Information minimalism
Posted on
July 27, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We know you’re not really very big on boring old politics while there are still reality TV “celebrities” alive and desperately punting their “leaked” sex tapes, Scottish Sun On Sunday, but we could probably do with just a little bit more to go on than this:
And in other news even church mice in Scotland will be wealthier however Better Together claimed that Scotland would be denied Cheddar cheese as its an English name.
Still we have to remember that 70% of the readers won’t get past the headline. Go Sun!
£8 billion, for independence, that’s the bargain of the century.
More detail would be nice as you say, but is it just me thinking the way BETTER together has been highlighted looks like the writer is being sarcastic ?
As if, how can we be better together if we are £2300 better off !!
Scots ARE wealthier.
Independence COULD cost more…
on the other hand
Independence COULD cost less…
Independence COULD provoke alien invasion.
Scots will remain wealthier.
There are few certainties in life other than Death, Taxes and that Scotland is a wealthy, resource rich country.
[…] « Information minimalism […]
I would guess it is arrived at by adding all the real GDP figures up, including oil revenues and whisky etc etc and dividing by the population.
It does not mean we have more money in our pockets as a great deal of it does not come near the unwashed as it is siphoned off for Imperial Expenses by Westminster.
It does not address either they great divide between the poor and the (very) rich, which is one of the greatest in the Western World.
But again, we on Wings knew all that anyway.
So this is all about hoodwinking the hard of reading and gullible?
I think, even they know it is all bollox, even if they cannot understand GDP and spread of wealth statistics.
I think all this pro No shite is turning the docile non-voting detached into potential YES voters, if we can get registered and to the polling stations.
Hmmmm 2.3K multiplied by 5.2 Million population equals £11.9 Billion.
Even if it was true that still leaves Scotland almost 4 billion more after the “cost of independence”.
Thats not even scary
Well Labours Ian Price is the latest campaign strategist to be ‘Elbowed out’ by the Better Together campaign, because he has failed to energise the campaign!
I suppose the above BT ‘Claim’ is as energetic, as anything any other BT leader has spouted so far.
On the subject of another BT strategist being side-lined..
Isn’t it strange how they always try to do this in a quiet way? It’s almost like they are trying to keep it secret that they know that their campaign isn’t working, eh?
If BT were a winning side, as the polls are reporting, they are acting very,very strange!
It’s like Dundee United winning every week, and go to the top of the league, as star striker Hamish McThunderbolt scores goals for fun…
Then the manager drops him!
Surely this can’t be right the fans ask, as United stop scoring and Aberdeen begin to catch up.
Don’t worry, we are winning says the United manager, as he drops Colin Van Cat The United Goalkeeper who has not conceded a single goal in the last four months!
United stop scoring and begin to concede an average of three goals per game,
Don’t worry we are well ahead the manager assures everyone, but the fans of Aberdeen see United’s results every week and they are losing, while Aberdeen keep winning.
Aberdeen win the league and United get relegated.
Oops, didn’t see that coming complains the United manager!
Only used A/deen because it’s Stu’s team, but can anyone dig up any campaign that is showing a healthy lead in the polls and yet continually changes it’s campaign approach and also quietly elbows leading strategists out of the way to replace them with people who they say will ‘get them back on track’
It’s bizarre!
O/T early – sorry
Peterhead yeasterday
link to facebook.com
Unionists have run a clever campaign in the sense of succeeding to muddy the waters to the extent too many people feel both side of the debate are exaggerate claims.
This leaves them in, what they see as, an uneviable position of taking stab at a vote, a sort of scratch card approach.
Unionists hope voters play ‘safe,’ though we know safe is protecting sovereignty and running our own affairs. Unsafe is allowing Westminster and its Scotland haters to take a tighter grip of our lives.
The reality of 650 pages of the ‘White Paper’ against the miniscule Better Together pamphlet in all reasonableness ought to convince one side plays open and honest, while the other side is holding its cards close to its chest.
Hence, every time I hear someone say ‘I don’t know who to believe’ I get irked.
I answer, “Do you want empowered or controlled?”
The you have the home page of the Sunday Herald.
link to heraldscotland.com
Well done the Rev, top story – Financial Times’ investors’ magazine: Westminster is playing down potential oil cash
Beat them to the punch again.
Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee. 😀
@Patrick Roden …
It is always a contradiction about what Better Together does on the ground compared to their poll status. I mean if I was a football manager and my team were 4-0 up at half time, I wouldn’t be shitting bricks during the second half. I would be pretty relaxed that my team were going win, maybe even have a laugh or two.
Better Together are acting as if they are about to lose, personnel changes, rebranding, massive spending on outside help, constant trawling for donations, obfuscation, lies and half-truths, nasty put downs of the opposition, constant stream of bile, endless favours from the MSM. This to me is not from a campaign that is going to win comfortably as some polls suggest.
The Better Together/No Thanks UKOK campaign is a reflection of the British State, corrupt, rotten, failing and not trusted by the electorate at large.
New posts, please share
todayinscotland | The Referendum Blues
link to todayinscotland.wordpress.com
Sunday Herald sold out here in too small, poor, stupid oil capital of Europe:D
“BRITAIN’S leading investment magazine has claimed Westminster is deliberately downplaying the potential for oil and…”
No shit Sherlock, glorious Scottish Sunday times full page front cover of Scottish cycling gold winners, so bought that instead. Their front page goes up on the wall at work first thing tomorrow, next to
link to heraldscotland.com
All of which slowly but surely blanking out
link to theguardian.com
I have absolutely no clue what that article is supposed to be implying/saying. Even if we take the fact of “wealthier” at face value (and I see there does not seem to be any indication of how it is arrived at) so what? I cannot even see which side of the debate this is meant to reinforce/support.
Are they playing trivial pursuit?
@macart763m just read that myself have the SH journalists been reading wings again lol hi guys “gives them a big wave”
maybe getting their bum spanked last week did help a little lol
A better together spokesman says blah blah blah oil been good for Scotland but the experts say blah blah blah ,better together blah blah volatile and declining resource blah,he even has the cheek to throw in a bit about how it would put our public services at risk.
hey Sun tell us something we dont know you bums lol
“£8 billion”
We know it’s nothing like that. However, even if it’s true, that kind of money can be lost in the debt versus assets negotiations.
I’m not sure we can interpret the dysfunctional behaviour of the BT campaign as evidence that they are going to lose or that they see themselves as losing. Trying to be objective, we have to understand the difficulties they face.
First, their message is negative, by definition. Second, they are a motley crew, with SLAB, Tories, LibDems, UKIP, BNP, George Galloway and all sorts of other cranks trying to present a united front. Third, as the intellectual bankruptcy of their position is exposed, tensions are bound to build. Fourth, they must be concerned at the events in Glasgow – how can they show they are good Scottish patriots without running the risk of building support for Yes?
So it’s a difficult time for BT. But none of this means they will lose. Their best chance is the reluctance of significant numbers of voters to engage with the arguments. If enough people fail to engage and settle for the status quo by default, they will win. The converse is true for the Yes campaign – the more we can engage people, the better chance we have.
My view is that in the closing weeks of the campaign, we need to distill the message down to a few simple truths and keep driving them home. The arguments are complex, but those who are not engaged now will not be won over by complex arguments. So my suggested simple truths list would be:
1. If we are independent, we will not have to send £800 (net) for every man woman and child to Westiminster every year. So obviously we will be better off.
2. The UK is, in all probability, going to have a Tory / UKIP coalition as its next government. We will be part of that for a while, but we have the option to get out in 2016 if we choose to vote Yes.
3. The only way that we are going to get Trident out of Scotland is to vote Yes.
4. If we want to keep the NHS in its current form, we need to vote Yes. Vote No and the NHS will be privatised over the next few years.
Perhaps there are other “simple truths” that could be added to the list – these are just the ones I would choose. But I really think we need to move into a simple, clear message about why Scotland will be better off being independent and we need to really drive that message home.
Scotland will lose billions year after year if we vote NO
Get off you knees Scotland. You are being used and abused. Take control of your future.
Just want to say to anyone with Sunday Herald connections who may be reading this-well done this week and every week. Your efforts are appreciated by the overwhelming majority of YES supporters,despite the impression you might get by reading some of the comments you read hear on a Sunday.For the first time in years I look forward to buying a newspaper and spending time reading it from cover to cover.
I hope your effort is being reflected in sales.
There’s a lot more info, and a chart, at NewsNet Scotland.
link to newsnetscotland.com
£2,300 per head richer in Scotland ?
