Asking the wrong questions
Here’s the Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron, speaking to BBC News this morning and giving a striking illustration of the term “dancing on the head of a pin”.
Comically, his excuse for demanding another referendum on leaving the EU while opposing a second Scottish independence referendum is that his new EU vote would be a completely different question – he’d be asking voters if they wanted to accept the Brexit deal and exit from the EU (which one might reasonably summarise on the ballot paper as “Leave”), or to refuse to approve the deal and stay in the EU (or put another way, “Remain”).
Glad we cleared that up, then. But then it got weirder.
Because Farron went on to justify his position by comparing the Scottish Government’s detailed proposals for an independent Scotland – the White Paper – with the absence of any comparable document from the Leave side in the EUref.
But there’s a huge, glaring problem with that analogy – the Yes side LOST the indyref. The prospectus against which subsequent events must be judged is therefore that of the No campaign. You can’t hold the losers of a vote responsible for what happens after it, because their plan wasn’t the one that was put into action.
And by any reasonable measure the promises of the No campaign have been proven false. One of their key planks was that a No vote was the only way to keep Scotland in the EU, and that one’s clearly gone out of the window. Even 44% of No voters believe that most or all of the No campaign’s promises were not kept.
So if Tim Farron’s position is that a second referendum on a subject is justified on the grounds that people didn’t really know what they were voting for, then a second indyref is in fact far MORE justified than a second EU one, because the Leave campaign didn’t actually make any promises to break.
People who voted Leave in effect issued a blank cheque – they said “You haven’t been specific about what Leave really means, but we’re going to vote for it anyway and take what comes”. Tim Farron and his Remain colleagues shouted long and hard that no detail was available, but people listened to them and decided they didn’t care.
People who voted No, on the other hand, did so on the basis of explicit statements and pledges and “guarantees” that almost half of them now say were not kept.
If you buy something in a shop that doesn’t do what it claims, you’re legally entitled to a refund. But if you willingly and knowingly buy a mystery package in a box and it turns out to be something you didn’t want, you’ve got no comeback.
Farron isn’t the only one asking the wrong questions this weekend. This weekend’s Sunday Times carries another opinion poll asking about the timing of a second indyref, but which bewilderingly muddies the answer by putting forward an option that nobody is offering.
Nicola Sturgeon’s proposed timeframe for a new vote is between 19 months and 25 months. Yet the newspaper’s poll gave respondents three options that make no sense in that context, and indeed of which two contradict each other.
The choices “in the next year or two” and “in about two years” overlap, and are absolutely dreadful polling practice. If you want a poll in, say, spring 2019 – which has been this site’s view for six months – you can equally truthfully answer either one, because “about two years from now” is contained within “the next year or two”.
As they’re phrased, those two options mean exactly the same thing, yet they serve to distort the result by splitting the pro-referendum vote in two for no reason, other than to enable Unionists to misrepresent it.(Literally as we write this, Jackson Carlaw is doing just that on Sunday Politics, unchallenged by Gordon Brewer.)
Unionists are tying themselves in knots trying to defend an indefensible position. The truth is that roughly half of Scotland wants a referendum before the UK actually leaves the EU, and half doesn’t. Presenting any other case is dishonest whether you’re the Sunday Times, the Scottish Conservatives or Tim Farron.
And when someone’s lying to you, you’re entitled to ask what they’re trying to hide and what they’re afraid of.
Once Holyrood votes for a referendum the matter is settled. It becomes the will of the Scottish Parliament, which represents Scotland’s population. No-one can then legitimately say the people don’t want a referendum.
Absolutely dreadful set of interviews by Brewer and ‘vox pops’ by BBC shortbread. The bias shining through brightly already.
And NS want’s us to play nice with these fuckers ?
Beyond me.
I’d pay good money to watch Truthie, the Dug and small penis being tarred and feathered, and paraded down the high street.
But i’m no nice ;-(
I always find it interesting that every “interviewer”/”reporter” I have ever seen passing comment on a second independence referendum conveniently forget about the “promises” made by Better Together or the Clunking Fist himself.
Surely it is time for these so called journalists to wise up do so me research and get some FATS straight, namely understand that LIES were told to the people of Scotland to get a NO win in 2014.
The time has surely passed for these so called journalists to start asking the DIFFICULT questions of unionists.
Anyone who asks about another referendum on Scottish independence must surely ensure that the interviewee is pushed, hard if necessary, about the LIES pushed by B.T. and Broon. Failure to do so is symptomatic of extremely poor journalism in my view.
God is it really 19th March already. How the months fly by. What’s that FidBem saying though.
Bullshit questions in bullshit polls are pointless. 99% of people want straight answers to straight questions. This is obvious.
All they hope to gain is soundbites on the telly. Ignore them and talk to known No voters instead. Speech will win this for Scotland not crap written in the newspapers, seen on TV or intimated on polls.
Do it and do it now, make your voice heard even if shyly to persuade a No. It’s the only way to win.
Previous No voters are not our enemies they are potential converts. Let’s do it everyday from now until the next vote and we shall win despite the polls/BBC/MSM.
There is nothing more powerful than people power. Billions of pounds mean feck all if people ignore the message.
We the people of Scotland by word of mouth will make the difference.
The Tory position is
We’re going to slit your wrists then see how long you can last before we allow you to call an ambulance
The Labour party position is whatever the Tories say is fine until they’ve done it and we’ll condemn it later
The Liberal Democrat position is:
We got more votes than the SNP and they’ve got more MPs than us and we hate the world coz nobody cares what we say
The SNP position is: Would you just look at the absolute state of these bampots crapping all over everybody, is it any wonder we want to Goooohoohoo!!!
Well, no surprise the britnat media misrepresents Scotland. No doubt that will continue. No doubt it will worsen. The surprise will be all the bigger when Scotland votes Yes.
Farron is either a hypocrit or thick and the interviewer had not thought through the interview or how to challenge Farron”s responses.
When someone’s lying to you they are most likely a Unionist. It’s a core skill. Most of us have the integrity to speak the truth as we know it. Unionist politicians lie as a matter of course. Their right to lie is enshrined in their parliament in Westminster. Otherwise, Alisdair Carmichael would be struck off.
I’m sick to death of this corrupt UK Crap.
The Real Question is, do you want England to continue to give themselves, especially their very rich who control it,
The Right to hide vital information from you regarding your economy, such a the McCrone Report, have control over every UK media outlet that gets away with lying to you on a daily basis, ensure that your votes, no matter in what proportion, must always be out-weighed by English Votes, and you must always give any money that you generate to England, before they give you some change back.
You are happy that a Twin Nation like Norway has put away £100,000 in savings for every man, woman, and child in the country, from its oil fund, while you don’t have an oil fund, a penny in the treasury with your name on it, but you do get a share of the vast sums that England has borrowed to spend in England.
Scotland has never borrowed One Penny.It isn’t allowed to.
Are you happy to continue with decades of Tory Austerity, to pay for the Banker’s gambling, do you want more dangerous PFI at enormous interest rates that you cannot afford, are you really saying that you think that Scotland should be the only country in the EU who cannot discuss it’s future with Europe, when small Federal States like Wallonia can have a say in Scotland’s future????
Put this on the side of buses across the land, because the newspapers, TV and Radio Stations and the Corporations who own the Billboards do not allow you freedom of speech.
Yet again ruth i am not a Tory gets top spot on the BBC website , you know the place reserved for a party that represents one fifth of the voting public , makes perfect sense dosnt it fair and above board .
This mantra no one wants a referendum , who says we dont ? . the Unionist parties , the Unionist press and all their media , now why would they ever admit a rise in support for Independence they Lie about everything else whats another wee fib it goes with the territory .
One thing is sure Ruth, Scotland dosnt want the f/kn tories , time and again we have told them to get to f/k off ,dont you get it ? or do we need as you do need to shout a bit louder .
The Naw-bags against a referendum were out in force in Buchanan Sreet yesterday proffering leaflets, I was accosted by four of them, all claimed to be non-aligned, when quizzed one stuck to his guns (just an ordinary punter?) two admitted to being Tories & the fourth had to send for his Maw before she admitted to being a Tory. So given that any vote will be in the dim & distant, panic has struck these zoomers big-time, couldn’t flush a Slab supporter however. An enjoyable wee half-hour before the pub!
Ad Noisome .
What would happen if the Scottish Gov stopped playing Political niceties & exposed the fabrications of the IFS / OBR . What could the UK Gov do. The SNP are complicit in the deception on the Scottish People by not exposing these Sham accountancy figures . Cmon SNP all to win nothing to lose, dont be the patsies of the UK Gov.
Farron and the Lib Dems: This is the Party of Jeremy Thorp who tried to murder his gay lover while party leader, the Party of serial groper Lord Maynard, who can stay a party member as he pays well, the party of Cyril Smith, paedophile who worked closely with many Liberals for decades, but no one knew?
Farron was in charge of party finances when they refused to return a massive donation, that turned out to be embezzled money form ordinary working people.
The Party of Carmichael the Liar who slandered the First Minister and the French Diplomats and wasted £1,000,000 of Public Money into his crimes, before admitting to them.
Former Scottish Branch Leader, Malcolm Bruce advises that Lying is just part of today’s politics!
Has anyone in England landed the free university fees that they guaranteed in 2010. No!
I take it that the few votes that they do get up here are from people who vote by the colour of the rosettes?
I think I posted a similar comment earlier this week but it is worth repeating since Murdo Fraser believes the Greens do have the right to vote for a referendum as they haven’t fulfilled their 1 million signatures.
If that is the case they may want to abstain, but funnily the referendum vote will still pass as there will be a 63 to 59 majority still in favour. How is that for a majority Mr Fraser?
…and this is why I think its important Stu has regular polls commissioned. You then have the evidence to refute this shite immediately 🙂
I’d like to see monthly polls commissioned by Wings from now until indyref2 but that’s likely to cost around £100k simply for that. ie the current fundraiser won’t be anywhere near enough money unless Stu stops eating/lives in a tent and prints less WBB2….
This is just my personal opinion and for all I know Stu has something in mind. However if he does run another fundraiser simply for polls then I’m up for it.
Polls (as we’ve seen) are hugely important in the UK even if they don’t always get it right.
Unlike many other countries we don’t ban polls in the last 2/4 weeks & hence they’re used more as a weapon here. eg – no point in voting as the constituency is already decided, look at this poll.
Boots/books on the ground are all very well but we can’t let unionist-commissioned polls drive the agenda – as they did last time.
The Rev on his twitter has just linked to this which I am sure will cheer you all up.
link to archive.is
Section 6 had me laughing out loud 🙂
WoS twitter article. Archived
Smell the terror. 🙂
Beware the Bravado of the ‘Bring it On’ Brigade:
18 Reasons to be Careful
link to archive.is
The Rev says
@call me dave
Snap!
And apologies to everyone for mucking up my HTML tags 🙁
They are trying to build up a case to prevent an Indyref happening at all based on a pack of bare faced lies and they feel they can do so simply because they have the entire UK MSM willing to cooperate.
Including I have to say the National which is clearly refusing to challenge any of it.
They know they can no longer fool those who frequent the internet so they direct their full attention to those who don’t.
The over 65s. The biggest single block group of voters in Scotland and the bulwark of pro union support in Scotland.
If we don’t address this voting block directly then we will struggle to get over the line.
I keep telling folk we need to engage the pensioners more than any others and we can only do that face to face because the pro yoons have the ONLY media the over 65s access.
On lbc this morning Katie Hopkins vilifying Nicola in the most vile way they cannot put up an honest argument against Scottish independence so vilify the messenger they did it with Trump but he won they did it with Corbyn he also won their now doing it to Nicola and I bet she will won as well they say that madness is to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result
Farron is merely an example of the unionist narrative writ large. Hypocrisy expressed through double think.
Another great dissection of the situation by the Rev. The unionist position is clearly indefensible by any and all reasonable measure and the only damn thing that is holding the crumbling edifice together is the media and the Westminster narrative it sells.
(See under the appalling misrepresentation by Sky news only this morning)
The UK only exists today because of their ability to get in your livingroom, be it over the airwaves or in printed form. Bypass their media narrative and you end their ability to manipulate. Bypass the media and you end the political union.
We know it is possible. The indy movement went from 26% to 45% last indyref, in the teeth of ferocious media coverage. The YES movement has learnt a LOT since then and now at 50/50? The opposition are clearly worried, which is kinda why they’ve spared no expense or effort so early in the proceedings.
An unambiguous case to answer. More detail to hand. More feet on the ground. An experienced and embedded new media and a more politically combative government not so inclined toward the conciliatory and reasonable approach of indyref 1.
They should be worried. 😉
Are any journalist going to ask Davidson, Dugdale & Rennie if the are going to accept the democratic vote of the Scottish Parliament. Or are they going to request that MP’s from outside Scotland try to stop a referendum, since there will be 56 out of 59 MP’s from Scotland supporting one.
I can’t imagine the SNP not being asked this continually if the situation was different.
I think that the best poll was on the Last Leg I think it was 75% for indi and it was as scientific as some other polls.
I think the medias tactic is to totally scunner people with referendums by talking about it constantly.
Macart says:
… on both sides to be honest!
Much of the rhetoric we are hearings in the msm is along the lines of … ‘well done TMay for standing up to the Scots’, ‘don’t give in to their blackmail’, ‘give them no more concessions’, etc etc.
This is a good thing. We want TMay et al to dig their heals in, for a number of reasons.
Critically, the more the right wing in England take the line of ‘give them nothing’ the the less likely a Vow2 becomes! We want to keep ScotRef as a clear cut choice of Indy versus a bad Brexit. No middle ground for softs to latch on to.
For most Scots the Tories are still toxic, so who better to lead the Naesayers than the present lot of hard right Brexiteers, with their heels firmly dug in!?
Also, internationally and in the EU, it plays well for us for the Scottish government to look more willing to compromise than Westminster.
[…] Wings Over Scotland Asking the wrong questions Here’s the Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron, speaking to BBC News this morning and […]
Thepnr says: 19 March, 2017 at 12:31 pm:
“Bullshit questions in bullshit polls are pointless. 99% of people want straight answers to straight questions.” … “We the people of Scotland by word of mouth will make the difference.”
The great Victor Hugo had a saying very much like that, Thepnr. However the one below, from Gustave Aimard’s earlier-published novel, “Les Francs-Tireurs (1861)”, apparently precedes Victor Hugo’s fine effort.
I’m no great interpreter of the French language but I do believe that translates literally as :-
To me, what our fine FM said to the World yesterday was so profound and put such a great fear into the Westminster Establishment unionist propagandists that they are absolutely terrified to propagate it for the World to read, digest and proclaim, is every bit as profound as Victor Hugo and Gustave Aimard’s fine efforts.
O/T apologies if this is old hat to the 2014 campaigners but I thought this might be useful to somebody out there who has friends or relatives with Army connections who feel Britishness or torn both ways because of it.
Any Commonwealth, Irish or Nepali citizen can serve in the Army, so no reason why after independence Scots would not be able to.
link to army.mod.uk
Regarding the White Paper, I believe the Scottish Government is in the process of preparing one for the next Indy.Ref. This will probably be traduced by pro-Unionists, however what we should demand of them is a similar document so we can compare offerings. The pro-Union WP should focus on what the UK Government will do to ensure Scotland prospers in the event of a No vote. I very much doubt that they will do this as it would effectively tie Theresa May’s hands when, post Brexit and post Indy Ref 2 all the signs are that she will seek to emasculate the Scottish Parliament and probably introduce new rules to make it virtually impossible to get another referendum.
@Glamaig 1.36pm
I thought that too! The Unionist media have gone on about independence ad nauseum since the last referendum. So,if much of the electorate declare themselves sick of the whole thing, it’s hardly surprising.
They are in full-blown anti-independence mode at the moment. Does anyone else suspect that the Westminster government(joke) might be thinking of pulling a rabbit out of the hat in the form of say, a snap election, in the spirit of ‘What the hell….’? Much of what they have done up to now has been seat-of-the- pants lack of planning anyway. They are apparently using the sociopath’s handbook – if in doubt, do the last thing any sane person would expect, or as the CIA playbook would have it, always be prepared to be irrational so that your enemy, trying to work out your plans based on what is sane or reasonable, is completely undermined.
Wouldn’t all the little rascal Unionists love the Greens to abstain though so they could squeal and squeal that the SNP are only representing themselves again and not the will of the parliament
Sorry Gordon Brewer and BBC chums Oh how you wish we were that stupid
SKY news announced the FM said the currency WOULD be the pound, isn’t that funny when that’s NOT what the FM said
Must be just a wee mistake again eh
If the FM had mentioned say eg: the word Hindu SKY news would be reporting the FM said Scotland would all have to learn that language
It’s not shoddy reporting it’s just lies and in the drunken ramblings of George FFFoukes They’re doing it deliberately
Already on the BBC yesterday we had a middle eastern foreign gent letting us know in his country they’d just send in the army, problem solved
Maybe Kevin McKenna might have written about that as he was part of the same interview panel with his old chum Tory head case Iain Martin who was put firmly in his Brexit place by a very nice well informed Italian Lady who uttered the word apocalyptic, which I enjoyed enormously
This is the second poll in a month to split the Pro-referendum question into two, with virtually identical results. Do they really think we are that stupid? Actually forget that, some Scots are that stupid! The ones that don’t think for themselves, the tabloid buyers only interested in the fitba, racing or celeb shite. The ones that don’t want to know, until they themselves fall into some hardship and then the tories being in charge of their lives actually begins to have an impact. Hell mend them.
You only had to watch Sunday politics on the BBC today to see what we are up against, attacking the Green party for allowing the SNP to ask for article 30 to be transferred to Holyrood. I always thought that when a party, after due deliberation, be that in Holyrood or Westminster, were then allowed to vote any way they pleased, but then the BBC has strange ideas about that.
There is a petition on the government website for Scottish independence referendum if anyine is interested its on 30,000 the one against the referendum is on 100,000 but has been running longer. link to petition.parliament.uk
O/T seen this thought peeps might like a swatch.
link to aljazeera.com
Aweright and well said Holebender at the top.
Bringin’ it back into the hands of the people.
Scotland, it’s yours, take ownership.
When Holyrood next votes, the candle of hope returns…
(with a bigger and brighter flame)
Theresa May will probably yield to Scotland’s terms eventually anywayz.
@galamcennalath
Pretty much.
Ms May will be led by the press and popular opinion based on Westminster’s own runaway narrative. Hung by their own wossiname as it were.
The more reasonable and inclusive the request of the Scottish Government. The more extreme, exclusionist and intolerant the reaction of the right wing media and the Westminster government.
It’s past time to make people actually look, see and understand what union and partnership means to these institutions. Which is to say there is no union, only absorption and there is no partnership, only unequal, uncaring and ultimately self serving dominance.
Jamie
The petitions are no worth the time they took to write.
They are open globally. Anybody with a PC can sign up. If you have access to more than 1 IP address you can sign up more than once.
Don’t give it oxygen.
harry mcaye says:
19 March, 2017 at 2:16 pm
‘some Scots are that stupid!’
There was a caller on R5 Live the other night who said he voted Yes in 2014 but was going to vote No this time. When asked why, he said ‘because they’ve asked me that question already. They dont know Scots very well if they think they like being asked the same question twice. So I’m going to vote No.’ The R5 dude was almost speechless trying to get his head round that.
@ronnie anderson says: 19 March, 2017 at 12:57 pm:
” … The SNP are complicit in the deception on the Scottish People by not exposing these Sham accountancy figures.”
Aw! Cummon, Ronnie. Have a wee bit of sense and consider this a wee bit further.
The thing about the figures is that the only official figures are those of the Westminster Establishment and are published by the ONS, (Office of National Statistics).
There simply are no other official figures and all Westminster needs to say is, “There it is – black upon white. Don’t believe unofficial figures.
Now a long time ago a top Scottish Forensic Accountant, Niall Aslan, researched the then GERS figures and he published, if memory serves me well, a paper titled something like, “The Great Lie”. It was hardly noticed and web searches found many, many such titles had been put up on the web. Niall changed the title to, “The Great Obfuscation”, and a very similar crop of other articles also began to appear in search engines to make it hard to get Niall’s article.
Naill tried all sorts of ways to attempt to get his article published and it became obvious the UK government were blocking the article.
Naill tells the full story of this and gets his message on-line here :-
link to siol-nan-gaidheal.org
There is a PDF version for download somewhere on the web too.
It is well worth the time to read.
The point is that it is one thing for the SG or SNP to attempt to publish the truth and quite another thing getting it out to the public domain and, when all is said and done Westminster just says – where do you get your figures from? We are the ones with the figures and no one else.
Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. A great distraction from the SNP conference, and the First Ministers speech.
Tell the people, repeatedly, they don’t want something, and they might come to believe it, or at the very least become so freaking tired of hearing it they switch off. Job done, or so they think.
Into the bargain, make sure that the rest of the world are hearing you. To keep repeating that a referendum is not what the people of Scotland want, is deliberately lying, in the hope that they can use that as a reason to attempt to deny a referendum.
Thing is, it is all now being watched closely by the EU27, and with much more interest than in 2014.
They have an investment in Scotland’s interests being respected.
Andrew Neil is once again about to discuss Scotlands position within the EU with Tories and no pro Indy presence for balance.
Fucking BBC man.
Here’s a wee Sunday experiment for ye all..
Ask a five year old “who owns Scotland?”
They’ll either say; “me, mummy or daddy”
Kids are smart, they already know.
Go on, surprise yerself!
New proposition:
Voting rights for 5 to 15 year olds.
🙂
The BBC have managed to find another Spanish political gobshite to claim Scotland will end up at the back of a non existing EU membership queue.
Seriously they are still bullshitting it terms of EU membership queues and get Spanish officials to do it as well.
Even North Korean media wouldn’t dare to stoop this low.
James Kelly dissecting the latest poll [if we can call it a poll]:
link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk
Hopefully the legitimacy of the vote will be done and dusted this week – assuming Alex Neill and co vote with the SNP! To harp on about the mandate thereafter would be very foolish indeed.
I wasn’t particularly engaged in the early days of the first IndyRef so I don’t remember the overwhelming approval from the public cited by Jackson Carlaw or, to my shame, the vote in the Scottish parliament.
However since support for independence itself was low, at ~ 30%, could it be assumed the overwhelming backing was because there seemed no doubt of the result then? That it seems much more in doubt now shows why the opposition is much more vitriolic at this stage.
Macart says:
Good point. That has probably been unspoken policy for 300years!
It reached its peak in the 70s, then the tide turned. Most of what was ‘British’ (gas, coal, steel, comms, etc, etc) disappeared. Then devolution.
Then there was just enough Scottish identity left to bounce back into the void vacated by Britishness and as a counter to Tory Englishness.
I have absolutely no doubt that there are those want to see the current trend turned around again. Their solution to the ‘Scottish problem’ will be absorption into Greater England.
They won’t succeed. In the past, Scottishness was rolled back firstly by Empire opportunities and secondly by Labour’s nationalisation with UK wide centralisation.
What do they have now to override our blossoming Scottish identity? Nothing!
Nicola S on Sky interview accepting the £15bn deficit but as part of WM.
The latter is OK but I don’t get why she doesn’t argue from the POV that it is based on inaccurate material.
It might be up to the Greens to debunk this using the latest input from Richard Murphy and others
I’m fine with the hysterical britnat media and the fact that supposedly neutral TV news programmes are pushing a britnat agenda. It’s all so obvious. It’s all so desperate. Some fearties will believe it all but I’m confident more and more people in Scotland see the britnat media as, well… desperate.
Note to Ruth Davidson: if only one Scot thinks it is appropriate to have a referendum on any subject then, in a democracy, they are perfectly entitled to ask for one.
I am asking for one!
Who suggested Ms Hopkins earlier?
Katie Hopkins?Verified account @KTHopkins 4h4 hours ago
More
Sturgeon is a vampire who can see the sun rising – she knows her time is up – this is pure desperation.
Katie Hopkins?Verified account @KTHopkins 6h6 hours ago
Katie Hopkins Retweeted LBC
Has the Ginger Dwarf from the North forced Theresa’s hand to call a snap election? 0345 6060973
Shock jock is probably not what she’d like to be called.
Mike says:
It all reminds me of the Falklands, Gulf Wars, Serbia, Libya. The loyal BBC would discuss the situation with a bunch of UK pundits and politicians. There might have been a token presence from ‘the enemy’, usually by video link. You might argue that was proper and correct under those circumstances.
However, Scotland? An equal partner in Union? One nation and country of this United Kingdom? A country with a stake in the BBC as shared public broadcaster? A democratically elected government and parliament with a mandate for their actions? Political parties carrying out manifesto promises?
We are now firmly the ‘other side’.
Something is rotten in the state of UKnotOK!
There is a reason for British nationalists’ desperate and dishonest efforts to minimise support public demand for a new independence referendum – apart from the rather obvious fact that they regard that referendum as a threat to the Union, which must be defended at any cost. It relates to the questions of what constitutes sufficient demand for a referendum. Unionists are tying themselves in knots trying to make demand for a fresh vote look negligible because it doesn’t have to be 50%+.
It is fundamental to democracy that the default position favours the voice of the people. The assumption must always be in favour of a vote. Demand for a referendum need only be substantial. Precisely what that means, in percentage terms, is open to debate. A debate which takes due account of the context. It would not be unreasonable to argue that 33% takes us into qualifying territory, depending on the issue being addressed.
It goes without saying that anything in the region of 50% would make demand for a referendum undeniable. And that’s why every effort is made to split the vote.
Only 2 hours ago, in BBC time, beeb gimps have been UKOK mental this week too.
link to bbc.co.uk
A Wales Office minister has described Scotland as “another country” after a recent trip to Edinburgh.
Aberconwy MP Guto Bebb said he had left feeling “despondent” because it reminded him of Dublin.
That “should be a warning when visiting a city which is a crucial part of the UK”, he said.”
@Mike says: 19 March, 2017 at 1:18 pm:
“The over 65s. The biggest single block group of voters in Scotland and the bulwark of pro union support in Scotland.
If we don’t address this voting block directly then we will struggle to get over the line.”
Aye! And with a quite obviously wrong reading and logical conclusion of the evidence you quote the YES side will never cross that line.
It isn’t because that particular age group don’t make up the largest unionist block of NO voters that makes your claims counter productive. It is your idiotic conclusions drawn from the more obvious facts that will assure these older people will more greatly resist any attempt to convert them to the independence for Scotland cause.
Do you really believe that simply by belonging to an older generation will make any individual into a rabid YOON LOON when they pass any particular birthday?
Oh! Wait up! I’m an octogenarian – I clean forgot I’m supposed to be a Rabid YOON LOON GOON. Maybe it’s the Alzheimer’s cutting in that made me forget to vote against the SNP when I became 65. I’ll make a sticky note and stick it on the front of the TV so I remember to vote Tory in up and coming council elections.
I wonder why I bothered being an SNP activist for all those years when it is perfectly obvious I’m a YOON.
Honestly sometimes I wonder at the near YOON stupidity of some Yessers. There are good, but true reasons why there are greater numbers of older people in the unionist camp but none of them are due to the unionist reaching a particular age.
When I first began to support the SNP I was around 9 or 10 years old there was no TV in Scotland then – that did not come until 1952 and even then was a limited programme schedule. SNP supporters were so thin on the ground it was a great event when you met another one. What’s more we were regarded with great suspicion with most Scots believing them to be subversive or even NAZI sympathisers.
For heaven sake Arthur Donaldson and several other SNP people’s homes were raided by MI5 & Scottish Police in May 1941 as suspected NAZI plotters.
No matter that no evidence was ever produced and Donaldson was released 5 weeks later without charge. Many people, including Blogger Ian Smart, a lawyer and Scottish Labour Party blogger have been making such claims for many years.
