YouGov stood to have its reputation shattered if it continued to put out polls showing ten point leads for No, when Yes is very obviously headed for a majority.
Those massive YouGov leads for No were all part of the Unionist tactic of making independence appear both uniquely impossible to Scotland, as opposed to any other small nation state you can name, and an unattainable dream. Too poor, too wee, too stupid and politically isolated. YouGov are known in the trade as “You Can Have Any Result You Pay For Gov”. For months, James Kelly on the Scot Goes Pop blog has brilliantly analysed the methodologies they employed to give those large No leads – asking prior leading questions, a large preponderance of Labour voters in their panel, and the “Kellner Correction” – an assumption that lies or faulty memory about how people last voted, would penalise Labour unless corrected for statistically. The result was YouGov polls that were great reading for the No camp, but made no sense whatsever to anybody who had talked to voters.
My own view is that there has not been an extraordinary 12 point swing in a fortnight, as illustrated by YouGov’s last two polls. What there has been is a continuing stead swing and a realisation in YouGov that, having helped the No campaign for over a year by trying to make a Yes vote seem hopeless, to be over 12% out on this vital vote might damage YouGov’s share price fatally. So they have had to start publishing something close to the truth.
As I have been reporting, the truth has been very obvious to people on the ground for weeks. And the truth is not only that independence is coming, but that the entire political class, BBC and mainstream media has been rejected, and a new form of popular power, based on community democracy and social media, has taken over.
I received an invite from the National Library of Scotland to a post-referendum debrief at 9am on 19 September. Anybody sober at 9am on 19 September (unless having medical excuse) is not part of the New Scotland. But more crucially, the panel includes Henry McLeish and Michael Moore – and they want people to pay 35 pounds to listen to their words of wisdom.
They really haven’t got it yet. Nobody will ever care what Moore and McLeish and their like have to say again, and the kind of democracy we will have will not involve paying substantial sums to hear pearls of wisdom drop from troughers on a pedestal. Nor will members of the old political establishment have a future in that career. It was a good tactic for Alex Salmond to say that Darling and Carmichael will be on the negotiating team: the people will not allow it to happen.
There is at last some understanding that Yes will win: the penny has not yet dropped that this is a revolutionary moment, not a polite constitutional shuffle.
and of course Farage himself is in a first class carriage on the EU gravy train Brian.
UKIP leader Nigel Farage and Euro MPs pocket £800k in expenses – despite wanting UK to leave
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ukip-leader-nigel-farage-euro-3012708
“Rd its utter vile Fear mongering Racist sickness from Farage… they are trying hard to whip it up though, i’ll give you that.”
Yes Brian, like RD said, Farage is a Nationalist, Nationalists are seldom nice people.
“and how they fucked up RBS” – with a little help from their Scot Nat friends (Mr Mathieson springs to mind).
While I can agree with much of what you say about the City and the mystique put around currencies (there are plenty of economies smaller than Scotland with their own currencies)- I would be more worried about the lack of clear thinking on this subject among the SNP leadership (remember Swinney has a far from sparkling business career) and the democratic deficit angle of promising one thing while possibly planning to do something else.
“Stay civil and to the point will you?”
I was civil and to the point.
Galileo has no bearing whatsoever on the Holocaust.
The evidence Jews were persecuted in Nazi Germany is overwhelming, the evidence there was a program of eradication is overwhelming, the evidence large numbers of Jews died as a result is overwhelming.
Here, look at the photos:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=holocauste&client=firefox-a&hs=5eT&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=-CkOVK6QDcHwaJebgdgD&ved=0CDUQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=672
Are you claiming they are all fake?
So what the hell has Galileo got to do with anything?
Correct, Mister Dissident, it’s perfectly reasonable to question the technical grasp of your leadership, they’re politicians after all, not technical consultants to the Treasuries and Finance Ministries like us. That’s why it’s important to constitute a state in which you can correct or replace them if they fail to understand. There’s no hope of that with your fossilized British institutions, as you know.
Brian, these creeps this side of the border, only have racism, rancour, divisive malice, as their nostrums as per their tutelage by their zionist scum mentors.
