The corridors of power
Posted on
October 06, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We couldn’t help noticing this sad story from yesterday’s Sunday Times:
That’s Johann Lamont, readers – the woman who wants to lead Scotland, but had to be “rescued” when she tried to negotiate entry into a lift. God save us.
I wouldn’t want share a lift, or anything else, with her either.
Didn’t she tell us that Scots aren’t genetically programmed to use lifts?
That tells you all you need to know about the hierarchy of Scottish Labour right there. If Lamont was truly the leader, she’d have been in the lift before Sawar and Curran. But she was obviously following behind, presumably trying to keep up with them as they talked shop.
Can you imagine a pair of SNP MPs walking ahead of Alex Salmond or Nicola Sturgeon?
Aww – diddums….
You should still be on your hols, Stu!! Just can’t keep away, eh? 🙂
The corridors of power?? Mare like the elevators of incompetence!!
Was she too wee to reach the button?
Eat your cereal, Johann!
Looks like a think bubble above her – with nothing inside it.
Obviously she needs help – not cruel mockery. Everyone make sure to shout out to her “Press the button Johann” next time you see her.
I wonder if she passes wind in a lift and it was a premptive defensive move by those in the lift?
Either that or Jackie got in first and overloaded the lift.
Anyway,the wee soul was bamboozled by all those buttons to press and all those floors to chose from.
Certainly not going to do much to elevator status in the Scottish Parliament
The cloud should be black and the rain pissing down.
Oh to be a fly on the wall there.
Those lift doors on the Death Star shut really fast.
I remember her from a last Spring. She hasn’t appeared in public much over the summer, has she. What does she do, again?
Only reason they opened the lift was cos she was carrying their bags.
Seasick Dave: Or too stupid.
Naw. She said she wanted to go up in the lift, but in reality she just wanted to stay in the lobby.
Leave her stranded, she’s used to it!.
Well, she is a cretin, but then who comes next?
I think it would really depend on how big a cretin you would want.
There are many choices in Slab that would justify the word.
11. 11. Eleven. ELEVEN!!
There keeps being talk of Johann being ‘replaced’ but who’d seriously want to take on the job at this point in time? If Labour as does poorly in Scotland at the May GE as the polls currently seem to suggest they will then it’s odds on that ‘Scottish Labour’ will take the blame, not ‘Westminster Labour’. Why risk taking on the job of leader of Scottish Labour with that hanging over you? Why not just let Johann muddle along and be the fall gal then step in after she’s punted?
ASTONISHING!
I am surprised they noticed she was missing, nobody else does.
Hell mend her. She had no bother sorting out a rabble outside Asda, like a fishwife. The woman is a political pygmy.
Lament might not have got a lift, but it gave me one…a lift that is.
It`s unbelievable the level of stupidity there is amongst these people.
Elevator to where…hopefully descending into hell.
A stark realisation of where she is in the pecking order.
Her face must have looked even more than ususal like a bulldog licking pish off a nettle.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden Labour shills;
Inside the lift, as they all posed,
Laughing and joking, the doors they closed.
Better together, better together Johann. Works better if you all get in together then you can pull and share the job of working out who’s buttons to press.
Ma coats on!
I hope it was a voice activated lift. ‘Eleven”
[…] The corridors of power […]
@frankieboy …
Sorry, could you repeat that please.
🙂
She never realized that Labour MSPs are supposed to use the stairs.
“It wis that basturt Salmond’s fault.”
Points finger.
O/T
On RT Going Underground, phillup hamand, talking after/around the time there was a no vote against going to war with Syria, referred to Saddam Hussein,when he should have said Bashir Assad.Saddam was
dead and buried?
Same script different name.
OT, Labour at it again in Fife link to dunfermlinepress.com
Davidson is supposed to bayonet the (YES) wounded, but then turning on their own was always the Labour way.
@Nana Smith: such as the one we see at the closing credits of the film “Angel heart”?
Maybe she just intended to keep her body healthy and take the stairs?
She wanted to debate who goes first.
link to bbc.co.uk
I am amazed at this, Peston question neo-liberalism?
Bawheid Bragg says: @ 4.12pm, John King was saying that the comments were not favourable to them. As a constituent I am stuck with them right now, hoping to get rid of the two of them within the next few years.
O/T but this is so worth it…
link to you.38degrees.org.uk
Sadly the lift had to be removed and dismantled and melted down as scrap as it never recovered from the vomiting fit after Johann Lamont was taken out of the lift, Rust in peace ..
Bashed Bragg
That’s incredible that they’re blaming the SG, as the posters point out in no uncertain terms.
Who owns the Dunfermline Press? A shameful rag with smarmy Labour journalists.
Being held as an irrelevance in your own political party, despite being a “leader”, is a wee thing in Johann’s world.
It’s her policy vision and ability to capture the imagination of the political left in Scotland that will get New OneNation Scottish Labour where it wants to be!
We should remember that Harriet Harperson could not remember the name of Joke McConnell. He could be considered less of a non person than Lamentable.
Nana, signed the wee petition with pleasure.
Come on play fair, theirs nae a lift doon tae the bunker.
Let’s give the lady some credit here – I’d not want to risk getting stuck in a lift with Curran and Sarwar either.
Apologies for O/T but give yourself a laugh by clicking onto order-order.com and see pictures from the LibDem conference in Glasgow.
British Labour Party in Scotland – Going Down.
Do they have lifts up to 10 Glebe Street, Hen and Maggie getting in and leaving Daphne outside?
British Labour Party in Scotland – Going Down!
Can I suggest that you leave off the criticism of Lamont? The woman is an absolute godsend to the independence movement and ANY alternative – even Murph the smurf – would only make our life harder.
nana tried to sign but it wouldn’t let me – I would love to sign this, and am hoping it gets tens of thousands of signatures, lets get them ‘pooling and sharing’, after all we’re all init together, aren’t we?
The Sun and Daily Mail in their inimitable fashion claiming SNP reimposing a version of the Thatcher Poll Tax ….. the media, especially the tabloid press and the now tabloid BBC, will continue to try destabilise the public against anything that is not a far right politic.
Please, do not talk this woman down !!! Every month of her continued presence as Red Tory leader makes for more votes on the side of the progressive yes parties. Let her continue to 2016 for goodness sake.
…and in next weeks episode, Johanne attempts to master getting the ‘green man’ to come on at the lights. Tune in to see how she gets on…
Had she paid for the lift?
Given Miliband’s lamentable rating as leader in the Yougov opinion polls, is it true that Boris Johnson is thinking of standing for Leader of the Labour Party, as it’s too far to the right for his liking?
Lamont, symbolic of deserved Labour gangrene, needs to remain in post so the whole body may become septic ne’er to rise again. Its treachery both to its own founding principles and to the Scottish people make it moribund.
Another Labour leader subway moment?
Btw, I had posted a comment yesterday but it didn’t get posted. I checked the new users webpage and it said comments were removed/not posted for various reasons. However, I didn’t think the comment I had posted had breached any of these reasons. Is there a moderation policy on this site?
She’s only a MSP, both her salary and expenses are less than an MP’s so its quite right that she should be left behind. That’s what happens in a Tory world.
Talking of which the really big outcome of the referendum is that Labour, by fronting Better Together, have made being a Tory respectable. Just what that is going to mean for Scottish politics I don’t know but with Labour not having all the patronage as it used to and working hand in glove with Tories on everything from Councils to the House of Lords I’m sure there will be some of those whose object in life is their self advancement will consider waiting in Labour for buggins turn to be a poor return and become an overnight Tory instead.
Husker, it may depend on how you try to in-f-l-uence the debate. Perhaps go and have some corn-f-lakes whilst the system settles down.
link to dunfermlinepress.com
This rag deserves to be boycotted
Read the comment by the mother who was actually involved in the save pitcorthie primary school
We should be demonstrating out side the dunfermline press offices
Or, as they were on the way to freebies, it shows that you need to experience Westminster to learn how to be a master trougher.
O/T – Just had one of Alan Reid MP’s minions on the phone asking me if I was a “yes” or “no”. I said, “what’s the question?” He said “Are you in favour of more powers for the Scottish Parliament?” I answered, depends what you mean – if you mean the undefined but limited powers that you lot are supposed to be giving us then I’m not really interested so that would make me a No. But if you mean the full powers of an independent state, then I would definitely be a Yes. I went on to say that my only interest in the supposed “more powers” was that when the unionists failed to deliver Devo Max, Home Rule, Federalism or Devo Super Max (take your pick) then I would enjoy giving Mr Reid and the other unionists hell. Otherwise, not really that interested.
Still don’t know if he put me down as a Yes or a No.
Oh the gift that keeps on giving.
Lamenable Jo is left standing and it would NEVER happen to Salmond or Sturgeon.
Body language says it all.
Hope she hangs about till the GE though , she’s kept a pretty low profile hoping we will forget about her….Aye right. Jo. You and your gang can watch your party , like the Empire , wither away and die. Into the history books along with a catalogue of epic failures to the people of Scotland.
Too much ???
Nah horrible human being.
If the SNP and the SSP didn’t have a recruiting stall outside the conference, it was a wasted opportunity.
OT: Help! NATO’s Joint Warrior task group is off to Arran to sink FPV Minna in revenge for the Referendum:
link to marinetraffic.com
Luckily they’re all at sea, they don’t seem to be able to find her.
We know that Single Cell Lamont is at the bottom of her class
but between now and GE May 2015,
John McTernan & the BBC – with the Red Tory vote rigging machine –
will be working their socks off
to restore Labour to it’s ‘rightful place’ in Scotland.
It will be the same type of campaign as for IndyRef
Fear & Smear – a winning formula
BBC & MSM under tight control.
Unlimited funds from Tory lovers in Westminster.
Can we stop them ?
Yes!
Ms Lamont is every bit as capable as Willie Rennie.She has all the qualities a leader of the Libdems needs.
Re Bawheid Bragg says:
link to dunfermlinepress.com
Pair of hypocrites, typical SLAB – the comments on the article dinnae miss them (or Johnston Press) and hit the wa’!
She’s finished. That ever growing ticking sound she can hear is the countdown to her inevitable and bitter end. However, she shouldn’t fret too much. Others in the Scottish Labour, Scottish Conservatives and Scottish Lib Dems parties can all hear the same ticking sound. Each day, it gets just that little bit louder…
Husker, we all occasionally have posts vanish, or go into moderation for no readily apparent reason. A first post will always go into moderation, but you yourself should be able to see it with the words “awaiting moderation” at the top. The fact that you have posted now indicates that Stu has approved at least one of your posts.
What Skip means is that we recently discovered that the letter-string n-f-l (without the hyphens) sends any post containing it into the great bit-bucket in the sky. It seems to be in the profanity filter. So if you used a word with that letter-string, your post will vanish. The commonest word in that category seems to be in-fluence.
Nana, signed very happily!
Seanair , great photos – good to see so few not enjoying themselves!
Mocha Choca , what an absolutely disgusting phrase to describe the leader of labour in Holyrood – choked on my coffee and it fair cheered me up!
yesindyref2
Thats a great link,didnt know there was a site like that. We dont seem to have any Scottish Navy ships nearby. 🙂
The puir wee soul. Has she just found out that a deceitful, malicious,greed ravaged organisation as hers would be ungrateful for her contribution to the pulverisation of decency and fairness in this country? Anyway, Im just a virus to her.
I see JoLa and her colleagues are after a ministerial scalp. Motion for the head of the Justice Secretary. Must be too many cops on the streets; or crime figures too low or something.
She just doesn’t look one bit like a leader. When Ed Milliband and Co graced my town with their presence a few weeks ago. Wee Johann was left standing alone in the car park looking like a wee lost sheep. Only when Margaret Curran went over and spoke to her, did she perk up a bit. Imagine Magaret Curran speaking to you being a relief. Most of us would dread such a scenario.
‘Victory’? Eh
Dunfie Press owned by the Romaines family and was in a bit of financial difficulty not so long ago and is part of the Clyde & Forth Press group which seems to be headquartered at Pitreavie Industrial Estate.
At least some of the readers know who made the un-defendable decision to close a school which is / was at the centre of the community and they certainly ain’t missing them.
There is still time for Fife Council to change their minds, but I don’t see that happening, even if it is going to cost us tax payers more.
…. and just imagine what sort of money they will get from house builders for the land that the school sits on. Prime site to say the least.
I have never voted anything other than SNP in any election, council through to EU. When it came to consider Tory versus Labour at Westminster, Thatcher left me feeling the Tories were enemy No1. I had Labour down as a chocolate tea pot, Feeble Fifty and all that.
However, Blair’s Red Tories through to Labour doing Tory bidding in the referendum has slowly but surely changed my mind. Labour are now enemy No1. And, what makes them most dangerous and destructive is far too many Scots haven’t yet come to see Labour for what they are. They still are a bit of a chocolate teapot, not fit for purpose, however in the referendum we have seen what can ouze from the teapot as it melts – anti democratic venom and manipulative lies directed against the very people who have voted for it.
As much power and influence in Scotland as possible needs to removed from Labour’s clutches in WM2015.
@Morag:
No, it’s co-n-f-l-ict!
No co-n-f-l-ict on wings.
Peace and love guys!
Doug Daniel had it spot on, but then the lamentable one does front a phoney political party.
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
You can see why they pick people like Lamont though, or at least what qualities they look for in the red Tory leadership as in, “so dumb he can’t walk and chew gum at the same time” or push a lift button.
