Popularity contest – results in
Posted on
May 05, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Children’s author, billionaire and Labour donor JK Rowling, last year:
You feeling that popularity yet, readers?
Honestly, UK, you’re making us blush.
[…] Children’s author, billionaire and Labour donor JK Rowling, last year: […]
Trying to think of a response to all this but…
I just want out of it. Our own wee country. Away from all this…
Don’t care about black holes or places at top tables or prices of barrels of oil or anything else. Just lets get out of this horrible unfair union.
All the news that’s fit to print…
Yeah the foresight of JK Rowling –
“Stick to the fiction Lady – not in sync with facts of our political landscape.
She was up for the Vow guff – howz that goin’ then ???
Out of her depth where Scotland’s future is concerned sadly.
We may not be popular but I damn well hope we’ll be in a position to dictate terms. Hell Yes!
You would think that perhaps the media don’t like the idea of Scots having a say in Westminster…Or maybe they just don’t like the way we’re not going away after the referendum.
They need to remember that although the referendum vote was lost, there were still 45% of the population here in Scotland wanting real change in the way we are governed….Even a lot of no voters wanted change, but wouldn’t go the final hurdle of independence and they are joining in with that call for Scotland to have a bigger say in it’s own future…
Most people have no problem with JK Rowling having an opinion. After tweeting her support for Devo-Max, I’m sure she will be voting SNP. That’s obviously the best way to keep up the pressure for more powers.
“I’m voting ‘no’ then supporting anyone who’ll give us Devo-Max”
“I sincerely hope that the rumours in the Sunday papers that we are about to be offered Devo Max are true”
And what is JK saying nowadays ?
Here’s my letter to dear JK Rowling, published on my blog, delivered to her door. (Difficult to get past the various security guards!)
link to grousebeater.wordpress.com
Real spittle flecked, veins-protruding “Alf Garnet-esque” stuff isnt it?
“And another thing its – yer bleedin’ nationalists – thats wot it is….” 🙂
duped or duper?
She wants to talk to her pals, Mr & Mrs Vow.
This explains why JK is an author of fiction.
It is all unravelling by the day and the outcome of GE negotiations will be the defining moment in the history of the Union and the Labour Party in particular:
If Tories win, Smith Commission will be diluted into mere tap water and EVEL will spell the real end game for WM.
The MSM in England will stoke up anti-SNP, Plaid, Green feeling claiming legitimacy and disregard for English voters’ wishes. Outcome- a disUnited Kingdom
If Miliband lets Tories back in, it will be the end of his leadership and Labour in Scotland
These are indeed very interesting times
They love us really, They’re just playing hard to get….
Well that is just a vile, trolling statement of reality.
Bloody cybernats and their pointing out of the elephants in the room.
No elephants here, move along now. Will all be splendid, vote for unchangingness.
In reply to the quote, we tried, you did not deliver as you promised you would…. Bye!
D.I.V.O.R.C.E…….
Utter tripe, rather akin to the million $ novels.
Och come on, we know they’re just playing ‘hard to get’ with us!
Aren’t they?
what`s the difference between J K Rowling and Stuart Campbell?
One writes fiction the other stays to the facts.
As for me, I enjoy both, happily I can tell the difference.
This baloney just makes me more determined. Huge backfire by the MSM. They are doing more to break up the Union that he SNP ever did.
The heady position of the spouse who looks like walking out, stays … and then is on the receiving end of yet another beating. England’s relationship with Scotland is exactly parallel to that of spousal abuse.
Extract from “Harry Potter and the Amazing Crystal Ball”
Harry: But I don’t understand professor. The images I saw in the crystal ball were so clear and positive! How could events not have played out as it foretold?
Dumbledore : Dear me Harry, you really can be slow on the uptake at times. Let me put it simply. The Amazing Crystal Ball of Rehtegot Retteb can never be trusted. It only shows what we want it to show. It is very dangerous to leave lying around. And that is why I will be having it removed from this room on Friday, just after I watch the Election results come in.
Harry: Sorry professor. I’m just upset that I didn’t manage to get off with Hermione. She and Ron hit it off. I guess I never saw that coming either.
Dumbledore: Ah! The gullibility of youth. Sigh.
It’s quite incredible to see all these journalists, from so many different newspapers, falling over themselves to show how much they value us in this great family of nations.
To paraphrase:
“Honestly, JK, you’re making us blush. Expelliarmous!”
Hmm…there are many Scots who, after weighing up the pros n cons, voted for the status quo.
Most we’re probably risk averse, some perhaps believed the Establishment.
I do wonder how they feel about this Union now….the silent majority?
Guess we’ll find out on Friday morning.
Surprisingly, someone who writes children’s books about wizards was unable to predict real-world political outcomes.
It’s a pity really, because in her books the heroes oppose an undemocratic and totalitarian regime with courage, cleverness and determination. We were all cheering them on. But that was apparently just for story time. When you try to do it in real life, it seems millionaires get all fearty about change, and start applying their making-shit-up ability for the dark side.
I am so glad they asked us to be “better-together” with them last year, can you imagine what the headlines would have been otherwise.
The great thing about this election campaign is finally the Scots are being honestly told exactly what the London based parties really think of them, ie YOU ARE NOT FIT TO GOVERN AT WESTMINSTER, GO AWAY.
Well lets disappoint the bastards and place 59 Scottish SNP Mp’s in Westminster, and show them and the rest of the UK how governments should be run, and throw the House of Lords (legalised benefit cheats),out the door, for a quick saving of half a billion.
Yes but,maybe they don’t mean it. A hero will save the day.
J.K.Rowling.—my advice is stay away from marriage.
She should stick to ripping off Terry Pratchett and popular fairy tales.
And the british establishment expect to renegotiate favourable membership terms with the EU when they deploy these tactics?
The SNP and broader Scottish nationalist movement used to have to work for every single vote, now we get the British establishment to do it for us!
As for jkr, it would be interesting what she finds so brilliant about the uk that she continues to support Scotland’s continued imprisonment within it.
There are a lot of things for which I respect JK Rowling for. This was not one of them.
“However, I also know that there is a fringe of nationalists who like to demonise anyone who is not blindly and unquestionably pro-independence and I suspect, notwithstanding the fact that I’ve lived in Scotland for twenty-one years and plan to remain here for the rest of my life, that they might judge me ‘insufficiently Scottish’ to have a valid view.
It is true that I was born in the West Country and grew up on the Welsh border and while I have Scottish blood on my mother’s side, I also have English, French and Flemish ancestry. However, when people try to make this debate about the purity of your lineage, things start getting a little Death Eaterish for my taste.”
I have never been able to come up with a reason why this wasn’t anything other than political posturing to smear the yes side as ethnic nationalists. If it’s a fringe, then by definition its not representative. Then why write it?
” While a few of our fiercer nationalists might like to drive me forcibly over the border after reading this”. Yeah, sure, whatever. We’d be driving them out of Scotland before they ever got to you.
“I gave you another chance and you let me down, you returned to usual form; you replied with abuse.
All I want to know is…will you still love me in the morning?”
Broken Relationship™
I admire J K Rowling enormously as a writer and she does a lot for charity. She seems like a nice person. But I can’t agree with her desire to keep Scotland bound to this unfair system where the rich get richer and the poor go hungry and die.
I recall her tweeting Broon’s line of “Vote No and get Home Rule”. I’m sure that convinced plenty of people to vote the way she wanted them to.
Either she never saw what the Yes campaign was really about, or she just cared more about her beloved flag. Sad.
Ironically (or perhaps not), Rowling herself had to flee from a violent spouse and get a court injunction against him. So she does know that an abusive partner doesn’t give any second chances.
Why she decided to advise the Scottish people to behave like a battered wife is a mystery.
link to en.wikipedia.org
@gordoz
Yeah the foresight of JK Rowling –
“Stick to the fiction Lady – not in sync with facts of our political landscape.
She was up for the Vow guff – howz that goin’ then ???
Out of her depth where Scotland’s future is concerned sadly.
_______________
I think you have her wrong’ she was sticking to the fiction.
Like the dog that pissed on the carpet they tempted us with sausages so as to give us a beating when we capitulated and ran to the ballot box to vote no!
If you think that is bad, just wait until Friday/Saturday/Sunday if Labour get a majority with the SNP/Plaid/Green/SDLP/Indy from N.I
World War 3, just imagine if Putin sends over a destroyer or two to sit in international waters off the coast of the UK….
How to defeat the dementers ?
In box maked SNP put an X
tick tock
I have to say, I am astonished at that assessment by JKR. Absolute fantasy more suited to one of her novels.
They want or taxes, exports and oil. They want somewhere to park their WMDs. Most of all, they want to retain the status and prestige which comes from being Greater Britain, rather than the diminished Little England. As for we Scots, we only fit in when we keep our heads down, mouths shut, and behave as subservient North British.
The fantasy version is coming to an end at a ballot box near you!
BBCS, heard the news and a quick bit of Old Brown, bellowing anti SNP usual stuff. He probably woke a few of the pensioners up, and scared them stiff.
Well, it would have been the usual pensioner roundup wouldn’t it. (and the MSM of course!)
That is how he works these days, if only we could get him in a Q&A, I can dream.
Hey, Rowling!
Top tip …
Antonio Stradivari was rubbish at oil painting.
J K Rowling has a vivid imagination and has made a fortune from creating a fantasy world for children that has given a lot of pleasure to millions. Well done her. No surprise to discover her detachment from reality when it comes to politics. She has an opinion and easy access to a public platform but I don’t think it does her any good straying from the day job when she gets things so completely wrong.
This may come in handy:
ROFPMSL, in Latin –
‘Volvitur in area humefactamque ridentem me’
(Haven’t yet checked GIRFUY and/or WALOFS)
Wait now, I’m seeing a pattern forming. I’m not feeling the love.
It seems that Ms Rowling’s reading of politics in the UK hasn’t proven very accurate. Who knew?
I feel unloved …. but I’ll cope with it!
It makes me feel all warm and fluffy and pink inside and out.
I have no regard for JK Rowling as a writer. Okay so Game of Thrones is my cup of tea and not the drivel that is her third rate puerile fantasy.
It is also clear from her statement that she doesn’t have a great grasp of reality. I am not feeling pink and fluffy and furry inside or out. Popular – not even close.
For her and her ilk – Winter is Coming!
I prefer the great Terry Pratchett’s words to Rowling.
“Nae king, nae quin, nae laird, nae master! We willnae be fooled again!
NacMcfeegle, from The Wee Free Men
“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” Sirius Black – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Karmanaut: She seems like a nice person.
Who worries about being a nice person when your country’s future is at stake?
link to grousebeater.wordpress.com
well if you don’t like the result change the electorate that would simplify things now wouldn’t it chaps pip pip tally ho
I wonder if the words “publish and be damned” crossed JK Rowling’s mind before she made that statement to the Torygraph.
OT Empire Biscuit has uploaded part 2 of “Thanks For All the Fish”, his video record of the worst outbreak of vile nationalist chaos ever.
Interesting scenes and some recognisable faces, including cub reporter James Cook “watching his cameraman’s back” (nobody behind him). Good to have a picture of what actually happened.
link to youtube.com
Seriously worth a listen – Ian Dunn, who runs the politics.co.uk speaking to Kaye Adams this morning and making it very clear he is speaking as a unionist (from 02:47:20)
link to bbc.co.uk
He talks about ” a defining moment in the relationship between England and Scotland and the continuation of Britain itself”
“We’ve seen the Tories’ response to the democratic surge in Scotland saying we need to block this party from power”
“The Libdems said almost entirely the same thing” and Milliband “said something tantamount to the same thing”
“according to anyone who knows anything about how even the basics of Parliament work he [Milliband] will have to deal with her [Nicola] every day if he’s head of a minority Government”
“Most of the arguments about Westminster not respecting the views of Scottish voters will feel largely vindicated by the way the main parties have behaved during this campaign”
“the Tories have thrown in their lot as a borderline English Nationalist party…stoking the resentment of the English for the Scots…and Labour has capitulated [to that] completely”
O/T
Just received a letter from someone by the name of Betty Gale.
Don’t know her, never heard of her until today.
She’s 80 odds and ives in Inverurie, apparently.
Started off telling me how cancer care is sh1t and it’s all the fault of the SNP then proceeds to tell me to vote Liberal.
Signed (rather shakily) picture and cut out caption included.
The canvasser weave his way up the road carefully avoiding all the houses occupied by young people with families.
Targeting the elderly.
In fairness to JK she wraps up her statement well in the last sentence:
“I just hope with all my heart that we never have cause to look back and feel that we made a historically bad mistake.”
I am just sorry that she and so many others made a historical mistake and must be looking back with regret. They made it not just for themselves but for all of us. They are culpable for the demonisation of Scotland, the proposed disenfranchisement of Scotland at Westminster and the continued drain of our resources.
They are also culpable for the constitutional mess in the UK dragging on instead of being finally resolved.
Had we voted Yes I would feel personally responsible for that decision and would work to make good on that responsibility for the sake of those who wanted our future mapped out by Westminster and the UK establishment instead.
JK as a prominent No campaigner and backer surely needs to own her decision and do what she can to ensure Scotland is not treated like the pariah it now is, and not disenfranchised for daring to excercise her democratic rights and participate in her blessed union.
JK made her decision and put her shoulder to the wheel for the union – she needs to own it. I have yet to hear her condemnation of Ed’s refusal to work with the SNP if they are elected in numbers. If she does not condemn Ed for this then, well, that just isnae very guid, is it?
Joanne Rowling and the Hostage to Fortune.
Or is that Joanne Rowling and the Deathly Silence…?
(File under: “Whoops!”)
@ michaelc at 2:54 pm
I tried to think of my own response to all of this but you did such a good job. You sum up my feelings exactly.
Popularity contest? Check out Scot Goes Pop to see how Jim Murphys doing.
Agree totally with Michaelc at 2.54.
I don’t care what “journalists”, writers, actors, comedians, pop stars, royals, politicians or even what my next door neighbour thinks.
I just want Scotland to be a normal, free and genuinely democratic nation.
Just ignore her, she’s loquentes testiculis, so she is.
@Grouse Beater
Like I said, I don’t think she got what indyref was about. If you don’t live here and you don’t speak to people and you just soak up the hatred spewed out at us by the right wing press, you’re never going to get it. I know people like that. They drink it in and spew it right back out again. I don’t hate her. I couldn’t really care less.
But it hardly matters. I’m sure someone else on our side will be kind enough to furnish the media with tomorrow’s “vile nationalist scum” headlines by hurling abuse at her on Twitter.
Every single line of abuse is going to make it that much easier for the Tories to shut us out of government.
There’s only one way J K Rowling would accept Independence and that’s if all Scots offered to bung her a quid each.
Grouse Beater, great letter to JK. I read recently she complained of receiving poor comments from nats. If you dish it, you have to be prepared for the backlash.
Wings – great collection of headlines to highlight the love lost from the love bombers only last September. Wonder if JK is regretting her stance? Hope so. Hope she votes SNP to get our voice heard since clearly her predictions were so inaccurate
Some are rating JK Rowling on her children’s novels – I always wondered what she was really trying to say.
So we have this exceptional subset that exists within society who regard the lumpen proletariat with disdain.
They all go to this special private school (and send their kids there) where they learn magical ways of being even more special. They are the elite next to which ordinary ‘Muggles’ are like farm animals – humping, getting pissed, living on council estates and working in mundane jobs while the illuminati in Hogwarts self mythologise and transcend or whatever they do.
Have I got that right? I just watched the movies (scum that I am).
@ Davy 3:12 pm
” Well lets disappoint the bastards and place 59 Scottish SNP Mp’s in Westminster, and show them and the rest of the UK how governments should be run …. ”
Nothing for us in England to worry about there then Davy.
Question for those of calm dispositions. How many times did the saviour of the universe spout 59 SNP MPs today?
jimnarlene@4.04
plus 1 Jim.
Tam Jardine says:
5 May, 2015 at 3:47 pm
In fairness to JK she wraps up her statement well in the last sentence:
“I just hope with all my heart that we never have cause to look back and feel that we made a historically bad mistake.”
The only “historically bad mistake” may have been a veiled reference to a YES vote, similar to Her Majesty’s “Think carefully” advice.
You can’t help but feel the “love” from all those beautiful people who wanted us to stay a part of and not apart from their United Kingdom.
Makes me want to give them all one last big cuddle before dumping them. Aw belss, this is bringing me out in tears…where’s the Kleenex…
Sorry, I’m so emotional right now.
@ Tam Jardine 3.47
“They are also culpable for the constitutional mess in the UK dragging on instead of being finally resolved”
I think you are getting a little over excited Tam. Don’t the majority of Scots that voted No in the recent referendum have, just a smidge, of culpability for the “constitutional mess”? Or is just everyone that didn’t have a vote?
O/T – ish.
Sky news are running worrying footage this afternoon, of a verbal heckler, who shouted disagreement, in a non violent non threatening manner, from some distance, today at David Cameron. The man wass immediately pulled away by a burly security man.
The question I ask is this, at what point did we as a population give up our rights to peaceful dissent. In the past people would regularly shout comments at politicians on walkabouts. Now, people who do such things are ‘taken away’.
If that same footage shown by SKY news was of a heckler disagreeing with Vladimir Putin, who was then bundled away by a security man, with no badge or uniform, people such as David Cameron would cry ‘foul’.
Can people not see what has been done to our democratic rights? Dissent in England in 2015, and you will be taken away – just like in the bad old days of the USSR and the East German Stasi.
sensibledave
Read my comment again. When I said “They are also culpable for the constitutional mess in the UK dragging on instead of being finally resolved” I mean no – voters, including JK are culpable for the constitutional mess in the UK dragging on instead of being finally resolved”
There – I’ve said it 3 times and you’ve said it once. Savvy?