Everyday the headlines scream of yet another peril, that only further hatred combined with the application of violence, or sanctions can solve. Today it was the airport and the suspect package and the lines of ambulances, despite the fact that the detonation was a controlled charge to tear apart a “suspect” package!
The fences from Nato meeting are being fenced and put to good use; stopping the hoards of the “illegal asylum seekers” (ie the nationals of the countries that have been subject to the tough love and democratisation regime by USUK to enjoy more freedoms) at the source.
Hence Farrage is reverting to type and instinctively spewing the vile rhetoric automatically. Lucky you Scots! You will not have to put up with these types of rats knackers for much longer.
============
resident cliché how many assertions can you shove into one sentence and still consider yourself a sentient entity?
The knee-jerk antisem……. give over. Your kind would make it mandatory to luv Jews, and swear allegiance never mind straight forward genuflections. In fact as is in zionistan!
Precisely! Your whole crappy existence is defined through your enemies, and your persecution at their hands. What else can bind you to your keyboard clattering away the same pathetic bilge 24/7/52?
You and your support team and the gaggle of enablers can define yourselves only through your enemies. You are verily aware that without these demons there cannot exist the vile, barbaric evil creed of zionist scum.
How can anyone hear the cries of the fathers searching the rubble for the torn remains of their children as they collect these remains in carrier bags?
How can anyone watch the utter grief in the faces of children whom have just witnessed their parent getting killed by the thugs in uniform zionist mercenaries?
Simple, relive the dark fantasise passed as “reality of the past”. You really have no other choice, do you res cliché? All of your training and drill have taught you to define yourself through your enemies!
Mathieson et al. also bring up an important point. An independent Scotland will of course benefit from capacity-building, as did Slovenia, the Czech Rep., Poland, Estonia, and all the other smithereens of empire. The terminally corrupt British government did a fair amount of capacity demolition in Scotland, corrupting and indoctrinating cadres. Bilateral and multilateral assistance will be important during the transition (obscuring the transition, by the way, that’s another British trick, making independence seem like a leap into the unknown, when in fact it’s a negotiation process lasting months.)
Just make sure you get your advice from the right source. If it’s countries or institutions beholden to the yanks, they’re going to fuck you. I’ve seen it done, they come in with their cookie cutter and stamp out a hundred square cookies and you want heart-shaped ones instead, then fuck off. Just look what they’ve done to the new kids in Ukraine, http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/09/michael-hudson-losing-credibility-imfs-new-cold-war-loan-ukraine.html It’s quite tragic.
No end of food for thought in your comment, Mister D. Thank you!
Fred Myopia is a terrible affliction That will always discount the wider landscape Spare me your righteous indignation of Fakers and frauds
Fred i Know you live in Scotland…it’s obvious RD does not.
One dose not have to be a Nationalist to have a desire for Scottish independence… nearly everyone i know are for Yes, and one or two maybe for no ( like the girl i was with yesterday – telling me Faslane employ 7,000 non military people, Source – MSMedia – recent MOD figures have the number at under 600 – )
Also I can say the people to whom i refer are Decent folk.
“Might I suggest that you stay away from subjects that you most clearly do not understand.”
I guess the piece had some gravitas which gave you hives, Reducto Absurdum.
I couldn’t care less what the outcome will be. Just one word: the YouGov “change” is in fact an age-old trick to mobilise the NO supporters to go and vote. This trick (threat of being beaten) is commonly employed 2- 3 weeks before elections and is based on certain psychological mechanisms (like, siding with the weaker party, and others). If you believe these polls reflect reality in any degree, you are mistaken.
Imperialism, argues Machover, dominates the Middle East partly by establishing arbitrary political divisions within the Arab world. “A divided Arab world suited the interests of the imperialist powers: a divided nation is easier to dominate and exploit. A divided Arab nation is also a vital interest of the Zionist project; and it is this common interest that lies at the basis of the close alliance between Zionism (and the Zionist state) and its successive imperialist sponsors and senior partners” (292).