A.N.Surgent
Yes, posted by someone in Grun 2.5 years ago. The FPV (Fishery Protection Vessel) Minna (42m length) is ScotGov owned (arine Scotland), as are FPV Jura (84m), both built at Fergusons, and the most recent FPV Hirta (84m) built in Gdansk 🙁
Perhaps they should be retro-fitted with Harpoon anti-ship missiles and a 5″ Mark 45 gun 🙂
Doesn’t really matter what name they put in her place they’re all irrelevant place people. Door holders and bag carriers for British Labour’s northern franchise. Three qualifications for the post: 1. That you don’t really give a shit about democracy 2. That you don’t really give a shit about ethics and 3. That you have an unnatural and visceral hatred for Alicsammin.
A RESULT!
Here is the text of an email received from Stu this morning.
So now we know, and this post should appear even if I use the word “influence”. Hopefully that’s the lot and the disappearing post thing will stop.
The Dunfermline press paper is unbelievable as you say well done the folk commenting,
Just sit back and watch the BBC blame the SNP.
Those 2 labour MSPs are total liars
@Morag (proxy for Stu):
Thanks!
Now I can tell everybody I’ve caught the influenza and I’m going to bed. Stay at bay, folks! 🙂
(This message will coNFLagrate in 5 sec.
Why does the artwork backdrop look like she is somewhere in Syria?
Apparently when a person’s level of intelligence is being questioned, an old saying is “Does the lift go all the way to the top floor?” Best opt for the stairs next time Jo!
Email from my local SNP branch (Edinburgh Leith Walk), ‘I wrote last week when we had 166 new members — now we have 387. You are all very welcome!’
SNP numbers rising as the admin plough through the new membership applications. 🙂
Behold your imperial masters Scotland, “where’s lamont?”
Could someone please advise this woman to stay away from twitter:
link to twitter.com
😀 😀
Morag, you seem to have influence with Stu!
Too bad we disnae get this on film, we should crowd fund Indy live to follow her about
I, ll organize the flash crowd with megaphones lol
To be fair to Johannes, the lift was going up, so she stayed where she was…she knows her place !
Sorry, Johann !
A thought. Is it possible the Unionists had firm plans to offer DevoMax as weapon of last resort? If things looked bad for them, was it something they had held in reserve all along?
With hindsight, as soon as it was offered, the game changed and it was inevitable soft Yes voters would opt for what the probably wanted all along.
Anyone with a bit of insider knowledge would therefore know that a Yes win was much less likely when the ‘ultimate weapon’ was deployed. And, here’s my point, does that explain why there was so much confidence of a No win in certain quarters? Perhaps bookies too?
In other words, we were ‘had’ well and truly!
It is also one explanation why it was kept off the ballot. If No appeared to be winning, then the Unionists need never have offered DevoMax. If Yes appeared to be winning, they had a weapon available to counter this.
I hope she stays around as Labour leader- at least until after the 2015 election, but preferably until after the 2016 election too
@
galamcennalath
I posted here about 15 months ago that someone I met at a lunch table, told me quite simply what the No campaign did, would be their last shot.
I e-mailed the Rev at that time but as I couldn’t remember the bugger’s name although I did know he was a mover and shaker in European economic planning and infrastructure at Berlin and Liverpool Universities.
At that time there was no hint of devo “max” on the horizon, as far as I remember.
Lamont
“Bloody Cybernats, they must have damaged the hawd button.”
Re Lamont remember there has been a suggestion that the Smurf might try to go for her job – I think it would depend on what happens in GE
@Ravelin says:
There keeps being talk of Johann being ‘replaced’ but who’d seriously want to take on the job at this point in time?
I think there is a large element of truth in this.
The job is a poisoned chalice.
It seems inevitable that the SNP will win again at Holyrood.
That is where people want a real Scottish party, standing up for this country.
Not a branch of a London party.
I think she is in Syria! Going by the look on her face, the bubble above her head should read…”How the hell did I get here?!”
Lifts are not programmed to carry genetically mutated Lamonts.
Lots of the “smaller” nations represented by warships. Not us though 🙁 Have a view over the Forth(Fife side) this will come in handy.
Socrates Macsporran says
“Do they have lifts up to 10 Glebe Street, Hen and Maggie getting in and leaving Daphne outside?”
Maggie? curran?
Maggies braw!
Schrödinger’s cat says:
6 October, 2014 at 5:16 pm
link to dunfermlinepress.com
another paper in danger of going out of business due to offending its buyers , sooner or later one will click on to the fact the SH is getting big sales from backing the indy cause while every other paper has dwindling sales from following the WM party line.
Sunday Times also say 100 towns Jim Murphy is after her job which can’t be right but they are a crazy breed, red Tories.
At least we know 100 towns Jim’s kryptonite, adorable oap’s asking questions, really easy questions about another mad fraudster in particular
link to archive.today
as 100 towns Jim goes mental at an elderly lady
link to wingsoverscotland.com
and we lost to these lying buffoons.
Guys, this ain’t funny. It’s shocking to think that one of the deepest political thinkers of our time couldn’t get into a lift. I can only assume she was ruminating over some fine point of socialist theory.
It’s times like these that you realise that they are a party of trolls. Not the monsters of legend – that’s scary enough. No I am talking about the longshankers, the Grahamskis and the hothersalls. Scottish labour are now the party of internet forum trolls. Incapable of debating as they have no position to debate. The only thing they can do with skill, is to be offensive.
But Mrs Lamont, sadly for her, is not a troll, nor a politician. Nor is she even a placeholder. She’s room meat.
Thanks Skip_NC & Morag for replying. I had posted a few comments in the previous two threads which was displayed and one was replied to but have now disappeared. Very strange.
I’ll keep in mind the string you mentioned and other peculiarities that I assume is being caused by the spam filter the site uses?
OT But very useful link to bbctvlicence.com
@CameronB Brodie
You’ve been missed, welcome back.
@Morag and Paula rose
Great detective work on the mystery of disappearing posts.
Job well done.
Galamcennalath, I think that’s pretty much exactly right. It’s something I remember worrying about right at the start when they refused to have it on the ballot.
If devo-max had been on the ballot, two things would have had to happen. First they’d have had to define exactly what they meant by that, and second they’d have had to deliver if that option won. Having the detail picked over by all the media for two years would have seen to that.
This way, they didn’t define it and don’t need to offer anything.
I really didn’t think they had the brass neck to do it after the purdah period and so close to the vote. Silly me.
Morning call
link to bbc.co.uk
In the evening
Like it never happened.
Husker, the NFL thing is probably not the only glitch. Sometimes posts seem to appear and disappear, though that hasn’t happened to me that I rememeber. I think it’s a cacheing problem
Sometimes posts go unexpectedly into moderation. That can happen if you’ve re-typed your details and made a typo, so the system thinks you’re a new user. It can also happen because you’ve used a phrase Stuart doesn’t like people signing off with. There are a few of these, but try typing s-a-o-r a-l-b-a and see what happens, for example.
People often think they’ve been “put on moderation” when that happens, but Stuart almost never actively puts anyone on moderation. If he does, he’ll tell you about it, and it will be after several warnings. The last poster it happened to kept making death threats against unionist politicians even after warnings.
It’s possible that getting rid of the NFL thing will stop the completely-vanishing posts problem. If it happens to me again, I’ll repeat the salami-slice exercise and see what happens.
BtP
That info you had illustrates what I had in mind for a long time. YES needed an Intel and Analysis unit. Kind of a YES-SIS.
Am also away from the desk but logged in just so I could send best wishes. (Sent from my Ayephone) 🙂
O/T – There’s more than one way to skin a cat 🙂 I signed it.
link to tinyurl.com
The problem started when she realise that she is not genetically programmed to go up in the world.
Thon story about the primary schule in Dunfermline, is that not a wee exercise in raising the profile in preparation for return of Tha Broon?
Watch as he swans in there at a later date and “saves” the kiddies, blurgh!
Bugger (the Panda) says:
“I posted here about 15 months ago that someone I met at a lunch table, told me quite simply what the No campaign did, would be their last shot……. At that time there was no hint of devo “max” on the horizon, as far as I remember.”
It does look like it was their last shot plan all along.
And, they purposely avoided DevoMax until they absolutely had to.
I wonder how many on the Yes side knew it could be deployed? I always thought it was something they would avoid because it makes independence inevitable a few more years down the road.
Of course, that’s why they are back pedaling now. They want neither independence nor DevoMax!
Well, they have played the DevoMax card, and if they don’t deliver, their Union might last even shorter than they expect!
I agree again. I don’t think they would have gone there at all unless they realised Yes had a reasonable chance of winning. At that stage it would come down to, let us go now, or stave it off for a bit longer with a false promise.
So they make the false promise, and hope to hold back the inevitable by refusing to allow another referendum. I wonder how much more time they can buy this way?
Damn you. You just spoiled my day. I was pleasantly thinking that things would get better and you had to remind me of the existence of Jo La. I am off to drown in my despair…..
(@ Jim McIntosh 8:20 – nice one)
Frankieboy says
“I hope it was a voice activated lift. ‘Eleven”
Say it in an American accent, that’ll work. 🙂
It can’t be the first time she has wished the ground would open up and swallow her.
Mocha Choca says
“A stark realisation of where she is in the pecking order.
Her face must have looked even more than usual like a bulldog licking pish off a nettle.”
Bwahahahahahahahahahahgahahahahahahahahahahaha
wooohahahahahahahaha
I love this site 🙂 really 🙂
Oh ma ribs ur sair.
Listening to Prof Curtice and Gordon Brewer discussing the leadership of Scottish Labour yesterday, they did seem very worried about the loss of public support in the Red Tories.
They were openly suggesting that Scottish Labour need a “name” or a “big hitter” to come in and come in soon, to rescue the day.
Because if Scottish Labour falls, then so does the rest of the house of cards that they all reside in.
That is why it is vital we get as many SNP MPs elected in the 2015 GE.
Vote SNP in 2015, YES ALLIANCE.
@Onwards
It seems inevitable that the SNP will win again at Holyrood.
and Square Haggis regarding Brown:
One scenario I could see being played out is this: May 2015 – Tories win GE, but SNP make big gains and say “get Devo-Max on the statute book by next May, or we put a commitment to referendum MkII in our Holyrood election manifesto”.
Brown is then parachuted in to lead Labour at Holyrood into the 2016 election. The propaganda machine goes into overdrive in a “save the Union” mode (might even see electoral pacts?). Brown is then freed up to try to create a rainbow Unionist coalition at Holyrood, if he can get the numbers together.
Jim Macintosh @ 8.20
signed 🙂
With comment of course. 🙂
O/T
@Wingman
I hope you are still about.
I stopped paying my BBC TV License last Monday (By telephone). Today I received a refund form from them, telling me that I am due a refund. I paid my Licence by DD every month, so I don’t know how they can owe me money.
Is it a trap, should I just ignore it, or should I apply for my refund?
They did mention on the telephone that we pay our License in advance and that I had paid up to March next year.
Tamson, this is quite possible. By this time though,there will be thousands more 16 and. 17 year olds ready to vote Yes, and for obvious reasons less older no voters (No disrespect). And plenty who voted no and realise their mistake with foodbanks feeding 50% of the population and 1 in 2 children in poverty.
Being in a lift with Anas Sarwar, Margaret Curran and Johann Lamomt. Hell does exist!
Just watched a programme about the working poor how fucking depressing.This was the people who both work and have to get family credit what with minimum wage and zero hours contracts and don’t have enough left to feed themselves days before payday.These were the monsters who rob this country blind better together my arse
Hows this grab ye
George says on the English petition to get Scotland out of the union
“Don’t kick us out. Your money pays for my deep fried mars bar addiction and my 6 ginger kids”
Quality,
and they say we’ve no sense of humour?
hahahahahahaha 🙂
@ caz-m your last sentence is why, yes you are due a six month refund.
“The fact of the matter is…
I wonder if some many expenses have ever travelled together in a lift. And if Flipper and Sincerity Jim had been there, the amounts would have rivalled a vault in Zurich.
I wonder if so many expenses have ever travelled together in a lift. And if Flipper and Sincerity Jim had been there, the amounts would have rivalled a vault in Zurich.
Just back from the monthly SNP meeting here in Dundee. Glad the venue was switched as instead of the normal 25 or so we had over 400. Yes 400. In all the decades I have been a member I have never seen so many at one meeting. We may have had twice the number that turned up to Liberal Democrat Conference in Glasgow.
Poor Johann. Oh well.
@Morag congratulations on sorting the spam filter puzzle.
@Nana Smith sorry but I sent a stiff email of complaint to 38 degrees over their Gordon Brown petition hijack fiasco and unsubscribed, so not going to sign the petition. I think they are Labour shills. There is an anti 38 degrees site run by a Tory councillor 38degrees debunked.
link to 38degreesdebunked.blogspot.co.uk
interesting quote from them supporting the BBC against limiting share of the TV market.
“Please note that the BBC is a public institution and should not be treated in the same way as commercial broadcasters.”
link to 38degreesdebunked.blogspot.co.uk
You can’t be too careful!
link to youtube.com lamont is telt!
@Morag says: 6 October, 2014 at 7:49 pm:
“It’s something I remember worrying about right at the start when they refused to have it on the ballot.”
When the Unionists were making noises about Devo Max on the Referendum paper I was mainly posting on The Herald, Huff Post, and several of the dead tree press comment columns. When the agreement was reached that the choice would be removed I pointed out then that this would be what they would campaign for when campaigning got under way. I was thus not surprised when things took exactly that turn.
