Making up the numbers
We know “Better Together” has a history of mangling statistics beyond all recognition, but today’s effort might just take the biscuit. Their Facebook page and Twitter feed still carries a graphic distorting the true findings of today’s Lord Ashcroft polling to a degree so spectacular as to be unmeasurable.
It’s going to be hard to count all the untruths in that single image – partly because some of them are falsehoods on several different levels – but we’ll try.
1. Where they’ve said 3%, they actually mean 2%. They’re referring to a table on page 9 of this poll data which asked Scots what they thought the priority of the Scottish Government should be. The number who said “independence” was 15 people out of 727, or 2%.
2. The question had in fact asked people about the priorities of “the Scottish Government”, rather than “Alex Salmond”.
3. The option “The economy” was in reality chosen by 18% of respondents, less than half the 41% claimed. (If you bundle in the separate option of “Creating jobs”, which isn’t mentioned in the graph, you still only get to 40%.)
4. The actual figure given by respondents for “Welfare” was 7%, not 2%, and it’s actually listed in the answer options as “Welfare reform“ (our emphasis), which is a very different proposition indeed.
5. But the key lie here is that none of those figures actually come from the full poll sample. As first noticed by the eagle-eyed Gary Dunion over at Bright Green Scotland, they’re taken only from the people who thought the Scottish Government’s current priorities were wrong.
Almost 30% of those sampled – the people who’d said that the Scottish Government’s current priorities were correct – were totally excluded from the statistics.
As far as we can tell, there’s no way of discerning what those people thought from the poll data. 49% of the full sample had said they thought independence was the current priority, but there appears to be no way of knowing how many of them thought that was a good thing and how many objected to it.
There is, therefore, no possible way of determining from the figures what the real percentage of people who think the Scottish Government’s priority should be independence is. It could, we think, be anywhere from 2% to 32% based on those numbers, and probably at the upper end of that scale. The only thing we can say with any reasonable degree of certainty is that it almost certainly isn’t 3%.
The figures, then, are not only multiply wrong, but based on an utterly meaningless premise. It’s a shambolically-constructed piece of polling, which “Better Together” has then mangled in whole new ways to render it complete gibberish.
Despite numerous people notifying them of the unholy mess, the No camp is blithely continuing to host the image on its website. The media is reporting its hideous car-crash of fabrications as gospel, and (as you’d expect) the Herald’s moderators are working overtime deleting the comments of anyone pointing out the truth.
Every single one of the three polls that have produced high figures for No in the past week have been massively flawed, yet have been accepted more or less unquestioningly at face value by the Scottish media.
YouGov’s survey for Devo Plus had a massively leading preamble to the main question. TNS’s own poll was weighted so ridiculously it suggested a Labour victory in the 2011 Holyrood election and gave extra credence to the views of people who’d said they were definitely not going to vote in the referendum. And now we have this godawful mess from Lord Ashcroft.
Yet the ones which have been attacked, despite far less significant quirks, were the two conducted by Panelbase for this website and for the SNP. The former, of course, was almost totally ignored, and the latter widely rubbished for preceding the straight referendum question with two other perfectly legitimate questions.
It’s almost as if the media is deliberately trying to drive home the realisation that the Yes campaign can expect no fair treatment at all. Because if they’re trying to hide their bias, they’re even worse at concealment than “Better Together” are at counting.
Crazy. You couldn’t mak.. oh.
Honestly people should know by now not to post on the Herald web site, because the debate is being deliberately manipulated. STOP IT NOW, and tell others to STOP IT.
So Ashcroft gets a deliberately ‘vague’ poll together that results in the BT mob being able to manipulate it freely and have it reported by their chums in the media.
Sounds about par for the course.
Wonder what Prof Curtice has to say about it all ?
Polls are becoming more skewed by the week. Maybe they’ve always been like that. Perhaps they are just being analysed more now.
I really think the next poll instigated by Wings should only have the referendum question. That would reveal the unionists propaganda and lies.
