I have no sympathy at all for anybody who voted No on the grounds of the pledges by Brown, Miliband, Cameron and Clegg about constitutional change, and is now whingeing about the blatant dishonour of those pledges. I cannot understand how anybody could be so stupid as to have believed them, and yet have a brain capable of sparking respiration.
Labour is interested in losing no influence of Scottish Labour MPs on any UK or English matters. It wants greater powers to English metropolitan councils which are controlled by Labour – because that will give Labour careerists more jobs and access to contracts. Those are Labours “constitutional reform” goals. The Conservatives “constitutional reform” goals are to keep Scotland’s tax on oil revenues and tax on whisky coming to Westminster, while loading greater responsibilities but no more money on the Scottish parliament, and stopping Scottish MPs voting on English matters thus guaranteeing conservative apparatchiks continued jobs and access to contracts.
Both Tories and Labour want to keep the appalling corrupt and undemocratic House of Lords for its jobs for apparatchiks, access to contracts etc.
Nobody cares what the Lib Dems think anyway.
I ask again – what did you expect?
This is the collective wisdom of Andy Myles and myself, over an excellent mackerel breakfast at Nom De Plume.
I have just finished Dalrymple’s superb Return of a King. How are you getting on with Alexander Burns?
Labour lost its soul over Iraq. As someone said somewhere in the social media over the last day, they may have won a battle, but they have certainly lost the war. If they weren’t a busted flush after the last general election, they certainly will be now, unless they ditch Brown etc. and build again from the roots. They will probably get a few seats at the general election in retired areas, but otherwise they will, and should, be wiped out. They never get a majority in England alone, so they’ve probably had it. C’mon you greens!
I have sympathy for pensioners who believed the propaganda lies. As some people get older they choose not upset the apple-cart and become more compliant with what they consider to be trusted outlets. These outlets have conditioned them all their lives. The threat of losing their pensions was a nasty trick – but it worked well for the No vote. I agree that the promises Cameron, Miliband, Brown and others made will be watered down until there is no substance in them and even those sold on them can see through them.
O/T on the last thread somebody stole my gravatar and commented purporting to be me. I’ve messaged you about this and would be obliged if you could look into it please.
Am a little surprised no-one is starting to wonder about party leader resignations at this point. Has our democratic process been so degraded that we treat such obvious dishonesty as normal campaigning practise these days?
Both Tories and Labour want to keep the appalling corrupt and undemocratic House of Lords for its jobs for apparatchiks, access to contracts etc.
Nobody cares what the Lib Dems think anyway.
Agree 100% with these sentiments Craig- and good to see you still have fire in your belly after the disappointment (to put it mildly) of Thursdays’ result.
John
Yes I am getting it looked at – beyond my technical nous. An increasing problem on the blog.
Hi Craig,
There are a growing number of people who strongly believe that the IndyRef vote was subject to rigging and other ill-practices in order to obtain the no result. Over 71k people have signed a petition demanding a re-count. What are your feelings on this growing sentiment?
https://www.change.org/p/alex-salmond-we-the-undersigned-demand-a-revote-of-the-scottish-referendum-counted-by-impartial-international-parties
Hi Craig.
I don’t want to press you, but there is the small matter of the £100 bet you lost. Do let me know when you are in a fit state of mind to pay up. No rush. Thanks.
Of course there was cheating – always is wherever there is a Labour Council. But I am afraid to say I do not believe it was on anything like a scale to affect the result. The SNP have been fighting the political street battle for years and are very experienced and practised at stopping it.
I suspect the irregularities in the massive postal vote were quite large, but again not large enough to affect the result.
Anon1
I should be very pleased to settle the bet, but I fear that is going to be difficult unless you give me an identity to settle with. You can email me through the contact button above.
Utterly obvious I agree – they will give Scotland nothing and seek to accrue more power to themselves in Westminster. It is a fundamental law of politics that no-one ever gives up power or powers voluntarily. See Obama as he clings to powers he decried when Bush’s admin seized them.
