Straight to the bottom
We don’t have the faintest idea what effect (if any) the Tory-millionaire-run “Vote No Borders” campaign might be having on the general public, but for those of us analysing the referendum campaign it’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Whether it’s the extremely suspicious nature of its funding, its employees airbrushing their CVs to remove any mention of ever working for it or the unashamedly blatant misinformation it’s been pumping out remorselessly over a wide range of subjects, it looks increasingly like a very expensive attempt to make “Better Together” appear moderate, reasonable and likeable by comparison.
Last night, in response to a media furore ignited by Wings Over Scotland’s revelation that it had pulled a cinema ad about the NHS after angry complaints from Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, the group finally published an extraordinary, sour and petulant official statement about the incident. As far as apologies go, we think it’s fair to say it leaves something to be desired.
It’s well worth a breakdown.
No voters only? Fair enough. That at least explains why you locked down comments on most of it, citing non-existent “abuse”, and delete and ban any dissenting views.
Nice proper-nouning, there.
Wait, what? Your adverts developed out of the conversations you had while you were filming your adverts? How does that work? The adverts feature professional actors, not ordinary “unpolished” voters. Are you telling us you hired actors BEFORE you’d written the scripts, and then built the ads around what those two guys thought?
Of course, YOU know that their concerns are groundless. Anyone who spends five minutes researching the topic does, and your campaign group has been two YEARS in the planning. You could have just reassured them, like human beings. Instead you filmed the uninformed in order to spread their misinformation to more people.
No it isn’t. That’s an absolute lie. As far as Great Ormond Street Hospital is concerned (functionally, not emotionally), Scottish people are already foreign. GOSH is not responsible for treating Scottish (or Welsh or Irish) children, because it’s part of NHS England. Nobody outside of England has any right to be treated there.
They’re treated there because the four independent national health boards in the UK have cross-border arrangements in place whereby the Scottish NHS will pay the English NHS (or vice versa, or whatever) for the treatment, as a business transaction.
Scottish independence would therefore change ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the relationship between the four countries in terms of healthcare, because the four constituent health services are ALREADY COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT.
Hospitals on different sides of the various borders would continue to be able to buy treatments in exactly the same way they do now. Nothing would happen that would in any way alter or invalidate the existing agreements, because they’re not, in any way whatsoever, a function of the Union.
In short, there is no political event which could make the four healthcare services more separate than they already are, because you can’t be more than 100% independent.
They could indeed, but your claims would have been equally false for any of them.
If only you’d appreciated their sensitivities enough to actually ask them in the first place, eh? But then, if you had, they’d almost certainly have pointed out to you that your advert was a load of wildly dishonest fearmongering cobblers – or in their actual words, “very misleading” – and you’d have been in a bit of a pickle, wouldn’t you?
Does it? Are you sure? We scoured YouTube for any ad fitting that description and drew a blank. The only thing we could find that even remotely came close was this:
Seriously? That? THAT’S what you’re calling “dark” and “highly offensive”?
The clip above is 45 seconds of laughing, smiling children, happy families and hugging. If you’re an angry, bitter Unionist – and in fairness you do seem to be – you could construct some sort of case that it was a bit saccharine, even twee, or (like any political broadcast) manipulative. But “dark” and “highly offensive”? Wow. What sort of scarily messed-up, hate-fuelled nutter do you have to be to call THAT video “dark”?
(Oh, and just while we’re here, incidentally, “unborn” as opposed to what other kind of foetus? A “foetus” is specifically “a developing mammal or other viviparous vertebrate after the embryonic stage and before birth“. Foetuses are all “unborn” by definition, you fat-headed balloons. Here on Earth we call born foetuses “babies”.)
“Our research indicates that Scottish voters want more facts.”
We hate to break this to you, but “facts” have to be true.
You might want to write that down somewhere for future reference.
“More information needs to be provided on these ‘nitty gritty’ issues.”
Indeed it does. People deserve to be told the truth, which in the case of cross-border healthcare is that absolutely nothing will change with a Yes vote.
So why are you instead feeding them a load of lies, frightening people worried about their sick kids with the utterly, empirically false prospect that independence will see them denied vital medical treatment?
No, they don’t. They do the exact opposite. They introduce shadow and doubt where none exists, muddying things which are in fact perfectly clear. The only reason people are uninformed is because you and your No compatriots are lying to them.
Well, yes. Because YOU’RE stifling it, by deleting and banning any comment on your website that tells people the truth. If you weren’t lying, you wouldn’t be scared of people challenging you and linking readers to the real facts.
If you weren’t lying, you wouldn’t have been scared to let any English hospitals see your ad before you ran it. But you knew that by the time they found out and objected to the complete falsehoods being perpetrated in it, the campaign would have run its scheduled course and the damage would have been done.
…but not for them to be told the answers. If anyone tells them the answers, you delete them and ban the author in case they try to tell the truth again.
