Cybernats – Eat your heart out!

I feel that cybernats are having their undeserved reputation for bad behaviour seriously challenged of late. Here are some of my favourites from my pre-moderation inbox of YouTube comments. PvPGodz Uk is my current favourite.  I really feel his (her?) formidably elegant powers of articulation of the Project Fear core arguments deserve a wider audience, and I commend them to Alistair Darling and Alistair Carmichael.

(Sadly, YouTube has been classifying them as spam of late, and despite their tickable boxes, I have no way of either deleting them or showcasing them to a wider public – except this.)

PvPGodz Uk

Why shouldn't we vote for independance? We are that busy thinking about we're gonna be the greatest nation in the Universe, but we are really gonna be bankrupt, we get food imported from other countrys, and some include the EU countrys we're getting the food from! We're getting threatened that if we go independant we won't be in the EU anymore, and where we gonna get half our food, eventually we'll run out and we'll be full of poverty! And if we get the 'Stirling Pound' tooken from us what we going to use, and to make factorys to produce money in scotland, or make another currency, it'll cost money to do that! Alex Salmon has no idea what we are gonna get ourselfs into, I'd borde the first train to England if they take the money! The Queen's brining in lots of money to 'Britain', and it won't be shared amoung us if we go independant, and we rely on the money we get from the Queen brining in money from tourists, and England will have the money, the currency, you name it! And we'll have nothing! 
NO TO INDEPENDANCE!

Michael Cawood

Dear Salmond, first you need to learn to run a piss-up at a brewery

Debra smith

If Scotland go independent, that means they are not British anymore, ergo they can't have our bloody currency!!! Let em have the euro and see how that works for em.
Vote for independence Scotland please, then you might stop your bitching about England , and how mean we are to you.

karezza777

How to be Scottish: 1. Eat deep fried Mars Bars. 2. Wear a skirt 3. Hunt Haggis 4. Believe in the Loch Ness Monster 5. Blame everything on England 6. Speak unintelligibly 7. Enjoy bagpipe noise 8. Say "Och aye the noo" 9. Drink nothing but whisky 10. Enjoy dreek weather

amicusalba

This is a shit video that tries to propagate the Nationalist Separatist agenda by Kim Il Salmond. Posted by an idiot for an idiot. Only 30% of Scots support this tit.

Adi B

A big part of Scotland economy is Edinburgh which is big financial city and most of the large private sector employers are financial businesses but when Scotland get independence forget AAA rating they will be a new small economy so will be counted as high risk so their rating will not be good. This will badly effect Edinburgh as financial business rely a lot on good rating like AAA but after independent most likely lot of the financial businesses will move their headquarters out of Edinburgh.

Marr and Mandelson on Miliband: trades unions, Iraq and the Chilcot Inquiry

MANDELSON

"Ed Miliband faces a big test of his leadership in relation to the trade unions - he's got to win the fight that he started - and, quite rightly, to reform the relationship."

"He's got to navigate his way through what could be a very difficult minefield - that is, The Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War"

Chilcot Report expected "somewhere in mid-year"

Just in time to bury Blair, Brown, Mandelson and the reputation of Scottish Labour before Scotland's Referendum on September 18th - unless Chilcot is a whitewash, which is unlikely but possible, given the high stakes for UK involved.

Ed Miliband is not up to any of these challenges.

HTTP://COUNTINGDOWNTO.COM

Alistair Carmichael fumbles and blusters on what happens after a NO vote in 2014

Alexander Morrison "Alistair" Carmichael, the new ‘Scottish’ Secretary opens by criticising the YES Campaign for "lack of detail" and the second half of the interview blustering feebly, unable to give any detail or any consensus among the parties of Better Together on perhaps the biggest question of all for the Scottish electorate - What happens if there is a No vote?

(Real answer: Devo Zero and likely clawback of existing powers under Scotland Act, not to mention utter UK contempt for Scots and Scotland for failing to seize their chance of independence.)

Alistair, his party and his Tory and Labour friends will tell us only AFTER we reject our only opportunity to gain full powers through a YES vote for independence. The three parties that will then engage in a bitter UK election battle in 2015, with the gruesome UKIP snapping at their heels, driving them even further to the right.

In contrast, the SNP's White Paper will set out, next month, highly specific commitments on the structure and shape of a new Scotland, in as much detail as can be achieved before the major negotiation with UK after a YES vote, and the subsequent election for an independent Scottish Parliament in May 2016, where the Scottish electorate for the first time for 306 years will truly elect their own Scottish Government.

Bluster on that, Alistair ...

The Unions and Scotland’s independence

Last night’s interviews and statements by Len McCluskey are very significant events indeed, and perhaps the media and the strategists of SNP and YES – usually astoundingly naive about industrial relations - will now wake up to their significance for independence at this critical time. I reproduce the interviews here and let them speak for themselves. For those of you with the time and energy to read my previous thoughts on trades unions and independence, proceed below!

I wrote this in 2011, in the context of some very dodgy contracts sealed by Glasgow City Council affecting union members -

BLOG EXTRACT

Labour, especially Glasgow Labour, has systematically betrayed the interests of trades unions, their main party funders. To be more accurate, they have betrayed the interests of trade union members, but advanced the interests and political ambitions of  some trades union officials, who have never doubted where their unswerving loyalty lay - not to their members, but to the Labour Party machine that was going advance their ambitions.

A harsh judgement maybe, but it must be seen in the context of my spending a large part of my life in industrial relations, dealing with union members, union representatives and full time officers across a range of industries in in different areas of the country. I have attended the TUC Conference and have been party to high-level discussion between senior managers and directors and union officials.

