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Wings Over Scotland


Dishonesty and delusion

Posted on September 10, 2013 by

In our view, it’s a serious mistake to treat prominent Labour activist Duncan Hothersall as someone sincerely concerned with the best interests of the Scottish people, differing only in how those interests are to be best served. His sole aim is to advance the fortunes of the Labour Party, and himself within it.

mirrordelusion

But that’s only an opinion, based on extensive personal experience of Hothersall issuing a long string of despicable lies, defamations, smears and general falsehoods in an attempt to discredit this site, chiefly among the more gullible elements of the Yes campaign. So let’s forget about Duncan’s toxic, cowardly excuse for a personality and examine his philosophy on its own merits, because it’s an exemplary case study of the wider ideology of Labour in Scotland’s opposition to independence.

We can do this because he gave a speech to a meeting of the Equality Network last week, and the No camp has helpfully put it all on its blog. Let’s step through it.

“I’m pleased to be here among people on both sides of the debate who I’ve known and worked alongside for decades, and I am proud to call them friends. If we disagree on independence, so what? It’s not the most important thing in the world.”

Jings. You’d be quite hard pushed to tell that from Duncan’s enormously prolific Twitter account, which comprises roughly 60% attacks on the SNP and Yes campaign, 30% attacks on me personally, and 10% other stuff. But I digress.

“Human rights – including LGBT rights – matter more. War and peace matter more. Education and health matter more.

It seems curious to separate those issues from a people’s right to determine its own government. After all, who decides on human rights? Who chooses whether to go to war? Who controls education and health? Governments do.

“In those terms I’m confident that there are many more things we agree on than disagree on in this room. I think that’s worth bearing in mind.”

A classic deflection strategy. You might agree with Harold Shipman on everything except whether it’s right to murder hundreds of old people, but that was pretty much the most important element of his beliefs.

“My view of the independence question is simple – I’m looking for the best outcome for the most people.”

Note: the best outcome for the most people, not the most Scots. Keep that distinction in mind, because we’ll be hearing a lot of it.

Hothersall, we must say to his credit, is pretty open about the fact that he doesn’t consider Scotland a country, just a “bit of” one. He’s openly telling Scottish people that they don’t matter to him because they’re few in number, and that they should vote against their own interests if doing so would benefit a larger group of others.

duncanscountry

“I have nothing ideological in me about the union; no sense of nationalism for the UK. My politics is not based on geography, it’s based on the values of fairness, equality and social justice.”

…which does unfortunately make the next line a complete lie. As far as we can tell Hothersall has never campaigned for the entire EU, or indeed world, to amalgamate into a single nation under a single government. His chosen “unit size” is, arbitrarily, the United Kingdom. He believes in it being a nation, and in Scotland not being a nation. He is, by any conceivable definition but certainly and unarguably in the context of the independence debate, a British nationalist.

(It would be interesting to find out whether Duncan believes that Scotland’s separate NHS, education and legal systems should be absorbed into those of the UK under the same principles. If you believe in everything being the same and people being united under the same “values”, how can you justify them being educated differently, getting different medical treatment and being subject to different laws?)

“And it’s simply my judgement that we get the best outcome for the most people through Scotland staying in the UK.

I believe that partly because I believe in the redistribution of wealth as a principle, and Scotland staying in the UK enables that to happen to a far more significant extent than if we were separated.”

We already know what this means, of course – the redistribution of wealth FROM Scotland TO (chiefly) England. Gordon Brown has told us so explicitly and repeatedly, and even wants it legislated into the (non-existent) “British constitution”.

Scotland is the wealthiest part of the UK outside the south-east of England. The “pooling and sharing of resources”, to use the catchphrase recently adopted by Brown, Alistair Darling, Anas Sarwar and others, therefore means only one thing – Scottish money subsidising poor parts of England.

With budgets already stretched to breaking point, that obviously means that Scotland can no longer afford the things voters consider to be the main achievements of the Scottish Parliament – universal “free” services – which is why Labour in Scotland has undertaken to end them and impose the same miseries of austerity on Scotland as are currently endured by the rest of the UK, in the name of being “One Nation”.

“I believe it also because I care about people across the UK, and I know that within the UK we can do a lot more for them than just set examples.”

Our emphasis, just in case you doubted our assertion that his socialist concern for all the people of the world in fact ends at Dover. French and poor? Nigerian and starving? Chinese and oppressed? Sorry, Duncan doesn’t give a toss about you.

“Some people say the UK can’t be reformed and we need to give up and start afresh. I fundamentally oppose that sort of defeatism. I want a progressive, inclusive and fair society for everyone in the UK, not just those of us north of Berwick.”

We all want that. Unfortunately there are no UK parties offering it. The ship of social democracy is fatally holed below the waterline, sinking fast, and has been abandoned by the captain. Scots have a sturdy lifeboat (with a handy oil-fired engine backing up the oars), but Hothersall insists we must all drown in the name of “solidarity”.

“[waffle about LGBT issues]

There is an argument that a socially progressive Scotland could be an example to the rest of the UK come independence. In my opinion, devolution is a far better place from which to influence the rest of the UK on LGBT equality.”

No supporting evidence is offered for this opinion. It’s hard to see how independence would have hampered the Scottish Government’s ability to lead the rest of the UK on equal marriage, for example.

(We’ll pause for a brief moment here to ponder how much it must sting Hothersall that 13 years of Labour government at Westminster and eight at Holyrood saw homosexuals still forbidden the same rights as heterosexuals, and that it took an SNP Scottish Government and a Tory/Lib Dem UK one to actually bring forward legislation. Labour in Scotland in particular would never have dared offend the religious lobby – especially the Catholic one in its west of Scotland heartlands – in such a way.)

“The actions of foreign countries have a much weaker influence on us than the actions of parts of our own country.

And within the UK the influence can go two ways, as witnessed by the distinct whiff of one-upmanship when England and Wales passed equal marriage before we did. The reality is that nothing like the same sort of influence happened when our closest neighbours the Scandic countries did it. Devolution is a far better platform for setting examples.”

We’ll bow to Duncan’s greater knowledge of the LGBT community here. We didn’t detect any “whiff of one-upmanship” when the UK government actually got its legislation moving slightly ahead of Scotland’s, but maybe we don’t move in the right circles. But once again, we struggle to see how Scottish independence would have held progress back in either jurisdiction.

“Much of the debate so far has been about reinforcing the apparent political differences between Scotland and the rest of the UK.

The truth is all democracies have areas where different views prevail – that would be the case in an independent Scotland as it is in the UK. The central belt overrides everywhere else.”

Once again: “Scotland is not a country, it’s just a region”.

Of course there would still be political differences in an independent Scotland. But Scotland has a proportional electoral system, ensuring that all views would be fairly represented. That’s why the Parliament’s balance is determined on regional lines – to ensure that the central belt doesn’t dominate due to the weight of population there.

“If we were to divide up the UK along political lines, we wouldn’t be splitting at the England/Scotland border. We’d be drawing a line from Wales to Hull, or thereabouts.”

And once again: “If people in Yorkshire are suffering, we must suffer too”.

The assertion is, of course, a lie anyway:

ukmap

On geographical terms, which is how Hothersall’s speech frames the issue, the lines could scarcely be clearer. England is Tory blue from Bournemouth up to the Borders and from Dorset across to East Anglia, with just a few isolated urban pockets of Labour red. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all largely Tory-free.

“In any case, there’s a name for redrawing boundaries because you don’t like election results – gerrymandering.”

Um, we’re pretty sure nobody’s proposing to redraw the boundary between Scotland and England. The border will be staying exactly where it is now. Again, the claim is that there’s currently no boundary – and therefore no legitimate grounds for complaint about a democratic deficit – because Scotland isn’t a country. We’d respect the Unionist argument a lot more if they’d just come out and say that instead of constantly snivelling on about what “proud Scots” they are.

“This vote is about where national power lies; nothing else. We must not pretend it is about policies – that’s what elections are for.”

Heavens, we agree on something. Why, then, is the entire “Better Together” campaign, of which Duncan is an active and enthusiastic part, focused on endlessly demanding “answers” on literally hundreds of individual policy issues rather than on the principle of where national power lies?

“Independence would create a new island of self-interest in the world. And a new island of self-interest creates competition not co-operation. Competition to attract multinationals with tax breaks. Competition which favours corporate interests over the interests of people. I don’t want that.”

Crivvens. What on Earth are you doing in the Labour Party, then? Anthony Giddens, a Labour peer and former director of the London School of Economics credited with being one of the architects of New Labour, wrote in 2010 that Labour’s years in government were a period in which “the party led an onslaught on civil liberties, betrayed leftist ideals, failed to make any impact on inequality and, worst of all, embarked upon a calamitous war in Iraq”.

Duncan Hothersall, like the vast bulk of Labour in Scotland, opposes independence not because it will damage Scotland, not even because it will damage the UK, but because they believe it will damage Labour.

(Though in fact there are no rational grounds for that belief, and indeed the reverse is far more likely to be true. The party is currently tearing itself in two trying to at least appear to cling to its old ideals in Scotland while simultaneously courting right-wing voters in Middle England with Tory policies and endless rhetoric about being “tough” on welfare and immigration. The conviction isn’t based on logic, but almost solely on blind tribal hatred of the SNP.)

Their arguments about the redistribution of wealth ring hollow, because under 13 years of Labour government the concentration of UK wealth in London was dramatically accelerated, not slowed. Labour was famously “intensely relaxed” about business people and corporations becoming “filthy rich”, and oversaw a spectacular rise in the wealth of the top 1% and an accompanying increase in inequality.

Hothersall’s (and Labour in Scotland’s) objections to independence, if we take them in good faith, rely on the fiction that a future Labour government will enact the Labour politics of 1964. Every last scrap of evidence points in the opposite direction. Duncan is either the stupidest man on Earth or the biggest liar.

We’re not entirely sure which it is (though we know which way we lean, and of course it’s possible that it could be both), but it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that he speaks loyally with the voice of his party (and the No campaign), and his party has already told Scots absolutely explicitly what a No vote stands for.

It stands, in essence, for the complete re-absorption of Scotland into the politics of the UK – in practical terms the end of devolution and the rolling back of its works.

There will be no more doing things our own way. No more spending our money on our own priorities, on health and education instead of wars and nuclear weapons. We have to be the same as everyone else in the UK, even if they’re suffering under the yoke of Tory governments, because “solidarity” is more important than getting the governments we elect. Because we’re just a little region, not a country, and little regions have to accept what the big regions dictate.

Labour are barely even trying to hide it. They’re telling us exactly what a No vote means, with only the thinnest, most transparent veneer of pretence that they’re offering the opposite. It might even be the case that they’re wilfully fooling themselves, in a virtuoso display of doublethink. But we suspect it’s altogether more likely that they’re just lying through their teeth.

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Jiggsbro

We didn’t detect any “whiff of one-upmanship” when the UK government actually got its legislation moving slightly ahead of Scotland’s
 
I did. Admittedly, it was from a single prolific Labour tweeter and LGBT campaigner,  but it was definitely there.

sneddon

Nice piece, illustrates the absolute moral and political bankruptcy of DH and his ilk.  To be honest I would votes YES just to annoy the wee bawbag.

John G

Check out rest of thread Rev!! 

martyn

WOW
 
“We’ll pause for a brief moment here to ponder how much it must sting Hothersall that 13 years of Labour government at Westminster and eight at Holyrood saw homosexuals still forbidden the same rights as heterosexuals, and that it took an SNP Scottish Government and a Tory/Lib Dem UK one to actually bring forward legislation. Labour in Scotland in particular would never have dared offend the religious lobby – especially the Catholic one in its West of Scotland heartlands – in such a way.”

