one computer Not to worry I just wondered”
Oddly you’re showing here with two different IP addresses. One of them shows 72 posts and the other just 2.
After I finally got around to popping along to the shop for some essential provisions..Sunday Herald sold out. Only paper to be sold out.
Nice big pile of SoS’s there. I passed.
To be fair, the Sunday Herald has generally been pretty decent, and has been for a long time. The problem with the Herald is that the weekday coverage is woeful, and has been particularly bad since they gave Gardham a job.
Sold out of two shops near me too. Deliberately went to buy a copy, too. But a sizeable pile of SoSs there still. Left that intact, obviously.
Does anyone think that the JP editorship will understand anything of any of this?
The real question is
Will The Herald understand anything from this and act accordingly?
I am not holding my breath
Here is Google’s cached version of the Scotland on Sunday article for those who would rather not give the Scotsman more traffic: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:fqsJcH0p7xAJ:www.scotsman.com/scotland-on-sunday/labour-mps-to-snub-lamont-over-income-tax-plan-1-2894332&hl=en&gl=uk&strip=1
It’s a bit untidy, but the article is readable.
mato21
I assume I don’t need to tell an old computing pro like RevStu that, if you do not have a Static IP address (the address of your computer when it is on the internet) then it can change even for such a simple reason ans switching your router off and on or your ISP doing some work on its switches.
Whatever the reason, I’m guessing His Reverence has his blog set up so the first post from someone has to be approved. Thereafter I’ll bet that, as long as the details match, it will be auto approved
A couple of Sunday Herald swallows don’t make a summer, but positive anyway. As other posters have noted, it’s not that we’re all screaming for the MSM to be raging for independence, but just that they should to try and find some answers to the questions that they and others are asking. I think there’s a growing group of uncommitted people out there who are genuinely hungry for information. There are certain bloggers & commentators (no names, no pack drill) who are constantly bemoaning the lack of ‘real’ debate from the Yes and No sides (usually with the barb left in the former’s hide), but if it doesn’t start in the mainsteam it’s never going to start.
Erchie
Thank you but I don’t understand a word of it as I’m a complete numpty I can just about manage to post a comment and I never change anything that would be asking for trouble
I was working today and after reading some of the comments on W.O.S I decided to buy the herald on the way home to find out what it was like . After visiting 3 newsagents who did not have any heralds left but had plenty of other papers left I gave up .
I wouldn’t like to be in the position where a keen eyed member of sales and marketing noticed a distinct correlation between increased sales and me being on holiday.
😉
@martyn
A useful site for company director(s) info is http://companycheck.co.uk for basic details, Got to pay for full details, Also this info is in the public domain.
You can see Brain Wilson and Ian Taylor as well a Ian MacKenzie and Neville Shepherd are the directors of Harris Tweed Hebrides Limited.
http://companycheck.co.uk/company/SC412084#people-tab
Herald are reporting McLeish putting the boot into BT over the Taylor donation. NNS has it too.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/mcleish-voices-concern-over-500000-donation-to-better-together.1365958910
McLeish voices concern over £500,000 donation to Better Together
SS
I am led to believe that the person in question does not work for the Sunday Herald just the weekday one.
Most folk that buy a ‘quality’ Sunday paper are switched on, politics wise. If they know it is full of propoganda, it stays on the shelf.
I think that the ‘switched on’ readers are 90% in the YES camp, as anyone with any common sense knows that independence is the only way out of this mess. The internet is the same. The only Scottish political blogs are pro independence blogs. There isn’t a single Unionist blog with a decent readership.
If a MSM owner is interested in attracting readers for profit, there is only one answer as a commercial enterprise. If they are publishing without caring about attracting readers or profit, then that is a political decision.
Follow the money.
This link is from Dec2012 regarding Taylors Co not paying tax and still Darling refers to him as a respected businessman
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/business/Industry/article1184768.ece
@Linda’s back (5.53)-
‘The 1979 Assembly vote produced 51.6% majority Yes vote but was defeated by Labour’s 40% rule.’
Linda, you must be one of the very few who manage to get through these political memoirs!
I was just 16 in ’79, and had helped with leaflets, stuffing envelopes etc. The defeat was horrible, and hurt every bit as much as Scotland being horsed out of the World Cup. At the time I had a vague awareness of the 40% rule, but the mood in the campaign ‘shop’ was so upbeat that few seemed bothered by it.
What’s always puzzled me is the 40%. How was that calculated, and by whom? Why not 35, or 45%? How did they arrive at that figure?
