The ultimate humiliation
You might have thought that the publication of the “Project Fear” book last month was an embarrassment for the motley collection of highly-paid but hapless Labour and Tory apparatchiks who ran “Better Together”, but it turns out there was worse to come.
Politics Home today reports what sounds like some alarming news:
But put down that noose and cough up those pills, Europe-lovers.
“Although the pro-independence side was ultimately defeated by 55% to 45% in last year’s referendum, Better Together came in for major criticism for almost squandering its huge poll lead. In particular, critics said the campaign – dubbed ‘Project Fear’ by one of its own senior figures – was far too negative.
One source told PoliticsHome: ‘We have spoken to Blair McDougall about last year’s referendum. There are definitely lessons to learn about how to talk to people and not unnecessarily scare them. It will be a hearts and heads contest. We want to avoid going for the lowest common denominator.'”
In other words, McDougall and his team are being asked for advice on how NOT to run a referendum, because unlike the No campaign, those who want the UK to remain in the EU don’t have a 30-point lead that they can afford to throw away. In other words, “Better Together” are now the world-renowned experts in how to make an almost-complete arse of a political campaign.
(As we noted in our book review, that’s an uncomfortable fact for those of us who lost to them, of course. But we’re not responsible for the massive lead No started with. Over the course of the campaign, the Yes side’s arguments beat those of the No side by 20+ points. It just wasn’t enough to overcome the handicap start they got.)
As CV entries go, we’ve seen better.
I think they should replace Trident with this team.
It is clearly far more dectructive
Don’t believe a word. The fear and scaremongering will be just as bad this time round.
If they have any sense, the Pro EU campaign won’t be asking the other Blair (Jenkins) on how to run their campaign either.
McDougall’s probably bursting with pride that the pro-EU Campaign called him in to give advice. 🙂
I’ve never been sure that Project Fear was an asset, on balance, for the Naysayers.
Firstly, among the No vote you have to remove the hardcore Tory voting BritNats. They were in the bag and not influenced by PF.
Then when it came to the large soft centre, I am sure (though evidence is hard to find) that PF turned as many people to Yes as it did to No. The relentless negativity slowly but surely eroded the No lead. Of course the wider Yes positive campaign was in there too. We’ll never know what persuaded who, overall.
When the Naesayers at last switched to a positive message – more powers, rapid changes, rosy future ie. The Vow and all that went with it, they swung the situation back to a No lead.
I personally think BT, McDougall et al were consistently negative. The positivity of grandiose promises probably came from Cameron’s inner circle.
So definitely, Project Fear, negativity, scaremongering, etc is an object lesson on how NOT to execute a campaign! If either side tries that in the EU campaign, given both sides start with similar support, the negativity mongers will be doomed!
Alas poor Blair, I knew him well …
However MacTermite has managed to keep going with even worse for a CV so nil desperandum.
It was Gordon Brown’s Vow what won it and Hameron thinks he’s delivered … watch this space
Oh FFS well at least he won’t be able to play the Bath, Somerset card Stu 🙂
Project Fabricated Evidence Appearing Real.
Damned by faint praise right enough. Whit an arse o a man.
I hope Tuba Boy wasn’t paid for his time, as it must be obvious to all that terrorism and dishonesty are immoral, whichever cosmology you inhabit. Only those of a certain psychopathy would consider Project Fear to be an appropriate form of political campaign. Especially in a ‘democracy’ connected to t’internet.
Perhaps he just has a thick hide?
galamcennalath, I have to disagree, I believe we lost because of one man, Brown. Had he not contrived with all the Unionist parties to come up with the VOW and terrifying our auld folks about loosing their pension, I believe we would have won it, not by much, but enough.
I said this on another thread, “I detested Thatcher and would have happily danced on her grave, but that bastard Brown runs her a close second.” It may be that history will forgive Brown, but I know, I never will!
“Jeremy Corbyn’s pledge to abolish student tuition fees will have to compete against alternative policies – including a graduate tax – before being approved by his party, according to Labour’s shadow minister for higher education.”
Presumably, Labour might end up advocating withdrawal from the EU, by Corbyn’s ‘every night is amateur night’ criterion.
PS: Do they know NOT to call McDougall before 10am?
Schemers in the political court have favoured fear as a manipulative tool for centuries, all having studiously read their Machiavelli.
However, one wonders whether Machiavelli, the ultimate pragmatist, would have altered his belief in the superiority of fear if large numbers of peasants had realised it was being used immorally to manipulate their emotions and influence their political decision making?
When people twig they are being manipulated by fear their reaction is usually one of extreme anger and there are encouraging signs it is much less effective as a tool of political control these days.
It has been relied on for so long by lazy, unimaginative people who have made easy livings from it, they cannot bring themselves to accept that even Machiavelli’s cynical advice could have a shelf life.