I suspect this comprehensive destruction of his contradictory speech will numb the pain for a second or 5.
 
great job

Desimond

Scottish Labour, proof that Morrissey was wrong, the more you ignore them, the further they get!

Tattie-boggle

Brilliant
I can see the rage that will be coming from Duncan, a full on twitter attack will be on its way

Atypical_Scot

I shall stand firm in my belief that 90% of Scottish voters/members are just waiting for the green light to go indy. It is the only taste of solidarity likely to touch any Scots lips now, or for a very long time to come if we make a hash of the referendum.

Craig Munro

That was a fair filletting Rev .. feel better?

Bobby McPherson

I believe that partly because I believe in the redistribution of wealth as a principle, and Scotland staying in the UK enables that to happen to a far more significant extent than if we were separated.”

eh, that’ll be Scotland’s wealth redistributed south ay the border
 
great work Rev

Dinnatouch

Sadly I won’t be able to read Dunc’s answer to this on Twitter. It’s not that I’m blocked or anything, I just can’t be arsed reading the drivel he spouts. 

martyn

speech was on thursday apparently Rev not last night

Jack F

and breath

pa_broon74

Tortuous logic & a good dose of denial from DH – best ignored.
 
He’s only a bawhair away from attracting the same kind of regard as that which is normally reserved for the incomparable George Laird.
 
Slightly off topic, I have a very low regard for people who use their membership of a minority as some sort of special pass or badge of honour which they feel sets them apart for special consideration. I don’t give a shit what DH has done for the LGBT community, it in no way validates his views on the indy ref. That he thinks he can use the former to garner sympathy or support for the latter –  highlights the paucity of his argument.

Morag

Is Duncan actually gay (or whatever) anyway?  I thought he was just riding on the coat-tails of other people’s problems for his own self-advancement.

Juteman

@ Morag.
I’ve seen him talking about his husband.

Morag

Fair enough.  Lazy assumption.

gordoz

Aw Naw ……. Why did you have to print this Rev : Im moving over to vote No now !!!
He’s cracked it, this guy makes so much sense Man! Coooool!! His views of the world man; its spaced out he’s so chilled and free, he speaks the truth. All our problems are worked out buy this guy !! Awesome.
We were so wrong ……. how could we be so selfish its all about world peace & harmony.
Thanks for that Rev I’ve just been reinvigorated, my eyes hurt from the ‘utter mince burn’ though …..AARRGGHHH.
I take it this guy is a professional ?? How much contradiction is in there; even I could spot it.
Hypocrisy ??
“I’m pleased to be here among people on both sides of the debate who I’ve known and worked alongside for decades, and I am proud to call them friends.”
Any YES campaigner who sat all the way through that is an undecided moving to a No !! And the ones who left were never your friends really !
Oh please get this masquerading ‘do gooder  for Blighty’ into the mainstream debate, what a muppet. Let the masses here this crxp

Triangular Ears

[waffle about LGBT issues]
 
I predict Hothersall will focus only on this excerpt, spinning it furiously into “Rev. Stu says LGBT issues are a lot of “waffle””.

Scaraben

One of my hopes for an independent Scotland is that SLab rapidly loses support and withers away into total irrelevance, while retaining the loyalty of the apparatchiks and fanatics like Duncan H., so that they do not pollute a worthwhile party or get anywhere near any position of power.

Scotland needs a moderate left-wing party, but I do not think SLab is capable of being that party. If the LfI people were to form a new party, that could be what is needed.

HandandShrimp

I confess to despairing at the argument that Scotland should not be an independent country (setting aside the utter impertinence of saying that Scotland isn’t a country a la Rosa from Solovenia) because we should be selfless and consider the ability of the English to vote consistently for a left of centre party. Apart from the cheek of setting ourselves up to be our bother’s keeper why shouldn’t the English vote for who they want to? Why should we play pretend internationalist just to preserve a few seats in Westminster? Labour are happy enough to play the British card when it suits them so the internationalist stuff cuts little ice.
 
 
New Labour got into bed with one of the most right wing US administration I have ever seen and embarked on a ruinous and illegal war. It was wedded to illiberal ID cards, it did not repeal any of Thatcher’s legislation on Unions, privatisation or even Council houses. It was Labour that introduced tuition fees and Atos to the Welfare system.
 
I was a Labour voter and a Branch Executive member of my Union for years, my views did not change it was Labour that moved away from me. I was, no doubt, as Blair described, an unreconstructed wanker. Although the term unreconstructed in itself is a bit wanky to my ears. Last night I listened to Dennis Canavan give a speech and it reminded what a traditional Labour socialist actually sounds like. I’m not in the least bit surprised that he trounced the Labour placeman when Labour de-selected him.
 
I still haven’t read much by this Duncan chap but he sounds like classic New Labour to me and these are the very people that have steered the party to God knows where. I would imagine the fact that it is the SNP that are steering through the equal marriage bill must stick in his craw like a cruise missile. I really dislike all that New Labour became. It is just Tory Lite.   
 
Rant over.

Seasick Dave

He was bad enough was he was Duncan of Edinburgh in the Hootsmon.

Doug Daniel

“And within the UK the influence can go two ways, as witnessed by the distinct whiff of one-upmanship when England and Wales passed equal marriage before we did.”
 
This is simply bizarre. So a country deciding its own government, to decide its own priorities and policies, is bad… But enacting policies in order to “get one over” on your neighbour is good? What a telling little snippet.
 
I suspect the reason this wasn’t how things happened in Scandinavia is because they’re grown up countries who do things on their own timetables. Governing a country is not a silly little game, for fuck’s sake. You don’t go “oooh, our neighbours are doing it, so we’d better do it too”. You say “is this what the citizens of our country want? Do we consider this to be a wrong that needs to be righted? Well, let’s do it then.”
 
And I’m getting really tired of seeing this pish about drawing new lines on maps, or however he’s phrasing it now. If there wasn’t already a border between Scotland and England, how does the Scottish Parliament know where its jurisdiction begins and ends? How do we know if you’re in breach of Scots law or English law? It’s an argument completely based in dishonesty.
 
I’m tired of folk like Duncan trying to imply Scots are being selfish if we become independent, and that we’re abandoning our poor comrades in England if we do so. If England wants to stop having Tory policies inflicted on it, there’s a very easy solution: stop electing Tory governments. The Tories are not some disease with an unknown cause, they’re there because people in England voted for them. Scotland can’t stop them doing that, but we can at least stop them having control over US.
 
Going by Duncan’s logic, everyone who has survived a tragedy is selfish, and they should have perished along with everyone else instead, because that’s what good people do. “Sorry to tell you your dad’s died, but hey, at least he died honourably, rather than being a selfish git and saving himself.”

Murray McCallum

Duncan Hothersall needs to drag himself out of 1960s student politics and get himself into 2013. He seems to have his head buried in the sand. I find his “Scottish” New Labour view of saving England laughable – as must the majority of people living there.
 
The “not being defined by geographical boundaries” is a recurring theme within SLAB. Bit of a vacuous position outside the real world I think – where surely everything, when it comes to the crunch, is defined by geographical boundaries.

Roddy Macdonald

Oh, Christ almighty. Can we not even escape the ubiquitous Carmen on WoS? Hothersall’s achievements for alphabet soup (or LGBT) equality are enumerated in a round figure, a very round figure: 0.
Likewise, his original contributions to the referendum debate can be similarly counted.
Why Carmen? I’ll leave you with one of my #indyrefpoetry contributions:
Duncan’s barnet has a stamp
A rose, that’s just a wee tad camp.
OK, but who’s he harmin’?
Just about every fan of Carmen.

Morag

I now understand the relevance of the remarks about Duncan’s resentment of the SNP for introducing the equal marriage bill.  I imagine he’s spitting carpet tacks.

(I suppose the fact that he’s wearing a rose behind his ear and looks like Carmen on his twitter avatar should have rung the odd bell or two.)

I wonder if he’ll actually have a proper marriage ceremony once the legislation is all in place (it’s not quite there yet, is is?), or will it stick in his craw too much to take advantage of an SNP initiative?

Gillie

Quote. Mark Twain, “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
 
or
 
Is there an “arse” in Hothersall?
 
I think there is!

Morag

I would like to point out here and now that I cross-posted with Roddy, and my reference to Carmen was entirely spontaneous and self-generated.  Great minds and all that.

Taranaich

The problem is so much of it seems to make sense, and the idea of making a more equitable society as part of the UK is appealing, but it just isn’t borne out by facts. As I’ve said before, for all the talk some people have of indy supporters having their “hearts rule their heads,” they seem to have an awful lot of faith in being able to change things despite the immense opposition to them.
 
How on earth do they expect to make any headway on equality when the three major parties are all supportive of the assault on the most disadvantaged people in society? It is nothing short of disgusting to me that Hothersall would have the gall to speak of making a more “equal” society at an LGBT convention given his parties’ continued complicity in the attacks on the disabled and immigrants. In 30 years time, people will look on the Bedroom Tax and welfare reforms with the same amazed disgust that they have for Section 28, Thatcher’s AIDS campaign, and other anti-homosexual legislation now. We will look back and think “how did we let things get so bad”?
 
In short: Mr. Hothersall, if you truly cared about an equitable society, then you wouldn’t have anything to do with the Labour party.

muttley79

@Doug Daniel
 
And I’m getting really tired of seeing this pish about drawing new lines on maps, or however he’s phrasing it now. If there wasn’t already a border between Scotland and England, how does the Scottish Parliament know where its jurisdiction begins and ends? How do we know if you’re in breach of Scots law or English law? It’s an argument completely based in dishonesty.
 
It is because the people making it are British nationalists, who believe Britain is a country/nation.  To recognise and acknowledge the obvious, that there is a border between Scotland and England, invalidates this completely.  Therefore, they have to deny it as it is an inconvenient fact.  You hear this line of argument regularly from the likes of Douglas Alexander. 
 
I’m tired of folk like Duncan trying to imply Scots are being selfish if we become independent, and that we’re abandoning our poor comrades in England if we do so. If England wants to stop having Tory policies inflicted on it, there’s a very easy solution: stop electing Tory governments. The Tories are not some disease with an unknown cause, they’re there because people in England voted for them. Scotland can’t stop them doing that, but we can at least stop them having control over US.
 
Arguing that Scotland, a nation of just over 5 million people, saves England from the Tories is a nonsense.  England has a population of over 50 million (I think).  You hear this argument from the likes of Polly Toynbee as well.  It really is nonsensical, and is actually patronising to the people of England.  It implies that England could not run its own affairs.  To be honest a lot of this kind of rhetoric is really about shoring up the British state as it is presently constituted.  The protection of privileges is uppermost in their minds.  Hothersall is trying to protect SLAB’s interests as part of the British state, it has nothing to do with protecting Scotland’s interests as a nation in her own right. 

Bobby McKail

Seems he must have been moulded in the Gordon Brown economic school of inequitable fiscal equalisation. Or in Labour layman terms ‘Fill your boots’

Murray McCallum

Maybe Duncan has a rare form of colour blindness?  He looks at the Rev’s map in the article and the sea of blue south of Carlisle looks red to him.

Geoff Huijer

Good article.
 
There is so much one could say to discredit the opinions of
Mr Hothersall, most of which are being said here, but is it worth it?
The man seems to like the sound of his own voice, is full of his own
self-importance and as Taranaich has rightly said:

Mr Hothersall, if you truly cared about an equitable society, then
you wouldn’t have anything to do with the Labour Party.

