To be fair, the article in today’s Sunday Mirror isn’t shy about setting out its position.
“In the end it will all come down to two little words. One of which will save our 300-year union with Scotland. The other will rip it to shreds. If Scotland’s Bravehearts vote YES on September 18 it will tear apart that union which has seen both countries’ men march shoulder-to-shoulder in two world wars.
Which is why YES seems such a small a word to bear responsibility for dismantling one of the world’s oldest democracies and for cutting a centuries-old umbilical cord that has kept us joined to Scotland since 1707.”
It’s all in there – “tear apart”, “rip to shreds”, Braveheart, two world wars, Rule Britannia blah blah etc – inside the first 100 words, so you know what’s coming. Although we’re pretty sure you’re not supposed to leave umbilical cords attached for centuries.
But as it turns out, that’s the most sensible part.
“Life is hard for Hamish. The last two harsh winters have all but crippled him. ‘I’m sure all the farmers in these parts will vote NO,’ he says.
‘In the last 12 years I’ve only ever made a profit once. Two years ago I hardly had any lambs at all because the weather destroyed most of them. I’m still recovering.’
Life for Hamish is already hard. Up at 5am in all weathers, he works till 10pm most nights for the kind of money that barely keeps food on the table. To make ends meet he drives lorries for a haulage company.”
Well, you can see why he wouldn’t want anything to change, can’t you? Hamish is terrified that he won’t be able to sell his sheep to England because Scotland will be out of the EU, even though it’s England that wants to leave the EU and is likely to have a referendum on the subject within three years.
The EU has no interest in stopping Hamish selling his sheep either way. But if he’s only made a profit once in 12 years, leaving him “all but crippled” and working two jobs just to cling on by the fingernails, maybe he needs a new line of work anyway.
“After saying goodbye to Hamish we head North to Ayrshire, to Waterside, near Kilmarnock to meet two people whose lives have been blighted by the SNP’s vision of a Scotland powered by renewable energy.
As we drive through endless acres of pine trees and sun-drenched fields you could be forgiven for thinking this is what heaven must look like. And then you see them. Row upon row of wind turbines, 215 of them, occupying every inch of the horizon.
This is Alex Salmond’s dream writ large and in the middle of it lies the dream of another man – only his has been shattered. Jon Peberdy and his wife Heather live in a long, white-walled cottage that used to be a dairy.
It took years of renovation and all of their life savings to get it the way they wanted it. Just after it was finished they discovered Scottish Power was about to build Whitelees, the biggest wind farm in Europe.
Now Jon’s once beautiful view is just rows of turbines, one so close he can read the maker’s name on the blade.”
Mr and Mrs Peberdy don’t seem to have quite made the leap to realising that this terrible blight occurred while Scotland was still in the Union. The referendum vote won’t make a blind bit of difference to it either way.
“With us is his neighbour Rachel Connor whose beautiful farmhouse is just a mile away. Rachel is English but for 30 years Scotland has been her home. If it’s a YES vote she and her husband will leave for good.
‘I fear what will happen,’ she says. ‘I’ve never been aware of racism towards the English. Now I am, which is so sad because I love Scotland. It’s my home. My two children have Scottish accents. I can see what happened in Wales happening here. I mean that – the burning of houses, people being battered and bullied.'”
Since no actual incident of racism is mentioned, we’re not entirely sure what’s happened from “I’ve never been aware of racism towards the English in 30 years” to “if there’s a Yes vote everyone will get their house burned down”.
Extreme Welsh nationalists burned down English-owned holiday homes, not places people lived, and the last recorded incident was 20 years ago. They weren’t doing it because they hated English people, they were doing it because they objected to villages being “hollowed out” by second-homers, something that’s common to all parts of the British Isles.
“From Kilmarnock I head for Europe’s biggest fishing port in Peterhead to meet four fishermen who all say they’re voting NO. They take me to the quayside to see the catch that’s just been landed.
James Stephen, who owns two of Peterhead’s biggest fishing boats and has been a fisherman all his life says: ‘There used to be 400 boats going out to sea from Peterhead. Now there are just 100. We’re a shrinking industry and Salmond could wreck what’s left of it.
That’s why 90 per cent of our fishermen will vote NO. In 35 years this is the most uncertain I’ve seen our industry. We’re all scared about the future.'”
Just as with shipbuilding, Scotland being in the Union has seen 75% of the fishing business destroyed as successive governments divert resources away from traditional industries to the financial centres of the City of London. Yet it’s independence they fear will put paid to the last 25%, for no conceivable reason.
“James adds: ‘We have the best stocks we’ve ever seen in the North Sea and in 35 years it’s the least profitable it’s ever been.'”
Sounds like everything’s working out just swell! Why change?
“Davey Milne is boss of the Scottish White Fish Producers’ Association. With a ‘Scotland the Brave’ tattoo on one arm and the Saltire, his country’s national flag on the other, he looks like everyone’s idea of a dyed-in-the-wool nationalist. He looks like it, but he isn’t.
‘We currently have 27 votes within the EU fisheries policy, the highest number together with France and Spain.But as an independent country that would go down to a maximum of just seven votes. And the truth is that even with 27 votes we’ve not been able to negotiate a good deal for the Scottish industry. So how can we do it with just seven?'”
We currently have 29 votes in the EU Council of Ministers, not 27. You’d think someone in Davey’s position would know that. But he can’t have it both ways – Scotland has no votes at all in the EU. The UK has the 29. And if you’re assuming that the UK is casting its votes for the good of the fishing industry, then independence would mean MORE votes for Britain’s fishermen, not fewer.
It’s hard to know what you’d tell any of the people Carole Malone sought out for her trip. (There’s a second part coming tomorrow, God help us all.) It takes an effort of will not to be rude in the face of such patently irrational statements. But when someone openly tells you “Everything’s terrible, so I’m going to vote to keep it the same”, what’s the sane response?
That’s not a rhetorical question, by the way. We’d really like to know.
My life’s utter shit and my business doesn’t make any money. That’s why I’m voting no.
As Peterhead is (I believe) homeland of homeland for Eck, Moira and the ducks, I find it hard to believe these figures.
As for the eejitry elsewhere….but THIS is the kind of thing Grannie Labour, with her secret inner Little Englandness believes. Grannie Labour is an undeniable nutcase, more widely, but not alone.
We had similar at the Yes stall yesterday (who admittedly also thought YES vote was to maintain the Union!); moral call as to whether to disabuse them….
apparently I “should be ashamed of myself” for not being satisfied with what the union has given me so far. IE all the things I don’t want, trident submarines, nuclear convoys, nuclear waste, punitive welfare policies and inequality all round. jeez so ungrateful
Spent all day Friday baling hay, and dousing sheep shearing sheep tonight. The tractors are festooned in YES stickers here. Even saw a combine with YES on it! All farmers want to stay in EU. If we vote NO, Scottish farms will be out of the EU within 3 -4 years, so all farmers I know, myself included, are voting YES. Never buy a paper any more. Full of what I fill up the spreader with.
Still can’t believe what I heard. She said,”I’m voting NO because 1 I don’t like Salmond 2 If we vote YES all the English will come up for free health care and free education” I shook my head and walked away.
I’m sure Mr Perbedy must be gutted that nobody’s building a new nuclear plant next to his cottage. That would do wonders for the view.
I read this earlier and had the exact same thoughts, onece turned a profit in 12 years!!! DAYAM! you are having a terrible time, after over a decade of awful prospects for your farm I’d think a change would be exactly what you wanted!!!
Sadly, I do know a few of those Hamish types. Fingers in ears, even when trying to explain the theft of the recent EU convergence uplift. 🙁
Some intense campaigning seems to be in order for Peterhead and for wherever Hamish does his farming (didn’t say).
Well off terrified, cowering middle class people I met on my travels, prepared to have their names, pics and view all over red top.
I am a half native celt so I can have my say.
My family lived in tenements you know.
Windmills are a blight on rich peoples views.
Racism is coming your way even after 30 years.
Fishing industry is in v bad way.
I have no agenda.
Why is this all so laugh out loudable. Scotland’s fishing fleet’s been more or less wiped out under LabConDem Westminster/ EU with fish stocks all close to extinction, yet the choobs can’t even begin to contemplate taking back at least some control over their own seas.
Its unbelievable …. for the simple reason is that its not true. None of it. It is manure.
link to businessforscotland.co.uk
The idea that Independence is where the threats to Scotland lie is becoming a bad joke. How can so many people still not understand what the two futures on offer actually are!
It’s very commendable that Yes have focused so much on a positive message for Independence and avoided being negative. However, perhaps this strategy was best suited when it was an Independence versus Status Quo choice.
We are now have a choice between self determination as always, but that is set against a truly horrendous alternative. I am utterly convinced that a lot of DKs and soft-Nos are blindly unaware of what will befall Scotland after a No win.
Free education, SNHS, and more, are under clear and present danger (to coin an appropriate Americanism). That message must be got across. And, quickly.
Ted Heath was so desperate to gain entry to the EU that he sold the Scottish Fishing Industry down the river by agreeing to access arrangements for foreign boats that nobody who wasn’t desperately keen to join the EU at any price would have agreed to.
In fact it is claimed that Ted Heath actually said that the sacrifice of the Scottish Fishing Industry “was a price worth paying” for obtains EU membership and that the other European fishing nations couldn’t believe their luck.
