Yesterday the licensing man from Dundee Council went down the taxi ranks ordering saltires and yes stickers removed from the taxis. (would he have ordered No stickers removed as well? We can never be sure as there weren’t any.)
Having missed the train to my Cupar meeting last night, I got in a taxi (it’s not far) and the taxi driver was giving his side of the story. He said he told the council man that “There is an argument that he was within his rights to tell me to remove the sticker, but when he told me to take off my lapel badge, I told him that he was infringing my absolute right to freedom of speech under article ten of the European Convention.”
This campaign has been the most uplifting experience imaginable. It will not be possible to put the people back in the box of media-induced apathy after this.
One of the most unexpectedly invigorating aspects of the campaign is that in packed town hall meetings, I have been sharing the platform with people who are not good public speakers. If that sounds paradoxical, it is because often they have never done any public speaking before. Yesterday in Cupar there was an excellent lady who works in the NHS who had a deep knowledge of its workings and of the threats from privatization of its services, including the mechanisms by which these privatisations were being advanced. She believed that after a No vote it would not be possible for the Scottish NHS to continue to be insulated from some of these trends, and she explained why she felt that.
There was no polish to her quiet delivery, but her heartfelt sincerity and the depth of her knowledge held the audience in intent silence. She had never spoken in public before. It was truly inspiring.
The substance of the campaign is people in local communities actually talking to each other about what is important to their communities and they way their society is organized. I have never seen anything to compare this to. No wonder the politicians have no idea how to counter it. The happy lack of hierarchical power structures in the campaign on the ground seems to relate to the fact that so many women are coming forward as speakers – for the third time, I was the only male on the panel yesterday.
Better Together have women too of course. Just in case anyone has been living under a rock and hasn’t seen it, here is the Saatchi and Saatchi produced Better Together broadcast that set the campaign on fire. The many spoofs are great, but I think nothing quite equals the sheer comic genius of the original.
I have added this picture as pro-government commenters have started to come on the site with their ridiculous propaganda claims that NATO killed very few people in its 398 bombing raids on Sirte. What you see is just one street of scores in similar condition. You can believe your eyes or the propaganda.
Judging by some of the comments here it seems British nationalists are starting to really panic. We can expect a fortnight of dirty tricks from them, and it won’t just be another BT video showing the patronizing attitude of Westminster spin doctors towards the people of Scotland. It’s all too late for the union. As exemplified by the many Yes meetings held throughout the country the people of Scotland are about to make political history. Keep up the good work, Craig.
Notable for its absence in the corporate media is any mention of the July 17 downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukrainian territory, killing all 298 people on board.
At that time, and without any evidence, all U.S. and NATO officials immediately blamed Russia and the Ukrainian rebels in eastern Ukraine for shooting down the Boeing 777. They used this charge to whip the European Union into imposing sanctions on the Russian economy.
On Aug. 11, the Dutch Safety Board announced that a preliminary report would be published in a week with the first factual finding of the ongoing investigation into the flight that departed from Amsterdam and crashed in Ukraine. The Netherlands was given custody of the flight data recorder, or black box recordings, from the crash.
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As of Aug. 25, the Dutch government has refused to release the recordings. (RIA Novosti, Aug. 25) This, of course, immediately raises suspicions that the Kiev junta forces were responsible for the crash.
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Why was the Malaysian flight, diverted hundreds of miles by Kiev ground control over the battle zone, and why Kiev air traffic control data and radar data of the flight have still not been made public.
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Did the Ukrainian military shoot down the passenger plane simply to create a provocation that could be turned against the rebels in east Ukraine and Russia?
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Demands for an independent inquiry into the crash are growing. One petition raises the danger of the U.S. expansion of NATO and military encirclement of Russia and posed the possibility that Flight MH17’s crash resulted from an attempt to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose aircraft was returning from South America the same day.
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There’s no doubt the axis of evil shot down flight MH17.
