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.
Habby or should that be Lo Zuccone ?
Interesting you should respond . However the advert was for Mossad not Shin Bet , as all areas in the Upper Galilee especially around Kadarim are already well covered .
Fred
Are you claiming any of the following?
It is impossible for the government to fix the count?
That the government wouldn’t fix the count even if it was very important to them?
That the opinion polls couldn’t be fixed?
That the government couldn’t influence the pollsters?
That there hasn’t been fraud in UK elections in the past?
That it hasn’t been proved in a law court that the postal ballot can be fixed?
more on Glasgow (Wikipedia):
“In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Glasgow grew in population, eventually reaching a peak of 1,128,473 in 1939. In the 1960s, comprehensive urban renewal projects resulting in large-scale relocation of people to new towns and peripheral suburbs, followed by successive boundary changes, have reduced the current population of the City of Glasgow council area to 592,000, with 1,199,629 people living in the Greater Glasgow urban area.
The entire region surrounding the conurbation covers about 2.3 million people, 41% of Scotland’s population.”
I think it’s a good plan to focus on Glasgow, Peacewisher.
A smaller sample of postal votes, or rather focusing on one district, would be more doable and would probably be the most rich source of rigging.
@Node
Have you any evidence whatsoever that the ballot was fixed?
Lots of suspicions about rigged postal votes. The last one was in 2005…..nothing……after. Odd that,
http://www.scotsman.com/swts-search-element-7-14078?slotSearch=true&siteId=2.6543&submitted=true&action=search&freeTextQuery=postal+vote
An individualised Pedagogy of the Oppressed for this country just came to mind.
Thing is people are constantly fed what a great country they live in. And they mostly have ‘lovely’ cars that make them feel important. (As they work all day to maintain them).
Having been around India it does annoy me a bit because I think what opportunities and wealth we do have, not compared to the gods of finance, but if working toward a more just society is a goal then historically speaking there are huge possibilities.
I wonder sometimes if even among us it’s the fear of actually changing things. I comfort myself in reminding that the change we want to see is empowering the powerless. Who perhaps will cope a lot better (after our fixed lives) than we would.
Re the Mr Goss impersonation (if it was):
On reflection, there is another important reason why – if there was impersonation and if the Mods are certain who was responsible – we should be told who it was.
The reason is the following.
Mr Goss has a track record of lying about other commenters. For example, he has often repeated the lie that I am in favour of torture (when asked to adduce evidence in the form of quotations – for example – he changed tack slightly to claim that this could be *inferred* from my comments – again without quotations).
Now: if the impersonator is not identified by the Mods, what is to stop Mr Goss, after a convenient lapse of time, from accusing poster X or Y of having been the impersonator in order to discredit said X or Y?
(This, by the way, is why the suggestion that it should be left to Mr Goss to decide whether the impersonator should be outed is especially pernicious.)
Fred says:
“@Node
Have you any evidence whatsoever that the ballot was fixed?”
No. Now you answer my question.
@Ben: Postal votes were an experiment, and one that threw up a lot of serious questions. A lot of people wanted the experiment to be ditched because of the possibilities for fraud. Particularly with extended families under one roof. It continued on the grounds that it raised the % who voted. Why? I don’t know… well I probably do… same reason Hitler got to power. But zero fraud since 2005. Yes, that is ridiculous.
Ben
“Lots of suspicions about rigged postal votes”
___________________
Suspicions are not evidence, Ben, let alone proof.
Peacewisher (re postal voting)
“It continued on the grounds that it raised the % who voted. Why? I don’t know… well I probably do… same reason Hitler got to power.”
__________________
I adore historical analogies, Peacewisher.
Would you care to flesh out the one you’ve supplied, just a little? Or a lot.
Thanks.
The blueprint from RAND mentioned earlier, crystallised during the opening phases of the US-engineered, so-called “Arab Spring,” when both the US and Israel intentionally and very publicly offered ‘support’ for the embattled government of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, despite training and funding the gangs that were set to overthrow his government.
Unexpectedly the resilience of Syria delayed Western designs aimed at reasserting hegemony across the Middle East, including delaying war with Iran. Assad knew the disingenuous Israel ‘peace deal’ would fatally betray Syria just as was done to Libya.
