Inaudible mumble amplified
The New Statesman has been doggedly ignoring all our polite requests to release the audio of its controversial interview with Alistair Darling for several days now, but today it very quietly released the full text of it on its website.
Where previously it had reported the “Better Together” leader as having made an “inaudible mumble” in response to a question about whether the SNP were guilty of “blood-and-soil nationalism”, apparently the mag had given its ears a good swabbing out with a cotton-bud and concluded that it HAD been able to hear him after all.
This was what it heard at 1pm:
Click on the page now, though, and what you’ll get is slightly different:
Alert readers will note that the second version contains a link in red. That leads, finally, to the audio, in which it’s clear that the second “at heart” is spoken by NS editor Jason Cowley, not Darling, hence the correction to the 1pm version. But what’s even clearer is that the words aren’t even SLIGHTLY “inaudible”.
There’s simply no mistaking what Darling says, or the fact that he’s agreeing with the proposition (although he tries to scurry away from it as quickly as possible). And we know that for sure, because Cowley manages to accurately repeat it back to him.
We’re not sure why it’s taken several days to arrive at this point and clarify exactly what was said, because it was demonstrably understood from the off. Had the audio been released at the time there’d have been no way for Darling to duck out of the allegation that he was accusing the SNP of being nasty racist ethnic nationalists.
Oh, wait, we may have just answered our own question.
Cannot hear anything on the audio. 29 seconds of silence. Or is that the joke?
I really admire your tenacity Stuart. Many thanks for that.
I’ll have a listen to the audio later (tea-time calling). My worry was that they would have time to fiddle with it using some decent sound editing software and would have deliberately made it an inaudible mumble.
Once again – kudos
Jeez, just listened (I know, I told a wee fib). What a stammering imbecile.
Tea-time (honest :-))
“Cannot hear anything on the audio. 29 seconds of silence. Or is that the joke?”
Works fine for me. Are your speakers switched on?
No inaudible mumbles there.
Very clear audio of a witless buffoon happy to play along and smear 45% of the voting Scottish public as Nazis.
Very clear.
Alistair Darling is crystal clear – no inaudible mumble at all. He clarified things suitably well. I bet the New Statesman are quite pissed off at Labour for trying to hush this up.
Alistair Darling (Dear Heart): I will utter the vilest insults, hurl the most egregious smears, slurs and slanders, dissemble disinformation and just downright lie through my gold-capped teeth only because… at heart, at heart…
I love Scotland.
Yes, despite ducking and diving style answers. This guy does not work well under any pressure.
I feel the need of a quote from a great Scottish writer:
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”
That’s all
I’m a Nationalist and a Socialist but, I ain’t no Nazi. Darling and his ilk are more the domineering, totalitarian, egotistical, megalomaniacal bunch of ("Tractor" - Ed)s since HawHaw, we have seen. I maybe over stating but, this really gets my goat.
Not that there was much doubt before, but I don’t think Darling could have been any clearer in his implication. Politics is a dirty and rough old game, no question, but Darling has crossed a line.
The man is clearly a living breathing testament to the power of incompetence. How he has managed a career in politics this long is a mystery. Any rational human being when co fronted with the ‘blood and soil’ question from an interviewer would have said somthing along the lines of ‘those are not the words I’d use’ so therefore it is quite clear what he meant.
Headphones were plugged in, silly me :s
He definitely averred on the question of whether it was blood and soil nationalism. How it sounds, to me at least, is that the interviewer said AS states they are civic nationalists and AD says it isn’t. The interviewer then goes on to ask ‘well what is it?’ and tries to lead AD in defining explicitly what the SNP are, if they aren’t civic nationalists. It’s almost like he’s goading Darling into his response. The interviewer seems to know that he has AD flustered and it’s a great opportunity for the interviewer to back someone into a corner and get their gut reaction and his gut reaction was that the SNP, and by corollary, voters of the SNP, are blood and soil nationalists. There can be no doubt. I don’t there was a ‘Ye’ really, as in a yes. I think he was all over the place and the Ye was merely stuttering.
What recourse does one have a utube video, now that would go viral!
And I’m certain I heard the beginnings of a “Yes …” which was in the first amended NS piece and omitted for the latest version. I saw MacDougal on Twitter trying to state that Darling had said no such thing, but then unable (or unwilling) to respond to those challenging him.
Rev. Stu, this is a seriously intended question. i.e. not rhetorical. Now we are in the formal period, what IS the role of the Electoral Commission? Should they not be monitoring this stuff and issuing PUBLIC warnings?
What is the point of their monitoring the situation if in fact the MSM and politicians can lie, lie and lie again with complete impunity?
I am beginning to feel slight unease at the silence of the YES campaign after all the lies and smears and innuendoes of the last week alone going unchallenged. Am I panicking too soon?
We will no doubt see the truth seekers in the MSM going on about this for a week like they did with Samond’s altogether more anodyne remarks on Putin. 😀
Just listened to that audio clip again and I’m pretty sure it’s been edited. Or perhaps the “inaudible mumble” has been amplified to identify it, hence the fractional glitch just before he utters “At heart…”
Or something was cut out.
This could be important. What we appear to have now is a slightly muddled cross talk emerging after the story has gone cold. Will Scotland 2014 ask him about it next time he pops up for a chat on the sofa? Will Scotland Tonight?
Perhaps a sound recordist or editor could listen
I’m not a sound recordist or editor but perhaps someone with expertise in that field could help? A trained ear with some decent equipment might be able to slow it down to track a splice.
Any takers out there?
I said: ANY TAKERS OUT THERE!?!
The audio is actually a gift. It brings home the idea that AD is a blithering idiot.
The crux of the matter is that they still thing the YES campaign is a 19th century nation state nationalism..and therein lies the reason for their demise.
Trouble brewing at No Borders Broadcasting Corporation.
link to nuj.org.uk
Alistair Darling caught out, and the New Statesman degrades its reputation.
I’m not one to defend AD but it really seems to me that he was already flustered and purposely backed into a corner to agree with that strategically worded loaded statement. The ye/yeah also sounds like it was just part of his stuttering to my ear.
Then again I haven’t read what he said prior to that, I cant stomach the weasel words of that man ever since he Royally messed up being the chancellor. It may have been something he said earlier. *shurgs* I don’t think anyone really listens to him anyway undecided, Yes or No.
“I don’t there was a ‘Ye’ really, as in a yes. I think he was all over the place and the Ye was merely stuttering.”
The “Ye” isn’t the important bit. He answers, clearly, “At heart”. As in “At heart they’re blood-and-soil nationalists”.
Listening to that audio it’s also obvious that Darling sounds like a nutjob.
BT gone and now we have the ‘NO THANKS’ campaign.
Palace of Westminster – No Thanks
Trident – No Thanks
Eton Tories – No Thanks
Bedroom Tax – No Thanks
vs
Edinburgh Castle – No thanks
Holyrood – No thanks
Scottish School system – No thanks
Scottish Law – No thanks
Did nobody think of this?
They can’t put that slogan against anything other than maybe a picture of the very popular Alex Salmond.
This is a gift to Yes for both that and the fun you can have with the first type.
Were it not for the fact he is doing such a cack-handed job, a train wreck in the making, I’d make a public call for his immediate sacking from the No campaign.
His comments are outrageous, despicable.
But that’s how many Labour Nos see the entire plebiscite.
They absoluteluy detest the democratic process.
In the meantime, everybody who has any dignity and any respect for Scotland and its legitimate ambitions should demand his apology.
That sounds to me like it’s been edited. You can hear what sounds like an edit pretty clearly.
“That sounds to me like it’s been edited. You can hear what sounds like an edit pretty clearly.”
I can’t.
@Scottish Skier
“Better Together – No Thanks”
What’s not to like ?
when journalist asks if nationalists are blood soil,darling confirms it saying ,at heart they are
NO MUMBLES OR DISTORTION ANYWHERE
He must have been really flustered because in the audio he refers to ‘sep ..er.. independence’ and then corrects himself back to ‘separation’. The gems a bogey AD.
Just heard BBC and Reporting Scotland lie yet again about the tory, labour and lib dem proposals as being DevoMax.
That lie will have to tackled head on by the Yes campaign very soon or it will simply continue from now until september.
Oooh Betty
Im a Nazi
Im a real Nazi.
This is a gift to Yes for both that and the fun you can have with the first type.
Agreed.
While I used to be pretty indifferent towards this clown, I have moved steadily through a healthy dislike for the man, on to outright contempt. I really hope the general public can see this man for what he is.
Sorry but that “Ye..” is clearly the beginnings of a “Yes” but as Stu points out the “At heart” is clearly affirmation of “Are they Blood & Soil Nationalists”. And there is no “Inaudible Mumble”.
[…] « Inaudible mumble amplified […]
The man is babbling incoherently, that much is clear.
I would flip his statement round and ask, “is there any circumstance in which you would vote to dissolve the union?”
How bad does it have to get before they see there are NO benefits to being in this union? All good things come to an end and so do the bad things…
Just occurred to me that the only thing in Scotland that is ‘too wee, too poor, too stupid’ is our media. Wee as in wee minded, poor as in quality, stupid as in do they think we are stupid.
We will never know, but, if this audio had been available yesterday, would the subject have been broached in Sarah Smiths interview.
I wonder if The NO THANKS campaign will show a big union flag behind their logo or a saltire.
Decisions, decisions…
🙂
Privatised Health system? No Thanks.
Access to EU markets? No Thanks.
Billions wasted on HS2? No Thanks.
This stuff just writes itself! 🙂
JimnArlene says
” I maybe over stating but, this really gets my goat.”
That says it all really,
the people of this country should be proud of themselves in their resolve and single mindedness, and our restraint is encapsulated in that one sentence “this really gets my goat”
This is why we will win folks, because the worst they can throw at us “really gets our goat”
no hanging from lampposts, no car bombing, no kneecapping.
we just get mildly annoyed and he thinks he may be “overstating this”
RESPEC. 🙂
@Rev
I think I can hear some sort of tampering – an edit, possibly just an amplification – but if someone out there has the gear and the experience there might be more to discover.
Btw – Can we refer to this as Mumblegate? Statesmengate? Heartgate? Or maybe “Brandenburggate”? You know the media – they need a “gate” suffix before they raise their jaded heads from the desk.
O/T EBS SCOTLAND NEWS:
Jackie Burd making big issue that Scotland could make a Geordie family of 4 £200 pounds cheaper for a flight to their hols.
DOES THAT MAKE US BAD OR GOOD.
O by the way it’ll cost the daft jocks £200 cheaper as well so that confirms it it’s gotta be naw.
UKOK? No Thanks.
Darling sounds completely unhinged, breathless and incoherent at that point. Is he drunk?
Hud on hud on, did Jason Cowley check if it really wiz
Alistair Darling , an no a Animated Muppet, they chinese £1
battery,s dont last long.
The whole episode is a disaster for Darling AND the New Statesman.
The last paragraph on the NS link says: “This report first appeared in the print edition of the New Statesman dated 13 June 2014. The original report wrongly attributed comments about “blood-and-soil nationalism” directly to Alistair Darling; this has since been corrected.”
Having listened to the audio clip numerous times I agree that Darling did not actually say the words concerned. Also, I did not hear Darling say anything like Yes, Yeah, or similar, as per 1pm version. Whoever transcribed the audio screwed up and worse still, whatever editorial supervision were meant to be in place, failed, until today. What is fact is that Darling DID agree with the interviewer’s suggestion of Blood and Soil Nationalism, by saying “At heart”. Darling also had the chance to clarify or deny when the interviewer repeats Darling’s words back to him, but HE DIDN’T. Why?
In my opinion, Darling was enraged at the suggestion of “Civic nationalism”, his retort is full of venom and after that lost control of himself, he couldn’t speak properly and stutters on. He isn’t listening after that and the damage is done. I am surprised that the story broke too late to stop the printed version though. It is now out there and the words are in black and white. Any retraction in the next issue is too late.
Is the New Statesman reputation damaged? Poor editorial control, open to allegations of cover up with Darling to protect him and the BT campaign? But why then was the print run not stopped?
Darling’s true colours shone when he was under pressure from the interviewer. He should continue in his current position as he will make more blunders in the coming weeks and YES will prosper further.
How was this tape released?
@Iain Gray’s Subway Lament
Just heard BBC and Reporting Scotland lie yet again about the tory, labour and lib dem proposals as being DevoMax.
A BBC presenter made the same claim on their news channel yesterday while interviewing a guy from the SSP, I was quite surprised that he didn’t correct him.
Devo max,they turn it down,then try to revive it when they are on a losing trend.We’re not falling for that again.We’ll end up with less than what we started with lol.
If the tape was edited in an attempt to get Darling out of a difficulty of his own making, the editor should be sacked as he failed totally in his task. Darling is clearly agreeing with the suggestion that “at heart” the cause of Scottish independence is one promoted by “blood and soil” (blot und boden) nationalists.
Where can I order my black shirt, peaked cap, death’s head badge, and lightening flashes for my shirt collars? Come on, you’re all Nazis, someone on this site must know the supplier.
A well timed and delivered series of questions by the interviewer. AD just defaulted into autoplay knee-jerk reaction answer mode.. any mumble made by any politician put on the spot during a live interview, should draw curious suspicion from Scottish voters.
I was thinking there about all of our ‘proud’ Scottish politicians and.. if they all love Scotland so much.. when was the last time you saw the likes of Alistair Darling, Johann Lamont, Ruth Davidson or even (crash) Gordon Brown, hold and fly Scotland’s flag PROUDLY above their heads..? It appears they prefer our home-flag to be seen from a distance, but never heard.
Cue, us.
“Yeah, at heart, at heart”
What a stupid man he is but he’s done well though, fame, lots of money and houses, a teamGB knighthood soon, if he can save the union.
When the interviewer suggests that it is “a civic nationalism of a kind that…” Darling very abruptly interrupts him to insist “which it isn’t”… so really it isn’t the interviewer loading the issue there so much as Darling himself. Pretty disturbing stuff.
The charitable reading (listening) of that clip says that AD wasn’t offering “at heart” as the answer to “blood and soil”, but was offering “at heart…” as the start of a whole answer to a totally different question that he wasn’t ever asked (because he’s a politician and that’s how he answes questions – with whatever point he wants to make, not what he was actually asked to respond to).
Except the interviewer interrupted him before he could go on to make clear that “at heart” referred to his sentence about nationalists having no circumstances for voting No, instead of the “blood and soil” description.
Of course, as we all know, the correct response is “No, of course not. At heart…” Etc. so he still fails.
“The news where you are” They lie to you
BBC Scotland lunchtime news we were told by Mr Porter -our man in London -that Gordon Brown’s remarks about the withholding of a Common Currency option and his support for a Salmond/Cameron debate had so incensed SLAB colleagues to the extent that many of the reactions could not be accurately reported. Strangely none of those rebellious souls could be named. Still the story would surely be expanded in the evening bulletin, eh?
Whoops the story has disappeared completely. That will relieve our friends in the South.
OT Business for Scotland meeting in Ellon just about to kick off.
bitter together – No Thanks
Independence – YES PLEASE
Re editing of the audio
I’m no expert but I have ‘cleaned up’ the audio of lots of sermons to remove hesitations, coughs etc. I have used Audacity to look at the audio and slowed it down. What is most noticeable at normal speed is Darling’s incoherence.
I can’t see any edit at about 19secs – sounds like his normal hesitations until he finds the words ‘at heart’.
There is an edit between 55.8 and 57.2 secs into the NS audio – audioboo.fm/boos/1038352-how-to-download-boo-files-as-mp3s-fb
The text shows ‘The only redistributive measure in the white paper was to cut corporation tax. Salmond has marketed their enterprise as being something more civic-minded, if you like. But what holds them together is that they define themselves by identity. Their argument is that Scotland is ….’
The italicised words are missing from the audio.
What appears instead in the audio is, ‘The only redistributive measure in the white paper was to cut corporation tax. so yet he has (1 word inaudible) Their argument is that Scotland is ….’
@Pentland Firth
Where can I order my black shirt, peaked cap, death’s head badge, and lightening flashes for my shirt collars? Come on, you’re all Nazis, someone on this site must know the supplier.
I think there’s a chap in Woking. All hush, hush.
Like all Westminster drop kicks, Brown is using our referendum to hit back at Cameron and the Flipper. Cameron even blocked Brown’s bid for the IMF World Bank job. Enmity runs very deep between our masters in merry old London.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/pm–smallminded-over-browns-bid-for-imf-job-2288166.html
NO THANKS?
Oh!
can we?
might we?
could we?
should we?
FUCK IT
lets screw them into the ground with this.
yeah a clear cut 55.8
but not sure why
Re: audio editing/splicing of the interview segment. I’ve cut a slice of 8 seconds of audio on either side of the “blood & soil,” section and opened it in a pro sound editing programme. I’ve stretched it out to the maximum to see if I can identify any obvious interference on the waveforms. Thus far, I’ve seen nothing that looks wrong. Happy to look again if anyone cares to narrow the search area down to where the suspected edit point is.