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I was at the meeting in Cupar, my first active participation in anything organised in the campaign. The breadth of people there was notable, as was the lack of political party involvement. This appeared neither needed or wanted. The campaign is very much not owned by the SNP. I am optimistic that a yes vote will lead to a shake up generating new parties that will genuinely represent people and wash away the stagnant current crop of timeservers and lickspittles.
Craig made a very good observation at Cupar. He said that judging by the posters he saw, the fields were voting no, but the houses were voting yes. I have to concur as this matches my observation. Given the number of people actually occupying fields is rather low, they won’t represent very many votes. No support is fragile and falling.
The odds given by bookies at the moment must be driven by betting in the UK as a whole. Anyone on the ground in Scotland has to know the reality is different from the picture painted in the media. It would be interesting to see a geographical breakdown of betting trends. There could be money to be made!
Mary is minor profit a Collector of Miniature Games too?
I cannot believe this specimen is to be any more than a gobshite and caviller?
This minor profit inflicted upon this blog is just one of those zionistan keyboard offence brigade, that evidently had targeted this blog for a while and had it all their way until the likes of me arrived and pissed on their parade.
Although some of these low life scum seem to be given inordinate latitudes regardless of their vile conduct.
RoS
The policy of the Scottish Govt should they win the referendum is to stay in NATO, keep the monarchy, keep the current immigration policy of the UK and Eire, keep the currency – yet significant proportions of those supporting the Yes campaign are saying that they will change the policies post referendum (yourself included) and giving appropriate nudges and winks. Sounds pretty much like a false prospectus is being offered.
“Scotland doesn’t need an upper house, why would it.” To provide checks and balances to the lower house – particularly given the latter’s inclination to want to neuter the single tier of local government. Unicameral parliaments are pretty rare elsewhere in the democratic world for this very reason – that the matter has not been debated in Scotland adds to the democratic deficit.
Leading health expert Allyson Pollock says Yes vote only way to secure NHS in Scotland
August 31, 2014, 8:07 pm
Pollock told the Sunday Herald: “Although people find this extraordinary and can’t believe it, the Health and Social Care Act of 2012 has abolished the NHS in England as a universal service. The NHS is reduced to a funding stream and a logo; increasingly all the services are going to be contracted in the marketplace.
Full article saved here:
http://johnhilley.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/allyson-pollock-independence-as.html
Also from Medialens.
Posted by Keith-264 on August 31, 2014, 8:05 pm
Scottish universities braced for brain drain if country votes for independence
Senior education figures voice fears about loss of funding and departure of top scientists in the event of a yes vote
Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
The Guardian, Sunday 31 August 2014 17.36 BST
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/31/scottish-universities-brain-drain-vote-independence
Is there any chicanery this rag won’t stoop to?
I don’t think anyone can know whether the NHS is safe or not post-independence, as no one knows what the financial situation might be in an independent Scotland. Salmond and the woman at the rally are talking out of their hats.
What we do know is that UK public sector jobs based in Scotland would go, and some larger businesses would be likely move to England, as well as that Scotland as a new country would face higher interest rates to borrow and would no longer receive UK grants. So, even with Scotland’s oil, the likelihood is there would be less money to spend, not more.
Very interesting article by Paul Mason saying much the same things I am saying.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/31/scottish-independence-yes-vote-turnout-polls
It does not cost that much to protect the human rights of the Scots, with a fundamental right of being free from pain and illness. In fact once they stop paying for the extravagant wars of choice and weapons cash pile the Scots can afford a first rate NHS.
UK NHS is being bilked by the private sector operatives, who have a pretty captive NHS management to contract these regardless of their costs and performance. The dogma is to privatise means efficient. The reality is; privatise means redirection of the public funds into private coffers. So lets not kid ourselves, aye?