@tartanfever
Curtice thinks it’s amateurish…
http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2013/09/do-lord-ashcrofts-polls-tell-us-anything-new/
1,2,3,5,9,7
Just to clarify my previous comment regarding mocking the opposition, I meant mocking individuals who happen to hold a particular point of view. In the case of this article, where it seems clear that facts are being deliberately distorted, skewed and misrepresented, possibly re-cast as lies, then mocking is wholly acceptable and should be encouraged.
“Lord” Ashcroft, whoever you are, Better Together, et al, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
The time for laughing at these attempts to misinform. are past it is time a Unbiased organisation was brought in to moniter the misuse of government information, by the bodies Blasting Scotland, these are criminal acts in the pursuit of unreal indoctrination.
Others could word this better but my blood is starting to boil.
We need to fund a media where the true debate can be informed to the people of Scotland and the World.
This is the No campaign preparing the ground. They want folk to say ALL polls are rubbish, so when Yes starts to pull ahead, the MSM can simply rubbish any positive results for Yes.
The fact that BT have found it necessary to contort Lord Ashcroft’s contortions highlights that unionists fear the polls much more than nationalists.
The unionists are actually feart o’ numbers. Who would have thought that!
I think the missing 1% of the 41% for ‘The Economy’ is ‘Cutting the deficit’.
Of those missing from the base on table 4, I suspect that most would state that prioritising ‘independence’ is the best route to tackling each of the other ‘priorities’ listed.
They simply do not care about debating or informing. What a pile of crap that graph is eh?
No mistake the focus on the economy though and its apparent improvement. The risk of Scottish independence and Scots “losing” all that has been “gained” the obvious message.
The fact is UK GDP has not recovered to pre-crisis levels. A bust in the UK economy is as likely as a continued snail’s pace recovery. The greater risk is staying in the UK – the consumer spending led boom and busts are a design feature. Do people really want to stick with that?
@Rev Stu
Every single one of the three polls that have produced high figures for No in the past week have been massively flawed, yet accepted more or less unquestioningly by the Scottish media.
YouGov’s survey for Devo Plus had a massively leading preamble to the main question. TNS’s own poll was weighted so ridiculously it suggested a Labour victory in the 2011 Holyrood election and gave extra credence to the views of people who’d said they were definitely not going to vote in the referendum. And now we have this godawful mess from Lord Ashcroft.
Yet the ones which have been attacked, despite far less significant quirks, were the two conducted by Panelbase for this website and for the SNP. The former, of course, was almost totally ignored, and the latter widely rubbished for preceding the straight referendum question with two other perfectly legitimate questions.
It’s almost as if the media is deliberately trying to drive home the realisation that the Yes campaign can expect no fair treatment at all. Because if they’re trying to hide their bias, they’re even worse at concealment than “Better Together” are at counting.
As Training Day rightly said today, the MSM and the No campaign are one and the same thing. There can be little doubt that the MSM in Scotland have co-opted themselves into being the propaganda wing of BT. They appear to have done this willingly…
Apart from Ian Bell and Iain Macwhirter, no Herald links will appear on any of the pages or sites I control. Cutting their page clicks and advertising revenue will send them the same way as the Hootsmon.
They have no shame or any sense of integrity in publishing this ‘poll’ – and still block any posts that disagree with them.
Total farce.
BillDunblane says:
Apart from Ian Bell and Iain Macwhirter, no Herald links will appear on any of the pages or sites I control. Cutting their page clicks and advertising revenue will send them the same way as the Hootsmon.They have no shame or any sense of integrity in publishing this ‘poll’ – and still block any posts that disagree with them.Total farce.
Well done Bill.
People should not be posting on the Herald. DON’T DO IT
But what are they actually trying to achieve there?
is it “That stupid Salmond man is buggering about with that silly little independence pipedream while he should be concentrating full time on what he’s paid for.” ?
And who are they trying to convince given that we know who has more trust?
You might be right, Juteman – if the polling machine can’t be twisted into working for them any more (and shows precious little sign of working for them again within the next 12 months), then act to discredit the entire process, and let the public decide to abandon it just as some positive results are coming in…..except won’t journalists always love a poll to report? [unless, of course, it gives succour to the Yes campaign…]
Juteman’s idea is an interesting premise, but it fails to take account of the fact that BetterTogether is run by a gang of immature imbeciles, headed by the guy whose main claim to fame is managing to get David Miliband to lose the Labour leadership contest to his brother, who looks like he still gets wedgies every day.
