Ramping it up
Posted on
May 02, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones yesterday:
Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones today:
Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones tomorrow:
Ah, feel the brotherly love of the glorious Union.
*chokes with laughter*
I taker it THIS is what passes as SATIRE in the new age of diplomacy then. 😆
Isn’t jealousy a wonderful thing. I just wonder how his fellow Welshmen and women feel about these little outbursts!
Give… Give!!!
Aye like he has a choice
These comments from Jones seem to be at total odds from when he started out the other day seeming to say that Scotland needed independence to ensure we get powers because Westminster couldn’t be trusted, citing Wales and the corporation tax issue in N. Ireland as examples of Westminster’s reluctance to devolve further powers. He didn’t seem to say Wales should get tax-raising powers to defeat the pro-indy lobby as in the first headline there – I’m sure it was reported along the lines of the failure to give Wales tax-raising powers thus far was a black mark against Westminster.
Has he changed his mind or did I pick that up wrong at the very start?
so much for the celtic connection :-/
Right, which one’s the photoshopped one. I can’t work it out.
Now THAT is satire!
Independence means Scotland would no longer have to subsidise Wales and Northern Ireland. Bring it on.
Jones and Osborne in a tree
K i s s i n g
Such odd bedfellows
Just watched FMQs.
My mommy always said there were no monsters – no real ones – but there are.
This is one of the reasons I left the labour party , they dont know their arse from their elbow ‘ say one thing one day & the opposite the next . Darling ‘ Ed and Johann are prime examples of this phenomenon ‘ it must be the way labour train them .
Just maybe Westminster are crapping it over the whole Northern Ireland thing.
Wales absolved into England and Sinn Fein start making some noises again
Many thanks to Peter Bell for tweeting a link to some excellent cartoons by norrie. There fabulous. “Spoiling the UK reputation” is a particular favourite. Hope this brings some smiles and some laughter.
http://norrie.wordpress.com/category/cartoon/
@MajorBloodnok
Right, which one’s the photoshopped one. I can’t work it out.
BRILLIANT! 🙂
Just in case…handy link
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/873564/posts
Independence by means of a referendum is, historically, bar the odd very rare close shave (e.g. Quebec), a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Braco says:
2 May, 2013 at 4:27 pm
O/T. Everyone!
Time is moving on and things are really hotting up.
Majorbloodnok finally has his war paint on!
“I have brought you shower to the ring, now dance as best you can!”
DingDong.
well that escalated quickly
Can’t a chap put on some makeup once in a while without all this hoo-ha? Really….
Boost Wales to keep Scotland in the UK? Eh?
Separation is not the only alternative? Er, look at the ballot paper – Yes it is!!
Sorry Mr Jones, you’ve missed the bus and there won’t be another one along for about…twenty years at least. Make your own way there.
MajorBloodnok
It is how you put it on – last time I trust Johann’s beautician.
Ok everyone, please be a little more understanding.
It’s not because he’s Welsh that Carwyn says these things. Plaid Cymru, for example, are fully supportive of Scottish independence. To appreciate Carwyn’s point of view more fully, you just have to ask what party he represents.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose, as we say in Welsh.
I love Norrie’s cartoons, but I’ve seen that “Spoiling the UK reputation”one before and don’t really like it as I think it steps over into the offensive.
However, after today’s Scotsman cartoon, I no longer really care. Let Norse Warrior tell anyone taking offense to chill out and get a sense of humour.
MajorBloodnok says:
2 May, 2013 at 8:19 pm
Can’t a chap put on some makeup once in a while without all this hoo-ha? Really….
Are we going to sit here swapping Wallace quotes all night?
And I bet a lot of euskal herritarrak (natives of the Basque Country) are going to be really pissed off by the wording of the Express holiday offer in the last pic.
I’m shocked. Just when we thought we had Celtic connections with Wales. But then I should have realised……..The Welsh first minster belongs to the Labour party, a group that has given up all pretense of representing the people, a group that has their snouts in the Westminster trough, hell bent on winning over middle England at any cost and to hell with the rest of UK.Labour , a Party without priciples
Rob
I can’t imagine Plaid Cymru are holding their heads in despair. This chap has form though and was equally bullish on Trident. I don’t think Scotland (even Labour in Scotland) can expect any solidarity from him.
o/t Labour predicting that UKIP might take up to 30% of the vote in the South Shields by-election (David Miliband’s former seat). Can they be serious?
