The afterthought
Ed Miliband delivered just under 8,000 words to the Labour Party conference in Brighton yesterday. Of those, just 263 of them concerned Scotland. (The actual word “Scotland” was never uttered.) Here are all of them.
“We have got to win the battle for perhaps the most important institution of all, our United Kingdom. Friends, devolution works. And let’s praise the leadership of our Scottish Joanne [sic] Lamont for the brilliant job she is doing against Alex Salmond. Now that referendum on September the 18th 2014, it is going to be conducted on the basis of fact and figures and arguments and counterarguments, but I have a story I want to tell you which I think says even more.
It’s the story of Cathy Murphy. Cathy Murphy lives in Glasgow, she worked in the local supermarket. In 2010, Cathy was diagnosed with a serious heart problem, but she came to Labour conference nonetheless in 2011 as a delegate. She fell seriously ill. Her family were called down from Glasgow. The doctors said to her that to save her life they’d have to give her a very long and very risky operation. She had that operation a few weeks later at the world-leading Liverpool Broadgreen hospital.
Cathy pulled through. She went back to Glasgow some weeks later. She comes back down to Liverpool every six months for her check-up. Now she said to me the nurses and doctors don’t ask whether she is English or Scottish, the hospital doesn’t care where she lives. They care about her because she is Scottish and British, a citizen of our United Kingdom. Friends, Cathy is with us today, back as a delegate. Where is she? Cathy’s here. Friends, I don’t want Cathy to become a foreigner. Let’s win the battle for the United Kingdom.”
As even the BBC managed to pick up, both on Newsnight Scotland last night and Good Morning Scotland this morning, the entire homily is drivel. Cathy Murphy wasn’t treated in Liverpool because Scotland is in the UK. She’d have been treated exactly the same if she’d been from Dublin, Paris, Brussels, Cologne, Rotterdam, Lisbon or Valencia, even though she’d have been “a foreigner”.
I spoke to some Unionist friends at the weekend who were startled to learn that there’s no such thing as a UK NHS, and that the Scottish and English ones have been completely separate, independent entities since the day they were created just after World War 2. The NHS as a pillar of UK unity seems to be a widely-believed myth. We’ve explained the reality in detail on this site several times, dating back to last year, but clearly the No campaign believes it can keep fooling people for another year.
Cathy Murphy does NOT prove that “devolution works”. Devolution has absolutely nothing to do with the medical care she received. Healthcare in Scotland was independent long before devolution was even dreamed of, and cross-border co-operation and treatment has always happened and will continue to happen after independence, because independence will have no impact at all on the reasons it happens.
Ed Miliband barely bothered to mention Scotland at all yesterday, and what he did say was a blatant, deliberate lie. (And to compound the insult, he didn’t even bother to pronounce Lamont’s name properly.) As a former government minister he knows perfectly well that the Scottish NHS has always been independent, and he knows neither devolution nor the Union saved Cathy Murphy.
The “One Nation” backdrop against which the Labour conference has been set has removed the St Patrick’s Cross of Northern Ireland entirely from the Union Flag, and faded the St Andrew’s Cross of Scotland almost to invisibility. (Wales has, of course, never been represented on it.) All that’s left is England, whose NHS will have been effectively completely privatised by 2015.
We hope Cathy Murphy, or anyone else, doesn’t get ill in Liverpool again after that.
Sssssh! Don’t mention the ‘S’ word.
‘wan nashun’ indeed
Assuming that neither Milliband nor his speech-writers are the clueless idiots that this homily suggests, the only other conclusion is that this is the ‘One Nation’ future that they foresee – one where ‘foreigners’ ARE turned away at the hospital gates.
“…going to be conducted on the basis of fact and figures and arguments and counterarguments” [my emphasis]
Really? Has anyone told the NO camp?
Let’s try and make news where none exists, eh? Let’s stir up fabrication and lies (top secret lies) in an attempt to smear the SNP, eh? Let’s belittle anyone who believes in independence by saying it’s the fault of a virus, eh?
Let’s just talk p!sh, it’s the labour way.
Are they worried that the mere mention of the word “Scotland” leaves them susceptible to the nationalist virus. They wont mention the word Scotland they will call it North Britain like actors calling McBeth the scottish play.
As for the NHS thing I thought that this was outrageous lying, it is basic stuff and would be torn apart by the media. (Then I woke up!) To imagine for one moment that a man standing for prime minister of Great Britain doesn’t understand how the NHS works is ridiculous.
I sent a tweet to both Ed and Johann highlighting that my dad’s life was saved in Germany when he was rushed to hospital with a heart attack. They gave him a triple heart bypass without asking his nationality. They did mind you nearly give him a second heart attack by offering to let him watch the England game (he was in Cologne during the world cup and England were playing in the City)
I asked Ed and Johann whether this meant we had to be united with Germany. No answer. Good to hear the BBC finally challenging the drivel these vacuous talking heads spout though.
I wonder if it might not be a good idea in some future poll to ask a question regarding the NHS/Scottish NHS? It might prove informative. I would be particularly interested to see just how many “No” voters know the difference.
In my experience very few people are aware they are separate entities.
On a related point, does anyone else remember that story from a few years ago of the woman from Scotland who was airlifted to Sweden for treatment? I wonder if the doctors there asked her if she was English or Scottish? They certainly didn’t seem to care that she was a “foreigner”.
I actually had to explain that to my old man last night funnily enough.
After a great day on Saturday I learned when I got home Saturday night that my mum had been taken in to hospital (she’s OK and being well looked after).
He’s a yes voter but elderly and got a wee fright with everything that’s been going on since Saturday. He suddenly became worried about the NHS under independence and whether we could cope with running it on our own.
I explained that we have always run it in Scotland since it’s creation and in most cases run it better than they have in England & Wales. I explained how it’s in the process of being privatised down there and how the Scottish government were keeping it in public hands. He was genuinely surprised at this. He was under the impression that it was all run from Westminster!!
He’s now been put straight and has vowed to raise it at the boozer with his mates. Looks like we may have another dozen or so Yes voters shortly to add to the ever growing numbers 🙂
Cathy Murphy must be squirming with embarrassment at being the subject of such out and out lying propaganda.
I am happy to confirm that until the forseeable future, if Ed Miliband turns up at any Scottish hospital and says “I appear to have forgotten who I am, what I stand for, the levels of common decency one should never look to be below and of course basic health service infrastructure” then no-one will question his birthplace while taking care of him.
This is the lowest of the low – suggesting that Scots who take ill in England post independence will be sent home or left to die. It’s the old ruse of Fascist propaganda -if you lie make it a big one!
The alternative explanation is more of a worry: perhaps Mr Milliband is not aware of the situation as it exists throughout Europe of cross border medical treatment. But if UK leaves the EU this agreement might cease and then he might be technically correct – ignoring of course the medical ethics of refusing to treat a seriously ill patient.
Either Mr Milliband is a liar or he is monumentally ignorant. Voters can make up their minds whether a liar or a fool is fit to be Prime Minister.
Does Milliband know that the Scottish NHS is seperate though? I don’t get the impression he thinks about us all that much (or really knows who Lamont is if his speech has her first name wrong and he can’t pronounce her second name).
The NHS was sending patients abroad for some Ops so it isn’t actually all that unusual. If they keep privatising services in England then the Scottish NHS will have to pay for any future Ops like this. So whether we are in the UK or not it will not make a blinf bit of difference.
Also, what do the nurses do to patients that are not from the UK down in Liverpool put ferrets in their bed? It seems mildly insulting to suggest the Liverpool nurses are not professional enough to treat all patients equally.
Ed spoke for an hour – I am not sure Scotland is really on his radar if that little pulpit homily was the length and breadth of his interest.
This needs to be pushed to the front of any Yes campaign strategy, as it’s clearly the strategy of the No campaign to lie to our People about who runs the NHS.
@Man in the jar
It’ll be “the North British play” now!
EM succesfully recited 8,000 words in 60 minutes. Last year, he forgot only two:
Ken Macintosh
@Jimbo
The camera cut to Cathy Murphy in the audience and she was beaming with delight. Shows what we are up against.
As a doctor, I am insulted about the implicit racism of the following assertion: “They care about her because she is Scottish and British, a citizen of our United Kingdom”
Actually, they care about her because she is a patient. Nationality is irrelevant.
In the event of independence, all essential/emergency care would be dealt with as a reciprocal arrangement (se EHIC/E111). Follow-up would, where possible, take place in Scotland, as it already does for most conditions initially treated outwith. Where specialist services don’t exist within Scotland, mechanisms would be in place for follow-up, as already happens. The English NHS is (and always was) a separate entity.
“Cathy Murphy must be squirming with embarrassment at being the subject of such out and out lying propaganda.”
Nah, she’s a Glasgow Labour activist. Lying and propaganda comes naturally to them.
“In 2010, Cathy was diagnosed with a serious heart problem, but she came to Labour conference nonetheless in 2011 as a delegate. She fell seriously ill.”
The subtext here, of course, is that the Labour Conference is extremely bad for your health, particularly if you have a heart condition.
“And to compound the insult, he didn’t even bother to pronounce Lamont’s name properly.”
Lamont was probably bursting with pride that her great leader kinda remembered her. That’ll give her bragging rights in Scotland – ‘Ed almost remembered my name’.
Any one who works in the NHS in Scotland must by now be pretty pissed with labours running down of their work and dedication.
How many work in the NHS in Scotland. I don’t know but it’s potentialy a lot of YES votes.
A few years before we met, my (American) partner had an accident while visiting London from her then home town of Malmo in Sweden. Funnily enough she was treated free of charge at the nearest hospital. Weird.
We could really do with some new scare stories as these old ones are getting a bit boring.
So that’s the positive case for the Union then?
I think I’d better think it out again………………………
Eh………Nah!
link to news.scotland.gov.uk
133,379 WTE (whole-time equivalent) as of August.
Believe you me the people who work for NHS Scotland are fuming over this story.
NHS Scotland has a long and proud history, but now they feel tarred by all this.
Don’t expect the thousands of NHS Scotland workers to be voting for Labour any time soon.
I’d love to hear what members of the NHS think of this new standard. Preferential treatment based on nationality. Just don’t fall ill in the UK if you’re Johnny Furriner.
Gillie
You are right, assuming it gets wide publicity and isn’t glossed over in the reporting. Quite insulted and also amazed by the absolute fact-free and mendacious nature of this assertion from a man who is trying to become PM.
