The trinity of cringe
Unionists can often be heard protesting that the phrase “too wee, too poor, too stupid” is a dreadful Nat calumny which nobody on the No side has ever actually uttered. And of course they’re technically right – not even “Better Together” is quite stupid enough (and certainly not honest enough) to come out and use the phrase in its overt form.
That quote, taken from a story in today’s Sunday Herald, seems to be pretty closely related to the first two of the unholy trinity, though.
(And if you want to encounter the third, you don’t have to go too far either. There’s this piece from the Express, or this clip of David Cameron replying to the SNP’s Angus Robertson in the House Of Commons last year.)
The particularly odd thing about the Denmark example is that Denmark (whose population is slightly higher than Scotland’s and whose GDP per capita is more than 50% higher than the UK’s) just did something that the No camp regularly insist Scotland wouldn’t be able to do – secure an EU rebate.
But nevertheless, while we’ll never actually hear the six-word mantra that underpins the entire strategy of “Better Together” spoken aloud, it’s important to remember that it’s always there, sometimes closer to the surface than Unionists would like us to notice.
Just got back in and clicked in to Facebook to chat to someone and tripped over this wee nugget.
http://on.fb.me/XzgAnv
Looking forward to reading about the Danish rebate and comparisons with Scotland, in the MSM tomorrow ;o)))) Douglas Fraser will doubtless headline it. And Call Kaye is bound to have it on her prog not that I would know as the last time I listened to her screeching I almost crashed the Jaguar.
Well oif course they won’t come out and say it precisely – they will hint at it…none to subtly, but the implications are there.
Can’t run an army – we’d have to hire a norwegian – (too stupid)
We can’t afford an intelligence agency (too poor)
We don’t have enough planners for defense (too stupid & too poor)
We wouldn’t have a big army or navy (too poor, too small)
We couldn’t survived World war 2 – (too poor, too small & too stupid)
We wouldn’t be able to compete in world trade because we would be scottish, not British (Again all three)
We wouldn’t be able to compete in sports (too poor, too small)
we wouldn’t be able to appreciate Britsh culture anymore (all three? yes I think so)
There would be lots of treaties and forms to deal with (too stupid)
We would not be taken seriously abroad as a world power (again all three I think)
Can’t have the BBC (too poor)
Wouldn’t be able to make our own TV (too poor, too stupid)
so on and so on and so on.
It’s always there – because in the end – its all they have.
@Hen Broon
I know one of the girls that asked a question on QT Stirling.She works for Falkirk council.The audience is obviously bussed in and weighted a certain way.
Yes, the question is though: has Denmark got a better society? To me that it the most important thing in achieving independence. I honestly could not care less about UK’s influence at EU summits, the seat on the UN Security Council etc when the welfare state is being dismantled by a government we never gave a proper mandate to. The No campaign have got a cheek bringing up EU summits, when it looks like we will be out of the EU anyway in the event of a No vote.
I saw on twitter one of the questioners was a Lib Dem councillor. Funny that…two people from councils!
I thinks its time these small countries in the E U are made aware of how British Unionists regard them.
The sheer arrogance of these people is stunning.
Turnip_Ghost says:
10 February, 2013 at 8:28 pm
“I saw on twitter one of the questioners was a Lib Dem councillor. Funny that…two people from councils!”
Click my Link for the evidence. The BBC go to great lengths to ensure they get a unionist dominated audience. The SNP can only get on the audience by pretending to be something else. Most of the Stirling audience will have been vouched for by local representatives.
http://on.fb.me/XzgAnv
“Commenting on the publication of the first report from the SNP’s Willie Rennie Fiscal Commission Willie Rennie, Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats said:”
http://www.glasgowlibdems.org.uk/index.php/news/uk-lib-dem-news/28-scottish-lib-dems/2206-big-questions-remain-over-snp-spending-promises
“Commenting on the publication of the first report from the SNP’s Willie Rennie Fiscal Commission, Willie Rennie, Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats said:
“The commission has found that I am too poor, too wee and too stupid to be taken seriously. I thank the SNP for this valuable report.”
As I said on a previous thread, the QT audience do not simply walk in off the street. They are carefully vetted and selected on the basis of their political beliefs. I have fallen at this hurdle on a number of occasions.
