There will be a screening of the documentary London Calling – How the BBC Stole the Independence Referendum – at the Steps Theatre, Dundee on 5 November at 1pm. It will be followed by a discussion including Mark McNaught and myself.
The event is ticketed, but tickets are free here.
The previous evening, 4 November at 7pm, there will be a screening of London Calling by Yes Kelty at the Moray Institute, Main Street, Kelty. I shall be speaking alongside the film’s director Alan Knight. I do not believe this is ticketed but look here for updates.
The evening before that, 3 November (I have no idea why I am strangely working backwards) I shall be speaking to the Yes Pentlands group. This is not a screening, rather one of my talks on Independence. UPDATE This will be in Tanners lounge bar, 459 Lanark Road, Edinburgh, EH14 5BA. Doors open 7pm for a 7.30pm start on 3 November.
I am available, free of charge, for such events, with or without a screening of London Calling. I may attempt to make a sneaky signed book sale or two on the side! Do not hesitate to contact me via the button at the top of this blog if you wish to invite me for your group.
This film is a pointless exercise. We experienced far worse media bias in the build up to our glorious Brexit vote, but it’s no use whinging about it. In the end you have to accept that you are up against established interests and overcome them.
I’m afraid Scotland either doesn’t want independence or isn’t brave enough to vote for it.
How can it be a pointless exercise when a near majority of Scots want independence, and are still striving to attain it?
But a majority of Scots don’t want independence and for some very good reasons. So long as the Nationalists refuse to address these very real reasons and instead pretend the ballot was rigged the majority will continue to oppose independence.
What is hardly disputed is that a significant part of that “majority” joined with it because they had been misinformed by the media to the extent that they had real fears of being made destitute when pensions plans collapsed.
Of course, on the other side of the question, no doubt, nationalists will have seduced a significant number of voters by exaggerating the immediate bounties of breaking ties with Westminster. The difference is that the great majority of the media-and particularly the state media- did not split almost evenly and, while it is likely that a majority of actual employees of the media backed independence, the great weight of published opinion was thrown to the Unionist side.
To tax the public in order to finance an institution-the BBC-which consistently lies to viewers and listeners and pollutes the public debate with untruths and cheap demagogy, is immoral. The producers of London Calling do everyone a service by explaining how the crime was committed and by whom.
Do you disagree with this line of argument ?
“Near majority” = minority.
“near majority”=elephant in the room which Unionists fail to recognize.
Nobody can fail to see the elephant, it’s obvious the Nationalists are blatantly attempting to curtail freedom of the press and silence any criticism of them.
A new organisation with the web site informscotland.com has been putting up billboards claiming the BBC is “mis-reporting Scotland”. You might have guessed from the wording the site has links to the discredited wingsoverscotland so often mentioned here though the domain name is registered to a Brenda Enright in Downpatrick Northern Ireland. It receives a mention at the end of this blog article.
https://mercinon.wordpress.com/2016/10/30/nationalist-online-fundraisers-can-you-trust-them-part-2-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/
The billboards say nothing about the BBC, they just advertise how intolerant the Nationalists have made Scotland.
The elephant in the room is surely the fact that if Scotland joined the EU it would have to adopt the euro, plus the fact that it would face prohibitively high membership fees.
Fred said;
“There are more people born in Scotland living in England than there are in either Edinburgh or Glasgow.
Westminster is much closer to the Scots stretched out in Soho doorways smelling of piss than Edinburgh is.”
___________
Fred.
Why would a weasel worded little bigot like you, actually care what happens in Scotland?
Whether or not a majority or a near majority of Scots want independence is a matter of minor importance. What is clear is that a majority of Scots-and not only Scots- want real change in the way in which government is carried on and the people who form the oligarchies which govern.
As to this particular question- the appalling biass of the BBC and other media- this is something that ought to concern people on either side of the matter. The essence of democracy is that it is rule based upon an electorate making up its minds after considering all available information. Those who would defend a system of falsifying information because they share the political aims of the falsifiers are being dishonest and immoral- they, like the falsifiers, are enemies of the people and a public danger.
