Professional standards
Posted on
December 08, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
There’s quite an embarrassing subbing howler in a story in the Sunday Times today in which the word “No” is replaced by the word “Yes”, which you’d have to put down as a non-trivial error. Fortunately the meaning is clear from context, as it’s part of a piece called “No campaign is branded as ‘amateur'” and containing the following fairly indisputable quote in respect of “Better Together” and its director Blair McDougall:
“There is no one regarded as a grown up in that campaign team.”
The entire article – which is accompanied by another in the same paper entitled “Unionists’ front man is nobody’s Darling” – is well worth a read. You can find it below.
Loving this. The No campaign can’t face the fact that their message is the problem so they blame the messenger. But, when they look around for a more inspiring messenger they realise all the alternatives are equally uninspiring apparatchiks. 🙂
It’s taking rather longer than I thought for the Labour and Tory hierarchies to catch on, but my money would still be on MacDougall getting the well deserved Order of the Boot.
He must be doing ok. After all aren’t they 20 points ahead in the polls with the Yes vote “collapsing”, “evaporating”, etc? Surely their private polling isn’t telling them something different? They’re just being greedy. How far ahead do they want to be for the “crushing” victory their true leader desires?
Blair McDougall wants te run a grass roots campaign ? He keeps gan on aboot that but fae fit ive seen they dinna hae the campaigners te dae it ….. the problem for the unionists is they think aa the folk undecided or voting no are daein it for some love o the UK when its mair likely a dislike o Alex Salmond or being unsure aboot what a Yes vote wid mean. If it werent for the unionist media we wid be even in the polls right noo !
Thankfully, you have the screenshot:)
I’ve often seen Blair McDougall, Rob Shorthouse, Rob Murray (Grassroots) and co. referred to as a bunch of giggling little schoolboys, or various other permutations of that theme. Certainly, everything they come out with is snarky, immature guff, whereas Yes Scotland’s output is heavily weighted towards positive messages and information. Of course, when you have no central message other than “UK OK”, it must be pretty difficult to think of anything serious to say.
One of the more startling examples of media bias is the way that there was some fuss made recently about the number of women remaining in the Yes Scotland staff after Shirley-Anne left, yet I would challenge anyone to name a single female in the Better Together staff. There could well be one or two in their office, but none that anybody actually knows about.
Anyway, I’m off to tweet this article at various members of the Better Together team for a laugh.
“An urgent overhaul.” So how many relaunches is that now? And whatever happened to United with Labour or whatever it was called? It sounds like they’ve heard that the Yes team’s polling software is showing exactly the same pattern as it did in 2011 and this some 10 months out. I love the smell of panic in the morning.
Their discomfort and in fighting is a charm to behold. It is a given that poeple do not vote for parties lacking union, it is especially ironic considering their main purpose is union. We shoudnt laugh or put the boot in when they are doing it to themselves. Let them choose a new golden boy ever month, and let them change their message every two. We conversly must continue with a clear massage of hope and a better future!
They don’t seem to understand that it’s not the fault of the stooges who front the no campaign, it’s the message or rather the lack of one. There is no positive case for the union! Perhaps that is why there isn’t any volunteers to replace Darling and McDougall.
Get Broon!
So no message and no messenger.
To run the Blue Digital Obama style campaign that was threatened you need boots on the ground. The problem for the No campaign is that the Yes campaign have more ‘boots on the ground’ than they have.
i had to laff at the comparison to the obama campaign when they have adopted the exact oppisite as can be seen by obamas republican rivals. all spite, hate, fear, smear and outright lies. slight difference being the lack of intellect of better together, particularly scot labour.
Seasick Dave says
“get broon”
dont you mean————– get Smart?
link to tinyurl.com
To answer one comment, Brown is very busy putting the finishing touches to his new position as the first ex politician to represent the worthy voters of Kirkcaldy.
Saw Henry McLeish in Falkland this morning. He shivered into his greatcoat & hurried by before I could engage him in light hearted Sunday morning banter. Smart cookie. My money is on him biding his time to come out as a Yes man (if you’ll pardon the expression). Making sure he jumps off the fence on the right side without leaving anything stuck on the barbed wire.