Tell it to the Foodbank recipients, tell it to Julie Webster and her 5x children at the Maryhill Foodbank ?
Her enforced poverty is only an illusion.
Hunger is a psychological (not real) result of ConDem Govt prestidigitation – blowing smoke up oor asses ?
SCAB SLAB SILENCE is appalling.
TD is right we must highlight the threat to the NHS if Scots vote NO as we still have numerous nurses and other medical staff who don’t understand the privitisation process in England or the Barnett formula implications.
All this GVA and GDP are meaningless unless your revenue is 100% allocated to your country. In other words, no point in measuring how ‘wealthy’ Scotland might be (except as comparison, the figures are meaningless to the man in the street)
What is much more interesting is Gross Disposable Household Income and Net Disposable Household Income.
The money that your household earns, less the amount paid for Tax, Council Tax, Pensions, Housing, Insurance and other social contributions.
In London the average amount people have left for spending or saving is £36,000 pa
Thats the right way to measure individuals wealth.
Any guesses what the average is in Scotland?
Well how much do you have left to spend after tax, mortgage, pension and other social contributions are taken off?
@TD
I think you are quite right with those top points.
There is absolutely not counter to those BT can offer.
Wingman, I would add, how that wealth is distributed.
That shitty little effort by the Sun does nothing for the low information voter of which there are still many thanks to, surprisingly enough, our worthless MSM. (chiefly the BBC)
Typical responses:
1 – If we are so rich why do we need independence?
2 – Why change?
3 – If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
4 – Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.
etc,
Answers:
1, 2, 3 – Our wealth is squandered by Westminster, it doesn’t stay here. It only benefits the few.
4 – Vote NO and you give any power we have away. Then can and will do anything they like to us, including severe cuts and less powers.
Ah but more power, more powers on offer. I keep reading it.
You mean Johann Lamont who wants to re-introduce prescription charges and Gordon Brown who wants to extinguish Scottish education and the 600 Lords who recently removed key powers from the Scottish parliament and the multitudes of Unionist MPs who are virtually slavering at the prospects of privatizing the Scottish NHS as they are doing at the moment in England?
etc 🙂
Meanwhile The Hootsman is repeating the Sunday Times nonsense claiming that 700,000 would leave Scotland in event of a Yes vote!
Aw!Richt! Whit ane o you gadgies haes ma £2,300?
Ah ken Ah divna hae it.
Sae jist wha’s pauchled ma share?
Really I should say: You mean the power to collect income tax and have our budget cut by double the amount leaving us struggling to fund the NHS etc
By the way income tax is a surprisingly small part of our revenues. There’s definitely no mention in the ‘extra powers’ of the oil industry, the renewables industry, National insurance, Air Passenger duty, Corporation tax, VAT, Control over broadcasting. The list goes on.
Ah well, your name did come up Robert, where’s mine? 🙂
I hope SH follow this up with a big feature on West Coast oil.
Big map of Atlantic Ridge, Clyde basin and showing the licences already sold.
With a cut of 4 billion to the block grant, just for starters if we stay in the union, 8 billion will look like chicken feed by the time westminster have even started to chop masses from Scotland’s pocket money. Money which they condescend to ‘give’ us back from the huge revenues we are forced to send to London.
I would live in a tent if it meant we can be free of their destruction and greed, never mind the contempt they hold toward Scotland.
@Derek M
I’m guessing mind you, but I suspect we have regular visitors on all the main indy sites. *shy wave* 🙂 LOL
Seriously though, when the big lies are exposed its worth grabbing that link and posting it far and wide. Make sure its hard for anyone to ignore it, and enlighten as many bods as possible. We’re close to the finish now and going that extra yard makes a difference.
@Ghengis D’Midgies says: 27 July, 2014 at 1:27 pm:
“Ah well, your name did come up Robert, where’s mine?
Well Ghegis, I suspect that both yours and mine are lumped in with every other Scot’s persons and are being used to pay for the cut in the top tax rate for the very rich people. The rest of it goes to pay for Trident, the UK debt and London infrastructure.
BBC Protest Live now:
link to new.livestream.com
Economic Projections for future Scotland from Muppets – Darling and diddy Danny.?
Gimme a frigging brek
The Diddy that is Danny only recently “projected” Scotland`s Start-up Costs were TWELVE-FOLD WRONG.
