Yes campaign doomed
The Unionists have deployed a trestle table and some bizarrely faded plastic Union Jacks. We fear the game is up for nationalism from this day forward.
If this is the “unprecedented weekend blitz of campaigning” described in the Herald this week, we’re fairly quivering about the actual war. The above gathering of the No camp features former Secretary Of State for Scotland and Minister for Europe Jim Murphy MP, along with what look like failed Scottish Labour leadership candidate Ken Macintosh MSP and failed Scottish Conservative leadership candidate Jackson Carlaw MSP (though we can’t be 100% certain from the picture).
If that’s the sort of campaigning juggernaut “Better Together” can rustle up for such a collection of big hitters, goodness knows what ordinary footsoldiers are having to work with. We hope and trust that alert cybernats everywhere in Scotland will be gathering pictorial evidence of this mighty strategic onslaught, in order that we might collect it together for another of our always-popular photo galleries.
Our Twitter address is @WingsScotland. Keep us in the loop, readers.
Let me see – early morning to avoid actual people being about, place yourself directly in front of the supermarket to catch the odd shoppers eye. Going by the coffees on the trestle table, two are to man that and the others who turned up are to hand out the leaflets. Jim Murphy poses for photo then leaves.
Job done, the Union is saved!
And without a trace of irony, they’ve done it outside an American supermarket.
Fruit and Nuts on display outside Wholefoods shop
I’m reminded of a line from ‘whispering’ Ted Lowe in the early days of television snooker, not long after colour TV was first introduced:
‘And for those of you viewing in black and white, the red Tories are standing just behind the orange Tories and slightly to the right of the blue Tories’.
Jim Murphy and Jackson Carlaw behind the same table campaigning together. Well, well. It’s come to pass at last.
I said years ago that the rise of the SNP would eventually make politics in Scotland not Labour versus Tory with a side order of Lib-Dem but as a nationalist versus unionist battle. The factional boundaries between the unionist parties would blur and disappear as they reacted to the threat from the SNP.
Scots would have to decide if they wanted to carry Scottish or British passports and the parties would align accordingly.
Many years ago I used to believe that Labour in Scotland were good guys. Not nationalist but on the nationalist side of the fence. But #scottishlabour has always been #scottishloyal and now we see it clearly.
Jeeze – can’t get them all to look at the Camera at the same time, but perhaps that Murphy and Macintosh’s way of pretending that they are not really campaigning alongside Tories?
In the name of transparency who paid for the coffees?
Is Jackson Carlaw saying:
‘Fucking Labour. First they steal our policies. Now they try to gatecrash our photo-opportunities’.
This one’s a cracker, several of them appear to be about to plonk themselves down on an imaginary lavvie.
http://tinyurl.com/bmfyyg7
Will they be giving out wee sausage rolls to everyone, or only to those with wee dugs?
A few trestle tables, a few balloons, and the NO side think that they’ve masterminded a great political moment. I walked past one their stalls twice today and nobody left the comfort of the trestle table to leaflet, or talk to me. It was just like the pictures on Labour Hame – a group of people huddled together for comfort. This is the Unionist campaign. They have nothing else.
Anyone reading Unionist tweets would think that the people had taken to the streets in their thousands.
More pics here.
http://twitter.com/UK_Together
I got up early this morning to go to the one in Galashiels, see what they were saying and such. However, because I got up early today my brain was all mince, so couldn’t remember why I got up early today. Suffice to say, I remember now. Doh!
When I first heard about these “events” I checked the BT website to see if there was an event near me. There wasn’t, nearest was Edinburgh. On Thursday something made me look again and “lo and behold” there was one going to be in Galashiels. Today when I finally remembered, I had another look at the website, it wasn’t listed.
Computer glitch, something else? Anyone see them in Gala today?
You would rightly expect a larger crowd around 12pm than earlier. No pictures signing people up either I note. Are they talking to themselves still?
@Kof
Think that they are having an event in Kelso today. Perhaps more support for them in Kelso rather than Gala.
