Making numbers dance
Without a doubt our new favourite Unionist website is this one:
And it’s not just for the snazzy badges.
The site’s core premise is that traditional last refuge of the truly desperate: the conceit that everyone who doesn’t vote for your opponents is tacitly voting for you. But we’re actually going to skate over that because, remarkably, it’s the LEAST ridiculous thing on the page.
We’re not even going to dwell on the comically fantastic contortions it undertakes in order to put forward the, er, audacious proposal that the 2015 general election was actually a GOOD one for the Labour Party in Scotland.
But that does lead us to a slightly more substantive point.
The site’s headline claim that “Most Scots do NOT support independence from the United Kingdom” is founded on conflating votes for the SNP with support for independence – an idiotic notion destroyed on a near-weekly basis by opinion polls universally showing that a significant minority of SNP voters oppose independence while significant minorities of Tory, Lib Dem and (especially) Labour voters support it.
Wonderfully, the site goes on to immediately shoot its own premise down in flames. Having claimed that non-SNP parties got 50.03% of the election vote, which proves that most voters oppose independence, it then mumbles a footnote in tiny text at the bottom of the page admitting that if you include the votes for other pro-indy parties, the situation reverses.
Hilariously it dismisses Green and SSP votes as representing “only 1% (one in a hundred) of the Scottish electorate”, somewhat downplaying the rather crucial fact that if your lead is only 0.06%, then a discrepancy in your figures of 1% actually puts you behind.
Using the site’s own demented methodology, including all pro-indy-party votes in the Yes camp sees it win by 1,494,536 votes (50.7%) to 1,456,029 (49.3%). Hurrah! It seems most Scots DO support independence from the United Kingdom!
Now, mocking one deranged website knocked up by a solitary imbecile would make us no better than the sort of hacks who obsess endlessly over the antics of the “Scottish Resistance” (while studiously ignoring equally-mad Yoons like the ones who set up a petition to complain about a word definition in the Oxford Dictionary).
But the tortured methodology deployed by “64 Percent” – where apples aren’t so much being compared to oranges as to blue whales, tractor factories or magnesium atoms depending on what the desired effect is from moment to moment – is simply a more comically extreme version of one regularly utilised by far more mainstream voices on the Unionist side.
The Times has been ploughing more or less a lone furrow over the past week or so in focusing on a particular sticking point in the devolution negotiations – the setup costs of the tax and welfare frameworks Holyrood will need to exercise its new powers.
A whole slew of different figures have been thrown around, making the truth almost impossible to discern. A single piece in the paper last Wednesday, for example, talked of the costs being “between £300m and £600m” – a 100% error margin – and then said that a UK government offer of £12.5m represented a “£500m gap”.
The usual crop of troll pundits and amateur bloggers has suddenly leapt on the story, claiming that it proves the cost of setting up an independent Scotland would be astronomical and contrasting the figure with earlier comments made by Alex Salmond.
The problem, of course, is that the two things being compared are not even remotely alike. For a start, any devolution of governance will fundamentally always be more expensive than independence, because it involves duplication and bureacracy.
(If Scotland is only responsible for SOME welfare, then you need a Scottish welfare agency AND the UK’s Department for Work and Pensions to cover all of it, but an independent Scotland only needs the former. With partial devolution you then also need extra layers of complicated administration for the two to liaise with each other and settle demarcation disputes.)
But the £200m Salmond referred to was NOT the total cost of setting up an independent Scotland, and nor was it a figure produced by him, the SNP or the Scottish Government. It came from Professor Patrick Dunleavy of the London School of Economics, and referred only to an initial expense which was part of a much wider long-term calculation.
If you get clueless media pundits and amateur bloggers to simply pluck random digits out of the middle of complex calculations done by properly qualified grown-ups, or use entirely separate data sets to misrepresent two halves of the same thing, no intelligent person will afford you any more respect than they do the nutters of “64percent”.
But sadly, clueless amateurs and nutters are all the Unionists seem to have available.
That website does fit with the maxim; statistics, statistic and damn lies.
The fruitcake’s take on the increased vote for Labour in May was one of the best. He or she failed to mention that the SNP vote increased by over 552,000 in the same period. Also no mention at all of the foreign nationals who voted in the Referendum but not able to vote for Westminster.
Number done on zoomers. Thanks, Rev.