“We look forward to sharing those voices over the coming months.”
In the very last line of the statement, the first sentence that’s true. We’re sure you DO look forward to that, because all you’re interested in is the doubt, not the resolution. You want people to be scared and dumb, because scared and dumb people vote No (to anything), praying desperately that it means no change.
Polls consistently show that the more informed people feel the more likely they are to vote Yes. You don’t want that, so you work to keep them confused.
But for as long as you’re spreading lies to the people of Scotland, we’ll be watching you. Anyone who wants scary, misleading “questions” can visit your website. If they want the actual answers, they can come to ours.
.
EDIT 2pm: An alert reader shamed our YouTube skillz and found a longer version of the “Kirsty” video here. It does contain a couple of black-and-white inserts pointing out the unarguable facts that the UK has tuition fees and nuclear weapons, but the long version also has more upbeat music and extra dancing and smiling and hugging and general happiness, so “dark” and “highly offensive” is still something of a push.
Have BT said anything about the NOBs? It seems to me that NOBs is nothing more than Tory impatience with the conduct and performance of the BT campaign. It is about as grass roots as a discussion in a House of Lords bar regarding who has the best gamekeeper. A more obvious astroturf outfit it would be hard to imagine. It is more like a The Day Today parody.
Excellent! Well done Rev!
Good article. Cutting and to the point. Millionaires don’t often get pulled up by the proles for their lies and assertions so it’s doubly good when this site does it with its wide readership.
Malcolm Offord is going to learn like others that putting your oar in this debate requires you tell facts or you’re going to be ‘shot down in flames’ as the song says. If he wants to risk his reputation for a knighthood let him but there’s millions of us who will remember him as a baw bag who tried to buy a grassroots campaign and failed.
These people can only think of problems (manufactured or otherwise), not solutions.
It is easy to see why Scotland has been hobbled over the years as there is no vision or desire to see Scotland better itself, despite our vast riches which they have carpet bagged and squandered on weapons and wars
This is why we need Independence so that we can be rid of their mindset and start creating solutions to Scotland’s needs.
Think positive, vote Yes.
Straight forward debunking of the vnob scaremongering nonsense.
Good job.
Vote NoB = English Tories [Secretly] for Scottish Independence: Peter Cruddas Memorial Division.
The Nobs are funded by the taxpayer because the UK government was exasperated by Alistair Darling’s handling of the BT campaign which was on a par with his handling of the UK economy. We should sit back and enjoy the Nobs’ adverts because we are paying for them. They’re just an amateurish version of what the BBC does with our money. I doubt whether Fiona’s Acanchi has covered itself in glory in the eyes of prospective clients with their inept campaign but she has presumably been promised more UK government contracts in the future as a reward for being a Nob.
Big Bliar sits back and everything is ok for London based millionaire tories to pay for the shutdown of democracy in Scotland but when 2 law abiding peaceable citizens like the Weir’s donate to yes they are vilified by Better Together and their MSM cohorts, makes you sick. And he looks as if he has farted in that picture I hope it was a wet one..
I’m sure I came across an ‘Unborn Foetuses for Yes’ campaign group somewhere. Maybe that’s what the Nobbers are referring to?
I expect cyberfoetuses to be every bit as crude, dark, cynical and highly offensive as your average cybernat. Stands to reason.
I help a friend who provides support to conferences. In the past few weeks I was helping at the World Marrow Donors Association in London run in conjunction with the Anthony Nolan Trust. 42 countries had attendees with research contributions from, among other places, China, USA, Netherlands, England and countless others. I met people who flew bone marrow across the globe to deliver where it is needed. Not quite the image of pooling and sharing that the No campaign will have you believe exists outside UK.
‘Straight to the Bottom’ might refer to where the man in the picture’s curry last night went. Must have been a vindaloo to cause that expression. Ouch!
Brilliant, Rev. Fact definition: You might want to write that down somewhere. Lol (lit).
Did you helpfully post this on their comments page for others to be similarly enlightened?
The last two sentences sum it all up for me.
The dissection of their ‘apology’ is excellent
and shames any ‘journalists’ reading.
Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if that was true, Rev. BT try their best to be positive, “Best of Both Worlds,” “Better Together,” “Pooling and Sharing,” “Family of Nations” and all that. They’ve been burned even by the compliant media over their negativity and scaremongering. So to ensure that negativity and scaremongering gets out, here’s No Borders to pick up the slack.
There seems to be neither values nor rules in the delivery of state propaganda. Just as long as they can infect a majority with fear, doubt and confusion.
Only time will tell what their attack on the small populace in Scotland will have done. But I fully expect that people in other areas of the UK will recognize what Westminster and Politicians are doing… And there will be a backlash.
So the NOBs do research to find out what people fear most and then put up an ad campaign to amplify those fears. Lovely outfit.
Yes. Excellent journalism as per usual. Great website….fantastic effort and high quality journalism.