How About, “Labour stand with the Torys to promote inequality for Scotland”.
Jim Murphy’s gang are doing better with their trestle table than Tom Harris – his lot only have a cardboard box photos on labourhame
I went to the big event in Dundee today, expecting a laugh. Nobody there.
Just looked at BitterTogether, and it’s tomorrow.
I could have sworn it was originally advertised for today.
If we take MPs and MSPs out of the pictures how many people did all of the Unionist parties muster?
And what happened to the face painting?
@Juteman
The Dundee event was showing yesterday as being for today. Perhaps they pooled these people to another event say Perth for today?
Is this Union Jam for tomorrow?
Of course this is the just the first wave to soften us up. The next step is the weapon that “saved the union of a thousand years” back in 1992 and 1997.
John Major and his soapbox.
Err except he lost in 1997, on a platform (sic) of no devolution. And his current partners in crime, Labour, always said the devolution would kill independance stone dead.
So how is all that working out I wonder?
I like Marks photo better. 🙂
http://www.scotlandsaysyes.com/2012/08/bitterly-together.html
I was in Banchory today and found out they had a “stall” outside WH Smith. I was going to take a photo of the empty space outside WH Smith, but then I realised the guy in a tartan bonnet standing beside WH Smith had a handful of leaflets. That’s right, a tartan bonnet. Just so you know he’s just as Scottish as the rest of us, since us Scots go about wearing tartan bonnets, don’t we?
Anyway, didn’t stop (my hands were full with my sister’s shopping bags and she sped up so I didn’t have time to stop at them… and they looked kind of pathetic so it would have felt like kicking a dying dog), but I saw one of the leaflets discarded on the ground halfway down the road. The reason for staying in the union? Because our pensions are secure under the UK welfare system.
Seriously, what kind of person is able to come up with such a ridiculous statement and actually tell themself it’s true without going insane ? Talk about the Big Lie technique – that’s an absolute whopper.
It’ll be fascinating to look at pics of tomorrow’s “events” and see how many of the same faces appear.
I’m quite sad I didn’t go to the Aberdeen one now, having seen that Richard Baker was there. I’ve always wanted to tell him what I think of him to his face 🙁
By the way, if anyone is wondering what Mike Rumbles is doing now he’s no longer paid to shout and sneer during FMQs, he owns (well, I assume so) a shop in Banchory selling expensive bottles of body wash. He’s far more pleasant when he’s not shouting at the SNP.
I posted this on the previous thread, but perhaps it is more appropriate here –
I was in Ayr to check out the “No” action day…fairly low profile really and most of them were local Tory / Labour councillors (having a group hug!). About 10 of them with ages ranging from 60 – 75.
These are the 10 reasons for the UK in the leaflet that they are handing out:
1. Scots are represented by over 270 embassies as part of the UK.
2. Scotland exports twice as much to rUK as to rest of world.
3. 1 in 5 workers in Scotland are employed by rUK firms.
4. 31K workers in Scotland have jobs with UK govt.
5. Scottish banks were bailed our with £470bn of UK taxpayers money.
6. 800K Scots live and work in England & Wales without need of papers or passports.
7. UK has 2nd biggest aid budget delivered by staff in East Kilbride
8. The UK means SCots can sit at top table at the UN
9. Scots save billions opn mortgages due to UK AAA rating
10. The pensions of 1M scots are guaranteed by the UK.
Not really a robust argument against Independence is it.
Oh jeez this has been hilarious. All your posts have been BRILLIANT guys, keep it up.
Just had a “viewing” of the “photies” over on LabourHame.
OH MY GOD!
