The referendum result is the loss of a chance to dispute the hegemony of the neo-con corporate elite in the international world. My heart is still bursting with pride that 45% of Scots – a people devoid of political autonomy for three hundred years – had the nerve, intellect and will to see through the avalanche of propaganda from the entire mainstream media, political establishment, banking sector and corporate world. I met numerous voters who had received letters from their employers – including Diageo, BP, RNS and many others – telling them to vote No or their job was in danger. I met the old lady in Dundee who was told by the Labour Party that independent Scotland would flood the country with immigrants, and a Romanian building worker in Edinburgh who had been told by the Labour Party that Independent Scotland would deport all East Europeans.
Yesterday the Daily Telegraph, Daily Express and Daily Mirror in Scotland all had precisely the same full page photo on their front cover – not a startling news snap, but an arty concoction of male silhouettes and union and Scottish flags. The Mirror had photoshopped it to remove the blue from the union jack, but it was the same distinctive photo. There could be no more stark example of the fake diversity of the mainstream media.
Just as the Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem parties have been startlingly shown up as precisely the same creatures of corporate masters offering no policy differences whatsoever, merely a false tribalism. As they partied together at Better Together last night – the only party in the whole of Scotland, at which everybody present lives very, very well at taxpayers’ expense – it was impossible to tell which brand of Tory was which.
Keeping the popular momentum going, keeping all those wonderful people I met and spoke to engaged in trying to engineer a different society, is going to be a hard struggle. But we always knew that. The goal of independence must remain as a powerful unifying factor.
Through media onslaught people were convinced that a No vote was a vote for Devo Max. Actually after a fortnight of pontificating it will fall off the news agenda of the mainstream. Nothing significant will happen. The Westminster view is that we can have any powers we want at our glorified council in Scotland as long as we still don’t get the revenue from oil or whisky – and still provide cannon fodder for neo-con wars abroad, house Trident and are subject to draconian Westminster imposed attacks on civil liberties.
Anyway the dress rehearsal is over. At the next referendum – which is only five years away, after the UK has voted to leave the EU – we will not be putting forward Salmond’s Independence Lite, (I am not criticising, he carried it superhumanly far). We will be proposing a fully independent Scottish Republic, out of NATO, with its own currency, sweeping land reform to give Scotland’s land back to its people, nationalisation of railways and public utilities, a genuine minimum wage you can live on, a humane benefits system and strict regulation and controls on banks and bankers.
I am eating an excellent lunch and looking forward to it.
Sofia He was so quick there with the gremlin link, (3 mins) he must have a handy file of links on the side to flash back with.
Habbabkuk having no business meetings, trips abroad or masterclasses today, has the whole day today in which to while away his time. Unlike yesterday when he was only able to give us his pearls of wisdom in the afternoon and evening.
Habba
I was rather hoping that Gaia would distinguish between the good and bad trolls – as she should know we are rather a competitive lot at the organisation.
Mary
Google image search “Dobby Harry Potter” – cut and paste – the organisation prides itself on its productivity as you should know.
Resident Dissident,
Please answer my question.
‘Well well it appears that our friends have supported despots and illiberal regimes throughout the world have all of a sudden developed a concern that he Scottish referendum was “rigged”. They of course have no interest in democracy whatsoever and are just playing their old old game of allowing the end to justify the means – if they oppose something they will use anything whatsoever to justify their position, rather than admit that their position was not sufficiently strong to convince people and may need some refinement/modification so as to achieve popular assent.’
This is an extraordinary claim. Please could you be more specific in what you mean and exactly who you’re referring to.
From the comment previous to the one ‘Resident Dissident’ linked to just now.
