War: what is it good for?!

Less than 2 weeks ago we were poised, anticipating a future filled with hope. The hope of change in our country. Not just for Scotland, but beyond our borders too. Because we knew that when the change came it would be sweeping and it would be momentous and it would inspire. We had hope, hope that with our independence we would build a better society and those looking inward would see us as the model for how a country can be run. If Scotland was able to make its own decisions then why can't Wales? Why can't Northern Ireland? And why can't England? If we had a truly representative government, of the people, by the people and for the people then the government in England could worry about the issues affecting England only without having to pay lip service to the rest of the Union. Every single person in the small island would have a voice, unique to them.

It was exciting. It really felt like we were about to see something wonderful.

But it wasn't to be. I fail to see how anyone who voted No could have felt anything like the exhilaration of those closing hours of polling day, the 18th September. At 10pm on that day, Independence was like Schrödinger's Cat. It was alive and dead at the same time. But for those of us who voted Yes, the feeling was of anticipation that we stood on the precipice of enormous change. A frightening but exciting time. For those who voted No the feeling was of anticipation that absolutely nothing was going to change or get better, the best that one could hope for was more of the same as before. Of course we now know they were sold a lie.

In the days prior to the vote I spent a fair bit of time on various forums and, as is the case with any debate, some of the posts I read were nonsense, some were daft and some were divisive and scary. But one grabbed my attention. It was posted by someone who said their family member was in the military and they had been placed on standby, all leave was canceled. To them this indicated that UK was on the brink of another war. This didn't seem to make the news though, one wonders what effect that would have had on the outcome of the vote.






We now know that the UK indeed, was on the brink of another war. Interestingly I have seen two articles on how much this military action might cost the UK, one was conservative (with a small "c") and the other was a little larger. What was interesting to me was that both figures were more than the 2 figures quoted as the cost for setting up an independent Scotland. The conservative (with a small "c") and the Conservative estimate.

Funny how the cost of setting up an independent nation with the power to make its own decisions; decisions that affect the people who live there and would therefore be made by people who live there; was seen as a ridiculously expensive, catastrophic, economy destroying amount and yet it's money that we can easily afford when it comes to a bit of bombing!

Well I say funny!

One thing we can look forward to is the new powers that are heading our way of course, we have that to reassure us. Of course we now know they have sold us a lie.






But hey, at least we now have 120 years worth of oil, that's 100 years more than what we had to look forward to if we had voted Yes! Of course we now know they have sold us a lie.






But division is one thing we don't need, whether it be Yes vs No, 45% vs 55%, BritNats vs ScotNats or the massive big dividing fault lines that fracking will open up! We do need to accept what has happened, realise that those who voted No did so because they believed what they were told by people they should be able to believe. We need to move on, we need to work together. We need to start building bridges instead of walls and we need to start thinking about what happens next. The only way we can possibly achieve independence for our country is if we work together, we need the 55% who voted No, they are our brothers, sisters, friends, fathers. After the 2 year campaign of fear and lies through the mass media it's hardly surprising that 55% of the population said No, they feared for their pensions, they feared for their pound, they feared for their jobs, they feared that they wouldn't be able to provide for their families in the third world conditions of an Indy Scotland, can you blame them? Every fear they had was put there by a lying media and reinforced over a 2 year period, you can hardly blame anyone for making that decision. The worst that would happen is nothing, according to the press, more of the same if you voted No. If you voted Yes you might be malled by tigers!

Of course we now know they have sold us a lie. Don't we? And it only took 10 days.

In the meantime it's back to business for our Tory leaders. And to think 11 days ago I was debating and discussing what we should include in our new constitution!

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Scotland the Bruised

Like 45% of my countrymen and women I am disappointed today. Honestly I can't quite gather my thoughts right now to put it into words but I am bitterly disappointed at the outcome of the referendum. However what we needed more than anything else was a decisive win on either side and we got it, the sovereign will of the Scottish people is to remain in the UK and if we receive meaningful powers as promised then we have much to celebrate.

So what now? Well earlier today a friend of mine said that she was ashamed to be Scottish and as is often the case in trying to cheer someone else up, my words of comfort to her were words of comfort to myself: Do not feel ashamed. What we did was amazing. We spoke up and while our voices were shouted down, they were heard. You can't argue with the result, our countrymen and women decisively opted to remain in the UK so we owe it to them and ourselves to honour that and work together to make the dream of unity a reality. But the past few weeks, the street parties, the way the yes campaign have composed themselves has been incredible and moving. Look to our Irish neighbours and their history to see how things could have been, we chose discussion, debate and democracy over death and destruction. We chose the ballot box over bombs. We should be proud, not ashamed.

The decision to vote yes or no was an easy one compared to the next vote which is WHO we vote for, as the choice is not inspiring. But if one great thing has come out of this referendum it is the uprising of the young, the future politicians were born out of this debate and that is what we desperately need. A new breed of politician of the people, for the people and by the people. I am confident that the future is in safe hands.

So please Yes voters, do not feel ashamed, do not get angry and do not disrespect the will of our fellow countrymen for having a different view from us. We live in a democracy that is the envy of many parts of the world and while the world is watching do not undo the amazing work that has been done in the last two years, hold your head high and pull together with the energy and positivity that we all know we are capable of. We have to now work together to make the United Kingdom and all of it's composite parts truly better together.