I’m lagging behind the times here. remove that last post of mine if you like, Stuart.
Tony Little says
“I think there’s a chap in Woking. All hush, hush.”
Och no , there’s a wee man doon Leith walk dis a nice line in SS regalia,made to measure. provenance guaranteed. 🙂
Cowley is a complete New Labour stooge and vicious with it. A nasty careerist absolutely in the pockets of the Westminster establishment.
I was invited to represent Juian Assange and my fellow whistleblowers at a debate jointly hosted by the New Statesman. My invite was abruptly withdrawn
link to craigmurray.org.uk
I later found out that this was because Cowley insisted I could not appear as I would give evidence of involvement in complicity with torture by Jack Straw.
New Labour rats – don’t let’em bother you.
O/T
Livestream from Paisley with Jim Sillars and others.
PUBLIC MEETING Tuesday 10th June 7pm ST MARY’S PRIMARY SCHOOL Maxwelltown Rd,PAISLEY speakers: SANDRA WEBSTER & Councillor LORRAINE CAMERON (Women for Independence) RICHIE VENTON (SSP organiser) JIM SILLARS (former MP)
link to new.livestream.com
What is scary is that I think the No people actually believe their propaganda. In their eyes, we ARE blood and soil nationalists, we are bent on wrecking Britain, we are all abusive cybernats,we are all mad and deluded, Alex Salmond really is a dictator…etc
Personally, I don’t for one second believe all the Yes versions of a happy clappy future Scotland. It’s going to be a hard grind, and, since we are disputatious bunch, I anticipate a lot of robust argument about the direction we should go in. I also think all this ‘everything will come down to common sense’ in post-indy negotiations is pie in the sky.
But I like to think I am clear-eyed in my committment to Yes. I vote Yes despite these things, because, ultimately, I believe my country should rule itself.
When I look at No, however, – I see only evidence of fear and loathing. They put out what we see as outrageous untruths – but for them, these are not untruths: they are their fears dressed up as ‘facts’.
It’s ironic that Yes – accused of blood and soil nationalism – has, from the word go, argued from first principles with appeal to reason. Whereas No has lost its head to passion.
We are the children of John Knox. They are Davie Hume’s. We are Jeykll; they are Hyde. We are Rebus; they are Cafferty.
It’s that old Scottish dualism playing itself out again. Make of it what you will.
Everyone reading this article MUST email BBC Scotland and the editor of every daily newspaper sold in Scotland and demand they cover this story. The press went mental for days over Salmond’s “gaffe”, but for this slur to go unreported would be a higher level of incompetence and hypocrisy than the MSM in Scotland is usually capable of.
This from the same Alistair Darling who accuses the Yes side of nasty remarks etc? Same old Darling “do as I say, not as I do”
THANKS TO ALL THE CLEVER AUDIO ANORAKS!!!
THAT WAS REALLY HELPFUL!!!
OVER AND OUT!!!
Kininvie says
“Personally, I don’t for one second believe all the Yes versions of a happy clappy future Scotland. It’s going to be a hard grind, ”
What, like this?
link to youtube.com
Yes it will be a lot of work to create the country we want to live in, let us not pretend otherwise – let us rise to the challenge and enthuse our people to make a country fit for all of us.
Test
Jim Sillars
awesome speaker
Paula Rose
R u better together tonight ? 🙂
If these BT/VNB/BBC/MSM lying scumbags actually win on the 18th September then there is absolutely no justice in this world!
We are Fran; they are Anna.
Sorry – I’ve taken that too far.
We are tatties, they are mince
@Ken MacColl 7:25 pm
BBC lunchtime- David Porter.
The Labour MP’s will be raging at Gordon Brown but would not go on the record or on camera, but at least Porter highlighted the matter.
The BBC News staff at UK level are institutionally pro-Union biased, but the BBC Scotland News staff are pro-Union biased AND obsessively anti-SNP. This is a toxic combination and they simply cannot help themselves. When was the last time they ran a purely positive Scottish Government story, without some sneering negativity or imagery slipped in along the way?
The world’s press and visitors will be watching BBC Scotland and its news output during the Commonwealth Games. The referendum campaign will continue during this time and that will be a real test for the BBC. I don’t think they will be able to behave normally. The same goes for the British Press pack and I can’t wait for the foreign journalists reaction to the guff spewed out by the Scotsman, Express, Telegraph, etc.
O/T – Lock up your daughters, Skeletor’s on Tour..
link to archive.today
It just doesn’t seem to occur to Darling and his ilk that it’s not being Nazis that stops us thinking of any reason to vote in favour of the union. It’s just that we’ve seen enough evidence of the harm it’s doing to us all to believe that even with substantial reform it will still never be better than taking responsibility for our own affairs.
If we are being labelled ”blood and soil”, I think with Darling’s delivery we are perfectly entitled to say they are “sturm und drang”!
Not sure how to archive,this is worth a read
link to scotsman.com
Over weekend.
I was handing out free YES badges and wristbands on my Aberdeen street.
Gang of youths happily accepted and asked WHAT IS YES!!!
Once explained, one handed back saying she would vote NO if had the vote.
This staunch negativity can only come from SCHOOL, BBC or PARENTS, from someone so young!
YES desperately need a Scottish YES Boy Band to get onboard fast, to capture young and youth interest.
I’ve just been active for 2months, and very annoyed. I was logging on to YES Scotland for a year. Nothing happening, no great links.
Stumbled on Wings/Bella/NewsNet somehow, perhaps via DerekBateman/IsobelFraser/KenMacdonald’s BBCSco Radio Sunday morning ‘HeadLines’ program( now suspiciously defunct)
But of course “the unknown is unknown”!
I asked myself how to get YES reported in households. thought of ‘CLYDE’ the Commonwealth Games mascot. YES needs a YES YETI monster to capture the imagination and pester power of every household’s children, and stir up a YES noise.
ITS BIT LATE IN THE CAMPAIGN, may have run out of time for this once in a lifetime opportunity.
I’m a neanderthal metal basher, YES needs creative arty artists to get onboard fast.
Thanks to BBC/MSM silence and secrecy conspiracy, Scotland’s households are blissfully unaware of the Referendum and the issues.
YES is not getting into mainstream.
ps. I’m doing my bit.
Investing thousands of my scarce savings.
YES should be selling YES shares to YES supporters.
YES needs to energise fast.
pps.
YES should have a live online radio with 24/7 music and facts!
YES should have live online tv broadcasting, showing our big hitters interviews and broadcasts 24/7.
IT could be too late in the day.
I’m going at it 100% till I-Day.
…so when I discuss getting rid of trident or Scotland being run by the government we vote for, and reducing inequality, improving infrastructure and all these wonderful concepts with my Yes leaning friends (not another card carrying SNP member amongst them) what is my motivation ‘at heart’ Alistair?
At heart I believe in the inherent genetic superiority of Scots? That we need the bit between the border and Hadrian’s wall that Rory has written off as our lebensraum to expand?
That my English friends (never mind the people from foreign climes I thought were my friends) are actually inferior races that must be purged from our sacred soil?
That Berwick needs invaded and purified?
We’re I to express these opinions, my mates would think I was joking. If I persisted, they would think I was was on something.
I don’t think I am an ethnic nationalist… I think the reason I have become what could be termed a civic nationalist is that Scotland, for many years has needed people to stand up for this nation in the face of Westminster draining our resources and robbing us blind with zero interest in our past, present or future.
I want to see our country transformed into a modern, successful small European country like Norway, Sweden and Denmark. I suppose once we have achieved that we could expand our armed forces, in order to invade these other small European countries and subjugate their inferior people. Is that ‘at heart’ what I want Alistair? Is that ‘at heart’ what you think?
And who else are you calling blood and soil nationalists? Your allies in UKIP? And in the Conservatives? Do tell.
Mr Darling should apologise for insulting every SNP member and voter and resign. Simple as.
(kendomacaroonbar 8:13 no dear and my OH has flown back to St Kilda on business, so we shouldn’t have that interregnum for some time xx)
Oh btw OH gave me an ALERT READER badge from the Yes Shop in Montrose before they departed!
Alistair darling interview on Scotland Tonight last night.
The only mention of the New Statesman’s comments start at 6.58mins in. Ads at start.
Followed by Alex Salmond from dark Aberdeen and John Mackay in brilliant sunshine at Holyrood. Work that one out.
link to player.stv.tv
OT but Indie front page carried interesting/unfortunate juxtapositioning of white supremacist tragedy and the Camerons
link to calumcarr.blogspot.co.uk
Re Gordon Brown please click on Order-Order to see him at his speech in the LSE this evening. Something missing!
OT but Indie front page carried interesting/unfortunate juxtapositioning of white supremacist tragedy and the Camerons
calumcarr.blogspot.co.uk/
Janet Street Porter BBC2 Borders
Janet Porter BBC Borders – Why?????????
Hows this for a bit of ‘blood and soil’ nationalism.
PM backs drive for ‘British values’ link to bbc.co.uk
scottish_skier 6:48
#bettertogethernothanks, looks like the place to go with your
suggestions.
This could be a runner
How do you make a link?
It’s quite low depths the Labour Party are now sinking too.
Scottish Labour MPs in the pay of dodgy tory buisnessness men, such as Ian Taylor, are now openly referring to rival liberal democratic political parties that support and protect public services from privatisation as no better than Nazis.
Thatcher’s work is done here.
@seanair
Only the lonely…know why I cry
Shock horror!
Janet SP talks to no voters in the borders.
Whit a divot that woman is.
Janet Street – Porter on the beeb. No voter is a sensible farmer concerned about the currency.
Juxtapose with Yes voter- a guy in full battle regalia Inc broadsword who not only wants Independence but also wants Independence for the Borders. An army of 1.
Next 2 ordinary tory voting well off country types voting no.
Braveheart Claxton keeps sounding. Fuck me is this the best we can expect from the BBC? Propaganda, endless propaganda.
@ john king at 7.09pm
+1
Yay ! My bud Johnny at the Clyde Bar Helensburgh telling it as it is to Janet Street Porter !
Saw the Janet thing so turned over and am watching a program about ancient Roman jobby. So, turned over shit to watch shit 🙂
@ronnie anderson.
I only managed a couple of minutes viewing, then had to turn over.
I thought this was amusing;
link to twitter.com
Tam Jardine said: Is this the best we can expect from the BBC?
No indie produced programme gets financed unless fronted by a celeb or stand-up comic – the “commercial element” – so it has sale value. Result: vacuous and peurile.
The presenter must be English.
A Scots presenter limits transmission to … Scotland only.
Soon as I saw her striding across the Borders and looking wistfully to the hills I turned off and back to my work.
It would be quite easy for the matter to be clarified.
When Darling next appears on UKIP TV, he can be asked to clarify if he believes that the SNP represents ‘blood and soil’ nationalism.
Gerry/Ronnie
I decided to skip JSP as I knew it would annoy me no end.
You would have been better watching Celebrity Masterchef where Scottish langoustines were mentioned as part of the lunch-time menu of a top London restaurant.
Actually, the JsP prog is fairly even handed IMHO..
Re JSP: now we’ve had Alan Bissett on am warming to this programme. Hopefully on the third time of asking she understands that it is not because we hate the English. We shall see.
All credit to the inverviewer though, he did manage to get two thirds of a Yes out of the head of NO TA.
JSP on BBC2, someone needs to get a hold of the wind farmer as defo soft NO.
JSP prog very good, if only for dispelling the anti English theme parroted by the Unionists.
She came across well I thought.
Thanks bunter,
May catch it on iplayer.
I thought the JSP programme was not too bad. Ordinary folk were allowed their chance to speak, gave their reasons for voting yes or no.
JSP reiterated several times that she had thought that the referendum was ‘anti-English’ and that she’d she’d found that not to be the case, she spoke to an English resident of the NE who was leaning toward yes and stated that she had never had any problem with prejudice, even tho she had been warned that she would face it. Other contributers, including Alan Bissett and Jonny in the Clyde bar were excellent.
I thought, that most of the no voters seemed worried and very misinformed, so there is a lot of work to do, but that several of them seemed like soft nos and if they had their worries addressed might well change their votes.
Imho JSP missed several points and her conclusions were very superficial, but the programme allowed ordinary Scots a voice and that was very refreshing, even if i did not agree with much of what the no voters especially had to say. If you get the chance, I would recommend to watch it, even if it does make you want to throw something at the screen at times
O/T if anyone needs a wee boost before turning in, there have been a few very good results in debates over the past few days.
A public debate in Dingwall yesterday saw Yes win 63-25.
Gracemount High debate saw Yes going from 28% pre-debate to 56% post.
At St Mungo’s, No lead pre-debate and post it was 59-23 to Yes.
The Courier’s continuing East Coast roadshow keeps turning up Yes wins from admittedly small samples. Luncarty 54-46, Bankfoot 53-47, Cowdenbeath 56-44. Going back a couple of weeks and a but further inland we had Lochgelly 64-31 and Cardenden 71-29. Stirling was 59-41 to Yes.
And tonight I see that a Generation Yes member defeated the local MSP at Garnock Academy in North Ayrshire 54-46.
All very encouraging.
Bunter
Aye – by the end I thought it was fairly well balanced. The wind farmer farmer made me want to scream though. That guy needs to know that Scotland has the lowest farm subsidies in Europe thanks to Westminster and a thriving renewables Industry thanks to the current Scottish Government.
There is naught as strange as folk as they say. Fishing guy needed to read my favourite wings post ever (a must for any new readers): link to wingsoverscotland.com
The first 20 minutes were awful but by the end I felt JSP had a better understanding. And the lady who moved up from England despite being warned that she would be subjected to terrible abuses fair made my night when she said she was leaning towards a Yes.
What they don’t show on the bbc in Scotland
link to archive.today
@ Tam Jardine
Aye if you can get past the Jesse Rae and Braveheart bit then its worth a watch.
I also don’t get the NO voting farmer in the borders, given the rotten EU settlement Scottish farmers receive, though he did look minted!
We ALL know what Al said!!!
Henry McLeish pushes the knife a little further in to Flipper on Scotland Tonight 🙂
sheep on fire , if you are looking for a band to ramp up the rhetoric , then do check out” amber road tiree music festival”on u tube
When John Mackay on Scotland Tonight asked Alistair Darling about it last night he replied it has come to something when you cant poke fun at your opponents, is this what we can expect in Salmond’s Scotland. Not an exact quote.
Sarah Smith on BBC thingy just started ” Scotland has failed its greenhouse targets again, what kind of example is that”
Click, time for bed.
Dynamite from former FM Henry McLeish on ScotNight 😀
Bunter, same old I’m afraid. Any excuse. To be fair the SNP guy was calm and reasonable. I trully don’t know how or indeed why YES are still being so mild mannered.
Time to go for the jugular..
Henry reiterates Crash Gordon’s call for FM-Cameron debate, states that Better Together are finished and the No vote is haemorrhaging. Goes on to say Crash is the man to save the union.. belter.. 🙂
See’s awe you’s Lert,s canny stay tae the end of the J.S.
Porter an the best bit, Prof Irvine in Aberdeen OIL £22bil
to the UK gov. ah’l no hud it agin you’s, ah nearly turned
aff at the Jesse Rae piece ( he never left the 80s ). I hope
plenty people watched the proggramme. Janets a bit gobby
(she exspected to be abused,as she was English (as is the
thoughts of English people, she now has a differant
perspective ).
@ Croompenstein – WOW!
All we need is for Henry to come out for yes and it’s in the bag.
Croompenstein
“Dynamite from former FM Henry McLeish on ScotNight”.
Totally agree with you. Worth a watch if you haven’t seen it.
Unsure of how to take Henry Mcleish. One minute he sounds as if he is ready to come over to YES, then he starts on about saving the Union.
But he doesn’t miss the “BetterTogetherNoThanks” mob.
Marcia the comments underneath the tweet were so funny they brought tears to my eyes…thanks for that! This one: “my name’s Willie Rennie I drop rhymes like a brick, put me in the chamber and I sound like a prick.”…Lol
Is Alistair Darling still the biggest “No Thanker” in the Better Together campaign?
There’s your dinner right there. Darling is guilty as charged.
I can’t quite get my head around the “you will get no thanks” name change.
How many re-launches are they going to do?
Pentland Firth says:
“Where can I order my black shirt, peaked cap, death’s head badge, and lightening flashes for my shirt collars? Come on, you’re all Nazis, someone on this site must know the supplier.”
When they roll out The Firm,(will they still do Balmoral, post Yes ?) you could always ask yon wee scamp Harry.
BTW I’m claiming “Flipper”, coined it as ‘FlyingScott’ on the Hootsmon circa 2011. Got banned, for rising to the bait once too often 🙂
Scotland 2014 is so banal,and that’s the 1st 5 secs
don’t watch the rest
murraymint
“Is Alistair Darling still the biggest “No Thanker” in the Better Together campaign?”