Thus there was little support for the SNP or independence in Scotland. It is thus quite clear that voters still alive now who were alive back then are mainly Unionist supporters. Not only are the Unionist supporters but they are the actual mainstay of Labour, Tory and LibDem constituency associations, they are the unionist councillors, MSPs, MPs and MEPs and the party officials and membership. There are more of them now because there were more of them back in the 1940s/50s/60s and 70s. And they all have partners, families and friends.
Ergo the not only are the Unionist party voters they are the Unionist parties and the SNP tend to be younger because they became members and votes as the SNP began to gain in popularity.
So please stop demonising the older age groups for being older and don’t even attempt to demonise them because they are YOONS for by doing so you will only put their backs up and stand very little chance of ever converting them. Nicola has the right attitude. A welcoming and honest inviting attitude to, “Come on it the waters lovely and warm”, attitude.
Here’s another true fact for you. Look at any gathering of Yoons and you will see a right dour and unwelcoming set of faces full of hate. Contrast that with the good humour and openly welcoming gathering of indy people. Just looking at a few photos or videos is enough to spot the difference.
There will always be a group of people you cannot hope to convert but it isn’t because they are of a certain age group – it is because they are the actual unionist party members and hingers oan.
I keep telling folk we need to engage the pensioners more than any others and we can only do that face to face because the pro yoons have the ONLY media the over 65s access.
AS someone else mentioned earlier,I too wonder whether Theresa May will now call a snap election to try and regain the political initiative, having been so comprehensively out-smarted by Nicola Sturgeon this past week.
When you think of the range of threats she now faces in the form of complex EU negotiations, a new Scottish referendum,her wafer thin majority in the House of Commons, possible criminal investigations into 12 Tory won constituencies in 2015 and now the prospect of arch-rival George Osborne attacking her premiership by means of the Evening Standard- her position is becoming increasingly untenable. Desperate situations require desperate remedies…..
Almost the only card she has left to play is the one to call a snap election, possibly right after launching Article 50 at the end of the month. May could justify it by claiming she needed an electoral mandate to strengthen her hand in entering into the EU negotiations. Nicola’s jibe about having a clear electoral mandate in Scotland whilst May has not been even elected by her own party is sheer political dynamite and hugely damaging to No 10.
In view of the shambolic state of the Labour Party, it would seem an absolute given that the Tories would be returned with a significant majority, buoyed by a new “Global Britain”, anti E-U narrative whipped up the media.
A snap election would also be a way of stopping the momentum building up in favour of a Scottish referendum, which at the moment seems irreversible.In effect, the Tories would be playing their “voting blind” card, since the people of Scotland would not know the details of the final Brexit deal in a general election called right now. And if the Tories were to pick up some additional seats by appealing to the 38% who wanted Brexit in Scotland, this could conceivably weaken the SNP’s position. Could the SNP really repeat their 2015 feat of achieving 56 of the 59 seats again?
I’m sure the SNP and Nicola have already factored in this possibility into their thinking, and have thought up an electoral strategy to counter the Tories. I wonder whether in these circumstances, the SNP would fight that election on an Independence/Single Market/ EFTA ticket to seek to maximise their possible vote?
I have said before on this site, that I would much prefer to see Scotland achieve its independence by means of an election of some sort, rather than the lottery of another divisive referendum where the big guns of the British State and the corrupt BBC would almost certainly wage war against Scottish self-determination once again, and scare people to death against the idea.
In a general election, they could not do this since they would have to prioritise the “Brexit Election” south of the border at the same time and their impact on Scotland would therefore be much more diluted. Their ingrained biases towards England and the Westminster establishment at such an election would also surely play very badly amongst Scottish voters, and reinforce the SNP’s core message about standing up for Scotland.
Maggie Thatcher once said that a majority of one in favour of Scottish Independence in Scotland’s constituencies at a UK general election would enable that to happen.
Nicola should tell Maggie May “bring it on”! With any form of majority in a snap general election, the SNP should declare the Act of Union to be over. They should then call an immediate national convention to represent Scotland in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations and prepare the grounds for a new independent Scottish state by 2020.
A tale of two cities returning home to Glasgow from a weekend in a fairly depressing Aberdeen,there is a stench of delusional optimism. shops closing down for sale and to Let signs aplenty, yet in many discussions with affluent businessmen they seem oblivious to what is about to descend apon Scotland under the Tories.. It would be interesting to poll the 50 percent who wish to keep the Union. Split into those who see Scotland as a region and except WM rule regardless.
Those who are not convinced of the economic arguments ( I’m all right Jocks)
And those through ignorance believe MSM propaganda ( hate The SNP , Nicola ) but will be tearful Tories as soon as SNP government can no longer mitigate Austerity cuts.I was shocked at most of the responses.
I don’t know if Stu has done this but it needs addressing.
Glasgow awaits .:)
Shouldn’t THE BBC register itself as a political party?
The BBC’s unwritten manifesto is clearly agenda biased, even before any content is examined.
heedtracker says:
Amazing! We all agree, of course, but what is surprising is a Tory minister actually holds that view.
I hope, and believe, that over the next year and a bit many people across the UK, Europe, and beyond, will see Scotland as “another country” and deserving of full self determination.
It will make the job of ensuring more than half of Scots that is true, when many others outside are talking like that.
In IndyRef1 few beyond Scotland sympathised with our cause. Next time will be different.
If you buy something in a shop that doesn’t do what it claims, you’re legally entitled to a refund. But if you willingly and knowingly buy a mystery package in a box and it turns out to be something you didn’t want, you’ve got no comeback.
That there …nails both arguments perfectly. That first sentence sums up the reasons for a 2nd Scottish Independence Referendum, while the second sentence nails why the EU Referendum was England’s great folly and why there cannot be a re-run of the arguments.
I doff my cap at you, Rev!
Robert Peffers
“Aye! And with a quite obviously wrong reading and logical conclusion of the evidence you quote the YES side will never cross that line.”
Eh Nope just checked it again. I said we would “struggle” to cross that line.
And then you went off on a mindless rant over statements I never said or could be implied from what I wrote.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
If we don’t get enough over 65s on board we will struggle to win enough support to cross the line that’s a fact.
They are the largest voting block in Scotland that is also a fact. It is they more than anybody else who are keeping us in the Union. That’s a fact.
Nobody is demonising anybody.
Jesus Christ man if you’re going to challenge what I say make sure you actually understand what it is I’m saying.
louis.b.argyll says:
19 March, 2017 at 4:01 pm
Shouldn’t THE BBC register itself as a political party?
It is, its the British fourth estate, of the realm, or the lead of it all. Not to be trifled with either.
Most beeb gimps we watch day in day out trying to destroy our fledgling democracy, are all fully aware that they will be in most front rooms, telling us how to vote, deciding what we can and cannot know, long after Nic Sturgeon has gone, was the deal before Scottish indy really got going anyway.
Its why Trump’s so dangerous in the US. He’s gone after and over the US media, for lots of different reasons ofcourse.
link to en.wikipedia.org
[…] is a reason for British nationalists’ desperate and dishonest efforts to minimise public demand for a new independence referendum – apart from the rather obvious fact that they regard that […]
Effijy (12:47) wrote: “I’m sick to death of this corrupt UK Crap.”
Well maybe the sooner folk such as yourself stop promoting their lies and cons we might start getting somewhere.
On 15/03/17 @ 07:34 you posted a response to my post alerting newbies and lurkers to the 38Degrees con you were touting.
I originally wasn’t going to reply to such a pile of rotten trype but I see you’re still determined to con newbies and lurkers so here is my reply to you.
You wrote:
“Do you think it would be useful for any independence voter trying counter the BBC’s denial of blatant Unionist Bias, to say that 100,000 signatures proves otherwise?”
It possibly could help their argument but (a)-We’ll never know and (b)-You don’t need to promote a marketing companies con to achieve the same result, there are plenty of excellent Indy sites with anti BBC material you should be promoting. So no, conning one Winger into parting with personal details just so you can say “but 100,000 people signed a fake petition agreeing with me” is way too far in my book.
Another factual point on your warped thinking is – if you are using that tactic in your arguments then you are further conning and lying to them because even if it ever reaches 100,000 it has not been signed by 100,000 individuals. I alone signed that petition several times long before we rumbled 38Degrees, and if a technophobe such as I can do that what do you think others have achieved?
You then wrote:
“..do you have an issue with people making up their own mind..?”
Yeah, right, that’s why every time I see some clown attempting to promote Unionist tools I tend to let newbies know the reality of the situation then they’re free to act on the info they have.
That’s what i class as giving them the freedom to make a informed choice. It is *you* who seems to think people shouldn’t be told the truth just so *you* can tell people even more lies.
And for the zillionth time, every time I see people attempting to promote Unionist tools and/or con other Wingers I will inform readers of the reality. They will then be free to make a informed choice. If that gives you a guilty conscience then don’t attempt to blame me, I’ m not the one touting the cons.
Stick to the good stuff that you do Effijy and dump the cons.
(Just a suggestion!)
Mike says:
19 March, 2017 at 2:25 pm
Jamie
The petitions are no worth the time they took to write.
They are open globally. Anybody with a PC can sign up. If you have access to more than 1 IP address you can sign up more than once.
Don’t give it oxygen.
Ruby replies
It can’t be restricted to only one vote per IP address.
That would mean only one person per IP address could vote. One per household! What would happen to people using public wi-fi like cafes, libraries, the buses etc etc.
‘Council leader Gordon Matheson said: “Today is a special day, when Glasgow becomes the first Scottish city to offer free Wifi.
“Anyone coming to the streets, public spaces and community centres covered by the first stage of this network will be able to take advantage of this innovative, fast and high-quality service.’
There are also VPNs which hide your IP address!
It would seem all you need are multiple email addresses, a name and a post-code of your choice.
How do they check your postcode?
How do they check if you are British citizen?
All these online petition are a waste of time unless you want to have some fun and cast a vote using some made up name like Boaty MacBoatface
Well another Tim on Referendums…Tim Shipman of The Times on BBC Paper review at 10.30 on Saturday night stated re another Indy Ref that the “first Scottish Indy ref was MUCH UGLIER than Brexit according to people HE knew who covered it”, “families divided got quite unpleasant”……really ? ….People HE knew who COVERED it.
Funny that, as a Scot involved in Indy campaign I do not recognise the description of the ‘YES’ campaign as per his description…or even description of ‘Brexit’ campaign as per his description.
Was I a conscious being through both campaigns ? ….Mmmm think I was Tim….churnalists huh, churning out lies creating the MOST division themselves!….oh sweet irony once more you exist.
Also according to Tim Shipman the first Indy Ref was a “a hated process and an ugly and unpleasant thing” …..Yeh sure it was cause people YOU know who COVERED it said so….enough said Duh !
As for Tim Faroff , well as a Lib Dem you and your party’s credibility, with your record of blatantly lying and reneging on policies, does NOTHING to convince me that you and your party are but opportunist Vultures scavenging the political landscape hoping to sweep up the ‘Remain’ voters left out to dry in the aftermath of the Brexit Armageddon.
Tim F wants to be a beacon of light for ‘Remain’ voters….. however come next election he would be happy to go into coalition with Tories again and implement the very policies that I suspect most REMAINERS would not identify as being ‘internationalist’ and outward looking.
My God Politics really really is a game, however not all political parties play by the rules and some…..even cheat…there but for the grace of God I would be a Lib Dem voter …..or voter of some t’other Unionist cult party.
Piggin Indy campaign not even started yet…..Duh !…..other side have though !
If I was Sturgeon, I would say autumn 18 and that’s not up for discussion.Any minor concession be it 6 months or 6 weeks. Is showing a sign of weakness not accommodation. They want to stop the Eu nationals voting in Indi ref 2 that’s why they want to wait. It’s a trap!
Clapper57 says:
19 March, 2017 at 4:24 pm
‘Tim Shipman of The Times on BBC Paper review at 10.30 on Saturday night stated re another Indy Ref that the “first Scottish Indy ref was MUCH UGLIER than Brexit ‘
He seems to have forgotten Jo Cox MP was murdered in the street by a Brexit fanatic, and a poor Polish guy was kicked to death. Not a good look.
Glamaig 2.28 and the ‘yes’ voter.
They dont know Scots very well if they think they like being asked the same question twice. So I’m going to vote No.
That’s great news.
Indyref2 result 55/45 for yes!
galamcennalath says:
19 March, 2017 at 4:03 pm
heedtracker says:
minister has described Scotland as “another country”
Amazing!
Aye, its an interesting blurt out of planet toryboy shock. Note they dont go into any detail on the how or why of another country. Its also indication of the kind of pressure likes of BBC Scotland are under to keep a lid on Scotland and Scottish democracy.
And it shows how great yesterday’s FM speech really was. The world is watching Scotland now.
Ruby
Ok Ruby so why don’t you tell me how these online petitions prevent people from voting more than once if they don’t restrict IP address voting more than once?
What do you think would happen to any online petition that didn’t limit the use of an IP address?
Come on.
Nice display of Telegraph front page headline, trying to get Ruth Davidson into the big time/block out the SNP.
Its not, its the Guardian front page headline, and this is how desperate they are now, in their Scotland region,
George Osborne
Ruth Davidson doubts George Osborne’s ability to remain an MP
Scottish Tory leader questions former chancellor’s vow to edit Evening Standard while representing his constituency
Ruth Davidson said after spending 10 years as a journalist and six as a politician she was not sure she could combine them both.
The leader of the Scottish Conservatives has questioned George Osborne’s vow to remain as an MP after he becomes editor of the London Evening Standard, as the chair of the parliamentary standards watchdog pledged to review rules on MPs’ second jobs.”
Graun liggers pile in behind a really vicious tory, shock!
Cymru Rydd @0356 pm . Whilst a snap election would probably strengthen TM’s hand in
England / RUK, the possibility of Tory gains in Scotland would be almost zero. You would think from
BBC/MSM that Ruth Davidson and her cohorts had circa 40-50 percent of the popular vote in Scotland when in fact they are polling around half of this. The SNP majorities at the GE were massive ( tens of thousands in most cases) and in a first past the post ballot I would expect the SNP to comfortably return a similar number of MP’s ., on probably a 45-50 pc vote share.( compare this to TM’s Tory vote share at last GE). However, I agree with your comments as regards “desperate situations require desperate remedies”, and there is a vast quantity of water to flow under the bridge before either the Brexit terms become clear or any referendum date is agreed. One thing is clear the Westminster establishment fear the loss of Scotland much more than any ” hard Brexit ” . In fact the FM’s intervention significantly weakens the PM’s negotiating position as ” Scotland’s assets” ( including oil, agriculture& fisheries etc.) cannot now be used as ” bargaining chips” by London.The Westminster establishment will use every conceivable means possible to hang on to Scotland ( at any cost). This could well include ” engineering another Tory coup “and installing someone to negotiate with the FM or manipulating public opinion away from hard Brexit ( again if Scotland looked like voting for independence), and calling a GE with ” moderate Tories” standing say to remain in single market ( new leader ) . The BBC/MSM already failed in their coup attempt to depose JC and install a red Tory ” blairite” as opposition leader ( and thereafter possible future media move to consider ” red Tory government” if ” required by establishment”.). As I say there is a vast quantity of water to flow under the ” Tower Bridge” before the ” smoke clears”. The Westminster establishment and ” state propaganda apparatus” will engineer whatever is necessary to keep the ” precious precious union” ( possession) that they just cannot afford to lose. This ” trumps ” the European /Brexit issue”.It is very noticeable in her PM questions appearances that TM is beginning to look significantly nervous and unassured as the pressure is only beginning to build from Edinburgh and Brussels.
Just a small interesting statistical observation:
Last weekend WOS Twitter had under 50,000 followers.
By Monday 13/03/17 it had 50,005 followers.
By mid week it had 50,175 followers.
And today, as I post, it has over 50,330 followers.
And that’s on top of the most recent WOS readership numbers of 330,000.
Yeah, the only way is up, Yazz baby!
😀
@Glamaig
“He seems to have forgotten Jo Cox MP was murdered in the street by a Brexit fanatic, and a poor Polish guy was kicked to death. Not a good look”.
Yes Glamaig….How convenient he forgot… but I am sure his comments, he felt , were suitably appropriate , as they were purely agenda driven and under the ‘Job done’ category…..and also let’s not forget those Brexiteers who shouted ‘Get back to your own country’ at foreigners….and their combined compulsive obsession with immigrants being the root of all their problems….Do they know Tory policies ?…..it must have grated him re Nicola’s open and inclusive section in her speech yesterday i.e. to ALL people being welcome into Scotland……he obviously did not want it to appear that there was such a glaring distinction between Nicola’s open society and the Tories protectionist insular post Brexit future.
You and I both know pure Pish when spoken and how London peeps underestimate that Scots know spin when they both read and hear it…..monumental fail old boy…..hope they keep trying though as the more they lie the more we are convinced that Independence is the right path for us…..och aye the noo Tim….gaun yirsel.
Its a lazy Sunday afternoon –
so can I just throw this little paragraph into the pot.
Then stand well back!
” The Queen was able to lend her considerable symbolic weight to the Better Together side in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. If a second one were to be held during the reign of King Charles, despite his well-known love for the country, he might find that his opinions don’t carry the same weight as his predecessor’s. “
link to archive.is
Big Jock
The idea is to have the vote within the interim period between the end of the negotiations and the deliberations over the proposals.
The FM KNOWS that the Indyref has to be held before the deliberations are complete and a deal is finalised.
Her window of compromise is taking that view as her boundary for negotiation.
I believe and I believe the FM does as well that the EU will openly look favourably on a Scottish membership deal as part of their negotiation strategy with the UK Government because that more than anything will put pressure on the UK Government to come to an EU friendly accommodation sooner relative to later.
The EU are waiting for the actual triggering of article 50 before they openly comment on Scotlands position.
The Scottish Indy ref is a negotiation gift from the Gods they will take full advantage off and in doing so will advantage Scotlands overall Indy campaign.
The UK Government wont be negotiating against 27 EU members but against 28.
When all is said and done if I was forced to choose I would rather be in Nicola Sturgeons position than Teresa Mays.
Mike says:
19 March, 2017 at 4:55 pm
Ruby
Ok Ruby so why don’t you tell me how these online petitions prevent people from voting more than once if they don’t restrict IP address voting more than once?
What do you think would happen to any online petition that didn’t limit the use of an IP address?
Come on.
Ruby replies
I don’t think they do.
Just back from Aberdeen. All I can say is
link to youtube.com
This may have been suggested before but
but why dont the scot govt try and get backing
for a euro tv channel for scotland and that will
counter act or call out any lies put forward by
the msm.
for one things for sure my tv needs to go to the
hospital or needs an exorcism for all the bile
and shite its been spewing out continually for
the last week or so its got to the stage where im scared
to turn it on.
@Ruby/Mike :
“Mike says:
19 March, 2017 at 4:55 pm
Ruby
Ok Ruby so why don’t you tell me how these online petitions prevent people from voting more than once if they don’t restrict IP address voting more than once?
What do you think would happen to any online petition that didn’t limit the use of an IP address?
Come on.
Ruby replies
I don’t think they do.”
Its nowhere near as simple as IP address Mike. Once its all IPv6 then yes its that simple as all devices will have a unique IP address. We can all be tracked then.
For now consider this – if you vote via a mobile phone network then you vote from the same apparent IP address as everyone else on that network/location. Its called Carrier Grade NAT (look it up).
IP address & browser/OS/MAC fingerprinting narrow things down. Then cookies (obviously) & tracking. Online petitions are probably 20% bullshit even after that as its easy enough to use another browser/OS/whatever.
Regarding these Spanish MEPs who keep being wheeled out, I wonder if the words of David Coburn or Roger Helmer are held in such esteem by the Spanish press?
The only ‘valid’ petitions that would be considered legitimate are the parliament ones, where you have to provide your postcode, these are the only ones that parliament would consider debating which is what I mean by ‘valid’. 38degrees allowed Gordon Brown to hijack a pro independence petition to push Downing Street to give us more powers after indyref1′ as if it was his petition which is was not. 38degree et al are merely hoovering up addresses and do very little in the way of actually ‘changing’ the outcomes for those petitioning governments’ for changes in policy etc. The fact that they allowed this petition to be hijacked lost them a lot of credibility in our movement.
Ergo personally ah would never sign a petition from this or any of these other commercial type companies again.
The exception I would say is maybe Avaraz (not sure of spelling), they have a global track record of real activism that does produce real change…they literally have the lawyers and advocacy groups to pursue the agenda under petition. They put their lives at risk advocating against some really powerful interests on the planet.
Do we mean online petitions like the ones on newspaper sites etc? These can easily be voted on time and time again, just clear the cache and repeat etc. Or use different browsers. The ones for change.org and 38 degrees you usually have to use your email address and you can of course ‘sign’ from the same IP address several times obviously. When we have signed petitions at home we have all signed from same IP address, it’s our different names and different email addresses that allow for those signatures to be added, therefore it is easy to cheat these online petitions cause you can just crate email accounts with different names on the petition. You can of course pick any post code in the uk to use too, if they want that for ‘verification’.
Mike says:
19 March, 2017 at 4:55 pm
Ruby
Ok Ruby so why don’t you tell me how these online petitions prevent people from voting more than once if they don’t restrict IP address voting more than once?
What do you think would happen to any online petition that didn’t limit the use of an IP address?
Come on.
Ruby replies
Perhaps my last reply was a bit weak. I’ll try again.
Did you read my original post for reason why online petitions could not be restricted to one vote per IP address?
I did give the petition a go and entered some rubbish just to see what would happen and at the end it said ‘not signed until I click the link in the email’.
All it asked was if I was a British citizen or UK resident.
They didn’t ask what age I was. I could be 10 years old.
There was nothing to say that there was a restriction to one vote per household. If there were then my husband would be denied a vote unless he used a VPN to hide our IP address or perhaps he could try to be the first person to vote in his office.
I’m kinda reluctant to actually vote and see what happens when I click the email link. Do you fancy having a go?
I’m not convinced by these online petitions.
Vestas
Again I’m being misunderstood. I’m not saying that IP addressing protects individual voting I’m saying IP addressing has to be limited to 1 vote per address or anybody and everybody can vote more than once from the same keyboard.
What I’m saying and you’re confirming is that online petitions are not valid because they cant be protected from people voting more than once.
They are a nonsense and best ignored.
K1 says:
19 March, 2017 at 5:30 pm
The only ‘valid’ petitions that would be considered legitimate are the parliament ones, where you have to provide your postcode,
Ruby replies
How do they check your postcode?
K1
Exactly. They are a complete waste of time and effort and worse can be used to steal your identity.
For most of the day, the BBC Scotland website political section has featured Ruth Davidson saying “Scots do not want a referendum” and of course, no comments are permitted unlike when Nicola Sturgeon and SNP were featured and thousands of comments were permitted, many verging on abusive. Is Donalda MacKinnon having any influence on BBC Scotland yet?
Ruby
“I don’t think they do.”
Ruby they have to. They have no choice. At the very very least they have to limit IP address inputs to one per vote.
It would be a total farce if they didn’t.
K1 says
You can of course pick any post code in the uk to use too, if they want that for ‘verification’
Ruby replies
This petition is open to British citizen or UK resident so you could basically pick any postcode in the world.
Obviously if you wanted to make it look as if the majority of signatures were from Alex Salmond’s constituency you would pick that postcode.
Ruby replies
How do they check your postcode?
Indeed. Now you’re asking the right questions and getting the idea. Anybody can put up any postcode address online.
Online petitions are unsafe unreliable and subject to total corruption of purpose.
Worse they can be used against people who give up their personal details to vote.
K1:
I was just lurking, do you mean Avaaz.org?
Peace Always
Mike says:
19 March, 2017 at 5:53 pm
Ruby
“I don’t think they do.”
Ruby they have to. They have no choice. At the very very least they have to limit IP address inputs to one per vote.
It would be a total farce if they didn’t.
Ruby replies
Restricting the vote to one per IP address makes it a total farce.
If someone puts up a petition ‘Another Scottish Independence Referendum SHOULD be allowed’ I will see how many times I can vote.
The parliament petition that Jamie linked to is to my mind fair enough, nearly 1.8 million signatures against the state visit of Trump forced a debate a few short weeks ago and while it looked on the surface of it that we lost that debate the reality is he’s been side lined and it’s all become a bit hush hush since then. You can actually source the countries of origin of those voting on parliament petitions…swathes of people from around the planet voted on that particular petition but the vast majority were UK.
Just needs 10,000 to trigger debate Jamie, which it’s already achieved. The anti independence one with its higher number will trigger debate anyways and they will include the pro independence one at the same time.
I’ve a strong sense that many won’t necessarily sign the pro independence one at this time Jamie as ah think we’re all too aware we’re doing it and it isn’t actually up to Westminster. Let the anti independence mob have their delusions verified during the debate when it comes.
We’ve moved past the dummy fighting…it’s happening whether they object to it or not. 😉
Aye Smallaxe 😉
@mike
I suspect these petitions are pretty crude and they just use the email address as identifying the individual, after all they ignore most of them anyway, it’s just a bit of PR. They could use name & postcode also but I doubt it.
It is open voting multiple times if you have enough email address, I have an infinite number of them. All you need to do is make up a postcode and name. If you are worried about being traced use Opera browser with its built in VPN.
I’ve gotten a bit irritated by this Media biased shit storm. So I’ve ordered another box of SNP leaflets for delivery next week.
Mike says:
19 March, 2017 at 5:56 pm
Ruby replies
How do they check your postcode?
Indeed. Now you’re asking the right questions and getting the idea. Anybody can put up any postcode address online.
Ruby replies
Glad you think I’m doing better now! 🙂
How do they check your nationality?
How do they check your name?
How do they check that you are a resident of the UK?
How do they check what age you are?
How do they check your mental health?
How do they check if you are in prison?
How do they check your IP address if you use a VPN?
I hope these are the right question and you are even more impressed now!
Ruby, that’s ‘kinda’ the petition Jamie’s post referred to:
‘Agree to a second referendum on Scottish Independence
The actions of the UK government after the Brexit vote do not align with the people of Scotland. We are not bigoted. We are not racist. We welcome everybody based on their contribution, not on where they come from. The UK government does not behave in this way and so we must LEAVE.’
Gie it a go…interested to know how ye fair 😉
link to petition.parliament.uk
Indeed Ruby now we’re on the same page.
They cant! Hence online polling is a farce.
If the UK are going to keep putting this pressure on EU citizens by the threat of having to leave are they going to make special dispensation for folks from the Irish Republic or do they get a Nissan deal
I’m kinda thinking everybody from the Republic will be likely voting Yes unless the UK disposes of EU citizens rights to vote by Brexit time or is it going to be you can come here and pay tax but you’re not getting the vote
Any Irish folk out there like to give us a call and tell us what you think of all this and how it feels for the UK to be using you, this invitation applies to all EU folks, come on to WINGS and let us know what’s going on with you
K1 says:
19 March, 2017 at 6:11 pm
You can actually source the countries of origin of those voting on parliament petitions
Ruby replies
Only if people are honest and they don’t use a VPN.
Too easy to cheat!
I could currently connect to the internet using a server in almost any country in the world using a VPN.
@K1 6:11pm
For what it’s worth I winnae be signing the petition for exactly the reason you state.
K1
There are loads of online petitions I agree with and would sign up to in a heart beat if I didn’t believe they were worthless and unrepresentative.
Christ there is enough despotic undemocratic manipulated systems out there without adding to them.
Does anyone know if Teresa has had any meetings with the BBC recently?
For clarity’s sake here’s ma reason for supporting the parliamentary petitions, in the case of the anti Trump state visit we got to watch our Scottish MP’s in action and some of the first class reasoning and debating skills of our chosen representatives out smarting, shaming and generally wiping the floor and smug smiles of the face of the Tories who supported his state visit was worth adding ma signature to that petition.
It shows up the stark contrast in our polity’s attitudes and principles and to use one of ma favourite terms: it gets it right up the fucking lot of them.
Dr Jim
Consider this.
NI is in a Parliamentary treaty of Union with the “FULL JOINT” Parliament of the UK.
