Swept under the carpet
During the independence referendum campaign, we catalogued numerous breaches of the law for which the “Better Together” campaign was let off with a slap on the wrist, from data protection to running unlicensed lotteries. Today several papers report that the official No campaign has been fined £2000 by the Electoral Commission for failing to document £57,000 of its expenditure during the campaign.
Alert readers will no doubt recall the explosion of glee from Unionists in the press and on social media last October when this site was fined £750 for being late with some of its own documentation, and we assumed that much the same thing had happened with BT, but on closer examination the story appears to be rather different.
Rather than simply missing the deadline for providing receipts or invoices for specific items of spending, “Better Together” appears, going by the report in the Herald, to not have accounted for the money at all.
And that’s slightly concerning.
£57,000 is a large sum of money to just mislay even when you’re spending £1.4m, and even if your organisation is shambolic as the one portrayed in Joe Pike’s account “Project Fear”. And overly cynical or suspicious readers might wonder if the cash had been used for dodgy purposes that the No camp didn’t want anyone to find out about.
We should make it clear that we have no evidence to support any such suspicions. But there were persistent allegations from Yes supporters during the campaign, for example, that BT had been illegally paying “volunteers” bussed up from England to canvass and leaflet, because they were short of Scottish activists.
Some of the allegations centred around this advert placed on the House Of Commons website in December 2012:
The ad itself only specifies “expenses for travel and lunch”, which are permissible. But there were frequent unverified claims that “volunteers” were being paid for their time, with the sum of £25 a day cropping up regularly.
Once again, we make no suggestion that any such claims were founded in truth. But a large sum of money being spent by the official lead “No” campaigner with no apparent evidence of what it was used for raises serious questions about an organisation which all too often appeared to be able to act above the law of the land with impunity, and will do nothing to heal the divisions caused by its negative campaigning.
£57 grand, unaccounted for but oh, ‘we have accepted the fine, paid it and moved on’?
Three train tickets?
Is this going to cause a media meltdown, will the bbc demand answers on our behalf?
I’m not going to hold my breath 🙁
Oh how the shitey have fallen.
We know, we knew, we see the truth now. One massive con?
They used the £57k as seed money for Kezia’s Magic Money Tree.
…Or doughnuts.
As a certain Corporal in Warmington on Sea would say:
“They don’t like it up ’em Captain Mainwaring!” 😀
Now if only we could uncover some unscrupulous dealings with respect to the *ahem* missing £57,000 we’d have a new Saterday night T.V. show … The last Squirm of Better Together! 😀
Aye, parallels with the Natalie McGarry smear from last year. Seriously doubt there’ll be the same level of wall to wall coverage in the MSM over this though.
Aye.The stench of sleaze.
Unionist hypocrisy never fails to astonish.
Unionist cheats and liars.What’s new?
What a lovely breed of people.
Relieved I don’t belong to their creed.
…now you all you know the rules by now. If you are fighting for the union then convention permits the “guidance” to be dismissed and given little media review.
The unionists are the good guys and we are the nasty separatists – reminds me of the Sat morning pictures as a kid with the goodies on white horses with white hats!
They have had 300 years to hone their skills.
Ah sweet schadenfreude.
🙂
It was probably used to pay Jackie Bailley’s Greggs bill.
£57,000 missing!
Can we assume the police have been called in?
If not, why not?
hope mcdougal knows how to play jailhouse rock on his tuba
Waits for front page splashes across the MSM…
Feck me! Train travel has become expensive!
@Colin West
The words Natalie McGarry were going through my head as well. I have no idea whether either BT or she have done anything “wrong” but I will be utterly amazed if the same level of publicity/scrutiny is given to BT in MSM as has been given to McGarry.
As the head of their campaign was an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer its probably their automatic reaction to hide the Scottish contribution to their cause.
£57,000? Probably to provide a variety of sauces for the free lunches of the 1000 “volunteers”.
Fruit and flowers.
It’s really going to hurt when they lose the next referendum for Scottish independence. Hell mend them!
We cannot trust anything that trails back to Westminster, we know that don’t we? If not we really should.
We live within a corrupt state where all types of corruption are the normal.