These chumps don’t know what they’re doing. They’ve got a ton of money from Tory donors, and they just chuck it at stuff, thinking they can win this by just having more money than us. They do whatever seems like a good lark at that moment in time. If they had any semblance of competence, they might actually be dangerous.
I wonder what the responses from non Scottish residents of Scotland were?
Perhaps there might be some scope in attacking these figures (and Anas’s fake document), through the international convention that favours conviction of those “passing off” goods.
Passing off is judge made law. The modern law is to be found in a handful of cases of which the most recent are the decisions of the House of Lords in Reckitt & Colman Products Ltd. v Borden Inc [1990] RPC 341 and Erven Warnink BV v J Townend & Sons (Hull) Ltd [1979] AC 731. In the first of those cases, Lord Oliver said, at page 406, that a claim may be brought where:
the claimant’s goods or services have acquired a goodwill or reputation in the market and are known by some distinguishing feature;
there is a misrepresentation by the defendant (whether or not intentional) leading or likely to lead the public to believe that goods or services offered by the defendant are goods or services of the claimant; and
the claimant has suffered, or is likely to suffer, damage as a result of the erroneous belief engendered by the defendant’s misrepresentation.
http://innovation.wikispot.org/passing_off
@Doug Daniel
Juteman’s idea is an interesting premise, but it fails to take account of the fact that BetterTogether is run by a gang of immature imbeciles, headed by the guy whose main claim to fame is managing to get David Miliband to lose the Labour leadership contest to his brother, who looks like he still gets wedgies every day.
These chumps don’t know what they’re doing. They’ve got a ton of money from Tory donors, and they just chuck it at stuff, thinking they can win this by just having more money than us. They do whatever seems like a good lark at that moment in time. If they had any semblance of competence, they might actually be dangerous.
Indeed… 😀 😀
The moment people in the RUK realise independence is a possibility the union will disappear in a puff of logic
this is what project fear fear the most , let them believe their tainted polls
@Doug.
I disagree. The ‘all politicians are the same’ tactic is already being used. Dismissing poll results is just a variation of the theme.
Thinking that the British State are amateurish is a big mistake.
It’s no surprise that people would put other issues above independence if asked to choose one area where the government’s priority should be — many independence supporters, too, might agree that that day-to-day issues should be dealt with as normal alongside the referendum.
An interesting contest appears to be rising in the battle of polls:
Crowd-funded v Billionaire-funded
“Honestly people should know by now not to post on the Herald web site, because the debate is being deliberately manipulated. STOP IT NOW, and tell others to STOP IT.”
I can’t decide what the best strategy is. As the moderation policy gets more and more openly biased, I instinctively tend to agree we should just stay away entirely. But the problem is nobody undecided will know there’s a “boycott” and will just assume that if there’s nobody contesting the lies, they must be true.
And while it’s absolutely plain that the Herald only let through token pro-indy comments to create an illusion of fairness, there’s also a strong case that says a token few are still better than none. It’s not up to me or anyone else to tell anyone else what to do, but I’d urge anyone choosing to post there to keep to the coolest, calmest of rebuttals and not to get involved with the idiot trolling of everyone’s favourite OBE or mentally-disturbed Labour councillor.
Some of their articles are absolutely full of pro-independence comments though. I don’t understand what’s going on. Do they have particular moderators standing by to ensure particular articles are thought policed or what?
One of the smaller Ashcroft polls conducted in June has Yes: 32% No: 57%
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/SCOTTISH-PARLIAMENT-VOTING-INTENTION-FULL-TABLES.pdf
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2013/09/how-many-scots-know-what-the-scottish-parliament-does/
The original results summary that accompanied this poll failed to make clear that Q7, ‘What do you think the Scottish Government’s main priority should be?’ was asked of the 61% who thought the Government currently had the wrong priority, not the full sample. Apologies for this mistake, which has now been corrected.
Lord Ashcorft – What are his Scottish interests ? (None)
MSM / BBC /STV unrepresentative ?(Nothing new)
BT and Regionalist comments dialogue non-existent (Smoke mirrors & lies)
It won’t achieve anything going over this poll rubbish again folks.