I think some of those from the media know perfectly well what they are doing, telling lies on purpose!
Neatly done Rev.
Heh, was waiting on the usual suspects falling down that hole and it seems they happily obliged. 🙂
I’ve always loved this senseless idea that the non-votes of non-voters can be applied endlessly to contrary views. It’s almost as if the non-votes count for more than the votes cast.
Certainly the Labour Party must subscribe to this notion, as they constantly try to argue that their abstentions are somehow positive.
The unionists have always counted each others vote as opposition to the SNP and the premise for support of the union.
I remember a TV interview Thatcher did in the 1980s if I remember correctly where she was asked the question, where did she get her mandate from, that allowed her to implement her policies in Scotland, her answer was from those people in Scotland who voted Labour.
I have been trying unsuccessfully on the internet to find the that quote.
As the unionists cannot put forward a credible case for the retention of the union I am finding their antics not only becoming desperate but also hilarious.
Good old UK Treasury proved themselves to be another pretty serious bunch of great British liars, on just this just set up cost issue alone.
“In May, the Treasury published a detailed analysis of the financial risks of independence which claimed that a previous report by Dunleavy put Scotland’s startup costs as high as £2.5bn. Dunleavy told the Financial Times that figure was “bizarrely inaccurate” and misrepresented his work.”
From rancid The Graun, summer 2014, UK civil servants “bizarrely inaccurate” and misrepresented his work.” Never.
Apart from the substance of the issue – as far as I’m concerned the Yooney Tunes artwork (above) would make a FAR better badge than 64percent.scot’s effort.
“But sadly, clueless amateurs and nutters are all the Unionists seem to have available.”
They have dog food salesman as well.
I have little doubt that this will be the bum narrative adopted when the Scotland Bill is rejected by Holyrood.
Not that the current treasury proposals breach the ” no detriment” clause or anything else in this watered down apology of a bill masquerading as a devolution settlement.
Nope, it was all going to be way to expensive, as they predicted during the referendum.
Far to many of these bums, politicians and civil servants graduated from the noddy school of economics and journalism.
Ha ha, this is just some wag going to make money from badges – shut up, and take my money!
On a more sinister note, that pic of Salmond has been photoshopped.
OT. If anyone is wondering about First Minister’s Questions today the Scottish Parliament Website states:-
“Parliament in recess.
The Scottish Parliament will be in recess from 13 February 2016 to 21 February 2016.
During recess the building will be closed to visitors and there will be no committee meetings or debates held in the Chamber. The Parliament building will open again to visitors on Monday 22 February.”
Is this the same Euan McLeod who works for the Record? I think we should be told…
Herald headline.
Poll: 40% of Scots back 1p tax hike but Labour’s still lagging behind SNP in Holyrood race.
So according to the way the above figures are counted this story in the Herald means that 60% don’t agree with a penny on tax.
Last line from that yoonery website
“First put online: 18 May 2015; corrected: 19 May 2015; last updated 25 May 2015. “
One for the ‘ignore’ bucket I think
Where’s Jim Murphy these days? He’s not the brains behind the 64% site, is he?
I like the “Partners not Prisoners” analogy – if we were prisoners we would not have the vote and a lot of the pish that they have written would be moot…
Using their logic, an equally apt headline would read “89.4% did NOT vote Tory!”
Hmmm, just been doing some votes checking of my own.
So, 64% did not vote for SNP.
Well,
83% did not vote for Labour,
89% did not vote for Conservatives,
95% did not vote for the LibDems,
99% did not vote for UKIP.
So it is very clear that the fairest outcome given the use of First Past The Post is that the SNP be the winning party. No other party has a better claim to power if there can only be one winner, and that is solely due to FPTP, and that is Westminster’s favourite voting system, and they absolutely refuse to reform it.
So for the crew that “bizarrely inaccurate” and misrepresented his work.” And “his” being Professor Patrick Dunleavy of the London School of Economics, they all got awards. One says he/she cried, boo hoo, blub blub.
link to civilserviceworld.com
Crocodile tears. How many other regimes, in the West at least, have civil servants that boast about their bizarrely inaccurate misrepresentation of stuff like facts n shit?
“We all had something in common, we’re trying to save the Union here, and it came so close. We just kept it by the skin of our teeth. I actually cried when the result came in. After 10 years in the civil service, my proudest moment is tonight and receiving this award.”