As a consistent supporter of the role and function of trades unions (often in career-threatening situations!), despite being on the other side of the table from them most of my life, I think a strong trades union movement is vital to the functioning of an effective democracy and essential to maintaining justice and equity for working people. 

In consequence, I take a keen interest in the dynamics of the Scottish Trades Union movements stance on independence, and the complex interaction between individual unions, the STUC and the Labour Party. This is especially true because the Scottish National Party and the independence campaign, at least up until YES Scotland was launched, showed very little real understanding of trades unions or the left in Scottish politics, especially in Glasgow (comparatively few SNP MSPs have any industrial/trades union experience of any kind at first hand, in marked contrast to Labour) and little awareness of the widening rift between union members on one side and Labour and the official union hierarchy on the other.

However, things have changed, not only in Scotland, but in the UK, with an even wider fissure appearing between Labour and some of the major trades unions and their general secretaries, e.g. Bob Crowe and Len Mc Cluskey.

At the time of the Falkirk.Labour/Unite spat, the false initial instinct of the SNP and the YES Campaign was to take pleasure in Labour and Unite’s difficulties, and I warned against this superficial analysis and reaction at the time. I wrote this on 8th July 2013 at the time of the Falkirk debacle -

THE POWER GAMES BEING PLAYED

N.B. From here on in, I don’t pretend neutrality, and only as much objectivity as I can muster, because I am of the Left in politics and I am also a Scottish nationalist – not a SNP member or member of any party, but wholly committed to a socially democratic independent Scotland.

Labour has a long history of fights with the trades unions. Unions are by far the Labour Party’s principal source of funds through the political levy (optional) that members pay, and unions apply the funds in various ways, including sponsoring specific MPs. In return for this, they not unreasonably expect the MPs and the Party to serve the interests of their millions of members in addition to serving the whole electorate. This has always led to tensions between Party and unions. Exactly the same practices apply on funding to all political parties, with the key difference that the Tory and Liberal Democrat parties, for example, get their funds from organisations and individuals, a very much smaller group of large donors in comparison to the millions of small donors of the trades unions.

The key difference is that these corporate donors and individuals operate to a large extent behind closed doors in pursuing what they expect for their money – and they all expect something – whereas the union interaction tends to occur in a blaze of publicity.

To try and contrast the two systems in a nutshell – the trades unions, an imperfect but functioning democracy representing millions of UK workers interact with a much larger imperfect democracy in the Labour Party, whereas totally undemocratic organisations and individuals in commerce, industry, armaments and interest groups not confined to the UK interact with the imperfect democracies of the Tory and LibDem parties. Ultimately, in both cases, the trades unions interact with the over-arching and highly imperfect democracy of the UK Government.

The problem of the union conflicts with the Labour Party over the last half century (e.g. Clause Four) created  - or were alleged to have created – the problem of electability, and this was specifically what Blair, Brown and Mandelson set out to remedy after  Neil Kinnock had done some of the spadework. They created New Labour and it worked – Labour was elected and re-elected. The results, over 13 years, are now history. Two wars, one illegal, the deaths of hundreds of thousands, terrorism brought to UK by the Iraq War, the gap between rich and poor widened, corruption of Parliamentary institutions, the prosecution and imprisonment of Labour MPs, the resignation of the Labour Speaker of the House of Commons in disgrace, the corruption of the Press and the Metropolitan Police, the banking and financial collapse, cash for access, etc.

Hardly a success, except in one key aspect – Blair, Mandelson, Brown, Labour defence secretaries, Labour ministers and many Labour MPs got very rich indeed, in the case of Blair and Mandelson, egregiously rich.

The revolving door between government ministers, civil servants and industry – especially the defence industry – spun ever faster and more profitably. And the military/industrial complex rejoiced and celebrated New Labour’s achievements.

Meanwhile, the trades unions were marginalised, and the benches of Westminster became increasingly populated by MPs who had never experienced the real, harsh world of Blair’s Britain, MPs who came directly into politics waving their PPE degrees through internships as SPADs, etc.

This great divide, this yawning chasm has widened between the trades union movement and the political machine for enriching politicians and their friends that New Labour has become. After being finally destroyed electorally, Labour was replaced by a Coalition that is almost indistinguishable in its right-wing practices from the right-wing Labour Party. As an opposition, Labour has been feeble and equivocal. The trades unions, having placed brother Ed Miliband at the helm, vanquishing ultra-Blairite brother David Miliband, have been bitterly disappointed in their choice. And now he attacks them, setting the police on Unite.

The Falkirk debacle is symptomatic of this – a war between the Blairites (led by the noble Lord Mandelson, who cannot conceal his visceral distaste for trades unions)and what is left of the Left in the Labour Party, which is mainly the trades unions – some of them at least.

SCOTTISH DIMENSION AND INDEPENDENCE

All of the above has been gone over with a relatively fine tooth comb by the UK/metropolitan media. They see the Falkirk Affair in a UK context, from a UK perspective. The fact that Falkirk is in  Scotland, that Scotland played a major role in the foundation of trades unions and the Labour Party is ancient, and mainly irrelevant history to them. This superficiality and parochialism is what Scotland has come to expect from London media. From time to time, Scotland intrudes rudely on their consciousness, and they are aware that Scottish voters are effectively disenfranchised and don’t get the government they vote for on occasion, but then, Scotland is just another region of England (sorry, Jock – UK!)

What is almost unforgiveable is that the Scottish media has swallowed this narrative whole, and conceives its duty done when they passively regurgitate it to Scottish voters. Consider the following examples -

To listen to this duo, one might think the Falkirk debacle had nothing whatsoever to do with Scotland's independence, and had no significant implications for it.