We are in SERIOUS trouble now folks! They have seven, yes that’s right SEVEN, photos up of BITTER gatherings. Of these SEVEN pictures two, just TWO, have trestle tables the rest have NOTHING, unless you count the box at Hampden. :LOL: Even worse, only one, yes folks ONE, has balloons, unless you count the TWO red balloons at Parkhead with “stairheid rammy” herself. Hell even NINA could muster up MORE red balloons than this hapless crowd!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14IRDDnEPR4
Just one final thought. Is that a GARBAGE BIN behind Baker by any chance? 😆
Oh before I forget, my partner was in Annan this morning to get some shopping done, NO HONESTLY! While she was there she thought she would check out the BITTER campaign stall in Annan High street, after all THAT is where they advertised it would be on the BITTER Together site. OOPS! Not a stall to be seen ANYWHERE! I guess the occasional wee raindrop, as opposed to the occasional wee dug or sausage roll, must have frightened them off. 😆
Oh and a final, final thought. I’ve checked out the BITTER website and found a grand total of, you’ve guessed it SEVEN campaign slots marked up on the map! Only one wee, small, insignificant problem here. When you go down the actual LIST of events the total is EIGHT! Oops! 😀
I’m sure Curran would have got a warmer welcome if Celtic where actually playing at Parkhead today, looks more like a photo op than anything else, sure there’s lots of unionist minded folk live around there!
Ha! Love it.
1. Scots are represented by over 270 embassies as part of the UK – that’s nice.
2. Scotland exports twice as much to rUK as to rest of world – so England will ban all Scottish imports? I’d like to think they’re not that petty.
3. 1 in 5 workers in Scotland are employed by rUK firms – I’m one of them. We also have offices in Azerbaijan, Canada, America and Kazakhstan. None of these countries are in the UK.
4. 31K workers in Scotland have jobs with UK govt – we’ll need all of them for the Scottish civil service – and more!
5. Scottish banks were bailed our with £470bn of UK taxpayers money – and 90% of their economic activity was in England, so they’d still have had to bail them out. Or we could have followed Iceland’s lead…
6. 800K Scots live and work in England & Wales without need of papers or passports – yeah, isn’t the EU brilliant?
7. UK has 2nd biggest aid budget delivered by staff in East Kilbride – 2nd biggest in size… but is it 2nd biggest proportionately?
8. The UK means SCots can sit at top table at the UN – if Germany can struggle along without being in the Security Council, I think Scotland will manage just fine too.
9. Scots save billions opn mortgages due to UK AAA rating – borrowing costs for the US have actually DROPPED since it lost its AAA rating.
10. The pensions of 1M scots are guaranteed by the UK – the idea that anything is “guaranteed” under the Tories is just laughable.
No one should be surprised at murphy and Co standing shoulder to shoulder with the Tory,s to put Scotland down .
The labour party are now more tory than the tory,s as they chase the right wing votes in England to get elected .
Looking at some of the comments on twitter and pro union sites it is obvious that the no better together no campaign have been taking propaganda lessons from the b.b.c .
If this is the best that the pro union campaign can come up with after the recent pro brit festivals then it will hopefully be all downhill for them from here on until after the referendum .
I’ve been waiting for ‘Scottish’ Labour to fragment. These pics must be pushing some decent Labour party members close to the edge.
– “Has anybody else got a more energetic photos than this?” pic.twitter.com/N2sA6gfN
What exactly is energetic about that? Same few people in the same photos. Check your first image Rev. The girl far right, then appears on the left of this one now complete with balloon, etc.
Here’s one Rev from UKIP Scotland feed. – What happened to #BetterTogether in #Kirkcaldy? Couldn’t find you on High St 1145-1200 or had #GordonBrown done his photocall and you left?
@Arbroath 1320
If you look again at the captions of the seven photos you will see that two are from a single event. So only six events listed on Labour Hame. I counted 81 people over the 7 photos before I realised that there was two photos from the same event. Couldn’t be bothered to count again, not unless we see more photos anyway.
The Better Together page listed 13 events earlier. I have just refreshed the page using a random central belt postcode, borders postcode and a Dundee postcode. Nine events are now shown. On the home page two further Kelso and Fort William events are listed. I have not seen either of these events on the Campaign Central page however!