Independence by means of a referendum is, historically, bar the odd very rare close shave (e.g. Quebec), a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Quebec twice, of course. And Puerto Rico four times. And the close shave in Montenegro, where the anti-independence vote was barely 5% short of treble figures. And the close run vote in New Caledonia where the independence campaign only narrowly failed to get 2%.
This is not a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is not a walkover. It won’t be enough to tell ourselves we’ll win or to believe that BT are doomed to fail. They’ll fight all the way and they’ll fight dirty, because our dependence is worth more to them than our independence is to most Scots. They have all the big guns: they can bury their own mistakes and shine a spotlight on ours, they can lie long and often knowing that any one voter only has to believe any one lie and they can use all the machineries of state to make their case. And still the only way they’ll actually win is if we let them, by convincing ourselves that they can’t. It’s important to retain our optimism, but it’s fatal to allow that optimism to become complacency.
@Cath
Viewed from a historical perspective, norie’s “Spoiling the UK Reputation” cartoon epitomises the reality of what UK State “punching above its weight” has generally meant. Furthermore, my experience has taught me that most BritNats either do not know or are in denial about the true nature of much of UKplc’s activities in the world.
Of course, the UK state and a co-operative MSM support and indeed wish a high level of ignorance on this front. I mean, imagine the German Government standing up in court in 2012 opposing reparations for victims of the WWII holocaust because “the statute of limitations has passed“.
Now switch to Kenya, where the UK ran concentration and torture camps* from 1952-1961; yes, that’s right, after WWII!. This is well documented in the 2006 Pulitzer Prize winning book “Britain’t Gulag”
Now, believe it or not, the UK state said in the high court case brought by 4 Kenyan octogenarians in London in 2012 that “the statute of limitations has passed” and there was no case to answer!!! Thankfully, the UK government lost the case.
Now, how many UK subjects were aware of this case in 2012; O’h, sorry, more important things were happening, like the Queen’s Jubilee and the Olympics. Ironically and sadly, the Queen’s Jubilee links to this Kenya story in an even more troublesome way. Namely, she had a home in Kenya, Sagana Lodge, where she holidayed from 1950-1952; you couldn’t make this stuff up! Indeed, she was visiting Sagana Lodge, in 1952 when news of the King’s death broke. So her Jubliee also commemorates the start of her State’s slaughter in Kenya.
@Jiggsbro – I don’t think there are many YES supporters out there who are complacent, quite the opposite. I agree the BT mob will fight dirty, they already are! However, no one I have spoken to underestimates the task in front of us. Self determination will not come without a massive struggle, but it will come. Of that I am absolutely certain.
Morosely agree with jiggsbro. The jaunty talk here of the Noists peaking too early, the Yesists wisely keeping their powder dry, the Noists falling into panic, etc.. Bullshit. The Noists have huge resources – lots of money (the entire contents of the English exchequer) and all of the media. Let’s stop calling it the ‘mainstream media’ as if we didn’t know what mainstream meant. It’s all of the media that most people will encounter. The Darlingists can peak any time they like for as long as they like, they have plenty of fat to burn. And suggesting that the sepulchral silence from the Yes campaign is a good tactic reminds me of the boxing coach who tells his battered fighter: you had him really worried in that last round – he thought he’d killed you.
Marcia,
nonsense…. and you have a lovely smile.
JB: It’s important to retain our optimism, but it’s fatal to allow that optimism to become complacency.
I totally agree.
As for direct comparison; that’s impossible. Generalisation is hence better, with straw men avoided of course.
My gob is now well and truly smacked!
Right after Calmans alleged death threat causes a stushie in the Scotsman the Express has on its front page a quote from the Welsh First Minister saying “Kill them, kill them all right now” under the headline “Jones: nuke the Jocko bastards from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure”
If he had said that about anyone else but Scots he would be forced to resign. Imagine for a moment just substitute “Jocko” for say Muslim or Africans or Jews?
It reads worse than the trolling of the worse kind possible. I wonder how much this will be covered in the Scottish MSM.
I am so angry I had better take a break right now.
@Jiggsbro
Mobilisation of a massive grassroots organisation of YES campaigners is the answer. Every household in Scotland must be personally contacted, and campaigners must both reason with, and accrue data on, what they meet. The data base that is built up from that permits one to hone in on sufficient numbers of those don’t knows/Weak Nos who are leaning to YES, and work on them till we cross the threshold of 50%. That is the Obama Playbook, and YES Scotland can act as the information centre.
