Here’s your democratic choice
Posted on
December 13, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Daily Record, 13 December 2013:
But phew – luckily, in the UK there’s always an alternative.
The Guardian, 12 October 2013:
Take your pick, voters.
Is there an Option C, you say? Funny you should ask.
If only we had an honest Scottish press.
The Yes vote would be a landslide.
Don’t forget to tell all your pensioner family and friends that the old age pension is a welfare benefit too.
So effectively what we’ve got are the usual bunch of right wing crooks in power ably aided and abetted by useless apologist frontmen. The same frontmen who have a dubious track record on keeping even the most basic of pledges by the by. This is capped by a supposed government in waiting is led by a man whom nobody likes or trusts and who apparently can’t command the respect of his own voters.
Yet we’re better together for all that and somehow our very own media fail to see the problem with this?
Wait, this isn’t Beadle’s about is it? 🙂
We’re voting NO because we don’t want anything to change, were to feart!
IT IS GOING TO CHANGE WHETHER YOU VOTE YES OR NO. YES! – HOPE! – NO! – NO HOPE!
One would imagine that after having his head removed when he put it in the lions mouth, he would have ensured that it didn’t happen a second time, in spite of which he goes to the holyrood health committee unarmed with the answers which he was so woefully unprepared to answer when he was asked them by Nicola Sturgeon, does he really think his job is to represent the government in Scotland and any such trivialities as how many children are being put into poverty by his governments actions is a mere detail?
Decisions,decisions!!!
Nicola! Nicola , hurry, Carmichael needs another doing !!
The SNP and Yes campaign should be thankful for every second the clueless Carmichael remains in his very prominent posting. He is an absolute gift in showing just how right-wing the lib dems under Clegg have become and just how far removed the No campaign is from ordinary people. There may not be very many of them left since Clegg drove most of them away but those scottish lib dems that still have an ounce of decency and compassion must be seriously rethinking why they are in that party when someone like Carmichael makes it so clear that the poorest and most vulnerable in society are fair game and as far as he is concerned.
If even the Daily Record can’t hold it’s nose for Carmichael then it’s a safe bet that some in labour and the No campaign know full well just how much of a liability he is. The Record went after Michael Moore on the bedroom tax amongst other things shortly before he was booted, so Carmichael is almost certainly on a shoogly peg relying on Clegg to keep him where he is right now.
here it is
http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/scotland-25348371
It was mentioned during the committee meeting that Danny Alexander had said that £50million could be put into mitigating the effect of the bedroom tax and the Treasury would not claw this back.
I don’t know how this would work, if anybody else does It would be interesting to know.
The other issue is why would the Osborne impose such a tax then start giving out money to pay for it?
Jackie Baillie was clearly very pleased with this information but it would give credit for ‘compassion’ to the Coalition not Labour.
Clearly a stick to beat the SG with if there is not a reasonable point for not spending more than £20 million. Tricky point for Labour to use if it benefits the present UK Government.
Though I do remember the First Minster say they would spend more if it was available.
Still what ever pleased MS Baillie it highlights the cap in hand approach to Westminster she sees as the way Labour would proceed.
There wouldn’t be a bedroom tax had Scotland been Independent.
I’m confused, and not for the first time either!
We all know that the Tories, and since 2010 the Tories and LibDems, hate anyone who is ill, disabled, poor etc.
It has always been “claimed” that Labour were the party of the people. Now I like others have always assumed, I know making assumptions with regards to politicians is a bad idea, that being the party of the people they were the party of the common man. i.e. ill, disabled,etc.
It would appear that we have all been wrong. When they claim to be the party of the people the people they are talking about are not the poor but in fact the rich and powerful! Millionaires and bonkers bankers anyone?
Carmichael was supposed to be a hard-ticket, right? He clearly isn’t – during the debate with NS he often looked as if he was blowing up an invisible balloon. Thing is – if he goes, who’s next?
Who’s left? (Let’s assume it would have to be another Lib-Dem.)
Give David Steel a shot at it! (He’s taller than anyone thinks dontcha know?) And he’s Scottish….I think.
He must be doing it just to get the skunk, sorry! I mean the ermine.
He knows there’s fat chance of Westminster Parliament letting in non naturalized Scots after 9.18th, as the yanks would name it.