Curran is cup tied after her admission on State Broadcasting on Friday.
Lamont has a job. Not that she’s up to it…
Danny? No-one will trust him further than they can kick him.
Murphy. Could be a real asset to the Yes campaign. Anas too.
No, Darling may be a lame duck, but he’s the best lame duck on offer.
The No Campaign are suffering knockout blows left, right and centre.
And the YES Campaign aren’t even in the ring yet !!!
Pass the popcorn along please.
The problem for BT is that they have to win well as it wouldn’t look good for 40% plus to be voting YES. I’m also a bit suspicious that just when the debates will kick in big time (has Darling done any?) BT may want to move Darling out the way so that his lies which go unchallenged by the media are not exposed by Salmond and Sturgeon live on air. His lies about oil reserves and bank bailouts would be particularly uncomfortable though they have served their purpose up to now. No, I think they will want to start with a fresh pair of hands in the new year with a shiny new leader and untainted by what’s gone on before. The only question who is it gonna be?
There was a degree of inevitability that holding Labour and the Tories together for such a long campaign with a UK GE close on the heels of the referendum was always going to be fraught. I am quite sure Alex and his team knew this when they set the date.
Who could replace Darling? Brown? He is a figure of absolute hate for the Tories. Reid? Very aggressive, very negative again not a sympathetic cross party figure. Dougie Alexander? Possibly although his focus group, management consultant speak is agony to sit through. Brian Wilson? His pro nuclear pro Vitol hate devolution never mind independence would sit very well with the Coalition but might struggle to connect with a Holyrood generation Scotland. Certainly putting a Tory in charge would be suicide. If they did that I could see Labour activists fail to turn to events. We should perhaps pray for Gove or IDS to be given the job.
I don’t think they will replace Darling. He may not be ideal and he clearly isn’t enjoying the job but there are few that come close to ticking as many boxes. McDougall? Does it matter?
In my opinion the unionists are merely blaming the messenger for the referendum defeat. I can hear them now. If the right people were appointed we would have won. What else can they say?
Agree with all of the above and find it so strange that it is the Enlgish press & journalism being so honest about problems within Better with Britan.
Very little coverage from the BBC in ‘North Britain’ on this – ‘Brian Taylor & Brewer’ hardly shouting problems at BT up here.
Yeah definitely the messenger thats the problem – absolutely nothing to do with public may be twigging the smoke & mirrors depth, of such a vapid message as ‘Better with britain’ – completely hollow false premise.
Their whole team as stated is complicit with their floundering campaign, its a completely unstated notion of Scotland other than in the shaddow of England. Bereft of a vision for Scotland, the Scots, our children & grandchildren other than just ‘Wait for Labour to get back in’ we’ve heard it all before, its a tired message and its withering on the vine. Labours record on Scotland is hopeless failure at best and devious conceit if we’re being honest. Labour uses Scotland and the Scots – nothing more.
There is no plan, no policy, no idea, slack laziness, superficial frontage etc etc
As cringe worthy ‘harbingers of doom’ over every single point raised or suggested for a vision of a progressive future, it is easy to see why some would now question such a vaccuous message.
Who could sustain such desire for a negative campaign other than Project Fear ?
Sorry forgot – cant they just switch the uber successful team over from the great success story that is United with Labour !!!
O/T Rev, if you will permit.
A wee heads up. Tuesday nicht, BBC 1, 10.35. Program ‘The men who own Scotland’. Quote. ‘Is it fair that 1% of Scots, that one might be a bit elastic, own more than half of all private land.’
Strange how one bit of the Beeb can run this, and then you get the consistent negativity on the other. Mind you, it might find they don’t own enough of it.
O/T 2 Have’nt seen anyone mention this, The Scots Independent, this issue. Stewart Hosie, P5, on the Barnett formula. Quoting an extract from the Wings Panelbase poll of late October ‘If you knew the Barnett formula was going to be abolished after 2015, how would it affect your vote.’ The source was acknowledged.
You would have thought David Cameron would get tore into this and take ownership of the situation. The union is slipping away right before his very eyes.
He does want to save it doesn’t he?