Is “No Thanker”, cockney rhyming slang for W*nk*r?
Crash Gordon knows the game is up,most likely he has seen the secret poll and decided to take unilateral action. Project Fear has failed, SLAB detest the SNP and have decided to go it alone.
Henry Mcleish says Crash is an Asset to the campaign!
DON’T trust Henry McLeish.
bookie from hell
Scotland 2014 must be close to reaching our target audience of 20,000. C’mon lads, we can do this.
Ta for that Nana. I keep thinking that we are in a sort of ‘Perfect Storm’ as to the timing, players, and current state of the UK.
The stars are almost all aligned, and if it wasn’t for the unremitting support PF have in their undermining our democratic rights, from what sometimes seems like the entire planets media, we’d be so far in front the infighting would start over the details.
The audio is frantic, as should be expected from AD – given his blinking and stuttering, responsible broadcasters should be issuing the same warnings that come when flash photography’s involved.
A split-second transcription (which manages to separate the two voices) would be fascinating.
If, Darling’s reasons for describing Yes voters as blood & soil nationalists is because he believes we wouldn’t vote No in any circumstances, then I’d like to hear an interviewer ask him under which circumstances he’d vote Yes. And if his answer is “none” (as I suspect), then to ask him what sort of Nationalism he’d describe his as.
SkyNews discussing England and the World Cup.
Which made me think of the Rev stuck down their in Engerland.
Rev please don’t go all “Alan Hansen” on us.
Hansen used to give it the royal “WE” when talking about Engerland in the BBC England sports studio.
It must be near time for the Rev to “come home”. Soon maybe?
pele the piranna predicting England will beat Italy
he must work for mori ( : > )
OT
Bit of coordinated fiddling going on with the betting. A £200,000 (or £400,000 from one source) is reported in the papers to have gone on at William Hills on NAW and all the prices on all the bookmakers go out in unison.
Had Hills actually received a £200,000 (or £400,000)bet I can assure you the price wouldn’t have been shaved from 1/4 to 1/5 but to something like 1/9 or “book closed”
5/1 again at Ladbrokes for more than 55%
We must anticipate the MSM myth, then work back the way – that’s how they construct these things.
For example – a huge front-page picture of a tiny, snivelling, huge-eyed puppy, covered in filth and clearly emaciated:
‘Podgy was abandoned after his owner allegedly fell under the spell of rabid Cybernats and was forced to do non-stop door-to-door leafleting of SNP propaganda for up to TWELVE HOURS at a time.’
So much for the “inaudible mumble”.
The New Statesman cannot be trusted. A source poisoned with lies and deception as they spin and hide the truth to support unionist cause.
@Dave Mc Hill Graham Sharpe ( William Hills ) confirmed that £400,000 bet was placed.
So the nice people at no thanks get a tame stooge to place a £400,00 bet. Using their own money? Maybe not. This gets massive headlines about how a no vote is certain. More money well spent. Peerages in the pipeline for the lucky gambler?
On the actual thread about the betting… this one you know…
link to wingsoverscotland.com
… the consensus is that it’s either a small bookie from a very No-optimistic area who wants to lay off some of his risk (would explain how he actually has the money to do this), or someone acting for a syndicate hedging an earlier bet on Yes so as to be assured of a profit either way.
I bet once the YES vote is in all the nay sayers like AD and his ilk will all be sceaming. Vote for me give me a job I was thinking Yes all along.
Russians target Scotland in Cyber Attacks… link to bbc.co.uk
…Funny that, but on the wee embedded clip in the article, I never heard the guy mention Scotland once!
Just what are the BBC really implying in this story?
The Bookies are lying. There is no way they would accept a large bet from a punter, off the street no questions. One Bookies would not accept a £500 brt on YES, after phonig their risk managers. It was refused. Another bookies did take it 9/2. Later (2 months) another Bookie would not accept £500 on YES over 55%. They would only accept £100 bet on a daily basis. Ie they would only accept £100 every day for five days.
Yet William Hills is claiming, an unknown person went in several times a day putting on consecutive large bets. Why did they not just put it on in one go, in that case. It never happened. William Hill are looking for cheap publicity, trying to drum up customers to put money on a NO vote. To counteract the money placed on YES? To spread the risk?, because their risk managers calculate YES will win? It’s a scam and it’s illegal. Bookies trying to manipulate the Vote so they can make more money.
I’m almost certain this faux-stushie with Claire/Clare Lally is chaff to distract us from the LEADER OF THE NO CAMPAIGN being irrefutably proven to have agreed with the assessment that the SNP are “blood and soil nationalists,” and so maligning not only them, but everyone who voted for them – after making great pains to say that he didn’t, in fact, say anything of the sort.
Proven (again) to have made despicable claims about Scotland’s most popular party, then proven (again) to have cravenly lied about it. MacDougall’s no better, with his emphasis on Darling not using those words – as if that matters when the context is seen – as an attempt to absolve him.
While the media is creating a fuss about some people on the internet calling out BT about misrepresenting a member of the LABOUR SHADOW CABINET as an “ordinary mum”, Alistair Darling has called the SNP, and by proxy their voters, blood and soil nationalists. “At heart.” And he’s gotten away with it.
All very convenient, wouldn’t you say? Much like when the entire media was talking about Miley Cyrus’ twerking escapades juuust about the same time the US government invaded Syria. Ho hum.
Tax evader Brown ‘One million Scottish jobs linked to the Union’. £10Billion+ Scottish pounds disappearing from Scotland into UK Excheqer. £4Billion repayment on monues borrowed and spent in the rest of the UK (on rubbish), £3Billion over payment, £1.5Billion spent on Trident/redundant weapons, £1. 5Billion could be saved/raised on a tax on ‘loss leading’ drink. £10Billion and the rest.
That would create more than1 million jobs in Scotland,. Westminster has defrauded Scotland of the equivalent of £200Billion and depopulated Scotland.
Brown is a liar and a cheat. Brown should pay his taxes and stop starving and killing children.. The appalling hypocrite who bankrupted Britain/the world. Brown caused death/destruction and mass unemployment all over the world. Brown is a greedy lying hypocrite. Still no apology.
I note in the media this morn that Merkel was asked by someone (I wonder who) about an iScotlands position regards EU membership.
She reportedly said that she wont comment on a hypothetical question.
Well done to Merkel, no sign of a special relationship there lol.
Rock on Tommy. A true working class hero. Stitched up by Bliar to save the criminal Murdoch reptile.
Squash the illegal conviction. ‘A perjurer (Coulson) giving evidence at a perjury case?’ ‘Scottish justice’? A £5million in House stitch up on behalf off the corrupt Labour/Unionist Party.
The illegal conviction quashed and compensation for the Sheridan family is the only justice.
Blair is manipulating the Chilcott verdict. Another ‘cover up’. Blair should be on trial at the Hague.
I have noticed on my timeline that there is an increase in foreign media attending and filming indy meetings and reckon it may be an idea, if any of us are in attendance, to ask a question about BBC propaganda and media lies, if only to highlight the issue to the worlds press.
The BBC must not escape this campaign undamaged and allowed to carry on as before.
Merkel can’t stand Cameron. That is obvious, Merkel is pulling the strings and imposing austerity in Europe. They are all multi millionaires courtesy of public monies, protecting their vast personal fortunes, against the public interest. They are only interested in themselves.
The countries most affected by the US/UK banking crisis did not want money, they wanted time (to pay back). That would have lessened the austerity hardship. Vote YES to protect the vulnerable.
Thanks for this Rev. Enabled me to reply to Ben Carroll of BT who replied on Darling’s behalf to my email. See what he says now.
Pentland Firth.
There is a firm in Leeds that will sort out your clothing requirements. I think they have taken over from Hugo Boss.
jacksolane2013 says
“we are perfectly entitled to say they are “sturm und drang”!”
Taxi for Jean-Jacques Rousseau?
Tam Jardine says
“Mr Darling should apologise for insulting every SNP member and voter and resign. Simple as.”
I agree with every word Tam, well said.
Rock sats
“DON’T trust Henry McLeish.”
Not as far as I could throw him!
Meant to add to the Jacksloane2013 comment that
Some people could start an argument in an empty room. 🙂
Vambomarbeleye says
“There is a firm in Leeds that will sort out your clothing requirements. I think they have taken over from Hugo Boss.”
Dae ye dae it in a tank top? 🙂
link to youtube.com
They should be in jail. Brown/Blair, Goodwin etc.
Meghafi was in jail. He was innocent. The one’s who were guilty put him in jail. Labour/Unionists manipulated the Scottish ‘Justice’ system. Illegal lawyers acted against International Law. They should all be in jail. The corrupt lot of them, all in Westminster.
The Bookies are lying
That will be Hill. Only been in three to check a bet and none accepted unlimited bets on the Referendum result. In fact, they were all strict in keeping to a low figure.
@John King at 7.06
I really like that song. Another one of the good ones.
@ John King 11 June 2014 at 7.06am
LOL
Boris has just spent over £200,000 on water cannon, “in case of disorder in London this summer.”
Lovely place to live, London.
How thoughtful. How considerate.
Water cannon to keep Londoners cool.
Vote No for more water cannon.
The man’s and eejjitt. The words denial, hatred and deceit come to mind
Boris lining his pockets with public monies, wastes £200,000 of public monies, on water cannons to protect himself. Dope on a rope.
Janet Street Porter:
“That’s me told then!”
Aye, ye were.
A pint for Jonny in the Clyde Bar.
Janet Street Porter:
“That’s me told then!”
Aye, ye were.
A pint for Jonny in the Clyde Bar.
Janet Street Porter:
She has no vote so who was the programme for?
Why cover ground covered by others only days before?
Why a documentary to help her achieve understanding?
By what test are we to tell she approached the subject objectively?
By what test are we to judge she edited the programme fairly?
Was she aiming for fairness or bolstering prejudices?
Did she plan to make it as entertaining as possible?
Did she plan to make it as enlightening as possible?
By what criteria did she choose people to interview?
What was the reason for the programme?
Keeps her in fees and residuals?
Keeps her in the public eye?
Why her and not an historian?
Why her and not a philosopher?
Why her and not a social scientist?
Why her but not a political scientist?
Where was the erudition?
Did she conclude Scotland has too few democratic rights?
Did she conclude Scotland is a land flowing with milk and honey?
Do we care what Janet Street Porter thinks?
And if we do, will it alter our vote?
In which case…
… who was the programme aimed at?
I see that all our years in Iraq, promoting democracy, are starting to pay dividends. NOT!
The place is ready to erupt.
And there are some politicians who are actually wanting us to go back in with the Yanks to “sort it out”.
My point being that Scotland could be back in Iraq again, without Scots having any say on the decision.
Vote YES, so Scotland can avoid anymore illegal wars.
@caz-m
Yes watching this one with interest. I work in the oil industry and engineers get paid a big premium (danger money) to work there. I would never work there as it could erupt anytime as we are seeing now.
Grouce Beaters
Surely you know that ever since Dr Grierson Scots are genetically programmed incapable of producing TV documentaries.
Another lie from Brown. Ships will not be built in the Clyde. ‘Murrison?’ UK gov advisor said Navy vessels would be built on the Clyde if Scotland voted YES. If Scotland was Independent ships (turbines) could be build on the Clyde (No Faslane) and the West Oil fields could be developed. The Scottish Gov could invest in ship building on the Clyde. Norway builds over 100 ships every year.
Robert Goodwill UK transport minister ‘I have been on a helicopter once’. Helicopters falling from the sky in the North Sea because of (lack of) UK gov health and safety guide lines, and safety guide lines not being followed. Helicopters over thirty years old. No Inquiry to apportion responsibility. £1Billion (of Oil revenues?) spend by Hammond, upgrading Naval helicopters.
Co incidence. ‘Robert Goodwill has been a farmer (since 1979) of 250 acres of land near Malton which has been in his family since 1850. He has been the managing director of Mowthorpe Ltd since 1995, which offers environmentally friendly burials in North Yorkshire countryside.’
Line them up to chop them down.
Boris, ‘let them eat cake’, could send some water cannons to Iraq. They need some (food/oil) water. They are rioting because of lack of water and Westminster foreign policy.
Just thought I’d mention that when a Telegraph article about YES supporters is posted to Facebook it publishes a hitherto hidden image of what looks like the entrance to a stripper club.
I’m sure the Dowager Duchess of Hamilton, a featured YES supporter, won’t be too impressed at this ignoble juxtaposition.
Scotland: the Yes Voters
link to s.telegraph.co.uk
link to businessforscotland.co.uk
Scotland’s future just got even better.
Another winning ‘lottery’ ticket – which the Unionist parties, Labour & Tory, will undoubtedly try to take from Scotland.
Here’s a snippet.
“In Scotland there is growing interest in how we can participate in the Arctic region. Scottish officials have visited Norway and Iceland exploring how an independent Scotland could contribute, especially in Defence.
Just last week a group of Strathclyde University architecture graduates called Lateral North published an ‘Atlas of productivity‘ setting out Scotland’s geographical position on a new northern frontier.
It explores how Scotland can transform its economy through focusing on the growing trade and shipping links that are set to expand in the Arctic gap.
Inaudible mumble from BBC and UK press over Darling’s outrageous slur on one million SNP supporters.
Meanwhile the BBC continues its attack on Scottish Government and NHS. Call Louise White at BBC RADIO SCOTLAND MORNING CALL
Call 0500 92 95 00. Text 80295.
Email morningcallscotland [at] bbc [dot] co [dot] uk
It’s time folk stood up for the separate Scottish NHS and contrast the position in Scotland with that in England which will become the norm if we vote No in September.
@Another Union Dividend
On the subject of the genetically incapable stuff, I find it most humourous that wee Lamont goes on TV to say that Scots are genetically incapable of understanding politics, then day after day huge numbers of Labour members proclaim that they are ‘proud Scots’. Are they trying to tell us something?
Could a common or garden SNP member sue Darling and the New Statesman for libel? I’m not sure. It’s not quite directly accusing them of being Nazis but the implication is incredibly strong and I’m sure the man on the Clapham omnibus already thinks it, given the amount of times you hear such things BTL on the Mail and Telegraph sites. I firmly believe that just launching the action would be a fantastic campaign tactic. It would keep Darling terribly busy and it would be virtually impossible to keep the story out of the news…
Boring BBC Scotland, chasing Alex Neil again. This is getting ridiculous. That’s about four weeks in a row they have hounded him and just in time for tomorrow’s FMQs.
They are even doing ANOTHER phone-in regarding NHS Scotland and GPs.
They don’t care who you are, just as long as you can think of a shit, negative story about you GP, then phone in.
The more the merrier.
Johann Lamont or Jackie Baillie will be all over this at FMQs.
A pathetic BBC Scotland and Scottish Labour joint venture.
They really don’t have anything else to talk about.
Henry McLeish slaughtering “BetterTogetherNoThanks” mob on Scotland Tonight last night.
Well worth a watch, Ads at start.
link to player.stv.tv
C’mon Henry, join the YES campaign, you know it makes sense.
Listening to BBC R4 news and as Iraq collapses even more, David Milliband says ofcourse he would voted against war with Iraq now “we” know they had no WMD’s and that kicks off another day of betterTogether Labour/unionist lies here in Aberdeen.
@caz-m
I see no signs that the Scottish Government are either going to withdraw co-operation or take on the BBC. Once again this pantomime about the NHS is enacted, and once again a defensive sounding Alex Neil is edited into a corner.
We’re three months away from a make or break decision for Scotland. If the SNP aren’t going to fight the BBC now, when will they?
BBC is too powerful for Scots.gov to take on, so they have no choice but to do as they are bid. Its what we’re voting to change, the power structure of teamGB, or not.
Iraq about to kick off again. A reminder of Westminster disasterous policy.
World cup about to kick off. Thousands of BBC football replays, from over fifty years ago. Even more YES votes over the line. Can’t wait to get rid of Brown/Blair, Cameron/Osbourne/Alexander etc. Yesterday’s men. Never to be viewed on the SBC again. Alex Neil is more than able to stand up to them. Scottish Budget cut £1.3Billion a year, since 2011Budget. More cuts from Wedtminster on the way. Oil revenues manipulated down by Westminster interference.
Vote YES.
The Scottish Gov will be complaining about the BBC. It will not get reported. Censorship. Westminster controls the BBC.
No taxation without representation
No free and balanced Press
No democracy
The BBC is betting it’s house on a No vote – literally.
The BBC in Scotland will not survive a Yes vote.
The building at PQ will eventually be demolished
for the same reason that the statue of Saddam Hussain was pulled down in Iraq.
I would have no hesitation in doing it.
Everyone knows the BBC/MSM are biased. People are raging. Viewers nos are falling. No one believes the MSM. Be selective, don’t watch it. No viewers no programmes. There is an alternative media now, like Wings, Bateman/Bella etc. Giving the full facts.
Training Day
TV stations from all over the world will soon be on Scottish soil.