@Marcia
Aberdeen.
Paula Rose
I will apply for my TV License refund and buy you a pint the next time we meet.
TA
cynicalHighlander
Thankfully our venue had extra chairs.
o/t, Just in from my first meeting at North kilmarnock branch SNP. Very encouraging to see it so well attended. Normally about 10, tonight about 60, all age groups covered. Also membership risen from 98 to 400 since ref. They are expecting more since there are still many applications not yet processed.
The Dunfermline Press is part of the Johnston Press Group, so, this type of cheap and local reporting on their part is not surprising, but predictable and tiresome.
The purpose of their publications is to generate income through advertising, so journalistic content is poor, and significant amounts of space not required for reporting is given over to ridiculously large headlines with gutter statements. Sex Shame in Park etc. You know the type?
They are responsible for The Scotsman also. That is the newspaper that is sinking faster than a brick!……..Aye, paper that doesn’t float because it’s full of excrement.
LABOUR CONTROLLED FIFE COUNCIL OVERWHELMINGLY VOTED TO CLOSE PITCORTHIE PRIMARY SCHOOL IN DUNFERMLINE. The Dunfermline Press reported this story at the time. HAVE THEY FORGOTTEN?
People buy The Dunfermline Press purely out of habit. It isn’t a family paper or we’ll composed, but has second hand car sales and £50 and under lists.
Another crooked little finger of UNIONISTIC intent.
“All three political parties have pledged to protect or increase NHS spending in the next parliament, but there is a consensus among health experts that none of the pledges go far enough to fill a looming £30bn deficit in the NHS’ finances.”
link to independent.co.uk
I see Johann is up with the Fashion. She has her Funeral gear on. The Labour Party is Dying. Still Yes.
John King
Is your YES flag still flying at your house?
I took mine down on the 19th Sept, but I am very tempted to put it back up again, just to show this mob that we have not gone away.
I kept up the YES posters on the windows and on the car, but I think the time has come to hoist the YES flag once again.
It also gives all the shy YESSERS in the area that wee bit of confidence that they lost after the Referendum result.
Jim McIntosh says: 6 October, 2014 at 8:20 pm:
“There’s more than one way to skin a cat I signed it.”
link to tinyurl.com
Signed up to that one too. Do you think I’d get away with signing it for the Dug? I’m sure she agrees and would sign it if she could. Thing is, her paws are not very good for typing with.
You shouldna’ve buried us, we’re not dead
link to tinyurl.com
hhttp://tinyurl.com/omal6mh
Edinburgh
@Free Scotland says: 6 October, 2014 at 8:51 pm:
“It can’t be the first time she has wished the ground would open up and swallow her.
Och! Johann must be used to being properly shafted by her Labour pals by this time.
Seventh heaven.
caz-m @9.44
I did take it down on the 19th but two days later I put up a plain Saltire, I just couldn’t bear not to have one up, but a few days later I saw the idiot from two doors down putting his blue and brown buckets out with nice fresh union flags stuck to them,
No the brichtest. 🙂
@john king says: 6 October, 2014 at 8:56 pm:
Mocha Choca says,
“Bwahahahahahahahahahahgahahahahahahahahahahaha
wooohahahahahahahaha
I love this site really
Oh ma ribs ur sair.”
Johann could have texted Ms Mone for an uplift.
@Robert Peffers “Thing is, her paws are not very good for typing with.”
Maybe that was JoLas problem as well. She couldn’t open the door to the stairwell because she doesn’t have opposable thumbs.
OOps! anyone else getting ‘unable to connect to Dunfermline Press website’?
Being in a lift with Anas Sarwar, Margaret Curran and Johann Lamomt. Hell does exist!
Chuckle.
And it’s plunging down to Hades – forever!
O/T Have been busy setting up studio and production space for iScot Digital & print Magazine which launches 30th November.
Any kind hearted souls who can find it in themselves to drop some coins in the tin, or even consider an advert for their biz, pls see the following link. Thanks.. Kendo
link to indiegogo.com
Tamson says: 6 October, 2014 at 8:57 pm:
” … Brown is then parachuted in to lead Labour at Holyrood into the 2016 election. The propaganda machine goes into overdrive in a “save the Union” mode (might even see electoral pacts?). Brown is then freed up to try to create a rainbow Unionist coalition at Holyrood”
Where have yoiu neen? T%here has been a, “Unionist Rainbow Alliance”, at both Holyrood & Westminster for years.
Anybody know how to bypass the Murdoch paywall?
Re the Dunfermline press story I put it on twitter so it’s being shared around – they might be trying to ‘lose’ that story – if anyone can get a screen grab that would be helpful
Does anyone else think of “The Bride of Chuckie” when ever you see
this woman. lol
She didn’t get into the lift as there was no guarantee of a pension if she took this leap of faith into the unknown.
No point in trying to make decisions like that without instruction
from Westmonster Labour
Pussy Nancy @9.56
Im getting into it all right.
@Ken says:
Anybody know how to bypass the Murdoch paywall?
If someone who has access then archies it is all I could suggest.
This all looks kind of puerile to me. Is this the best we can do? Making an issue out of someone missing a lift?
Dunfermline Press
Closing Pitcorthie Primary School is in “best interests” of Fife kids
link to archive.today
I like puerile now and again, esp. when it comes to the British Labour Party.
Re. Dunfermline press article…Shouldn’t the Scottish Parliament be suing these lying b’sturds. No more Mr nice guy shit..if they tell lies, sue ’em and force the same unionist rag to print the real version of events by law. If not. they will just keep this up.
Time to get tough with these c*nts!
Have said it before, once (they think!) they’ve got rid of our Alex, they will continue to discredit the SNP. They want to destroy the SNP and get back to their cosy con/lab power sharing despotic ideal with no chance EVER of independence being brought up again.
For every lie they print, sue them..between falling sales and hitting them in the pocket for libel, we can DOWN some of them surely.
@The Rough Bounds: the point that some of us take from this is that although Johann is promoted as the leader of the party in Scotland, it’s clear that the Westminster MPs treat the MSPs like inferior local authority councillors.
“Scottish” Labour is just a pretence. This anecdote kind of confirms it.
Hi Folks
wee bit O/T but it is holiday season on the site!
Big turn out for the Ayrshire Yes Alliance meeting in Ayr Town Hall tonight, good broad range of parties and demographics in attendance, positive all round and looking forward to the GE challenge!
Onwards
John King has taken me to task for likening Margaret Curran to Maggie Broon.
John, I accept Maggie Broon is braw, in the strip. However, Maggie must, by now, be in her 90s, given how long the Broons have been on the go.
So, I venture to suggest – she might by now look like Margaret Curran. Also, there is no evidence that Maggie Broon is the brightest; after all, Horace got the brains in that family.
Unfortunately, for them, there isn’t a Horace in the Scottish Labour family.
Hi folks
Just back in from Jedburgh & Kelso SNP branch meeting; at least 45 people, standing room only at the back, and it’s actually only the first of two meetings, because not everyone could get to Kelso so there’ll be a second meeting later in the month in Jedburgh. Branch membership has increased 6 FOLD from about 30 to 180 and still counting.
Not as impressive as 400 in Dundee, I know, but we are in a remote rural area! Also had a collection for local food bank which was great. Massive enthusiasm and energy and everyone focused on the next battle.
Thanks to everyone for the inspiring and uplifting links, eg to footage from the Parliament on 28 Sep etc. Love you guys. See some of you on the 12th in Freedom Square!
Btw, the Hope over Fear rally and Independence Live TV still need crowdfunding if anyone still has a spare £5 from donating to everything else!
Burnistoun – Voice Recognition Elevator in Scotland
link to tinyurl.com
@caz-m
Listening to Prof Curtice and Gordon Brewer discussing the leadership of Scottish Labour yesterday, they did seem very worried about the loss of public support in the Red Tories.
Yes, it was pretty obvious they were personally concerned about SLAB. Not much attempt at trying to hide it either. I have long believed that there is mutual self interest and self preservation between BBC Scotland and SLAB. Nothing that happened in the referendum campaign has got me to rethink this belief, or even challenged it a tiny bit. Expect from now until May for BBC Scotland to heavily promote SLAB. The SNP could do a lot worse than make sure they get heavy hitters into the TV studios in the months leading up to the general election. Claire Adamson MSP was far too timid at the weekend I am afraid.
Looks like the Fib Dems don’t believe in the right of 45% of the population (and rising) to have their opinions voiced. That”ll be democracy ‘UK Style’.
@The Rough Bounds says: 6 October, 2014 at 10:15 pm:
“This all looks kind of puerile to me. Is this the best we can do? Making an issue out of someone missing a lift?”
Whatever makes you think we are NOT doing other things? Have you not read the posts from those attending meetings putting up Saltires and such like?
The, “Wee Thing”, happening to Johann is just what Alistair claims is, “Just a joke”. You have heard about jokes, haven’t you, Rough Bounds?
Lord – I-miss-Hussein – Kelvin, chairperson of the Peter Out Powers Commission, says, the new powers granted must be acceptable to the all-party group.
Eh, no.
They must be acceptable to the people of Scotland, you fool.
Natasha, that’s a massive increase for the Borders. Wonder if Berwickshire has received a membership boost too?
It does make you wonder just how someone who was so against devolution in 1979 (Johann Lamont advocated a No vote) can be trusted to deliver further devolution now.
The same goes for all those other Labourites who were against it too such as Brian Wilson, and I believe Margaret Curran and many others.
@ caz-m, 9:44pm
John King
Is your YES flag still flying at your house?
Mine is still flying 25 feet up, still have a big white yes sign in an upstairs window and blue yes signs in three other windows. Also still wear my badges, sometimes all thirteen at the same time! 🙂
@Dorothy Bruce 10.40pm
I don’t know about Berwickshire, but I would imagine they have experienced a similar upsurge. 🙂
Better Together?
link to bbc.co.uk
This is the Panorama Kevin Meina was highlighting.
Now I wasn’t expecting shangri-la in the event of a Yes vote, but at least we’d have had a chance to improve on the desolate state our working poor are in under the Westminster system.
Furthermore, someone at the meeting reported that 28,000 people voted Yes in the Borders. That’s about 8000 more people than voted for Michael Moore in 2010. It makes me more hopeful that we might actually get rid of the little toad in 2015!
Guys, is it possible Rough Bounds is a t-r-o-l-l? I know I’m still an “incomer” here, so maybe I’m out of line, but remember not to feed them . . .
Many of the comments here are small minded and unbecoming of those of us who voted Yes.
Could do without this undermining of our wonderful ScotBritLabNoThanks leviathan of a political leader – leave her alone, she’s doing a great job (even if a dalek makes a better fist of negotiating a lift)
PS
Fun little game which will amuse you for about 2 minutes
link to games.usvsth3m.com
Socratese Macsporran says
“John, I accept Maggie Broon is braw, in the strip. However, Maggie must, by now, be in her 90s, given how long the Broons have been on the go.”
Ye thanks for that socrates 90 years auld?
she’ll allus be 23 in my eyes a bonny wi it! 🙂
I had to take my Yes saltire down, simply because the flagpole is in a very windy spot and there was a howling gale threatening to flatten it. I’ll get an ordinary saltire and put it up again in the spring.
Our SNP meeting at Tweeddale only had 21 attending, but it was on 24th September which was too early to take in the bulk of the new membership surge. We did have several new people show up despite that – normally there’s about half a dozen at a meeting!
The Rough Bounds has been here for a while and he isn’t a troll. Besides, Stuart gets quite cross when people call other people trolls. Even when they really are trolls.
I think some people are forgetting that Stuart is on holiday but is kindly putting up a very short post every day or two to let us have a discussion focus and keep the community together. We’re not going to get any more serious political analysis until next week. What we have is a sandbox, and someone missing a lift is as good as anything else.
@Morag 10.59pm
I stand corrected! Apologies to Rough Bounds. By the way, I have had an acknowledgement of my freedom of information request on how many Scottish viewers cancelled their TV licences in the past 4 weeks. I will keep you updated.
Socrates MacSporran 10.31pm
Horace Broon and labour.
Horace is a Yes supporter:
link to mobile.twitter.com
I do feel a wee bit sorry for lamont she isn’t the most gifted intellectually, well not on live debating, Its curren I cant stand that wee bossy weegie wifie, love to see Nicola take her doon a peg or two
Natasha, you’re a wee bit early. I haven’t cancelled mine yet! My annual payment (which I make by cheque) isn’t due till later this month, and I’m going to take action when that time comes round.
is the SNP allowed a candidate in Newcastle because I think we would romp it as per the feedback from my Geordie pals
Stealing Independence, a short film
link to tinyurl.com
I liked the previous post – it allowed for discussion on baking, corridors are a bit samey just lift shafts on an horizontal axis.
Oh God not that again.
Socrates MacSporran 10.31
Horace Broon and the Labour family:
Did you know he is a YES voter?
link to mobile.twitter.com
Islay is famous for producing fine whisky. But it also famous for producing two of the biggest dicks in Scotland.
Ladies, don’t all go jumping on the next ferry.
I was talking about Glen Campbell and Alistair Carmicheal.
@Morag 11.13pm
Take a deep breath and don’t respond! 🙂
Oh, it’s hard. To see our movement descend to that!
she has to walk behind her Deputies.with guns in her hands. Otherwise she would be stabbed in the back.