Politics, particularly in Scotland has changed . That, surely, must be obvious even to the most diehard unionists . If we are at last to witness genuine Democracy at Westminster then the voice of the Scottish electorate must be allowed to participate . If not then it must be even more obvious to all that the only way Scotland can have true Democracy is by being independent .
sensibledave
PS… I’m sitting watching Bob the Builder with my bairns. Excited is not the word.
Stu, you’ve left out what I think is the worst example, Boris Johnson’s “AJOCKALYPSE NOW”:
link to dailymail.co.uk
link to thesundaytimes.co.uk
Latest Ashcroft Polls
The Conservatives lead by two points in this week’s Ashcroft National Poll, conducted over the past weekend. The Tory lead is down by four since last week, with Labour unchanged on 30%. The Liberal Democrats are up two points at 11%, UKIP up one at 12%, the Greens unchanged at 7% and the SNP up one at 5%.
The problem with Jk,is not that she is English in Scotland. It’s that she has never lived in the real Scotland. Her Scotland is as fictitious as The Potter express.
She is an upper class millionare, the very people we are fighting against. She is as remote from an ordinary Scot on a low paid jo, as it’s possible to be.
It’s you we want to defeat Jk….get it?
Robert Louis
Indeed. On Radio 4 they said the heckler was an employee of the garden centre Cameron was visiting. They joked that he would not be an employee for much longer.
[…] Popularity contest – results in […]
Luigi
Aye – I got exactly her meaning. At no point did she contemplate that she could be making a mistake. ‘Think very carefully about your decision’
It’s inflammatory statements from Unionist politicians and headlines like these from their tame press that are the cause of attacks on independence minded voters and SNP activists.
@ Big Jock, Thought she had lived on benefits in Edinburgh before she got rich. Is that not right?
At long last English nationalism shows it’s true face and it isn’t very pleasant. Hopefully Scots will reflect carefully on events over the past year, in particular the hidden agenda designed to keep the troublesome Scots securely in their Kennels. Just so they might be thrown a bone from time to time. Next move will be to remove pwers from Holyrood. Remember the statement, “No detriment to any other Country within the UK”. The way in which the NHS is run in Scotland might be considered detrimental to England.
But the Labour Party Policy Guru Jon Cruddas is very much against what is going on in Scotland.
link to caltonjock.com
All this stirring up by the newspapers is just their usual attempt to sell papers with head lines based on the fears of those who want to keep the Union. It’s time Allan Massie was growing up. That Tartan Stalinist headline is a scandal. They fairly show themselves up with the ‘when in doubt, blame a woman’ misogynistic attitude. You would think some of them had been asleep since the seventies.
Yes, Miliband, the son of the great Marxist Philosopher, has become a British Unionist, dyed in the wool, complete with fawning servility, and unable to accept the democratic will of the Scottish people. He’s probably not aware that he is putting the final nail in Labour’s coffin up here. Long overdue.
Seriously ‘though, it just shows up their real attitude to Democracy. It’s wonderful when it all goes their way, but as soon as one group of people in the great ‘Union’ decide on something that doesn’t suit the élite, they show their real selves. That’s the savage side, I mean.
@ Tam Jardine t 4:26 pm
Thank you for the clarification. We agree that you are saying the majority of Scots are responsible. Not me, Not the English. Not Westminster. Not everybody else. The majority of Scots. The ones that wanted to stay part of the Union
You couldn’t just pass that message on to many of your fellow commenters here could you.
I think JKR’s writings are all factual and the Unionist media are all fantasy. Or am I just imagining that?
Thanks to the Internet and social media we are all journalists and commentators now and our opinions are just as important as anyone else’s. We all take praise and abuse as much as anyone else nowadays and you need to be adult and responsible about it. It is impossible to eliminate the bad elements when you have a free democratic society. But remember – Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me. All we need is a thicker skin and not to be over sensitive about written comment.
If the polls stand up on Thursday it will be interesting to see the Unionist media headlines on Friday.
I tend to ignore JK Rowling – who deals in the world of fantasy fiction.
But, in the real world, what we are now seeing from Westminster is a 21st century of the English “Rough Wooing” of 16th century Scotland, which led to the Scottish King ascending the English throne at the very start of the 17th century.
@ Robert Louis
I agree,doesn’t make pleasant viewing. However, maybe a good way of making people sit up and take notice? The longer they run it, the more people will see it and perhaps the penny will drop?
Robert Louis 4.24, things are getting very worrying in England. We in anti fracking groups get a lot of interchange with those south of the Border who are fighting, peaceably, sites where frackers are carrying out their disgusting trade.
Police are trying to get names of those attending community meetings to discuss fracking. Private security guards are moving in on fracking protests, and dragging middle aged protesters along the ground.
You only have to look at what happened in Parliament Sq.when protesters moved in. I watched a vid of a well known environmental writer, being loaded into a police van fir trying to hand in his dossier to Downing st. He did the whole thing planned and filmed because he knew they would arrest him.
It really is worrying.
“I just hope with all my heart that we never have cause to look back and feel that we made a historically bad mistake.” JK Rowling on the Referendum
Hoo haar!
This is the moment Rowling needs to stand up and be counted!
But so far, only silence.
The Daily Mail, the Sun and the Daily Express do not speak for Britain, as is implied by some posters here. Newspapers do not represent the views of their readers, they represent the views of their millionaire proprietors.
They do not speak for the people of Britain, they speak at us. More than two-thirds of them are howling for another Tory victory.
The readerships of all these ghastly rags are falling rapidly – but not rapidly enough. We can all see what trash these papers are.
Sky News coverage of the newspapers the other night spent some time covering J.K. Rowlings complaint that cybernats were abusing her again. Andrew Pierce and his Labour oppo. went overboard about the SNP bullies.
Aye Fiona single mother on benefits…my arse. Her dad was a Rolls Royce Engineer and her mother was a science technition. She split up with rich hubbie and moved to Edinburgh. She was not born poor and had a sheltered life and went to University. She chose to move to Edinburgh and become poor for a couple of years. There was never any prospect of her being homeless or going to a foodbank.
There is a difference between being born into poverty and having no hope or education and being a middle class dropout!
Robert Louis says:
O/T – ish.
Sky news are running worrying footage this afternoon, of a verbal heckler, who shouted disagreement, in a non violent non threatening manner, from some distance, today at David Cameron. The man wass immediately pulled away by a burly security man.
____________
Yep, the man disagreed with what Cameron was saying then got pushed away by a security forces minion. That’s democracy!
sensibledave@4:43
You back on here peddlin yer pish again.
The good people of Scotland have already been told,the morning after indyref result,go away and play tig with the buses.
Troll David Cameron see if he has the answers you desperately seek or will he no speak to you…unless your an invited guest ?
Now bore off,goan scavenge in somebody’s midden….oh and brace for impact….democracy is coming.
“sensibledave”
If you think a tesicle eater like yourself can twist my comments to get me to bite, it’s never going to happen.
I have no intention of ever replying to you again so you may drag yourself back up that trolls earsehole you came from and go back to playing at being an earsewipe.
Missy M has a detailed account of the tricks the Better Together lot use to get a media response on “evil nats”.
Good read.
link to misssymartin.blogspot.co.uk
Did JK no use the same caveat as the Herald, ‘vote not for devo max but if we don’t get devo max, we’ll reconsider supporting independence.’
Seems like a cautious, reasonable approach for someone who is an instinctive British nationalist but also wants the best for Scotland. A category which covers a fair section of the population.
The real question is whether or not JK and the Herald do switch, once they realise that devo max is off the cards.
O/T
Anyone see this reported anywhere?
link to twitter.com
Grouse Beater says:
5 May, 2015 at 2:58 pm
Here’s my letter to dear JK Rowling,
Did you ever get a reply or is that a daft question?
Wings should have a section compiling these plus a selection of the comments and we can wheel them out as required. Every column inch moves an undecided towards us.
Actually the idea of SNP hordes commanded by Nicola looting the stolen wealth of Saxonistan has a strange allure to it.
Can exiled Scots return to get a piece of the loot or is it reserved for blooded cybernats. Maybe the Rowling person could write a story about it and give the profits to a foodbank or twelve and both sides of the border.
I’m with michaelc; I just want out of this!
We’re all vile nationalists
SNP involvement in westminster would be illegitimate
Rebellious Scots to crush
uk is a den of iniquity, corruption and vice. Politicians are making obscene amounts of money from sidelines, rewards and subsequent huge payments for lobbying. Powerful figures have been allowed to carry out horrific offences, and authorities losing files on them.
Why won’t england accept it; we don’t all run around shouting about them all the time, while dragging tons of giros over the wall. We want to do our own thing.
The whole world is laughing at uk press and media, but of course they won’t print it here. The demonization of a small country by its more powerful neighbour is being noticed, and uk establishment are showing their true colours.
Come on, these are trashy right wing media outlets.
Of course they are against any left wing government, the fact is that they’re only printing all this ‘anti scottish’ stuff (most of which is tongue in cheek) because the party going to be elected in Scotland may end up represents what they see as an even more left wing part of a left wing administration.
Or perhaps they are just against a nationalist party that wants to break our Union.
Though I think the first is more likely.
We in North Britain are voting for a British political Party. This party is a democratic representation of the wishes of those living in North Britain it is also producing policies which are also popular with those in the south. Yet in this wonderful democracy of ours this is deemed undemocratic and a threat. I could ask WHY? but we know the answer.
JK may well be able to justify her political stance (the Union & Labour)which has resulted in 1 in 4 children born into poverty, the disabled, vulnerable, & unemployed dying due to starvation/suicide, not to mention the humiliation some feel by having to use foodbanks, by doing ‘good work for charity’ or donating to charity.
However, the saddest thing for me when made unemployed was eventually having to give in & finally cancel my direct debits to charity. I cried when I did so. I finally had no use, no purpose & was cast into an underclass of ‘scroungers’. That I did voluntary work for almost four years helped me survive; it gives one a reason to live.
So yes, her charity donations/work are admirable and if that assuages the guilt she (should) feel(s)then all the better for her.
Personally, I could never support a system that results in such poverty & desperation in parts of society (people who deserve help & support not demonisation). I could never look at a single disabled soul, a mother & child at a foodbank, or someone seeking help, in the eye knowing I had voted to endorse or further their pain.
Rachel Reeves’ comments on Labour not being the Party of the unemployed disgusted me. I expect the Tories to be dismissive of the poor, weak & vulnerable but Labour have proven for years now that they are no better. Indeed, they are worse in some ways especially as often they allude to being the Party of the poor but act in ways only expected of Tories.
I think it was Keir Hardy (stand to be corrected on this)that said he considered Tories lower than ‘vermin’.
Today’s Labour Party which is pure establishment; pro-rich, anti-poor, anti-vulnerable and ultimately in so many ways anti-social have now joined them.
sensibledave
“We agree that you are saying the majority of Scots are responsible. Not me, Not the English. Not Westminster. Not everybody else. The majority of Scots. The ones that wanted to stay part of the Union”
where did that all come from? That’s a bit of an extrapolation from my statement. Jesus – where to begin? I don’t have access to the breakdown of the referendum vote by country of birth. Many Scots did not vote due to living elsewhere. Not even a majority of all people eligible to vote voted no never mind all people living in Scotland, all Scots living in Scotland or all Scots.
For a vote result you ignore people who have not voted or cannot vote but when apportioning blame that seems a little unfair.
And of course some English people are to blame – it beggars belief that all English people living in Scotland voted Yes? I know you can’t think that.
I would agree that you are not to blame – nor any of our friends down south. Westminster? I don’t think anyone could claim they did not bear partial responsibility for a no vote? Their campaign won after all? Credit where credit is due surely?
Read my comment one more time: “I mean no – voters, including JK are culpable for the constitutional mess in the UK dragging on instead of being finally resolved”
Fifth time lucky perhaps. As for passing this on to my fellow commenters- with pleasure. here goes:
People responsible for no-vote:
People who voted no
People who were registered but did not vote
Westminster
The UK civil service
Most of the Press
Most of the UK TV companies
Some heads of foreign governments
Some heads of large companies
The Yes campaign (which certainly could have been stronger in areas)
People definitely not responsible:
sensibledave
People who voted yes
Everybody who exists or existed in the past, present and future not mentioned above. Ie everybody else in the world. Especially the good, honest people of England.
I was in a foreign country and I caught a programme shown on their tv about the British royal family. It was describing a sort of typical day. Involved a state visit from someone, can’t remember who, possibly president of Philippines…
Anyway, lo and behold, who was at the state banquet but JK Rowling! Hobnobbing with the royals, luvving it up with Princess Anne, grinning the whole time like a cheshire cat…
I don’t watch tv, but on YouTube I caught an interview between JK Rowling and Oprah. They both discussed with immense gloating how rich they were, smirking at each other with the most reptilian grins you could imagine as they both agreed: “We’re so rich, it’s frightening…”!
This incitement of hysteria and contempt towards the SNP and by extension the democratic will of the Scottish people is puerile politics.
However there are millions of serious grownups in England crying out for the opportunity of voting for an SNP anti-austerity agenda. They have glimpsed it during the TV debates and the political pickings for a progressively placed party in England will be extraordinarily rich especially if the Labour Party stand aside to let the Tories back into Downing Street
So with Scottish Independence off the immediate agenda isn’t it time for the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party to get together and promote a formal UK wide progressive alliance? This would open the way for standing candidates, who share economic policies of the human kind, at every English by-election during the next Parliament. In five years (maybe less depending on the electoral maths) Nicola Sturgeon will be at the head of a Progressive Alliance Party with the real potential of returning her as Prime Minister of this dis-united Kingdom. So let Ed and Dave incite some hysteria about that.
Rowling should stick to writing Harry Potter, which myself and my family very much enjoyed.
She is very much in the same category as Rhoda “I stood on the banks of the clyde and wept” MacDonald (see below). Disappointing, as I used to watch ‘Speaking our language’ in my student dosser days.
link to hanovercomms.com
and now Delia Smith, whom I very much admired until she announced EdStone the ‘next prime minister of England’.
hmmm.
Haha, “tongue in cheek”
Wow, that’s a new level of naivety
You’re suggesting that the churnalists who write these articles are doing so in a jocular manner, and furthermore that the loyal readership of these newspapers knows and agrees that this is so.
Do you want to buy some shares in a Nigerian bank?
It would be nice to think this might prompt some self examination from Ms Rowling or even better, a response. If not, perhaps sticking to her strengths might be best!
Hystrerical rectomy to quote the late Les Dawson. 🙂
JK didn’t stay in an abuse relationship, allegedly, why should anyone else.
It’s obvious Westminster have never wanted an equal partner in the Union. Just secrecy and lies.
Robert Louis @ 4.23 pm
It is not just the Tories who do this. Remember the elderly gentleman who was manhandled out of the Labour Party Conference when he heckled Jack Straw.
I think Labour tried to justify it under some law or other, maybe even one they brought in themselves, but cannot remember all the details.
But when you consider how MPs behave in the Commons particularly at PMQs then these incidents over the past few days pale into insignificance by comparison.
Grouse Beater
I hope you don’t mind me responding to your open letter here.
The theoretical understanding of the relationship between “place” and “identity”, has been developing over the past twenty odd years, which I have missed entirely. However, I don’t think it will be disputed that there is a strong interaction between one’s day-to-day experience and one’s identity. It should go without saying that one’s wealth has a significant influence on one’s day-to-day experience, which will revealed a world entirely separate to that reveled to the majority. If our psychology is influenced by the world around us, I would suggest it also influences the identity we choose to reveal to the world, in terms of the values we project.
link to en.wikipedia.org
link to en.wikipedia.org
Identity and Place
link to oxfordbibliographies.com
In summury – J.K.? Who cares.
P.S. This looks interesting.
Latin American Philosophy for the 21st Century: The Human Condition, Values, and the Search for Identity
link to amazon.com
Giving a million quid to succeed in denying another country it’s independence. Wonder what one of the more volatile countries in the world would do if she did that to them?
“JK didn’t stay in an abuse relationship”
True, but she sure as hell contributed to Scotland staying in an abusive relationship with the British state.
The British establishment are showing the world the laughing stock they really are. cowardice in the face of democracy, fearful of a small country with a few million votes.
Showing the rest of the world that they are incapable of standing on their own two feet, fearful of being exposed to their own citizens as the insignificant little country that they really are.
A clapped out run down banana country not fit for the 21st century. Show the world your cowardice they are laughing their heads off
Someone called Shaun Lawson presents some pretty persuasive polling arguments about why we are probably going to be locked out with another Con/Dem alliance.
link to opendemocracy.net
It’s depressing stuff, but makes every single seat and every single vote for the SNP all the more important in order to de-legitmise the Con/Dems in Scotland.
He also has some reasons for the apparent self-destruction of Labour in the past couple of weeks, which I’ve copied below.
“…defeat in 1992 was ultimately a blessing in disguise for Labour. As it was then, so I strongly suspect it will be again: because with the economy slowing down quarter by quarter, still entirely dependent on services, and many key international markets in trouble, I fully expect the UK to head back into recession within the next year. Perish the thought, so many global fundamentals remain horribly unsound that there may even be a second global crash looming in the next two or three years. For Labour to be anywhere near government at such a time would surely destroy it forever; and for it to form a minority government dependent on the SNP would allow the latter to take credit for any of its successes, the former to be blamed furiously in England for any economic woes.
That, I believe, is why a number of Labour MPs have already suggested that a ‘coalition of the losers’ should not be formed: it simply wouldn’t be in the party’s strategic interests to do so. That is also why Miliband has made such a point of the need to win a majority, and Scottish Labour have repeatedly stated that “the largest party forms a government”. Constitutionally inaccurate, this may be; but in a bitterly divided Union, to huge swathes of the English public, it is the reality. Indeed, it’s the very thing that’s pushing more and more worried voters into Cameron’s grateful embrace.”
– With the extreme help of their pals in the MSM.
@ carjamtic 5:01 pm
@ Davy says: 5:01 pm
Now I know you both mean that in a caring way so I wont take offence.
I think many here are getting carried away.
