Voters less ordinary
The Times has a front-page lead this morning on the “Better Together” rally held in Glasgow yesterday, at which the official lead campaign group debuted its new “No Thanks” slogan. The article makes an interesting claim:
Well, that all seems legit.
After all, it’s a different spelling to THIS Clare Lally:
“Clare Lally is to join Labour’s shadow cabinet as their first ‘Carers Champion’. The role will see the 31-year-old, who has no previous political experience, advise Johann Lamont’s party on the challenges facing Scotland’s 660,000 carers.
Clare, of Duntocher, Dunbartonshire, said she was delighted to help influence key policy. She said: ‘I have always been a Labour supporter. But to actually be able to contribute and help make a difference is a better opportunity than I could have asked for.'”
Duntocher is also more than three miles away from Clydebank, and it’s probably a total coincidence that two women in Dunbartonshire have almost the same name, severely disabled daughters and close links to the Labour Party. And the odds of her being the same Claire Lally who’s the daughter-in-law of former Labour Lord Provost of Glasgow Pat Lally and has a husband called Derek must be astronomically high.
We’re all but certain that this ordinary mum definitely ISN’T the one who’s part of what the Record calls “the political elite”, a member of the Scottish Labour shadow cabinet, an experienced media performer or generations deep in the Glasgow Labour oligarchy and prepared to lie on command about the NHS for political ends.
After all, that would mean that “Better Together” were misleading people by presenting hardcore political activists as normal everyday folk, and that can’t possibly be true.
.
EDIT 10.12pm: Despite much confusing and contradictory information, after further investigation we’re now more or less sure that Clare Lally is NOT in fact related to Pat Lally. However, in the course of that investigation we’ve also discovered that she’s a member of Labour’s National Policy Forum 2015, which we’re pretty darned certain comes awfully close to any reasonable definition of being a “politician”.
Clare didn’t tell a lie: so lets nail that allegation. She was simply wrong about the way that the NHS works – which in some ways proves the point – she is a grassroots activist with no training in the quite complex way that the NHS is managed. Sure, she should have been better briefed, and sure, that puts the Labour leadership in a very poor light. But this thread isn’t about them, this is about her. My guess is that a large proportion of the ordinary electorate doesn’t understand these kind of issues either, which is why we need to make sure that we counter these kind of fallacies with the truth, rather than attacking ordinary people who lack that knowledge – shooting the messenger, if you like.
If we follow this thread you can see that this is the timescale:
10:00 Article posted at 10:00 approx
10:21 I requested the article be withdrawn because it was mean-spirited and wrong, as well as potentially highly damaging to our cause.
10: 30 – I messaged Clare Lally and asked her if she was related to Pat Lally.
10: 36 – I posted that she was NO RELATION TO PAT LALLY and asked for the article to be pulled as inaccurate.
10:53 – Campbell Gunn, in a lather of tabloid excitement, pulls the trigger and sends the story to the Telegraph newspaper in an email, thereby shooting himself in the foot and setting in place a train of action that led to the worst publicity the Yes campaign has received since starting this campaign.
Both Clare and I were then subjected to a torrent of abuse, which continues to the bottom of this thread, and elsewhere despite the fact that I was correct to ask for the article to be pulled – in the interests of this campaign and this site.
I am a Yes voter and campaigner. I have been delivering Yes literature in my area. I also attended the Yes in the Park rally last Saturday in the rain and spent some time chatting at the Wings Over Scotland tent, which is why I was keen to read the latest story. I was horrified by it, as were many people, on all sides and none.
I happen to know Clare as we are both campaigning parents of children with disabilities, and some things like that are far more important than politics. You all need to get a sense of perspective in this debate and calm down. Think before you write: what would an ordinary voter think about that point? Otherwise you will blow it by losing the trust of the public, and that would be a tragedy for Scotland.
This thread is also about the way that Better Together No Thanks put people in difficult positions without much thought.
The headlines say it all: do they mean YOU? They certainly do!
From other news sites
Telegraph
Alex Salmond attacks Telegraph for publishing ‘smear’ email
2 hrs ago
Financial Times*
Braveheart nationalism is showing its dark side
2 hrs ago
Guardian.co.uk
Alex Salmond will not sack adviser over email attacking Better Together speaker
6 hrs ago
The Scotsman
FMQs: Salmond defies calls to sack Campbell Gunn
8 hrs ago
Daily Express
COMMENT: Make no mistake, Alex Salmond approves of abusive tactics
8 hrs ago
About these results
“Clare didn’t tell a lie…She was simply wrong”
One could equally say the same about Campbell Gunn. However he has apolgised for his error, yet Clare won’t accept it.
As a friend of hers, perhaps a wee suggestion that she admits her error wouldn’t go amiss. Then we can rest assured it was not her intention to deceive.
I’m sure she’d like the opportunity to set the story straight.
Yes, but that kind of empathetic afterthought wasn’t really possible Pauline – too little, too late. This is the story as the public read it:
From other news sites
Telegraph
Alex Salmond attacks Telegraph for publishing ‘smear’ email
2 hrs ago
Financial Times*
Braveheart nationalism is showing its dark side
2 hrs ago
Guardian.co.uk
Alex Salmond will not sack adviser over email attacking Better Together speaker
6 hrs ago
The Scotsman
FMQs: Salmond defies calls to sack Campbell Gunn
8 hrs ago
Daily Express
COMMENT: Make no mistake, Alex Salmond approves of abusive tactics
8 hrs ago
About these results
Sorry those posts crossed to the new page, so I double posted the c&p element… Proves we are all human!
****************
Clare isnt a highly paid top adviser with 45 years experience as a journalist, she is an ordinary mum, as she said. I didn’t hear her original remarks. Yes, she should have been better briefed before being put into a spokesperson capacity on the NHS, and the same goes for anyone – including our own activists. I can understand and share the anger – the No campaign have been using black propaganda all the way – and sure some of their supporters have mopped their lies up as holy writ. The point is, we cannot afford to sink to their level, we have let ourselves down badly and been totally wrong-footed by the media, and yet, it was preventable if this site had been capably edited and moderated. And I am also very angry that Clare has been put in this position, and that I have been abused by some members of this site for daring to correct an error of fact and questioning the whole purpose of this article.
Seriously Bay Rok, spare us the mock offendedness, BT were caught out in a lie and the only orchestration of subsequent abuse has been via the MSM virulently attacking Mr Gunn for the ‘henious crime’ of typing ‘daughter in law’ in an email. If you are looking for anybody to blame for any abuse you say you are getting then you need look no further than to those in the MSM who have whipped this non-story into a frenzy over the last few days. Something likely to stir the typical ill informed tabloid reader into neanderthal action, and ask yourself.
If you are a regular reader here you will know that we are reasonable people with a low tolerance threshold for BS, lies and trolling.
She is still able to admit she was wrong though, surely?
And to accept the apology which, after all, is only over a case of mistaken identity, and he was not the first person to make that mistake.
Given that Pat Lally does indeed have a daughter-in-law named Claire Lally, it seems quite understandable. An error it surely was, abuse it wasn’t.
But he was big enough to admit it and apolgise. I think if Clare were able to do the same then she might greatly redeem herself.
Sorry, last post should have ended:
Something likely to stir the typical ill informed tabloid reader into neanderthal action, Ask yourself who stands to gain by the underhand MSM coverage of this.
If you are a regular reader here you will know that we are reasonable people with a low tolerance threshold for BS, lies and trolling.