Nob orders isn’t a reaction to AD’s uselessness or any other car crash part of U KOK, it is a planned part of the BT campaign.
From Craig Murray:-
There is a very interesting explanation given in the Directors’ report to the Acanchi annual accounts for 2012. It is signed by Gary Waple, the man who registered the “Vote No Borders” domain and who now works for the Regulatory Commission of the Bank of England. Mr Waple states in the 2012 Acanchi Directors’ report:
“The nature of Acanchi’s business is that the award of government contracts is subject to external delays beyond the Company’s control. As stated in last year’s financial statement, the Directors’ forecast that there would be a significant improvement in these financial statements. This was achieved as the result of the company being awarded contracts in the current period which had been the subject of long on-going discussions in the past.”
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/05/the-acanchi-effect/
This was being arranged in before 2012.
@Taranaich
Hmmm, that’s a fair theory: ‘Better Together’ has franchised, or contracted out, the negativity and scaremongering.
Looks like they are going to have to bring these things back ‘in-house’ now.
Apart from the pleasure reading this gives, it’s highly informative for us punters, especially the ones newer to your site, about such things as the various NHS arrangements since reading this in another context would be a bit dull.
We are all becoming informed as well as politicised, much to the chagrin of the likes of VNB and Labour ( not Scottish Labour, which as the recent application to the EC makes clear ).
Ah, as usual, little to add. VNB are there for a purpose and either they are spectacularly inept at what they have been told to do, or that ineptitude is exactly what was intended.
‘Oh no,” Alasdair Darling is quoted as stating, “Vote No Borders in nothing to do with us. We do not endorse their advertising at all. See? Here’s an example of our highly accurate* moderate campaigning tactics.”
*Independent verification should always be sought before believing a word of it.
“Vote NoBs”! Nice one. Says all you need to know about them.
OWNED!
American negative campaining
American style personal attacks
American style high cost “marketing”
Yes you can buy an election in America.
However when they borrowed this from the states it was negative up against negative and the money that purchased the most dirt throwing adverts in a SHORT duration campaign won.
They completely underestimated the impact of an extended positive programme. Documents and statements with details based on fact instead of one liners of inaccurate abuse.
The MSM love the BT approach hence the Putin / Barosso type headlines.
A simple test is walk up to a YES stall and see happy, positive well informed people. Approach a BT Stall (a challenge I admit) and you find scowling, negative and ill informed people (usually one so I should have put person)
VNB is froth. A last ditch attempt to hold current NO voters. It makes no attempt to win over anyone. This is old style keep the NO’s in place and attempt to have the Don’t Knows default to “as is”.
The polls will narrow further and this will lift our already cheerful mood further.
A taste of Scotland’s choice of futures can be seen in the very nature of those on either side of the referendum debate.
I see an advert for Sky running with the tagline ‘best of both worlds’ and I happened to be watching star trek tng and the episode was ‘best of both worlds’ maybe i’m just too paranoid…
Well you certainly ripped their agenda to shreds there, buried them and stomped on the bump in the ground that was left.
PS.
Scotland 2014 & Sarah Smith are bombing according to the Herald. First night 89,000 viewers after a few days 53,000 switched on but 31,000 switch off leaving 22,000 to soldier on.
🙂
Good read however the vnob are not referencing the actors when they say the adverts developed from those concerns they are saying the adverts developed from research they had done after and during filming of voters not the actors. So they filmed some interviews with voters apparently and then came up with this campaign if horseshit add. 🙂
Do you have to put that fat faced loathsome individual’s photo to illustrate your otherwise excellent article….
A few mistypes there ‘this campaign of horseshit ads.’
wow, those numbers for newsnicht2014 are triffic. hopefully be below 20000 soon.
Really great interesting article Stu! You go where no other msm will go, keeping everyone well informed! Well done.
Excellent examination. I read their “apology” and wondered what any reasonable person would think of it.
Tories don’t really do apologies.
That’s told ’em, Stu. Lying gits.
Nice takedown as usual. I reckon one of the intended effects of the cinema campaign by VoB was to generate so many complaints that the cinema chains would ban ALL political ads going forward, irrespective of whether ads other than VoBs were actually telling the truth. Seeing as Vue, Cineworld & Co appear to have put a blanket ban on all referendum-related ads, it’s mission accomplished for those slime balls. On a happier note, the rebuttal video to their NHS ad has already had 2850+ hits within 24 hours.
There’s so much to celebrate in Scotland in 2014, the Commonwealth Games, Year of Homecoming, and, if you are Bitter Together, it appears, the 30th anniversary of 1984. Hmmm.
That’s a very cut-down version of Kirsty – the full feature runs for about five minutes. The sequence with the ultrasound scan is longer, but not by much. The tone is identical – rainbows, fluffy kittens, cream-coloured ponies and all.
These VNB people are real politicians. Say whatever they like and that makes it true in their world.