Let them know of BBC Scotland and MSM bias against Scottish Independence.
They need to be told of the lies that the state broadcaster tells the Scottish people daily, they need to be shown the food banks that are on the increase because of UK government policy and all the other sides of inequality that is happening in Scotland.
They need to be told the truth. Not a BBC fluff story.
As I have been saying for the last couple of years, the people of North Korea have a more fair and balanced news media than we do in Scotland.
If they keep on crying Wolf attacking the NHS. People will get sick of that, as the NHS has massive, majority support.
Nasty Westminster,how low can they go?
link to newstatesman.com
I have posted before on the BBC.
BBC overseas service is the real Achilles Heel of the system. It’s competitors for World audience are many including Al Jezera and Russian TV. They shall highlight the BBC treatment of Scotland. It’s in their interest to do so. The BBC in Scotland shall be exposed without the SG doing anything about it.
Everyone is watching this referendum and the BBC shall be exposed.
Be of good cheer. YES shall triumph in spite of them.
Another The Guardian so funny it’s sad day, with them all very excited about Crash Gordon back in the saddle for not the first time because, “it’s great that he’s back” and “it’s great that he’s now being positive in this his first first untervention too”
Do the teamGB twerps that write this guff pretend we’re all a bunch of morons just to get through their work day?
“This greater positivity is not all down to Mr Brown. He is one part of the more positive anti-independence approach, not the sole incarnation of it.” And
” But the way that all the Better Together parties – including the Scottish Tories – have recently rallied behind further devolution proposals has probably done more than anything else to instil the welcome new positive tone to the pro-union campaign.”
KEEP HOLD OF SCOTLAND, COME ON ENGLAND
@heedtracker
‘BBC is too powerful for Scots.gov to take on, so they have no choice but to do as they are bid.’
Jeez, if that’s the case we’re as well chucking it now!
The SG has to take the fight directly to the BBC in each and every interview, and not allow themselves to be hectored into contrition on a daily basis by Pacific Quay. That’s what’s happening, and the BBC don’t give a shit how biased or undemocratic it looks as long as it achieves their ends. Remember how the BBC was recently emboldened enough to berate a SG Minister (Swinney) in one of their Tuesday debates on the question of the organisation’s bias, knowing full well that he would fudge the answer and look weak because the approach of the SG to the BBC is too timid?
What I wouldn’t give to see one – just one – SG Minister call out the BBC.
Training Day, it’s frustrating but it’s merely life here in this nonsense union. I think SNP Scots.gov are tactically right to simply do what they’re doing, grinning and bearing it. BBC is as nearly as powerful as Westminster and all SNP Scots.gov can do is state the case for change, keep their dignity and let us decide.
The BBC come over as hectoring bullies and clearly treat the pro-Independence camp unfairly. Neutrals and undecided do notice that: as I did when the SNP formed its first government and it changed me.
Good point raised at Ivan McKee talk in Ellon last night regarding the Crown Estates.
Apart from large swathes of it’s land, Scotland apparently has NO CONTROL over 12 nautical miles of it’s own coastline, including beaches as the tide ebbs..
The Crown Estate could effectively and at any time put a blockade upon Scotlands’ exit and entry from it’s own shores.
Some info here on the CEC;
link to scotland.gov.uk
Also, if Faslane is on Crown Estate land/sea then who has control over it? The Crown? The Treasury?
John Swinney did not look weak. John Swinney looked astute in not answering a loaded question. The BBC/Media biased scumbag low life ‘reporters’, feeding their faces on Public monies, against the Public interest would have used for perpetuate to knock the SNP and the Scottish Gov. The biased BBC/MSM protecting their own privileged position against the public interest. It is not astute to let the MSM divide and rule.
The BBC/MSM are a disgrace. The ‘liberal?’ Guardian is even promoting Gordon Brown, the tax evading, greedy, lying mass murderer who has caused poverty worldwide, to ensure his own vast personal fortune. The collision is beyond contempt. The wealthy editor is on £1/2Million a year. The White, male, wealth middle class Press/MSM, ‘ all in it together’. The Editor was threatened with jail by Cameron and Clegg and their thugs smashed up the Press room. That soon brought the Editorial on line, under Westminster control. There are other outlets for News.
Excellent. One thing Badger Brows cannot deny is the actual audio.
He could always squirm around a transcript claiming it wasn’t accurate, but audio is a lot less simple to alter.
Entirely o/t… yesterday I found a Wings article that my work firewall wouldn’t entertain. Nothing dodgy in that, the firewall is a blunt instrument and I can get on pretty much every other article as I wish.
The particular blocked one? Blocked for being a gambling site. Article? Against All Odds.
I admit, a yes vote is on one level always going to be a gamble (as is a no vote) because none of us can see the future with anything other than, at most, an educated guess. But this one gave me a chuckle just the same.
£1m. Vote no,the research bluff again lol.
Aw diddums…big industry. Please vote no or we won’t be able to drown in profit.
link to harpers.co.uk
Im sorry but is this much ado about nothing?
NO man calls YES folk bad people
hardly new news.
‘John Swinney did not look weak. John Swinney looked astute in not answering a loaded question.’
Ken, as the catcalls from the audience swirled around Swinney’s perceived dissembling on the question of BBC bias, that’s one point upon which we’ll agree to disagree.
We do agree it was a set up, we differ on the quality of the response.
The Scottish Gov ministers have called out the BBC, had them up under a Committee. Labour/Unionist Boothman and the side kick. Joan McAlpine (ex Media) etc called them up. It doesn’t get reported. The conceited ‘reporters’ try to call out the Scottish Gov. They make biased reports about the SNP/Scottish Gov. The ‘reporters’, political allegiances, which often got them the job in the first place. The ‘reporters’ are just protecting their comfortable existence on public monies, against the Public interest.
Fifty years of Labour/Unionists has left Scotland with Labour stooges in most places in public life. They is why they join the Labour/Unionist Parties for their own advancement. The don’t give a damn about anyone else, especially the poor electorate.
Labour’s Ian “Pakis” Smart at it again with his offensive outpourings. Now calling the late SNP leader, William Wolfe, “a piece of racist scum” link to ianssmart.blogspot.fi BUT it’s only us “cybernats” that say nasty things. Right?
One thing to agree on is, ‘people are raging’. Don’t get angry get even. Vote YES. Simple.
O/T Was at the bike racing at East Fortune nr Edinburgh at the weekend with my racing bike, unfortunately various technical issues ruled out it getting raced, which was a huge disappointment as three of the pit crew had travelled from Paris to be there. Anyway it was not the only Racing Yamaha to have YES logos, here are some photos
link to facebook.com
link to facebook.com
link to facebook.com
Independence mean Whisky Companies stop tax evasion. Scotland is Quids in. (£Millions).
@Ken500
Keep shouting out that good shout. The Scottish People need to wake up before they find 300 years of hitting snooze results in the end for us all.
Like the Bike.
I wish my work firewall blocked this rubbish but it’s still fun to compare and contrast right to rule Scotland, in England, as in this UKOK out of EU or “Brexit” -byline separatista Ambrose Evans Pritchard v stop the jocks unionist Simon Johnson. Odd pair but lots of vote no, then vote yes, vote Tory fun too.
link to blogs.telegraph.co.uk
Spectacular BetterTogether grot is interesting project fear UKOK outrage, but poor wee soul not only uses her disabled child for her politics but her Mum’s tears too.
link to telegraph.co.uk
What’s that mad old boozer Cockers raging about today?
Have faith in your fellow citizens. The people in Scotland are pretty astute.
It’s Wednesday on the BBC so it must be have a go at Alex Neil / Scottish NHS day, it’s becoming so predictable that it’s obviously an orchestrated campaign.
Slightly O/T, can anyone point me to the original source of this image
link to yeshighland.net
I’m looking to be able to get a printable version of it for a banner for the upcoming PQ demo.
Cockers is as irrelevant as the Telegraph, especially in Scotland. Sold his soul to the Witch. A wind up rag. .
For Celtic fans, a lovely twist on new strip:
link to etims.net
O/T The Herald and Times group own many publications, including The Scottish Farmer. They published a letter from an angry Perthshire farmer who was having a go at a Scotland on Sunday headline:
link to thescottishfarmer.co.uk
The BT mock up poster is excellent and the farmer puts forward several good points.
Breaking News on BBC.
“Author JK Rowling has made a £1m donation to help fund the campaign against Scottish independence.
The writer of the Harry Potter books, who lives in Edinburgh, has publicly backed the Better Together campaign.”
I wonder if this will get the same swarm of comments on the MSM as the Weir’s donations.
Bet not.
SquareHaggis at 9:52
Faslane may be on Crown Estates land but where does their water, electricity and gas come in from? It would be very awkward for them if they had to generate it all on site and/or import it by sea.
I see J K Rowling has donated £1 million to Better Together.
Harry Potter says “NO”.
I’ve just seen that @TheItalianJob I am absolutely disgusted at her. Scotland gave her so much support when she was a young single mum and this is what she does in return.
Appalling
One reason the SNP/Scottish Gov will not be too worried about the BBC/MSM bias. Unexpected consequences, it acts in the YES favour. Many people will vote YES because of the BBC/MSM bias, especially knocking Scotland, the place where they live. It is an indirect attack on the electorates’s integrity.
Everyone likes an underdog, especially under attack. People rally round. Even the people in the rest of the UK rally to the cause. The majority in the rest of the UK are sick of Westminster rule as well, and think it is unfair, unequal and unjust.
WOW
J K Rowling loses it.
Lord Voldemort is based on Alex Salmond, and pro-independence supporters are Death Eaters.
James Kelly’s take on the latest poll;
link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk
JK Rowling protects her vast fortune, courtesy of the electorate.
Latest poll news from James Kelly;
link to tinyurl.com
Jk Rowling protecting her privileged position in society and ensuring the access to the great and good stays availablel to her at the expense of the peasants. Aye the privileged classes are better together.
BBC extasy over Rowling million pound to BetterTogether and she says “I also know that there is a fringe of nationalists who like to demonise anyone who is not blindly and unquestionably pro-independence”
and vote no Guardian says
“The no campaign is now accentuating the positive. It is underscoring its Scottishness as well as its Britishness, and emphasising its Scottish patriotism as well as its belief in the UK.”
And BetterTogether boss Flipper Darling says YES Voters for Scottish democracy are “blood and soil” Nazis.
Puzzled?
Rowling certainly deeply anti Scotland as a self governing democracy but also not very clued up on Alistair Darling views about Scotland’s democracy. What the hey, it’s only a million quid so what’s that to Rowling anyway, or she’s as much a hard core politico as any BetterTogether pro at the BBC etc.
Ach well, now we know.
JK shows her support for Trident, massive military spending, poverty, Thatcherism (or red or blue variety), ermine-clad troughers and Westminster rule forever.
I’m alright (union) jack! Her choice. Not much else to add.
Ken500 says:
Fifty years of Labour/Unionists has left Scotland with Labour stooges in most places in public life. They is why they join the Labour/Unionist Parties for their own advancement. The don’t give a damn about anyone else
Agreed.
It is one teenie weenie reservation I have about Independence. Labour rot is everywhere and will take a lot of weeding out. Also, Scotland needs new cleansed left of centre parties, not vestiges of existing Labour which has done so much damage in recent decades.
Fitstly we need to get away from Tory rule from London, but then we also need to look closer to home and what Labour in our midst has become.
If you don’t kill wood worm investation completely, it just comes back again.
Remember all that shit poured over the Weirs in the Daily Record, the Daily Mail and on our TV screens?
I don’t think Rowling is going to escape criticism, do you?
Fools and their money, some people have short memories. Single grieving mothers, disabled children in Faluja, Iraq etc. Vulnerable people sanctioned and walking for food. Unimaginable.
Tax breaks and concessions for tax evading multimillionaires.
Maybe Rowling should cast her magic over Iraq. She supported the invasion.
O/T New poll released by TNS (conducted 21-28th May) showing Yes 30%, No 42%, DK’s 28%. With DK’s excluded it’s Yes 42%, No 58%.
However when only those certain to vote are calculated it becomes Yes 34%, No 44%, DK’s 22%. With DK’s excluded that would become Yes 44%, No 56%.
All broadly unchanged from the last TNS poll
However they also asked DK’s to say which way they are likely to swing, and 19% said Yes against 15% to No.
Splitting the undecided (but certain to vote) by this proportion puts Yes at 46% and No at 54%.
Getting interesting
The only reason for voting NO is Lamont as FM. Only in nightmares. It will never happen.
lally thread pulled?
Alex Salmond’s office implicated in ‘smear’ attack on mother who spoke up for the Union
One of the First Minister’s spin doctors emails the Telegraph questioning whether Claire Lally is a ‘normal’ mother as she is subjected to a barrage of online abuse from the so-called Cybernats
Clare Lally has questioned why one of Alex Salmond’s spin doctors contacted this newspaper questioning if she is a ‘normal’ mother.
By Simon Johnson, Scottish Political Editor
The mother of a disabled child has accused the First Minister of spearheading a “disgusting” smear campaign against her after she hosted the launch of the Unionists’ campaign for the final 100 days of the independence referendum contest.
Clare Lally said she felt sickened after one of Mr Salmond’s spin doctors contacted the Telegraph questioning her claim at Monday’s Better Together event that she was a “normal” mother.
In a heartfelt speech to activists, she described how she was campaigning to save the UK for the sake of her twin daughters, one of whom has cerebral palsy, and the NHS.
But Campbell Gunn, a senior special adviser and political spokesman for the Scottish Government, emailed this newspaper that she was a member of Labour’s Shadow Cabinet and the daughter-in-law of Pat Lally, a former Labour Lord Provost of Glasgow.
His attack was echoed by a prominent nationalist website and other separatists on social media, one of whom described her as: “A liar now and forever whatever the outcome of the vote, a known Quisling and collaborator.”
But Ms Lally last night said she is not related to the former Lord Provost and described how the torrent of online abuse she has met from so-called Cybernats, who specialise in insulting their Unionist opponents, had left her and her mother in tears.
Although she sits on Scottish Labour’s Shadow Cabinet as a “carers’ champion”, she said Mr Salmond has visited her home to discover more about her work looking after her seven-year-old daughter, Katie, who requires 24-hour care.
Better Together last night said it appeared as though the Cybernats’ smear campaigns were being coordinated from the First Minister’s office and called for Mr Salmond to sack Mr Gunn.
Ms Lally, who has previously been awarded the title “mum of the year” in Scotland, said last night: “Why is the First Minister’s special adviser lying to the papers attacking me? I’ve met the First Minister, he has been with the girls. It makes me feel sick.
“It’s not as if he doesn’t know me. I’m actually more sickened that it came from the First Minister’s office than I am to be put through the abuse from the people who have abused myself and my family today.”
She said she had “nothing to do” with Pat Lally and had never even met him, while her Labour role consists of making proposals that the party could take forward to help those looking after family members or friends who need care.
She argued that she would still describe herself as an “ordinary mum” even if she had been related to the former Lord Provost because she is motivated to campaign for the UK by her daughters, Holly and Katie.
Ms Lally said Mr Salmond visited her home around three years ago and met her daughters, and she was also invited to his official Edinburgh residence, Bute House, thanks to her work helping carers.
The 33-year-old from Clydebank described how her mother, Rosaleen, had contacted her in tears yesterday after reading the online abuse meted out to her by the Cybernats.
A nationalist website called Wings Over Scotland suggested she was willing to “lie on command about the NHS for political ends” and that Better Together was “misleading people by presenting partisan political activists as normal everyday folk”.
A series of other nationalists took to the social networking site Twitter to question her suitability as a mother and attack her supposed links to Pat Lally.
She said that when one of her friends posted online a message of support for her, she was bombarded with dozens of messages of abuse.
Speaking on behalf of Better Together, Anne McGuire, a Scottish Labour MP, said: “This is shameful from Alex Salmond’s office.
“For a taxpayer-funded adviser to attack the mother of a disabled child for giving an opinion about the referendum is a new low for the nationalists. It certainly now looks as though the Cybernat smear campaigns we see online are being coordinated by Alex Salmond’s office.
“Campbell Gunn has clearly broken the Special Advisers’ Code of Conduct. Alex Salmond should sack him without delay.”
Although Mr Gunn is technically a civil servant, he is part of the First Minister’s hand-picked team of special advisers who provide political input on communications and policy.
The code that governs their conduct warns of automatic dismissal for anyone found to have prepared or disseminated “inappropriate material or personal attacks.”
In her speech at Monday’s Better Together launch in Glasgow, Ms Lally said that she and the other pro-Union activists speaking at the event were “just everyday Scottish people” who thought the UK should stay together.
To raucous cheers, she said she was “standing here for my daughters” because she wanted to ensure the NHS “remains the best in the world”.
Although health care is already devolved to the Scottish Parliament, Ms Lally said: “Only a fool would think there is not an enormous advantage of being part of the bigger UK when it comes to funding and providing our specialist care. I want to protect that.”