I remember some SNP people, post-result, cursing the weather, saying that if only it hadn’t been such a dreich day then more folk would’ve come out – the greater turnout would’ve clinched it. If some bunch of mandarins sitting there with their slide-rules had calculated that the 40% was the lowest possible hurdle they could gamble on delivering the result their government sought, you can’t help but admire the brinkmanship – did they even factor-in the weather?
TBH, I can’t remember now if it was a dreich day. What I do recall is the bitter disappointment when it became clear we’d ‘lost’, but only on that conceded technicality. There must be many, my age and older, who were so disgusted with the chicanery that they abandoned any form of activism and have remained dormant ever since.
If I’m at all typical of that generation then nostalgia – and the unexpected opportunity to heal a long-festering wound – must be a powerful factor in this debate.
‘Lets not get fooled again.’
Kin right.
Think you’re bang on the money, Juteman.
It’s quite surprising to me to see how many of you are rushing out to buy the Herald just because it published a couple of ‘fair’ articles.
The Herald will have to go further along that road before I dip a hand in my pocket to buy another issue. I don’t like my country and its people being insulted.
I frankly don’t trust the Herald nor any of the unionist press.
To the posters above who have decided to give the herald another chance, I say, SUCKERS!! If you think for one moment that the papers position re yes or no has altered one iota, then think again! Before you know it, they will have reverted to type, publishing any labour party hand out!! Oh, and whilst were at it, don’t forget, why bother watching BBC or any other Scottish station for the truth-never has so much drivel been spewed forth to brainwash the Scottish people-why oh why don’t the Scots grow a pair and become masters of their own household again after 300 years of being driven from pillar to post by peoples who don’t give a damn about us!! I would have thought the above was as plain as a pikestaff to sane peoples, buy no, it would appear that many many Scota are happy that decisions affecting heir lives will continue to be taken by disinterested parties from outwith their borders, aided and abetted by thousands of ("Quizmaster" - Ed)s which breed in this nation like lemmings!
@rough bounds
Its not that anyone’s turned over a new leaf RB, its the why of it in this instance. I doubt there’s a soul in the entire YES movement who trusts the msm as far as they could chuck em. But the Herald turned out an honest article on Mr Taylor and were instantly attacked. If that’s what it takes to shake some titles out of the same old Salmond accused rut, even for only a few days, then here’s hoping the opposition continue to have brain fades. 🙂
The Day the NO Campaign Went Mad !
You have got the read this, it’s brilliant.
http://athousandflowers.net/2013/04/13/the-day-the-no-campaign-went-mad/
@Patrick Roden-
Good stuff. Thanks for link.
Particularly liked this passage:
‘The No campaign is fundamentally conservative, simply unable to raise the same issues of social justice and fairness that Yes can because everyone knows what the real record is of the British state in the past 30 years. The NO campaign have even ended up producing briefing papers in defence of the Trident Nuclear weapons programme, despite the opposition of 80% of the Scottish people.
It’s embracing this conservative ideology that has led the NO campaign to become the most consistently politically dishonest campaign that Scotland has seen in decades. Everything but the kitchen sink is thrown at pro-Independence arguments. When Salmond makes an error with figures – he is a liar, who has calculated to do so deliberately. When Salmond says “Yes we have sought legal advice, in terms of the general debate” he has not made an ambiguous statement over the course of a half hour interview (even when he was cleared) – he has deliberately lied.’
The Rough Bounds
The Customer is King. Something the media seem to have forgotten in Scotland. It may prove fruitless but a wee spike in sales may just make them stop and think “why was that”. Of course if the owners are politically driven then no amount of sales will alter the course of the ship.
@Patrick Roden
That’s a keeper Patrick.
Thanks
Can any of the twitterati please let the rest of us ‘fucking idiots’ know what’s the latest on McColm etc – has he gone to ground?
Daily and Sunday Herald: different papers, different editors. Same website though.
@ianbrotherhood
One fucking idiot to another, I’m sure he felt quite contrite when the hangover wore off. 🙂
Mibbee no.
Dun Workin and Rough Bounds – it’s called Operant Conditioning. When a subject performs a certain behaviour, you reward or punish them, depending on whether you want them to repeat it or not. With any luck, if you reward them enough, they’ll learn to perform the good behaviour voluntarily and reject the bad behaviour. So, when a newspaper performs a good behaviour (printing balanced articles), we reward them by buying the paper. When they perform bad behaviour (printing unionist pish), we punish them by removing our custom. With any luck, they’ll learn to perform the good behaviour naturally.
Of course, we could all just refuse to support them when they do the thing we all tell them they should be doing, but that’s hardly likely to encourage them to keep doing it. I’d rather like at least one of the papers to provide a proper platform for debate, so I’m quite happy to reward them when they do it.
