One of the most commonly-observed facets of the independence referendum so far has been the lack of a real grassroots “Better Together” campaign, and as a historian of Scottish popular politics I’ve found myself pondering why there wasn’t one.
It’s not like there aren’t thousands of Scots who passionately believe in the Union and will be voting No, and are perfectly capable of arguing their case. We all know some – I certainly do, both family and friends. But there’s no organised grassroots campaigning of any serious note. Tiny handfuls of Labour activists, some of them shipped up from England and paid, have done almost all of the donkey work so far.
But as a historian of Scottish popular politics I should have an explanation, shouldn’t I? And when I had a think about it, something occurred to me.
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Tags: Mark Nixon
Category
analysis, comment, culture, history, scottish politics
There’s something fascinating about the latest “No Thanks” leaflet that’s slithering its way through letterboxes in Scotland this week, and it’s not the empty sloganising it deploys in lieu of an argument. (“We’re better together because best of both worlds!”)
It’s this graph.
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Tags: misinformationproject fear
Category
analysis, investigation, scottish politics
Here’s “Better Together” chief Blair McDougall in today’s Herald:
“Launching the [#PatronisingBTLady] video yesterday, Better Together campaign director Blair McDougall said: ‘The key factor for people isn’t the love of our country – as both Yes and No voters love Scotland. The key factor is the love of our families.’“
Let’s just read that through again. He’s saying that his campaign can’t use “love of our country” as a campaign weapon because people on both sides love their country. So instead he’s going to use “love of our families” as a distinguishing characteristic.
The only possible conclusion that can be drawn from those statements is that Yes supporters don’t love their families. It’s a bold gambit, we’ll give him that.
Category
comment, disturbing, idiots, scottish politics
Several papers today report that “Better Together” are filing a complaint with the BBC about the audience at Monday’s debate between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling, alleging bias in both audience composition and question selection – claiming that 10 questions favoured the Yes side to only three favouring No.
We’re not really sure how a question can favour either side, but the sour-grapes move does raise an interesting issue, which we’re going to illustrate with an example from the debate the BBC ran the following evening in Edinburgh.
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Category
analysis, comment, investigation, media, scottish politics
(Help keep this vital news outlet broadcasting here.)
Tags: dateline
Category
scottish politics, video
The website of the Dumfries & Galloway Conservative Party yesterday:
Perhaps they read the press coverage of the Salmond-Darling debate later on.
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Category
comment, scottish politics
The key exchange on currency from last night’s debate:
At the end of the clip, a flustered Darling finally blurts out what the No camp have been trying not to admit for the entire campaign: “Of course we could use the pound”.
Unionists and journalists are now frantically spinning that they’d never denied such a thing. But we know that’s not true, and nobody got left with more egg on their face than Mr Darling’s supposed superior, Scottish Labour “leader” Johann Lamont.
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Tags: misinformation
Category
comment, debunks, scottish politics, video
Things you’ll never hear a Scottish interviewer say.
Category
comment, scottish politics, video
Alistair Darling was angry last week, as he was awake. In a tetchy interview with the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland he insisted that “there is no political party in the United Kingdom at the moment that could get away with destroying the NHS”.
He went on to rubbish the idea that the English service was being privatised by the Conservative-led government, and accused the SNP of scaremongering over the issue for opportunistic political gain. So we thought we’d see if we could find anyone else who thought the NHS was in danger of privatisation and destruction.
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Tags: vortex
Category
comment, investigation, scottish politics, uk politics