Nor is the question raised in “London Calling” merely one of trivial, provincial politics. In many ways it is the key question that humanity faces today. And nothing clarifies this more than articles such as this:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/31/fukushima-cover-up/
in which the most important-by several orders of magnitude- story of the current century is rescued from the obscurity into which the agents of an irrational and dangerous economic system have consigned it, in order to protect themselves from criticism.
“Whether or not a majority or a near majority of Scots want independence is a matter of minor importance. What is clear is that a majority of Scots-and not only Scots- want real change in the way in which government is carried on and the people who form the oligarchies which govern.”
That’s right. The SNP have been in power since 2007. They have become the establishment in Scotland and it’s time for change, time we progressed, put thoughts of independence behind us and moved forward to putting all our efforts into improving the lives of the people of Scotland.
Not according to John Kay in the Financial Times.
Re. the anti BBC billboards. Can you provide locations showing these. Or is there only talk of putting them up.?
There is an article about it in the Scotsman.
I don’t think any have gone up yet and the picture is photoshopped. They have raised a lot of money to pay for them.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/nationalists-raise-thousands-for-anti-bbc-billboard-campaign-1-4271590
“and moved forward to putting all our efforts into improving the lives of the people of Scotland.”
__________
Don’t you mean “piss smelling Scotch” as you previously described them.
Fred, you’re as fake as a £3 pound note.
Good wee snippet Craig, well said.
Two years before the 2014 Scottish referendum, the BBC, were pushing the same old tired propaganda, infact, I’d go as far as to say the BBC, has been a British, establishment conduit looking at Scotland, in a negative light for decades.
No one I know refers to the title BBC Scotland, most people think of it, as, the BBC, (in) Scotland, it’s remit is to undermine, Scottish national confidence.
Meanwhile Scottish universities, reputations will be severely put at risk, if Scotland is dragged out of the EU, under Brexit.
The proposed Brexit, is in some cases already having a negative effect, as Scottish universites are finding it difficult to compete, in a fierce global market, for international students.
http://www.thenational.scot/politics/snp-calls-on-westminster-to-heed-calls-to-protect-scots-universities-from-impact-of-brexit.24177
Anon 1 is correct. Media bias did not prevent Brexit and hence it did not prevent Scottish Independence. There was a lack of will on the part of the Scots to become independent.
I recall a man in the north of England advising me that the media were predicting economic catastrophe in the event of Brexit and that he lacked the knowledge to determine whether this was true. He went on to say that if the media told him that he would starve in the event of Brexit then he would still vote to leave the EU.
People can be afraid of whatever they want – maybe as Bevin suggests that their pensions may be destroyed – but those who demand freedom will pay any price and be content that whatever that price may be they have secured a bargain.
It is this mindset that does not exist in sufficient numbers in Scotland.
You don’t have to prove again your user name. Loony. You convinced me long ago.
The media predicted overwhelmingly that Brexit would fail in the UK, and it only failed in Scotland because its electorate strongly opposed it.
And the media so scared Scotland about independence, even playing up the likelihood of a devastating earthquake and volcanic eruption in Iceland,like 300 years ago, which would leave the country hopeless.
And the Comey plot in the States is proving that strong opponents of Donald Trump, like your North England acquaintance, can be led to change their minds.
On the contrary, Trowbridge – Loony is quite right for once.
All this wailing about “media bias” is just bad losers, isn’t it, and only a little better than the various insults Craig aimed at those Scots who had the temerity to vote “no” (a previous Craig post after the referendum refers).
For the most part Scottish Nationalists are a reactionary force in awe of a non existent power of a corrupt and puerile media..
Brexit and the election and re-election of Jeremy Corbyn proved this. Soon the election in the US of President Trump and Renzi’s forthcoming loss of the Italian referendum will reinforce this truth.
I am sure the media will be only too keen to side with disgruntled Scottish Nationalists and claim that they were responsible for the No vote. Who would want to find themselves on the same side as the corporate media?
Everywhere people are rising up and throwing off the shackles of the status quo – and Scotland is no different. It is just that people realize that Scottish Independence actually serves to maintain the status quo. Scottish Nationalists would do well to remember the old maxim that “today;s revolutionary is tomorrow’s reactionary”
“Everywhere people are rising up and throwing off the shackles of the status quo ”
Certainly that statement, is valid in Catalonia, even though, Spain has been without a proper government for ten months.