When Scotland achieves its Independence it ENDS the “FULL JOINT” Parliamentary Union with the Parliament of England Wales. So all that is left is the “SEPERATE” and “AUTONOMOUS” Parliament of Scotland and Parliament of England Wales.
NI is NOT in a treaty of Union with the Parliament of England Wales nor is it in a treaty of Union with the Parliament of Scotland. Therefore it is free of any treaty obligations with a Parliament that no longer exists.
NI is Independent by default which allows the Rep of Ireland a GREATER claim over sovereignty than the Parliament of England Wales.
Something I believe nobody has considered.
Irrespective of ‘all’ the exact same points we are ‘all’ making and that we ‘all’ agree on re petitions.
When the anti Trump one came along a lot of us signed it…even though we didn’t give a toss about the ‘wording’ of it. Parliament debates them and that’s the point, they get publicity if they are huuuuge bigly and if we’re lucky we’ll get tae watch another clown show when they debate the anti independence one…if only tae watch Alex wipe the floor wi them it’ll be worth a watch. 😉
(ah won’t be signing the pro one either…we’re beyond ‘petitioning’ for our freedom)
K1 says:
Gie it a go…interested to know how ye fair ?
Ruby replies
I voted and so did one of my friends who is visiting from Glasgow.
She just used my computer.
My other visitors are also keen to vote so I’ve said they could also use my computer.
Another friend is on the train and she said she would just use the train’s wi-fi.
?
?
My winky face turned into a ? on last post.
How about the Rev carrying out a new opinion poll based on the actual information from the Scottish government as to the possible date and to the reason.
Something such as “Do you agree the Scottish Government should hold an Independence Referendum when the Brexit deal is clear and the other 27 Parliament’s in the EU are voting on it”
Chuck in a question about the EEA versus being in the EU from day one as well.
And as another, how about three currency questions. One on the Euro, one on a Scottish pound and one on Sterling.
And my final suggestion, Do you believe the UK will be worse off with a hard Brexit.
I am sure most of us would fund this if required, t get some hard information to use against all the establishment Fake News.
?
My winky face turned into a ? in last post.
Re: a snap Westminster election
That’s a lot harder than it used to be, because of the Fixed Term Parliament Act (2011).
This restricts the PM’s options to
a) 2/3 of MPs vote for one
b) the HoC “resolves that this House has no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government”
(link to en.wikipedia.org)
Option a) seems unlikely to pass at present; Labour would fear losing even more seats and I would be surprised if there was much support among other opposition parties.
Option b) is problematic because it does not immediately lead to an election; there is a 14-day period within which someone else can ask the House to support a resolution that they do have confidence. So in theory such a tactic could lead to PM Jeremy Corbyn (yes, I know – he wouldn’t win that vote, but it would show up the opportunism).
A government seeking to declare no confidence in itself would be bizarre. That doesn’t mean they definitely wouldn’t try it, of course, and they might have a majority to repeal the Act, which in any case is due for scrutiny shortly before the 2020 election (if that happens as currently scheduled).
I watched misreporting Scotland this evening and was bolstered by news that Scottish Food & Drink Exports have
dramatically increased.
This was of great concern as the BBC are not allowed to say anything positive about Scotland, or show good economic figures.
It seems that we exported over £5.5 Billion of goods,
said to self- “what is going on here”, and low and behold, £2 Billion of Exports were to the EU, and they did say this as I played it back 3 times, £8.5 Billion was sold to the rest of the UK?
I’m good with Arithmetic, after a very sound Scottish Schooling, but I checked on my fingers, after disengaging 2 that were gesturing to wee Ruth’s picture on the TV, and
2 plus 8.5 do not add up to 5.5.
I presume that if confronted, good old Westminster Beeeb
will say that this issue lies with sound quality as it was
£8.5 Million, a tiny fraction of the EU exports, but I’m sure the dastardly did is done with the gullible confirming that we just couldn’t do without the Empire.
Sicken Propaganda, again, and again, and again.
k1
“When anti trump one came along a lot of us signed it… even though we didn’t give a toss about the wording of it”
Fuck. What you’ve just described is Trumpesque. A petition/vote that ignored the very concept of fair democracy reality truth honesty reliability conviction and accuracy.
It Trumesque language it was a fake poll. No matter how many genuine people signed it.
It was flawed because it could be so easily compromised. That’s the problem.
Even when you want to do something for all the best intentions sometimes you cant because your methods end up corrupting your purpose.
That’s what happened with this poll.
Harry 2.16. Fitba,racing type Scots.
You are correct politics is what happens above these guys heads. They don’t realise that damage until it’s to late then blame the SNP, because the Daily Fail told them.
They don’t even understand why we have any referendums. They get outraged for a week and then capitulate. In other words the Tories and the UK screw up things and they say I know but what can you do. Doing nothing means you let everything slide.
BBC Radio Scotland 7.00pm news leads with Ruth Davidson saying Scots don’t a referendum and no comment from Nicola. Radio4 6.00pm news quoted Nicola Sturgeon first then Ruth Davidson.
Amazing the problem seems closer to home.
IP addresses is a bit of a red herring. Most people are on dynamic ones via their ISP, or via the ISP of the wireless contact point. Which means that it changes, so anyone could vote multiple times. Or if they restrict it, multiple people on the same IP address only get one vote between them.
It doesn’t stop them being of some use though, in combination with the message headers which give a fair bit more information (user-agent, browser, version etc.), but it isn’t en exact science.
Even in my case, where I have a block of 8 static IP addresses specifically obtained for business needs, there’s just one IP address for any device I connect to the router, including iPhones.
Mike, what I said is that for many from the independence movement it was not actually important in terms of the ‘wording’ of the petition, as it specifically related to his ‘state visit’. Really many ‘genuine’ people signed cause we didn’t think he should be be visiting, period.
It served the purpose of providing a debate in parliament. For many across the UK who signed it for the exact wording, no doubt they really felt the queen would be embarrassed by this. That’s partly what the debate centred around. Did you watch the debate?
‘Fuck. What you’ve just described is Trumpesque. A petition/vote that ignored the very concept of fair democracy reality truth honesty reliability conviction and accuracy.’
I’ve no clue what this means Mike? So what you then went onto say doesn’t really make sense?
O/T
No interruptions from the interviewer, what a pleasant change
Michelle Thomson on Francetv
link to youtube.com
Footsoldier says:
19 March, 2017 at 7:07 pm
‘BBC Radio Scotland 7.00pm news leads with Ruth Davidson saying Scots don’t a referendum and no comment from Nicola.’
They told me that they give the other view on alternate news bulletins. Listen at 8pm and if they dont have Nicola with no Ruth, make a complaint.
Perhaps they know the times when the audience is bigger, and allocate accordingly?
Why do they always have Unionist on at 7:40am and the SNP replying at 8:10am? Why are the SNP always on the back foot ‘replying’ or defending? But then I couldnt swear that is always the case, its just my perception.
To get stats on it all would be a full time job not to be wished on anybody.
Davidson – you don’t have a mandate
Dugdale – you dont have a mandate
Davidson and Dugdale together you dont have a mandate.
Get back to your day jobs
Some good info here about growth in food and drink exports.
Ordinary folk not following politics, just too busy with life,,have no idea how much our gov’t has been doing quietly to get ready for independence.
Since 2007, exports have grown 30-40%.
link to dailybusinessgroup.co.uk
The Lib Party that promised no increase in Uni fees and increased them £6000 a year. They kept the Tories in power to ruin the world economy. Ruined the Oil sector in Scotland with high taxes and lost Scotland 120,000 jobs and £Billions. Increased the debt £turns. That’s Fallon. They can’t be trusted on anything. Malicious liars. The majority of the electorate do not understand a think Fallon is saying and are even less interested. Gooblygeek. Nonsense.
Thing about these polls is interest and priority. We haven’t been on holiday for years, so if you asked me my favourite holiday destination who know what I’d say, it doesn’t concern me.
There was some recent poll which had people’s priorities, and the Constitution was well down the list. There’s no referendum been called, it’s “just” verbals doing the rounds. Even May hasn’t actually turned one down, there’s no legislation, no date. And as for Davidson, who listens to politics programs, and who cares about her opinion about something which doesn’t even exist yet. She might as well be saying that Scotland doesn’t want the colour purple, though that might offend more people than it pleases.
If the preliminary questions are “who did you vote for, how did you vote in the last referendum”, chances are people will say the first thing that comes into their heads – unless they’re politically minded like SNP or Tory supporters in which case the answer is political, and non-representative of the whole population.
Polls are a bit of fun, something when it goes our way we taunt the unionists with, when it goes their way we say, like I just did there, that’s it doesn’t matter! Though questions about other things can get a more considered answer. Like – what is important to you out of this list, rank them, supermarket prices, wages, health, price of fuel, blah blah.
When IndyRef2 is called, and a date set, then it’ll be different – but mostly in the last 2 or 3 weeks.
Valerie,
I think it’s called “getting on with the day job”.
(You know, that very thing that TRuthless and carbon-copy TRuthless keep claiming the SG doesn’t do.)
I see there are posts encouraging Yessers to sign a PETITION in favour of a second referendum.
I posted this on Wings on 16 March, 2017 at 4:18 pm. I think its worth re-posting as I feel very strongly that having won the democratic mandate for a second indyref, participating in a PETITION on the specific subject is daft, if not potentially damaging.
I stated:
“Regarding the several references in earlier posts to current petitions for or against a second Indy referendum, I have no intention of signing one on this subject: I have no intention in participating in a competition between opposing petitions.
I voted in the last Holyrood elections for a party standing with a clear manifesto commitment to hold a second indyref under certain circumstances that have now come about. That party, now in government, will put its proposition to the test in Holyrood shortly – and is likely to win majority approval. This is what matters.
Petitions on this subject at this time are a distraction. Participating in one in favour of a second indy ref just gives undeserved status to one opposing a second indyref. The democratic case for a second indyref has been made and if approved in Holyrood, then the case will have been won where it matters at this time.
If opponents in Holyrood wish to test the mood of the Scottish electorate, let their MSPs resign and trigger new elections or table a motion of no confidence in the Scottish government and see where this gets them. If not, let them respect the decision of the Scottish Parliament.”
If two opposing petitions lead to more signitaries for our opponents, the media will try to make hay and the Tories in Scotland and in the HoC will point to their support of public opinion (or a least they’ll try): I’d rather be forcing them to compare and contrast a petition result with the democratic mandate of the Scottish Government whose action on indyref2 is endorsed by the Scottish Parliament! Don’t give away our democratic ‘high ground’ too easily and play the Unionist games.
Re online petitions: you either sign them or you don’t.
Now, please can we all kiss and make up? There is a far bigger job to be getting on with than pissing on eachother.
A very timely link, Valerie.
My wife was trying to turn some previous No-voting pals recently. They regurgitated the predictable “There’s no oil left” stuff but even more incredibly, apparently there’s not enough whisky!
This is in my faves now, for future reference.
And I don’t think it takes into account the 70% of Scottish gin production. Mind you, that probably gets exported via English ports, so doesn’t get included in our “balance sheet”.
It’s a wonderful Yoon World, suckers.
Short but informative animation about the media. They “Manufacture Consent” as Noam Chomsky wrote. Why you won’t get any truth about Scottish Independence on the MSM. 4:49 mins
link to youtube.com
I gave up on R Scotland this morning. Like everybody else, I’m sick and tired of their blatant propaganda. It’s like living in an occupied country. This is how the Belgians probably felt once the Nazis moved in. Radio Berlin was no doubt very entertaining. But told lies 24/7.
Watching SS GB hasn’t improved my disdain!
Today’s top 10 Scottish News stories at 8pm according to the BBC in Scotland text service:
(1): Davidson: Scots do not want a referendum.
(2): Man and woman charged with murder bid.
(3): Orkney Viking totem pole vandalised.
(4): Bogus workman steals OAP’s life savings.
(5): Man badly hurt in glass attack in pub.
(6): Workers return to power fault platform.
(7): Man in hospital after basement fire.
(8): Vulnerable teenager found after search.
(9): Food and drink exports hit record high.
(10): Man charged over cyclist’s death.
If you want a real poll the one on c4 the last leg gave indi 75%, but as it was a comedy show it won’t count .
@stewartb
Well said, I dont remember polls being an issue when Cameron got his mandate for the EURef, so why for us?
@Footsoldier
there you go, 8pm bulletin had Nicola but then broadcast Ruth as well. But they will say they are balanced overall because around midnight they might broadcast just Nicola. Or they might not, who wants to listen to every bulletin and count them up.
Nana – thanks for the France 24 link , what a breath of fresh air , it makes the BBC and our media seem so bloody obviously blatantly biased, we have become so used to the constant hectoring , that we have forgotten how a good interview works , Questions were asked and answers given any clarification needed was addressed its that simple .
Also at last a good MP is starting to get back her confidence after the shit storm and unproven
Glamaig@7.29
Its called the BBC!!!
I expect no favour from the Empire Broadcasting Corp when it comes to impartiality, fairness and bias.
I hope to see a vast number of punters outside Pathetic Quay next Sunday, a loud voice speaking as one so the media can’t ignore it.(although the Empire probably will)
We are doing the usual 350 mile round trip.
Saw the twat Brewer on Ya tube, Christ he definitely believes his own press.
@Mike
I hadn’t considered that angle,,,,, interesting!
OT – sport, cobber
For rugger fans, Scotland 5th in world rankings, though this site isn’t updated yet. It was a bit mixed yesterday as if England had beaten Ireland I think we’d have been 4th, in the first pool and therefore not drawn against the other 3 top sides. But at least we’re in the second top pool – top of it so don’t have to play in a group with 2 of the top 8.
link to worldrugby.org
Worth playing with the dates in that to see how Scotland has improved so much.
Heard on the radio during the night that the England coach whatever his name is has blamed the result on “the team ran out of steam”. Nothing about Ireland being the better team – on the day as it always is – who are 4th in the World. That really pissed me off. “We’re the best team really, we would have won but it was the wrong type of snow on the tracks”. At least Scotland said the English played superbly last week.
We’ll miss Vern, but good luck to Gregor. He’s a good man – whatever his Indy politics are (I don’t know!).
@Capella
thanks for that
heres a transcript of some of it I think its good to see it in print.
‘when the media – journalists, whistle-blowers, sources – stray away from the consensus, they get flak. Thats the fourth filter. When the story is inconvenient for the powers that be, you’ll see the flak machine in action, discrediting sources, trashing stories, and diverting the conversation.’
O/T
Downing Street dismisses early election speculation as ‘nonsense’
link to archive.is
Could be fake news, maybe?
link to uk.businessinsider.com
Hi Nana
Have a look at this, spotted by Iain and Cherry
Yew Choob on the BBC link to m.youtube.com
Nana: finally caught up with your Michelle Thomson link.
Another excellent performance to add to Joanna Cherry’s and, of course the FM’s.
Mind you, she was treated with respect and allowed to answer the questions: so unusual in #BentBritainMedia.
Remind me: what happened to all those smears/allegations against her again?
O/T
Well, here it is:
‘Wee Black Book – The Movie’
link to youtube.com
Enjoy!
Graeme Doig says:
19 March, 2017 at 6:29 pm
Does anyone know if Teresa has had any meetings with the BBC recently?””
………
No, I think Laura Keunsberg acts as go-between.
@Cadogan
That is just brilliant, think it’s Jock’s best yet. Great advert for our billboards as well.
Haha “Donalda where’s yer troosers”
Pat Kane very good Micheal Greenwell podcast, don’t know who posted it earlier but well worth a listen, nuanced points regarding negativity re Scotref approach to being trolled by the haters et al. Cambridge analytica mentioned and expanded upon in terms of Scotland in Union and a plethora of insightful talking points…takeaway message: we aw need to start getting together aff social media and meet up mair in real time and be the country we envisage for ourselves and our future…
https://michaelgreenwell.wordpress.com
frogesque says: @7;53pm
“Now, please can we all kiss and make up?”
I’ve been standing here Puckered up and not even got a wee peck on the cheek!
Deeply Disappointed so I am.
Peace Always
@Robert Graham
You are welcome Robert. I enjoyed the interview with Michelle, a good speaker keeping calm and measured throughout.
Ruthie needs to watch and see how it’s done. Hint for you Ruthie, don’t rant dear. Its not a good look and your face goes a horrible puce colour. Oh and it’s bad for your blood pressure.
Dr Jim
I’m amazed the NI Indy movement hasn’t picked up on that constitutional fact.
@ Robert Peffers
Could this be the pdf version you are referring to in an earlier post of yours.
link to oilofscotland.org
May and DAVIDSON can head us off at the pass.
Offer us control over fishing, agriculture, immigration. Or go the whole hog and give us Broonies federalism. That will stop us in our tracks.
It’s not difficult, they have the power. Over to you Ruth, you can do it
Ronnie A and Jock,
I hope you’ll be printing out the lyrics for that yew choob vid, so that everyone on saturday can have a sing-song.
Possibly the only consistent thing that Polls show is an agreement throughout the UK. 50%+ majority.
‘Scotland can be Independent in the EU and England/Wales can be Independent in the EU’ The majority (over 50%+) polled agree with that preposition. Quite reasonable.
Allowing for the usual poor analysis and poor calculation of the data by most pollsters.
Davidson will be considerably annoyed when the motion is passed in Holyrood. The mandate to hold an IndyRef is given. She appeared to be consumed with rage in most interviews. Fuming. Being sidelined.
Scotland has to have full control over the finances to really make a complete difference. Control over raising and spending taxes. No taxation without representation. A standard pillar of a Democracy. A federal system dues not achieve that because the unionists cheat on the book keeping and try to conceal the data. They do not open the books to complete scrutiny. What is being spent, on what choices, where the funds are allocated, is just as important as taxes raised.
Wee Alex @ 20:53,
“Broonies federalism” is UK-wide, so dividing the UK up into federal states whose populations are roughly the size of Scotland’s would give England+Wales 10+1 against Scotland’s solitary 1. So we would still be completely outvoted, just the same as in WM.
And the heavy political price TM would have to pay in England to keep Scotland wouldn’t wouldn’t be worth the aggravation anyway. A recent poll showed that a 2/3 majority of “British” people are hell-bent on Brexit even if they have to dump Scotland to achieve it:
link to archive.is
And who could we trust to deliver any such Vow2 either…?
OT but important
I see from a post btl on the Herald the DT (used to stand for Delirium Tremens) and the Sunday Times have a story about Moody’s downrating Scotland because of the inceased deficit. Which of course the DT (and possibly ST) translated to “junk status” with great glee.
But 1). It’s 2016 figures, not the ones for when Scotland goes Indy which will be 2020 at least. 2). in 2014 Moody’s stated they got their figures from the UK Gov Treasury (Danny Alexander!!!!!) and would have to do a proper ratings analysis for Scotland. 3). It’s a director talking, not an actual report. Remember the London Tory-loving Deutsche Bank “Scotland a dust bowl”. And
4). Moody’s down-rated the whole UK and 12 banks the day after the EU ref from stable to negative outlook. Scotland in the EU (or single market) would clearly recover that.
https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-changes-outlook-on-12-UK-banks-and-building-societies–PR_351352
Just so’s you warned what’s coming!
galamcennalath,
“Macart says:
there is no union, only absorption
Good point. That has probably been unspoken policy for 300years!”
In other words, Scotland has been a colony of England for the last 310 years.
Although I get attacked by you guys for saying that.
If the Scottish parliament votes by a majority to seek Westminster’s permission to hold a referendum, to me there is no doubt that Westminster will refuse.
Will the Scottish government dare to go ahead and hold a referendum WHEN IT WANTS TO?
“Nicola Sturgeon’s proposed timeframe for a new vote is between 19 months and 25 months.?”
If it does, it would be nothing less than the start of UDI.
If it is forced to accept Saint Theresa’s timetable, it will be nothing less than accepting that the Scottish people are not “sovereign”.
Judgement day is near.
Push comes to shove Westminster will suddenly remember the ability to retain a stake in any pre dissolution treaty, subject to negotiation, is open to all successor states regardless of whether any of them is a continuation of the previous state or not. The only real complication with NI is that Scotland, NI and the rUK would then be negotiating to see who NI wanted to remain associated with. By the same token the rUK has fucked its input into the negotiation between an independent Scotland and the EU to retain or regain our part of the UK membership.
In case anyone missed Mhairi Black’s contribution at conference re sanctions and social security here she is, also Jamie Hepburn.
Scotland will remove the sanctions regime for those in receipt of social security benefits, our government recognises that people can and do and will get into difficulties and our social security system is there to prevent our folk falling into destitution. Unlike the Tory government we will no longer be a part of their inhumane treatment of our citizens when it is those very policies that they have created that have caused the dire straits that many families and individuals have fallen victim to.
link to youtube.com
It’s being pointed out to Gerry Adams as I type to see if it’s constitutionally correct
I know people who know people who are doing it so we’ll see
If I hear something I’ll be posting it like mad
“Dr Jim says:
19 March, 2017 at 9:45 pm
It’s being pointed out to Gerry Adams as I type to see if it’s constitutionally correct
I know people who know people who are doing it so we’ll see
If I hear something I’ll be posting it like mad”
I will be chuffed to fuck if my theories are used to reunify Ireland.
Phew, it’s quite a task to catch up with everything! The week I’m mostly offline, all hell breaks loose!
Sorry, I haven’t read all the comments, and maybe this has been brought up many times…
One thing unionists seem to be pushing is “it’s safer to stay with the UK single market”, rather than be independent and be in EFTA/EU single market.
It’s like saying “Put all your eggs in one basket, ours, and if we stumble and fall and break all your eggs… Oops, sorry, but at least we’re British together, haha!”
Independence and EFTA/EU membership would allow Scotland to place her eggs in several baskets. One EFTA/EU partner stumbles and falls, other baskets are still intact.
Hmm. I’m probably talking basket case economy here…
Anyway, what is Scotland – rUK trade?
Scotland exports to the rUK energy (fossil and renewable), food and drink, tourism… clever, well-educated people. Biotech, gaming are global.
rUK imports to Scotland… foodstuffs, including innovative English jams… OK, probably some manufacturing, financial services and such like.
The point is, Scotland has a positive trade balance, rUK’s (especially England’s) not so much.
It’s probably why Theresa May said Scottish independence would ruin their Brexit deal – no Scottish resources and assets to trade away in Brexit negotiations.
All the awful Johnny Foreigners in the rest of the world are not as daft as right-wing Tories and Brexiteers seem to think. (I make an exception for Donald Trump.) Empire 2.0 is not going down well in the rest of the world. There’s a lot of sympathy for Scotland, though much can’t be expressed openly on governmental level.
The PM (party) appoints the BBC Heid, Political placeman. PM meets the BBC Heid controller every week so the controller can be given their orders. They meet every week. Plus Westminster Press Office phones and e-mail on demand to get out the orders, The Heid controller of BBC Scotland goes down to HQ every month to get their orders. Along with phone calls and e-mails on demand. To keep to the guide lines. Every Editor is on recall telephone calls from Tory/Unionist HO to make sure the line is kept. With threats of menace and penalties if there is non compliance.
It is a corrupt set up. Briefing the Press incessantly to get out a biased viewpoint. Any non compliance, the heavies are brought in to lean upon. The Press placeperson lose their jobs. A few persistent phone calls to the Chairman or CO of the Press company. Many reporters are freelance. They sell articles by Commission or demand for extravagance recompense and they pay little tax by avoidance, especially those higher up the chain. The remuneration is considerably high.
It is the readers/viewers who are being fleeced with substandard information, The internet or leaks on line can be a way around the corruption.
Spotted this earlier, interesting first comment on this article
“I don’t think anyone can make a positive case for the union”
link to sluggerotoole.com
I’ve just been catching up on the Daily Politics from this morning.
I can’t believe the comment from the Tory woman, Isabel Oakeshott. She said “Nicola Sturgeon’s strategy will be to foster, over lengthy periods of time, as much resentment and anger as she can in Scotland and try to create the impression that independence is somehow inevitable”.
Fostering anger could quite possibly lead to violence. That is what she is implying, surely?
They will stoop to anything to blacken the independence movement. It is really quite sad that this is where journalism has ended up…right at the bottom of the barrel.
@ cearc
Here Mrs ah hiv enough tae deal wie , but I’ll pass on your suggestion tae Auld Bill in our printing dept, yer finger musta slipped oan the keyboard its Sunday no Saturday the BBC Bias is on 26th March .
XX
@Tinto Chiel
I didn’t know Scotland produces 50% of all gin in the WORLD.
If you search images, gin, Scotland, map, you can see all the variety of gin producers in the country, describing the subtle differences in blend.
On federalism, if Scotland had been part of a federal UK, we would still have been drawn into an illegal war in Iraq! In a federal UK, we in Scotland still would have very limited (no?) influence on UK foreign and defence policy. Federalism is not enough for me anymore.
And as someone implied earlier, having had experience of how the Vow was adhered to, how the Smith Commission was conducted and translated into the Scotland Act, how the Supreme Court viewed the Sewell Convention despite it being explicitly stated in an Act, would we really trust the Westminster establishment and ‘system’ to deliver on any constitutional promise? The more complex the proposition – like federalism – the scope for Scotland to be screwed is huge. Keep it (relatively) simple – independence.
And in any event, the Westminster ‘system’ has been so against radical change – electoral reform, House of Lords reform etc. – and given no demand for federalism in England, this federalism is fantasy. I for one will not believe a Vow2!
Stewart.
Never forget Federalism granted can be Federalism removed.
Federalism is for Christmas its not guaranteed for ever.
The BBC bias is in Mothering Sunday, That should register as a reminder. Quite appropriate. In order to protect the present, the next generation and the future environment.
Orri
The rUK can ONLY be a successor state if Scotland agrees to allow it.
The legal and legitimate consequence of the dissolution of the Act of Union 1707 is the ending of the Joint Parliamentary Union and the end of the UK.
That means no legal or legitimate succession by default it can ONLY occur through agreement.
Any legal challenge will inevitably come to this conclusion.
As much as England and the UK establishment want to believe in its overwhelming power and authority they are still constrained by legality and Democracy.
The actual constitutional setup of the UK is a legal quagmire.
Remember Legally it was NOT an annexation of territory but a joint treaty of union between 2 equal Parliaments.
stewartb says:
Exactly.
A federal country has multiple levels of government where each level has its rights and powers enshrined in a constitution. The central government cannot overrule the lower level on matters which are belong to the lower level. As a setup, it is the opposite of devolution. In a federal system, powers are not devolved down, the belong there permanently by right and by law.
Would Westminster ever release powers permanently and irretrievably to a lower more local UK wide level of government? Not before Hell freezes!
Being more specific. Would Westminster agree to a complete and total constitutional rearrangement across England just to solve the ‘Scottish Problem’? Nae chance.
So England doesn’t want it, and will never do it.
As you say, from a Scottish perspective, would it stop illegal wars? Nope. The problem with a federal system is it leaves a central UK parliament in charge of some things. IMO nothing should be left with London. The ‘Problem’ isn’t solved until London is completely out of the loop.
IndyRef2 at 8.18
We’ll miss Vern, but good luck to Gregor. He’s a good man – whatever his Indy politics are (I don’t know!).
My Da says he remembers when Townsend was a player / student reading that he voted SNP but that might not be the case now and if he had come out for Indy the blazers at Murrayfield probably wouldn’t have given him the top job.
Mike says:
Nope. You are describing devolution. Federalism permanently guarantees powers held at a lower level. In federal states the the central federal administration is seen as a partner with the lower state administrations – not a superior. Each is fully responsible for different government functions.
I’m behind… What’s this pronouncement on radio 5 that the SG are applying for entry to the EU. Just a minute ago.
Sky at it too + We’ll use £.
Seemingly NS has said she’s had numerous friendly comments that Scotland will be treated well and it’s all OK!
Radio 5 Auntie having a 50 person panel discussing Brexit, about to start soon. After they get over discussing 4-jobs Osborne. 🙂
England will never agree to Federalism. why should they? It’s a complete fantasy.