Assad would relay his concerns to Putin. The intensive planning behind the backs of British and American people culminated into a humiliating decision to call off the ‘red line’ strike against Syria last September. Britain had pulled out of the impending war and the US was unable to forge a reliable base of international support. Washington was internally divided, in part because of Russian opposition to the war and the potential for a wider conflict. At the same time, military action had almost no public support. The game plan trick had to be hastily modified while Washington, steamed up by Putin’s Russia, made clear a ‘military option’ was still ‘on the table.’ Russia indeed would be isolated and weakened for protecting its Syrian naval base against the wishes of the Western alliance.
The British SAS trained MEK would mutate into ISIL and with al-Maliki forced out America would consolidate control of Iraq and use the now called ISIS together with BBC propaganda to weaken anti-war sentiment by carrying out savage beheading of British and American journalists.
The British Chatham House bolt-on strategy included US and German-backed demonstrations in Kiev, led by armed neo-fascist forces from Svoboda and the Right Sector to the overthrow the pro-Russian government and the installation of a anti-Russian regime. The knife would attempt to severe Syrian support from Russia.
Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) ‘long war’ proposal would become reality. Violent instability wherever needed MUST be the rule not the exception.
With FO base Israel ultimately in control, transformation of the Middle East into a military and political staging ground will enable the RAND corps nuclear winnable war against Russia and China a ‘name of the game’ certainty.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/08/29/Cordesman-Exclusive-Nobody-Follows-Where-Nobody-Leads
“No. Now you answer my question.”
Now I don’t need to, there is no reason to.
Just as there is no reason for you to prove to me you are not a murderer, or a paedophile or a rapist which you could never do, you can’t prove a negative as you well know.
So I am quite happy to assume you are none of the above unless I were to see evidence to the contrary if you are happy to accept the ballot wasn’t rigged unless there were actual evidence that it was.
Peacewisher
Just to repeat, in case you missed it first time round:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peacewisher (re postal voting)
“It continued on the grounds that it raised the % who voted. Why? I don’t know… well I probably do… same reason Hitler got to power.”
__________________
I adore historical analogies, Peacewisher.
Would you care to flesh out the one you’ve supplied, just a little? Or a lot.
Thanks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You must learn to take responsibility for what you post, Peacewisher. You’re drawing an analogy with Nazi Germany, which is quite a serious charge. So please justify it.
Hitler rose to power by offering radios to the populace, then he controlled the airways.
I see that confluence, peacewisher.
“Of course, radios were too expensive for the majority of Germans in the depressed Germany Hitler inherited. Soon after achieving power the Nazis decided to introduce an affordable radio, the Volksempfänger, ” the people’s receiver”, so Nazi propaganda and approved broadcasts, consisting of news, propaganda, volkische (folk) music and classical music (the Reich Broadcasting Corporation was banned from playing populist “negroid” music such as jazz and music by Jewish composers and songwriters) could reach a mass audience. In 1939, by which time the Volksempfänger had made radio a mass commodity, the Nazi propagandist Artur Freudenberg declared, “It is imperative in the political interest of the state not only that the whole nation participates in broadcasting, but that the entire nation is ready to receive radio programmes at any moment.”
http://www.transdiffusion.org/2008/01/07/hitlers_radio
Yes, of course, Habby. Happy to bring it up to date. There was a very famous experiment conducted in 1968 by Stanley Milgram, to test compliance with figures in authority. In the most famous one, nearly 70% of experimental subjects did as they were told up to the point of electrocution. This experiment, and others, were devised to see how compliance people are to what they see as authority. Some of the subjects suffered mental trauma afterwards when they realised how they had been duped.
And if someone has done a bad thing in these circumstances, they’ll feel bad about it, but probably won’t tell a soul.
Fred
No, you don’t have to answer my question, but if you did, you would have to admit that everything that the conspiracy theorists claim about a possible referendum fix is well within the modus operandus of our government. Therefore it is not a preposterous idea as your comments seem to suggest, but a subject for legitimate speculation.
At the beginning of my speculation on how a postal ballot could be rigged, I said “Probably, we will never know for certain whether there was voting fraud …” which made clear I had no evidence. I even said I was doing it “just for fun”. What I did was sketch out a scenario which would explain some of the anomalies, such as …
In the The Scottish Parliament Elections of 2011, 14.1 % of the Scottish electorate applied for postal ballot forms. These included a significant number of ex-pats. In the referendum, ex-pats were not allowed to vote, yet 18.6%, of the electorate applied for postal ballot forms. To spell that out, 32% more postal ballots sent out when one might reasonably have expected a need for less.