This splintering of political sovereignty severely constrains economic development, weakens the collective power of the Arab people, allows reactionary elites to seize the reins of government, and gives imperialist countries almost unlimited access to Arab oil. The continuing threat to imperialist dominance of Middle East is revolutionary Arab nationalism, and this is where Israel enters the picture.
Israel functions as the imperialist watchdog of the Middle East. Machover describes it as the local enforcer or subcontractor for global imperialism. Its specific task is to guard against the emergence of revolutionary Arab nationalism, but it also provides many other useful services for U.S. imperialism. In exchange for these valuable contributions to imperial control of the Middle East, the United States generously subsidizes the Israeli economy enabling, among other things, the Zionist state to devote a huge share of GDP to military expenditures (sometimes as high as 24 percent). In appreciation of its faithful support for U.S. imperialism, former Secretary of State Alexander Haig once remarked that “Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk” (282).
http://monthlyreview.org/2013/11/01/zionism-imperialism-socialism/
Thanks for inspiring me to look deeper into this treasure-trove, mistah resident distillate.
Massive grouping of archetypal articles for socialist delight.
http://monthlyreview.org/browse-the-archives/articles-by-subject/
Errrrrrmmmm.
“Correct, Mister Dissident, it’s perfectly reasonable to question the technical grasp of your leadership, they’re politicians after all, not technical consultants to the Treasuries and Finance Ministries like us. That’s why it’s important to constitute a state in which you can correct or replace them if they fail to understand. There’s no hope of that with your fossilized British institutions, as you know.”
His rancor rises in direct proportion to perceived threats to his habitat. But feel for him. His need for remaining locked in the past, is only exceeded by his bloated sense of self.
Not familiar with his thinking. Is he going to be stump in rump UK, or is he going to be free?
“Not familiar with his thinking. Is he going to be stump in rump UK, or is he going to be free?”
A Thatcherite from head to heel or stump to rump, if you prefer.
Abbas seems terribly naive….
“Yet curiously Palestinian officials have held back on filing the paperwork without explanation. President Mahmoud Abbas has now said the delay in sending the letters to the United Nations (UN) was at the request of American officials who are still attempting to broker a “framework” for negotiations with Israel aimed at creating a Palestinian state.
In a leaked transcript of a conversation between Abbas, and senior Fatah and Hamas officials, mediated by the Emir of Qatar, Abbas said he was pressured not to send the letters by the United States during Secretary of State John Kerry’s bid for parties to return to talks. While the meeting is an illumination on the inner workings of Palestinian political strategy as it’s being hashed, the transcript is also useful if not just for the behind the scenes look at the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation.
The conversation took place on August 21, 2014 in Doha. A copy of the meeting minutes was published in Arabic by the Lebanese outlet Al Akhbar earlier this week.
“We agreed to the United States’s request to not go to the United Nations in return for the release of [Palestinian] prisoners,” Abbas said to the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. “After the failure of the experience of 20 years of negotiations, Israel and America have not given us anything,” Abbas later complained to Hamas leader Khaled Mashal. The U.S. was “dragging their heels” during the negotiations process.
After the failure of the experience of 20 years of negotiations, Israel and America have not given us anything,” Abbas later complained to Hamas leader Khaled Mashal. The U.S. was “dragging their heels” during the negotiations process, – See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/?p=134540&preview=true#sthash.IlKp8abM.dpufAfter the failure of the experience of 20 years of negotiations, Israel and America have not given us anything,” Abbas later complained to Hamas leader Khaled Mashal. The U.S. was “dragging their heels” during the negotiations process, – See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/?p=134540&preview=true#sthash.IlKp8abM.dpufAfter the failure of the experience of 20 years of negotiations, Israel and America have not given us anything,” Abbas later complained to Hamas leader Khaled Mashal. The U.S. was “dragging their heels” during the negotiations process, – See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/?p=134540&preview=true#sthash.IlKp8abM.dpufBut the Israelis have refused to release fourth installment to stop settlement activity, and we failed. So we decided to reconcile with Hamas […] and the formation of a national unity government. Israel refused to deal with it, – See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/?p=134540&preview=true#sthash.IlKp8abM.dpuf“After the failure of the experience of 20 years of negotiations, Israel and America have not given us anything,” Abbas later complained to Hamas leader Khaled Mashal. The U.S. was “dragging their heels” during the negotiations process.