I thought the senior Labour source quote “He’s [Darling] lazy” a tad unfair.
I mean the bloke is is a full-time private speaker, leader of better together and part-time, but full pay, MP.
“Greedy” may have been a better description.
Loving it.
There is No thought for the people of Scotland, no plan to give them more control over their own lives or destiny. All HMG, the ruling classes and the London bankers are interested in is putting the Scots in their place, diddling them out of their wealth and getting the wheeling and dealing casino that is the city of London moving again. The hired help that was employed to put the stupid jocks back in their place and rub their noses in it have failed. No bother to them just need to hire some more mercenaries to do the dirty work.
Better Together, How can we survive without these Lordy English politicians running our lives for us? A dam sight better than this lot of con artists do, and with far more compassion and honesty than the London mob. At least the Yes politicians have honesty and conviction and concern for Scotland and it’s people. All the No parties have for Scotland is a smearing contempt and a greed for money and power, at all cost to Scots.
Beware of proud scots bearing promises from the masters in Westminster. They are probably stooges!
Maybe project fear should simply shut up shop and pass the job over to the BBC and the rest of the MSM in Scotland. After all it is they who are doing all the propagandising as they have from the get go.
Bunter
Unfortunately the No campaign don’t need to win well. If there is a No it won’t really matter what voters think in Scotland, there is nothing they can do whatever policies the No politicians put in place.
The reality of how little the Scottish vote affects the colour of Westminster Governments will something that will shock voters here. Holyrood will be left with mitigating the effects of Westminster decisions and dealing with the cost of that to our budget.
A Labour Holyrood ‘administration’ would simply start borrowing on the £5billion allowed by the 2012 Scotland Act until we are bankrupt.
With a No vote it won’t really matter what Scotland votes. The one thing that will never happen again is a Referendum for Independence.
It did cross my mind that all this disharmony in the No camp might be a practical attempt by Better Together to prove its own point – ‘Look what happens when you let a bunch of Scots loose to organise something! How could we possibly run a country without the firm hand of London rule?’
No, I don’t really believe that theory; but sometimes I wish we would take a leaf out of the Aussies’ book and tell it like it is: ‘Our best people believe in Scotland. Incompetent, bumbling amateurs believe in the Union. Take your pick.’
They won’t replace Darling: he’s expendable. After a YES vote, he’ll just go back to being an after-dinner speaker and those with “proper” jobs in the cabinet can carry on with no smears on their reputations. Of course, he could conclude that he’s in a no-win situation and step down. Unlikely though.
does anyone know if and how much darling is being paid for his role in better thegither?
I would really like to see Jim Sillars having a prominent role in the YES campaign. A brilliant orator, he connects with working class people.
Bryan powel 1:53 pm
Couldn’t agree more Bryan. The English all through history have never failed to miss an opertunity.
They will be lining up to put the boot in an encouraging SLAB to spend, spend, spend.
However I think the people of Scotland won’t lie down and take that shit for to long. That’s what really concerns me! That’s why this referendum is so very very important.
David – apparently he doesn’t receive any payment, not sure about expenses.
Hey, I am quite happy with Blair McDougal, in fact very happy, after all he is the least trusted of ALL the BT team. What’s not to like.
He would get an BIG YES, from me, I’ll think about Darling ! Well I have ,he will get a BIG YES too! I rather like them just as they are LOL!
Friends, BT have hired ‘Blue State Digital’ a global US PR, who run Obama and the Conservative Party nationally. Contract rumoured to be 600K. So no surprise that Mcdougal and his boys are pushing the US strategy. The strategy is actually very good whether a small campaign or large. UNLESS you do not have troops on the ground. And if you have warring factions under a banner.
Who was the last British PM who did anything positive for Scotland without a gun at their head? (Devolution was forced) can’t remember. And don’t know what it was!
who was the last PM who did anything major TO Scotland. M Thatcher! Enough said.
I’m 67 and can’t think of anything other than the two above. Aye just Waite till we get back in
(SLAB) War cry. They did f*** all for Scotland or it’s people in or out of power. Better on our own!