Its just another General ELection where the majority of the UK electorate wont get the government they vote for. The SNP are going to win 50 odd seats out of 658 but we all know that none of the parties are going to be in a position to implement their manifestos. They are all making manifesto commitments that they know they will not deliver because many of them will be “negotiated away” in any agreement talks, coalitions, etc.
Ms Sturgeon has made it clear she wants to influence government policy but she doesn’t think, for one minute, that her policies will be adopted, so just like everyone else, she can say anything she likes.
No one, including SNP supporters, are going to get the economic policies they want – because everybody wants different things.
You need to keep some sense of perspective or you are going to be sorely disappointed.
My guess is that while JKRowling may live here in Scotland, it will be in a mainly unionist grouping, perhaps with lots of really English Tory types with lots of money. She certainly will not keep the company of people who do not match her financial profile.
But moving on, we are unquestionably in the calendar month of May, but in our political relationship with England, once called ‘The Union’, I’d say we are in the middle of November, and with a long winter ahead of us.
Unless of course Douglas Alexander arranges a service of reconciliation this coming weekend, during which we all kiss and make up, before resuming the pattern of spousal abuse from our much bigger hubby, who is depressed due to impending bankruptcy and part-time wages, and the possibility of losing all the money he’s been taking from our joint account.
Let’s just go for Independence shall we. By that time no one will be sparing a thought for Ms Rowling.
The way to treat people like JK are to not buy her books
People like her dont worry about us as long as they stay mega rich
My sons love harry potter but if ever i see a book by her will not buy it
And if ever i see a poll on anything she is in will vote it last
I would have the utmost respect for JKR or equivalent if they admitted vow was a con.
Sadly can’t think of anyone who has.
I take this as meaning they are happy to be politically active and as such should be open to challenge.
Listened to this pish from Jeremy Vine today ranting at Nicola… from 22:50 on..
link to bbc.co.uk
Insensitive Dave: No one, including SNP supporters, are going to get the economic policies they want – because everybody wants different things.
The bollocks machine just keeps on producing on no oil.
It’s seems obvious to me at least that after Jim Callahagns government fell in 1979 the party was infiltrated with Tories so as no matter the result of any future election in a two party system the politics on offer would remain the same.
I shouldn’t have used the term Tories but rather “Establishment” it is they who govern and where the true power lies. The voter is duped.
The power of the Trade unions was weakened and that of the Establishment owned and run MSM strengthened in order to perpetuate the myth of a free country.
This is why you had the day of the spin doctors, the likes of Mandelson and McTernan employed to pull the wool over the electorates eyes. Even now Labour are saying they would employ Tarzan, Mr Heseltine, a former challenger to Thatcher for the Tory leadership as an adviser on Cities.
A Tory ex-minister as an adviser to Labour FFS!
The SNP were not part of this ploy and have upset the applecart, hence the media frenzy highlighted above. the only democratic option on offer in Scotland for your vote on Thursday is the SNP.
The two major parties are tainted, the reversal of all that is wrong in British politics has to start somewhere.
It starts here in Scotland on Thursday.
@Croompenstein
Listened to this pish from Jeremy Vine today ranting at Nicola… from 22:50 on..”
I listened to it earlier, “why does your party attract so many thugs” Vine asked. I ‘m amazed NS keeps her cool in these situations.
…and this is just the foreplay!
Wait until we win 40+ seats 🙁 …then again…WAIT until we win 40+ seats 🙂
Cameron: It should go without saying that one’s wealth has a significant influence on day-to-day experience, which will revealed a world entirely separate to that reveled to the majority.
I agree. You have not only choices the masses tend not to have, but better choices. In the end, you can choose the best choices and always avoid the worst. Life is materially good.
JK Rowling’s rationale for voting NO was similar to the vast majority of NO voters,IMO.
A pretense that they care about Scotland which is just a cover for their British Nationalism.
There is a small group(maybe10-15%) who voted NO out of fear and uncertainty,these are the ones we can enlighten and reassure.
I doubt Rowling is one of them.
Westminster is corrupt, time for change for everyone, we may be better together to make it happen, how ironic that would be. All the people in all the Nations getting rid of the corruption together and getting their own Nations, karma in action.
We now only have 48 hours to stand up and save Scotland.
O/T
Scottish Independence Referendum results breakdown by parliament constituency:
link to democraticdashboard.com
Very Interesting indeed.
Alex Massie, for one, seems to have had a slight insight into the possible effect of the anti-Scottish ravings from down south.
link to blogs.spectator.co.uk
Meanwhile, that brilliant tactician Cleggy is traveling from Land’s End to John o’Groats.
Deliberately snubbing his most winnable seat in Scotland? That should do the trick.
Worth the look
link to democraticdashboard.com
After wading through all the UKOK unionist bile which the Rev has kindly put together for us, I can only repeat what I felt a few weeks ago after some similar tabloid outburst: oh, how I long to be foreign!
Hope I get my Scottish passport before I pop my clogs.
Westminster wimps are scared of a wee woman, and it ain’t JK.
What we’re seeing right now is nothing less than a coordinated media assault on the SNP, same as the one we had against the Yes campaign during the referendum. It will be interesting to see the effect it has on Thursday. If the SNP get over 50 seats then it is proof that the power of the traditional media has diminished, if it is around 35 then I’m more inclined to feel that they’re just as powerful as ever.
Apologies for going O/T here folks but my partner has just asked me a question about Postal Ballots.
My partner has just read on Facebook that someone has heard that postal votes were being opened in her constituency of … Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. I think I know the answer here but for clarification does anyone know what the rules are relating to postal votes i.e. when they are opened, by who, who is permitted to be present, how soon before the count they are opened etc. 1,000 apologies for this long winded query. 😉
In a related query, as some may recall there were queries over wheter the referendum ballot paper was supposed to have some form of marking on the reverse of the ballot paper. We have a friend who has asked if there will be a requirement for any sort of marking on the reverse of Thursday’s G.E. ballot paper.
If anyone is able to supply answers I’d be very appreciative. In fact I’d be SO appreciative I might even cease all postings on Wings for a while. 😀
Looking at the referendum results by constituency confirms what I’ve always thought – people tend to vote out of self-interest. Those doing very nicely thank you very much under the current set-up vote to stick with it and those with nothing to lose (eg. Glasgow South) vote for change.
Interesting piece about the two people suspended from the SNP after the protests.
link to bbc.co.uk
One of them at least features in Empire Biscuits video, seems to be directing people into the crowd.
They both feature in a John MacTernan tweet.
link to twitter.com
I’m with you Tinto Chiel. Can’t wait to ditch “Cesspit on Thames!”
Sorry for another O/T folks but just seen this on Twitter.
As we all knowMurph the Smurph is doing his damndest to scare the elderly out of their skins with his LIES About their pensions being cut if they vote for S.N.P. Well folks it appears that in Motherwell Labour have stepped this scaremongering up yet ANOTHER level.
link to twitter.com
Absolutely DISGUSTING!
All I can say is that the odious lying so and so from Labour is damned lucky they are no where near my address otherwise they would be spending the General Election in Intensive Care!
O/T On the news it stated that Nicola will be in London on Friday for the VE celebrations
That’s handy for Miliband when he has to backpedal & meet with her to beg for her support
Here’s the “Thanks For All the Fish” video. The suspended member, Piers Doughty-Brown, appears in it a few times but at 7.00 minutes appears to be pointing into the crowd.
link to youtube.com
Empire Biscuits has an interesting record of that event!
Will Podmore
The “dangerous class”, [lumpenproletariat] the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.
link to marxists.org
Do you seriously endorse the above?
Manandboy. Correct Rowling will have a clique of toffy nosed English erstury accented friends in Edinburgh and Perth. I used to work in Edinburgh and have never heard as many plumby voiced home counties types in one area in my life. Apart from the home counties.
In Glasgow I hear English accents. But they are normal English people not elitists or snobs. I suspect she chose Edinburgh because it is the one part of Scotland that feels more British than Scottish! Apologies to Leithers and others. But your city has been taken over by class driven twits like Darling and Rowling. Hence the big no vote in Edinburgh and the big yes vote in Glasgow and Dundee. Its a class vote the no vote. Most no voters I have met have been middle class or extreme Rangers types.
I don’t think they love us anymore..
James123 wrote:
“Listened to this pish from Jeremy Vine today ranting at Nicola…”
“why does your party attract so many thugs” Vine asked.”
The perfect comeback to that one should have been something along the lines of:- Why does your employer (The BBC) employ, and then attempt to cover up the actions of, so many paedophiles.
It wouldn’t exactly be very parliamentarian for her to ask such a question but nobody could argue that it wasn’t a fair question, given the standard of shite offered by weasel Vine.
So far she has been a great First Minister, IMO, but i just wish from time to time she would savagely, but honestly, cut these arsewipes to the bone.
It’s amazing that Jim Murphy’s popularity is holding up. The Daily Record poll, asking whether you trust Jim Murphy to deliver on his promises, has 90% voting No. I realise it’s the Daily Record, but for as many as 10% of even DR readers to still trust Jim Murphy is quite incredible.
Well, remember what Matthew Parris wrote in the Times : England are “the boss nation”.
@icyspark
Very.
link to democraticdashboard.com
Their map is certainly interesting.
Didn’t realise Scotland was so big.
Here’s a powerful spell fur ye jk.
Scotus sum. Anglia mihi alienum est
Just watched the Scottish Labour Party Election Broadcast which ended with the slogan “Choose Labour”.
Hopefully it will be Friday’s headline “Scottish electorate chews Labour”.
Has anyone asked JK recently how that love is going for her? Is nuts that I’m not feeling it .
Aw Gee you guys, don’t you know it’s for our own good? They only hurt us to make us better and to show the love they have.
We shouldn’t make them act in this way, it’s all our own fault for upsetting them and we deserve to be punished.
Feel the LURVE!
Or I could say F**K off and fester you imperialist B******S. I only hope and pray that your end is soon coming.
From Jeremy Vine’s wiki biop.
It was revealed on 4 February 2015 that Vine received a five-figure sum for a post-dinner speech at a £250-a-head banquet organised by ADS Group, the trade organisation that represents defence and security industries in the UK, and attended by global arms manufacturers. Campaign Against Arms Trade lodged a formal complaint with the BBC, claiming a conflict for the organisation appearing to support an industry which “profits from dictatorships which silence and suppress debate”. This prompted a BBC response saying: “Jeremy is a freelance presenter and so can make personal appearances without speaking on behalf of the BBC, as he did here.”
So in the BBC World of fair and balanced reporting he’s OK and he fits right in. He’s freelance so the BBC are not responsible for anything he says or does. Hypocrites!
@Croompenstein
Jeremy Vine who works for the BBC.
Vine received a five-figure sum for a post-dinner speech organised by ADS Group,that represents defence and security industries in the UK, and attended by global arms dealers which “profits from dictatorships which silence and suppress debate”.
And he was trying to give Nicola a hard time about an alleged shouting match.
The man`s integrity has been bought.
This treatment has just about put the tin hat on it for me.
I don’t think we should entertain even a thought of linking up with any English dominated party to play mind-games down in Wasteminster.
The BBC has now totally gone beyond the pale and when, whatever (if any) usefulness, has been gained by giving them any official recognition, it should be abruptly stopped on 8 May 2015.
The same goes for every newspaper excepting the Sunday Herald and the National.
The BBC and all other newspapers should be put into official quarantine – no official government statements, no appearances on farcical studio set-ups, no off the cuff remarks to any outlet unless it has been officially approved.
And if this is classified as Nth Korean-ish, tough.
Prof John Robertson has plenty of evidence that STV at least attempts to play the game, as does the Sunday Herald and National.
These should become the official reporting bodies of the Scottish Government. End of!
O/T
link to bbc.co.uk
The image of the three “main party leaders” has been on the front page of the BBC website all day.
Scotland apparently isn’t important enough in this election for our main party leader to be featured.
You know, I used to not admit I had not read any of the Harry Potter books. Now, I feel “entirely relaxed” about it.
If the principles of your government rest on obfuscation, suppressing the truth and wilfully distorting any communication that offers an alternative and credible option in the political arena then it cannot be understood as a fair and open democracy. We’ve had 4 decades of unintelligent policies that have resulted in rising inequality, child poverty, zero hours contracts,low economic growth, a shrinking state and loss of social protection in a country that should have a substantial sovereign wealth fund.
These newspaper headlines are disgraceful and all the more so because they are published with the tacit approval of our elected unionist MPs. WM exists for the 1% – the political changes coming will mean that WM will have to answer to the 99%. We must not offer the unionist camp who have systematically failed their electorate across the UK amnestic redemption we should send them a very different message at the ballot box on Thursday – Scotland will be the messenger and we are writing our legacy.
Jeremy Vine attack on Nicola today cyber-nats worst bias I’ve ever heard
read out nutters on Internet and said it was SNP
bbc are as neutral as a Golf G.T.I in 1st gear
A song for Dave…
link to m.youtube.com
Sensibledave@6:00
Oh we get it all right,every SNP MP means one less Red/Blue Tory MP.(troughers,,oink,oink)
The SNP have earned respect in Scotland,everbody loves a grafter,add honesty,moral integrity,to the mix,your on a winner.
Since 2011 they have done more for this country than troughers have in the last 50 years,not perfect by any manner of means,but importantly we trust them.
They/we know that they are going to be the ‘away’ team in all of this and heavily outnumbered,but with the previously mentioned attributes,they will be fine.
You may find and this is why maybe,you are afraid,other,non SNP MP’s may have similar,progressive,fairer policy ideas on,how society should be run,what kind of country we want to live in.
We are not building up our levels of expectation,we can see the road ahead and it’s a long one,but the good people of Wallyford,Twatt,Dull,Muck and Cocksburnpath,(all strangely English sounding names) may have voted for BT last time round but will surely vote SNP this time.
No matter the outcome of this election,David Cameron has put an end to the union,a little man,who,when put to the test,showed his true colours for all to see.(me,me,me)
The people Scotland have taken no satisfaction from this,we held very low expectations for BT,those expectations have simply been met.
LAST GASP
Sneaky Nick: Any min gov wont be able to survive without LibDems.
If you don’t want another election before xmas.
Broon: Social Justice, reform ……change this coming from the party who fought tooth an nail to give Scots any new powers in the Smith Commission.
Do not mix patriotism with nationalism?
Sorry Broon but my nationalism comes from my belief in my cultural background which unites my country and I believe my nationalism has values and belief in its people which creates its patriotism.
The patriotism which you nearly had a heart attack to display to the labour faithful was the passion of a fool displaying the most foolish of passions. Arthur Schopehauver.
Clive Scott,
“J K Rowling has a vivid imagination and has made a fortune from creating a fantasy world for children that has given a lot of pleasure to millions.”
“Creating a fantasy world for children”.
I wonder what sort of society we will have when these fantasy world children grow up.
Michele, stick to bras not poltics. What a disgrace…
link to m.youtube.com
Quidditch sticks to Malky!
Although the woman is now Rowlink in it.
she needs to cast her mind back to when she was single Mum
who couldn’t heat her flat.
Picture how much that single mum would be looking forward to the
£30 Billion of additional austerity cuts promised by the 3 main Wastmonster parties!
Not eating comes just after not heating, if she has has lost the plot of the Tory!
@Lesley-Anne
on the promise – I might even cease all postings on Wings for a while I’ll bite
Item postal votes are being opened in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.
Item does anyone know what the rules are relating to postal votes – the Electoral Commission thinks it does
Item when they are opened, As is convenient for the RO (Returning Officer)
Item by who, The RO and/or his staff.
Item who is permitted to be present, RO, staff,candidate’s agents who have been pre notified to the RO
Item how soon before the count they are opened, The Fife ones started last Tuesday.The only legal requirement is for there to be an opening at 2200 on Thursday.
Item etc. As the whole of Fife is being dealt with in the one location the SNP candidates have all appointed the same people as their agents and they have been there from the beginning.
Item etc. The process is that the signed statements (PVS) are removed from the ballot paper envelopes, scanned by computer and the signature and date of birth computer compared to the ones given on the application for a postal vote. The barcode is also logged so the ballot paper can be matched if required. Any signature / dob mismatches are put up for scrutiny by the RO. Failures at this point have the corresponding ballot paper envelope removed from the system
“Good” ballot paper envelopes are then opened and the none, one or more ballot papers removed,face down, and only the “ones” continue, the nones and many going to the “matching” table for hand scrutiny and hopefully matching with an already here PVS or one yet to come or a husband and wife have put both their ballots in the same envelope etc. When the batch numbers tally with the number of ballots the ballot barcodes are scanned to match the PVS barcodes so that you can look on the internet and see that your PVS has been accepted and your ballot too. The ballots are then put in a ballot box and sealed and the box put into the alarmed store room which is practically next to a 24/7 cop shop.
Why do I know this? I’m the one on duty at the 2200 opening on Thursday
In a related query, there is a requirement for some sort of marking on Thursday’s G.E. ballot paper, just not necessarily the reverse.
I might even cease all postings on Wings for a while 😀
Karmanaut,
“She seems like a nice person.”
I can’t see anything nice about a billionaire living in a country where hundreds of thousands of children live in poverty, and the billionaire using her money and fame to prevent them having a chance of a better future.
If she is a billionaire, she could afford to use about a hundred million to eliminate child poverty in Scotland if she so desired.
I am glad that most of the likes of her were not on our side.
O/T An interesting take on Camerons planned tax lock
link to voxpoliticalonline.com
We have all been through this before, character assassination, hate fuelled tirades, set ups, fear mongering, violence add your own.Disturbing as it is, unfortunately this is the norm for a unionist campaign.
Being only a matter of hours before voting gets underway, I`m waiting for their big vote winner a la `the vow` to be unveiled.
Although i`m expecting crash broon to be carving promises of more foodbanks into the castle rock tomorrow morn.
Alanm-“people voted out of self-interest looking at the constituency breakdown” Apologies for being blunt but why are so many of our fellow scots total shite bags? Annoys fuck out of me.