No amount of BitterTogether money can overcome such a movement and effort.
TMITJ, I think you may have had a satire bypass. Unless that was some sort of edgy avant-garde riposte.
Vronsky,
wow…. up and at them! I have been inspired …….. to go to bed.
When feeling despondent I mentally thumb through images of the betterNO Campaign’s leading lights. Try it before turning in yourself tonight and ask, can that turd really be polished? Night Night.
‘Being optimistic’s worthless if it means ignoring the suffering of this world. Worse than worthless. It’s bloody evil.’ – Steven Erikson
This is from the Guardian:
“Ukip could have up to 10 MPs after the next election and help to form a coalition in the event of another hung Parliament, says the party’s treasurer.
In an interview with the Telegraph, Stuart Wheeler, also a major donor to Ukip, claimed the party could hold the balance of power after the 2015 election and have a minister in a new coalition government.
He compared the rise of Ukip to the success of the Scottish National Party:
“Right after Calmans alleged death threat causes a stushie in the Scotsman the Express has on its front page a quote from the Welsh First Minister saying “Kill them, kill them all right now” under the headline “Jones: nuke the Jocko bastards from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure””
I think this just proves that the world is so fucked-up today that it’s impossible to satirise, because however insane you make it, you just can’t say anything that couldn’t actually plausibly be in a newspaper tomorrow…
On the other hand, go me for awesomely convincing PaintShop skillz 😀
(See also some people’s reactions to a few of my spoof “Better Together” posters.)
“Jones: nuke the Jocko bastards from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure”
What’s the cat got against us?
25 OBSCURE SCI-FI JOKE POINTS.
Morag
That was an edgy avant garde riposte
not a bad one either 🙂
South Shields – Labour win – Just listening to one of the worst acceptance speeches I have ever witnessed at any election. It would appear that Ms Lamont is not alone.
BillC
It was dreadful. I see that the LD candidate came 7th and took 1.7% share of the vote. 🙂
@Marcia – I would rejoice at the Lib Dem vote as they deserve everything they don’t get, however, the fact that even the BNP beat them, confirms that England is swinging to the right even in the northern Labour heartlands. Next year we are going to have a choice either to stay in an increasingly right wing union or break free and create a socially just Scotland. I hope to God or whoever that we choose the latter.
“Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose, as we say in Welsh.”
I don’t know but that looks suspiciously like french to me?
or is it the same? in welsh?
or does it change ?
the more I look at it it does seem to change but at the same time stay the same?
oh I don’t know my head hurts now
Back to bed, John. You’re clearly not ready to be up yet 😀
You dont really want to read the herald this morning as it has to be the worst, most biased and twisted edition of this rag I have ever read , nothing more than a Labour party mouthpiece.
@bunter
Well, that’s guaranteed to send me there 🙂 I posted this on the fluff piece about the continuing Calman affair. It’s in moderation, so who knows:
As far as I am aware, Calman said that someone said that they had seen a blog somewhere that was overtly critical of her and made death threats. For the last several days it seems that many people have been trying to track down this blog – without success. I assume that it DOES exist? Surely the MSM, with or without Calman’s support – would not have made such public pronouncements for so many days without some form of ‘evidence’. Would they?
I assume the police are involved, although once again the police do not confirm that they are in fact making any investigations. So, has Calman reported this to them? Does she have proof of these claims? Are there records of her FaceBook or Twitter accounts that show these ‘attacks’? Apparently she has deleted them (Maybe she needs to be aware that past records are STILL available on line, and they show NOTHING).
IF, and at the moment it is pure speculation, someone, somewhere DID make such an abusive attack, then let the law take its process. Bring the evidence to the Procurator fiscal, and then let the police do their job. But in the absence of such, I can only assume this is a faux storm in a teacup. So why now? Hmm let’s see, what else happened this week that unionists would rather we did not think about or focus on?
From the film Aliens “nuke em from orbit its the only way to be sure”
Why would anyone really believe that the Welsh first minister called for Scotland to be ‘nuked’?
Well didn’t some Tory mention that England would maybe bomb our airports?
Didn’t David Cameron mention that North Korea may nuke Scotland?