Bonnie Lassie

An excellent analysis.  This guy makes me want to puke actually.  So self satisfied, so pompous so many unsubstantiated statements.  So blind and so, so unable to be logical.  He’s possibly not worth the bother but thanks for the time taken Rev to critique his speech. Is there any evidence he might have this critique made available to him?  Y’know he might learn something…..on the other hand don’t let him see it because he’s more of an asset for Yes the way he is.  Keep up the good work Rev and you too Dunc!

faolie

“I believe it also because I care about people across the UK, and I know that within the UK we can do a lot more for them than just set examples.”
 
TBH, I hadn’t heard of this bloke until I came to this blog (side note: I thought I was pretty politically aware too, so maybe folk that aren’t have probably never heard of him too) but he seems everything the Rev and people here say he is.
 
However, when he writes this bollocks about wealth redistribution and cosy everyone-in-the-UK-should-help-each-other homilies, he must have missed the undiluted bile and vitriol in the comments in English papers advocating that the stupid and greedy jocks should f*** off out of the Union as quickly as possible. It’s astonishing. Even if you did want to stay in the Union and give poor English people some of your dosh the level of malice from these people would make you change your mind smartish.
 
Apart from Duncan apparently.

Juteman

It’s not just him, but the dishonesty of all British Nationalists that i find bizarre.
They obviously have no mirrors in their houses.

Ray

I don’t much like the amount of focus that goes into constantly trashing what one person says on independence, especially someone who (at the moment) isn’t exactly a name known much outside of this debate bubble.
 
But it’s fair to try and counter it when Better Together feel the speech represents their views enough to put it on their official website in full. As you all know, nobody is going to change Duncan’s mind, so best to counter with your own thoughts then move on instead of going round in circles or waiting for some sort of reaction. You can throw all the evidence and stats you want at him – some undecideds might pay attention (and that’s the idea) but he certainly won’t.
 
That being said, Duncan has a lot more to say on this issue than the likes of, well, Johann Lamont, so I’m sure he isn’t surprised that a good few people want to make it known how much they disagree with him.

Albalha

@Taranaich
Well said. It’s like the Red Paper that’s been brought out this week by people on the left who don’t support YES, or BT, who dream of this federal UK that nationalises land and industry.

However it doesn’t stop Labour and the Lib Dems pretending they’d give it a second thought, sheesh.

link to archive.is

Breastplate

Give the poor guy a break. We need people like Dunc to ensure a Yes result 🙂

a supporter

Stu
It will be interesting to see what Hothersall does about the above piece. On the one hand I am sure he would really like to rip back into you, on the other he is most reluctant to give Wings and yourself publicity on Twitter or his Blog. But he WILL be fuming!

Since Hothersal cannot take criticism the word on Twitter is that … “if you’re not blocked by D Hothersall then you are a nobody.”
 

Michael

I understand that on a show of hands at the end of the debate Duncan’s side lost. The facts about the LGBT community are as follows: we are diverse, we don’t all have the same views. Some of us live in the country, some in town, some are mechanics, some lawyers. There are frightful conservative snobs in our community and there are great egalitarians. In general though I’d say most of us don’t tend to side with the interests of conservatism and reaction.

Duncan and others on the pro-Uk side try very hard to hide their partisan interests by giving their British nationalism a leftist ideological front. Some mock-Marxism here, a bit of faux internationalism there but always the avoidance of the uncomfortable truth that they are in an alliance with the most conservative and reactionary forces in British and Scottish  society.

I think you’ve missed an important point here though in regard to Duncan’s claims about the influence of say the Scandinavian countries on policy development outside their region.  Actions taken in Denmark, Sweden (and the Netherlands outside the Nordic region) did lead to change elsewhere – they provided a model on which policy in other territories could be developed.

Duncan’s dismissal of events and experiences outside the UK merely betrays his own provincialism, his narrow view of the world and his misunderstanding of LGBT culture; because there is one aspect of LGBT culture which is unusual, it is genuinely international in nature. Those of us who are members of the community know full well that it is a culture which transcends borders.

The notion that our campaigns and the way we think about ourselves is not influenced by our exposure to international lgbt culture is laughable and offensive. I am part of a culture which admires countries like Sweden and Norway, which has been influenced by them and is happy to admit that without their lead we wouldn’t be where we are today.

I often find the desire to run down Scotland goes along with a wish to denigrate and belittle the achievements of other small countries, that internationalism for many of those who are so desperate to declare it rarely extends beyond the white cliffs of Dover. In that sense Duncan conforms to the standard model.

When you dismiss as unimportant to the rest of the world the great strides forward in securing LGBT rights achieved in Norway, Denmark and Sweden you are being disingenuous because without their principled lead it is unlikely change would have happened as fast elsewhere. 

sideshowmanny
Bonnie Lassie

Breastplate: I agree – he’s someone who loves attention.  He also describes himself as a ‘rationalist’ on his Twitter site.  But I don’t see him putting forward any reason in his arguments in his speech – just a lot of ‘I believes’ which actually sound more like religious statements than ones based on reason.  However, he will do us a lot of favours.  His twitter feed is rather distasteful with comments about Yes supporters not liking it ‘up them’ (I quote).  As a woman I find this a real turnoff. Shows his true character.  I know he’s a hopeless case but I’d love to seem him apply a little reason to his firmly held beliefs.  He probably criticises people of faith for less.

G H Graham

Rev,
Why spend any energy dissecting the illogical rants of an angry man who has no power, no authority & no influence. His only enjoyment appears to be gained from entertaining a tiny Twitter audience comprised mostly of Unionist bigots.
This article only serves to give him the false impression that the words coming out his mouth are worth listening to. He is as important as the choice between two colours of a paperclip.

Morag

Ouch, Michael.  Well said.

dmw42

From an extract in Holyrood Magazine, Michael Moore talks of his meetings with Nicola Sturgeon anent the Edinburgh Agreement.
There were no real red-line, sticking points and nothing that I could tell you now that was different to what we said publicly at the time. A single question referendum was the main thing and we challenged whether you could broaden that out. It’s true, there were different voices at the time saying that they wanted greater or lesser devolution to the Scottish Parliament but we were clear it should be a single question”.
 
To any ‘new’ readers to WoS, and to avoid any doubt, any talk by Better Together, its affiliates, media allies and British Nationalists of ‘jam tomorrow’ is not, and never was contemplated. They can dress it up any old way they like; it’s either YES or no. Please, PLEASE, do not fall for the same old BS we got in ’79.

BillyBigbaws

It’s funny to see a Unionist decrying the practice of electoral gerrymandering, as if it was an invention of those evil Nationalists. Quite the opposite in the UK, as everyone well knows.

Depressing to think of the Scotland/England border as only an electoral boundary though. Cuts out a lot of interesting history and culture unique to the regions on either side of it, reducing them to mere constituencies. It must take quite a bit of willed ignorance for someone who favours the current constitutional set-up of the UK to affect no knowledge of what that set-up actually entails. The border is a border.

Munguin

I’m not terribly interested in following the twitterings of Mr Hothersall or of reading his blog. When I hear about so called committed Labour Party people like him it reminds me of that other wannabe MSP Kezia Dugdale who did the same sort of thing until she climbed the greasy pole to end up as education spokesman and dropped all the blogging and twittering. Or of the likes of Tom Harris whose blog has made more come backs than Frank Sinatra, conveniently every time he thinks there is somewhere to go for himself, and then sinks like the Titanic every time Tom makes a pig’s arse of it.
 
If Mr Hothersall can incisively destroy line by line the things you say, the way you do the things he says then I don’t understand why he doesn’t. The answer is probably that he can’t and that is why he reverts to personal insults, innuendo and down right lies. If he believes the guff he wrote in that speech then he is more credulous than he ought to be. Just another vile Unionist apparatchik with his fingers in his ears ready to point out the dog mess on his neighbour’s lawn while ignoring the heaps of it on his own.

MajorBloodnok

@G H Graham
 
I think the point is that Duncan Hothersall’s intellectually dishonest witterings are pretty much the offical Labour Party line and if he gets knocked down in the process of pointing this out, then well, that’s a bonus.

Albalha

@dmw42
Exactly. Be it devo plussers, devo maxers, whether from left or right, it is not an option next year.
 

Breastplate

@Bonnie Lassie, I just think he is great example of how mad you need to be to think Scotland benefits at all from the Union.

Morag

An interesting comment from Duncan here: http://www.betternation.org/2013/08/lodge-petition-lodged/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=lodge-petition-lodged
 
make of it what you will…
 
Well, what I made of it was to sign the petition, that being, I think, only the second SG petition I have signed (the other being the one calling for an independent inquiry into the Lockerbie trial).  Maybe not the effect Duncan was hoping for when he commented on the article.

Doug Daniel

Michael – awesome comment.

Michael

Oh sorry, didn’t realise how much I’d written until after I posted it. Thanks for re-formatting it.

Dcanmore

Yup, that pretty much sums up DH and the Labour Party, well done Rev.

auslander

I like that his twitter profile has a nice picture of him with a flower in his hair.

handclapping

Out of interest, what qualities does he lack that have not made him a top SLAB politician?

Buster Bloggs

Mr Hothersall didn’t like it when I tweeted that BT were probably responsible for the graffiti outside their HQ then they can blame Indy people, called me a FUCKING PRICK, not language I would use, then during the Rev smear campaign on Twitter he and Euan Mccolm blocked me,  I didn’t say anything horrid to them, the only thing I did was stick up for the Rev, Well petty for supposedly educated people.

muttley79

@Albalha
 
Well said. It’s like the Red Paper that’s been brought out this week by people on the left who don’t support YES, or BT, who dream of this federal UK that nationalises land and industry.
However it doesn’t stop Labour and the Lib Dems pretending they’d give it a second thought, sheesh.
http://archive.is/rok4L
 
I don’t believe that the Red Paper Collective do not support the No campaign.  They can go on all they like about federalism.  The problem for them is it so clearly pie in the sky stuff.  They just appear to make themselves look like political amateurs.  Neil Findlay and the rest go on that they are big socialists, but they cannot explain how this federalism they supposedly support is going to be delivered.  They are shaping up to be the Douglas Home’s version of 2014.  We surely have learned from 1979 about these con men and jokers? 

Albalha

@muttley79
I was making the point they don’t want to be seen as part of the BT/NO campaign but are clearly not in favour of a YES vote.
And that it doesn’t stop Labour/Lib Dems pretending they would ever consider their ideas. I think pointing out their vision of nationalising land and industries was a clear pointer to pie in the sky ideas.
 

Nation Libre

Ah, DH, I remember a few discussions with him in the early days of LabourHame when I felt you could have a serious debate about the subject at hand.  After a few comments where you put across a reasonable arguement and showed him the error in his train of thought, comments would go missing from my side with final word always going to DH, leaving off my response, totally distorting the thread and making it appear he had the better of the debate.  Needless to say, I very quickly avoided LabourHame and DH.  Don’t see the point of discussing or debating with someone so clearly blinkered to the obvious solution.  A no-mark

Bonnie Lassie

Prediction confirmed:his twitter feed thinks people wondering if he is gay or not is an afront to him.  A personal attack.  He clearly hasn’t read the posts here properly to see that nobody is commenting in an anti gay way…just curious to know what his background is.  

muttley79

I do not trust Red Paper Collective as far as I could throw them.  They are campaigning for a No vote, but do not have the courage to admit it.  They are doing precisely what Douglas Home did in 1979, promising something better if we vote No.  It was not true then, and it is not true today.  It is more how they actually intend to deliver the federalism they purport to support that I find to be pie and the sky. 

Thepnr

O/T New Newsnight editor Ian Katz tweets. Labour demand and get an apology:
 
“It is vitally important that the Labour Party, our shadow cabinet and Newsnight viewers have confidence in the impartiality and fairness of your programme, and the criteria on which guests and interviews are judged.”
 
link to archive.is

Desimond

Apropos of nothing, disgraced former Head Boy of Glasgow Labour Stephen Purcell is to start a new life as a Life Coach.  Expect to see him popping up on our Media radar over the next year or so, trying his darndest to get back on that Gravy train  that he and his New Lab friends love so much.