SNP x 2
£25 a day plus scoff and the bus gets a lot of paid UKOK “volunteers”
Being generous, UKOK’s unaccountable fifty plus grand could have paid for 2000 of them in a day or spread several hundred across that last 2 weeks of Project Fear rage. We’ll never know, its just another UKOK mystery.
I feel all smarmy inside when I look myself in the mirror.
Can you imagine what the Scots in the BT campaign must feel when they do the same. Jeez, it must be gut wrenching.
57k…..sshhh now, don’t worry about it, one day those nasty nats and yessers will all disappear and we can live happily ever after again.
@yesindyref2
Yoonz, meanz, liez?
Aye, will this be on Scotland Tonight, tonight? Have Darling, MacDougal, Lamont, Murphy, Dugdale been sought out to answer questions about this missing money??
Questions Must Be Answered.
Where has the money gone? Is it approximately 57,000 or a 120,000? Who has access to the accounts? Did they use paypal for the deposits? Who’s name was the paypal account in? How many people had access to the paypal account. When was it noticed the money was missing? Who noticed it? Who has it? Will there be an investigation? When will it end?
Of course no one is accusing anyone of any ‘wrongdoing’ here. Merely asking questions that need to be asked, it is after all in the public interest….
Aye right!
Some organisations might feel the need to call in the police if a sum like this was unaccounted for.
Wot about the busloads bussed up from Engerland by the Tame Unionist to help fiddle Labour during the by elections?
Confessions of a Cereal Killer – I sent away for a free BT Campaign pack! The Voter ID paper pads, blank on reverse, are great for scrap doodling and the pens just needed a light touch with a Brillo pad to remove the BT blurb. I feel so guilty now….NOT.
I live in Hawick. I was cold-called by an English-sounding young-sounding female person who said she was calling from nearby Galashiels, and who asked how I would be voting in the referendum.
(I should clarify that I am, and sound, English myself, the lady’s accent is merely stated as circumstantial evidence that she was not locally resident. If I hadn’t been so gobsmacked by the call I might have thought to quizz her local knowledge.)
When I told her ‘ Yes’ she tried to persuade me otherwise. In our conversation I mentioned this site – which she told me she had NEVER HEARD OF. This leads me to the strong suspicion that she was one of the clueless young bussed-in Labour supporters.
When in Galashiels a few days later I peeped into the window of the Better Together ‘shop’. The door was closed and no-one was visiting, unlike the busy Yes shop just round the corner, but I could see what looked like nothing other than a small call centre staffed by what looked like several [see above for desciption, or fill in your own stereotype here].
I’d guess that any ‘missing’
moneys must have been spent
on bribes.
C’mon Police Scotland..
..dig…the dirt is there
for all to see.
The source isn’t saying he doesn’t know where the 57000 was spent…he saying he doesn’t know how the electoral commission came up with that number and that it is easier to accept the fine than spend alot more money fighting it in court…but you know carry on making unsubstantiated claims based on tenuous hearsay evidence…
I see Sevy has written a piece on this in the Graun and comments are allowed. Nice change
Belters Together…
This is not chicken feed, this is a substantial amount of cash and if they’re able to identify that amount you can bet your Bootsies there’s more
Sturgeon must act “Show us the Money” If there can be an inquiry into SNP MPs about nothing leading to suspensions from the party the this “We canny find it” money must be investigated and the actors involved brought before the relevant authorities
How is it possible SNP MPs with no charges against them and no proof of wrong doing are such high profile news but missing monies used to alter the debate in a country attracts no scrutiny
If this were any other country the media would be screaming corruption all over the place, this is exactly the same situation as FIFA missing money or “Cash for Questions” remember that!
Because we’re used to the level of Rotten to the core behaviour from the Yoons we make light of it, we pass it off as just more devious dealings from the other side but this has a more sinister edge to it and it beggars belief we’re not jumping all over this even though we know the Yoons will claim “Sour Grapes” Ya Boo Sucks You Lost nonsense
If any business or company were to come out with this rubbish to their shareholders they’d be sacked on the spot and the police called in looking for embezzlement at worst, total incompetence at best, but given this involved a constitutional election of a Nations Future it must be taken forward with all seriousness
Amer Anwar, Do yer stuff
Oh dear, looks like that 57 grand ended up in someone’s pocket. By an innocent mistake, of course. It’s like a fart in a crowded elevator – no one admits to it, but for sure, someone did it. 🙂
It will be back-hander tae “The Ludge” for sevices rendered!
