It’s old news, but someone finally dug up the actual leaflet. Click for the reason!
If the YesScotland campaign had its wits about it, it’d be running off a million of these with this week’s news stories printed in bold on the back.
Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
The BBC has something called the Shared Data Unit that does FOIs and then cobbles together random 'facts' and quotes from former MPs to make a headline tabloid style story. Unpleasant stuff.
Why can't Catalan political prisoners and exiles become MEPs? https://t.co/Bp3LUNFjHc @KRLS @toni_comin @junqueras @boye_g @amnesty @POLITICOEurope @SkaKeller @LNBDublin
@MandrakeMoon @slatanictrash @WingsScotland I was a heart Yes but a head No till I started reading Wings Over Scotland and GA Ponsonby.
Truly horrible to realise I didn't even know I'd been getting lied to for years.
Boris Johnson wrote that Scots should not be allowed to be prime minister because "government by a Scot is just not conceivable in the current constitutional context." https://t.co/5gfWsk2Huw
Wings Over Scotland
Couldn’t resist posting this to Facebook. Thanks to whoever found it 🙂
So did l, my daughter beat me to it.
Been loving the msm over the last few days simply accepting what they are told by the financial/banking ‘experts’!!
Terrific stuff! More Bitter Together comedy gold!
Ah, yes, Better Together – the cause that just keeps on giving. Don’t you just lurve ’em!
AAA…H, so that’s Better Together’s core message! Just AA… 1, minute isn’t that message out of date?
Seems like Brian Donohue MP (fondly referred to by locals as ‘The Doughnut’) was spotted at the Bridgegate in Irvine on Saturday, handing out this very leaflet. He must’ve been a wee bit late getting there ’cause the SSP chaps were already in the best available space, taking signatures on a petition against the Bedroom Tax, as they have been for weeks.
With the interminable building works ongoing (pedestrians being channelled like doomed cattle) he had to position himself – along with his big black coat and suspiciously blacker hair-do – outside the wee jewellery shop. The cramped space forced him into unnaturally close contact with the never-ending torrent of Great Unwashed he purports to represent. Aw, bless, poor sowel.
Still – it could’ve been worse. If it had been one of the older ‘jewellery’ shops he would’ve had three big balls dangling over his carefully-thatched heid. His option was to shift further down, but that would’ve placed him right outside the ‘Subway’ shop – his comrades aren’t known for hanging around outside those places for long…oh well Brian, and Better Together…quelle dommage, eh?
I wonder why so much weight is put on the opinion of these ratings agencies? After all, this is how they described their ranking of national economies, when answering US Congregational inquiry in to the 2008 meltdown. Perhaps it might have something to do with the clubs they all seem to frequent, they being the financial elite and the MSM. Private clubs such as the New York Council on Foreign Relations and Chatham House (formerly the Royal Institute for International Affairs)? Perhaps this points to the unhealthy influence corporate interests are able to bring to framing the MSM coverage of this, and many other issues?
@ CameronB
Don’t place a lot of worth those agencies myself, but ‘gonnae no’ did and went to great lengths to make eejits out of themselves. 🙂
Surely an even better point, that has been drastically underplayed by our beloved msm, is that under the watchful eye of Westminste we haven’t even been benefiting from a great mortgage rate. Due to the Libor fraud, the end result has been large profits, larger bonuses must most importantly inflated mortgage rates! The extra profits have to come from somewherE and that is from every single one focus even if we don’t havo a mortgage due to the knock on effect.
How about reprinting the poster as shown, but with the last “A” scored out, with a black line and “1” hand-written beside it?
It’s the same old meme… proponents of the status quo trying to scare people into staying with the status quo as it being the best possible option… then a new status quo coming along which is worse than before. Ref: 1980s factory closures after 1979 devo failure.
Its corollary is the self-determination scare story that turns out to be untrue, Ref: Tory claims that business would desert Scotland in the result of a 1997 Yes vote, Labour’s Holyrood scares in 2007 of Scots each being £5000 worse off under an SNP administration, etc…
‘If the YesScotland campaign had its wits about it’
Ay, there’s the rub..
Haha, that was me. Knew I had one stored away somewhere & managed to dig it out yesterday to upload pic to Facebook.Too funny!
I’m afraid the Yes Scotland campaign is too focused on being positive.
While there has to be an optimistic element to a successful referendum campaign, I’m not sure it’s true that the positive campaign always wins. In referendums, it’s very often the negative and paranoid side that wins.
I think some people might be ignoring the difference between a choice between two options, whether a referendum or a first-past-the-post election, and a multiple-choice election (such as a proportional representation election). In the latter, the positive campaign almost always wins because you can’t be against all your opponents at once (so an anti-Tory poster by Labour might benefit the SNP, for instance), but in the former, where making your opponent lose support is as useful as gaining it yourself, a negative campaign often wins.
