Archive
Still on course
A couple of days ago, I had a Facebook debate with a friend, Jackson Carlaw, who really should be the leader of the Scots Tories. He’s as committed to ‘No’ as I am to ‘Yes’ and I respect his beliefs. He is sure that his side will win, I hope that mine does; that’s a fair summation of our positions, and whatever happens we’ll still be friends next Friday.
He’s a veteran of many elections, and so am I if you go back to the Eighties, so we’re both basing our judgements on the same experiences. However I believe there is one thing that he is not taking into account. In size and scale, this is unlike anything we’ve seen before. The 1978 referendum debate was a pale shadow of this one, plus the game was rigged from the start. 2014 is new, and it may be that received wisdom will not apply.
If I’m right, ‘Yes’ will win. We’ll see in a week, after a further week of debate, and pontification by media ‘experts’ who don’t really know what they’re talking about. Could it be that the people who will decide the issue aren’t listening to any of them?
Better today?
I wonder if my Tory friends who spent the first part of this week rubbishing YouGov polls will take the same line now that it has published one in their favour. Note: the leads suggested in each are within the margin of error.
Sad
Finally it has come clean. The Scotsman newspaper has made a mockery of its own masthead by declaring itself on the side of Westminster.
In fact its stance has been clear from the outset of the campaign, and throughout that period its circulation has fallen inexorably, a so-called national newspaper selling fewer than 30,000 copies daily. In three years it is due to mark its bi-centenary. Will it survive that long? I doubt it.
So what?
So, the Royal Bank of Scotland will leave us if we vote ‘Yes’?
The truth is that for all Fred Goodwin’s Folly out at Edinburgh Airport, the policies and decisions of RBS have been driven by the City of London for decades, since someone decided it should become a global player . . . and we all know what happened after that.
So Bank of Scotland will follow suit?
Thanks to a panic-driven reaction by the leader of Better Together, who has been strangely silent for the last few days, Bank of Scotland has been part of the Lloyds group since the beginning of the crisis which he and his predecessor did much to create.
Let me tell you how honest and ethical the BoS has become under Lloyds’ direction. A few weeks ago the owners of a Scottish business turned up for work one morning to find men on their doorstep. The decades-old family owned company had been operating for years with a credit facility from Bank of Scotland. It was rationalising and a programme of asset realisation was under way.
Who were the men on the doorstep? They were sheriff officers. Without the knowledge of its clients, the Lloyds-run Bank of Scotland had sold the debt to venture capitalists. They had decided, as creditor, to put the company into administration, again without consultation. The former owners were history, and the venture capitalists stood to make a nice killing.
A reborn independent Scotland will want no part of such banking practices. Indeed I hope it will make them illegal. So fair enough, RBS, BoS, piss off to London. The functions which you have in Scotland will remain of necessity, for there will be no speedy way to relocate them. Your branch networks will remain, although they may have to operate under a new and more rigorous regulatory system.
We stand against them
For an issue that was always meant to be decided by the people of Scotland, we are sure seeing a hell of a lot of interference from outside. This is being co-ordinated in the main by the London media, although it will be interesting to see how their Scottish editions declare, should the polls on which they lean so heavily show ‘Yes’ in the lead next Wednesday.
One part of their strategy is clear, their determination to focus attention totally on Alex Salmond, and to demonise him in the process. Apart from being as vicious as we have come to expect from what used to be Fleet Street, it is also a gross distortion of the truth . . . another London editorial norm.
‘Yes’ is my campaign just as much as it belongs to Alex Salmond. I had my first flirtation with the SNP when he has just begun secondary school. He was still there when I was in at the birth of the party’s modern era when a diffident Winnie Ewing visited my newspaper office just before winning the Hamilton by-election.
The ‘Yes’ campaign is the culmination of her efforts, and those of thousands more, stretching back to Dr Robert McIntyre, elected in 1945 by my home town, Motherwell, as the party’s first MP. Today ‘Yes’ has millions of co-owners, in Scotland and beyond. For our opponents to focus their venom on one single man is stupid. It is also dangerous, for all they are doing is hardening attitudes and encouraging more and more independence votes, from those who after a lifetime of being bullied by London, are mad as hell and ain’t going to take it anymore.
Question
A point of fact: at this moment Scotland is part of a currency union within the United Kingdom.
Of those who say we can’t keep the pound, I ask this: how do you take such a union apart against the will of one of its participants?
Right on
Fergus, a blog reader, posted this as a comment yesterday. It’s beautiful and worthy of the widest possible audience so here goes.