Until a Labour MSP comes to their senses and crosses the floor at Parliament, or someone can unearth a number of frontline journalist’s / commentators not fearful of their careers within the British state, who are prepared to challenge this state controlled farce of relentless unchallenged bias, whether it be the Treasury, the BBC, Regionalist / Loyalist website or the mainstream UK papers for sale under Scottish Titles then things aren’t going to change and neither will the front pages.
I still can’t understand this at all how this is not a bigger issue, in terms of international questioning of the lack of fair coverage through the press ? (Compare to Catalonia)
There is no press dialogue over this referendum …. none, it’s all one sided propaganda and if that’s not scary to us or any international observer then we are sunk. We don’t help ourselves by the lack of public protests over this mind you. The alarm bells will go off with public with 6mths to go so be prepared for it.
If this was any other part of the world, plenty would be entering the fray with comment to say where is the peoples outlet ?, where is their voice ? where is our media voice ? Apart from the internet can anybody name one station on radio or TV outlet where we get even standing of representation? With 30% of the normal Scottish vote, which paper could we call our own to represent our views or challenge from our perspective, (none). Can we still call any of the current formats unbiased in terms of front page headlines ?
Honestly its far better to get out to events, engage with the public and canvass like hell, than togo over these meaningless polls and let it affect you or become down hearted.
Many have said it before this is exactly what Project fear and Disillusion was designed for. The MSM are loving it that they go unchallenged. Honestly why not march against our unrepresentative press & media; they won’t cover events like the March to Calton Hill fairly anyway. It will be about the Jocks in kilts & bagpipes and devoid of the aspiration and vision. What have we got to lose ? So let’s get the boot into the Scotsman / Herald etc or their journo’s who are doing us no favours at the March, get it up on the placards & let the public make up their own minds. Remember the Police figures of 4,000 at the event last year (??). Stop reading the polls and change tack, the public are willing to discuss the future, they want to believe in themselves, they want to believe in their country but they must realise this will be a fight for our lives, for our kids futures.
How many people in this world could imagine obtaining their freedom, or being part of the creation of a ‘new country’ not by taking up arms, but by winning the argument through dialogue and the stroke of a pen. Forget that many of us have argued for this most of our lives, but go back and imagine being 17 again and having the possibility within your grasp of creating that New State in the world community ……Scotland.
(Very Jerry McGuire ‘memo’ I know ; but it needed said)
Re: boycotting the Herald. I also have mixed feelings about it – I like reading the comments and knowing there are lots of (for want of a better word) “Cybernats” out there ready to dissect the nonsense, which cheers me up, but on the other hand I HATE giving them the hits and knowing I am encouraging advertisers to give them money. I’m sorry if that means I’m a nasty person, but why should I help them to spew this rubbish?
I’ve started using http://archive.is/ when I remember to for twitter, but few others do so I’m still giving them a hit when I don’t want to.
Tbh, I don’t really want them to go down the pan, if only because we have so few newspapers in this country. But the stuff they come out with…I wouldn’t give any of the papers house room at the moment.
These infantile polls simply fuel the favourite tactic of Labour, BT, Unionists & British Nationalists…. which is…
Accuse your enemy of what you lack..
Too wee! Too stupid! Canny dae it! That’s the standard Unionists & British Nationalists retort at Independence…
And dose the BBC & MSM not always promote and play up this myth…
Yet, even slightly or partially better informed Scots are an equal or match for any fear or scaremongering tactic – hence the NO DEBATE tactic… meaning NEVER, NEVER, DEBATE – because British Nationalists are too stupid – they actually believe their our own propaganda even when confronted with irrefutable facts. British Nationalists cannot debate because it immediately exposes their unionist stupidity. Too wee – that is the constantunionists vision – bewilderment. British Nationalists ALWAYS argue that it canny be done.
As other have said – BT are rattled – hence another concocted poll to trot out the too wee, too stupid line.
The bottom line is Labour, BT,Unionists & British Nationalists have NO EVIDENCE to support their invented self-indulgent claims – which means – YES Scotland are doing the right things..