Albalha

muttley79
We need to stop nit picking like this! Clearly they want a NO vote, they believe in international socialism, workers of the world uniting etc.
Their ideas haven’t a hope in hell of getting sanctioned in the UK, certainly not in their lifetimes.
I don’t even think it’s worth considering the how of it, my interest is in the Herald nib that Labour and Lib Dems welcomed it, utter bollocks.

Morag

In the name of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the saints in heaven, why would anyone in possession of even a modicum of marbles want to be “Life Coached” by Stephen Purcell?

Brian Powell

In the interest of democracy, if Scotland voting for Labour is all that is keeping England from having a permanent Conservative Government as it would like, should this be allowed to continue?
Mr H’s argument seems to be that Scotland must save England, but should one ‘bit’, 8% of the population, hold the rest, 92%, to ransom, forcing them to have a Labour Government at least some of the time.
Mt H needs to be called to account over such a blatantly undemocratic stance.

frankieboy

Not only does the Bitter argument sound hollow to me but I am also convinced that if it wasn’t for a generous remuneration they wouldn’t be saying it either. I ‘believe’ that BT are purely self-interest and many of them work within a professional grievance industry, which is outraged on a daily basis by something trivial, misconstrued or an outright lie,  then shared round MSM as a fact.

CameronB

Any idea what the apparently deluded Hothersall did before he became the Messiah?

Malegria

Don’t know why you bother giving him the oxygen of publicity. It’s obvious he loves the attention even if it’s negative. I shall say nothing more because he’ll be looking for stuff to repeat so he can say how horrible we all are.

CameronB

Is this the Britain that DH wants us to support?
 
Church of England has up to £10m invested in major arms firm
link to stratrisks.com

handclapping

And don’t forget that the Church of England has seats in Parliament, unelected of course.

iain taylor (not that one)

Generally my approach is not to feed the trolls. (Occasionally – I admit – simple humanity prevails and I have some fun winding them up). 
However, it is nice to see one of the nastiest of the bunch taken to pieces. Thanks. 

HandandShrimp

Clearly they want a NO vote, they believe in international socialism, workers of the world uniting
 
Albalha
 
The thing is I don’t believe they do believe these things. They are just plain common or garden British Nationalists who see their personal party interests best served in a Westminster context. I believe this arrangement will never deliver a fairer more equitable society and that the time is right for Scotland as a country to work towards its own vision of social equality. If we make decent efforts in that direction I believe we will do more to encourage those in the Labour movement in England than we will by propping up the current system.    

Richard Lucas

Ever since DH told me I was wrong to suggest that the UK with its monarchy, unelected Lords & Bishops in the legislature and the dodgy Crown in Parliament principle is not a proper democracy, I have not been able to take him seriously.  He’s not a deliberate liar, he’s not evil, he’s just a blinkered fool, deeply attached to an oligarchy he doesn’t understand.

Clarinda

Rev Stu – there is a mention of the life coach newbie in the …. The Herald. 
Life coaching, aka quack psychology, another canard for Morag.

muttley79

@HandandShrimp
 
The thing is I don’t believe they do believe these things. They are just plain common or garden British Nationalists who see their personal party interests best served in a Westminster context. I believe this arrangement will never deliver a fairer more equitable society and that the time is right for Scotland as a country to work towards its own vision of social equality. If we make decent efforts in that direction I believe we will do more to encourage those in the Labour movement in England than we will by propping up the current system.   
 
Exactly what I think as well.  If Red Paper Collective do really support want they purport to support, which is socialism, then how can they honestly believe it will ever be delivered by Westminster (let alone their federalist idea)?  With the rise of UKIP, and the last 30 years of increasingly right wing UK governments, they are either lying about what they believe in, or are politically naive beyond words.  I can’t really see the second one as being credible, as no one surely in their right mind believes this is achievable under the British state?  I am with you HaS, they are left leaning British nationalists attached to SLAB, who can’t bear to bring themselves to support independence because they hate the SNP so much.  They just cannot make the break with the British state psychologically.
 
On another note I saw this on the Guardian blog on Syria and had to chuckle:

Kerry says president Obama has spoken with the French and English leaders and the three agreed to explore an international disarmament proposal.

I’ve been informed that the president of the United States… has completed a conversation with president Hollande and prime minister Cameron… and they agreed to work closely together in consultation with Russia and China aot explore the viability of the Russian proposal and to put all the Syrian CW” under international control.

 
Next time a Scottish Unionist talks about our ‘influence’ in the Union they can be reminded of this quote..

Dan Huil

As the referendum comes closer and closer expect Labour MPs in Westminster to become more and more desperate.They might not do or say anything suspect themselves,but they’ll certainly have “connections” willing to do the dirty for them.
 

Marcia

I wouldn’t give political staffers who don’t live in the real world any steam off my tea.
From odious to nice, on the train up from York today met a nice woman from Canada travelling with her daughter to Edinburgh for a weeks trip . She was most enthusiatic for a Yes vote as she said the ex-pats she knows in BC were rooting for a Yes. Pity I didn’t get her out canvassing when she arrived at Waverley.  

pa_broon74

Those who think we can build a fairer country within the current set up are naive, I know that because its what I used to think.
 
BT/union support can be split into three categories; the naive (where DH etc reside), the bought and paid for (Alistair Darling, most Scottish MP’s and those with an obvious vested interest) and the die hard blind unionist nothing-to-see-here-move-along/its-not-broken crowd (into which DH etc occasionally dip their toes.)
 
If I had any faith in Westminster and/or the British system of politics, I’d also be voting no, I don’t though – so I’m voting yes.

Murray McCallum

“International socialism” – makes me think I’ve been transported back to the 1970s or listening to a fake like George Galloway.  Do people over the age of 14 still believe this?
 
To be clear – no problem with socialism, it’s the international word going before it that implies one is not so good without the other.

Albalha

@HandandShrimp
In context of all the posts I’ve made on this I agree, however I think there are some people, maybe some in this group who will never depart from what is, imo, an outdated view of the way things are.

But maybe you know the group better than I do and know they really do not believe these things. I can’t say.

Self evidently some are members of the Labour Party in Scotland. I’ve  not been arguing anything other than their ideas are pie in the sky and that for the Labour and Lib Dem parties to ‘welcome’ their paper is patent bollocks, an excuse to talk up another, any, option that isn’t on offer.
They along with the Devo Plussers I don’t see the point.

Albalha

@MurrayMcAllum
Yes some people do and many are in the YES camp. It’s going to take all types of people, with all types of views to get us over the line. Once we are the debate begins.
Personally I’m not a great fan of being a member of an organised political group, but we’re all different.
link to internationalsocialist.org.uk

muttley79

O/T  Interesting story if true about Jim Spence on WoS Twitter.

The Flamster

Slightly o/t but in reference to the countries that Michael mentioned.
 
The UN General Assembly has conducted its 2nd World Happiness Report:
1. Denmark
2. Norway
3. Switzerland
4. The Netherlands
5. Sweden
22. The UK
 
Quote from the article:
 
“Happy citizens also make for better countries. The Report found that happiness makes fore people who live longer, more productive lives, have higher earnings and are better citizens.

Scott Douglas

There isn’t much that is ‘International’ about the socialism spouted by the likes of Hothersall.  It seems to lose its internationalism around about the Straits of Dover.  People like that should be called out for what they are and that is British nationalists, that may well be a label they are not comfortable with but it is fact.

handclapping

Stalin was right; Socialism in one country.

Tearlach

Rev. tsk tsk, your map has missed out Orkney and Shetland. I am now voting no.

Murray McCallum

Albalha
link to internationalsocialist.org.uk
I’m not a member of any political party either. I find it odd that “international socialists” would prevent the spread of socialism, but who am I to interfere with their debating society.
 
I am interested in Cooperativism though. I drove from Andorra down to L’ampolla to visit an old friend (originally a farmer from Buckie). Impressive farmland on the journey. He told me all I had seen were co-operatives. Interestingly when you look at the Spanish economic collapse, areas where there are co-operatives seem to have fared better link to bbc.co.uk Not the most recent of articles but I find the idea of community interesting with regard to land / industry.

Juteman

On the way home from work just now,  i saw a young homeless guy with his hat on the floor.
I was about to add a few coins to the hat, then i remembered the wise words of DH.
The homeless guy looked puzzled as I stuck my money back in my pocket.
“Sorry mate”, i told him, “if i help you out, then i’ll have to drive down to Grimsby and do the same down there. I’ve not got enough petrol for that.”
He called we a wanker. Obviously not a proper socialist.

Davy

I remember DH in the early days of ‘labour hame’ when you could have a full on battle without moderation, but as we used to absolutely trash the labour articles and their supporters DH included, the selective moderation came into action, and it became a site of cowards and spin-pricks. 
As “Nation libre” mentioned DH and his friends started to move comments in and out to suit their own arguments, and like the chicken shits they are they even now refuse to publish anything they don’t like or allow you to reply to anything that has been published.
 
Next year come the 19th Sep DH and the rest of his gutless crew will be toast and no-one will ever have to notice they even exist.
 
Vote YES, Vote Scotland.
Alba Gu snooker loopy! 

handclapping

@Juteman
Do that with a dog and a dog treat and you’d be up before the SSPCA with no arse to your breeks 🙂

Albalha

@MurrayMcAllum
Of course that link is to people supporrting a YES vote. On the cooperatives the various community buy outs will be our closest I’d think.
 

Albalha

Edit, supporting

Juteman

@ handclapping.
Bloody cyberdognats! 🙂

Roll_On_2014

Perhaps DH should read this article by Peter Tatchell

CameronB

Not solely restricted to Glasgow. Remind me please, is this the 21st century or the 18th? Is this another Union dividend?
link to eveningtimes.co.uk

crisiscult

I think it’s pretty clear when listening to passionate No supporters that the vast majority of them are British nationalists; if they weren’t, there’d be no need for ‘punching above our weight’ against ‘foreigners’ and ‘redistribution of wealth WITHIN the UK’, and of course on the subject of foreigners, there’d be nothing to fear in making the English, Welsh, and Northern Irish ‘foreigners’. Most Scottish independence supporters I know personally have actually lived abroad and like me see British nationalism and jingoism as quite a turn off. Personally, I’ve sat in a bar abroad with British Embassy employees listening to them wax lyrical about the wonders of the British Empire.
 
My question to Scottish ‘Brits’ is, if you do consider Scotland to be a country, why not vote for independence and then support a party that would seek to join a federal UK, seeing as voting No isn’t going to achieve that.

Jeannie

They say if you don’t learn from history, you’re condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past.  When I was young, the concept of international socialism was all the rage and if you wanted to be seen as “cool” you adopted this view and clung onto it for dear life.  We were all for the brotherhood of man, civil rights, were anti-war, etc.  We loved Dylan and Baez, we marched with CND…..and so on. 
 
So to Duncan et al, I’d say, I’ve been there, done it and have worn the t-shirt as will many other posters on these threads.  But the benefit of age has given some of us an advantage over the younger exponents of this philosophy……experience has shown us that our version of it doesn’t necessarily work in practice. 
 
Since the 60s, we have had Labour UK governments, Labour Holyrood governments, countless Labour councils throughout Scotland…..and the result is certainly not what they told us it would be – in fact, we’ve found that inequality has increased and not decreased, the gap between the haves and have nots has widened and more children are living in poverty now than back in the 60s when we were so sure this would be the answer.
 