Her speech drew enthusiastic applause from the crowd but nationalists objected to media coverage describing her as an ordinary mother.
Mr Gunn sent an email to this newspaper yesterday morning that stated: “You are no doubt aware that the “mother-of-two”, who described herself as ‘just a normal person’ in the Telegraph today is actually a member of Labour’s Shadow Cabinet and daughter-in-law of former Labour Lord Provost of Glasgow Pat Lally …”
The email was signed off with his signature, “Campbell Gunn – Senior Special Adviser and Political Spokesperson”, and the address of his office in the Scottish Government’s St Andrew’s House headquarters in Edinburgh.
He did not state that the message, which was sent from his work email account, was either off the record or private, but the Scottish Government last night declined to provide an on-the-record comment.
A source said: “The No campaign need to stop trying to divert attention from the real issues – and in terms of online abuse they are guilty of the most appalling hypocrisy given the behaviour of some of their own supporters. All abuse on both sides should stop, and give Scotland a debate we can all be proud of.”
@MochaChoca
good summary and looking good. My only question. Can my nerves hold over the next few months.
BigSteveChisholm says:
Ach well, now we know.
JK shows her support for Trident, massive military spending, poverty, Thatcherism (or red or blue variety), ermine-clad troughers and Westminster rule forever.
I’m alright (union) jack! Her choice.
I’m actually understand why some people feel British and place their allegience there. Yes, that is their choice.
However, they should remember that after a Yes vote their beloved UKOK will, for the most part, still exist. However those of us who have allegience to Scotland and wish self determinination will have absolutely nothing after a No vote!
Wanting to be British is one thing, wanting to maintain undemocratic London rule over Scotland, is another.
Press and journal this morn getting in behind BBC attack on NHS Scotland with really big front page vote no attack then inside P&J’s got Crash Gordon says vote yes and UK takes away a million Sottish jobs, that 400 grand vote no bet con, a very P&J sleazy thing trying to get YES campaign to get “brutal” now, Scottish green house gases way up again so scrap Scots green energy it’s pointless etc, vote yes and you’ll die a horrible lonely death.
Only one of these BetterTogether headlines in Press and journal didn’t get published by these charming people hell bent on savaging the life out of anything Scots but which one is it?
The Telegraph complains about abuse and biased coverage., including vile comments on websites. The hypocrisy. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic. A comic. The Telegraph trying and failing to get noticed. Hits the gutter.
@GrahamB,
That’s true, awkward but not impossible. Thing is how do we get our stuff out?
What gets me is why does the CEC, an entity attached to the Treasury and not accountable to the Scottish Government have access to and ownership of a 12 mile N ring right the way around our coast?
It has the potential to become an aparthied wall of sea.
link to scotland.gov.uk
Look at the map, we’re effectively surrounded.
JK Rowling. Oh dear, oh dear. Just one coffee into the day and I’m already shouting.
“However, when people try to make this debate about the purity of your lineage …”
“All the major political parties are currently wooing us with offers of extra powers, keen to keep Scotland happy so that it does not hold an independence referendum every ten years and cause uncertainty and turmoil all over again. I doubt whether we will ever have been more popular, or in a better position to dictate terms, than if we vote to stay.”
Ill informed, naive, dangerous and damaging stuff. But then I’m part of a fringe, it seems.
Poor, wee attention seeking Claire Lally, gets more attention than expected. Grow up. Anyone who uses their children and lies, for attention seeking self advancement deserves the publicity. What about protecting the children and their rights?
Call in the Social Services to protect the children’s rights. A named person might help give good advice.
@Mat
Indeed, utter drivel from Rowling (vicious cybernat attack klaxon!).
“I doubt whether we will ever have been more popular, or in a better position to dictate terms, than if we vote to stay.”
It will be the first time in recorded history that a nation has voluntarily renounced its sovereignty and thereby finds itself ‘in a position to dictate terms’. That is self-evident nonsense.
I suppose we are all Death Eaters now.
Anyone up for some hubble-bubble?
I’m fairly sure the JK Rowling thing is just more reheated news. We shouldn’t be surprised that Voldemort is fronting the Better Together Campaign.
bookie from hell
So now we know who ‘Bay Rok’ could be, suggest it was Simon Johnson
Good word of advice. Don’t stand up publicly and tell lies attacking the NHS, which saves children lives. People do not appreciate it. It is not a great political strategy. Don’t tell simple Labour/Unionists.
‘Bay rok’ likely the mothership
JK Rowling tells fairy stories under the spell of the doppy, old wicked wizard and the baggage. OBE turns heads and sense.
HUGE, and mean HUGE, negative response to Rowling’s donation and intervention.
It is all going badly wrong for Harry Potter’s creator, she is being lampooned mercilessly.
J K Rowling donated a million pounds to “New Labour” in 2008!
What’s not to like?
Saying many of them would judge her “‘insufficiently Scottish’ to have a valid view”, she compared the most extreme to the Death Eaters of her Harry Potter novels.
blood seems to be a better together theme
“When people try to make this debate about the purity of your lineage, things start getting a little Death Eaterish for my taste,” she said.
The characters are described in the children’s books as the “pure-blood” supremacist followers of evil Voldemort, who look down on “half-bloods” and human “muggles” believing they should be second-class citizens.
O/t John Beattie on Radio Scotland at 12 talking about dreadfull on line abuse,from some people,and on twitter too! He says it’s on both sides but guess where this is going! What are they trying to do shut us all down!!! Probably. I can’t listen to him anymore! He is so biased!
sky news a hatchet job on nationalists,cybernats abuse,scottish correspondent
when talking about JK
JK Rowling donation.
As if BT needed any more money. The BT are well supported by the MSM, Labour, Conservatives, LibDems, CBI etc, etc.
Anything to divert attention from Darlings Nazi comments.
I do wonder what the going rate is for selling out your country.
I keep asking folk to stay off the dire DT website – CONAN!
I hate the fact that they can shout about ” cybernats” – if they have no cyber warriors on the site with whom will they converse? I look forward to the day when they are left screeching in an empty room.
Great photos Jingly Jangly – sorry we weren’t there ,heard the weather held up to! Amazing!
Bike looks great ,sorry it didn’t get a run!
The Labour/Unionist PR strategy is trying to use glammy mothers and lies attacking the NHS to get the female vote. They think women are stupid. Unfortunately it could backfire. Thry can spot an opportunist. They could think there but for ‘the grace of God go l’
The majority of voters support the NHS and it has popular support. Women voters and their families need and use the NHS,
We all need to print the perfect storm poster from Oxfam
link to independent.co.uk
Smirking Rowling million quid donation has certainly got vote No britnats at the Guardian very anti Scotland orgasmic and even very creepy digs about Bath bedsits.
link to archive.today
@Dorothy Devine
I don’t go near the DT website. The funny thing is if you go to the following online Independence newspaper website, it usually has about 5-6 DT anti indepedence articles each day. By far the most for the online newspapers.
I wonder why. No reponses please.
link to newsnow.co.uk
JK Rowling….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Word on the street, is YES.
Alistair Darling’s mumblings are nothing new. When he was a student holding one of his dinner parties (yes, dinner parties in 1970s student Aberdeen!) and everyone was talking, his trick was to mumble something at a person sitting at the other end of the table. That person would ask him to repeat what he said and everyone else would stop speaking. That way, he became the centre of attention and everyone listened to his words of wisdom. I was never at one of his dinner parties because I wasn’t from a private school, but it was a regular trick of his.
‘Salmond says advisor should say sorry to ‘No’ woman’ – link to bbc.co.uk
I do think we need to recognise JK’s right to make this donation, however much we might disagree with her views on independence. And I also think it is wise to to focus on the perceived lack of uncertainty in remaining part of the UK, than on her personally. If we can only get the message across that the status quo is fraught with risks, added to the certainty about the continuation of austerity and nuclear weapons, then independence will happen.
@Greannach
And not just any private school Loretto no less in south Edinburgh. And he became a Labour standard bearer. Not in my books unfortunately.
Probably wise of you not to have been to any of his dinner parties.
If he had turned and mumbled something to me, at a meeting, I would have replied with the phrase “Oh really, How boring”.
Sky News, Kaye Burley reporting from Oban:
“Literally, every single person I have spoken to is either swithering or voting Yes”
Superb
@MochaChoca
Your really cheering me up this morning.
@ r whittington, but the vote NO BBC report links to the Daily Telegraph who make no mention of Salmond saying anything to any advisor, let alone say sorry to ‘No’ woman’.
Shurely BBC liars at Pacific quay are not making up more anti Scottish democracy lies? Nice of Telegraph to mention WoS!
@Mochachoca
I found that when I was in Oban at the weekend, wall to wall Yes
Also
Major frothing at Pacific Quay this morning between the radio and the website. Next 99 days are going to get worse
Just read JK Rowlings comments – its truly astonishing how an intelligent woman like that can just swallow some of BT’s ridiculous arguments, such as saying we will suffer terribly because of our ageing population, without relaising that there are obvious tools which can deal with such a problem that afterall affects ALL countries, not just ours.
I am quite sure when she was a jobless, single mum in a freezing flat in Edinburgh all those years ago, she could have been justified in conceding that she was doomed to a life of struggle and suffering, but she chose not to accept that fate and instead became hugely successful completely ON HER OWN.
Why, I wonder, does whe not have the same confidence in her own country?
Anne I agree entirely but it still will not stop me sending the copies of her books to the Charity shop.
I do me entirely about the time is now here that we tell people what they are voting for when voting NO, it is about continuing austerity, do not let the Tories fool you or Labour for that matter, the sma folk will continue to suffer in between elections. They will continue to waste money on armaments that they hope never to use and then there is the continuing war, just because Afghanistan is over ish, they will be looking around for another little one to get involved in. In the meantime their buddies, and I rather think Ms Rowling is looking for a Title, will continue to enrich themselves with the assistance of which ever Government is in place. So if that is what people want so be it, but they need warning.
@r whittington
The BBC also omits to report that the woman is a Labour activist, and distorts the truth to claim that she was attacked for being a ‘No’ supporter, rather than the reality which was that the the attack was on BT for presenting her as an ‘ordinary woman’.
So standard Pacific Quay lies.
Still no coverage on BBC of the clarification of Darling’s inaudible mumble. Double standards yet again.
When will BT ever reign in their attack dogs?
@ Training Day,
The BBC website is not managed from Scotland – it is run from London. The slant on the story is of course the angle that Better Together have put on the story.
The London media amplifies and shares the stories from within the London echo chamber media. It is then beamed into our lives.
We have little in the way of sympathy in the media, we can however talk to people face to face and on social media mediums.
@sinky
link to twitter.com
JK Rowlings attacks women and single mothers, suffering under austerity.
radio Scotland
talking about campaign nasty
mentioned soil & blood
TheItalianJob says: And not just any private school Loretto no less in south Edinburgh.
Actually Loretto is in Musselburgh, quite a nice town to the east of Edinburgh (near the racetrack and Cockenzie ash pits), motto “The Honest Toun”. I sense irony.
What worried me most about the whole Rowling thing, were the hints that certain elements of the @Nationalist’ campaign could be compared to ‘Death Eaters’. The Nazi slurs aimed at the SNP are old, tired and nasty, but that doesn’t stop them being spread to a wider audience thanks to Rowling’s intervention. Gerry Hassan has a good article on the demonisation of the SNP here: link to scottishreview.net
Meanwhile, thanks to the suggestion of someone on Twitter I just donated to Women for Indy, (as much as I could afford right now) my way of reacting positively to her donation.
I am quite prepared to say I said Ms Lally was an idiot and a mug who should know when popping ones head above the parapet should know that she then becomes a target for those who think she is an idiot and a mug, end of.
I also think less than highly of those who use and are still using a disabled child for this purpose.
loretto fees
6 Lessons per week £800
Th Italian Job, perhaps they could support some of the foodbanks in their areas as they do not seem to require the money and then their supporters do.
@Training Day
If Rowling genuinely believes that Scotland will be able to dictate terms in the event of a No vote, then she is in dreamland. May as well write another Harry Potter book. Her comment does not stand up to any kind of a scrutiny.
The reaction to the Lally story is instructive. The MSM appear to be IGNORING the fact that Lally is a well known SLAB activist. This is the story you dolts! BT are trying to pass her off an ordinary member of the public, when she blatantly is not.
@Adrian B
Indeed so, Adrian, I should have said ‘standard BBC lies’, as the notion that Pacific Quay has any autonomy is ludicrous.
I notice that Rowling’s donation is now the lead item on the BBC website. The ‘analysis’ from the unnamed ‘Scotland correspondent’ is breathtaking in its bias, talking of how Rowling’s argument will ‘resonate’ with many Scots, and demonising many supporters if self-determination.
link to bbc.co.uk
Explain that one away, Mr Bateman.
Only just saw that JKR has donated to no. She clearly cares not that many children in Scotland are suffering terribly due to westminster policy of attacking the poor, which usually means mothers and children suffer most. And the cuts to welfare have only just started. Do all people who become rich become blind to their fellow human beings suffering as part of the bargain?
We have to ensure a YES vote to stop the rot now endemic in westmonster politics.
yeah BUT guessing who lally was,NOT a good idea
Lally has a career as a Westminster MP ahead of her so she is not a mug, if thats your thing. She’s a shrewd Labour operator working very hard in Labour’s shadow cabinet vying for a shot at the big league/trough. Baroness Rowling soon enough and she deserves their rewards at million quid or three!
That’s why so many raging britnats from BBC to Telegraph are piling into attack any and everyone who blew yesterday’s vote no farce into the open, eg WoS?
It is indeed odd that a renowned writer of fiction cannot see through the various promises to have *discussions* about limited further devolution.
She is obviously entitled to donate her money and set out her reasons. I would only like to highlight that if my livelihood depended on a negotiator I would not want it to be JK Rowling – she doesn’t seem to grasp the key concepts in negotiation.
I looked at the link TD. Here is the worst bit by far, no attempt at balance during the official campaign:
But the author’s argument will resonate with many Scots: attracted by a “romantic” ideal of a “fairer, greener, richer and more equal society”, but in the end not quite prepared to accept the associated risks.
A second theme of Ms Rowling’s web post will also resonate with many: concern about the nature of the debate.
She writes about a “fringe of nationalists” demonising anyone not “blindly and unquestionably pro-independence”.
Indeed, she has herself received abuse on social media, something senior Yes campaign strategists realise does not help their cause.
Can anyone at the BBC defend this? This is apparently from the Scotland correspondent. Incidentally, it also says Salmond as forced his media adviser to apologise over Lally for some reason?
Good to see swivel eyed loon vote no Severin Carrell of the Guardian finally gone mad. From SeverinGurdian massive boost for vote nob.orders.com grassroots pack of lies to this. Dear oh dear SeverinGuardian, what ever have you become?
“Alan Cummings was the most prominent name at the launch of Yes Scotland two years ago but does not have a vote in Scotland, so voters might feel that his is an illegitmate, even interfering, voice.”
Folks (and Rev), indulge me here. I’m going to reprint the ‘analysis’ on the BBC website of Rowling’s donation in full as it is truly shocking:
ANALYSIS – Scotland Correspondent, BBC News
JK Rowling’s “magic million” to conjure up a vote against independence is not a great surprise.
She is friends with former PM Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah, has previously donated money to the Labour Party, and told the BBC two years ago that she had reservations about independence.
But the author’s argument will resonate with many Scots: attracted by a “romantic” ideal of a “fairer, greener, richer and more equal society”, but in the end not quite prepared to accept the associated risks.
A second theme of Ms Rowling’s web post will also resonate with many: concern about the nature of the debate.
She writes about a “fringe of nationalists” demonising anyone not “blindly and unquestionably pro-independence”.
Indeed, she has herself received abuse on social media, something senior Yes campaign strategists realise does not help their cause.
Just today First Minister Alex Salmond ordered a special adviser to apologise for briefing against a pro-union mother-of-two who had been attacked online as a “("Tractor" - Ed)” to her country.
Mr Salmond points out that pro-independence supporters, in particular Lottery winners Chris and Colin Weir, have suffered online abuse too and called for it to stop.
It would be lovely to think that everyone could come to the same conclusion and debate with civility and grace.
Sadly, such dreams probably belong in the realms of romantic fiction.
rev RADIO SCOTLAND NOW
Completely o/t, but …
“The more I listen to the Yes campaign, the more I worry about its minimisation and even denial of risks.”
So opined Ms JK Rowland as she handed over a million squids to the No campaign.
Irish Times afternoon Digest Wednesday, June 11th.
Rev on John Beattie show right now.
Best one from oban yesterday was Kay asking a guy doing maintenence on a boat.
“What kind of boat is this you are working on”? says Kay
“A fishing boat” was the brilliant reply. She was still going on about it 5 minutes later….kudos that man.
Another recent news highlight was a reporter showing folk in govan a big picture of Cameron to various demographics.