“If the vote was tomorrow we would win it well, but… “
Are you really, really sure about that? I don’t believe you (BT) would “win it well” at all “If the vote was tomorrow”. It would be pretty damn tight, whichever way it went. Someone else only too ready to grab hold of ‘poll results’ as indisputable evidence of a runaway No victory.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Because, “… but there are ten months to go.”
Exactly! The people of Scotland (and the rest of the UK) have only had Better Together’s Project Fear MSM-assisted version of a “Doomed! Doomed, I tell you!” independent Scotland up to now. Once the people are better informed and given the positive message that those ‘on the ground’ (which BT DON’T have!) are bringing, and doing so in ever increasing numbers, the No game’s a bogey and Yes will win.
Is the payment not usually a knighthood?
And, of course, they can shoot as many messengers as they want, but it’s not going to make any difference. It’s the message itself that’s crap. But it is fun to watch!
From the article. YES vote trailing by only nine points.
Has Professor Poultice seen this?
The YES campaign say Scotland can be a successful independent country.The NO campaign say Scotland can be a successful independent country,but we are better to stay in the UK because we get a seat at the top table as long as we spend the oil money on nuclear weapons.Thats the positive case for the union.But most Scots think its a negative.Including a large proportion of the small number of NO campaigners on the ground.Thats the problem facing the NO campaign.
My subs for BT would be the Krankies duo Johann Lamont and Duncan McNeil!
BTW I just sent this comment off to Newswatch, and although not holding my breath, you never know. At least they are better than BBC Scotland, and acknowledged immediately my submission.
“Hardly a day passes without us being bombarded by the latest fear story about Scottish independence, as witness the recent IFS report, purporting to be able to forecast 50 years into the future. Quite a feat considering that same body couldn’t forecast the financial disaster two WEEKS before it actually happened in 2008!
Hardly a single newspaper, TV or radio station failed to trawl through its findings, intent on picking up on any negative morsel they could find to frighten the lieges.
Contrast that with the complete media silence that greeted the findings of the latest Legatum Prosperity Index, whose findings actually reflect what is happening now. The Prosperity Index is distinctive in that it is the only global measurement of prosperity based on both income and wellbeing.
So, what do our political editors think of the fact that the prosperity of the citizens of the UK has dropped three places from 13th to 16th?
Where are the searching questions to Chancellor Osborne and Alastair, the ‘Darling’ of the No Campaign, as to why lowly Ireland and Iceland have overtaken the UK?
Is the clue in the tables that show Norway at the top for the fifth consecutive year?
Or that of the top ten countries seven have populations below ten million and of that seven, five have populations similar to Scotland?
The UK is going to hell in a handcart, but in the meantime it seems our trivia-obsessed media prefer to report the sad news that unless we vote No in 2014, Dr Who will take off in the Tardus, never to darken Scottish screens again!
While all this is very amusing to see, I’m still not sure that the same message is getting through to the majority of folk in Scotland – it’s certainly not being mention by the likes of the BBC/STV or the Daily Record.
It does look as if Darling is very much being set up as the fall guy if it does go the way of a Yes vote. – leaving the Tories to be able to say ‘It was Labour that lost Scotland – don’t blame us’.
The really comical thing is that nothing has prepared the No camp for a long, long campaign. The SNP are absolute experts in this – after all, it’s taken them since around 1934 to get to the stage they are now at. The only No camp people with any expertise in this are the LibDems, but they are not dictating the strategy. All the Lab and Tory people know is how to run a 3 or 4 month campaign….
I mean, imagine. 10 months out from the vote and you’ve used all your arguments and your leaders are stabbing one another in the back. Where on earth does No go from here? The only way they can salvage the Union is by committing all their parties to Devo Max, with a contract written in blood on the walls of Westminster. And the likelihood of that happening with a GE in 2015? I wouldn’t lay any money on it.
It’s a wet Sunday, so you might like to watch how it should be done – Nicola in West Lothian last Wednesday:
Main speech here: link to youtube.com
Q&A session here: link to youtube.com
The Better Together mob are in serious trouble. It really is now starting to unravel. The question is, they’ve already replaced Moore with Carmichael, and that has gone up in a serious amount of blistering flames. To replace Carmichael so soon, would be hideously embarrassing for the BT mob.