On the subject of Lamont’s defence of her comments re “Virus” etc on GMS this morning, she used a very telling choice of words towards the end of the interview. To paraphrase, she states that what we “choose to invest in defines us (at a UK level)”, i.e. that being Scottish is not enough. It’s her way of rubbishing nationalism, even although she concedes that there are progressive thinkers within the Yes movement. But if you examine her statement re “invest in defines us”, then it raises an interesting and worrying thought. The Westminster Government, both Labour and Tory has chosen to invest in Trident, in privatising the English NHS, in demonising the poor, in channeling wealth towards the South East of England and away from other parts of the UK, in non ethical foreign policy, in establishing a political elite for it’s own self interest, in eroding worker’s rights, in dismantling industries, in austertiy economics…The list is very long and I’m sure other readers can add to it. But my point is this; does Lamont truely believe that these “investments” are how she wants to be defined as a citizen? If so, then that is sad and pathetic.
Dave Beveridge
“We could really do with some new scare stories as these old ones are getting a bit boring”
Don’t encourage them
desmond says
” then no-one will question his birthplace while taking care of him.”
however I wouldnt be surprised if they questioned his parentage 😉
Lamont says “you need to win the political argument”, but were she to succeed in so doing (yes, I know), she would then prefer to be over-ruled by Tories from SE England.
So Lamont describes public spending as “investment” – either she’s been reading Gordon Brown’s old speeches, or he’s now spending his time pulling her strings.
Ah Labour, the gift that just keeps giving. There`s so much that the SNP and YES can use from their party conference in Brighton it`s astounding.
The most troubling thing for me is some clear indications that if we vote NO that not just Labour but the other two unionist parties will seek to clip the wings from Holyrood as Labour who are the only real contender to oppose the SNP look like their power hold on Scotland may now be a thing of the distant past now.
No more progressive policies for Scots even though we vote for them, just bringing us back into line with Tory England.
If the SNP and YES can`t make more out of this then it`s basically throwing away votes.
A few years ago I was treated in hospital in Yorkshire in for torn ligaments in my ankle and a greenstick fracture to my fiblua. The treatment was ok however I was not permitted a crutch as it was explained the NHS in England is different to the NHS in Scotland and they didn’t allow non-English patients to take away crutches etc.
Everything which has been said is quite correct and I agree with all of it. However, you have to look at what Milliband was trying to achieve with this speech. It’s always been the case that if you’re facing multiple enemies then you should tackle the internal ones first. Just look at Robert the Bruce; when he returned from hiding his first task was to neutralise the English threat and then deal with his internal enemies (the Comyns and the MacDougalls). Only after he had done this (the Herschip of Buchan and the Battle of the Pass of Brander) did he seriously turn his attention to defeating the English.
Milliband is in a similar position with his internal enemies and forces which threaten to split the existing Labour vote (UKIP). The promises re electricity prices, building new homes, child care, etc. are to silence the internal doubters who have been saying he isn’t left wing enough (he won’t have to deliver on them anyway as the election is two years away). The comment re the NHS wasn’t aimed at Scots, it was aimed at Labour voters who might be thinking about defecting to UKIP. He was saying, “look, we can be as nasty to foreigners as UKIP can so there’s no need to vote for them.”
This ties in with Curran’s comments that independence could break up the Labour Party. This is the Labour Party Conference for God’s sake! It’s all about themselves.
Really quite pathetic if that’s as much as Milibands script writers could prepare for his effort on Scotland.
I do believe that certainly the English side of the Union do not believe there is any issue and that the vote is already in the bag. Wait until they find out the “truth” heads will roll.
So Ed wants to tell us a story? Is that because “Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it”?
Hannah Arendt
Possibly even more ironically, does anyone remember the BBC running that quote as a jingle?
Cathy Murphy must be squirming with embarrassment at being the subject of such out and out lying propaganda.
Cathy Murphy is a Labour activist, who is enthusiastically co-operating with this disgraceful farrago of spin and lies.
The truly scary thing is that Scotland is a country of around 5 million people; the UK is about 60 million.
If we vote NO and both Labour and the Tories want to reign in Holyrood, scale back its powers, merge NHS Scotland (which has always been separate and independent) with the privatised NHS England, possibly even abolish Holyrood altogether, there is nothing at all we can do about it.
It’s all very well no voters, or Labour types saying, “I wouldn’t support that, the people wouldn’t stand for it, Labour would lose support if it did that” but what the hell could they do about it if it happened?
The Westminster parties will always be in control at Westminster, and by voting No we concede we want Westminster running us. It would matter not one iota if 99% of people in Scotland were against Holyrood being reigned in or abolished: if we vote no and Westminster choose to do that, we’ll have no say in it at all, and no democratic way to prevent it happening.
Colin Duffy , that’s just what I was thinking, we now have had both Tory, (Ruth Davidson), spouting that devolution is not working as it should, the danger signals are there!
HandandShrimp, the Scottish NHS will already be paying for her care. This is the nature of cross-border, even cross-board, treatment already. The money follows the patient from their home board.
It’s a sensible way of working, because it means that facilities for specialist care or for unusual conditions can be concentrated in one place, with all the associated financial benefits of that.
For example the Beatson is in Glasgow and comes under Greater Glasgow & Clyde but provides cancer treatment for 60% of the Scottish population.
Has Miliband never seen TV programmes with people, usually children, being flown around the world for specialist care? This is an entirely normal way of working, because it is simply impossible to have all facilities for all conditions in all locations at all times.
As usual, this is unionist scare story that collapses under the most gentle of interrogation.
Listened to Lamont this morning on Radio Scotland, lots of words in no particular order.
Saw bits of Miliband’s speech last night, it was much the same.
Does anyone really believe the crap coming out at these conferences? They’re just preaching to the converted. I see they still have fresh-faced youth sitting behind the stage when Ed makes his speech.
I also saw Torcuil Crichton on newsnight last night, what a gonk; parroting the line about the NHS being a uniting factor when the opposite is true. I mean, we know he’s biased, but the BBC still peddle him out as if he wasn’t.
For Labour, Scotland is well and truly now seen as a problem. The window in which those who thought devolution was a good idea has closed and now we have the Union Jack clutching nutters in charge.
To borrow their Nazi vibe, I have the feeling there’ll be a Final Solution to the Scottish Problem, post referendum.
Setting aside Ed’s minimal interest in Scotland, he has nonetheless pitched his tent a little further to the left than Labour has been for a generation. Project Fear has been working overtime to attack the Yes campaign in the press but Ed is about to get a taste of his own medicine as Project Fear in the English press turn their “Red Ed” guns on Milliband. Things could get interesting as Labour try to stem Fear on one hand and dish it out with the other. I predict they will on more than one ocassion over the next year be straddling two horses, one anti Project Fear and one pro.
On ‘Call Kaye’ this morning, Kaye was taken aback at the attack on Miliband during the phone-ins and texting, She thought he had presented a good speech, but was shocked that nearly everyone …everyone ….condemned Miliband over what he said yesterday. Basically, everyone said he was a charalatan.
Folk from all over Scotland told her, that they do not believe Miliband or his policies. To me, I find this heartening, that even amongst the Unionists, they look upon UK Labour (as well as Scottish Labour) as corrupt, liars, or to be treated with complete contempt.
To hear Kaye searching frantically through the texts to find anything that basically praised Miliband was quite funny. When she asked her panellist expert (can’t remember who he was), he basically summed it up that the Scots have lost faith in Labour, and that Socialism in Scotland, was very different from what is preached and lauded in England.
So who knows …sicken the Unionists, and even they might decide to vote ‘Yes’
Certainly the highlight of my morning!!
“Now that referendum on September the 18th 2014, it is going to be conducted on the basis of fact and figures and arguments and counterarguments, but I’m going to tell you a lie just now instead.”
Fixed that for him.
“. Project Fear has been working overtime to attack the Yes campaign in the press but Ed is about to get a taste of his own medicine”
Aye, I have to admit to a bit of schadenfreude seeing a Labour friend in England post about how the biased media won’t report on Labour’s policies and will just lay into them. I feel bad about feeling that for people in England. But at the same time the biased media in Scotland talk Labour, UKOK and Project Fear to the heights while deriding anyone who wants better, because that’s the way the Westminster elites have divvied up the country – Labour gets some bits the Tories get others and we get a pretence of democracy as the paymasters of both lead us ever further right.
If Labour hadn’t colluded with that, they might not be in a position where “their bit” was moving off some place else and leaving them behind.
Apologies if I’ve missed someone pointing this out before but won’t Milibands proposed energy freeze disproportionally benefit the rich? Bigger houses and all that…I presume if that’s the argument against the Council Tax freeze it is the same argument against an energy price freeze..
JLT – that’s very cheering indeed. I never listen to BBC Scotland or Call Kaye and from reading about it never will as I fear it would raise my blood pressure. But that sounds positive this morning. Perhaps even our useless BBC might begin to wake up to how out of touch they are.
Somebody needs to stand up and say, Cathy, NHS Scotland paid the Liverpool health board for the treatment they gave you. And NHS Scotland will continue to pay for the treatment you need, after independence, wherever you happen to be at the time.
NHS England is being privatised right now. Does Ed really mean to imply that while they’re perfectly happy to take Scotland’s money right now to care for a Scottish patient, after independence they won’t accept the money but will let the person die instead?
This sort of lying spin makes me really, really angry.
JLT,
Aye, there was certainly a strong smell of desperation on Call Kaye this morning. Noone at all called in to support Milliband. I have’nt heard such a one-sided “debate” on GMS for a long time, but unfortunately everyone was on the “wrong” side LOL. A good acting performance, by an unelectable, untrusted career politician, seemed to be the general concesus. Ed Milliband’s speech had a Tony Blair-like feel to it. All that was missing was the “Things can only get better” song, although the message was similar. One of the critical battles in the final year to the referendum will be within the ranks of Scottish Labour. It is a battle that the unionists do not seem to be winning at the moment.
link to youtube.com
Watch the badges getting distributed 🙂
Guess they’ll no longer be sending English patients to have groundbreaking heart treatment at the nasty, foreign Golden Jubilee Hospital then.
I’m with HandandShrimp. I wonder if Ed actually knows that NHS Scotland is a separate organisation. Or that we have reciprocal arrangements with the health services in virtually all the other countries in Europe. If he doesn’t know these things, in his position, that is deeply, deeply worrying. What else doesn’t he know?
But either he’s criminally ignorant of how essential services work in the country he’s trying to be Prime Minister of, or he knows exactly how it works but thought he could get away with lying in his teeth. It’s hard to say which it is. Either way, it’s pretty unedifying.
Good luck Cathy, great to hear you are better and still manage to get back over the border for your free prescriptions.
Please dont listen to Johann and be taken in by this talk of you being a spunger.
cheers
Watch the badges getting distributed
Never hurts to give it another plug, but I think that’s the same video we had a whole thread on the other day.
http://wingsoverscotland.com/a-flavour-of-the-day/
Nice point made in The Metro today…Miliband promises to freeze fuel costs when elected….Industry insider remarks “That will just mean the companies will bring forward their plans to raise prices!”