One law for us.Another for them.
As power brokers in a neo-liberal economy, Darling’s cohorts might feel the have no need to justify anything, never mind how they spend the public donations.
The thought that MacDougall and his treasurer should not be in hot water beyond a modest fine is remarkable.
The carpet they bought for sweeping all the BT crap under must have cost £57,000
I’m going to try to provide some balance here. Should it not be remembered that Labour for Independence failed to submit any accounts at all? So we have no idea how much they raised never mind how much of that was spent and what it was spent on.
It seems a little bit facetious to poke fun at Better Together when a worse breach was committed by LfI. It should also be noted that whilst the accounts of Yes Scotland have been published, there is still the chance of a discrepancy being found. Until we are sure that won’t happen, perhaps we shouldn’t jump on this story. I’m having flashbacks to Frenchgate with the sheer amount of glee being exhibited by Indy supporters over this.
Thunderous silence from Bettertogether boss.
https://twitter.com/blairmcdougall
Funny that
How typical of BT. How bloody unionist.
See what happens when a bunch of nasty characters get together?
Nasty things happen!
Maybe the receipts were shredded the morning after……move along nothing to see.
louis.b.argyll says:
19 January, 2016 at 2:31 pm
I’d guess that any ‘missing’
moneys must have been spent
on bribes.
Big company chairmen and European politicians don’t come cheap.
Hmm.
Wee Kezia’s “new” constituency is apparently £10,000 *ahem* light and there has been an ongoing police investigation for the last 18 months or so.
Bitter Together are £57,000 *cough* light and there is NO police investigation?
Shurely shome mishtake here.
Police Scotland must surely be involved in investigating this *ahem* missing £57,000. Failure to do so would surely be tantamount to aiding and abetting the “criminals” involved.
I’m having flashbacks to Frenchgate with the sheer amount of glee being exhibited by Indy supporters over this
Too bad.
Bliar MacDougall in particular has got to explain, on the BBC SNP Bad Scotland show, where this huge sum of dosh has gone, just like everyone else was told to do, by Bliar MacDougall, all UKOK meeja etc etc:D
Wonder how long this will be getting top billing on the herald- the piece on Wings’ fine seemed to be up there for an age.
Just imagine if this had been Yes Scotland being fined! I can’t imagine the same muted response! We would be hearing about it forever
If as suggested the money went on travel then it does seem likely that a lot of the bussing in of people to cover the lack of grass roots support in Scotland, particularly when things went frantic in the last couple of months, went unregistered.
You would have though someone would have the receipts and claims forms but clearly they can’t find them.
Okay how far can you travel by train on £19K return I expect, I want to know. I know that train fares have gone up in the past few years. It used to cost £117 return to Newcastle from Dunfermline around five years ago but please don’t tell me by that much.
I read the comments on that article and the stupidity of the NO voter is extraordinarily bad. BT can do nothing wrong, really.
Well, are there any ex Unionists out there who have been converted to the independence cause and who have any info on whether activists were bussed up to Scotland and paid a daily rate for campaigning on behalf of BT like to step forward?
57,000 beanz, meanz fines. (See wot I did there). Always wondered what the smell was when I passed by BT HQ that afternoon.
handclapping said at 2:06 pm:-
“As the head of their campaign was an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer its probably their automatic reaction to hide the Scottish contribution to their cause.”
Rejoice Peasants of Scotland,and be grateful the House of Lords has Scotland’s subjects best interests at heart. 🙂
The Scotland Bill is before the Lords again today—-democracy Bettertogether style.
Is it this Scottish Labour Baron yer thinking aboot handclapping?