However Mariano Rajoy, and his (PP) Popular party, have returned to lead a minority government, even though the (PSOE) Spanish Socialist party, abstained in the vote.
It has been alleged that ledgers exist, with what are known as “kickbacks” that were given to Rajoy.
Still Catalonian officials, are determined to push ahead with their 18 months road map to independence, even though a Spanish constitutional court, ruled it illegal.
One hopes Rajoy sees sense, and doesn’t try to block, a Catalonian vote on independence. No one wants to see a possible internal war break out in Spain.
Republic – I think you will find that Rajoy formed a minority government BECAUSE the PSOE abstained.
In other words PSOE effectively conspired with the Partido Popular to enable a government to be formed. The PSOE and the PP are effectively on the run from the rising power of Podemos and Cuidadanos.
Of course Rajoy is corrupt – the entire political establishment is corrupt – everyone knows this and it is no secret. Ask why then the EU continues to shovel money into the sovereign bond market of a country whose entire leadership is mired in corruption,
Spain is not the UK and Rajoy has no choice but to block Catalan independence.
Spain has been destroyed by the EU and the only hope for Catalunya is independence and the only hope for Spain is the maintenance of a unified state. Therein lies part of the problem. The other part of course relates to Pais Vasco and if revolutionary fervor re-emerges there then this time it could threaten the integrity of France.
Still baffled as to why Brussels (463 miles from Edinburgh) is preferable to London (332 miles). Still, as Tawdry Blair is still banging on about rerunning the UK EU referendum because he didn’t like the result, perhaps he might find time in his diary to advise the SNP on how to rerun the independence one? For a fee, obvs.
PS – The BBC was just as biased against Leave, and still is. As with Corbyn – and UKIP – the Establishment closes ranks against anything looking like popular dissatisfaction with the status quo. Political innovators should take that as a given.
How did Baal calculate that London to Brussels distance?
Last time I looked, it was about 120 kms from London to the Channel Tunnel and about another 220 kms from Coquelles to Brussels.
Total 340 kms.
And 322 kms as the crow flies (not being a crow, I admit I had to look that up).
Perhaps Baal is comparing Edinburgh – Brussels to Edinburgh – London?
Clearer drafting would be helpful…….
Light dawns eventually…there was ambiguity, though.
Baal
A draw, then – deal? 🙂
As any fule know, crows use miles not kilometers …
I didn’t. I looked up the flightpath of the average crow from Edinburgh to (1) London and (2) Brussels. It’s a bit further by road, even if you make the Anglocentric assumption that all roads go through London (though slowly), as you did.
Nul points.
If you were driving from Edinburgh to Brussels, which way would you propose in order to avoid London, Baal?
Please analyse from the distance, time and cost angles.
I’m not, have no intention of doing so, and will simply reiterate my very simple point, which is that Brussels is further away from London then Edinburgh. Personally, I’d fly from Edinburgh. Ryanair and Brussels Airlines do it. The fares are available to the public. Look them up yourself, you sad fuck..
Which should of course read : Edinburgh is further away from Brussels than it is from London. Your4 confusion is contagious.
Or why Brussels is preferable to Edinburgh (0 miles).
True for you. But I think that’s because of the lack of subsidies available from the latter. Although Scotland is probably capable of starting from scratch, on its own, the suffering meanwhile would be a harder sell than austerity under the EU.
“Still baffled as to why Brussels (463 miles from Edinburgh) is preferable to London (332 miles). ”
________
Baal.
So do you think that Scotland has more control now, than it would have, if it was independent inside Europe, but out of the rUK?
More importantly though, do you think, with regards to the up and coming Brexit deal, that Westminster, has Scotland’s, NI’s or Welsh, interests over London’s?
Distance has no bearing, in today’s global market, Scots, in my opinion will, get a better deal from Brussels, than Westminster, oh and we’d get rid of that annoying little prevaricating toom tabard, Fluffy Mundell.