Now, the BT faithful are turning on their leader, Alistair Darling. If they finally decide to replace him, then who do they parachute in? Every other candidate is a potential walking disaster.
And every candidate knows that the position is such a poisoned chalice, that it would be right up there alongside the England Football Managers job at a World Cup, in which England find themselves in an easy-peasy group, but are somehow, making a complete dog’s dinner of it!
They all know, that to take the prime position in the ‘No’ camp, and then lose the referendum, will see the end of their careers in politics, as well as any job in the media, or political consultancy. Their name would be the equivalent of a bad smell in a spacesuit.
So, it seems that Alex Salmond was right when he said that the BT mob would burn themselves out by the end of Autumn. With the launch of the White Paper, we are now beginning to see BT’s version of the ‘emperor’s new clothes‘, and from what we can see, they are naked of ideas and answers.
How long the media can continue to back such ineptitude is unknown, but they are becoming more visibly distressed as each week goes by. Since Nicola’s dismantling of Carmichael with such ease on the STV special referendum programme, the media are now finger pointing at the hierarchy of BT, in a language of ‘get it sorted out now!‘
The problem for them, is that like ourselves, we are all still awaiting answers as to why we should remain in the Union. Douglas Alexander’s answer today, that we should all remain in the Union, because we need to sort out poverty together is just sheer utter contempt. His view is that we should all be poverty-struck together. That is Labour’s Better Together view. Pathetic!
God knows what Ruth Davidson is going to come out with? I’m seriously dying to hear what she has to say! Maybe we’ll all be told that we should remain Better Together in a ‘Downton Abbey‘ style society. The vast, vast majority of us kowtowing and tugging at our forelocks whenever our superior and richer betters pass by!
Seriously, the longer we get no answers, then the more the BT hierarchy are going to be battered and humiliated by the purest and simplest of questions.
If the ‘Yes’ percentage finally does hit parity with the ‘No’ percentage, then I await that golden moment, when one of the papers decides to cut and run, and jump ship. When that happens, expect the fallout on the BT campaign to go nuclear.
Kininvie,
Just a wee note to thanks once again. I was glad to have been at the meeting with Nicola Sturgeon, Fiona Hyslop and Angela Constance last Wednesday. It was good to catch up with yourself, and some of the other folk from ‘Yes Scotland’ . I thoroughly enjoyed it, and my two friends who did come along, are now voting ‘Yes’. Both had been wavering on the old DK fence (but in truth, they were edging more to Yes anyway, rather than No, but they just needed that nudge!)
Cheers again!
So yes Blair Darling will be defenestrated, then what? Project Fear has left a nasty taste in the mouth but despite that they will have to try and lovebomb us. With what? The only positive argument for the Union, sharing / solidarity. Well sharing actually as as soon as they mention solidarity Tommy Sheridan will be on to them. Does anybody know if Tommy is a Yes? So it will be sharing, all the good times we shared together, all the hard times we shared together.
Just remember how we used to share a social security system, now we share out the charity we care to give amongst the welfare claimants we consider fit.
We used to share a common political system: you were Labour or Tory and the difference between then was real. Now you have these Nats and its spoiling our game.
We used to share a common economy but it wasn’t making enough for the people at the top so we scrapped everything outside in favour of the South East. But hey we’re still sharing 1 for you and 1 for me, 2 for you and 1, 2 for me, 3 for you and 1,2,3 for me so its now £4000+ for me and £250 for you as in link to wingsoverscotland.com
We don’t even share a common life expectancy even after 300 years of this wondeful caring sharing better together Union
“The only question who is it gonna be?”
But it’s a poison chalice even if they win. it’s political suicide, anyone either dumb enough or naive enough to take it at this stage is not going to be of the substance that’s needed.
High pressure, short term Job with poor prospects at the end of it, no thanks.
Sorry don’t know how to do the little blue links at the bottom.
New Greg Moodie on National Collective, about the captain.
Comatose, childish, and unengaging, yip thats BT alright, and you’re correct Rev YES should have been replaced with a no, or maybe it was sly dig at the YES camp.
I wonder who’ll replace Darling, as the new doomsayer.