You can mark the start of the decline of the Scottish Fishing Industry from the date that Ted Heath made his infamous and needless sacrifice.
Some folk simply lack confidence, and the Scots have had theirs kicked out of them over the decades more than most. They have been made to feel helpless, as a deliberate government strategy.
I feel for my fellow Scots that have been so brainwashed that they are afraid to breathe without big brothers say so.
ha ha ha TYRAN so concise and so accurate 😀
I’m voting No because I am Scotland’s biggest landlord.
Colonel Blimp.
I am voting No because I have no talent am thick as mince and I am a Labour Cooncillor with a Directorship in the privatised building Department.
Jimmy McTumphsie.
I am voting No because I have a fulltime job as Tame Union official and have sole my mates out and never need to work again. I also have a gold credit card for expenses.
Ben Doon.
I am voting No because I am a Lib Dem MP and am in all the s best clubs in London and these will have my MPS pension, plus few related perks.
Harald Bentaxe.
I am voting No because I have plum job in the Scotsman and I am anti Scottish.
Brian Mad Ox Wilson Peterkins.
I am voting No cos I hate Kafflicks.
William King.
I am voting No cos I hate Orange basturts and luv the Queen.
Lord Cannae Read.
Hmm, now let me see now. The E.U. hands over over £200 million to be used SPECIFICALLY for the farmers in Scotland from the dairy and crop farmers down to the crofters. I wonder how much actually made it to the farmers, oh that’s right £100 Million! Cameron and his side kicks kept £100 Million for themselves. Not that you’d have read much about this of course because as we all know BBC and MSM do NOT report on Westminster STEALING from the Scots.
Now then Mr Milne, you get the number of votes WESTMINSTER has in the E.U. wrong and then claim that 7 votes for an independent Scotland would not help the Scottish fishing industry. Well Bubba here’s a wee newsflash the 29 votes ain’t helping you one iota cause there is NO ONE from the Scottish government permitted to speak at the talks. ALL the talking is done by a Westminster minister. Don’t forget when you’re favourite Prime Minister was in charge, a certain Maggie Thatcher, she sold the Scottish fishing industry down Swannee in return for her opt outs!
As far as this Rachael person is concerned what utter jibberish. We have loads of ENGLISH voting YES, actually in the Scottish government, and down here in Annan we have a number of English in our YES group so don’t even start going down that racism route. If any one is spouting the rise of racism it is YOU dear not anyone else!
Carole Malone: research by dialarightscotchdimwit.ukok.
That’s not a reportage, it’s as always a bunch of fabricated lies to keep those ignoramus of their readers in their bubble.
All the better for us, they’re being lulled in a false sense of security and becoming disengaged.
Maybe won’t even bother to vote, so sure they’re the majority.
DO NOT believe what you read in the papers.
DO NOT believe the polls.
Lies.
LIES.
LIES!
We will win hands down.
But it’s not time to relax yet – the worst is still to come.
Remember we’re getting away from a nation that has WMDs (for real!), has been in half a dozen wars after WWII, harbours institutional corruption proven in court multiple times (Hillsborough just an example), had paedophile rings cover-up in Parliament and the national broadcaster, continued personal privacy violations, is governed by multi-millionaires, has an unelected legislative body, and to top it off has now antagonized almost all Europe against themselves.
I’m sure I’m forgetting something important, but this should be enough to paint you the picture.
These people are ruthless, and won’t stop for anything.
Voting YES en masse will only be the start of a long, difficult, bumpy road.
Get ready, the hard work starts AFTER 18 September 2014.
Who is this Carol Malone?
I have never heard of her , she certainly is
” unbalanced”
To anyone, no matter where you are from, if you are saying, if there is a YES vote, you will leave… do us all a favour, and leave now. You may be too stupid to look after your own affairs, and enjoy handing over your entire income, and getting pocket money back, but WE are adults,
and expect to be treated accordingly.
Carole Malone is a fairly dimwitted tabloid columnist and rent-a-quote in the grand ‘Polly Filla’ tradition so mocked by Private Eye.
Coal industry – gone
Shipbuilding – almost gone
Fishing industry – almost gone
Steel inustry – gone
Scottish regiments – gone (now we have one)
Poll tax, Bedroom tax, Austerity, ATOS, Privatisation. illegal wars etc
But, ‘Salmond will make it worse’
People like this cannot be reasoned with.
Pathetic.
[…] « Sometimes you wonder […]
Staggering. A deluge of lies, fear and misinformation with no attempt at fair comment. I’m an advocate for a free press but, Christ, they make that argument hard, don’t they?
And as for racism,… too wee, too stupid ring any bells?
You’d think democracy only ever happened because of the union and that universal suffrage dates back to 1707.
Ah, a piece by Carol Malone. Remember the ‘illegal immigrants get free cars’ story? Malone.
“Everything’s terrible, so I’m going to vote to keep it the same”, what’s the sane response?
What is so terrible about developing Scotland’s renewable energy potential. It is not as if wind-farms cause long-term environmental damage. They may prove temporarily unsightly to some, though the landscape can be easily rectified once newer energy sources make wind-farms obsolete.
Which do you consider the most important, ‘individual’ personal aesthetic tastes and potential economic enrichment, or the prosperity of Scottish society and the wider protection of the environment?
Or, are you sure you are on the correct combination of meds? 🙂
It’s like an addiction.
If you’re not an addict, addiction seems like insanity. I know an alcoholic who’s dying from a failing liver, quite reliably sinks into morbid depression when she drinks and is paying off a fine she can’t remotely afford for a drunken rampage years ago but she’s as determined as ever to keep drinking herself to death.
Don’t ever read anything by Malone, fabricated nonsense as usual.
Just think there really are people deluded enough to believe all her pish.
Jake – that makes me laugh the most – the oldest democracy in the world eh – that only allowed the vote for women in 1928… even the vote for all men was only passed in 1918.. and even more shockingly one person one vote was not established until 1948!!!!! democracy my arse…
At best the UK version of democracy is only 66 years old…
Hand-picked, unbelievable people. The Peberdys take the biscuit, renovating their cottage and only when it was finished did they discover Scottish Power was about to build turbines. How naff is that? Don’t they read the papers, watch TV/radio? Did they not talk to neighbours or the people at the local shop? Did the Council keep it a secret?
Bollocks!
Still no or few actual facts in support of a dying union – just more tear jerking nonsense.
Scotland has listened to such clapping-crap for too long. The Union has failed us big-time, time and again.
Too many English interests top slice our wealth, too many chancers in London living in mega-million doll’s houses with our resources, sweat and shortages paying for it. It’s a pity the writer did not look at our areas of former prosperity, now reduced to wasteland.
It’s over. Goodbye.
Btw the first nation to implement the vote for both men and woman of all classes…
New Zealand in 1893… a small ex colony decades ahead of it’s old master …. quelle surprise..
What surprises me is how far they will go to seek out people who agree with them. “Hey Jimmy, do you know any no voters in the Highlands? ” Well, I heard there is a couple in Peterhead, fishermen I think!”
“That’s fine, Peterhead now driver!”
As an English rose – I keep going, this is the most important game-changer for all of us, I was out all day yesterday – my high heels were minor, my lovely london accent won many more hearts and minds – we will win.
We will wonder how we did it!
‘People whose lives have been blighted by the SNP’s vision of a Scotland powered by renewable energy’
Perhaps the ‘socialist’ Sunday Mirror should look at some of the photos on the internet showing Palestinian kids blown to bits to understand what ‘blighted’ lives actually means.
Propaganda that would shame Goebbels.
Krackerman says:
Yes, and in Scotland 2014, there is none!
So the fermer is fucked, working two jobs and going under. The fisherman’s industry has collapsed and both he and the fermer are voting NO. The windfarms and the anti English racism are just a bit of UKOK boilerplate to pad the thing out so ignore that.
This cannot be real, if it is these individuals, these individuals need psychiatric help quickly.
The fermer and the fisherman remind me of the film Escape from Sobibor. In the final scene the inmates make a break for the wire running through machine gun fire and a minefield to reach freedom.
But some inmates stay in the parade ground refusing to move despite the entreaties of others to come. No they would rather stay in the death camp – institutionalized to accept their fate.
This article points in reality to the same mental illness.
Proof of what the Union State has done to the reason of some of our fellow citizens.
No = Negativity = Negative people with no aspirations, fear of change, no hope for a better future and happy in their misery. They have the benefit of the union.
YES = Positivity = Positive people with aspirations, excited by change and full of hope for a better future as well as the will to achieve it. They see independence as an opportunity to build a better country.
People being scared and unhappy with their lot but not wanting better for themselves and their loved ones…I don’t get it!
An article written from home. I doubt the writer even visited Scotland.
I prefer Donald Anderson’s version @ 7:19pm
I don’t suppose the stories are necessarily fabricated. I mean, in a country of 5 million people you’ll be able to find most things if you look hard enough. I mean, if you went to Peterhead, and asked around for a No-voting fisherman, and so on….
Oh wait, I see where I’m going wrong. I’m assuming this Carol person went to all these places she said she went to. How long would that sort of research trip have taken? Anybody think she did that?