So, why do we think that our kind of socialism will be welcomed by the rest of the world?  And why do we think if it hasn’t worked here, it’ll be sucessful elsewhere?  We might do well to remember that “internationalism” by its nature, denotes a two-way street. So maybe we’re going in the wrong direction by trying to export our failed ideas. International socialism might still work, but the other way around – for we’re not the only ones with socialist principles.  Perhaps instead of thinking we should export our type of socialism to the rest of the world, we might be better off IMporting the type of socialism they practise in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, for example.  Maybe that would work.
 
To talk of exporting our version of failed socialism to the rest of the world as if we had all the answers, smacks more of British imperialism than true international socialism.  If it’s truly international, we should be prepared to import successful ideas from other places, not just think about spreading our ideas to them.
 
To Duncan and friends, I would say, stop thinking you’ve got all the answers.  You only have to open your eyes and look around you to know that you don’t.  And after you’ve opened your eyes……open your mind!

Andy-B

Good piece Rev, youve perfectly summed up that windbag, known as Mr Hothersall.
 
The so called distribution of wealth that Labour once built, their manifesto on never materlised, the so called “Trickle Down Effect”, failed to trickle.

Murray McCallum

Albalha
link to internationalsocialist.org.uk
I have no issue with anyone advancing the basic right for Scotland to govern itself.  Well done them.
I guess “Scottish” New Labour use internationalist concepts to limit any advance in our society.  This fits in very nicely with their career paths.  Been said many times by others.

joe kane

I thought this LGBT Better Together news might be of interest.
A doctor working for the by un-British IT company Atos, first employed by the last Labour Government to administer its new disability denial DWP ESA regime, advised a depressed gay patient to investigate cures for his gayness.
This sort of human rights atrocity is a daily occurrence for the long-term sick and disabled community of the UK at the hands of the Labour Party’s welfare reforms being carried on by its neoliberal chums in the Better Together campaign. This has only just come to light and is circulating amongst disability activists and campaigners on Twitter so I thought I’d just pass it on.

Minutes of Investigation Committee (Oral) hearing
General Medical Council
14 May 2013
link to gmc-uk.org

“On 20 August 2012 the GMC received a complaint from Mr M regarding your conduct within a medical assessment. He alleged that during the consultation you suggested that religion could ‘cure’ him from his homosexuality. He alleged that you drew an analogy with a faulty car, stating that as you would return a faulty car to a dealer, he needed to return to God to be repaired.

He alleged further that you had advised him to research a story on the internet about a man who had been cured of his homosexuality and was now married with nine children and that it was unlikely that he would either be able to move on from his past problems or live a normal life without addressing his homosexuality. “

Andy-B

As the late great Jimmy Reid once said.
 
“I never left the Labour Party, the Labour Party left me”.
 
New Labour, virtually red Tories.

CameronB

I wonder if DH is aware that ‘one nation-ism’ was the pet project of Benjamin Disraeli, probably Britain’s most expansionist PM ever and a surprising benefactor of Karl Marx.
 
The enemy’s enemy: Disraeli and working class leadership
link to isj.org.uk

Stevie

Skinner and Hothersall are the two centre right Blairites (they would probably deny their Blair love-in but don’t they all like ex nazi-voters who never love Hitler) who see the referendum as a career opportunity in the offing.  Cold hearted careerists who use social equality rhetoric to justify their status quo sense of certainty in outward expression but who couldn’t give Atos about anybody else other than themselves; like so many Labourites in fact… wtf happened to basic decency and honesty?  That question once asked simply answers itself in the fabric, history and structure of class based England and its representative parliament of Westminster.

Class based may well be the good old days as the English electorate drifts ever further off to the right in a UKIP anti-EU Europhobe hot air balloon of British nationalist sentiment.

In conclusion – he’s a self-serving git like so so many in Labour

Seasick Dave

OT, but these Labour types are extremely sensitive…
 
The editor of the BBC’s Newsnight programme has been forced to issue a written apology to Labour for calling a shadow minister “boring” on Twitter.
 
link to bbc.co.uk

eva

Rev re Steven Purcell, it was in yesterday’s Herald that on Sep 19 he is to address a small conference of dentists at the Clyde Dental Centre in Glasgow. He has studied a lot about depression and stress and being doing consultancy work in change management.

Juteman

Folk seem to be looking for meaning in the DH ones position.
Could it not be simply that he is a sad, wee attention seeker that was bullied, and had no friends at school? I know a few folk like that. Often they ended up in positions of authority so that they could bully back, like a policeman.
Weaker folk have more choice these days with the internet. They can assume a ‘virtual’ strength.

BillyBigbaws

The British version of socialism has always had a deeply conservative and Establishmentarian side to it.  There are more Labour Lords than Tory, despite Labour’s supposed hostility to inherited privilege and the concept of aristocracy.  Even the CPGB intended to keep the Queen as a figurehead after “the revolution”, which always made me laugh.  Nowadays their internationalism extends no further than the borders of the UK. 
 
I can feel (and exercise) solidarity with workers from other countries even without being governed from their Parliament, and I can feel sympathy for those who suffer under monarchical systems without needing to put myself under the same Crown.  Isn’t the whole point of international socialism that it can, and does, operate across national borders?
 
The independence of Ireland has not disrupted trade union links between workers there and those in the UK.  Cooperation and mutual support has not ended.  Many UK unions operate freely in the Republic without any issues.  No problems there.
 
There is a bit in Harlot’s Ghost by Norman Mailer where one of the high-ranking CIA men says disapprovingly: “Scratch a Brit, and you’ll find a socialist underneath.”
 
As said above by smarter folk than me, it seems that if you scratch a socialist of the Labour Party type, you’ll find a British Nationalist underneath – wrapped in the union flag, watching the Coronation, singing Jerusalem, and calling the countries of the UK regions.  Not a pretty sight, even to themselves it seems.

Roddy Macdonald

Amen to that, Juteman.
I see a James Mackenzie ?@mrjamesmack has me down as a homophobe, and Stuart presumably as well for not having deleted my earlier comment:
 
@Charnoski @dhothersall Have a look in the comments. Part of a rather homophobic one which the “Rev” presumably approved.
 
Note here the delicious irony of Hothersall appearing in an article bemoaning a ‘Gay Mafia’, how the gay press were ignoring his efforts in Scotland, but failing to see that he himself was a member of the ‘gay mafia’ that saw “gay rights” as a route to self-advancement in the Labour Party. Supposedly independent gay organisations were hoaching with these self-serving types in the nineties and noughties. Most wanting not an end to discrimination, but the maintenance of the ghetto on which their rights industry was based.

scottish_skier

Jeanie
They say if you don’t learn from history, you’re condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past. 
A major problem of the UK parliament is the FPTP system. We’re told it leads to ‘strong’ governments, which actually means dictatorial governments elected by a minority.

Old Labour pre-Thatcher oversaw things become too left, not modernising quick enough in response to a changing world. The unions were being very demanding and should have been more reasonable. In effect, they opened the door to thatcherism by putting a lot of people off socialism. The FPTP system then worked the other way; Thatcher came in and, rather than bringing balance, curbing the unions somewhat, modernising industries, scaling slowly back others while developing new ones, she lurched things to the opposite extreme (right) under her elected dictatorship. So long as she could enrich a sufficient minority to win her a majority, so the Tories could keep winning. Labour, having put people off socialism, found themselves unable to win under FPTP, so jumped to the right…
FPTP is well established as creating a two-party state with these eventually converging into essentially one.
 
Proportional representation may well have avoided this happening as neither party would have been able to be in complete control. Compromises would have been needed. It’s not perfect, but is the best thing going and where every vote counts. It yields strong policy as this comes from consensus. FPTP yeilds weak policy which the majority oppose and so is often undone, redone, re-hashed, implemented again in a farce of money wasting never mind the potential damage to the economy/society.
 
No party has a monopoly of wisdom. The FM is completely correct in this. All sides can learn from each other.
 
Of course PR is the last thing on either Labour or the Tories minds; that would change a system that benefits them greatly. The Libs were stupid, power-grabbing fools and had a chance to change things but gave it up for a moment of glory.
 
If they had pushed for PR (STV) as they originally wanted as part of any coalition deal, they’d have won a referendum on it. Instead they sacrificed that for the minor change that might have improved things a little in the form of AV. Of course AV is easy to confuse people with and not that great, so was absolutely perfect for the establishment to trash. Which they did, ensuring there would be no real democracy in Westminster any time soon.

Dave McEwan Hill

I’m disinclined to waste time discussing Duncan Hothersall whose densely stupid offerings to Labour Hame eventually ceased (by order perhaps).
I’d rather we nailed this federal distraction. Here is a letter I sent to the Herald (in which Letters page there were some interesting and first class demolitions of federalism )

“I was wondering when the federal distraction would be drawn into the constitutional debate. The answer appears to be now.
I cannot think of anything that a federal UK could provide for Scotland that independence couldn’t do better but there is no doubt that a form of federalism has attractions for some.
It would mean that overall control of Scotland’s economy and resources would remain with the UK, the nuclear base on the Clyde would remain in place and we would still be implicated in military adventures in other people’s countries around the world.
In other words, more of the same dressed up in different clothes. Anything significantly more radical holds no attraction for the English interest which makes up 85% of the UK.  Nor should it.  Unless Scotland (and Wales perhaps) is incorporated in a British federation on the same status as Yorkshire , West Country or any other English region an arrangement that would be of benefit to Scotland could be grossly unfair to England and would certainly be seen as such. Which is probably why there is absolutely no support for this sort of diversionary proposal south of the border.
The phrase “fiscal autonomy” is bandied about with abandon in this wide ranging constitutional discussion. In practice anything less than independence cannot really deliver this. For those who recognise the undoubted benefits which could be achieved through cooperative relationships on these islands a British confederation along the lines of the Nordic Council in which independent countries freely agree to share responsibilities and activities in mutual interest is the way forward.”  
  

Morag

He has studied a lot about depression and stress and being doing consultancy work in change management.
 
God give me strength.  So completely fucking up your life when in a highly privileged and responsible position is now a golden ticket to a career in “change management”?  You couldn’t make it up.  I feel sorry for the many many graduates with good degrees and impeccable credentials who have never so much as parked on a double yellow line who can scarcely find a job selling TVs at Currys.
 
But this complete and utter wanker isn’t just headed for a new lucrative career, he’s actually going to presume to lecture people from the position of “recovered junkie”.  Nauseating.

muttley79

@Jeannie
 
Interesting post.  I think the main problem with SLAB, in the decades from the 1960s or so, is that  they have backed away from taking any responsibility towards Scotland.  Their leadership quietly dropped their Home Rule pledge, and only committed themselves finally to a Scottish parliament in the 1980s, and it took the rise of the SNP, in the 1960s and 1970s, for them to do this.  They shy away from taking responsibility, and are basically content to run councils, and occasioning getting to rule as part of British Labour at Westminster.
 

Juteman

Welcome to celebrity culture, Morag.
If you are poor and have problems with drugs, you’re a junkie.
If you are a ‘celebrity’, you’re a guru.

eva

@ Morag – agreed, unreservedly.
 
thought you would give me a row for the spelling mistake though 😉

eva

@ Muttley 79 – I am not sure that you are right to say that Labour ‘run’ any Scottish councils. My experience suggests they tend to let officers run the show and only step in now and again to stage manage a few pet projects, usually taking the huff if they don’t get their own way. 

Morag

Eva, there are differences between an inadvertent typo (which is what I think you did), a genuine spelling mistake which is a one-off, and a persistent, repeated howler perpetrated by multiple people to the point where they think their mistake is right.
 