YouTube:- http://tinyurl.com/ham4yo7
And all because of BBC led UKOK propaganda, at least we wont have to endure bullshitters like this dude
“Presiding in the case, Lady Paton and Lord Matthews found that the MP had told “a blatant but simple lie” but said it was not clear “beyond reasonable doubt” that he had provided “a false statement about himself to the effect that he was someone who was upright, honourable, trustworthy, and straightforward, and therefore would not be involved in the leak”.
His statement to Channel 4 could be construed as either “a general one in relation to his personal character or conduct” or “more specific and limited to a false statement that he was not involved in that particular leak”.
That’s the STV creeps soft soaping Carbuncle’s staggering fraud, what he got away with some how.
The money was only resting in my account, is another option.
Thrawn@2.32pm
See K1@2.18pm. There you can see how people could be forgiven for having some very justifiable concerns.
When you or your pals in bt can answer these simple, crucial questions, we can all take it from there. Meanwhile, there are far TOO many unanswered questions about a significant amount of cash NOT being accounted for.
heedtracker says:
19 January, 2016 at 2:16 pm
£25 a day plus scoff and the bus gets a lot of paid UKOK “volunteers”
Reminds me of the reports that some US agency/CIA were paying the Meydan protesters in Kiev $25/day to keep up protests against incumbent Ukrainian govt.
John McCain and Victoria Newlands were also reported to be handing out sandwiches,to sustain their agent provocateurs.
Neo cons,what are they like. Just can’t keep their hands off other countries’ democratic affairs.
heedtracker at 2:46pm:
Hey, I’m not saying it shouldn’t be investigated. I think it’s likely that it was just an honest error, though nothing would surprise me with that lot. I’m just saying that perhaps we should be a little cautious about the handrubbing until we’re sure it won’t come back to bite us.
As an aside, I look forward to the questioning of Darling et. al. in the media, but I expect answers will be few and far between. They will undoubtedly use this as an opportunity to remind everyone what happened with LfI and sidestep the issue at hand.
That is the problem with the media being totally under the control of the unionists and the State, not only can they pick and choose the cases they want to take on, they can hand out whatever sentence they wish with no consequence.
You would think that given the almost impossible task of Scottish Independence overcoming the unionist media, everyone would be trying to do everything they could to make Independence more likely, rather than less likely.
Only SNP x 2 = Independence.
I know I had £57,000 somewhere this morning,but I’m damned if I can remember where I put it. Never mind I am sure all businesses run their accounts that way.
When I fill in my next tax return and they ask me about income I will just tell them that it was somewhere around £100,000 every so often. I am sure that will satisfy them.
This new accounting system could catch on you know.
OTish Without naming names or anything, I am wondering how may of you out there, when you were campaigning, came across mole suspects e.g ‘co-campaigners’ whose behaviour was inexplicably and clearly counter productive to the cause yet who were not moronic by way of explanation or perhaps even those who tried to agent provocateur you?
Our three-bedroom semi with two-room extension cost about that!
Who was in charge of the campaign says the wife.
Alistair Darling says I.
“Oh well.That explains everything” says the wife.
“He lost a lot more than that running the Exchequer” says she.
Hey, I’m not saying it shouldn’t be investigated. I think it’s likely that it was just an honest error, though nothing would surprise me with that lot.
Great UKOK liars and hypocrites of rancid The Graun have got your back jack
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/19/better-together-campaign-fined-2000-for-breaking-spending-rules
So from Rupert Carrell UKOK spin
“Better Together with a £2,000 fine after it failed to provide adequate evidence for £57,000 in spending.”
to
“The commission said it found no evidence that this was deliberate – Better Together paid the fine in full on 12 January, ”
Its all just an error but Graun sneaky shits cant but help smear WoS, just in case, you dont get it
“while the combative pro-independence blog Wings over Scotland was ordered to pay £750 for failing to file complete spending returns.
The commission said that Stuart Campbell, who runs the Wings over Scotland site from Bath and had threatened to appeal against his fine in the crown court, had paid his fine in full on 20 November. It had agreed with Labour for Independence that it would pay its fine in instalments.”