@ Glamaig – thanks for the bit of transcript. It does make the point very well. It’s a handy little cartoon and from Al Jezeera too.
“Federalism permanently guarantees powers held at a lower level”
Not true. Like Devolution Federalism comes with various levels of autonomy and central control which can at any time be altered one way or the other.
In the case of extreme emergencies it can be suspended altogether.
Federalism doesn’t guarantee its own permanent existence in terms of its subordination to central control.
Capella says:
Why, indeed?
That’s the aspect of the ‘federal discussion’ which always seems to be missing – the fact that never in a million years would Westminster nor England have it!
Deceitful pro Union Scots proposing it as somehow possible are trying con the gullible, nothing else.
Successor state, according to the Vienna Convention at leat, goes to all states left after a split. Normally the argument is Scotland wouldn’t be allowed any status as a successor. In order to promote that idea there’s an emphasis on the word secession being used to our ending the union. The only argument left is whether the rUK is recognised as the continuation of the UK or not and that is entirely up to whichever international bodies it deals with. Scotland gets as little say in that as the rUK would get in who recognises us as a successor state of the UK. They can spit the dummy but the EU or any other body might decide it suits their interest if we’re regarded as still being party to any treaty they had with the UK regardless.
Bit of Labour nostalgia and look at how young oor Eck looks, 1987, or 2017, Dennis Healey, your oil’s run down and worthless, Scottish economy decay and political irrelevance with indy, big Lab finger in face. What ever happened to Labour, relevance wise?
link to youtube.com
Fox type newspaper review on Sky just now both trashing Sturgeon. / Indy and no attempt on balance by person in charge ,
Mike says:
In the sense that a constitution can be changed (usually by two thirds majority) the demarcation between central and state can be altered, yes.
However, in federal examples like the US or Germany it seems unlikely that massive changes would take place. There would be a huge political battle. A federal system is far more fixed and robust than the devolved nonsense we have in the UK.
This wee bit of history from “don’t by the National” ROCK – Is he Brewer in disguise?
Rock says:
16 October, 2016 at 6:35 pm
HandandShrimp, mr thms, yesindyref2, Brian Doonthetoon
Robert Peffers had stated:
“as a majority of the sovereign people of Scotland, being sovereign, cannot be overruled and Nicola has a mandate to hold a referendum from the sovereign people of Scotland.”
How does Nicola have a mandate to hold a second referendum if the SNP does not have a majority and the Greens did not have holding a referendum in their manifesto?
If the Greens vote for a referendum, well and good, but as it stands Nicola does not currently have a mandate to hold one without a majority vote in parliament.
Once in a lifetime or once in a generation opportunity?
In politics you take your opportunities when and where you can. Alex Salmond is lightning rod for Yoon rage. I have never admired him as much as I do now and I am so glad he is on our side.
tbh I think you’ll go mad if you attempt to rationalise anything the Lib Dems think.
It is quite clear that the yoons plan to attach this devomax crap to the no vote again,i honestly think this time we should call their bluff and add the third option to the ballot so they can not use it like they did in 2014 to boost the no vote.
I have already said that having the third option will not affect the 45% they voted for indy with devomax sneaked on the ballot and not likely to change from yes,it will be the 55% that will be split with the third option.
Plus it would set the tories and slabbers at each others throats during the campaign one shouting no the other shouting devomax while we romp home with yes.
Basically what i am saying is lets use Broons ego to gain our freedom he has practically handed us it on a plate if we use it correctly.
Yes i know it is a load of federalism bollocks and unworkable but that will not stop idiots voting for it and if even only 5-10% vote for it that would be enough to let yes win.
I at least think we should suggest it just to watch the tories have to defend the position of no devomax.
Federalism is a red herring. It can only be significant federalism if Scotland is reduced to the status of an English region. There is no way that England would agree to being an equal partner in a federal set up with Scotland. Why should they? It would be nonsense
If we want to shoot the federal fox we should be discussing confederalism – ie the voluntary cooperation in areas of mutual interest of already independent states such as the Nordic Union. ROI could be part of a British Isles confederation or we couldthink about joining the Nordic union.
Federalism? Wotyez need Federalism for? Sure, hav’nt ye got da most powerful regional government inda world???
Some good lines emerging for ScotRef – McNeil on RT, “In late 2018 every parliament in Europe will be consulted on Brexit – and several regional Parliaments – why should Scotland be the only one not consulted?”
Hamish
Nobody including the SNP says they can hold a referendum without gaining a majority vote within the Scottish Parliament.
The mandate comes from the Parliament. The mandate to propose a referendum to the Parliament comes from the SNP manifesto.
Don’t let the Yoon bullshit confuse you.
@Orri
Yes, essentially the successor / secession / dissolution status, is up to international recognition, even if the rUK and Scotland totally agree about the method. It is for instance very unlikely a dissolution would be regognised as that leaves international relations since 1706/7 in a mess.
Commercial contracts with the state are “protected”, but how that is assigned or shared is perhaps another matter. Of interest there for me is the BAE 2009 TOBA which runs for 15 years till 2024 – which guarantees BAE an annual spend, £230 million I think, and I think that’s shipbuilding.
From Wiki ….
“Federalism is the mixed or compound mode of government, combining a general government (the central or ‘federal’ government) with regional governments (provincial, state, cantonal, territorial or other sub-unit governments) in a single political system. Its distinctive feature … is a relationship of parity between the two levels of government established. It can thus be defined as a form of government in which there is a division of powers between two levels of government of equal status.
Federalism is distinguished … from devolution within a unitary state, in which the regional level of government is subordinate to the general “
link to en.m.wikipedia.org
The notion that Westminster would be willing to move from a position of superiority to equal status just won’t happen. The Federalistas like Broon and Dugdale are trying to fool the gullible.
Hamish 100 @ 11.01
As I read it Hamish,they are all playing with words.
What Nicola & the SNP have is a mandate that reserved the right for the Scottish Parliament to decide (vote) on another Referendum if and when the conditions written down were met.
As the conditions have clearly been met,a vote the Parliament shall have.
It doesn’t really matter what was actually in the Greens manifesto,they are in the Parliament to be voting on what ever is in front of them.
It’s really only a talking point if they voted against it after sayin that they support Independence.
All their voter’s know that they support an Independence party,and since voter’s are actually grown ups they will also know that the party in power get to say how it’s done,the only job for the other party’s is to say yay or nay to it.
Had Patrick Harvey Actually been allowed to speak he might have explained that!
Brewster and Co are just trying too? muddy the issue,but I think the Scot’s owe a huge debt to the person who had the foresight to add the “such as being taken out of the European Union against our will” line in that manifesto!
Correct anyone in Holyrood can back a bill. Even the tories could vote for a referendum. This manifesto crap is utter bullocks. They are clutching at anything they can.
The last time they thought independence was a joke. This time they think they will lose. They don’t like losing to any country
OT – defence
I’ve been trying to figure out which Tranche the Typhoons are here there and everywhere, there were plans and changes and moves and planned retirements and extensions then after the Ref I lost interest. Caught up now I think, some confirmation to do and might add a single page to the wordpress about it when I’m sure.
Looks like all 53 of the Tranche 1 Typhoons are based at Lossie now, which makes sense because T3 is quite different from T1 when it comes to spares apparently, and all converted to T3/FGR4 from T1/F2 – so now multi-role / swing-role capable, but primarily as front line fighters for QRA. But this seems to explains some of my previous confusion:
link to insidemoray.com
Importance? Looks to me that with 3 QRA squadrons at Lossie but just 1 / pushing 2/3 at Coningsby including reserve and test, Lossie is the real front line. Which gives the rUK and RAF a real headache moving QRA North way down south to meet a threat which is way up north.
What was that they were saying about NATO? Come again? Really? Would you like to phone a friend?
Tim Who? Liberal What? Are they relevant at all to Scotland? You don’t need to answer that!
Ok lets consider Federalism within the USA since 1776.
How many times has the constitution been amended?
Does that not suggest a flexible approach to power sharing within the Federal system of authority or not?
Consider the legislation on terror brought in after 9/11 did that not remove local federal authority from local State control?
Did it not put local State authority into the hands of the Central Government?
Hells teeth. Russia is a Federation would you compare its level of authority distribution with that of the Federal USA?
Would you actually claim that Russian Federation will endure forever?
China is a Federation. Do you honestly think Central Government couldn’t and wouldn’t take full control at any time?
“A federal system is far more fixed and robust than the devolved nonsense we have in the UK.”
That is true but it still doesn’t give a Federal system immortality in terms of central Government taking back control.
Mike
Thanks. Not confused. The SG have a mandate. Davidson and Co are taking tripe.
Just highlighting that a certain Rock almost uses exactly the same words as Brewer today on the tele. You think there is a standard script doing the rounds. Rock has also pushed for indy supporters not to buy the National as it is not Indy enough yet claims to be an Indy supporter. Its like Dugdale claiming shes is a socialist.
The world has gone crazy right enough. Mrs May if going for an early election can only break the fixed parliament Act with a two thirds majority of MP’S.
The Tories will introduce a motion of no confidence in themselves and force the Tory MP’S to back it.
Mr Corbyn then has to decide that he is not voting for the motion of no confidence in which case he is supporting they remain in power, or he has to vote for the motion knowing that Labour will be obliterated at the polling booths.
Meanwhile the SNP have to defend their gains from the last election ,which May hopes they will lose.
Whilst everybody thinks the Brexit party will win,they forget there were 16 million remain voters who may well change their usual vote in protest.
Funny game politics.
I have already said that I voted Yes in 2014 and then Leave in the EU Ref and I will vote Yes in the next Indy Ref as well.
I bring this up because it is starting to irk me that we hear about all those Yes voters in 2014 voting Naw next time round because we will be in the EU. Now today I met no less than 6 folk who voted Yes and then Leave but will still be voting Yes in the next Indy Ref. I have yet to meet anybody who voted Yes in 2014 that has changed their minds.
If I should happen to met somebody who claims to have voted Yes in 2014 but will vote Naw next time then I will call them liars to their face!
Given that the required level for a petition on the Westminster website is 100,000 for the UK as a whole then it follows that as far as a Scotland only petition goes 8,400 would be the equivalent level. If it came to it anyone could organise an online petition to attempt to garner that level of support.
However the Green manifesto puts the petition route as being their preferred option. It says? nothing about it being? the only one. Nor does their commitment to campaigning for independence if a referendum is started via that route mean they can’t do the same otherwise.
Arrived home from the SNP Conference at 1.30 today after a detour to visit my son and family in Broughty Ferry.
The conference was marvellous and many of the speechs I heard were not on TV.
Nicola was wonderful as expected.
But for me the highlight was that Rosa Salid, a refugee, was standing as a councillor for Glasgow City Council.
I asked her, in the foyer, if I could hug her as a teacher of refugees in the East end of Glasgow. Instead she hugged me, saying Glasgow teachers were amazing and how grateful she was to us.
I also have evidence of mothers so grateful for educating their children.
Scotland has a bright future ahead if only we break free from Westminster rule.
Mike @ 11.48
That’s why I have never been in favour of Devo Max.
That arrangement looks to me like exactly what the Americans have.
The state’s having everything but Defence & Foreign Affairs,well kind of.
And Washington being seen to have all the real power,if not indeed actually having all the real power (Corporations excepted).
While it might have been the best they could do at the time, (1776) it hasn’t really worked out too well either.
So to imitate the US even if we are calling it something else is IMHO no better a solution to organising our new democratic arrangements.
And apart from that ….They won’t ever open the books? anyway, they need either? the Union or the illusion of no cooperation with a foregin Government,so the English people don’t see the numbers Westminster has been hiding for years.
I’m fairly certain that being found personally guilty of electoral malpractice makes you ineligible for public office. So any
The current cries of innocence on the part of individual MPs are because otherwise they might be ineligible to stand for re-election. The slate wiping advantage of a new GE doesn’t work if those MPs are subsequently found personally liable.
The members of parliament have a debate and then vote on an issue. Any member on any vote can vote YES or NO. Any of them. A Tory could vote to have another Referendum. they can vote how they like. In Westminster they could lose the support of the fellow members of their party and stand as an Ibdeoendeant. In the Scottish Parliament members have resigned from a Party they were a member of when they got elected, vote how they like on any issue and remain as an Independent. Not a very professional thing to do as regards their duties to their constituency they were elected to serve. It would be more honourable to resign and stand again, for the electorate to endorse their change position or reject there action by ballot. .
Many politicians break their manifesto commitment. Unionists Parties make a profession out of it. Killing vulnerable people all over the world including their own citizens they were elected to represent. Abusing public funds. An appalling situation. The unionist Party members illegally killed and maimed millions of innocent vulnerable people all over the world. Causing the worst inhuman migration crisis throughout the world since 11WW. An absolutely appalling action. Most of the culprits should be in jail. They get away with impunity. Appalling people. No censor at all. Sell themselves out to corporate greed and leave other to try and sort out their mess. While they live in luxury and turn their backs to their appalling behaviour.
BUY THE NATIONAL – REV NOW WRITING FOR THEM link to thenational.scot
AND ALEX SALMOND CAMPAIGNING ONLINE FOR YOU TO BUY THE NATIIONAL
Stop the excuses – do it now – MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER
@ betray their electorate, and the manifesto they were elected on, and stand as an Independent.
Iain More @ 23:50,
I don’t agree with you re the EU but I respect your willingness to put that aside for now in favour of the Big Picture.
Like you, I have my doubts about how genuine these “No-voting Yes-Leavers” who appear regularly in the media actually are.
Once we are independent and able to weigh things up, free from interference from the BritNat Dead Tree Scrolls and their various propaganda themes (which always seem to lead back to Westminster, oddly enough), we can review everything in our own terms, just like eg. the Irish Republic does.
In the meantime just like Ireland, plucky wee Malta and all the rest, we’ll have a seat at the top table.
And most importantly of all, no more need to go cap-in-hand to anyone to beg for the right to decide our own future.
Regarding online petitions Ruby and Mike, I saw at least three SNP MPs or MSPs names as signed against having another referendum, can’t remember which, but thought then it was bullshit, one was either Eilidh Whiteford or was it Philippa Whiteford, was one similar to that, looked like every MP/MSP had signed it as you can check in the Gov one who has actually signed, so looks like it has been tampered with already by some idiot filling in names and false emails for the verification purposes
@Mike says: 19 March, 2017 at 4:06 pm:
” … What the fuck is wrong with you? “
Well besides the results of a broken back and a broken neck not really a lot.
“If we don’t get enough over 65s on board we will struggle to win enough support to cross the line that’s a fact.”
Aye! And it is also a fact that you are making wrong diagnostic conclusions and actually putting the cart before the horse.
“They are the largest voting block in Scotland that is also a fact.”
Aye! And that simple fact proves that you are jumping to the wrong conclusions. Just because they are the largest block of voter doesn’t mean that they are proportionally on average more inclined to be unionist voters BECAUSE they are over a certain age. Neither does it indicate what proportion, within that age group, are unionist voters.
“It is they more than anybody else who are keeping us in the Union.” Rubbish! Imagine, for a moment that there were 10 times as many over 65’s in Scotland than under 65’s and the split between unionist and independence voters among them was 50%/50% the conclusion would be that there was as many unionists as indy voters in the over 65’s age group.
and That’s a fact
Indeed it is a fact but it still is also a fact that your conclusions are mince. If the over 65’s comprise the biggest block of voters it does not mean that a bigger percentage of over 65’s are unionists simply because they are over 65.
If they are the biggest group it can be equally factual that they make up the largest group of don’t knows, don’t vote and also are indy voters. The point is it is the proportion of them within that group that indicates the percentage of them that are unionist voters. In any case that is not the point I am making.
The point, or rather points, are that the reason there are over 65’s who vote unionist is because of the rapid rise in the supporters of independence over a much more relatively shot period of time. Many of the young indy supporters are not convert to the SNP. They mostly have never been anything else since they became voting age.
Many other who are converts are in the under 65 age group and had never been dyed in the wool unionists. These are the ones why found out that what they thought was the workers party was the tory party in disguise and they are the ones who were disillusioned by the Blair/Brown era of NuLabour.
“Nobody is demonising anybody.”
Well you sure could have fooled me and I’ve probably been an active independence supporter before you were born.
“Jesus Christ man if you’re going to challenge what I say”
Ah! Yes! Jesus Christ is it? Now he’s over 65, just a bit, 2017 years minus 65=1952 years in fact. But what’s that got to do with the price of fish at Peterhead?
I’m not misunderstanding what you are saying is fact because it simply is not fact. What is fact is what I stated as fact. The reason these people over 65 are perhaps more likely to be unionists is simply because they are the very people who compose the unionist party membership. The are not necessarily just those who vote for them. Here’s a wee clue for you.
Go look at a photo, or video, of a Tory Party Conference crowd. Look at their average apparent ages. There may not even be more than a couple of middle aged people in the hall or on the platform.
There is no way you are going to convert them in any way. However, stand on duty outside a polling station and see the actual Tory voters. You will see a greater number of perhaps middle age and younger ones among them.
Thing is, of more recent times the average age of Labour Party voters has gone up by a fair old whack. The reason being that the SNP is catching the younger ones before they become Labour Voters.
Now here’s the point and it is from long experience. If you adopt an antagonistic attitude towards an older unionist voter and attempt to browbeat them you are not likely to make a convert. The way to go about it is to let them do the attempted conversion of YOU. Listen and wait. There will soon be something claimed that any genned up Yesser can tear to ribbons and nail as an absolute lie.
That is the time to, respectively, pull the unionist up and, without any animosity, simply correct their obvious error. When such a person gets a few such corrections they begin to think about where their misinformation came from and you are on the way to gaining a convert.
Thing is it will never work on the Tory/Labour or LibDem party hacks. Because they are the ones who follow their party much like a football supporter follows His/Her team.
The follow their team from loyalty and not just because their team is the best at playing football. Think on what I began with to you.
Wnen I first became an active indy supporter about the only place you met other members was at poorly attended branch meetings. We were very thin on the ground and suspected by most others as subversive and almost dangerous terrorists or NAZIs.
Think about how you would go about attempting to win converts in that situation. Yet here we are today probably over 50% of the population.
There are long established Labour Party dynasties in every constituency in Scotland and they all have family and hingers oan.
The SNP are only fairly recently, (with a few exceptions like the Ewings), beginning to establish such dynasties. And that is why there are large factions of older unionists still voting for unionist parties.
It is because the SNP are recruiting the bigger percentage of younger people and not because getting to a certain age predisposes anyone to be a unionist.
BTW: Jesus Christ was recruiting a younger faction when he was an up and coming political figure and look what happened to him.
To Cadogan (12:28 am),
Is the Rev now writing for them on a regular basis or was it just a one off?
What have the Yoons been smoking tonight? They are utterly batshit and raging. I even checked for a full moon but that was on the 12th March. Anyway I’m just dipping in and out of it all as it is not good for anyone’s mental health to be engaged full time at that pitch.
Pace yourselves everyone.
The lampooning of indy ref supporters on the BBC by Campbell would have won admiration from Mel Brooks.
Does anyone still actually believe opinion polls are independent and accurate, when 99% of the broadcast and print media is controlled by the Unionist Establishment.
Often commissioned by the Unionist side, the polls are frequently used as part and parcel of UK State Propaganda.
Take a tip from the BBC which usually ignores good news about Independence.
Just completely IGNORE all BAD NEWS about Independence, Nicola, the SNP or the Scottish Government.
Robert J. Sutherland says:
Iain More @ 23:50,
Like you, I have my doubts about how genuine these “No-voting Yes-Leavers” who appear regularly in the media actually are.
me too, stooges no doubt, but they do represent 13% of the yes oters who are now nos according to one of stu’s polls
thats why stu thinks another euref is necessary once we are indy. I agree with him
these yes2nos we see in the media are undoubtably fake but they do represent a sizable portion of the eletorate, indeed, they are now our target demographic, if we can convince them back to yes, we win
manandboy
yes i do believe some polls, sometimes the media does ask questions that are enlightening but more often than not the unionists craft their questions to give the negative indy headlines
but we do commission polls, the rev does frequently, but the questions he commissions are designed to inform, not create headlines
so some polls are worth looking at
schrodingers cat @ 01:10,
They are one target demographic, but not the only one. Personally I believe that when the chips are down, the genuine ones like Iain will rally once again to the cause.
I mean, they don’t exactly have much to lose by voting “yes”, since as far as the EU is concerned it’s basically status-quo-ante with exactly the same consequences as before.
Whereas voting “no” will put the very people back in charge again who are the mortal enemies of devolution, let alone independence. It will be a lot worse than Cameron standing in front of No.10 Downing Street and saying “it’s EVEL time from now on, folks”.
Staying in the EU through into indy offers the least economic & political turbulence, which is something that is very significant to the “soft-no’s”, another important target group.
But I have no problem in revisiting the question of EU membership once things have settled down sufficiently post-indy for us to be able to judge the matter on our own terms, hopefully much more free of BritNat tabloid propaganda.
@ Wullie B at 12.38
When I signed the anti-Trump state visit petition (more to see if it could get to 2 million than because I thought it would do the slightest good), I also noticed a list of all MPs.
Like you, I initially thought they were signatories.
Then I realized that the petition is addressed to Parliament, so they are in fact the list of addressees. That will be the same this time, I assume.
Panic over!
The Polls “they” say are a hundred and humpty dumpty percent against having another referendum.
But the question should be “Are you in favour of a referendum in the next 18-24 months if there was no likelyhood of ever having one again
Re;Cadogan Enright,@12.28am
Have not been able to get hold of the National most days for past couple of weeks. Suspect local shops hardly stocking them, so by time I get out to shops, the 3 or 4 they had have all gone. Must ask them to put it aside for me, but not seeing it on the shelves hardly at all, compared to last couple of years, is a bit strange.
Euro sceptics should remember that Scotland has never been represented in Europe or the EU or in any negotiations with any country in the world by an actual Minister working for Scotland
All such negotiations have always been undertaken by the English government of whatever colour and all deals done for the benefit of England only
Scotland as a Nation has never represented itself, it hasn’t been allowed to and MEPS don’t count because they have no power to enter into legal negotiations
Scottish fishermen would do well to realise this if they think staying with England will see them benefit, it was England who traded away the fishing in the first instance it wasn’t the EUs fault the English couldn’t care less about Scotland
On the basis of it being a good idea to know what your enemy is thinking, I take a daily look at the Daily Heil website.
Wakening up in the middle of the night, I have just had a look at that site – I can now caution fellow Wingers:
Don’t do it, there is no need, I have done it for you and for the sake of your health, do not go there.
Their Deputy Political Editor, John Stevens has written an error-strewn “SNP Very Bad” piece which is an insult to the intelligence of those of us who read it.
He doesn’t let the facts get in the way of a bad rant, even rehashing that old chestnut that an Indepenent Scotland would be forced to use the Euro.
Still, I suppose, we should not interrupt our enemies when they are making such mistakes. Oh, I almost forgot – do not read the btl comments. These merely demonstrate why England bought the Leave Europe argument in such numbers – there are some awfully thick people in the Heil’s core readership.
The Express is quite strange. It gives outrageous headlines and then gives the actual quote in it. Many give a much less outrageous headline, but not the quote. Anyway, abouot Moody’s, what it appears Colin Ellis actually said is:
“You would need to raise taxes or cut spending. If not, that would put the normal downward pressure on ratings.”
“downward pressure”, not “downrating” and certainly not “junk status”.
As I posted earlier, the UK’s credit rating was changed from “stable” to “negative” after the EU Ref, by Moody’s. That’s not just downward pressure, it’s a downward expectation.
Bloody media.
Ruth ranting away in the press today that “Scots Don’t Want Another Referendum”. Broken Record it’s called. I suppose she thinks if she says it often enough and loud enough, it will become true.
After Wednesday’s vote in Holyrood we should look forward to a change of tune.
Links
link to indyref2.scot
link to snp.org
link to michaelgreenwell.wordpress.com
Food and drink exports from Scotland hit record high
link to archive.is
For anyone who missed Prof Keating on Brewer yesterday
link to youtube.com
Daniel Portman calls for Scottish independence at Empire Awards
link to archive.is
link to politicsscotland.scot
link to scottishunemployedworkers.net
Could UK be in breach of the United Nations Charter, Article 73, by not taking “due account of the political aspirations of the people”
link to twitter.com
link to autresroyaumes.wordpress.com
link to thecanary.co
link to rt.com
Europe’s Reverse Domino Effect
link to foreignaffairs.com
What is the WTO option?
link to archive.is
link to jonworth.eu
What you won’t see reported by our brave press.
link to archive.is
Nana: Good Morning,
I think the rains a bit warmer than yesterday, so that’s good. Your links make it even better .Kettle’s on!
A hug in a mug, or is that a hug for a mug? who cares! It’s all W/Minster’s fault anyway.
🙂
Peace Always
Ta Nana.
Good spread again. Toast, coffee and laptop at the ready. 🙂
@Smallaxe
Not too bad here right now, no rain [yet]
Here’s your elevenses!
link to scottovoce.wordpress.com
Warning for those easily offended, there is some bad language
link to twitter.com
link to thecanary.co
Byline being sued by Dacre, he must be scared of real journalists telling the truth.
link to byline.com
@ Nana – just read that first link. If ever there was an argument for involving the EU observation team to oversee the Scottish referendum process then this is it.
Blatant lies and manipulation from the state broadcaster are a disgrace. They are seeking to destroy Scottish democracy and this can’t be allowed to stand.
link to indyref2.scot
@Macart
It’s pretty toxic round the news stands this morn. Usual hatred and bigotry to trawl through, used to bother me a lot. Nowadays I see and smell real fear from the unionists, very gratifying.
O/T Its all very well saying that a ‘federal’ Scotland can sign international treaties – but with who ?
Who’s gonna want to ‘agree’ with a non sovereign state ?
My feeling on currency is that it will be twin-track – keep sterling and introduce a parallel Scots mark/crown/dollar whatever its called, ultimately phasing out sterling.
Valerie: I meant to say Scotland makes 70% of UK gin production.
And I hadn’t touched a drop, honest.
I woke up yesterday morning wondering what hellish nightmare I might still be still in when the first thing I saw was TankLez on tv slathered in what looked like clown’s make up shouting and being a total lying wee fud on the Andrew Marr show. Felt sorry for AM tbh as he is still not his old self or he would have skewered the chubby, hypocrit twat big time.
Well it finally happened. Within 2 days the media has accused the SNP of being Tories and Russian agents.
Its the kind of propaganda a Russian Tory Agent would use to undermine a State or a referendum vote.
I wish I had the perspective of the world media so I could look at all of this and laugh my arse off but instead I get a cold angry feeling that something has been badly wrong for far too long.
The feeling you can only get when you’re subject to an unchallenged corruption by forces that are supposed to nurture.
Fucking hell mend the rUK when we’re gone.
@Capella
Yes, we need to push our mps and msps to get this in place. Surely they don’t need to be urged to do so.
I’ve emailed my mp and will message my msp later.
Thanks Nana
Brilliant links as usual. Kudos for your efforts,
Robert Peffers
“Just because they are the largest block of voter doesn’t mean that they are proportionally on average more inclined to be unionist voters BECAUSE they are over a certain age.”
I neither stated nor implied that! You yourself interpreted what I said to mean that. JUST YOU!
What I DID STATE CLEARLY was that the over 65s tended to NOT use the internet and were subject to being influenced by the MSM to a greater degree than those who do use it.
It is this influence which is CLEARLY having the effect of making them the BIGGEST PRO UNION DEMOGRAPH.
Now was I wrong to come to that conclusion?
Capella says:
20 March, 2017 at 7:52 am
Ruth ranting away in the press today that “Scots Don’t Want Another Referendum”. Broken Record it’s called. I suppose she thinks if she says it often enough and loud enough, it will become true….
