The case for Yes in six words
Posted on
November 26, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
If you don’t have time to read 170,000:
“Xmas dinner at the food bank”. The best of both worlds, there. Sleep well.
Shock followed by despair followed by anger. I feel the same
Indeed.
ooohhh the majestic glory of the union…(heavy sarcasm implied)
Twas Christmas day in the workhouse
and the four grey walls were bright,
with garlands of green holly and the place was a pleasant sight.
And with clean washed hands and faces in a long and hungry line the paupers sat at their tables, for this was the hour that they dined.
Scotland 2013
It’s a fecking disgrace! Best of both worlds my arse! These people have no shame! They turn up to open these things and then defend the government that helped to create them! Scum!
Six foot two and twenty stone.
I burst into tears when I saw that tweet today.
How come we are all meant to be so much better off than in the 70’s / 80’s etc when food banks didn’t exist and yet they are multiplying at an enormous rate in the past couple of years. I think it is so the DWP can stop peoples benefit for no good reason and then direct them to food banks so at least they don’t starve.
As I said in the other post, soul-destroying.
This is 2013, not 1853, FFS!
Vote No for more of this.
Vote YES for a more progressive, more fair Scotland!
The case for the Union is all around us. Better Together doesn’t have to publish a white paper.
ITV news what a load of tosh, that’s it as well as not paying my licence fee im boycotting anybody that advertises with ITV.
Have just tweeted about ITN’s utterly ludicrous obsession with Salmond. It was Salmond’s plan for this, his assertion of that. Apparently we are indeed a nation in thrall to The Great Eck – the man who does all, writes all, commands all and, of course, lies through his teeth. I suggest we think again about concentrating our fire entirely on the BBC …
Where is the food bank ?
Where do I take the toys?
“Where is the food bank ?
Where do I take the toys?”
Click the pic to get to the tweet, which has the link to the site.
I thought the ITV News was a bit Salmond-fixated too and the same old shite about Europe and the BoE from the Brussels and London correspondents. At least they showed a couple of Yessers in Clackmannan.
i get the impression the Aberdeen interviews were ‘tactically edited’.
Just watched the ITV new to see what their take was on todays events. They made the BBC look quite neutral, which is no mean feat.
Almost wish I was paying them something so I could cancel it.
Better together, eh?
Noo if i hud john harveys sling wi me the day ah could hiv put in a couple of the Bbc window s the day ,being at the science centre, jist across the road,
Nice to meet the Wee Folding bikeman,at Airdrie station, Gavin of Gavins blog, the guys from Renfrew bedroom tax protesters, I have no idea as to why the Atos objectors we re there, megaphone mooth, calling on Nicola S ( nowhere in site ) to sack ATOS, Gavin ,Myself asked the question why they bwere there as it is not a devolved matter, I thing they were BT ers , eyes wide open, ears shut
Even Scotland tonight is at it, they have just shown the three oppositions parties saying that the child care policy could be implemented now, when clearly it cannot as all the taxes would go to Westminster at present, and they did not show Nicola sturgeon answering this point.
Clearly the intent is to mislead.
Michael Kelly said it best in the Scotsman in January:
With a No win little is going to change. Right here, right now you can see the kind of country we are going to be living in. No use kidding on that there is going to be some great dramatic change.
And that’s why I’m voting Yes.
Complaints to ITV should go to 0207 833 3000 (Newsdesk) or been emailed to viewersservices@itv.com
Looks to me like Rona on Scotland Tonight is actually asking Darling some of the obvious questions. He said he has been quoted out of context when he made the currency union being desirable comment
Alistair Darling doesn’t half talk some pish.
FCUK the Union.
Dorothy, They have a facebook page:
link to facebook.com
It’s shocking. And sad.
Excellent repost from George Kerevan on Currency issue
link to newsnetscotland.com
Anyone who thinks that ITV and their northern franchise outpost STV are any better than the state broadcaster should look at the contributions of Tom Bradby and Laura Kuenssberg on their blogs today. Nick Robinson would be proud. In fact so would Glen Campbell.
STV tonight – 3 impartial academics ?
Profesor James Mitchell – Xmas is more important ? Christ this is an academic ?
Woman Economist – has a feel of a manifesto about it. englands balance of payments issue has been overplayed -all bluff and gusto. Its all about debt, dept, debt.
Ripping up the United Kindom blah, blah, blah
Jesus STV is it against the law to get 2 from each side everytime or is is beyond your competence ? Shameful crap.
Rona dropped the ball again – asked Darling a question about the Better together manifesto – he blathered and ranted about the White Paper and she meekly thanked him for the interview – FAIL!
Holy jesus, the ‘undecided’ voters on Scotland Tonight talking about the ‘more powers’ illusion after a No vote as if it was a given. You’d almost think they’d been given a script.
Watching the two don’t knows from last nights programme being asked if they have heard anything today that would make them change their minds – they both say no but it seems to me from what they say they are Yes they just haven’t realised it yet.
What is it about people that want ‘more powers’ but not all of the powers?
You can see what has been holding Scotland back over the years.
To lighten up the mood here a wee bit – I was inspired by James Kelly to attempt a wee poem:
The Ballad Of Scotland’s Future
‘Twas 2013, the 26th of November
A day that all cybernats will surely remember
When all the world’s press did assemble and enter
The theatre at the very high-tech Glasgow Science Centre
The hacks and the reptiles, with very little urging
Were gathered to listen to Mr Salmond and Ms Sturgeon
The purpose behind this very strange caper
Was to listen to the details of Scotland’s independence white paper
There were many whose faces we could see
Who were very famous because they are on the BBC
And other distinguished gentlemen of the press
Like the Guardian, the Telegraph and not forgetting the Express
They sat in their rows, faces stoney and stark
While Mr Salmond made his opening remarks
And after 5 minutes of the opening session
The floor was thrown open for them all to ask questions
The enquiries were fierce and mostly polite
Only Cochers and Toenails and Severin talked shite
And though the britnat mainstream media the mic they did keep
From the rest of the world’s journalists there was not a peep
Eventually it all had to end
The press had their tweets, blogs and copy to send
As they had to agree the Scottish Government did win it
They decided that what was important just was not in it.
With apologies to William Topaz McGonnagall
Nice one but who is Toenails?