It was a desperate ruse but I don’t think many people actually fell for it – if anything it pushed more people to vote yes rather than mollified them to vote no.
The referendum was not fair – no discussions or arguments were made for continued Union – only blaring propaganda and out right lies. They made no case on any of the issues and refused to engage the YES side.
CNN keeps trumpeting this as a victory for democracy but I don’t see it that way – to be a democracy you need an informed electorate and they did everything possible including some things that I suspect are actually illegal to keep them in the dark.
The fact that they keep saying it was a wide margin for NO and a that this is it for ‘a generation’ only goes to show how scared they have been. But the dragon once awoken will not so easily be lulled back to sleep. 1.6M Scots voted YES and demographics will only increase the proportion. In 5 or at the outside 10 years I agree we will be here again.
Now begins the revenge!
The votes rigged the selected path is now one of broken promises, oppression and humiliation.
The barricaded “political class”, can get back to doing what it did before, and not worry about the uppity proletariat talking about self determination, equitable wealth distribution, and human rights.
“You can email me through the contact button above.”
So can anyone else of course. As you are giving money away for free I have just sent you a message saying where to send the £100.
I recall Anon hissy fitting off saying he would never return here and that you should give his winnings to charity.
I wonder how many of those Scottish pensioners who voted No will now see that they have been cynically manipulated by the Westminster scare machine, and whether some of them might change their voting habits of a lifetime by the time of the 2015 election. I wonder how many English and Welsh pensioners will undergo a similar re-evaluation…
Gentlemen, delighted that a good breakfast and a constitutional crisis reunites you. I’m sorry I voted No in the end but I didn’t buy the economic story, even though the political one was good. Craig, I think if Miliband and Cameron are as complacent as you say, the effect will be to create a betrayal effect that will make Clegg and tutition fees look like a blip; that the SNP will wipe out Labour and the Lib Dems across Scotland at the General Election; at the same time Farage will exploit the same (with Cameron’s ill-considered pledge for England in the same timescales) across swathes of the dispossessed in England, North and South.
The resentment against the Establishment is growing, MPs expenses started it, this week has shaken them, of course they will return fire. What can’t be allowed to happen is for Scotland now to feel pissed off and go back into victim mentality and all “them at Westminster” doing to us. There’s a huge opportunity still if people stay engaged and push the Home Rule / federalism agenda forwards.
Going by the standard practices of the “political classes” probably most of them are suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or are too infirm to even know where they are at? as well others whom have ceased to be, and are long gone.
The trouble with most of those posting here is they have set out wilfully to obfuscate the realities in they way of maintenance of the “narrative”, then there are others who are too conditioned to see the fraud that is being perpetrated as the fabled “democracy” lark.
The system is gamed, and those who know the rules are minting it, along the way. Ask anyone around you, to see if they are members of any political parties? You would be surprised at how few in fact belong to any political party.
Then from those few members of the political parties, ask if they are aware of their party’s constitution and rules? You will be even more surprised how many are in fact ignorant of these matters. Thus the apparatchiks run a riot within the political structures that in turn is complimented by the shenanigans of the civil servants, there is no way a citizen can vote and overturn any of the kabuki that is passed as “democratic processes”!
Soviets had more party memberships than our “democratic” system, the “free world” called them totalitarians!
If you charged Fred £1 for each ‘I Support the Bitter Together’ post he made on your blog, he would owe you. 😉
Set up a contra account.
~~~
Kenneth Clarke on AQ was surprised at the public involvement in the Scottish campaign. He said that in Ingerland, from distant memory, the a political party is is lucky to attract two men and a dog to an election meeting. He obviously has no appreciation of the low esteem in which politicians are held.
Mary
“If you charged Fred £1 for each ‘I Support the Bitter Together’ post he made on your blog, he would owe you”
__________________
Dangerous ground there, Mary! 🙂
If everyone had to pay every time they posted here, you would soon have to put your des res in leafy Surrey on the market.
_______________
PS, yes, I know you were just kiddin’. So am I.
Craig
“Labour is interested in losing no influence of Scottish Labour MPs on any UK or English matters.”