‘I copied this from a newspaper the other day and it seems to me to be spot on, especially the “self-repudiation and self-harm bit.” We need to go for it. I can’t vote because I don’t live in Scotland but I’m with you (us) all the way.’
“Independence, as more Scots are beginning to see, offers people an opportunity to rewrite the political rules. To create a written constitution, the very process of which is engaging and transformative. To build an economy of benefit to everyone. To promote cohesion, social justice, the defence of the living planet and an end to wars of choice.
To deny this to yourself, to remain subject to the whims of a distant and uncaring elite, to succumb to the bleak, deferential negativity of the no campaign, to accept other people’s myths in place of your own story: that would be an astonishing act of self-repudiation and self-harm. Consider yourselves independent and work backwards from there; then ask why you would sacrifice that freedom.”
Twitter: @georgemonbiot
The Three Stooges
I am not given to whooping with laughter very often, but last night was one of those times, when I heard that Larry, Curly and Moe, AKA the three Westminster party leaders, were skipping today’s PMQs in favour of a trip to Scotland, clad, no doubt, in new brown trousers. Coming on top of Cameron’s bizarre decision to fly the Saltire over Downing Street, this is another pure gift for ‘Yes”.
Are they coming because they no longer trust their Scottish counterparts to get the job done? Looks like it. Shortly before this bombshell, Sky News showed me on my iPad a clip of that trio, on the stump.
I don’t mean to be cruel here, but if (God forbid) Ruth Davidson was involved in an accident anywhere in Scotland, having left her handbag at home, and was rendered unconscious, it would probably take a good couple of hours before anyone recognised her as the Scots Tory leader. As for Willie Rennie, her LibDem counterpart, his profile is indicative of the fact that his parliamentary party at Holyrood could fit easily round a very small dining table.
For me, the most interesting of the three in terms of body language, not personal profile for she isn’t very well known either, was the Scottish Labour Leader, the very nice Johann Lamont. As she made her pitch for Bitter Together, I couldn’t help feeling that her heart wasn’t quite in it. As thousands of her Scottish party members reject London Labour’s arguments and prepare to turn Scotland into a permanently Tory-free zone, is she beginning to realise that she has pitched her tent in the wrong camp-site?
Over the ball
Among the more bizarre ‘Yes’-linked stories this morning is one which suggests that the FA, the SFA and (sic) Strathclyde police, are worried about the prospect of trouble between supporters at the November Scotland – England friendly at Celtic Park. If history means anything, they need not fash themselves.
My memory goes back to the days when our nations played each other annually . . . and yes, I was at Wembley, although not on the pitch on the day that our over-enthusiastic support took most of it home with them as souvenirs. (There was some excuse for that non-angelic behaviour; the hospitable people of London Transport decided to go on strike that weekend leaving thousands of their city’s guests with no option but to walk to Wembley from central London, on a baking hot May day, naturally refreshing themselves en route.)
Back then every game was like a home match for Scotland. While the Tartan Army went south in battalion strength, the English simply did not head north in any significant numbers, so there was never any significant trouble. Yes, there was one occasion when a hooligan group turned up and made their presence felt; they were removed from the ground for their own safety. Soon after that, the fixture disappeared from the calendar, because the FA chose to play elsewhere.
According to the author of today’s piece, the usually sensible Henry Winter, the ‘security alert’ was triggered by English fans in Basle on Monday chanting ‘F*ck off Scotland’ we’re all voting Yes.’ I only wish they had votes.
Tickets sales the forthcoming game will be controlled by the two Associations involved, and the visiting side will have a limited allocation. Whatever the result on September 18 there is as much chance of trouble at the match as there is of me walking into the Telegraph office tomorrow and hitting Henry Winter with a deep-fried Mars bar
See none, hear none, speak none.
Another misdirected arrow: a joint pro-Union statement by Sir Malcolm Rifkind and the Lords Lang and Forsyth, the three former Tory Secretaries of State for Scotland, who presided over the reduction of their party’s Scottish representation at Westminster from twenty-one MPs in 1983, to zero in 1997.
I knew all of them. Clever chaps no doubt, but not a wise man among them.
Straight swop
It’s not my place to make suggestions to Bitter Together, but here’s one that might win them a few votes.
Let the Westminster Government pledge to rename the Bank of England, The United Kingdom Central Bank, and relocate it to Glasgow, Edinburgh, or better still, Inverness. Let it also pledge to relocate the Faslane nuclear base from the Firth of Clyde to the Thames Estuary.