Na, sorry, there’s no exuse for the man in the jar, lol 😉
Takes ‘get your retaliation in first’ to a completely new level when a single alledged death threat to a so-so comedian results in calls for the nation to be wiped out in a nuclear armageddon! 🙂
just one question for the Taff….. How the h*^^ are you going to get the subs into orbit to nuke us? 🙂
@Aplinal
Good luck with that one mate!
Aliens:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCbfMkh940Q
Boorach
I think that the Express headline may be the work of the good Rev 😉
Ah, Carwyn Jones LLB, ex teacher, councillor and now leader of Welsh Labour and First Minister of Wales.
But do they call him Carwyn the barrister? Nah.
Do they call him Carwyn the law professor? Nah.
Do they call him Carwyn the politicion? Nah.
Do they even call him Carwyn the First Minister? Nah.
One sheep though, one fucking sheep….
UKIP doing very well in England then. Front page news.
Seems the smear campaign against them by the Tories was highly effective.
I’d imagine that the Welsh Labour is as dreadful as the Scottish Labour branches of the London party. As such I don’t put too much weight on what the lickspittles and c-team say for publicity.
I see Craig Murray is expressing concern about the postal vote in South Shields.
I hope the Scottish Government is paying attention.
Vote no, get UKIP!
Better UKIP Together!
UK(IP)OK!
Must admit I hadn’t originally factored this big bonus in.
Calling a welsh person a Taff is not polite. Never confuse nationality with politcal membership. We’re better than that.
Oh dang!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/may/03/ukip-gains-local-elections
Right on the money skier.
Nick Robinson, Political editor says the big story of the night is the success of UKIP:
“The stranglehold of the three big parties have had on British politics has been broken.”
LOL. The irony.
“Seems the smear campaign against them by the Tories was highly effective.”
This is the problem for the “mainstream” parties. They are all distrusted, if not actively despised. And they all huddle round a cosy Westminster bubble consensus.
So when they all come out en masse to smear a smaller party, there is a real danger that will backfire. Even for someone like me, for whom UKIP is a terrifying prospect, I found myself watching a BBC interview with Farage and being infuriated by the interviewer talking over him, sneering, not allowing him to make his point.
I may disagree with everything the guy says, but I’d prefer to hear him say it rather than the BBC twist his words and interview him in the same way they do with SNP folk. If what he says is nonsense, fine. But I want to make that decision, not have it made for my by an establishment figure sneering and effectively saying “this guy is an idiot”. Because to be quite honest, all that does is make me wonder why he’s not being allowed to express himself properly.
The three main parties are dire, and have dragged politics and democracy into the gutter. From that position, they’re playing a very dangerous game simply sneering at and condemning people who choose not to vote for them. It’s been largely that kind of attitude from Labour which has put the SNP in power here.
A propos South Shields from Craig Murray
*This was the first parliamentary constituency election in British history in which the postal ballots outnumbered the polling station votes. UKIP beat New Labour in the polling booth ballot boxes by a very clear majority, according to my mole in the count.
Beware the postal votes in 2014. I hope Eck et al have grip on this
@Cath
I concur.
UKIP are the polar opposite of everything I believe in. However, they are not a party of any significance in Scotland so they don’t worry me. If people in England want to vote for them, well that’s their prerogative.
I was debating the other day on the politics section of a forum where UKIP voters – most of whom appear not to be rapid xenophobes (concerns over immigration yes, but that does not directly equate with xenophobia/racism), but just more rabid Tories very annoyed with mainstream politics, the Tory party, trough feeding etc – complaining about being called racist, fascists etc. I said ‘welcome to the club’.
Susan Calman has just complained that someone has told her that somewhere online someone has suggested nuking her and the land that revolves around her. She hasnt checked out the threat and insists she isnt going to look it up as its not worth it. Susan Calman is available for another week of extensive coverage from Govan H.Q, contact her Agent.
Just checking on the Calman stramash and wee doogie seems have been on a co ordinated attack via the record, herald,and all over the BBC.
Its amazing how unionists are given carte blanche to spread so far unfounded allegations all over the place, whereas for days, a factual article by national collective on dirty money was ignored, and still is by most.
People are going to get angry at this, and of course, that would be very helpful for those defending the British State.
Desimond
“Susan Calman has just complained that someone has told her that somewhere online someone has suggested nuking her and the land that revolves around her.”