But these journalists accurately reflect a Scottish press and media that is either so locked in a UK mindset that they are oblivious to them, or are so caught up in editorial policies that don't wish to highlight them that they are hamstrung as professional journalists in telling the truth to the Scottish electorate by fully analysing a political event that is shaking up UK politics and is central in many ways to the great independence debate.

Scottish voices in US press

Here’s my response to Denise Mina, who wrote an odd little article for The New York Times, reprinted on Scotland-US today

I’ll pick up Denise Mina’s odd little phrase “without unpacking the issues”, because it encapsulates her approach, and that of some who claim to be undecided. She seems ‘undecided’, not as many genuinely are, because they are struggling to evaluate the arguments, but because she doesn’t want to be confused by the facts – and there is an abundance of facts available on the reasons why Scotland should be independent, and precious few arguments on why it should stay with the UK.

• Here are a few of them -

  1. The United Kingdom, described by one eminent British historian as a “dysfunctional dynastic conglomerate” is an anachronism in the modern world, where independent nations are the norm, not the exception. It is the rapidly failing rump of The British Empire, which having lost all its subject countries except Wales and Scotland (Northern Ireland is not a country but a province)now desperately seeks to posture on the international stage by maintaining the 4th largest defence budget in the world and nuclear weapons of mass destruction (based in Scotland, within 20 miles of the country’s largest sector of population, against the will of the people of Scotland)and involving itself in ruinous foreign wars – one illegal (Iraq)and one profoundly misconceived (Afghanistan)

  2. The UK, far from being “the most successful political union the world has seen”, the phrase used by its defenders, has been a brutal, exploitative colonial empire abroad, and a grossly unequal society at home – currently the 4th most unequal country in the Western world in its wealth distribution.

  3. Scotland has rarely had the governments it voted for over the last sixty years – the so-called democratic deficit, and when it got a Labour Government for 13 years, they wrecked the economy,a process now being compounded by an inept right-wing coalition

  4. The UK currently has a critical problem of child poverty and food banks – the shameful 2013 equivalent of the soup kitchens of the US in the 1930s – are growing across the country, as are the queues of people waiting for handouts to feed their families.

  5. Scotland, resource-rich- would be the 8th wealthiest country in the world if independent.

  6. For every one of the last 30 years,Scotland has generated more tax per head than the UK as a whole.

  7. Scotland contributes more to UK in tax revenues than it receives back from UK.

  8. Scotland has 25% of Europe’s off shore tidal and wind energy potential.

  9. Scotland has the largest oil and gas reserves in the UK. Despite that, our oil revenues have been stolen from us since 1979 by UK, and used to bail out Thatcher’s failing economy, to build the M25 motorway around the city state of London, to fund the Falkland’s War, the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War and to fatten the already bloated bank balances of the powerful in the South East of England.

  10. The UK Coalition Government is currently engaged in a domestic war on the poor, sick and vulnerable of the United Kingdom, blaming them for the gross economic mismanagement of the UK economy for the last 30 years. It is drifting steadily to the right, and the electorate of England and Wales despair, because all three major parties seem committed to the same right-wing agenda. Democratic values are under attack daily, and a new populist party of the Right, racist and insular, UKIP, seeks to isolate UK from Europe and attempts to demonise immigrants. UKIP in contrast has been comprehensively rejected in disgust by the Scottish people, and its leader sent packing in ignominy when he peddled his wares in Scotland.

  I suggest Denise Mina tries to understand the passion for justice and equity that is gripping the people of Scotland, gets to grip with some facts, evaluates the arguments and decides where she stands – or alternatively, gets out of the way of those who are intent on transforming Scotland into a modern 21st century socially democratic independent nation.

346 days to go - Scotland the Brave or Scotland the Feart?

346 days to go to decide if we’re Scotland the Brave or Scotland the Feart – independent for ever or cap-in-hand dependent on UK’s grace and favour, and shamed in the eyes of the world.

HTTP://COUNTINGDOWNTO.COM

One year to go – Scotland the Brave or Scotland the Feart?

 

After the Referendum? A lyric …

I wrote this lyric, and tried to sing it to a latin beat, but my singing voice is not good, so I took the YouTube track down.

It works reasonably well with the melody of “After the Ball”, and can be used in various beats and grooves. Give it a try and see if you can do better than me with the musical side of it.

LYRIC

After the referendum
After the talking's done
In a September sunset
After the race is run

After we've made our choices
After the people speak
What kind of voice will sound then
Strong, clear - or weak?

After the voting's over
After the ballot's done
What will the count reveal then
Who will it show has won?

After the votes are counted
Then we will know our fate
Will we regret chances lost then
When it's too late?

After they seal the boxes
After the die is cast
Will we have seized our moment
- or let our moment pass?

After the referendum
After the people speak
Will we be Scotland the Brave or
- Scotland the Weak?

© Peter Curran 2013

CHORDS IN KEY OF D

INTRO

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CHORUS

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Em/// |  Em/// | B7/// | Em///
A7/// | A7/// | D/// | A7///

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Henry McLeish

15 key questions on independence answered by Alex Salmond – First Minister. Sound clips.

Q1 What's wrong with Scotland remaining in UK? Q2 Polls show a majority for NO and YES vote relatively static - implications? Q3 Will rUK allow Scotland to keep 95% plus of oil revenues? Q4 If Scotland stays in EU after independence, does that mean it is really independent? Q5 What currency and lender of last resort - assets and liabilities? Q6 Could Edinburgh rival London as a financial sector in independendent Scotland? Q7 How much will it cost Scotland and a Scot to be independent? Q8 Why go for independence - why not more devolution - devo max? Q9 Free tuition - can this be maintained after independence? Q10 What about UK's threat to declare Faslane sovereign UK territory to protect their WMDs? Q11 What are you going to do with Trident nuclear weapons and subs after independence? Q12 What about nuclear proliferation and rogue states - say, Iran or North Korea? Q13 Won't Scotland, as a small country compared to UK lose influence and power - clout - after independence? Q14 What do you think of BBC coverage of the referendum - will it be fair and effective? Q15 What wil you do if there's a No vote, FM - Will you resign?