I only get hot under the collar about the last category.  And I don’t think I’ve even said anything more than two or three times in a couple of years.  It’s too easy to get a reputation round here!

bunter

Check the latest Herald headline re Bill Walker and the vote to reduce his pay, which was passed ”despite SNP rebels and abstainers”. Three SNP voted against, 2 Greens and 2 independents, but hey, lets try tar the SNP as the wife beater party why not. Think the vote for, was 107, so it just managed to pass…lol
 

CameronB

Morag
I’m sure that some of those adding to your reputation, do so in good humored jest. Anyway, I’ll keep out of it as I have been guilty of a few howlers.
 
Don’t loose perspective. 🙂

Eddie

SLAB are terrified of losing Glasgow to the SNP as the SNP have previously stated that they will end all of the ALEOs that are currently being run (and are costing Glaswegians a blooming fortune).  Suffice to say, you will find a SLAB councillor at the head of each and every one of these costly schemes that deliver very little (my good lady still has the misfortune of having to deal with one of them) when they promised the earth when they where implemented.
 
As a Glaswegian, I had to endure 30 years of living in an area that was once described as ‘the worst council estate in Europe’ and over that entire time, it was presided over by a SLAB council who never lifted a finger to change things for the better.  If they can’t be relied on to run a city council (albeit Scotland’s biggest) there is no way I would trust them with running the country.
 
Hothersall is of this ilk, the me first generation of politicians who would have the labourites of old rolling in their graves at what their party has become.

eva

@bunter – yes, my comment pointing out the silliness of the headline which is misleading on substance awaits moderation. 

eva

@ Morag – my son is studying homophones at school, it’s not easy 😉

TYRAN

Duncan Haivershite more like

Jeannie

@scottish_skier
Proportional representation may well have avoided this happening as neither party would have been able to be in complete control.
 
You would think so, wouldn’t you.  It’s one of the reasons why I don’t understand either Labour or the Lib Dems’ opposition to independence.  If their socialist principles are so important, you’d think they’d go for independence because they would have a good chance of holding a degree of power most of the time in Scotland- unless they’re so bad everybody votes SNP again. 
 
Then, if they adopted a PR system in rUK, they would be able to be part of a balanced government at Westminster and have the opportunity to pursue socialist policies, probably most of the time if they learn to cooperate with other parties.
 
Instead, under the current first past the post system, they have to sell their principles and keep moving to the right to get a big enough majority to win an election. And if they fail, they have no power at all so cannot promote socialist policies.  And if they win on a right wing manifesto, they still can’t pursue socialist policies.  But, there again, with independence, Scottish MPs would be out of a job and would lose the chance to stay in power, unelected, as they couldn’t be elevated to the House of Lords till the day they die. 
 
So what’s it to be for Labour?  Socialist principles OR power within the UK or socialist principles AND power with independence and PR.  Bet I know which one Labour will choose.  And it won’t be socialism.
 

eva

@ Jeannie – you nailed it. Labour , excluding Labour for Independence, mainly ditched Socialism last century. Those who retain some principles are either silenced or sidelined.

cynicalHighlander

OT: As more and more businesses put their heads above the parapet it seems the independence disease is gaining traction.
 
link to archive.is

Chris

What a vitriolic, self-righteous and downright nasty little piece of work this is.
I know Duncan – and while many disagree with his opinions and politics this is utterly shameful. 
You will be voting next year – have your say there. I am Scottish and proud of it. I can live with people disagreeing with my opinions but I cannot read the amount of vitriol written here without commenting. The cheek to call the piece “dishonesty and delusion” to imply higher standards. Christ – folks like you have a negative impact on the Yes campaign.
And the remarkable irony of the jumped up little contribution saying people using internet comments were compensating for being bullied at school. A pronouncement made as a comment on the internet. Genius.
Raise the game people – and your standards. 

muttley79

Re: the question about socialists supporting or not supporting independence: I think the evidence points to most supporting indy.  In the Yes campaign we have the SSP, there will be socialists in Labour for Indy, there will be socialists in the SNP, there will be likely be socialists in the Green Party, and there is the Radical Independence campaign, Independents such as Dennis Canavan (although he will no doubt be linked more with Labour for Indy). 
 
The only people left out of this are probably some Old Labourites, who can’t make the break, and Neil Findlay’s Red Paper Collective, who appear to think that federalism is going to be implemented after a No vote.

Ceartas

What a petty and ill informed attack on Duncan Hothersall.The guy works tirelessly for the causes he genuinely believes in.Pretty sad its come down to personal attacks on individuals in the other camp.What happened to your ‘keeping it positive mantra’ or  is Project Fraud taking its toll on the Separist camp.I’m still on first name terms with my local Nats for the simple reason that post Sept 2014 life will go on either way.#Go_with_God as you religious types tend to say #YES2UK 

Roddy Macdonald

Eva says:
 

“@ Morag – my son is studying homophones at school, it’s not easy ”
 
Careful, Eva. Homophones could be misread as homophobia. Given the manufactured outrage on twitter, you could find yourself going the way of the paediatrician assaulted at the height of paedo-hysteria.

eva

@ Roddy Macdonald – need to take that up with the CfE 🙂
 

Morag

Bwahahahaha!  Duncan is so far up himself that he took my comment asking if he was actually gay and tweeted it as an example of the personal attacks he was being subjected to – in fact implying it was part of the article Stu wrote.

Factually, I don’t make it my business to follow Duncan Hothersall’s every move, and I hadn’t picked up that he was gay.  I vaguely noticed he’d been pushing the agenda of some LGBT groups and thought he was just riding a pressure group for political advancement.

I realised I’d probably been mistaken about that, and posted a comment asking for clarification.  Having got the clarification I said, oh my bad, or something like that.  This is now a personal attack worthy of being tweeted round the globe.

Replies to his tweet include “This is shocking. It’s a personal attack on you. I have been trolled on Facebook by Yes supporters so you have my sympathy.” and “A testament to your effectiveness that so much venom is lavished on you, so OTT that it can only be counter-productive!”

Duncan responds heroically that his skin is thick and his shoulders broad.

Drama queen, or what?  All in reaction to a perfectly innocent post from someone merely seeking clarity as to his motives for riding the LGBT bandwagon.

Angus MacC

Labour hame is a dead extremely boring site, because anyone who has an opinion gets their post deleted then themselves deleted, so all we are left with is anti Salmond / SNP hatred. Never saw the point in attacking Alex Salmond for his appearance?!?
However, Duncan seems to be the architect of this style of debate, so who can say that he does the Labour party and his idealist union any good?
 

Morag

Well, I don’t give a monkeys whether he’s gay or not, but if it’s a “personal attack” just to ask whether he is, then I don’t think his skin is as think as he makes it out to be.

gordoz

O/T :
Think I heard  Raymond Buchanan leaving the BBC  could this be why ?
link to newsnetscotland.com
 

john king

murray mcallum says
“listening to a fake like George Galloway.”
really? do you really think so? 
the mans as real as a Louis Vitton bag bought at Kinross market for a fiver 🙂

orpheuslyre

Seems to be a slow news day but this sharp observation from Michael further up really bears repeating:

Duncan and others on the pro-Uk side try very hard to hide their partisan interests by giving their British nationalism a leftist ideological front. Some mock-Marxism here, a bit of faux internationalism there but always the avoidance of the uncomfortable truth that they are in an alliance with the most conservative and reactionary forces in British and Scottish society.

Krackerman

Ahh come on Cameron – this is a EU dividend – I’m all for getting rid of Westminster but to put this at the feet of them is a bit of a stretch. EXACTLY the same thing would be happening in an Independent Scotland if it was a member of the EU. Bottom line – not all the world is really in the 21st century a LOT of it is still very much in the dark ages so if you open your door wide open to it don’t be shocked when it wanders in the front door and shits all over your rug….
And the worst thing is that rung really tied the room together man….

john king

“Any idea what the apparently deluded Hothersall did before he became the Messiah?”
A very naughty boy?

gordoz

Nicely put Jeannie;
Labour have struggled with the concept of socialism for years and particulalry  since the Blair + Brown team up. The dilemma you raise must ‘eat them up at their core’ (if they care at all)

Krackerman

Ahhh man RUG – I meant RUG not rung…. damn… now the entire Lebowski reference is wasted cause I can’t go back and edit it…. 🙁

Morag

No, no, I got it.  It’s obviously a typo.

cynicalHighlander

“Any idea what the apparently deluded Hothersall did before he became the Messiah?”

Forgot to grow up!

CameronB

Drama queen, or what?  All in reaction to a perfectly innocent post from someone merely seeking clarity as to his motives for riding the LGBT bandwagon.
 
Like many, I was watching what was watching what being said, and I would confirm there is absolutely no truth to the allegation re. Morag making a personal attack on DH.
 
I don’t follow Twitter, but it really does seem to encourage some to ‘exaggerate’.
 
BTW, what’s with athousandflowers running a piece which makes  similar allegations against the Rev., but whose ‘evidence’ showed the complete lack of an attack?

Chic McGregor

Skier
Thatcher was a fully signed up accolyte of the Austrian School from her student days.  She would have instigated the lunacy regardless.

Thepnr

@Chris
“folks like you have a negative impact on the Yes campaign.”
 
Now that is irony.

Albert Herring

Lebowski reference
 
I thought it rug a bell.

CameronB

Krackerman
I’m all for getting rid of Westminster but to put this at the feet of them is a bit of a stretch.
 
Possibly a bit, but I’m sure if we were running our own affairs, we could almost certainly do a better job of it. Less social inequality, less crime. Or is that utopian thinking?

Bill McLean

Chris – no concerns at all about the filth that has been thrown at the Rev. No concern about what Alex Salmond has been called. No! none at all. A typical bullying Britnat attitude! The Bullies days are coming to an end. The faux socialists are being caught out in their dishonesty!

Murray McCallum

As mentioned by HandandShrimp earlier, I think it a great thing that New Labour Scots MPs showed their borderless credentials by helping vote in university tuition fees in England. Working class folks in England must love their support and would be lost without it.

Taranaich

@Geoff Huijer: There is so much one could say to discredit the opinions of
Mr Hothersall, most of which are being said here, but is it worth it?
The man seems to like the sound of his own voice, is full of his own
self-importance

Thanks, Geoff, and I agree. It’s a bit like the Chewbacca defense from South Park: blind your opponent with nonsense.

@Albaha: Well said. It’s like the Red Paper that’s been brought out this week by people on the left who don’t support YES, or BT, who dream of this federal UK that nationalises land and industry.

However it doesn’t stop Labour and the Lib Dems pretending they’d give it a second thought, sheesh.

Thanks, Albaha! I believe this is My Unionist Friend’s position, too: they genuinely believes that a federal UK is achievable, and will be achievable in the next few years. Then again, they also believe Salmond and the SNP are inherently racist and will introduce irreversible policies that will damage Scotland immeasurably…

@Michael: I think you’ve missed an important point here though in regard to Duncan’s claims about the influence of say the Scandinavian countries on policy development outside their region.  Actions taken in Denmark, Sweden (and the Netherlands outside the Nordic region) did lead to change elsewhere – they provided a model on which policy in other territories could be developed.

Absolutely. I think one problem, of course, is that the current UK government isn’t as amenable to adopting change as other countries would be. There was a time when this was different, of course, but these days Euroscepticism means even good ideas from other European countries (even though outside the EU) might have more resistance than merited. So even if Scotland does provide a Shining Beacon of Socialism, it’s up to the people of the rUK to do it.

@muttley79, Albaha, HandandShrimp et al regarding Red Paper Collective and federalism

To be frank, I don’t believe they’re con-men: I do believe that they’re genuine. If they were truly con-men, they’re not doing a particularly efficient job of it, especially considering there are so many other routes which would ensure them a place in Arsefire (My name for the LabConDems). In the end, it’s Hanlon’s Razor again. In fact, I think My Unionist Friend was talking to me about the Red Paper a while back, now that you mention it…

Chris

Stuart – if you are bruised by the comments Duncan has made then you are entitled to defend yourself and point out where he is wrong. I am sure that you do.