How come Bliar MacDougal, Project Fear boss actually responsible for the disappear fifty four grand doesn’t even get a rancid The Graun Rupert Carrell UKOK mention and so on…
What a bunch
Who mentioned Dads Army
“There’s nae smoke athoot fire!”
I suppose they couldn’t help themselves as UKOK is rife with black economic activity and it just came natural to them because they had been getting away with it for so long. They wont lose any sleep over a 2k fine!
If the media see it as their duty to question and challenge then they can not be selective and appear to only question and challenge one political party.
If they argue it is in the public’s interest to highlight ‘missing money’ in the McGarry case then they must also surely know that this Bitter Together missing money is deemed as important and worth pursuing by questioning and challenging further.
However I am only too aware that these statements are naive within the climate that exists today. The media has chosen a political path from which they are determined not too stray.
They seek to convince the uninformed and gullible that SNP is indeed bad and by omitting facts and twisting details they downplay the flaws of those they support.
Double standards is evidently at play , both politically and within the media and cannot go unchallenged as long as people like us, more so Stuart Campbell, continuously question and challenge those whose agendas are anything but for the benefit of anyone but themselves.
The media’s loyalty is misplaced and does not reflect in any way the reality of what is really happening politically, and they are now justifiably mistrusted and seen to be nothing other than perpetual propaganda slaves of their chosen political masters.
I know the truth and I certainly know truth will never be found in any yoon promoting rag …end of…and that’s the truth !!!
Still nothing from Bliar
https://twitter.com/blairmcdougall
Its nice that the UKOK propaganda’s kept BetterTogether Bliar out of it all, just like Bliar has kept himself out of it all too. Bliar does do a nice “look a squirrel” thing on his twitter stuff.
Less said the UKOK better Bliar.
O/T. Another bile filled SNPBAD rant, from Stephen Daisley on the STV news page. This time under the gise of an EU referendum piece.
Perhaps the £57k was a celebration piss up?
Nah! Remember who we are talking about here, that wouldn’t cover the caviar never mind the champers.
Train tickets for the Imperial Masters(LAB) tour of Glasgow…..Easily 50K for all those 1st class tickets.
What they don’t say is that the missing train tickets were for 20-30 people at a time….
Wonder if on social media some of the English BT supporters who came to Scotland could be contacted with a “view” to them
coming back to help with the EU referendum?
If they are experienced, you could enquire what they got for their last trip.
Where would all these people sleep?
I suspect that they were put up in hotels and a few drinks bought for them in the evenings?
Any Hoteliers or Barpersons remember
Glaikit looking young Tories with a Pig’s heads under their arms?
£57,000? House of Lords robes and ermine do not come cheap!
Another wee trick I suspect BT of using was “self graffiti of own banners”, to make Yes supporters look like mindless vandals.
No proof just a hunch.
A large road-side BT banner appeared overnight in Edinburgh, up a big tree.
Had black spray paint scribbled across it that same night…
If a Yes supporter had climbed up, it would have been easier to take it down than to half-graffiti.
Saw a similar BT banner in a photo from elsewhere after the campaign.
Suspiciously it had black spray paint across it too.
Must have been a rush of Yes supporters walking the land with spray paint in their pockets – but with an inability to untie knots or push over flimsy correx signs…
At last we find Kez’s missing APD money although it’s still missing.
Personal experience – witnessed Sarwar’s Big red (now riddy!) bus with students (no scots accents), at 3 Smurphs tour rants (Glasgow, Greenock & Dunoon) always introduced as locals (hid the parachutes well though – press never suspected; hmmm)
Maybe Jim Murphy claimed the £57 grand for dry cleaning his shirt, you do know egg stains leave a terrible mess.
Ah wiz thinkin about ah wee Poem reading that story,ah know it wiz aboot ah couple of Goose’s & there wiz ah Gander. The Electorial Commision must jist hud ah Gander at there accounts,easy tae miss things ,aye rite.
Nothing to see here move along… predicted on the BBC and STV.
PS: Hark the Herald.
The official Labour inquiry, led by Dame Margaret Beckett, concluded that Labour had a shot at re-election, especially after David Cameron failed to win an outright victory in 2010.