It appears to be, according to polls etc, that although YES lost,the idea of independence has never been more popular. Thats the real effect of the better together campaign.
The ‘No to Europe’ group should be given McTernan considering his track record. That should defeat them. 🙂
I think Project Fear will be used as cautionary tale for many a year. It was notable in his one year on interview that even Willie Rennie had barely a good word to say about it.
so what will Blair’s advice be?
“don’t ask me”
or
“do the opposite of what i tell you”
Titles:
Project hope?
Project positive?
Project brave?
Once upon a time, there was a little flea. Fleas are very small, but they have very irritating bites which make them seem so much bigger than they actually are.
One day, an elephant was walking along the road. This was a particularly large elephant, and it walked at a brisk pace. The flea decided to hitch a ride on this elephant. He hopped up his leg, climbed up his tail, crawled all the way along his back, and nestled in a cosy spot behind the elephant’s right ear.
Soon enough, the little flea was startled by a terrific racket. He peeked above the elephant’s ear to look around. He saw that the elephant was on a great rope bridge, suspended high above a river. Each of the elephant’s steps creaked and cracked the wooden planks, the ropes bounced and swayed,
The little flea held on tight to the elephant. He looked behind at the other animals watching the elephant, doubt and uncertainty on their faces. When the elephant finally reached the other side, the animals looked to the bridge. It was cracked and still shaking from the elephant’s walk, but still intact. Nevertheless, the other animals decided not to risk it, and stayed on the other side of the river.
The little flea sighed with relief. “Thank goodness those animals didn’t risk going across that bridge,” he thought: “my new friend and I showed them just how dangerous and risky it was.”
The little flea then shouted into the elephant’s ear: “Boy, we sure rocked that bridge, didn’t we?”
@handclapping says: 3 October, 2015 at 12:33 pm:
“It was Gordon Brown’s Vow what won it and Hameron thinks he’s delivered … watch this space.”
Thing is, handclapping, it wasn’t just Gordon Brown’s vow. The Vow, as it was published in the Record, had attached to it the signatures of all the leaders of the Establishment parties and not that of Gordon Brown. Furthermore none of those leaders has denied it was their signed vow.
Now tell me – just who, or what, is powerful enough to make all three Unionist Parties do as they are told and agree to anything? They are sworn opponents one to the other. So they all just step back and an unknown is suddenly the saviour of the Union.
Aye!
Richt!
I have known for many years that Westminster, as a parliament, has always been a total sham. Historically it never ever has been what it purported to be.
There has always been an Establishment in the south of Britain, long before there even was a country called England.
The Romans never actually directly ran south Britain. They Romanised the more pliable existing Briton leaders and had them do the work for the Roman elite. Thus began the Establishment.
After the Romans left the remaining Romanised Britons found themselves threatened as the Roman army were the real enforcers and the Romanised Britons had no military experience to enforce their rule. Their answer to this was the Germanic Norse Tribes to come and protect them and enforce their rules.
And so began feudal lordships that still sit in the HOL today and was almost completed by the Norman Conquest. Just a different sect of the same Norse tribes.
So, come the so called, “Glorious Revolution”, of 1688, when the up-front story was that the Commons had taken power from the Monarchy and Lords. However, they did not really do so and the same old establishment of the Lords and Masters was retained in the House of Lords ever since.
Ask yourself the question – if the people, in the shape of the commons, were now the masters why did they still retain the monarchy and an unelected House of Lords? The French most certainly got rid of their aristocrats so very well.
In other words the Establishment continued running the show in the background and they still do. All this party political stuff is still the false front for deluding the masses. The real power remains as it always has in the hands of the rich few at the top of the financial sector, the education system, the establish church, the Civil Service, Security Services and the armed forces.
Corbyn, who sat on the back benches for so long did not suddenly become a shining new leader all by himself. He has, after all, been spouting the same stuff for many years with no one listening and largely ignored by his own party.
Who then set him up as the great white hope? Who began sowing the idea he was the definitive answer? Party Politics is a sham to fool the plebs the real power is the Establishment and it always has been. When Corbyn has served his purpose they will do to him what the did to Thatcher, Blair and Brown. Such party leaders are expendable to the Establishment.
Corbyn hadn’t the power to make himself electable. The left faction of the Labour Party had not the powers either but the long term Establishment working in the background has. They have been doing such things for over 2000 years.
At first I thought you were going to talk about Wuggah and what would happen if the Australians beat England tonight.
Well on a more serious note as somebody who intends to vote to leave the EU I am naturally highly delighted that the No campaigns incompetents are to give advice to the Pro EU side. Now if they could somehow arrange for Farage to take a long silent holiday I would be even more delighted.
I’m back with another question…
What’s the name of the character who represents London businessmen and sits near the Speaker in the HOC, ready to interrupt if he thinks anything’s amiss. He had some cool nickname, and we discussed him right here, maybe a few months ago.