So if these people are real, how did she find them? I’d really be quite interested to know. I’d also be quite interested to know where Hamish is, because sheep farming in Scotland isn’t in such a bad way as that, and the very bad winter hit Welsh farmers worse than it did ours. I’d also like to know what he thought of the grant the Scottish Government made available to sheep farmers who were hit. The Scottish Farmer has been delicately hinting that a Yes vote might be worth considering for some time now.
Nah, you’re right, odds-on she made it all up.
Dorothy – she has appeared on such gems as Celebrity Big Brother, Loose Women, The Wright Stuff and various other programmes based on inane twaddle, so you haven’t missed anything by not knowing who she is.
I’ve lived and worked in Scotland all my life, well educated and fairly well read, and I am SO insulted when I read the sort of garbage these people are writing about us, our government and its leaders and rubbish our aspirations as if somehow we had no right.
Anyway, I hope she enjoyed her wee trip round our great wee country, but I think she should take her notebook and pencil and travel abroad to places where there is seriously bad stuff going on. She needs a reality check.
Well it’s the: “The jailor brings some food once a day, if we escape, he won’t”, syndrome.
Les Wilson…
Noooooo on the 18th of September there is the only meaningful democratic vote Scotland has ever had…
If we are foolish enough to vote NO then there will never be another taste of democracy for us again.
If we have the wisdom and courage to vote YES then democracy.. TRUE representational democracy can be ours…
No more rigged FPTP systems with 3 parties of the same policies.. No more unelected second legislative mired in cronyism and corruption…
Choose Yes….
Choose Democracy..
Choose a future….
I’ve just realised who this Carol Malone is. She occasionally does the paper reviews on SKY news. NUFF said! 😛
O/T
Dont know how true this is but I have had an email from a friend, he has said his friend was at TITP .
He said that they were getting their Yes flags and Saltires confiscated by security at the behest of the BBC. If its true it would certainly explain the lack of Saltire/Yes flags at the Biffy gig.
Well that certainly wouldn’t surprise me Hood. If it is then I guess we need to spread this far and wide. Denial of human rights springs to mind here for starters! Hmm, think I might just go a tweeting about this. 😉
Carol Malone used to work for the Journal in Newcastle in the 1980s – part of the Thomson Organisation who also owned The Scotsman & The P&J at the time. A pretty extreme right wing co. Her nickname was – actually I better not say.
Another person making a living out of ignorance; probably the selection process for MP was too easy.
As said I have no idea how true it is, my friend says if his friend says it is true then he reckons it is.
Only doubts I have is that I would have thought it would have been all over social media long before now. I don’t do twitter or facebook but I am sure others would have heard and posted if it was, so I am treating it with caution for now.
Poor old Hamish .. if only he could live in a country where the EU farming subsidies went to those farmers who needed assistance.
What will the rest of the UK be doing for energy when the oil and gas run out, which we are told will be soon?
So, they couldn’t find any ignorant and stupid No voters in between Kilmarnock and Peterhead? and none further north?
Not much of a haul, is it.
As for the wind turbine haters, was paying attention to local media and the planning system (which they probably had to engage with during their renovations) too hard for them? or did they just wake up one day and they had been installed secretly overnight by skyhook?
It could have been worse, think of the English settlers in a quiet picturesque valley who found out they were going to build an airport there. Surely much worse. I can see two turbines from my house and love them. En mass I think they are stately and mesmerising.
And finally and more seriously I expect those wind turbines are there because the local large landowner wanted to earn some more dosh from the land. As they only own or maybe lease just a small former corner of the estate they had no say. Do they think this, the most unequal land ownership in Western Europe will change under the Union or with the powers that Holyrood currently have? As the Americans say: the Stupid! it Burns!
I read this kind of claptrap and my response is ‘Oh, per-leeze!’
And if Scotland’s ‘Bravehearts’ do vote Yes what then, Sunday Mirror? Is there the remotest chance you or any of the other print media trash will stop patronising us and finally recognise this is the democratic will of a nation?
We might as well pack it in right now. Corby has spoken, who effing asked ? (Mark Pengelly)
Three days ago auntie ran a piece on their high Sweaty count, and hey presto.
link to bbc.co.uk
Maybe some of those farmers & fishermen need to get out more.
Well that’s me done my bit of s***e stirring over on Twitter about alleged BBC banning of the saltire. 😛
I saw the clip of – what was his name, Simon? – bringing out the Yes saltire on stage. It looked almost furtive, and he was fumbling it a bit. He didn’t get it properly unfurled, and he certainly didn’t brandish it proudly for the cameras. He kind of flapped it for a second or two and then ran off stage with it.
It looked to me like someone who was disobeying instructions. Who knew he was making a gesture that would be frowned upon and who was getting it done as quickly as possible before someone came and took the flag from him.
On the other hand, as has already been noted, if there were explicit instructions to the crowd not to bring saltires, I’d have expected it to be all over Twitter, and it wasn’t. Something funny going on here.
Does Alistair Darling have a brother..
If he has, this is all straight out the ‘Brother’s Darling Better Together Fairytales’ book.
Either that or someone has obviously tried to prove the Monkeys in a room with typewriters and produce the works of Shakespeare. All they typed was drivel for the Mirror.. With a wee bit of monkey poo in the corner, just for good measure..
After the relentless fear mongering that Scotland has endured over the period, maybe Bravehearts isn’t that far off btw.
I’ve had a couple of tweets back Hood and it might be just the one guy who had his flag confiscated cause he was drunk. I must admit I find it a wee bit strange though that there was only one drunk guy trying to get in with a flag. 😛
When will the YES campaign play the London subsidy card?
I see BBCTV is running programmes this week on the £15 billion Crossrail project partly paid for by Scottish taxpayers.
btw friend says he got reports this afternoon of three Better Together campaigners, headed by a Tory student with a cut glass accent,in Shandon area of Edinburgh with a TV crew behind them. Apparently this was meant to be a mass campaiging event!
Braveheart, anti English blah blah. The only 1s going on about this is the unionist papers trying to stir up trouble. As for windmills, where do these people wish for their power to come from? Im sure we could build a few nuclear or coal fired stations next to their homes, Im sure that wouldnt ruin the scenery. All Scotland is good for anyway is tourism and seasonal work in hotels while closed season we all just live off those generous handouts from Westminster.
There are YES Saltires flying at T in the Park
Why are the cute Scottish presenters (BBC Two) replaced BBC three?
@Lesley-Anne,
There were a good handful of Yes saltires in full focus for Paolo last night. Maybe its the BBC insisting on unbiased broadcasting for tonight !! Pretty sad if it was true though…
Aye I saw them last night Alistair. I’ve just had a wee pop over and think I saw two saltires, way back in the crowd. I didn’t see any near the front like there were last night. Still I’ll have another wee check in later and see what’s up then. 😉
Unionist automatons. These are not real people, they just can’t be. I live near Whitelees wind farm. I’ll tell you this, I’d rather have Whitelees a thousand fold, than have one nuclear power station.
So,the theme seems to be “even if its broke don’t try and fix it?” I wonder what Hamish the farmer does when his tractor breaks down then…
If the said fisherman, James Stephen, owner of two of the largest boats in Peterhead actually cared that much about the decline of the industry, sure he would have been up for splitting the share of the pelagic fisheries quota he and the hoarding it. Instead that group have harassed the British inshore fleet for a cut of their mackeral quota (most valuable UK stock). Also quite willing to sacrifice the processing sector in Grimsby and Hull in order to enforce an embargo on the Faroe Islands for taking a fair share of NE Atlantic mackeral and herring stocks. I.e these guys are voting for number 1, no real interest in wellbeing of those communities. Fisherman here, and I’m voting yes.
@ Lesley-Anne
Third time trying to post this so sorry if the other two show up.
I am picking up one of my lot who is working security at TITP
around 5am.
Will quiz him and let you know.
Thanks liz. To be honest it’s not that important. I just read it from Hood’s post and it seemed like a good point to go rattling some media cages and do a wee bit of *ahem* stirring don’t you know. 😛
@ Lesley-Anne
Ha Ha Go Getum Girl
Well trouble is ONE, just one, of my many middle names Liz. 😛
Son was at TITP yesterday said he wasn’t witness to any flags being confiscated and that there were plenty in Baledo.
You’re just trying to spoil my fun now Thepnr aren’t you, I know what you’re like. 😛
Don’t really know where to start with that, it’d be good if they were pressed further, ‘why would it be worse? How? How would an independent Scottish Government of any political persuasion benefit from destroying agriculture and fishing?’. I won’t hold my breath though!
I saw a different argument on a friend-of-a-friend’s Facebook today – she’s moved up from England and said the healthcare and education systems were streets ahead up here, and she couldn’t see how independence could improve anything and it would just cost money.
To me this sounds like a soft no – they seem (to me) to be getting more and more numerous, not sure what other people are finding?
Does this Malone woman think that we drifted into Sullom Voe Terminal on an old kale leaf and have ‘papier mache’ for brains??? For one under planning laws if the Peberdys were that close then they would have been individually notified of the development. As for anti- English I’m sure you all remember the Bettertogether Broadcasting Corporation’s programme of a couple of weeks ago when they sent the buck-toothed journalist to find the ‘great anti-English’ feelings in Scotland. And quelle surprise by the end of the programme she had to admit defeat, another myth busted. Only people stirring this sort of trouble are the MSM.
Auld Rock
PS I can’t remember the journalists name.