Thomas, do you have any empirical evidence, or is this just your assertion?
The AV referendum in 2011?
@Morag
The Libs were fools to give up on STV (form of PR) and agree to AV. While AV is not actually complicated, it can easily be made to sound so. It was also rather crap in reality anyway, although it could have formed a stepping stone for further reform. So, it was no problem to tear it apart with a negative campaign. This would have been impossible to do with STV PR (the counting process is actually far more complicated than AV, but the end result is clear as day). If the vote had been on STV-PR it would have been won no matter how negative the no campaign was; PR is easy to sell positively, AV was not because it’s actually fairly crap. Would have been good for the Libs though due to tactical voting for them, hence they couldn’t help themselves. Sucked in and spat out though; pathetic power hungry idiots they are.
The independence referendum is a whole different kettle of fish. Negative campaigning could work against a yes, but if you are going to try and sow seeds of doubt, then you do it at the last minute, not years before. Tell porkies years ahead of the event and you’ll be caught out well ahead of the polling date. We are watching this happen right now. Notice any new material from better together compared to 2011 (or 1979 for that matter)? Nope, and one by one their ‘magic reasons why Scotland can’t be independent’ bullet points are being rubbed off the list…
CameronB says:
27 February, 2013 at 12:00 am
I wonder why so much weight is put on the opinion of these ratings agencies?
There are lots of different ratings agencies, some specialise in certain financial fields, different governments ‘recognise’ different collections of ratings agencies.
They are dependent on work from companies and governments who pay for analysis and reports.
Of the 9 recognised by the US Government, one, Egan Jones is (or was?) an ‘independent’ (the only one) they are funded only by their investors. Last June, they downgraded the UK and by 3 notches, they also downgraded the USA. The SEC has since barred them from assessing sovereign debt although they did not call their past national gradings into doubt, they got them on a technicality charge of having (years before) not filled out the application to be a recognised ratings agency properly.
Meanwhile things like Moody’s dropping the rating on Freddy Mac from top rating to just above junk in one step, that’s OK.
I’m sure this era will eventually be written up by historians far in the future as a second robber-baron period of history.
http://grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/better-together/
A wee blog I wirote about Better Together, you might find it interesting.
@training day.
If the Yes campaign had its wits about it…..Aye well!
I would feel a lot happier if the Yes campaign would occasionally reply to emails, or even call back on the phone when you have left your number and name.
They seem to be behaving like a bunch of Fannies. Where’s the smeddum?
@Holebender,
my only evidence is the elections and referendums I’ve observed over the years, many of them as an activist, both here and in Denmark. For instance, the Danish referendum on joining the Euro (which ended in a No) was a good example: The No side constantly spread uncertainty and doubt about the Euro, without agreeing on what Denmark should do instead (e.g., pegging the crown to the euro, or letting it float freely), while the Yes side was supposed to have answers to every question thrown at them.
@ Thomas and Holebender
I think the ‘correct’ top level approach is contingent on zeitgeist. i.e. at any given time the popular mood is either in favour of more aggression or fed up of it, its cyclical.
e.g. Obama has won with a more positive message over the Republican approach but would he have, in say the immediate post 9/11 era where Americans were more accepting of an aggressive approach.
Unfortunately, the Scottish media is so dysfunctional that it is very difficult ascertain what the current Scottish mood is. Are the electorate so fed up with confrontational politics and lies, which has proven successful electorally in recent times, or are they ready for openess, honesty and optimism?
However, because of the advent of the internet, it may be possible that we can have a dual approach. Top level restrained, honest and optimistic but a cyber-level which uses a much more direct and challenging approach. I think people when receiving information by either method will not confuse the two (despite the best efforts of the dependency tendency) and that therefore both carrot and stick can be used in this way.
The YES Scotland campaign has has nice blue Twibbons. Period.
@Chic McGregor, very good points! Along the same lines, we should also make sure we tailor the messages to the individual voters. For instance, if you’re talking to a republican, make sure they understand it’s much more likely an independent Scotland will get rid of the monarchy than that the UK will ever do so; if you’re talking to a monarchist, just stress that there are no plans to get rid of the queen.
Thomas
I’d go along with that. Both statements are true. But would prefer it if both had something like “It will be up to the people of an independent Scotland to ultimately decide – as it should be. ” added on at the ends.
We don’t want to be straying into the dependency tendency’s cesspit.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8CTHz_DTDtlbUh0anNmb1BwOEk/edit?usp=sharing
Sorry link above no workee
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8CTHz_DTDtlM0pxbHp4ZzFGbmM/edit?usp=sharing