Is THAT the threat? And she claims to be a comedienne who does ‘satire’.
Further to my last post. I think I have once (maybe even more than once) in the past suggested that Londonistan should be nuked to put everyone in the rest of the UK out of their misery. Is that now a death threat?
Its the old, “God told me to do it. Well, at least that’s what I think he said” routine.
Sort of.
I wonder if the Calman story is related to the fact that a rabidly right-wing populist party is making huge gains south of the border. After all, this was very predictable.
Anyhoo, next spring should see Britain (and thus Scotland) represented by a increasingly large quotient of said rapidly right-wing populist party on the European stage.
#UK[IP]OK
@ Dave, thanks but that doesn’t fit with my Calman threat and nly gives me an even redder face!
@ Sneddon, ‘fraid 25 years in the army and political correctness don’t go together
@Rv.Stu
@Morag
A huge big “DOH!” to quote Homer
Hey it is not like I was the only one.
My excuse is that I am presently experiencing the worse case of sciatica that I have had in many years. Last night I was partaking in several painkillers, some prescription and some ancient herbal remedies as well. Consequently I was a trifle befuddled! 🙂 (My excuse and sticking to it!)
Like Stu pointed out it shows how swivel eyed the real debate has become.
Stu can I suggest that you add a tag or category for satire and/or comedy, I did look for that before posting.
Hey Ho onwards and upwards.
Veryembarasedweefacethingy!
I suppose what is particularly ironic, is that the mainstream parties have spent the last couple of weeks doing their best to convince the electorate via the MSM is that UKIP are most definitely a bunch of rapid, xenophobic, fascist loonies.
So, now if you are looking on in Scotland, rather than maybe thinking UKIP are just an anti-EU party and not really that scary, you are thinking ‘oh sh*t, what is Britain becoming’.
The law of unintended consequences seems to be an increasingly recurrent theme.
@a supporter.
Be careful what you say. I recall some guy who tweeted that if such and such an airport didn’t start telling him what the F**k was going on with his flight, he would bomb it. He was arrested and charged under the terror laws, found guilty (FFS) and spent time inside. IIRC he lost his job, major family problems. Not sure how that one ended.
THIS is the facile, pathetic, irrational state that the UK has come to. I hope Scottish voters want to be well rid!
And here’s me thinking the Alien reference was because
the cat in Alien is called Jones.
UKIP doing well scares the life out of me but no
doubt the Better Together campaign will have some
‘comforting’ information to allay my fears.
Labour, Conservative, UKIP, BNP, LibDem & the
Orange Order – Better Together eh?
Anything stopping UKIP joining Bitter Together? Seems to me that they would fit right in.
If only!
oops, deleted.
posting this on the relevant thread instead.
bunter says
“You dont really want to read the herald this morning as it has to be the worst, most biased and twisted edition of this rag I have ever read , nothing more than a Labour party mouthpiece.”
Too late already did and posted a comment that was not put up,
it appears you have to have an OBE to post on the Herald who knew? maybe Magnus Gardham does the moderating himself
like wee cochers between making the tea and fetching copy for the real journalists?
BINGO
“TMITJ, I think you may have had a satire bypass. Unless that was some sort of edgy avant-garde riposte.”
Thats what they should name the new forth bridge, “THE SATIRE BYPASS” has a bit of a ring to it dont you think?
“25 OBSCURE SCI-FI JOKE POINTS.”
sound of penny dropping ching!
cath says
“The three main parties are dire, and have dragged politics and democracy into the gutter. From that position, they’re playing a very dangerous game simply sneering at and condemning people who choose not to vote for them. It’s been largely that kind of attitude from Labour which has put the SNP in power here.”
I agree with your entire post cath,
all the rise of ukip will do will be to highlight the democratic deficit to the Scottish electorate because they will more easily see the efforts of the establishment to close down the (smaller parties) and deprive them of oxygen,
the closer you are to an issue the harder it is to see what is happening,
when they see people like paxman et al giving ukip a good doing they’ll see the parallel in what is happening in newnicht and such,
but in our case the party on the receiving end isn’t one of the smaller ones but the biggest one in Scotland
@Aplinal
“Be careful what you say.”
Surely even our dum(f)cops know that I am unlikely to have a nuclear weapon never mind the means of delivery.
