Here’s your democratic choice 64
Posted on
December 13, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Daily Record, 13 December 2013:
But phew – luckily, in the UK there’s always an alternative.
Not all information wants to be free 71
Posted on
December 13, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We got a letter from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office today. We opened it, read it, and – if we might paraphrase for a moment – it said we were suckers.
Behold the messiah 63
Posted on
December 13, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’ve been having a dig through the recent YouGov poll (fieldwork 26-29 November) commissioned by The Sun. It’s full of all manner of interesting data, strengthened by a rather bigger-than-usual sample of 1,919 voters.
We were intrigued to note, for example, that 56% of respondents in England and Wales disapproved of the government’s record (with just 30% in favour), but 55% of those same people thought Scotland should vote to stay in the Union they themselves were so unsatisfied with (just 21% said they’d vote Yes if they had a vote).
Now, it’s possible to explain some of this apparent contradiction away. For example, fully 90% of UK Labour voters disapproved of the UK government, but 60% still wanted Scotland to vote No and remain subject to it. The rationalisation, of course, is that they think everything would be fine under a Labour UK government.
Don’t they?
A man of foresight 30
Posted on
December 13, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Here’s Baron Wallace Of Tankerness on Spain, in 1997:
Yeah, because devolution killed Catalan nationalism stone dead too, right Jim?
A statute of limitations 130
Posted on
December 12, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The wording of that headline isn’t strictly accurate, because the Claim Of Right For Scotland – signed in 1989 by over 80% of Scottish MPs, and many other politicians and representatives of “civic Scotland” – isn’t a law, and has no binding force.
Nevertheless, it’s a document that carries a certain amount of political weight, as an open acknowledgement by Labour and the Liberal Democrats that the people of Scotland (not Parliament and the monarch, as is the case in England) are sovereign and are entitled to determine the form of government they want.
Up to a point, anyway.
Mapping the recovery 74
Posted on
December 12, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Oh, there it is.
Click here for the fascinating full data. And when you hear Labour talk of “pooling and sharing resources” after a No vote, remember where it is that the pool’s located. Because they’ll probably be closing the one near your house.
The status quo 59
Posted on
December 12, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
In the light of this week’s dire warnings in the media that a Yes vote would mean supermarket prices becoming more expensive in Scotland than the rest of the UK (and the near-total absence of reporting of all the supermarket chains’ subsequent denials), we were intrigued when an alert reader sent us this link to a price-comparison site.
Maybe our cheese and beer’s just much nicer or something.
Are we there yet? 163
Posted on
December 11, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Now and again, the independence debate gets so dismally stupid that we despair for a few hours and just sit around with our head in our hands trying to understand how professional, apparently-rational people can be so hopelessly, galactically thick.
Today the trigger was The Times, which issued the latest in a flurry of “post-White Paper” polls that have appeared with indecent haste and proclaimed the document’s failure, this time under the ridiculous headline “Poll sinks hope for a ‘yes’ vote”.
Do we even need to write the next bit? Does it really have to be spelled out?
Looking after their own 51
Posted on
December 11, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We know we’ve been talking recently about how the No campaign’s been getting nastier, but it looks like they’re about to ramp things up another notch.
Yikes!
Doctors’ notes 31
Posted on
December 11, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Julie McDowall’s splendid piece for this site on call centres yesterday is causing something of a stir in the medical community today – social media is alive with shocked and disgusted doctors horrified or disbelieving at the news that their trade union, the British Medical Association, outsources its legal-advice helpline to a Serco call-centre and misleads members about its nature.
For those questioning the veracity of the claims, some references follow.
One million words 49
Posted on
December 11, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
A day in the life of the future 85
Posted on
December 10, 2013 by
Julie McDowall
Imagine working for a trade union; one which is formidable and respected, one forever being sought by Radio 4. An indomitable body of professionals who never resort to strikes and scuffles, braziers and megaphones, because they’re so heavy with influence and history that they need only tap the right minister on the shoulder to have their voice heard and heeded.
Imagine working for the magnificent British Medical Association.
When I saw the BMA were recruiting in Glasgow a few years ago I was delighted and surprised. My surprise increased when I was sent to a call centre for the interview. Sitting prim and nervous in the reception area, a tacky room with walls that trembled if you brushed against them, I wondered what this cheap and nasty office could possibly have to do with the great and august BMA.