(Thanks in advance – need it for ‘homework’.) 😉
The Tree of Liberty says:
We agree, partially. Yes, Brown was one of the salemen for all promises of more powers. He may have been central the the actual DR Vow, but Cameron always intended to deploy DevoMax when things got close. I think Brown was wheeled out as a small cog in a wider more-powers plot.
Then there is the aspect of Brown frightening pensioners. Yes he did, and it was despicable. That man is an utter disgrace to Scotland. However, my point was that for every granny left in fear of her pension, at least one other person switched to Yes because of the disgusting behaviour of the Naesayers.
I believe we were winning around the 5th of September, and private polling told Cameron exactly that. Brown appeared on the 8th to talk up the fantastical powers on offer. In the course of the next 10 days they all piled in, to plan and on schedule. DevoSuperFeckingHomeMax was ours if only we voted No.
And here we are today, on the verge of declaring that final outcome undelivered and void.
I may be wrong here but I think the Yes to the E.U., or IN, or whatever they call themselves have just given the referendum victory, whenever it is, to their opposition.
The pro E.U. group will undoubtedly listen to what the Ultra Big Yin tells them, run outside and do what ever he says, no questions asked.
I do not believe for one second that the Pro E.U. group will do anything other than what the Ultra Big Yin tells them to do. So all we have to do in reality is look back at what the U.B.Y. *ahem* thought were good ideas and stand by ready for their re-runs. I just hope everyone is ready with the stock response … “Ye gawd’s NOT this shite … AGAIN!” etc. 😀
Is it too early to send the Ultra Big Yin a huge Thank You card for all the work he is now doing to deliver a second independence referendum? 😀
@Ian Brotherhood
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_remembrancer ?
Hi Ian, the Remembrancer!
After the banks bailed out the Monarch of the time, part of the agreed deal was to have this post created so that the Parliament would remember the part that the City of London, ( the Square Mile, Finance.) had played in financing all the Imperial plans.
Seems to me that the Banks have now been well and truly paid back for that favour through the quant active easing period and this post should now be swapped for Parliament to have a seat on each Banks Board…oh!
Asking Dougal’s advice on how to run a magic roundabout would be like asking Dylan how to run a rehab centre.
I wouldn’t put anything past them. We had a giant Project Fear billboard across the road with a frightened looking young family, captioned “I love my kids, I’m voting No.” Last GE, vote toryboy campers had giant billboards across all English marginals with Salmond the pickpocket crouched down and neatly lifting a wallet from someone’s back pocket, 100 feet long.
Their biggest probs are their own rule Britannia making, with same decades of britnat BBC/msm toryboy attacking the EU, like how BBC Scotland daily monsters SNP Scots.gov. They’re either sneaky/creepy attacking all of it, or keeping people in the dark about what the EU and Scots.gov actual do.
eg
As usual today all UKOK media focused on US, Scotland’s a shithole run by tartan tory SNP crooks and fraudsters, that’s just the Press and Journal.
@galamcennalath & Lanarkist –
Hoots Aplenty & Thanks Amuch – twas a cool name right enough, and very uncool that I couldn’t ‘remember’ it.
Poor old Blairy, he highlights losing 20+ % lead in insurer as a major achievement yet there’s no mention of the GE15 wipeout he oversaw. He’s a serial dud but nice to see someone still asking the poor soul for his views…
@robert Peffers 1:42pm
My feelings exactly Robert, but can’t write as clearly as yourself. I really enjoy and learn from your knowledgable posts. Look after yersel ouyin hope alls well
Bet you Blairs CV already says “EU Referendum Consultant”
@The Tree of Liberty says: 3 October, 2015 at 1:05 pm:
“galamcennalath, I have to disagree, I believe we lost because of one man, Brown. Had he not contrived with all the Unionist parties to come up with the VOW and terrifying our auld folks about loosing their pension, I believe we would have won it.”
Oh! For Scotland’s sake – read what you just posted and think what it means.
First you blame the one man, “Brown”.
Then you say, “If he hadn’t contrived with all the Unionist Parties”, thus saying it was not just Brown but all the Unionist parties and thus you directly contradict yourself.
The truth is staring you in the face yet you fail to identify it.
There really is no party system in, “The United Kingdom”.
The clue is right there in that title, “United Kingdom”,. It tells you it is NOT a country, not a State but is a, “KINGDOM”, and a kingdom is the realm of a monarchy.
In the three country Kingdom of England in 1688 there was really a great revolution going on with the common people dissatisfied with how they were ruled. It was, as usual, being manipulated by the rich and powerful who have always used religion as a tool to control the common people.