Big Jock,
“Most no voters I have met have been middle class or extreme Rangers types.”
I have been saying for a long time that we don’t stand a chance of winning over the 90% selfish middle class and the 70% British Nationalist elderly who voted No.
We want almost 100% of the working class on our side.
If at all, it was the working classes which were scared to death by the likes of Asda into voting No, not the middle class and the elderly.
OT but Weather for Thursday seems to be decent, no excuses for not voting. There’s bound to be some close run gigs. Ignore the hype and opinion polls get voting and make this happen. When done check yer neighbours an get them out too. Don’t let apathy or complacency steal this moment.
Joemcg
Don’t take it personally, it’s just human nature. 😉
@ Joemcg
300 plus years of indoctrination, and programming has to have had some effect.
@Lesley-Anne (6.57) –
Re SLab scaring pensioners.
If they’re going to do the door-to-door terrorism of the aged and befuddled (again) we need proof of it – most folk have mobiles, but not all know how to use the many functions on them.
Folk in areas with high density of retired folk should familiarise themselves with the video and/or recording devices on their mobiles, and take them to the door as and when the scarers turn-up. They only have two days left, and it’s likely that they’ll get even more strident and threatening. If anyone can catch them on video/tape, it could be priceless evidence down the line, regardless of the result.
Another thing – people who live in sheltered housing complexes should never ever be approached by any cold callers, and that includes political campaigners. If anyone is seen trying to doorstep folk in identifiable sheltered housing, they should be reported to the police right away.
Will Podmore,
“The Daily Mail, the Sun and the Daily Express do not speak for Britain, as is implied by some posters here.”
Not for Britain, but they very much speak for the less than 500,000 middle class selfish voters in 100 or less marginal constituences in South Britain who as always will decide which coloured Tories are better for their pockets.
michaelc says:
5 May, 2015 at 2:54 pm
“Trying to think of a response to all this but…
I just want out of it. Our own wee country. Away from all this…
Don’t care about black holes or places at top tables or prices of barrels of oil or anything else. Just lets get out of this horrible unfair union.”
The first post I read today, Michaelc, and I don’t think I even need to read any more.
Come on to hell, Scotland, there isn’t a country in the world that regrets getting out of a relationship like this.
Get us out of this… I beg you.
Tony Blair was an establishment infiltrator.
When Margaret Thatcher was asked what she regarded as her greatest achievement, she is said to have replied: “New Labour”.
link to archive.is
Tony Blair now said to be worth 10s of millions was bought by the dictator of Kazakhstan for $40 million for one speech.
Kazakhstan buys people, they bought Tony Blair and paid 40 million dollars to say Kazakhstan is great.
link to theoslotimes.com
What about todays labour party? Well an old story syas this:
it’s not just the Cabinet that is stuffed with millionaires. Crunching their numbers, there are at least seven in the Shadow Cabinet, and Ed has surrounded himself with another thirteen millionaire advisers or supporters.
link to archive.is
As for the Tories and Lib Dems:
The coalition of millionaires: 23 of the 29 member of the new cabinet are worth more than £1m… and the Lib Dems are just as wealthy as the Tories
link to archive.is
Hopefully you can see now that all these politicians cannot possibly represent US the general public. They represent the establishment who reward them handsomely. There is no democracy in the UK, only establishment control.
We can begin to change that on Thursday by voting SNP.
Katie
Thanks for posting that clip. I’m now swithering between voting SNP for stronger representation for my country at Westminster or Conservative to further enrich Ms Mone and provide her with a business friendly conservative government.
I never thought of DC as being the best Prime Minister we’ve ever had- perhaps she dreams of being carried to meet him on a carpet of wafting £20 notes. Dave all flushed and boyish. There was love- the love between business owner and Prime Minister.
Poor Eamonn was intruding. Meanwhile, back on planet Earth…
Cameron-is it really down to human nature or indoctrination? Hypothetically do you think any other country in the world would have the same mentality and vote no out of selfish reasons? Or is it the scottish psyche? I honestly despair of our fellow scots. You can tell I have still not got over it eh?!
Thanks for your adbice H/C.
As you have been so kind to respond to my convoluted idea of a question I will do my utmost to ensure that I keep my end of the *ahem* bargin and refrain from posting after Thursdays’s G.E. 😀
This guy just wont go away and leave us in peace. Videos of his fall from grace, for most of Scotland anyway
link to caltonjock.com
JK Rowling is one of the fortunate through wealth which she has created who has choices. Many of us due to financial constraints cannot up and leaven we have little choice but to try and make the best of it.Its therefore no great surprise that those who are wealthy like telling us whats good for us although they have little understanding of many ordinary peoples plight;
Just get this right this time, vote for your country not a northern engalander region. Vote SNP for a Stronger Scotland.
We are finished with the liars and troughers.
Joemcg
I only dabble in this stuff mate. 😉
I think though, there is a growing body of theoretical knowledge and understanding, to suggest nature over nurture is an outdated mode of thought. A bit like Communism really. 🙂
Off topic but worth a read, how we got our Scottish parliament.
link to tinyurl.com
@onwards 7.53
Did u complain to them? Always make a complaint
If those headlines didn’t make you really angry inside,then you are not a true Scot.
Gordoz: I read some, not all, of your open letter to JKR. Like JKR I am an ‘incomer’ having lived in Scotland for a mere 17 years (almost). Unlike JKR I will be voting SNP in less than 2 days. Does this make my opinion/vote ill-informed because I have ‘never quite acquires(d) the depth of experience of an indigenous (Scottish) citizen, the sense of its history and its people.’? Does this mean that you don’t think incomers (how long before incomers become equal citizens?) should vote or have a say on what they believe is the right thing for Scotland? I left NZ as an adult, through choice. I love NZ, and at times would love to return (e.g. when it’s been raining for months!), but I love my life here in Scotland, and to read comments from people like yourself that suggest, intentionally or otherwise, incomers are unwelcome when becoming involved in decisions affecting Scotland, it saddens me. I have contributed a lot to this country of ours (if I am allowed to say that), so please think carefully about your own prejudices before passing judgement.
This is the same J K Rowling who made a big play in the Unionist press about the backlash she got from some online for her condescending promotion of Better Together and its bastard spawn, Project Fear. Her utter silence on the examples of Westminster bile after they got the No vote she helped push for is deafening.
Gordon Brown’s hatred for Alex Salmond blinds his judgement. his devious attempts trying, in the course of secretly arranged meetings with Menzies Campbell,to the exclusion of the leaders of the Scottish labour and Lib/Dem Party’s (McConnell & Scott) to persuade the Lib/Dem’s to enter into another pact with Labour. His plans were scuppered when Menzies Campbell informed him that he had no authority over Tavish and as such would not become involved in the matter. Rejected Brown threw a tantrum and set about placing every block in the path of Alex Salmond. Denying him any meetings. His disgraceful antics brought about the resignation of McConnell and the 3 year Scottish Labour leadership debacle that followed.
Lessons clearly not learned Miliband and Clegg are seeking to do a deal to the exclusion of Nicola Sturgeon. It is clear Miliband is taking instruction from Brown. How sad!!!
link to caltonjock.com
Thepnr @ 8:55 pm
Some interesting reading if you google Tony Blair and Miranda.
Just saying
Plus ca change, an’ aw that pish…
link to youtube.com
Seeing all the headlines as I scroll down I’ve come to the conclusion that Westminster has a form of Munchhausen’s masquerading as love in relation to Scotland.
Joemcg
The British brand is one of the most successful in history,people tend to follow what they perceive to be a superior brand.
Scotland has always been portrayed as the poor relation and it will be hard to break this.
I do feel Scots in general are less patriotic and have a cringe more than other nationalities.It is bred into us by the British.
We’re all fucked up in other words.
But things are changing now the Empire is dead and the centralized archaic system is failing.
That’s my quick attempt to rationalize it.
I’ve never gotten over it,long before we voted No.
Where’s Robert Peffers when you need him 🙂
@Joemcg “Apologies for being blunt but why are so many of our fellow scots total shite bags? Annoys fuck out of me”.
There’s plenty out there still open to being persuaded – keep working on them. I’ve been an SNP supporter for 50 years now and can safely say that nobody I know of has ever been converted to the cause by being dubbed a “shite bag”.
In any event, we only need to convince 51% of voters to win independence.
@scav. 3.10. FABULOUS!
As we plod through the rain we are trying not to think of Friday. But I bet you that I won’t be the only one who VOWS that if we don’t even get one more mp then we will carry on. I’m 52 but the young uns out there are just too bright, imaginative and creative to let the dream die.
I don’t think we would be where we are now if it wasn’t for the wonder of Wings And not the McCartney variety.
More video of the “chaos” from another group out filming. Includes an interview of the 2 demonstrators that J McTernan and D Hothersall were particularly keen on identifying. Interview by James Cook at the end.
youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=dRNztIPb8uU
Some Cheer from the latest polls:
link to may2015.com
ALANM says:
“….. we only need to convince 51% of voters to win independence.”
Looking easier every day, with all the assistance we are getting from down south!
O/T – bbc parliament channel – tuned in to watch the interview with Nicola which is on the guide as 10.15-10.30. Instead we get “The Crumbling Palace”. A begging bowl for us to agree to fund the upkeep of that pile of poo that governs us – Westminster. Mind you – if oor Eck gets there he will certainly make it crumble. Come on, Alex!!!!
The Labour Party, for sale to the LOWEST bidder.
They have to be the most pathetic political party EVER.
Then again the LibDums are not far behind.
Just watched Sunday nights debate on iplayer.
FUD Referendum, Referendum BA wBag failed at life Murphy was as usual, a total TWAT.
As for Wull Rennie,
FU*k Me!!!!!????
Both Leader quality?
Aye right
Don’t remember Magrit Curran being suspended from the Labour party for wishing Alex Salmond under a bus.
I actually stomached that piece by Janet Daley to the end at the time, before bringing up my dinner.
The audacity of democracy, in action. How very fucking dare we!
We’ve been told and told again that the people of Scotland decided overwhelmingly, by a decisive 10% margin no less.
But shift perspective a little and meditate for a moment on the shortfall that would have made the difference – 191,969 votes. There used to be more Aussies living in London.
It would be interesting to see how many of the new SNP members since the Ref were No voters – probably not too many but still, as we all know, every vote counts.
Though its absolute votes that count let’s also consider for a moment the marginal differences by local authority area, made so much of in the reporting of the results.
Of those local authority areas that voted No, the average marginal difference over Yes was 15.8%.
Applying this average to those local authority areas that voted Yes [allowing for a modest surge in the pro-Independence mood; the actuals on 18/9 were: North Lanarkshire (2.1%), West Dunbartonshire (7.9%), Dundee (14.7%), Glasgow (7%)], would shift the tally of Yes votes with a gain of 34,466 (17.95% of the target shortfall total).
That leaves a total of 157,503 votes remaining to reach the magic number of 1,809,958 votes to win (relative to conditions of the day on 18/9/14).
Perhaps going forward, polls will be able to extrapolate the swing of those disillusioned No voters in local authority areas that returned a No result, the obvious targets being in those thorny areas with the higher volume / total votes cast (e.g. Edinburgh, Fife, South Lanarkshire, Aberdeen/shire, Highland, West Lothian).
Add in the shifting demographic between now and the next time (the Awakening, the Departing) and I’m sure it will be a different result. There are hurdles to overcome naturally, perhaps the biggest being the tabling of a fresh mandate at Westminster for formal recognition and agreement. (I can imagine an attempt to deny us the right and apply the Catalan treatment next time, even if a stalling tactic while legal jurisdiction is argued over.)
We’ll have moved on a way by then though, and this Thursday will be the first step in that process, whatever the outcome of the general election.
Exciting times, let’s hope they are genuinely a-changin and not plus ça change…
If a future referendum was 51% Yes it wouldn’t be 51% Yes, if you see what I mean, the establishment would fix it so that it became a narrow No victory. I said before the referendum that if it was a narrow loss I could quite believe it but I could never accept a double figures victory. Weren’t all the polls “too close to call”? The British establishment needed as convincing a figure as they could get away with. We really need to be at least 55% in the polls before we can expect a victory to be allowed.
But! But! But!
Didn’t we say we wanted to leave and didn’t they all say,
Then they told us, “We’re all in this together”, and, “It’s pooling and sharing”
So Ah’m askin thaim noo, “If it’s sharin, Jimmy, whaurs mine”?
Still haven’t seen any footage of Auld Preacher Broon doing his bit today.
Was it, perchance, anything like this?
link to youtube.com
The levels of anti-Scottish hatred being whipped up south of the border are truly worrying. Our chums at the BBC were at it again today: if Labour doesn’t beat the Tories in the actual number of seats then any coalition will be “illegitimate”.
Then ‘Scots shouldn’t have the balance of power in an ENGLISH parliament’.
Not since Guy Fawkes day has there been such anti-Scottish hatred whipped up in England.
I know it’s yesterday’s news but the way Eddie Izzard (who wanted to come up and give us a hug last September) started mouthing off about nationalism and anti-english feelings got me to thinking – was he hoping for some abuse by turning up in a skirt and lipstick? Yes, we all know he is into transvestite dressing and that’s cool but I bet he’d have loved some abuse over it. Agent provocateur? And I don’t mean his undies!
Seriously, is there anything more pathetically sad than unionist trolls.
link to twitter.com
Gordon Brown’s speech just started on BBC Parliament (Sky channel 504)
@ian bortherhood
Gogs is on bbc parliament channel now – huh – they cancelled Nicola’s timeslot earlier but let this old dinosaur rant . fair play to him though – his acting is much better than his politics! Hamming it up like Olivier at his best
@ terry – yes you seriously upset the plan there!
@Harry McAye. We need to be at least 55% in the polls, preferably higher, before there is another referendum. The next one will be decisive and we have to win it.
Was in the SNP hub tonight getting my Polling Agent card and wee talk from our prospective MP, Martin Docherty, and others on our duties on Thursday.
West Dunbartonshire are having a calvacade tomorrow evening from Clydebank to Balloch and beyond.
Popularty contest?
Teddy Eddie wins it hands down surely?
://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xRX9ECxHM2M
Gawd help us all 🙁
@Graham Scott says: 5 May, 2015 at 3:14 pm:
“However, I also know that there is a fringe of nationalists who like to demonise anyone who is not blindly and unquestionably pro-independence”.
You can stop right there. You seem to equate, “a fringe of nationalists who like to demonise anyone who is not blindly and unquestionably pro-independence”.
With, ” … that they might judge me ‘insufficiently Scottish’ to have a valid view.
Those two things are NOT the same thing. The first is about, “The Independence of the People of Scotland”, the second your own particular take on Scottish birth.
To clarify – my next door neighbour is an Englishman married to a Scottish woman. Now, one of their sons has gone to live in England as he felt English, the other feels Scottish and remains here.
However, The People of Scotland are anyone of any colour, creed or country of origin, who are mainly resident in Scotland ,and registered to vote in Scottish elections. There are many English members in the SNP and many, many others from other lands. We even have a French born MSP and at least 6 English born others.
Cannot believe bbc Reporting Scotland Deja vu referendum tonight.
Then broke off Nicola Sturgeon to question legality of DEALS for government of UK.
Never ending snakes
@One_Scot (11.07)-
That one’s surely a wind-up. Good one, but a wind-up all the same? I fell for it anyway…
@one scot,
Aye, and if you skip back to here and scroll down you’ll find a wee tweet by Ian Davidson clinging desperately on to his tripe filled trough.
link to mobile.twitter.com
Paul Sinclair on Newsnight predicted a riot if labour form a government propped up by the SNP. Paul Sinclair is not in the Kaiser Chiefs. He is a former labour Adviser. He said the English people would not accept the result.
GE15: a roaring success for Morph ‘n’ Izzard… managed to get two SNP members suspended. Keep it up guys, 2 down 102,000 to go. At this rate, by the year 10000 you’ll have completely wiped out the separatist threat.
Then theres this zoomer
link to mobile.twitter.com
Anybody asked Ruthie how the postal votes are going?
Absolutely amazing stuff 🙂
I used the marriage/divorce/spouse analogy myself in a piece today.
link to commentisntfree.com
The divorce is now inevitable. The only thing left to decide is the manner in which they let us leave.
I was posting the following in the previous thread and it just vanished but may be relevant.
Scene: A city Street.
Enter street Left: First Political figure with megaphone, accompanied by placard carrying supporters.
Enter Street Right: Second political figure with megaphone, accompanied by placard carrying supporters.
Action: The groups close towards each other watched by the public & some police officers.
The political groups attempt to out shout each other.
Enter BBC Television Crew: They shoot close up film towards the first political group. The public & Police look on and take no action.
——————-
Now the question is – which political group is preventing the other group’s freedom of speech?
Who decides?
Oh! Wait! Isn’t that the function of the BBC TV presenter James Cooke? After all there seems to be no criminal acts as the police did not act and the cameras did not show the full scene, being focused only upon the First Political Group with just enough of the second to show there was opposition between the two groups.
The question remains if there are two groups shouting at each other which one is preventing the other’s freedom of speech?
BBLC
Must be desperate to have Kirsty Wark interviewing Hosie and Dipity Dug. Trying best to catch Hosie out. I was under the impression she was barred from Scottish politics due to her connection with McConnell? Her exile down south must be ending or she just had to get in on the Scottish perspective. But still SBLBC make sure its got its supporting reporters to help its Labour friends out.
LAST ditch fear factor being promoted continually by British State re legitimacy over result of the election and party with majority……… to make sure it stirs up the English and remains in power. Were going to hear this even after the result if Tories fail to form a Gov.