Ah, Stu, I only love you all the More when you are Angry, when you cut loose and go off on one!
Quite dreadful that we have to sully ourselves addressing such people, but, as Pastor Neimoller proved, if you ignore them, disaster ensues!
Well said Sir!
Ah, the dignity and seriousness of it all!
I see BBC Scotland managed to find a suitably ludicrous looking image of Alex Salmond to mark the start of the official 16 week referendum campaign.
Scottish independence: What is the 16 week referendum period for?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-27609162
Parcel of Rogues save the union. BBC god Gavin Esler said vote nob.orders.com was nice and lovely and grassroots and honest and those girls sang their lovey song too. This is just like saying the BBC gave so much airtime to Nigel Farage just to get UKIP elected in Scotland. No doubt that nice City gent funding it all will be on the Gavin Esler show explaining it was all just a big misunderstanding.
Brilliant as always Stu!!! Thank you.
You know, a born foetus would be a miscarriage. So I guess VNB is at least acknowledging that the SNP referendum ad isn’t an abortion.
if every scot visited this website the vote would be a massive yes. only fools and bigots would continue to back london over scotland.
Their use of “nitty gritty” has racist undertones. The term refers to the lowest “layer” of slaves being shipped from Africa to the Americas. They would be the ones covered in the detritus from their fellow slaves in the layers above them.
The Police have that particular expression included in their ethnic equality/anti-racist training.
They really are pretty well educated those Nob Orders folks.
When you look at McDougall just remember.
You need cold to appreciate warmth.
You need loneliness to appreciate company
You need fake people…
You have certainly fired a broadside at Nobs there Stuart. Surely this mob will be sunk without trace in due course. Not only liars but incompetent with it, and these people are supposed to be media professionals. You have to laugh.
Journalism of the above quality (Straight to the Bottom) ought to be getting pushed through as many doors as possible in this final period.
I think Acanchi is now fair game, time to go digging & see what more we can find about the employees.
They’ve chosen to do what they’re doing so they have given up the right to privacy IMHO.
“But for as long as you’re spreading lies to the people of Scotland, we’ll be watching you. Anyone who wants scary, misleading “questions” can visit your website. If they want the actual answers, they can come to ours.”
Wonderful stuff, Rev. Brilliant!
“Good read however the vnob are not referencing the actors when they say the adverts developed from those concerns they are saying the adverts developed from research they had done after and during filming of voters not the actors.”
No, that’s what they’re TRYING to say. It’s not what they’ve actually said.
When the Lordy lords have to get up off their lazy fat arses and travel up to the dirty wee port in jock land in company with a SLAB thicko then you know they are worried.
What an establishment Lordy will do to keep his snout in the trough, no depths they won’t plumb if there’s money in it, no job to dirty.
BETTER TOGETHER. Aye we give and they take. Sounds fair to them. Scum and absolutely no shame.
Superb Rev.
Now that’s what you call a clinical roasting. 🙂
Fact: VNB got caught lying their asses off to the public.
That they did so deliberately and with premeditation seems a pretty reasonable conclusion to draw. The thought that such a highly polished, professional advert was shot in simple ignorance and with readily available sources of facts to call upon is beyond credibility.
They screwed up, got caught, much like the treasury and the CBI and have have been left with a lot of explaining to do to those they attempted to manipulate.
This really should have been an awful week for BT and Westminster. There’s enough in the three examples in my post to have seen the press go to full on feeding frenzy for weeks were it any other political campaign. Why not here and now?
A non-apology ‘apology’.
Incidentally, has Blair been on the pies? Would you buy a used postal vote from this man?
This is City finance millionaire, Malcolm Offord on his vote noborders grass roots launchvia vote NO Guardian news-
“Offord said the soft, barely-promoted launch on Thursday of the No Borders website was in part to begin fundraising, which in turn is needed to help pay Flowers of the Union to produce a music video. No Borders aims to raise and spend £400,000 by September 18 and has collected £150,000 so far – including a £5,000 gift from Offord himself.”
You have to admire the sheer gall of shysters that can come out with stuff like vote noborders.com had a ” soft, barely-promoted launch on Thursday”
Apart from blanket BBC news Gavin Esler every half hour, endless blast from BBC in Scotland, headlined by every single national and local newspaper.
this is an advert featuring a foetus currently being shown in cinemas. Perhaps their real beef is with the British Heart Foundation?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUrLWPP5T84
Why does Vote for No Brains make itself an easy target?
They are such a band of crooks and liars Murdoch would throw them out.
VNB is a fart competing with thunder.
Off topic – new clip on you tube – independence I smell shite – shop owner in royal mile getting abuse for supporting independence – shame on the NO erseholes!
Even had a visit from his local council about displaying posters.
Good on you, mate!
