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.
was waiting for this from you or Fred, MJ.
“Do you think it would be the end of the story if the Yes vote won?”
‘Yes’, and I hope that you will not feel too bowled over by openess and positive energy when it happens. You do well to listen to some of the negativity you are excusing/exhausting and what it has done to you.
I might come over as harsh to some Donny, but I got your point, my mistake, mixed up EU and NATO here and thanks for the little banksy, so on the ball the man.
Cheers Brendan. Your message is in sharp contrast to those of Jemand, your fellow countryman who always rubbishes my posts on here!
“Your simple logic maybe, as someone who has fought a few elections and helped many candidates I have seen most of what I said.”
I find simple logic is the best sort.
When people start trying to make it complicated it usually means they are trying to make it say what they want it to say.
“‘Yes’, and I hope that you will not feel too bowled over by openess and positive energy when it happens”
OK, I’ll try. I suspect however that openness and positive energy won’t be quite enough on this occasion. When you’ve all sobered up you’ll have some tedious but important matters to sort out and I really think you should have done this before the party started. I’m negative in the sense that reminding someone to fasten their seatbelt is negative.
I find simple logic is the best sort.
Just for you, Fred, I’ve made it simple for you. A positive Yes to a free Scotland.
sorry about previous post, my changed avatar did not work firts time round.
‘I find simple logic is the best sort.’
Just for you, Fred, I’ve made it simple for you. A positive Yes to a free Scotland.
British journalist, Yvonne Ridley, also supports Scottish independence for good reasons. “Under the present Holyrood government there is no way the lives of Scottish soldiers would have been wasted or used as cannon fodder in Iraq or Afghanistan for imperialistic wars built on lies and deception. The referendum is all about putting people before politics and that’s something the war-mongering, sleazy, expense-fiddling, out-of-touch cronies and posh kids in Westminster know nothing about,” Ridley said.
The blind support for Israeli slaughter of innocents in Gaza by David Cameron, Ed Miliband and the powerful British Jewish Lobby has boosted “yes” vote for Scottish independence.
“Israel has been the judge, the trial and the executioner. People in Scotland feel that they’re helpless, because the Scottish government does not have any control over our foreign policy or international affairs. They’re seeing the atrocities on their TV screens and they’re beginning to question it,” says Shabbar Jaffri, Scottish National Party (SNP) Councillor for Greater Pollok area of Glasgow.
http://rehmat1.com/2014/09/01/ex-uk-envoy-britain-is-a-rouge-state-danger-to-world/
“And Banksy speaks profoundly once again.
https://twitter.com/thereaIbanksy/status/506226623931514880/photo/1”
The picture is faked, photoshoped.
Se here to see the original.
http://www.gran-angular.net/banksy-galeria-de-imagenes/2011/11/13/
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/08/my-scotland/#comment-475826
How is it this post is still up?
95% of bets placed in Scotland are for yes.
http://www.bettingpro.com/category/political-betting/95-of-all-scottish-independence-bets-placed-on-yes-vote-2014083000103/
Do the careful with money Scots know something that England doesn’t? Maybe the BBC should tell us…
“Under the present Holyrood government there is no way the lives of Scottish soldiers would have been wasted or used as cannon fodder in Iraq or Afghanistan ”
Well as the present Holyrood government wants to be a member of NATO Scottish soldiers may well have found themselves fighting in Afghanistan.
Good posts Mary 7.05am & 7.17am
Those SoB’s want to take over the world, and the EU and the US are complicit.
“95% of bets placed in Scotland are for yes.”
Your article actually says 95% of the bets placed since last Monday. It was printed Saturday, doesn’t say when Ladbrooks made the statement.
Odds still 5/1 against.
“Craig is not driven by national pride (he’s English, born and bred where he continues to live). He is driven completely by his hatred of the British state…”
Er, who gives a stuff about the motivation of any of us? I mean, we are all voting for reasons of our own and the ballot papers all look the same. Just so long as the Yes team emerges ahead, why should any of us care why others votes as we did?
I’m not Scottish either, in spite of my name. I’m from the centre of the known universe known as Manchester and I only moved to Leith last year, but I damn well have a vote and I will use it for Yes.