(Except the Scotsman. They can go fuck themselves as far as I’m concerned. Too much water under the bridge.)
Ian at 8.30 pm
There was no logic behind the 40% rule other than a wrecking device which set a very high hurdle and as the referendum took place in February on an out of date register, those who had died the preceding few months were effectively counted as No supporters
During the passage of the Scotland Act 1978 through Parliament, an amendment introduced by Labour MP George Cunningham (a Scottish politician who represented an English seat) added a further requirement that the approval at the referendum be by 40% of Scotland’s total registered electorate, rather than by a simple majority.
A total of 1,230,937 (51.6%) voted at the referendum in favour of an Assembly, a narrow majority of about 77,400 over those voting against. However, this total represented only 32.9% of the registered electorate as a whole. The Labour government accepted that the Act’s requirements had not been met, and that devolution would therefore not be introduced for Scotland.
Under the terms of the Act, the Act could then be repealed by a Statutory Instrument to be approved by Parliament. However, the government’s decision to abandon devolution for Scotland led the Scottish National Party to withdraw its support for the government. A subsequent vote of no confidence led to the resignation of the Callaghan government, and an election was called. The vote to repeal the Act did not happen until 20 June 1979, by which time a Conservative government had come to power under Margaret Thatcher.
LMAO @ Doug Daniel.
Like bringing up a child, isn’t it?
Doug re the Scotsman ditto
@Macart-
A friend was living in a bedsit, three up in a Partick tenement: went back to his pad horribly hammered; woke mid-afternoon the next day, struggled to get going; kept having horrible flashbacks, was sure he’d crapped somewhere in the room (being too mashed to even try and find the shared lavvy).
He hunted for it everywhere – no trace, no smell, so he put it all down to DTs and went back to the snooker club for a hair of the dog.
Three days later, on opening one of the bay-windows for some fresh air, he located the ‘imagined’ jobby – it was outside his wee room…on the window-sill.
@headandshrimp
Yes, I know that the customer is king. I didn’t say that i would never buy the Herald again, I said that the Herald would have to go further along the road (of fairness) before I would start buying it again.
As I recall, one piece of advice regarding Karate is that when your opponent goes down when you hit him, you immediately hit him again so that you don’t give him a chance to come back at you and hit you.
The Herald needs a bloody nose. Let’s see them get rid of Gardham first before we let up.
“There are Labour MPs in England now who are getting fed up with it, not just Tories.”
One angle perhaps not looked on enough is the whole “London gentlemens’ club” aspect of the Westminster village. English Labour MPs must bitterly resent their Scottish* counterparts, whose constituency workload must be barely half theirs. Their hostility to further devolution won’t be built on any real-world issues: it’s just about those lazy f***ing Jocks in the Commons bars.
*and Welsh, of course
ianbrotherhood & Linda’s Back
My recollections of the 1979 referendum campaign was a campaign hampered by poor planning by the central organisation. Activists promised by the Labour party were too few in number. Leaflets by the Yes Labour side were dumped on the SNP to distribute as the shortage of activists to deliver was a common event all over the country.
The No campaign were well funded in contrast to the shoe-string Yes side. History repeating itself in 2013 as most of the maney came from Tories and their allies. The Official Yes billboards were very boring having a picture of Jim Callaghan asking you to vote Yes.
No to Devolution posters were all over the palce and there were many newspaper adverts asking people to vote No.The problem was that we had just endured ‘the Winter of Discontent’ with rubbish out on streets for weeks in some area, TV news told you that people couldn’t bury the dead and strikes galore on a weekly basis and Jim Callagham was not too popular come polling day. He had infact become a liability by polling day.
The electoral register on 1 March 1979 was based on where you lived on 10th October 1978. When polling day came around maybe 4% of the electorate had died. Many urban areas were like transit camps of people moving on and hard to track down. Postal votes were not so easy to obtain as they are now.
I was a Presiding Officer at a polling station on the day of the Referendum. Cold dark day with occassion showers. I did see a few hover with the pencil for a while not knowing where to place the cross. They found it hard to choose. One Woman with her child were at the booth. The mother not knowing how to vote. After what seemed a while she placed her cross and the young daughter who must have been about 10 berated her Mother for voting No. Quite a number of old dears actually though the vote was for full Independence. Turnout was poor compared to the previous General election of 10 Octobe 1974 because Labour did not get their act together. There was no get out the vote stragey at all including the SNP.
On the eve of the vote a lot of newspaper billboards just had the word ‘No’ – I think it was either the Mail or the Express who distributed these to the Newsagents. Newspapers full of Vote No adverts must have had an effect.