Resident Dissident, since you’ve teamed up for another troll pack attack on Mary, it reminds me of a previous troll pack attack on her, when you & the Habbu-Clown deliberately misrepresented one of her comments, so as to embark on campaign lasting many days, in which you both ceaselessly accused her of “hating her country”, which I’m sure you remember; so in view of Craig’s recent comments of the UK being “pathological state which is a danger in the world, a rogue state”, & “I think it is impossible to be proud of the United Kingdom”, which is by far the strongest “self-hating” & “anti-Western” comments that I’ve ever seen anybody make on this Blog, why are you & your fellow trolls not giving Craig the same treatment you gave Mary ? In fact I recalled that you in particular worked yourself up into rather a self-righteous fury, so I’m actually surprised that you still are posting on Craig’s blog ! 😀
~~
Shame that Craig removed those posts and threads! If I did refer to NTS it was via someone else’s link. It is not site I visit or know anything about. Next time, you should create a file. You really are pathetic and need an occupation. Try voluntary work. There are an awful lot of unpaid carers in ConDem Britain who need a break and an awful lot of sick people who need care.
In the meantime shut the fuck up.
PS How about your change of avatar? Please explain.
Anon 1,
The rigging of the postal vote would have been carried out by those who would benefit i.e. MI5 at the behest of the political Establishment
The genuine No voters have no need to smear anymore but MI5 would most definitely have a need to divert attention from vote rigging discussion and this is what I believe Anon 1, Resident Dissident and Habbabkuk (La vita è bella)are doing.
Back on topic.
Shocker! They lied.
Posted by zemblan on September 20, 2014, 9:29 am
‘Speaking in Downing Street shortly after 7am with the no campaign having won in 28 of Scotland’s 32 local authority areas, including Edinburgh and Aberdeen, Cameron announced that the price for further Scottish devolution must be an agreement that only English MPs should be allowed to vote on legislation that affects England alone.
The prime minister’s early-morning initiative was in part designed to head off a Tory backbench revolt over any perceived privileges being given to Scotland, as well as to avoid being outflanked by Nigel Farage’s Ukip.
But the Cameron plan angered Scottish nationalists, who had not been told that further powers for the Scottish parliament might be intertwined with constitutional progress over the English affairs.
Cameron said: “I have long believed a crucial part missing from this national discussion is England. We have heard the voice of Scotland and now the millions of voices of England must also be heard.’
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/19/scotland-constitutional-reform-david-cameron-ed-miliband#start-of-comments
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1411201771.html
Just Saying,
This is very inteesting
‘Forever to be known as the Great Postal Referendum where 97% of voters registered! So with that 370k lead, how much of those extra NO votes were delivered by the 710k postal votes “cast”?!! Can the bookies moles tell us? We NEED to know the split between the YES and NOs in the postal ballot. It appears several hundred thousand pensioners and the dead still on the voting rolls, voted NO by post without their knowledge.’
Ruth
Do a Google Search on this blog for Assad, Ghadaffi, Putin, Saddam Hussein, North Korea, Hezbollah, Hamas to identify their supporters or who immediately attacks their detractors (and never ever seem to comment on the fairness of elections under those regimes) and then see who is claiming electoral abuses in the Scottish referendum and note those in both camps – their is your answer. You may even find your name in both camps.
A review of the referendum as seen by Charles Crawford, Esq. CMG. Toady and ex ambassador.
My word, he fell big time for Gordo here.
‘Into this furious final bickering came former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, himself Scottish. As Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave some of the worst speeches ever emitted by a top British public figure: clumsy, boring and stuffed with bizarre mixed metaphors. On 17 September 2014 he made the speech of his life in favour of a No vote. Read and watch it here. He grabbed the banner of national confidence from the Yes campaign, and carried it triumphantly into the No camp:
/..’
Scotland Votes: the Logic and Rhetoric of the Independence Campaign
By Charles Crawford | Published: September 19, 2014http://punditwire.com/2014/09/19/scotland-votes-the-logic-and-rhetoric-of-the-independence-campaign/
Considering the huge ex-pat ( including living in other parts of the UK ) Scottish population, how thoroughly were the addresses used checked at the registration stage against the electoral register? Ordinary Scots living in English towns would be very afraid of committing electoral fraud by claiming to live at a relative’s address to vote their YES.
But fanatic wealthy neo-cons know they have the legal establishment on their side to turn a blind eye to their irregular postal NO.
Neo-cons don’t consider fraud to be fraud. The War on Islam is the biggest political fraud in history. Obama changes his avatar so often between Zionist imperialist pro-ISIS and leader of the freeworld anti-ISIS I’m beginning to wonder if he ever changes his underpants. Just sprays his bits with different flavours of deodorant depending on his audience.