Artists and Independence – the Festival?

Kings and queens – 2016 and all that: the Monarchy, YES and the SNP

Dennis Canavan makes a remark about the monarchy and the media are on to it like flies on to shit - “splits in YES campaign” etc.

Let me try to help our feeble media, assuming that they are not just shills for Better Together – a big assumption admittedly – and are simply badly informed and not actively hostile to independence.

1. YES Scotland is a loose coalition of all parties committed to an independent Scotland – SNP, Greens, SSP etc. – and individuals and groups committed to independence, including those who are committed despite the policy of their main party or organisation, e.g. Labour for Independence, trades unionists for independence, union branches who have come out for indy, e.g. CWU and those of no party affiliation whatsoever. It includes artists, Women for Independence and many other ad hoc groups formed to support YES.

2. By definition, such a disparate grouping can have no manifesto for government in an independent Scotland. 

Its members and groups have different visions for indy Scotland in every aspect of government policy, economic, social, cultural etc. This reflects the same range of opinions on almost every topic as those held by the wider electorate.

Their only unifying beliefs are that Scotland is capable of running its own affairs, has the natural resources, talents and economic competence to run its own affairs, and should run its own affairs. They therefore believe that Scots should vote YES in 2014 to independence. 

3. Across the United Kingdom, opinion on the monarchy is divided in every sector of society and within sectors, and that includes significant numbers of voters within the three major Unionist parties and the trade union movement. It should be no surprise to anyone that such differing views exist within the YES campaign.

Nonetheless, the media give every appearance of being astonished by such a revelation – or maintain the pretence that they are.

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?

In one sense, there is no problem. For example, I am an SNP supporter (not a party member), committed to independence, and I am a republican. I believe the monarchy is the heart of the British Establishment, that both are inherently undemocratic and that they are inimical to the welfare of the people in a democracy.

But the SNP is committed to a constitutional monarchy, to retaining the Queen as constitutional monarch – and her lawful successors – in an independent Scotland.  How do I know this? Because Alex Salmond has said so repeatedly, and also states that this has been SNP policy since 1934. (There seems to be some division of opinion on just when and how this came to be SNP policy right now, and some voices have challenged it.)

So what, say some strident republicans – the SNP may not form the government of an independent Scotland – there’s an election in May 2016, and if another party, or coalition of parties is in government, then things may change.

But there’s an inconvenient additional fact to be considered – the SNP are the current government of Scotland, the SNP delivered a legal referendum, and the SNP Government has a full range of policies for independent Scotland.

And crucially, the SNP Government will negotiate with the UK Government the terms of the independent Scotland that will be born in 2016 if there is a YES vote in 2014. They will doubtless consult fully – including with YES Scotland - and respect the rights and privileges of the Holyrood Parliament – but they – and no one else - will ultimately decide the content of the negotiating agenda, the composition of the Scottish negotiating team, and the entry and exits point on every substantive issue - and the deal breakers.

(The autumn White Paper due in a few weeks will set down fundamental policies and principles that will underpin that negotiation.)

These political realities are all too easily forgotten in the heady atmosphere of the YES campaign, but there is no easy way round them. The strength of the campaign lies in the fact that it is a very broad church and can embrace just about any political belief and none, providing its members subscribe to the two core beliefs – Scotland can be fully independent and will be fully independent. But let me leave the monarchy for a moment and look at another reality – the nuclear issue …

Most commentators accept as a fact that an independent Scotland will reject nuclear weapons and ensure that they are decommissioned speedily and removed from Scotland as soon after independence as possible. But this is not a YES policy, it is an SNP party policy. There is nothing that debars a pro-nuclear individual or group  from affiliating to YES (as far as I know) since YES has no such policy or indeed any policy. They would probably feel more than a little uncomfortable in the near consensus of anti-nuclear views in YES, and might well be regarded as flat-earthers by their colleagues, but if they are prepared to knock on doors, canvass, stuff leaflets and generally contribute to a YES vote, who is going to say nay to them?

And they would have to accept the reality of the SNP Government incorporating its anti-nuclear policy as a prime, deal breaking objective in the negotiations. And so it is with the monarchy, although for me - and I would hope for most - the monarchy is by no means as fundamental a position as the No to Nuclear policy.

However, if social media and traditional media are any guide to YES opinions, there is more than a little ‘magical’ thinking going on – a kind of “with one bound we’ll be free and can do anything” mindset over what happens after indy.

I am of the left in politics, a lifelong Labour supporter and voter up to the 2007 Holyrood election, and for much of my life I would have - perhaps a little reluctantly latterly - have acknowledged that I was a socialist. But these days I would describe myself as a social democrat loosely on the Scandinavian model, and I don’t expect the old ideal of a socialist state ever to be realised, nor do I expect renationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy or a total abandonment of the concept of the market, although I would like to see a radical change in the way we structure our economy, our banks, our health service, our public services, our society and the values we live by. 

But we have more than enough to do to first win the referendum, then negotiate our exit from UK, hold an election and begin the complex process of wriggling out of an old, stale chrysalis of the Union and tentatively flexing our new wings.

So, on the monarchy and on a vast range of issues, I accept that the SNP Government will determine the shape of the new Scotland by negotiation, by reaching agreement on the mind-boggling range of things that come with un-entangling Scotland from a three centuries- long union. That will involve making legally-binding commitments with long-term ramifications, not just for Scotland and rUK, but for our relationships with Europe, America and indeed the entire world community.