The international powers of the times was the Pope in Rome and throughout Europe there were sectarian wars being fought as the rich and powerful wanted to regain power from Rome. In Britain the English Monarchy had already annexed Wales and Ireland but had failed to gain control over Scotland that was still an independent Kingdom.
So the English threw out the Stewart Monarchy and imported the Protestant King Billy & Queen Mary of Orange but as a condition of making them monarchs removed from them their Divine Right of Kings veto over the English Parliament. Scotland, still being independent, was not legally part of that English Kingdom and this began the Jacobite uprisings. England still calls it the Jacobite Rebellion but Scots could not rebel against an English Monarchy.
The two Kingdoms were still fighting the Jacobite uprisings almost 40 years after the forced Treaty of Union of 1706/7. What does that tell you?
What it tells me is that when the English Establishment of Royals and aristocracy found themselves about to be eliminated they stopped fighting among themselves and came up with a cunning stunt. The, “Glorious Revolution”, and told the common people they were now the power in the land in their Parliament of, “The Commons”. Why then did they not get shot of the monarchy and the aristocrats? Why did they make the Monarchy head of the Church? Why was the Monarchy still legally the owner of everything including the subjects?
The answer is that they were conning the people and today they still are and the Feudal system is still with us today with Hereditary Monarchs and hereditary peers still sitting in positions of power. What won the referendum was the Southern Establishment that has always won in the end because they have always just been a smokescreen of different politics but at heart just the same old elite hereditary rich people running the show from the rear.
Brown, Blair, Thatcher, Clegg, Miliband, et al, where do they go when their usefulness to the Establishment ends? To the House of Lords of course.
It’s a sham and its always been a sham. When the Establishment is threatened they close ranks and do as they are told by the real powers and those real powers are actually international.
Yet the Scots do seem to realise that the Labour Party are Red Tories, the LibDems are Yellow Tories and the Tories are just Tories. Thing is all the rainbow Tories are the false front for the Establishment that is far bigger, far stronger and far more evil than their component parts.
Ian Brotherhood says:
3 October, 2015 at 2:00 pm
I’m back with another question…
What’s the name of the character who represents London businessmen and sits near the Speaker in the HOC, ready to interrupt if he thinks anything’s amiss. He had some cool nickname, and we discussed him right here, maybe a few months ago
He’s called the Remembrancer
Some ancient political history.
I remember the first EU or then Common Market Referendum and how ultra negative that was by the Pro side.
I remember all too well how local big wigs to me were all for staying in and the dire warnings about jobs and pensions and so on.
I remember all too well my father, a then Union Shop Steward and dyed in the wool Red displaying disgust and anger at most of the Labour Party in Westmidden supporting a stay in vote. I remember his fury at being painted as some sort of left wing nutter by the Brit Press and Media and employers he regarded as Fascists.
The get out alliance if you could call it such consisted of the then SNP and the left of the then Labour Party and the extreme right of the then Tory Party, it was an eclectic mix.
Project Fear will not work again though.
The BBC/ITV are also stuck because deep down they are Pro EU, well the CBI of which it they are members is also strongly pro EU. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the monstering of Greece in particular stops, and the general monstering of EU stops with the exception of the Daily Heil, Express and Sun, well after the Holyrood elections are out of the way at least.
I expect that Germany will have to come out and say that they may need to bomb UK airports in the event of an EU exit.
I expect that Aldi and Lidl will have to come out and say that food prices will skyrocket if the UK exits.
I expect France to come out and say that we will never be allowed to use the Euro (even on holiday)if we exit.
I expect Spain to say that it will take years and years of expensive negotiations before the UK is allowed to leave.
And I expect a different result in Scotland, Wales and NI than in England.
🙂
If the BBC and print Media had reported in an equal and unbiased manner YES would have won by a landslide
No other Media in any country I have ever been to, no matter the politics of that country perverts and distorts the facts as much as the British Media
Major news items go completely unreported or at the very least misrepresented and manipulated to suit the agenda of the day
Our country, which now can have no name other than North Britain will look back on our Referendum and political shenanigans with shame one day, although not by us, but the other half of the divide, the uninformed, who will wish they had been, the apathetic, who probably still won’t care, and the others who are a disgrace to Caledonia, and not least their own children and grandchildren who, if we don’t win next time will wonder why their forebears were such an unpleasant bunch
I don’t even blame the English voters who voted NO they thought somehow they wouldn’t be English anymore after the Media kept pumping out the fact they’d all be foreigners in some kind of Adolf Salmond Reich and be cut off from mother England as pariahs up here in Jockistan surrounded by Jackbooted Kilt Wearing Blue Faced Nazis
The BBC must be brought down or a new broadcaster must be encouraged and financed to report news on mainstream Caledonian TV in a fair and uncompromising fashion and reflect our country as it is and not how the UK wants us to think it is
As for McDougall and his ilk, their not worth the Shite on our shoes
@ Ian Brotherhood Lanarkist beat me tae it Ian honest Remeberancr rememberancer the 5th of Novemberer an you,ll no forget it again .