Is it just me or is Aileen Mcleod a Hottie
Ian Brotherhood
Isn’t David Steel’s wife a Yes supporter?
Appointing him would be a laugh.
Moore being turfed out to be replaced by Carmichael, must seem even more strange a couple of months on, I am beginning to think that the move was a forced intervention, rather than a planned strategy.
I am of the oplnion that Moore either wanted out but promised to keep quiet as part of the deal or he was asked to go because he would not play the NO game any more.
Seeing him on tv and listening on radio he stuck to a script and did a reasonable job of playing a bad hand but his heart never seemed to be in it. He probably saw that there was a tight fight on that the NO side was likely to lose and had some sympathy for what YES stood for.
There is a story there which needs to be told. Carmichael may turn out to be the ‘nightmare’ the NO camp feared and in the end will cause them to be exposed.
Luckily for the Tories they will happily pass the buck to the labour and lib/dem lackeys and look to retaining their power and influence in dear old Blighty.
Carmichael is obviously not up to the job and is not prepared to do his homework. His minders at the committee must have been in despair during that performance.
MSM tell their “loyal readers” the condemns are going to skin you and your kids your pensioner parents, food banks. Another reports the labour party are promising to be more brutal than the condems. Then they tell the jock numpties their better together with their tormentors than trying to do it themselves. Then charge them for rubbing their noses in the shit and buying their rag.
What beats the shit out of me are the NO bunch volunteering for this punishment, and paying for the privilege of having their noses rubbed in the shit!
Perhaps if the SG removed the extra £30 million from Jackie Baillie’s constituency she’d be OK with that.
Or the SG could outline three different budgets to remove the £30 million from and then abstain in the vote to decide which to choose.
@Tattie-bogle
I think it’s just you lad.
This feels like a long time ago now, but it wasn’t really.
‘Carmichael is known as a bruiser…’
Not any more he ain’t…
Maybe Wee Willie will get a chance to use the same spiel! That should save a few bob.
Interesting bit in the Herald re; RAF Lossiemouth. What’s afoot? (12″)
http://archive.is/wCyoJ
Just watching the Nobel Peace Prize concert from Oslo, Norway, inspiration:
Norwegian group Envy – Am I wrong? Check it out on YouTube , a new Indy anthem?
come on people, there is a better alternative!
On Lossiemouth – They are moving assets around as they replace the Tornado with Typhoons. Not going to happen until 2015…if it happens at all. No 2 squadron’s first proper home was Montrose back in 1913 (if people are interested in such trivia)
Stories on Twitter that Darling has resigned form Better Together!
IanB
‘Carmichael is known as a bruiser…
now know as bruised.
OT
Interesting tit bit on the Reuters news wire
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/13/scottish-independence-gilts-idUSL5N0JJ3U920131213?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Might be dull and tedious but if the polls narrow to say within the margin of error then the chances are Westminister will be forced by The City into pre-negotiation on Currency Union BEFORE the referendum or risk their bonds being downgraded to junk.
Aside from the blow to BT’s (and specifically Darlings) credibility…..having an agreed Currency Union would lead to a huge swing to YES as folk could relax about the ‘Pound in their pocket’ and the trickle from DOn’t Know to Yes will become a flood
So it’s well worth keeping an eye on those gilt prices folks
Stories on Twitter that Darling has resigned form Better Together!
You can’t say that and not provide more detail. 🙂
A pure Tunnock bruiser. Gives biscuit-lovers a bad name.
Carmichael was never known as a bruiser. He was never known at all which tells you all you need to know about him.
o/t bbc news channel has a scottish journalist on their paper review just now,don’t get that often.
OT:
http://www.maxkeiser.com/2013/12/iceland-jails-four-banksters-in-financial-fraud-case/
On the subject of those raf movements,if i thought yes was going to win and was in charge of the raf,i would endeavor to move as many of the new jets out of Scotland and leave the old ones in their place.Over a period of time.Just in case like.I’d also close /reduce in size other bases as well of course.Just in case.
S_S The Rev’s on it now. All seems a bit confused.
S_S The Rev’s on it now. All seems a bit confused.
Aye. Seems so.
Would be a big development, particularly as the joint UK-Scottish government statement is due around the 20th.
We need answers.