At the risk of setting hares running, the use of the phrase ‘unborn foetus’ and trying to us it as a dog-whistle call, smacks of our old pals in places like the Christian Alliance. It’s be interesting to know whether they are involved with this lot…
Sorry but it was Severin Carrell(who else but) that gushed over Malcolm Offord with “the soft, barely-promoted launch on Thursday of the No Borders website.” Guardian’s hard vote No anti independence stuff is so biased, its difficult to know where their vote NO projectfear/news begins and ends.
http://archive.today/YCY16
I’m going personally to shake his hand and show support
Apparently Sophie the BT student has been doing the rounds, I posted her letter on facebook and one of my friends replied..
This girl Sophie was in my class last Friday giving us her talk on why we should stay in the Union. After her presentation she gave us a chance to ask questions. In her presentation she only gave the negatives of leaving the Union. When asked for the positives of staying with the Union I am still waiting on an answer! xx
Superb Saturday surgery. 🙂
@Andy C
here’s the link to that “I smell shite” video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ksqav7xktk
VNB sounds like something needing strong antibiotics…shame they don’t mention in England 60% of asthma patients often don’t take all their medicines because they can’t afford it & 10% end up in hospital as a result.
@ call me dave
Blimey!! I didn’t realise that the viewing figures were sliding down past 22,000.
I bet the Rev gets more than that …. just checked out my wee corner of the interweb and I get 22k in 6 days so the Rev must have more readers than they have watchers.
http://athousandflowers.net/2014/05/02/weekly-wanker-028-malcolm-offord/
It’s interesting googling nob orders founder Malcolm Offord, Michael Gove and Tory donorising but it’s not very clear why a rich City Tory boy like Offord is giving Micheal Gove so much cash, other than, “I like the cut of your jib young man”
Brilliant clip on Bella C – questions about Faslane – Jackie Baillie getting found out talking shite, again!
September can’t come quick enough.
Imagine what it will be like not having to listen to this pish ever again!
I wish more people would visit this informative site.
Braw article. Thank you.
O/T – hope this link works (without upsetting our revered leader)
This Facebook linked ad appeared alongside the normal facebook traffic. Suffice to say the observer has complained about it.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152851362732506&set=a.10150153855557506.358441.823427505&type=1
O/T, but… This is a strangely accurate & informative piece from Auntie, mainly about our lack of, and Norways possession of an oil fund.
The interviews are all good, but the best material is to be had from Gavin McCrone. His take on the mismanagement of oil, is that it helped caused de-industrialisation through the increase in value of the £.
Norway thought it through, and got a fund now sitting at £100,000 per head of population. We got industrial wasteland, and devastated communities. Country even.
Nigel Lawson gets his knickers in a twist trying to justify Tory oil policy, and Carmichael makes a cameo appearance as the village idiot, spouting “we can’t have an oil fund, as we would need to borrow £££ to set it up”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b044bckx/rathad-an-referendum-5-ola-is-gas
Ha Ha! BBC TELLLIESVISION (newsnetscotland)
Nice one!
@heedtracker says: 12:03
How dare you sir, I will have you know that Malcolm Offord is a branch of the GREEN OAK tree. A son of that famous bastion of conservative and unionist politics, and one of our many millionaires do not underestimate the tail of the bank sir.
Is Fiona Gilmore still directing the show? Perhaps her work on re-branding Rwanda affected her more then she realised? There was perhaps a bit of hyperarousal in that response, possibly mixed in with avoidance and emotional numbing. An apology? I think not.
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Post-traumatic-stress-disorder/Pages/Symptoms.aspx
Thanks for that link, Jim Thomson.
I can understand why your observer complained. But it is good to see that Irn Bru is liked more than Kippers!
Guardian’s hard vote-No, anti-independence stuff, is so biased,
Of Trolls and Polls grousebeater.wordpress
Malcolm’s “Subservience Proffered,”
Was the only offer Offord offered.
Thistle was telling us last night in CH about a staged BT grass-roots ‘event’ he witnessed firsthand (yesterday?). No footage, but his account was fascinating. Hopefully he’ll drop by and let you know the detail – it involved the bold Blair McDougall himself.
Fockwits and phannies
Surely they must be the most incompetent campaign in PR (oops, I mean Country Repositioning) history? Acanchi have claimed that they are not a PR agency. Yes, of that we can be certain, no PR agency would ever make the basic errors that they have made.
They were exposed as a Tory-backed Astroturf campaign on day one, all their activities to date have been ridiculed, any tweet containing their address written as @VoteNobOrders will reach their in box (lol) and they didn’t bother to register similar email addresses so that if you type http://www.votenoborders.com into a search bar you reach the spoof Vote Nob Orders site (again, lol).
They didn’t even manage to secure the @FlowersOfUnion twitter name for their pop group, the parody-meisters managed to nab that one too (although as a parody page I think it might be bored waiting for the real flowers of union to make their appearance, what happened to them, eh?)