I’ve posted here once or twice saying that I think the Finnish MSM (including our national broadcaster YLE) is pretty OK. Seems better than the pish you get in Scotland/UK.
Then I’ve thought that maybe I’m just being “patriotic” and/or naive.
Apparently not. Reporters Sans Frontières seem to agree. Their Press Freedom Index ranks Finland first.
link to en.wikipedia.org
You have to scroll down quite a bit to get to the UK.
Click on the map right in the beginning to show that the UK is only “satisfactory” compared to “good” achieved by the Nordic countries, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, Namibia, and Germany and nearly all her neighbouring countries.
The UK press, including the BBC, have nothing to be so proud and arrogant about!
When I was a bairn I went to some of these “Partys” as the result of living in children’s homes or staying with foster parents. I was always embarrassed about myself and knew that the “gifts” were only pity. I hated that.
I grew up in Easterhouse, Carntyne and Govan, great places, I thought as a child, now I know the reality for most.
I won’t go into it all but by the age age 17 I was in a detention centre for police assault, but by the age of 29 I had a degree in engineering and have never looked back.
It embarrasses me to post this on an open forum but if, as I believe other children’s lives will be changed for the better by voting Yes then we all must work as hard as we can.
Never give up! Never give in!
I dried my eyes from tearful shame,
and gritted teeth, growl never again.
When a child in Scotland goes hungry
we know who to blame.
Vote ‘YES’ in September 2014
I’m baffled…..
Alistair Darling says he can’t see how either side could agree to the ‘straight jacket’ of a currency union…..
It’s too complicated, what with one interest rate set by a Central Bank, but with either side allowed to vary tax rates and both sides having a veto over each other budgets.
But isn’t Devo Max, well it’s …..one interest rate set by a Central Bank, but with either side allowed to vary tax rates ?
In fact, barring us not having the right to veto the Westminister budget, whats the real difference ?
So if currency union under independence, as Darling keeps telling us is unworkable or unlikely…….doesn’t that mean logically that the form of currency union offered under Devo Max is also undeliverable and unlikely?
I thought if we voted No, we got more powers ? But hasn’t Darling just shot the Devo Fox as well ???
On a serious point, I think this is a bit of strategic brilliance by Salmond & co…..after all what can the Unionist now offer us by way of additional powers that we haven’t already been offered by the White Paper ?
One of my fears was what was trailed at the weekend by Lord Purvis would appear if the polls swung towards YES and kill the momentum….You know I think the SNP have just taken the Devo Max ground away from them without the Unionists noticing.
I was always embarrassed about myself and knew that the “gifts” were only pity. I hated that.
There’s so much wrong there I don’t know where to start.
Pity is a huge, positive overwhelming good thing. “Only” is not word that should appear in front of it.
You can call it pity if you want. You can also call it love. Love in one of its purest forms. Kindness. Don’t knock it.
@thepnr
Excellent post, and nothing to feel embarrased about, we all have stories to tell and baggage to carry. It’s what we do with the experience that matters.
O/T just watching the newsnicht and STV special and I am totally depressed that all the talking heads are going on about is money and England… fekk all about JT’s bairns.
The bbc, stv and the MSM in 21st century Scotland exhibit all the traits of neo-colonization – the power of propaganda that promotes austerity over hope and a future for our country. This time it won’t work!
I hope aw those Proud Scots are reading this shite! I’m ashamed and embarrassed that this is happening in my country.
Was just looking at a clip on Newsnet of Gordon Brewer interviewing Alastair Darling. Darling insisted that currency union ultimately leads back to political union, which is what we have now, so no point in changing it. By that logic, can we expect that all countries using the Euro will now give up their sovereignty and become one big country? Can’t see it myself. Think he might be talking crap as usual.
So when will the intrepid journos start pointing this out?
Can all of you who still pay the BBC Licence fee please stop from today.
NO PAYMENTS TILL INDEPENDENCE!!
They’ve had their chance,
and STV are NO BETTER, they’ve just been harder to get at.(from the spooks perspective)
😉 No of course I don’t believe that goes on….
Look at India, Kenya, Ireland, etc etc etc
Morag
I get you but what I felt was Shame. I didn’t want anybodies pity because don’t be mistaken that cannot be compared to Love.
I don’t know what to say. Gifts given in kindness to make a child happy for a moment. So should people stop giving?
Reading that Tweet and the very well fed Blair MacDougall appears on STV+1…compare and contrast says it all
Morag
You don’t get it and I doubt if you ever will, because you have to be there. I’m talking of things from more than 40 years ago so for me now it’s no big deal. I have 2 children both with degrees.
The point is an opportunity to get a degree was never an option for someone from Easterhouse or Govan. Now it is only because we have a Scottish Government who wishes it to be so.
You completely missed the point of my original post and to spell it it out for you is that “happy parties” for the underprivileged is no way to go about it no matter how much the benevolent donate.
The children going to these parties are not stupid are mainly are ashamed that the “presents” come from charitable donations. They just want family.
There was so much wrong with your post I didn’t know where to start.
@Thepnr, thanks for sharing your story, it was very moving and very impressive what you have managed to do with your life since then.
Thanks to the Rev Stu for all the articles that have been shared, today and over the past few months and years so that to many of us, as Rev Stu says, that much of the White Paper reads like a blander version of what has already been published here already, as we are already onside.
I’ve read most of the White Paper and lot of opinion pieces today and have just caught up with Wings now. Lots of good, exciting and interesting stuff, but it all boils down to this really doesn’t it? I agree completely with Rev Stu and all the previous posters, the fact that foodbanks and toy donations are needed in Scotland today is totally unacceptable.
I would willingly pay £1000 more a year in taxes to stop this appalling situation happening in future and so would many people who are planning to vote yes. But i don’t that’s think something these Westminster politicians will never, ever understand, they have no moral compass, no compassion and no shame.
Cindie
Thepnr, we’ll just have to disagree. So better not to give to the appeal then.
I’m thinking it was only 36 years ago when I used to take my lab partner home to Easterhouse after late parties at Uni, when I had borrowed my Dad’s car. She was a medical student taking 2 years out of her degree to get a BSc in biochemistry as well. She was absolutely brilliant. And she lived in Easterhouse. Stayed at home and travelled to Gilmorehill by bus every day.