@Linda’s back-
Cheers for that. It all seems a lifetime ago – seeing it there in such forensic detail is quite shocking.
Here’s hoping the weans aren’t asking similar questions thirty, forty years hence.
If we just keep going, steady as we are? There’ll be no need for such questions because they won’t be looking back.
@Marcia.
Yes still got a clear (52%) majority though.
🙂
ianbrotherhood says:
Can any of the twitterati please let the rest of us ‘fucking idiots’ know what’s the latest on McColm etc – has he gone to ground?
He posted this about 6 hrs. ago.
He’s getting a hard time at the moment about #fuckingidiots comment.
As far as mccolm is concerned mature debate is, if you don’t agree with me your a #fuckingidiodt.
euan mccolm ?@euanmccolm6h
i appear to be the subject of a campaign to have me dismissed from the scotsman, a newspaper i last worked for in 1998.
S_S, that was my first thought after reading that! 😀
I was in the middle of the main work for my PhD. I stuck my head out long enough to vote Yes and drew it back in again. I remember being disappointed when we were shafted, but as it wasn’t a vote for independence I hadn’t been that worked up about it. I thought the Tories would give us a better devolution deal anyway.
Look how that turned out….
Mccolm in true Unionist fashion after his appalling behaviour making himself out to be the victim of the bid bad nats
I should have proof read what I typed before sending – oh gawd. 🙁
Sorry Ianbrotherhood@Patrick Roden , can’t agree with you when you say “its embracing the Conservative ideology that has led the NO campaign to become the most consistantly politically dishonest campaign that Scotland has seen in decades ”
Just a personal opinion but I’d say Labour the brand are years ahead where thats concerned
‘fighting for what really matters ‘-election manifesto 2011 ,was ever a document totally misnamed ?
Socialist ? for the working man /woman?
freedom – Equality- community Democracy
If the Labour Party had used their power and goodwill ,over the last few decades and adhered to those principles,perhaps we would be living in a different society,instead the brand of Labour is presented at each election ,each soundbite .Not Labour 2013 but the myth of Labour of bygone days.
At least LFI seem to remember what its all about .
@Marcia …
and remarkably on top of what you’ve just said, Scotland’s majority still voted YES in 1979 even though it was futile. I’ll quite happily take the same percentage result next year. 🙂
@Molly-
Aye. Agreed.
Here’s hoping we see LFI street stalls asap.
@ianbrotherhood
ROFLMAO 😀
Always good to end the day with a laugh.
I just read the McLeish article on NNS. Oh Dear! What a mess BT is getting into. How much longer can they let this go on? They are welcome to hold onto the cash as long as they like as far as I am concerned. Dirty money is becoming toxic money. No co-ordinated defence, I mean where have they all gone? They are not even fire fighting this with any cohesion. Their pals at the BBC seem to be on message though.
I think that this episode stinks so bad that the truth will get out somehow.
I wonder if they will try to slip Taylor’s money back to him on Wednesday. “A good day to bury bad news”? In more ways than one!
Ré the godhead that is Mr McColm. A legend in his own lunchtime.
I am somewhat proud to be his #fuckingidiot.
Which, when you think about it is really “Yah, boo, sucks!”
It is hardly reasoned nor sensical.
For he is a overpromoted little gaulieteer of no worth and no merit that I can see.
Journalists of a certain demeanour have an exalted idea of their worth. Frankly, he is not worth your time.
Journalists that think that, because they are journalists, then they are special cases are complete utter fools.
You, dear reader, should have just as high opinion of yourself as he does of himself.
For he is, can I break this gently, a bit of an idiot?
His idiocy would have been hidden from public consumption had he not made the hugely erroneous step into journalism.
Where, nowadays, being a journalist of very little merit is open to serious criticism.
That is how the interenet works.
Why would anyone care what Mr McColm has to say?
Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards is perhaps a more coherent and reasoned correspondent.
It takes a special kind of mind to be a fucking fool, and some journalists have it in spades.
Mr McColm is apparently 56 years of age.
Who’d have thought it?
Remember folks, you can still support the National Collective at Indiegogo …
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/national-collective-support-the-arts-campaign-for-scottish-independence
https://www.facebook.com/nationalcollective
Further details on Ian Taylor
When Mr Taylor is so obviously supportive of culture in and around London .He is a director of Ballet Rambert and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden Ltd etc amongst others. Details in the following link:
http://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/director/380215/ian-taylor
It is a great pity when he views himself as a Scot that he has taken exception to a blog that expresses the views of members of Scotland’s cultural scene.