Contrary to what you may have heard, Scotland owes less to kilts, bagpipes and Highland chicken and more to tracksuit bottoms, canned music and deep fried pizza.
The rich and their middle class stooges can have Britain – I’ll settle for Scotland. It’s the part of Britain that did not change and refused to make the compromises that New Labour had to make to get enough of the Southern English scrote vote to get elected.
Not long now, till Better Together’s violent foot soldiers take to the streets of Edinburgh, waving their King Billy flags alongside their “Jist say Naw” flags, whilst beating the bejesus out of the drums, look out Edinburgh you’ll need your tin hat that day.
If the unthinkable happens and we vote no, every Saturday prior to the 12th of July we’ll have flags flying with the words King Billy saved the union,it would be even more intolerable than listening to Habbs pathetic sh*te.
Also around this time we’ll have pleasure of Nigel Farage as well, another anti-independence thug, who will regale Scots with his “I’ll kick mmigrants out” routine, whilst his ex-head of UKIP in Scotland Lord Monckton keeps a low profile, after coining the phrase “Scottish subsidy junkie.”
Watch out Edinburgh.
From today’s Financial Times:
“Buyout groups Blackstone and Blue Water Energy are providing $500m to Siccar Point Energy, a new UK-focused oil company, in one of the largest ever private equity investments in North Sea oil.
Investment in the UK North Sea reached a record level of £14.4bn last year, raising hopes that oil and gas production could start to pick up again after years of decline.
‘This is one of the most opportune times to buy assets in the North Sea,’ said Jonathan Roger, chief executive of Siccar Point. ‘The market is very buoyant.’”
——————————–
What was it Alistair Darling said again about North sea oil running out in 2017.
I’m not Scottish either, in spite of my name. I’m from the centre of the known universe known as Manchester and I only moved to Leith last year, but I damn well have a vote and I will use it for Yes.
—————-
Ken
——-
My wife has family from Manchester Chorlton, and they also want Scotland to become independent, and as I’m forever telling people independence isn’t about disliking anyone from England, Wales or NI its about self determination, through self governing, and most of all getting shot of Westminster, glad you’re yes.
“Odds still 5/1 against.”
Yes, driven by high value no bets south of the border, presumably made based on information from the MSM rather than gleaned on the ground. A classic case of one section of the betting fraternity having better information.
Polls are becoming pointless except for the most general idea of opinions. Take ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ answers with a grain of salt.
The ones to watch out for are ‘undecided’. That generally means ‘don’t care’ or ‘don’t know’. Then it’s ‘eenie minie mo’ at the ballot box.
“What was it Alistair Darling said again about North sea oil running out in 2017.”
I don’t know.
Why don’t you find the quote and tell us?
“Yes, driven by high value no bets south of the border, presumably made based on information from the MSM rather than gleaned on the ground. A classic case of one section of the betting fraternity having better information.”
I’ve never seen a bookie riding a push bike.
Nevermind
i second Mary… Well said @ 10;24
Mary cheers for the Jokes and Video.. i first seen The Hitler Take a couple of years ago the subject then was that he could not make it to Barrafest..ON the Isle of Barra..I made it tho 🙂
More on ISIS –
Damascene Conversions – Isis, Assad And The Bombing Of Iraq
This time last year, Western corporate media were focused on a single, grave threat to human life and civilised values. An endless stream of atrocity claims – some real, some fabricated with ‘evidence’ posted on YouTube – depicted President Assad of Syria as the latest incarnation of Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, bin Laden, Gaddafi: namely, the Official Enemy to be targeted for destruction.
Once again, ‘quality’ media generated a sense of inevitability – this Enemy was also so monstrous that the US-UK alliance had to ‘intervene’, to ‘act’. It later transpired that the plan was to ‘completely eradicate any military capabilities Assad had’.