Just compare pictures of the audience at the SNP conference with similar pictures of the Tory, Labour, and Lib Dem conferences. Scots don’t want another referendum eh? Dream on you fatuous Tory mouthpiece.
I don’t want “another” referendum, I still want our “first”referendum, that is an informed constructive debate without the lies, distortions, and corrupting propaganda of 2014, and then a vote to decide the Country’s intentions, once the facts are established and so far as they can be, are known and undisputed.
Think about that a moment. It is the function of the media carrying a debate to establish where fiction stops and hard facts remain, because when it finally becomes time to put it to the vote, in a PROPER democratic referendum, the arguments should have been exhausted, no stone left unturned, and the truth should be indisputable.
We should hold Brexit, and YES2014 as prime examples of how now NOT to hold a referendum.
The UK and Scotland has a serious, pernicious problem with a scurrilous, dishonest, and highly partisan media monopoly artificially distorting political debate and reasoned free thinking. It has already robbed Scotland of its rightful self determination in 2014, and it has occassioned the UK to turn its back on Europe, plunge its economy into deeply troubled times, and in doing so, paint itself with the international mark of Cain as a racist, Xenophobic, narrow minded anachronistic Emperial superpower which isn’t very super and has no more power than it has influence.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Westminster closed the Scottish Parliament before the vote and rescinded Devolution.
That’s the level of political atmosphere I’m sensing just now within the UK and further more we would have Ruth Davidson and Poundshop Ruth on the BBC telling us why its a good thing.
Its an indictment to where we are that the above premise is far from being an overblown fantasy and can actually be a worry.
@Nana
Saw a pretty good tweet by Rev Stu a few minutes ago which summed up the press pretty accurately.
“In summary: the Scottish press is full of intelligent people pretending to be stupid for malicious reasons.”
‘Malicious’ being the operative word.
These are bad folk Nana, with neither shame nor empathy. In fact I can think of zero redeeming qualities for any of them these days.
Mercenaries at best and at worst…? Well anyway, most people can fill in their description of choice. We get beyond the hatred and lies. We post and talk as friends to those who wish to listen. We walk on by those who would offer hatred, abuse or a deaf ear.
This is too important to waste our time getting mired in either circular non productive argument or meaningless slanging matches. This is about our right to choose.
It really cannot be stressed enough, that whether people want a referendum or not, we must not ever surrender the right to hold one at our convenience. When you give up the right to choose, to decide our own future, then you give that right and responsibility to another. Those are the rights the Conservative government would seek to stifle, deny or remove altogether.
You forfeit the right to complain when your lack of engagement results in personal or communal hardship. YOU cannot blame a Tory for acting like a Tory if you refused to act when you could have. They’re called human and civil RIGHTS for a reason. They aren’t serving suggestions. They are hard won and they are your only defence against the abuse of your freedoms.
Too many folk simply either don’t or won’t understand the gift that the current Scottish Government have given them. The enormous power they have literally placed in the lap of the population. You can only hold that hand out for so long though. You either see it and accept the helping hand for what it is, or you sink from wilful ignorance.
@Macart. Malicious and a few other choice words I can think of. I wonder if they are being paid to do this as I seem to recall Cochrane got 20grand for his ramblings.
A few more links
Brexit could place ‘huge burden’ on Parliament
link to archive.is
Interesting tweet and reply here
link to twitter.com
Dani Garavelli says ” don’t lose sight of big picture on Indyref2″
link to archive.is
jeezo! I have just listened to Nicola Sturgeon ( again) on youtube and read the foul comments below.
These comments are presumably written by adults with a bit of IQ – I think I’d have them incarcerated as a danger to the public .
Carstairs or the English equivalent since I am assuming that most are from south of the border with only a few disgustingly ignorant Scots amongst them.
While sitting in a good central area during the conference, I was thinking about the problem of older people with Indy ref2.
Scanning the seated supporters from my view point, it was very noticeable that there were very many grey heids out there.
They were a large section of the supporters. These people, myself included if actively campaigning could be the ones to turn the heads of older no voters. Motivated, as these were could, I would imagine, make a difference to the supporting patterns of this demographic.
Teams of the grey heids should take on the older no voters with the answers and truths of the situation. Being more mature themselves, and understanding the older demographic may make all the difference.
It is strange, the complicit Msm & TV semantics about once in a generation guff.
Only Salmond & SNP being constantly interrupted & challenged.
What about Mays / Mundells / Davidsons / Dugdales twisting m turning.
Is the media displaying tendency towards Union as Alex Massie suggested ? Surely not
The polls will say exactly what the people who paid for them want them to say by asking the question the people who paid for them to ask the question want
Yer average bewildered person could read that statement all day and still not get it so they answer the way the’ve been told, it’s easier than having to think and when you’re of the bewildered group always the easiest sound to make is
Naaw! because Yes! is a commitement to something, Naaw! means you aren’t commited to anything (although in some cases should be)
Les Wilson
I agree. Young people tend to talk down to the elderly and don’t have the same patience to listen to whats being said back to them.
I think it would be a great idea if pro indy over 65s engaged with pro union over 65s if for no other reason than to give them the different perspective they must be taking in from the MSM.
The National more balanced Independence supporting reporting is going from strength to strength. Well done. Everyone get out and support the National. Tapping into a £multi million more responsible, well research Press market in Scotland just waiting and available for anyone with any interest. National take more of Rev Stu analysing articles. Facts and figures. More copies will be circulated and sold. There is an amazing catalogue. Totally available. Thanking you.
Well done Rev Stu. Just utterly brilliant. Thanks a Billion.
@Ronnie Anderson [if you are reading]
Missed your call yesterday Ronnie, I’ll phone you later on today.
yesindyref2 8:18 pm
Good morning sir
Obviously the England result was very disappointing from the double Slam and world record point of view – but anyone watching the game would have to agree that, on the day, the Irish were the better team.
I take some comfort from the knowledge that in very recent times, the Irish have also beaten the Australians, the South Africans and the All Blacks – so no disgrace really.
The Scottish team had a much better Championship and have the makings of a side that can do good things – whilst the Welsh team (forgive the schadenfreude) had a “‘Mare”. As the final table shows, I think the overall standards of International Rugby in Europe have improved greatly relative to the southern hemisphere. Certainly, right now, the ozzies or the boks would be highly delighted get a win over any of the Home nations or France.
Having read the equally ignorant , bilious comments in the Guardian and the Independent might I suggest that no one bothers their bahoochie responding to the shite.
Fewer Scots who click on their clickbait the better.
@Mike,
No Mike, you were not wrong. The over 70’s voted by 3 to 1 in favour of the Union. The over 65’s were slightly less but still 2 to 1 in favour of the Union.
The funny thing here is that Scots RESIDING in Scotland were in favour of indy by a smaller majority.
The results from postal votes for those living abroad ,including England were heavily in favour of keeping the Union.That may now change because of Brexit of course.
Those resident in Europe may wish to now change their minds, It is fascinating to look at the voting patterns from indy to gauge how much they would now change in light of Brexit.
I believe it would be significant.
Robert Peffers
“BTW: Jesus Christ was recruiting a younger faction when he was an up and coming political figure and look what happened to him.”
Eh he became the singular most influential person in the history of the entire world.
But that aside you’re ranting and raving at me for doing something I never did.
For some reason known only to yourself you’ve decided to misinterpret every word Ive posted.
Newsflash sunshine I’m over 55 myself.
Davidson smirking jealous, outrage and dislike of Nicola, is plainly obvious in every interview. An irrational dislike. Like many ignorant, arrogant non empathetic Tory/Unionists. Full of their own importance and hypocracy. Leaves the majority of viewers in disgust. They turn off. A personification which is not attractive. Fuming with outrage, disgust and self entitlement. Caring about no one else but their ambition. The majority of people can suss out a lying, irrational phoney and their irrational advocated policies
Owen Jones asking folks if they should move to Scotland
Video and comments
link to facebook.com
link to holyrood.com
That’s it for now guys and gals, I’m off to see a man about his previous no vote. Think it might be a yes next time.
Bob Mack
Brexit has definitely shifted the goal posts. We have over 180,000 EU residents in Scotland many who probably voted No because they believed the Project Fear claims that their position was ONLY safe if Scotland remained as part of the UK.
I cant see any of them voting No this time around. We many even get a mass exodus of EU citizens coming up from England in time to vote.
Imagine that 1 million+ EU residents voting to end the UK.
Clever of the FM to invite them up at this time.
Mike says:
Mike,
I have experience of the idea effecting the intentions of older voters.I was speaking to one of my neighbours,who lives on her own. She has had some health problems over the last year.
So she, like many others depend on our NHS.
I explained to her the comparative situation in England, and made her aware of the Tory intentions to privatise the English NHS by underhand practices. I showed her articles on the subject
she was not at all impressed by the path the Tories were seen to be taking. I was in no way trying to scare her, but she needed to know the truth of the situation.
I also covered pensions and other concerns she had. She now vows to vote yes and now agrees Scotland should go it’s own way.
This did take a bit time and patience, but I was happy with the result. Particularly when she said that she would spread what I told her among her friends. A result I would suggest.
I would think that canvasing groups should include a couple of older people who can talk to this age group with patience and valid truths. It could bring good results.
I don’t know about Manic Monday, but, in the pages of the supposedly serious Scottish newspapers, Monday is madness day.
We hav Torrnce writing his rubbish in The Herald and Brian Monteith doing likewise in The Scotsman. It’s a bad enough day for most of us, going back to work after the weekend, without being subjected to that pair’s lies and distortions.
Monteith’s slabberings in The Scotsman today are particularly left-field; which is ironic for such a right-winger (note: he’s a winger, as opposed to a Winger, subtle difference).
Macart: @ 8;53am:
Excellent Post!
Peace Always
Mike 9:36 am
You wrote “Imagine that 1 million+ EU residents voting to end the UK. Clever of the FM to invite them up at this time.”
… I am not sure that is a tactic that would achieve the result that you are hoping for. Ignoring those in the indeginous populatiom that would be against such a policy because of a “personal issue” with “immigration”, the affect on housing availability and schools would be very problematic if no plan was implemented, in advance, to be able to integrate such numbers.
The danger would be that some of the issues that have come to the fore in England might also become more problematic in Scotland. I don’t know the demographics of an “average” immigrant family but, as a complete guess and for the sake of discussion, lets say a family is two adults and one child?
To absorb 1 million more people would require over 300,000 additional “dwellings”. Over 300,000 additional children (assuming the average Primary school is 500 places and the average Secondary school is 1000 places (and even mix of ages of children between 5 and 18)), then 400 additional schools would need to be built.
These additional dwellings and schools places need to be in place by the time they are required – so, if you want them in 18 months time, you need to start building today.
It is this that we have got wrong in England.
No budget or plan is ever implemented, in advance, to deal with those expected to arrive in 18 months time – let alone those arriving today, next month, in the next 6 months, etc.
The results can be seen in some areas with multiple immigrant families having to share single dwellings, in the areas where jobs exist, because the cost of housing is unaffordable for single bread winner families. Children are also having to travel past 4 schools to get to one that has room for an additional place.
Its not rocket science, you just have to plan for the size of population you are expecting/encouraging. If you just “let it happen” then you end up playing into the hands of those that spread fear and concerns.
Och Dave, you are far too easily wound up, so you are. 🙂
Coming up on Call Kaye after 10am. Leading economist proposing an increasing in the rivalry between the Old Firm to boost Scottish football.
More like increase the Division in Scittish Society, to help our rulers with their conquering , Good Old State Broadcaster
Les Wilson
Nothing wrong with giving people an alternative view point one at a time but we’re up against a regime that pushes a singular view point 24/7 to millions directly without effort.
It may even influence the Lady you spoke to again and get her to change back.
We have to discredit the entire UK MSM especially the broadcast media and the way to do that is during every interview conducted with a pro Indy participant.
Have the interviewee state at the outset that they believe the broadcast media is heavily bias and one sided in its promotion of the arguments.
And keep repeating the charge at EVERY INTERVIEW. Give examples.
One of 2 things will occur. Either the broadcast media stops interviewing pro Indy views or they will be forced to moderate their bias.
The first option Proves the case to all its viewers the second option opens up alternate points of view.
But the SNP has to up its game it has to be much more aggressive with hostile media interviews.
They have to challenge any and all assertions being posed as questions.
Pick up the interviewer everytime they make an assertion.
Openly accuse that assertion as bias and the promotion of a singular point of view.
Directly challenge the false claims especially on the economy. Get the interview onto the UK economy. Challenge the viability of the UK economy. Compare the Scottish economy to the UK economy. Highlight the massive debt the loss of the Triple A ratings EVERY SINGLE TIME! Remind people of the warmongering. The cost of warmongering. The austerity.
Stop allowing the agenda to be set by the broadcast media.
Press and Journal banner headlines this fine morn, “Scottish independence will destroy Scots energy industry jobs.” So something really spooked those tory roasters this weekend.
link to eveningtimes.co.uk
“Ignoring those in the indeginous populatiom that would be against such a policy because of a “personal issue” with “immigration”,”
People who move within the UK are not migrants and are not immigrating.
The Brexit argument is that the UK is full. Cant endure anymore immigration.
The anti Brexit argument is the fact that the UK doesn’t have a one size fits all immigration need.
Scotland NEEDS more migration. England tells us it needs LESS.
We’re talking about people moving within the UK. there is nothing stopping people from doing that.
If 1 million EU residents WITHIN THE UK decide to move from one part of the UK to another whats to stop them?
Folks, the 10% holiday home discount in the Highland Region has been abolished (dunno about the rest of Scotland?) this raises the question of people not at present resident in Scotland designating their holiday home as their main residence & becoming eligible to vote here, there being no longer a financial inducement for the status quo!
Ruth Harrison Tank Davidson, on A.Marr yesterday, has managed to confuse me even more than normal! 8mins in.
link to youtube.com
WTF!
Peace Always
It is absolutely easy to give people the right information and inform them to YES. It has been done time and time again. One person with the right information and knowledge, easily picked up on the internet. Can inform 50 to 100+ people to YES. Including older people. Politicans and Press lying and being caught out can easily influence people to YES. When they are found out.
The demographic of the Polls and analysis is also suspect. It is also more difficult for people to obtain easily accessible information in areas not covered by reliable internet but not insurmountable by literature and concerned empathetic responsible Gov policy. Good outcomes bring increased support. Success garnishes success. People appreciate being listen to and taken seriously.
Luigi
You wrote “Och Dave, you are far too easily wound up, so you are.”
… not wound up Luigi – just concerned that the loony fringe on here might pick up on it as a viable tactic!
Having read many of the comments over the last week or so, I have read an awful lot of ill-informed, over-excited, ill-thought out guff. So, because I care, its probably better to try and nip these things in the bud.
You will be aware that some contributors here are genuinely arguing for a declaration of UDI – so we shouldn’t take anything for granted. They often don’t think beyond the gratification of their own personal political aims.
Oh here’s Kezia, blethering with Ms Hartley-Brewer on talkRadio. Just waiting on federalism lecture, no demand for referendum, no mandate etc.
JHB opens with the material change of circumstances. Might be fun, or might not…
It is Westminster Unionists defence/foreign policy (illegally blowing the Middle East to bits for years) which has resulted in the worse migration crisis in Europe since 11WW. The Unionists in Westminster attitude is to run away from the problem they have illegally created and blame the EU for the mess the lying evil Unionists at Westminster have created. To cowardly run away and blame other innocent vulnerable people for their cruel actions.
The EU has have to pick up the appalling cost and stress of the unionist Westminster clueless, cruel in extreme criminal activity. The Westminster corrupt criminals should be in jail, instead of continuing to ruin the world economy. Their actions are unforgivable. Under International Law. They break the Laws that they make with impunity.
Sensible Dave
“I have read an awful lot of ill-informed, over-excited, ill-thought out guff”
Like calling people who move within the UK migrants?
@Sensibledave,
“The loony fringe on here”.
Tsk Tsk. Everybody is entitled to their opinion Dave. You included.
Sensible Dave says:
” Children are also having to travel past 4 schools to get to one that has room for an additional place”
Does that include the children going to Grammar schools, costing £20million for the taxi fare?
Peace Always
defo said
19 March, 2017 at 12:24 pm
“And NS want’s us to play nice with these fuckers ?
Beyond me.”
Well, we could just LOOK like we’re playing nice with these fuckers…
sensibledave says:
“To absorb 1 million more people would require over 300,000 additional “dwellings”. Over 300,000 additional children (assuming the average Primary school is 500 places and the average Secondary school is 1000 places (and even mix of ages of children between 5 and 18)), then 400 additional schools would need to be built.”
Just as a matter of interest how many ‘Second Homes’ are there in Scotland? I live in the Highlands and there are vast numbers of good houses which are empty or only occupied at weekends for most of the year.
And how many rural schools are in danger of closing because of falling rolls? One local Primary school that I know of has only one teacher (who is Polish, married to a Scot and mother to their child – presumably under May’s regime she’s due to be thrown out of the country in the near future), there are 12 pupils and it shares a head teacher with another school. I don’t live in the middle of nowhere. Scotland is a big place. And great chunks of the Highlands are empty. It’s more than just a playground for people to nip up to for the weekend and ‘to get away from it all’.
“Its not rocket science, you just have to plan for the size of population you are expecting/encouraging. If you just “let it happen” then you end up playing into the hands of those that spread fear and concerns.”
How frightfully tory, blame the immigrant. Immigration to England is based primarily on jobs sensible, the super heated south east of England especially. Blame immigrants for all your woes is very creepy but its how the BBC led tory media creep show operates, that and blocking out actual EU news and info.
Such is toryboy teamGB sensible, sneaky, sleazy, very very creepy and now you’re all out of the EU. All of which will curtail immigration into England, as the Brexit economy flounders as it is now, the declines, faster and faster, as assorted tory lunatics ponce and posture around the planet trying to flog British Empire 2.0
Holy shit sensibledave.
David Cameron managed to largely stop the UK press and media “commemorating” the great English football victory in 1966 for fear of starting the uppity Jocks off on another demand for self determination.
Scotland’s great victory at Wemberly over the world champions was on April 15 1967. The great Jim Baxter keepy uppy game. I think that come the day we should mark the 50th anniversary.
Maybe they could show the game on the telly? Ha ha ha ha ha ha
Vote for the SNP in the council elections. They will make sure the election rules and qualification aka second home non residential people do not break the Law and vote twice illegally.
It is more than possible in the next IndyRef2 a residential (3 years?) will be included. To exclude voters who are just passing through and are non residential.
Really important to vote SNP,SNP, SNP in the local elections to fight corruption. All votes SNP if you support good local policies and services and/or support Independence. Help get the vote out.
Bob 10.38
… just talking about the loony “fringe” Bob.
Yes they are entitled to their opinion, but good taste determines that it would be better for all (and certainly the SNP and the Independence cause) sometimes, if they kept those thoughts to themselves. So as not to leave the sane ones having to explain away the thoughts/actions of the minority of loonies.
Rabid Britnat hysteria today – even more than usual. Jings, I think we Yessers are set to become the “silent majority”!
@Liam,
Many of these nipping up to the Highlands “to get away from it all” are exactly the ones who voted to keep us “in it”. Laughable.
David Cameron was born on 9th October 1966
Much talk about voting for Indy request for Section 30 in parliament, mandates etc..
Excluding constitutional issues, the SNP and the Greens seem to have agreed on very little during this parliament. In that respect, the devolved issues respect, the Greens can be said to be the real opposition! They are the party offering constructive criticism of the government. The Greens are never short of an alternative policy to the SNP’s.
However, on the issue of the constitution and putting the nation first, the Greens will behave like all oppositions do and stand behind the government when needed. On day to day politics I’m not a Green supporter, but when it comes to national issues they do the right thing.
The contrast with the three Westminster parties who are here in Scotland merely as proxies for London politics and rule could not be greater. London rule at any cost, no alternative plans, u-turns to suit the circumstances, never ever constructive or positive, and always ‘ScotlandBaaaad’.
“So as not to leave the sane ones having to explain away the thoughts/actions of the minority of loonies.”
Says the walloper who calls “Flitting” “Migrating”.
Ken500
Like the rest of us he had 49 years of “1966” on the telly. But in 2016? Naethin!
London Evening Standard reporting Mrs May being urged to call Snap Election. No 10 denies.
“….Tory MPs have called on the chief whip to push the Prime Minister to call an election despite a strong denial of the claims from Downing Street, the Times reported.
A win in a snap poll would allow Mrs May to push through controversial legislation needed to trigger Brexit……”
This is the second day a snap General Election has been rumoured.
London Evening Standard:-
link to archive.is
Bob 10.38
… if you want any clues to the loony fringe, have a read of Heedy at 10.42.
I suppose it is possible that he is a “sane” person that just completely misunderstood my comments – but I rather suspect, and there is overwhelming and convincing evidence over time, that actually, he is just a “loony”.
The Tories (Thatcher) depopulated Scotland with their centralist controlling economic policies which favoured London S/E. £Billions were illegally and secretly taken out of Scotland to fund London S/E
Causing increase congestion and traffic chaos, in London S/E. Unemployment and lack of resources in Scotland because of Westminster Unionist illegal, unfair, unequal policies meant people in Scotland were migrants and had to reluctantly leave their country to find a job. Just like the migrants who come to the UK. It is as a result of the Westminster unionist illegal, secret policies breaking the Law. Not treating Scotland equally as under the terms if the Act of Union. Barnett Formula etc. McCrone Report kept under the Official Secrets Act. The brutal unionist Party’s betrayal. Iraqi war detail kept under the Official Secrets Act for 100 years. Secret illegal Gov. Westminster hiding it’s corruption. Illegal wars, banking fraud and tax evasion. Westminster corrupt criminality. Scotland would have been Independent long ago if the truth had been known.
Scotland population has only increased since Devolution. 2000. (Since 1707) Scotland was in danger of extinction because of Westminster illegal Unionist policies. Still endangered. Scotland is in a fight for it’s very existence and future. Otherwise Scotland would and could be be even more empty because of Westminster illegal policies and intransigence.
Jack Murphy
She already has everything she needs to push through her idea of Brexit.
Mike 10.59
Er Mike, rather than getting me involved in your ridiculousness, could you and Robert Peffers sort our between you whether Scotland is a different country to England – and then let me know please.
As an aside Mike, it doesn’t matter where the “new arrivals” come from, the issues are the same i.e. dwellings, schools, etc. Unless you are arguing that say, Welsh, or English, or Northern Irish people don’t need housing, or schools for their kids?
Keep going Mike – you are way out in front for today’s “stupid” award. You are even ahead of Heedy – and he is normally the champion every day.
@Jack Murphy,
I posted on this earlier Jack. It would be a risky and idiotic strategy. Due to fixed term parliament laws the only way it could be done was if Mrs May initiated a vote of no confidence in her own government. The Tories would have to be whipped to agree. Labour would then have to back the motion as well although an election would see them decimated ( two thirds of parliament required to pass vote).
Add to this the fact that 16 million voters wanted to remain in the EU, and you have a recipe for electoral disaster.
Undoubtedly Tories would win previously safe Labour seats ,but the Lib Dems would certainly pick up previous Tory seats.
Bit of a mess all in all.
“Undoubtedly Tories would win previously safe Labour seats, but the Lib Dems would certainly pick up previous Tory seats.”
As would UKIP – god help us.
The only way May and the Tories can get out of the mess they have created is to illegally call a GE and lose. That is typical Tories behaviour cause the illegal mess and run away. Let someone else clear up their mess. Just like bloody cowards running away. Typical unionist political behaviour. They are totally, incorriblpe, immoral appalling people.
May 4 being moted as GE day, The date of the local council elections in Scotland. Once again trying to muck up elections in Scotland. Another disgusting disrespectful disgrace.
Bob Mack said at 11:10 am:
“…… ( two thirds of parliament required to pass vote)…..”
Thanks a lot for that info. I very much doubt if Mrs May would get the two thirds majority in the Commons to trigger a General Election.
sensibledave must be off weekend leave. Back at his desk. He still hasn’t answered what rank he is.
Here comes the Spain question again.
link to archive.is
Oh, and could we have more clarity and less hot air about the age question.
Being 65 or over does not in itself make you more inclined to vote ‘no’.
It just so happens that we are at a moment in our history when that age group is so inclined.
The demographic is changing that, and even if we dont get a ‘yes’ vote this time round, Scotland is clearly going to leave the way Northern Ireland will.
And as someone who will be 65 next month, you can be sure I am looking forward to being patronised and frightened by all those young people – at least until I tell them to get to …
The Green Party is an unpopular nightmare. Even more irrational than the unionists and twice as useless. Never, ever, ever let them get into any power on the SNP/Independence back. To stab the SNP in the back. They are incorrigible liars. Troughing useless opportunist who waste £Millions/Billions of public money. On grotesque monstrosity projects. They could and would cost Scotland Independence. They renege on their own policies and on every level. Collude with the unionist for control, public money and office. Never ever trust them.
is the dr moving to yes?
huge if true
link to dailyrecord.co.uk
link to dailyrecord.co.uk
link to dailyrecord.co.uk
It’s an interesting thought, this ‘snap election’ which is being floated. Now I may have been a reader of Wings for too long, because I’m getting a bit paranoid about the acions of the Westminster elite…..but.
What if the powers that be, the ones pulling the strings from the shadows, have decided that they really don’t want Brexit and need a way to fix the shambles.
A new government would not be required to implement the policies of the present government…..no Brexit, maybe a big cost in seats and votes for the Tories, however it takes most of the heat out of the Scottish independence campaign.
I guess it depends on which does least damage to the ruling classes.
Actions…I meant actions of the ruling classes.
Must get better at proof reading.
Oh Dear! Expectations, expectations.
The contingent of BrexitNat commentators and politicians now calling for a snap general election are not doing PM May any favours. No favours at all. Expectations may rise and these things can quickly get out of control. May could be backed into (yet another) corner on this. The BrexitNats should remember it was a cancelled snap election that all but destroyed Gordon Brown. Of course, GB would have screwed up later anyway (as it turned out) but it was his hinting of a snap election, followed by some furious cowardly back-pedalling after an unfavourable opinion poll, that ultimately did it for him. GB ended up looking very weak and, well, just feart.
Snap election?
Sure – bring it on. Or don’t bring it on. Whatever. Feel free – just keep stoking that fire under your leader’s feet. It’s not us you are making uncomfortable.
James Caithness 11:18 am
… what’s up James? Feeling a bit outgunned in the intellect stakes? Are my missives so impressive, educational, informative and enlightening that you assume that they must be the result of a Brains Trust group?
No James, just little ol’ me, on my own, not paid, encouraged or guided by anyone or thing – other than my desire to share thoughts on politics (oh, and the opportunity to remind Heedy, as often as needs be, that he is not very bright and he needs to get out more).
sensibledave says:
Mike 10.59
“Er Mike, rather than getting me involved in your ridiculousness, could you and Robert Peffers sort our between you whether Scotland is a different country to England – and then let me know please.”
That’s not a discussion Robert and I are involved in.
Yer gibbering.
“As an aside Mike, it doesn’t matter where the “new arrivals” come from, the issues are the same i.e. dwellings, schools, etc. Unless you are arguing that say, Welsh, or English, or Northern Irish people don’t need housing, or schools for their kids?”
I’m arguing that anybody in the UK can move to any part of the UK anytime they want. Irrespective of Houses Schools dwelling etc etc. You stupidly claimed they would be migrants if they did.
“Keep going Mike – you are way out in front for today’s “stupid” award. You are even ahead of Heedy – and he is normally the champion every day.”
Oh now yer just being modest in a projection kind of way.
I don’t think Ive ever seen a single contribution of yours that doesn’t qualify as wilful shite.
Stu’s twitter – pointing out that the SNP have 63 MSPs. The combined Unionists have 59 MSPs. So the SNP already have more MSPs even before you count the 6 Green MSPs.
This fact mysteriously has escaped the notice of MSM political commentators such as Gordon Brewer & Co. I’m astonished!
link to twitter.com
Mike Cassidy
“Being 65 or over does not in itself make you more inclined to vote ‘no’.”