£200 MILLION (actual) = £2.7 BILLION (Imaginary ?)
As a FibDem Treasury Minister, his “PLEDGES” are only 4 x years rancid.
Darling`s Incompetence Retired only 4 years ago.
But the Echo has resounded since.
Austerity and MASS Unemployment resulted when Darling last wielded the reins of Financial and Economic Power.
But a MIRACLE has only rcently occurred.
AFTER only 4 years, Darling has grown a brand new brain that has suddenly discovered Fiscal and Economic Competence.?
SEVENTEEN years after being in Govt for 13 years.
Zero miracle in 2008, when he needed one ?
SCAB SLAB MP`s make me puke.
Wasting Foodbank SCRAN.
I assume the mass exodus is from the same Panelbase poll published recently. I’ll be generous and assume they balanced the question with one about emigrating after a no result. Otherwise it’s kind of biased in that it suggests an independent Scotland would be so bad you might think about leaving.
Hi All
Been keeping up to pace recently on all the action of the Referendum and have enjoyed the Wings site and all the comments.
I have also been keeping an eye on Pollingreport.co.uk.
To me, I feel the polls are out a bit but only marginally. As some other posters have articulated the No campaign has been quite crafty in just making everything in the debate opaque thus benefitting the incumbent , the status quo in this case.
It does feel different when I speak to people however there is a sizeable No vote that will not be changing allegiance therefore it is up to everyone of us over the next 7 weeks to work hard, get the positive message out and convert the passion and the LOGIC into a Yes vote!
To that end I have for the first time ever in my life offered to volunteer some time to the Yes campaign.
May the force be with us!
😉
GDP per head is relevant in determining the potential revenue a government can raise which then has knock on effects on borrowing and spending. Whilst it might not have an immediate effect it certainly does, assuming a socially responsible government is elected, have an impact on the punters at every level of society.
It’s time we forgot all this shite about whether or not we will be a £1 richer or a £1 poorer and concentrated on what matters and that is we all will be richer in many more non monetary ways. Just having a written Constitution for the first time, outlawing nuclear weapons on Scottish soil and in Scottish waters, having the Social Policies that will help ALL Scottish people and not the few like at present, having a truly ethical Foreign Policies, these are just a few that will do me for starters. So for the last 7.5 weeks lets start ramming these messages down the ‘doom merchants’ throats.
Let’s get to it and work till we drop.
Auld Rock
Well Ghengis, I suspect that both yours and mine are lumped in with every other Scot’s persons and are being used to pay for the cut in the top tax rate for the very rich people. The rest of it goes to pay for Trident, the UK debt and London infrastructure.
Yep, you nailed it.
It isn’t going into my pocket.
The point is that it need’t come out of your pocket. And it’s assuming government spending stays at the present level. We’re talking about a government that faced with a choice between cuts in health services and WMDs will pick the later.
How many people have had to leave Scotland because of Scotland being in this union is the question you need to ask.
Many, many millions.
Auld Rock, well said. 100% agree.
@Clootie says:27 July, 2014 at 12:48 pm:
“Scotland will lose billions year after year if we vote NO”
More to the point, Clootie, Scotland is losing every year we remain in this union and has lost every year as far back as records have been kept. Thing is, if Scots were to be daft enough to vote NO to independence the resultant reaction from Westminster would be more severe than it has been since the clearances.
O/T Just seen this in an FT email – sorry no link as I can’t access.
“Flagship UK government housing scheme shifts cash from north
A flagship £7bn government scheme to tackle Britain’s chronic housing shortage has shifted cash from poor northern councils to rich areas in the south – with little evidence that it has boosted homebuilding.”
Pooling and sharing – this is what it means, taking from the poor to give to the affluent.
beach thistle posted the FT story in an archive.today link on twitter.
link to archive.today
Sinky says:
‘Meanwhile The Hootsman is repeating the Sunday Times nonsense claiming that 700,000 would leave Scotland in event of a Yes vote!’
Myself, my kids and many friends are considering what we would do if it is a no vote, main idea to emigrate to avoid the backlash that will be used against Scotland and to do so before we are taken out of the EU by westminster. The people threatening to leave Scotland if it is a YES will have no reasons to be fearful for their own wealth or welfare and they bloody well know that. They are already well off and will be even better off with a YES, but perhaps they really would rather see food banks and kids living in poverty, which is the scary bit.