“a supporter
Why should they? It is actually disturbingly easy to create a form of fissiable device that could sit in the back of a car etc. (Note to MI5/MI6 operatives monitoring this site – I have not tried this!) So, theoretically at least, ANYONE could get one/manufacture one. It’s actually high school level physics – if you can get the materials. 8-).
You are right of course, so why wasn’t the case I quoted thrown out of court? It wasn’t. “Terror” has a strong hold.
Enjoy the day – and sorry to bring the monitors onto you 🙁
Bugger (the Panda) said:
A propos South Shields from Craig Murray
*This was the first parliamentary constituency election in British history in which the postal ballots outnumbered the polling station votes. UKIP beat New Labour in the polling booth ballot boxes by a very clear majority, according to my mole in the count.
Beware the postal votes in 2014. I hope Eck et al have grip on this
This seems to me to be arithmetically impossible. Labour got more than half the total vote, about 12,000 votes. UKIP got about 5,000 votes. Even if all the postal votes were for Labour and all the polling station votes were for UKIP, I don’t see how it’s possible.
I also don’t believe that a discrepancy of that magnitude would go unobserved and unremarked by anyone except a nameless “mole”. This is still a democracy, and while a bit of fraud at the edges probably happens, I do not believe anything of that magnitude could possibly make it past the returning officer.
I usually stay away from this general adulation of Craig Murray, but I’m minded to point out that he is a notorious conspiracy theorist who has a track record of propagating far-fetched nonsense. This seems to be par for the course.
“This seems to me to be arithmetically impossible. Labour got more than half the total vote, about 12,000 votes. UKIP got about 5,000 votes. Even if all the postal votes were for Labour and all the polling station votes were for UKIP, I don’t see how it’s possible.”
Making no judgement on the claims whatsoever, but I don’t see why that’s impossible. UKIP could surely, in theory, get 5000 “live” votes at polling stations while Labour got 12,000 postal votes and therefore won.
Man in the Jar
Time for confession, I too thought it was for real until I read the first few comments (and I’m am not on medication)
What a crazy world we live in.
RevStu said:
Making no judgement on the claims whatsoever, but I don’t see why that’s impossible. UKIP could surely, in theory, get 5000 “live” votes at polling stations while Labour got 12,000 postal votes and therefore won.
Yes, that’s the point I was making. It would have to be an imbalance as big as that, which would suggest just for starters that the postal vote was well over twice as large as the polling station vote. Also that virtually all postal votes were for Labour and virtually all polling station votes were for UKIP.
This is not an actual possibility in the actual real world we’re living in.
Seemingly 58% of the vote was a postal vote.
Very alarming if true.
As reported on NNS.
If the postal vote was 58% that means 14,347 postal votes and 10,387 ballot box votes. Craig Murray’s moles reported a clear majority of BBV’s for UKIP.
So lets say of BBV’s 3577-UKIP, 3810-Others (these are in proportion to vote share) and for sake of argument, 3000-Labour.
Add the postal votes 2411-UKIP, 2445-Others, 9439-Labour.
And you arrive at the Election result 12,493-Lab, 5988-UKIP, 6255-Others.
Perfectly possible!
(OCD)
And you seriously think, if that had happened, nobody but this “mole” noticed there was something strange going on?
@Morag
“This seems to me to be arithmetically impossible”
That’s all
Look, I didn’t mean that literally. I meant that the implied difference was far too great either to be achievable by any realistic means of fraud, or to go unremarked by the people who are tasked with overseeing the conduct of the election.
Sheesh, now I now how RevStu feels when people think the Welsh FM really did call for Scotland to be nuked from space…..
I just challenged someone on another forum over a claim that England might vote to leave the EU but be thwarted by the votes of the Welsh and the Northern Irish. I got the same guff back from her. Yes, if the gap in England is the width of a soap bubble skin, and the Welsh and NI votes are absolutely overwhelming, yes, that was my point actually.
And actually that scenario is about a thousand times more realistic than this nonsense about the South Shields postal vote. I mean, what is actually being suggested here? Who did what to achieve this alleged fraud?
“the people who are tasked with overseeing the conduct of the election” appeared quite happy with the shenanigans at Glasgow North East and Glenrothes.
It seems to me that the postal vote system is wide open to fraud and that a postal vote of 58% (if that’s true) is quite incredible.