O/T
OK, quite off topic but I am very glad to have gotten an email from ‘Third Sector’ news, ie charitable organisations in Scotland, and at last they, or many 100’s have come out in support of Independence. There’s a website and twitter etc, site called, http://thirdsectoryes.org/
Not sure if that link will work as I have just been reconnected to my pc, my son having replaced the hard drive and installed Linux, Ubuntu. It’s brill, but just getting used to it, I recommend it, beats windows hands down!
Hetty
Link works fine – but once you’ve used a Mac!
It’s not related to this, but where did that national average wage entry go? Did I imagine it?
Surely Darling was one of the Yes campaigns biggest assets.
“I am of the oplnion that Moore either wanted out but promised to keep quiet as part of the deal or he was asked to go because he would not play the NO game any more.”
I’d bet he actually came to the sensible conclusion (having access to a good lot more of the facts than most of us will see) and begged for an out as he couldn’t argue in favour of the union with a clear conscience.
@The Great Baldo
Re that Reuters article re value of gilts being affected by independence referendum, do you think this can at least partially account for some of these very strange polling results we’ve been getting and why they keep using YouGov and Ipsos Mori when they know other pollsters use more reliable methodology? Is it to try and steady the markets? It’s just that increasingly I find that results like 25% in favour of independence bears no resemblance to what I’m finding in ordinary life.
ooft! you really can’t say that and not provide more detail, I’ll not sleep
There was a moment when Alistair Carmichael’s answers got clean away from him in the face of a question from Rhoda Grant. It had been a terrible, floundering performance prior to this but at that point I suddenly felt I was watching one of those episodes of The Simpsons in which Homer ends up listening to his own inner monologue while a figure with more authority than him (usually Marge or Mr Burns) stands waiting for a sensible response from him.
The next question was about wages. Mr Carmichael began his answer by saying that a point about this had been made to the Chief Executive of Dominos Pizzas – that’s when I knew it really was Homer!
Mmmm. Pizza…
I’m meant to be giving evidence on child poverty? But what evidence? I’m going to look like I don’t know what I’m saying again. Grrrr. That Nicola. Making me look all stupid on the tv. All these people looking at me. All listening to this big, long answer I’m giving! What did I just say? Better listen and find out. D-oh!
Here’s the twitter link for Darlings resignation.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BbZRqbyCQAAt5Vh.jpg:large
Sanctions were the topic of conversation tonight. A latent understanding of getting no support from the Govt who claims your tax. This day,for once, someone who thought they understood the system,said to me ” Do you know that you get absolutely no money now if you claim broo while off work and its called a sanction” Dusty farts all round
Jeannie says
I note YouGov are back to using their preamble after ditching it last time out which lead to 10 points being shaved off the lead….but it’s not in any Polling Companies long term interests to fix the results because they lose all credibility if they are beyond the margin of error come results time
On the Gilts thing, I’m no expert but I suspect May/June will be crucial.
If the lead is in single digits and it is coupled with a UKIP victory in the Euro elections then the market will be spooked by a possible EU exit and the UK’s ability to pay it’s debts sans Scotland.
At that point the City would force Osbourne/Alexander into negotiations with Swinney on a currency union to reassure and stabilise the bond market.
Rachel Reeves MP, the recently promoted Labour shadow DWP minister. A 34 year old ex-City of London banker who has never had a real job in the real world outside of the Westminster-Whitehall-Oxbridge-City of London elite. A bit like Liam Byrne MP, in fact, the previous Labour DWP shadow minister who invited an exec from the City accountancy firm KPMG to share the stage with him at the last Labour Party conference.
And here is a DWP minister from the last Labour Government, and still at the DWP, Lord Freud, calling on local councils to start funding and running foodbanks. A throw-back to days of Victorian morality where the local parish looked after the needs of the poor, or not –
Welfare minister urges local councils to invest in foodbanks
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/13/welfare-minister-local-councils-food-banks
re Darling resignation.
I just downloaded the Directors list for BT2012 from Companies House and AD is still showing as a Director.
4 additional Directors were appointed on 22/11, but AD has been there since 1/6/12 and is still there.
Either Companies House isn’t up to date (which I don’t think would be the case) or this is a wind-up.
Hope I’m wrong mind.