__________________
Loose (or shorthand) drafting – we are not talking about Scottish MPs but about the MPs sitting at Westminster who represent Scottish constitutencies.
That said – what is your own opinion of the West Lothian question?
Is the West Lothian phenomenon justified?
You know what. I think the inevitable cut to the Scottish budget that is coming logically should be passed on directly to the demographic that voted for it.
Let’s take away their free bus passes and their free care. It’s apparently what the selfish auld bastards want
I wonder if disparate left forces will coalesce in the uk.
I’m always thinking. Why we have not got a credible strong independent media going, to expensive in the uk? All locked up? …. I follow many great individual blogs, projects etc. But it’s not something that comes together enough imo. To work on a solid project.
Am a crazy to think a few good journalists working at the guardian etc would not jump at the chance to contribute to something actually focused without the corporate agenda. I was hoping something would come out of Scotland. But less hopeful now the spotlights are off. But still, surely the whole of the uk could (or should) summon something on the back of this defeat.
Clearly we are not effective enough. I Don’t think we can just wait for traditional political ‘process’ myself. Analysing this or that as it goes along. It’s not enough is it?
Of course MPs sitting for Scottish constituencies should not be voting on questions which only affect England.
TheDeeperMeaning
As has been explained to you on numerous occasions, by Fred, Habbabkuk, Res Dis and others, if you have evidence of vote rigging then take it to the Electoral Commission or the Police. Otherwise it looks like you are just a sore loser making spurious accusations in the hope of spreading doubt and to excuse the fact that you lost.
Craig,
I’m afraid I’m going to have to disagree with you over the significance of vote fraud. The postal votes with an 80 – 85% “NO” vote would’ve been enough to flip it that way and we have no idea how they played out as they got randomised by putting them with the on-the-day votes. We also have the videos of what looks a hell of a lot like malfeasance. I don’t know about signing petitions but I would be trying VERY HARD to find out who the woman is who appeared to take “yes” & put them in the “NO” pile as well as the young guy who appears to be filling in ballots while counting them – Dundee from memory. And a hard look at where the fire calls originated from – BOTH of them . . .was there a fire? False alarms usually require paper work, etc by the fire dept. – has that happened & what does it say? F.O.I.requests for it and others previously to see if they compare, diligence wise would be a good start.
You have to talk this up the way you all talked up the “Yes” vote.
Craig
Thanks for the reply. Not being in need of the money myself, you may recall I asked that you donate the money to a Palestinian charity of your choice. All I request is that you let us know which charity you have given the money to, date etc.
Thanks.
We have seen a modern day Parcel of Rogues troughing away in Edinburgh and Aberdeen on Westminster gold paid for by Scottish black gold. And there is this small matter of 793k postal votes registered by pensioners mostly – dead or alive, but did they know about it, that gave rise to the unbelievable 97% voter registration total of 4.3m.Can we have a definitive count AND geographic distribution of the NO votes in its further unbelievable 90% turnout?!! Salmond may even be back in power then.
Yeah, the instant reneging of the ‘vow’ has been amusingly conflated with the West Lothian question, repeated on these boards of course. Basically, over the last day, I’ve concluded this ‘result’ is a fix, and the instant cynicism of the usual suspects proves exactly what they are capable off.
Essentially, I strongly suspect the ‘Yes’ camp won – heavily. This whole charade is bullshit. I simply don’t believe the count, at all. Note: I am only just a ‘Yes’ voter. But nothing about this smells right.
I was waiting for the trill from the troll at 1.45pm. Et tu, Brute?
PS I had made no bets with Craig and was claiming no money.
Referendum reaction Live
14 minutes ago
Politician and Yes campaigner Jim Sillars has called for an investigation into potential vote rigging in the Scottish independence referendum.
Mr Sillars tweeted: This vote…
BBC website.
Of course MPs sitting for Scottish constituencies should not be voting on questions which only affect England.
Agreed-this is of course the simple answer to the West Lothian Question, and not some higher wankery about ‘3 or 4 regional parliaments’ extruded by Resident Dissident on the previous thread.