If we are to have any credibility as a new state, we cannot be seen to enter this new era in a mood of “well, we can renege on any deal we make or agreement we reach after independence” – one, because such a position would be contemptible, and two, because it just ain’t practicable …

Of course, no government can bind its successors politically, but there are practical realities that mean that, on the very big issues, there is little likelihood of short to medium term change. We can’t go holding referendums every other quarter to determine the will of the Scottish electorate.

However, we are already committed to one post-independence referendum, on adoption of the euro - if that ever becomes an option again - so perhaps it is feasible to commit to one on retention of the monarchy. If we are going to go down that route, we had better announce it pretty damn quick, since the Scottish electorate has a right to know before the vote on September 18th 2014.

Saor Alba, but maybe not Vivat Regina?

Sun’s shining – who needs politics?

What happens to campaigning when the sun shines and Scots emerge into a Mediterranean climate, set up the barbecues, eat al fresco and briefly entertain the fantasy that café culture has come to stay in our towns and cities?

Despite the daily headlines charting the collapse of the United Kingdom into venality, corruption and gross incompetence, a Kingdom where the rich get richer, the bombs get bigger and the poor and vulnerable are punished severely for a crime they didn’t commit, it is all too easy to think things aren’t too bad after all, and, hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

If one adds to this the sombre background of the doom-laden Better Together’s Project Fear telling Scots that the Sun shining on this dying rump of empire will be extinguished completely if independence comes, outdoor canvassers may be greeted by a dismissive “It will never happen, we’re alright as we are …” response. Few want to focus on difficult decisions over a year away under clear, sunny skies.

So maybe the dedicated campaigners can relax for a week or so, enjoy their own well-deserved leisure time.

Or for those with unbounded energy, re-focus on approaches that are urgently needed in the campaign – the injection of some fun, life, colour, spectacle and music into the mix. It is, after all, Festival time!

Earlier in the week I was prompted by a last-minute call to join a photo-shoot on Calton Hill publicising the September 21st March and Rally.

When I got there, Cragingalt had quite a few tourist groups taking in the spectacular views of Edinburgh, and talking knowledgably about this history-soaked iconic area of Scotland. The Rally Group were understandably focusing on getting their banner unfurled and setting up the camera, and they had more than enough volunteers suitably attired to stand behind it, so I decided to talk to the tourist groups.

A delightful Taiwanese Glasgow University student asked me to take her photograph against the backdrop of the National Monument, the French students affably informed me that they had invented the entire concept of independence with the French Revolution (I more or less agreed with them, but claimed a role for Scotland in inventing democracy – well, yes, there was Athens, but …) and I spoke to some Danes on the way down – more of that later.

The photo-shoot group had their own agenda, which was aimed at subsequent use of their video, but more or less inadvertently they created a mini-event on Calton Hill, and this was totally due to their young piper, Connor (Conor?) Sinclair. Connor struck up at the end of the banner line, and as soon as the unique sound of the pipes – the sound of Scotland – hit the summer air, the tourist and visitor groups began to appear from all directions, converging on the sound emanating from the base of the Monument. But then Connor was hoisted on to the Monument itself, and stood there, a slender figure against the sky, played beautifully – and Calton Hill was transformed. The ghosts of the past seemed to rush in from all sides to join the tourists, whispering “Our moment is coming …”.

The French group spontaneously broke into a ragged version of La Marseillaise, and a wave of internationalism – the real internationalism of the new Scotland - was palpably present.

If this small scale happening prefigures the September March and Rally, it will be an event of unimaginable power, life, and impact. It is what YES Scotland desperately needs right now – I hope our politicians have the wit and imagination to capitalise on that moment without trivialising it and I hope our Scottish media have the good sense to cover it fully.

On the way down from the Calton Hill, I fell in with a group of Danes. We talked Borgen and rhapsodised over Sidse Babette Knudsen, then came the $64,000 questions (the 364,560.60 DKK questions?) – what are Scotland's chances of voting YES in 2014? What are the arguments for and against independence?

It was a short walk down, but a long, long moment …

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Would it really have been independence? Should we resign ourselves to less?

"Will it really be independence?" stuff still touted by those hostile to Scotland’s independence, by the fearful and confused – and by quite a few prominent journalists and pundits. (The latter group are either fearful and confused – or they’re being ingenuous…)

Clarity of thought is vital at this point for independence campaigners, so turn it around - anything that leaves ultimate control with Westminster won't be independence. (e.g. federalism or any one of the multiple variants of devolution being touted – devo max, devo plus, full fiscal autonomy.)

While the Scotland Act is in force, Scotland is not independent - everything is in the gift of Westminster, which electorally means England. And it can be modified or withdrawn at any time … The Union remains intact, dominant, with total control over Scotland.

If Scotland decides on its defence policy, its foreign policy - including when to engage in armed conflict - elects its own Parliament and Government and makes it own laws, it's independent. Anything less and it's NOT independent.

The core principle is fully independent within an interdependent world – independence that recognises the reality of interdependence in a rapidly changing and unstable world.

Independence is the freedom to choose, with no limits or constraints on those choices, except ones we freely make and enter into - and can freely unmake and exit from.

Sign for Scotland – the power of gesture

Vince Cable, Fergus Ewing and Good Morning Scotland

Good Morning Scotland and Gary Robertson are usually fair but hard-hitting over the independence debate. But this interview fell short, and the failure I suspect was in editorial decision. At every stage this morning at various times, GMS delivered airtime to Vince Cable's claims virtually unchallenged but attacked the SNP rebuttal in a simplistic and inappropriate manner

When Cable was interviewed he was allowed to make his claims without being asked to justify them in any way. In marked contrast, Fergus Ewing – in marked contrast - was repeatedly asked for the exact cost of regulation in an independent Scotland, with Gary Robertson using the interview technique of the 'broken record', repeated question. Now this approach is valid if the interviewee is evading an answer, but consider the timescale and dynamics of this situation -

1. Regulation at every level in UK has failed spectacularly since the millennium - in banking, in the Press, police regulation, child abuse, NHS Trusts, Parliamentary expenses, etc. Major regulatory bodies have either been replaced completely or their heads forced to resign. This was virtually ignored.