As Fred said if there is genuine evidence of vote rigging then those with it should take it to the Police/Electoral Commission. Mistakes do occur in counts – that is why there are scrutineers from all parties observing what is going on and point out where the errors need to corrected – that is on top of the verification procedures that those responsible for the count also undertake. If there was anything happening at the counts on anything near a smidgin of the scale being suggested then the scrutineers from the NO campaign would have seen something and would be taking the matter up with the authorities – the SNP has shown no reluctance not to go down this path in the past (and neither should it).
The company Crawford keeps.
http://punditwire.com/contributors/
Did the sponsors of Pundit Wire pay Crawford for his drivel?
http://punditwire.com/2014/09/19/scotland-votes-the-logic-and-rhetoric-of-the-independence-campaign/
The sponsors of Pundit Wire –
The School of Communication
American University Washington, USA
http://www.american.edu/soc/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_University_School_of_Communication
A breeding ground for the scribblers, mouthpieces and operatives.
@Mary re Crawford & chums
So they aren’t telling lies. They are just creating a narrative around a reality version 2.99999 that has been downloaded from Washington. Sounds about right… until one of them bumps into good old analogue reality version 1.0…
No doubt, their strategy is remove to phase reality 1.0 out altogether. Then they can do what they want. Have I read too much science fiction, do you think 🙂
Probably, we will never know for certain whether there was voting fraud, but if it did occur, the postal ballots are the weakest link, and are provably fixable. Just for fun, let’s speculate on how they could fix the postal vote to ensure a sizeable majority for the NO vote :
(1) They had two weeks to tamper with the postal votes. To retain a shred of credibility with the eventual counters, they couldn’t load the result beyond, say, 3:1 in favour of NO.
(2) They would need the postal vote to be a significant proportion of the electorate to guarantee success. A 19% postal ballot, 3:1 in favour of NO, would swing the overall result 9.5% in favour of NO (someone check my maths, please).
(3) In order to explain the large discrepancy between the postal and polling station returns to the counters, they would need to engineer the perception of a late surge towards YES.
(4) In order to hide the large discrepancy between the postal and polling station returns from the electorate, they would need to declare that the result of the postal vote was to be included in the general count.
(5) By inflating the number of postal ballots, they have created a potential scenario whereby a huge turnout at the polling stations would produce an unfeasible total, therefore the media would have to prepare the public for that possibility with high predictions.
OK, it’s all idle speculation, but it would explain these anomalies:
(a) a 19% postal ballot in an election where non-domiciled Scots were not allowed to vote.
(b) Why polls which were resolutely claiming an overwhelming NO vote swung drastically towards YES at the last minute.
(c) Why the postal ballot count was mixed with the polling station votes before counting.
(d) In the run-up to polling, there were extravagant predictions made about voter turn-out – up to 97% was frequently mentioned. When the results came in, these figures were revised drastically downwards.
(e) Why the overall result was at odds with all other indicators.
@ Habba
I have heard of the West Lothian question, thanks.
So, Cameron is using the result of the referendum to, once and for all, ‘resolve’ the West Lothian question? As I say: where did that come from? It wasn’t the whole point of the referendum, by any stretch, but Cameron has decided to ‘resolve’ the issue, finally. Very odd indeed.
Oh, and he’s reneged on his splendid ‘vow’ within hours of winning. And he’s done so by bringing up the West Lothian question. I know Cameron himself is an idiot, but I’ve never said the same of his puppet masters. I think it’s kinda evil genius.
Graeme Purves above said that Brown is the new governor general.
Quite so. Top of the ZBC website. Who does he think he is. Not elected AFAIK.
Brown vows to ‘lock in’ Scots powers
Gordon Brown: “Time for Scotland to unite”
Gordon Brown says his promise of further powers for Scotland will be delivered to the timetable set out ahead of the independence referendum
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29289035
He and the other war mongers who are also supporters of the Zionist project should be locked up, rather than ‘the Scots powers locked in’.
It would not surprise me to see Mil(l)ipede booted out and Brown reinstalled as partei leader.