Blair and Brown were warned about the rapidly overheating UK
economy 3 years before the crash of 2007 but ignored all advice even overuling the poor old Governer of the BOE King. When hit with the crash the flyboys blamed the BOS, since it fitted nicely with their referendum scare tactic. But the entire fiasco should have been firmly placed on the doorstep of 11 Downing Street since that is where the fault truly rested.
link to caltonjock.com
BrianW nailed it earlier with this little gem 😉
“Seeing all the headlines as I scroll down I’ve come to the conclusion that Westminster has a form of Munchhausen’s masquerading as love in relation to Scotland.”
News Night The Cornish People have their own identity,I,m sure the English newspapers will be up in arms against these separatists.
I am guessing that tomorrow morning we will be even more unpopular once the Bwitish Daily’s pour out more hate.
@sensibledave says: 5 May, 2015 at 4:11 pm
“Nothing for us in England to worry about there then Davy.”
Perhaps that should read, “Nothing for we in England to worry about then, Davy?”
But I digress, of course not. The SNP are a properly registered, and legal, United Kingdom political party.
They are thus equally entitled to vote in the United Kingdom Parliament. The people who have been worrying for some years are the Welsh, Northern Irish and the Scots as we are the ones with the problem of an undemocratic parliamentary system.
Devolution saw the former bipartite United Kingdom split along country lines and becoming the de facto parliament of England.
So insensibleDave – WHY SHOULD THE ENGLISH WORRY? Unless of course you are of the strange opinion that Westminster is actually the English parliament.
Your namesake Cameron certainly thinks so. He said today, “I will put the country first”, but in fact Dave’s country, like your own, is England and the United Kingdom is NOT a country it is, as its name describes it, a Kingdom.
Now, as we sometimes say in Scotland, “Awa an bile yer heid”.
Comress poll
SNP 47%
Lab 20%
SNP on for 53 seats that will do me 🙂
A Thought. What about thinking the unthinkable. A Conservative government supported by the SNP, (we did it at Holyrood with some success). The trade off would be the reconfiguration of Britain over the 5 years of the parliament to a Federated state, including a transfer, by 2020 of Trident to the USA or Gibraltar.
@ James Forrest – just read your latest article, great stuff as usual. I highly recommend!
@ Ronnie – yeah, I was watching newsnight feeling a wee bit sorry for the Cornish. They’ve got no idea what’s in store for them when they start ‘taking’ votes from the ‘real’ parties!
@Lenny Hartley
Comress poll
Lib Dems on 13%, where did that come from!
Last Yougov poll put Yes to Scottish independence at 47%, same as support for SNP in Comres poll, so not a lot of No supporters voting for SNP.
There is no point in knocking JKR for her beliefs or her life. Amd somebody will turn it into trolling news tomorrow. Spend your time tomorrow getting the vote out.
Charlie
No Lenny Hartley it won’t do we need more.
What ever the result, British journalism has given it everything they’ve got to stop people voting SNP May 7 2015.
Next stage for them all? forcing through a minority ConDem government.
It must be one of the worlds biggest, unique, extraordinary, bat shit krazy right wing media attack on a single political party like the SNP and all led/coordinated by the British Broadcasting Corporation.
I know, I know, the clues in the name right as they’ll sneer and jeer Friday morning. But we’re all still British too though:-(
Labour Party, holding Scotland back for generations.
@sensibledave says: 5 May, 2015 at 4:18 pm:
“… Don’t the majority of Scots that voted No in the recent referendum have, just a smidge, of culpability for the “constitutional mess”?
Don’t make yourself seem more idiotic than we already know you to be, Senibledave.
The constitutional mess has been there since 1 May 1707. That was the day it became the original good idea that the whole United Kingdom should be split, (more or less), equally into constituent parts, (constituencies), with each having a single spokesperson and all spokespersons being equal.
Then they formed, for their good not ours, political parties. Next we had them carving things up to benefit their parties. Adding and changing constituencies.
Finally ending up with 533 English, 59 Scots, 40 Welsh and 18 N.I. constituencies. All very (ahem!), democratic. That though was not good enough for them. They devolved parliaments to only three of the four countries with the three all with different powers and with The UK Parliament now the, unelected as such, de facto parliament of England.
And you bleat about it being unfair to England? Sheeeshh!
@ Charlie – Completely agree!
However, I do have sympathy with the anger at the perceived hypocrisy of the bombardment of pre-referendum interventions compared to the apparent silence from these same voices a matter of months later.
For example, what’s Bowie’s view on Scotland sending SNP representatives to Westminster? People need to know 😉
J k Rowling…grange hill + lord of the rings + enid blyton,
that’s all.
heedtracker says:
6 May, 2015 at 12:19 am
What ever the result, British journalism has given it everything they’ve got to stop people voting SNP May 7 2015.
For balance, NONE of relentless teamGB ghastly vote anyone but SNP and Sturgeon UK hacks worked on me.
I voted SNP today by post:D
@ Gillian_Ruglonian
Bowie? The performance artist who invited us all to stay if we were in the neighbourhood?
On the subject of finance, whoever lands the thankless job of UKGOV on Friday better have Scotland’s national divorce papers to hand for a quick and amicable signing.
Some banker somewhere has £1.5 trillion of tradeable UK sovereign debt on the asset side of his balance sheet… he won’t want to see its value slashed by politicians who can’t agree a government. Dave and Ed both know one of them’s gonna have to either kneel and kiss Nicola’s ring on Friday, or lead England into a depression. If they have ANY shred of humanity or compassion for their country at all, they’d better prepare to pucker up.
For all the partnerships potentially about to thrust themselves upon us, I dedicate the following…
link to youtube.com
Sleep well peeps
I can’t make head or tail of JKR. She made a big deal of supporting the Better Together side and was one of a number of (so-called non-political) people who used their position to influence the outcome of an election. So why did she do that? Because she truly thought that we would be Better Together?
But why would that be? She must know that the UK is in the top 4 most inequitable countries in the whole of the developed World and that the politicians in this country are far greedier even than those in the EU. She must know that the divide between the rich and poor has widened and therefore that Westminster policies whilst having a massive, negative influence on millions of people, and in particular children in this country, have helped to further line fat cats pockets.
link to youtu.be
link to youtu.be
Now you could say that she may think that the abject poverty of millions in this country relates to Conservative Government / policies however WE all know that there is little to distinguish between Labour and Tory now in relation to policy and greed. So SHE should surely know too. The last Westminster expense claim chart, of over 600 MPs, outlined that 8 out of the top 10 claimants were Labour MPs (including Murphy). Many individuals in the House of Lords are Labour Party members too. Many are now (multi) millionaires such as Tony Blair with 70 million in the bank (that we know of) and properties worth tens of millions. Neil Kinnock and his wife (Lord and Lady Kinnock) have milked at least 10 million from being members of the Brussels gravy train. This is the man who wanted to abolish the House of Lords describing the ‘Lords!’ as “brigands, muggers, bribers and gangsters’. You couldn’t make it up.
It’s said that JKR is a friend and former neighbour of Alistair Darling. Has he influenced her? (Wikipedia … In June 2014, Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling, who is a friend and former neighbour of Darling, made a £1,000,000 donation to Better Together). Surely not! She must be aware of him being accused of ‘dipping his hand in the till’, such as his classic ‘flipper’ scams making four separate second home designations covering three different properties; claiming for renovations; refurbishment; mortgage interest payments; council tax; water bills; food; accountant’s fees and even charging the taxpayer for bills relating to his London flat after he had moved out and was renting it to a tenant.
Cronies such as Gordon Brown and Geoff Hoon all claimed on their London homes too until they became ministers with grace and favour apartments. They then flipped the second home allowance to their constituency properties instead so that they would still benefit.
These people have been robbing the taxpayers blind for decades and have contributed to the dire poverty in this country through botched-up policies and sheer ‘me first to the detriment of all others’ careerist greed.
JKR has spoken movingly about her mother who suffered from multiple sclerosis and yet her Labour pals came up with the idea of paying a company, Atos, billions of pounds of taxpayers money to assess sick and disabled claimants fitness for work, previously carried out for nought by their general practitioners. Research shows that between 2008 and 2011 45% of the 13,600 people suffering from cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s or rheumatoid arthritis were told that they were able to recover to the point where they could look for work. What did JKR make of that? Better Together for whom? 13,600 people worried sick about their futures and 6,100 of them being told to get out and work. Diabolical!
It wont make one whit of a difference to JKR who wins this election because her wealth will protect her and her children. She’ll never be asked to take a lodger in and lie wondering and worrying who’s snoring away at the other side of her bedroom wall ….. paedophile, crook or whatever.
JKR attempted to influence Scottish voters pre-Referendum by trying to convince them to vote for the Union: A Union she must know stinks to high heaven. And here we have another rather timely intervention complaining of being verbally abused by SNP supporters when she has no idea at all as to who is actually hiding behind the pseudonym. No mention between September and now of her views of broken promises and vows. I’ll end this rant as I started it by saying that I just can’t make head or tail of her at all: What makes her tick.
@ Paula Rose – Aye, that guy that invited us all for a wee sleepover!
If his opinion was so critical to our democratic decision making last year, people must be desperate for his guidance now 😉
RIGMAROLE..
Check out its definition…
Big Jock
I’m from Edinburgh, and I have several plummy voiced English (and Scottish) friends. Every one of them voted ‘Yes’. Stop stereotyping – it’s not helping.
@Yoda says: 5 May, 2015 at 5:11 pm:
“Or perhaps they are just against a nationalist party that wants to break our Union.”
What Union would that be, Yoda?
The Union is a bipartite treaty between only the two kingdoms. England’s kingdom annexed the Wales Princedom in 1284 and annexed Ireland in 1542.
There is no longer a set-up of two equally sovereign kingdoms. What we have now is Westminster retaining the name United Kingdom Parliament but it has split the former United Kingdom as four countries but retained Westminster as the, unelected as such, parliament of England.
They commissioned a paper by two professors and the lone Tory MP from Scotland quoted it thus, “The Treaty of Union extinguished the Kingdom of Scotland and renamed the Kingdom of England as The United Kingdom”.
It you needed any further proof consider those 533 Members from English constituencies are proposing that non-English members be prevented from voting on English only matters in the United Kingdom Parliament and Cameron said yesterday, “I will put country first”, but the United Kingdom is just that – a kingdom. It is not a country, so just what country is it that Cameron means?
(Petra honey – I don’t think she understands economics, but sshh don’t tell anyone)
Its finally happened. Who do they think they are? Whose UK is it?
When the Cameroon, his dog Boris, Ed Moribund, Nick Clog, Nigel Garage AND a wide range of newspapers and TV commentators say that a government with SNP would be illegitimate and back this up with a poll showing 70% of “British” people (presumably English) would say that no government would be legitimate with the Scottish people’s elected representatives then the games’s a bogey for the Union.
No need for UDI, no need for a 2nd referendum, England will have seceded from the Union. Don’t know what the Welsh and NI will think about this, do they go with England or stay in the UK?
Note to English, this time its you leaving so please leave behind the £, the UK pensions, the bank of England etc. that Scots were warned would remain in England if Scotland left the UK. As England has left the Union then the UK will remain in the EU and little England will get its wish and be out of the EU whether they like it or not (remember you said that would happen to Scotland too). All the ex-pats in Spain and the EU will become illegal immigrants and be sent back.
It’d be good for Cameroon, the neocons and Garage too as they could re-negotiate to get back in with the promised referendum.
Blaming the English etc isn’t stereotyping.. Its just plain lazy, in most cases.
STEREOTYPING IS BLAMING THE RICH.. OR THE POOR..
… WHEN THE FIGHT IS ABOUT WHATS RIGHT AND WRONG..
To all the unionist parties looking in tonight
Suck it up
Just picking up on something Thepnr posted at 6.14. The term I remember Labour used was ‘modernisation’. This seemed a handy euphemism with which to wield in order to expel ‘radicals’ and shift to the right so as to become ‘electable’ in response to the dominance of Thatcher in the era of yuppies and increasing de-industrialisation. Guys like Michael Foote (and his donkey jacket) became a symbol of what Labour wanted NOT to be.
With the arrival of the Blair Regime and New Labour the process of shifting to the right was accomplished. Out went donkey jackets, in came suave grey suits. I’ve never been a Labour voter but that’s how I remember things (briefly) since the 70s.
And of course Iraq was Blair’s disastrous attempt to simulate the ‘Falklands’ effect.
I noticed tonight that (post-New) Labour had a broadcast which seemed to draw on the history of the Labour Party which seemed to conveniently airbrush out the Blair years. There was even a glimpse of Michael Foote in there somewhere.
But yes, the strange case of how a once-proud left-wing party became a bunch of Toryfied copycats is a book I’d like to read someday.
The story also serves well as a lesson to others in any future Independent Scotland – never to take the voters for granted.
“my guess is that if we vote to stay, we will be in the heady position of the spouse who looked like walking out, but decided to give things one last go. ”
This doesn’t sound like a position of strength to me. This sounds like someone who is being taken for granted. She doesn’t use the term ‘battered wife’ but it’s not a giant leap I’m sorry to say to reach that conclusion.
Is this how unionists think? Worrying if so.
Terry @11.04
Yup I think that was exactly what they were hoping for,
Trouble was Eddie was mistaken for Mags Curran by the locals,
If they had wanted a reaction they should have wheeled Eddie in sitting at a grand piano complete with candelabra and a ballgown,
Now I would have paid to see the passersby reaction to that. 🙂
Mornin’ John
They’ve got 24hrs to come up with…
A ‘VOW’
A Policy
Photographs which prove Alex Samond is an alien pod person
Evidence that any of the establishment parties can carry an honest ethic in a basket
What are the odds? 🙂
I see Action Krankie is driving a train today, the other day they let her drive one of the tanks (that were supposed to be kept secret) which are being held in reserve for when they need them to roll into George Square just to remind the sweaties who’s boss,
tomorrow she’ll be sitting in a fire engine, the day after that the polis will let her play wi the woo woo’s in their polis cars, whit a great life that wean has. 🙂
WTF is a “baby farm”, Boris?
@handclapping.
“process is that the signed statements (PVS) are removed from the ballot paper envelopes, scanned by computer”
Thats where the process becomes wise open to large scale fraud, as opposed to small scale.
It means 2 things: A database exists of all the postal voters and their valid signatures. This can be used to print out false votes + a valid signature.
The scanned votes used to match the signatures shows who has voted in advance and who has not.
Assuming the database is networked then anyone with access rights can access, use, modify, copy or xhataever with the data.
A safer but more laborious system would be to just have the signatures ona paper register and to check the votes at the count only, with no manipulation in advance whatsoever. Then the postal vote ratio should be compared to the polling station vote ratio to see if there are any large discrepencies.
The postal vote process is quite simply unsound, wide open to fraud and any recent postal vote totals should be removed from the count or fully checked, not just samples. I wonder how that would have impacted the referendum result. If there was no major fraud then the result should have been about the same.
ROs should be mandated to declare postal vote result and polling booth results.
I hope I am wrong but!
Douglas Alexander looked very smug for a man 11% behind in his ward. He kept going on about 30% undecideds and late surges. Then there is :” Slabour still in contention in half their seats according to postal samples”.
Its all sounding very familiar folks. Like I say I hope I am well off the mark. It could be just Slabour caught in the headlights grasping at straws!
“Lets see action,
lets see people,
lets see freedom in the air,
lets see action,
lets see people,
lets be free,
lets see WHO cares.”
GMS
Simon Pia suggesting Murphy has improved Scottish labour’s standing from it’s worst position for years. He gave it all away though, “we may save a few seats”
Identity politics rather than policies for the SNP and where is Alex he asks? But grudgingly credits Sturgeon.
Last day thank goodness.
Big Jock
I’ve been saying that for weeks. They are ALL so confident considering the polls are predicting a wipe out (almost)
I am only predicting 20 seats. I am the ultimate pessimist I know but they keep on mentioning the 30% undecided, people wanting to vote Labour but not saying and the late surge to Labour.
It’s like they’re laying the groundwork so when they do well they can say ” we told you this was going to happen so we couldn’t have rigged it”
@BigJock
You are (in my opinion) right to be concerned about the Postal Vote, particularly in the constituencies of the SLAB “Big Beasts”, the ones that SLAB really would not want to lose purely from a perspective issue.
So the likes of Alexander, Curran, Davidson etc. The “minnows” are not of concern to the high heid yins, they are cannon/lobby fodder, but they need their “names”.
Everyone, including even the Electoral Commission have been aware since 2000 when the rules changed that there is a serous flaw with the PV system. there have even been several court cases on voter fraud (from memory during Council elections, and in the English Midlands, but there may have been others).
The system can be manipulated, and I voice my concerns during the IndyRef many times. The GE is more complex to ‘fix’, but like you, I have seen the polling which “suggests” that there is up to 30% DK as trailing the excuse (reason) for the result on Friday morning to show a late “surge” to Labour in Scotland and them holding on to at least half their seats.
Ignore the polls, ignore the media, the only thing in our power is to get out and vote and make sure every single SNP supporter is taken (if necessary) to the Polling Station and they cast their vote in person.
I still think the best we can hope for is 30-35 MPs (this is an increase as I previously thought 25 was a high mark). Oddly though, this might actually play into our hands better. For this reason.
If SNP = 50, then Labour would have something like 35 fewer seats from Scotland. Outs them on about 265 MPs, and probably as much as 20+ behind the Tories.
If SNP = 35, Labour would pick up those seats and increase their MPs accordingly. thus they would have, say, 270, within sniffing distance of Cameron.
So 18-20 Labour MPs from Scotland actually pulls the rug out from under the Tories and their “unconstitutional” bollox about a Labour party with no seats in Scotland being reliant on the SNP.
OK, maybe I am looking for a silver lining. But I think almost ant result with the SNP holding 30+ seats is a win and gives us real political clout.
Big Jock says:
6 May, 2015 at 7:51 am
”Slabour still in contention in half their seats according to postal samples”.
oh FFS, why is it we only hear about Postal samples from Unionists?