2. Vince Cable is a Government Minister with all the current facts and costs of regulation, and a full knowledge of its failure. He was asked about none of these things.

3. Fergus Ewing is a Minister in a devolved government, over 14 months away from a referendum and the commencement of an 18 month complex negotiation on every aspect of government and the break-up of the UK. Scotland will achieve its independence in March of 2016, more than two and a half years from now on the conclusion of these negotiations. The SNP then has to prepare a manifesto for government and fight an election, together with all the other Scottish parties.

To ask Fergus Ewing to predict the exact cost of regulation under these circumstance is asinine and beggars belief, and Good Morning Scotland, Gary Robertson and the BBC should know better.

Azeem Ibrahim, the Defence of Scotland – and the Scotland Institute. Part Two

A question I can answer easily –

Has Azeem Ibrahim the right to use his formidable intellect and business acumen to contribute to the Referendum Debate?

Answer: Undoubtedly, yes.

Two questions I can’t answer so easily –

Has Azeem Ibrahim the right to use his wealth to contribute to the debate?

Does Azeem Ibrahim believe he is neutral – or undecided - in the debate or is he committed to YES or No?

Answering them is complicated by the fact that the questions are inter-related, and in the timescale for the referendum, subject to legal constraint. He is free within any relevant legal constraint to donate to political parties that reflect his position on YES/NO, if indeed he has one.

If he has no position or is truly undecided, or wishes to remain neutral despite holding a specific position, he is free to donate to all parties, and to both the YES and No campaigns, again within any relevant legal constraints.

What I would argue is that no person is free to present themselves as neutral, to invest substantial resources which they claims are to facilitate and inform the debate, while in reality holding a preferred position and loading the dice heavily in favour of one side or the other. To do that would be to try to deceive the electorate and to circumvent the electoral law.

Has Azeem Ibrahim done this? Would he do such a thing consciously? I have no means of definitively answering the first question, because in a rapidly polarising debate in which I am highly partisan as a YES, my perceptions are inevitably coloured by my position, as would be those of any but the most heroically objective of YES voters.

But I do have an opinion on the second part of that – I do not believe he would do such a thing consciously or deliberately, because I believe on all the evidence of what I think I now know of the man that he is ethical, brave (no one can be a reservist in IVth Para without being brave!) a caring humanitarian, and that he truly has the interests of Scotland and Scotland’s people at heart. He had – and still has – the potential to make a major positive contribution to the referendum debate.

Yet I am left with the fact that, on everything I have seen and heard, in my perception the Scotland Institute is, to all intents and purposes, part of the NO campaign, from its launch through to Monday’s media launch of the  Defence and Security paper, indeed it could almost be an extension of Ian Davidson MP’s Scottish Affairs Committee, which under the label of an objective UK Parliamentary committee, is openly partisan under a partisan Chair against what it calls the Separation of Scotland.

How can two such apparently contradictory beliefs of mine be reconciled?

The answer I believe lies in grand narratives, and I believe that Azeem Ibrahim, as he moved from being a successful businessman and financial entrepreneur and used his exceptional analytical powers to consider national and international politics, was swept into and ultimately seduced by the failed narratives of the US/UK/NATO military/industrial complex, and absorbed their flawed and dangerous values by a process of osmosis. I will go further, and say that exactly the same thing has happened to many academics and experts in the fields of strategic studies, international relations, departments of War studies, interagency, international security studies, etc. with the key difference that Dr. Ibrahim is rich enough to be immune to career and financial pressures.

Dr. Ibrahim is now Adjunct Research Professor at the Strategic Institute, and the US Army War College, served as an International Security Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and has recently been appointed as policy advisor to Imran Khan, the PM-in waiting of Pakistan – a nuclear state.

One might think Scotland was small beer in such exalted circles, but of course because of its strategic position as the postern gate of Europe and NATO’s crucial nuclear base, its possible independence and non-nuclear status, the removal of Trident WMD from Scotland and the consequential real possibility that rUK would be forced to abandon its nuclear deterrent,  the organisations and countries listed above - in which Dr. Ibrahim plays a significant role - are anything but neutral about Scotland’s referendum.

At the very least, I believe Azeem Ibrahim is influenced subliminally by them, by their positions and attitudes, and may even have assimilated their values and world view to the point that his is indistinguishable from theirs. In either case, his behaviour in deciding the Scotland Institute’s priorities and focus cannot in my view be neutral or wholly objective.

If he wants to end such a perception, then his path is clear – he should simply make large, legal and equivalent donations to both the Better Together Campaign and YES Scotland, and offer the benefits of his intellect and strategic perspective as a speaker at key events in both campaigns – and he should wind up the Scotland Institute and Scots Politics.

Alternatively, he can come out firmly for one campaign or the other – YES or NO – and throw his considerable talent and influence behind the one he chooses. If he makes such a choice, I would ask him to reflect on the choice made by a great man in 1947, Muhammad Ali Jinnah - محمد علی جناح - as he established the independence of Pakistan from India – and from the British Empire.

(My analysis of  the Defence and Security paper, planned for today or tomorrow, must be postponed in view of the length of this blog. My apologies!)

Where are we going on independence?

The answer I want to give to the title question is a confident – To  a decisive YES vote on September 18th 2014!