Govan. Friend I’ve just been on holiday with lived there all her life – still in council house she was born in. She got a BSc from Glasgow Uni in 1976 too.
Full grants were a wonderful thing, in the 1970s.
I would willingly pay £1000 more a year in taxes to stop this appalling situation happening in future and so would many people who are planning to vote yes.
Well yes. But I don’t get this. Why is that thought not “only charity” and so to be rejected with shame?
Post at 12:36
That is so condescending. We might both support Yes but we are very far apart in our attitudes and possibly our beliefs.
Condescending? You said it was impossible to get a degree if you were from Govan and Easterhouse 40 years ago. Manifestly untrue. It’s possible/probable it was easier then, with full grants.
You imply that we shouldn’t give toys to the food bank because it’s “only charity” and the children will be made to feel bad because of the gifts.
Pity.
Rev, yir right, those six words say mair than 170,000 ever could. An I tell yie another thing, I don’t know aboot the rest o the punters on here, but I ken I won’t sleep too well the nite.
condescending:
having or showing an attitude of patronizing superiority
Readers can make their own minds up.
@morag
I think the point is that charity is never a substitute for love. I’ll leave at that, but you can take it into a wider political context if you will:
Give NOTHING to food banks, they are IMMORALLY repugnant.
An Independent Scotland’s goal is that they will not exist.
Steve bell and the Cif hordes really need to be taken out into a field and shot. racist english cunts the lot of them.
Moray, I agree with what you write here almost all the time, but you are so far off the mark in your posts about pity and charity here that you are almost incomprehensible. I recommend you just shut up about this subject.
@Thepnr, 11.47
Powerful stuff, thank you for sharing it with us all WoSsers.
What I got from your brief story is hope in the face of adversity, and the possibility of a better future. Glad you’ve turned your life around, maybe Scotland will, too, after 2014.
And I understand the point about “pity-presents”. There were a couple of Christmases when my (basically middle-class) parents were very strapped for cash and I only gor five Xmas presents. A pretty pencil. A novelty rubber (eraser). A pad of pretty paper. A set of 12 pastel crayons. The big present came from my auntie: a Lego castle, to be shared with my brother. I know my auntie meant well but there was always something a bit embarrassing about the castle’s yellow lego bricks even years down the line. Didn’t stop us from playing/building with the bricks, though.
Kids even back then could discern “second-hand” toys, and they’ll be even more discernable nowadays, and feel ashamed that they don’t have the newest toys and gadgets and thingies. That’s consumer society for you.
I long for the days when kids made their own toys out of pine cones and sticks… I and my friends sometimes did that, as a joke (we had plastic toys at home). Anyway, imagination is the best plaything.
If we vote yes in 2014 I hope that if only one thing changes it would be that food banks would be made irrelevant.
In the 21st century there is no place for these pieces of Victorian workhouse charity.
I’m especially glad to see that free tuition will remain as an investment in the countries future.
I will admit to only reading the summary but even if I hadn’t those six words would have confirmed my decision to vote yes.
PS I always thought of myself as right wing before and I don’t agree with everything that’s posted here but the majority of pieces are well written and touching a cord
@lumilum
Why did it take a Finn to see what I was getting at.
Being brought up in the most deprived area of the UK in the early 1960’s certainly did not guarantee you a university position but much more likely a cell in Barlinnie.
This is exactly what happened to me as a BOY, fortunately though one taste was enough and since that debacle I turned things around.
Opportunity for our youngsters is the key, not despair. We need to provide the jobs to do that and that means rebuilding from scratch the industry the the Tories destroyed.
Shipbuilding is a perfect example, and why should oil platforms destined for OUR sector of the North Sea be built in Italy (as happened this year) or even worse the Middle East which is happening NOW.
The Westminster Governments only look at the bottom line for THEIR banks not the jobs for the people. Get Wise. Vote Yes.
I’d already brushed my teeth and gone to bed but couldn’t sleep for Morag’s comments @ 11.56
Pity is a huge, positive overwhelming good thing. “Only” is not word that should appear in front of it.
You can call it pity if you want. You can also call it love. Love in one of its purest forms. Kindness.
I don’t want to start any sort of a war here but I deeply disagree with Morag. Pity is not love or kindness. It’s condescending, it’s patronising, and it’s degrading to the recipient. It’s a subtle form of control, an assertion of superiority, and self-aggrandisment on the part of the “pitier”.
Who would want to be pitied? To be pitiful?
No-one.
Because pity takes away dignity and self-worth, reduces the recipient to an object, not a subject.
I can pity an injured animal but when I saw the horrific devastation after typhoon Hayan, I didn’t pity the people. I felt shock and compassion. I was moved to donate to a well-trusted charity. Not because I pitied those Phillipine people, or loved them, or felt any particular kindness towards them, but because I could see their need and I was in a position to help a little bit by donating a bit of money. Compassion and common sense.
I reserve my pity to people like Blair McDougall, who really is pitiful. And no love or kindness there, mind.
@ Annie – thank you, Toenails was the nickname for the BBC’s Nick Robinson when he was so far up the arse of Alistair Campbell and the Downing Street media that all that was visible was …
Morag read lumilumi description of pity. You have to live it to know it.
I would love to see this eradicated in Scotland. We don’t need pity or charity in Scotland just the freedom to control our own affairs.
Thepnr
I wish in no way to appear let alone be condescending, only to say simply this.
I admire your turnaround from so easily once to have been written off, not because of your low expectations, but because typecast undeserving of the success you have undoubtedly been and thro’ that an example to all that there is no inevitability about failure bar the failure not to accept that.
Freedom is self-responsibility. Irresponsibility – even youthful thoughtlessness [not thinking of you at all kos don’t know] – is a slippery slope to prison, primarily for the have nout to fall back on. Whatever, prison is mostly a waste of everyone’s time & money far best spent on.
Back to you if you have the time. Who and what apart from you helped you turn the hand dealt you round, accepting that we all are conditioned to accept madness to be considered sane in Wastemidden’s phantasy realms.
Keith MM
I have been on a similar journey to Thepnr, although not involved with police etc I ended up at rock bottom.
Once I climbed out (against all odds) I began to help others in the same circumstances.