Moreover, the rendezvous concluded with the Beirut-based head of Hamas’s political bureau Mousa Abu Marzouk confidentially signing the letter for Palestine to join the ICC.
– See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2014/09/israels-occupation-birthday#sthash.jTXj6WtZ.dpuf
More petrol for your fire-sale RD…http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n17/keith-gessen/why-not-kill-them-all
“‘The protests in March and April were the most massive grassroots protests I have ever seen in Donetsk,’ Yuri Dergunov, who is also from Makeevka and teaches political science, told me. ‘In my memory people here had never been so active and so involved in their own fate.’ He pointed out the very specific social composition of the protests in Donetsk. The pro-Maidan protests, when they took place, were middle class and nationalistic; anti-Maidan was lower class and anti-oligarchic (and Russian nationalist). ‘I would see the people at Maidan and think: “What nice people, so well dressed, so educated.” Then they would open their mouths.’ The things that came out of their mouths included slogans taken from interwar Ukrainian fascism. They also expressed what Dergunov calls barely concealed ‘social racism’ towards the members of anti-Maidan. Perhaps nowhere else in Ukraine was the split between pro-Maidan and anti-Maidan so visible as it was in Donetsk.
While Mishin was quietly attending the rapidly growing anti-Maidan meetings, Enrique Menendez, a businessman, was himself getting worried. Menendez, who is named after his grandfather, a Spanish Republican soldier who retreated to France and after the war ended up in the USSR, is thirty years old. He grew up in a town fifty miles north of Donetsk and moved to the city after high school to seek his fortune. Too poor to afford university, he found he could navigate the media business, and got work at a growing internet company in Donetsk. Three years ago he started his own company, the Ad Factory, which did online marketing for businesses in Donetsk. He was doing well and had seven employees. But he began to feel his city slipping away from him.
In early March, Menendez and some other local professionals decided to organise a big pro-Ukraine meeting. Menendez was tasked with ensuring security for the protesters: everyone knew they might be attacked. He approached the staff of the newly appointed governor, but they couldn’t guarantee the protest’s safety; eventually he got in touch with the organised fans of Shakhtar Donetsk (shakhtar means ‘miner’ – Donetsk is coal country). These ultras, who had been supporters of Maidan, agreed to provide security. The meeting went off, thousands came, and at the end a group of men approached with sticks. The ultras were as good as their word and confronted the attackers, with the result that several of the ultras (as well as several of the attackers) ended up in hospital. This was as expected, but Menendez was discouraged.
I can sympathize with his frustration. We have longer to wait before we’re free, you and I.
@jjb
Mr Salmond has said that the monarchy and whether we will continue to keep it is ‘a matter for after independence’.
I have already casually canvassed some of my fellow RIC canvassers on switching our efforts post Yes to a republic campaign. The draft constitution requires the head of state to swear to serve the people of Scotland (remember here the people are sovereign). That one may stick in Windsor craws. We can at least through a constitution make them even more irrelevant. They can be a cycling monarchy north of the border on the Dutch or Scandinavian model. It might take some re-education of Special Branch or their Scottish equivalent but it can be done.
There is more than one way to skin the monarchical cat.
Mr Ding Dong was enquiring about Gaza’s power plant although we know that he cares not one jot for those poor people and their abysmal living conditions.
This is about their water supply and sewerage system or lack of them.
September 08, 2014
Israelis: Stop Swimming in Our Shit!