Nobody has said it does. It makes it more likely that the voting choice is based on accessing ONLY print and broadcasted MSM and is not tempered by accessing online sources.
Just had some Spanish strawberries bought in Aldi. They are the size of small turnips. And taste similar as well.
Given the constraints of the fixed-term Parliament Act which the Con-Lib-Dem coalition got onto the statute book, the Tories would have to tie themselves in knots to call a snap General Election.
Suppose the Tory right wing proposed a vote of no confidence, some Tories with a small majority and perhaps a constituency which voted Remain would be loathe to support the call.
Does a fractured Labour Party really want a GE, while they are in their present position? I don’t think so, and the 56 pro-Independence Scottish MPs, believing this was a move to harden-up Brexit would certainly oppose it.
Snap elections are no longer easily manufactured. I think the Yoons are in such a panic, they are thinking even less clearly than usual.
Luigi 11.34
I saw and read much over the weekend, but I don’t think my personal view has changed very much …
1. Ms Sturgeon has attempted (and succeeded) in getting some attention with respect to Brexit
2. She is threatening/calling for/bluffing that she wants an Indyref.
3. It is only now (a week after I wrote it) dawning on folk that every scenario results in Scotland leaving the EU (other than if the UK doesn’t Brexit – which seems most unlikeley)
4. So Ms May might at some point in the next 18 months (sooner or later), agree to indyref2 – after Brexit – by arguing that given 300 years of joint history and the fact that SCotland will be leaving the EU as part of the UK’s Brexit, that a few more months of waiting (i.e. until the deal is known and has been implemented) is in everyone’s best interest and will make no difference in the great scheme of things (other than to Ms Sturgeon’s position/strength).
In my view, and I know most here disagree with me, some sort of Brexit deal will be struck that Ms May will be able to argue, provides viable, cost effective access to the single market (I.e “free access” by paying a large fee that is less than the current net contribution from the UK). If she achieves that, then that increases the difficulty for Ms Sturgeon – because that shoots her fox – so to speak.
And no, these are not the thoughts of a “Westminster Insider” they are my own, personal thoughts of an unaffiliated Englishman living in the Home Counties West.
I was wrong once though. I thought I had made a mistake. It turned out that I hadn’t made a mistake though.
That was my mistake!
Theresa May starts her UK tour in a rather futile attempt at redressing the ‘not listening’ imbalance. Truth is the PM has the listening capabilities of a hearing aid without batteries.
@Sensibledave,
You actually do raise some points that need addressing. However,you negate these very quickly be retreating into a rather sneering and condescending attitude rather than back up what you claim
It gives the impression you are only here to disrupt rather than clarify.
If that is the case you cannot expect other back,other than what you dispense. Can you?
@Sensibledave,
The 27 have already agreed that “free” movement of labour is a precondition of the single market regardless of any other consideration. They remain inflexible on that very point.
Ms May would have signed the deal already if it was available.
Next ?
A Prime Minister needs to see clearly, think clearly and speak clearly – and in that order.
Unlike the Scottish First Minister, Theresa May, shows few, if any, signs of such abilities. Which will do us no harm.
Engineering a snap election (with considerable difficulty) is far from guaranteed to increase the Tory majority.
Yes, Labour are a shambles and UKIP votes could move to the Tories. However if the LibDems were to grow a pair and stand on a clear ‘cancel Brexit’ ticket, they might well take back seats previously lost, and more. England is split 50:50ish and WM governements are made and broken by percentages much less than 50.
I’m not suggesting the LibDems could win, but IMO they could damage the Tories.
There is another reason to call a snap election … to undermine the EURef result and actually aim for Brexit cancellation!
Mike 11:37 am
You wrote: “That’s not a discussion Robert and I are involved in. Yer gibbering.”
Sorry Mike, I’ll go slowly for you. I keep assuming I am dealing with people that are bright enough to understand a bit irony/humour.
Robert Peffers will, at the drop of a hat, give anyone that expresses even the slightest interest (as well as those that haven’t) a full history of the evolution of the United Kingdom and how and why it is made up of two Independent Kingdoms/countries/nations/regions (I forget which)and therefore why I am correct – but I can’t be a***d to cut and paste it – hence my invitation to receive your education straight from the Oracle on these things.
You wrote: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single contribution of yours that doesn’t qualify as wilful (sic) shite.”
Unfortunately Mike, that is because you are an idiot and, even more unfortunately, because of genetic predisposition, there is actually nothing either of us can do about that.
Uh-oh, rogue comma after May.
link to you.wemove.eu
Manandboy, thanks for the warning – I do believe in wartime they made ‘strawberry jam’ with turnips.
@Sensible Dave
And once again you go out of your way to prove you post nothing but wilful shite.
You’re a classic example of what mental illness would look like if it could access a keyboard.
” The text of the motion reads:
That the Parliament acknowledges the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of government best suited to their needs and therefore mandates the Scottish Government to take forward discussions with the UK Government on the details of an order under section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998 to ensure that the Scottish Parliament can legislate for a referendum to be held that will give the people of Scotland a choice over the future direction and governance of their country at a time, and with a question and franchise, determined by the Scottish Parliament, which would most appropriately be between the autumn of next year, 2018, when there is clarity over the outcome of the Brexit negotiations and around the point at which the UK leaves the EU in spring 2019.”
… straightword and clear enough. How could an MSP possibly object to that? 😉
link to news.gov.scot
sensibledave @ 12:06,
I think it’s a pity that you are now reduced to mere petty insults. You can surely do better than that. A sign of losing the argument, methinks.
You don’t seem to realise that the very point you keep trying to make, namely that TM will do her damnedest to drag Scotland out of the EU against its clearly expressed will, is the very thing that will undo the Union.
In 2014 we were told that we were loved to bits and were going to be treated as equals at last, yet now, with some kind of triumphalist glee, you assure us that your beloved UK fully intends to hurt us as much as it possibly can. Just because legalistically speaking it thinks it can.
And with that oh-so-characteristic tin ear you think that will somehow convince us to remain in the UK?
You should have a good listen to yourself.
galamcennalath says:
20 March, 2017 at 12:06 pm
Engineering a snap election (with considerable difficulty) is far from guaranteed to increase the Tory majority.
Yes, Labour are a shambles and UKIP votes could move to the Tories. However if the LibDems were to grow a pair and stand on a clear ‘cancel Brexit’ ticket, they might well take back seats previously lost, and more. England is split 50:50ish and WM governements are made and broken by percentages much less than 50.
I’m not suggesting the LibDems could win, but IMO they could damage the Tories.
There is another reason to call a snap election … to undermine the EURef result and actually aim for Brexit cancellation!
____________________________
You could be right.
But
Consider this:
The Lib Dems break the Tory majority on a antibrexit ticket, then force the Tories to go into coalition….
Lovely thought, Tories needing LibDem to stay in power…..and LibDem accepting!
May I just remind everyone that there are Local elections looming on the very near horizon therefore, interesting as the discussion about the referendum/snap GE may, or may not, be the focus now should be for the moment on the Local elections.
The Unionist parties will no doubt try to insert the referendum into them one way or another either as a mini-referendum about having a referendum or as a means to deflect from their record in local government. In other words as a means of framing the agenda. This is unlikely to go down well in elections that should be on local issues.
manandboy says:
20 March, 2017 at 11:44 am
Just had some Spanish strawberries bought in Aldi. They are the size of small turnips. And taste similar as well.
had some spanish strawberries myself last week.Found they taste much better than awful if you slice them, add a couple of spoonfuls of sugar and leave to sit for a 3-4 hours
Henry Ford once said ” If you think you can, or think you can’t. You will be right either way”
People like SensibleDave want to dwell on the negatives because it fits the unionist mantra.
I see Prestwick becoming an International hub, I see the Orkney/Shetland basin becoming a container terminal, hydro-electric power supplying high energy industries such as steel production. A boost to the Renewables industry etc etc. This leads to jobs and therefore the support requirements of housing,schools etc.
Scotland had 20percent of Britains population in 1707. Why is it 8.4 Now.
In the early 20th. Century we built 50percent of the Worlds shipping – Norway still has many shipyards!
Don’t listen to the pessimism of unionists – THEY ran Scotland down
I think we can recovery and realise our potential but we need to get Westminsters hand out of our pocket first.
“Unfortunately Mike, that is because you are an idiot and, even more unfortunately, because of genetic predisposition, there is actually nothing either of us can do about that.”
All that aside sensible, England is a tory xenophobe state now. Tory propaganda has always gone after foreigners, brainwashed saps like you to hate the EU, this is the fruition.
@Sensible Dave
“3. It is only now (a week after I wrote it) dawning on folk that every scenario results in Scotland leaving the EU (other than if the UK doesn’t Brexit – which seems most unlikeley)”
Except it clearly doesn’t and you know it. It leaves Scotland with a single option to remain within the EU.
Remove Westminster control and influence from the decision process with regards to Scotland BEFORE Scotland is forced out of the EU by that control and influence.
A Scotland still within the EU but without a hostile Westminster influence undemocratically acting against the Democratic choice made by the people of Scotland.
Like I said NOTHING BUT wilful shite in support of nothing but criminal corruption.
@Legerwood 12:24 pm :
“May I just remind everyone that there are Local elections looming on the very near horizon therefore, interesting as the discussion about the referendum/snap GE may, or may not, be the focus now should be for the moment on the Local elections.”
I expressed concern to Stu some time before the indyref announcement that people didn’t appear to have a clue how STV-WIGM (council election system worked).
I based this on some of the things I’ve read here and over on James Kelly’s blog (Scot goes Pop). I’m not 100% convinced James understood the effect of the WIGM transfer value until he looked at it either 😉
I’m assured Stu has it in hand and an article will go up nearer the time.
Apparently
Article 50: Theresa May to trigger Brexit process next week.
The fun begins
Legerwood,
You are of course right, there are real elections coming up very soon that need to be addressed. They ought to be largely about local issues, but by the very circumstances we find ourselves in at present, they will probably go down in history as the ones most dominated by national issues instead.
Everything is polarising into “indy” vs “unionist”.
It’s not just the Tories, although they are clearly hoping to benefit from the ongoing collapse of the Labour vote and the proportional nature of an STV election – their cunning plan is to use them as a “referendum about a referendum”. (You know, to “prove” the “one we don’t want”.)
So for indy supporters it has to be GOTV with a vengeance, not merely to displace corroded old Labour-dominated councils, but also to increase the pressure on London over ScotRef.
Dorothy Devine says:
20 March, 2017 at 12:13 pm
Manandboy, thanks for the warning – I do believe in wartime they made ‘strawberry jam’ with turnips.
____________________
Wonderful, lets all make some strawberry flavoured turnip jam.
Whilst its cooking, we could all sing “Land of Hate and Tory”
@Vestas at 12.38. Thank goodness – the voting system for the local elections is scrambling my brains and I’m sure I’m not alone in that!
Just watched Owen Jones’ vlog on “Let’s all move to Scotland”. He is well intentioned but sadly very ignorant about the political situation in Scotland. His parents live in Edinburgh he points out. But he gets his information about Scotland from the Scottish Labour party. So that explains it.
He is tripped up by the “nationalism” issue. Somehow, Labourites are incapable of understanding that civic nationalism is not the blood and soil nationalism we all despise. They seem blind to the British nationalism all around them. Even though British nationalism IS the blood and soil variety with its constant harping back to the empire, scapegoating of immigrants, foreign military adventures and jingoistic “Best of British” mentality.
The SNP is a centre left, modern European social democrat party. In other words, normal in Europe. Britain, on the other hand, is bizarre. Good Opendemocracy article spelling this out:
link to opendemocracy.net
Maybe Nana has already linked to this.
@ben madigan & manandboy 12:25 pm
“manandboy says:
20 March, 2017 at 11:44 am
Just had some Spanish strawberries bought in Aldi. They are the size of small turnips. And taste similar as well.
had some spanish strawberries myself last week.Found they taste much better than awful if you slice them, add a couple of spoonfuls of sugar and leave to sit for a 3-4 hours”
I’m not surprised they’re awful – Murcia has had the worst winter weather in living memory (400mm of rain in 5 days during December).
An old trick for early strawberries which weren’t that sweet was to cut in half & put a little black pepper on them. It tricks the tastebuds from what I remember.
Way OT, way way OT 🙂
McBoxheid says:
Perhaps in my original posting I should have suggested the LibDems stand on an anti hard Brexit ticket, which is perhaps more likely. Standing on soft and in the single market would hoover up votes.
The result of the 2010 election was Con 36.1%, Lab 29.0%, LibDem 23.0% … so at least the coalition could have been said to represent a massive 59.1%.
But that was only in theory. The 2015 election showed that LibDem voters weren’t impressed by their party’s deal and lack of achievements! The LibDems failed to get any of their policies implemented and sold out on many.
What would they do next time, should that come about? Possibly soften Brexit which might mean no Indy!
I’m sure there are many Unionists who would be quite happy with that outcome.
“4. So Ms May might at some point in the next 18 months (sooner or later), agree to indyref2 – after Brexit – by arguing that given 300 years of joint history and the fact that SCotland will be leaving the EU as part of the UK’s Brexit, that a few more months of waiting (i.e. until the deal is known and has been implemented) is in everyone’s best interest and will make no difference in the great scheme of things (other than to Ms Sturgeon’s position/strength).”
So the case for delaying an Indyref is based on believing its in Scotlands best interests because Teresa May says so?
And a 310 year history of warmongering despotic fascist global conquest, poverty creation, social division, A social structure based on patronage and privilege for the few built on social deprivation of the masses?
Now yer trying to educate us in what demented would look like if it had access to a keyboard.
Bob Mack 11.05
Bob, if you ever have have nothing to do, pull up a thread where I have “engaged”.
1. key Control/F
2. In the search box, type sensibledave (or other hilarious versions of same, including (my favourite, the brilliantly innovative “insensibledave”) sensible, davy boy, SD, Tory Boy, Unionist, Yoon, etc – and then press “enter”.
3.Make a separate list of all of the name calling, insults, sneering, projecting, straw man arguments and general lack of appreciation for all of the enormous efforts I make to educate and inform, for no reward other than pure altruism.
You may then understand why I am not overly concerned that sometimes I may respond to comments to me in a robust and clear manner.
Honestly,Bob, I really don’t mind the insults, it helps me to work out how might have a brain, or where I may have provided data that has “challenged” a recipient with information or data that conflicts with official, prescribed thinking – to the point where they have nothing to say other than an illogical rant.
May I ask that if you end up feeling sorry for someone that you think may have been “injured” by a comment from me, that you read what it was that I wrote, their reply, and then judge whether my response was appropriate/fair.
Nana said at 7:57 am:-
“…….link to scottishunemployedworkers.net
“You’re Better Off In Jail
Those were the words of one of the many unhappy people we met outside Dundee buroo this week. He had been sanctioned, and his observation was based on personal experience.
There were other sanction cases too. James had been sanctioned for 65 days for not coming to an appointment that clashed with his college course……..”
A terrible,terrible,shameful,tearful indictment of the Tories,and to think some people in Scotland voted for them. 🙁
For obvious reasons Nana I can’t bring myself to thank you for that particular link.
Mike 12:36 pm
You wrote “Except it clearly doesn’t and you know it. It leaves Scotland with a single option to remain within the EU.
Remove Westminster control and influence from the decision process with regards to Scotland BEFORE Scotland is forced out of the EU by that control and influence.
A Scotland still within the EU but without a hostile Westminster influence undemocratically acting against the Democratic choice made by the people of Scotland.
Like I said NOTHING BUT wilful shite in support of nothing but criminal corruption.”
… OK Mike, you have my attention.
Could you please write a timeline of the relevant dates that show me, and everyone else, how Scotland will be an Independent country before the UK Brexits (implicitly I accept that Scotland may have had a referendum and may have voted to become Independent prior to Brexit).
@Sensibledave.
I note you live in the west Country. Therefore it is very difficult for you to understand the “true” picture of what is happening here in Scotland, and the annoyance felt by its citizens at being too long on the periphery of major decision making even though these decisions affect our daily lives.
It is an awakening from a long slumber of acceptance and indifference. The SNP just 50 years ago could never have gathered the support it has now. That I suppose is the proof of the pudding that as long as 10 years ago the Scots voted for something different rather than what we see as “populist” movements today in other countries.
The SNP have proved we can govern ourselves. They have given people belief in themselves to make decisions. What is wrong about that?
It seems that many don’t like that idea at all. Whilst we want to leave the family home and yes ,probably make our own mistakes, our parental figures and sibling countries try to stop us by giving all the same arguments you yourself have given on this forum. We have to leave the nest sometime Dave. Now is just as good a time as any.
@sarah 12:42 pm
“@Vestas at 12.38. Thank goodness – the voting system for the local elections is scrambling my brains and I’m sure I’m not alone in that!”
Apart from the way the transfer value is calculated STV is a very simple system. It should be noted however that when the number of seats/area drops below 5 then this heavily favours large parties under all STV systems.
So how to vote?
You simply rank your candidates in terms of like/dislike/hate 🙂
So you’d go :
1) SNP candidate #1
2) SNP candidate #2
…
down to
8) Tory candidate #2
9) Tory candidate #1
Your vote won’t shift from SNP #1 until that candidate is elected/eliminated, then a fraction of your vote moves to SNP #2 until they’re elected/eliminated and so on down the line.
The fraction of your vote which gets passed on to your next preference is reduced at each voting stage.
That fraction is called the transfer value and is calculated in different ways under different systems.
Almost amazingly the (then ScotGov) Lab/Libs chose a system which is in all likelihood the fairest and least likely to be able to game. Had they understood what they were doing then they’d have chosen the Aussie way of doing this which would have resulted in big gains for all 3 unionist parties.
Woohoo for ignorance! 😉 I would say that post-indy the SNP should increase the number of seats/area to 5+ as it’ll be fairer.
The Aussies are likely going to use the same system Scotland does soon as (amusingly) they think it’ll help them stop the One Nation racists. It probably will but the two main parties are going to lose a shedload of seats & they won’t understand why 🙂
tl;dr vote from love to hate on your prefs. If you can’t bring yourself to rank the Tories last then leave the last couple of prefs blank. Do some checking on “independents” before you rank them above others – they’re often tory/labour has beens.
Hoy! It’s ‘Davey boy’ I add the ‘e’ for accuracy! Kindly take note.
STV just vote SNP, SNP,SNP all choices SNP. No other Party. If you want better local services, responsible governance and/or Independence. That is all that needs to be done. Get out and vote SNP every choice. Do not transfer any vote. Do not vote for any other Party. Do not make any other preference,
Questions which would undoubtedly generate a substantial majority for YES:
1) Do you think Gordon Brown is delusional?
2) Do you think Wee Willy Rennie’s party will finish behind the Monster Raving Loony Party in the forthcoming council elections?
@Vestas – many thanks for this explanation. I usually do a letter to my local newssheet to explain the voting system [when it’s not FPTP] but I have to understand it myself first!
With STV I don’t understand why we should vote for every candidate, including the Tories. I fear that even a fraction of a vote might get them a seat. Can you help me on this?
There are two crucial reasons Ms May wants to delay a Scottish referendum and they have nothing to do with ‘sacred and precious’.
Firstly, she wants to go to that negotiating table with ALL the assets of the nations which make up the UK as bargaining material.
Secondly, once a Brexit has been achieved any referendum post this event would effectively remove the voting rights of almost 190,000 resident EU nationals in Scotland. Right about now those new Scots won’t be overly pleased with either Brexit or Ms May’s government and their vote is dangerous to Ms May’s intentions. Pretty much a no brainer for the Conservative government to want to remove a huge voting block that is somewhat grumpy with them.
Both notions are pretty much an affront to democracy. The Tories having been pretty loud about who has what mandate to do what. It’s worth remembering that we’ve gone to war twice (Falklands and Iraq) on government mandates a lot less than 46% of the vote and latterly an EU ref held by a PM who enjoyed on 36-37%[?].
So, no. No, I don’t think that the Scottish Government will require any advice on mandates from either Ms May or the assorted branch management in Scotland.
The job of the Scottish Government is to protect our assets, our interests, the voting rights of our citizens and most importantly our right to choose.
As a population we should expect to have those things protected by any FM of any party. Some have made it abundantly clear that is not the case.
‘…and general lack of appreciation for all of the enormous efforts I make to educate and inform, for no reward other than pure altruism.’
Oh ma aching sides…the arrogance, the condescension, the sheer shamelessness…and the absurdity of your ‘take’ on yersel’ is indeed laughable and provably false. You from the instant you came on to Wings have proved yourself that most absurd of creatures…a buffoon full of blustering snobbery with a bloated sense of self regard far in excess of your actual qualiites, none of which could ever be mistaken for ‘altruistic’.
Clowns gonnae clown.
@ sensibledave – I don’t think that you’re blaming immigrants for all your woes, and your expressed concern over the issue of planning is hardly objectionable. I know this makes me a monster.
Teresa May is just another lying troughing useless Tory. Wasting public money, like there is no tomorrow. Getting into £Trns of debt. Even worse than Thatcher is that is possible. A malicious liar who has fallen on every post and then blamed public officials, for her errors. A useless parasite. Funded by bankers and Hedge Funds (like her husband) who finances her opulent lifestyle. White she corruptly and illegally attacks vulnerable people and creates division in society. A totall hypocrite.
Seeing as you’re hanging around like an eggy fart sensibledave, thoughts?
link to thecourier.co.uk
STV do not vote for any candidate but SNP ever. If that is your Party of choice. Do not give away or dilute your vote for any other Party. Only vote SNP. Do not vote for any of the unionist/Green and No Party.
STV just vote SNP, SNP,SNP all choices SNP. No other Party.
Having read James Kelly’s blog, if I understand what he argues, it actually makes sense to place ALL indy candidates but ALSO a LibDem – the single LibDem placement is there to affect the main Yoon candidates (Slab/Cons). Something like this:
1. SNP #3
2. SNP #1
3. SNP #2
4. Indy #1
5. Indy #2
6. Independent
7. LibDem
See Kelly article here:
link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk
You’re not a monster RN, you are a stirrer though, that’s okay too 😉
@Jack Murphy
I’m sorry Jack the article upset you . Believe me I have read worse. I do feel it right that these articles need to be read and shared, how else will people learn of the cruelty of Ruth Davidson’s party sanctioned and endorsed by labour and the lib dems. What we will get at election time from the tory leaflets will be Ruthie smiling while stroking some poor animal, not the fact that she is a nasty, greedy individual and a willing puppet of London masters.
Hopefully this one will cheer you up
link to commonspace.scot
@Sarah says 1:12 pm :
“@Vestas – many thanks for this explanation. I usually do a letter to my local newssheet to explain the voting system [when it’s not FPTP] but I have to understand it myself first!
With STV I don’t understand why we should vote for every candidate, including the Tories. I fear that even a fraction of a vote might get them a seat. Can you help me on this?”
If you rank the tories last (or omit them entirely) then they’re getting sweet FA from you 🙂
In terms of voting for every candidate : Your first preference vote (SNP #1) will not transfer until that candidate is elected/eliminated. At that point a smaller fraction of your vote will transfer to your second preference (SNP #2), where again it remains until they’re elected/eliminated. This carries on until all the seats are filled.
So there is ZERO risk of splitting the SNP vote if you vote SNP 1/2 on your prefs.
However after that point its up to you – you can just leave it blank or fill in the form. TBH leaving it blank suggests you don’t really care about which sort of unionist (or the greens) gets in after the SNP.
This strikes me as a bit silly. Glasgow is controlled by Labour so after the SNP prefs then maybe a LibDem might have a shot at getting a Labour seat? Surely the last person you’d want to see elected would be a Tory so why not give later prefs to those who aren’t?
The thing to remember that for council elections you vote SNP1/2 and you can’t do any more to ensure they get elected. If however one/both don’t then surely you’d want your (fractional) third pref vote to go anywhere other than Tory?
There’s no risk here in terms of splitting votes or encouraging unionists. Not like d’Hondt which has to go post indy – that’d be a good system for a second elected chamber to review legislature though.
For those about to dig up stuff about block voting in STV elections in other countries is susceptable to dummy/block voting then I’d suggest you look at how WIGM works.
@ Sarah – Scot Goes Pop has posted twice recently on using all of your votes in STV.:
link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk
link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk
Ken? We’re getting miced messages on ballot for May’s elections:
Have a look at what our James Kelly is saying on the matter, he is not advocating SNP ‘only’ on the ballot paper:
link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk
I’m not sure if this has been linked to before … apologies if it has. Munguin has this up on his site at the moment. Perhaps when the Wee Blue Book Mark II comes out for the next indy ref there could perhaps be a way found to include a small DVD thingy with this video on it. 😉
link to youtube.com
Don’t vote for any other Party than SNP is that is whom you support. You do not have to give support to any other candidate. It will dilute your vote and you voting intention. Just SNP, SNP, SNP. If you vote for any other candidate you are diluting your vote. Cancelling out your voting intention. There is absolutely no reason or necessity to vote for any other candidate.
The DR is going over. Goodness gracious. It’s a miracle. Will it be the Sun next? They have finally broken ranks.
K1 … 1.17
You wrote, after another load of mis-targeted guff, “…. a buffoon full of blustering snobbery with a bloated sense of self regard far in excess of your actual qualiites, none of which could ever be mistaken for ‘altruistic’.
Hmm. I think I see your particular problem K1 – you take everything you read – at face value! You have no comprehension, understanding or awareness of when someone might be being playful, ironic, self deprecating or, if those words are too hard for you “joking”?
Only an idiot could possibly interpret my references to “educating and informing”, “sharing” and “pure altruism” as anything other than a bit of light-hearted, self mickey taking K1.
Most regulars understand that- why is it that you have difficulty K1?
Snap Capella.
K1 – I commend you for hudding yourself back from putting ‘shit’ in front of ‘stirrer’ there.
Ken500,
Your (repeated) advice re voting in the local elections is poor. Unless you want Unionists to prosper more than their due, that is.
We need to be much smarter than that, peeps, if we are to maximise the pro-indy result. Check it out.
This is not about posturing, it’s about winning.
it is possible may will storm out of negotations this autumn after the german elections, after which we will have 12 months behind wto tariff barriers before we vote in indyref2,
if not and the uk is still in the eu in sept 18, after a yes vote the eu will offer a holding pen position for scotland, probably EEA membership to ensure continued access to the eu single market. the wto tarrif barrier between england and scotland will come into existence during scottish indy negotiations with westminster when the ruk finally leave the eu
once indy negs are finished, what happens after that dave will be none of your business
@Ken500 1:34 pm
“Don’t vote for any other Party than SNP is that is whom you support. You do not have to give support to any other candidate. It will dilute your vote and you voting intention.”
Sadly this is the polar opposite of the truth. I use careful words because I honestly don’t think you understand how STV (any variant) works.
What you advocate is abstaining after all SNP candidates have been elected/eliminated. Nothing else.
While that is a valid position it is NOT valid in terms of any sort of logic – either political or mathematical.
What you’re saying is that you don’t give a damn what sort of unionist gets in after the SNP are elected/eliminated in any given ward.
Best of luck winning Glasgow with that sort of strategy is all I can say 🙁
schrodingers cat says:
I’ve wondered that. The timescale is supposed to be …
18 months for negotiations
6 months for ratification by EU27
Brexit at 24 months
Personally, I think there’s a real chance it will all falter at the divorce arrangements and get no further! And even if it passes that with the exit reparations agreed, the EU and UK are miles apart in terms of trade access.
So, what does happen when May storms out after six months? We twiddle thumbs for the other 18 months? Or, is the 24 months a maximum and Brexit could happen earlier?
If the SG sticks with its position that ScotRef should be between knowing and leaving, it could be earlier with or without Section 30, I expect.
@ K1 – I always check Scot Goes Pop if polls are afoot!