My first talk to any clients were always the same:
In my dictionary Sympathy is next to syphilis, and of the two of them, it would be better for you, if I gave you the syphilis, because you can get a cure for that.
When you are rock bottom, you don’t need sympathy or pity, as this keeps you in the place where you are. what you need is someone to show you the path out of your situation.
I agree 100% with Thepnr, but lets not be too harsh on Morag as she is simply viewing things from her own learned experience, and thankfully she hasn’t had to endure the journey into darkness that others have.
Patrick Roden,
Rather than received/dinned into wisdom, were we all
to examine the case for YES to sovereign self-governance
in a re-negotiated union of our isle’s families, friends & fellow folk
in a family of friendly nations, and base that examination on our
own experience, then – if we each knew our own selves first & foremost – ‘twould be a walkover.
But as long as folk are happy to read guff confirming their prejudices – rather than ur informed preferences [ok ok, so we all think our prejudices are informed preferences], we’re gonna be fcUKed.
You will have noticed of course that the key word is “informed”.
Hence, it is the “informed” of both truth and lies that is the win-win way to YES.
How many open unanswered letters from constituents to their (sic) sitting party representative at Brussels, Wastemidden or Holyrood, do you think it might take in our game they’ve self-sidelined themselves from – especially when we, all the people in our Isles are doing it deliberately behind their backs already so they subject whilst we true citizen to our law – have no idea wtf is going on bar a warming collar from what has to be our law if it is not to be dictatorial else?!
(or “?!” if you like)
Keith MM
Listen if you will. I’ll let you know I cried typing that first post.
Lessons in life. “I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.”
I don’t particularly want to get into an argument, but I really despise those kinds of saccharine platitudes Weedeochandorris, firstly because faux-positivity doesn’t actually help people in desperate situations(Patrick has the right of this point – people in trouble need to be shown ways out, not have people sloganing at them), and secondly because, like yours, they’re almost always counterfactual.
In fact, what we “choose to become” is a direct result of “what happened to [us]”; human behaviour is a function of genetic predisposition combined with learned experience, and denying that leads inexorably down a path towards the kind of “up by your own bootstraps”, “poverty is a failing of character” thinking that characterises the atrocious behaviour of Westminster politicos and our rabid press.
I’ll also have to echo Thepnr’s sentiments about pity; pity isn’t about its object, pity is about the ego of the one “giving” it – even the language of pity reinforces that concept; “you have my pity”, as if it is some great gift for one person to bestow upon another. It most certainly does not feel like a gift when you’re on the receiving end, the only response it prompts is shame, and that’s the last thing you want to feel when you’re in a vulnerable position.
Because we live in a neo-liberal capitalist shitehole, charity is an unfortunate necessity, but where charity is necessary it should be regarded as exactly that and carried out as dispassionately as possible.
Wow – was half-asleep, turned on the radio, and they were doing a newspaper review, must’ve been 6.10 or so.
Okay, they’re reading headlines and wee snippets, but the overall effect was just appalling – anyone who didn’t know what was happened yesterday would be forgiven for thinking that we’re on the brink of apocalypse.
It’ll be interesting to see if they moderate it at all as the morning goes on, but if that’s typical of the general MSM tack being taken then we’re in for a long day folks…
Morag, you are making petty points about Thepnr’s real life experience and what he feels about it.
There are two sides of a coin – the giver is giving out of pity but the receiver is acutely aware of his helplessness in having to receive charity.
With independence, we want to get rid of this poverty and helplessness in Scotland.
I would prefer to be poorer in an independent Scotland than ever again be called a scrounger or subsidy junky, of which I am neither.
The Sun
“Eck to the Future”
risible parody of back to the future,
without Eck the workhouse is our future
the problem with the naysayers is that life has become so terrible under the Tories that they cannot see another way.
What? is every other country in the world going through austerity comparable with the 19th century, no there are countries around the globe who didn’t even have a recession?
its almost as if these people are throwbacks to the flagellants and are absolutely convinced the treatment being meted out by the Tories is Gods punishment being visited on us for our Sodom and Gomorra behaviour and it is something we just have to bear with fortitude , and one day soon our masters will decide we’ve been punished enough and relent,
but what those people forget the greed and the dreadful behavior was not ours but greedy bankers who caused this recession but the innocent are the ones paying the penalty,
why doesn’t the msm grow a pair and start attacking the real enemy the corporations who treat workers like dirt and find themselves above such things as paying taxes, no they leave that to ordinary mortals, I’m looking at you Amazon!
Maybe if those idiots had ACTUALLY read the white paper they would have started to see that with a simplified tax system EVERYONE, people AND companies WILL be expected to contribute their fair share and no exceptions, the costing of the white paper becomes clear that with everyone pulling their weight the aspirations are a real possibility,
As has been said before 100% of a 20% corporation tax is infinitely better than 0% of a higher rate , I genuinely believe there are companies in the world who react favorably to a straight talking government who do exactly what they say and will happily pay their share in the knowledge their not about to get shafted, if that were not the case, then how on earth do Sweden Norway and Denmark attract inward investment in what is seen as high tax societies?
The trouble with people in the UK is that we have been treated like shite for so long we behave like whipped curs and cannot accept there REALLY ARE good people out there who will not abuse us, the old refrain (and I’ve had it said to me in defence of their stance on a no vote) “their all the bloody same”
NO THEIR BLOODY WELL NOT and the trouble is they don’t even see the irony in that stupid comment, its a lazy thing to say and justifies their not even engaging with the campaign , (hell bloody mend them),
I was so angry at that bloody woman on stv last night who had been a panel member of undecideds who came back on with the Asian guy to give the ordinary persons take on the white paper, and her attitude was obvious that she was persuadable but in spite of the white paper she said, “we need answers” WHAT?
while people like her fart about worrying if well have cats eyes on our roads were being taken to the cleaners DO THEY NOT SEE THIS?
The real level of ignorance among really quite intelligent people scares me,
Its all I can do not to scream into the faces of people at work who say its not financially viable were twtpts to WAKE THE HELL UP.
Criag says
“I would prefer to be poorer in an independent Scotland than ever again be called a scrounger or subsidy junky, of which I am neither.”