Destroying Gaza’s Water System
by SAM BAHOUR
Palestinians in Gaza are starting to awake from the shell-shock of Israel’s 51-day Ramadan Massacre which left over 2,131 Palestinians killed (of which over 500 were children), over 10,000 injured (more than half of whom are estimated to be permanently handicapped), and scores of homes and businesses demolished. Reality is bleaker than ever before. Nothing of the underlying reasons why Gaza exploded into a bloodbath has changed. Israeli and Egyptian closures of Gaza’s borders remain in place. However, one product is making its way freely across the border into Israel. Actually, this product flows undetected by the almighty Israeli military and rolls right up on to the shores of Tel Aviv. The product is Palestinian shit, or more accurately, to maintain the media bias of the times, Palestinian terrorist shit.
We Palestinians have no love affair with the Israelis relaxing on the shores of Tel Aviv. Many of these Israelis have no problem being high-tech professionals in the morning, throwing on their military uniform and participating in turning Gaza into a living hell on earth in the afternoon, then going for a relaxing swim with the family on the shores of Tel Aviv in the evening. However, we would advise Israelis, and all tourists to Israel for that matter, to please stop swimming in our shit. This practice is not only unhealthy for you and your children, but it is killing us, literally and figuratively.
/..
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/08/destroying-gazas-water-system/
@Ba’al Zevul “The next global crash .. is probably not far away..”
Prophets of doom have been saying this for decades. But I think we should do what we can in our own country. Splitting up the UK IMO is risky for all concerned.
Bravo the people of a little town in Eire who are boycotting goods from the Israeli entity.
Kinvara first to boycott Israeli goods
http://www.clarechampion.ie/kinvara-boycott-israeli-goods/
Looks more than ever that the USA is planning some kind of covert action to defeat the Yes vote in the referendum with The Guardian most naively claiming that Washington has been caught completely by surprise by its growing strength.
Sure, Washington was completely caught by surprise by South Vietnam President Thieu rejecting LBJ’s peace plan during the 1968 election, and the delayed release of the American prisoners held by Iran during the 1980 one.
http://www.thisisarevolutionarymoment.com
Having read all submissions to this piece, it would appear that CanSpeccy (8th September, 6:12pm) is the only one to have looked behind the curtain and seen the brick wall. This is no more than a classic application of divide and rule, based on the view of Lenin that ‘In order to control opposition, you must lead it’. The Leader has appeared and painted an irresistible picture of a system that has been promised many times elsewhere and has always failed to materialise for all except a fortunate few. It seems that Scotland is being led towards a one party system and I am beginning to wonder if the lot of the Scots will be much the same as the people of Zimbabwe, who have seen all that was promised at the outset turn out to be a complete illusion.
The momentum of the Yes campaign could be destroyed almost instantly if the ‘Hollie Greig’ card were to be played. That is unlikely to happen because the retaliation would probably trash the system on the southern side of the Border.
Other, perhaps more subtle methods could be used to destroy the Yes campaign – if that is what the PTB want. However, I have concerns that such a head of expectation has been built up in those craving for ‘independence’ that the dissipation of that energy and disappointment might lead to other unintended (or intended?) social consequences.
“UKIP leader Nigel Farage and Euro MPs pocket £800k in expenses – despite wanting UK to leave.”
Farage makes me laugh. He’s so obviously a chancer, I’m surprised he’s taken all that seriously. He’s in it for the money, a lot of them are. His smiley man of the people act is just a massive piss-take. Oh, I’ve no doubt his views are massively right-wing as well, but he’ll go away at some point, much richer, laughing at the chumps. I’d bet Blair is his real hero, as well.
Good luck, Scotland! My heart is with you.
You have nailed this down very nicely, its what we are all thinking because of how we have all felt, scotland from 1980 onwards, was decimated and deindustrialised by Westminster policies, the miners strike, the falklands publicity war, Ravenscraig etc etc etc, and yes i agree we have had enough, this debate has sparked a new awakening and its rocked the Westminster mob to the core and beyond, i will be sober on the 19th, but only until teatime, our job means we will be helping the country stay afloat after the victory, cant say more about what i do than that, but working in a free Scotland will feel mighty fine, and that first pint and nip that day will be the sweetest i will ever taste. Best regards, Saor Alba Gu Brath.
Exactly, a last minute attempt to salvage some shred of credibility now that the long-time rigging has clearly failed. How ridiculous the polling for years will look when the real result is in.