That’s what I and any independence supporter is expected to do – be gung ho, celebrate the polls that bode well, attack the methodology, pollsters and those who commissioned the poll when things don’t go so well. Forward to victory! Don’t be deflected! Find increasingly ingenious ways to interpret poll results that don’t suit us until they yield a positive message.

Well, I’ve done my share of that for six years, in arguments, in blogs, on Twitter, on YouTube, in letters to newspapers. Why? Partly to reassure myself, mainly to bolster the morale of the faithful and to encourage the undecided to look deeper into poll results.  Such things are legitimate in politics because, rather like the stock exchange, it’s part rational but significantly irrational and emotional, and confidence plays a significant part in success in any endeavour. The hard core of independence supporters will never be persuaded to change their allegiance by a poll, but their energies can be blunted, their enthusiasm dulled, and some may retreat into a blame-the-stupidity-of-the-Scots-electorate mode, and reduce the amount of work they do for the cause.

I’ve been tempted myself to say - “I’ve done enough – they can have my vote on September 18th 2014, but that’s it. Hell mend Scotland if it votes NO…”

But so far, that mood has never lasted, because events have triggered my adrenalin flow, and exasperation, astonishment or even mirth at the latest manifestation of ‘Britishness’, unionism, or the ever-idiotic Better Together spokespersons has driven me back to the grindstone.

So what is the proper attitude to the polls? Saying they don’t matter, the only poll that matters is the ballot box, or perhaps what-we’re-hearing-on-the-doorstep-tells-us-different etc. is a counter-productive reaction.

An opinion poll, conducted by a reputable organisation with sound sampling and interpretation methodology, in its raw data at least, is a vital and valuable snapshot of opinion at a point in time. Like any snapshot, it can be crisp in detail and capture the essence of the moment, or it can be blurry and unrepresentative. And, like any snapshot, those viewing it can offer multiple interpretations of what it means; and in this regard, the psephologists are the art critics of polls and, if we have any sense, we will pay attention to what they say and draw our own conclusions as to what action is necessary to move the next poll in the direction of independence.

The focus tends to be, naturally enough, on the polls that are published, but additionally, all parties conduct private polls for their eyes only, to guide their strategists. On the rare occasions the media get wind of this, commentators generate much synthetic shock that a party should take a poll and not publish the results. This is compounded on occasion by the stupidity of politicians who are unable to resist the temptation to make veiled allusions to such polls, with predictable results – demands that they publish immediately, accompanied by accusations of skulduggery. (There has been one such example recently.)

THE POLLS

Here are some of the questions on a straight independence choice asked by pollsters -

YouGov

Do you support or oppose Scotland becoming a country independent from the rest of the United Kingdom?

Do you agree or disagree that Scotland should become a country independent from the rest of the United Kingdom?

Do you agree that Scotland should become a country independent from the rest of the UK?

ICM

Would you approve or disapprove of Scotland becoming an independent country?

TNS System 3

Do you support or oppose Scotland becoming a country independent from the rest of the UK

Survation 

Do you support or oppose Scotland becoming an independent country, separate from the rest of the United Kingdom?

POLL RESULTS ASKING THE INDEPENDENCE STRAIGHT CHOICE  QUESTION

In April 2005, TNS System 3 found 46% said YES, 39% said NO

In April 2006, same result by YouGov/SNP.

By November 2006 ICM/Telegraph got 52% YES and 35% NO. That might have been an indicator of the 2007 SNP win, then again it might not, because …..

January 2007, four months before the election, YouGov/Channel 4 poll gave 40% YES, 44% NO

Because of these poll – and because of the shock 2007 Holyrood result, unionists were jolted out of their complacency, none more than the supine Scottish Labour Party. “This wisnae meant tae happen, Tony!” bleated a shell-shocked Jack McConnell, and great menacing beasts stirred uneasily in the bowels of the British Establishment.

And so the first historic Scottish Nationalist Government was elected – a minority government, yes, but as a party in power, not as a coalition. And what happened at the next poll?

April 2008 YouGov/the Sun 34% YES, 51% NO

Spooky, or what?

14th January 2012 Survation/Mail on Sunday 26% YES 46% NO.

I hear your cynical cries already - “Ha! Mail on Sunday! and Survation? Who the **** are they?” etc. because the day before we had this -

13th January 2012 ICM/Sunday Telegraph 40% YES 43% NO.  Had the electorate flipped overnight – or had the Mail on Sunday just behaved like the Mail on Sunday?

I could go on at length with poll results and interpretation of the mind-bending cross-relationships and implication of other questions to each other, on more powers, and support for remaining in UK, but I won’t, because my interpretations would be that of a layman, not a professional psephologist or political strategist, and would have correspondingly little value.

SELF-DELUSION AND MAGICAL EVENTS

What do we know? 

Bluntly, that -

the polls currently show a minority of the Scottish electorate in favour of independence

we have a mountain to climb before September 18th 2014

we must start to see some upward movement in the near future if we are to have any chance of success. 

Despite the fact that these three statements are undeniably true, simply to state them is to enough provoke cries of protest, and a range of ingenious interpretations of poll results, brandishing of poll results that were favourable, denial of the validity of poll results that were less favourable, attacks on the media, the pollsters and their allegedly flawed methodologies, and invocation of magical events in the past (the lead-up to the 2011 Holyrood landslide) and magical events in the future (the White Paper).

Bluntly, some independence supporters are going to have to grow up fast, politically and arithmetically, if we’re going to win.

I take comfort in my belief - which I hope to God is well-founded -that this mindset only exists among some of the support, that the SNP and YES strategists are rooted in hard psephological and political realities and can tell a standard deviation from a bull’s arse.