Very quickly, RoS, I see no advantage to being told what to do by Brussels. The major factor in the wish to remain in Europe is the size of the bottom line, and that assumes that political economics continues on exactly the same unsatisfactory course as it does for the UK in the EU. I would wish for something a bit more seismic myself, but as I have always said, it’s up to the Scots.
You know fine well, that the Greeks, falsified their criteria to gain access into the EU.
Now Israel is a different matter, they want to worm their way in using sporting tournaments, I doubt their welcome is lauded, past the boardrooms.
I have sometimes complained about the gay abandon with which the adjective “fascist” is thrown about by certain of this blog’s esteemed “commenters”.
But I shall now break my own rule and say that in my opinion it is far more likely that an independent Scotland will assume various “fascist” characteristics than will the UK as it then will be.
Indeed, there are good reasons (several have already been spelled out, in particular by Fred) for believing that even present-day Scotland demonstrates some of those unfortunate characteristics.
Habb.
You wouldn’t be attempting to get a rise, out other posters by any chance?
Especially after what the xenophobic Tories have in store for EU citizens and immigrants.
No I don’t think, that, even you could be that asinine, then again, it is you. ?
The Tories, demagoguery, was evident during the Brexit vote. Not long after, they started cataloguing, non-UK residents, foreign doctors, etc.
Of course, there’s no dark agenda at play hear, nothing to see, move on, it would ludicrous to think Theresa May and her party in most part , seek to turn back the clock, to days of inglorious splendid isolation, and the empire.
No, I was being absolutely serious.
+++++++++++++++++++++
By the way, what does the Conservative govt have in store for them? Share your advance knowledge, please do,because no one else seems to have heard.
An increase on the 650,000 immigrants per annum already admitted by the Conservative government?
Why not read something about it, like George Orwell’s 1944 “What is Fascism?” article rather than just acting as if it just another swear word?
So what would Orwell have said about the amalgamation of all the police forces into one body? That surely has to be right out of the Fascist handbook.
Someone mentioned that in Private Eye about a year ago.
The same article also said that police patrols in Scotland were now armed as a matter of routine.
Imagine the cries of “fascism” if that were the case in England and Wales……
I could say that, police officers in Scotland are not, routinely armed, they’re not BTW, that’s why Sir Stephen House, had to stepdown as Chief Constable.
However, I might say, even if they were armed, I doubt they’d shoot unarmed men, in the head with dum dum bullets, in tube stations, like they did in London.
“Someone mentioned that in Private Eye about a year ago.”
Jeez, Private Eye, a year ago, scraping the barrel a bit, aren’t we? nothing unusual for you I suppose.
Stop woffling and give a straight answer: do the police in Scotland go on routine patrol armed – yes or no?
Mainly when buying the Tesco Meal deal (pic at link).
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/dundee/278306/police-defend-gun-policy-armed-cop-spotted-dundee-tesco/
I don’t know what he would have said nor would you if you read the article.
Orwell just talked about it in the broadest nationistic, economic, social and cultural terms.
I have English friends who are leaving Scotland because of the atmosphere there.
I have read – inter alia on this blog – that religious sectarianism is alive and well in Scotland (especially in Glasgow).
Not very reassuring, I must say.
I think Lily Allen, could hail a taxi, and ride in it, quite easily in Glasgow, not so elsewhere. ?
I truly find that very hard to believe. I have an entirely English accent yet have never, in about 12 years of living in Scotland in total, once encountered the slightest hostility.
Should it be true and your paranoid friends really are leaving to enjoy the delights of Farageland, please do remind them from me to ensure to take themselves off the electoral register as they go.
You can believe what you like, Craig, but I have friends in Scotland who, like you, speak with an English accent (but are actually Scottish), who are selling up and leaving Scotland because of the vicious climate created by the Nationalists. They have friends who are doing the same.
I suspect you are pardoned for your English accent, English origins and other sins, once a minute or two of your detestation of Britain has been heard by the receiving Nat. I don’t think you have ever really understood what a nasty lot the Scots Nats really are.
Farage and UKIP are a spent force. We voted for our independence. Scotland will never do the same.