If the guy has been vitriolic and lied – call him out about it – again, I feel sure you would.

Your article is preaching to the converted in this forum and it has resulted in is the silliest form of personality attack ensuing. I suspect some of the silly “homophones wink wink” level of innuendo probably makes you slightly embarrassed, too.

I do not want to mediate or defend – the pair of you have plenty to say and lots of opportunity to say it. You are also both capable of handling what the other says. I would counsel against letting it turn into a lifestyle/personal abuse tirade, however. If Duncan veers in that direction – believe me I would think less of him for it, too. The campaign is emotive and still has a long way to go. I genuinely want reasoned argument on all sides – sometimes I despair of it.

Maybe next time attack the politics a little more and resist the desire for personal point scoring?

Arbroath 1320

Sorry if this has been mentioned before but it appears that our beloved ??? BBC Scotland is to be investigated by the BBC Trust regarding their news blackout of the comments made by Irish Minister Lucinda Creighton.
Good old BBC Scotland, misreporting and twisting the words of interviewees to suit their, BBC’s, own agenda of anti independence bias.
www.newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-news/7995-trust-to-probe-bbc-scotland-over-creighton-eu-news-blackout-claims

Tamson

To twist an old Communist dissident maxim: you can be honest, or intelligent, or a member of the Scottish Labour Party. It’s also possible to be any 2 of these things, but not all three.

fordie

Golly, I didn’t know that a critique, by a Yes campaigner, of a speech made by an individual positing himself as a No campaigner, was off-limits. Does that come under the ‘keeping it positive’ umbrella then? Should us nasty Yes campaigners just stop talking about independence then so that those poor wee UKOKers don’t feel ‘personally’? attacked.
We could just close off all avenues of discourse. We’re largely there, given the MSM and the BBC. Perhaps we could ban free speech for the duration of the Indy campaign  – but only for those supporting the independence campaign of course. 
Don’t you just love those Brit Nats.

Baheid

Sorry but is it just me?
 
BBC news 10:25 finished with,
‘Scotland went one nil blah blah but a lack lustre home team blah blah’
 
FS can’t even give the Scotland team a win without a ‘BUT’

Murray McCallum

There seems to an accepted Scottish way of knowing your place, being a good chap and accept the crap that’s handed to you.

muttley79

@Ceartas          
 

What a petty and ill informed attack on Duncan Hothersall.The guy works tirelessly for the causes he genuinely believes in.Pretty sad its come down to personal attacks on individuals in the other camp.What happened to your ‘keeping it positive mantra’ or  is Project Fraud taking its toll on the Separist camp.I’m still on first name terms with my local Nats for the simple reason that post Sept 2014 life will go on either way.#Go_with_God as you religious types tend to say #YES2UK 
 
Stop projecting about Project Fear…Remind me of the dictators Salmond gets accused of being?  Rev Stu: who is SM2?

eva

@ Chris – I think you are seeing things that are not there. I was jesting with Morag because of spelling mistakes, that’s it. 

Angus

I don’t think the guy hothersall has any credibility-it is all the usual shouting and smearing that we are very used to from any unionist type and very little facts are contained within the sub socialist worker party ’70’s cuckoo-land rhetoric which is not anything like Milliband or brown or blair labour.
 
Hothersall like better together and the failures like darling live in a wee fantasy world, bolstered in the case of darling by the newspaper, that dying piece of past reportage glory, or the television news bumming up their bullshit as some sort of well hidden truth.
 
I think the twitter arseholes take a liberty, the labour arses and the rest will eventually bite off more than they can chew and the media won’t be able to impose their shitebag styled blackouts-then it will be a skydive nose-dive as from 20,000 feet right into a pile of shit they will forget.
 
With twitter you have the racist Ian Smart asswiping his way along and of course I am sure this minor player will use the social media to say what he likes, smear and then greet if he gets it back, even in a well versed proper article such as the one above.
 
It shouldn’t just be the Rev who has to duck and cover-these other unionist liberty taking assholes get away with far too much and rarely do they tell anything close to the truth hence they have to fanny about with any poll and lie about the results.
 
We will get a Yes in 2014.

Krackerman

CameronB – how do you maintain that equality when you open the door to an impoverished world? Will you pull the world to your level or (more likely) will they drag you down to theirs through sheer weight of numbers?
Is it right??? No … but it’s an imperfect world..

cynicalHighlander

Possibly the 751st predescessor of sm573
 
link to nat-mythbusting.blogspot.co.uk

Angus

I genuinely want reasoned argument on all sides – sometimes I despair of it.Maybe next time attack the politics a little more and resist the desire for personal point scoring?”
 
Like Alistair Darling Chris?
 
Think on what you are saying, if Darling can claim ludicrously that the mineral wealth in Scotland is 2 or 3 Billion Barrels (that means it would last until 2017 ish) and keep a straight face (and have it widely reported as fact) then where is this fantastic consensus and debate going to come from.
 
I have been around for 49 years and active for eventual Independence since I was about 16, this bullshit is nothing new but I will tell you Chris that better together and the unionists simply don’t have any proper coherent arguments to put forward, they play a loose game of lies innuendo and hiding under their bed(the total lie on better together’s site about the ashcroft poll being a prime example-still there telling lies to the public)…….if you think that this sets anyone   an example of how to behave and debate then you are the one who has missed a meeting.

Morag

@ Chris – I think you are seeing things that are not there. I was jesting with Morag because of spelling mistakes, that’s it.
 
Indeed.  I was on a crusade to stop people writing “free reign”  (for “free rein”), and that’s what Eva was referring to.  Some people see slights where nothing is intended, and you seem to have joined their ranks.

Krackerman

Also – my family was poor throughout the 70’s and 80’s. In fact I’m the only one out of the entire lot to gain an education and a well paying job …. Did the rest go on the “rob” instead ….?  No… Did they work the benefit system??…No…  They instead went out and worked hard at low paying job and kept their heads high. Do  not suggest to me that inequality is linked to crime… Have a gander at the banker elite and tell me that! More likely crime is linked 100% to a privileged, unaccountable and perhaps sociopathic minority!

Murray McCallum

Angus
“like better together and the failures like darling”
 
Hold on Angus, as well as hold down a full salary part-time MP position Alistair Darling is a highly successful paid speaker and would-be property magnate. England needs Alistair’s selflessness to survive.

eva

@ Morag – thank you!

MajorBloodnok

Hey Chris, if you want a debate why not give us a postive case for the Union for starters.  We’d like to discuss that.  A case mind you devoid of utopian platitudes and dreamy-eyed socialism designed to hoodwink the masses if you please.  Maybe some pragmatic, humane, civilised, egalitarian and even econmically literate reasons could be put forward (keep in clean now!).  Or perhaps something of what Anas Sarwar was trying to articulate the other night but didn’t have time for?

Thepnr

@fordie
I have to agree with all that you said, absolutely anyone making a speech in public has to expect that those opposing their view may analyse said speech and show it in a different light, one that suits their own agenda.
 
This happens all the time in the MSM and is often on the front pages with speeches by prominent Yes supporters, particularly Salmond and Sturgeon.
However it is rare to find critical analysis of speeches of those on the No side such as Osbourne’s recent trip to Scotland proved, I saw no critical analysis of his views anywhere other than Yes supporter blogs.
 
It must be hard fighting your corner when the only the BBC and all Scottish newspapers are on your side. Poor BT.

Roddy Macdonald

Chris @ 10:33 says
“I suspect some of the silly “homophones wink wink” level of innuendo probably makes you slightly embarrassed, too.”

More manufactured outrage from a Hothersall apologist. My homophones comment came about after earlier manufactured outrage on twitter after my first comment regarding Hothersall’s rather camp ‘rose behind the ear à la Carmen’ twitpic. One prejudiced buffoon even equating camp with gay and then accusing me of homophobia!  Are we really still in the 1970s? Are we being served by ‘activists’ like that? Well, I’m free to point out that camp and gay are not synonymous and there are plenty of camp, straight people.

Whether Hothersall is gay or straight, a twitpic of a chap with a rose in his hair is rather camp regardless, and fair game for ridicule.

For those of us endowed with a memory rather better than that of an amoeba, NuLabour’s record on equality for gay people is nothing to trumpet under an LGBT Together banner or any other.  To see self-serving, narcissistic opportunists like Hothersall held up as a voice of the ‘gay community’ is little short of vomit-inducing.

CameronB

Krackerman
If I knew all the answers I wouldn’t be hanging around with you bums. 🙂

Just read your second post. I was not implying poverty inevitably leads to crime. I have been poorer than I would like to admit, for a very long time.

P.S. I am sure there are lots of empirical studies that link crime rates to social inequality.

Chris

Major – love the photo! I think you have rather made a leap in your assertions of me, old chap. Read rather a lot into my intentions simply because I did not like the focus around here on personality. 

You’re not so dashed clever as you think you are, matey. You are like the rusty, old blunderbus you probably keep up in the attic, m’boy. Firing off in all directions. Be careful, by jove. You might just go shooting the wrong blighters.

I might struggle a bit talking up the Union, chummy. Nevermind, you got your clever comment in – just a bit wide of the target, I’m afraid.
 
 

CameronB

eva
As I said to Morag, don’t loose perspective. 🙂

eva

@ Roddy Macdonald – I made the mistake of joking with Morag about spelling mistakes with words that sound the same, you know that. At times my son’s spelling is better than mine in that respect and that is what I was getting at. If those comments gave someone silly the opportunity to manufacture more piffle then I will need to be more circumspect in future. 

Point is, the  No’s can only duck and try to deflect because they do not have the ability to debate positively for the Union, especially when talk turns to Socialist values and social justice within the Labour Party.

Morag

As I said to Morag, don’t loose perspective. 🙂

Not touching that with the proverbial barge pole, you functional illiterate you.

jim mitchell

We shouldn’t be dismayed, surprised, disappointed or anything else that any unionist  like Mr Hothersall says about Scotland and independence, they will say anything to anyone provided they think it will work/

Bill C

o/t – interesting wee snippet from Newsnight Scotland, apparently the independence debate a week tomorrow is no longer taking place at Culloden, as described last night; Gordon Brewer has just informed viewers that the debate will now take place in Inverness!  Someone in Pacific Quay must have been reading Wings over Scotland last night.

CameronB

If that was directed at me Morag, a seriously brain damaged functional illiterate, thank you. 🙂

P.S. Do you not remember I made a post with a half dozen loose, instead of lose?

eva

@ Morag and @ CameronB – how about extending your reach into malapropisms (bet I am wrong there too but I know someone helpful will correct me) – and the Labour Councillor in central Scotland who announced to a packed meeting that the report just tabled was so lengthy and detailed that he would be going through it with a fine toothbrush ?

Firestarter

“Maybe next time attack the politics a little more and resist the desire for personal point scoring”
And this in a defence of DH? ROFL
This site has done little else, in regards to DH, than “attack the politics”. What has been the result of that? Reasoned debate? A positive case for the union? Nope …. lies, smears, “la la la” fingers in ears and “one-nation socialism” naivety.
Geez peace …….. erm…. please?
 

kininvie

If I want insults, on either side, I go to Twitter. If I want sane discussion about politics, I come here. I hate it when this forum turns into an extension of Twitter bitching – it ruins my day. Can we move on to a new topic please Rev?

Baheid

Did he actually say that it would not be in Culloden Academy?
That’s where it was to be held and as far as I know the academy is in Inverness.