Put another way – What are BT,Unionists & British Nationalists afraid of most? 2 things – CROWD FUNDED POLLS & PUBLIC DEBATE…
So, if BT et al are so confident….. let them address the findings of a CROWD FUNDED POLLS in a PUBLIC DEBATE. That’s democracy and they are always confidently bumming about it…
Revs on the CROWD FUNDED POLL and lets demand PUBLIC DEBATE…. when we fill the hill
Some interesting views.
My personal view is that the No campaign will continue to trot out deluded polls in an attempt to give the false premise that us Scots are against repealing the act of union and going back to being independent.
Unfortunately for them independence is fast becoming a normalised view and support is gathering at pace despite their attempts. They have lost all the arguments. All they have is a sentimental argument.
Their are only two ways the movement can be slowed or stopped.
1. Stifle debate and stop people talking about it by making it abnormal.
2. Employ an army of brown shirts to patrol the streets and enforce silence.
I don’t see option 2 being on the cards in a western democracy (I use the term democracy loosely).
The only option is to stifle debate by the methods we have already seen employed by councils denying access to Yes campaigners at local public events and to make indy look unsupported by absurd polls funded by the Tories.
This option is doomed to failure.
I pity the fools who have been hoodwinked by the No campaign. They will be severely pissed off next year.
I suspect their may even be a backlash prior to the vote as they accept the will of their fellow Scots is not what BT led them to believe. Heck, they’ll probably even vote Yes on the day!
@cynicalHighlander
BetterTogether still happily spreading the lie on Facebook, despite Ashcroft’s correction.
Re posting on articles online at the Herald/Scotsman or indeed any other newspaper, I think it is worth the effort even if your visit brings them a penny or two. Truth is that the positive posts that do get through are most always given the most positive votes.
Likewise the Unionists posts are more often than not given large thumbs down. It is important that those who may be looking for the first time at these articles see that there is clearly in the comments section at least large numbers of people who obviously disagree with the anti-independence sentiment of the article.
Bit like the badges, car stickers ect. all about exposure. By the way that’s why these sites censor us, it’s to reduce our exposure to anyone reading the articles but they shouldn’t get away with shutting us up completely. No self censorship, make your voice heard and at every opportunity is my view.
Has it not occurred to Better Together that the only way ‘Salmond’ can effect the economy is via independence, given the necessary powers are reserved to Westminster?
What are they thinking by highlighting this?
Who is the mentally-disturbed Labour councillor (and will they be cooncillors in an Independent Scotland?)? Are his initials TK?
@gordoz
A little anecdote from today with my 70 plus mother. She buys the Courier and the Daily Mail, from what I can see for the coupons. Anyway I’ve convinced her to vote YES, probably old Labour at heart. So I was discussing the Daily Mail, Salmond, Independence doomed headline, I explained the inherent bias, why it suits these titles to support the status quo. Her response …..
‘So why don’t the YES campaign do something about the bias in the media, they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it’
Quite!
I’m afraid there’s no room for ambivalence towards the likes of the Herald. By continuing to subsidise them in any form we ask to have more and more propaganda flung at us. They’re provocatively taking the piss, and they know it.
I dont think BT’s polls or infact any other poll will make a difference, to the outcome of the referendum next year, this poll and many others will be forgotten by Joe Public in a matter of days at most.
I think the referendum will be won by the most “PRO-Active” Camp, the camp thats out their getting their message across to the public face to face, its imperative that the YES Camp, keep pushing the boundries of spreading FACTUAL info, and not rely on petty point scoring through slanderous remarks, the public are fed up with the bickering and will become disillusioned with the whole thing.
To recap YES should stick to meeting and greeting the public on every level possible, in order to get the FACTS across, opinion polls arent the answer.
Though the poll is misleading, people will always give jobs, economy and health as a higher direct priority.
It’s the more direct answer compared to just saying independence – which is more of a process, than something in itself. A future government has to pick areas to prioritize.
If you ask people if they think the EXTRA POWERS of independence could make an improvement to the Scottish economy, then we could maybe see a clearer answer.. if people thought it was worthwhile or not.
It would have helped if the independence question had been a bit more elaborate – specifying what independence actually meant..