He added: “As civil servants you don’t get involved in politics. For the first time in my life, suddenly we’re part of a political campaign. We were doing everything from the analysis, to the advertising, to the communications. I just felt a massive sense of being part of the operation. This being recognised [at the Civil Service Awards], makes me feel just incredibly proud.”
I should add, there is nothing wrong in selling books.
Having now visited the site,I have just about stopped laughing enough to contribute.
If ever there was a case of Transference it is on that page.They accuse the SNP of everything we know they do every day. Some of the old favourites are there,like Russian president Putin seeming moderate in comparison to the SNP.
Their facts are gleaned from Wikipedia,selectively of course.
It is interesting they proffer the idea that the SNP want to sever and interrupt family and other connections throughout the UK.Remind me,who wanted border posts erected in the event of a yes vote?.
Amazing to read the mindset of fear in one page. As we have spoken about on this site,it is a rallying call to Unionism rather than political allegiance. The tone is decidedly conservative,and there is reference to adolescents clapping in the House of Commons.
Bring it on..We will eradicate you from all facets of political influence between now and next year’s Council elections.
I have several friends who are staunch Unionists, but they ain’t stupid. They have spoken about decisions for the future being dependant on many factors.
Ultimately they see the Union as being separate from the governance of Scotland on a daily basis, irrelevant of whether they wish to remain in the UK. That is the weakness in the Unionist argument. People can and do separate the two things.
Good article. The analogy between lone nutters acting on their own and lone nutters employed by the colonial media is fitting.
I have always voted. The only way to deal with those who don’t care about the outcome is to assume they are content to go along with the views of those who do care.
As for mad Yoony statistics – that is all they have. There is no case for continuing the Union – economic, moral or democratic.
No Yoon, that I know of, has ever tried to put forward a positive case. All they offer is deflection, moaning and grievance towards the rapidly evolving reality.
Quite the busy bee is Mr Foreman.
link to independentmindedscot.blogspot.co.uk
@ frogesque
So long they’re not from a library 😉
As daft as me claiming that the people who didn’t vote in the May election are separatist sleepers.
So 64% didn’t vote for the union in May, so there, stick that in your pipe and smoke it!
OVER 62% OF SCOTTISH CITIZENS DID NOT VOTE TO STAY IN UNION
Technically that headline is correct,
pop 5,295,000
no vote 2,001,926
which means 3,293,074 did not vote to stay in Union
which is 62.19 % of the pop of Scotland.
The miserable hacks of the Yoon rags make up a headline and hope you don`t read how they got to that headline.
Question for any hacks out there,
is the use of this type of misinformation taught at hack school by hack teachers?
Can someone remind me what percentage of the total UK electorate DIDN’T vote for our present all-powerful ‘popular’ Tory government?
“For a start, any devolution of governance will fundamentally always be more expensive than independence, because it involves duplication and bureacracy.”
Opinion stated as fact. This is arguable. The solution is in in the word devolution which any sensible administration would use instead of duplication.
But the real issue here is not the actual figures being bandied about, it is the question of scale.
In the referendum Nicola Sturgeon used the Scottish Government website to endorse the Dunleavy report suggesting that the start-up costs for an independent Scotland would be £200M. They also ridiculed Treasury suggestions that it might be somewhat more.
Now we are told that, post-Smith, the setting up of devolved welfare alone (total budget £2.5B) will be an eye-watering £660M i.e. one quarter of the total budget.
That’s some “duplication and bureaucracy”!
Also note that the 64% who didn’t vote SNP includes the almost 29% of the electorate who didn’t vote at all, thereby expressing no preference at all.
If these pillocks are going to pillory the SNP because of the number of voters who didn’t vote for them, why aren’t they dumping even more heavily on all the other parties, every last one of whom were rejected far more decisively?
Sleekit bloody pillocks!
“Using the site’s own demented methodology, including all pro-indy-party votes in the Yes camp sees it win by 1,494,536 votes (50.7%) to 1,456,029 (49.3%). Hurrah!”
Ahem… you forgot to subtract the 40,100 votes from the unionist side. The result should be 1,494,536 votes to 1,415,929 (51.4% to 48.6%).