Republicofscotland recounts something that has been known about and documented for the last 70 years (but hey! it’s all grist to the anti-Jew mill):
“THE LAVON AFFAIR
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In 1954, Israeli agents working in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including a United States diplomatic facility, and left evidence behind implicating Egyptian Muslims as the culprits. The ruse would have worked, had not one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to capture and identify one of the bombers, which in turn led to the round up of an Israeli spy ring.
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Some of the spies were from Israel, while others were recruited from the local Jewish population. Israel responded to the scandal with claims in the media that there was no spy ring, that it was all a hoax perpetrated by “anti-Semites”.
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What RoS of course carefully omits to recount is that – thanks to the democratic and open nature of the Israeli political system and a free and critical press – Pinchas Lavon was forced to resign his ministry when the the details of the affair came out and PM Moshe Sharett (who had in fact been unaware of the false flag operation) resigned the following year.
None of which excuses the false flag operation, but still a far cry from what would have happened in any other Middle Eastern state at the time.
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Buy $, £, € and shekels – dump rubles, reals, rupees and rands.
Fedup
“…and had it all their way until the likes of me arrived and pissed on their parade.”
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And then you woke up.
Is it just me or ir Jim Murphy just a total wuss? A few eggs and angry rhetoric and he thinks he sees a sinister mob. He’d have lasted 2 minutes of the French revolution, the idiot. He’s too used to politics as a game between people in suits, maybe it’s a good thing if he learns his mistake. Prat.
“Only strengthens existing views, Splendid! Since existing views, properly elicited, are more than adequate to shitcan the failing British police state.”
Talking of police states. I was hearing from someone who knows that the amalgamation of the Scottish police forces into one single force under one command has allowed them to change the contracts of employment. As a result a lot of the older more experienced officers are leaving in droves. They are being replaced with a different breed of enforcement personnel.
Oh and they are giving them guns.
@RoS: Are you aware of the following leaked document…
http://deepresource.wordpress.com/2014/08/30/the-netherlands-admits-existence-mh17-investigation-agreement/
Netherlands, well maybe… suggestion, however unlikely, of Islamic terrorism? But it seems that Ukraine can also have a veto on release of Black Box information.
No then you started to forecast and fall apart, not that anyone cares what your brain farts are? That is other than your sycophants, villager et al, and Jemand the deviant scum.
You sad old fart, you must have nothing in your life, other than the cause, for a minor porfit. “we are on “Dalia” what a sad, sad, sad old fart? Not an ending that you had thought for yourself, is it?
Grubby little man, peddling his grubby little priorities, this pompous arse suffers from a “superiority” complex that leaves his head up in the orbit, and lets his butt back back on earth to do the talking. That is a miracle on its own right, right?
The lighter side… haven’t laughed so much about world politics since Spitting Image!
http://rt.com/news/184008-gaza-syria-isis-ebola/
@Habby & RoS:
First I’ve heard of this event. To what extent did it help to heighten tensions leading to the Suez Crisis?
Mary, silly goose, you don’t have to grovel to the Queen for your CMG, the easy way was suck off Jimmy Savile!
Crawford’s defence of the Israeli apartheid policies…. (no need for me to link to the asshat too.)
After having killed 2000+ Palestinians and reduced a large proportion of Gaza to rubble, in response to the murder of three settler teenagers, guess what? That isn’t enough:
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/israel-annex-400-hectares-west-bank
Utterly, blatantly, and on more than one count, in direct breach of international law. Demonstrating even to the most cautious observer that ethnic cleansing is the objective.
I expect our resident mediator and negotiator will have a comment. So have I. Zionist bastards.
Fred
Don’t know about the contracts of employment, but much of what is happening in Police Scotland is indeed worrying.
Peacewisher, you aint been researching a lot have you?
Are you familiar with the Liberty affair?
The “only democracy in the universe, and beyond, including the black holes” has been a crappy little aggressive entity that has been creating trouble from its conceptualisation to this date. Any time the zionist scum are caught red handed out they cry “antisem……” and remember holocaust and off they are let off the hook.