Its a political winner as Miliband can then berate Condems for more rising prices on their wztch but of course in the clear light of day, the real big loser is Joe Public yes again.
cath
If the BBC are to do anything, it will be to become even more sleeket. They are the state broadcaster, so will not do anything that supports a threat to the state. I certainly wouldn’t get your hopes up about the final 16 weeks of the ‘debate’.
They are not out of touch, they are doing it deliberately.
Moral said:
Cathy Murphy should be squirming with embarrassment at being the subject of such out and out lying propaganda.
fixed that for you
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he genuinely doesn’t have a clue. We’re talking about Scotland, remember – North Britain. Not something London elites have to bother their little heads with. It’s quite possible some SPAD wrote his speech based on the kind of crap Better Together comes out with, which has always including “our shared NHS”.
Either way, totally ignorant or lying through his teeth, doesn’t really matter. If he’s ignorant it’s because others in his campaign have spread that lie.
So, 263 words?
I guess that means he cares about us just over twice as much as David Cameron does.
I actually think that some of the people who work for the NHS in Scotland are blissfully unaware that the NHS is Scotland is a separate entity. I had to call the paramedics out for my elderly father on Sunday evening and the female paramedic was worried what would happen to the NHS and her job after Independence. She obviously believed that the NHS in Scotland and England were one and the same thing!
If the people working in the NHS in Scotland are ignorant that they are different and separate organisations then what hope have the public at large of understanding this? It’s really worrying and it’s about time we all did our utmost to put them straight!
Dear Cath, remember to pay for your prescriptions, ……… oops, forgot, we dont pay for them in Scotland!
Er, Morag. Damn you autocorrect!
The funniest thing was that Ed had to prefix JoLa’s name with ‘Scottish’, otherwise nobody there would have a clue who he was talking about 🙂
HeatherMcLean, I can confirm you are right unfortunately. I try my best to correct this misconception with my colleagues.
But even if it WAS the one organisation, so what? What is so difficult about keeping something like that running post-independence or even dividing it up if the worst came to the worst?
People who say things like the paramedic are probably actually concerned more about the funding, because they believe somehow that Scotland doesn’t pay her way. It’s THAT misconception that we really need to hammer home, in my view.
Growing up in Scotland and having experienced both Tory and Labour Govts , then Devolution and despite minimal history or culture about this country being taught at my school, I have an inherent leaning to the left in politics. I’ve probably also got a soft spot for under dogs as well, don’t know where it comes from , thats just the way I am.
Fortunately , I find there are a lot of people probably the same. Not because of Wallace , (we never got taught about him ), not because of Connolly or Mclean (never got taught about them either ), not because of Stanley Baxter appearing on my TV when I was wee or Jimmy Reid for that matter, its just something that is there and from everyone being issued their first coat peg at nursery to everyone regardless of background ,wealth, politics being treated the same in our NHS, its there…
Now, I’m not saying ,if you are a Tory or whatever you do not care all I’m saying is , team GB may find it more difficult to try to force a completely alien view on an un named feeling.
I think Kayes guest this morning (someone Cox I think ) may have cottoned on , the callers were coming from a very different place and I don’t mean geographically.
But the hospital in question does record patient profiles based on ethnicity, colour and nationality…
link to rlbuht.nhs.uk
Cathy Murphy would have been classed by the hospital as “White – British”.
@molly Well said, it is just out there, I know exactly the feeling you’re talking about. We will win because of that feeling too.
HandandShrimp says:
25 September, 2013 at 12:11 pm
I predict they will on more than one ocassion over the next year be straddling two horses, one anti Project Fear and one pro.
…
That’s a bit unfortunate if you are right as it means that the smartest of them will be working on strategies to combat fear and by implication will be looking at what fear strategies are most effective and hard to combat.
8000 words? Seemed more like 30,000 to me. 😉
Derek Bateman: Ed’s scary speech.
link to derekbatemandotnet1.wordpress.com
The reason Milliband struggled with Lamont’s name is because he was genuinely confused as to who she was. When you’re trying to look like Commander Straker from the series UFO then you are asking for trouble
@Desimond
“Miliband promises to freeze fuel costs when elected…
Its a political winner as Miliband can then berate Condems for more rising prices on their wztch”
I’ve been pondering this one, and as an ex-British Gas long-term employee I can’t recall at any point having any government control on prices since privatisation. There were/are many Ofgem regulations that had to be obeyed and adhered to, but regulating prices wasn’t one of them – that’s what competition was supposed to do. I’ve just had a look at Ofgem’s site now and can’t see any reference at all to price regulations. So unless he’s planning to renationalise the industry then he seems to have as much chance of controlling the price of energy as he does of freezing the price of ballet shoes. Would love to be corrected if I’m wrong, though.
“I actually think that some of the people who work for the NHS in Scotland are blissfully unaware that the NHS is Scotland is a separate entity.”
Couldn’t agree more, I recently had a conversation with someone in their 50s who has been in the NHS all their working life and ( apart from the ‘Idont like Alex Salmond’ argument) was that uncertainty over independence was causing problems with clinical recruiting. why exactly that might be the case wasn’t made clear but she certainly seemed to think the NHS was a single entity.
I discovered first hand that the NHS in Scotland and England are very different things when we moved south when my wife was 6 1/2 months pregnant. We were treated in England as though we had no history whatsoever (as if we had just descended from the sky or something).
Worse, after being guaranteed in Scotland a place on an NHS antenatal course, in England they had absolutely no space for us. We ended up having to pay over £100 for a private course….
So unless he’s planning to renationalise the industry then he seems to have as much chance of controlling the price of energy as he does of freezing the price of ballet shoes.
🙂 😀
Votadini Jeannie : Seems the great bluff has been called already
Mrs Peep the Gasmans Wife
Pal of mine from the poor wee country of Denmark needed a cosmetic procedure on his damaged and blinded eye. For purely psychogenic reasons, not his physical health. Not available in poor wee Denmark. Only available privately in England. The Danish health service flew him and his wife to England for the procedure, and put them up in an hotel for the duration. He was told the best the English NHS would offer for a similar injury would be a pair of prescription dark glasses.
Prior to that, he was asked which career he would like to be retrained for. He chose to become a car mechanic and received proper training for a year. He’s worked, paid tax, and provided for his family ever since.
F*ck off Ed! You can’t even begin to aspire to social justice like that. In a poor wee country of 5 million people.
Interesting that it was Michael Forsyth of all people who in the 97 health white paper proposed changing the name of NHS Scotland to the Scottish Health Service. Maybe Alex Neil should take up his suggestion? 😉
There are two theories emerging to explain Ed’s lurch to the left. My own immediate reaction was that he has realised that Scottish independence is the single biggest threat the Labour party has ever faced. Therefore he has started to articulate more left-wing policies in the hope of tempting Scottish Labour voters to vote No, regardless of how it might play in the south of England. He has a few months after the referendum to try to re-balance that.
A couple of posters above have however suggested that he is in fact playing to his own Old Labour troops, trying to heal internal divisions now in order to be in better shape to tackle the election campaign. Somehow that makes rather better sense, because I’m not sure he realises how likely it is that we’ll win the referendum.
Either way, though, surely someone in the Labour inner circle knows that NHS Scotland is a separate outfit and always has been, and that there is no practical prospect of freezing electricity prices no matter how much he might want to? Is this just about “say anything you like, no matter how ridiculous the lie, hopefully most people will believe us”?
Scotland will soon become fully immersed in Stairheid’s & Grommit’s ‘Wan Naeshun’
The UK NHS the Unionists like to prattle on about is exactly the same as the ‘British’ justice they extol – neither of them exist – but they love to tell us about them nevertheless.
I thought I’d do a wee survey with my customers. Not one person I’ve spoken to is aware that Scotland’s NHS is a separate entity from the NHS down south. Every one asked thinks ‘British’ justice is a wonderful thing. It’s well past time that Scotland’s history, culture and political identity was taught to our kids. Our people have been kept ignorant for too long.
I thought the historian, Paul Scott, summed it up very well in his foreword to the re-printed version of George Lockhart’s book, Scotland’s Ruine. He wrote;
“Lockhart gave the game away in an unflinching exposure of a very sordid transaction. If you wanted conceal the facts and maintain that the Union was an act of enlightened statesmanship, then you certainly did not want to encourage people to read Lockhart. His book has been suppressed by tacit censorship. For this reason it has never received the recognition which it deserves as a work of literature as well as an important historical source.”
A Scottish history book suppressed by tacit censorship – It’s how they make sure you grow up to be good little British boys and girls.
Question – why don’t we rename the health service in Scotland? Get rid of the ‘National’ moniker. Something like ‘SPHS’ – The Scottish Public Health Service.
Of course the usual crowd would say it was a waste of tax payers money…… blah blah
@G H Graham
I always have a chuckle to myself when I see your avatar.
A2
Yes they will be working over-time to counter the negativity of papers like the Mail..but in many instances the same counter-arguments will apply
i was hospitalised in liverpool with pneumonia, had stitches in a head wound in liverpool and treated for jellyfish sting in liverpool. my mum is from liverpool and as kids we went every year, my mum has recieved any medical care she required in scotland. milliband is awffly limpwristed and a big fibber
Milliband seems to be getting pelters from all directions on this speech (which on the whole was better than many Labour leaders’ speeches). The English press seem to be overcome with delight that he has put a foot at least towards the left or as Max Hastings would have it
Just sent an e-mail to Alex Neil asking him to consider changing the name NHS Scotland to Scottish Health Service or some equivalent title as per Martyman’s suggestion.
Will relate any reply to your goodselves,
So our theories for Ed Milliband’s apparent lurch to the left are:
1. He’s trying to quell Labour internal divisions;
2. He actually thinks this will help him win the next UK GE;
3. He suspects that Labour won’t win the next UK GE so is getting his excuses in early;
4. Someone has told him this sort of guff plays well in Scotland so it will a) ensure a NO vote and b) get Labour back into power in Holyrood; or
5. All of the above.
The problems/issues/outcomes are:
1. If Ed doesn’t win, or it looks like he’ll not win the next UK GE, then he’ll be chibbed by some of his closest friends and replaced.
2. Really? Does he not read the papers?
3. Sad, but probably true.
4. It already seems that even Scottish Labour voters think that these are just lies, so that won’t help them. And if (if?) the reaction of the right wing press is to pillory Labour for this and make it absolutely certain that they won’t win the next UK GE, then surely that will push more Scots towards voting YES at the prospect of another Tory + UKIP/LibDem government.
5. Bingo!
Regarding the NHS down south. The Rev has posted a link to this blog site run by Mike Sivier.