Ivan – Stu said on Twitter that he phoned Companies House twice to check – presumably they’d have the most up-to-date information that might not have been put into the database for download?
Would it be updated that quickly Ivan even if the decision was only made Saturday evening?
I think it’s a hoax though. I mean if it was true it would be all over the BBC website wouldn’t it?
Suzanne K
I think that’s a wind up. Just checked companycheck.co.uk from which that’s is supposed to be taken and Darling s still listed as current Director
The Twitter link posted above by Suzanne K is dated 27/11
@A2 23:56
See this. Apologies, don’t know how to do the archive thingy.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/michael-moore-turned-down-chance-to-resign-cabinet-post.22464081
http://companycheck.co.uk/director/916961702/MR-ALISTAIR-MACLEAN-DARLING
It takes approx 3 weeks for paperwork to be processed and appear on the CH website. As the last entry was 22/11 and AD was meant to have resigned on the 27/11, it may not have been updated yet?
Who knows? Great for a bit of speculation though!
Apart from two retweets 3 days ago, Alistair Darling’s Twitter feed has been absolutely silent since…
27th November.
Carmichael’s government colleague Mike Penning, the new DWP minster for exterminating disabled people, chose to continue the Tory-Lib Dem government campaign of stigmatising disabled people at one of his very first meeting in front of a parliamentary committee today –
Penning fixes on fraud for first encounter with all-party group
http://www.thefedonline.org.uk/disability-in-the-news/penning-fixes-on-fraud-for-first-encounter-with-all-party-group
ps
Benefit errors cost £1 million a day. Tax avoidance and evasion cost £260 million a day
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2013/09/13/benefit-errors-cost-1-million-a-day-tax-avoidance-and-evasion-cost-260-million-a-day/
Ooh! The Thot plickens! 😉
OT
As it is quiet here at the moment I thought I would take the chance to make a suggestion for a Wings crowd sourced poll / survey that could be conducted over the holiday period.
The basic idea is that readers approach an agreed number of people to ask an agreed set number of identical questions and then get the data centrally collated and analysed. Even a modest target of 50 readers asking 20 people over the next 3 weeks or so would yield a useful sample of 1000 respondents.
Respondents should not be known and remain anonymous. I suggest a maximum of 6 questions with a standardised A, B, C D choice of response. Proposed questions:
1) Age – eg, 16-25, 26-40, 41-55, over 56
2) Likelihood to vote in referendum – eg, Definite, Likely, Unlikely, Will not vote.
3) How you will vote in referendum – eg Yes, No, D/K, Will not vote.
Etc.
This idea may be complete rubbish for obvious reasons – I know there will be a lot of work to collate the data and there is a danger of the operation getting spammed by unfriendlies. Any thoughts?
Should have gone to specsavers Tattie Bogle
Given the urgency and importance of the matters over which the hapless/ hopeless Scottish Secretary was being grilled, I wonder if people here have had a look at ‘How Norms Become Targets – Investigating the real reason for the misery of ‘fit to work’ assessments’ by Kaliya Franklin.
http://www.centreforwelfarereform.org/library/categories/disability/how-norms-become-targets.html
It brilliantly exposes the rationale behind the huge number of otherwise inexplicable decisions made Atos Origins in their Work Capability Assessments. It shows exactly how the DWP is pulling the strings in this situation and why any other companies that might be hired to do the assessments – ostensibly to do a better job – will be forced to operate in the same way as ATOS, being strung up by the same system.
A norms-based system does not give an objective assessment of a person’s abilities and/ or disabilities. It cannot. Awards made on the basis of such a system are unreliable and frequently unfair in the extreme. That already-vulnerable people are being forced to undergo such assessments is a scandal at least as serious as the rise of foodbanks in our cities. The suffering being caused on a mass scale is incalculable.
The war against those in poverty and building the numbers of the working poor, reminds me of the US President campaigns of old.
I seem to remember ambitious Presidents, or candidates if they had State authority, used to turn down a few final death sentence appeals in order to expedite a death sentence. This was to show their strong leadership skills and ability to take tough decisions.
So it seems with the war on those in poverty.
how’s this for an idea rev?
Whenever the online media publish something that helps make the case for independence, we should descend on mass on the article, clicking on all the articles that appear, making these articles a big moneyspinner for them, encouraging them to write more.