Its official,
in spite of shaking my head at the man in the jars post,
(in a sympathetic way honestly man in the jar)
I’m suffering from paranoia
I found myself muting the telly and trying to trace the source of an alien electronic sound, in the sense that I had never heard this in my house before, and tracked it to a display cabinet behind where I sit at the computer and I have to admit to a fleeting suspicion that it may be some sort of listening device which was malfunctioning
meanwhile this beeping sound at the rate of one beep per second continued to upset my equilibrium to the point I thought I had been bugged by mi5
I remembered an episode where my company had sent me to do a job in Harwell in Oxfordshire the home of the UKAEA which you will not be surprised to hear had pretty stringent security (thank god) and as my visit was earlier than planned, the military police thought it (justifiable) prudent to check with the relevant authority who had commissioned the work to find out if I was kosher, this took quite some time, so about 40 mins later the mod policeman came back to me
(and quite frankly he was showing off) quoted back to me pretty much my life history including things I didn’t know myself about my family, nothing untoward I hasten to add,
but anyway it became apparent that in the space of 40 mins they had contacted Special Branch and pulled a dossier on my history ,
which with hindsight does not really surprise me as my company regularly sent its staff to sensitive sites which required that we were all vetted and given a level of security designated by the authorities dependent on how trusted we were deemed to be,
now strangely (maybe they were kidding) my company told me I had the highest security rating in the company) now this struck me as odd as the MOD cop was happy to point out the date I joined the SNP (in the 70’s is all I can remember probably 1974, I cant claim to have been a member since then I let my membership lapse after thatcher came to power)
so with all this history in mind I searched for the offending device for about 25 minutes and then suddenly the sound got louder as I opened a cupboard in the cabinet I originally suspected the sound to emanate from and found an old radio my wife had dug out of a cupboard and put new batteries in it to see if it still worked. It would appear that this radio was quite the dogs bollocks for its day as it had an alarm of which you could select an electronic beep or radio channel
planning to have a word when she gets up,
so man in the jar you have my sympathy (no really)
Albert Herring,
I was involved, off and on, for about thirty years in the administrative side of elections. If there is a conspiracy, then it has to be at a much higher level than a mere supervisor at a constituency level. To make this clear, I and my colleagues were expected to be completely honest about the voting process. I can assure you that, had I identified fraud, I would have made a song and dance about it. And I would have expected my superiors, such as the returning officer who is usually a very high level local government officer, to take my concerns seriously.
Please do not assume that the overall process is corrupt. Because it is not.
That said, I too find the Glenrothes result a tad iffy. Losing the votes ought to have been a sacking offence.
I think that postal voting is open to fraud by political parties, which has next to nothing to do with election staff. It is really hard to see how that – possible fraud by political parties – reflects on the democratic process at the level of election staff. As far as I know, everyone was honest and there are checks and balances in the process. If I had thought that there was fraud I would have expected to be taken seriously all the way to the top. Over that thirty odd year timescale I never felt the need.
On the basis of garbage in, garbage out, you may have a point, I don’t know about that. But the people who register your vote and count them are both pretty well bored and pretty well honest.
Just saying.
@John King
That must have been very alarming for you. 🙂
“@John King
That must have been very alarming for you. ”
It was certainly a wake up call
What Douglas said. It’s obviously possible for Labour to have fiddled some postal votes. This, however, is only going to work when the contest is fairly close, because it is simply not possible to do it on an industrial scale. It might change the result from a narrow loss for them to a narrow win.
What is being suggested here is simply incredible. First that it’s possible to turn a “clear majority” for UKIP into a situation where Labour wins by getting over 50% of the total vote and more than twice the number of votes cast for UKIP, and secondly that the election administrators wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t smell a rat.
How many “extra” fake postal votes are you suggesting Labour trucked in? How likely is it they could have done this? Each one would have to be accompanied by all the postal vote paperwork, with signatures and declarations and so on, remember. How would this have affected the overall turnout figures? Why did they go for such massive overkill, given the significant amount of work involved in faking even one postal vote?
And then somehow the returning officer and all the people from the various other parties and so on who were observing the count just didn’t notice? I’m sorry, it’s ridiculous. I wish people would stop and think before they give credence to such wild tales. And I wish they’d stop lionising Craig Murray.
@Morag.
It’s NNS reporting the 58% postal vote, not Craig Murray. Surely that must be unusual?