All the while these zionist supremacist scum keep harping on about the acceptable face of their racism; “democracy” which evidently Arabs are not and hence giving the “democratic zionist scum” the licence so they can put the Arabs to death en mass, all in a “democratic way” of course.
That’s just it with the unionist parties’ high-flyers. A debating exercise, defending the indefensible: from the sweaty smugness of Rifkind as Scottish Secretary defending Thatcher’s anti-Scots scorched earth destruction and abandonment and of viable industries, to Darling’s more recent unacceptable face of strident ‘No Surrender’ unionism, as pioneereed by fart-in-a-can (and now Lord-ed) Nicol Stephen. Party is all to these people, any ideas the Labour ‘movement’ of old once proclaimed were flushed away with a haughty shrug long ago, and they’ll sing any old tune for their five course suppers.
At the lower end, the less erudite –but fully indoctrinated followers, we have Murphy: Murphy’s once Tory Eastwood/East Renfrewshire constituency is of course jerry-mandered to hell, with mostly working-class Barrhead having been tacked onto it, a gift from neighbouring Adams’ family Paisley seat, giving Labour and Murphy a sliver of a majority. Lives, votes transferred amongst Labour arms dealer friendly wrong ‘uns and schemers like football stickers in a playground: “Need some poor desperate people looking for change, have some of my spare losers, Jim”. Jumping Jim Flash is a goner, electorally and politically. I would imagine Murphy and his ilk are strong-arming for Ermine -now, as after the the referendum, crowning their failure and that of their bitter political creed, that would be harder still to to justify or tolerate, after 2015 improbable and after 2016, simply bizarre.
@Fedup. You’re right but I am learning. The mistake was to allow holocaust (describing a large-scale massacre) to become The Holocaust. And anyway there has now been a completed new holocaust… in The Donbass.
Oh, by the way, Jim Murphy was in charge of trying to push Labour’s Legislative & Regulatory Reform Bill (which would have given the executive, or ‘any minister’ the opportunity to pass any legislation without parliamentary scrutiny) through the Commons: he tried very hard.
Good luck, Scotland. The worse part of me still hopes you vote ‘no’ because frankly I’m jealous. And I am worried because I can see the IMF and WTO swooping to stitch you up immediately after a yes vote, as they did to the ANC and Solidarity, But otherwise, and bearing in mind that decent people will of course be voting ‘no’ – good luck.
to clarify, ‘decent people too may also be voting ‘no’..
But you’ll still have people like Jim Murphy in charge, though, won’t you?
Fields Voting No…i have noticed this too… But Not The Rainbow Machair Fields of Barra… And Vatersay.
Sounds like the tour Has Been great Craig…Magic Vibes
And the most Amazing thing happened yesterday ..a lady friend said check that thing out… Jamie’s big green Home on wheels thingy… passing…right here in my town.
Police Scotland was an SNP idea as was increasing the number of plods by 1,000; the only apparent reason being to boast of having more police per head of population than England. From some reports it would appear that standards have had to be lowered to get enough recruits.
The next problem was finding them all something to do:-
“In June 2014 a leaked Police Scotland internal email to police managers in Dunfermline ordered a substantial increase in “stop and search” activities and warned any police officers not meeting the higher targets would be subjected to a performance development review. Police Scotland has previously denied setting stop and search performance targets for individual officers.
In July 2014 it was revealed that between April and December 2013, Police Scotland’s officers stopped and searched members of the Scottish public at a rate of 979.6 per 10,000 people, a rate was three times higher than that of London’s Metropolitan Police and nine times higher than that of the New York Police Department. It was also revealed that the Scottish Police Authority, the body tasked with overseeing Police Scotland, had removed criticism of Police Scotland’s use of “stop and search” powers from a report it had commissioned. Also removed from the report were calls for a review of stop and search on children and for clarification of the policy’s primary aim. “