His latest post on the ‘taking over’ of the Health Service by big business, namely KPMG (whose commissioning arm which deals with the NHS is owned by none other than ATOS) and others is a must read.
Mike also mentions the tory think tank ‘Reform’ – who we must remember have their Scottish equivalent (Reform Scotland) that are currently churning out report after report calling for business to take over the running of public sectors like health and education. Reform Scotland happen to be heavily sponsored by the type of business that provide health and education infrastructure.
It’s extremely relevant to all public sector infrastructure, and a good reminder of what we can expect if we vote ‘No’.
link to mikesivier.wordpress.com
I worked in the NHS in England for 20 years and worked damned hard amongst similarly minded individuals who viewed patient care as a vocation and not a career.
As Governments changed, reform inevitably followed, not because the NHS (in England) was there to be improved for the population but because it was a platform on which parties could grandstand and eulogise to further their cynical ends. It was, and still is, used as nothing more than a political football. NHS England is rapidly crumbling and failing in its’ remit; staff morale is at an all time low and the latest reforms are its’ death knell. It may once have been a “great” institution but no more.
That fact that such a failing institution is held up in such a fashion by Miliband only mirrors the fact that Labour itself is a failing insitution; out of touch and out of time
And I feel sorry for all the dedicated people, who are my friends, in England, who strive daily to counter the measures imposed upon them in order to retain a service that may only partially resemble what once was.
I Got Out.
Last year I returned to Scotland. I had always planned to return home but after my experiences I needed Scotland and, I hope I don’t sound pompous in saying, Scotland now needs me.
Immediately on my return it was akin to a breath of fresh air. Aside from the obvious new found confidence that is palpable in the air, it was clear to me that institutions like the Scottish NHS are functioning so positively and productively under the Scottish governments’ administration, in comparison. I have liaised with old colleagues and their enthusiasm and vision for the future is infectious.Their whole demeanour eclipses that which I have witnessed for too long south of the border.
My personal narrative is simple. For decades the NHS has been used as a political football; to its detriment and and ultimately impending downfall and disappearance.. For decades, and now more than ever, the country that I love and the wonderful people within are also being used as a political football but being abused to a much greater extent. Enough is enough!
In the event of a NO vote our beloved NHS will disappear, our beloved Scotland will disappear – be very very sure of that.
This is why I am active in pushing for a Yes vote. Because I am STAYING in Scotland.
“I’m with HandandShrimp. I wonder if Ed actually knows that NHS Scotland is a separate organisation”
I was never convinced that “NHS Scotland” was a clever branding initiative as, to me, it suggested the health service in Scotland being a branch of the National (as in Brit Nat) Health Service, and whether it’s Milliband deliberately playing to this or the fact that masses of the Scottish population, including NHS employees, are still unclear as to who controls or pays for what, the net result is uncertainty (and its bedfellows fear and doubt). Maybe the Scottish Executive who came up with the brand name knew what they were doing, although they would obviously have been acting under orders from Westminster.
Anyway, it would be far clearer if it were branded “Scottish Health Service”, but that’ll have to wait another year I suppose.
While I love the idea of changing the name of the health service, be advised that any kind of rebranding will cost tens of millions to implement and thus would open up the Scottish govt. To charges of wasting taxpayer money for a vanity project. You just know that’s the line opposition MSPs would take.
Just been reading my copy of the Guardian. Have gone through the reports of Ed’s speech. Only mention of anything Scottish is a sketch piece that mentions “the heart patient in Glasgow”. They really don’t care down south, any mention of Scotland in this newsgroup’s papers are usually fluff pieces being negative about the Scottish Government, usually poorly researched. They just do not give a toss. Hope it stays like that.
There is no point in changing the name of the Health Service.
If it is a Yes vote then it will be the SNHS.
If it is a No vote – it will be called whatever Atos want to call it.
Rev has retweeted a joke about premature ejaculation, but I didn’t get it. It went right over my head.
Lucky escape Ian, it could have gone in one ear and out the other 😉
It’s like that joke:
“I say, I say, I say! What is the secret of great comedy?”
“I don’t know. What is the secr…”
“Timing.”
It works better if there’s two of you. Ooh-er.
“A Borders resident from Cardiff buys Worcester Sauce crisps in Cumbria & drives back to Dumfries & Galloway unimpeded.” – Ed Miliband’s positive case for the union – September 2013
“Wurr wantin mare unity an’ ‘at.” – Johann Lamont – September 2013
“Am oan a see food diet” – Jackie Baillie – September 2013
It could’ve been the one about the guy who turns up at a fancy-dress party wearing nothing but y-fronts and a grin…
The Scottish Health Service
I think that re-branding is now essential. Too many people still seem to think it is
Ein National Health Service.
Cath Murphy had a serious heart problem at the Labour conference in Liverpool and was treated in Liverpool. Well DOH!!!
Why does she have to have six monthly check ups in Liverpool?
I only ask because I know there is a world class heart centre in Scotland. In fact it is in the Jubilee Hospital in Glasgow. (I know this because if my specialists in Dumfries can’t get a handle on my heart failure then that is where I’ll have to go.) Now remind me here as I seem to have forgotten but where does Cath live………oh that’s right GLASGOW!
Is this odious little man seriously trying to tell us that because she had her operation in Liverpool then she must have all her check ups in Liverpool?
Is this pathetic excuse for a future P.M. really that stupid?
Does he take US to be that stupid?
Why did he never mention the word Scotland?
It could not possibly be because he sees Scotland as a REGION and not a COUNTRY by any chance?
GH Graham, quickly glanced at your Avatar and thought it said nae washin-yeah
I’ve been saying for years that the Scottish Government should have renamed the Scottish NHS to something else (the SHS, for instance). Using the same name is just inviting voters to believe it’s all one organisation.
Another thing not commented upon is that it is being held in Brighton. No longer Blackpool or Scarborough, too far from the Metropolis. Too close to people who might make their views known about the sell out of Labour principles in favour of New Labour ( contains no Socialism, now with added Tory)
Two questions:
1. How many people were in that conference hall yesterday to hear Miliband’s speech?
2. How many of them (including Miliband) honestly believe that he will EVER be PM?
Pedantry alert: The Jubilee Hospital is in Clydebank, not Glasgow.
A third question arises from truthful responses to the first two –
WTF were they all cheering about?
Quotes by Johann Lamont (Candidate for First Minister of Scotland) …
“Wurr wuntin tae be ah ‘Wun Nae-shun’ or sumfin Ed said yesterday.”
“Ahm usin that ‘Oil of Uglay’ stuff fur ma cheeks.”
“Eck’s talkin’ pish.”
“Wurr goany have a chat an’ at aboot yer missiles & some o’ they joabs.”
“Duz ma blondy herr make me look like a Herr?”
“Wurr thinkin aboot chargin yoos auld yins five quid fur an aspirin.”
“An’ yoos auld yins shood be payin fur free trips tae Largs.”
“Ahm fair chuffed av still goat a joab when so many are dingin’ uz fur Giro’s.”
Oh dear, the British Labour Party would not know irony if it came up and bit them on the backside:
link to theguardian.com
@G H Graham
You are on a roll… 😀
John D, that was a great post. I’ve heard similar stories from others, but that narrative really needs to get out there.
Right now, I’m seriously thinking about one of the Wings “I’ve already got One Nation” sweatshirts.
Is there anything that Ed Milliband isnt prepared to offer the public, in order to win votes, so far he’s going to axe the bedroom tax, cut fuel prices, and many other things that they couldnt do a week ago.
How many empty promises are Labour prepared to lay on the table to win the next election in 2015, only for them then to deny they can impliment them.
Hopefully these pie in the sky promises dont persuade voters who have still some affection for Labour to vote for them, instead of independence.
No doubt Johann Lamont will have plenty to crow about at the next FMQ’s
I cant bear the thought of Lamont the Westminster puppet for Labour, spouting her, inane rhetoric about how great labour are, now Ed’s done good.
DMyers says:
Pedantry alert: The Jubilee Hospital is in Clydebank, not Glasgow.
My apologies to one and all for my error. :(:
What do I know, I’m too wee, too poor and too stupid to know anything else. :D:
19th September 2014
Two versions of what the day may be like.
I hope that the one we want to see is the real future.
link to drderekbateman.wordpress.com
I’m still trying to figure out how the Labour Party, if it wins power, will be able to force a price freeze on the energy companies. They’re private companies and some of them are not even British companies – I think my supplier is actually a German company. And if they do manage to impose a price freeze, will they be breaking any European regulations?
Does anybody know how exactly they propose to go about this?
“In the event of a NO vote our beloved NHS will disappear, our beloved Scotland will disappear – be very very sure of that.”
Many of us are convinced of that Jon. But will Blair Jenkins and his wetnats articulate the consequences of a No vote? Some of us have been asking them to do so for 18 months now..
@Muttley79says
Just read that Guardian article; desperate stuff.
We have Cooper, clearly knowing that Labour are on the ropes, look at her coupon, desperately trying to create meaningful sound-bites, clutching for credibility; a tumult of verbal garbage that she clearly didn’t write, even less understands. The society she purports to abhor was created during her time in government. For her to grandstand on human rights issues, and have the audacity to vent criticism is utterly reprehensible and disgusting given Labours record of duplicity and manipulation
Training Day
YES is running a positive campaign , Negativity loses in the long run.
The choice is spelled out here.
link to yesscotland.net
Did you see Lord George Foulkes being interviewed and saying the Milliband speech was the best leader’s speech he had ever heard in decades of Labour party conferences? Was he asleep and only awakened by Margaret Curran on her feet applauding the lies about medical treatment? I think we should be told!
@Linda’s back
No one’s suggesting running a purely negative campaign. But people need to know that if they vote No things will not stay the same but will change – radically, and to Scotland’s detriment. Saying in isolation that the sun will be shinier on 19 September to an inertia No voter won’t cut it.
Arbroath 1320 says:
What do I know, I’m too wee, too poor and too stupid to know anything else. :
😉
@jeannie
Good analysis of how, basically, the energy price fixing, won’t work.
link to blogs.channel4.com
Jeannie
able to force a price freeze on the energy companies?
From what I have read the UK government would have to introduce an Act of Parliament to enable this. Like any Act / Law it will have to be consulted, debated, amended, voted, and passed (which all takes time). It will then be open to legal challenge in the courts (UK and European) by the Energy companies.
This policy will cost the government to some extent – reduced corp tax (as profits on UK energy operations will fall).
While I think the energy companies have something to answer, you would think there are easier ways to address this. It all smacks of grandstanding rather than making long term change.
So far on Word Counts
David Cameron – 130 words (Downing Street press release)
Ed Miliband – 263 words (Conference speech)
Nick Clegg – 412 words (Conference speech)
Positive case for the union Grand Total – 805 words
Never was so few said by so few.