We can see that many people have no clue about what powers are devolved or not.
gordoz: Can you PLEASE try to get some line breaks into your comments? It takes me ages to go through them all separating the paragraphs so they’re halfway-readable. Unfortunately, formatting matters, especially with long comments.
That goes for everyone else too. If you habitually post comments and you can see that they come up without line breaks when published, add extra ones when you type them. Huge long screeds of horribly-formatted text don’t just stop people reading YOUR comment, they stop them reading the ones below it too. I’m spending way too much time these days tidying comments up.
The trend is your friend, this ipsos-mori graph looks unstoppable to me. Steepest rise ever since the tories got back in, no short memories in Scotland.
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Images/Scotland/scotland_independence_35_year_trend-lrg.gif
So it’s another lie!
Mind you it can only mean that they are very very worried.
Just bought the Sun and Andrew Nicoll’s piece on ‘Polls apart’ goes from the beginning of the article to suggest that all the Polls are correct over the last week. This on the premise that there is a 3% margin of error both ways in all of those polls, which is the norm for all polls anyway. He then concludes that support for independence approximately lies at 27% when bearing in mind the previous polling trends.
He then goes into attack mode on the recent panelbase poll commissioned by the SNP because the indy question was last to be asked of the 3 questions. Not once does he even mention the preambled ‘break up of Britain’ and the way those other polls from Ipsos or YouGov and Mori are weighted towards Westminster election 2010. One particular poll was not even weighted at all by 1 other recent poll that apparently was done door to door where the conclusion was that Labour had actually won the 2011 Holyrood elections.
We are living in a cloud cuckoo land here in Scotland that is being driven by the MSM which takes the view that any poll that looks like the Yes campaign is gaining ground on the NO camp, is being undermined and attacked by the establishment. Moreover the fixed polls from UK parties or better together affiliated groups are seen as holier than thou and are not subject to any critical analysis.
A little off topic but I was surprised to see that my comment on BT’s blog page I made a few days ago is still there- in fact it is the only comment on a page that invites readers to explain why they think they get the best of both worlds in the union:
http://www.bettertogether.net/blog/entry/tell-us-why-you-think-we-get-the-best-of-both-worlds
@Karamu
Comment seems to be no longer on the link you gave.
I still post occasionally on the Herald website – I understand why people are saying boycott but what is always shown is that the pro indy comments get high approval votes and the No the opposite.
Also when some people get depressed at all the negativity – as we all do I think at some point – it helps to encourage some posters, who maybe still only use the herald, that they are not alone.
There has been the odd occasion when I have steered people to info they didn’t know about previously eg Craig Murray.
What I never do is get into a conversation with the likes of OBEwan as it’s pointless.
I was talking to a friend of mine late this afternoon over a pint. He operates a hill-walking club in Glasgow. He told me they are ALL voting YES. They can take their polls and spin them however which way they like – it won’t change the truth or the outcome.
YES Scotland.
Creigs17707 – I am not surprised your hillwalking club are pro Indy. In my experience enjoying outdoor activities – like listening to folk music or following the national football team – are (while not 100%) indicators of a tendency towards a pro-independence mindset.
I posted as mild a comment as I could manage on the Herald story, something about having to have a look at the figures. A little later I posted another mild comment about the percentages being a little odd. Currently, neither post has appeared. I’ll keep you posted.
Just asking: does the original graphic cite its sources (i.e. the Ashcroft poll(s))?
Incidentally Rev., on your next poll why not ask the straight Indy question first and then ask it again after some ‘leading’ questions and compare the two results. The MSM would struggle not to publish at least the first figure.
Albalha says:
9 September, 2013 at 6:04 pm
Im convinced at some point the people (us) will need to take action (maybe the Streets) as we can see there is a big state machine were up against.
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
9 September, 2013 at 6:19 pm
My apologies Rev – thought I had done that (will restrict to more concise comment in future or try check line breaks are in place).
Sorry !
With regards to commenting on newspapers – on the basis that bad news sells, I think they are taking the tack that anti-independence articles drive up click numbers. I can imagine them rubbing their hands over the outrage they know will follow articles full of bias and lies as we rush to correct them and ‘back up’ pro-indy commenters by liking their comments. Out of interest, has anyone noticed the amount of comments/clicks on pro-indy articles?