Jim McIntosh 8.20
Signed. Cats getting skinned one way or another.
I would rather it was by my fellow countrymen when/if they wake from their stuper.
I,ve said for a number of years now that I thought the only way we,d get our independence was if the english voted for it.
Would much rather we had the bottle ourselves. Sometimes I get a wer bit depressed thinking how hard this might be though given the weight of the establishment and their constant media bombardment.
I was just informed tonight our membership in Keith has increased by 184% thats from 37 to 105 and its still riseing.
The Red tories are shitting themselves, so just keep speaking to people and tell them whats happening and encourge them to join or come along to a meeting.
The job is nae finished yet, we have some crap to remove fae our country, and some new friends to welcome to the fold. You all honour your country with your faith and zest, and its always a pleasure working with you all.
We keep going.
@ Graeme Doig – surely the Vow means more subsidies for us poor folk? Keep up the pressure.
Hi Tamson.
You typed,
“One scenario I could see being played out is this: May 2015 – Tories win GE, but SNP make big gains and say “get Devo-Max on the statute book by next May, or we put a commitment to referendum MkII in our Holyrood election manifesto”.”
I’m gonna post here most of something I posted on someone’s Facebook timeline earlier tonight…
_______________________________________________
But secondly, two different opportunities are being conflated; the 2015 UK election and the 2016 Holyrood election.
The second paragraph of the SNP’s constitution states,
“2. The aims of the Party shall be:
(a) Independence for Scotland;”
Thus, if the SNP win a majority of Westminster seats in the 2015 election (a minimum of 30 of the 59), they have a mandate for independence, never mind another referendum.
This is why, if we want a fast track to independence, we should return as many SNP MP’s as possible next year.
As someone mentioned above, this could also give the SNP the balance of power if it is a hung parliament.
A formal (or informal) agreement amongst the pro-indy parties prior to next year’s election, could see, for example, the SNP not putting a candidate up against Tommy Sheridan in a Glasgow constituency. Mind you, I’m not party to how political parties negotiate with each other so maybe that’s a pipe dream.
Which brings me the the 2016 Holyrood election. If we can all (or most of us!) get behind the SNP for 2015, this will give the broad left (LFI, SSP, Solidarity, etc) enough time to coalesce into a party that could provide an effective alternative for disillusioned Labour voters in the 2016 election for Holyrood – which COULD be the election of the parliament that negotiates Scotland’s independence, depending on how we vote in 2015.
Or is that too simple?
_______________________________________________
I think many of us forget, or don’t know, the aims of the SNP…
link to snp.org
This post just to get follow-up comments by email.
Well done Rev Stu,
link to twitter.com
Paula Rose
More biscuits and blue cheese. Is that all this fight is about. I know some good addiction counsellors 😉
@Brian Doonthetoon – I’m in agreement with this – I suppose Tommy Sheridan can now re-enter politics cos he would be a shoe-in in Pollok to get rid of JoLa
No no no…Yes 11.16pm
Is Horace not part of the Broons Sunday Post Vote NO team?
A bit off-topic, but still…
I’m fairly gobsmacked by the poor journalism evident in what passes for the “new media”. We noticed over the weekend how a few people on Twitter became quite hysterical over the idea that the SNP now had more than 100,000 members. This figure was achieved by adding the number of applications waiting to be processed tweeted by Peter Murrell on Thursday morning, to the total membership number he tweeded on Thursday evening. Except, the evening tweet already included the pending applications, as should have been obvious with a moment’s thought.
I saw at least two garish yellow-and-black graphics being circulated, citing Peter Murrell as the source for this inflated figure, except of course he had said no such thing. People started changing the SNP’s Wikipedia page to read 100,000 members, even though the linked citation was to the tweet that reported just over 75,000. That got reverted a couple of times.
By this time Peter Murrell had issued another update, quoting 76,688 members at 10pm on Friday. That didn’t stop anyone. Even sensible people were saying, but that number doesn’t include a pile waiting to be processed, when anyone following the tweets would have realised that it did.
Then the real heavyweights entered the fray. The Huffington Post breathlessly announced that the SNP now had 100,000 members. Apparently on the basis of the lurid yellow-and-black twitpics. The “editing” of the Wikipedia page began again, this time linking to the HP article! (That got reverted too.)
Today something called “New Europe” joined in, announcing that SNP membership had “quadrupled” to 100,000, without citing any reference. I don’t think that made it into the Wiki edit war.
But now we’ve got mistaken tweets being published as fact by online “newspapers”, and these then being used to justify including the erroneous information in Wikipedia. It’s perfectly possible that New Europe saw the Wikipedia page between reversions and thought that justified the headline.
It’s getting close to the point where someone edits a falsehood into Wikipedia, some news outlet reads it and prints it as fact, and that publication is then used to reference the Wikipedia entry!
And yet, the true figure was only a mouse-click away. Lots of people were re-tweeting Peter’s tweet, and referencing it. Nobody paid any attention. Worse than that, people who tried to correct the mistake were attacked for being Labour trolls, and accused of trying to undermine the SNP’s great achievement.
Tonight’s figure is 77,777. (I’m still slightly suspicious he fiddled that for effect!) It’ll be interesting to see if that squashes the inflated rumours. I suspect not, because people seem to be so angry about being wrong, and then leap to denying that they were wrong at all.
Morag
I was annoyed that people were boasting of the 100,000 figure when all they needed to do was check Peter Murrell’s twitter feed that gave the correct amount and nowhere near that figure. I now check for references as a matter of course now.
@ Stewart fae stoney says:
6 October, 2014 at 11:11 pm
is the SNP allowed a candidate in Newcastle because I think we would romp it as per the feedback from my Geordie pals
I was thinking this myself: if the SNP’s finances allow it, maybe they could start to field candidates in English constituencies? Surely in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumbria and Liverpool (disillusioned Labour voters) there are rich pickings? Obviously, they would have to tweak their policies a bit, but as a genuine left-leaning party committed to regionalism (“SNP for England”), I honestly think this is a very good idea. Would gain publicity as well… and surely it makes more sense than even to put up a candidate in a potential win area in England, rather than the likes of East Renfrew, for example….
PS This site is not really fit for purpose: so many of my posts just vanish into the ether and NEVER appear, it is hardly worth trying. Yet at other times they appear. And it is NOT because of some i-n-f combination… It happens ALL the time, well at least 50% of the time….
Morag
However…
I’ve personally posted over 30 applications for membership from our shop and none of them have made it into our membership lists yet. So I suspect a 100,000 figure is far from impossible.
I look forward with some expectation to our Holy Loch branch meeting tomorrow night. I don’t think the usual packet of Jaffa Cakes will do the job as we already have 80 new members onto our 53 of two weeks ago,
Looked at a smashing premises on Dunoon main street this evening for a bigger YES shop and looks like we will be moving soon…
Caz-m 11:48
Horace Broon. Click the link and have a read at the tweets, definitely a YES
link to mobile.twitter.com
Sticking with the Broons,Jim Murphy would double as Hen Broon. A big long drink of water as they say.
Lucy Adams, bbc scotland politics reporter would pass as Daphne…
Kenny, it obviously is fit for purpose because it is under constant DDOS attacks, for months now and that is because it is extremely effective.
I cant say I’ve had any posts disappear, maybe they’re too short
Marcia, I’m just waiting for one of the established papers or news outlets to do the same thing. People were tweeting at the Herald, asking why they weren’t reporting it. Presumably the Herald still check sources. Mind you, after seeing what McColm will print, nothing would surprise me.
I’m also quite surprised at the identities of some of the people who were telling me, “oh Peter Murrell tweeted it”, or “it’s on the SNP’s Facebook page” or “Peter Murrell put it on his Facebook page” or “yes but that number doesn’t include the ones waiting to be processed” when precisely none of that was true. Each time someone told me something like that I went off to check, and each time the information wasn’t there. People were just repeating hearsay, not realising that when someone asks for the primary source, they want the primary source.
One guy got quite miffed, saying, I’m just telling you what I read. Yeah, I read that too and wanted confirmation. You’re not helping.
And then there were those who called me troll and worse. I was blocked by about three people. Honestly, it would absolutely make you despair over the rationality of humankind.
Dave, Peter’s tweet said that all the applications have now been processed, so I imagine the notifications to the branches will be making their way through the system. The way the graph is tailing off I suspect it’s going to level off around 80,000 to 85,000. Anything could happen, though, as you say.
@No no no…Yes says: 7 October, 2014 at 12:10 am:
“Sticking with the Broons,Jim Murphy would double as Hen Broon. A big long drink of water as they say.”
The politically, (Ahem!), correct description of Jim, (the yokes on him), Murphy is, “The Lugubrious”, Jim Murphy.
Definition , ‘lugubrious’ : – Gloomy, mournful or dismal, especially to an exaggerated degree.
It fits Jim to the proverbial, ‘T’.
The only posts I’ve had disappear are ones where with hindsight I probably used one of the NFL words.
There are other banned phrases though, so it’s worth checking texts so see if there’s a common thread. The entire thing is automated and Stuart is on holiday, so if it’s happening to one person and not another then it must be something they keep typing in their posts.
FAO Ian Brotherhood,
Hi Ian
Holding Registration stalls in Edinburgh. Am able to download membership form for Greens and SNP but not SSP.
The website obviously allows online application but the Get Involved > downloads tab leads to a 404 Error: page not found
Any ideas, sir?
Morag
This membership increase has came about because of the Referendum. The SNP have not actively advertised or publicly asked for new members.
And we still have the SNP Conference and the crowning of Nicola still to come.
Then we will have the candidates announced for the 2015 GE. All of these events will also increase the membership.
I can see us having over 100,000 members by the beginning of the year.
And who knows what the final tally will be by the time we hit the GE next May.
You could be right, caz-m. I’m just thinking the massive spontaneous splurge is burning itself out, and future increases will be back to a relatively modest rate.
I saw a tweet where some Labourite was asking what incentives the SNP was offering to get people to join. When told “a free Scotland” he clearly didn’t believe it.
By the way guys, the SNP doesn’t stand candidates in England because that would reduce the party’s PPB allowance drastically (to name just one of a lot of reasons). And I’m not sure what good it would do, getting beaten in a bunch of English constituencies. Way to look stupid.
Sure, there might be a few English people saying they like the SNP, and maybe even a few would vote for an SNP candidate, but enough to win a FPTP seat? Not on a bet.
And while we’re at it, who’s going to deliver leaflets round English towns and knock on English doors to campaign for an SNP candidate? Any volunteers? And don’t you think you’d be better employed doing the same thing in Scotland?
Putting up a candidate for election in a constituency is a whole lot of work and effort. You can’t just put up a paper candidate and hope people will vote for you. You have to campaign, with a team of activists. You also have to fight off attacks from the opposition. Just think for half a moment about the opprobrium an SNP candidate standing in an English constituency would attract. We need absolutely every warm willing body slaving its socks off right here, not fighting pointless campaigns to get a few hundred votes in England.
There are some daft ideas floating around here, but that one takes the biscuit.
The Daily Herald is now running a scare story on it’s front page re ‘more powers’,
Sometimes you just feel like you’re being bludgeoned over the head by the MSM
Curtice has now covered the Panelbase poll for the SNP, and reckons the SNP will only pick up a “handful” of seats! What do you think?
link to blog.whatscotlandthinks.org
You may take away our freedom but you will never take our DEVO MAX ; )
@yesindyref2 – that’s them getting their stats in first so they can then manipulate the results to bring it about – just like the indy ref results
If there really is more support than a couple of hundred for, lets call it, Independence North it would probably be worth it to put up £5000 for some extrovert nutter to stand in Newcastle wearing a belted féileadh-mór in Northumberland tartan, playing their pipes with a ginger wig and tammy on a platform of anything the Scots can do we can do better.
Nothing to do with us guv honest but a bucket of publicity for the idea that the English want independence too. Pity Tony Bliar isn’t the MP for Sedgefield anymore
Morag
In 1983 the SNP were considering putting up a paper candidate against Thatcher in Finchley to get more press and tv time. We in the London Branch at the time vetoed the idea as a waste of time and money. Quite a few of us went home to our home constituencies to campaign whilst a few went to Orkney and Shetland to help Winnie Ewing.
Her head always reminds me of an evil flump.
I remember hearing about that, Marcia. But even that had some logic to it. Peppering England with SNP candidates even on a semi serious basis is bananas.
By the way, I still haven’t worked out why I couldn’t get any response from London Branch when I offered to put up two or three activists for the referendum campaign. Well, their loss was Plaid Cymru’s gain.
liz
Got to fight them – keep giving them the truth the TRUTH the T-R-U-T-H !!!
You do realise you’ve ruined Angel Heart for me now.
yesindyrev2 @ 12.59
Curtice says only 54% want devolved control over broadcasting?
link to youtube.com
@yesindyref2
T-R-U-T-H !!!
Is that also a word that triggers the spam filter? 🙂
@Thedogphilosopher:
Sorry, should have taken another film, e.g.: “ascenseur pour l’échaffaud” (lift for the scaffold).
By the by, that name is a reference to Diogenes?
When the final tally of SNP membership reaches around 80,000 no doubt some unionist rag will trumpet ” SNP membership falls by 20,000″. Probably the Scotsman. – and repeated by the BBC! ????
Sorry about the ????. Finger slippage!
@ John King
That means that only 46% of Scots don’t want broadcasting devolved! 🙂
@ Dave McEwan Hill
Re your Yes shop would an illuminated moving character sign thingy be of any use to you?