But that chance disappeared with the fall-out from the 2014 independence referendum, which led to a surge in support for the SNP north of the Border.
https://archive.is/Cqen5
………………………………………….
What?
The SNP only got 56 seats 🙂 Which made no difference darn Sarf!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results
If BT were franticlly bussing in their wee English “Helpers” because nobody with any self respect wanted to be associated with them, then there has to be invoices from the bus operators to BT.
They would also have had to detail where the busses came from and where they were sent to. Passenger lists???
On the day after the referendum I was heading south to the lakes with a friend and encountered a Minibus full of BT campaigners heading southbound. Wanted to speak to them but was just too angry.
Isn’t that interesting Thrawn, we meet again, i’ve just responded to yer comment on Bella, never seen you on Wings before…d’ye pop in often…or just watch from the Wings 😉
Does it seem ‘chilling’ in here Thrawn…or ‘illuminating’…or both 🙂
Yep, definite faces I had never seen before campaigning quite aggressively in various different areas of Edinburgh in the weeks preceding the vote. Never seen again. Makes you apoplectic with rage some of their antics.
Arthetty….Ah wis being ‘sarcastic’ to make the point that there is never the same degree of alarmist scrutiny applied to Unionists from the corpmedia…and there never will be.
£57K?
Probably filtered through that dodgy wee shadow company of Rory’s in Penrith.
“And overly cynical or suspicious readers might wonder if the cash had been used for dodgy purposes that the No camp didn’t want anyone to find out about.
We should make it clear that we have no evidence to support any such suspicions. ”
Oh dear! Reads like it’s straight from the Daily Mail!
During the whole 2015 GE campaign a car was parked opposite my friend’s house which was driven by someone with southern accent and often with two others with non local accents. A few days before the election they all sported Ian Murray badges and were never seen again after polling day
… further to the above, confronted some BT campaigners (not students) on the street in Hawick just before the Ref. They SAID they were from Newcastle – highly unlikely as one guy asked me the meaning of my badge with “Aye” on it. Everyone from Newcastle knows what Aye means.
goodo
we can spend an extra 55k in indyref2, over and above the limit, it will cost us only 2k….
The whole fetid so-called united kingdom stinks. Britnat liars and their sad apologists make me boke.
@K1 says: 19 January, 2016 at 4:24 pm:
“Isn’t that interesting Thrawn, we meet again, i’ve just responded to yer comment on Bella, never seen you on Wings before…d’ye pop in often…”
The person “Thrawn”, (no indication of which sex in that name so do not wish to assume he, she or it), has posted at least once before. This time it is as much pish as the last time.
The person is sure to be aware of the prolonged Unionist and MSM attacks, still extant, against several SNP MPs that have provided absolutely no actual evidence and also the simple facts that no legal action has even been instigated.
Not to mention the sustained, but totally unsubstantiated unionist claims that Alex Salmond lied about having EU legal advice.
I have asked many unionists to state when Salmond made this claim – I still await a reply.
Several, though, claimed it was during a TV interview with Andrew Neil. This is utter rubbish for the transcript and video clip of that interview clearly show the question asked by Neil was if Salmond had asked legal advice from, “His own government’s legal officers”.
How the unionists translate seeking legal advice from the Scottish Government’s legal officers equates to having EU Government legal advice remains a mystery.
Follow the money.
It would be interesting if the ‘volunteers’ who may or may not have accepted cash in hand of £25 were found to be committing benefit fraud.
Not that I would like to see the ‘volunteers’ being sanctioned/charged but a headline stating
‘Better Together accused of £57,000 of Benefit Fraud’
would be interesting.
If I were a ‘journalist’ looking for a ‘UKOK Baad’ story I would be looking for a ‘volunteer’ to say that he/she had been approached by ‘Better Together’ when leaving the dole office and was given an offer he/she couldn’t refuse.
I wonder if all these UniTrolls from down South got paid for posting 24/7 on The Scotsman?
Perhaps the £57k was spent on buying copies of The Scotsman & The Telegraph!
I’m really intrigued now I want to know what they spent the money on.
Bung to Barrosso?
Panstick & XL Tights for Eddie Izzard?
Box of Eggs from Tesco & fee for Egg tosser.