Just to throw a spanner into the works regarding the United Kingdom thingy cause I’m like that you … I like throwing spanners about the place and eventually one ends up in the works. 😀
If my solitary brain cell serves me right James VI wanted to combine the crowns of Scotland and England when he became James I of England. Westminster did not agree to his request and so the two crowns have always remained separate. Therefore, in my obscure and blinkered outlook on life, the country should not and can not be called United Kingdom but should be referred to as United Kingdoms.
I would also add that when wee Lizzie became Queen of England and was crowned in Westminster Abbey it was the crown of England that she wore. She had to come up to Edinburgh later on and be crowned Queen of Scots. The difference here though was that she never actually wore the Scottish crown it was held above her head during the ceremony. I may be wrong here but I believe it was held above her head in symbolism of the fact that she did not rule over Scotland like she does England.
Obtuse slaverings of the in house village idiot over. 😀
@Ian Brotherhood says: 3 October, 2015 at 2:00 pm:
” What’s the name of the character who represents London businessmen and sits near the Speaker in the HOC, ready to interrupt if he thinks anything’s amiss.
I see your question has already bee answered, Ian, but if it’s for homework there are Parliament video tours at this cite : –
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=UK%20parliament%20video%20tours&qs=n&form=QBVR&pq=uk%20parliament%20video%20tours&sc=0-0&sp=-1&sk=
Mouse over a picture on the page to get a preview or click to goto the video film.
O/T.
http://www.facebook.com/acidtrip25/videos/814920601908203/
Jims new job PMSL
Lesley-Anne @ 3.11pm.
I only have hazy memories of the event, but, I think The Queen arrived at the Assembly Rooms during the 1953 General Assembly, and the Honours of Scotland were brought there from Edinburgh Castle.
She walked in wearing a smartly-fitted coat and a nice wee hat, carrying a big handbag; touched the Scottish Crown, and was therefore agreed to have accepted the role of Queen of Scots.
I don’t recall the crown being held over her head, but, cannot be sure.
I do recall, the ceremony was roundly criticised at the time.
Perhaps Robert Peffers, as our font of knowledge about the United Kingdoms, can elucidate further.
You may be right about the holding the Scottish crown over head thingy Socrates. Remember I only have one tiny wee brain cell and by Saturday it is in full blown “sod off it’s Saturday” mode. 😀
I do remember reading somewhere about her wearing the smart coat and stuff and folks being upset she was not a regalious in her outfit as she had been in Westminster Abbey. 😀
Lesley Anne, I seem to recall that Lizzie turned up in Edinburgh in twinset and handbag. Dont think she even held the crown, just touched the pillow it was sitting on. Didnt even grace the situation with a robe. Her dressing down for the day put a few peoples noses out of joint. Think there is a video clip of it somewhere.
@LA – Dunno about a video but dug this picture up, apparently she was told to get her arse up to Embra to show the colonists who is boss and didn’t bother getting dressed in her finery… 😀
http://tinyurl.com/nt2jmes
@Papadox says: 3 October, 2015 at 2:45 pm:
“My feelings exactly Robert, but can’t write as clearly as yourself. I really enjoy and learn from your knowledgable posts. Look after yersel ouyin hope alls well
I do look after myself – no one else is doing it for me.
The family know I’ll ask if I need help but I prefer they get on with their own life as I’m fiercely independent.
I do have restrictions due to my health/injury problems but, being inventive, I’ve found ways round them. The biggest problem is with parking. I have the Disabled person’s badge but there are still problems as some public access places, such as Shopping Area car parks operate English Law and impose £70 fines if you overstay the set time.
I usually take them on as they are discriminating against the disabled who obviously need extra time to load and unload wheelchairs or disability scooters. They make no allowances by using spy cameras that just note the number plates of vehicles arriving and leaving and thus they don’t know who has disabled badges.
Thing is that as Scots are sovereign they have right to roam as long as they do no damage and the Scots law has already ruled that anyone who clamps or attempts to extort money for fines with menace is committing an offence.
These Guys usually send out a demand that threatens to set debt collectors on the person overstaying the set time and they usually get frightened to push their luck it you fight back. I’m fighting a £70 demand from one such UK company right now.
We live in interesting times, Papadox
Lesley Anne
Have a look at the Pathe newsreel.
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/scotland-welcomes-the-queen-1
WARNING. Audio commentary is nauseating!