Project Fear appears to be feart, their long term plan to keep shouting at the Scots, NO dina dee it ‘its scary’, or watch out all that money & oil will burn your hands throw it away, seems to be losing its effect. The next stage is of course really blatent lying supported by the BBC and most of the MSM, it will end up being the very air that we breath will kill us if we vote Yes for independence.
But the fact is the more people we speak to face to face, the more people realise that voting Yes is the only sensible way to go. People would rather trust someone talking to them on a personel level, than believe what lies the MSM is spouting out at them on a daily basis. If the BBC & MSM up their rate of fibbing ‘which they will’ people can’t avoid spotting the crap and will turn off from them, and they really don’t have any other plan or method.
So, we have the ground troops and internet, we just keep on talking by door to door, friends, workmates, the casual stranger and the social media with our positive message for Scotland and its people, and leave the negative scare stories and dark fantasy doom-mongerings to Better Together and the rest of the unionist cabal.
As for whom the NO campaign want to represent them, who cares? they have nothing to say.
I’m confused? Is Labour still in Better Together?
Ali is a calculating barsteward.
Read the Guardian link below to the end of the piece (4:45pm update):-
link to tinyurl.com
He will jump the BT ship when the he thinks the going has gotten too tough.
Fairly soon methinks …
handclapping says
We don’t even share a common life expectancy even after 300 years of this wondeful caring sharing better together Union
I love this, a good point, and indeed if the no voters want this to continue…
Darling is looking more of a fool each day that passes, the bt tories must be laughing their shiny boots off! It really could all change come the new year. Let’s wait and see, proceed with caution at all times cos who knows what they, bt international, have up their snooty sleeves.
@handclapping
Tommy Sheridan is a definite YES. In fact I thought he would have been involved in the Yes Campaign more.
Maybe too much media baggage.
davy says
The next stage is of course really blatent lying supported by the BBC and most of the MSM, it will end up being the very air that we breath will kill us if we vote Yes for independence.
Now that is a scary idea, lets hope they haven’t thought of that!
@Hetty
BBC Scotland don’t know how to do anything else other than tell lies. They are all pathetic.
They know their time is nearly up. That wee unionist bitch, (friend of Lamont), Call Kaye, has already got her other job lined up.
The only reason they built the Squinty Bridge at the back of BBC Scotland and STV, is so they could all jump off it on 19th Sept next year.
The Reid Foundation had a launch party for the Common Weal Campaign in Glasgow today. Surprised there has been no mention here! I was invited but had to attend to serious problem elsewhere.
Did anybody go?
caz-m & Hetty,
The problem for our MSM unionist supporters is they proberly did not realise when this started, the depth of lying and decit that they have gotten involved in will never be forgotten. You cannot expect a nation to totally forgive or forget a section of our media and political party members who have done nothing but miscall and vilify our country and its society, and for what? ‘self-interest’.
It will need a hellof a turn around before I and I think most of our people will forget what has been said and done, when all that was required was some fair unbiased reporting. I wish we all had the greatness of Nelson Mandela to forgive, but at this time I doubt it.
So the orchestrated pro-union attacks on Better Together are not a one off.
Very interesting.
It seems to me that the attacks on Alastair Darling are coinciding with Better Together coming under increasing media scrutiny in terms of being asked to demonstrate the benefits of the union.
It’s glaringly obvious at the moment that the Union is not a great place to be, subjected as we are to Tory austerity policies. A Labour-led Better Together Campaign cannot possibly, when put on the spot, defend these policies or use them to demonstrate a positive case for the Union. So it seems to me that what they have been doing instead, is promoting a Milliband-led Union. You can see the problem with this from a Tory and Lib Dem point of view – especially if you are a Tory funder – Labour is using your money, under the guise of the Better Together Campaign, to promote the UK Labour Party in the run-up to the European Elections and the 2015 General Election – not necessarily because they’re opportunist (though they are), but because they can’t possibly defend/promote the status quo under the Tories – and that is what defines the current nature of the Union.
I’m also inclined to think that they’re upset with Alastair Darling’s insistence that Scotland won’t be allowed to use the pound. What made me think this was the haste with which the Governor of the Bank of England let it be known that he would be speaking with Alex Salmond about it. Alastair is obviously upsetting the money men.