Talking of campaigners from down South any news of Marie Rimmer?
A £2000 fine for failing to document £57000. Not much of a deterrent!
Surely, the fine should exceed the unaccounted amount, or am I just being a warped and twisted cybernat?
It was a simple accounting error and confusion with exchange rates, they didn’t know what the currency they were going to use.
Maybe we should be looking at the bigger picture here. WHY did they need to bus in thousands of activists and HOW did they accumulate 2 million votes with no grassroots campaign. It’s a mystery to me.
While canvassing in the Auldhouse area of Glasgow during the Referendum campaign, we came across four young lads doing the same for the NO side. Curiously, they seemed very nervous about talking to us (we gave them big friendly smiles as we were convinced we were winning) and they ALL spoke with Southern English accents. Strange, eh?
Chic @3:20 ish, head of comms/ merch at Yes is a definite maybe on that angle. No names but they were relieved of their duties during the campaign.
Also had an Illuminate The Debate rally up on Yes’s events website which was mysteriously removed to the surprise of the staffer who had gleefully added it days earlier
In short our campaign was riddled with infiltrators.
Shite flyers – remember the crap leaflets Yes HQ had us handing out?
I offered to help them source materials en masse from The Far East long before I went to lengths of a crowdfunder to get flags in.
Re busses for Nawbags. I’m fairly sure Parks of Hamilton donated the United with Labour bus, I wouldn’t be surprised if they helped with bussing in activists too.
Listening to the news at 1pm today on radio Scotland, I am sure i heard the leader that the better together and yes campaigns were fined by the electoral commission for not submitting accounts but the story that followed spoke only of the better together campaign and it was dubious around the amounts unaccounted for.
I would really like to go back and check these details again but I can’t seem to find a link on the bbc website for listening to old news.
@Tartanpigsy
I concur. Nuff said.
Whatever the £57,000 was for it pales into insignificance compared with the undeclared salaries of the British Civil Service. Didn’t the Civil Service team that won the civil servant of the year award say that in years of service they had never experienced the whole civil service work as one and pull together the way they had for the referendum.
I wonder how many individuals were bused up from England, from what point in time pre-Referendum and how long they stayed for? Were some of them actually renting accomodation to enable them to vote in the Referendum?
I say this because I post on an International site that relates to an unusual ‘hobby’ of mine. Most of the posters are American, Australian, Canadians and so on …. and there are thousands of them. Very few Scots or English people seem to frequent the site.
Due to the latter I was gobsmacked when Scotland was mentioned on the forum and a girl started posting stating that she was anti-Independence, had travelled from England and was working with others to combat us winning. This was weeks before the Referendum. I had said nothing about Scotland at that point. In fact I’ve been on that forum for years and no one knows that I’m Scottish at all (or rather a very few select people do from sending private pms). Anyway this girl was bragging about the work that she was doing and her hatred of the Yes voters was palpable. She came across as being poorly educated (e.g. grammar and spelling abysmal) and seemed to have little (no) knowledge of Scotland and the Scots in general. I followed her posts with great interest and let her yap on.
Eventually I posted to say that I supported the Scots having their Independence, threw in some facts to combat her lies such as the ‘subsidise myth’ and she stopped posting overnight. No doubt she was as surprised as I was on finding another Brit, for want of a better word, posting on there. Small world and amazing what you find out when you least expect it.
Another fine mess sorted out by the Electoral Commission….
No chance of any electoral improprieties while they stand watch….
What a joke. There are so many elephants in the room concerning the Indy Ref which the Electoral Commission didn’t even register, from Postal ballots, known results, to the BBC’s flagrant abuse of purdah regulations to beg the question of what the Electoral Commission actually does and what purpose it’s meant to serve.
It’s like a cohort of Monty Python’s Roman soldiers searching the house in Life of Brian… “We found this spoon sir”.
During the referendum I met the bussed in activists from England, they were out leafleting the crowd during Jim Murphy’s “100 Lies in a Hundred Days” tour.
We also had MP’s and Councillors from England and Wales boosting the numbers. One Welsh MP I met denied receiving he was claiming expenses while on his month long trip north.