If so drop me a line at bill_urquhart@hotmail.com.
I received this email this morning.
“John,
Thank you for signing the petition “English Referendum on Scotlands removal from Union”
The more people who get behind this issue, the more likely it is that decision makers will pay attention. Every name added to the petition takes it one step closer to succeeding.
Can you help spread the word about the campaign by sharing it with your friends and family? Click the buttons below to share the petition on Facebook and Twitter:”
Glad to help. 🙂
Johann is a fine politician, doing a great job.
Maybe one of her labour colleagues said press the button quick, am no getting stuck wi that rain cloud
One thing we do need to be wary of is that the nawbaggers will probably be ready to tactical vote too. The question is whether they will be anywhere near as organised as we are come May. We need all of our manpower focused on Scotland as that’s the only way we are going to achieve our goals.
SquareHaggis at 11.11pm Stealing Independence a short film
Everyone should watch this, should also be beamed into every household and business in the UK. Local byelections coming up?
Blood is boiling, puts conspiracy theory into a new light, when you put it all together like this then you truely begin to wonder.
There was a Kurdish representative on GMS this morning, talking about the war in Iraq and Syria.
The more she talked, the more she sounded like a David Cameron plant. Sent to Scotland to soften them up, so David Cameron can then go back to Westminster to get the backing of all MPs to take the fight into Syria.
Mission creep. When the British forces pull out of Afghanistan this year, they will not be coming back to sit about the barracks, they will be back in Iraq and Syria before they know it.
Then when they think ISIS is defeated, it will be back into Afghanistan, because no doubt, civil war will break out in that country again.
Vote NO for never ending wars in the Middle East.
Quelle Surprise another Herald journalist comes out as a cheerleader for Miliband and Labour while advocating an anti SNP alliance. That should help his promotion chances.
btw it was Mark Smith
I don’t really care much if this will be pi**ing some people off, but I’m going to state the reality – if the referendum poll could have been rigged – it most certainly was rigged and I am getting awfy tired of those tossing up their hands in exasperation whenever such an issue is put up.
How can anyone fighting ‘every fibre’ of Cameron’s body, disregard even some of what is being shown in this film:-
link to tinyurl.com
SquareHaggis:
6 October, 2014 at 11:11 pm
Stealing Independence
I really, really, would like someone to tell me it’s wrong to bitch loud and hard that we were possibly robbed. Don’t tell me it’s detracting and cringe to see this through. To sit on your bahookie and say nothing is cringe.
Found this , if you haven’t read it and want to be depressed ( sorry Flower of Scotland) or should I say more depressed ,
link to tinyurl.com
Yuck. Have a look at the photo:
link to lemonde.fr
First sentence: “What if the French socialists had something to learn from English Tories?”
Wake me up, I must be dreaming. 🙁
In my email this morning:
There’s not long to go before we all vote in the election — and we want to know if you agree that David Cameron’s uncaring, out-of-touch government needs to go.
Are you with us in our fight to kick out the Tories and restore a fairer government to Britain?
YES, I’ll be voting Labour
MAYBE, I haven’t made up my mind
NO, I support another party
Here’s to helping us build a better Britain for all — something this government has shown it will never do.
— The Labour Party
@JonD (12.32) –
Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. Wasn’t on this last night at all.
If you message me I can send you an attachment for printable SSP membership application. Thanks in advance for including us!
ian@steventson4.fsnet.co.uk
AuldA
There are no Scottish Tories, so the headline is really correct.
O/T
Just reading Johnston’s piece in The Daily Torygraph, lamenting the chance of the Tory vote collapsing at the election thus being a great assistance to, UKIP and wait for it the SNP!!!!
Here was my response:-
Lazy, sloppy journalism by Mr Johnston.
“Conservatives are terrified of a total collapse in the Lib Dem vote, since many of their seats in the North will go to Labour, and their Scottish constituencies could fall to the SNP.
The last time I looked north of the border they had no constituencies, plural.
Just a solitary, lonely Mr Mundell. So not going to be much of a loss there, in May 2015!
I managed to listen to the BBC Kay (e) radio phone with Alec Salmond and the unknown entity ToryLab councillor.
I couldn’t access is it because I am blocked being outside the UK and despite proxies still cannot.
Anyhoos, Peter Curran, put it on You Tube and here is my take, late as it is but, as far as I know, has not been picked already picked up.
AS did what Kay(e) should have done, question Gifford about the nuts and bolts of what he had said.
OK this is an “infotainment” program with a political slant but Kay(e) must have some handle on what is being said and act, at least act, like a professional journalist rather than a radio personality; that should be left to Archie Andrews.
She must have a earpiece in and must be receiving guidance and iad in what to say to the callers and at the least these ghost supporters must at least know what the fuck is going on with these subjects, otherwise the who thing is, as we suspect, a political charade.
AS replaced Kay(e) and showed what he could do if he was Head of BBC News in Scotland and had his own show!
The BBC, especially in Scotland is a fucking joke and a national disgrace.
The reason Labour are in such trouble is because of their anti-Scottish alliance with Liberals and Tories. The notion that an anti-SNP alliance with the same parties would make Labour more attractive to Scottish voters is nothing short of laughable. Have the Herald journalists lost their political compass altogether?
HENRY McLeish yesterday branded a deal on new powers for Scotland as “ludicrous” — because it was being rushed through.
The former First Minister claimed the pledge made before the independence referendum could see the nation lose out on the best settlement.
And he insisted the November 30 deadline to agree a deal — set by the three UK party leaders — was not enough time to consult with the public.
bfh–he never said this during during referendum campaign
Bookie
From the opinion poll at the weekend it was clear that the public had a massive preference for Devo Max and about 55% preferred Super Devo Max (which begs the question why the hell did they not vote for it when they had the chance).
The question is not whether there is a demand for full Home rule but whether Smith’s commission is up to the challenge to deliver it.
Bugger, I heard Kaye make a complete fool of herself on a non-political topic some time ago. It was about organic farming, and she had the BBC’s expert in organic rose growing in the studio with her.
She started with the usual knit-your-own-organic-sandals guff about how people were buying organic because it was so much healthier for little Tarquin and Jocasta. Then after a bit the backlash started. One or more farmers’ wives phoned in to protest about the organic lobby vilifying their high quality produce. The most articulate one described the high welfare standards and strict attention to treatment withdrawal times in force in conventional farming. She pointed out that “organic” is mainly a scam to charge higher prices by imposing additional, unnecessary rules, and that some of these rules prevented animals being treated for illnesses that compromised their welfare. She accused the organic lobby of making uinfounded defamatory accusations about her husband’s standards of animal welfare and product quality.
Kaye stammered a bit and handed over the the rose growing expert, who unsurprisingly started to talk about organic roses. The farmer’s wife (or maybe it was another one) had another go. Kaye stammered that this was an aspect of the debate she was entirely unfamiliar with and she’d have to read up on it.
She was absolutely pathetic. I mean, the most elementary research would have revealed to her that there was a controversy there, and a very heated one. She should have anticipated being challenged on her unquestioning acceptance of the “organic” mantra, and been ready to defend it. Instead, she hadn’t a clue and was completely at sea.
@BtP:
There are no Scottish Tories, so the headline is really correct.
I always held that Scots are enlightened people.
Morag
Maybe Derek Bateman is right for not only is their an absolute black hole journalistically, they have no real preparation and support live.
Which is another reason why we have bisased TV and radio.
It is easier to take a line, in this case the unionist one, and slant everything around that, than go to the expense or researching and professionalise (I made that one up) the production.
Andrew Neil is, at least a profesional, and curiously his treatment of Tommy Sherriden shows that.
The rest are all wallpaper presenters,
@ Barontorc, I voted by post and I have been freaked out by everything I have learned about the vote count process. I delivered my postal vote myself to Aberdeen City Town house, popped my envelope in a sealed ballot box by the main stairs on the floor about 10 days before the 18th.
Since then, I now know that counting officers, in the presence of YES and NO observers opened up every single postal vote, whenever it suited them and at no statutory set date or time period.
800 thousand Envelope B’s opened, the sealed envelope A opened, ballots placed facedown on table top but seen and counted by BetterTogether observers at least, see Ruth Davidson/BBC etc.
Examined postal ballot papers were then placed back in envelope A and sealed maybe and then put back in a separate resealed ballot box or same resealed ballot box, maybe.
So the sealed ballot box at Aberdeen City Townhouse that I posted my vote into was continually opened at times decided by the count officers. Did they then reseal both the box and my ballot paper, having viewed and recorded my vote long before the 18th? No one knows and no one is saying.
Or, was my envelope A resealed again or left open or simply discarded by the counting officer, a very busy counting officer opening all postal votes when ever he/she decided was appropriate.
Even on technicalities, if they were resealing envelope A, how were they were doing this and at some work rate?
Just the fact alone that the ballot boxes had seals continually broken and replaced over and over from the 3rd September and each seal has a specific number which is recorded is extremely suspect or completely fine.
Commenters here have said all of the above is OK because they have witnessed the opening of postal vote process but just because you witness something etc
So simple questions that are being completely ignored
Why was every single postal vote opened and examined like this?
How did they reseal envelope A, once opened did they actually glue down the torn open paper 800 thousand times?
And above all else, why were counting officers able to open sealed ballot papers as soon as they received them and for what purpose?
Electoral Commission postal vote opening rules are all for actual polling day, not for at least 2 weeks prior.
To make it completely straight forward, I assumed this, my postal vote in letter B would opened on the 18th Sept, taken from same sealed ballot box it went into. But look what they really did with 800,000 votes,
Johann, seems youre losing your job, do you want a lift?
Aye!
You’ll get a Ladyship, how does “Lady Lamont of Pollok Benefits Office” sound and £300 quid expenses a day!
Astonishing!
OT see the new bridge looks like it might just cone in under budget.. Just enough to pay to connect Longannet to the grid! Seriously don’t know why more isn’t being made about the Scottish plants getting humped to feed in power
Electoral Commission postal vote opening rules are all for actual polling day, not for at least 2 weeks prior.
Forgot to say and for the record, Electoral Commission postal vote opening rules did allow for opening of all postal votes at any time by Counting officers as soon as they were received.
However, there appears to have be no set opening timetable, decided entirely by Count officers, nor was there a ballot resealing process instruction involved so none presumable and more importantly, no reasons why all postal votes can be opened and examined other than speeding up the count and only on the 18th Sept.
If you wanted to know how the Scottish Independence referendum was going for YES or NO, you write the rule that you can open and look at every last one of the 800,000 postal votes as they arrive back at the counting office and at any time you like.
If anyone says anything about it, they’re conspiracy theorist, nutters, bad losers and so on.
BtP, It is not just the BBC Scotland who are a F*ing disgrace, the whole organisation is amateur in extreme. I would say that they all are, in this so called country of the UK. Links cannot be made, they could not even have Carol the Weather Girl, report from across the street the other day.
Shows how bad so many of our organisations are when staffed with people whose only talent is being related or part of a Political Organisation or even as in British Telecom, the Masons.
Westie7,who is going to report a success by the Scottish Government considering that the media are completely against. Who is going to report the fact that it actually cost Scotland money to sell electricity to the South for the same reason.
I would rather we use our electricity or sell it elsewhere and let the Southerners go hang, but hey we were sold out of that by our nearest and dearest.
I want to say that I caught a comment by some twat on the new Scottish Statesman. He voted NO because we were going to have a currency union and he did not want one. So he voted to keep us in a currency union which we have absolutely no input or control.
God save me from idiots.
FAO Ian Brotherhood,
Hi again Ian.
Unfortunately that email address you suggested I use is being returned to me with a “failure to deliver” message.
Would you be kind enough to double check the details?
Regards, Jon.
“English Referendum on Scotlands removal from Union”
Signed. (and everything else apart from Broon’s hijack!) 🙂
Gordon Brown will not be the leader of Scottish Labour….where is he now? He is finished with politics.
Only dipping in and out to lend a hand. Murphy has made millions from being an MP, I believe he was asked to do it, but no way that troughing bastard will give up his seat.
Labour are stuck with Lamont.
What a spectacular fraud its all been.
link to archive.today
“There could be ‘huge quantities’ of shale gas onshore UK which would be ‘massively important to the UK, according to oil tycoon Sir Ian Wood. He says the potential for offshore fracking – the controversial process for extracting the gas – is far more limited than some suggested in the run-up to the Scottish Referendum.”
September 29 2014, 8:34am or just one more obscenely rich old fraud who could wait barely a week.
@Dorothy Devine
Yeah that’s a sad film. I,m on Facebook umpteen times a day and had seen all that stuff ages ago before it was professionally put together! You see most things first on Facebook. As Morag has pointed out whether it’s true or not we can’t prove anything and dwelling on it stops everyone going forward.
The MSM especially the BBBC is already biased towards Labour for all the elections coming up, so no BBBC , SKY and STV are tripe as well. Channel 4 can be good at times and although I watch RT, French TV, Aljazeera, euronews I’m desperately hoping for a totally Scottish News programme looking at the news from a Scottish perspective.
It would make a huge difference! I would totally support anyone or body that set this up.
Jon D,
re Ian.
I think you’ll find it is stevenston (steventson is a typo!)
@ Helena Brown
I take it you meant Jane Carnall’s “article”, not a “HE”.
I’ve heard the argument elsewhere: “I voted NO because I support independence but am against currency union and had to stop that at all costs” – talk about twisted logic.