There seems to be complete confusion over the number of events, I noticed earlier via twitter on Labour Hame (I think) two people had commented, one claimed on their being 60 events and the other claiming 50 events.
Todays rip roaring success has long since finished. There are to be a small handful of events to take place tomorrow – if they can recruit enough of their 3,000 alleged helpers that is.
Hang on, there was at least 50+ events yesterday on their map. So most of these never took place?
Where was Sausage Roll Ryan, The Timelord, & Co?
I notice the twittersphere has been buzzing this am on this story, though as yet, I have not seen a SINGLE PUNTER in any of the photos posted.
Anyone know where Susan Calman is appearing? Or her dopleganger, Ruthie Davidson?
Thanks for the heads up Adrian I couldn’t even be bothered to read the picture descriptions I just had a look and good old raucous laugh AT the photos. :LOL:
Tyran, when I saw that on the Twitter site I assumed that they were describing the ENERGETIC nature of the guy in the grey suit on the left holding up Macintosh’s arm. 😆
Juteman
The fact that labour officials betray their principles as soon as they get elected to office should have made the party fragment years ago .
I dont know how the decent members who still have a social conscience manage to stay within the labour party .
I can remember one of your m.p,s when he was a shop steward working for the local authority taking part in marches to stop cutbacks and privatisation of services within ninewells hosp .
Now that he is an m.p he was one of the 32 who signed the motion that the private sector were doing a good job within the n.h.s in England .
I wonder what his equal right tutors at the old g.m.b college thought when he backed davidson over the threats to Dr Whiteford ?
How can the trade union movement carry on sponsoring these people when they betray everything they ever believed in .
Simply down to greed, i fear, Silverytay.
Take someone who probably earns below the average wage, and show him the glittering prizes that are his for 5 years if he does what he is told.
Presumably the guy in Banchory was wearing a tartan bunnet because in a town like that you’d expect all the unionists to be drawn from its large pool of Home Counties transplants.
Y’know, Banchory will be an interesting town to watch during the run-up to the referendum – as a former resident, albeit of about twenty years ago – if there were any town in the Northeast where you’d expect to see some Unionist action, it’d be that one, given that it’s basically a rural southern English town transplanted to Deeside.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. It’s just a strange little place.
One could almost feel sorry for the poor Bitter Together crowd (..well, OK… you really couldn’t, but bear with me a bit..?).
Remember that there are many Unionists politicians, apparatchiks, media hacks and activists who are, in the final analysis, viscerally opposed to independence. The closer we get to 2014, and the closer the result looks likely to be, the more hysterical their reactions are likely to become.
Bear in mind how lost this whole class of people will be should the result in 2014 be YES. Their jobs and sinecures are on the line, the very foundations of many of their careers, and of everything they will have been fighting for between now and 2014 will suddenly be called into question.
Where do they go in an independent Scotland they have tried their level best to abort? Who will trust their judgement or commitment in an independent state?
Even if (heaven forfend) the vote in 2014 is NO, where do they have to go? How long will it take the Scottish people to call their collective bluff? What measures of devolution are the diverse bunch behind Better Together likely to come up with, and even if they DID what chance does it have of being pushed through Westminster?
I fervently hope the Scottish people vote YES in 2014, but this is why I refuse to be downhearted if they don’t. The next 2 years will I think crystallise the fact that the only realistic choices for Scotland are the status quo or independence.
Lord Robertson’s infamous prediction that devolution would kill independence stone dead is thus likely to be remembered not so much because it was wrong (although of course it was), but because it actually achieved the opposite. Devolution has made independence inevitable, whether in the short or medium term, because the Unionist establishment has no appetite to construct a “devo-max” solution, and even if it did they simply couldn’t deliver it.
The task for independistas is therefore clear; highlight the choice between the status quo or independence, and point out the impossibility of Unionist promises to deliver devo-whatever, ask the people of Scotland whether they really feel they have more chance of achieving the kind of progressive society they want by leaving things as they are, or by making the change.