Now we know why…
More fraud swept under the carpet by the crooks in Westminster. £Millions were spent illegally by Westminster and their associates, including in the Purdah period. Polls (deliberately) rigged to manipulate the result. MSM totally biased and corrupt. Broken promises. All to no avail SNP won the GE and will win Holyrood election. Every Unionist politican will be voted out in Scotland. Until fairness, equality and democracy will prevail. Scotland will be Independent.
The silence from unionist politicians and activists about their bettertogether No campaign having been fined £2000 by the Electoral Commission for failing to document £57,000 of spending it made during the campaign.
Though that shouldn’t surprise us, I suspect if they do do talk about the undocumented £57,000 was an oversight.
Though that shouldn’t surprise us, I suspect if they do do talk about the undocumented £57,000 was an oversight.
Blair MacD and his merry UKOK crew were showered with money, JK Rowling’s million quid etc, money fights in the BT office must have been loads of fun. They clearly had so much unionist dosh, they ran out of ways to spend it. They own the BBC for starters, which is project fear priceless.
EC fine for bettertogether’s missing £54k is a nice display of UK media burying anything that looks bad for UKOK in Scotland or England.
Its a toryboy world, we just live in it but its surprising to see gits like Guido bury it too but ofcourse monster any SNP MP
http://order-order.com/2015/11/24/sturgeon-on-mcgarry-watch-this-space/
Such is teamGB propaganda, even teamGB satires’ a load of shit.
Let’s also not forget all the help bettertogether had from that coward Cameron, who claimed he wasn’t going to be involved in the campaign because it was for the Scottish people alone to decide on independence.
Only for him to go abroad and attempt to illicit support against Scottish independence from the Spanish, Australian Prime Ministers and President Obama and Vladimir Putin.
decide
Peter McCulloch says:
20 January, 2016 at 12:06 pm
“Let’s also not forget all the help bettertogether had from that coward Cameron, who claimed he wasn’t going to be involved in the campaign because it was for the Scottish people alone to decide on independence “.
Yes Peter, and the word is that Cameron had his resignation letter on hold if they lost the referendum vote , but thanks to the Labour foot soldiers his position was strengthened in the BT victory.
Irony overload that Labour ("Tractor" - Ed)s helped ensure he maintained his position , and in return he fecked them over with announcing EVEL the day after result thus ensuring Labour well and truly fecked in Scotland. And so Cameron began the GE campaign to win over English voters with EVEL announcement which in effect relegated Labour fecked in England also.
Hence Darling, a token Scot born in London, bowed out of standing in GE preferring instead to collect his promised prize of becoming another Red Lord in HOL, which was more of a guarantee than being re-elected , for services rendered against Scotland.
Re other countries interfering, me thinks too many people have too many ill informed opinions on our nation and that these same people are oblivious to the reality of why some of us seek self determination, something they themselves already have but believe they have the right to deny us. All political and money orientated obvs.
Feckinsickofit.com I am.
Me post me feckin post has a ghost !!!
“Irony overload that Labour (“Tractor” – Ed)s”
wtf ( (“Tractor” – Ed) ….me post is haunted , I did not type these words….yoon poltergeist at work….need an Exorcist el feckin pronto….perhaps Father Merrin or Rev Stu could oblige.
@Clapper57 says:
20 January, 2016 at 1:03 pm
I totally agree with everything you have said!
Some amusing comments,but… are any of you surprised at this “discrepancy”?
Arab saying: Better an Englishman as your enemy than a friend. As an enemy he will try to buy you, as a friend he will try to sell you.
p.s. for English, read Establishment
so you ahem swipe 57 grand wait to get fined for not accounting for it,pay 2 grand in a fine and waltz away with 55 grand,its the British way dont you know, the culprit will probably be made a lord and get a directorship in a bank for their ingenuity or maybe already has.
Peter McCulloch says:
20 January, 2016 at 2:48 pm
@Clapper57 says:
20 January, 2016 at 1:03 pm
“I totally agree with everything you have said”
I totally agreed with everything you said also Peter hence my response quoting part of your posting.
Onwards and upwards.