The 2011 result was astonishing, unpredicted by the politicians, but anticipated by the pollsters, albeit late in the day (because the shift in the electorate occurred late in the day), and nobody knows what caused it, although speculation, informed and otherwise, is rife. There is nothing in that past event – an election to a devolved Parliament – that is a reliable indicator to how voters will decide in a referendum of such historical importance, with such enormous constitutional implication as 2014 – except maybe hope …

It’s in the past, and the past is not a reliable guide to the future in politics.

The White Paper is clearly of enormous significance. It offers a huge opportunity for the independence argument, but also represents a huge threat to it. The formidable forces of the British Establishment, the monarchy (yes, the monarchy – the Queen has already pinned her colours to the mast), the UK Government, the UK Civil Service, the compliant media and press, the military/industrial complex, the nuclear industry - and shadowy overseas interests - are already preparing their attack plans. 

The White Paper will be leaked in part (inevitable, leaving aside the presence of spooks in the Scottish Government!) and will be subject to a dissection and onslaught against it that has rarely, if ever, been seen in British politics.

The Scottish electorate in the main will not read it (how many of you have ever bought or read a white paper?) and will be offered partisan and simplistic headlines, mainly hostile.

The Scottish Government and YES Campaign will be unable to match that in volume and coverage, and won’t want to match it in virulence and misrepresentation.

They will therefore be totally reliant on the brevity, quality and originality of their message, delivered in the main online and through volunteers, and with luck, through the national public service broadcaster - the BBC - if the independence movement can stop trying to alienate and antagonise every last journalist, presenter and programme editor in the entire corporation.

CLOSING – AND HOPE!

There are really only three key questions as a guide to action for the time remaining till the referendum -

1. How many Nos and Don’t knows can be shifted to YES?

2. What are the arguments that will shift them and how can they be focused and targeted on the various demographics and interest groups?

3. How are the frustrated pro-union devo-maxers going to divide, denied their second question  and faced with a polarised choice – YES or NO?

What I know to be true is that the vital and dedicated workers on the pavements, in the car parks and public places, at the letter boxes and on the doorsteps - and the less-important but still relevant backroom contributors such as me - are just getting on with spreading the message of independence as best they can to the widest possible audience they can reach.

Scottish Affairs Committee – Fiscal challenges and opportunities in Independent Scotland

Ian Davidson: “You can take your jacket off – it’ll not be stolen – this isn’t Edinburgh”

The Defence of the Union by Darling’s ‘love bombs’

Alistair Darling (who is not my darling) is now the darling of the Scottish Tories. Leaving aside his unionist views, he has a family connection that will please the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party – his great-uncle was Sir William Darling, Tory MP for Edinburgh South.

And his new Tory fans undoubtedly smiled conspiratorially in the Stirling bars and whispered “Isn’t Alistair a darling, darling? Did you know that, before he joined Labour when he was 23 years-old back in 1977,  he was - believe it or not, darling - a Trot and supported the International Marxist Group! But class will out – Sir William’s genes will win through – Alistair will find his way back to true-blue unionism after this independence nonsense is buried with a stake through its heart. I mean, look at all the lovely money he makes on the lecture circuit – and to whom he lectures, darling!”

Among Alistair’s ideas for saving the remnants of the British Empire from final dissolution is urging Scots relatives of members of the Scottish electorate living in the rest of the UK to ‘love bomb’ family members eligible to vote in the referendum with phone calls, emails, letters urging them not to vote for the independence of their country, Scotland.

This fits neatly with the orchestrated attempts to paint England, Wales and Northern Ireland as ‘foreign’ countries after independence, with relatives staring in horror at each other as ‘foreigners’ over border posts manned by stern-faced, kilted and claymored border guards. This shameful, pejorative exploitation of the terms ‘foreign’, ‘foreigners’ and ‘foreign country’ is bordering on racism in its use of language, a usage now spreading like a virulent virus across Labour, Tories and LibDems. UKIP is already fatally infected, and the even more extreme parties are pustulating.

Like many Scot, I have relatives outside of Scotland – three in England, several in the Republic of Ireland, America and Canada. In the strange minds of the unionists purveying this pernicious rubbish – Gove, Brown, Darling, Goldie et al – those in England are in danger of becoming ‘foreigners’, and those elsewhere in the great Scottish diaspora, living in proudly and fully  independent countries which long since freed themselves from the British Empire, are already ‘foreigners’ in a ‘foreign’ country.

I know what my Irish, American and Canadian relatives would think of this infantile yet dangerous rubbish. I also know what my immediate, close family in England think. I don’t expect a missive from any of them soon urging me to save the Union and vote NO, nor do any of them want, or think they are entitled to a voice in the Scottish referendum.

But if they wrote to me at all on this subject, I think they would write in the same terms as any other family members living in England would to their loved ones in Scotland about their vote, so I offer this composite letter, which I feel might come from a great many in similar circumstances. (I accept that some expatriate Scots, or those of Scots descent, might well write a Darlingesque letter.)

Dear ( ……)

The sun is shining here, a fine English early summer’s day at last. I love it here – vibrant community life, wonderful, welcoming pubs and great neighbours. We have a local election coming up for the Council, and I’m off to do my bit for my local candidate. And I’m thinking hard about how I’ll vote in the General Election in 2015, which doesn’t seem so far off now!

How are things with the referendum debate going up there? We get some idea occasionally from television and the press, but most of the time people around here are focused on local affairs and politics, as am I.

I wish you well with whatever decision you make – it’s for Scots resident in Scotland to make, and nobody else, and whatever the outcome, I tell all my English friends, colleagues and neighbours  that England and Scotland will still live happily together as they have always done, with shared interests and ties of kinship.  And nae border posts!

Looking forward to seeing you soon …

love,

(…..)