What better ways to demonstrate the importance of Scotland to the English, and their affection for our country?
My Rubicon crossed
Three days ago, on Saturday September 6, 2014, I did something of which I have dreamt all my life without believing until a few years ago that I would ever have the opportunity. Against all the unspoken opposition of many of my friends, disregarding the pleas of an English lady author of children’s books who happens to own a piece of my homeland, ignoring the contemptible vitriol of the London media, (which will never be forgotten in Scotland, regardless of the result) in the face of threats of dire consequences from politicians with axes ground to such a fine edge that they could fell an oak tree with a single blow, I cast my vote for an independent Scotland and committed it to the post.
In all honesty, when I did so, I felt within myself that it would be in vain. Next day the YouGov poll was published, showing ‘Yes’ in the lead. Today another showed the two sides tied. There may be a margin for error, but given the results of previous sampling, there is no doubt that the ephemeral thing called ‘Momentum’ is with the Independence camp. If it continues, Scotland will win, and on September 19, an old nation will be reborn.
Today I read a ridiculous piece in the Telegraph, suggesting that ‘senior MPs’ were urging the Queen to intervene on the side of ‘No’. Of course there are ‘senior MPs’ who are stupid enough to do that, but I doubt very much that HM will be daft enough to listen to them. If Scotland votes ‘Yes’ she will continue to reign over a United Kingdom, as did her ancestor James VI and I. She may have to preside over two state openings of Parliament, not one, but at least in Scotland she will only have to walk across the road to do the job, there being a pedestrian crossing in place already.
Another lie is being pumped out today by the London media, that of panic in the financial markets following the YouGov poll.
Here is the truth: yesterday the FTSE 100 barely twitched, and today it continues to sit 300 points higher than it did one month ago; as for Sterling, today it sits at a healthy 1.61 against the dollar, and as for the Euro, this morning it has bounced back above 1.25.
When Douglas Alexander, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, speaks of imaginary economic problems, he shows why his colleagues are said to have christened him ‘Rain Man’; he has difficulty connecting with reality. The truth, Douglas, is that if Scotland says ‘Yes’ next week, one of the first things that will happen thereafter will be a commitment by Westminster to currency union. That is what today’s reaction indicates, and it is what would be the case, for sure. As for the Footsie, it will be business as usual.
Most bizarre of all, though is Gordon Brown, old Captain Barbossa, stepping forward as the saviour of the Union. That the man who did more that any other to demonstrate the case for Independence by his lamentable performance as Prime Minister, should expect any electorate now to believe a single bloody word he says, well, for me that redefines irony.
You will have noticed that a couple of paragraphs ago, I used the word ‘if’. I am not allowing myself to be carried away here. There are still many sensible people who will vote for the status quo, because they feel as strongly they are right, as I am passionate that Independence is too precious to reject. I have nothing but respect for them; it’s the people who front up their argument, and the tactics of fear that they have adopted, that I dislike.
The momentum may stop here; that’s what the media will declare probably, once they realise that they’ve helped to create it. I am not without experience in politics and one thing I’ve observed is that in the last couple of days of election campaigns there is often a small swing towards the status quo.
Will that happen next week? Maybe so; maybe Captain Barbossa will throw a cloak of darkness over the new ‘Yes’ optimism. But for now, to quote the fictional Rustin Cohle, it seems to me the daylight’s winning.
Telling
I’m on the YouGov panel, which means that every day I’m sent three questions on current and world affairs. Today’s asked panelists whether Dave Cameron or Ed Miliband would make the better Prime Minister. DC won by 49% to 32% with 18% ‘don’t know’. Conversely, 47% to 35% felt that Labour were more in tune with their lives. Yet the same sample felt, by 50% to 34%, that the Tories would do a better job of running the economy over the next five years.
Not me
DebateTwo starts in three hours time. However it clashes with Man City vs Liverpool, so guess what I’ll be watching? There is nothing that Alastair Darling could possibly say that would persuade me to go against my country and my conscience by voting No.
Better Together advances the cause of the well-to-do and offers nothing to the poor and the deprived. Worse, it’s their enemy.
To those who genuinely believe in the Westminster union, I respect your view, and your right to express it through the ballot box. But I don’t respect the way the case is being put forward, and I hope that Scotland will reject it..