PS. Off topic, thanks for the badges, Rev, very excited at their arrival x
@ Papadox, today’s UKOK parcel of rogues include Malky Offord, Severin Carrell, Michael Gove, Gavin Esler, the two bell ends in that farce of a video, whoever wrote that silly noboders.com response up there all have one thing in common. None of them will have done a days hard werk in their lives.
O/T My wings badges arrived, great badges Stu…tasteful. Thanks.
Rev: you know Vote Nob Orders have their films of “ordinary voters”, as distinct from their adverts? So when filming these:
http://www.votenoborders.co.uk/people_s_voices
…they heard the ignorant guff that inspired them to make these:
http://www.votenoborders.co.uk/in_the_cinema
No?
@Elaine Collier; what’s your wee corner on the web?
Virtually no audience share of 22 thousand watch BBC in Scotland flagship Sarah Smith sez vote no ya bams. Away home corrupt old BBC in Scotland and don’t come back.
There is uncertainty in their minds about what will happen.
Of course there is uncertainty you cock eyed moron. The uncertainty is caused 100% by you, your LIES, your DECEIT and YOUR misinformation. Tell the TRUTH for once in your scrawny wee lives!
Our adverts highlight key concerns of voters…
Well DOH! I wonder why that is?
It wouldn’t possibly be because you are treating the people of Scotland like SHITE and telling them lies! No wonder folks have doubts and uncertainties. If the only thing people hear are LIES, DECEIT and MISINFORMATION what the hell do you expect them to think ya drunken numpty!
call me dave says:
Well you certainly ripped their agenda to shreds there, buried them and stomped on the bump in the ground that was left.
PS.
Scotland 2014 & Sarah Smith are bombing according to the Herald. First night 89,000 viewers after a few days 53,000 switched on but 31,000 switch off leaving 22,000 to soldier on.
🙂
I think I have this one sussed out cmd.
The UKIP Channel, oops sorry BBC, have been feeling sorry for the Hootsmon and its ever falling readership so they have *ahem* created this *cough* world class programme called Scotland 2014 knowing full well that it would bomb but in such a way that it would help cheer up the Hootsmon by maintaining the same number of viewers as the Hootsmon has readers. 😛
Well said Rev,by the way,how’s their hit single coming on?
Surely the electoral commission must look at this Vote NoBs and think WTF is that all about. They big up that it’s an argument for the people of Scotland but these charlatans are English tories based in London!
Oops!
Please be advised a F/B account has been set up in my name – It is not authorised & dont know who is managing it – Please dont follow
This is a tweet from our one…our only…fantastic new UKIP M.E.P. 😛
Before I forget we received our badges this morning and handed some out to our fellow newspaper delivery people this morning in Gretna. 😉
Stuart
I keep looking at the photograph heading this topic and …
… why does it remind me of Al Capone? Is he a relative?
I think we should be told.
I was speaking to three young No voters at a soiree last night. Their level of ignorance on the issues was shocking. I hope they aren’t typical 20 somethings. I left them a few websites to look at, but their lack of knowledge was scary. No wonder the No camp doesn’t want an honest debate.
Jim Thomson.
Thanks for the You Tube clip about the Royal Mile shopkeeper. Earlier mentions said that the Council wanted to take the poster out of the window, but this makes it clear that it was Councillor Allan Jackson (Tory) and him alone.
Strange that he happened to be passing this shop when his constituency is in the north of the city, nowhere near the shop, and the City Chambers which he might frequent, is up the hill from the shop. I can imagine someone telling him about the poster and in Captain Mannering style he went to sort it out, with disastrous results for the Nos. He is of the old Tory school and wears a Union Jack flag on his lapel, Sad.
If tomorrow comes and the Herald on Sunday run with this noborders Great Ormond Street Hospital fraud AND the latest UKOK Treasury/Alexander £2.7 billion start cost shyst, I may well buy it for a fourth time:D
Brilliant!
O/T
Anyone for PQ tomorrow midday?
http://newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-news/9267-snap-protest-against-bbc-referendum-bias-set-to-take-place
Burn your TV licence in front of them.
@Juteman – I was speaking to three young No voters at a soiree last night
I agree Jute the level of thickness on this issue is appalling but sadly it’s not just the young.
Hopefully Scotland’s Sweetheart Saffron will get her word through to the younger generation throughout the summer.
Let’s be clear.
You can’t vote Labour or SNP
in the Referendum.
You can only vote
FOR Scotland with a Yes
or
AGAINST Scotland with a No.
@ lumilumi 10:42 am
“So the NOBs do research to find out what people fear most and then put up an ad campaign to amplify those fears. Lovely outfit.”
Eerily close to Room 101 tactics. Psychopathic. There is probably a high percentage of psychopaths become city traders and politicians because of their need to exert power over others. All that adrenaline has to go somewhere!
Found this on NewsNetScotland, today.
MIA. I’ve been looking out for BBC Scotland Newsnight’s Raymond Buchanan for some time. I remember him erroneously giving Stewart Stevenson a very hard time about 2010 winter road chaos!