@JonD –
Apologies mister.
I am a dyslexic tool.
Try this:
ian@stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk
link to archive.today
Check out this modern day rogue who sold Scotland for black gold really, near end of interview, Sir Ian tries to explain why Norway has a near trillion dollar state pension and there is none in teamGB.
Its actually fascinating watching rich fraudsters in action as Ian explains why SNP Scots.gov planned similar state oil fund was one of his main reasons for attacking Scottish independence. His reason, there’s not enough Scots oil left having explained how he’s going to get even richer off of Scots fracking oil and gas.
Suckas.
Morag says:
That gives me all kinds of evil ideas…. 😉
Anent Scottish Labour needing a “Big Hitter” to replace Lamont, Gordon Brown as a “Big Shitter” is the nearest thing to it and the obvious choice.
@Helena Brown.
That ‘Edinburgh Eye’ twat you were arguing with is probably just a troll. He/she tried their nonsense on here a while ago, and was given short shift.
Juteman You have confirmed me in my opinion, I think all of NO voters were.
@Westie7 maybe people don’t know about the Longannet charges to feed into the grid. Newsnet article plus comments here throw light on this outrageous discrimination:
link to newsnetscotland.scot
Not the sort of thing the average BBC viewer or newspaper reader would be told.
Yes, heedtracker, it sure is a very shoogly way of guaranteeing PV security – not!
Indeed, the whole operation was by any reasonable security standards woefully weak.
I was at the count till 05.15 when the result was declared by the Returning Officer, this after a fairly inordinate delay in proceedings in the ‘backroom’, where laptops were seen to be in workmanlike use.
Now, why do you need laptops in action to add bundles, of 50, ballot papers for YES and NO, and indeed, was that final tally operation witnessed and verified by YES and NO representatives. Do we seriously, just naively take it as totally unthinkable that a Returning Officer and whomsoever was in that inner cabal could falsely return actual numbers? Who checked this out?
This was the biggest stakes game ever for the UK establishment and it heavily impacted on many other international concerns, governments, major banks and multi-national businesses, so it would be wise not to believe all in the garden was hunkey-dorey, and take it that, there is the probability we were, well and truly stuffed.
It’s much healthier.
That gives me all kinds of evil ideas….
I actually did something slightly similar. I created a wiki page about my mother, who had a sufficiently notable musical career to be worth it. However, it was difficult to find references for some of it because it was a long time ago. I referenced what I could, but there was stuff in there which was “original research” in that the subject of the biography had told it to me directly.
After she died I used the wiki entry to write her obituary, which was published in both the Herald and the Scotsman. That then provided a very handy citation.
from Yes Giffnock facebook
Good Morning to all,
Please take the time to read all of this ,
For the last few weeks, everyone has been wondering and speculating as to why there have been no posts on he Yes Scotland page.
I promised you all a little breaking news last week after the SNP meeting I attended at Eastwood.
Whilst speaking to Keith Brown MSP, I had to ask him what the plans were for the Yes campaign now that the referendum was over and we had lost.
He confirmed to me that which most of us have feared all along, that for the SNP the campaign was finished.
Well,l we kinda knew that, but had hoped that it would be taken in a new direction still under their stewardship.
So, I then further asked why (obvious question)? He replied to me that when the Yes movement had started, it was a small funded campaign that the SNP could afford, but as it grew and grew, added several more political parties to it which they could not afford to fund by themselves.
Whilst this happened there was further changes to the campaign, there weas now self-funding going on from within each of the Yes pages in their own right, and further mass events that were going on outwith the SNP centralization of the original plan.
In other words, Yes had grown to be so large and so well organized that there was no further need, other than an official figurehead in Blair Jenkins, for any further action from the SNP.
Now this may seem a little harsh but when you consider that the referendum is now finished, plus the fact that there is now 3 main parties who were previously involved in the Yes movement: the SNP, the Greens, and of course the Socialists. After which any official Leadership would have to come from all three parties under some sort of combined umbrella.
Personally I don’t think anything like that will happen again, unless as Jim Sillars predicts, we will gain a majority in the elections and force another Referendum in eighteen months.
Now then all this is not to say that there will now be no backing of the Yes pages and the strength of numbers coming from the parties! They know how important this community of pages and their followers are. There may yet be new leadership put in place, but at the moment this seems highly unlikely.
In Keith’s own words: We are now our own leaders and need no sanctioning from any party. In many ways we are our own party with the same aim that every one of the other main parties have – to bring our country out of the UK and have self rule for the first time in over 300 years.
None of this was said to me in confidence or secretly, but instead he was quite open about it. He said many had asked the same question, so it has quite annoyed me that there was never any real confirmation from Blair Jenkins. I guess he must have been a little nervous about telling us, or perhaps thought we might all just disband! Well, we are a bit more resilient than that.
So to finish with ,we carry on now, still as yes but with a renewed strength leading us forward to the General Election in May. Our purpose is clear , and a new round of canvassing and leaflet dropping will have to be organised amongst ourselves. Including events to be arranged by ourselves.
We have gone through the birth and teens of the Yes movement. We have learned from our many mistakes, we have grown in many ways together, both politically and mentally aware of what stands before us. It is now very clear who will stand against us, and we now know how the media and the other parties will use their underhanded ways against us.
Now that we know all these things will we be caught unaware? I don’t think so!
We also now have with us the thousands of previous No voters that are disgusted by the way they were lied to, and have now seen for themselves just how much that Labour, the Lib/Dems, and the Conservatives will go to in order to keep their failing Union alive .
We will never give up what we are fighting for and NO scare tactics or lies will ever frighten us off. We are still a Yes movement, but now we have moved our agenda to next May and a 51% minimum majority SNP. This is what is needed and this is what we will do. So, I say YES YES YES!! We all of us are still here, and going nowhere.
Rally the troops and let slip the dogs of war my friends, for once more we fight, and once more we go to war. The prize is your children’s freedom from the hands of Westminster, and the greed of politicians who would starve you and tax you into submission.
No more talk: let us now act as one. I ask all Yes pages, or whatever they have grown into, to make a point of talking to each other, and stop any stupid infighting that may have started amongst themselves. We need to once again co-ordinate and be as one in order to go forward with this.
Phil
P.S.
I also want to make sure that when it does come to the election, we demand more security for the ballots , even if we organise some sort of guard system over it, so there is no chance of further rumours etc, not sure if that can be done officially but we can find out.
I’m kind of slow at these things, but I finally realize what happened to all those missing tories in Scotland:
They joined the Labour Party.
The Corridors of Power
to
The Halls of Infamy
@Buger (the Panda)
A new US Marine Corps marching song? Or the new words to sing at the end of “S”lab conference?
Who was the WOS reader who spoke last night in Ayr Town Hall, upstairs, sitting way at the back? Man wearing white top.
Whoever ye are, well done – great contribution. So far as I noticed, Wings was the only indy-supporting site to get a mention all evening.
@Jamie Arriere
Thanks for the link to that game 🙂
My record so far is 401.27 miles. He landed in Cambridge.
Also that background song is now permanently stuck in my head!
Cant find the actual Electoral Commission formal rules but someone posted the link last week. All EC postal count rules were specifically for the count on the 18th Sept, for efficiency/time saving before the count began at 10pm. As postal votes arrived before 10pm, they could be opened and checked for fraud prior to 10pm.
But there was only one short rule that stated postal votes can be opened by count officers and witnessed by observers, as they arrive and at any time from 3rd Sept. And thats it.
All Count Officers had to do was tell observers when and where. NO process instruction on how to reseal envelope A, new and/or separate continually opened then resealed ballot boxes, how to record the numbers and seal codes, nothing.
So once again, Electoral Commission created a perfect exit poll that began on from the date the postal votes were sent to postal voters as they were returned and every single one was opened and examined.
Bettertogether Naw Thanks said on polling night they knew they had probably won long before the 18th, but then we have Gordon Brown, THE VOW etc all in the last few days, eh? But Ruth Davidson etc say they knew they had won.
Who runs the Electoral Commision? an ex BBC ligger.
lamont and right wingers gain their power by constantly putting others down, and telling others that what they do is crap.
the greens, snp, ssp, et al did not do that, but actively encouraged others to express themselves, which is why the yes movement has not gone home and nor will until we all have social justice.
i am also disgusted that my PV ballot was opened, possibly sampled, and used to target ballot box voters, which if it was, is ballot manipulation.
i will never vote by PV again.
As sections of society cheer on the UK stepping back from the concept of universal Human Rights largely, it would seem, to placate UKIP and right wing, ethnic nationalistic thinking it is worth remembering that UKIP has no comprehensive manifesto.
About one in three people in England voted UKIP at the last election that covered the British Isles.
I find it hard to be positive where we are going when I think that Johann Lamont is supposed to be a central player in the struggle against this political shift.
Voting Labservative makes no difference for Scotland. Why do so many tolerate this?
So you’re MI5 wonk doing your job basically and you know you have Scottish referendum postal vote opening process or “sampling” from day 1 until the 18th Sept and you want to know what’s going on. You know this because Uk.gov/EC wrote the rules.
You only have to put one of your spooks in each counting office or even merely a NO observer and day by day, you have a very clear view of how the vote is really going,
You then brief everyone, No.10, Bettertogther etc and at the very least the Naw Thanks campaign gets adapted and altered as polling day approaches. Its hardly James Bond licensed to thrill, costs nothing, noone gets hurt, Naw thanks win easy.
@Morag says: 6 October, 2014 at 11:54 pm:
“I’m fairly gobsmacked by the poor journalism evident in what passes for the “new media”.
Whoa! Girl, Twitter & Facebook are NOT the new media. They are the new Mass Communications Media. A swirling boorach of conflicting personal opinions. The New Media is composed of far more structured and dependable web based outlets. The fact is that, “The Old Media”, has changed to something very like Twitter and Facebook with, what was once a reliable source of facts, becoming a mess of lies, half-truths, personal opinion and propaganda.
At one time you could pick up a newspaper and read the news. You knew the news items were true reports of actual events. These almost never had a named reporter. Then you had named, “Columnists”, that you knew were giving their own personal opinions on the chosen subject they wrote about. Finally you read, “The Editorial” and there you expected, and got, the known biased opinions of the editor and owners of the publication.
The Union of Journalists were then the powerful regulators and woe betide an editor or owner who dared to influence the reporting of news or the opinions expressed by columnists. The downturn came when the NUJ lost their grip over what was printed and newspapers became very unreliable.
Here is wee bit from a Hansard report : –
” Press self-regulation in the United Kingdom began in 1953, when the industry established the Press Council in belated response to recommendations by a Royal Commission of 1949. The Council had two functions, to defend press freedom and to investigate complaints, but it never accomplished either task to the satisfaction of the public or of the press itself. Successive reforms, including the introduction of lay members, failed to raise its standing”.
does anyone know if 100% of polling cards were received in time for polling day?
i know that the no of PV returned was extremely high, can anyone remind me what the % was?
Test.
@handclapping
Yes that does work.
So must you charge VAT on sLab?
If left unkept and in the open, does it go soft or hard?
Maybe rancid and moldy have a 30% rate
link to archive.today
“Cut benefits? Yes, let’s start with our £85bn corporate welfare handout”
HandandShrimp says:
“The question is not whether there is a demand for full Home rule but whether Smith’s commission is up to the challenge to deliver it.”
I agree. I never thought Nae would actually offer it.
They breached purdah. If it wasn’t illegal, it certainly was immoral and undemocratic. But, they did it.
Of course, they lied about everything else during the campaign, they may simply have lied about their offer/promise/vow. And, the Smith commission is where that will be tested.
Two possibilties:
– they fudge it with DevoFA, IndyRef II follows in 2-3 years
– they deliver, which leads to independence in say 5-10 years
She didnae get in the lift cos she thinks, that she knows, erm with all due respect that she did maybe want tae get a hurl in the lift but with all due respect she stayed behind because she knew that 9,000 x £20 = £298 million..erm..
@ INDEPENDENT at 9.27
“Conservatives are terrified of a total collapse in the Lib Dem vote, since many of their seats in the North will go to Labour, and their Scottish constituencies could fall to the SNP.”
Their in that sentence refers to the LibDems, who do have constituencies-plural in Scotland. It’s ambiguous, because it could mean that the Tories are terrified that a collapse in the LibDem vote in Tory-held constituencies would make those more vulnerable (which it could). It’s much more likely that it refers to the fact that the loss of LibDem seats to non-Tories would make it harder for the Tories to remain in government, with or without the LibDems as coalition partners.
Robert, I was talking about the Huffington Post and New Europe, both of which repeated the twitter/facebook error without checking. People give these online “newspapers” more credibility than random tweets, but all they did was publish the information in the random tweets as fact.
Read what I wrote.
Anyone seen the Independent?
“NHS Confederation boss says financial crisis will mean patients having to pay for ‘accommodation’”
So B&B and full board eh?
@Bugger (the Panda)
If you think they take the biscuit, yes; if you think they are nutty as a fruitcake, no. 😉
I’m all for charging them with VAT, Values All Tory, though
@muttley79 10:38pm
There’s a very revealing breakdown of the deep Labour ties within BBC Scotland on this blog, it’s a real eye-opener:
lenathehyena.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/oh-what-a-tangled-web-we-weave-when-first-we-practice-to-deceive-bbc-scotland-and-the-labour-party/
Manchester Fire Service have released a Press Statement.