Extremely unlikely even the BBC would be asking for flags to be confiscated.
Perhaps some are stirring by suggestion that.
Guilty as charged Brian. 😉 😛
@Lesley-Anne
Absolutely not, I would encourage you to have “fun” with the liars, deluded and sycophants that despise democracy.
You go for it girl!
Thanks Thepnr I will. 😛
Morag Graham Kerr says:
“I’d also be quite interested to know where Hamish is”
All farmers are listed as businesses on the many web based directories.
“North to Ayrshire” … If you google Hamish farmer / farm for any of the counties south of Ayrshire, including that county itself, you find no suitable businesses.
After playing for a while, I conclude it’s a made up character. I may be wrong, but nothing obvious exists.
Yet another example of appallingly bad “journalism”. For contrast, read Gerorge Monbiot’s report on the real beneficiaries of farm subsidies
link to monbiot.com
And also, Andy Wightman shines light on the subsidy going to the Scottish “slipper farmers”. Clearly, Hamish is not one of those!
link to andywightman.com
It is essential for Scotland to gain complete control over these policies otherwise there is no hope of living in a fairer society.
Isn’t this blatant denial of reality what Franz Fanon called ‘cognitive dissonance’?
link to bellacaledonia.org.uk
@Scottishdragon
I saw a different argument on a friend-of-a-friend’s Facebook today – she’s moved up from England and said the healthcare and education systems were streets ahead up here, and she couldn’t see how independence could improve anything and it would just cost money.
You need to speak to your friend so that they can get the message across to the friend that has moved up from England that quite simply the choice we face is this.
To continue to improve services and employment prospects using all the powers of government. To alleviate the worst of the poverty by reforming welfare and ensuring those that need it will have help in times of need.
The alternative is that as good as they may believe it is now, this is in no way guaranteed as we all know of the £35 billion of cuts yet to come. What your friend of a friend fails to realise is that a No vote does not mean carry on as usual. In fact quite the opposite is more likely.
Not only their fault though, an awful lot of people are just as ignorant. Please help educate them, start with a post on their facebook by yourself. Every little helps.
@Peter Not at all ignorance and trust in the MSM as that is all they wish to know.
It’s pish and am gonna vote No to keep it pish. WTF?
Effin bonkers mad these people.
Lesley-Anne,
I was thinking more of Hood.
A trader giving away Yes Saltires at T in the Park was threatened with eviction from his pitch if he didn’t hand over the boxes of flags he had. Don’t think individuals were having them confiscated but boxes of hundreds were confiscated from the stall today. I’ve emailed the Rev with contact details of the guys on the stall.
Brian Powell says:
13 July, 2014 at 9:14 pm
Lesley-Anne,
I was thinking more of Hood.
Nice of you to think that.
Chatting with elderly lady on bus at Braehead the other day.
Said she was voting no cos she didn’t want to be independent.
Didn’t like Salmond cos he said Scotland was a wealthy nation, but where’s all the money?
Jaw on floor stuff.
And this is a copy of the text my friend has just got from his friend
“We bought one on friday then went back yesterday to buy another… Supplier told us they were ‘asked’ to remove them from sale… as BBC made complaint.”
Kind of ties in with Fay Sinclairs post.
I know farmer Hamish is telling a pack of lies for a start. When he talks about not making a profit that’s on the farm’s books and isn’t including his compensation and subsidies. The typical sleazy type I grew up with when I worked on local livestock farms. Pleading poverty while they drive a £60,000 car and send their kids to an expensive school in Crief or Dollar. But since the Tory governments go on about benefits fraud which is a pittance compared to the fraud and hidden cash in agriculture they will always get away with this crap. Hamish is just worried the money pipe might get an overhaul and his scams will all end.
@Hood
Now that I can believe and want to hear more. By the way I have one of these Yes flags for you. Will drop it off next Friday.
Do the BBC run TITP now? If so, then we are paying for it. Unless they are wildly overstepping their mark, but i’m sure they wouldn’t do that….. I have not bought a newspaper for years.. nowhere near absorbent enough, which is odd, as that’s all they are good for.
I remember speaking to a guy who had ground off the A77 in 1996 who knew all about the proposed wind farm. That was the reason he bought it. That was a long time before the SNP came to power and the proposed windfarmdevelopment would have appeared on the property enquiry certificate examined by the Perbedy’s solicitor before they bought after that date.
Thepnr
Looking forward to that, wonder if I can fly it from the scaffold that the Boatyards painter has up at the front of my workshop, will be right in front of the Boatyard directors window, who just happens to be a Unionist 😀
Galamcennalath, names could have been changed to protect the identities of the interviewees, but that wouldn’t automatically mean the actual story was invented. Alternatively, anyone in a matching business called James? (My dad’s Christian name was James but he answered to Hamish all his life.)
Even if the stories are God’s honest truth though, it’s still only a couple of people. As Stu said on Twitter, we look forward to the balanced piece in a future edition, interviewing Scots who are enthusiastic and positive and hopeful about a Yes vote. That’ll be the day.
This is what’s really depressing me. Before the campaign started I knew there would be stories like that, and worse. But I also naively imagined there would be positive, inspirational, hopeful stories as well. I was looking forward to reading or viewing the latter. But there are none.
As John Robertson said, even the BBC is wall to wall doom, gloom, scare, apocalypse, negativity. You look in vain for even one little chink of light suggesting there’s the possibility of a whole new country up ahead. It’s getting me down, it really is.
Auld Rock
Janet Street-Porter? I think I saw the first in the series of ‘reports’. It was dismal. Why does the state broadcaster think it will assist the enlightenment the Scottish electorate, if all they do is broadcast mince spouted by the ill-informed?
Oh good grief. So this reporter toddled around Scotland looking specifically for uninformed and fearful no voters to fill a column with poorly articulated woo. This capped with every buzz word and dog whistle phrase from the BT playbook.
Pish.
@Morag Graham Kerr
The one little chink of light is right here, you read it everyday. Try not to let the negativity get you down.
By remaining positive that little chink of light will maybe become blinding. That’s what we’re striving for.
Great advert for the union – life is terrible but if we only made our own decisions it could be even worse.
So far no one seems to be voting no for the love of the union…
Talk about a dog with a bone, they won’t let this nonsense go…Geez what pish
link to mirror.co.uk
@Morag Graham Kerr.
I know how you feel – it gets me down too, at times.
I think all of us who are so focused on a ‘Yes’ vote will have moments such as these despite being positive people.
Derek Bateman has such moments although not so much recently!
@Muscleguy says: 13 July, 2014 at 8:11 pm
“I can see two turbines from my house and love them. En mass I think they are stately and mesmerising.”</b
I do both videography and photography. From my window I look out over farmland and Loch Ore Country Park. I can see two different wind farms.
When I point a camcorder or camera just about anywhere around here I have to try and frame the shot with reference to the wind farms and the large ugly angle ironed old fashioned pylons. Pylons that come complete with long sagging power lines and massive ugly insulators.
Now any photographer will tell you that a new structure in the landscape sticks out like a sore thumb but familiar things go un-noticed. Proof of this is the wedding photo with the churchyard tree to be growing from the blushing brides head. Or the strange perspective of the child with the massive feet snapped by fond parent on top of the park shute.
I can tell you it is much much harder to frame a landscape picture without a pylon or powerline than to avoid a comparatively graceful moderen windmill.
I’ve challanged people to look at a real scene and tell me what they see that spoils the view. Then I show them a photo of that same view and ask them what spoils the photo – guess what? Only then do they choose the pylons and lines as the main spoilers. Just like they never noticed that churchyard tree when photographing the bride until they saw the finished photo.
And finally and more seriously I expect those wind turbines are there because the local large landowner wanted to earn some more dosh from the land. As they only own or maybe lease just a small former corner of the estate they had no say. Do they think this, the most unequal land ownership in Western Europe will change under the Union or with the powers that Holyrood currently have? As the Americans say: the Stupid! it Burns!
Surely they had no right to confiscate the traders goods. I’m sure there would have been nothing is his contact forbidding him do this.
I hope he / she complains to the organiser of the event about their treatment and make sure that they get their goods back.
Corby, 12.7% of population Scottish, which would suggest that all the Scots & an equal amount of others voted yes.
“If Scotland’s Bravehearts vote YES on September 18 it will tear apart that union which has seen both countries’ men march shoulder-to-shoulder in two world wars.”
Four countries, Carole. There are four countries in this union. “Both” is not the correct word to use here.
Unless of course she’s saying the sacrifice of Welsh & Irish/Northern Irish soldiers don’t count. Maybe she isn’t even aware that Wales & Northern Ireland exist.
I’m sure if need be all you lovely men will be shoulder to shoulder again – could we please look after the mums and bairns first?
There is absolutely no way that 16/17 year-olds do not have enough information on indy. They are the Internet generation.
Just before I retired in 2011 my S5 pupils had to write a discursive essay on a topic of their choice – most of my class of about 25 chose the Arab Spring and the power of the Internet. I had to split them into 2 groups for discussion purposes and they were so enthusiastic about the power of youth and the Internet.
To my eternal shame I thought then that the BBC was fair and unbiased. Years of conditioning I suppose but I know better now.