Everyone,
Don’t keep this information to yourself. Tell friends and family. Remind your MP and MSP. Link to this website via Facebook, Twitter and other media. Show EVERYONE what a bunch of absolute swivel-eyed, rockets these Yoons truly are.
When will we see the Monster Raving Yoony Party? Or do we already have three of them?
A split Regional List vote could let UKIP in. Keep UKIP OUT – SNP x 2
I wonder if the yoons behind this demented arithmetic, are the same yoons that mismanaged the the British economy to the tune of 1.5 trillion pounds.
My work know something I don’t!!!!!!!!
Web Page Blocked!
You have tried to access a web page which is in violation of your internet usage policy.
URL: 64percent.scot/
Category: Unrated
Mmm, by the same token 64% didn’t not vote SNP.
I think *scratches head*.
Wonder if the electoral commission will let us set up a party called The Party No-one Voted For. Think of the votes we’d win! We’d get more seats than the Tories at Westminster according to this yoon’s logic!
Another excellent debunking, Rev, by the way.
[…] Making numbers dance […]
If the fates conspire against me, and I am stuck dead before the next election, can I just state for the record that I wished to vote SNP, least some raving lunatic has me down on his list.
They can only ever harm themselves with this nonsense. Even their steenkin’ badges contain the subliminal message ‘vote SNP’.
@ Andrew Mclean says:
18 February, 2016 at 12:44 pm
“If the fates conspire against me, and I am stuck dead before the next election, can I just state for the record that I wished to vote SNP, least some raving yoonatic has me down on his list.”
Fixed that for you.
At the last UK general election in 2015, 75.6% of the electorate did not vote for the Conservative Party.
But the people got a Tory government anyway. And I’m sure they are all delighted because they are very, very British.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
Westminster should pay for 90% of any set up cost to their plan for further devolution as we pay our 10% share for all UK government departments so seems fair they pay the usual share of the devolution they want to impose on Scotland.
Thank you sir, enjoyed that one.
My inner pedant apologises, Marcia, but it’s “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” I see what you say, but I know what you mean – that’s something I hope people apply to most of what I say.
What was it that (spit) Thatcher said? Oh aye, when Scotland returns a majority of SNP MP’s these Scots can have their Independence.
Actually I disagree with the Rev here.
These figures make perfect sense when you realise they were created using the APD methodology for simple arithmetic.
@ Robert Bryce
I think you will find our friendly dog food salesman comes into both categories of clueless amateurs and nutters ,Kev there is a graph there why dont you show us it lol
What a joke these guys are talk about clutching at straws,i still laugh my head off every time i read that 2015 was a good result for Labour,comedy gold lol
Come on he has adjusted the figures for non response bias.
He knows absolutely that 100% of non responders would have voted for labour but as they knew they would still lose they said to themselves
“ah’ll no vote. That’ll show them SNP bastid we’re no stupit”
Wow!
That’s an incredible website made up of… errrmmm……Wikipedia!
Well that’s a trusted source of information then!
There’s also this quote on the site….
“It is unfortunate that since arriving in London the 50 new SNP Members of Parliament have seemed like naughty adolescents, clapping in the Commons, sitting in other people’s seats and mugging for the cameras. Scotland deserves mature adults who understand the nature of their responsibilities and take their job seriously. It is bad enough that they go to Westminster with such a narrow vision of Scotland; they do not need to shame the rest of us with their poor behaviour. ”
Lets hope the play tomorrow night that’s being directed by the Registrant Contact of that Domain gets a good crowd and the reviews help the directing career rather that his factual website!
Better give him a wee plug. J B Priestley’s The Rose and Crown for the Edinburgh Graduate Theatre Group (“The Grads”) at the Churchill Theatre, Edinburgh in the Scottish Community Drama Association Festival, 19 February.
More info about tickets and general anti everything here… link to martinforeman.com
I don’t even laugh anymore at the hysterical maniacs!
Odins Beard they put more spin on that than thor does with his hammer when he late for a date and trying to get there in hurry.
That Jakey is one messed up waste maker.
So the NO and hate-SNP activists go on and on about the Referendum whatever else is being discussed. According to them Salmond should be held to account, pilloried, have his Tunnocks taken off him, Sturgeon should be sent off to lay track for the HST herself, 24 / 365 (she gets the 29th Feb off), Willie Rennie raises an FOI about a report not due out when all he has to do is ask the question and be told the report isn’t due out yet as the HS2 one was only finished in December 2015.