I don’t know. First, I don’t know where they got it from, as usual it’s “a Newsnet reporter” and there is no source and no reference. Also, there has been a lot of encouragement of postal voting in the past few years, in an attempt to increase turnout, so I don’t think we can just dismiss it as unrealistic.
The only realistic way the postal vote could have been fiddled to achieve what is being suggested is for Labour to have hijacked or somehow appropriated real people’s postal votes on a massive scale. How many nursing homes and so on are there in this constituency? How much paperwork would have had to be forged? How many actual forged votes is Craig Murray alleging they introduced into the system? What would the real turnout figure have been if this had not been done?
Come on, think this through.
o/t
just read a headline in the Scottish sun alleging Rosanna Cunningham had to “huckled out of the bar in Holyrood after having “a drunken rant at the evil tories”
AND?
what part of that is wrong? if the shoe fits and all that
Juteman,
I was offered a postal vote by my SNP candidate, which I gave him.
I have no idea whether the process is otherwise fraudulent, but that appeared to me to be a straightforward and legal thing to do.
I was however, slightly, uncomfortable with the politicisation of postal voting. To my mind it would be better if it were an administrative process kept well away from those that might benefit from it. The issues that we all ought to have are twofold, the significant drop in the numbers of people who vote at all and the handing of the process over to politicians.
On the basis of ‘a modest proposal’, perhaps it would be better if all voting was postal? Sent out by the returning officer and mailed back in secretly?
I would much prefer a system where people registered as unable to vote in person.
They could then be visited by mobile ‘election officers’.
Look I was only pointing out it was arithmetically possible. It’s not like it’s ever been tried before.
Albert,
I had that case in mind too. It is why political parties should have nothing whatsoever to do with the postal voting system. IMHO.
Juteman,
That may be a (very expensive) solution to the issue. How would lack of access issues be resolved? I think the onus should be on the voter rather than the mobile election officers. Although I agree in principle with the idea of separating the vote from the politics, if that makes sense?
Albert Herring said:
Look I was only pointing out it was arithmetically possible. It’s not like it’s ever been tried before.
I remember that episode. It was a council election, and they got caught. The culprits were Labour activists who wanted the local influence and kick-backs a council seat would provide, but it was a spectacularly inept private enterprise, not something organised by the Labour party as such. They seem to have managed about 2,000 votes between about three different wards.
People found that their signatures had been forged. Ballot papers were altered with Tippex. It wasn’t exactly subtle. And even then it was only possible because the candidates who were doing it were “elders” in the local Asian community and were able to bully and intimidate other Asian people.
Even if we assume it’s possible to do a better job of it, your own suggested figures imply that in this parliamentary constituency someone managed to stuff the ballot with an extra 7,500 or so Labour postal votes. Without anyone being suspicious that the party that managed 66% of the postal vote then only managed 29% of the polling station vote? Do you think returning officers’ heads button up the back? (That question is addressed to Craig Murray, not to you.)
There is also the matter of turnout. It was reported as a 39% turnout, compared to a turnout of 58% at the 2010 general election. That’s a bit on the low side, if anything, though not out of line for a by-election in what is in effect a safe seat. However, if 7,500 of the votes were bogus, the “real” turnout was only 27%, which indicates a level of apathy seldom if ever seen in England. And not really likely in a constituency where nearly 6,000 people have decided to get all fired up and vote for the new kid on the block.
It’s also massive overkill. If UKIP were really ahead of Labour and Labour were worried about it, a couple of thousand bogus votes (even that would be an extraordinary undertaking to carry out without leaving a trail) would obviously be enough to do it. And would incur a far smaller risk of arousing suspicion by engineering such a spectacular mis-match between the postal and polling station voting patterns.
I realise you weren’t really arguing that they had done this, but were merely showing that it was, strictly speaking, arithmetically possible. I would never have disagreed with that, I was merely using the term “arithmetically impossible” as shorthand for “putting in over 7000 bogus postal votes is in practical terms impossible, is massive overkill, would be bound to be spotted by the returning officer, and would imply that the “real” turnout was improbably tiny.” My bad.
My real point is that I mentioned some time ago that Craig Murray has a very unenviable reputation as a fruit-loop conspiracy theorist. I’ve ignored all the gushing praise and the links to his blog that have been flooding in here, because argumentum ad hominem is still a logical fallacy, and even someone with a very bad reputation can be right sometimes. But now this. I think it should be taken as fair warning.