@Big Jock
“Douglas Alexander looked very smug for a man 11% behind in his ward. He kept going on about 30% undecideds and late surges. Then there is :” Slabour still in contention in half their seats according to postal samples”.
hmm – I saw that. Then on another channel they were banging on about postal vote rigginh – no in conection with Scotland though. If the result is totally out of sync with the polls god knows what would happen
Some sense at last
link to mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk
The huge % swing to YES during indyref gave us all hope,one thing you must remember is the bookmakers never wavered.
Go to oddschecker and check the prices,the bookmakers are seldom wrong,keep the faith.
An article in Le Monde reported that Douglas Alexander has refused any contact with the foreign media during the election campaign. Kind of strange don’t you think, maybe he’s afraid they’ll ask the sort of questions that our wretched media won’t.
O/T links
link to twitter.com
link to ebay.co.uk
link to precariouseurope.com
Cameron and HSBC fraud…
link to nicholaswilson.com
michaelc says:
5 May, 2015 at 2:54 pm
Trying to think of a response to all this but…
I just want out of it. Our own wee country. Away from all this…
Don’t care about black holes or places at top tables or prices of barrels of oil or anything else. Just lets get out of this horrible unfair union.
Post #1: I’ve read the whole thread. JKR, MSN, BBC, SLAB, are an irrelevance, a distraction. Nothing more to add.
Lets just go out and do it. Power, real power isn’t given, it’s taken! C’moan, you know you want to!
I haven’t been in the UK for a while so I have to assume that this press review is entirely fictional.
terry-I have a fear that the so called big 3 WILL retain their seats Curran Alexander and Murphy and possibly bayonet bob by fair means or foul. Don’t put nothing past this mob.
Well looking at todays trashy papers all I can say is what passes for British journalism is in the gutter.
To think that Scottish mps who conned us into giving them our votes for years continue to condone this vileness proves beyond doubt they sold our country for their own gain.
Goodness knows what exactly they are hiding but whatever it is must be explosive and I want to see it. Time to open up all the files relating to Scotland.
The polls are suggesting and have been suggesting for months that the SNP will win 50 or more seats. The bookies are in agreement, they are favorites to win over 50 seats. William Hill for example are offering a massive 20/1 that the SNP will win 21-25 seats or 16/1 that they’ll win 26-30 seats.
If it turns out that the SNP only win around 25 seats not only will it make me believe that this vote is rigged but that the referendum was also rigged.
O/T
I got as letter from our local Labour candidate in Midlothian yesterday.
It was post marked Edinburgh, it had the usual guff dont let the tories in etc.
At the bottom it said if you vote SNP you will get another referendum.
None of that is a surprise except i don’t vote Labour ( well not since 2002 anyway) and even then i was never a party member, so i am guessing that they are sending them out via the electrol register. 😉
Desperate times eh?
I have a mind to send it back to him and tell him that i and various others including our Local SNP candidate spent the bank holiday at our hub stuffing enveleopes and then sending the troops out to deliver them by hand 🙂
Vote SNP you know it makes sense 🙂
Remember wee dougies face on T.V. at 10.01pm on the 18th and it was smugness personified even though not one ballot had been counted. I thought WTF is that about. Could we be looking at the same outcome tomorrow?
Joemcg says:
6 May, 2015 at 8:56 am
terry-I have a fear that the so called big 3 WILL retain their seats Curran Alexander and Murphy and possibly bayonet bob by fair means or foul. Don’t put nothing past this mob.
May the Force be with you lol!
Keep the faith, it’s still all to play for and even if this ragbag get back in they will be so humiliated they will be left with only themselves to blame and shout at. No one, especially London Labour will EVER take them seriously again.
@ Nana Smith.
Especially the accounts. The real accounts, not the ones put forward for the public.
It won’t happen of course, but I’d love John Swinney and Stewart Hosie to have access to them for a while.
Scotland has, in the past, been consistent in electing MPs who are good at making London’s voice heard in Scotland. Things have changed, and the Scottish electorate now want to elect MPs who are good at making Scotland’s voice heard in London.
Lord Gus O Donald reporting on the Election for Sky News, showing a clip of Riots in some other Country,the feckers will stop at nothing to frighten the voters.
@ Rev punt up for the barrels of WOAD,weil show then fright.
Maybe it’s just paranoia, but with all the media bias, postal voting potential fraud and some Slab sounding rather smug, I am having to brace myself for the worst.
I certainly hope there might be a ‘stewards enquiry’ if the outcomes don’t seem to match up – but, then again, knowing other so-called ‘enquiries’, it could be a generation of further fudge.
I used to think the UK had a pretty uncorrupt political system, but the past two years have more than opened my eyes – I feel quite fearful of the ‘state’.
@Big Jock
Bearing in mind that postal voters represent the oldest, most entrenched traditional Labour/Tory voters – if the best Alexander can claim is they are “still in contention” (i.e. not winning), and only “in HALF the seats” they already hold, it fills me with optimism!
Nana Smith says:
6 May, 2015 at 9:05 am
Well looking at todays trashy papers all I can say is what passes for British journalism is in the gutter.
A good indicator is the polls and then there’s PR dudes like Macternan and link to twitter.com
Its interesting watching these guys as their whole point in existing is to create really bad headlines for the opposition, day in day out and their worst headlines are for SNP Scots.gov obviously.
All their work goes straight to newsrooms from Pacific Quay down. The Murphy riots outside St Enoch’s in Glasgow this week was text book British media attack orchestrated by these creeps.
JK Rowling basically smearing and slander everyone and anyone who votes SNP, all theirs. All of it’s concocted in Bliar and co’s brilliant minds
Watch a conman like Bliar tonight and tomorrow. All they do is “terrible headlines for Nicola Sturgeon.”
For Fecks sake Joemcg, stiffen up, you’re beginning to sound like a Jobs Comforter. Steady your nerve man or you’ll depress everybody.
The question of postal votes, will they save Scottish Labour, yes they will, but that is not the question.
The question is this, can we, or will we ever sort out postal vote manipulation.
If we cannot, then we will always struggle, in the same we that we will always struggle unless we sort out the biased TV media.
They will never just roll over, we will have to make it happen.
@ Jackie G
I got as letter from our local Labour candidate in Midlothian yesterday.
At the bottom it said if you vote SNP you will get another referendum.
Don’t throw it away, we might just hold them to it, we have it in writing 🙂
It is fundimundily important that we vote SNP tomorrow. So said a caller just now on BBC Scotland in response to an idiotic caller named Jean. Poor Jean seems to think Labour has got its old values back and that the SNP are evil. If Jean was right, which she’s not, then this begs the question of why Labour got rid of its old values in the first place? People like Jean are as thick as mince and surely there can be nothing truly more pathetic than continually voting for a party that has taken you for a mug and that will keep doing so.
Traditional Labour is dead Jean. It was replaced by New Labour. Vote for them only if you wish to preserve the status quo and continue to prop up a totally corrupt establishment. Why would any rational person interested in a just and fair society wish to keep things as they are? Where is the will in New Labour, The Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats to actually change things for everyone and make a better society?
We can do better than that, we have to do better than that or am I just talking Louise White?
Lol! Aye sorry folks. Think I was irreparably psychologically damaged in September. Must keep the faith. Must keep the faith.
Anything less than 42 SNP Mps on May 8th, and we will know it’s been fiddled.
I think a lot of us lost confidence in the postal votes after the strange referendum results and circumstances. As for Curran. Her own supporters refused to help her as it was such a lost cause. She cannot credibly hold on without a fiddle. Alexander was 11% behind. You cannot make up 11% in a week!
Murphy is taking the Tory vote so he might do it that way.
Lets be optimistic and follow the bookies who tend to know more than they should in these things. They are giving the SNP 50 seats. This worry could just be Slabour spin. I think we will get an idea after the first seat comes in what sort of swings we are getting.
Holy Feck..what’s happenin’here?
The polls have consistantly had us streets ahead for 6 months the bookies odds are upholding the fact and many, many o’ you canvassers are seeing fantastic results on the ground.
Suddenly we’re seein’ posts that are takin’ pessimism tae a whole new level. What next? We’ll be lucky if we haud the six seats we’ve got?
Gae yer sels a shak’.
We’re winnin.
Has Dr Scott whoever goat ah golden ticket for GMS,& spouting un=interupted.
Call Kyle is on again – lovely set of Labour voters and the soundbites – vote SNP get Tory, SNP government has failed etc etc
Thanks for the link to Niki Seth-Smith’s article. So good I link I’ll re-post the link. 🙂
link to precariouseurope.com
BBC RS giving Jim Murphy’s plans for the day on 30 minute loop.
Can we all just stay away. False Flag Klaxon. Especially looking at the “waiting for Nicola” picture.
Cash-hark back to the final fortnight, the result did not tally with what we were seeing at street level and door to door. Can you blame us for getting a bit jittery! Still pretty confident of a great outcome though. FORZA SNP!
Nicola arriving at the mound. You will need Firefox or Chrome to view
link to periscope.tv
Re bookies. Yes, if you believe them (and why not) they suggest very favourable outcomes for the SNP. The consensus appears to be at least 50 seats.
Electoral Calculus, polls and models rather than betting odds of course, suggests 52.
Appendages crossed! But as everyone keeps reminding each other, only Thursday’s vote actually counts.
Well, it’s supposed to count but the London gutter press seem to claim otherwise!
Cash it’s not the electorate we are concerned about. The polls are absolutely brilliant for us.
It’s the establishment some of us have concerns about, and some of the mood music from Labour. A few folk in my work are saying the same.
Now it could just be that in the back of our mind, the referendum night still hurts. Or it could be that the so called big hitters at Slabour know something we don’t.
I still think we will take 45+ seats.
@Louis B Argyll says: 6 May, 2015 at 12:57 am
RIGMAROLE..
Check out its definition…
Nice one, Louis. “Rigmarole”, is a contraction of, “ragman rolls”.
The long series of documents in which the Scottish nobles acknowledged their allegiance to Edward I of England, 1291–92 and again in 1296. And then came William Walace, Robert Bruce and The Douglas, et al. Then the wars of independence that we won and have now lost again. Roll on the next referendum.
Yet another flyer through my door from the no-such-animal the Scottish Labour Party, printed in Essex. No canvasser that could try to persuade me to vote Labour has been around, only another flyer that claims SLAB will ban zero-hours contracts, raise the minimum wage to “more than £8 an hour”,1000 more nurses paid for by a mansion tax. Yawn, yawn.
Must be costing them a fortune.
Post here in Murphyland was very late yesterday and when I enquired why I was told it was because Labour suddenly put a whole load of stuff into the postal system yesterday. To quote the guy “They are bricking it they’re going to lose”.
Incidentally saw three Labour canvassers arrive in town and they didn’t look in any way local.. or indeed enthusiastic.
Tick tock…. One last push and it’ll be a fundily old world.
Like many I’ve been perplexed at what exactly the mainstream Westminster politicians are scared of. It’s not like 35-50 SNP MP’s can outvote Labour or Conservatives and force through SNP policy. It’s not that we will be in a formal coalition with labour, we don’t want it, they don’t want it. There is a strong suspicion that they are scared that the SNP will “have access to the books.” How much access do opposition or smaller parties get though?
Over the last 30 years there has been a rise in the power and transparency of parliamentary multi party select committees. Could SNP members sitting on these be what they are scared of? Is this where the power is at? As far as I can make out these select committees are set up at the beginning of a new parliament. I wouldn’t be surprised if Nicola and Alex already have their lists made up of our committee members and which ones we “must” be on.
Maybe a constitutional expert can help out but I don’t think they can bar SNP MP’s from a multi party select committee.
link to tinyurl.com
link to tinyurl.com
link to tinyurl.com
I think a lot of us lost confidence in the postal votes after the strange referendum results and circumstances.
I know I did but I have to use one. The fact is the referendum result more or less matched the polls exactly.
SLabour will probably hang to sinecures like Murphy’s and Alexander’s because they blitzed them with activists explaining to people that they will lose their UK pensions etc.
Project Fear on the door step works but you can also read the Sunday Times “day in the the life diary of a SLabour activist” and whoever it is says over and over, when they do try Project Fear on the door step, they are told where to go and doors are slammed in their faces and in their SLabour heartlands too.
His/her Sunday Times thing ends like this, from a rancid CIF charmer
“We see the same thing in this election campaign – Sturgeon’s electoral events are an endless procession of grovelling sycophants supplicating themselves at her feet and feeding her cult of personality, whereas Murphy and other Labour politicians face abusive attacks and rabid nutters attempting to drown out and silence them for daring to question or criticise the SNP.”
It’s all over for them and they know it.
Joemcg says:
6 May, 2015 at 9:47 am
Lol! Aye sorry folks. Think I was irreparably psychologically damaged in September. Must keep the faith. Must keep the faith.
Lol! I think we all were but new dawn, new day and all that. Let the Onionists dwell on their 55% last Sept.
Group hug and high 5 for anyone feeling the wobbles. All the best shows start with a little stage fright. Make it count for the big night tomorrow!
Is this it?
Is the Murphy demo the best they’ve got? I for one would have bitten your hand off a month ago if offered only this level of smear tactics. The papers can say what they like, no-one really believes them – but the telly still rules and this is not enough to make the kind of dent the unionists need.
It’s down to the postals now….
Any bets on SLAB lost deposits?
I’m going to have a punt on 3
Chunky Mark urging the English to support Scotland
link to youtube.com
Due to the UK General Election taking place on Thursday, First Minister’s Questions will take place at 3:05pm on Wednesday 6 May.
Reasons to be cheerful
Betfair (who are not a bookmaker) have an outstanding record in these matters as below
Predicted correct result 2010 UK GE
Predicted correct result 2012 USA Election (Obama !)
Predicted correct result Indyref (message to self,deep breaths and calm)
Predictions 2015 UK GE
SNP 36 + seats. 94% probability
Actual seats,wait for it……………..SNP 54
Let’s keep our powder dry until Friday,but I for one have no doubt these numbers will be very close to the actual result,leaving out any political preferences/bias (they don,t have any,it’s strictly business),they are only interested in the data/the numbers,these people know what they doing,this also applies to the pollsters,history tells us they will not be far away 50 +,slange 😉
No offence guys, but what do you expect the unionists to act like?
They are trying to remain upbeat and positive when it comes to their own situations, if they didn’t, then it would be pretty obvious and the slight hope they have of winning would be blown as any undecideds etc would not vote for them, you don’t vote for a loser, you vote for a winner, oldest thing in politics, perception is reality….at least before the polls close.
When the polls close let’s see what they look like in studios as we all know from the referendum, the contrast in mood is very telling…in fact, I’m sure it’s why Derek Mackay got a Cabinet gig, after staying on STV all night and being very polite and remaining articulate in the face of outright unionist smugness.
They say they are doing well in the postal votes, again, perception is reality. They can say what the fuck they want about postal votes, yes they might be dodgy, but they might also be lying or merely basing this ‘intel’ off their own lists of known labour voters who have already voted.
It’s fairly simple and doesn’t need the conspriacy theories….
For the record, I’m going for 48 seats.
10.45hrs
Who’s the clown on Sky news who has just said the SNP crowds are coordinated ?
Says once Nicola has been photographed kissing babies etc, they are then put on buses to the next engagement.
Must be a helluva lot of buses then to get them all around
Iain Martin just said on sky news
Dont be fooled by the pictures and the hype of the SNP and what is happening is Nicola is not on walkabouts for very long and the crowd is then BUSSED ON to the next stop
NO PESSIMISM.KEEP THE FAITH.
Every one of us has in their own way contributed to this pivotal moment in our countrys history.Have faith in those who very nearly set our country free,and those who were swayed at the last minute,to ensure that promises made were kept.I have no doubts at all
If the results are shocking then we know for a fact that the State has intervened.In my own neck of the woods there is no doubt the S NP will win.
We are on the verge of a momentous shift in Scottish politics.Enjoy the moment—-but keep your powder dry.
48 SNP seats. My prediction. Slabour 7!
A MUST HEAR REV.
BBC Just now.Laura Bicker doing a report on the SNP with a man and woman in the background supporting SNP which I liked.Bicker handed back to Victoria Derbyshire and you could just hear Bicker say sorry for what was behind her,V Derbyshire quick to say that was ok nothing that could not be seen on TV,if this was someone supporting Slab would Bicker be so ready to appoligse.
I don’t know if it is possible to catch but maybe some SNP person should ask Bicker about it.
Can you check it out Rev or someone more up to these things than me.
Remember the infamous Feeble Fifty of the 80s? Labour’s chocolate fire guard in Scotland against Thatcher?
While not wishing to pre-count chickens etc etc …. I’m wondering what a good nickname for the Fifty (we hope) who will be Scotland’s representatives this time?
Tom Thumb wrote:
“Who’s the clown on Sky news who has just said the SNP crowds are coordinated ? Says once Nicola has been photographed kissing babies etc, they are then put on buses to the next engagement.
Must be a helluva lot of buses then to get them all around.”
AYE, and i’ve yet to see a bus that can outrun a helicopter, eh!
😉
Owen Jones: if the Tories get more seats than Labour, get ready for a Very British Coup.
On Media bias Edinburgh Evening News still telling lies about Neil Hay. At least Robbie Dinwoodie in The Herald put it into perspective:
“Labour have concentrated their efforts on attacking SNP candidate Neil Hay for alleged cybernat crimes – actually fairly mild tweeting and blogging from years ago – rather than on the issues, suggesting they are rattled.”
Labour In Edinburgh South putting out nasty vicious last minute leaflet telling ties about SNP candidate Neil Hay who has been demonised by Labour activists on the doorsteps.
How can Ian Murray portray himself as Mr Nice Guy after this?
And how does Ian Murray’s chief cheerleader Dr Scott Arhur manage to get onto Radio Scotland every day?
Carjamtic
Thanks for the betting numbers. I am thinking positively.
Come on Scotland!
To quote my old grandad: –
‘We hing the gither, or we’re hung separately’.
Almannysbunnet says:
6 May, 2015 at 10:19 am
Like many I’ve been perplexed at what exactly the mainstream Westminster politicians are scared of.