And Scotland should spend £50 million on a public enquiry to prove that the Independence White Paper actually was written in 2013.
Scotland runs a deficit of £7 billion, £8 billion, £14 billion and £18 billion, all in the one year it seems, when Scotland can’t even have a deficit as we’re part of the Union.
Taxes are going to go up and services down to pay for that deficit when there’s not even a Referendum being talked about apart from by Unionists living in the past having parked their Tardis on double yellow lines the councils can’t afford to paint because they’ve been cut 5% wherease the Scottish Government ahve been cut 1% totally ignoring facts and figures which show nett that councils are being cut 1% same as the SG.
Everyone from the SNP and all other pro-indy parties and supporters say “no detriment” means no detreiment for both Scotland and the UK, and unionists ask “but what about no detriment for the UK, you’re only interested in no detriment for Scotland and want the UK to suffer?”. No, it means no detreminet for both Scotland and the UK. But what about the UK, that’s not fair to the UK?
Apparently Sturgeon is in a right panic about, well, everything I think. She’s pleading with Dave to take more money from Scotland but pretend it’s less so she can tell her foot soldiers who are desperate to have the new powers that she did her best and lo, she got them. When I’m probably about the only foot soldier who actually wants the new powers, the rest thing they’re rubbish.
Did I miss anything?
I know what I’ll do, I’ll create a site that I’m uncomfortable putting my name on, annonymously, then leave all my private information on the domain registry for everyone to see.
Dunderheid.
The Unionist parties meanwhile descend in civil war with each other.
I got a leaflet through the door last night from the Tories, and amazingly it did not make one mention of the SNP or Scottish Government! but directed its attack solely on the Labour party in Scotland…’ labour are YES sympathisers’ blah blah blah.
The SNP have pretty much taken away most of the Labour vote, and all that now remains is a rump core with mostly Unionist leanings. The Tories are circling the carcass of Labour looking to pick off the last remaining unionist scraps and hopefully cross the line in 2nd place.
Labour are fighting a war on two fronts, and seem oblivious to who the real enemy is, and its own inevitable fate.
The Yoonery is strong with this one.
How many of them voted for PR for Westminster?
If they didn’t then they best shut their pie holes.
“Download a version of this website as double-sided bog paper”
Errr, no thanks.
Had a look at the website and read the 7 articles therein. Not one comment on any of them. But what did strike me was that it read very much like the nonsense of one Andrew ..
…. – a onetime regular in the Scotsman.
If it takes a Tory Prime minister three and a half days to dig a big hole for himself with the EU and the nutters in his own party, a hole so deep there is now no hope of escape, how long will it take Osbourne and Hands to cause the break up of the UK by trying to make a £3 billion plus cut in the Scotch pocket money look like £500 million?
Unionist answers to the nearest millennium will be accepted … as for you bloody SNP separatists we want it to the nearest millisecond … love, the BBC.
is FM deadline tomorrow or next Friday for fiscal powers?
“nutters”, “the fruitcake”, ” bunch of absolute swivel-eyed, rockets”, ” hysterical maniacs”
Clearly the well-publicised efforts of this week to improve our approach to mental health have passed unnoticed by some of your correspondents.
They don’t call them Spin Doctors for nothing.
Phil Robertson says:
18 February, 2016 at 1:50 pm
‘“nutters”, “the fruitcake”, ” bunch of absolute swivel-eyed, rockets”, ” hysterical maniacs”
Clearly the well-publicised efforts of this week to improve our approach to mental health have passed unnoticed by some of your correspondents.’
So you’re saying they actually are mentally ill? Thanks for clearing that up for us.
Leaked report reveals scale of crisis in England’s mental health services.
link to archive.is
Tommy enters the lists.
link to archive.is
Another little gem!
link to archive.is
Back on topic: Badges.
link to youtube.com
I did one of them yooniest polls in my house and 100% of the household agreed that MSM and the yooniest parties have the thickest people on the planet!!
So its correct then ?