2 road workers replied “his politics are not relevent to Scotland”
2 old pensioners asked what they thought..”he is a smarmy git”…..brilliant !!
Moral of the story ?
Dont come here trying to treat Scots as mugs, and do not try to stereotype us.
Rev Stu detailing Clare Lally’s SLAB links.
Personally I think she’s in good company…one fantasist among serial liars.
Hamish McDonell has admitted that Lally is a SLAB activist, but a minute ago said she was an ordinary mother (before Rev Stu talked)?
rev stu—got the message across
well done
Don’t attack Bateman (BTW deleted and banned. Bit BBC control ish). Bateman left the BBC and campaigns for YES. Uses his expertise to expose the nonsensical NO arguments.
Bateman is an apologist for the BBC, old habits die hard. To admit the BBC has bias (no his) would contaminate his whole (honourable?) career. It’s psychological. Bateman has realised there is a better life out of the BBC.
His website could work better. (serves him right. Poetic justice?) Jumps back and forwards, disappears. Can’t read the comments. Get it sorted. Right
calls lally a liar about NHS
Listening to Stu on radio now.
Go get him Stu.
McDonnell/Beattie argument collapsing.
great stuff stu, coming over as well educated on scot politics and very reasonabley minded.
I did think yesterday that this was how the media would present this story of Ms Lally. Wouldn’t be at all surprised if they had set this up hoping that we would take the bait and unfortunately that happened.
This was a small story and yes, I agree that the original report had been dishonest in not indicating that she was actually an activist and not merely an ordinary mother. Also as an activist she is actually misleading others about the NHS either knowingly or being hopelessly misled herself.
But everyone knows from years of experience, how manipulative and distorting the media are. We could surely see how these ruthless newshounds would be in the way they would spin this story. This story should have been left alone or at least details of her private life left out. (Yes, I know that she had made much of this public herself, but that is not the point. It’s how the media will report.)
The news media in their usual charmless way have pounced on it and blown it out of proportion.There is nothing more disgusting than the sight of the media and their artificial outrage when they scent a story they can milk. We have to remember that we are not just talking amongst ourselves any more but the minions of the BT campaign are listening in.
We know that one of their favourite themes just now is “vile cybernats”. We should be more wary and not feed the jackals. The real story yesterday should have centred on Darling and Brown but instead the news reporters were allowed to go evil on us and whip up a story of an ordinary mum being “abused”.
Papadox said: JK Rowling protecting her privileged position in society
And her home with 40 foot leylandii hedging, a wall, fence and hedge on all four sides – hedging illegal elsewhere in Edinburgh – and cathedral standard stone and wooden gates.
English-born with a London literary agent and lawyers, her Harry Potter children’s books set in an English public school. What else is she to do but hope Scotland and its people continue to kow-tow to Westminster interests and hubris?
Poverty of opportunity, amenities, or poor life expectancy doesn’t affect a multi-millionairess.
No doubt she received welfare payments while a struggling single mother living in a bed sit, money from Edinburgh social services and the Scottish welfare system.
But hey, that doesn’t count, does it?
That was in the past.
She joins Ian Rankin as an author who sells more books outside Scotland than in.
On the other hand we have Will Self and his wife who support Scotland’s self-governance. They live in London.
Opportunists telling lies about the NHS and inoppropriate donations will put women off. Turn off. Women are not fools.
Labour in bed with tory strategists, Labour in the gutter.
link to brandrepublic.com
Rankin puts a lot of people to sleep.
Great stuff on vote NO BBC there Reverend. All you can do is say what happened and why and ofcourse unionist dude bashed on about how the Telegraph says Lally’s mother was crying.
Ken said: Bateman is an apologist for the BBC, old habits die hard.
Not quite an apologist, but he does tend to swipe them hard … with a feather duster.
BBC Bias – grousebeater.wordpress, and other anti-BBC essays.
well done, Rev Stu, excellent on Radio Scotland. Thanks @Bookie from hell for letting us know x
Great stuff from Stu there. Always nice to hear the word “bawbag” spoken live on the BBC.
It’s funny how out of place Sky reporters/overpaid roving celebrities look in Scotland. Like they are visiting a quaint out of bounds territory. Miles apart from fishermen or ordinary people.
BBC radio just read out a report that, ‘they are biased against the YES campaign’. That’s a first.
Stuart – was at meeting. Please post your Beeb interview.
Many thanks.
The lassie’s barking. I admire her concern for child poverty, she’s been through it.
She gave Crash Gordon £1mil for his work on reducing child poverty. He did it, not by making poor children better off but, by making the rest of us poorer and reducing the benchmark at which poverty was measured.
She has now given Comical Ali £1mil to preserve the system that is keeping and increasing the numbers of children in poverty, now with added food banks.
Like SuBo she seems to have advisors that do not have her interests at heart.
Rowling is a committed Unionist, never mind her patronizing
waffle.She now runs in the highest circles, conveniently forgetting how good Scotland was to her.
Shame on her, she sure does live in a fantasy.
JK Rowling is happy to bankroll a party or war criminals. That’s nice of her. Just another labour moron. Stick a red rosette on a Yes poster and she’d vote for it.
BBC Radio are reading out criticism of the BBC/MSM bias.
Good stuff by the Rev on John Beattie Show but yet again the NO side got first and last words, just as earlier this week with Trish Hartman, due to “time constraints”.
Bateman is an apologist for the BBC, old habits die hard. To admit the BBC has bias (no his) would contaminate his whole (honourable?) career. It’s psychological. Bateman has realised there is a better life out of the BBC.
Don’t blame the bank tellers in your local branch for bankers bonuses
His website could work better. (serves him right. Poetic justice?) Jumps back and forwards, disappears. Can’t read the comments. Get it sorted. Right
DDOS attack and the problem is similar here. Further website optimisation required. Neither Derek nor the REV are IT specialists.
@ Jimbo
Was he referring to a NAWbag Bawbag ?
Stu says (on Twitter) ‘You might be on your own today, readers. Can’t move for people wanting to stick my ugly mug in front of a camera.’ Could be interesting 😀
Izzy Wizzy £1m should make BT get Busy,Chinese Buffet King
round the corner,cause their no oot delivering leaflets.
I think the YES camp should be concentrating on 100 days of Positivity. This whole Lally storm in a teacup is exactly what NO want to see, show some in-fighting and generate paranoid Nat headlines.
Cant help think we played into their hands on this one but given the performance so far, Im not complaining just think we need to play our own game.
@desimond
Absolutely, anything to take the heat of Cameron debate with FM and Darlings obnoxious comments.
Desimond said: This whole Lally storm in a teacup
It’s symptomatic of scuzzy underhand British establishment tactics.
An objectives in achieving autonomy is fighting for higher standards in public life.
Drop our guard on one issue, or shrug our shoulders, and we may as well say, ‘who cares?’ about the lot.
Yes, seconded Cindy’s thanks to Bookie from hell for the Rev on the radio heads up but I wont kiss you though.
In vast oceans of slick bettertogether media freaks/CiF loonies going apeshit at any and every YES view, listening to the Reverend makes them all look utterly ridiculous and in particular Rowling’s many creepy versions of projectfear today.
Flipper must be wondering how the hell blood and soil types even get near his precious BBC in Scotland.
Be fair. Hogworts is in Scotland, not that she ever actually says so.
Why is anyone surprised about this? I thought she was out for No months if not years ago and obviously she was going to give them money. I’ve never liked the bloody woman, so colour me totally not astonished by any of it.
It’s just a pity anyone mistook Miss Clare Lally for Mrs. Claire Lally in the first place. The story was solid enough without it and Miss Lally’s own position in the Labour party was what it was all about. Mistaking her for the daughter-in-law of a prominent Labourite (hence the supposed “smear” of nepotism) simply allowed the argument to be diverted and the point lost.
@MajorBloodnok at 12.17pm
You are of course right. I stand corrected. I passed by, when driving, Loretto school, for the first time a couple of years ago travelling to North Berwick to stay and play golf in the area. Agree also that Musselburgh is a nice town.
Also interesting ref Cockenzie. I worked a months nightshift there (many moons ago) when a graduate trainee with the then SSEB. Happy days.
GrouseBeater
I appreciate the covering all bases point but I suspect this “flagging” has only backfired as we have more people now knowing of and feeling sorry for Ms lally and her campaigning than would have, had Rev let it pass. I fully back the gesture, just the execution was flawed.
Time is short and maybe best to pick our well prepared battles and all that.
Agree also that Musselburgh is a nice town.
Home of the best ice cream in Scotland.
Made by Italo-Scots, who else?!
Busy vote no backtrack/lie day at Pacific Quay. Just watched BetterTogetherBBC spokeschoob explain that vote YES and you’re a “blood and soil” nazi is NOT a phrase Alistair Darling would ever use, ever, never and ever.
Got that?
let it sink in and having washed it out of your separatist brain, betterTogetherBBC bashes on…
@ Morag Graham Kerr, I am surprised at how hard vote NO Rowling’s stuff is in the Guardian.
Rowling runs through all the heaviest Labour in Scotland and ConDem project fear stuff and adds her own nasty little tweeks like “and your English, Welsh and Irish neighbours will be very bitter and that’s very scary too, so vote no”
@Grouse Beater
Cover blown but not to difficult to discern. My grandad was proud of his ice cream too. From the Langtoon and still being made today since 1921.
I’ve alway’s said I’m so proud he made his home in Scotland. He tried America but didn’t like it and ended up like many in Scotland. Just have to get our Independence now and we will be even prouder.
Desimond said: I appreciate the covering all bases point but I suspect this “flagging”
The problem is, the enemies of democracy control most of the MSM, the rest of us squeezed into websites such as this. They can – and do – portray anger as slur and abuse to suit their colonial interests or careers.
They can exaggerate, scorn, command the headlines.
We can only protest.
Though a single voice, J K Rowling gets prime attention – the rest of us presented as one voice.
They are the voice of reason.
We are “cybernat abuse.”
That is no different from manufacturing consent by describing others in the past as anarchists, dissenters, Gooks.
(Except Stuart today.)
@Desimond
On the other hand, it’s free publicity for WoS…
@Grouse Beater
As yes, the incomparable Luca’s ice cream. Plus they send a wee ice-cream van out to North Berwick whatever the weather.
@TheItalianJob
Interesting. I hear that Cockenzie had now closed but is to be converted to gas. The PFA pits are good for cycling around and disposing of political opponents (I imagine).
And finally, Norman Lamont is another Lorettonian. Says it all really.
Once again, I feel the need to stick up for Derek Bateman. He knows the people inside the BBC. He knows that many are just doing their jobs and know that not toeing the party line will do their careers no good – not just at the BBC, but at any of the other rabidly unionist organs of “journalism” that bring such light to our (wee pretendy) nation. But he’s also consistently attacked managers and editors with their own agendas and particularly the insulting nature of the Smith/Naughtie paratroopers who’ve come up here to show Scots how to do proper journalism. He’s supported the NUJ’s calls for the BBC to resign from the CBI because he understands that journalists for the most part want to be honest but sometimes just don’t have the opportunity. And as the BBC’s litany of lies has grown, he’s grown less and less willing to defend the organisation as a whole. Cut the guy some slack. He quit his job there to campaign or a Yes vote. Giving him a hard time for trying to see things from the perspective of his beleaguered former colleagues (and probably still his friends) is really not fair. He’s one of the few people on the Yes side who can give a first-hand view of what life in PQ is actually like…and it’s clearly not any fun for most of them. Cut the guy some slack.
@Kendomacaroonbar
He was referring to the abuse he himself received from his detractors. The Rev has mentioned this in the past but, and in my opinion very wisely, not played up to it. We can only imagine the level of abuse and insults which have been directed at him personally. I’d imagine he’d see himself as fair game anyway.
I’m sure there’ll be a link posted to the show soon.
Italian Job said: Just have to get our Independence now and we will be even prouder
Liberta per la Scozia!
Morag
“Be fair. Hogworts is in Scotland, not that she ever actually says so.”
She pretty much does. In the episode where Harry and Ron have to take the flying car (because they had missed the train) they are flying north towards Hogwart’s when at one stage it is mentioned that they are passing over the town of Peebles.
For those, who like me have been pushing for International monitors I finally have the answer.
Amazingly ONLY WESTMINSTER can call them in, SG have NO power to do so. So we have a Scottish Referendum, with effectively NO MONITORING!
WOW, Westminster really knows how to stack their cards.
Well at least we now know what we have to deal with, there is NOTHING to stop the Media and Unionist lies, they of course will already know that well.
“Norman Lamont is another Lorettonian.”
I heard their eyebrow maintenance classes are de rigueur.
@Grouse Beater says
“Liberta per la Scozia.”
Bravo signore. Che ragione.
Les,
They have monitored in places they were not invited, including the States.
Also, in theory, the UK government can be prosecuted for failing to guarantee plurality and balance from the state broadcaster through the ECHR (right of freedom of expression).
In practice we are prohibited by time and money. UK has the highest court costs in Europe. Something like a hundred times the European average.
Another possibility is that a UN Special Rapporteur can take it on his own initiative to investigate.
Sinky – Annabel Goldie also got the first word and last word with Gavin Esler in a three way interview with Patrick Harvie on Monday.
Just catching up on the Rowling news. I’m very happy that I’ve never contributed so much as a penny towards her success.
He raised a Lorettonian eyebrow languidly and intoned, “you realise, of course, that the upkeep of these highly educated caterpillars cost the entire budget of a small country? Yours, naturally.”
It would be very interesting to know if JK Rowling was a registered with the Electoral Commission and approved to make such a donation. There are apparently rules for this kind of thing – isn’t there, EC?
It would also be very convenient for a person living and competent to vote in the referendum who would be happy to act as a conduit for donations from out-with these guidelines – wouldn’t it, EC?
It also would be less noticeable if such a person acting as such a conduit, was of sufficient means to ‘appear’ to be the donor personally – isn’t that true, EC?
So, tell me, EC – how effective are your guidelines to prevent any of the above happening? It’s looking like your control system is about as effective as a chocolate watch – still nothing has been done about the Ian Taylor £500,000 donation and he doesn’t live within your ‘guideline’ permits. Pretty poor, isn’t it, EC?
@ Stu
It was good to hear you fighting our corner on the radio today but I’m mystified as to how you let it be about Lally and not about Darling’s assertion that we’re all Nazis.
Anyone got any opinions on John Beattie’s allegiance?
Chic McGregor says:
Chic, that is what I got from the SG in a phone call to them this morning. So if they can’t do it, then who can?
How can people in our situation get people here to help in this situation? Can we petition some entity or what can we do, I hope someone can make that suggestion so we can try and open doors. Trouble is, it would need to be an authoritative organisation, for anyone least of all Westminster to listen at all. Our media will not care, nor even report it. Unless it is regarded people.
@Alfresco Dent
Anyone got any opinions on John Beattie’s allegiance?
John Beattie said that the debate between politicians had been “civilised”. On a day when it was proven that Darling accused pro-independence supporters of being blood and soil nationalists. Sure John.
I thought the campaign legal spend limit for YES and No is £1.5 million so where are bettertogteher to spend another million which STILL isn’t enough to match YES according to Mags Curran
link to bbc.co.uk
Anyone sick of this shite and keen to DO something –
Yes Irvine shop is always on the hunt for volunteers. I popped in earlier today and spoke to the lovely people there. Busy as bees they were.
The shop is open Mon-Thu, 10-4, Fri/Sat 10-3.
The leafleting days are Monday and Wednesday (7.p.m.) and Saturday (10 a.m.) Meet at the shop – 183 High St, Irvine.
Telephone – 01294 570 020.
GOYA!!
Barontorc – my understanding of the donations’ rules from outwith Scotland is that as we are still in the UK, donations from EWNI are not considered as being made from another country. Can’t remember where I read that, but I’m sure it was somewhere on WOS, of course.
Morag said: “It’s just a pity anyone mistook Miss Clare Lally for Mrs. Claire Lally in the first place. The story was solid enough without it and Miss Lally’s own position in the Labour party was what it was all about. Mistaking her for the daughter-in-law of a prominent Labourite (hence the supposed “smear” of nepotism) simply allowed the argument to be diverted and the point lost.”
When I saw that on Twitter I immediately thought just how easy it is for mischief to be worked in this way. You pop something up and within a few hours some zealot has it and broadcasting it for all they are worth, with not one shred of evidence to show it is kosher. It is a lesson to every one to stop snatching at these bits of bait trolled through the cybersphere. Much of it is placed there for the very reason we have just seen. People have been destroyed by these black arts. Get smart people.
This incident has efficiently buried Darlings vile blood and soil sneering, which of course it was the job of the black arts department to do.
Mind you had someone suggested I was related to Lazerous I would be after them with a flame thrower.