Aye I think you are right Alan as Socrates said she touched the crown and didn’t even bother to do her usual finery thingy. As you say more than a few noses of the “bendest thine knee” crowd were put well out of joint that day. 😀
To be honest Croomps she actually looks a hell of a lot better than I imagined. 😀
@ Robert Peffers yept keep going Robert had the same problems with Asda / Tesco ect from a Perth based parking company I told them to take me to Court I keep forgetting to put my sun visor down to show the Blue Badge (sometimes),again some English companys same answer ,take me to Court , am oan ah porridge diet already lol.
Many parking companies who issue fines are illegal. Just ignore them and don’t pay. They end up sending out all sorts of idle threats that are non enforceable. . Eventually they give up but have scared folk.
Cameron intends to illegally prevent (‘foreign’) EU citizens in the UK from voting in the EU Referendum. It could be lost because of that. It is illegal. EU citizens are supposed to have equal rights in EU countries. Not a discriminatory voting system. The Scottish Legal system incorporates the EU Human Rights Act
I’ve just read what Dr Jim wrote regarding the BBC being brought down.
As much as I would love to see that happen, there just doesn’t seem to be a public appetite to attack the BBC (in a civil sense of course)comprehensively for the suppression and distortion they use and outright propaganda platform they provide for Unionism and those that conspire against Scotland as a Nation.
We need to start some kind of popular campaign to set up a rival to the BBC all of our own.
I wrote yesterday about this and as much as Wings has been the biggest, best and most popular website we have, we also need something that broadcasts the spoken word daily over the airwaves.
Like I said, it takes time for people to sit and log in and read blogs, but no effort to tune in to a radio channel to listen to some music and also have access to news and debate.
Our Independence minded politicians and public figures are denied a platform and when they are allowed to comment on the MSM, they are routinely outnumbered, badgered or have an unbalanced amount of time to respond to attacks on their stance.
How would it be if we turned the tables on Unionist politicians and the likes of MacDougall.
TV may not be an option yet, but a web based radio station to start with maybe?
Surely a crowdfund would get something started?
Without a spoken word source of media, I fear we are doomed to be smothered again by the MSM.
You are right enough Robert … nauseating is indeed the word I would use. 😀
I was just thinking. Whilst watching the crown handling bit, I could well imagine the old bloke who handed her nibs the cushion with the crown on it saying … “ye can look lass but on no account can ye touch oor croon otherwise there will be hell to pay!” 😀
@Lesley-Anne says: 3 October, 2015 at 3:11 pm:
“Obtuse slaverings of the in house village idiot over. :D”
Out of the mouths of fools, children and village idiots comes a great many truths – or so my old Granny told me.
Robert Peffers says:
3 October, 2015 at 4:58 pm
@Lesley-Anne says: 3 October, 2015 at 3:11 pm:
“Obtuse slaverings of the in house village idiot over. :D”
Out of the mouths of fools, children and village idiots comes a great many truths – or so my old Granny told me.
I’m now confused … VERY confused Robert.
Am I STILL the village idiot or am I now a child or a fool? 😉
There again best you don’t answer that one I’m quite happy just being ignorant so village idiot I think I’ll remain. 😀
Scotspine 4.26
“We need to start some kind of popular campaign to set up a rival to the BBC all of our own”.
Check this out:-
http://www.inform-scotland.org
Though I’ve no idea what progress, if any, they’re making. Not heard a peep about any crowdfunding campaigns for billboards, ads etc so far.
@ronnie anderson says: 3 October, 2015 at 4:22 pm:
“Yept keep going Robert had the same problems with Asda / Tesco ect from a Perth based parking company I told them to take me to Court I keep forgetting to put my sun visor down to show the Blue Badge (sometimes),again some English companys same answer ,take me to Court , am oan ah porridge diet already lol.
I take it just a wee bit further, Ronnie. I leave it until they begin to get more threatening then I write and point out that their spy camera does not show I have a disabled person’s permit.
I then accuse them of illegal direct discrimination on the grounds of my disability. The Grounds being I need extra time to get out and into the vehicle and also to load & unload, assemble & disassemble the Mobility Scooter.
Then, if they persist I threaten them with court action as there is Scottish legal precedent in that clampers have already been found guilty of, “Demanding Money with Menace”, and the courts ruled that as Scots have legal right to roam the company must prove there was damaged caused and even if they have signs saying there are time limits their letters threatened to set debt collector on the parker is actually threatening.
“and even if they have signs saying there are time limits their letters threatened to set debt collector on the parker is actually threatening.”
Haven’t had any threatening letters yet Robert, and I’m a parker.
🙂
Sorry, day in bed with the kidney stones playing up badly.
Saw off the bbc collection service though.
Ronnie,
The memsahib got a parking bill at the Top Cross Aldi. We just ignored it. They sent a couple of letters then gave up. We didn’t engage with them in any way. I think the bill is still on the board in the kitchen.
The car was registered to me so I got the bill but I was at work in Glasgow at the time. Obviously I don’t need a car to get there.
I was at the dump last week with a sofa and noticed your shed had gone.