There has been a downturn in Lift Rescues saving thousands on emergency callouts,+ avoid getting into Lifts with Politicians no guarantees of rescue any time soon.
BBC News ..
Henry McLeish is backing the Greens to win devolved power….call me suspicious or cynical but is this more of the ” divide and rule” we’ve been used to ?
Today is the 13th anniversary of USA commencing bombing the Taliban in Afghanistan.
@Robert Peffers
It’s been a long time since ‘old media’ was impartial when it comes to political matters.
Fact checking is still important when it comes to ‘regular’ stories.
But even the so-called ‘impartial’ sources still pick and choose which stories to run with, and how much prominence to give them.
As seen in the BBC choice of main stories in the final weeks of the referendum campaign.
Unfortunately, the main value of newspapers now seems to be for propaganda purposes. After all, it is yesterdays news by the time it is printed.
So what is left is a plaything for the rich to influence the masses.
link to washingtonpost.com
David Cameron’s Jewish family name, Levita is the Latin form of the name Levite, a Jew descended from the Tribe of Levi, the son of Jacob and one of the original twelve tribes of Israel. The leader of the Levites at the time of the exodus from Egypt was Moses, who was married with two sons. It is entirely possible therefore that he is a direct descendent of the Prophet. If affirmed he would be more royal than the queen.
link to caltonjock.com
@ heedtracker
You only have to put one of your spooks in each counting office or even merely a NO observer and day by day, you have a very clear view of how the vote is really going,
You then brief everyone, No.10, Bettertogther etc and at the very least the Naw Thanks campaign gets adapted and altered as polling day approaches. Its hardly James Bond licensed to thrill, costs nothing, noone gets hurt, Naw thanks win easy.
This makes no sense to me at all.
The postal vote was a no vote, as I understand it. So if what you envisage happened how did it help the No campaign? The information they got would have been that they were winning so why would they change tactics?
Fact is they did change tactics during the period when the postal votes had already been received (or most of them, anyway). It seems to me to follow that what you are suggesting did not happen
Nor do I think that postal votes were resealed into any envelope. Why would they do that? They are opened and checked and then put into a ballot box – why would they put them back in an envelope at that point? It makes no sense.
It is perfectly reasonable to be unhappy about the process, if you consider none of them should have been checked before the 18th. I have no idea how practical that is, for I do not know how long it takes to do the checks. It is reasonable to worry about the fact that the seal numbers were not recorded, if the video linked upthread is correct in stating this was not done.
But your scenario is not reasonable given what actually happened. At least I don’t think so.
Do you honestly think that they would have offered devo max if they knew they were comfortably ahead? Why would they do that?
@Morag says:
Robert, I was talking about the Huffington Post and New Europe, both of which repeated the twitter/facebook error without checking..
Morag, I saw these tweets by Peter Murrell you mentioned.
Unfortunately the message that started the 100,000 claim could easily have been taken 2 ways.
And there wasn’t a correction coming until 3 or 4 days later, and even then it wasn’t completely obvious.
Perhaps the 100,000 claim was allowed to run in order to get headlines, and maybe get a bandwagon effect going.
But 77,000 and rising is still very impressive, and membership could still hit 100k this year.
What is good to see, going by the meeting reports, is the emergence of a larger number of potential ‘active’ members.
It’s going to be far easier to leaflet an area with 10-20 helpers, instead of 4 or 5.
Why do folk waste their time worrying about which branch of the Westminster Party will be in office in 2015? It’s like the Roman circus, where folk wore different colour armbands to show their support for the team they supported.
It didn’t matter who won the game, the Emperor still ruled.
@Ian Brotherhood says:
7 October, 2014 at 11:47 am
Who was the WOS reader who spoke last night in Ayr Town Hall, upstairs, sitting way at the back? Man wearing white top.
T’was I!
Thank you for your very kind words Ian, I arrived a bit late because of the kids so I might have duplicated some of the early slides of the presentation!
I take it you were downstairs – did you speak at all? There were a couple of SSP chaps that spoke well and shared some good insights, especially some of the SNP factionalism in North Ayrshire which really got my goat!
(Not a dig at SNP in general but a specific dig at the twats in North Ayrshire acting like spoilt kids – refer to a classic Harry Enfield sketch where the Tory and Labour characters share all the food at a tea-party and don’t let the Liberal (guest appearance David Steel!) have anything as ‘he hasn’t brought anything to share’)
I was not kidding when I talked about finishing crying on the 19th, it was a full-on grieving process through all the stages (anger, bargaining, acceptance – there is a classic Simpsons episode where Homer is deemed likely to die after eating a poisonous Japanese fish that would provide the best insight!) and now my belly is full of fire again to take the fight forward.
I know, when my children are older and ask about this time, that I will be able to look my children in the eye and tell them I did the right thing and fought hard – how many ‘No’ voters will be able to say the same, looking at kids or grandkids in the future and the best they can muster is: ‘I didn’t like AlecSammin’ (Kid: ‘Alec who?’) or ‘I’m wasn’t sure we could manage’ (Kid: How did you manage to move out of your parents house then?)or ‘There was risk involved’ (Kid: ‘There is risk involved in crossing the road but we still do it’)
Onwards!
I have left a post in O/T re Wings Banners should anybody wish to have theire own Banner.
galamcennalath says:
7 October, 2014 at 12:38 pm
HandandShrimp says:
“The question is not whether there is a demand for full Home rule but whether Smith’s commission is up to the challenge to deliver it.”
I agree. I never thought Nae would actually offer it.
They breached purdah. If it wasn’t illegal, it certainly was immoral and undemocratic. But, they did it.
Of course, they lied about everything else during the campaign, they may simply have lied about their offer/promise/vow. And, the Smith commission is where that will be tested.
Two possibilties:
– they fudge it with DevoFA, IndyRef II follows in 2-3 years
– they deliver, which leads to independence in say 5-10 years
The panicked VOW was a catastrophic error of judgement that will be used to beat them ever so severely with up to and beyond the GE. With favourable PV samples, one can only imagine what spooked them into blind panic just three days before the vote.
I guess the simple explanation is that the stakes were just too high, even with a good PV sample and an apparent slow down in the trend towards YES, that they just could not be sure and were unwilling/unable to take the risk. They just had to make sure. As it turned out, completely unnecessary (even without the VOW, NO still would have scrapped it IMO).
Whatever the reason(s) for the VOW, panic they did and now the Scottish people may hold them to account and demand DevoMax. It’s not guaranteed but I hope they do. The GE is the next big test of Scottish will – if the people really want DevoMax as promised. They know what they have to do. Failure to dispose of a number of unionist Labour politicians next year, and it really is over for another 10 years. The establishment is chuckling quietly at us, but they are still worried about the GE. If most or all of Scottish Labour MPs are still standing afterwards, then the chuckles will become earth-shattering booms of laughter.
The Daily Record is now on twitter arguing with posters about their indy ref coverage.
Their sales must be dropping through the floor
@ liz
And revealing that whoever tweets on their behalf doesn’t know the difference between its and it’s.
They’re supposed to be journalists.
Pah!
@Col the Viking –
Aha!
All good stuff.
I was upstairs too – from your POV I was on the right, at the balcony, head on folded arms for the most part.
Aye – that was Gary (Parker?) downstairs who had a good go at the number-fiddling and lack of support for N Ayrshire (Three Towns), and they didn’t like that one wee toty bit.
Still and all, it was a splendid turnout, and an evening well-spent if it did nothing more than get folk recharged, kept the connections live.
I hope to hear you speak again – from what you’ve written above, I’m guessing it may not be long!
Bestest to ye mister, and if you happen to know anyone who’s toying with SSP involvement, we’ve a meeting for new members and anyone else interested in Ardeer Neighbourhood Centre (Stevenston)this evening, kick-off 7.p.m.
heedtracker repeats the paranoid conspiracy theory that the vote was rigged. Writing on this site, Douglas Daniel on 24 September refuted claims that the vote was rigged: “However, we certainly didn’t lose because of shenanigans at the counts, and perpetuating such stories only hinders the attempts that are currently being made to move on from the result and onto the second phase of this wide-ranging and thriving independence movement (Women For Independence and the Radical Independence Campaign are already planning their next conferences in the coming weeks). As an official referendum agent for Wings Over Scotland who witnessed the counting procedures first-hand, I hope these words might carry at least a bit of weight amongst online activists. Believe me, if anything dodgy had been happening, this vile cybernat would have been screaming it from the rafters.”
heedtracker should face reality – the majority rejected the claim that Scotland is a separate nation. When the majority rejects the claim of nationhood, then there is no nationhood.
bit O/T
Personal Appeal for moral support!!
(No Money!!!)
Please have a look at link to eurofree3.wordpress.com and express your support for the website, which is totally against bigotry in any shape or form.
Write to the open democracy site link to opendemocracy.net
Express your support for the Celtic league initiative of writing to the UN and contempt for the Ulster Unionist denigration of the association.
heartfelt thanks to everyone who writes in to either or both sites!
Just read on my news feed that the Smith Commission are not allowing SSP a place, and Colin Fox has written to them asking them to reconsider. Think this is pretty disgusting, given we know that liars etc. are afforded a place. Smith says its due to their lack of “parliamentary representation” Yet, as I understand, Women for Independence are looking to get in???
Have I missed completely reference to the full results of postal voting. Were postal votes recorded separately anywhere? If so, what was the outcome.
Is it possible while sampling that the outcome of postal voting was narrower in favour albeit in favour of no than was expected giving rise to the VOW?
Couldnt agree more Will
Mark Smith is the Herald’s answer to Jedward, but without their deep insights into socio-economic political psycho-history.
Luigi, there have been credible insider leaks that private polling done for the No campaign was recording 53% for Yes about the point where the Vow appeared. (The Yes campaign were also said to be getting 53 to 54% for Yes.)
Clearly at that level there was a significant danger that Yes on the day could be high enough to overwhelm a No on the postal vote.
@Valerie
They’re almost as scared of Socialists as they are of Cybernats 😉
@Morag says: 7 October, 2014 at 12:21 am:
“I’m also quite surprised at the identities of some of the people who were telling me, “oh Peter Murrell tweeted it”, or “it’s on the SNP’s Facebook page” or “Peter Murrell put it on his Facebook page” or “yes but that number doesn’t include the ones waiting to be processed” when precisely none of that was true.”
Why are you still surprised, Morag? I’ve been pointing out for years that people claiming to be the best educated members of in the United Kingdom are most certainly not so. They are, without doubt, the most likely people to fail the most basic needs of education. Those needs are the ability to comprehend their own native language and to understand the concept of what calculations are attempting to achieve.
I’ll illustrate that by examples, beginning with a person educated at Heatherdown Preparatory School then on to Eton College, (aged 13), and finally Brasenose College, Oxford, graduated in 1988 with a first-class honours degree, Bachelor of Arts in philosophy, politics and economics. Yet this well educated person is quite incapable of distinguishing the critical difference between an island, an archipelago, a kingdom, a country and a political state.
I refer, of course, to David Cameron the current Prime Minister of, “Her Majesty’s Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland”. This, “”Well Educated”, numptie can frequently be heard claiming he is, “The Prime Minister”, of, “His Country”, “The Country” or, “Britain”. He also often refers to, “His Government”. His least common claim is to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Government.
As for his degree in economics, the numptie fails to observe the basic concepts of simple arithmetic. In that he frequently makes exaggerated claims based upon, the most basic of all errors, only making a calculation upon one side of a complete calculation then quoting the incomplete result as a correct answer. Think of his frequent claims that the United Kingdom subsidises Scotland when every correctly stated and calculated equation states otherwise. They state the side of the full equation that shows what comes from the Treasury but not the side that shows what Scotland gives the treasury.
So, Morag, why are you so surprised when lesser mortals make equally basic errors when the Prime Minister of, “Her Majesty’s United Kingdom Government”, frequently claims such idiotic things as that , he is the Prime Minister of HIS Government and is sending in, THE BRITISH, armed forces to protect, “BRITAIN’S best interests”. The numptie cannot speak for BRITAIN for BRITAIN has eight different countries of which only four are part of The United KINGDOM, A KINGDOM which is a union of TWO KINGDOMS and not of FOUR COUNTRIES., (Unless, of course, you are somewhat poorly educated).
@ Ian Brotherhood
Must have seen you then, just didn’t join the ‘Avatar’ to the face!
Be good to meet in the flesh, sure it will be soon enough, will have a proper look out for you at the next meet!
Take care
Onwards!
@Luigi
@Morag
If you go googling, you can see when Home Rule / Devo Max unfolded. The MSM were of course completely in bed with BT so reported stories to fit the agenda.
8th Brown offered “home rule” on TV
9th P&J “Gordon Brown promised Scots “home rule” … as panic engulfed Westminster over rising support for independence.” [Telling the truth!]
10th Scotsman reports … Tory backbencher Christopher Chope demanded to know: “When did the government change its mind on devomax …?”
10th Conservative Home “Cameron mustn’t let up on Devo Max”
etc etc etc lots of examples
It is clear they were spooked over the weekend and sprung into action on Monday 8th in a coordinated (probably pre-planned) campaign to get the buzz words Home Rule and Devo Max into voters’ minds.
Yes were winning but didn’t stand a chance once the promise/guarantee/vow was made. It was their last ditch weapon. The decision to deploy was made over the 6th/7th.
@Robert Peffers
Indeed, like when they all got together to not go into coalition with the SNP in 2007.