Its interesting comparing how 2 bettertogether propaganda machines pump out Rowling million pound okuk donation with either one leaving her ukok frightener stuff out and in. So much for campaign period impartiality at the BBC.
link to bbc.co.uk
Why does BBC ligger leave out Rowling’s ” three bitter” neighbours England, Wales, N.Ireland and so on?
link to archive.today
I used to think Alistair Darling was called “Flipper” because his eyebrows go up and down when he talks and remind you of the flippers on a pinball machine. Then I discovered this:
link to telegraph.co.uk
link to bbc.co.uk
Advisor has to apologise for email about Labour Party activist posing as member of public NOT in Labour Party shadow cabinet but Flipper can blithely tell the world, voting yes makes you a nazi. Another display of BBC impartial vote no campainging in action
Les, perhaps it’s time to ask our US Senate ‘Scots’ to help organise external monitors. We’re told that they are very pro-Scots and no doubt feisty with it if it be known we are under so much propaganda and press media oppression.
Perhaps if someone were to contact one of the MEP’s and ask if he/she can organise monitoring.
Also there is quite a lot of information on the SNP website regarding todays questioning of Carmichael and the amount of taxpayers money spent by Westminster on referendum polls.
Thats the SNP fund-raising email just arrived after wee Harry Potters single maw gave his wand a right good waggle and came up with £1m gift for No.
£1m should just about cover an advert with John Barrowman portraying a young Dementor\cybernat ( outro can be a licensed David Bowie soundtrack ( This is not America seems apt?))
@Free Scotland
I’m sure that’s the article I posted a link to on the BT facebook page back in the day when Darling was announced as leader.
As you would expect it got deleted and it got me my first ban.
link to bbc.co.uk if BBC were even remotely impartial they would include Lally’s place in Labour’s shadow cabinet at the very minimum and in just this report but there’s nothing there.
BetterTogether, Media, BBC blitz cover up again so why did Rowling waste all that money when BBC are doing it or them and we all have to pay for it.
Just wondering but have Glasgow Caledonia offered J.K Rowling an honorary doctorate yet…cant be far away 🙂
I received a YES + SNP request for donation, and have donated a few bawbees to each. Not in the same league as JKR’s but every little helps. 😉
If the Independence pledge now has over 800,000 signatures, and we all just gave £5 or so, well that’d be a whole lotta dosh for the cause. Just saying. : D
So much for the Better Together rule that it’s only cross dressing celebs who are allowed to join.
They’re letting just anyone in now.
@ TJenny
How do I donate?
Campaign cash? Weir Rowling in it!
Nana Smith – If you are a member of YES or the SNP, you’ll be getting your own email I should imagine. Meanwhile, here’s the link from the YES donation request email.
link to yesscotland.net
Super rich Rowling gives a million quid to Bliar MacDoughnut and gets nearly 2 thousand CIF Britnats on Proggresive Liberal Guardian overjoyed, wetting Union Jack y fronts etc BUT water canons bought by Major BoJo to tackle upcoming London riots new gets hardly a quarter of the raging vote NO or else rants.
Funny that
Grouse-beater, interesting. Scots-Italian ice cream.
As it happens I renewed a childhood acquaintance with a Mussy cone just a couple of weeks ago, at North Berwick’s Puffin Fest. Same corporate colours, same pretty unique style of vans.
But the ice cream, not a patch, I’m afraid, on the oft times world champs from Hamilton, and a host of other west coast cone suppliers.
Now if we could a freezer cabinet at the next Wings gazebo…
heedtracker – and what will BoJo do when, if as reported in the Express, so it must be true (no sniggering at the back), there, is to be a prolonged heatwave in the sarf – will middle-englanders be happy with a water ban causing their petunias to wilt and their prize marrows deflate to the size of zucchini, in order to allow water cannons on the poor in London?
The misreporting of the Clare Lally story has got out of hand.
Clare Lally was presented as being an “ordinary” voter when in fact she is a Labour Party political activist and a member of their National Policy Forum. The Labour Party and Clare Lally lied about who she was she was rightfully criticised.
All of the comments I’ve read about Clare Lally highlighted her duplicity and the harm she and her Better Together partners are doing to the Scottish NHS, I’ve not read one line of abuse and if there is any then I wish people would present it so that we can see it for ourselves.
Independence supporters are abused daily on every single media site throughout the land but we never hear any condemnation of that. Will the MSN ever start to cover or highlight the threats and abuse we have to put up with on a daily basis? I won’t hold my breath on that.
Let’s keep this in perspective, we are the ones being abused and threatened on a daily basis, it’s about time the BBC started reporting that.
TeamGB is such a great place to live link to theguardian.com
If future PM Bojo uses the army, they’re concerned at rioters shooting back. In 2011 they let Englsih City riots burn themselves out and beat cops were left to deal with it but would you’re average London bobby sacrifice everything for the Con/Dems now?
On second thoughts, from within a miasma of burning martyr, they’ll probably accept it as doing their duty in helping to keep order.
So millionare J K Rowling decides she doesnt want a better future for single mums on the breadline,another ‘ ordinary woman ‘ backs NO.
I don’t buy the whole “flood of tears” nonsense, it just plays to the pro-Union media. That’s like claiming Alastair Campbell was in flood of tears after being criticised. You notice on the BBC website it doesn’t mention her Labour Party credentials whatsoever.
If I mind right Miss Rowling also donated £1 million to the Labour of which she is a member.
I am not surprised or bothered about that, but she is wrong to condemn CyberNats as evil, I’ve never been evil and I’m pretty sure nearly everyone on here isnt evil either. So she’s talking through her backside
This may help reduce the risks and allay the fears of JK Rowling re an Independent Scotland.
link to bellacaledonia.org.uk
A VERY long report from The first of a two-part contribution by WILLIAM C. McLAUGHLIN BA (Hons), MBA
PAPER 1 – SCOTLANDS ATLANTIC MARGIN and ESTUARY RESERVES. PAPER 2 – SCOTLAND’S ONSHORE RESERVES
A snippet.
The DECC estimates for the Scottish Atlantic Margin, west of Scotland, according to my source, should be regarded as being VERY conservative. The contact knows that they are too low and stated to the writer (March 2014), “the DECC estimates for the Scottish Atlantic Margin oil and gas reserves are far
too low and way off the mark, There is VERY SIGNIFICANT and VERY CONSIDERABLE QUANTITIES of oil and gas west of Scotland“.
I dont think Rowling is interested in the economics, probably she just wants to be British, Scotland is only a region
DECC – Department of Energy and Climate Change
I will try and email these people over the wall of bias that is falling on us. I will try and enlist their help. Here is the list, a bit of digging required but might help things.
Members of the caucus:
Senator Jim Webb (Virginia)
Senator Lamar Alexander (Tennessee)
Senator Roger F. Wicker (Mississippi)
Senator Lindsey O. Graham (South Carolina)
Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr. (Pennsylvania)
Senator Robert F. Bennett (Utah)
Senator Robert C. Byrd (West Virginia)
Senator Claire McCaskill (Missouri)
Senator Orrin G. Hatch (Utah)
Senator Thad Cochran (Mississippi)
Senator Mark L. Pryor (Arkansas)
Senator Bernard Sanders (Vermont)
Senator Jon Tester (Montana)
Senator Richard Burr (North Carolina)
Senator Thomas R. Carper (Delaware)
Senator Jeff Sessions (Alabama)
Senator Richard C. Shelby (Alabama)
Senator Patrick J. Leahy (Vermont)
Senator Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota)
Senator Tim Johnson (South Dakota)
Senator John D. Rockefeller, IV (West Virginia)
Senator Byron L. Dorgan (North Dakota)
Senator John F. Kerry (Massachusetts)
Senator Kent Conrad (North Dakota)
Senator Mitch McConnell (Kentucky)
Senator Sherrod Brown (Ohio)
Senator Richard J. Durbin (Illinois)
Senator Mark R. Warner (Virginia)
Senator Kay R. Hagan (North Carolina)
Senator Jeff Merkley (Oregon)
@manandboy
Great article on reserves and ties in with everything I’ve been hearing over the last few years.
I just hope we don’t give it all away again!
The Scottish North Sea estimates are shown in brackets. The DECC estimates are banded into Lower, Central and Upper, and the writer has maintained this classification.
For Scottish Atlantic Margin oil reserves, the lower estimate is 74 million tonnes (375), central estimate is 230 million tonnes (518), and the upper estimate is 572 million tonnes (700). For gas reserves in place in the Scottish Atlantic Margin, the lower estimate is 98 billion cubic metres (181), the central estimate is 193 billion cubic metres (264), and the upper estimate is 413 billion cubic metres (410).
Note that the upper estimate for gas reserves in the Scotland Atlantic Margin exceeds the estimate for gas reserves remaining in the Scottish North Sea (413 versus 410 billion cubic metres).
It is extremely likely that the differentials gap between estimates for oil and gas in the Scottish North Sea and the Scottish Atlantic Margin will widen in favour of the Scottish Atlantic Margin (that the Scottish
Atlantic Margin oil and gas reserves will eventually considerably exceed those of the Scottish North Sea at the upper end of the estimates).
A French Oil Geologist, surveying for an oil company off the Western Isles in the 1980s stated:`WE THINK THAT THE
POTENTIAL FOR OIL AND GAS IN THESE WATERS (SCOTTISH ATLANTIC MARGIN, INCLUDING THE FIRTH OF CLYDE) WOULD MAKE THE AMOUNT IN THE NORTH SEA SEEM LIKE A BASIN FULL BY COMPARISON, BUT WE ARE NOT ALLOWED BY THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT TO DRILL THERE“ (source :
http://auldaquaintance.wordpress.com).
@Les Wilson
I thought over 40 had joined so far?
Best in chunks.
Looked at from this perspective, the Scottish oil and gas industry is far from “declining“, and in fact, the opposite is very much the case. The most optimistic cumulative oil and gas forecast (all Scottish oil and gas provinces) for Scottish oil and gas revenues is £4 TRILLION.
There are enough Scottish oil and gas reserves remaining, actually and potentially, to restructure the entire Scottish economy, create a Sovereign Oil Fund, and create a Scandinavian style society where the Scottish “Common Weal“ is paramount.
These estimates are before we add on the oil and gas reserves from the Scottish estuaries (Firths) and Scottish onshore (mainland) oil and gas reserves (over75 million tonnes of crude oil have already been extracted from under mainland Scotland with over 35 million tonnes of crude oil still remaining in place underground in one Scottish mainland well alone).
Added to these super-massive oil and gas revenues would be the tax income one would expect from a normal, wealthy, sovereign nation (income tax, VAT, corporation tax, PRT, etc., etc.).
Scotland is an EXTREMELY WEALTHY COUNTRY, literally `floating` on oil and gas resources.
It is NOT Scotland that has the problem with economic survival as an independent country.
Any person who argues otherwise is either ignoring reality and the facts before them, or they are dealing in lies, deceit and conspiracy (to scare the Scottish people from aspiring to live in a wealthy, socially equitable, just, and inclusive Scotland), light years away from the bankers and financiers capitalist greed in London.
Scotland has a massive bargaining chip with this vast oil and gas wealth.
These Scottish oil and gas revenues are
THE `GAMECHANGER` on a mega scale.
The `scare` stories on Scottish independence being run in the Scottish and English media should be run in reverse as applying to the remainder of the UK after Scottish independence, and not to a wealthy, independent, sovereign Scotland.
Scots oil and gas west of Scotland is only going to make our friends in the south work even harder to save their country and their Scottish region.
That neocon that interviewed Darling for the NewStatesman kept quoting English nationalist historian Simon Schama, who;s decided Scotland run Scotland means they are losing their “common home”.
If there really was no oil, it would have been a lot quieter from BetterTogetherBBC etc
The last. For so much more read:-
link to bellacaledonia.org.uk
Note that the large oil reserves in the Clair-Ridge area, west of Shetland, in the Scottish Atlantic Margin (not the North Sea as some would have us believe), make it the LARGEST oil accumulation yet known on the Scottish Continental Shelf (SCS), larger than anything in the Scottish North Sea (can you remember that being a lead story in the media?).
Manandboy
Is that the Clair Lally Ridge? Just asking as that seems to be what is obsessing BT rather than the wilful lying about Scotland’s abundant natural resources.
If a fluffy kitten is naughty there is nothing to gain by criticising it.
You can replace “fluffy” kitten with rich single mother ,mother with cancer,mother with disabled child,father left caring for triplets or as Gordon Brown found out a self opiniated old age pensioner who has fluffy red hair.
To leave an open goal for an unconvicted war criminal is in itself criminal. Learn the fluffy rules and be BLOODY SMARTER.
UKOK…No Thanks.Vote YES
I suspect JK Rowling has a story she’s not telling us.
I also suspect she has no idea of just how incredibly wealthy Scotland really is.
I have been a keen lurker for the past two months and have decided to join the ranks of the living with my first comment. The story with regards to Ms Lally and the deflection from Mr Darlings blood and soil comments have finally tipped me over the edge. I have also felt the need to complain to the BBC for the first time(complaint below)and boy did it feel good.
‘Blatant bias and miss-information by the BBC once again only half truths and partially correct reporting. Ms Lally is no ‘ordinary mum’ but is infact a Labour activist. This was not an attack on her personally but the twisting of the truth with regards to NHS Scotland and the reciprocal agreement in place with other parts of the NHS across the UK.
The BBC having already reported on the Vote no borders advert being pulled with the same theme should be well aware of the total inaccuracies in Ms Lally’s views and this should be the real story not some cover up to divert from Mr Darling’s blood and soil nationalism comments.
The BBC should withdraw this incomplete story or at least update the article with the correct information.’
I am not holding my breath on a quick reply.
Iain MacWhirter battling away on twitter trying to get folk to calm down, to stop trawling for abuse and grow up.
Stairheid rammy Curran then has a go at MacWhirter for suggesting women need to grow up, which he didn’t, his comment was not gender specific. Poor guy!
The place is going nuts, and guess who wins out of this.
Clootie says:
Hi, well that was the list available to me, I do not know when it was compiled or how often it is updated. But it is a start. Cannot find a contact for The Scottish Caucus to email them direct but maybe someone could find it, I will continue to try.
I have sent an email to the American-Scottish Foundation.
Someone in London has a Report on the Scottish Atlantic Margin oil and gas potential. It is inconceivable to think otherwise.
Like the McCrone Report, it is being conveniently `concealed` at this point in time.
The Scots are being taken for fools by Westminster concerning (Scotland’s)their own vast assets and wealth.
The reader should take some time and join the dots for themselves. Analyse and compare the data and you will find that the emerging picture is very far from the doom and gloom independent Scotland some would like you to
believe.
Trust me, with the current and future oil and gas reserves, the debt and finance issues are not a problem for an independent Scotland.
The only people who get the “sums wrong“ on Scottish oil and gas revenues are the people who have, and continue to conceal, the REAL value of Scotland’s vast oil and gas wealth.
A poster on Wee Ginger Dug noted that Jakey Rolling is an sporting event in Glasgow….
Hmm…lot of frustration and anger floating around.
Channel it here: link to bellacaledonia.org.uk
Stoopid ‘n’s!
@ manandboy, thing is England, sorry, the UK needs all that oil very badly for stuff like HS2, pay off national debt, Trident 2,some more wars in the middle east, more motorway and dual carriageways that end just north of Newcastle and so on.
Why does UK high speed road network end at Newcastle and here’s very scary BBC rage at Scotland plan cutting APD to try and boost Scots growth. But this is an outrage for the BBC, in Glasgow, who have nothing to say about the non road from Edinburgh to England etc
link to newsnetscotland.com
O/T but far enough into the thread:
@manandboy at 4.07pm
“Someone in London has a Report on the Scottish Atlantic Margin oil and gas potential. It is inconceivable to think otherwise.”
Yup. Hence the move to “create” some kind of idea that the Western Isles want independence from Scotland, as promoted by The Guardian. The unionists (sic) started trying this in Shetland and Orkney as soon as oil was discovered there, so the recent unionist moves regarding the Western Isles is of no surprise.
How would that work with Desendants of western isles families who got kicked of their land by the Scottish Goverment at the time, would we get a vote? and what would they do if we decided to reinvade our lands?
Once ENOUGH numpties have voted NO then the “BRITISH” Atlantic margin wealth will be slipped out and they will stop kidding on its in the North Sea. The thought of Westminster loosing the vast wealth will not be allowed at any cost. Even violence on behalf of the Westminster thugs will be visited on poor we Scotland to ensure the daft Scots are kept in their place, HMG is capable of anything when it’s wealth and power is questioned.
Just read your history books. Once we have voted No they will enforce that situation (legally) for as long as possible and with as much force as is needed to protect their control, rape, pillage and plunder over the people who call Scotland home. BE WELL WARNED.
OFF Topic – If any Celtic (indeed any football club is fine) fans out there are interested, I’ve opened up a wee Can of Independence worms over here and would welcome your comments:
link to etims.net
BBC now giving big licks to that shrinking violet John Reid complaining about Cybernats.
@Sinky
This John Reid?