@Lesley Anne
I’ve been on the Yes Kirkcaldy Facebook page and they are raging about the YES saltires being confiscated by T staff because the BBC complained. It was this afternoon. Some guy was giving them out for free and told to stop. Maybe it’s mischief, but I’m cheesed off about the English Presenters! We always had Scottish ones!! It’s not anti English, it’s being sensible!
As for Corby. They don’t have a vote! Who cares what they want!!
Morag! You are doing a great job! Chin up hen!.
@ Drunken Hobo
“Four countries, Carole. There are four countries in this union. “Both” is not the correct word to use here.”
Actually, she is right. The United Kingdom is the union between the Kingdoms of Scotland and England. Wales and Northern Ireland are territories ruled by England as a result of conquest.
If Scotland votes YES then the United Kingdom no longer exists. Amazingly, a lot of commenters don’t realise this and talk about the rUK. There will be no rUK.
“That’s not a rhetorical question, by the way. We’d really like to know”
how about
What have you got to loose?
“There is absolutely no way that 16/17 year-olds do not have enough information on indy.”
Unfortunately having easy access to information if you choose to look is not the same as actually having information.
Re Peter
The British State has taught ordinary people to forget and disregard their humanity. “No” has become the motto for attacking the poor, to abandon the things that used to actually define Britishness, such as free health care, compassion for the vulnerable and distribution of wealth. The irony of the Scottish Independence debate is that Scottishness, as defined by the Yes campaign, is the old Britishness. Yes represents and preserves all that is Good, Proper and Right within the British Isles.
This is a typical mashup between the Sunday Mirror and the unions to deliver a piece against independence. The newspaper contacts the NUF to find a farmer who is against independence (no worries there), then onto the fisherman’s union to talk to some who are NO, they are probably union reps in the first place. The onto the homeowner whose view is blighted by the ‘Salmond’s windmills’, typical NIMBYism that you’d find in SE England. These peope are probably on some anti-windmill lobby group register. So lets break this down a bit.
The newspaper (circulation in Scotland is a pathetic 17,500) is trying to give the impression that if you jump into the car and head to Scotland you’d be tripping over Vote No/Hate Salmond people.
To just come across a couple living in the sticks who happen to be voting NO is laughable, these people have their gripes prepared, especially against AS.
Then onto the poor farmer, again just by coincidence the journalist drives into a farm to find a ‘poor’ farmer with his story prepared on how he is done by eh … independence?
Up to Peterhead and no attempt to find opposite views because the interview was staged in the first place.
So this is the Sunday Mirror doing the Daily Mail’s job for them, trying to make out that Alex Salmond is hated, everything he does is bad and independence will be armaggedon for Scotland. Perhaps the paper really needs to look at why their circulation, both daily and Sunday editions, sell so poorly in Scotland.
You’re a bit off with the fishing angle. The typical business model in the NE is that the boat is the family business. I doubt there are many union members in the crews. I’m sure you could find a few skipper/owners who will vote no. I’m equally sure the majority of the deckhands will be voting yes. I come fae the Broch just north of Peterheed. Remember who the local MP is? You can ignore what the papers say about NE voting intentions.
Link says it all
link to newsnetscotland.com
Good grief, Had to laugh when I saw this storry was in the same paer.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/novotenovoice—join-mirrors-battle-3851936
There’s nothing quite as profound as profound ignorance.
“story”
@Giving Goose
The irony of the Scottish Independence debate is that Scottishness, as defined by the Yes campaign, is the old Britishness. Yes represents and preserves all that is Good, Proper and Right within the British Isles.
Ne’er a truer word said. Ta.
“I hope he / she complains to the organiser of the event about their treatment and make sure that they get their goods back”
and compensation for loss of sales.
Oops!
It looks like what Hood heard via the e-mail may actually be true. Initially it appeared that it all transpired from a drunk who had their flag removed for *ahem* safety reasons. However from what FoS says it appears there definitely is something under hand about the behaviour of the BBC. No surprise there then. 😉
I’m just wondering if the person who was giving out the free YES saltires was Mark from the 10,000 flags campaign. I know from talking to him when he dropped our flags off he said he was going to TITP.
You know what’s scary? I typed a post above with the word “Peterhead” in it. A little while later I opened up Google Maps. It opened as a street map of Peterhead.
@ the exquisite Lesley Anne – my flag is now flying from a flagstaff on the entrance to Brechin – result honey.
Flower of Scotland says: about the YES saltires being confiscated by T staff because the BBC complained.
Will Glasgow Council and BBC ban Saltires at the Commonwealth games and insist Union Jacks are flown to avoid petty nationalism.
Woo Hoo!
Glad you’ve put it to good use Paula. I’m sure you’ll spend many an enjoyable hour or three watching it flutter in the light breeze you get up in Brechin. 😛
@Morag
Nothing funny just the way cookies work. We are spied on every minute we use the internet. You can choose not to accept cookies most don’t bother including me.
I’ll have to try that Peterhead. 🙂
There is a lot of people brainwashed into thinking Don’t change anything. Things are bad everywhere & getting worse. Can they ñot see to make things better, we must change, we must have independence. With independence we can protect Scottish fisheries. We can protect farmers and there livelihoods. We can with independence stop other countries from depleting our fishing stocks and allow them to replenish. With an independent Scotland we can build and help those who need help to recover. Do they really think staying in the union is going to benefit them? It can & will get worse. Make a stand and have our freedom to make Scotland a treasure. A treasure to be protected for the people of Scotland & there families for there future. Let’s get it right for all of us.
Naw, didn’t work mines opens on the United Kingdom. It doesn’t know where I am and I prefer it like that. Maybe get somebody who knows about this stuff to help sort out your security ect. on the net. Just a thought.
I have a Question. I can look out my window and see whitelees wind farm. I live in East Kilbride. Now, either this lassie is lying her arse off or whitelees is huge. Spread over two counties. Which is it?
It’s never, ever done anything like that before.
Peffers: I can tell you it is much much harder to frame a landscape picture without a pylon or powerline than to avoid a comparatively graceful moderen windmill. I’ve challanged people to look at a real scene and tell me what they see that spoils the view. Then I show them a photo of that same view and ask them what spoils the photo – guess what? Only then do they choose the pylons and lines as the main spoilers.
With respect, that’s all rather muddled thinking, Peffers.
A good artist has the skill to translate what he sees in many different ways, including the abstract. The more abstract the image the more the barbed wire, old rope, and sheep wool tied around and to the rickety field gate become one harmonious image.
The barbed wire is no longer picked out by the eye as ugly. The same goes for pylon lines. They can make an interesting painting so long as the whole image integrates and elevates pattern, volume, proportion, and mood.
Generally, photographs show a non-interpretive reality, a realistic representation. But art lifts the ordinary and the mundane into a different plane, a new way of seeing.
The artist sees what the rest of us miss.
@giving goose
Your comment is one of the most insightful things I’ve read about this whole debate, can someone turn that into a graphic and get it doing the rounds on social media?
Ah, eternally amusing MSM shite.
Points have been well made on all of it by now; I have only one thing to add.
Anyone who wants to up sticks if the result that happens is not the one they want, I will happily help you pack. If you are a No supporter and claim to love Scotland so much you’ll leave if it’s a Yes vote, I’ll help you pack.
If you are a Yes supporter and love Scotland so much you’ll leave after a No vote I will help you pack, I’ll drive you to the airport, ferry port, border, whichever you like, then I’ll go home and start the process for another shot at independence. The one you will be running away from like beaten sheep.
@scullys
Aye whitelee is huge, biggest windfarm in Europe
@scullys gusset sooker
Whitelees is the biggest wind farm in the UK. I drive through Waterside every time I go to Glasgow; you can certainly see the turbines from there, and as I head towards the motorway, there is a sign to the Visitor Centre on the old Kilmarnock-Glasgow road.
I had a surprise earlier tonight when I walked the wee dog. The wee dog was trained as a Therapet to visit homes, hospitals and hospices as a befriender.
I was walking home through a new housing development when the wee dog ran over to a lady getting out of her car. The lady had a very USA accent and was delighted at the wee dogs so friendly welcome.
I asked her how she was enjoying visiting Scotland and was surprised when she said she wasn’t visiting but had married a Scot and now considering herself Scottish. Not only that but she had registered to vote and was intent upon voting YES.
It’s wee surprises like that which make my day.
East Ayrshire have just blocked 50 new turbines elsewhere due to tourism worries link to twitter.com although South Ayrshire have yet to refuse 130, will be more than half the size of Whitelee – the UK’s largest – in what should be part of Scotland’s next national park. Please sign and share link to savestraitonforscotland.com invite, follow and like…
“cutting a centuries-old umbilical cord” shows exactly what they think of us – wee dependent babies.
Well we don’t want to be dependent children anymore – soon we will take control of our own lives and our own country like “grown-ups”!
Goan Duetchland. Terrymendous.
Cheers. I knew whitelees was big, did not realise it was that big. I stilll think the malone woman is at the madam. Is that just me? I dont think so.
@Capella says: 13 July, 2014 at 10:34 pm
@ Drunken Hobo
“If Scotland votes YES then the United Kingdom no longer exists. Amazingly, a lot of commenters don’t realise this and talk about the rUK. There will be no rUK”
Whoa! There! Indeed the United Kingdom is just two KINGDOMS and the United Kingdom will indeed cease to exist upon one leaving.
However, those two Kingdoms do indeed contain four countries but the Kingdom of England that signed the treaty to form the union was/is composed of three countries.
