Cameron/Salmond “deal” exaggerated
Posted on
August 20, 2012 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The world's most-read Scottish politics website
-
About
Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
-
Recent Posts
- 06-04
- 06-03
- 06-02
- 06-02
- 06-01
- 05-31
- 05-30
- 05-29
- 05-29
- 05-26
- 05-21
- 05-20
- 05-19
- 05-17
- 05-16
- 05-15
- 05-14
- 05-11
- 05-09
- 05-08
A tall tale
Wee Books
Video
Probably a robbery
Transphobia
Life in Bedlam
It’s a hard choice. Oat cakes or independence? Hmmmmm….. Maybe that will be the fabled third option or second question?
WTF? Paterson’s “orangutan friendly” oatcakes (palm-oil free) are far superior.
in return the FM will give him another Bannock….”Burned” I hope.
Now that really does take the biscuit..
‘FREE Nairn’s Oatcakes’, they deserve independence too.
It’s has to be Stockans Thick oatcakes. They go really well with pasta dishes.
Odd rumblings in the Unionist press. Some of them seem to think that giving in on extending the franchise to 16/17 year olds, the date of the vote and the wording of the question is a victory for Cameron and a defeat for Salmond.
Alan Cochrane (I know) is ‘hearing whispers’ that a deal has been done on Devo Max and full fiscal autonomy – even though that giant of financial responsibility, Gordon Brown, only last week, explained how damaging it would be to the beloved Union.
If any of this were true it would suggest that Unionists are prepared to give up almost everything but for the name, and the concomitant prestige, of the United Kingdom. Oh. And Annabel Goldie’s Union Jack undies.
As a Nairnite, I feel duty-bound to state categorically that widespread rumours of the political oppression and persecution of our oatcakes are totally unfounded and the product of external elements attempting to contain and undermine our fine shire’s peaceful economic development. Oatcakes, along with all other grain-based citizens of Nairn, enjoy full freedoms of speech, expression, media and association in all places within the borders, from Ardclach to the sea!
It is admittedly true that a small number of oatcakes – duped by external forces intent on destabilising our domestic affairs – have unfortunately taken extreme measures on occasion in recent years. Unavoidably, this has led to the necessary introduction of certain measures, such as the controversy over digestion without trial. It is disgraceful that the legitimate and legal steps we have taken to counter this violent baked-goods extremism have been misconstrued as “persecution”.
Cuphook:
Isn’t it strange that the unionists are willing to give Alex Salmond almost anything he wants as long as he agrees to bury the second question now.
What’s so important about making certain there is no second question on the ballot paper? If the unionists don’t provide one then the SNP can’t stick one on without inviting ridicule so why the need to bury it so quickly?
It’s all about getting the votes of those who want devo-max. If the unionists can get the SNP to agree to no second question before the consultation results come out and before the referendum bill is put to parliament then the SNP will be part of the corporate guilt of removing the devo-max option and their campaign strategy will be neutered.
What the unionists don’t want is the SNP making a pitch for the devo-max supporters by pointing out that the lack of a devo-max option is entirely due to the unionists so the only option is a vote for independence.
I had a conversation with Moridura over on his blog last night about this if anyone wants to have a look.
link to moridura.blogspot.co.uk
Seems to me that the Bitter Together campaign are running scared somewhat.
All we ever get from them is we are Bitter, I mean Better, Together without any examples of such. Now we have the Cameroon bar apparently bending over backwards to please A.S. just so long as he buries the “second question”. I wonder why, what on earth are the Bitter group terrified of? It couldn’t possibly be something to do with actually having to give more powers to Scotland if we voted for Devo whatever instead of Independence could it?
Well perhaps these little ditties below might answer a few questions as to the thought processes of the Bitter campaign, I know the Bitter group don’t do joined up thinking but hey I’m being kind to them for once. :LOL:
link to express.co.uk
link to scotsman.com
Noow I don’t know about anyone else, but could this sudden eureka moment that the Cameroon bar has recently experienced have something to with the fact that the Bitter group are trying to slide these two stories out under the cover of a “good news” story? Surely not, Westminster doesn’t indulge in such underhand activities, do they?
I’m sorry, but you’re all wrong. The ONLY oatcakes to buy are Robertson’s of Stonehaven. Not too crumbly, not too chewy, they present the PERFECT base on which to place some cheese, or to scrape up a chunk of macaroni cheese, or for those of a slightly more adventurous disposition, spread with some syrup. They’re even pretty tasty eaten completely on their own, without so much as butter.
You can keep your unionist-leaning Nairn’s oatcakes. Given that the Scotsman are handing them out free, I can only assumed they’ve been laced with chemicals that make you more suggestive, and therefore open to pro-union arguments. Hence why they want you to eat them while reading Michael Kelly’s latest rant.
My own reading of this, and I could be wrong is that Slab thought to use Cameron to be “bad cop” to their “good cop”…He would do all bullying and impose conditions from on high. But it seems he is unwilling to play this role, and Slab seems to have decided on being “Maniac Cop”.
Cameron doesn’t want to give AS everything he wants, but knows he can’t really stop the referendum either. He has played the hand he was dealt and seems willing to cash out at this stage and hand it over to the Scottish Parliament.
Salmond won’t do anything until his consultation comes out, so we’ll have to wait and see. Expect more insanity and silliness from Slab and their Slib-dem side kick in the coming weeks.