Creep
At this moment I am sat, gob-smacked, listening to Julian Assange whine to a hand-picked media audience about the effect on his health of two years’ enclosure within the Ecuadorean Embassy. Fact: at any time during those two years, he could have walked through the front door. Fact: he didn’t. Fact: as soon as he leaves his diplomatically protected hidey-hole he is liable to arrest and extradition to Sweden to face questioning on allegations of sexual misconduct.
Police state
I have nothing to say about the Cliff Richard story, save this. When the police raiding party arrived at his place in Berkshire, the media were waiting for them, and BBC even had a helicopter hovering over the scene.
If we were talking about a major drugs bust here, or a terrorist cell being captured, there might be the semblance of a pubic interest argument for such behaviour, but it isn’t. This is a well loved public figure whose reputation has been tossed into the bear-pit. No charges have been levelled, no cautions administered, and no advance warning was given to anyone other than the press.
I would like to think that this morning a second investigation is under way, to find the person who tipped them off. Will that happen? In the normal course of events I’d say, ‘No chance’. But this isn’t quite normal. Sir Cliff is a Tory icon. Watch this space.
So?
Twenty per cent of the Rolling Stones want Scotland to stay in the Union. So does Tom Daley. So does Lord Jock Stirrup. So does Professor Stephen Hawking. So does Ross Kemp.
Noted.
Little Darling
So, the pollsters say that Alastair Darling won the debate. As a Yes voter am I dismayed? Maybe slightly, when I think back to the confrontations during the 2010 Westminster election and recall that they gave us Nick Clegg, but otherwise not too much.
Anyone who thought that Darling would simply roll over is a fool. TV election debates are about rhetoric rather than substantive argument, and there is no better preparation for that than eight years of Cabinet rank questioning at the Dispatch Box on the floor of the House of Commons. That’s a rather tougher school than weekly confrontations with the amiable Jack McConnell, and his successors, who remain unknown to the vast majority of the Scottish electorate. But where did the former chancellor score? Where was his victory? They are saying that it was on the lack of a Plan B on the currency question. The fact is there is no need for a Plan B. Scotland is already part of a currency union and there is no legal or constitutional reason why it should not remain so as an independent nation.
Yet Darling’s so-called strength is also his weakness, for it reveals that his entire strategy is built upon playing upon the fears of the well-to-do and the downright wealthy. Yes, the fears, cupboard monsters dreamed up in a strategists’ brain-storming session. In focusing on that group of voters, ‘Better Together’, has forgotten one essential, fundamental truth. And so, I would suggest, have the pollsters. The rich are always greatly out-numbered by the poor. It’s the way the world works.
Westminster politicians are used to fighting campaigns that are targeted towards the small minority, fifteen percent at best, who are persuadable, and who will vote and decide elections on the basis of which party will put more money in their pockets through the following five years.
The referendum campaign isn’t like that. It isn’t about offering bribes to those who don’t need them, it’s about offering hope to those who need that more than anything, after forty years of the systematic de-industrialisation of Scotland and the construction of an economy in which the nation’s wealth has been concentrated inexorably on the City of London, which has become, in truth, a nation-state to which the rest of us are subservient. In government, Darling, as Chief Secretary and then as Chancellor, was one of the leading players helping to nurture it. (He was also one of the people who caused its near-collapse, a truth that is never mentioned in his campaign literature.) Make no mistake, he is still doing its bidding.
We have the opportunity to reclaim Scotland, not for the haves but for the have-nots, and in that crusade, there is one enormous ace in the hole: the fact that every single person in the land has exactly the same voting rights. If the issue is about currency, then remember this; the ballot paper is a currency of its own and every one is worth the same amount.
My hope is that September 18 will bring out people who neglect to vote in Westminster elections because there is nothing in it for them, but who will rush to tick the Yes box, because for the first time ever they feel truly enfranchised. If they do, as I believe they will, the Fearties will be swept into the Tweed, and the pollsters will discover that they have been plying their trade in a situation that they simply do not understand.
So long, old friend, so long
One Last Post about last night: at one point in the coverage I spotted our Prime Minister in a free seat and idly posted a tweet wondering who had let him in. Through the magic of an auto-arrangement the Headline techies have set up, this was copied on to my Facebook author page. That post prompted someone called Alan Jones to remark as follows:
‘Inappropriate comment. De friend time. Over. Bye bye’
For the record, Alan, I have no idea who you are, but clearly you have heard of me, and that is a compliment of sorts. However, if you believe that a Facebook friendship gives you the right to censor my political opinions, then I am well shot of you. By the way, this will auto-post on Facebook also.
Quintin Jardine's blog 