BTW: Ireland still remains a country but it is partitioned into two different legislatures one of which cannot belong to the United Kingdom for the simple reason it is a republic.
I live overlooking the windmills, Whitelees, when people ask me if it’s an eyesore I genuinely say it doesn’t bother meor my family, in fact they are quite mesmerising to watch. As for seeing the makers names on them, if you go to the visitor centre you will see NO names on the blades! Also would I prefer a gas/ coal or nuclear station on my doorstep, Hell no!
Am unsure who here agrees – the sooner Scotland invests in hydro-power the sooner we can dispense with multi-windfarms ranked atop hills, or anywhere for that matter that blights the landscape, and wealthy farmer stop getting massive state grants to install them.
If the BBC stopped somebody distributing Saltires at TITP that says more than a million words about their biased coverage and should be followed up
I don’t know about Whitelees, but I think Soutra is freaking gorgeous.
I like the things, especially the big industrial ones. (Some of the smaller domestic ones aren’t so elegant.) The juxtaposition of the ancient landscape and the futuristic energy machines is like something from the cover of an SF novel.
They remind me that this is a living, breathing country where people live and work in the 21st century, not a museum called Brigadoon with peasants still living in Black Houses.
And they’re about a million times nicer than electricity pylons.
Why people are voting no because they don’t like Alex Salmond ……. Just proves their ignorance of what the referendum is all about and their only excuse they can come up to justify their own produce towards the natives managing their own lives. So goodbye good luck and good riddance.
As for our fine no voting fishermen who prefer Westminster to manage their industry rather than themselves then they can shift their boats down south and obtain what they think they are going to be missing, problem solved.
I have had many people tell me they hate Alex Salmond. When I ask why ….I invariably always get the same answer…….A JUST DO. there are a lot of frightened people about!
Every time Glenda Slag, BBC etc try to use the sacrifice made by so many in two world wars, this Yes voter comes to mind
link to thecourier.co.uk
I had a conversation with someone today, he is voting No.
I enquired why and he mentioned his pension. I said about the DWP letter and he said he had read and then blethered on about the letter said, at the moment, or words to that effect and things would change and he wouldn’t get his pension .
Anyway as things progressed it turns out he has a hatred of Alec Salmond/Sturgeon. Mugabee the Dictator and the witch were the words used and also I had been brainwashed by them.
The really funny part was he said if Mugabee and the witch dropped dead tomorrow he would vote Yes but until then he would vote No.
That is the kind of mentality some people have.
Oh BTW he used the “I am a Proud Scot BUT” I suppose I should have walked away at that point 😀
@Thepnr
Unfortunately the friend will be of no use – she lives in England and the last conversation I had with her about independence revealed that she thought people in Scotland paid tax to Holyrood, then Westminster gave Scotland extra money paid from English taxpayers. Obviously I corrected her but she still thinks it’s an anti-English thing.
Anyway, as you say, I’m sharing links and stories on Facebook, hoping it will at least get people thinking, or looking in different places for information. I’m also taking credit for moving
Oops! Fat fingers/being up too late means I pressed submit too soon.
…my colleague from a borderline yes to a strong yes, mainly by pointing out facts about defence, reciprocal nhs contracts and stuff. This site is so important for getting information out, so thank you.
@ Robert Peffers 11.43
“the Kingdom of England that signed the treaty to form the union was/is composed of three countries.”
That’s what I said:
“Wales and Northern Ireland are territories ruled by England as a result of conquest.”
So, on Scotland voting YES, the United Kingdom ceases to exist. What’s controversial about that? Granted we would want our Welsh friends to enjoy self-determination too. Let’s support that. But there will not be a “United Kingdom” after a YES vote.
This whole article is classic Astroturfing. It is a complete and utter fabrication ,none of these people exist the person thats credited with writing it had no input but to put her name to it.
The No side have spent lots of money employing a professional Astroturfing company .
These people know how to rigg an election,no lie to small or to big .
They have been paid to bring in a No vote by any means ,money no object ,morality no object .
The more you see of the No campaign the more you realise it is not random but orchestrated negativity towards Scotland and its people.
They hate freedom of information they hate sites like this,they want controll of all information ,which they just about have in Scotland.
“The first casualty in any war is the truth “
This whole article is classic Astroturfing. It is a complete and utter fabrication ,none of these people exist the person thats credited with writing it had no input but to put her name to it.
The No side have spent lots of money employing a professional Astroturfing company .
These people know how to rigg an election,no lie to small or to big .
They have been paid to bring in a No vote by any means ,money no object ,morality no object .
The more you see of the No campaign the more you realise it is not random but orchestrated negativity towards Scotland and its people.
They hate freedom of information they hate sites like this,they want controll of all information ,which they just about have in Scotland.
“The first casualty in any war is the truth “
This whole article is classic Astroturfing. It is a complete and utter fabrication ,none of these people exist the person thats credited with writing it had no input but to put her name to it.
The No side have spent lots of money employing a professional Astroturfing company .
These people know how to rigg an election,no lie to small or to big .
They have been paid to bring in a No vote by any means ,money no object ,morality no object .
The more you see of the No campaign the more you realise it is not random but orchestrated negativity towards Scotland and its people.
They hate freedom of information they hate sites like this,they want controll of all information ,which they just about have in Scotland.
“The first casualty in any war is the truth “
I hope Hamish the farmer is recording all these hours on his working time directive sheet, his tacho’s or his digi card to ensure he gets his proper rest periods cos if he falls asleep at the wheel & kills someone “he goin to jail” as he’s declared in the Sunday Mirror he works a 17 hour day & this excludes any lorry driving, lorry drivers can only work 90 hours in per 2 weeks.
Just think, that £1/4m pissed up against Westmiddens wall’s on PF’s leaflet of fear, might be money well spent on our behalf. If only we had a reasonably impartial media.
Flags being removed on Aunties orders at Titp.
Shameless bastards. Will this story see the light of day ?
Just think, that £1/4m pissed up against Westmiddens wall’s on PF’s leaflet of fear, might be money well spent on our behalf. If only we had a reasonably impartial media.
Flags being removed on Aunties orders at Titp.
Shameless bastards. Will this story see the light of day ?
I knew right away as soon as I saw the name “Hamish” that this is nothing more than a fabrication. Its a stereotypical Scottish name for lots of southerners. Stereotypical enough to raise an eyebrow.
Hamish is the name of a Heilan coo next to a woollen mil shop in Kilmahog. ootside o’ Callander. His wife is Heather and they pose for the towrist photies.
They belong to the Don’t Know Party as coos don’t know they are mincemeat.
I think wind turbines are a work of art, compared to ugly high voltage transmission pylons and cables.
Very cunning of you to avoid mentioning that it was written by Carole Malone until the end, knowing that as soon as people see her name they think “oh I’m not reading this shite.”
I don’t believe any of these people are real. When it comes to ‘Better Together’ plitical propaganda I never believe any of it, it’s the same with the media I never pay attention to the headlines. When the treasury release figures for Scottish revenues and spending, I think ‘yeah right’. This is a propaganda war, I am only surprised that the arguements for voting No presented are so pathetically stupid in most of the cases,you would think whoever actually made up the quotes could have put forward better reasons.
A minor point, but everytime some one wants a wind farm taken down, ask if they want all their pylons done at the same time.
@Capella
So, on Scotland voting YES, the United Kingdom ceases to exist. What’s controversial about that? Granted we would want our Welsh friends to enjoy self-determination too. Let’s support that. But there will not be a “United Kingdom” after a YES vote.
As much as I wish so, it won’t work quite like that. When Scotland and England merged in 1707, they created one Kingdom. The Kingdom of Great Britain. When the Kingdom of Ireland was absorbed in 1801, it became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
That part is important, because that is where the term “United Kingdom” comes from. Ireland left the United Kingdom, as we all know, but the “Kingdom” and “Crown” continues through Northern Ireland (Hence the full name, The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland)
The only part of the United Kingdom that ceases to exist is “Great Britain” So in all likelihoods the rUK would continue to go by the name “United Kingdom” only this time United Kingdom would stand for “The United Kingdom of England and Northern Ireland” / “The United Kingdom of England-Wales and Northern Ireland” instead of “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”
@thoughtsofascot, how true. This is taken from the Daily Mail playbook, where any foreigners interviewed has a stereotyped name, i.e. Germans are called Hans, French are Pierre and Spanish are Juan, so Hamish for a Scot is just about par for the course.
I don’t think the English press have cottoned onto the fact that Hamish is a really uncommon name these days! They need to update their stereotype book a generation or two
[…] still naive and unjaded enough to be shocked by such sad stories as this poor farmer who’s experienced such terrible times, and still astounded that […]
I’ve been getting awfully angry at some things lately, so again I had to let off steam.
link to wildernessofpeace.wordpress.com
Here’s the thing: the Mirror keeps talking about “ripping” the UK “to shreds,” “tearing it apart,” “dismantling it,” “cutting it” – as if it’s a bad thing.
Let me ask you this: with the UK’s history of bloodshed, intolerance, atrocity, genocide, ethnocide, colonialism, racism, oppression, and war crimes from the past 100 years alone – explain to me why you would not want to rip it to shreds, and tear it apart?