O/T This may cheer a few of you up . I was telling the class I am in about how great a day Saturday was and out of a class of 12. 9 agree vote No get nothing . College life
Ed’s largely given up on Scotland. Joanne LOL.
For Westminster, Scotland is now useless to the Tories, a waste of time for the Lib Dems and, if polls are to be believed, will not deliver 40 odd Labour MPs either.
It’s lost to Westminster.
Hence the general lack of effort from Ed, Dave and Nick re the referendum.
Capitan Darling and Scottish Labour are on their own.
@Albalha
@Murray McCallum
Thanks guys. After reading the info, my reaction is – “I just don’t think they’ve thought this through properly”. I don’t doubt something has to be done about the cost of energy, but this sounds like a very complicated way to go about it. I think if I were in their position trying to win a general election, I wouldn’t have created such a complicated hostage to fortune.
The Scottish Health Service is fully funded from SCOTTISH tax revenues.
@ BeamMeUpScotty:
Not every one in Scotland knows that, Shout it loud everywhere.
Jeannie,
Labour cannot freeze energy prices for the exact same reason they can’t put a freeze the price of Irn Bru.
If Labour want to freeze energy prices they have two options.
1. Pass an act of parliament that restricts the retail margin from wholesale (Putting a cap on profits of say 3% above wholesale as they do in Ireland to curb profiteering). Which technically isn’t a freeze anyway!
2. Re-nationalise energy.
Option 1 won’t happen because too many of the ruling class have an annual dividend payout from energy companies and will fuck Ed over in a heartbeat and option 2 won’t happen in the UK for the same reason.
Ed Milliband doesn’t have the gonads or political clout to do either. He’s taking on a market that will chew him up and spit him out.
Complete and utter bullshit rhymed off to keep the votes rolling in from the ghettos.
Can anyone remember the link to an election predictor website, it’s where you put in a percentage count to any political party and you can see the seats gained or lost throughout the UK. Someone posted it before a while ago but I’ve lost it. It may have been yourself Patrick Roden or Ian Brotherhood 🙂
@rabb
Yeah – wouldn’t be a freeze, as you say, as if the wholesale price went up and you’re allowed to make 3% above that, then the bill still goes up 3% one way or another. Have I got that right?
Or are they saying that if the producer and the supplier is one and the same company, they can’t sell to themselves at a price higher than, say, the 3%?
OT I followed up on the virus thing with a quick poster for FB.
link to i51.photobucket.com
Hope it goes viral 🙂
@Jon D
Yes, British Labour and human rights do not exactly go together. Think of the authoritarian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2000, well before the Twin Towers attack. Used recently to detain the partner of Glenn Greenwald, a journalist of the Guardian. It is a shocker of a law, particularly section 7 (I think).
I have to agree with Training Day on the dangers of not clearly setting out the consequences of a No vote. The default setting of a voter in Scotland is to back the status quo (a No vote), unless you have been persuaded by the merits of independence. This would particularly apply to low information voters. If we do not give likely consequences of a No vote; such as possible exit from EU, scrapping of Barnett formula meaning reduced block grant, privatisation of our NHS (and no way back for Royal Mail either), tuition fees introduced again, end of free prescriptions, then we would be giving the Scottish electorate no ‘push’ factors to vote Yes. I am perplexed to be honest why the Yes campaign have not done this at all.
Pertaining equally to Miliband and Lamont; surely worth another airing- “Everybody loves a nut”
Dcanmore, I think you might be looking for this site.
link to scotlandvotes.com
Dcanmore
Try this:
link to scotlandvotes.com
Morag
SNAP!
HOUSE!
As regards that electoral calculator, I sometimes go back and read this very old post on Wings, because it gives me a wee warm glow inside.
http://wingsoverscotland.com/how-many-chickens/
Dcanmore
This may be the site you are looking for:
link to electoralcalculus.co.uk
You’re correct Jeannie.
With regards to your second scenario, if the wholesale generator & supplier were one in the same, the wholesale generator still has to operate within the market.
As some of the generation is done outside the UK (noticeably France), he immediately puts the domestic supply into a death spiral as no one will want to buy expensive foreign energy any more.
Ed hasn’t realised the fact that if you can’t produce enough of something in your own country then the last thing you want to do is price out those who are able to supply you from overseas! He’s pissing on his own chips so to speak.
There wouldn’t be a single government in the EU anyway that would lie down to a member state “fixing” a market.
Besides, after a yes vote next year, Ed would be trying to fix a market where 40% of it’s generating capacity wouldn’t even be in his own country!
He’s a fucking idiot.
All his talk about treating ‘foreigners’ etc. Baloney.
Malala Yousafzai, the 12 year old shot by the Taliban, was
treated at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, and Pakistan, to my
knowledge, is in neither the UK or the EU.
It may well have been political, but she was rightfully treated
there as it appeared the best place to do it. Nationality just
doesn’t come into it, nor should it.
Labour seem to think we button up the back.
Morag
Thanks for that:
I was just starting out on the internet blogs at that time:
NNS only, never found WoS until after the election.
@ Muttley 79,
I am perplexed to be honest why the Yes campaign have not done this at all.
The Yes campaign have, imo, gone out of their way, to date, to promote the positive argument with a view to establishing maximum credibility and acceptibility – essentials in the initiation of a grassroots campaign
Now that the No side are raising the spectre of further devolved powers I can assure you that in the near future, and especially after the publication of the white paper, Yes will indeed be hammering home the full implications of a No vote. It’s in the timing.
“The actual word “Scotland” was never uttered”.
Macbeth!
Jon D says:
“Everybody loves a nut”
Oh that’s good!
I’ve been having these really strange dreams/imaginings but the doctor said not to worry that was one of the symptoms of the Yes Virus. He recommended that I do some art therapy which is working a treat. I would recommend ‘art therapy’ to anyone else suffering for these Yes Virus hallucinations.
@Jon D
Fair enough.
Looking at the 8,000 words Ed Miliband doesn’t mention Europe and/or the EU. When he was talking about rights you think he could have made a positive remark about participation in the EU.
His borderless socialist message is pretty hollow and just like Johann Lamont’s simply inward looking Brtiish Nationalism.
I can only think Ed’s EU focus groups haven’t yet told him what his core beliefs about EU participation are yet.
I’ve just tried the site mentioned by Morag and cmd using the 2011 Holyrood election percentages in the Westminster election predictor.
Labour go from 41 in 2010 DOWN to 13 in 2015.
LibDems go from 11 in 2010 DOWN to 2 in 2015.
Tories go from 1 in 2010 DOWN to 0 in 2015.
SNP go from 6 in 2010 UP to 44 in 2015. :LOL:
Now if only these figures can be realised in 2015, with or without a /YES win in 2014 wouldn’t that be a serious kick in the whatnots for Westminster, LibDems, Tories and especially Labour! :D:
Don’t forget Miilipede also said he was going to nationalise unused Building plots!!! Don’t disagree with that concept however when he says that if a developer doesn’t build on it it will be taken off them, what does he mean, will the State buy the vacant land will he give it to one of his chums in the city?
Complete and utter bollocks with no chance of being put on the statute book.
@BeamMeUpScotty
Sorry to disagree. Please read this article.
http://wingsoverscotland.com/a-warning-in-the-mail/#more-31764
Now if only these figures can be realised in 2015, with or without a /YES win in 2014 wouldn’t that be a serious kick in the whatnots for Westminster, LibDems, Tories and especially Labour! :
i would still be too depressed to enjoy it
Stairheid … “Aye, ah wuz listenin tae Ed Molybdenum’s speech an’ it wuz pure magic, so it wiz. Ye see, wurr gonnae dae stuff noo that we wurnae gonnae dae last week. Whit aboot that, eh!”
I read this hospital story the other day in The Scotsman and my first thought was that Ed Milliband must be one of those people who has never travelled any further than Dover.
Is he totally ignorant of what goes on in the world or is he trying to fool people who are?
link to huffingtonpost.co.uk
Behaving like a Nazi is fine.
Joking about it is not.
You would have thought that someone who laughably claims to be interested in equality and human rights would be more careful about manufacturing witch hunts.
His name appears on the HuffPost site immediately under the word’s “Utter Disgrace”, which is one of the few things I have seen which makes me wonder whether there is, in fact, a god.
To play this “vile” piece of work back at himself “off the scale”, “very obvious error of judgement”, “grow up” and “get off your high horse”.
“Don’t forget Miilipede also said he was going to nationalise unused Building plots!!! Don’t disagree with that concept however when he says that if a developer doesn’t build on it it will be taken off them, what does he mean, will the State buy the vacant land will he give it to one of his chums in the city?”
Mmm. Didn’t Lamont just make an erse of herself recently over that very issue? 🙂
Ruby Tuesday
Cool! (err..is it still OK to say cool?)
Some folk have a talent to take a thought and transform it into an image that resonates within us all.
Here’s me with my computer generated avatar.
Q: How do I get one to replace my brown and pink face thing?
Is there a place on the site to do it?
———————————————-
PS:
That comment on UK-OKaye radio Scotland about Milliband.
Listened to all the callers on I-player and he was right : Scotland was not impressed, the spokesperson from down South seemed puzzled by our reticence to believe young Ed was going to save Britain.
@NorthBrit
Yes, it was a terrible article. Having said that I think Yes supporters should probably nip the whole “Yes Positive” thing in the bud. It does not feel right to be using that phrase, given the numbers of people with HIV/Aids in Scotland, and elsewhere.
david says:
i would still be too depressed to enjoy it
I understand David but I still think it would raise a wee smile from me.
I have repeated the exercise I did on in the predictor suggested by James Kay.
link to scotlandvotes.com
link to electoralcalculus.co.uk
The resulting figures are very similar except this site puts Labour on 16 seats, LibDems on 1 seat and the SNP on 42 seats.
What is interesting about the second site however is that it lists all the Scottish current MPs and shows if they would have held their seat. Let’s just say there are some interesting ‘fallers.’
Anas Sarwar…….gone
John Robertson….gone
Tom Harris…gone
Cathy Jamieson…gone
Eric Joyce….gone
Mark Lazarowicz…..gone
Alistair Darling….gone
Jo Swinson…..gone
John Thurso……gone
Danny Alexander…..gone
Charles Kennedy…..gone
Malcolm Bruce…..gone
Menzies Campbell….gone
Michael Moore….gone
and last but not least
David Mundell…..gone.
To name but a few! 😆
Andrew Neil commented immediately after the Miliaband speech in these terms: “an appeal to an aspiring kind of nationalism”
It’s at 1:24:20
link to bbc.co.uk
Andrew Neil: British nationalism good
Scottish nationalism bad
On subject of Andrew Neil, why does he sport a piece of astro turf on his head? Weirdest hairdo ever.
