Positivity vs negativity: results in
The travel division of American TV channel CNN this week named Scotland its No.1 tourism destination for 2013. In its announcement CNN Travel cited “international buzz, major events, savvy marketing and economics” among the reasons for its decision.
It would seem reasonable to include in that “savvy marketing” the efforts expended by the Scottish Government on a pair of major visits to the USA in 2012, when it sent delegations to the premiere of “Brave” and the Ryder Cup (which is of course coming to Scotland next year and is expected to generate over £100m).
At the same time, it might be instructive to remember the attitude of the four Holyrood opposition parties and the media to the work of those delegations.
“Like most taxpayers, I am astonished that the costs incurred bear more relation to a head of state with a travelling circus than to the more modest expense which would have been appropriate and justifiable.”
(Jackson Carlaw, Scottish Conservative deputy leader)“When money is tight, spending half a million pounds on a trip to the USA has to be questioned for value for money.”
(Willie Rennie, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader)“SNP ministers like to lecture people about the need to be green but they fail to put their money where their mouth is. It’s time they were brought down to earth and had to make do like the rest of us. When parliament debates the Budget later this year, we should place a cap on their travel costs.”
(Patrick Harvie, Scottish Greens co-convenor)“Mr Salmond spent an eye-watering £48,000 taking himself and an entourage of hangers-on to Los Angeles recently to attend the US premiere of the Disney animated movie, Brave. If anything serves to illustrate the rank hypocrisy of some of our political class, it is this sort of thing”
(Louise Allonby, North-West Evening Mail)
Tourism is worth upwards of £4bn a year to the Scottish economy. Readers can, as usual, judge for themselves whether the Scottish Government’s £528,000 investment in promoting the virtues of Scotland to the USA was worthwhile.
Another example of the can do approach of the Scottish Government versus the too wee, too poor and too stupid unionist naysayers. Positivity against negativity. Scottish self determination? It’s a no brainer!
I don’t want to drag the Lockerbie discussion away from the thread where it is proceeding, but it does occur to me that this is a bit of a volte-face from 2009, when they were proposing to boycott the country and all its produce.
That’s a very fine point.
To be fair, the boycotters weren’t representative of the USA population.
Unionist negativity and self-hatred will surely back-fire.
But will the unionist media in Scotland publish such articles/conclusions as the one from CNN Travel? I fear the majority of Scots will not be given the chance to consider the results of positive action taken by the Scottish government.
Well done Wings [again] for showing such positivity.
Who can say, Cuphook. There were some very nasty internet petitions set up at the time, which gathered some very nasty comments.
I always thought that was a storm in a teacup that would die down, as has in fact happened, but it was used heavily against Salmond at the time.
I know a few Americans and have holidayed there since 2009 without any adverse comments being made as to my nationality; in fact, I have been made quite welcome.
If we are to judge countries by online comments then we’d reach the conclusion that Daily Mail and Telegraph readers are representative of English feelings towards Scotland. We know that that is not the case.
People are people wherever you go in the world and the fact that some of them are objectionable by nature is not a reflection of their nationality.
Johann Lamont … “‘What could we do with half a million pounds? Maybe 60 nurses or 40 teachers?’
Her grasp of English is terrible and yet she was supposedly an English teacher. No doubt it was a Labour-controlled authority that employed her. Anyway, I gather she was trying to say that £500,000 would pay for the employment of either 60 nurses, or 40 teachers?
Either way, it doesn’t take long to work out with that budget, those nurses (or teachers) would be employed for about 16 weeks on today’s wages. And then what? If she’s talking about training up nurses and teachers, then how would they be employed full time when the Scottish budget is ever-shrinking from Wasteminster. Her arguments are puerile, wafer thin and not well thought out, so, perfect for a Scottish newspaper front page then.
The Unionists’ objections to what should turn out to be a very canny investment perfectly illustrates both their small mindedness and their lack of vision for Scotland – if promoting Scotland was important, Westminster would already be doing it. If the Ryder cup is successful next year (and, let’s face it, about the only reason it wouldn’t be is the weather), Salmond should take every opportunity to remind people about the Unionists’, especially Lamont’s, comments and attitude.
As this year starts, following the calls from the likes of Alistair Darling for a more positive debate (yes, the irony isn’t lost on me) and the air of jubilation surrounding Scottish Labour at the moment (okay, jubilation and desperation can be confused but I think this is a severe case of believing their own press), it’ll be interested to see which way they go. Darling is either a wise head who sees the diminishing returns of the antis’ negativity or he’s an opportunist who is eager to paint the yes campaign as just as negative as the no side (and I’ve made my opinion on which I believe known in previous posts). Lamont and co, on the other hand, will be keen to continue their “momentum” and won’t want to change their tactics of playing the man. With the Scotsman unlikely to survive to this time next year in its current format, it might become more difficult to keep getting such a message across but they’ll be keen to make hay in the meantime.
The Yes side, though, do need to become a bit negative. Saying things won’t get any better unless we vote yes is one thing, there is a real need to show things will get a lot worse following a no vote. Reversal of the gains from devolution is one thing, the removal of universality, the privatisation of our NHS, prisons, water, etc. all become realities ala the rUK and this has to be impressed in the minds of people North of the Border.
O/T
A belated Happy New Year to you all.
Picking up on emails today whilst on holiday I was sorry to read a few minutes ago that the SNP’s former leader in the 1950’s, Jim Halliday passed away this morning. He was 86.
@Dcanmore
If we consider the full implication of Ms Lamont’s figures it gets even more hilarious, sadly the wages of a nurse or a teacher are only a small part of the outlay required to employ them which additionally requires administration, electicity, resource and equipment costs. I would have hoped Ms Lamont would have been aware of this having worked as a teacher for a number of years herself.