Morag
If that is true then we are talking about a negative 8% response to the Unionist bounce (last minute) tactics. The ‘Vow’ but also the scarcely mentioned ‘Big Lies’ which got a 24 hour airing about three days out, namely the £4000 on income tax, the £1800 on your mortgage.
Unless they are countered by educating people before hand that these bounce tactics will happen or by doing a counter-bounce on the negative aspects of the Union, it means we would need around 58% Yes in the polls going into the next referendum.
Clearly, many people regretted a No vote almost immediately.
There should be a ‘cooling off’ period for a referendum where folk can change their minds once they have considered things calmly.
The irony is that one of the first bills in Westminster after the referendum greatly enhanced ‘cooling off’ rights for purchasers. Listening to it on Radio 4 I there were several things the referendum ‘contract’ would have fallen foul of under the Bill.
Anyone any ideas about numbers expected or hoped for at this rally on Sunday?
And can we keep plugging it here incase there’s any stragglers looking through the site who may want to attend. (no offence to stragglers)
This Sunday 12th, George Square, Glasgow, 12-3pm. (hope i got that right or i’m gonna miss it)
Thanks Flux for that interesting document! Must have missed that one in the frenzied lead in to the vote. Ah well, more time now to catch up with things and possibly to root around in all these other nefarious connections.
Eleanor B., Gary Campbell and Hailey Miller are extremely ubiquitous on our airwaves, wonder where they fit in to it all and of course Glen Campbell, any relation I wonder?
@Graeme Doig -it’s 12-5 on Sunday.
I think they are still looking for funds as it costs to hire Gg Sq.
RE the Labour carpet baggers leaving Lamont in the lurch. Peter Oborne, although right-wing, wrote a critical book about the political elite (Triumph of the Political Class). The similarity of background, education and employment, regardless of which party they attach themselves to ensures their swift rise up the greasy pole. Oxbridge, media organisations then political special adviser or researcher seems to be the favoured route. Here’s a Channel 4 Dispatches from 2009 where Oborne investigates the Friends of Israel lobby (Jim Murphy is one). A surprise appearance of Annabel Goldie and Ruth Davidson skipping along beside David Cameron at the Conservative party conference in 2009 at 16 mins 52 seconds in.
Happy days!
link to youtube.com
Ruths Wikipedia entry shows the rapid rise for those who know te right people:
“After graduating from Edinburgh University, she worked as a BBC journalist and signaller in the Territorial Army. After leaving the BBC in 2009 to study at Glasgow University, Davidson joined the Conservative Party, and was the party’s candidate in the Glasgow North East constituency at a 2009 by-election and at the 2010 general election, finishing in respectively 3rd and 4th place, with approximately 5% of the vote.”
link to en.wikipedia.org
Liz
You mean it’s still to be confirmed?
And where should folks donate (if you know off the top of your head)?
I’d sooner be trapped in a lift full of skunks than a lift full of Labourites. The smell must have ben horrendous.
@Chic McGregor
Agreed. Two or three years ago polling for independence was around the late 20s, low 30 per cent level. We got to 45 per cent, around 1.6 million voters. So the Yes campaign was able to gain the support of at least 15 per cent to independence. That in itself is a massive achievement. However, in hindsight we started on too low a level of support for independence. If we get another chance, we need to be at 60 per cent or so for independence to be much more probable (because I cannot see us getting more than two attempts at it). That means that more people are reconciled to it, and less chance of the fear tactics working.
O/T
Fife is being used as a guinea pig for controversial plans to ignite subsea coal seams as a way to keep Britain’s lights on.
That is the claim from people worried by the proposal amid revelations a planning application could be lodged within months to carry out the process on the Firth of Forth.
link to archive.today
news came in very soon after the vote that the vow was meaningless.
we had to know this for sure, we now do, the post indy announcements prove it
morag i agree with you that yes was ahead despite BT seemingly knowing that they were ahead in PV’s.
they then put max attention onto over 55’s vote.
BT campaign was @ the very least immoral.
they and we know it.
Chic McGregor we now know better.
they put great emphasis on YES vote being irreversible which means/implies a NO vote is not!
the SSP should of course be part of the Smith Commission.
So should UKIP and any other registered political party.
The Greens, whom I have come to respect during this campaign has 2, the Lib Dems who are about to be wiped out have 2 so why not the SSP.
As an aside, go to
link to bbc.co.uk
Labours 2nd rep is Gregg McClymont? (Labour).
Why the question mark?
We are only going to get independence if we get smarter, we can work harder, but the message has to be correct.
We must educate ourselves first, I bet there are only a handful of people on here that can explain how interest rates are set and why they are different across the EU yet they all have a central bank with the same base rate…
Nana
Not to worry. Algy Cluff reckons it’s “much safer” than it used to be.
Hands up who trusts wm to regulate these chancing, money grabbing b######s.
Algy Cluff can get to fluff.
@yesindyref2 says: 7 October, 2014 at 12:59 am:
“Curtice has now covered the Panelbase poll for the SNP, and reckons the SNP will only pick up a “handful” of seats! What do you think?
The Prof is so biased he blinds himself to the overall picture, (which I already explained elsewhere). Here it is briefly again :-
The whole demographics have changed in almost every constituency. It is no longer a straight fight between the SNP and the sitting member with the other party faithful backing the lesser parties in that constituency. The dramatic rise in membership of all the independence supporting parties indicates the motive of new members is a cross-party support for independence. The name of the game shifts from the party to the country, (or kingdom), of Scotland’s independence.
I’ll put that another way, (from my own personal viewpoint). I’m nearly an octogenarian who has never voted other than SNP. I’m prepared to vote for any candidate of another independence supporting party better suited to unseat a unionist member, whether that sitting member be Councillor, MSP, MP or MEP.
I have often voted SNP from party loyalty in this Labour Party heartland, that has returned a past Labour Chancellor and Prime Minister, when I knew there wasn’t a hope in hell of my choice being a winner. Think what effect that would have in a marginal.
The Prof only considers a viewpoint from the Labour Party and their chances against any other party. He also fails to account for the fact that Labour Party members are among those who will vote against the London Labour Party as Labour For Indy are now a growing force among we independence seekers.
Nana
I just hope we have some real fighters in positions of power right now who are going to mitigate the worst excesses of what’s being done to our country until we hsve control over it.
Oh to be one of those folk and have the ability to use a few unminced words.
link to youtube.com
WRITING OFF SCOTLAND – Press Bias in the Independence Referendum
Elsewhere in the interview, Morrissey also fired verbal barbs at the Beckhams, bullfighters and the British royal family, and accused the BBC of conspiring against the yes vote in Scotland’s recent independence referendum. “The BBC did everything possible to tilt the vote toward no and never reported on the potential benefits of an independent Scotland,” he claimed. “They speak in the name of democracy only when it suits them.”
475.78 miles – all the way to Westminster – if only !
@Graeme Doig –
The Hope Over Fear rally on Sunday, George Square?
Young guy told me yesterday that 14,000 folk have declared intention to go (via Facebook/twitter), but I can’t confirm that.
Oor very ain Cactus has predicted it’ll be a biggie. We shall see soon enough.
(As for Lord Smith rubber-earing any SSP input to his commission? Nice one Smiffy! – at least we know where we stand, and can divert our time and resources to more worthwhile projects. Oh, and, btw, GIRFUY.)
Hope Over Fear Rally 12/10/14
13.1K confirmed as attending on the Hope over Fear facebook page with another 1.8k maybe.
I’ll be there with a few others, I am not one of the numbers above.
link to facebook.com
@Graeme Doig
I’m hoping once the FM is unrestrained by his ministerial office protocol he will let rip. It’s what is needed as too many take the softly softly nicey nicey approach.
What is happening between government and business in Westminster is criminal. Corruption appears to be everywhere from expenses fraud to brown envelopes in the lobbies. I’m truly sick of it all.
Goodness knows I wouldn’t be able to hold my tongue so its as well I’m not in the public eye, I fear the air would be rather blue!
Try again.
Hope Over Fear
@Graeme Doig – no it’s definitely going ahead.
Cant find the fund address offhand but have asked Tommy Sheridan if he can put it up again.
PS I think they can also raise money on the day selling t-shirts etc
@Alex Clark –
Cheers for confirmation of that estimate. I thought it was perhaps a bit optimistic, but hey-ho, here’s hoping it’s a nice day.
(Incidentally, it does make you wonder what the actual capacity of George Square is. Have a feeling it’d be pretty tight with 14k.)
Hi All
Posted below in Off-topic but here it is again… Although what I did not mention in off-topic is we are looking for somebody to donate a second hand transit type so we can convert it into a mobile broadcast vehicle. Help with this and get your branding on the side then email: liveindependence@gmail.com
Del is going to be live streaming on Sunday so say hello if you make it to George Square and get interviewed.
The last time I posted for support, I put in the wrong web link much to my shame.
Anyway, If you would like to help out we really could be doing with it as the money is going to pay for me to go full time to take Scottish Independence Live Events to a new level. Asking for £4000 in crowdfunding which will pay me about £200/week for 3-4 month plus some expenses involved in running SILE. There are currently 11 people involved with SILE all giving their time free to make things happen. If you can support us please visit our website.
Loads of stuff happening including an interview with Ivan McKee on Thu 9th using our hi-end equipment. Also checkout the Darren Carnegie from Glasgow’s Needy foodbank on our website as he discusses what he is doing including police harassment.
Don’t Hate The Media, Become The Media
We are citizen live stream journalists. People like you, are us.
http://www.independencelive.net
Yes, they have t shirts for £5 on the day. Also seems to be a clamour for the saltire V for vendetta face masks. Might look a tad out of place when I’m walking the dogs in the country park so might give that a miss.
I’ll be there on Sunday if this cold isn’t still beating me senseless by then.
Otherwise I’ll be tucked up nice and warm in bed, watching the livestream on the laptop 🙂
Here goes. The Postal voting procedure.
You want a postal vote, so you contact the council and they send you a form, on which you put your details, e.g. address and, critically, a signature.
When the election approaches, you are sent a PV pack, which includes two pieces of paper and two envelopes.
One is an actual ballot paper: you vote for your candidate (or option) of choice put it in one envelope and seal it. You then complete the PV form which, basically, asks for the same information as the application, put this and the first envelope in the second, seal it and post it (or take it to the Council offices).
After a set period after the opening of the campaign, but some time before the count, the first envelope is opened, and the details checked against the application to ensure that they are the same. That is why counting agents are there—so they can challenge ones that don’t seem to match.
The first envelope is then opened, and the ballots counted. This should be done face down, but you can generally see enough (either because the ballot flips up or because yoiu can see through the paper) to be able to estimate the results.
The ballots are then placed in ballot box(es) and sealed. This is repeated at regular intervals when there are enough PVs hanging around to make it worthwhile bringing everyone in. On subsequent counts, the toal of PVs is updated, the box is opened, the new ballots put in and the boxes re-sealed. A PV is only handled once, ballots in the box stay there when irt is re-opened.
Everyone tries to sample the ballots. I did it in my day as an Agent (not for postal votes but for the reconciliation count at General Elections to see what the votes were in our target wards). Ruthie’s big mistake was blabbing to the press.
The checking must be done before the count, as it would take too long on polling day. I agree it would be better if the ballots were left in the envelope until the day. They could easily be opened and processed after the polling closes and before the boxes start arriving.
The PV was always going to be strong No—SLAB has a machine that knows where their vote is, knows where all the OAP homes are, and gets these votes out. I agree with those who think that the sampling worried the No campaign—they were ahead, but not as much as they expected: hence the Vow.
However, electorally, the real problem with the PV system is not the realtively small scale voting fraud but the fact that by casting their votes early, up to half or more of the campaign is neutralised. There was clearly a swing to Yes up to the Vow: if the postal voters had voted in person or by proxy, many would have changed. That’s the real problem with the system. Note that since mass postal voting in bye-elections, the defending team always go for a short campaign. It’s been estimated in the Eastleigh bye-election that if the PVs had swung to UKIP in the same proportions as those who voted on the day, UKIP would have won.
There are a number of reforms to the system needed:
– Restrict them to the genuinely ill and absent;
– Dont let political parties handle any part of the system;
– Dont open the ballot papers until the polls have closed.
Thanks Ian, Alex, Liz for info.
I don’t do facebook or twitter which seems to be an issue re getting info. I also think it’s an issue for this movement going forward. Big numbers need to turn up at these events to show we are a force to be reckoned with so there needs to be more wide reaching ways of getting info out.
Can someone give the url of the details in the Skwerr: Who, whit, when, wherr? I don’t do facebook nor twitter either: too much of a hangout for bams, anonymous cowards and time wasters.
@donald anderson
Poster of the info you seek regarding the Skwerr.
link to i58.tinypic.com
@Ian Brotherhood
Regarding the numbers expected to attend, it wouldn’t surprise me if there were twice the confirmed 13k. I’ll be seeking shelter on one of the statues if that is the case.
Reminds me of a book I once read 🙂
@Mark Austin
Thanks for the info.
At the time I did wonder why BT were pushing for confirmed No voters to register for a postal vote… Must have been worried that some of them might waver if given the time to think about it.
@ wee Alex, Gregg Mclymont? Hahaha….. That’s brilliant the poor sod is on honeymoon and doesn’t know yet. Some wedding present!
Im Scottish but based in Italy. I want a yes flag to hang from my balcony here. Anybody know websites that will deliver?
i hate her.