We did have an small alternative to the rabid BBC jcd it was called Newsshaft. Unfortunately, due to financial problems it is going to have to shut down.
https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/2584/scottish-new-media-project-newsshaft-to-close
I can’t remember how they funded their start up if it was by crowdfunder or just word of mouth sort of thingy.
Maybe they should have got oor Stu involved in the funding of Newsshaft. 🙂
Still even though they are closing down it might be a blessing in disguise in that they can review how they funded themselves etc. and plan for a Newsshaft mark II. 😉
@Robert Peffers
Re private parking fines check out:
http://www.cas.org.uk/about-us/campaigns/its-not-fine-campaign-unfair-private-parking-charges
@jcd
I think that website is related to this one which scunterbunnet started.
http://counterpropforum.com/2015/06/18/dont-just-type-there-do-something/comment-page-1/#comment-93
To have another independence referendum sooner rather than later, we in North Britain should vote massively to remain in the EU and let South Britain vote to get out.
And we will still be able to call ourselves North Britain after independence. At least the pedants among us.
lol.all set for project fear bingo?
-france to cut off wine.
-italy to cut off pasta.
-belgium to cut off chocolate and ban reruns of Poirot on uk tv.
-right hand drive cars could be banned from eu.
-long immigration queues at spanish airports may threaten people with bladder issues.
-200 pound price hike on eu flights “possible”.
-saga holidays ceo report prices will need to rise.
-morrisons and dobbies ceos release stern warning that commodity prices of tea and scones could become “volatile” and “dangerously unstable” outside the security of the eu.
So it looks like the pro EU campaign will be hope over fear.
Who’d have guessed?
Thanks, Robert Kerr (@ 4.15pm) for the link to the Pathe newsreel of Lizzie’s “coronation” tour of S******d.
You were right, the audio commentary was nauseating. “…all her loyal subjects in S******d…”
I thought S***s weren’t “subjects” but sovereign as per Declaration of Arbroath.
Anyway, that newsreel and its commentary is a product of its time. It probably didn’t grate at the time as badly as it does now – even among moderate unionists & royalists. Some news footage from today will seem just as outdated and plain weird in 60 years’ time.
Recently I’ve been digitising and editing my grandparents’ + some other relatives’ wartime correspondence with a view of making it into a book for their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren (hooray for digital printing/book-making, which makes such small print runs viable!)
We grandchildren knew our grandparents as mildly-mannered and moderate in their political, religious and other views. (For instance, they didn’t regularly go to church though they believed in the Finnish Lutheran kind of God.)
It’s been a revelation reading their letters. Amongst the everyday things(“the tomatoes ripened well and the boys like them”, “remember to burn some coke in the central heating and set it to 59 to 65 degrees Celcius”) you suddenly get these passages of full on religious and patriotic pathos (“Our Omnipotent Lord Above will look after his sore-beset Finnish children at this difficult hour and deliver us from our Russki enemy”).
That idea – meme – is repeated time and again in the wartime letters. God is on Finland’s side, the Russkies (Soviet Union) are godless.
That was the talk of the times. Such talk seems out of character to us grandkids who got to know grandma and grandpa in the late 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, but almost everybody was like that during the wars (WW II).
So, that Pathe newsreel of Lizzie’s “coronation tour in S******d” should be seen against the beckground of the times.
I think it’s significant that Lizzie didn’t even touch the S*****sh crown. (She held the sword and the newsreel doesn’t show if she touched the sceptre.) No matter what the newsreel said, she and her advisers probably were aware of the fact that no monarch can be crowned in S******d without the settled will of the sovereign people, so they just sort of fluffed it.
I wonder what’s going to happen when Lizzie finally shuffles off the mortal coil and Charles III ascends the throne…
Sorry for long post. I’m a bit tired and emotional, just back from an aunt’s funeral.
lumilumi
I though Lenin wrote “Materialism and Empirio-criticism” in order to kill God and so justify Stalanism. I can see where your relatives were coming from as Communism is anticlerical, to put it mildly.
CameronB,
Anticlerical?
The Soviet Union was anti-religion, full stop.
The state was atheist. The state-sponsored worship of “Worker Heroes” reached religious fever pitch. And most Russians remained Christians at heart.
I know people who smuggled bibles into Soviet Union. Er… protestant bibles… to Russians who are old Eastern Orthodox.
Putin’s regime is using the rehabilation of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, or, more properly, the Mother Russian Church, as one of the arms of endearing themselves to and then controlling the public.
A lot of people want to believe in god or some higher power and are willing to go along with something that gives them that.
Today, Russian nationalism is very tangland, intertwined with their Eastern Orthodox Church, Czarist history, remnants of the Cold War, the neo-liberal present…
Every single Russian I know personally is very open-hearted, generous, hospitable… wary of the authorities, a bit scared of braking rules/laws… Finns are a lot braver though less open-hearted and generous. We are quite hospitable as we understand hospitality.