I am reliably informed (true) that Al Gore had been invited to be the international speaker at the Labour Party conference but that Ed’s team cancelled the booking. Presumably because they thought that Ed would look amateurish in comparison.
and last but not least
David Mundell…..gone
We’d have to change the slogan to “We’ve got as many unicorns as Tory MPs”
@ call me dave
Change avatar…
http://wingsoverscotland.com/quarantine/#comment-469469
Here’s a strange bit of fun, not my cup of tea.
Let’s not count too many chickens before they’re plucked though.
link to spreaker.com
Thanks just caught that avatar thing . Will try it
@Muttley79
I agree.
But doubt “Spartacus” would have been improved by Rob and his fun friends leaping up to denounce the “I’m Spartacus” moment as “vile”.
With regards to Avatars, I used to be able to hover over them and a caption would come up; alas this is no longer the case.
Can this be rectified and how?
CameronB says
I’e said that from the beginning,
suggesting these people are out of touch is to give them a fig leaf of an excuse to say (oh but we didn’t know),
they know full well what they’re doing and they are quite sure they will get away with it as well,
lets show them!
Jiggsbro says:
and last but not leastDavid Mundell…..gone We’d have to change the slogan to “We’ve got as many unicorns as Tory MPs”
Well to be fair we’re running out of animals we have whose numbers are LESS than the number of Tories at the present, Pandas, Koalas…… I think the number of unicorns is about the only thing we have less of than Tories! 😆
A plethora of information, on how Scotland CAN support itself and an outline of some future policies post-independence.
link to scotreferendum.com
@ Seasick Dave – caption over Avatar. I will look at that but dont want to disrupt the thread. I will post on quarantine with an answer.
@Arbroath1320
The list of those “killed” in our Great War will have gladened our hearts.
Would you and your forecast site be able to give us the cast list for the upcoming horror story “Scottish Labour MPs 2015-2016”? I know it will star Gordon as the zombie and Ian Davidson and Willie Bain as the enforcers with Mags Curran as the love interest, but who else and what role?
@call me dave
Can I just add to the comment about Kay with an E radio programme on BBC Scotland. I think she was shocked at the lack of support that came through from her listeners. It was a similar reaction to when Gordon brown launched his “United with Labour” earlier this year. She ran a phone in after that, asking questions like, “do you think the Yes camp will be frightened by this launch?”, it got laughed out the studio. It was similar this morning, I don’t think she got one phone call supporting Ed Miliband.
So if the majority of the people are not backing Labour, Conservatives or Libdems and the BBC in Scotland keep reminding us that only a third want Independence then who are the electorate going to put their faith in to run the country. Their figures dont add up. My own opinion is that BBC Scotland is full of Labour supporting, bias scumbags who are only looking after their own backsides and that the penny has finally dropped that they are losing the argument.
I wonder what Stu’s plans are now for Wingsland Poll #2? He put it on hold when everybody and his budgie had a poll coming out, but that seems to have slackened off.
Call UKaye. The wee ordinary, concerned Scottish housewife, ex Conservative vice president at Uni, with her Porsche Cayenne, and her villa in Spain.
Yeah.
If the SNP were set to win the vast majority of seats – as indicated by polls – in the 2015 election, which UK party would want Scotland? Be nice to keep the tax revenues etc, but other than that…
Why would any UK party offer more powers to Holyrood if Scots were to thank them by voting SNP in 2015?
If you are a devo maxer or indy, SNP 2015 is your best bet to ensure any ‘more powers’ offer that does appear is followed through on.
2011 has demonstrated to you that a vote for the SNP is quite clearly that; it turned Scotland yellow on the FPTP 1st vote…
There will be no more powers offered. It will therefore be Yes in 2014.
@juteman
I think if she has a villa it’s in Tuscany, you may be thinking of Wark who has a house in Majorca.
@Morag; @call me Dave; @James Kay…
link to scotlandvotes.comlink to electoralcalculus.co.uk
That’ll do nicely, thank you very much 🙂
I wonder what Stu’s plans are now for Wingsland Poll #2?
I keep asking that; itching for some new numbers.
Been very busy recently with work (man I had a lot of work to do sunday after marching around in a saltire the day before), but been doing a back analysis of all polls based on raw intentions rather than weighted to turnout / headline figures etc. Looking nice.
The majority of Scots consistently don’t support No. They just need a wee nudge to Yes…
What should scare the bejesus out of No is that is where the majority of Yes’s come directly from. Sometimes, they say Yes when asked, sometimes No, depending on the circumstances. These people won’t vote No; not if they’ve ever said Yes.
What’s even nicer, is that when the DKs shift, it’s to Yes.
If it is a Yes vote then it will be the SNHS
I like to keep things simple, how about SHS, or simply HS since we will be independent and no longer have to explain ourselves.
When the USA became Independent, the invented a whole host of different phrases, words etc., much of which is evident to this day – all with the purpose of distancing themselves from British/English and English rule.
call me dave
I don’t have a posh avatar either. If I put my mind to it I could probably create some although I’m not very good at working at such a small scale. There are some really nice avatars on this forum.
I wonder if animated avatars are allowed? I fancy having an avatar that changes every 10 minutes. 😎
“Morag says:
I wonder what Stu’s plans are now for Wingsland Poll #2? He put it on hold when everybody and his budgie had a poll coming out, but that seems to have slackened off”
I think it’s important to use future polling to help inform our strategy, I’d suggest we structure the questions to give us information on how knowledge of things like who runs and funds NHS Scotland relate to which way a person is planning to vote. I suspect myself that there might be a correlation between “soft” No’s and a lack of understanding of the current relationship between Scotland and rUK.
Sorry no time to edit above.
I think we should all just keep referring to the ‘Scottish Health Service’ or ‘SHS’ in everyday conversation.
It may just catch on subliminally.
Why would anyone think that the Scottish NHS is under the umbrella of the UK NHS?
It would be a tad strange for Lamont and her pathetic minions to be attacking the SG if it weren’t their responsibility, now would it?
It’s a wonder that some folk have the intellect to scratch their hairy arses,
ss, You always cheer me up.
Nope. I was meaning Uk with an e.
All the Brit gangsters have a place in Spain, dontcha know? 🙂
Just got my 1st BT flyer through the door. Delight. Says, amongst other -ve nonsense, ‘ AS can’t guarantee what currency we should use. The leaders of the independence campaign say we should join the Euro or set up a separate currency.’? Anyhow. What do we think. Better to reply or better to not reply.
For die
Can’t you send it back for more info?
I think that they then incur postage charges.
For die
I think it costs Better Together if you reply so I would reply 🙂
PS Sods say they have sent millions of these things out and I never ever get one
For die – go on, reply to them – WE NEED ANSWERS !
Carrying on the topic of the poll, you do realise we’re going to have to do one on the 2015 UK General Election ?
Guarantee you that by next May if the polls are showing Cameron and Co to be in the lead, all UK wide polling will stop in an effort to restrict info to the Scottish electorate. The unionists can’t have the Scots going into the referendum with the knowledge that it’s going to be a tory UK government up until 2020.
So we’ll just have to do it !
It could’ve been the one about the guy who turns up at a fancy-dress party wearing nothing but y-fronts and a grin…
That was me once. Very short notice. 🙂
@ Ruby Tuesday – When you do the business with Gravatar as laid out in my Helpful Hints in Quarantine then any picture you choose is reduced to the acceptable size automatically. Suggestion – Simple and colourful is good.
Article on NNS pensions.
Again it’s all too technical overarching principles / justification.
Folk need down to earth stuff but that will be coming soon.
link to newsnetscotland.com
By the way, if anybody’s interested, I was talking to a friend at work who couldn’t make the march and he saw the staged BT leafleting session on RS. He says it was done at the bottom end of the Canongate, near the back of the parliament. He recognised the shops. Or so he said, I can’t place his description on Google Maps.
Carrying on the topic of the poll, you do realise we’re going to have to do one on the 2015 UK General Election ?
I have to say, a two-question pair asking which party you intend to vote for (a) if there is a Yes vote in 2014 or (b) if there is a No vote in 2014, might concentrate minds wonderfully.
Call me dave,
That’s a good authoritative article you highlighted on NewsnetScotland, regarding pensions. Written by a chartered accountant and lecturer at Edinburgh Napier Univ.
Ronnie,
I agree, regarding using the name ‘the Scottish health service’, which is what it used to be called, until Thatcher. We need politicians to stop using vanilla ‘NHS’, when they are talking about the NHS in Scotland. They need to make that clear distinction, because, like others, I have had people tell me I’m talking nonsense when I tell them the NHS in Scotland is and always has been completely separate to that in England. That is how brainwashed Scots are on such things.
Well to be fair we’re running out of animals we have whose numbers are LESS than the number of Tories at the present, Pandas, Koalas…… I think the number of unicorns is about the only thing we have less of than Tories!
Dragons!
handclapping says:
@Arbroath1320The list of those “killed” in our Great War will have gladened our hearts. Would you and your forecast site be able to give us the cast list for the upcoming horror story “Scottish Labour MPs 2015-2016?? I know it will star Gordon as the zombie and Ian Davidson and Willie Bain as the enforcers with Mags Curran as the love interest, but who else and what role?
HC, if you use this site you get the percentages from the 2011 Holyrood election.
link to scotlandvotes.com
Labour 31.7%
SNP 45.4%
Tory 13.9%
LibDem 7.9%
If you then input these figures into this site you will find out who survives, or rather does NOT survive from the list of MP’s who won in the Westminster G.E.
link to electoralcalculus.co.uk
I only picked a few names from the list of ‘fallers’ because I did not want to bore everyone to death. :D: Unfortunately some of our ‘favourite’ Labour MP’s survive. :(:
What I forgot to mention was that I left the selection on the 2010, 650 seat option.
If you use the same percentages from 2011 in the predictor for the Holyrood 2016 G.E. this gives us the same result as 2011.
link to scotlandvotes.com
I know it is rather late in the day, however I made a wee graphic to share to support the Rev’s article. 🙂
Ruby Tuesday
Love the Fingerbobs.
For all the younger folk who may have missed that cultural gem of the ’70s, and might be scratching their heads.
link to thechestnut.com
Personally think this is a great article Stu; very poignant throughout and thankyou for that. Cathy Murphy is a big girl and a Labour stalwart, she will need to live with the fall out of being used in such a crass way.
Britain, Britain, Britain, tamper with a flag its all so staged … if voters by this they deserve what they get.
Untill this conference I did not realise Labour classed folks from the Irish republic in along with Johnnie foreigner … well we’ve all learned something now. Wonder how Mags Curran feels about that ?
O/T “Im having withdrawl symptoms from the ‘plethora’ of anti independence polls we’ve just had ” … has no one got a fake ‘YES in the lead poll’ to sort out ma’ cravings man !!!