What a load of codswallop, (you don’t have any friends, Habb aside ?) and a very poor counter if I might say, indeed at least 51,000 good English people want, the border moved so that Northern England, becomes incorporated into Scotland.
https://www.change.org/p/the-uk-government-allow-the-north-of-england-to-secede-from-the-uk-and-join-scotland
I’d also like to say, at the last Scottish independence rally in Scotland many English folk attended waving St George flags, those good folk from England, want to see Scotland out of the union, but want to stay in Scotland.
https://m.facebook.com/EnglishPeopleForScottishIndependence/
I think anyone with an open mind only has to read this blog to see the reality.
Notice all the personal attacks and ad hominem comments come from one direction.
Yet you look the other way and don’t see the slightest hostility.
“I think anyone with an open mind only has to read this blog to see the reality.”
Yes, the defenders of the British State must be worried, as they are all over Craigs blog.
Is Fred, departing us, such sweet sorrow. ?
Is your, comma, ever in the right, place?
““Still baffled as to why Brussels (463 miles from Edinburgh) is preferable to London (332 miles). ”
There can never be enough reminders that The Establishment rules and has for 200 years ruled: Sikunder Burnes comes out on the eve of that other Eden family disaster Suez.
The book also reminds us that the Scottish elites, ruling class, bourgeoisie, political caste including its old aristocracy (we all know who they are) waxed fat on the Empire. Burnes himself came from a family of tenant farmers , without the East India Company he would have been hard pressed to find a career anything approaching as rewarding as India proved to be.
The current SNP is a reminder that the Empire, long centred in Westminster, no longer provides ambitious Scotsmen with a certain road to fame, fortune and security. It has been offering them less and less since 1945 and matters have now reached the point-underlined by Brexit- at which the class is transferring its allegiance, wholsale, from one old Empire to the revived Holy Roman Empire still headquartered in Belgium though now, happily, Hapsburg-less. The glorious opportunity of joining Eire as joint custodians of the English language, and thus an inside track on communications with the real owners of the EU, who live in Washington, is almost too much for the Sturgeons and their like.
And could there be anything more fitting than for Scotland-that important refuge of the Enlightened in the C18th- and the originator of the liberalism of which EU policies are only turbo charged revivals, without the democratic trappings, (Cobbett’s ‘Scotch Feelosophy’) to insist on ‘independence’ from London in order that its ruling class could once again cast themselves as the Mandarins of an Empire?
The question is how long it will be before a substantial section of the radical and working class elements who have traditionally favoured national independence, realises that the SNP is just another version of Unionism, albeit less discredited and corrupt than the Unionists of the Labour party?
It’s A Very well researched Film.
i seen a few weeks ago with Inverclyde for independence.. Some of the info contained in the film I did not Know.
One of the Key Speakers in the film Paul Kavanagh – of Wee Ginger Dug – is coming to speak on the 14th November.. Then CommonWeal Director Robin MacAlpine will be here on January 11th
Craig, I shall mention to the group again, that you are Available to speak.
P.s. The Daily Record’s Screaming Front page ” Vow ” was a Lie.
For those of you bored with regurgitated nonsense…. you might find the following amusing. Then again, some of you may not!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xTJVXT5bsPk
A hilarious watch, JOML – thanks for sharing! 🙂
JOML.
Nice one, I noticed a huge Welsh flag flown in the crowd, Plaid Cymru supporters are sympathetic to Scottish independence.
Alas Wales voted to leave the EU, I wonder what happened to that famous, Owain Glyndwr, and Llywelyn the Great, spirit.
Owain Glyndwr? Helped by the French. didn’t get independence, patently a war criminal. What’s not to like? (and Bruce was a Norman….)
Ba’al: Owain Glyndwr was badly let down by the French, who basically failed to deliver. A few drunken convicts and that was it.
TY, fwl. So he wouldn’t have been a fan of Europe after the event, then? 🙂
SNP may wish to reflect, although maybe they’ve changed. It’s been a while now.
Thanks for the laugh.
Habbabkuk 14/58 so far
Also the first to use the word ‘fascist’ after complaining about its over use on this blog’s comments section. LOL
On this thread perhaps, but it has been thrown around frequently in the recent past and even more frequently in the more distant past.