Raymond Buchanan Missing In Action, BBC Scotland must be falling apart. Experienced reporters are bailing out, perhaps this’s why Scotland’s getting BBC London cub reporters parachuted in to fill the airtime!
quote:
“In January this year the BBC Trust found BBC Scotland guilty of having misled the public after a Reporting Scotland item from January 2013 on EU membership post-independence, misrepresented an Irish politician.
The reporter responsible, Raymond Buchanan, RESIGNED from the BBC days before the Trust announced its intention to carry out an investigation.
Despite the guilty verdict, BBC Scotland management refused to apologise and have yet to issue any correction. Complaints from the politician, Lucinda Creighton, were never reported by the BBC in any news programme.”
I didn’t know about any of the above.
Secrecy and Silence.
Raymond Buchanan can redeem himself by spilling the beans on BBC/Scotland.
This is what Votenoborders, BBC, ITV, Bettertogether, the whole of the UK press, bloaters like Bliar up there, Conservatives like Danny Alexander etc are all fighting to protect and Scotland can shake off for good in September
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jan/18/nick-clegg-aide-quits-lib-dems-lord-rennard
“You go into politics and you accept the notion of a collective agreement for the greater good. After 15 years working in the Lib Dems I realised there’s no greater good, just everyone doing a shit job
Parliament is a place of blind ignorance, stuffed with racists and sexists and they are all idiots and they are accepted. And that’s why I walked away. I was actually wasting my time.”
Good dissection Rev, of dare I say it, Project Fear mark II, and of course their lying, that’s all they have in their locker. If indeed it was a stand up fight of facts and truth, between Project Fear (no) and Yes Scotland (hope), there would be only one outcome.
Many surgeons, doctors and nurses are fed up with lies perpetuated by the likes of Vote No Borders, so they’ve set up NHS for YES,to counter such lies, and inform the public of the truth.
http://www.yesscotland.net/news/nhs-yes-another-no-myth-debunked-and-eu-elections
Anabelle Goldie on Radio Scotland yesterday said that No Borders had nothing to do with BT and what they were doing harmed the BT campaign. Maybe we should let them continue?
Let’s face it. If these people behind the, “Vote No Borders”, were not rich neoliberals with money to burn thier total ineptitude and failure to make any point stand up to examination would have seen them bankrupted by now.
I might have missed something, but is Gavin Essler still pushing the VNB as a genuine grassroots campaign?
Can all be summed by Stu’s little statement, “People deserve to be told the truth”!
Great piece of work. When will these muppets learn that a lie is a lie is a lie. If you dont have the honesty to say okay we cocked that one up… Sorry then you will never be trusted again. o/t Just back from a yes stall in Grangemouth Great day really good positive feedback lots of badges car stickers given out and even posters going up in folks windows already! many incensed that they were being taken for fools with this ad Some talking about boycot of cinemas until they make these halfwits pay and produce a series of ads apologising for the lies they have been spinning.
Remember the protest at bbc quay noon tomorrow against their bias.
One wee point from the article ” the establishment of a Scottish Broadcasting Corporation using existing Staff ” No Sorry not now not ever ! we cant allow these excuses for journalists to walk into a job and then undermine our new nation. These anti democratic mouthpieces should know right now what effect their lies and propaganda is having on their career prospects.
As they might say on a’Masterchef’menu.
Deconstructed NoBs!
Someone make a Nob Odours graphic and a picture of a large block of cheese.
Rev,
There has been no mention of the E111, the form, now a card, that entitles the bearer to medical treatment anywhere in Europe. I have used it abroad myself and was not charged.
I don’t think we’ve found the right video yet. This video is clearly an SNP broadcast, whereas their mealy mouthed statement says “…Yes Scotland ad…”
As we all know, SNP and Yes Scotland are not the same.
Warriors rugby link for 18:15hrs on off topic for those not into BT or Sky.
VNB ‘followers’ could never have seen the Kirsty video/ad when it was on TV. It was only broadast in Scotland 😉
“Our research indicates that Scottish voters want more facts.”
“More information needs to be provided on these ‘nitty gritty’ issues.”
“There is a feeling that real debate is being stifled”
So, NOBs, which of these does your ad with the woman talking about Mel Gibson chasing a haggis address?
I disagree with you in regards to filming etc. there rev. I think you have misinterpreted what they were saying.
I think it’s pretty clear they mean they have filmed and interviewed people and the adverts reflect those issues people they have filmed have raised. As I say it doesn’t escape the fact that generally the output from VNOB is a load of chuffa but on this part they haven’t really said anything noteworthy although I am sure they didn’t really interview or film anyone.
when I say generally I mean almost 100% of the output.
Seems as though I can’t post a you tube link 🙁
chossy dear – are you remembering to delete everything before the www bit?