How come Unionist posters don’t use search engines? Is it:
a) They don’t like facts
b) They don’t understand facts
c) They prefer their own FACTS
d) They don’t know how to use search engines
e) What’s a search engine?
f) They don’t understand the question
g) All of the above
(the rev’s comments) … an idiotic notion destroyed on a near-weekly basis by opinion polls universally showing that a significant minority of SNP voters oppose independence while significant minorities of Tory, Lib Dem and (especially) Labour voters support it.
I get it that significant minorities of Tory/LibDem/Labour voters support independence, but would be grateful for more insight as to why a significant minority of SNP voters oppose it. That is, I have some ideas of my own on the matter, but would value others’ contributions. Tnx.
I’m off a mind the fools ought to be left to their delusions so that they’re ill-prepared to deflect the cause of self-determination a second time.
Keep telling them they are right and the Yes voters are meting away like snow off a windscreen.
Do the Jakey Tweets thing Stu
Go on you know you want to
The whole selection, make them crazy, you know they hate it when you point out all their crap, and what’s glorious about it is there’s nothing they can do about it
@Indyref2
One bit wrong. Edinburgh are painting yellow lines instead of using the cash to fill in the highly dangerous potholes!
“But sadly, clueless amateurs and nutters are all the Unionists seem to have available.”
A case in point is labour’s decision to re-use the same party-political broadcast for their current Holyrood campaign which drew endless jibes and mockery during the Westminster campaign – the one featuring Kezia Dugdale chatting at a table with a cosy little group of primary-school kids who have been fed their lines.
Scottish Independence Referendum 2014
Electorate = 4,283,392
No Vote = 2,001,926 or 46.7% of the electorate
So 53.3% never voted to maintain the Union. Surely Scotland must now be independent then?
Independence
Indy Scotland gets all permanent fixtures, this includes UK civil service offices such as HMRC, and Scotland has more than our share so there’d be spare space for other ministries / offices. So no building costs.
Staff – these would be kept on, so no extra staff costs.
The white paper presumed full asset share, so computers, desks, flower pots, banana trees. So little or no office setup costs for many ministries. It would also include a complete clone of all UK software.
The white paper also presumed transition, so all that’s needed to start with are basics, the rest moves over time – up to 10 years – during which Scotland changes whatever it wants, up to the political party in power. Meanwhile Scotland would pay the rUK – and vice versa – for whatever functions of Government were transitioned. The rUK would need this to or it wouldn’t be able to collect its taxes.
This is why the low figure as Dunleavy came out with, and the additional costs afterwards.
Extra Devolution on the other hand would probably need new offices, new kit and software, even new staff.
Now, that’s the difference, major, massive, and any idiot like the Treasury that tries to compare the two is – an idiot.
47.5% of the total electorate voted NO in the Ref
16/17 year olds were not allowed to vote in the GE
@Yesindyref2
This article might be of interest:
link to en.wikipedia.org
#FatCandy @12.07
You ask ‘Where is Jim Murphy’. The answer is that you will find him waxing eloquent on the New Statesman {clink the link on Stu’s sidebar}.
Of course it is all Tommy Rot because Spud is espousing the cause of the poor from his developed position of a Blairite. What is obvious is that he can’t see past his SNPBad, so his argument all ends up fizzling out with no substance.
Was not Murphy Catholic?
Death of a Don: link to wp.me
If you go to a domain search tool, such as link to ukfast.co.uk, you can enter the website address 64percent.scot and you can read the details of who registered the site, and when. That would include the personal details of one Martin Foreman. I am not disclosing personal details, a la Data Protection Act, because the web registration is a matter of public record and anyone can look at it.
Now, there’s probably more than one Martin Foreman living in Edinburgh, so it’s probably inappropriate to ‘track down ruthlessly’ the person behind this web page. He may or may not be a thespian.
Oh wait. Aye it is him. He seems to have dropped link to independentmindedscot.blogspot.co.uk as of Dec 2014, so this
bloody browser editor cut me off midflow … this new 64% site is a new venture as of May 2015. Took a while for it to impinge on the public. I’d say ‘impact’ were it not for a resemblance to processed coo food rather than brilliant diamond. More plop than ding.
@Jim Mitchell says: 18 February, 2016 at 11:36 am:
“I think some of those from the media know perfectly well what they are doing, telling lies on purpose!”
The thing about, “thinking they know”, Jim, is that all the evidence that has been published in the media for at least 75 years, (about the time I learned to read), indicates that those doing the writing in the media are as thick as a whole stack of very thick planks.