I remember back in 1980 or so being out of work and the EEC was offloading their beef mountains butter,cheese and so on and local organisations were tasked with handing out the bounty to local deserving poor, and the sting of shame to have to queue up for tins of mince, beef ,etc was hard to take, but I had to do it, I had 2 kids (soon to be 3 ) to feed, I didn’t have the luxury of pride, and to be handed these things by my own uncles (who pretended they didn’t know me) will never leave me.
Thepnr
“Listen if you will. I’ll let you know I cried typing that first post.”
Been there done that,
its surprising when you relive the difficult moments of your past just how emotionally draining it was even though at the time you just bore your circumstances with fortitude but when you look back and write it down the tears flow unbidden,
places like Wings and people like you allow a catharsis to be had,
you have no idea how much your words resonated with me.
Lamont on GMS right now – another belter of a transcription job for some hardy soul.
“Xmas dinner at the food bank”
With Danny Alexander and all the yellow tories like Carmichael grinning away in the backround like despicable ghouls.
Morag – your comments about love, pity and charity are way off beam. Please calm down and reread the original post from Thepnr – the main point of which, i think, was that Scotland used to be a place of hope and opportunity where it was just about possible, with hard work and determination, to use one’s natural intelligence to ‘rise above’ (awful phrase but can’t think of another).
I’m voting Yes in the hope that the route out of poverty becomes visible and do-able again.
I was speaking to a few hospital consultants about independence yesterday, unfortunately they were dead against indepe denve/, not because of being Britnats. But because of two things
1) just how awful much of the talent is in holyrood, Johann Lamont was used as an example .
2) The yes campaign cannot give definitive answers on currency and EU and therefore they could never vote yes based on this uncertainty.
I argued my points and they were largely in agreement but really were just focussed on the short term inconvience and potential disaster of non EU membership and currency issue, The unionists and media have been very clever but wholly dishonest and I fear that the white paper not answering these things definitively will sway very little people. I think there is still too much apathy and not enough interest in properly researching the topic.
Macdoc
Its sad, really, in light of this thread, that the consultants are more concerned about EU membership than they are about the fact that an oil rich nation like Scotland has to hand out food and toys.
Possibly, over the next few months, they will take a hard look at the situation and realign their priorities.
If the EU is such a concern, then they had better vote Yes as there is a good chance that England will vote No to EU membership. Can you imagine the EU barring one of the richest countries in Europe from having membership?
Norway. Child poverty 0% and falling.
Scotland. In some areas child poverty 50% and rising.
Great job westminster. We really need your management skills.
Like a hole in the head.
@ Macdoc
Dont worry too much as your consultant types as they do extremely well at the moment and are bound to be resistant to risking that and for major upheaval. These aren’t the types who will decide this, as I think it will be won on the schemes and estates where there are people who have nothing to lose and for whom the UK has failed.
@Thepnr
Thanks for sharing your early life experiences with us. Powerful stuff.
@Morag
I just can’t work out your logic sometimes. Thepnr felt now was the right time to tell others about a tough aspect of his childhood, which, as he subsequently agreed with, couldn’t have been easy for him. You then go off on one, dissing the man for not being appreciative of the gifts received. Bizarre, really. Sometimes it looks like you are setting out to delberately antagonize people. The question is, why?
Thepnr,
Just read your original post. I get your point!
Morag,
You said you had a friend who lived in Easterhouse & went to uni? Great, I have friends & colleagues who are gay but I don’t profess to know or understand the complexities of it.
You may well have had friends in Govan or Easterhouse who went to uni but even in places like these their is a broad spectrum of social class.
I grew up in an area of Lanarkshire where some of us were lucky enough to have parents who were in a job and more able to look after us. Most weren’t that lucky.
Believe you me, some of my mates wouldn’t have got a sniff at uni. Their time was consumed totally on surviving. Sometimes that meant not going to school because their parents were hammered again and sometimes because they had nothing to wear and were too embarrassed to turn up.
Shoplifting was a common thing. Not because they were nasty but because they no other option if they wanted to eat! It usually ended up in yet another visit to “The Panel”.
As Victorian as that sounds that was the reality for some kids. Uni was never an option trust me.
Johann this morning. Just because Scotland becomes independent doesn’t mean it would be radical and progressive…especially if I have anything to do with it
OK I added the last bit but we all know that is what she meant 😉
Still no sign of the Bitter Leafleteers at Central….is leafleting something they only do for the cameras on a Yes Scotland day?
It says on my last that my comment is awaiting moderation, is there a hiccup in the system? I think my name and email are OK.
Well, came into work to hear 3 middle classers dismissing the white paper as “just a wish list”. One visitor who asked what it was all about was told “Most people think its about Braveheart and such rubbish”. Deary fecking me, having to burn my tongue with scalding hot tea so i dont start shouting at these pompous imbeciles.
The fight really has just started.
B. Jenkins is for too timid on Call Kaye and should be more robust in getting a word in. Twice been cut off and the ‘better together’ view has gone unchallenged, needs to up his game a bit.
Generally today is going to be rerun of better together’s griping because they have nothing else. Jam tomorrow from labour twice already but .errr!..uhm!. It’s in their manifesto later next year and after the NO vote.
Matt was on talking about referendums today too. I don’t think he stuck quite to the script the BBC expected though 🙂
The two business chaps were interesting. The manufacturing chap who is a Yes supporter was far more articulate and business like than the recruiting consultant No supporter who sounded like a Labour Better Together clone rather than an actual businessman.
What john king said at 6:56 am
Thepnr
I’m just catching up on last nights comments as I had an early night, I need my beauty sleep, believe me.
Well done for making something of your life after what sounds like a pretty awful start.
I come from a poor background as well, though not as bad as yours. You don’t have to explain yourself to anyone, especially someone who hasn’t experienced it for themselves.
I don’t think that someone with a middle class upbringing can hope to understand what you’re saying, even if they did live in Easterhouse for a while. Living there is not the same as being from there.
Again, well done, it sounds as though you have a nice family as well, and hopefully they will never know deprivation.
It looks to me like the “uncertainty” about iScotland using the pound is going to be the stick to beat the SNP with right up until Sept. 18th 2014
The reality is that the UK government should be on their knees thanking the SG for continuing to use the pound as without Scotland’s contribution to the sterling zone they will be left with a huge financial black hole which “The City” will punish them severely for.
Yes Scotland need to address this ASAP or we will hear nothing but from now until referendum day.