Findlay Farquaharson,
“if every scot visited this website the vote would be a massive yes. only fools and bigots would continue to back london over scotland.”
I was thinking on similar lines when I read the article – if only everyone who had seen those adverts now read this.
The only thing keeping Yes back is the lying media led by the UKIP channel.
This is the video VNOB are referencing, I actually used to make the SNP, PPB’s. The one embedded on this site is actually a cut down re-worked version of an older 2013 film they made. I didn’t make anything past 2010 so I am blame free 😀
Can I just say I am a yes 100% but really this SNP one takes the piss, if VNOB had released it as part of their campaign all hell would break loose. Everything should be taken into account both yes and no. Unfortunately this particular video SNP commissioned is pretty heavy handed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qetvDbl4Xfs
@chossy – Que??
chossy darling, what are you objecting to in that wee ‘look who’s talking vid’.
Two words we haven’t heard yet, Yorkhill and Beatson. Obviously they have more class than to get involved in this stramash. I, however, am as common as muck. Not going to get into comparisons but how fucking dare VNB casually dismiss the work done in Glasgow’s own specialist hospitals and imply that obviously London has much better facilities. Unlike sports training facilities when it comes to care of the sick and infirm having to relocate to the other end of the UK isn’t such a trivial thing.
Croompenstein says:
31 May, 2014 at 9:12 pm
@chossy – Que??
The video VNOB are referencing in their official statement is the one I posted which is the undoubtedly heavy handed SNP promo video from 2013.
Which of course questions the VNOB grass roots 2014 timeline etc. I’m pretty tired.
You’ve done very well Reverend. But, it’s pointless talking about facts & truth when referring to VNB. That’s not their game. They know it too. Their M.O. is to spread uncertainty, muddy the waters & generally cause people to be a bit scared. Dishonesty is something they’ll be prepared to live with as long as the vote goes their way.
Proving VNB are lying about almost everything is easy as shooting fish in a barrel. What we need is cast iron proof that they are connected to BT/Labour/ Etc.. I know the Heid of VNB has donated money to the tories but is anything known about connections to BT/UKIP? Or have I missed something?
Paula Rose says:
31 May, 2014 at 9:19 pm
chossy darling, what are you objecting to in that wee ‘look who’s talking vid’.
….. Did you watch the video I posted? it’s extremely heavy handed no?
Compare that to VNOB for example, VNOB simply have two dudes talking utter bullshit. SNP have an unborn foetus being born into 1984 / mad conformity imagery… come on you can’t defend that, you can’t defend either. However you have to concede the SNP one is a bit much.
@chossy – It brought a tear to my eye.. The Rev covered the ‘unborn’ foetus earlier.
The Nobs’ website has a section called Contact Us where they want people to ask them questions. I ask them about 3 or 4 each day. Today’s questions include:
– Should I hang the washing out; it might rain?
– What was Charlene Tilton’s first major TV role?
– Do you like Moira’s new jacket?
I never get an answer. Isn’t that strange?
Better luck if you all try to send them questions. Mine weren’t exactly difficult.
I agree here with Walter Scott. The readers of this website are not NoB’s target. They don’t give a shit about how much time people waste deconstructing their ludicrous arguments.
They are aiming directly at the scared and uncertain. They don’t care how many direct lies they tell. When challenged, they merely confuse the issue with ‘it’s what people say they want to know about’ The fact that they lie is irrelevant.
This is a tactic straight from US politics and the Nazis before them. It’s effective and rather clever. It’s immoral of course, but what did that ever have to do with winning a vote?
I commend every Yesser on the streets to ask if people have seen these ads, ask if they believed them, and if they did, point out – not just the lies, but the background.
There were some of us, once, who naively believed we could settle our destiny with an even-handed transparent debate about the issues. We were wrong. There is too much at stake.
IMO it’s time we move to a hearts and minds stance. We are not going to win by facts alone. Derek Bateman in Linlithgow put his finger on it by saying ‘this is a vote for Scotland’. No more, no less.
‘Fat arse’? Blair should look in the mirror.
There is a slightly darker version of that SNP advert out there, I’m sure I’ve seen it. But the ‘dark’ part is just the girl Kirsty looking at a cinema screen with clips of protests and violence etc with her voice over saying ‘or a Scotland still ruled by Westminster, inequality etc’. Still not what I’d call ‘dark’ though.
The move from the “propaganda war” to the
“Cultural / heart and minds phase ” should be
Late in the day”.
Musical relaxation on the eve of battle, the pipes
And drums before “the charge”. or the equivalent contemporary
“Priming of emotions ” on the eve of our “day of
Destiny” stand firm.
“There is a slightly darker version of that SNP advert out there, I’m sure I’ve seen it.”
We added the long version to the bottom of the post yesterday lunchtime.
Ps if you want an eve of poll musical interlude
On September 17th which may “catch the mood”
For our younger voters check out on u tube “amber road tiree music
Festival”