If we take nurses as an example the average NHS nurse costs the NHS £212 a day, so her suggested 60 nurses could in theory each be employed for 36 days.
However if we also include the cost of redundancy in terms of both employee entitlements and administration costs, this figure would be more in the region of 28 days.
Good article, and good coverage in CNN. There’s a link there that says more:
http://travel.cnn.com/scotland-england-independence-838611
As I hoped, but a lot earlier than I hoped, Independence is creating interest in the US, and hopefully CNN has some influence – and will make Scotland a high tourism destination. They’re feeling the pinch over there too, and I wouldn’t be surprised if their retirement funds are hit – so not so much of te 6 month “doing Europe” at retirement perhaps. The US is very important – when they’re here, they spend. When they come they love it here. And the higher the profile of Scotland in the USA, the more our exports there.
I like this bit: “CNN Travel isn’t about to step into the middle of this debate. But for the purely selfish reason that we might be able to add another sovereign nation to our must-visit list, we admit we’re getting quite excited about the outcome.”
But there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that the £528,000 for Ryder Cup, whatever for Brave, and the £470,000 for a fitting Scotland House, was not only marketing money very well spent but, as I’ve said in the Guardian and Herald, should be examined to see if it was enough.
My attitude has always been that independence isn’t something I want, it’s just that the Union is something I cannot take. It’s why I usually describe myself as a separatist rather than a nationalist.
I think it’s much easier to see a negative case against the Union than a positive one for independence (no, they’re not the same thing). The SNP’s ‘keep calm, independence changes nothing’ stance is unhelpful, though I can understand the reasons for it. We need to see the Yes campaign moved heavily over to Blair Jenkins, and he should send an occasional broadside of grapeshot at the basic insanity of Scotland continuing as an adjunct to a bankrupt Ruritania run by the wealthy for the wealthy.
I know it’s negative, but the costs and dangers of remaining within the Union must be spelled out with big colour crayons as often as possible. If there’s nothing wrong with the Union, why would anybody want out?
I just loved this final paragrapgh on kellys latest brainfart on the Scotsman –
“Other parties are sensibly prepared to fall in behind Labour. The Tories mainly by keeping their toxic mouths shut and the LibDems by quietly working away in the few areas where they still retain credibility. Let all unionists hope the Labour party’s rolled strategy and the personnel chosen to implement it can build positively on the destructive work done last year to the arguments for separation.”
Yes – Tories are filth and pure 100% political poison so they need stop breathing. The Lib dems with what little that they do, can do the same. With labour as a protective cloak around a gang of vile, poisonous and discredited allies, labour will stride forward, breathing in the stink of their collective venom and spew it all out again in 2013. Better together with positive negativity.
If there was ever a reason to leave and start fresh that was it.
I can’t believe he wrote that, or that the Hootsmon published it.
Mr Kelly also wrote…
” Why Labour has recovered is easy to define. After the last UK and Scottish elections the party was at such a low ebb that it simply had to make changes. And it did. The most significant of these has turned out to be the election of Johann Lamont as leader of Scottish Labour.
“Her performances at First Minister’s Questions have destroyed the God-like way Alex Salmond formerly bestrode the chamber. ”
He’s clearly as mad as a hatter….
Delusional. There’s no other explanation.
@dan huil
Remarkably, The Herald posted about the CNN endorsement.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/cnn-names-scotland-as-top-tourist-destination.1357224574
I would have thought that seeing endangered species such as Johann Lamont and other scions of Scots Labour in the final stages of being out-evolved would be a significant trourist attraction for anthropologists and/or Americans.
@Morag- Mad, might be another explanation.
Ah Labour, always good for a laugh. I got into a conversation recently with someone who is a looong time labourite. After establishing that I was a Yesser, he stated that , and I quote, “You’re lot huvnae a chance”! I asked him why not and he told me that it’s because the SNP have not been in power for long enough to know what they’re doing, and don’t have the right “contacts”.”cough” “cough” “splutter” “splutter”. That explained it all!!!
Like Macart in another thread, I’m looking forward to the first poll of this year.
Taking a poll in October as an indicator at 37% YES, 45% NO, 18% don’t know. unless something major happens like Labour supporting Independence (they should), or the LibDems coming over to the good side, I’d predict a gradual rise this year, and would be happy if a poll near year end showed support just equal.
Awareness will rise, but I kind of think people will make their minds up in the last few weeks even days, before the Referendum. This may seem a bit daft but while I think the YES vote will hold steady into the ballot box, I just have a strange feeling that when it comes down to putting an X in the NO box, some fairly convinced NO voters and even campaigners, will have a change of mind and heart.
I should add that once equal YES and NO support is firmed up, there’s going to be a panic in the breasties of the NO campaign, campaigners, and supporting parties. At that stage I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a mass desertion of the NO.
I reckon we’ll see a reasonable amount of action from both camps this year dads. The two camps have had the better part of six months or so to get organised, form local groups and committees, get their groundwork sorted and so forth. So I’d expect to see representatives start to crank up the appearances and events. The real game changer will be in the autumn with the release of the Scottish Governments white paper. If they’ve done their homework and been kind to lost puppies and children the paper will open the publics eyes to the possibilities and potential of this country. Let’s face it, there’s just no way the SG can release this paper without making serious noise.
So yes if by the end of the year we’re not in the high forties or near 50/50 I’d be surprised.
Here’s a nice negative story about the Union (from the London Review of Books)
http://tinyurl.com/baj36hh