It seems that Better Together’s problem is premature ejaculation.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand”
What’s the chances of George Galloway being thrown into the spotlight as Mr BT? He’s certainly talked up their case at every opportunity and UK PLC more and more look to have virtually given up the ghost. Now it will be all about negotiation positions.
If BT didn’t have the media on their side they would be dead and buried by now. This fight is a fight of the ordinary Scottish person with any sense against the establishment. The YES campaign need to try to start attacking people like Darling, Cameron , Brown, Miliband etc at every opportunity. I also think they need to start putting the campaign into a vote no get TORY debate. Hammer away at it all the time, vote no get TORY.
@Jeannie
I think what the guy of the B of E actually said is that post a YES vote he would be pleased to talk to the SNP.
He also did not say whether they had had discussions, informal or formal already.
Nice deflection and at the same time the Money men will have read the signs?
Nah Salmond had talks with Mervyn King, the last Gov, very basic talks, it is not the type of thing that should wait until after the referendum, it needs sorted as soon as possible as it’s another box to tick for undecideds and even some no’s.
@Bugger the Panda
Nice deflection and at the same time the Money men will have read the signs?
Exactly! It’ll be interesting to see what Alastair says about the currency issue in the future. I think he’s just had a warning shot across his bow and it’s come from his own side, reminding him that it’s the person that pays that piper that calls the tune.
It’ll also be interesting to see how he defends the Union and therefore the current set-up with the Tories, which is pretty much indefensible and not an incentive to vote No. Altering the message to “Vote No, it’ll be ok because Labour will win the General Election” is not acceptable to Tory paymasters. So I suspect all he’ll have left is more and more scare stories.
Tommy Sheridan supports Independence but is still restricted because of legal issues. The NI trial is still on going. The outcome should mean Tommy Sheridan’s conviction being quashed and compensation. Tommy Sheridan’s Independence support is in the central belt is where it is needed. Tommy Sheridan fought the Poll Tax and abolishing warrant sales.
I think Ian Gray should replace Flipper given his riveting oratory and firm grasp of ideas.
And he would be stupid enough to take the job.
Think the interesting thing about the comments in this article are the ones about Blair McDougall being daft for wanting to run a grassroots campaigm because “Labour, the Tories and Lib Dems don’t have enough footsoldiers” and “it’s not the way we do things in this country”.
Both these statements are very, very telling and suggest Yes Scotland is totally right in it’s approach – ie give them plenty of rope, let them and the media off fairly lightly and act as if there isn’t much rebuttal, while quietly building a large grassroots campaign across a lot of different sectors.
All the establishment side have is “we’re the establishment, the way we do things is we tell you what to think and do and you do it.” They can’t build a grassroots campaign that way – it’s precisely the opposite of how a grassroots campaign works. I’ve heard of solid no voters who tried to get involved and were put off by the way they were dealt with by that campaign. But what they will be fighting next year is a grassroots campaign on a number of different fronts – National Collective, RIC, Commonweal, Yes, SNP, Greens.
The Yes side is massively beyond party politics. In fact I was at the Commonweal launch party yesterday and what struck me most was the near total lack of anyone I know from the SNP. We ARE doing things that way on the yes side. They can’t fight that. Question is how long can the media just ignore that? And what are the consequences if they do?
Bunter asked if Darling has done any debates. He did one but it mysteriously vanished.
Part 1 was Jon Snow interviewing Alex Salmond (it’s on youtube). Part 2 was a Herald journalist (Alan Taylor???) speaking to A. Darling – this never saw the light of day for some reason.
It’s about time the No campaign started answering questions with regard to what would happen in the event of a No vote. They can’t do this because the answer would be more austerity, the end of free prescriptions, end of free students’ fees, more bedroom tax, more social security cuts, etc. and worst of all Scotland being nothing more than a region of England as the Unionists would probably try to dismantle the Scottish Parliament. Of course you’ll never hear what they propose doing in the event of a No vote because they know they’d lose.
It’s up to us to get the positive Yes message out and to expose the lies of the MSM.