They know fine well that if the unionist Labour vote collapses in Scotland, WM has no legitimacy to govern Scotland. The Labour party is the last bastion of unionism in Scotland, the final, creaking dam that holds back the tide. It’s already leaking badly!
Reasons to be cheerful…
Well, many of us expected a big lie of some sort but it hasn’t happened. All we have had is the usual death by a thousand cuts through the rigged media etc.
My prediction is for the SNP to win every seat.
All along with the polls I have been looking at the direction of travel and everything points to a widening gap between the SNP and Labour, give or take one or two polls.
In the past 7 days I have noticed a sense of acceptance setting in with the media and certain politicians and I actually think the coverage has been more impartial than usual.
I really hope to see Tom Harris (who seems to have lost the plot with his dog video) and Curran lose their seats. It wouldn’t bother me if Murphy held his seat — he is a political liability for them and he plans to hold two jobs at once which will make him and “them” even more unpopular.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Tomorrow night is going to be the night of our lives.
@ Joe @Jock
I’m we you guys…it’s jist that i’m in such a state o’ terror maself after the ref result i’m beginnin’ tae read intae things I shouldnae.
So when a see any posts we even a tiny smatterin’ o’ doubt my feckin’ brains goes intae overdrive lol.
@ caledonia Iain Martin ( political commentator)needs ah Google map of Scotland. The Roads & the Miles, there again its hard tae see ah big Purple Helichopper in the clouds,wie his heid in anither cloud. lol
Almannysbunnet says at 10:19 am
”Like many I’ve been perplexed at what exactly the mainstream Westminster politicians are scared of. It’s not like 35-50 SNP MP’s can outvote Labour or Conservatives and force through SNP policy. It’s not that we will be in a formal coalition with labour, we don’t want it, they don’t want it. There is a strong suspicion that they are scared that the SNP will “have access to the books.” How much access do opposition or smaller parties get though?”
Well there’s that Al and of course can you imagine the influence SNP politicians will have when they start spouting facts and figures previously ‘unknown’ to the English electorate.
Tom Thumb says:
6 May, 2015 at 10:47 am
10.45hrs
Who’s the clown on Sky news who has just said the SNP crowds are coordinated ?
Certain commentators just cannot understand what is going on in Scotland, so they try to grope around for an explanation, within the confines of their own narrow minds and prejudices. Result – the most ridiculous, hilarious, and downright rude statements that are currently surfing the airwaves.
For what it’s worth, I think the SNP should have some members at any Murphy rallys. To have a word in the ear of any possible protesters that they aren’t doing any good. They are being set up to play right into his hands and give him the media attention and narrative he craves. You would think these morons would know that by now.
Bob Mack says:
6 May, 2015 at 10:54 am
NO PESSIMISM.KEEP THE FAITH
These things never go exactly to plan. There will undoubtably be a few disappointments, but there will also be fantastic surprise results also. A few Portillo moments I hope! What will happen will happen. Now, get your popcorn ready (and a wee dram if things go well).
I think 40+ is realistic and hopefully a few big scalps. Most people can see right through Labour’s nasty negative politics. It will need a huge effort to help get the vote out on the day.
Dream result if we hold the balance of power.
rongorongo
I didn’t hear similar comment from our ‘visionary of the left’, during the indyref. In fact, quite the opposite, if memory serves. A definite fail in self-awareness or do you think OJ is an English Socialist? 🙁
scott says:
6 May, 2015 at 11:05 am
BBC Just now.Laura Bicker doing a report on the SNP with a man and woman in the background supporting SNP which I liked.Bicker handed back to Victoria Derbyshire and you could just hear Bicker say sorry for what was behind her,V Derbyshire quick to say that was ok nothing that could not be seen on TV,
Not what I heard Scott. She laughed and asked if there was something going on behind her. Although it was a bit strange that her mike was still on and they had already cut back to the studio. Maybe they were hoping the manny with the foam hand would do something daft.
Did I read on here that postal votes were being counted already in some areas (not sampling)? I thought that was illegal, that they shouldn’t be counted until after 10PM on the 7th May.
A repeat from the 18th September?
From Craig Murrays site:
’’Post Referendum I heard that the postal votes (800,000) had been sent to England for scanning (scamming?). The envelopes with the coloured postal tabs had been separated from the regular mail, put in bins, and sent down south. I followed this up by contacting the recently privatised Royal Mail to no avail. I then made a number of phone calls …… many ….. being passed from one department to another. .. and yes as per usual got nowhere. However I eventually spoke to someone at the Renfrewshire Electoral Office. He couldn’t help re. the Royal Mail Postal vote issue. He didn’t know where the votes had come from either ….. England or Scotland …. but he then told me that ALL postal votes had been opened and counted from the 10th September on. His explanation for this was that Renfrewshire had received just short of 30,000 votes (27,000 something) and had to start counting then ….. 8 days before the Referendum! They had to do this because pre-Referendum the normal postal vote was around 3000.
Just wanted to mention too that after the Referendum I realised that people who had a holiday home in Scotland (like half of the House of Commons and probably all members of the House of Lords and their MANY cronies) could vote in the SCOTTISH Referendum.
Individuals registered in more than one constituency such as students (family living outwith Scotland) could vote in the Referendum.
Many so-called ordinary people rented a holiday home in Scotland last summer, wee holiday, and were allowed to vote if they had applied before the 2nd September.
People living elsewhere were using their long lost Aunties address in Scotland.’’
Argyll and Bute Report on the Scottish Independence Referendum (and Mr McTernan)
link to facebook.com
Live Stream Link to this report
link to livestream.com
Julian Assange on the Scottish Referendum and MI5 at 46:22
link to youtu.be
Best way to rig elections. Programmer under oath admits computers rig elections’ link to youtu.be
Were computer programmes used to rig the Referendum result?
From Craig Murrays site:
An account from inside the Renfrewshire counting venue (the region that started counting all postal votes on the 10/09/2014 as per information given to me) was provided by enumerator Jim Daly. His statement is as follows:
“I would like to offer the following observation. I was an enumerator at the referendum vote count on behalf of Renfrewshire Council. The Returning Officer was David Martin, Chief Executive of Renfrewshire Council.
The vote counting was finished at 2.30am. What then happened appeared to be a mystery to me. Mr Martin and his assistants in suits seemed to be in a flap. This consisted of staring at laptops in front of those who were responsible for collating results and strong words were obviously exchanged.
As time marched on Mr. Martin paced around the hall rather nervously. Then there were more meetings, in a corridor, out of view. There was one lady with a laptop who, it appeared, was responsible for collating all the votes, but something wasn’t going well. She was taken away by one of Mr. Martin’s assistants, out of view of the public, only to return and disconnect her laptop and leave the hall with it under her arm.
Mr. Martin still paced the floor looking uneasy, talking to what looked like aides. As time passed from 2.30am until declaration time (4.52am), there were visible signs that those in charge weren’t happy with something.
During this process there were observers watching everything that the enumerators were doing but not what was being carried out by those recording [numbers] on the laptops.
From 2.30am until 4.52am the reason we were given for non-declaration was [that we were] wait[ing] for a TV slot….’’
Taken from link to joequinn.net…/scottish-referendum-rigged-mi5s…/
Judge Mawrey has stated that postal voting is open to fraud and has identified at least 14 ways that postal votes can be rigged. His advice is to scrap postal votes or elections will be fixed.
link to dailymail.co.uk
It will be interesting to see if the SNP get 50+ seats tomorow.
@Almannysbunnet
Yep, as the third largest party you are also given civil servants, a bigger office, responsible for chairing certain committees AND the SNP will receive much more money from the Parliament, termed ‘short’ money
link to google.co.uk
If we get the 3rd highest number of MP’s, things will get extremely interesting, the SNP might struggle with it to be honest.
It’s thanks to these “morons” that Slab cannot appear on the streets of Glasgow, that their meetings are conducted in secret with picked audiences and that Gordon Brown is shunted around like an Ebola victim. The “Morons” are making the news while you’re sitting fiddling with your laptop.
@ Robert Peffers 12.27
Robert, I accept that you an intelligent and learned man and that you know far more about history than me, or anyone else, on the site – with particular reference to the last 300 years or so.
However, and hear me out, most citizens of the UK don’t care about the history in the sense that you do. Most of us work on the basis that, somehow, we arrived at a situation where 4 countries – Scotland, England, Wales and NI sometimes operate independently (on the sports field, or with devolved powers for instance) but most of the time, and in particular in world politics, we operate as a “country” called the UK.
The word “country” is used interchangeably and casually by most. Sometimes we might mean England or Scotland and sometimes we mean the UK and all of us. We all get that – and have no problem. Language evolves. Your constant dissecting of the language and history to make an accurate, but obscure point that isn’t in the slightest relevant to most, doesn’t add anything to the situation. All of us know that when Miliband, Clegg and Cameron use a term such as “working for the country” that they mean the UK. Similarly, when Gordon Strachan or Roy Hodgson talk about their country’s chances in a game, we know exactly what they mean. Why do you find it so hard to understand that – other than out of pedantry?
Moving on, Sod’s Law has created a situation where the democratic system in the UK, that we have lived with for so long, has hit the buffers as a result of events. In the past, with all of its failings, the two party system delivered a government that, whilst causing the electorate issues, was still a reasonably good solution for delivering a government’s manifesto on behalf of voters across the UK.
The increase in the number of parties that are attracting support now shows the flaws that have always been there, but were not so problematic overall. Yes the Scots might have voted for Labour as a majority party in Scotland but got a Conservative government, similarly, there are instances where the English didn’t get the government they voted for.
Probably, the Scots turnout will be around 3m. Probably, around half of them will vote for the SNP – i.e. 1.5m i.e. around 5% of the probable total UK turnout of 30m.
At the same time, the Lib/Dems may get 10% of the vote and maybe UKIP will get a similar numbers – so 3m votes each – but the Lib/Dems and UKIP with possibly 10% of the vote each may end up with less than 30 seats between them – i.e. four times as many votes – and maybe around half as many seats.
Furthermore, at the very top level, we could have a situation where Conservatives at say 35%, Lib/Dems and UKIP at 10% each (total 55%) can’t form a government whilst Labour with say, 33%, plus the SNP with 5% (total 38%) (plus just a few others) probably could.
So there you have it. Everything we need for electoral chaos and a lot of unhappy voters. Not unhappy because the party they voted for didn’t win, but unhappy that the result doesn’t seem reflect the democratic will of the people (of the UK).
Throw in the issues of Scottish Independence and the SNP being dead set on a separatist’s agenda regardless of the outcome of any referenda past or which may come in the near future and we have a complete mess.
You wrote: “So insensibleDave – WHY SHOULD THE ENGLISH WORRY?Unless of course you are of the strange opinion that Westminster is actually the English parliament.”
So, I have tried to answer you above but I don’t suppose you will even attempt to understand. We have an old saying in Ye Olde English – “some folk are either too stupid, or they have convenient cognitive lapses, or they are too busy pursuing their own agenda, to accept that another point of view may have merit”. (I made up that old saying!)
Tom Thumb says:
10.45hrs
Who’s the clown on Sky news who has just said the SNP crowds are coordinated ? Says once Nicola has been photographed kissing babies etc, they are then put on buses to the next engagement.
He was also overheard saying, allegedly, “it’s hard to tell though as the Scots all look the same to me.” 🙂
…I didn’t hear similar comment, re. our anti-democratic MSM.
Please Rev Stu, never ever delete this web page. It should remain here to remind us (Scotland’s ’45’) of exactly how we are regarded by MSM and Westminster’s ruling ‘elite’.
How on earth can the BBC say that they are totally unbiased, lol! All pals together.
link to lenathehyena.wordpress.com
The crowds are coordinated.
Nicola’s visits are made public in advance and all are cordially invited. How much more coordinated does it need to be? 🙂
This is only funny for blokes of a certain age. When I sealed my Bowel Cancer screening kit, I just had to write a message on the return envelope.
“Warning, Does NOT contain election material. Similar tho’…”
@ Luigi 11:21 am
You wrote: “They know fine well that if the unionist Labour vote collapses in Scotland, WM has no legitimacy to govern Scotland. The Labour party is the last bastion of unionism in Scotland, the final, creaking dam that holds back the tide. It’s already leaking badly!”
Luigi, I know you are excited, and understandably so. However, “Westminster has no legitimacy to govern Scotland”? What? Apart from the fact that 55% of Scottish voters recently voted to confirm the legitimacy? I know you don’t care for Westminster or any of the other UK Institutions, but are 55% of Scottish voters irrelevant in your thoughts too?
@KenC says: 6 May, 2015 at 9:19 am:
“It won’t happen of course, but I’d love John Swinney and Stewart Hosie to have access to them for a while.”
In fact, KenC, no one needs access to the accounts to know the truth. Just access to the ONC, (office of National Statistics). By using their own figures and common sense the truth is plain.
Here are some real facts.
Scotland exports more than she imports and the revenues shown from those transactions shows as a nation we earn more than we spend. England imports more than she exports even including much high income exports wrongly shown as English exports, (like Scotch exported via English ports/airports).
The Scottish per capita GDP is the highest of all UK Countries and is above the UK average.
The Establishment claims are based upon creative accounting.
For example all the crap about oil & gas revenues is spin.
The Treasury claims the entire revenues as being from Extra-Regio-Territory so Scotland gets none of it and the accounts allocate, (just for accountancy reasons), 8.4% as Scottish earned revenue but 95% actually comes from Scottish territory. Thing is we actually get none of it.
So how come it was bad for Scotland when prices fell? It did not affect the Scottish Block Grant but did drastically drop the Treasury income.
Scotland has contributed well over her fair share of revenues since 1 May 1707.
Almannysbunnet wrote:
“Maybe they were hoping the manny with the foam hand would do something daft.”
LOL
🙂
@chalks says:
Yep, as the third largest party you are also given civil servants, a bigger office, responsible for chairing certain committees AND the SNP will receive much more money from the Parliament, termed ‘short’ money
Thanks for that. I think the SNP will cope fine. I see that the short money is only available to opposition parties so another good reason to keep clear of a coalition. From a quick scan through the document Nick Clegg tried to claim the short money while in coalition with the Tories in the last parliament and was told to get tae.
This confirms what I was thinking. They are worried sick that we will be on these select committees with equal access to all data. The conservatives having kittens about the SNP wiping out labour in Scotland doesn’t make sense, they should be dancing around the Maypole. I was sure they were bursting a blood vessel at the thought of us dusting off the books just not sure how we would do it. If it’s via the select committees, fine by me, democracy in action. 🙂
I think we’ll be OK as I trust Nicola et al to quash any PV skullduggery.
They are the ones who are closest to the political coal face and would have most to lose.They wouldn’t allow us to be cheated,without kicking up hell.
Tactical voting will cost a few seats,but I’m quietly confident the 45+ is rock solid and if we get our vote out,then over 40 seats is possible.
At no time during the referendum did I ever feel deep down we would win.Even the very few polls showing Yes were within margin of error,and the old bookies had me spooked.
We are on a totally different stratosphere here and there’s nothing left to throw at us,so even the silent majority can’t stop this,so long as we get our vote out.
@sensibledave 11.48
Interesting analysis – I haven’t bothered with that degree of detail, to be honest. But I think from the way that these things fall out, that your numbers may well be right.
But we have been here before, in fact in almost every GE since WW2 the percentage of the votes cast for the “winner” has been between 30-40% which was usually enough to secure an outright majority – often 55-60% of Westminster seats.
The FPTP system is fine when there are only two party candidates, but is now so unjust that this election (ONLY because of the potential breakthrough of the SNP and to a smaller extent Plaid Cymru) might be the catalyst for some real change.
Historically the old Liberal Party had the same problem. Their vote was generally well spread out, but insufficient in each constituency to provide them with an appropriate proportion of the MPs. Even their win in 2005 with 62 seats (9.5% of MPs) came from 23% of the vote. Contrast this with Labour who secured another majority (55% of MPs on 35% of the vote) with 355 MPs
This is a UK election, so unless you think that some MPs are more equal than others, then every single MP from whatever party has an equal right to participate in the formation of a Government. That is what the UK’s Democratic process is about. If because of the vagaries of the system the result is not the one that the “Establishment” prefers, that’s just tough.
We either have a democracy, or we do not. Which is it?
Please sign BBC Bias petition below-
Its growing fast again Circa 86,600 names in place.
link to you.38degrees.org.uk
Read elsewhere that if turnout goes above 75% in scotland labour etc are toast….I’d argue the contrary, with certainty to vote at 92% for snp voters, surely, if turnout goes above 75%, we’d be in danger, as that would then take into account a ton of undecideds?
CameronB Brodie says:
I didn’t hear similar comment from our ‘visionary of the left’, during the indyref. In fact, quite the opposite, if memory serves. A definite fail in self-awareness or do you think OJ is an English Socialist
I think OJ’s book “The Establishment” is a lucid exposé of the people who wield power in the UK. It is pretty light in terms of mentions of Scotland: he talks about the Scottish Parliament – and devolved powers in general – as being a good thing (p 312). And he cited the “Yes” campaign as being a result of public alienation with the establishment (p 302). But that’s all. My impression is that the final draft of the book was completed before either the referendum or the last-minute UKOK panic that preceded it. I get the impression that he just neglected to do much research on what was happening up here.
I think I’ve finally worked out why the english politicians are so afraid of SNP MP’s; it’s almost certain that SNP people would submit realistic expense claims, and the english public will at last realize what their masters are really playing at.
My optimism is not dimmed by the possibility of postal vote rigging, english media stirred backlash, claims of illegitimacy, etc; however many seats we win, it’ll be plenty to change things forever!
Given the fact that barely a third of the entire ‘UK’ electorate place the majority party of the big Two into forming governments, in previous elections.
Can anyone point me to any evidence that shows any of us marching the streets, cause we didn’t get the government we voted for ‘at those times’?