There is a huge cultural gap along the Finland-Russia border, all 1000 miles of it. Finland is west, Russia is east. But they’re our neighbours so we have to get along and find commong ground, and we do.
The British (=UK Establishment) have been painting Russia in such bad colours since the revolution (1917) that it’d difficult to step back and say or do anything sensible.
Putin’s newborn strong-armed Russian nationalism is scary to us in a neighbouring country, yet we’re less shrill about it than the UK and US.
We are thinking of our country but see there’s no way Russia would invade Finland. The US and UK are on a semi-ideological trade war against Russia. Russia is now neo-lib capitalist, it’s a threat to the US and the UK. Not the ordinary people, but this is a strange dance of who will be able to screw more money out of the ordinary people in their respective countries.
Sorry for another long diatribe. I think I was trying to say something important but maybe not.
lumilumi
Please don’t apologies for broadening horizons. Re. Anticlerical? I was trying to be gentle after giving Will a bit of a doing. 🙂
McDougall – Flour of Notland.
The Return of the evil Panda.
@ CameronB
Anti-clerical, atheist, whatever… I have no religion, not even atheist. When I die, that’s it. The End. Nothing afterwards. The End. Loppu.
I was born and raised in a country where Evangelic-Lutheran protestant Christianity is just assumed.
I was babtised as a baby, and at 15, did my confirmation lessons at a camp with a couple of dozen other hormonal teenagers. It was great! Not Ev-Lut chaste, though.
Today at my aunt’s funeral, we all reached out for some comfort. We got most comfort from remembering anecdotes about aunt and uncle, or mum and dad to the bereaved three cousins and their kids. But we remembered all kinds of wonderful, funny stuff, laughing and crying.
Then the Ev-Lut priest apparently thought enough is enough and tried to wrap us (and shut us up) in a good Christian shroud. Waffle, waffle, blah, blah, don’t ask why the bell tolls, it tolls for everybody, we are all part of a community, waffle, waffle, blah, blah.
It was all I could do to not scream out loud and cite John Donne’s sermon (in English) that this little shit of a priesty just butchered. Trivialised. Aaargh. I might not have religion but I still appreciate good literature and hate it when it’s twisted and contorted to serve some religious or other cause nobody is interested in.
Don’t ask… the bell tolls for thee.
Or mebbys ay, mebbes naw.
McTernan on RT (SPUTNIK GG’s ego salve) already using Corbyn’s U-turns, which as a neo-con nutter he should be welcoming, to undermine the poor old sod.
lumilumi honey – you are one of my favourite commenters on this site xxx
@lumilumi –
Today at my aunt’s funeral, we all reached out for some comfort. We got most comfort from remembering anecdotes about aunt and uncle, or mum and dad to the bereaved three cousins and their kids. But we remembered all kinds of wonderful, funny stuff, laughing and crying
In essence that is it lumilumi it’s all about our families and who we are close to. I am crying with you…
Hi lumilumi.
Here are a couple for you, inspired by your last post. The first one was released in 1967/8.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtiu_HRx3BQ
The second is from the 1980s or 90s (my ageing memory is compressing time).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17HRV8k1YMw
@lumilumi
Sorry to hear of your loss. Thoughts are with you.
@Wingers
See you in Dundee later. I shall be transporting the delectable Paula Rose to the event so can’t say what state I will be in when I get there 😉
I’m surprised folk still want to hire McDougall.
Run a campaign …I wouldn’t want him to run to the shops for a pint of milk.
Project Fear part two. Don’t miss the up and coming dramatic continuation of our next spoil,led by the unionist press and the BBC.THE SCOTTISH PEOPLE WILL NOT BE FOOLED A SECOND TIME BY THE LIES AND SCARE MONGERING WE HAD TO ENDURE LAST TIME.OUR LESSON HAS BEEN LEARNED.
Labour under Corbyn is committing us – unconditionally – to membership of an unreformed EU just as Blair did. Committing us to the EU and saying you’re against ‘austerity’ is like committing us to NATO and saying you’re against wars – which Corbyn’s done too! (As has the SNP.)
He’s against wars but wants us to stay in NATO which wages wars. He’s against austerity but wants us to stay in the EU which enforces austerity. He’s against TTIP but wants us to stay in the EU which wants to force TTIP on us all. (All very like the SNP.)
EU rules on state aid for industry prevent the government giving financial support for the Redcar steel plant, to prevent its closure, even if the government wanted to. This is yet another example of EU membership leading to loss of jobs for British workers and further loss of manufacturing industry.
This must, surely, bolster support for leaving the EU, even among those in the SNP, the Labour Party and some trade unions who believe that we should remain in the EU come what may.