Hang on, will we even be able to afford oatcakes in an independent Scotland? According to the Unionist narrative apparently not – as our subsistence economy based solely on the fickle (and heavily subsidised) oat harvest will surely fail. I fear an undignified rush to the bottom (of the biscuit barrel). Mark my words.
@Majorbloodnok If you take the Unionists at their word, we can’t be trusted to make our own oatcakes. We couldn’t be a player on the world stage, we couldn’t form our own foreign policy, we can’t afford an army or have “special forces”.
We would culturally bereft without the BBC, and functionally retarded without the common cultural bonds with the rest of the UK. England, our number one customer would strangely become our No 1 competitor. 80% of Scots are on the sick, the remainder work for the state and spend recycled tax income from England.
We don’t know how to run banks, businesses or fight wars. Indeed, England may be forced to bomb our airports and ports, our Borders would be as bad as the Northwestern Frontier…its pretty sorry state of affairs if you believe as they do.
But if we vote no to independence, they’ll maybe think about the possibility of considering on letting us have some Jam.
Then you wake up, and realise that they are talking out of their backsides.
Salmond wanting a second question was manufactured by the press so they can run with the follow-up. Look for a defeated Salmond conceding / caving into Cameron’s demands and will now have only one question.
And another thing. Are oatcakes cakes or biscuits? Would have a bearing on the VAT situation, I shouldn’t wonder.
I notice that the BBC are now running with the 16/17 year olds being enfranchised. ‘The official spokesman of Prime Minister David Cameron’, no less, suddenly can’t see a problem. Concerned about being seen to establish a precedent which allows them to vote in UK elections he says ‘You are doing two different things. One is a referendum about the independence of a nation, which is irreversible. The other is the election that decides the government for the next four to five years. It is quite a big decision – independence is irreversible’.
I hope someone has told Ruth Davidson who said in March, regarding this very subject, “I don’t think that anything should be done that’s different about voting just for the referendum.”
DougtheDug
I actually think that you’re giving the Unionists too much credit. They have shown themselves to be incapable of strategic thinking and their standard position has become automatic opposition to anything that Alex Salmond and the SNP says.
I think that they fixate on the second question as they genuinely believe that Salmond wants to use it as a safety valve in case Independence isn’t achieved. It is after all what they themselves would do. Their main desire is to disable Salmond (who they see as the independence movement) and return to normal politics. I think Salmond is their prize as they want to be seen as being more politically astute than him.
The fact that they’ve now walked into a trap is, perhaps, beginning to dawn on them, but they’re still incapable of playing the game. With all other issues out of the way and everyone fixating on the second question only Salmond can win (look how much he’s won by doing nothing) – he’d love to accommodate the electorate but the Unionists refuse to support their own policy. 20% of the electorate who don’t want the status quo then have to make a decision.
There’ll be one question and a result that even Willie Rennie can work out. He won’t like it though.
Cuphook:
I would say that the unionists in Scotland haven’t shown much strategic thinking but the negotiations are being conducted between London and the SNP and not with the local unionists and the SNP. It’s always dangerous to underestimate your enemy.
The unionists have no intention of putting a second question on the ballot paper and know that the SNP can’t despite all the hoo-ha in the unionist press about it. For devo-max to work as a fallback option it has to both win the ballot and get implemented through Westminster. All a unilateral SNP devo-max option would do would be to invite the political ridicule of the SNP from their opponents while gaining nothing as the unionists control Westminster and therefore the implementation of any devo-max.
So, to go back to my original premise, why are the LibLabCons so desperate for the SNP to agree to no second question so early on in the game when they are in full control of whether to include or exclude it?
It’s all to do with getting the SNP to share the blame for no second question. Corporate guilt with the SNP also implicated in denying Scots an option on the ballot paper.
Once the SNP are implicated in the deal to keep devo-max off the ballot paper then they can’t target the devo-max supporters and point the finger at the unionists as the SNP were party to keeping their favoured option off the ballot paper.
The unionists know there will be no second question, the SNP know there will be no second question and the strategy for the unionists to make sure that the SNP share the blame for it not being there.
DougtheDug
I don’t think I am underestimating the London politicians. Just look at them.
What would Alex Salmond gain by giving in on this point at this time? The Unionists have giving in, or have indicated that they’re prepared to give in, to every issue that they considered contentious. I think that they have been caught up in the Olympic hysteria and see this as a chance of inflicting a unrecoverable blow to the YES campaign. They want to be seen as reasonable people and to portray Salmond as being awkward, but the longer Salmond strings them along the more they will be in the media denouncing the choice of the majority, and their own supposed choice.
I don’t think that the Unionists own devolution or the second question. It’s a legitimate right of any people to improve their government and all this talk of devolution and independence being two separate journeys is a nonsense. Who owned devolution prior to 1997? The people of Scotland. If Unionists believe increased devolution to be an alternative to independence then they must give us concrete proposals before the referendum. We know that they won’t as London doesn’t want change. It doesn’t want any threat to its status.
If a group like civic Scotland managed to formulate a Devo Max proposal it could, if conditions were right, make its way onto the ballot paper, but I don’t think that the momentum is there for it to happen. I also don’t think it would be as easy as people believe for Westminster to ignore a Devo Max result, if the questions were laid out in a clear manner acceptable to the Electoral Commission. If they were to say NO or put it to a UK wide vote it would only result in another independence referendum but with one question, or a velvet divorce like Czechoslovakia.
I think that Salmond is astute enough to concede the second question at a time that will be more damaging to the Unionists. At the moment he’s just sitting by the river.