Hmm “Comment is awaiting moderation” thats never happened before?
On Radio 4 this morning. The Sun has a poll putting Yes at 27%.
@theGreatBaldo
I thought if we voted No, we got more powers ? But hasn’t Darling just shot the Devo Fox as well ???
Surprised no-one has brought this up before. Full fiscal autonomy (aka devo-max) would involve tax raising and spending powers with a currency union.
Apparently that is ‘highly unlikely) (etc etc etc) – so are the unionists saying that it was never an option?
@John H
Have you got a link to that poll John.
John H,
Like all these Polls, I would be interested to know excactly who they poll as each and every poll are almost identical.
I just wonder if they just call the same 1,006 people or whatever their polls are based on.
With regards to TV coverage. once I saw that Jackie Bird was involved, I just new the BEEB were not taking the White Paper seriously. I mean who takes her seriously. Totally blanked STV & the BEEB last night.
Still not a whisper from Westminster on the white paper? The silence is deafening.
Has David Cameron finally taken advice and decided to shut up, rather than be forced to have a debate with Alex Salmond? Perhaps, unlike BT, HMG has decided to actually read the document carefully before passing judgement. Or maybe something even more unusual is going on. Who Knows?
caz- m
Sorry, I don’t have a link. It was on Radio 4 just after 6.30 this morning.
Ann,
they didn’t give any details, just mentioned it in passing. I wouldn’t take it too seriously because there are many ways to get the result you want as you know.
I regard it as the usual propaganda.
Basic statistics on the British Government’s turning the DWP into a department that is now used, amongst many other destructive anti-welfare policies, to victimise and punish children belonging to poverty-stricken households and make their situation even worse –
ESA and JSA Benefit sanctions statistics, of 6th November 2013
link to refuted.org.uk
Sanctions regime is too harsh and flawed
Citizens Advice Scotland
link to cas.org.uk
“These sanctions are one of the main reasons for the rise in people needing emergency support like foodbanks. It’s clear that the system is not only too harsh but also deeply flawed.”
@Ann
We must be the only country in the world that we pay a TV broadcaster to campaign against our cause.
If people in other countries knew this, they would think we were nuts.
And we are up against a lot more than the BBC. Sky News and ITV news can’t hold back the sniggering when Scottish Independence is mentioned.
Their aim is to make you feel like an insignificant, useless piece of shit who should be seen but not heard.
Surprisingly fair coverage in The Metro (London edition) this morning, headlined ‘A blue print for a nation’, with quotes (not vitriol) from both sides. Refreshing to see the piece written as proper news rather than partisan bias commentary masquerading as news.
Thanks Yodhrin@4,38am my ego is suitably admonished! There’s always more than one way of interpreting things that people write on here and if you choose to negatively interpretate them well that’s down to your ego and the veil you look at life through. My interpretation was that Thepnr had done well to have taken the hand dealt and made a good life out of adversity. We all have to learn to do that. I don’t regard myself as being particularly eloquent and don’t often post on here but to have overbearing, egotistical replies from people who think their opinion and interpretations of what others are trying to say is the only right way is not good either.
I obviously expressed myself badly last night. It’s difficult to find the right words, when all the words have been hijacked with negative connotations.
The immediate reaction from people reading the tweet in the OP was to want to give something to the children caught up in that situation. This wasn’t some sort of superior Lady Bountiful condescension, it was a genuine outpouring of – I don’t know what to say. Sympathy, pity, charity are all words that have been twisted in their meanings. Charity, the Greek word “agape”, denotes a selfless love for one’s fellow-man. “An intentional response to promote well-being when responding to that which has generated ill-being.” This has now acquired the prefix “as cold as”. What words do you use? I don’t know.
Thepnr indicated that he felt ashamed rather than happy when receiving gifts made in this spirit. It that’s how children are reacting to these gifts, should we be giving at all? It’s a genuine question. If all the sympathy being poured out at the beginning of the thread is going to be interpreted in a negative way, is the message to would-be donors “don’t donate, nobody wants your sympathy”?
I’m not judging anyone here. Thepnr isn’t responsible for how he felt. I think he’s misinterpreting the motivations of the people giving the gifts, but that’s not really the point. If the gifts are only going to add shame to the rest of the burdens these children are carrying, should the gifts not be given? If a genuine desire to make someone a little happier is going to be interpreted as “patronising superiority”, is it better not to try?
He made another point, one I’m genuinely struggling with. He said, don’t give to food banks because they are an obscenity. My gut instinct agrees with him. I think they’re an abomination and it sticks in my craw to support them. But people are hungry. What should one do? I don’t have an answer for that.
It was a UK poll and the the Scottish sample size for the poll mentioned was 167 and a Yougov one to boot. The small Scottish Sample had the 27% figure.
link to d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net
the amount of SNP/Plaid voters used was 33 out of 47 polled.
Caz-m watched first 5 minutes of Sky paper review last night. Anchor woman ” yes quiet news morning then a rush of exclusives .”
The option of a Constitutional break up of Britain versus Nigella.
Oh what the power the gift tae gie us etc
When people regurgitate the unionist lies about the white paper being a ‘wish list’, our job is to actually show them it, show the detail on defence and so on.
It is our white paper, it is an excellent weapon, and that is why Darling’s instant response without reading it, was to call it a wish list. Let’s start challenging (in a nice way) silly comments from people we know. Of course some people will still not agree, but some will.
I still firmly believe many Scots want to vote YES, but just need somebody to show them the facts of how it works. That is our job.
Pity is not love or kindness. It’s condescending, it’s patronising, and it’s degrading to the recipient. It’s a subtle form of control, an assertion of superiority, and self-aggrandisment on the part of the “pitier”.
It’s probably words getting in the way again. So what is someone who has the means to help, and wants to help, supposed to do?
Near the start of the thread, someone said they burst into tears reading the tweet. Someone else said, “where is the food bank, where do I take the toys”. The subsequent turn of the conversation seems to suggest that these responses are inappropriate. An impulse to cry has been branded “condescending, partonising and self-aggrandisement”. A desire to respond to the plea has been met with the information that children receiving such gifts will feel shame when they receive them.