Just a thought … a pal said in the bloggs we should call next years march / rally for YES (or any march) the ‘8300 March’ just to acknowledge the Polis’ numbers before hand, a sort of homage to the crazy biased world we live in.
He thought it would be a coded way to have a go at the establishment and I think its quite a good dig.
4th August, next year, could be the best time for a Yes rally in Glasgow – we could have it at the Green, present zero interference to the official ceremony ‘up the road’, but make it so loud that it can’t possibly be ignored. All we need, on the day, is a favourable wind, and it’ll be unmissable.
Let’s face it – such an obscene ‘celebration’ will not pass without protest, so we’re as well doing it properly, peacefully, but as powerfully as we can.
The ‘2 o’clock’ rumpus on the day of Blair’s visit (to the Scottish Labour Conference in the SECC) springs to mind – they managed to spirit Blair out of Glasgow well-before then, but they won’t be able to re-jig something as formal as this:
link to gov.uk
Ianbrotherhood ;
Could this be the first ’8300 March’ ??
OK. Back it goes. 🙂
@Stewart Bremner-
Brilliant.
For die says:
OK. Back it goes.
Don’t forget to forget to put a stamp on the envelope! 😆
Thanks Arbroath1320.
Its definately a pantomime you’d not want to take the bairns to. We can add to the cast above Dougie Alexander as the other half of the love interest, Nash P and Doyle G as the Ugly Sisters, Frank and Lindsay Roy as the Ugly Brothers and Jim Murphy as the Skeleton. Chorus of ghosts, ghouls, expendible passers by – Russell Brown, James Sheridan, the cooncilor that won Inverclyde, Gregg McClymont, Tom Greatrex and Tom Clarke.
I’d want my money back. What a shower.
Neil Mac Gillivray 4:21pm
Did you see Lord George Foulkes being interviewed and saying the Milliband speech was the best leader’s speech he had ever heard in decades of Labour party conferences?
I have had it confirmed he missed the speach … he was too busy hoovering up peanuts offf the floor at the time.
Muttley79 6:31pm
Andrew Neil: British nationalism good
Scottish nationalism bad
I have it on good authority that if his ‘wig’ is not on right, he will babble out anything !
“Interesting that it was Michael Forsyth of all people who in the 97 health white paper proposed changing the name of NHS Scotland to the Scottish Health Service. Maybe Alex Neil should take up his suggestion?”
I hadn’t heard of that. It was Forsyth who originally demanded (early 1990s) that the Scottish Health Service be renamed The NHS in Scotland in order to create the illusion that there was a pan-UK national health service. The English NHS retained the title The NHS. The current “NHS Scotland” title was dreamt up by Malcolm Chisholm’s civil servants at the Health Department.
Forsyth has a wee bit of a problem with any association of the words “Scottish and “National”.
Incidentally, what is the betting that post independence he and Foulkes and the rest of the tartan lairdies try to set up a Scottish house of lords?
OT: Betfair came in a few weeks ago as being the complete outsider on odds and have progressively been shortening them ever since.
link to oddschecker.com
@ Seasick Dave – With regards to Avatars, I used to be able to hover over them and a caption would come up; alas this is no longer the case.
I did check :
The option to allow captions and bio’s when hovering over Gravatars is an option selected by the WordPress WebSite owner which in our case is Rev Stu. Personally I think it would be a distraction especially with hundreds of posts every day. Its hard enought at times to get through 3-400 posts without being diverted by bio’s.
Now some WordPress forums will allow bio’s to be shown on hover over the gravatar but in Wings Over Scotland its not the case. I am the messenger so if you disagree then speak with Rev Stu. 🙂
I see RT are running with a story this evening about the UK government forcing more residents of ascension island out, in order to make way for another US base on the island.
Good old Westminster, Experts in colonial destruction and domination since the dawn of time.
@Robert Louis
That’ll be the Yanks preparing to invade Nigeria for the oil.
OT: Betfair came in a few weeks ago as being the complete outsider on odds and have progressively been shortening them ever since.
link to oddschecker.com
I don’t understand odds. Could you walk me through this?
I listened to most of the speech and I couldn’t help squirming. He kept cracking ‘jokes’ that just weren’t funny. Were they all programmed to laugh beforehand?
O/T – I’m sure someone has probably posted this before, but in case some haven’t seen it (it was new to me).
Published on 13 May 2013
In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss what the currency of an independent Scotland would look like. Max argues that Bitcoin will force the banking system to reinvent itself or die — what’s more of an ‘invisible hand’ than a cryptologically secure and invisible currency? In the second half of the show, Max talks to Glaswegian comedian Frankie Boyle about Scottish independence, Boris Johnson, the mainstream media, being semi-banned from the BBC and how George Osborne’s ‘Help to Buy’ housing scheme is like eating toilet tissue while trapped in a loveless marriage caused by negative equity.
Forgot to say, there seems to be a ‘virus’ going about work, after the last two BBC TV debates.
Shocking symptoms … former don’t knows suddenly coming over all patriotic and reasoned about not voting Labour again. Convinced by audience comments ! Was thinking of letting MSM know … Britman first ?
Anybody got any ideas what this could be ?
@chic macgregor- inspired… 😉 good to see you again on Saturday
Great wee article here from ex-SNP, now independent MSP Jean Urquhart
link to opendemocracy.net
O/T
In case anyone hasn’t seen the Press TV (Iran) report on the rally, it’s here: 5.09 minutes of it.
link to youtube.com
Russia and Iran doubtless have their own reasons in giving coverage, but for the BBC national news to provide no footage at all suggests something deeply worrying – that the BBC is now so totally a pawn of the government that it will report no news that is potentially hostile to Britain.
Even in the days of the IRA, and even although it was decreed that republican views had to be voiced by actors, dissenting voices and opinions were covered. Now, there is silence.
I usually don’t hurt myself by listening to that awful Call Kay (with an E for England) programme, but after I had heard the usual nonsense that passes for news on Radio Scotland I left the station on. I spent just a minute or two listening to the programme then realised that something was happening. Milliband was getting pelters from the listeners. Nobody believed his baloney about freezing the utility company prices. Everybody thought that he was just another smarmy Tony Blair: another London Spiv.
I began to enjoy it. Maybe at last the folk are beginning to waken up.
But I won’t be making a habit of listening to the programme. It’s too awful.
@Morag Yes first nunber / No second number.
10/1 No is 10 times more likely to win
5/1 No is 5 times more likely to win
2/1 No is 2 times as likely to win
1/1 Evens an equal chance either way.
1/2 No is likely to lose (Expect terrorist attack!)
Kininvie : Listening to Big Country (King of Emotion) at the moment – Forgot How Magic Stuart Adamson was
Yeah heard the piece and it was more balanced than anything recent from BBC. It is ironic that we heve to seek coverage from Iran as its blanked by neighbours (shocking really).
Call Kay : missed this today but sounded like a it would have been good will check I player.
cheers
Next years march – how about ‘ let’s join the World ‘
@ianbrotherhood
I like the idea of a protest on Aug 4th. Don’t know if it would make a difference but I am ex Army so I can dig out my veterans badge and regimental gear. There are a lot of disillusioned ex forces out there.
Just thought I’d pass this on.
A very useful and easy to use archive view of the Labour Party’s LabourPress Tumblr website, which has only just started this month. Look up all your favourite Labour Party gasbags simply and without fuss –
LabourPress
Tumblr
link to labourpress.tumblr.com
@kininvie
I just watched the news item about Saturdays march and demo that you linked to. Thanks very much very informative. I just never guessed that one day I would get a fairer news item from Iran regarding Scotland than from the BBC. Iran FFS!
Here it is again if you haven’t watched it.
@TMITJ-
Cheers – it means a lot, coming from an ex-Army man. I’m not, so my views carry a lot less weight, but as Jiggsbro pointed-out (many moons ago, on another thread), Glasgow will be hosting this ‘event’ to see-off the Commonwealth leaders after the Games. I’m a Weegie, so feel entitled to get animated about this.
It seems a good opportunity to get the message through to those Commonwealth leaders, and a global audience, once and for all – Scotland is done with ‘Empire’: finished with the warmongering and exploitation it entails; done with pomp and prestige being used to disguise rampant greed; done with metropolitan careerists/speculators viewing us ‘provincials’ as useful idiots.
Many of those leaders present at Glasgow Cathedral will sympathise, and seek to emulate us in due course. It’s our chance to say a civilised ‘cheerio’ to the whole lot of them, and wish them well – if we can effect a bloodless separation from this parasite, then they can do it too.
It cannot, by any stretch, be described as a ‘celebration’. But it can help towards a sincere apology – thereafter, we’re out, making a new start whether anyone likes it or not.
London has exploited Scotland every bit as ruthlessly as it did any of the colonies – on a day when UKPlc uses our largest city to stage a cynical ‘remembrance’ of the desperate teenagers (who were/should’ve/could’ve been our grandfathers) they used as cannon-fodder, the very least we can do is take the opportunity to mark their gruesome passing by giving a final, globally-televised two-finger salute to John Bull and all he stands for.
Just watching Blighty Tonight (?) what is happening to STV ? Getting poorer and poorer and more UK based stories with each broadcast.
This is the best scrutiny of the subject …. Greatrex ? and another nobody commentator ? Talk about easy time. Again no interuptions noted during responses.
Starting to miss Yes campaign team being constantly interupted.
@CynicalHighlander, Morag
Not quite correct.
Odd for YES to win:
10/1 One chance in 11 = 9.09% chance
5/1 One chance in 6 = 16.67% chance
2/1 One chance in 3 = 33.33% chance
1/1 Evens an equal chance either way.
1/2 Two chances in 3 = 66.67% chance (Expect terrorist attack anyway!)
Current best odds are 9/2 (2 chances in 11 or 18.18%) with Stan James. I tried to put £50 on with them, but they would only accept £3.05, which is a complete joke and maybe tells you they’re running scared!
The Man in the Jar
Thanks for that link.
More in 5 minutes than the BBC Scotland has shown in months.
Morag
Betfair are at 19/5 which is slightly less than 4/1. It means that you win £19 on a £5 bet ie you get a return of £24 (£19 plus your £5 stake returned)
Betfair are the shortest but the odds have been coming in as they were generally 5/1 and 11/2 a few weeks ago. Ladbrokes are currently best at 9/2 (ie a £20 bet wins you £90 for a £110 return).
The bookies are susceptible to believing London spin as they did before the 2011 Scottish election and they lost a lot of money. These odds are ridiculously over generous on a YES vote. I’m putting a bet on every week.