Being ‘unhappy’ about the results of an election, doesn’t de legitimise those results.
Fucking grow up Dave. Such a wee baby you are, crying cause your ‘scared’ you won’t get what you want, and coming on here to repeatedly assuage your sense of self righteous indignation under the guise of an intellectually specious argument is beyond immature.
Go stamp your feet on yer own turf. ‘King of the castle’ doesn’t have any traction in a democracy.
@dakk
I think we’ll be OK as I trust Nicola et al to quash any PV skullduggery.
They don’t walk on water. IF there is fraud they are not in a position to stop it.
Tony Little 12.27
You wrote: “That is what the UK’s Democratic process is about. If because of the vagaries of the system the result is not the one that the “Establishment” prefers, that’s just tough.
We either have a democracy, or we do not. Which is it?”
We have what we have – until we change it – it is as simple as that. I alluded to Sod’s Law where, probably, the outcome that we are all expecting on Friday, is the outcome that will show our current system in its worst possible light.
Whatever government is cobbled together after the election will leave many unhappy. Not necessarily because they didn’t get the government that they voted for, that happens all of the time – but because “the system” is no longer capable of delivering a solution that the majority feel is representative of how votes were cast across the UK.
I don’t have the answer – other than to change the electoral system. Then though, we end up in a situation where a party like the SNP could never have the impact that they have achieved. A brilliant result of say, 55 seats in Scotland would translate to 5% say, of 650 seats i.e 32 seats. We would probably never have another Independent MP. Is that good or bad for democracy?
Panelbase showing pre-vote poll today SNP 48% and Labour 26%. 22% lead. I think we can all relax a bit.
Fiona
Agreed,but I can’t imagine they wouldn’t know about it,and kick up hell.
The fear of the damage to British democratic reputation if electoral fraud is found on a large scale might even be enough to stop the establishment trying it on.
I’m not ruling it out,they would do it if they thought they would get away with it,but the risks for them may be greater than damage limitation working with 40 SNP.
sensibledave says:
6 May, 2015 at 12:11 pm
@ Luigi 11:21 am
You wrote: “They know fine well that if the unionist Labour vote collapses in Scotland, WM has no legitimacy to govern Scotland. The Labour party is the last bastion of unionism in Scotland, the final, creaking dam that holds back the tide. It’s already leaking badly!”
Luigi, I know you are excited, and understandably so. However, “Westminster has no legitimacy to govern Scotland”? What? Apart from the fact that 55% of Scottish voters recently voted to confirm the legitimacy? I know you don’t care for Westminster or any of the other UK Institutions, but are 55% of Scottish voters irrelevant in your thoughts too?
Well it seems that 100% of Scottish voters are not exactly relevant at WM either, if a democratically elected SNP group of MPs are considered illegitimate and unworthy to influence a minority WM government.
Can’t have it both ways, Dave.
@ K1 12.59.
“Fucking grow up Dave. Such a wee baby you are, crying cause your ‘scared’ you won’t get what you want, and coming on here to repeatedly assuage your sense of self righteous indignation under the guise of an intellectually specious argument is beyond immature.”
HaHa! thanks for those thoughts K1. I know it is all beyond you because you don’t understand and you don’t care anyway – because you are a separatist.
It’s not “self righteous indignation” K1 – It’s the the 55% majority Unionists in Scotland that I worry about.
I think you are projecting way too much. You want me to be upset – I’m not. You want me to be afraid. I’m not. You want me to disregard the 55%. I won’t.
Methinks you are getting a little ahead of yourself. Let’s see if you get more than 50% of the vote in Scotland. If you do then maybe Ms Sturgeon will push for another once in a generation referendum. If you don’t, then that will be the second time, in just a few months, your fellow Scots will have told you that you have deluded yourself.
Either way – it will be for the good of the Union.
Watch your language ya prick, most sites would have de-fenestrated you and your Torified tripe long since. Says a lot for the Rev’s tolerance that you’re still here.
@ Almannysbunnet says:
“… The conservatives having kittens about the SNP wiping out labour in Scotland doesn’t make sense, they should be dancing around the Maypole….”
Well done Almannysbunnet! An astute observation at last – and one that many here should have a serious think about.
Tick tock
One more day folks and we can relax ….. just a little
GO Scotland.
I don’t have the answer – other than to change the electoral system.
Demand electoral change NOW, just as Scotland may be about to have actual influence in Westminster and all for Scotland?
The UKOK freak show staggers towards the abyss.
Who’d have thought it sensibledave. People aren’t stupid. Everyone knows that if polls hold, actual devo-max and not THE VOW fraud could be coming to Scotland.
If unionists at Westminster can ditch First Past the Post, its only going to look like what it is, another red and blue shyste on Scotland.
Or UKOK red and blue tory business as usual.
@ sensibledave
Round about the time of the AV referendum, I read a book by a political scientist from, I think, Reading University, setting out the pros and cons of all the electoral systems currently in use worldwide. (He may have confined himself to parliamentary elections; I can’t remember now, though I’m sure he didn’t go as far as tribal councils in Papua New Guinea, for instance.)
He did his best to be neutral, to describe the processes and then indicate which priorities were best served by each system; ie first past the post systems suit those to whom having a constituency link is the most important and the various more or less proportional schemes are favoured by those worried about imbalances between vote share and number of representatives.
So the answer to your question “is that good or bad for democracy?” depends on those priorities; in the UK we have a culture of constituency representatives, so that list MSPs are sometimes seen as second class – and not just because the parties create the lists – there are open list PR systems available.
Elsewhere where proportionality is the expectation, the electorate has grown used to weaker links.
The answer is therefore probably “neither”.
There it is. For all to see.
It was worth it Dave, (using the word ‘fucking’) just to see the bile, for what it truly is.
A fully naked Troll, exposing himself.
Result ????
Fred says:
6 May, 2015 at 11:48 am
It’s thanks to these “morons” that Slab cannot appear on the streets of Glasgow, that their meetings are conducted in secret with picked audiences and that Gordon Brown is shunted around like an Ebola victim. The “Morons” are making the news while you’re sitting fiddling with your laptop.
Are you talking about the protestors?
It’s fine to protest calmly with placards, but a few idiots trying to drown out his speeches with megaphones just plays to his narrative where he tries to paint all SNP supporters as violent fascist thugs. What do you think has more influence? Murphy preaching to a few shoppers, or every second newspaper pumping out propaganda the next day painting all SNP activists as a violent mob? These morons in Glasgow probably cost the SNP at least 5 percentage points in the last few days.
Plenty of people still believe what the papers tell them.
@ Fred 2:04 pm
“Watch your language ya prick, most sites would have de-fenestrated you and your Torified tripe long since. Says a lot for the Rev’s tolerance that you’re still here.”
Classic Fred – an absolute classic!
I don’t use foul language to make my points Fred. You did – and you misread the piece that you are commenting upon – i.e. where KI at 12.59, wrote those words.
Don’t worry Rev – I don’t want them both defenstrated.
sensibledave@2:35
Put all your I am being reasonable tosh,aside,this is what’s going to happen.
MP’s of all party’s are just going to roll up their sleeves and do what we pay them to do….their jobs.
If they put all their prejudices to one side and actually work for the betterment of people,that’s you,me and everbody else,brilliant.
So let’s try it and see what happens,broken system,imperfect people,narrow minded politicians,bumpy ride for sure,this is a defining moment.
My advice to Dave and Ed,put the dummy back in your gob and get on with it,enough of this selfish crap,we all know they are only in it for themselves.
Let’s keep them honest,let’s have more openess,more democracy,not less,now fuck off.
Slabour won 41 Mp’s on a percentage of 42%. SNP minimum in polls is 48%. We are going to get at least 45MP’s, even if Slabour take Tory votes to steal seats from us.
Remember the 45. That’s our absolute minimum percentage. But I know 4 no voters in my office voting SNP. It’s happening all over. No one has mentioned Murphy’s stunt and if they do it’s to sneer at him.
No way did his wee stunt lose us 5%. I think he actually helped people give up on Slabour.
@ K1 at 2.25
OMG K1! You are beyond parody.
The profanity that Fred wrongly attributed to me (I don’t swear K1) – was yours. Numbskull.
“I think you are projecting way too much. You want me to be upset – I’m not. You want me to be afraid. I’m not. You want me to disregard the 55%. I won’t.”
You think way too highly of yourself, I have no ‘want’ of you in any capacity, and care not one iota about your psychological projections onto me.
At least I can apply the term appropriately, no evidence that I have ‘projected’ any quality or feeling onto you: merely that you have expressed your fears throughout discussions on many threads on Wings.
Just for the record. And my last comment to you:
sensibledave expresses himself:
“Just for clarity, yes we are scared, scared that a bunch of lefties (wherever they live) ending up being responsible for creating jobs, creating wealth and generating tax receipts. We are afraid because we know, yes we know, that if SNP policies were actually implemented – then, in a few years, we will have more unemployment, less wealth being created, less tax receipts from “the rich” and hence tax increases for the less well paid. We know this because that is what every lefty government achieves.”
” There are many more Scots that want Independence, probably enough to win a referendum, but their desire for Independence is overshadowed by their fear of a Scotland run with SNP economic policies.”
You are scared, you do think you speak for others for whom you do not represent. And you are a Troll. Have a good day.
@ carjamtic 2.59
… heaven forfend that anyone should try to be reasonable eh.
… and thanks for the send off!
What is everyone’s problem today? The SNP are about to have one of the most historic and victorious days in its history and yet everyone is lashing out with profanity, the likes of which I have not witnessed, or been on the receiving end of, here before.
It a good job I know you are only joking or one could read a great deal antipathy into many comments. What happened to “the hand of friendship”?
K1 at 3.33
So K1, not man (or woman) enough to own up to your tragic error and apologise to me?
My comment at 2.25 is to you Dave. I have no clue what your hysterical omg comment is referring too. But let me see if I can work it out, is it related to the question marks after the word ‘result’?
That was an emoticon mishap. I placed a wee icon wi a person dropping rubbish in a bin. But clearly WordPress doesn’t convert those wee icons from my kindle.
In your haste to get at me, did you not consider that there may be another ’cause’ for the question marks? They were out of place in the context of my comment to you, you seem to have conflated two unrelated comments and come up with a solution that fits your idea of where you think others are ‘coming from’. Nothing new there Dave.
I at no point was responding to anyone other than you after you took the bait and ‘jumped’ all over one paragraph of my comment and by so doing revealed your Trolling. You chose not to reply to the substance of the point that I and others have repeatedly responded to you on, and fired back your usual disjointed presumptions that you indulge in frequently with others on these threads, when they use direct language with you.
I hope this clears up your confusion about my comment at 12.25.
Dave, most on here will confirm what I’m about to say.
There is a delay on posts of up to 20 minutes or more on Wings, I can’t ‘see’ posts in ‘real’ time. I have no clue when I post what others are commenting on around about the same time. And I certainly don’t have a need to have ‘back up’ from others. Neither would I expect it.
You’re like a wee wean running to an authority figure and saying: ‘see, see what they did, they swore, and they’re bad…’
I reiterate my earlier comment because it is accurate and appropriate to your character: Fucking grow up. 🙂
Fred 2.04
“Watch your language ya prick, most sites would have de-fenestrated you and your Torified tripe long since. Says a lot for the Rev’s tolerance that you’re still here.”
Ha ha nice one mate.
@K1 2.25
You wrote “My comment at 2.25 is to you Dave. I have no clue what your hysterical omg comment is referring too. But let me see if I can work it out, is it related to …..?”
Oh dear! Let me do this slowly for you K1 (God give me the strength!)
Step 1. at 12.59pm YOU WROTE, got that? YOU WROTE “Fucking grow up Dave. Such a wee baby you are, crying cause your ‘scared’ ….!
Step 2. at 1.49 I wrote back to you quoting YOUR passage, YOUR Profanity, YOUR use of swear words in a comment in your 12.59 post.
Step 3. at 2.04 FRED wrote, in response to mine at 1.49: “watch you language ya prick, most sites would have de-fenestrated you and your Torified tripe long since. Says a lot for the Rev’s tolerance that you’re still here”
… he hadn’t noticed that the profanity that I clearly “quoted” was YOURS from Step 1. YOURS K1! That’s right YOURS!
STEP 4. And then, just when you think Fred is the most misguided fool on the planet, up you pop again, backing up FRED!!!
You wrote: K1 at 2:25 pm
“There it is. For all to see. (ALL EXCEPT YOU APPARENTLY K1)
It was worth it Dave, (using the word ‘fucking’) just to see the bile, for what it truly is. (IT WAS YOU THAT WROTE THAT WORD!!)
A fully naked Troll, exposing himself. (YOUR RIDICULOUS SUMMARY!)
Result ????” (YOU ARE THE ONE FULL OF “BILE”)
Step 5. At 3.28 I wrote back to you pointing out yours, and Fred’s, tragic error.
Step 6. at 3.59 I write to you again, asking for an apology for outrageous, hypocritical slurs.
Step 6. At 4.06 You write again, still completely unaware of the completely ridiculous situation you and Fred, between you, have created.
I can’t help you out anymore K1.
@K1 4.21
OK K1. I have just read your comment of 4.21. I have already replied and posted to your 4.06.
May I suggest that you shut up for a while, read and understand my post where I explain to you, in easy (for anyone with a brain) steps, how you erred so badly.
When you have got yourself up to speed and the penny has dropped – a simple apology is all that is required.
Just wow. I have just explained about time delays Dave. That ‘order of play’ took place in yer heid.
Talk about wrapping a story around a conclusion.
But hey, aren’t you all worked up. I use the word ‘fucking’.
And out it all comes.
Result 🙂
@ KI 5.45
Can you and Fred go into a huddle and sort your stories out together please.
Check all of my comments and see if you can find one example of me using profanity (clue: there isn’t any, I think, in exasperation I called you a “numbskull”). Contrast and compare with the language and “bile” by others. Look at yours and Fred’s comments and see if you see any profanity there (clue: the answer’s yes). Check the comments of other commenters here and see if they have used robust language.
Then come back to me and we will have a chat about people being seen for who they truly are.
I don’t think anyone’s winning in the popularity stakes here at the moment no more sweary words please, some people are sensitive.
Dave, there is a post delay of 20 minutes or more with the comments, look at the time stamps you have just quoted, between Fred and mine’s. I did not know and could not possibly have seen his comment.
You have insulted, belittlled and patronised me throughout this entire exchange. It’s laid out on the page Dave.
I used the word ‘fucking’ and you justify your ranting lunacy, demand apologies, further patronise and then indulge further condescension with that last post, when I have already indicated the delayed posts issue.
Furthermore you have just demonstrated and vindicated the entire point I was making. You are full of bile. You literally make stuff up and project it onto others. You can’t ‘see yersel’as ithers see yi’.
The word ‘prick’ and ‘fucking’ used in their contexts within the context of the posts you are citing, do not in themselves ‘signify’ as descriptors for, or as in any way synonymous with, the word ‘bile’.
Your posts however come closest to that word used in its correct context.
I think we know who owes the apology here Dave. More patronising condescension. Your arrogance is quite literally unashamedly childish. You’re a sad wee man.
Hi sensibledave.
You typed,
“The profanity that Fred wrongly attributed to me (I don’t swear K1) – was yours. Numbskull.”
link to flashbackuniverse.com
@K1 7.23
Pathetic back peddling and backward rationalising.
Come on, show us all the examples of my “bile”.
I’m calling you out K1 – what ya got?
@ Onward, this was not, repeat not, an SNP demo’ this is still a free country and folk are entitled to demonstrate, especially when the objects of their protest are aiders & abettors of Blair & his war crimes, I’m only sorry I was absent at the time. Where are the Labour suspensions of Smart, McVermin & Magrit Curran who wished Alex Salmond under the wheels of a bus? Five percentace points, like calling decent people morons, is hysterical nonsense.
Dr Fred recommends a wee hauf & a lie doon in a darkened room as sovereign for election burn-oot..
@K1
Better be good cos he’s got a flush.
Fred says:
6 May, 2015 at 8:02 pm
@ Onward, this was not, repeat not, an SNP demo’ this is still a free country and folk are entitled to demonstrate, especially when the objects of their protest are aiders & abettors of Blair & his war crimes, I’m only sorry I was absent at the time. Where are the Labour suspensions of Smart, McVermin & Magrit Curran who wished Alex Salmond under the wheels of a bus? Five percentace points, like calling decent people morons, is hysterical nonsense.
Dr Fred recommends a wee hauf & a lie doon in a darkened room as sovereign for election burn-oot..
Honestly – the protestors were played like a fiddle.
Did you not see that big smile on Jim’s face – he was thanking his lucky stars. It doesn’t matter if they weren’t SNP – that is who was obviously going to get the blame.
You would think lessons had been learned after the referendum egging. One minute of fun giving Murphy pelters = days of mainstream media coverage smearing the SNP as a fascist mob. It makes you wonder if maybe these guys actually want to see him re-elected.
Quiet dignified protest is fine.
Funny imperial march stuff is fine.
Drowning out someone trying to give a speech is not cool – even if they are a warmongering arsehole. All that does is play into their script – accusing the SNP of being a bunch of nazis trying to prevent free speech and democracy. Think sensibly about it.
Grouse Beater’s letter to JKR dated June 2014 is still up to date and worth a read! Don’t think she read it though. Not the kind of reasoning any intelegent or empathic person could ignore.
But something (more than just the deeply insulting comments regarding Scotland’s independent future)has really really bothered me ever since JK Rowling first released that statement.
As a woman, who herself escaped an unhappy marriage, to suggest that ‘if we vote yes, we will be in the heady position of the spouse who looked ready to walk out,but decided to give things another go.’!!!
All I could think of were the battered women who believed the appologies and decided to give it another go and landed up back in A&E or worse.
What an insensitive, profoundly stupid opinion to express.
That first quote from JK is f**ing shocking: not just the political aspect of it, but that a writer shows such poor understanding of human psychology.
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