(Hits the return key twice here 😉 )
I agree its difficult to leave it alone but its also amusing to think of the anti-indy lot effectively being neutered by stewing amoungst themselves. Perhaps they’ll give up…
@Thepnr
It shows on mine- must be a locally cached version of the page that I see or something.
I fully expected them to delete it as it was not entirely positive towards the union!
Two hours now and still no sign of my posts. Others have appeared.
@Seasick Dave – wonder why you’re asking about non-Scottish residents of Scotland? I think it would good if someone thought to survey us. Anecdotally, there would seem to be loads of us who are strong Yes supporters, though I suppose some would imagine it would be otherwise. On the one hand, you might expect some greater sense of ‘Britishness’ from those resident in Scotland who’ve come from elsewhere in the UK. On the other – anecdotally again, and I’d be happy to be shot down if people think I’m wrong – we haven’t been brought up to have a Scottish cringe, and we’ve usually made a conscious choice to live our lives here; we love the place, and we want to see it thrive. When I go back south and hear people talking contemptuously of Scotland it makes my blood boil – since I chose to live here, it feels like they’re attacking me, too. Perhaps I’m just unusually touchy…
And it is only Monday and it will only get worse this week!
Whether to post or not is certainly a dilemma. Abandon btl to the Unionist perspective, or persist in the hope that our posts will avoid increasingly heavy-handed censorship. Censorship that not only highlights the UK MSM’s lack of accountability, but which is possibly a portent of how news will be ‘managed’ for the generation that Westminster has decided to write-off to austerity.
Personally, I don’t go back where my posts are altered or removed. I’m still not sure if that is the right thing to do though. (puzzledsmiley)
There is no debate any more, just lies and misinformation. And Sarwar had the gall to say the Yes campaign was based on “fraud” – how the hell did he get away with that comment? Unionists really showing their colours now, and still a year to go.
has anyone noticed the amount of comments/clicks on pro-indy articles?
Eh?
Clarification: I meant the original posting, obviously you can’t see it in the picture itself.
We definitely shouldn’t stop commenting on the Herald website. When you criticise an article you just have to very very careful to only criticise the politician or the No campaign or Better Together, then the Herald do not delete your comment. If you criticise the article or the journalist then you get the chop and end up on moderation.
It was a comment on The Herald that made me start to question the media bias resulting in an Internet search which found this site and Newsnet Scotland. I can’t be the only one. It is important not to get involved in the back and forth as then the point gets lost. Although, riding Terry Kelly like a Blackpool donkey is a worthwhile pastime occasionally, he is such a great example of everything I hate about the Labour Party.
Agreed. If we stop posting, we lose the media war. Just make sure that others know you’re posting to ensure some kind of record’s kept.
Blackpool donkeys are sweet-natured, cuddly, obliging little beasts. Terry Kelly, on the other hand….
re Posting in The Herald. I think that posting in the Herald is extremely important. As others have said there does seem to be more than usual moderation of pro-indy comments. But as Rev has already stated if there’s an embargo where is the rebuttal and balance for any undecided voters, who come across biased articles to offer a alternative view if not from the comments threads. I only found out Wings and Newsnet Scotland existed because of people posting alternative view points and links with them.
Balance in most of the press comes in the form of the comments section in each of them. As long as we continue to put forward coherent factual arguments (without being dragged into being baited by the quite clearly paid UK agitators) with links to Wings, Newsnet, Bella, National collective and Yes Scotland the groundswell of already impressive traffic to these sites will continue to rise and the vital information needed to inform the public with it, will be spread to a ready to be informed uninformed Scottish public.
I did put that last comment into 2 paragraphs Rev, but format hasn’t taken for some reason when I sent.
On the upside at least the panelbase poll shows that their childish tactics are not as successful as they hope or need.
It’s a stupid question anyway. If asked, I’d probably say my priorities are the economy, heath and welfare. It’s because my priorities are the economy, health and welfare I believe we need independence. If Westminster were running any of them OK, or giving Scotland enough free reign and powers to run them for ourselves OK I might not be bothered about independence.