My view is to always rely upon the reliable evidence and all the evidence in this case, over at least 75 years points to the same conclusion.
The Scottish media are generally as thick as planks. I can only judge them on what they write – there is no other evidence showing otherwise.
The author is a him. Martin Foreman to be exact. The Actor/Playwright/Director:
link to who.is
link to martinforeman.me.uk
Note the contact email addresses are the same. #Just saying.
#SexySocialDemocracy
#SexySocialism
How about less than 25% of UK electorate voted for a Tory government, and what government do we have?
I think that we can agree that Labour don’t have and Ed Balls, No Sorry, a Snow Balls chance in hell of winning the 2020 election, therefore Scotland will find that between the years 1970 and 2025,
they have had 37 years of a Tory government, even though they have
never at any time voted for one.
For the hard of learning Yoons, for every 3 occasions that Scots
vote against having a Tory Government, they will get 2 terms of unwanted Tory Government!
No Democracy for Scotland I’m afraid.
We get what the Big Bully next door forces on us and that’s it.
Yup whois website ID has this gentleman as Mr Martin Foreman. The telephone number is exactly the same on the Whois public domain, and the 64 Yooners website so it is fair to say this is the chap gathering all those £1.50s for his wee 5 penny badges.
Having a donner at the guys website is to quote the latE, great Lawrence Olivier’s famous saying about actors’ motivation and crede….
ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME
Sighs.
Source: link to martinforeman.me.uk
Seriously,
I couldn’t help but burst out laughing aloud.
Meet the registrant of this 64.Scot site…
link to martinforeman.me.uk
A VERY DEFINITION OF A YOONER
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Bugger, I was working on recreating the cartoon intro for Looney Tunes (Yoons)for a wee giggle but you have beat me to it ya bugger.
88.8% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
This is the sort of “Yoonery” (is that a thing now?) that really puzzles me. It’s an utterly pointless argument to make. We could all have badges that say:
94% – Did not vote Lib Dem
86% – Did not vote Tory
74% – Did not vote labour
99% – Did not vote Ukip
What these idiots have done – is to simply tally up all the non SNP votes & the people who didn’t vote in 2015, and then imply this was a vote for a single entity – for arguments sake we will call it the UK continuity Party. The trouble is there is no such thing as a UCP in Scotland. trying to blur the lines between parties is what Scottish labour did when it ran Bettertogether, and look what it did to them.
If there was a 65% one would wonder why it lost everything to the SNP. One party State? Mind Rays? Electoral fraud? Burly men perhaps? None of the above. The answer is more simple.
The proud 65% isn’t really 65%:
The non voters lop off a huge amount of this. Non voters don’t count because they didn’t vote. If you are implying a spiritual bond with folk who didn’t vote, well you are in a bad place.
There are many reasons as to why folk don’t vote: Some don’t care regardless of party. Some forgot. Some were on holiday. Some were stuck in the house, out to a party/christening/wedding/other social event. Some may even have died sometime before, but the roll was never updated in time.
Labour saw its vote collapse to 24%
Lib Dems shrank to around 7.5%
The conservatives to 14.9%
The remainder to the smaller parties: greens, ssp etc etc.
Then you have voter geography . How those raw percentages are spread out across the regions. In a FPTP election its the party with a majority that gets the seat. The SNP gained 50% of the actual votes cast. This gave them surge needed to gain an almost clean sweep. It gained this because there is no 65%. It happened because in a multi party democracy, the SNP gained the larger vote share of the votes cast. In 2010 that was labour on 42% in 2015 it changed radically and the lions share is held by the SNP.
The trouble with these SNPouters and Yoons, is that they think the larger electorate think the way they do, and that basically they are all one party against the hated SNP. The reality is that we live in a healthy multi-party democracy with different parties with different ideas as to how to do things. It means people largely don’t foam at the mouth when the SNP are mentioned, and don’t seem to be listening to the proud 65% badge wearers.
They lost because the indyref pushed large numbers of former Lab, tory and lib dem voters into the SNP fold. They’d be better off trying to grapple with that conundrum, than wasting their time making silly badges.
[…] it’s by people who didn’t vote for the SNP. Frequently it’s by people who include non-voters on their side, making preposterous arguments that the SNP are in fact only representing a […]