Those are the same kind of people who see the colonization of India and Africa as a good thing. They see things through this fantasy “The UK was a force for good in the world” lens. They have been fed this spiel for years and are oblivious to the actual realities of British History. Pretty much the very people who have grown up eating BBC propaganda.
When i read and posted the link to the DR online account of this “story” by carole malone, on another thread earlier (and i thank the kind person whose name escapes me for fixing the link) my comment was simply, Jeezo..
It was all i could think of as a response, and i am not often speechless.
Many thanks to Stu for doing his usual clinical dismantling of this utter guff.
2 months to go Stu, you are like Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke when he has swallowed around his 40th egg and is bloated to bursting point, yet still keeps taking the now disgusting task forward.
You must have an iron constitution to put up with what you must read and watch on a daily basis, it must be a tough gig !
Hope you do not mind the analogy, my all time favourite film you see !
Some words you might see & hear this week.
Virgin says No.
Population centre. Space port. Overcast.
Ridiculous bribes.
Branson.
Unfortunates, caught in the pretence of a constant state.
The stars are so big, the earth is so small, stay as you are.
The point of the article is an attempt to ‘denormalise’ voting YES. Only NO voters, all have a terrible story (not showing themselves as pro union, rather as risk/fear/danger averse). So why would you be different to the herd and vote YES? Amazing, using the very things which are the reasons for independence as reasons to fear it. Clever and yet stupid.
Fear of the unknown… that’s a lot of what drives people to vote no. That and the scare stories in the media all the time. It’s the most basic of human emotions and hard to shake or wake people out of it!
A £1.1 BILLION package of investment in military capabilities such as drones will be unveiled by David Cameron today.
Cash for the “vital” Ministry of Defence programmes has been found as a result of austerity measures, the Prime Minister will say.
Wake up no voters….
link to heraldscotland.com
Before anyone starts I am a Yes voter but, in the interest of balance and to get away from some of the speculation which is running through this post, I have just had a look at the Mirror website (search News, UK News, Scottish Independence), it does look like Ms Malone visited Scotland and there are pictures of the people supposedly included in the story. There is also a follow up article today which is supposed to look at the Yes side.
OT
A Wee TITP up date
The staff had only to remove flags and banners that were
crude [because of the live broadcast]
Although some flags were taken because of the flag pole that went with them.
So if there has been a complaint I for one would like an explanation of how the YES flag has gone all kinky
Lesley-Anne I think you would too!!!
Also there was and I quote “some amount of YES stuff there, hunners of flags,face paint’s in everything”.
As for the no stuff “wan or two flags ah didnay really notice any” remember this is from someone who is watching the crowd for things they have on or around them.
Look’s like the kid’s are switched on and not shy about it
@thoughtofascot
I understand what you are saying and this will be the guff spun by the media. The uk of england wales and n. ireland.
Never mind wales and n ireland have never been kingdoms or the fact wales arent represented on the brit flag and was seen as a region of england at both unions 1707 and 1801.
Or that many in n. ireland have the right to not carry brit passports and can represent a “foreign” country at sport whilst during ww2 mr churchill offered the irish the 6 counties in return for brit ships using irish ports.
Somehow i think many world organisations and foreign diplomats and government officials will just laugh at westminster when they try to pretend everything just carrys on as normal.
Delusions of grandeur soon get smashed on the hard reality of worldwide politics and international negotiations.
The dug is worth a wee visit this morning. 🙂
link to weegingerdug.wordpress.com
@Nana Smith 6:54am
Great news food banks and people forced into the arms of pay day lenders in order that we have more weapons in time for the new Iraq campaign with America.
Also announced today executives pay up from 60 times a worker to 180 times. Almost 500 Quango bosses earn more than an MSP.
Labour still supports the union?
R5Live running with wee reports from Aberdeen oil industry. Guy talks about decommissioning and says it will cost 40bn but BBC man says there is only £50bn worth of oil left???
Pish and propaganda.
@Thomas pretty much!
The stuff I said will be the reasons they state for continuing on with the use of the United Kingdom as the shorthand name for the country. It is technically correct but you are totally right in saying that other countries will be having a good chortle at the new, diminished UK pretending that nothing has changed.
In some ways, it’s a bit like how the Spanish king, Carlos VI, is also the titular king of Jerusalem. On a technicality he is, but in reality, not so much.
*Felipe VI, not Carlos
@Nana Smith They love their drones!
2012 – link to independent.co.uk
2013 – link to independent.co.uk
Rev retweet of Scotland’s newspaper sales all crashing but hootsman cover-up their near bankruptcy with 6 monthly sales figures instead of monthly.
Sunday Mirror – 22.8 per cent down = 20,331 to 15,699;
Gee wonder why hardly anyone reads our shite Glenda?
link to allmediascotland.com
Guardian down by well over 5% shock, Severin Carrell today dismissed rumours that wearing a wig and dressing up as a girl still couldn’t lift sales of their vote no garbage.
Had a long lie this morning but wasn’t sleeping. I was listening to radio Scotland. So now I’m a bit depressed.
I touched on a subject yesterday calling upon the Scottish Legal Eagles to tell Scots the legal situation in regard to Scottish Sovereignty and such matters as the legal position in of the Treaty Of Union. The Scottish Law Society claims it has, “A firmly non-partisan role in the debate”.
Ah say,”Aye”! “Richt”!
So why are they now attacking the independence movement by preaching the Better Together mantra that only the independence movement needs answer question already answered so many times? The Scottish Law society may just be even, (if that’s possible), worse than the MSM and BBC.
Then we have, “Cameron will reveal details of £1.1 bn defence spending. Cash for drones, UK special forces and intelligence gathering to tackle global terrorism”. He is expected to say funds for,“vital” MOD orogrammes have been found, AS a RESULT OF AUSTERITY MEASURES. I’m sure THAT will be such a comfort for Julie Webster and her two wee darlings.
Somtimes I despare for Scotland.
Then I heard that Executive pay has grown from 60 times the average workers pay to 180 times the average workers pay since 1990. The average pay of the FTSE 100 chief execs increased from £4.1 m to £4.7 m last year alone – so much for austerity paying for Cameron’s £1.1 bn defence spending. Nae doots it’s defenceless starving weans an their hard din bi parents wha pey yon Westminster austerity savings.
When a gadgie cam oan frae Corby murnin aboot the Corby, “People of England”, o Scots strin. Ah’d haed enouch an gaed tae hae ma parritch. Naither wunner Ah’m *+-#*+ disjaskit
(owersettin Scots intil Ingis)
gadgie=person.
murnin=complaining.
strin=descent.
disjaskit=depressed.
*+-#*+ =sweary wird.
@Taranaich – well written, sir, and keep up the good work.
It has to be said that this Express article is an outstanding example of the Better Together positive case for the Union. “My life is in ruins, my industry is on its last legs, I hate renewable energy, AlicSammmin is an alien 5th columnist here to take over the world”…and so on.
As Einstein said, madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different result the next time.
@Robert Peffers
Aye Robert its getting to me too and probably niggling all fair minded folk. That is exactly what the BT lot want the negativity to achieve so we need to shake it off and try and keep positive.
Getting up each day I think todays the day we will see a turnaround for YES, only to have hopes dashed again and again by the damn lying media. Any positive story is turned into a negative almost immediately.
The last few weeks will be the worst. We must rise above it.
@thoughtsofascot @Thomas
From Wikipedia “The 1707 Acts of Union declared that the Kingdoms of England and Scotland were “United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain” though the new state is also referred to in the Acts as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom.”
Wales is a Principaity and Northern Ireland is a Province.
Westminster insists on regarding itself as the “successor state” and seeks to deny that status to an independent Scotland. But on independence the United Kingdom reverts back to Scotland and England as in pre 1707 with the same monarch as Head of State. So the rUK is, in fact, England.
Westminster is determined to avoid that perception. But, as you say, the rest of the world will see the true situation. I think it’s important that people in Scotland regard themselves as a “successor state”.
o/t off to europe with my yes badged campervan got the shining metal wos badge fixed to the front (thanks again hood) will be travelling thru belgium will be interesting to see if any reaction in flanders.
Stay safe will catch up in aug ready for the big push
Scotland’s being groomed, is all it is, so ofcourse it probably feels abusive if you let it. It’s not even 10 am Monday and already Huffpost has good old Prof Curtice taking running kicks to Scottish democracy nuts over and over, and then reportage that Westminster needs some kind of honesty training while Keisa Dugdale MP lies quite blatantly about Corby referendum game changer numbers. Rule Britannia.
heedtracker
Well they’ve been warned haven’t they! In the event of a No vote their sales will plummet, as will paid-for TV licences.
Would have been nice to see the Hootsman/Herald figures but we can guess they’re still going down, apart from the Sunday Herald.
There was a report in the National Union of Farmers magazine where there was an debate, attended by 400 farmers, and Alistair Carmichael, the vote after was a majority for Yes.
It was shown in Newsnet Scotland.
How do you persuade people who seem to be on a path of self destruction and determined to vote No to seal the deal?
It seems to be an extreme form of the Cringe or Jockholm syndrome. They’re so scared and battered down thinking they are small and pathetic they’ll grovel for the smallest scraps from London’s table rather than risk even their begging bowl or space on a park bench for a chance to make their OWN future.
There’s a lot of work to do convincing such people they have more power and ability to improve their future than they realise.