Murray McCallum

To be fair to Duncan Hothersall and ScotBrit thinkers, I am forever being stopped at work, in pubs, restaurants, etc and being thanked by English people who are simply overjoyed that we Scots are saving them from a life devoid of “fairness, equality and social justice”.

Doug Daniel

Bill C – it’s always been taking place in Inverness. But the venue is Culloden High School or something like that. That’s the source of the confusion. 

Thepnr

@Chris
“Be careful, by jove. You might just go shooting the wrong blighters.”
 
Please enlighten as to who the “wrong blighters” might be and to why anyone should have to be careful for having an opinion or making a comment on a blog?

CameronB

Morag
I forgot to add. it may have irritated you but I was very embarrassed. Totally ruined what I thought was a reasonably good comment.

eva
I have enough difficulties thanks. 🙂

eva

@CameronB – ditto 🙂

Doug Daniel

I suspect Chris is hinting that he’s a Yes voter. And if folk actually read his comments, they’ll struggle to find evidence that he’s defending anything other than Hothersall.
 
Now I disagree with him, because I think Hothersall is a poisonous little toad in regards to the indy debate, and all I see in the article is a dissection of something that was on the No Campaign’s website that just *happened* to have been said by Hothersall (with the odd deserved jibe mixed in), but that doesn’t make him a unionist.
 
I wish people wouldn’t leap to conclusions so quickly. At least wait for evidence before making such a horrendous accusation!

dee

O/T  Just listened to Gordon Brewer on Newsnight and the topic was the recent Norwegian elections. All through the programme he was trying to undermine the two experts in Norwegian politics he had on the show. He was actually trying to scaremonger them into saying something negative about the Norwegian political and welfare systems, thankfully they did not bite and he was slapped down. He was obviously trying to suggest that the people of Norway were want some kind of change.  What ever he was fishing for it didn’t work out and the negative comparison between Scotland and the Scandinavians countries never happened.  Typical BBC Scotland, always looking for a negative.

Morag

P.S. Do you not remember I made a post with a half dozen loose, instead of lose?
 
Of course I do.  That’s what we were ribbing about, wasn’t it?

CameronB

Morag
I thought so but wasn’t sure. Nice to know.

Morag

Well, you started it….  😀

rabb

Duncan Hothersall – The New Labour career politician in it’s foetal form.
 
I wonder if we can persuade Prof Robert Winston to make a documentary on him.
 
“A red tory of our time” or similar.
 
He could chart his progress from conception to election to fucking flat rejection!

CameronB

Morag
I do get confused from time to time, especially when I’ve just read about what DH is saying.  🙂

Morag

Easily done.  He has swallowed the Newspeak dictionary.

Bill C

@Doug Daniel – Doug no confusion here mate.  Last night Newsnight Scotland proudly announced that the debate would be held “in Culloden”, viewers were left thinking (certainly this viewer was) that the debate would be held at the new Heritage Centre. Last night on here, we established that the venue was indeed Culloden High School, tonight the venue is now being described as Inverness.  The point I was making, is that, to use Culloden whether it be the Heritage Centre or indeed the High School is symbolic and sends a message to the people of Scotland. It says, one year out from a referendum on Scottish independence,  we the BBC, are holding a debate on Scottish independence on the site of the last battle fought on British soil and on the site of a battle which ended in the death of hundreds of Scots who were trying to usurp the British State, (it also ended in unimaginable butchery by the forces of the British Crown and all but  the Highland way of life). The BBC’s choice of venue and use of the name Culloden is deliberate and designed to damage the cause of independence. The fact that they have changed the name of the venue to Inverness speaks volumes. Someone within the BBC has had the wit to realise that using the name Culloden, would open the state broadcaster to rightful accusations of trying to send a subliminal message of despair and defeat  to the people of Scotland.

Arbroath 1320

Sorry for going O/T again Stu but I wonder how your ‘dear’ friend Mr Hothersall will react to this on the front page of the Daily Record?

As we all know the Bedroom tax was introduced under Labour’s Gordon Brown’s reign as P.M. Knowing, as we all do, how Mr Hothersall takes to accusing everyone who attacks, or even just questions, Labour’s policy on anything as being a cybernat etc I can only assume that he will now be accusing the Daily Record as coming out as a fully paid member of the SNP! No doubt under the idealism of Mr Hothersall the U.N. is now considered to also be a fully paid member of the SNP.
 
link to dailyrecord.co.uk

Bill C

Should read:
“(it also ended in unimaginable butchery by the forces of the British Crown and all but ended the Highland way of life).

Doug Daniel

Bill C – ah well when you put it like that, then fair enough. I thought you were saying that you thought they had actually changed the venue!

Thepnr

O/T How I felt after supporting Labour my whole life and regretting it!
 

O Me! O Life!

BY WALT WHITMAN

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

                                       Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
 
 
Independence will be my verse.

Bill C

@ Doug Daniel – That’s my take it on anyway Doug. I think the BBC is one of two organisations, who pose a very serious threat (the other one being the British security services), to achieving an independent Scotland. 

Bill C

@Thepnr – Excellent! An admirable contribution to the debate.

Cath

I had an interesting drunken campfire conversation with some some confused American, Canadian and European folk about Scottish independence last week. The American and Canadian were both surprisingly against and couldn’t seem to understand the desire not to be run from London. I did ask if they’d like to return to London rule but they looked even more confused 🙂
 
One thing that most confised them was that thye didn’t understand why we wanted to be independnt because “Scatland already is a country, right?”
 
“Well, yeah, in theory it is a country. But it has less powers than a US state!”
 
How can you call a country a country if it has less powers than a US state, or a Swiss canton or a German region? It doesn’t make sense. How can a country within something like the UK even manage to have less powers than a US state? It was that point – that we are a country but really have no powers at all over our own taxes, economy, welfare etc – less than any US state – that really made them think about it. Sadly, not many people within Scotland of the UK understand that either.

Jamie Arriere

I have to say that I too had never heard of this guy until I came to this site. He strikes me as a bit of an empty vessel, with a lot to say, nothing worth hearing.
 
You compare the vitriol he dishes out with the vitriol Salmond receives. Eck is a class act and the vitriol is a marker of their fear of him. This guy just doesn’t seem worth the effort. 
 
The Rev is right in that Labour is the real enemy and this blowhard wants to be in the frontline for them – but it does seem a bit personal between the pair of you. If you don’t mind, I just want to ignore him, his output can be so easily rubbished by better men than me. 

fitheach

@Bill C
Newsnight Scotland proudly announced that the debate would be held “in Culloden”,
 
Many, many years ago there was a clear distinction between Inverness and Culloden but with urban sprawl the gap between them has decreased. Take a look at this map which is centred on Culloden Academy and you can see what I mean. Plus, the Academy uses Inverness as part of their postal address. So, I can’t really blame the BBC for using Culloden and Inverness interchangeably.

However, I noted that one of the questions the BBC uses when filtering the audience for this programme is “Briefly, what is your view of the monarchy?” Which could set things up nicely for a Jacobite/Hanovarian rammie considering the location.

While talking about meetings in “Inverness” I would like to tell everyone about the Yes Highland Public Meeting at Millburn Academy Community Complex on Monday September 16th at 7.15pm. Speakers include Blair Jenkins and Jean Urquhart. Free entry, all are welcome.

Onwards.

I think this type of British nationalist socialism deserves all the ridicule it can get.

It is an intellectually dishonest and hypocritical argument, which normally does a 180 degree turn when it comes to the English channel.

Yes, every nation state is ‘an island of self-interest’ and rightly so – it represents the people who live there.

Scotland has a chance to turn itself into a progressive and more equal society, based on the Scandinavian model.
But instead of embracing that opportunity, the likes of this guy are campaigning for a political set-up that subjects this country to years of governments and policies that most Scots reject.

Patrick Roden

I used to post on Labour Hame a while ago, and engaged Duncan in a few debates. he shared his international socialist ideals with me, but they didn’t make much sense as the contradictions were dripping from his every point.
As I began to challenge him he began to take the thread up blind alleyways (his one and only debating skill) and it became a waste of time.
 
I was new to the on-line game and my knowledge of politics is very limited, but I handed Duncan his ass on a plate easily…..very easily.
 
That my friends sums up Duncan and the whole BT movement. 🙂

DMyers

@Chris: Homophones are, of course, words which sound the same but have different spellings, and aren’t necessarily ‘suggestive’…  Wink, wink.

G H Graham

Any chance of not mentioning this bloke’s name again because he is an insignificant spectator with a gob shite mouth.

Tattie-boggle

I have to say that I too had never heard of this guy until I came to this site.
every time someone says that about Duncan a unicorn dies ..

john king

“While talking about meetings in “Inverness” I would like to tell everyone about the Yes Highland Public Meeting at Millburn Academy Community Complex on Monday September 16th at 7.15pm. Speakers include Blair Jenkins and Jean Urquhart. Free entry, all are welcome.”

What? you mean? ALL? my god consider the ramifications! think of the children for gods sake, what happens if? if? someone who disagrees with you gets in through the (non existent) security net they could actually ask a question that’s not on the script and opens up a whole can of worms for people actually having a say,
no no no we cant have that,
no the best way to do it is follow the Better Together playbook on this and have only hand picked invitees who are only told about the location of the venue at the last possible moment, and then have a security net around the building that’ll weed out anyone who looks vaguely  suspicious,
they know how to deal with people who have a personal opinion,
no much safer to follow their example

john king

“I wish people wouldn’t leap to conclusions so quickly. At least wait for evidence before making such a horrendous accusation!”

Come off it Doug I personally cant be arsed by these nuanced commemorators trying to make themselves look like they are deep thinkers 
its simple yes or no ?
spit it out 

john king

chris says 
“I might struggle a bit talking up the Union, chummy. Nevermind, you got your clever comment in – just a bit wide of the target, I’m afraid.”
Great that’s settled then we’ll see you in the Albanach on the 21st and your first up at the bar 🙂
do feel free to bring your wee friend Chris
 

Morag

Bored now….

Eddie

Hmm, Hothersall apologists trawling this site complaining about how their little hero is being perceived.  Hanging onto his coat-tail in the hope of being elevated to Westminster along with their favourite pariah.  Nothing changes without a ‘YES’ vote.
 
@ Chris – feel free to talk up the case for the union as it will be the first time I will have heard anyone making a case for the union.  If you admit to struggling to see anything positive then perhaps you just have to admit to yourself that the arguments of the YES camp might just be true.

Morag

Eddie, having read what Chris has to say, it does not appear to me that he is a supporter of the union.  If anything, he is coming at this from the “wet-Nat” direction.  Attacking Stu for “damaging the cause” by attacking Duncan, without regard for the fact that Stu’s article is about 95% forensic dissection of Duncan’s actual arguments with only a bit of spice in the way of well-deserved jibes.  While on the other hand Duncan’s twitter stream takes vitriolic personal abuse to higherto unseen levels.
 
It can be quite hard to distinguish the wet-Nat from the concern troll, but Chris seems to be in the former category.  He’s entitled to his opinion.  I think people hang out in the places they’re comfortable with, and I like the atmpsphere here.  I’ve given up reading Kate Higgins, for example, because political correctness and holier-then-thou attitudes bore the pants off me.
 
So does pointless chat at the end of an article that’s over 20 hours old.  Stu, what have they done with you?

gordoz

Dind anyone else spot the ‘Celts for Independence / St Andrews flag’ on the TV coverage after ‘Anya’ scored his cracker in Skopje !!
 
MAGIC; Made my night even more than the final score ! First positive YES thing the BBC have covered in months, (sure it was a mistake by the cameraman though, that will be edited out by now) ……

Linda's Back

Gordoz
The TV camera coverage was done by Macedonians so BBC could not edit it out.
All the BBC did was send out a couple of commentators.