I’ve just downloaded and checked over the Scottish Green Party manifesto. Gordon Brewer was accusing the Greens of having no mandate to support the SNP in Holyrood on Wednesday. But they have.
“If a new referendum is to happen, it should come about by the will of the people, and not be driven by calculations of party political advantage. In such a referendum the Scottish Greens will campaign for independence.”
It was in the SNP manifesto which secured them a massive vote of confidence by the Scottish voters. What better evidence could you possibly have?
link to greens.scot
@ Ken500 1:34
Dear Oh Dear Ken. We have to vote for all the pro-indy candidates on 4 May. This means you have to put aside your curious and pathological hatred of the Greens. This is about winning Independence. This is about getting the Unionists out of the town halls. Vote for ALL the pro-indy candidates and rank them in order of preference. FGS, don’t let the red, blue and yellow Tories in by the back door.
Sensible Dave
“Could you please write a timeline of the relevant dates that show me, and everyone else, how Scotland will be an Independent country before the UK Brexits (implicitly I accept that Scotland may have had a referendum and may have voted to become Independent prior to Brexit).”
Certainly just as soon as there is confirmation of a definitive timeline for the end of negotiations the deliberation period and the actual official Brexit date itself.
Whenever you’re ready.
Heedy 1.21
Clearly I cannot “know” what her thinking is but I am happy to have a go at guessing.
I think that Ms May thinks that Ms Sturgeon is out to try and make the Brexit negotiations as difficult as possible. (Quelle surprise!)
I think she thinks that Ms Sturgeon’s desired timing for a potential indyref2 is designed, almost entirely, to cause the rest of the UK as much difficulty as possible.
I might be wrong (not!), but I think Ms May thinks that Ms Sturgeon may not be the most helpful or discreet partner in any Brexit negotiations – and doesnt think Ms Sturgeon’s input would therefore be helpful and doesnt want her within 1000 miles of such negotiations.
I think that Mrs May thinks that Ms Sturgeon doesn’t actually want indyref2 in her stated timescales anymore than she does – albeit for different reasons.
I think Mrs May thinks that Ms Sturgeon wants to win the vote this week to hold a referendum – and that she then wants MS May to say she can’t have one.
That will give Ms Stureon a reason not to have a referendum in the stated timescales and enable Ms Sturgeon to claim that it was pointless having one unless it was binding. THis allows her to both save face, and have more ammunition regarding the nasty oppressive colonialists in Westminster.
This will allow Ms Sturgeon to buy the time to not risk holding indyref2 – when a Brexit deal may have been agreed that offers pretty good access to the single market – to a level that might prove additionally problematic to Ms Sturgeon if she was actually committed to holding a referendum.
In summary, I don’t think either Ms Sturgeon or Ms May want indyref2 at a time when Ms Sturgeon says she wants to hold it.
I don’t think Ms Sturgeon thinks she can win indyref2 anytime before the Brexit deal is announced – and doesnt want to be committed to holding one in case the Brexit deal ends up in a place where Ms Sturgeon doesn’t want it to end up.
So, based upon the information available to me in the media so far, that is my assessment of where we are.
Remember Heedy, I have tried to second guess , based upon information available to both of us, what Ms May and Ms Sturgeon are thinking at this time.
These thoughts are not representative of my views on the matter – they are my guess at what Ms May and Ms Sturgeon are thinking.
By all means hold a different view to me but please accept that actually neither of “knows” – but you did ask me my view.
So, a “thank you” would be nice!
I think the EU will do a trade agreement with rUK. It won’t be the single market but likewise it won’t be WTO terms.
A sort of halfway house so to speak.
The EU can’t pull the plug on rUK, much as they’d like to as London provides most of the Euro-denominated funding even now. To pull the plug on that before other member states get their act together would be disastrous.
However if May walks out then that’s armageddon in Euro terms. Wouldn’t take much to bring the SE of England to a standstill with “disputes” on the Chunnel/ferries or a lack of customs officers….
The EU currently needs London as a finance centre. rUK needs Europe for everything else.
once indy negs are finished, what happens after that dave will be none of your business
Oh Happy Day!
Hey sensibledave, IF you really are sensiblefdave, who do you fancy leading the next BetterTogether 2.0 campaign? Flipper Darling was the hero of the day for the tories and he’s been handsomely rewarded too, but who do you fancy saving your union sensible?
Its going to be fascinating to see who does get the Bettertogether 2 job as Flipper’s legacy for SLab has been, lets say, a difficult one.
To back up what Vestas is saying:
In my ward there are 4 seats to be filled.
The SNP is only standing two candidates.
Therefore, two other people are going to be elected.
If I stop assigning preferences after the two SNP candidates, I am allowing other people to decide who wins those two seats. I haven’t seen the list of candidates and it may be that they are all so awful that it won’t make a lot of difference.
I don’t believe I can bear to vote Tory, even in last place. But I have to think about the potential consequences of that.
Not sure about a snap election. If May calls A50 on the 29th, as they leg it for the Easter Hols, are they really going to come back to try and get the 2/3rds necessary to dissolve Parliament, call an election and then run a campaign for a month while A50 just sits scratching itself. I am sure that will impress the EU negotiators. What if it backfires? The Liberals could win some of their seats in England back as they have been doing in Council by-elections. Can you imagine the Brexity faces if May lost her overall majority? I doubt Corbyn would take Labour to the biggest party stakes but May could end up…and she doesn’t want to end up.
Anybody know when Nicola is putting Indyrefnew through Holyrood. I really want to hear Struth and Kez whinging the face off anybody that will listen
RE: Council elections:
I think the advised tactic for STV is to get all your indy parties on the list firs and foremost, but also include yoons on your list, ensuring that all the yoon candidates are near or the bottom, with the person/party you least want to win right at the bottom. Somehow, it seems to work. 🙂
Eg.
1.SNP
2. SNP
3. Green
4. RISE
5. Green
6. Independent
7. Independent
8. libDem
9. UKIP
10. Tory
11. Tory
12. Labour
13. Labour
Note the least desirables at the bottom, where a low score is effectively a vote against them. UKIP only off the bottom because they are less likely to take the yoon votes, so it could help to spread/dilute the yoon vote.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong. 🙂
Well who would have thought it , It’s becoming clear with the amount of posts on it STV has become the twin sister of the De Fuckup voting system at Holyrood , the brainchild of some academic some one who has studied for years and years and years , and this f/k up is the result ,This complicated load of tosh is just that tosh , people want to vote for who or whatever party they trust ,
Please please spare me the ” YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THE SYSTEM PISH ” go and stand in any street and ask 100 people to explain it , your answer will be EH , oh i am to busy before they walk away .
Just a thought about how a once in a generation/lifetime deal passes by within the real world.
Decades ago I made my own once in a lifetime deal way back in the days when Betamax was in direct competition with VHS.
Like many others in that period I bought myself a brand spanking new Video recorder/Player and immediately went out to register with my nearest Video Movie rental shop.
At the top of the various membership options was the brilliant deal where you made a 1 off payment of £25.00 for a LIFETIME membership as opposed to paying an annual subscription that if it lasted for your lifetime would have cost 100s if not 1000s.
Now the perception from the buyer is that the lifetime refers to your own lifetime. And why not? That’s the way it was being presented and sold.
Except a few years down the road and reality comes crashing in when the new owner tells you that your subscription has run out and is up for renewal.
Eh what happened to my Lifetime membership?
What lifetime membership?
That’s when I learned that Lifetimes are measured not in terms of ones mortality but in terms of events and material changes in circumstances.
Bet I’m not the only one who has learned that particular experience.
One thing to bear in mind guys re council elections is the number of seats in an area REALLY matters under STV (any system).
For example the Irish govt (1930s IIRC, willing to be corrected) dropped the number of seats/area for the Senate from 9 to 5. They did this as they wanted to cement control of what was a wobbly situation (for the state) at the time.
The reason this matters is that it determines the number of voting rounds. Don’t expect drama like NI when you’ve got a max(?) of 4 seats per ward.
I’m shite at explaining this stuff although I do understand it 🙂
It is a pity that Labour are so hostile and Kezia is so Struth mini-me, super loyalist, Unionist. A more pragmatic and less nasty Labour party could easily gather preference votes from SNP voters in order to block the Tories but what is the point if Labour Councillors are just going to fall straight into bed with Tory ones to block an SNP administration?
I will vote SNP for the number of candidates we have, Green, SSP and/or Independents that appear to be genuinely independent. I am loathe to give a preference to Labour or the Liberals because are so obviously and hugely hostile – the Tories are so far beyond the pale that pins and eyes come to mind. If there are Labour for Indy leaning candidates then I would include them on my good guys list but Kezia has presumably vetoed such a possibility from happening.
@Sensibledave,
Thoughtful analysis Dave, but include in it the fact that Ms Sturgeon still has to comply with the wishes of 62% of this country. That is not going to go away any time soon. The SNP cannot just be seen to be playing a game here. There very existence requires them to follow through on this. Other factors beyond their sphere of influence may affect it, but the push for a timescale is valid rather than just political posturing given the wishes of the electorate.
@Robert Graham 2:16 pm :
“Well who would have thought it … ”
You mean the STV system 30+ countries have been using for 60+ years. The same ones which most US cities use?
Just because you don’t understand it then that’s no reason to pour unmitigated bullshit on the system.
Get a clue.
Vestas
“I think the EU will do a trade agreement with rUK. It won’t be the single market but likewise it won’t be WTO terms.”
The EU has a massive constraint within its negotiation window. It cant offer the UK anything it wouldn’t offer any other member.
For example. it cant allow any privileged forms of single market access without demanding a form of free movement in exchange. Something this UK Government is never going to agree to.
If you think there is common ground to be found then stop. There AINT.
Mike 2:03 pm
You wrote “Certainly just as soon as there is confirmation of a definitive timeline for the end of negotiations the deliberation period and the actual official Brexit date itself.”
… and yet in your previous post you wrote with such certainty Mike. You wrote “Remove Westminster control and influence from the decision process with regards to Scotland BEFORE Scotland is forced out of the EU by that control and influence. A Scotland still within the EU but without a hostile Westminster influence undemocratically acting against the Democratic choice made by the people of Scotland.
In simple terms, here’s my guess at the timeline Mikey boy….
1. This week, the Scottish Parliament will vote in favour of holding a referendum on Scottish Independence
2. Within the next 10 days, The UK government will Trigger Article 50 (the year two clock will start to run) and Brexit will occur end March 2019.
3. Scotland has Independence referendum in say, September/October 2018 (nobody holds elections/referenda in August because of holidays
4. Assume the vote is Yes
5. Scotland and the UK have to then agree the terms of the separation. Based upon Mr Salmond’s previous timescales, these separation negotiations will probably take at least 18 months.
6. UK Brexits in March 2019
7. That is a year before any possible separation from Sctotland.
8. Therefore Scotland will be out of the EU – and will have to reapply to join.
I have no axe to grind in this Mike. I watched This Week last Thursday and John Nicholson seemed to agree with this timeline.
Therefore, as previously posted, when she thinks people “get” this, then Ms May will keep arguing more strongly that delaying indyref2 until post Brexit has little affect because any scenario results in Scotland having to leave and then reapply to join the EU – waiting until the Brexit deal is agreed does not disadvantage Scots in any way she will say.
If they want referendum post brexit then MJrs May will argue that they will be better informed (not voting blind) will know what the deal is (and whether we have effective access to the single-market or not) and will have even experienced some time in a Brexited UK for further information too.
So Mikey, your turn, share. Show me how Scotland Votes for Independence and stays in the EU.
If you book, or win in a raffle, “THE HOLIDAY OF A LIFETIME” does that mean you can never have another holiday as long as you live?
@Mike 2:24 pm
“The EU has a massive constraint within its negotiation window. It cant offer the UK anything it wouldn’t offer any other member.”
You misunderstand.
I think the rUK will get a package deal somewhat substandard to EFTA/EEA rather than WTO (no trade deal) terms.
In return the rUK won’t fuck about with Euro funding streams in any sort of transitional phase.
I have no doubt that the #1 concern of the Tory govt is financial passporting rights for the city – not going to happen other than in a transitional stage.
tl;dr rUK gets same sort of deal as Russia from EU is my bet (minus sanctions).
heedtracker 2:08 pm
You wrote “Hey sensibledave, IF you really are sensiblefdave, who do you fancy leading the next BetterTogether 2.0 campaign? Flipper Darling was the hero of the day for the tories and he’s been handsomely rewarded too, but who do you fancy saving your union sensible?”
Hey Heedy, I know you are a little mentally challenged but you also seem to have no memory!
I don’t really care who may lead anyr “better together” campaign – because I don’ really care about the outcome. The only thing I care about is when indyref2 might be – because I just don’t want it at a time when we are involved in such important negotiations with the EU.
Try and take that on board Heedy, you might get to understand things better.
Davey boy? Everything I stated stands on its own merits…merely riffed on your ‘self mickey’ taking…the arrogance, the condescension, the bloated self regard is laced throughout everything you proffer. You actually made ma point for me by responding in your usual condescending and patronisingly insulting manner…the fact that you seriously think ‘you’ are now speaking for ‘most regulars’ merely attests to the accuracy of ma assertions regarding your character Davey boy…you’re so far up yer own arse the only sun you see is the shaft of light that glints pass yer tonsils as you open yer gub tae speak.
——————————————–
RN, ah commend your observation skills…good manners maketh the nat 😉
—————————————
Aye Capella they are throwing everything at us in the hopes that some shit will stick…it’s not going to happen, we’re doing it.
Sensible Dave
I think yer attributing yer ain demented logic and thought process onto Teresa May who doesn’t need it as her own logic and thought process is demented enough.
There is no reason for Teresa May to believe anything other than what Nicola Sturgeon has made crystal clear.
She will not call for an second Indyref if a way can be found for Scotland to remain within the UK and keep its MEMBERSHIP of the EU single market.
Because in order to confirm that intent all she has to do is agree to broker it.
What can Nicola Sturgeon do if she did other than go along with it.
Instead we get sneering intransigent arrogant despotism when we’re supposed to be dealing with Democrats and public servants.
Denial of a cast iron Democratically won mandate.
This is a Government working and acting out an Ideological approach to self serving. Corrupting its own public service purpose to engage in Blood and Soil Nationalism and social exclusion to the detriment of millions.
And it takes people like you to defend it. The corrupt and worthless. The dishonest and demented. The despicable and the deranged.
Why don’t you spend your time instead pretending you can dredge up an actual positive case for Union than doesn’t amount to bare face lying stupid rhetorical pish and worthless moronic assertion?
Try and take that on board Heedy, you might get to understand things better.
Ah you big wuss.
Dave
Nicola has been quite clear that any vote would take place after the deal has been reached. The purpose is to allow Scots to choose on the basis of what Brexit actually means. That could be as early as Sept 18 or as late as Sept 19 depending on what actually happens. The UK could fall out of the EU in 12 months without a deal at all.
May doesn’t want the threat of a referendum while she is “negotiating”. That is just dumb. Both sides are already in campaign mode. However, there won’t be a vote until after the deal is laid on the table. That is not unreasonable.
Vestas
I cant see any deal happening which doesn’t start with the UK accepting the 60 billion price tag for leaving.
Its all going to go downhill from there. Of course it should be pointed out that they will get a substantial discount if Scotland doesn’t leave.
As someone said earlier on rev’s feed, 27 other parliaments will get to vote on the deal why can’t we? We’re happy to wait until it’s clear what the deal is, we are merely preparing our parliament to ask the sovereign people of Scotland what they think of the deal with the option of independence if that deal does not protect and benefit the people who live and work in our nation.
It’s not fucking rocket science.
@Demented Davy.
“In simple terms, here’s my guess at the timeline Mikey boy….”
Except I didn’t ask for your Guess.
Because you asked me for certainty I need you to give me certainty in return.
Give me the certain timeframe for the Brexit negotiation process and from that I can derive a certain timeframe for Scotlands Indyref and continued membership of the EU.
Whenever you’re ready.
Really the voting system for local elections.
Much useful info, thank you but note of caution about candidates who stand as ‘Independents’.
It seems from recent Council elections/by-elections that the title ‘Independent’ is being used by candidates who, once elected, metamorphose into Tory or Labour supporters on the Council.
I noticed quite a few posts above included Independent in their voting list but only one poster said they would make sure the candidate(s) claiming this really were independent.
Worth bearing in mind.
Anyone confused by the Singular Transferrable Vote should look at Luigis previous post.
It simply means that the bottom candidate is knocked out ,and the voters second preference will get that vote instead.
Vote for as many as you can but make sure you put the main Unionist parties at the bottom of your preferences, regardless of how many are listed.
This means they pick up less 2nd 3rd or even 4th preference votes.
Bob Mack
Cant you leave the bottom preferences blank?
@ Vestas and @Capella – thank you for the explanation and the links to Scot goes Pop. I will pore over them!
I fully understand the principle that we should vote for ALL indy-supporting parties, and then for real Independents [i.e. not covert Unionists], and then for the least-likely to gain a seat Unionists. In the Highlands the latter would mean giving a higher preference to Labour than to LibDems, I think.
But I don’t understand the actual system of these fraction votes which get reallocated. Perhaps it doesn’t matter but I would prefer to understand if possible!
As soon as the vote for another referendum in Scotland is won this week [and well before any date is set] Westminster’s negotiating position with the EU is immediately weakened.
Mike 2:52 pm
Pretty pathetic Mikey boy! No one “knows” what will happen we can only work with the information at hand.
… and none of the information at hand illustrates a way that I am aware of (although I am happy to be reeducated) that means Scotland will stay in the Eu if the UK leaves.
Ask the SNP’s John Nicholson if you don’t want to hear it from me.
You just make yourself look silly and ill informed if you keep maintaining the line that you are – regardless of the facts that Mr Nicholson is sharing with you.
Oh ma aching sides…the arrogance, the condescension, the sheer shamelessness…and the absurdity of your ‘take’ on yersel’ is indeed laughable and provably false. You from the instant you came on to Wings have proved yourself that most absurd of creatures…a buffoon full of blustering snobbery with a bloated sense of self regard far in excess of your actual qualiites, none of which could ever be mistaken for ‘altruistic’.
Looks like K1 has your number Dave.
I hope May pays you more than Houdini sty fumbler Cameron
Dan Huil 3:03 pm
You wrote “As soon as the vote for another referendum in Scotland is won this week [and well before any date is set] Westminster’s negotiating position with the EU is immediately weakened.”
… it certainly doesn’t help. But isn’t that the point Dan and isn’t it the only reason that Ms Sturgeon is doing it and therefore the reason why she is being ignored – – just as Ms Sturgeon planned in my view Dan.
“People who voted No, on the other hand, did so on the basis of explicit statements and pledges”
There is absolutely no evidence for that statement. It is not true. Many, if not most, had made up their minds at the start of the campaign and voted No simply because they wished to remain the UK.
“And when someone’s lying to you, you’re entitled to ask what they’re trying to hide and what they’re afraid of.”
So what are you afraid of?
Demented Davy
“Pretty pathetic Mikey boy! No one “knows” what will happen we can only work with the information at hand.”
And yet you’re the fucking roaster whos not only demanding answers in terms of certainties based on the unknown but making wild assertions based on the unknown.
Like I said nothing but wilful shite.
Most of the votes lost by Labour seem to have migrated to the Tories, which would infer that these voters are more unionist than socialist. Dugdale sees the only defence is to mirror Davidson to try and stop any more hemorrhaging of votes. Unfortunately for Labour if I was a staunch unionist then I would vote Tory.
Labour in Scotland are stuck, they cannot attract independence supporters or unionist supporters, they have been out manoeuvred on both fronts, and by their own stupidity. Can’t see it improving with the current leader in Scotland.
Oh lovely.
link to stv.tv
@Mike,
My own advice would be to list all candidates who are standing in order of preference, with again all those of the main Unionist parties as the last choices.
In some wards this may be as few as 5 people,but in others as many as 12 or more.
The thing is regardless, to list them all with the Unionist main parties as a last choice.
Not listing them could open the door to them gaining extra 2nd 3rd preference votes without any rival to take votes from them.
With STV, every vote, or even ommission of a vote, has an effect for other parties.
@Phil Robertson,
Nice try Phil, but opinion polls in the last week of the campaign put YES in the lead.
Only then did “The Vow” appear to counteract that. This is pretty good evidence.
Not quite the smoking gun, but near enough.
This is hard for you isn’t it ?
Bob Mack
Eh OK kind off.
Not getting the logic behind voting for a pro union candidate at the bottom being more beneficial than leaving it blank though?
@ Phil Robertson
Since the Yes campaign went from 28% to 45% this would seem to infer that peoples minds were made up at the start of the campaign is basically untrue.
If you can present any real evidence that the ‘Vow’ carried on the front of newspapers and heralded as ‘DevoMax’ by the BBC had no effect, I would like to see it.
@Heedtracker 3:11pm
Lots of Butcher’s Aprons no doubt. Britnats will be so proud.
heedtracker says:
20 March, 2017 at 3:11 pm
Oh lovely.
link to stv.tv
Ah wonderful. This is be the start of the Better Together campaigning.
Show the people of Edinburgh who we’re Better Together with.
Mike 2:24 pm
You Wrote: “The EU has a massive constraint within its negotiation window. It cant offer the UK anything it wouldn’t offer any other member”
Wrong. The basic premise of your statement is wrong. The deal the UK gets will not be for “members” – that is the point Mikey.
We keep going over the same stuff Mikey. The Uk is worth more in exports to the EU than Canada, Norway and Switzerland put together. The UK is Mercedes’s biggest export market. Germany sells of 800,000 cars to the UK. The UK is French Farmers’ biggest export market, etc, etc.
The Uk is not like anyone just “anyone else”. That is not a boast or some point I am trying to make – it is an undisputed economic fact. This is uncharted territory. So much is at stake for both sides. Both sides need this resolved and gone away.
Based upon increasing number of comments here on Wings, I am getting the impression that many now believe (through reverse logic) that only a bad or no deal with the EU is the only way Scottish Independence can be achieved?
Many various solutions have been “floated” (from the UK and the EU) across the media to “acclimatise” us to potential outcomes. Just in recent weeks we’ve heard “£60 billion”, “no cherry picking”, “price to be paid for leaving”, “can’t be better of after leaving”, need to have strong trading relationships after Brexit, freedom to negotiate other free trade deals, etc, etc
You wrote “If you think there is common ground to be found then stop. There AINT.”
OK how about …
1. A Ceta type deal (as recently signed with Canada – have a read of the executive summary)
2. UK agrees to pay £8 Billion per annum for say, 8 years (£64 Billion)
3. This is the “fee” to have tariff free access to the single market
Everyone is winner. Everyone has stuck to their guns. Its cost the UK £8 billion per annum. UK and EU exporters are happy. The world keeps turning.
Oh dearie me, it’s a change in shift. We go from insensible to philibluster.
Both desperate to convince us that we really ought to tag along with them over the Brexitcliff. (Some chance!)
I’m very happy for them to go on their own way, and wish them the best of luck too. (I fear they’ll need it. A lot of it.)
I only wish that they would grace us with the same goodwill in return, and let us go on our own way as well. That’s what being “equals” is all about, isn’t it?
Instead we get this incessant blether about how right they are. It’s almost as if they are desperately trying to convince themselves as much as convince us.
‘Many, if not most, had made up their minds at the start of the campaign and voted No simply because they wished to remain the UK.’
‘There is absolutely no evidence for that statement. It is not true.’
Fixed that fur ye, you’re welcome.
The results of the GE15, SE16, the EU16 in Scotland tell a different story…of course No voters were persuaded by the vow, some of those moving from no to yes particularly point to the lies they were told about ‘new powers’, having not materialised. You’re rewriting history. Fake Phil is ma new pet name fur ye.
Paying a multi billion pound fee for single market access is not tariff free.
What planet are you on !!
galamcennalath
i think treeza will jump this year
i cant see what deal the uk will get from the eu, treeza has been down grading expectations for the last few months, she knows that staying in the single market wont be on offer so opts to announce the uk is leaving the single market as a face saving exercise to avoid looking like she has been snubbed
the issue of wto rules was only discussed on the morning after the a50 bill was passed, but the meme of no deal being better than a bad deal is now the talk of the town
this leads me to think that this is their expectation from the negotiations, ergo, the uk will leave this autumn, they will have no choice, they cant even start trade negotiations with anyone until the leave the eu
upshot, whether or not indyref2 is held before or after we leave the eu, that power rests with treeza, not nicola
even if treeza does hold off leaving until 29th march 2019, if we called indyref2 on the 28th march 2019, treeza could still just announce in the last week of the campaign that the uk was leaving 2 days early on the 27th march, out of spite, what difference would it make to her?
we need a public commitment from the eu that the moment we vote indy, access to the EEA is granted
On the STV voting thing. I am voting as SNP first, then Green and will see if there is a pro Indy candidate thereafter.
After pro Indy, I believe the best thing to do is place the candidate who has no chance in your area, like a Monster Raving or God Squad.
I can’t bring myself to rank a Tory, and feel much the same about Labour, so they would be last, if any.
First projection I’ve seen for LA elections in May. Interesting:
link to twitter.com
@Sarah 3:03 pm :
“But I don’t understand the actual system of these fraction votes which get reallocated. Perhaps it doesn’t matter but I would prefer to understand if possible!”
homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/opb/dbs/project/STV-WIGM-Count-Detailed-Description.pdf
That’s a worked example. Hope that helps 🙂
Could we all perhaps just ignore sensibledave’s posts….replying to them merely breaks up the important points being made here.
As to the elections in May, I’m pretty well confused as to whether voting, say, Tory as last choice is worth doing. I’d hate to encourage them, I’d be happy if doing so was a neutral position but I’d really like to know if putting them last HARMS them.
Anyone care to explain in simple, easily understood terms?
@Mike,
Because your vote always counts.
If your preferred candidate has not enough to stay in the ballot in the first round and is knocked out, then your second preference vote comes into play. In other words as long as you have listed them all your vote still counts even if your own candidate is knocked out. If you leave it blank then your vote is technically dead in the water.
This may be OK in a strong area ( to leave it blank), but in an area where there is strong opposition it is important to make your vote stay alive to put pressure on the possible winner. (Unionist)
We need a simple memory aide to get the ballot voting order across.
Vote for independence SNP vote 1, 2, 3
Then vote green for number 4
Keep indyvoting parties for 5 and 6
Cap with a libdem as the least worse Tory.
Or
SNP 123
Indyparty 4
Green for 5
Last libdem to cap the ballot
Ye’s know what ah mean. Each ward with their ain ditty kinda idea? Some wordsmith cobble a rhyming or more accurate guide tae present on the door step? Preferably with an easily recognisable ‘tune’ to make it stick.
Aye Capella, interesting it is…we’re def gonnae have massive council changes across the board, looking forward to wiping out Glasgow Labour council and from those projections looking like a real possibility.
TMay’s best chance of a good deal with the EU would be as an iEngland&Wales.
She wouldn’t want to hear that, though. However IMO that is true.
The EU will want to punish the UK for leaving as a deterrent to others. There must be no repeats of Brexit. The ‘perpetrators’ must be diminished as a direct result of leaving.
The problem of course is … how much pain should the EU27 self inflict to achieve this?
A simple solution is available. The UK can be broken up. That would certainly be diminishing the London ruled component!
I’m not suggesting the EU actively break up the UK, but making a natural breakup smoother could be in everyone’s interest. And paradoxically, I include iEngland&Wales.
An iScotland and United Ireland would be closer to (or inside) the EU. IEngland&Wales could be less close but sufficiently so to facilitate free trade and nearly open borders.
Problem solved. Everyone happy except imperially-minded BritNats and GreaterEnglanders.
Example
Independent councillor who is popular gathers 400 votes out of a thousand in the first count.
Bottom candidate drops out and the second preferences of these voters comes into play. The independent councillor gains another twenty votes from these second preferences ,but his opponents gain more.
The bottom candidate drops out again and the votes go to third preference nominations.