“PS How about your change of avatar? Please explain.”
It is worse than that Mary. There are two comments at 8.57 am and 9.08 am purportedly made by me. They even have my photograph as an identicon. When the comments were made my computer was in sleep mode. Either someone has remote access to my computer (unlikely) or someone has deliberately stolen my identity (likely and illegal). I reported this earlier to Craig by message. Let it be known that whoever is responsible has already broken the law and I intend to pursue this until justice is seen to be done.
As to the comment about Crimea voting to be be part of Ukraine (8.57 am) it prompted me to research how long Crimea has sought independence from Ukraine. It goes back more than twenty years. I think that is long enough to call the referendum earlier this year a free and fair result – unlike the coup d’etat that brought fascists into the parliament of Kiev.
http://articles.latimes.com/1994-01-18/news/mn-13060_1_nuclear-disarmament
Change of avatar RD? Answer.
@Brendan
Don’t you think a federal Britain would be a way for it’s people to be united and work together instead of divided and working against each other?
Ours crossed John. That is disgusting.
Perhaps RD has another machine running with a different IP address on which he creates the falsies. They are a revolting bunch with even more revolting motives.
Can the Mods look into John’s observations. In the real world it is a criminal offence to hold out oneself to be someone else. Forget the legalese.
@John
Events last night in Glasgow certainly gives the “Orange Revolution” in 2004 a new perspective.
After the dismantling of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian vote was clearly “yes” in most places… including a majority in Donetsk. But Crimea went the other way, and should have been allowed to join Russia. Instead they was an attempt at Ukrainian language etc., which went on for 23 years. At the end of that 23 years they voted in even greater numbers to succede from Ukraine.
People say Russia are expansionist. The above picture demonstrates that they stayed out of their neighbours affairs to the detriment of the Crimean people for many years. If anything, they were timid or wimpish in standing up for the people who were crying out for them.
I will get to the bottom of it Mary (if I can). Identity theft is a crime, not as serious as identity fraud, but often the first stage in identity fraud.
@Mary: Good luck with that! They’ll need evidence. It’ll probably be easier to prove voter fraud. 🙂
@John: Change your ID. This reveals a good reason NOT to use your real name on this blog.
@Craig: Based on what has happened, we probably need to use passwords.
John Goss
I would guess that someone has screen-grabbed your picture then used it as a gravatar for an anonymous email address. They can write anybody’s name in the ‘Name (required)’ field. Not much you can do about it. You’ve upset a troll, proof that you’re doing something right.
Probably too late for a petition like this but shows that all is not well:
https://www.change.org/p/councillor-gordon-matheson-ban-the-orange-walk-from-glasgow
I see the disorganised crime syndicate has been hard at work today. There must be something particularly uncomfortable in the truths being expressed here. I suspect it’s the ‘f’ word: federalism.
This appears to mean different things to different people. To the Tories and probably NuLabour, it means four national parliaments, one of which (alone) also busses in the provincials to vote on UK matters. This isn’t federalism. This is the old boss, with even less room for debate, as what constitutes ‘UK matters’ depends on the largest country’s voters and MP’s.
Federalism proper would IMO require accepting that Yorkshire (+/- the Northeast), the East and West Midlands, the Northwest and Cornwall (+/- Devon), have individual identities, cultures and needs, as do the Highlands and Lowlands, and, I venture to suggest. N and S Wales. These plus any roughly numerically and culturally feasible division of The Rest should have regional mini-parliaments with tax-raising powers, elect between them a supervisory assembly to scrutinise and control them, meeting on a rotating basis in each ‘state’in turn. The dead hand of London could be lifted from the regions, whose potential for interregional competition could be cited to placate the simple-minded marketeers, and the current national party apparatuses would be fragmented, hopefully beyond repair, encouraging the election of talented individuals, and discouraging the parachuting-in of apparatchiks and their relatives. The rotating central assembly would be immune to the weight of any single region’s opinion. And its powers of scrutiny would be absolute, and transparent.
Much to fear there, then, for the current crop of politicians. And lobbying by big business abruptly becomes a much harder task.
Carry on trolling.