I am slightly surprised at the breadth and ferocity of the attack against Miliband’s price freeze against energy companies. When someone like Neil Woodford refers to your policy as “economic vandalism” then you are in a bit of trouble.
link to telegraph.co.uk
Newsnicht technical fault ends show.
This slightly ruined Gordon Brewers attempt to imply independent Scotland’s renewable energy policy has been thrown into uncertainty by Ed Miliband’s proposed policy (the one that will never happen). Think maybe Gordon has got things round the wrong way and has lost sight of the entire UK’s energy strategy, regardless of independence, being thrown into uncertainty.
@ianbrotherhood
I am eight miles short of being a weegie (thankfully 😉 ) My late Dad was “Brigton” born in 1910 son of a weaver back when there were cotton mills on the Clyde. So kind of an honorary weegie also it is always “salt and vinegar” none of that salt n` sauce pish from the east.
To quote one of Glasgow’s best, John McLean in the context of WW1
“The trouble with the bayonet is, that it is a weapon with a working man at both ends”
Yep, the BBC in Scotland, the channel who’ll be providing indepth, unparalleled coverage of the biggest decision for Scotland in 300 years, can’t finish their already disjointed and amateurish Newsnight programme due to ‘technical difficulties’. Still, London was there to bail them out with their coverage of a yacht race.
Morag
Dave McEwan Hill
I have looked at the oddschecker site before, and I cannot understand the quoted odds. According to the yellow/green piechart, the money is approximately 60/40 in favour of YES, but the odds are heavily against.
I thought these sites reflected the volumes of money, not the bookies’ opinions – or have I missed something?
Hey, as far as I’m aware it is only Edinburgh and the surrounding parts that do sauce. Historically, it might be down to the rest of Scotland being too poor. 🙂
It was was certainly vinegar when I grew up in Dundee.
BTW, nice to me you TMITJ and share your Alex moment.
Rev Stu,
He said: “There must be no doubt that the referendum was fair and transparent and there were no barriers to voters or campaigners taking part.” – From BBC website
That is a quote from John McCormack of the electoral commission. The last 8 words may resonate with many of your recent posts regarding Yes campaigners having difficulties in local events.
@Morag
I suspect the Oddschecker 60/40 in favour of YES is in terms of number of bets, rather than actual weight of money. i.e. lots of £3.05 (lol) bets for Yes against a few insane £200,000 (BetterTogether (Taylor)) bets for No. Otherwise it makes no sense unless the bookies have swallowed the polls big style.
@CameronB
Aye nice meeting you and sharing the “Ice cold in Alex” moment back at the Albanach as well. 🙂
Shh! Rev. Stu is a salt n` sauce guy.
I still don’t understand a word of that. Presumably if they think No is going to win, they don’t want to attract money on to No anyway?
No, I really don’t understand it. I should maybe give up now.
@The Man in the Jar – “The trouble with the bayonet is, that it is a weapon with a working man at both ends”. John McLean at his best, a true socialist son of Scotland.
Im ex forces and Im sure there are thousands of ex forces Yes Voters might be a good idea to have the march in wegieland in opposition to their celebration of British Imperialism v Germany Imperialism. Maybe we should start a Vets for Yes group- Anybody interested?
(Im not interested in meeting up with old ex forces to talk about the old days only to
rub it into them that many people joined to the forces to get a job not to be a good Brit.)
BTW One of my friends has a theory that the Brits started the war to stop the final reading
of the Scottish home rule bill going through parliament. Ive asked some Germany friends what there take was on reason for the war starting and they like me, could not find a real reason. Anyway I think I will try and take this VETs for YES Idea forward will have a think
about it in the next few days…
(Maybe a facebook page or something to gauge interest if I can figure out how to set it up!
Vets for Yes? I like it! 😉
(Morag, MRCVS)
@Gordoz – Totally agree, STV have caught up with BBC in their anti-independence bias. Must be something to do with Pacific Quay.
Jamed Kay
The odds initially are set on the bookies’ judgement and should change as cash comes in on the various possible outcomes. The bookies operate out of the London bubble and they will be affected by London spin on this referendum issue. It is not unlikly that they willalso be asked to provide odds that helps the Better Together campaign as the bookmaking industry is very keen to ingratiate themselves at all time with government and the government takes huge revenue from the bookies. There is a shared interest.
Bookies also manipulate odds regularly. A beaten favourite is their best result.
If they can make a runner they know is about to be beaten the favourite that is what they will do.
Do not for one minute believe that cash bets alone determine odds.
They were offering 11/2 an SNP victory in 2 011 up to weeks before our landslide and lost a lot of money – presumably because they believed the political spin they were hearing.
There have been a couple of wobbles recently. I think they are receiving mixed messages. There are virtually no bets on NO and a continued flow of bets on YES which contradicts the information they are being given. Ladbrokes took their odds down for a while but a succession of bollocks opinion polls means they have them up again.
Get your money on now. These odds won’t last .
BTW I worked with William Hills many years ago and also did rails bookmaking for a number of years in Africa so I have a fair grasp of the issue
Bill C
I heard there’s a virus going round.
I’ll get ma coat.
@Morag
The want to attract money to both sides. Best way to understand it is on something like a toss of a coin. The odds on heads or tails should be even money, expressed as 1/1. However a bookie will only offer 5/6 on either outcome.
Now a bet of £100 @ 5/6 will pay out winnings of £83.33 and the bookie will pocket the losing £100 bets leaving him a profit of £16.67 whatever happens.
Over a large number of bets the bookie can’t lose (if he gets the odds right most of the time).
Jingly jangly & Morag.
Was there not a vets for independence banner on Saturday’s march?
I’m sure I saw it in one of the videos, sorry can’t remember which one at the moment.
In terms of starting the war jj I’ve always held the view that it was Queen Victoria’s grandkids who started WWI. The Tzar (he actually married one of Victoria’s grand daughters), the Kaiser and British King were all cousins. This puts WWI in the ‘family feud’ shelf as far as I’m concerned.
Farming for Yes, that would be.
I’ve found this, think it might help you jj.
link to causes.com
link to facebook.com
link to twitter.com
Hope it helps. :D:
The bookies will probably be affected by the polls and the London-centric absolute certainly that it’s all just a stupid idea and will never happen. They’re also probably being told, or thinking, that all these cybernats and mad Braveheart addled, shortbread-tin nationalists up there in North Britain must be skewing the odds by going out getting rat-arsed on Buckfast then forgetting after 6 choruses of Flower of Scotland that they’ve already bet 7 times on nationalism to win, so putting on another one. So they’ll maybe be adjusting for that effect if they think the Yes bets look a bit on the high side given the absolute certainty of no winning.
They may find themselves as stung as the metropolitan elites may be surprised on September 19th 🙂
I hope the penny is finally dropping about how bias STV have become. Trust none of them. On Scotland Tonight they had an item about free school meals and would the SNP give it to all primary 1,2 and 3 school children, They were insinuating that the Scottish Government were going to spend the money on something else, therefore making them out to be the big evil bad guys. The Scottish Government don’t even know the amount of money they will receive from Westminster for it yet. They have not debated the subject yet. It was another example of the change that has came over STV. They don’t interview anyone to rebutt them anymore, they just quote what someone said. They could save a fortune in electricity bills by closing down the STV building and just move in with their neighbours at BBC Scotland. No one would notice any difference.
Arbroath 1320
Thanks for the links, I just read the following comment on one of them:
When Scotland gains its independence after the forthcoming referendum, the remainder of the United Kingdom will be known as the Former United Kingdom (F.U.K.).
In a bid to discourage the Scots from voting ‘Yes’ in the referendum, LibDems have now begun a campaign with the slogan: “Please Vote No For FUK’s Sake!”.
Dave McEwan Hill
Thanks for your explanation. Bookies’ opinions it is, then.
On the few occasions I go to the bookies, I tend to bet against my hopes (example – I put my money on England to win the last World Cup). This way, if my hopes are dashed, then at least I get some financial return.
i will not, however, be betting on a NO win next year!
Off topic:
Just made a quick tally of comment total of last ten articles – 2405.
Wings soaring indeed how are webstats looking REV?
“Wings soaring indeed how are webstats looking REV?”
Healthy 🙂
Noticed that William Hague was wining and dining with Sri Lankan nobs last night. Will we have to put up with these war criminals at the commonwealth games?
I notice no one has asked who payed for the treatment as I am sure most people would be shocked to learn that the bill would’ve been sent to NHS Glasgow, which apparently is customary for treating anyone from a different NHS the cost of any treatment will be recovered from the patients local NHS.
gordoz says
“I have had it confirmed he missed the speach … he was too busy hoovering up peanuts offf the floor at the time.”
Whit wi?
his mooth?
CameronB, vineager and brown sauce, the real Better Together by the way 🙂
” “Please Vote No For FUK’s Sake!”.”
fuk no I mean yes
@Sneddon
Don’t forget the salt; salt, sauce (brown) and vinegar… aah Bisto!
Arbroath 1320
Cheers, what about all the ex services yessers attending the “celebration” in Glasgow
with their Saltire and Yes banners!!!
STV has totally sickened me with that short item on Monday evening that covered the opening of the Maggie centre in Aberdeen. It was opened by both the Queen of Norway and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.
STV completely ignored any mention of the Queen of Norway and didn’t show her in any of their film clips. All they did was talk about Camilla and showed her faffing about.
STV has obviously been got at by the British State.
@Cath
” I never listen to BBC Scotland or Call Kaye and from reading about it never will as I fear it would raise my blood pressure. But that sounds positive this morning. Perhaps even our useless BBC might begin to wake up to how out of touch they are.”
They don’t care, Cath, and why should they? Their business model is quite unique. If you don’t pay them, you can’t access their competitors’ products. It’s like paying Tesco for permission to shop at Lidl.
I don’t pay for any of it. That gives me freedom of choice, better quality and the pleasure of watching the BBC and its servants scurry around trying to extort £145.50 from me, without a leg to stand on. As time passes, I’m sure they’ll provide me with the opportunity to stick more pins in them for harassment.
@Gaavster
Thanks and it was good to see you again too.
Good article as well BTW.
Thanks Archie (not Erchie) You have a nice avatar. I would probably choose something like the one the ‘Daugher of the Evil Reindeer’ has although I have no idea what symbol I would use.
CameronB says: Fingerbobs! I didn’t know that is what they were called. Finger puppets are still around. Lots on sale in Ikea. Perfect for politician’s pointy finger.
scaredy cat: I saw that Max Kaiser video a couple of months ago. Totally brilliant. I loved the bit where he says Scotland will come down here and buy Buckingham Palace, they’ll but Westminster, they’ll buy Oxford Street, they’ll buy it all.
Bitcoin sounds interesting but I don’t fully understand how it works but then I don’t really know how any currency/economy works so I’ll have to rely on Wings posters to keep me right vis-a-vis currency etc.