Usually together with “racist”, “bigot” and “neo-con”.
It i usually originates in the fevered imagination of disaffected people of negative outlook whose vociferousness more than makes up for their rather limited number.
I have sometimes complained about the gay abandon with which the adjective “fascist” is thrown about by certain of this blog’s esteemed “commenters”.
But I shall now break my own rule and say that in my opinion it is far more likely that an independent Scotland will assume various “fascist” characteristics than will the UK as it then will be.
Indeed, there are good reasons (several have already been spelled out, in particular by Fred) for believing that even present-day Scotland demonstrates some of those unfortunate characteristics.
An increase on the 650,000 immigrants currently admitted each year?
“Scotland: Independent in the EU.”
Sorry, but it never gets any less funny.
It’s a sad day when North Korea, votes to ban more nuclear weapons, but Westminster, votes against the ban, by abstaining.
The usual ” Axis of Evil” abstained on the vote Israel, the USA, Britain, France, and even Russia.
However the UNGA vote passed, in spite of those abstentions.
https://www.rt.com/uk/364831-un-nuclear-disarmament-treaty/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=aplication_chrome&utm_campaign=chrome
North Korea once signed up to the NPT which has a similar goal but then withdrew when it no longer suited them. How do we know they’re anymore sincere this time?
RT do good job of blaming the UK for opposing the treaty but barely mention the fact that their political masters also opposed it. Still, some people will always fall for it.
Proof (below) that people see only what they want to see. The sentence in the article was the print equivalent of a pot calling a kettle black very rapidly and in a whisper, wasn’t it?
No, the axes (plural) of evil voted against the ban. As the article says, after listing the major abstainers:
opponents included the United States, Russia, the UK, France and Israel.
Also Japan, amazingly*. Confirmed here:
http://defencenews.in/article/Historic-vote-at-the-UN-means-Nuclear-Weapons-will-be-illegal-in-2017-29002
*Though it’s probable the US’s increasing nervousness about the Pacific has some relevance.
“Westminster, votes against the ban, by abstaining.”
_______________________
An abstention is an abstention is an abstention.
And not a vote against.
Using your rather peculiar “reasoning”, you would have to say thatt those voters who did not bother to vote in the Indy referendum (ie, they abstained) were in fact voting against independence,wouldn’t you.
Will Straw, as executive director of the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, is giving evidence to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (Chair Bernard Jenkin). He revealed that for the last four weeks prior to the referendum, the Remain campaign paid 80% of the salaries of Government SPADs including Craig Oliver on the basis that they were working for a government which sought a Yes majority.
Shame you lost Will. How’s your father?
The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee questions academics, and representatives from the Britain Stronger in Europe and Vote Leave campaigns.
Watch Parliament TV: Lessons learned from the EU referendum
Inquiry: Lessons learned from the EU referendum
Witnesses
Tuesday 1 November 2016, Grimond Room, Portcullis House
At 9.45am
Dr Alan Renwick, Deputy Director UCL Constitution Unit
Dr Simon Usherwood, Reader in Politics, University of Surrey and Fellow, UK in a Changing Europe
At 10.45am
Will Straw, Executive Director, Britain Stronger in Europe
Paul Comer, Head of Compliance, Britain Stronger in Europe
At 11.45am
Matthew Elliot, Chief Executive, Vote Leave
William Norton, Legal Director, Vote Leave
Antonia Flockton, Finance Director, Vote Leave
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-administration-and-constitutional-affairs-committee/news-parliament-2015/lessons-learned-from-the-eu-referendum-evidence2-16-17/
Ronnie Cowan of the SNP is on the committee
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-administration-and-constitutional-affairs-committee/membership/
You can employ Comer now for $50 /hr.
http://www.upwork.com/o/profiles/users/_~01cecc0d893cb2832f/
O/T but as the Scottish Parliament is mentioned in the preamble, it might be of interest to Craig and others.
Today in the HoC
Investigatory Powers Bill
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2016-11-01/debates/79609F80-4ECA-4C9D-93D8-98AA35992EF8/InvestigatoryPowersBill
Any other Glasgow dates? Or Ayrshire?