I have heard no explanation for this, therefore, for me, this is an unexplained anomaly. My speculation provides a possible explanation.
Ben
“Hitler rose to power by offering radios to the populace, then he controlled the airways.
I see that confluence, peacewisher.”
_________________
Thank you for that, Ben. But I think Peacewisher was talking about postal voting, or then possibly drawing an analogy between postal voting and something else (perhaps even your radios).
Anyway, I know you’re just trying to be helpful and contribute but it might be wiser to let Peacewisher answer for himself, don’t you think?
I’ve reposted the question to jog him into a response.
Ben
But I’d be happy if you offered me your thoughts on something I actually addressed to you, ie :
““Lots of suspicions about rigged postal votes”
___________________
Suspicions are not evidence, Ben, let alone proof.”
Why are so many people in the media saying that the independence issue has been decided for a generation? I would have thought that, if Westminster welshes (perhaps “westminsters” would be a more appropriate verb) on the promises the politicians made to Scotland, the Scots could demand a new referendum much sooner than that.
Anoymous VS. ISIS.. Starts about a minute in.
I should think they would focus on Mossad/SITE, but then there’s that censorship thingy.
http://www.juancole.com/2014/09/operation-anonymous-extremist.html
Peacewisher
Just to make sure I’ve understood you correctly : you are basing your analogy between the Scottish No vote and Hitler’s rise to power through elections (ie, people voting for him)on an experiment concerning behaviour carried out in 1968by an American academic. Is that correct?
Have you factored into your thinking such other just possible determinants of voting behaviour in Germany in the early 1930s as: Brownshirt thugs in the street, a 25% unemployment rate without the benefit of a welfare state, the fear of Communism amoung large sections of the population and a certain resentment towards certain foreign countries?……
Did you not get my response, Habby?
Ben adds an interesting extra dimension… the use of multimedia (well single media in the 1930s) to help build up the profile of the authority figure.
Republicofscotland
As you posted about the proposed referendum on independence for Catalonia earlier on today, I was just wondering whether you could offer me some insights wrt the question I myself posted at 15h09 today and which read as follows?
“Given that the limits of historical Catalonia extend over the French border (as indeed do the borders of the historical Basque region), how are we to explain the apparent lack of interest in independence by that part of historical Catalonia which finds itself in the territory of the Hexagon?”
Thanks.
“Suspicions are not evidence, Ben, let alone proof.””
Just as when a scientist develops an hypothesis, he seeks proof. But he has to start looking for evidence.
RoS: There was nothing about the source being ITV in your comment, you quoted something and then a link to a site called livescience.com which looks a pretty wacky pseudo-scientific site to me. Even if it were from ITV, which you haven’t proven, and can attempt to do now if you wish, is that a defence? It doesn’t and wouldn’t explain how it was relevant and why you posted it, as with much of the other related stuff. The subject of that thread was Craig’s ‘St Andrews Speech’ not genetics.
I think the point I was making is respect the topic even if others are dragging it in other directions, address Craig’s article above the line rather than the baiting by trolls below the line. You seem to have made yourself the stuff of habbaduk’s dreams, and you seem made for each other, to the detriment of the blog’s focus and the annoyance of those doing their best to ignore the trolling.
Lysias the BBC were saying on their streamer along the bottom of the screen, that it settles the matter for a generation, for the union, not quoting anyone but off their own bat, before the complete results were even all in.
Bring on referendum2, where the 45 become the 85.
“No, you don’t have to answer my question, but if you did, you would have to admit that everything that the conspiracy theorists claim about a possible referendum fix is well within the modus operandus of our government. Therefore it is not a preposterous idea as your comments seem to suggest, but a subject for legitimate speculation.”
The rules and regulations regarding postal voting are made law in the Scottish Referendum Bill, an act of the Scottish government so any capabilities for fraud have been put there by them.
Were you suggesting that the Scottish government has attempted election fraud? As the predicted losers the SNP government would have both motive and opportunity.
@Habby: You are taking me for a fool. Britain is the oldest capitalist country in the world and more subtle methods are used in this green and pleasant land.
That was just an experiment, but it shows how a combination of authority figure and “reasonable” (at the time) request can massively manipulate human behaviour. This thread is all about why it was “No”, and one way is fraud. Why would anyone commit fraud… well I’m giving you an answer… subtle control by authority figure. OK?