The independent councillor gains another ten votes taking him to 430.
Same scenario again. It is possible that fourth preference votes will give the independent councillor another number of votes but it is also possible he can be overtaken because of what people have listed as their fourth preference.
In simple terms,the vote remains in play.
@Demented Davy.
“The deal the UK gets will not be for “members” – that is the point Mikey.”
Indeed it is. That’s the downside to not being a member.
“The Uk is worth more in exports to the EU than Canada, Norway and Switzerland put together. The UK is Mercedes’s biggest export market. Germany sells of 800,000 cars to the UK. The UK is French Farmers’ biggest export market, etc, etc.”
Not without Scotland it isn’t. But that aside the UK is a NET IMPORTER not a NET EXPORTER. It has far more to lose in Trade terms than the EU does. The UK isn’t going to find a compatible market relative to the EU never mind a better one.
“The Uk is not like anyone just “anyone else”. That is not a boast or some point I am trying to make – it is an undisputed economic fact.”
Its nothing but a gibbering piece of meaningless bollocks. You’re not taking the end of the UK seriously enough.
You’ll be gibbering this level of pish long after a Yes vote is declared.
“I am getting the impression that many now believe (through reverse logic) that only a bad or no deal with the EU is the only way Scottish Independence can be achieved?”
No you’re not you’re just dishonestly pretending you are.
“1. A Ceta type deal (as recently signed with Canada – have a read of the executive summary)
2. UK agrees to pay £8 Billion per annum for say, 8 years (£64 Billion)
3. This is the “fee” to have tariff free access to the single market
Everyone is winner. Everyone has stuck to their guns. Its cost the UK £8 billion per annum. UK and EU exporters are happy. The world keeps turning.”
Meaningless wishful thinking fantasies acted out within the media nobody has the nerve to actually test with the EU.
The only piece of reality that has happened so far is the EU putting forward a demand for a 60 billion opt out payment and the UK saying No.
That’s the reality of the negotiation process right there.
AS A DEFINITIVE.
“People who voted No, on the other hand, did so on the basis of explicit statements and pledges”
PR: There is absolutely no evidence for that statement. It is not true.
Bollox with bells on.
link to imgur.com
Oh, and if your lot manage to win IndyRef2 (aka ScotRef) by coming out with similar bollox, then you can be absolutely certain that IndyRef3 will be along in short order. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.
If you want indy supporters to “Respect the Result” then you had damn well better learn to Respect the Rules and fully honour your promises.
But, fortunately, many more of us are now aware of your Yoon dirty tricks:
link to imgur.com
@ Mike
Dave is not worth arguing with Mike call him a fud and move on mate or you will just encourage him to post more of his long winded bollocks.
Robert J. Sutherland
Robert are really dumb – or just pretending – I can’t work it out.
At no point have I tried to convince anyone here that voting for Independence is a bad thing. I really hope you get what ever it is you want (providing you take a majority with you). I really, really don’t care if Scotland becomes Independent. I know you want me to care and I know it hurts you that I don’t – but I really, really don’t care either way.
What I do care about Robert is those of us that are in the Uk (whoever they may be) at any particular time. The Uk government is the only government I can vote for. It is the only place where laws are made that affect me.
I think we can agree that a successful and prosperous UK is advantageous to Scotland whether Scotland is in, or outside the UK? Unless of course, Independence is not enough for you and you need to see the rest of “punished” in some way too?
There is no more important imminent event (for both Scotland and the rest of the UK’s future) than the deal the UK gets on Brexit.
The UK government knows this. It needs to get a good deal.
Ms Sturgeon doesn’t want me (personally) to have a good deal. If I have a good deal, then it probably means her political goals are harder, if not impossible to achieve, for the next 25 years.
It is just naive and disingenuous of her to suggest, after 300 years of history together, that indyref2 should happen at the very time that is most important to the rest of the UK.
If the majority of people in SCotland wanted Independence they could have voted for it and got it by now – but they didn’t. There is no evidence that a majority of SCots are demanding another referendum any time soon. I am totally relaxed if SCotland has another indyref – just as soon as our deal is complete – whatever it is.
The problem here though is that is the one outcome the SNP leadership fears most and wants least – a successful Brexit with a good, workable deal, with access to the single market.
You (should) know it, I know it, Ms May knows it and Ms Sturgeon knows it. Everything else (by everyone) is just bluff and bluster around the main issue. Ms Sturgeon is gambling the future of SCottish Indpendence on causing as much difficulty as possible and hindering and trying to help engineer against a successful Brexit.
That is why she is the target for so much ire. Most believe her stance of faux outrage is completely disingenuous and borne out of her desire to try and save her own political skin because she has painted herself, and the SNP, into a corner on this.
Just reading so many of the comments above, it appears that very few commenters even heard what John Nicholson had to say about re-applying for EU membership rather than “staying-in”. And yet, for reasons I don’t quite understand, when I say what John Nicholson has said, I am the devil incarnate. Go figure.
sensibledave @ 3.30
The UK is not Mercedes biggest market
Mercedes Benz car sales in UK 2014-17
link to statista.com
They sold 169,828 in the UK in 2016
German car sales worldwide and in China (2015)
link to best-selling-cars.com
Mercedes sold 373,459 cars in China – a 32% increase from the previous year. This is 2.2 times more cars than they sold in the UK last year. The site above also gives figures for 2016.
The name says it all, Single Tranferable Vote.
Every voter gets only a single vote which can only be used once.
Every voters can decide how many, and in which order, candidates they are willing to support.
At each round this one vote can be either used to elect someone or transferred to the voter’s next choice.
The process continues until the vote counts.
There is no harm or risk in placing non Indy candidates lower in the preferences. A neutral independent is better than a Unionist.
Sensibledave and Phil Robertson are Unionists. They are eager to see Brexit negotiations from a Unionist perspective, the story starts and ends there.
Why they think Scotland should sacrifice itself on the altar of Britishness is entirely transparent.
Bob Mack
I understand the process but I’m not seeing the logic.
The way I understand it is this.
If I leave a blank vote at the bottom it doesn’t change the vote of anybody else who didn’t nor the number of votes for any candidate at that level.
If I vote instead for a candidate I don’t want as a preference it adds to the other votes at this level for that candidate.
Not something I want to do frankly.
Sarah @ 15:03:
OK, let me try to explain in a very bare-bones way. (I’m sure my helpful friend Legerwood will be happy to correct me if I get something slightly wrong. =grin=)
1) For a given election, a calculation is first done of the number of votes required to elect anyone. This is known as the “quota”.
2) One or more candidates may pass that bar from the off. However, the votes by which they exceed that bar aren’t discarded, they are transferred to voters’ second preferences instead.
3) Since it isn’t possible to choose which voters’ preferences are to be transferred, all have to be transferred, but must also be “diluted” according to the excess amount. The lower the excess, the greater the dilution. If a candidate passed the quota by just one vote, none of the second preferences would be transferred. If a candidate had twice as many votes as the quota (unlikely!) then all 2nd preferences would be transferred but halved. (Since in effect half the votes were already “used up”.)
4) Once it gets to the point that there are still vacancies to be filled but no remaining candidate can currently pass the quota, the candidate with the lowest number of first preferences gets rejected, and all their second preferences get passed on undiluted. (Since none of their first prefs. were “used up”.)
5) This process of elimination continues until again some candidate meets the quota. Afterwards, again their remaining highest preferences aren’t discarded but passed on but further diluted, as above.
6) Each voter’s remaining highest preference is taken into account, being removed (either by candidate selection or rejection) and replaced by the next-highest preference in turn, as long as they have any preferences left. So a voter’s choice continues to have some effect after each preference is won or lost, provided s/he is willing to exercise that choice by providing another preference.
That is how it works on the inside. On the outside, though, each voter has a very simple task: put down their preferences in order 1-2-3…, however many or few they wish. That’s actually dead simple for virtually anyone to understand.
(It’s the overall group strategy that’s complicated, not individual voter choice.)
Derek M
Nothing is going to stop the turd from posting his bollocks but you can stop him from posting the bollocks he wanted to post by forcing him to post in response.
we run with snp 1 & 2, we have to, we cant officially campaign for eg, green 3
ian smart on twitter is getting pulled up today for suggesting voting for other unionist parties
for that reason, mps, msps etc will tow the line, ie snp 1 & 2
after saying that, we can unofficially advise indy supporters to vote for other indy parties eg greens, snp etc, 3 & 4, as per scot goes pop has done and I do to snp supporters when out canvassing
it probably wont help them much but it will help to convince green voters etc to vote snp 3 & 4
i think it was 45% of greens gave their 2nd vote to the snp in 2012.
beyond the obvious choices, you really need to find out yourselves who the other candidates are and what they stand for, if you are unsure, simply post the name of your ward and the names of all the candidates on here, the other wossers will help you find out.eg, there will be independent candidates somewhere who do support YES.
I disagree slightly with james kelly about ranking unionists as well, not only beause it sticks in mytheir is a small chance that it might make a difference somewhere, bear in mind there are 370 different elections
eg, if you vote snp 1&2, green3, tory4, lab 5, indy6, libdem 7&8
after 4 rounds, the greens have been eliminated and 2 libdems have been elected, if in round 5, an snp candidate is eliminated and every snp voter has voted tory 4, it might be enough to get the tory over the quota before the snp candidate.
as I said, there is a small chance this could happen somewhere. so I wont vote for any unionist, if you feel you must vote unionist as a 4th choice feel free, but dont encourage snp voters to vote for the same candidate, spread their votes, increase the number of counts and increase the chance of snp candidates sneeking through between unionists.
that said, in truth, getting folk to vote anything above snp 1&2 will be like herding cats, it probably doesnt really matter that much
the only issue that really matters is GOTV
Trust me Mike Dave is an attention seeking troll the more you reply the more pish he will spout.
galamcennalath
The EU don’t need to want to punish the UK, it will simply be doing what is in its own best interests and none of that will be looking after the UK.
Today they have already announced they will issue a statement of what they intend within 48hrs of Article50 announcement.
They have also setup 27 seat conference on the technicalities of their side of Brexit negotiations.
A FOI request to the Cabinet Office asking how many negotiators and types of negotiators had they had, the was reply that they didn’t know.The Cabinet Office doesn’t know how many UK negotiators there are!
The UK Gov said some time back they would employ hundreds of bankers etc to negotiate. The EU would be perfectly within their rights,if that happened, to say, “What position do you have in the Gov? Does your word carry any legal weight? Who are we dealing with?’
Freedom of movement within the EU has some fairly hefty strings that can be attached that for some mysterious reason successive Westminster governments chose not to preferring a source of cheap labour and/or skilled labour. Eventually an independent Scotland might have to impose the controls allowed under EU laws if doing so is of benefit to us. If I remember correctly the right of residence either require you can support yourself via employment or a pension or have at least five years qualifying residence. Blaming the EU is something politicians do to justify getting their own way.
Let’s face it, any negotiated Brexit deal will be 99.999% in favour of England. This is personified with the exclusion of Mundell, not that he’d be of any use.
I have no time for “yes-men”.
Sensible Dave when they allowed him out for the day…
link to imgur.com
STV It is possible to give all your vote share to one Party. It is not a pro Indy vote. It is a Council Election to make sure the best Party (SNP) gets into majority power . So the opposition Parties cannot collude and form coalition (as they usually do) to keep an SNP majority out.
It is about competent local services and the money being allocated by the Scottish Gov going to the essential services and proper purposes it is intended for i.e. education, social care, elderly care nursery provision, potholes, proper road maintainence, leisures services etc. Not being spent and wasted on grotesque non mandated projects. Against the majorities wishes and the public interest. It is about good governance of local areas.
It is not a Referendum. It is to ensure the best Party (SNP) retains a majority in the council, and wins enough seat to maintain that majority. Otherwise every other Parties collude and waste public money, spending as it was not intended on wasteful non mandated grotesque projects, getting the councils in £Million/Billions of debt and not providing the essential council services.
To ensure good governance at a local level and excellent council essential services do not dilute the vote and give any opposition of collusion the opportunity to keep the Party with the most seats to be on the sidelined out of the decision making. Only vote for the Party that the voter wishes to support. There is no requirement under STV to give you vote to any other Party, it is not a Referendum. It is a vote to ensure essential local services are protect and the necessary provision is allocated. So that essential public services can be maintained and the funds allocated go to the purpose they were intended. This is extremely important. To avoid corruption. Do not be fooled again.
1,2,+ SNP Do not dilute your vote for any other Party or your vote has been of less value. To definitely get an SNP majority on the Councils. Otherwise to all intents and purpose, it has been cancelled out.
Nah Proud Cybernat that cant be Dave i see no shite dripping from his mouth and he is not wearing his UJ i talk pish hat lol
Please stop feeding the troll. It just mucks up the website. Or could someone e-mail Rev Stu to cut the troll annoyance off.
Oops. Wrong website. I thought this was WoS, but apparently i’ve landed on some oxymoronic thingy called ‘sensibledave’.
Send smoke signals whence normal service resumes peeps.
Ken500,
You have posted some fairly daft things before now, but your recent pronouncements on STV are wildly ignorant to the point of being mischievous.
Just remember the wise old adage: better to keep quiet and let people suspect you are an idiot than open your mouth and prove you are.
To any SNP (or other pro-indy) supporter: with STV you can vote SNP (or other) at the top of your ticket without any risk of reducing its candidates’ chances plus influence the chances of other pro-indy parties as well. Don’t let any misguided obsessive convince you different.
Breastplate 4:23 pm
You wrote “Sensibledave and XXXX XXXXXXXXX are Unionists”.
…. Breastplate, you are a little confused I think. There are some Rangers supporters, some people in Scoland (55% of the electorate), some politicians and celebs and some people in Norther Ireland that are, by the definition I think you mean, Unionist. I am guessing about 50 million of us in the UK are pretty ambivalent.
Until you “get” that, you will never be able to work things out properly. We are two years after a referendum where only the people in Scotland were given a chance to express a preference for their future. And yet, here we are 2 years later, and its everyone’s fault other than yours. You somehow construe that outcome as being the fault of someone who lives in South Oxfordshire for ch*****ke.
I don’t know whether to laugh at you or cry for you (forgive me, today, I am going for the former) because you represent everything that is so wrong with the potentially, noble cause and you just let your side down. Shame.
But tomorrow is another day and I shall wake refreshed and ready to once again, educate, inform and share.
Now, before the slow minded amongst you blow a gasket at the previous paragraph, I am not seriously expecting you to accept that sentence at face value. It is meant as little self mickey taking, a little bit of fun as we part for the day and as I report in to Theresa (another joke in response to other apparently serious accusations).
@STV posters: Thank you! It won’t be your fault if I don’t understand it. I will go away, wrap a wet towel round my head and read the site that Vestas gave at 3.43.
Hamish 100
Do the simple arithmetic on the number of MSPs.
Agree with proud cybernat at 4.19pm. I can accept an anti independence result carried out fairly and truthfully . but what i won’t accept is a no vote again,gained by lies fear and intimidation by dark forces.
Sensibledave,
You and I have been going round in circles for years now. You claim neutrality and ambivalence and I contest that.
Pretending that you have no opinion on Scotland’s independence is fine but expecting others to believe that is something I believe to be fanciful.
Perhaps you are fooling the few and not the many because I believe here on Wings, most people see what you are.
Sensibledave, just as an aside, I don’t blame you for bringing about another referendum, I accept partial “blame” for that as I’m sure many Yessers would.
It depends on the seat. No system is faultless. Rank – then leave the worst to last?
In some circumstances who is the worst, it is hard to tell. It seems impossible to get the SNP in majority power in any Council. Without coalition. Voters are being stuck with only a choice of voting for candidates they totally despise. That is not democracy. Why do the SNP not just field more candidates. So 3rd, 4th or 5th candidate preferences can be SNP? It really sticks in most folks claw to put a mark against any Labour, Tory, Green or Independent. So they can collude to put the SNP (most votes by a far) out of majority power.
Know the The Party (Unionist) who has joined with the SNP on balance to pass legislation through on the Council – will be the one who might to get the next vote. Know the other Party (member) that has joined in Coaltion to put legislation through. Will get the next? Then the muck rakers will come last.
What a way to carrying out an election. It is truly pathetic. How voters – votes are being disgarded. Then people have to vote for a candidates (Parties) who people despise. What a mess. Will find it totally difficult put a vote for a Tory. Almost impossible because of Teresa May who is worst than Thatcher. Just hope that is not the case on the ballot paper. Not wonder so many people do not vote. With the complications of voting systems. Where voters have to vote for people/Parties they totally despise with a passion. It is a hard call.
Everyone who can manage. Get all the voters out in the day. It is obviously really important.
Thanks for the relevant comments in any case. Adequately scolded. Thanks for the info.
Thanks. Will pass on the relevant information to others who can be encouraged to vote.
sensibledave says:
20 March, 2017 at 11:34 am
James Caithness 11:18 am
… what’s up James? Feeling a bit outgunned in the intellect stakes? Are my missives so impressive, educational, informative and enlightening that you assume that they must be the result of a Brains Trust group?
No James, just little ol’ me, on my own, not paid, encouraged or guided by anyone or thing – other than my desire to share thoughts on politics (oh, and the opportunity to remind Heedy, as often as needs be, that he is not very bright and he needs to get out more).
======================================
No sensibledave I simply chhoose not to talk to unionist trolls or members of 77 brigade.
@ K1 – I like your STV memory aid. Will go with first option I reckon. RISE look good for 5 or 6.
Two years ago I voted YES but I must confess that at one point I did have second thoughts but now I am totally committed to voting for independence when the time comes. The daily deluge of complete and utter shite from the propaganda machine has strengthen my decision to vote for our freedom from the dictatorship.
BRING IT ON.
@ Robert J Sutherland and anyone else interested:
Here is a description (and worked example) of the STV-WIGM process:
link to votingmatters.org.uk
Robert – the only quibble I have with your post at 4.25 is in point 4, where you describe the transfer of lower preferences for eliminated candidates.
Voters who have chosen that candidate as first preference have their 2nd preference transferred, unless it was for a candiate already elected or eliminated, in which case lower preferences are looked at until an eligible one is found, if any.
These transfers are indeed undiluted, but transfers are also made from ballot papers where the candidate being eliminated (sounds painful!) had acquired their support as the result of a transfer. Such further transfers do get diluted (see page 7 of the pdf I’ve linked).
@sensibledave
It’s a dance and the slithy toves fid gyre and gimbal in the wabe. May doesn’t want to have to consider Scotland in the Brexit negotations, Sturgeon says “no chance, we’re in them”, and it’s as simple as that.
the first part of Article 50 itself is this:
“1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.”
“in accordance with its own constitutional requirements”
So the Scottish Parliament formally requests the S30 for the referendum before May invokes A50. That way our referendum and the formal notification of the holding of it become part of the A50 invocation, able to be considered as part of it – and the negotiations. By the EU. And this determines whether or not Scotland decides it wants to be aprt of Brexit itsekf and leave the EU.
And if denied for any reason, including the timing of it, it opens the door to a dispute that the UK has not acted “in accordance with its own constitutional requirements”, and therefore whether its A50 invocation was even competent in the first place.
That’s why May can’t refuse, or set unreasonable terms or delays. And it’s why it’s so important we notify our intent.
My interpretation of Sturgeon’s “let’s talk and see if there’s a compromise” is that in the first place the ScotGov December compromise solution hasn’t been formally dismissed, and secondly it’s Sturgeon giving May the chance to save face – very important in having meaningful negotiations without one side walking out. And let’s not forget – it was Sturgeon negotiated (amicably it seems) with Michael Moore, not Salmond with Cameron, for the Edinburgh Agreement and terms of the S30. She has form in this!
@Mike says: 20 March, 2017 at 8:43 am:
What I DID STATE CLEARLY was that the over 65s tended to NOT use the internet and were subject to being influenced by the MSM to a greater degree than those who do use it.”
And that is also a load of pish, Mike.
I’m over 80 and I was working on computers in the 1950s when few had ever even heard the word computer. It was top secret back then. If it had not been for people from that era there would now be no computers. The one I worked one I worked on had lots of glass encased valves. I thus saw in the first transistors. The first small scale integrated circuits and right through to the modern day.
So there you go – it was my generation that gave to the World the modern electronic age we now live it. It was my generation that kept the SNP and independence going in the hard times and kept it alive.
I say it again – the people you are so sure are only getting their news from the TV, radio and dead tree press do so because they are old are not doing so simply because they have reached a certain age. Age does not predispose anyone to be a TV viewer, radio listener and a reader of newspapers. They do so for quite different reasons or perhaps the better phrase to use is that they do so because of quite different causes.
Perhaps the most prevalent of which are sheer lack of a proper education, poverty or even just being as thick as a stack of very short planks. Which is just what I have been attempting to get across to you.
You want an example of thick as a stack of thick planks?
Wee Ruthie on the box claiming idiotic things like, “The Scots don’t want another referendum”. Quite clearly they do but if Ruthie believes her own claims then Ruthie would be thick but Ruthie probably isn’t thick but she knows her target audience are. She is not speaking to you or I – she is speaking at that large percentage of the unionist voters who get their, “facts”, from the propagandist TV, radio and what passes these days as newspapers.
Believe me there are still a lot of badly educated thicko numpties around. There are at least three different groups out there that are going to go on voting for the union.
Those that stand to gain from there being a union and they come from all age groups but are mainly rich and Blue/Yellow/Red Tory and you will never convert them.
Those who are ignorant of the facts and who are mainly poorly educated. These believe the first group, but ignorance is not the same thing as stupid and it comes in all age groups – You can convert such people with facts and a lot of patience and persistence.
Then there is the, often sectarian, nut jobs who are beyond redemption.
Whatever else it is it most certainly is not a commonality of being of a certain age.
Beware of sweeping generalities and false demographics.
RE: the May local council elections.
Since we went over to multi member wards, elected via STV, my own 3 member ward has returned two SNP and one Labour.
Thus, in May, I will vote,
1. SNP
2. SNP
3. Joe Bloggs (I call him that because, as far as I know he is standing and I don’t know which banner he is standing under but I know, from personal interaction and his presence at rallies in George Square, that he is a YESSER.)
4. Green, or whatever else pro-indy person is standing…
My last vote will either go to Tory or Lib-Dem, which could work against Labour picking up the third seat.
Every ward is different – you have to find out who’s standing in YOUR ward – and what they stand for; independence or the union.
@Robert Peffer
Are you fucking trolling me with this stupidity?
You’re 1 guy! a single guy over 80 that happens to use a computer. You’re not standard or part of a fucking majority.
MOST FOLK over 80 wont be using computers! They will be using the TV Radio or print press to get their fucking news.
Hells Teeth you got it wrong you read me all wrong let it fucking go.
crazycat @ 19:44,
Thanks for that clarification, and the helpful link. I was trying to keep the explanation as simple as possible while retaining all the essential features, but it’s not easy!
Because nearly all of us are still unfamiliar with how it works, what seems to throw people most – and seems eg. to have got Ken500 channelling Rock – is the puzzlement caused by observing that a laggard can apparently magically leapfrog over others who were initially well ahead of him/her. At first glance it seems suspicious, especially to people weaned on FPTP.
It becomes clearer by understanding that there are essentially two ways to win under STV – either have a large groundswell of support and get them all out to vote (the classical route) or alternatively, persuade a lot of voters across the spectrum to give you a high preference even if not their first (or even second). So a widely-respected candidate will tend to come through the field even when they don’t get a lot of first-prefs.
Another more personal way of looking back at what happened in an election is that each of your own ballot preferences for those candidates who were ultimately elected had provided them with a certain fraction of a vote (the higher your ranking, the greater the fraction) but the precise fraction also depended to some extent on the way everyone else had voted too! =grin=
Ok… I wonder how the Yoons are going to spin this:
Lord King (former governor of the Bank of England) told BBC Newsnight that while questions had been raised over which currency an independent Scotland would use, he did not see “major problems”.
link to bbc.co.uk
How many people planning to buy a new Merc would be put off by a 10% increase?
‘Oooh, Merc’s have got a bit pricey now perhaps I’ll get a Vauxhall Corsa instead.’ Is not a comment often heard.
I think status is somewhat more important than economy in that market!
Anyway, German manufacturers made it quite clear last year that they would rather take a short term hit than weaken the EU.
James 6.33
… James, do you ever stop to wonder what the reaction might be, of someone like me, when you write tosh that I know (because I am me and I know who and what I am) is totally, utterly, completely wrong.
In case you do ever stop to wonder, the answer is that the recipient knows (because he has the indisputable evidence) you are d**k! This gives me the advantage of knowing that you are wrong on this basic issue and therefore we needn’t pay too much heed to any other thoughts you may have.
Breastplate 5:44 pm
You and I have been going round in circles for years now. You claim neutrality and ambivalence and I contest that.
… feel free to contest – its a free country. However, I think I have a slight advantage over you in knowing what I think – but you believe otherwise, not much I can do about that Breastplate.
Breastplate 5:51 pm
You wrote “Sensibledave, just as an aside, I don’t blame you for bringing about another referendum, I accept partial “blame” for that as I’m sure many Yessers would.
… I am obviously not as clever as you think I am, I have no idea what you are talking about! How did I bring about another referendum?
… just to let everyone know that I am busy today so wont be able to share my wisdom with you much.
If anyone requires my attention or guidance, I would be grateful if you could wait until I have demonstrated that i have returned.
Have a great day.
Good morning Sensibledave,
You wrote, “We are two years after a referendum where only the people in Scotland were given a chance to express a preference for their future. And yet, here we are 2 years later, and its everyone’s fault other than yours.”
I wasn’t blaming anyone, there is no fault apportioned in listening to The Voice of the Scottish People.
I understand Unionists don’t like that Scotland wants to express itself democratically but they’ll just have to suck it up.
Breastplate 11.04
… there’s only you and I here now!
…. So wrong Breastplate.
You keep making the huge mistake that everyone that isn’t in the SNP is a “unionist” – they are not, not by your definition. They do not promote Unionism, they are not trying to convert people, they don’t really care.
You assume that if someone has a beef with the SNP then its because their Unionists and no matter how many times I tell you that is a wrong assumption – you keep making the same mistake. As a result, you will keep analysing given situations incorrectly.
Because you keep making the mistake you end up in corners of your own making.
I dont care whether Scotland has another referendum or not. I dont much care about the outcome of any such referendum.
The only reason I have a view about another Scottish referendum in the timescales eluded to (i.e. before we Brexit) is because it potentially damages me and my future – together with the futures of the rest of the 60 odd million people in the UK that do not live in Scotland.
Ms Sturgeon can huff and puff all she likes about why she says the referendum she be held then – but I just don’t believe her. She is lying to me. She is a liar. She seeks to wreck and to make the Brexit negotiations harder. She is being dishonest and disingenuous.
So, have another referendum, I really don’t care – but have it the day after we have left the EU. Scotland will be Brexiting with the rest of us in 2 years time. The only way it wont is if something happens that means the UK doesn’t Brexit (I know not what). Another couple of months of “Westminster oppression” will not make any difference in the great scheme of things – but it makes an enormous difference to 60 million other folk.
My own personal view of Ms Sturgeon’s tactics are even less flattering.
1. I don’t think she believes she can win a referendum now.
2. I don’t think she believes she can win a referendum before we Brexit.
3. Finally, I think she does believe that the UK will get a deal that involves a good trading relationship with the single market – and she fears that really will be the end of her dream for a generation.
As a result of my views expressed above, I believe she has no alternative but to try and wreck everything – which her actions suggest she is trying to do.
I heard one interview on the radio where some SNP spokesperson was spewing outrage that MS Sturgeon isnt part of the negotiations on Brexit. Is that the Ms Sturgeon that is saying we wont be able to have a good deal with the EU post Brexit?
God save us from negotiators like her!
@sensibledave
You’re just jealous because all the rUK has to offer is May, Johnson, Davies, Tomkins, Fraser, Davidson – and Hammond!
If you put them in a 7-a-side, you could have a comedy show.