John Reid’s “threats of a particularly disturbing kind”
Filkin also condemned Reid for having contacted Alex Rowley, the general secretary of the Scottish Labour Party from 1998-1999. Rowley was a key witness in the inquiry.
“Shortly after Filkin started her investigation, John Reid had contacted Rowley and ‘made threats of a particularly disturbing kind’, Filkin wrote in her report to the committee.
Reid had told Rowley that if he continued to give evidence that suggested wrong-doing he could ‘face criminal prosecution and risk not being adopted by the party as a parliamentary candidate’. Rowley was so worried about what Reid was saying, he taped their next conversation. It was a tense chat. During it, Reid said to Rowley: ‘You don’t have to tell any lies. Do you know what I mean?’, later adding: ‘They cannot prove anything, Alex.'”
@Papadox
This is what worries me. I work in the oil industry and when I try to discuss with many No’s. They reply “but what happens when it runs ott”. God help us. Don’t they realise by the time it “runs ott” Scotland will be so wealthy it doesn’t matter.
Just in case no-one has aaid it already, in respect to Alastair Darling, do we need a new name of
cybernatzi
@desimond
Yes that Reid, truly vile individual which is turning out to be the case with most at the head of Labour.
Why anyone would want to be associated with that lot beats me.
There is no such thing as Scots oil. Its all the UK’s but this is the whole problem. If only people like Rowling or the BetterTogether/BBC liggers would just be honest for once and just say out loud,
“Britain is England. I am English and I am not going to stand by and watch half my country taken from me by a monstrous minority in Scotland”
Obviously vote NO teamGB cant say that, but this is how history will record Scotland’s slide down the teamGB pan, with Lord and Lady ("Quizmaster" - Ed)s amply rewarded.
There’s a lot of fucking anger being vented today and I blame it entirely on the way the msm in this country is reporting the debate , half truths misrepresentation and downright lies by bt , these fucks need to up their game , I smell the shitty paws of secret services in all of this . John reid was on the radio there spouting uninterrupted shite earlier, I was driving as well lol roaring like a bull
Interesting discussion regarding the #potterforno donation.
Interested to hear opinions on whether this will put off the hundreds who attend the grass roots groups around Scotland. I’m of the opinion this may drive more don’t knows to meetings or on-line discussions, in an attempt to find some truth.
Surely Scotland’s future is not going to be decided on what a celebrity thinks or decides what side to support?
Do you think there are enough airheads voting to swing this for no?
From the bilge NO has been producing so far, a further million, or even billion, is going to produce more of the same bilge. Albeit on glossier paper.
A request for donations from Yes football supporters in Dundee. I am sure they would appreciate a million pounds too.
link to indiegogo.com
@Nana Smith
Maybe this will change your mind on that nice wee man
link to sourcewatch.org
(PS it wont! 🙂 )
‘Nope Kills Hope’
link to scottcreighton.co.uk
All day on BBC Radio Scotland, they’ve been asking for the head of Campbell Gunn, the unionist propaganda machine has been running overtime, no mention of Alistair Darling’s blood and sand.
@desimond
Nope
Les
On the two international treaties which are mainly involved here. the ECHR and the ICCPR, I believe the UK has opted out of allowing groups or political parties from appealing and it needs to be done by individuals.
The problem is that a complainant has to show that all ‘local remedies’ have been exhausted.
That means that all the court appeal systems have to be gone through before you can appeal.
And because the UK has ridiculous court expenses and because it has to be an individual, that effectively rules out everybody but multi millionaires.
However, both the ECHR and the ICCPR(UN) have Special Rapporteurs who can, if persuaded, take it on their own initiative to investigate matters.
This happened recently when a UN Special Rapporteur managed to embarrass the UK government over the issue of exponential increase in food bank usage here, although the MSM played it down.
The OSCE have monitored in places they were not welcome, but, IMO, they are too close to the UK government and will not do so, using required invitation as an excuse.
SR’s are I think the best option.
On BBC Scotland now Jim Sillars discusses MI5 and agent provocters, provokists, provoeceurs, trouble makers! but he’s sitting/chatting in the £500 million Pacific Quay HQ with biggest BBC trouble maker of all who keep not running Alistair Darling’s nazi Scotland slander in the New Statesman. MI5 hardly need turn up for work with this maximum level of ukok BBC propaganda.
Whats important is that Boris Johnson has agreed to be shot by a water cannon.
whats important is that Boris Johnson has just agreed to be shot by a water cannon.
Links between BBC and MI5.
link to archive.today
oops. sorry for the double post. But it is important.
Jakeface rowling is licky that she wasn’t sued back into poverty for her blatant plagiarism but that’s by the by.
Amazing that she is described as an Edinburgh Resident in the guardian. Maybe telling the truth and reporting that a Billionaire champagne-socialist is preaching to the Scots from her castle in Perthshire wouldn’t quite get the same support from their readers.
Also her arguments are truly disgusting. Salmond is evil. Scotland is TWTPTS. And worst of all. The English are such a bunch of racists that if we even dare vote for freedom then they will react so badly as to attempt to destroy us. She manages to be Scoto-phobic and Anglo-phobic simultaneously. No wonder she’s a close friend of mentalcase brown and his disgusting lavender wife.
@heedtracker
I’m no really seeing the big deal about this Nazi thing. Havent we been down this road before with the Sunday Herald Swaltire cover.
Trust me, we will be called a whole lot worse following a YES vote and remember revenge is a dish best served cold
desimond
It was Scotland on Sunday NOT the Sunday Herald.
Have to ask but there are no new articles on wings today .
Is Stu ok ? maybe having a day off ??
Not complaining just a little concerned. it’s not often we get a day without new articles and there is plenty of stuff out there.
Can someone get back to me to let me know a s a p.
@ Marcia
Since Dens Park has BT propaganda all over it they’ll be getting sod-all from me. Sorry United.
@YESGUY
Stu was on BBC radio thus morning discussing recent events.
@Yesguy: he’s been doing some press interviews. Including live on BBC Scotland.
YESGUY – Stu’s been on radio Scotland today and a BBC TV interview.
From WOS twitter acct 5hrs ago:
‘You might be on your own today, readers. Can’t move for people wanting to stick my ugly mug in front of a camera.’
and an hour ago:
‘BBC have of course failed to book me a return cab, leaving me stranded five miles from my car at the other side of Bristol :D’
Newsdrive on beeb Scotland have got to recognise how pathetic they sound trying to spin the Lally story.
Even Brian Taylor and Glen Campbell have corrected wee Mhairi.
Not stopping her referring to it as cyber bullying though.
Stu is busy being interviewed by the MSM about the Clare Lally article. He’s already been on Radio Scotland and he’s been interviewed by Scotland Tonight, I think he’s also going to be on the BBC? According to his last post on Twitter feed: ‘BBC have of course failed to book me a return cab, leaving me stranded five miles from my car at the other side of Bristol :D’ which means he’s probably stuck somewhere in traffic right now
@TJenny – snap 😀
Cindie – 🙂
Thanks every one.
Getting a wee bit paranoid but hey whats new.
have to put the telly on now to see how they deal with him. Hope he’s on form and gets the word out, you have to be a crafty bugger to do so as the BBC shits are pretty well versed in the art of the “spin”
Right folks, My wife has just sprung this on me and I’m about to head out canvassing this evening. Her Chinese friend who writes for a free Chinese newspaper available all over UK and she’s looking for answers to the following questions for her article:
How will you vote and why?
What do you think will be the positives and negatives on your life of an independent Scotland? (obviously all +ve from us!)
How are you going to plan personally for life in an independent Scotland.
Answers to these questions will form the basis of her article.
This is our chance to shine to the Chinese community. Answers needed by tomorrow. Go for it!
Regarding the oil, I think the SNP made a mistake by not proposing a national Scottish energy company.
Norway has made billions out of Statoil, and they have expanded overseas, so when the Norwegian oil eventually runs out, they will still have a major international company bringing in income – the world’s 11th biggest oil company it says on their wiki page.
There was a post yesterday suggesting the high tax rates mean that the industry is already effectively nationalised, but having a state company means we are also benefiting directly from our own resources, and provides long term security.
51% control would mean a scottish HQ, thousands of high quality jobs, and would be safe from takeovers.
IMO we need to see simple concrete pledges made about changes that will benefit people here.
Along the lines of the council tax freeze.
Not just assertions that can be disputed.
Whahay – just saw oor Stuey on Reporting Scotland. He was asked re the JKR ‘cybernat’ attacks whether he had been contacted by YES to have a co-ordinated cyber attack and he said no, and that even if they had contacted him to do so, he would have refused.
Disgracefully biased report by Alan Little on the BBC. All about those evil cybernats but those on the other side are all angels apparently. And no mention of Alastair Darling’s comments whatsoever.
Cal
Do you have a link to the paper?
That is,if they have a site.
Was at the Edinburgh royal infirm to day for a wee check up, vascular dept , Doc asked me if i was more stressed these days and how i coped , told him
” i’m stressed to the max everyday with the BT campaigners lies and smears” ” their doing my heed in doc”.
“aye” the doc says “i know how hard that can be, are you a YES voter ”
“Aye and i try hard not to get too riled but it’s hard ”
“Keep your heed up ” he says ” september is no too far away and we will get there, just promise me you’ll take it easy and not celebrate too much on the 19th”
” can’t promise you that doc, but i promise you if i live long enough to read Scotland is now an independent nation then you’ll have done your job”
left him a wee YES badge before i left . Says he’ll wear it in his civvies as he can’t show badges in uniform, and chatted about the NHS . He’s a YES man and he says most of the staff are. Great news ,
After all the guff on telly and the papers it was nice to meet a YESSIR . I don’t get out much and rely on sites like Wings etc . Today was a good day.
And the sun is shining too .
Very young Yorkshire lass, Coletta Smith BBC London cub reporter on BBC Radio Scotland, again.
Reporting to the historic Scottish Nation on Scotland’s economy.
She’s very young and not an economist. Only has a POLITICS degree, from Durham university.
BBC London / UK Home Office has to be writing her scripts.
link to agendani.com
ps. Where is experienced Douglas Fraser BBC Scotland Business Economy editor! Has he resigned/sacked! I always rated him a honest broker!
pps. found this about Government/BBC relationship on Cabinet Office website:
link to gov.uk
BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is a British public service broadcaster. Its main responsibility is to provide IMPARTIAL public service broadcasting in the UK.
BBC is a public corporation of the DEPARTMENT for CULTURE, MEDIA & SPORT.
Under control of Conservative Minister SAJID JAVID MP, Secretary of State and Equalities Minister.
link to gov.uk
JKR will be well pissed off on the 19th though, eh?
Just had 4 low flying eurofighters go over my house…they’re either scaring the peasants or practising for the real thing in September….I kid you not!
Great to see you on stv Reverend, big waves from Aberdeen!
Incredible STV fudge of Lally though, not once did STV liggers even mention she’s a member of the Labour Shadow Cabinet in a very long detailed attack on the evil and cruel cybernats and how evil and cruel they are, without any actual cybernats abuse to show how us all up here.
Funny that STV
I may be just another blogger but I care a lot, unlike some I do mention.
link to whitefeatherclub.wordpress.com
Probably both!
Just a filler from today –
Shortlist piece from today : Ken Loach / Film Director
” The BBC is controlled by the government. The people who control independent TV are agai, government linked. The government dishes out the franchises and the people who get the franchises will sing the song the government wants to hear.
Tony Benn once said we dont need the KGB here because we’ve got the BBC and it’s true. There has to be fundamental changes in how broadcasting is organised for it to represent the breadth of opinion there is un the country ”
Others know whats going on – just not journalists
My boy Lollipop! Vote NO BBC attack machine actually stopped attacking Scottish democracy for a minute or two with some groovy pop tunes. Dear God when will it end?
@Marcia
Thanks, getting good guys and bad guys mixed up again!
link to snotr.com
Just checked my BBC News app. Out of 9 headlined items, 3 relate to the referendum & are as follows:-
1. Rowling’s £1million donation to BT
2. Lally (“I’m just an ordinary voter”) refuses to accept apology from Salmond advisor
3. Sturgeon “refuses” to discuss “start-up costs” post independence
Good old balanced service from the Beeb continues! The Lally story in particular is pathetic.
Well, that’s Clare Lallys 15 minutes of fame and a place in the shadow labour cabinet assured. Oh what a surprise, this was a set up from the start. BBC in Scotland all over it.
We ALL know what’s going on, Gordoz. Keep the faith.
The Rev needs to keep a close eye on his blog today. A few new ‘sympathetic’ posters have set off my personal alarm bells.
To be fair, if someone accused me of being related to Pat Lally I’d be p***ed off. This CL thing is obviously the first shot in a really gutter level campaign by the unionists. The only apology needed has been given, yet she refuses to accept it. Well, I want an apology right now, from her, to the population of Scotland for attempting to mislead us.
Horseboy – Douglas Fraser tweeted a wee while ago that he would be absent for a while owing to medical reasons.
Don’t watch telly! They’re trying to wear you down….a bit like waterboarding! Hey…I thought the Brits were against torture?
Just laugh and carry on…hee hee.
rab_the_doubter – I know, I too find it funny that a Slab member and Slab shadow cabinet member, appears to be very cross at being linked to Pat Lally. 🙂
@Juteman 6.37pm
Or like myself Juteman i’ve been lurking for a few months and today has just tipped me over the edge and if I dont post and vent my spleen my head might just explode.
BBC Does its Bit For The British Government.
“JK Rowling is subjected to Online Abuse.”
By whom?
We are not told.
By implication, by only weird, delusional cybernats.
To the BBC J K Rowling’s opinion matters more than all the people put together. The rest of us are one glutinous mass: dissenters, separatists, freaks, cannon fodder.
The important thing is to remember to not mention the grassy knoll. 🙂
The latest cybergnat storm is merely another disturbed teacup. Clare whatever is a side issue, just another bit of BT semi-astro-turfing (at least Clare lives in Scotand) desperate to assume a grass roots mantle.
JK I thought had already given this money months ago but obviously it has been held back to the formal fund raising period. Again it doesn’t matter as both sides are limited to 1.5m So whether from one donor or 50 it all goes into the same finite pot.
There are bigger fish to fry and more important issue to get het up about. I think the outrage and arguments are contrived and postured. BT are desperate to take the sting out of the Yes social media because we are faster, more potent and far more numerous than anything they can muster. However,it would seem they don’t really get the internet, the genie does not go back in the bottle.
Ms Lally refuses opologie, so she ‘s no getting a invite tae
Wee Duggie’s Rconciliation Service. If that wiz Ben Gunn
that said that, instead of Campbell Gunn it would be a long
running show at the Fringe, her false face exposed.
Interesting to think that in today’s Britain Ms. Rowling would not be able to sit in a café while out of work and write her book. She would be on a mandatory work programme being taught yet again how to update her CV or working unpaid in Poundland.
Another interesting observation in relation to the characterisation of Independence supporters as Nazis is how often one looks at the Facebook pages of those speaking out against Independence and finds their page full of links to the likes of the BNP and Britain First. I don’t think I have ever seen this with a Yes supporter.
All this media coverage over the Claire Lally storm in a tea-cup story and the JK Rowling donation has riled me up something awful!
Ah well, we must be doing something right if the media are only reporting this. Just made another generous donation to the Yes camp.
Speaking to a colleague today. When this person woke up this morning they were a No voter. Someone had mentioned to them during the day that if Scotland votes no, then we’ll be the only country to have refused independence. Got them thinking. Had a good talk with them about some of the issues they’re unsure of. Still undecided but thinking seriously about it now. We know once undecided, and given the facts, the traffic is in one direction! YES.
Les Wilson, I found this:
link to senate.gov
Lists the senators and contact details. Combined with your list which is on Scots Gov. site from 2009:
link to scotland.gov.uk
People can match senators to the contact list. Note, not all senators on Scots Gov. site will still be in office in the current senators list, but many will be. Narrows it down methinks 🙂
Time to bring in the rear guard!
@YESGUY
Like you, if I can live to read that Scotland is now an independent nation I can die happy. Hopefully not right away.
Brotyboy and Yesguy – you’ll have to keep going till spring 2016 then!
ANDY-C @6.27pm
those fighter jets did they have tail banners saying irac here we come
sorry andy-c miss spelled iraq
dam it wrong spelling again i give up goodnight folks very long day
K1,
I’ve emailed a fair number of those on the list but no response thus far. I suppose the more who do the more likely to attract some attention. Good luck and let us know how it goes.
Les – we need to enlist support from our emigres because we are under the Westminster cosh; BBC propaganda, press allied to the UK Establishment, NO form of appeal to external monitors because it is the exclusive right of the Westminster/UK Government to request it.
We are politically and state oppressed – like the anti-Scots machinery that depopulated our country and chased many of our and their forebears to their new world, they went and successfully helped create ‘their’ USA. We now need their help to recover their and our Scotland – the horn is calling !
Good luck Les, if I can help please ask – the door’s wide open.
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