Alas, poor Wullie.
http://www.bbc.scotlandshire.co.uk/index.php/city-news/180-in-memoriam.html
and the Rev Stu gets some credit!
Despised, derided, patronised. That about covers it.
At the 2pm news on Radio Scotland today boomed the almost gleeful report that ‘David Camerons says’ I stopped listening but then heard ‘Nicola Sturgeon says’ he was being negative and I am sure somewhere deep in my inner ear I could hear the BBC news reader saying ‘na na nana na’ whilst sticking out his tongue and wiggling his hands in his ears at what Nicola Sturgeon said. The BBC give the 2w2w2s message every day that I listen to them. They do it by saying somebody said, therefore distancing themselves enough to claim its not their words.
“As I said on a previous thread, the QT audience do not simply walk in off the street. They are carefully vetted and selected on the basis of their political beliefs. I have fallen at this hurdle on a number of occasions.”
I can’t remember what I said on the form, but I got in first time.
@Hen Broon
http://twibbon.com/605961409
@ Rev Stuart
We do differ on a few issues though. How did you get on? Did you manage to get a question or comment in?
I read a few years back, that ROI had managed to get twice the legislation onto the books in the EU than the UK had.
Also, who can forget David Cameron nervously having to ask the Irish negotiating team when they came out of a key EU meeting (from which Cameron was barred) whether the UK were still in the EU or not? He was obviously so concerned that they might have been ousted that he couldn’t wait for a san camera moment to ask them.
The Irish delegate clearly relished Cameron’s embarrassment.
I don’t have vote in the referendum. I’m relying on the people in Scotland as I can’t come home. I don’t have a cringe but so many Scots do. Too many have taken British gold, have bought in to the British lie. Too many of us have had to leave and sometimes I despair that those who are left will vote no.
I want to come home, one day, to an independent Scotland. If I can’t come home to retire then I hope I’ ll be laid to rest in a free Scotland. I’ll be 50 in 2016 and hope to pick up my Scots passport then. If the vote is no, then I won’t be back.
Scotland has always suffered more from the cringers within than from our neighbours. Synthetic Scots make me grue.
@ewen –
We’re going to win this thing mister. Seriously. We can’t afford not to. You could be coming back home a lot sooner than you thought.
“We do differ on a few issues though. How did you get on? Did you manage to get a question or comment in?”
I got a question in, though it was at the end and got pretty short answers.
@ianbrotherhood
I hope so. Needless to say ill be doing my bit. I come from nationalist stock. My parents put everything into the cause and it is all I’ve known and my core belief.
Can anybody remember Robin Day asking the then Prime Minister Ted Heath what he thought about Scotland going independent on national tv, He would have been voting YES according to his reply. The BBC have a recording in their archives.
How different the media question the no campaigners and the yes group. It is now almost a complete farce. Do they really think that nobody will notice the bias,this attitude will divert a stream of voters to the yes side, so just keep up the goodwork.
Regarding the notion that Denmark has no influence in the EU, perhaps that “Coalition source” should recall the last international negotiation called the “Edinburgh Agreement”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Agreement_%281992%29
Denmark did more to put the brakes on Jacques Delors’ United States of Europe than Thatcher’s handbag ever did – and they did it democratically.
The various arguments that a country of 5 million would be unable to keep up with the paperwork, legislation, administration , removal of horse droppings from highways etc., may have some truth.
But can we be sure if the 65 million presently in the UK are sufficient to do all the jobs necessary for their continued maintenance? Is it possible there is something we really should be doing that we are not? What? Not one single thing? My, aren’t we good?
Is it then, just credible that some of electron pushing and form filling so many people seem to be doing in the offices of power* these days could be ditched without anyone noticing? Might a smaller operation even prioritise that?
*The only thing in the corridors of power these days seems to be people dying on trolleys.
I always find the Legatum Prosperity Index well worth quoting when ever I get this argument. Note Denmark is number 2, with Norway number 1. UK is way below at number 13.
http://www.prosperity.com/Ranking.aspx
Soapy, what evidence there is for size versus success suggests that around the 5 million mark is the optimum. Large countries suffer from bureaucratic inertia and complexity and its bedfellow corruption.
There is an economy of scale factor for smaller countries but the big country syndromes start to kick in and override that effect at about the 5 million mark.
If bigger was better we’d all be living on bloody Jupiter.