There’s a huge contradiction here, which perhaps cannot be properly explored in this thread, but I think it has to be highlighted. Is someone who responds to that tweet by crying actually indulging in condescending self-aggrandisement? Is the appeal grossly misconceived, because these gifts will make the children even more unhappy?
call me dave
You may be right, but I’ve a feeling his microphone sound level, was lower than the host’s and both were lower than Jenny Marra, who I think was in Edinburgh.
Deliberate or just another day at BBC Scotland, despite all the money spent on technology , still cant get the simple thing of sound levels right
@Molly
That is exactly the point Iam making. I watched the preview on Sky News last night as well.
Their priority is knowing what a female cook done in her spare time rather than the ending of the UK.
They just don’t get it, do they.
O/T Also have to give Jenny Marra Labour MSP a big mention for announcing to the world on Call Kaye this morning that she is also a “Proudscotbut”.
Congratulations Jenny.
@Marcia
Jeez, a 167 subsample, I got the impression it was a full poll! They actually had Yougov’s Peter Kellner on R4 to discuss the Scottish element. he was very keen to push fears about currency as the big issue, though on bugger-all evidence it would appear.
Herald fair, Sun fair, Record trying to look fair while spouting rubbish, Express bonkers and I assume the Mail is as well.
I think the fact that many people have sussed that Darling and Carmichael (and Lamont) commented on the White Paper before they could have possibly read it is very useful.
@caz-m
“Proudscotbut”.
I think we have a contender for epithet of the week 🙂
Morag,
Last nights comments were unfortunate IMHO, and I genuinely know that you meant no harm, however the unintended consequences of your innocent comment jarred with the sentiment written.
I was told the story of an old acquaintence who had worked at Quarriers Homes many years ago, and he was angered by the amount of people who phoned the home on Christmas Eve offering to ‘invite an orphan’ to their home for Christmas Day.
He had no doubt that their intention was sincere, but the reality was kind of similar as Thepnr explained.(I hope I am not misinterpreting you BTW the pnr). The offer was based upon satisfying the ego of the requester with their belief that they were giving some kiddie the chance of experiencing ‘ a normal home’ denied them by circumstance then dropping them back off later that same day. 364 days inbetween sod all concern.
Edward
B. Jenkins did get some good points in before leaving and being replaced by Mr Bell but how do you respond to the two old dears who just don’t understand or know that we actually produce stuff and create wealth. They just think the UK pocket money is all there is. Then of course Orkney &Shetland and borders they are so far behind the curve that they are beyond reach.
Had similar in the cafe this morning where three older woman were discussing the vote. No way are they voting YES it’s in the papers and on the telly and one doesn’t like Salmond. Record and Daily Mail, on the cafe table, and BBC is all they will ever know. Shocking!
I don’t think the average punter is remotely interested in the form of the currency as long as he has enough of it and I think Better Together are expending a lot of energy on a subject which is polically peripheral and on which very few people will make their decision.
This can be turned on its head and typified as a nasty English threat to be wicked to Scotland if we decide to be independent
It is completely obvious that a currency union is in England’s interest and intelligent voters can readily be shown that
call me dave
I think you call Orkney and Shetland wrong
Hello Morag
I hope we can both put last’s nights posts behind us. I got pretty emotional and for good reason. Poverty in Scotland for me is a major issue, a country as rich as ours definately should not have people relying on food banks to stop them going hungry.
It was the topic of this article about now requesting toys that set me off, even if we lose the vote and have to remain in the UK something has to done about welfare. My solution would be to provide opportunity and jobs. Starting with the young.
The UK’s failure to invest in productive work as gambling with others peoples money is more profitable is a failure for our society. Society is decaying before our very eyes and the majority are ignoring it. That is sad.
Kendomacaroonbar, I think it’s telling that I literally couldn’t find words to explain what I meant, so debased have the appropriate words become.
I can imagine that an invite to the home of a stranger for Christmas Day might be intensely embarrassing to many if not most children in care. It speaks of a lack of imagination on the part of those making the offer. And yet, there might have been some children who would have genuinely enjoyed it, who knows?
You’re saying the intention was “sincere”, so presumably you don’t agree with lumilumi that such an offer is inevitably “condescending, patronising, degrading, a subtle form of control, an assertion of superiority, and self-aggrandisment.” I’m inclined to think that most people making an offer to include a child they don’t know in their Christmas celebrations are doing it because they feel they have so much and they want to share, but may not be completely thinking through how a child might feel in that situation. Some, though, may indeed be making an egotistical gesture. How can one tell the difference?
But the discussion above wasn’t talking about an offer like that, where the child would meet the giver and be required to be suitably grateful. It was talking about anonymous gifts with no requirement or even opportunity for thanks. I still see a huge disconnect.
Lots of people, reading that tweet, would immediately feel a huge outpouring of something that there is simply no acceptable word for. That’s why I used the word love, because it’s the only non-debased English translation of “agape”. A genuine desire to do something, to give something, to go some way to make an appalling situation better. Often that feeling itself has connotations of shame – shame that the person reading the tweet has so much, when others have so little.
But if a gift made in that spirit, made by someone who has spontaneously wept when they heard of the need and the poverty, made by someone who perhaps has gone without some little treat for themselves so that they could afford it, made perhaps in absolute secrecy and anonymity, is to be assumed to be “condescending, patronising, degrading, a subtle form of control, an assertion of superiority, and self-aggrandisment,” then I just don’t know what we do about it.
Dave McEwan Hill
Hi I was referring to the woman who suggested that the Islands would go independent from Scotland if it were a YES vote as well as implying ‘Carlise would be Scottish’ again??. That is so far out, to me that is uninformed speculation. Mr Bell was interrupted at that point before he could answer because there was yet another uninformed caller on the line. There was!
Hello Thepnr – cross-posting here. Indeed, let’s kiss and make up. I got pretty emotional too, because I just couldn’t see what ordinary people were supposed to do about the situation in front of them.
I don’t know what to do about food banks. One half of me says they’re an obscenity and we shouldn’t support them, but the other half says, people are hungry right now, they don’t have time to wait for the system to be changed. So often an excuse like that is just a sneaky way to hang on to your money and keep your conscience quiet.
I know how the early posters felt about the tweet. Someone was crying, someone else wanted to know where to deliver the gifts. But then you say, the children will merely feel shame when receiving these gifts. It’s a huge dilemma.