Here is the list of the Board of Trustees for the Royal Opera House:
http://www.roh.org.uk/about/board-of-trustees
The keen eyed, will quickly spot the name of Peter Cruddas, who was the Conservative Party co-treasurer who resigned following Sunday Times reporters posing as potential donors. The meeting which the reporters secretly filmed, in which the footage showed Peter Cruddas apparently offering access to the Prime Minister for a £250,000 donation.
Simon Robey:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/banking/article3659731.ece
Sir David Clementi – A former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England. He was Chairman of Prudential plc until December 2008. He also holds positions on the boards of several large corporations, is a non-executive director on the board of governors of the Rio Tinto Group. In March 2008, he was announced as Warden of Winchester College.
After graduating he qualified as a chartered accountant. He then had a career in the finance industry, including 22 years with Kleinwort Benson, where he was Chief Executive and Vice-Chairman, culminating in his appointment as Deputy Governor of the Bank of England.
In July 2003, he was given the task of undertaking a wide-ranging independent review of the regulation of legal services in England and Wales, now known generally as the Clementi report.
The majority of the rest of the Board of Trustees are also high up in the world of finance
wasn’t sure where to post this message but I guess here will have to do; was at the Cup semi yesterday and a group of Celtic fans had a large banner protesting against ‘Salmond’s Scotland’. Can’t remember exactly what it said but along the lines of ‘we are victims and this is our future in Salmond’s Scotland’. Watched the highlights last night and the BBC didn’t have it in I was happy to see. The United fans were singing wtf is that? Exactly! However, I do think sectarianism will be used increasingly as the anti independents get more and more desperate.
crisiscult Celtic for Independence were seemingly giving out Labour for Independence leaflets at yesterdays game which by all accounts went down well .
One of the things that we really need to start hammering home is the fact that the YES campaign is not about A.S or the S.N.P ‘ it is about what is good for the people of Scotland .
The YES campaign is made up of such diverse groups as the Greens ‘ the S.S.P ‘ L.F.I and with people who are not affiliated to any group but who have Scotland,s interests at heart .
A union dividend via Barnett
http://www.greenbenchesuk.com/2012/11/22-treatments-are-no-longer-free-on-nhs.html?m=1
@Adrian B …
… and the recent former Chief Exec of Royal Opera House Covent Garden Ltd (2001-13) is one Baron Hall of Birkenhead aka Tony Hall, the newly appointed Director General of the BBC no less. In his previous life at the BBC he was Head on News and Current Affairs (1996-2001). No doubt Taylor, Cruddas and Cameron are big pals.
Regarding the 79 referendum, the worst mistake the SNP made was in their timing for a vote of no confidence in the Labour Government
The timing was catastrophic.
Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan came on TV and said words to the effect that, because of the Yes campaign achieving an actual democratic majority but failing to reach the 40% required, he had asked the nationalists for three weeks (as I recall) to come up with a solution. The SNP wouldn’t give him those three weeks and were punished badly for it in the election.
All they had to do was sit back and let Jim Callaghan have his three weeks. At the end of that three weeks,assuming nothing was on the table, would have been the time to have pushed for a vote of no confidence.
Jim Callaghan said that they were voting for an early Christmas and so it proved.
George Reid, nationalist MP, abstained. He was the only one of the SNP members to do so.
It was a terrible time for us all and the whole nation went into a deep depression. I don’t want to relive it in 2014.
It was a similar thing to the timing of the withdrawal from the Constitutional Convention in the early 1990s or whenever it happened. It was done much too early. It almost certainly had to be done, but there should have been a longer period of trying to make it work first, so that people could see that the SNP had tried.
As it was, the walk-out was so near the beginning that it was possible to spin it that the SNP had refused to take part from the beginning, like the Tories, and had “opposed devolution”.
” I do think sectarianism will be used increasingly as the anti independents get more and more desperate. ”
I’m sure they will. But when the BBC has reported the demonstrations from Celtic fans, they actually make the SNP government look quite good, certainly to me and I’m sure to many others.
Most people in Scotland either don’t understand, or despise, sectarianism and the Rangers/Celtic thing, mostly centred around Glasgow and the west. So when a group of thuggish looking people, sometimes in masks, are getting hot under the collar about a law that stops them – and others – singing hate songs, whether that’s anti-Catholic, or IRA songs, it looks like the SNP are a government finally grasping a thistle and tackling something that should have been tackled decades ago.
If you understand the politics enough to know who is whipping that up and why, then it makes independence all the more vital, as it begins to look like one side is clutching desperately onto the past, and wants to drag Scotland down, while the other is about moving forward. Which is precisely what it is.