The massacre claims were part of a rolling propaganda barrage intended to clear a path through public opposition to an attack. It was a close copy of the 1991 Gulf War media campaign described by the late historian Howard Zinn:
‘The American population was bombarded the way the Iraqi population was bombarded. It was a war against us, a war of lies and disinformation and omission of history. That kind of war, overwhelming and devastating, waged here in the US while the Gulf War was waged over there.’ (Zinn, Power, History and Warfare, Open Magazine Pamphlet Series, No. 8, 1991, p.12)
This summer, the Assad atrocity stories splashed across newspaper front pages and TV broadcasts for so long have mysteriously dried up. If the BBC website looked like this last year, it now looks like this, this and this. The Independent published an article with a title that would have been unthinkable even a few months ago:
‘Putin may have been right about Syria all along – Many cautioned against the earlier insistence of the Obama administration that Assad must go’
Has the man universally loathed and reviled by corporate commentators undergone an appropriately Damascene conversion? A more prosaic explanation was supplied by the Financial Times:
‘US and allies must join Assad to defeat Isis [Islamic State], warns British MP’ (Sam Jones, Financial Times, August 21, 2014)
The MP in question, Sir Malcolm Rifkind – chairman of parliament’s intelligence and security committee, and a former foreign secretary – declared:
‘”[Isis] need to be eliminated and we should not be squeamish about how we do it… Sometimes you have to develop relationships with people who are extremely nasty in order to get rid of people who are even nastier.”‘
One year ago, Rifkind called for a ‘military strike’ on Syria of ‘a significant kind’:
‘If we don’t make that effort to punish and deter, then these actions will indeed continue.’
Full Piece @
http://medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2014/773-damascene-conversions.html
I see No campaign leaflets are coming out with Postal Votes, surely this must be illegal, the Electoral Commission are complicit on this issue,they do have form though anyone who read their recent doorstep leaflets, couldn’t have failed to notice a half page and two lines on the benefits of independence, whilst a full page and multiple lines given on the benefits of the union.
Undecideds about 16%; enough to swing it, but they have questions…
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/doorstep-search-is-on-for-the-mystery-missing-million-voters.25187886
http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/pentland-hills-yes-banner-at-hillend-1-3526438
more graffiti. It’s awful.
Craig’s speeches must be going down well judged from the hostility above. Congratulations
I think I’ve spotted another troll.
Saudi king: Islamic State will reach ‘Europe in a month and America in another month’
—————-
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has a stark warning to America: The Islamic State’s terror will visit American shores in one month if it is not confronted in Syria and Iraq.
“If we ignore them, I am sure they will reach Europe in a month and America in another month,” the king said Saturday, Agence France Presse reported. His comments came while he was speaking at ceremony for new ambassadors.
———————–
Terrorism knows no border and its danger could affect several countries outside the Middle East. It is no secret to you, what they have done and what they have yet to do. I ask you to transmit this message to your leaders: ‘Fight terrorism with force, reason and speed.’”
King Abdullah’s warning for the western world comes one day after a government watchdog reported that a federal bulletin released to law enforcement agencies has warned that the Islamic State group, also known by the acronyms ISIL and ISIS, has infiltrated Mexico’s city of Ciudad Juarez for an imminent attack on America.
—————
Is this a veiled threat from, one of the leaders of the axis of evil? will there be a false flag attack on an EU or US city soon, by a zionist backed bomb cell?
Have to agree about the Electoral Commission, have received a few weeks back a booklet from them containing pages which seemed to be paid-for advertising by the No campaign, which I was flabbergasted and outraged to find there, from this avowedly ‘neutral’ organisation. And these are the people responsible for fair conduct of the referendum.
Have to agree with Fred about the Police, though this militarisation has been a UK wide phenomemon, which I can only hope Independence will reverse, voting No is a certain vote for continuation of the same. Only last week whilst at my dinner the police burst into and searched the house, on the pretext that a 999 call had been made from my number, no-one had tried to use the phone all day, and the phone has been mostly inoperative since June, which BT (British Telecom) are well aware of having admitted a “copper fault” and refuse to fix, with a string of excuses. It seems almost a repeat of an incident in 2008, an anonymous alleagation of assault, which was patently false and malicious, and which was subsequently dropped, but the charges of breach of the peace and resisting arrest, simply for protesting my innocence and not co-operating, were not. My complaints about a series of violent assault against me conducted by half a dozen or more officers, in the police station, including hoisting me in the air and throwing me onto a stone floor, and tearng my earlobe almost off, I was pressured to drop. From that day my previously high opinion of the police, as there for the protection of all, having had little contact with them, underwent a complete reversal, and there is much that needs rooted out.
Independence will not be utopia, but Independence is the only option for real change.