I can see how someone in receipt of such “charity” might feel very bad indeed. But it doesn’t mean that they’re right about the motives of the giver being no more than “condescending, patronising, degrading, a subtle form of control, an assertion of superiority, and self-aggrandisment.” It’s almost never like that.
It may be a dichotomy that’s incapable of resolution, but most of these gifts are given by people literally almonst in tears at the awfulness of the situation and trying to do what they can in genuine love. And yet maybe most of the children can see nothing but “cold charity”. It’s desperately sad.
The political situation needs sorting out, but in the mean time it will be Christmas in four weeks. What are people who have enough and to spare supposed to do?
@Morag
I know that you didn’t intentionally set out to cause offence to anyone. Glad to read that ThePNR and you have sorted this out.
At last a fair and reasonable appraisal.
“Ironically, the launch probably did as much for the education of our friends in the south and abroad as it did for locals. It was striking, in fact, to hear members of the Westminster press corps attempting to trip Mr Salmond up with questions that seemed, to the rest of us, like independence for beginners. That said, the widespread attention paid to the SNP document might mean that English opinion, in particular, will begin finally to adjust to the reality of the referendum and its possible consequences. In England, too often, ignorance and a kind of resentful chauvinism prevail. The effect has been to distort a debate that should matter to all the people of these islands.”
link to archive.is
Morag, of course it is a dilemma but our current Government seems to be pleased about handing over the responsibility for peoples welfare and wellbeing to charity i.e the public. Is this not just another form of tax but only from those willing to pay it.
My view rightly or wrongly is give them nothing, society in the form of government is responsible for providing for the needs of those for whom whatever reason require it.
If we carry on down this road, and I’m serious, I can envisage workhouses not as being a thing of the past but a likely future
OT I’m afraid.
This morning I went on the Yes Scotland site to see if there was any information on what would happen to ILF (Independent Living Fund) after Independence…. It wasn’t mentioned but I was able to ask a question and hope to receive an answer. I then went on to the Better Together site to ask the same question. I have never really looked at this site before and couldn’t find anywhere to ask a question. Am I missing something? I have read of others commenting and asking questions but I cant find way to do this. Perhaps I am just being a bit thick.
Sent the following to several newspapers. I’ll Be surprised If any of them publish it.
May I pay tribute to so many of our political leaders who lost no time in giving us full and frank appraisals of the SNP’s White Paper.
People like Alastair Darling and Alastair Carmichael and several others obviously have the sort of qualities that prepares them well for a life of public service. On our behalf they were able to read a very detailed report 670 pages long, containing 170,000 words in a little more than a few minutes and give us their considered opinion on lots of the very complicated bits of it.
Praise must go to many of our legion of hard working journalists, particularly those labouring on the TV, for the proper respect they have for the supreme abilities of our Better Together leaders and for realizing it would be impolite and absolutely improper to ask these leaders if they had actually read the White Paper before they commented on it.
I am even more impressed by several other of our leaders who felt able to condemn the huge number of proposals in the White Paper before it was actually published.
I wonder does their psychic powers stretch to informing them that they will be out of a job this time next year.
I’m on ESA, the wife is a student and we have a son with autism, life can be a struggle some days.
Call it charity, call it pity or call it shame, but the missus and I talked last night and we decided that we could spare £20 a month. So instead of talking b’locks, I’m going to go to tescos and fill a few bags with stuff, go to the foodbank and give them what little we can spare.
I may be wrong, but I call it Socialism.
Thepnr said:
Morag, of course it is a dilemma but our current Government seems to be pleased about handing over the responsibility for peoples welfare and wellbeing to charity i.e the public. Is this not just another form of tax but only from those willing to pay it.
I have argued this for years with right-wing Americans on other sites. Their view is that it is theft for the government to take money from their pockets (the phrase “at the point of a gun” is often used here) to give to someone else. The implication often being that the someone else doesn’t deserve it. They say they will give freely and voluntarily and that is how it should happen.
I counter this with the unfairness, that a poor person with an acute conscience may give more than their share and yet still feel bad that they haven’t given enough, while a rich person may give a token sum and feel perfectly fine about it. I point out that the sums raised in this way are likely to be insufficient. I point out that there are often strings attached, such as money not being given to unmarried mothers or people with alcohol problems.
My main criticism is that it allows free-loading. It allows the thick-skinned rich to get away without contributing anything. For my own part, being a bit soft-hearted, I’d rather feel that I’d paid my dues and services were properly funded, than have to suffer get another round of heart-string-pulling and crying and wondering if £50 is enough this time.
So I am in total agreement with you on the poitics of this. But the trouble is, we are where we are. If I see a child or an old person going without food or a Christmas gift, now, what do I do? They can’t wait for the politics to be sorted out.
@castle hills chavie
You’re not wrong.
DMH
Good letter but you forgot to praise the journalists at the launch for asking all those searching questions. You could just feel the love and concern for Scotland oozing out of their every utterance.
I must admit that I was quite touched by it all.
@Morag
So I am in total agreement with you on the poitics of this. But the trouble is, we are where we are. If I see a child or an old person going without food or a Christmas gift, now, what do I do? They can’t wait for the politics to be sorted out.
I know and completely agree, it is disheartening though to be put in such a dilemma, I cannot see even a Labour government winning the election in 2015 changing much. We can though, lets do what we must to make those changes possible.
The Food Bank I visited yesterday took great pains to stress that they are not delivering ‘charity’. Rather, they are a community helping one another. Many people here seem to have a skewed view of what a food bank does and calling them an ‘abomination’, after what I witnessed yesterday in my visit, makes me furious. Where is the abomination in a community pooling their resources to help those who are sick and unemployed?
Those who are opposed to them, do what I did and go and visit one and see the reality.
The food banks, the volunteers and the donators are not an “abomination” completely the opposite. The fact that food banks exist in one of the wealthiest countries in the world is the abomination.
I wonder what it would take for a banker to donate his bonus to a food bank?
After all, they are partly responsible.
Seasick Dave says
“After all, they are partly responsible.”
PARTLY?
Where is the abomination in a community pooling their resources to help those who are sick and unemployed?
We already do that, Julie, through the tax system. Problem is, our taxes get misappropriated and handed over to the rich in SE England. Let’s change that.