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.
OSCE..sorry.
Did someone just point me to the bbc for actual facts. tut-tut
@Ishmael
Yes.
If you don’t choose to believe them that is up to you. I make my own judgements not just believe anything some dickhead on the internet tells me I should.
I wonder if “real facts” are just the ones nobody is allowed to comment on. On a so called public broadcast website.
@RepublicOfScotland “ABE get your facts right, I was a YES voter..”
I stand corrected; Tank Dempsey is the person whom (it appears) I was referring to and encouraging.
I was a bit puzzled that someone with your blog name might vote No, but then quite a few SNP supporters deserted the cause because of the economic uncertainty.
Anyway, you’ve made it clear that you voted for independence. Sorry about the error.
@Fred: well s/he would say that…
I’ve read the BBC website story and no mention of postal votes anywhere.
And no mention of the fact that there were no International observers. I seem to remember this was what all the fuss was about regarding the Crimea referendum. The argument “cos we’re British” doesn’t hold weight after we’ve had a prime minister who lied to take us to war.
I think I can also express an interest in the impersonation on this website because it was my comment about desire for independence in Crimea that drew that (unlikely?) response six minutes later.
“If you don’t choose to believe them that is up to you”
I did not think I had much of a choice with facts.
The Beeb can’t get everything wrong. I use a lot of odd duck references because even a blind pig finds truffles on occasion.
Peacewisher
I refer you to Ben’s comment, vuz:
“Craig has explicitly stated he thought there were irregularities, but not enough to make a significant difference.”
Key words : irregularities (which is not a synonym for ballot-rigging) and significant (meaning large).
The point Fred is making – and which I support – is that people should go to the police, with such evidence as they can muster, if they have a complaint rather than belly-aching on there.
The same applies to Mr Sillars – it is not good enough, in my opinion, to simply “ask the police to investigate” without stating on what grounds and producing such evidence as he has available.
What Mr Sillars appears to be asking for is what you would most certainly condemn as a “fishing expedition” if the police were doing the asking.
Or perhaps ot was you doing the asking and not Mr Sillars. But you get my point.
Whatever.
The big feature is the postal vote, which as I understand the demographic, is generally conservative in nature.
400k difference in the vote could be narrowed significantly if I’m misreading the demo.
@Ishmael: LOL! This society can now go one of two ways… either descend into totalitarian rule or expose a few token corrupt individuals and try to get back to something like democracy. I’m getting a positive vibe about this, even from notable trolls.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/israels-mossad-takes-hunt-foreign-spies-informants-online-132850652.html#KT1V5tl
Job Opportunities available . Might be of interest to some well known posters on this website . [ You know who you are !! ]
Perhaps I could propose Mr Salmond – now out of a job – for the position to be created as part of the greater devolved powers settlement, ie, Irregularityfinder-General?
@Ben: Yes it is small c conservative, but not in Glasgow, one would think. Wasn’t that the count that was criticised on grounds of being held in too large a building?
“well s/he would say that…
I’ve read the BBC website story and no mention of postal votes anywhere.”
Yes, s/he would say that, because it is true.
I didn’t know anyone had made a complaint about the postal votes. I saw you making various false claims that they could have been rigged. If you feel there is any evidence that they actually were rigged then you know what you must do.
GeneralGiap
“Job Opportunities available . Might be of interest to some well known posters on this website . [ You know who you are !! ]”
____________________
Nah, as Resident Dissident has already pointed out, we’re all on the payroll already 🙂
BTW – interesting moniker! Are you from Indochina or did an “i” too many slip into your moniker?
Mod could be bluffing. Why not just say who did it?
Generally older folks and absentees in their Italian villa, Peacewisher?
@Peacewisher
Nice comment.
Could we descend ? The’d have to start digging. lol.
LOL. Anon1. Perhaps the truth would be disruptive; it would certainly be embarrassing.
Mod; Is there an expiration date? The Usual Suspect often conveniently disappears and returns when it seems safe.
18 per cent = 756,000 postal votes.
Yes was 190,000 short of the target.
I wish the real world was as civilised as this blog…
mike
22 Sep, 2014 – 4:10 pm
18 per cent = 756,000 postal votes.
Yes was 190,000 short of the target.
mike 22 Sep, 2014 – 4:10 pm
“18 per cent = 756,000 postal votes.
Yes was 190,000 short of the target.”
Reposting from last thread:
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.
I don’t know the overall significance, but it seem they have created a mythology they don’t like to abandon. If truth comes out and there are consequences people will see the mythology clearly. So there is a lot more at stake in the big scheme of things.
To me it’s a lot about what alters the consciousness of the people. Who belongs where and why. Manipulation of minds.
Maybe not just a few token people in this light?
But even if the postal vote is fixed after the fact, it’s verifiable as a smaller sample of the electorate. Each ballot is numbered and the voters contact information is available. It would take a lot of work to contact but the handlers must understand discrepancies would be apparent and discoverable.
The smoking gun must be kept hidden.
“(e) Why the overall result was at odds with all other indicators.”
Are we talking about the same referendum?
Didn’t the opinion polls forecast a No win?
Didn’t the exit poll forecast a No win?
Hadn’t the bookies been putting No as odds on favourites?
Everybody with any sense has known all along no was going to win it.
If you are serious about this, Node, do it first on just one constituency… Glasgow.
It is likely that some academics at Glasgow University or some other seat of academic prowess would have done the calculations already… probably last Friday. Maybe they didn’t put their findings out on the Internet? Anyone?