@ seanair, at the very least we don’t have to pay the newspapers to pressurise us into no but something has to be done about the law and the TV licence because paying that lot of smirking fraudsters is just beyond reason.
Make BBC shit, subscription is one way. TeamGB now logs our every phone call, email and all our internet activity and now ConDem.gov who are so broke, thousands have people have died at their ATOS bidding, are now spending a billion quid on drones and I wonder why.
It’s nice to have naive paranoid fantasies on a fine Aberdeen Monday morn:-)
This article highlights a mentality I’m hearing more and more from the no side, I’ll qualify that by saying mainly from the media attempting to paint pictures of people’s lives and how they’ll be affected by independence. It just plain confuses me.
Let’s metaphorise: my foot hurts because I have a thorn in it, I thought I should remove the thorn but I thought, NO I’ll leave it, maybe it’ll just get better without changing anything.
How does that make any sense?
I really feel for Hamish, the harsh winters took their toll and it’s hard to make ends meet. However, in all cases presented in that article, if you expect your life to improve by voting no, your logic is failing you.
Increasingly I’m seeing a No victory as a true triumph of fear over hope.
Nice touch to pick ‘Hamish’ for the farmer’s name. I wonder if his wife is called Morag, and their children Shona and wee Dougie. I wonder if the mentioned ‘It’s a braw bright moonlight night’ during the interview while treating the journalist to a plate of haggis with a glass of whisky on a tartan tablecloth.
Lenny, got a pic of the Wings badge on the VW?
@Capella
That may be, but if memory serves me correct, the formal usage from international documents from the 1707~1800 period was “Kingdom of Great Britain” it wasnt until Ireland was annexed that the name formally became the United Kingdom of GB&I.
It has generally been assumed since Ireland won its independence that the “united” part has since come to refer to Scotland and England, but in reality it still refers to the crown of Ireland(Mad I know!), via the province of Ulster (interesting fact, Westminster never repealed the two acts of Union with Ireland, despite Ireland doing so in the 60s and 80s – I’d hazard a guess and say that they may not bother to repeal the act of union 1707 on their side either).
We all know what Westminster is like. If they can get by with using the term UK on a technicality, they will. Moreso if they think it will prevent us from claiming the status that is our right. Successor state status.
I do expect a lot of former colonies to get a laugh out of it. It may even rankle Ireland, because without a shadow of a doubt they’d be basing their right to use the name UK on the disestablished crown of an independent country. A can of worms westminster should probably not open up.
Ps. You should probably be aware that Wales had its status upgraded a year or two ago to full constituent country status. That could be another angle they play.
“Robert Peffers says:
14 July, 2014 at 9:03 amHad a long lie this morning but wasn’t sleeping. I was listening to radio Scotland. So now I’m a bit depressed.”
I heard this Law Society guff too, and my first thought was ‘what are they on about? The Scottish legal system has been effectively independent for years.’
Then I realised, nope, that’s not what they’re wittering at all, it’s the MSM/ Better Together/ Nawbag campaign of every possible question, if you can’t possibly answer them so much the better. They do love their ‘no one knows’ questions.
So rather than get depressed I turned the radio off and headed for work. It’s a sad, sad day when going to work is a more appealing prospect than lying in bed listening to the radio.
To qote Brian McNeil
“For they still prefer sheep to thinking men
Ah, but men who think like sheep are even better”
@ thoughtsofascot
The title “United Kingdom of Great Britain” is used in the Treaty itself.
link to legislation.gov.uk
I agree Westmister will try to get away with many things. Lets not oblige them by adopting their attitudes!
Mythical “Hamish” fails to mention the many thousands being swept into his bank account via EU Subsidies like “Set Aside”
All the areas around fields like borders, hedges etc where zero work is done – supplies money. loadsamoney.
The poor fishermen of Peterhead,where early onset dementia must be rife?
Their logic is crazy when the fleet of 400 x fishing boats has been reduced to 100 – within the union.
Conveniently forgetting that the boat owners took untold millions from the EU to voluntarily SCRAP their boats and their jobs.
Forgetting again that the Scottish boat owners also took untold millions too, when they voluntarily SOLD their fishing licences to Spanish,French,Portuguese etc fishing Magnates.
Let`s not forget the plight of Julie Webster at the Maryhill Foodbank.
NOT forget her 5 x children —- as these fucking farmers and fishermen pick grains of caviar from their lying teeth.
“YES” is the only way.
“Freedom`s just another word for nothing left to LOSE”
heedtracker
A nice day in Edinburgh too… If there’s a YES victory, can’t see the BBC surviving in its present form–must be examples in the world we can learn from.
I was musing about a slogan “Scotland against Trident and Drones”, but then I realised people would think we were referring to Johan Lamont, etc. and would be confused.
“In 2008 my house was valued at £1.1million,” says Jon. “Today it’s worth half that. It’s been on the market five years and we’ve had one offer of £650,000.
“We’ve been told that 15 per cent of that loss is down to the credit crunch. The rest is the wind farm. Who would want to buy this house now?”
Well, that’s odd. Because construction of the windfarm began in 2006 (presumably planning applications/notifications were available long before that), and it was completed in 2009.
So it’s really, really hard to see how a project already so far advanced by 2008 could suddenly have affected the price so much. Perhaps the initial valuation was just a tad over-optimistic?
Something else happened in 2008….can’t quite put my finger on it though….
Thanking you kindly!
Less of the ridicule darling. My Dad answered to Hamish all his life (although it said James on the birth certificate). To be very slightly boring, my mother’s name was Anne.
In the old Calton District of Glasgow from the High St/Saltmercat/High St/Gallowgate/London Rd was predominant in the late 18thc, early 19thc with Highlanders and Irish. The Highlanders were called Hamish and the Irish Seamus and it was a term of identity, not sectarianism. Most of the Highlanders left for Canada. Their MacDonnell chief left with his clansmen from the area to Calgary.
How odd. An Englishwoman leaving in the case of a YES vote. I’m an Englishman thinking of leaving in the case of a NO. I love this country, hate what’s been done to it, mostly by the English, and fear for its future if it stays in this unequal partnership called a “union.” If the union is maintained, we’re DOOMED! DOOMED, I SAY!!
I feel sorry for those people they’re walking into a no vote blindfolded by unionist myths and lies, as with shipbuilding the fishing industry has declined terribly under the union, and a no vote will,unquestionably, see both industries hit even harder.
Those people and unfortunately many others, seem to think if they vote no, that somehow, the union will improve their lives, when infact, many Scottish industries have been in decline, since the 1970’s under the union. Some if a no vote prevails will just flatline,other will soldier on for a period then fade out.
@Marian
‘the date that Ted Heath made his infamous and needless sacrifice.’
But that’s the bloody point isn’t it? Heath made no sacrifice – he sacrificed US – as all his fellow madmen/conservatives are still quite willing to do. It was not until recent disclosures – re Thatcher and nuking Buenos Aires that I have come to the conclusion that they (the conservatives) are actually mad.
Their policies reveal this. They are actively creating an underclass that cannot feed itself, which will only be able to survive by resorting to crime. They are compliant in the process of causing uncounted deaths both by starvation and hypothermia whilst paying for weapons of mass destruction which are of no use in defense.
They are abhorrent mad people and something that Scotland should be proud of having only one MP of that flavour.
Permission for Whitelee Wind Farm was applied for in January 2002 and approved May 2006.
Not much to do with the Alex Salmond, the SNP or indeed independence.
link to scotland.gov.uk
Can I just say that no one was ever prosecuted for burning down holiday homes and many of the old campaigners I have spoken to believe this was an MI5 operation to discredit the growing nationalist movement in Wales.
A theory shared by a Plaid MP
link to news.bbc.co.uk
Strangely enough, last year Mr P stated his house “was once valued at £800,000. However, though the stunning property has been on the market for three years, Jon has received just one offer of £650,000”
In terms of percentage, that’s about the size of hit properties everywhere have taken as a result of the credit crunch / recession.
link to sundaypost.com
My entire life is fucked.
Why change it?
TiTP
I was at T and flag poles were being limited into the main arena, although some got through. Our group never had the flags taken at the gates but some of our poles. We were told that the poles were an offensive weapon. As I say they didn’t take all so I’m guessing it was a numbers issue.
However, we were stopped in the campsite by 2 security in a 4×4 on the Sunday who took my yes saltire – leaving me with the pole. I took offense to this and asked for his name. Which yes, I do remember and looked up. He is a fairly senior figure but still – orders were coming from above him.
I attempted to make a complaint but was told to do so in writing to DF Concerts as they had apparently ordered for yes flags to be removed. I will do this when I’ve had a proper rest.
The only saltires taken from anyone at Titp were ones bearing the Yes campaign logo! It was at the request of the organisers as they didn’t want it to be politicised in any way all other saltires were fine.
They still had no right to CONFISCATE them. Did they hand them back when they left the premises?
They had every right to it’s private property if they don’t want it you can’t have it. If anyone it was taken from had asked for it to be kept they could’ve collected it but most didn’t.
Wimps. No wonder Scotland is such a pushover. Even the Tartan Army has gone soft.
You have to keep the faith AS is a very clever man and knows what he is doing I read all your comments every day as that is the only way I know what is happening in my Country of Scotland, only small bits are shown in England and all anti news. You have them on the run keep chipping away we still have lots of time and then the fight proper begins and you will win.