In the run up to the vote I shared an adaptation of Charlie Chaplin's speech from The Great Dictator which was adapted to support Independence and I post the original below in support of our fellow countrymen and the Union to which we still belong. Yes or No, the motivation was always to build a better future so let's focus on that, come together and get building.

 

JFK, Irish hats and aiming for The Moon

When President Kennedy announced in 1963 that America would place a man on the moon within 10 years there was no space program. They had not begun to look at how or if this might be done but he committed to it and they had no option but to follow. In doing so he referenced the story of the young Irish lad who, when stood next to a tall orchard wall, took off his cap and launched it over. A passer by witnessed this and asked "Are you mad, now you will have to climb the wall to get your cap back?!" "That's the idea" replied the lad.
Thursday's referendum is not about Alex Salmond or the policies of a particular party, it's not about the EU or currency or any of those matters which will undoubtedly be negotiated and resolved. It's not about the defence budget or the NHS or any of those things as Alex Salmond's first act after Independence will be to stand down and call a general election. After this we will get to choose a government who represent our views, our interests and our way of life. We are a socialist nation who have been ruled by a Conservative government for too long, even when Labour were in power they knew it was England and the rest of the UK who put them there so they had to move to the middle to avoid upsetting the electorate. If we choose to take this leap we will get what we have never had, a truly representative and democratically elected government who answer only to us. Don't get me wrong, all the details are important and there ARE answers to all of those questions if you do some reading but those aren't the questions you should be asking yourself. Those details are the day to day business of government, the minutiae that are always taken care of and in 10, 20, 100 years from now when our children and children's children look back on the 18th Sept 2014, those details will have faded into history. What they will look back upon is that we took the chance when we were offered. Without any bloodshed or a single bullet being fired we democratically took control of our nation in an adult and civilised manner. In a world that is becoming crueller, where it's every man for themselves and the rich get rich off of the blood and sweat of the poor we have the opportunity to be the country we always knew we could. We can do it differently, we have the chance to write a constitution and engrain the concepts of decency and fairness into it from day one. We can make Scotland the envy of the World and I genuinely believe it will be the start of better things for the rest of Britain, an Island to which we will always belong. So what do you want your part in history to be? If you say No there is no turning back, we won't get this chance again. We'll be permanently stuck with a government elected by the people of one part of this Union and we'll have given them our seal of approval to keep doing what they are doing.

I have been made redundant in the last few years and my partner has been made redundant 3 times in 4 years; and all this while we were apparently Better Together, protected by the strength and security of the UK! Of course you have to do what is right for you and it is a personal choice, just make sure you have the right information to hand when you make it.


If being part of the UK genuinely is the right choice for you then I wish you luck tomorrow. I suspect it will be a very close run thing and the No's will probably win it but when future generations look back, incredulous that we turned down self-determination in favour of a future of Tory rule, at least I'll can say that I tried.

So tomorrow I shall be throwing my cap over the wall and voting Yes. Who's with me?


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Lies, Damn Lies and Effing Tories

How do you feel about being manipulated? How do you feel about being emotionally blackmailed?

Yesterday we were visited by our Prime Minister, Mr Cameron, who cancelled PMQs to jet up here and make an impassioned plea for us to stay together. He reminded me of the abusive husband, bringing flowers to apologise for the black eye. "If you leave me I'll be heartbroken, I won't be able to go on, it'll be your fault. Please don't destroy our marriage."

But when I speak of manipulation I don't just refer to Mr Cameron's speech but the reporting of it. On the BBC last night it was reported that Mr Cameron was "close to tears" and his voice was "cracking with emotion". It was reported the same way in The Telegraph

Saying something doesn't make it true, however it does make people believe it's true and it's another example of the way in which public opinion has been manipulated by a media that's gotten very good at this. We seem to want to be told how to feel about something, it's in our nature so even though we've just watched the video, if we are told his voice cracked and he was on the verge of tears we'll believe it. Well watch again and ask yourself, does David Cameron seem like the sort to get nostalgic and dewy eyed?

Is he close to tears when he hears of David Clapson's death caused by his party's neglect? Does his voice crack with emotion when he hears of pensioners committing suicide over money fears as a direct result of the bedroom tax? Does he cancel his plans and make an impassioned plea to put a stop of food poverty when he hears of working families so poor that they have to use Food Banks? And where is his passion and nostalgic love of our great nation when his party started privatising The NHS and the Post Office? "You've never had it so good!"

No, I don't believe that David Cameron is the sort of man to get dewy eyed or emotional about anything unless there is something in it for him. Ask yourself this, why is he so eager to keep Scotland in the UK? What really floats his boat? I believe it has something to do with money and the resources that we have and he wants.

Going back to manipulation for a moment though, I've spoken of this previously but it still seems that there is a desire to trust the media even when faced with evidence that you cannot. We want to believe in our authority figures, we want to trust them. And even when I tell you that I have spent my whole life defending the Union and arguing against Independence until recently, when I started to read and seek out information on my own rather than being spoon fed lies by the media and Better Together, there are some who simply don't want to believe they are being lied to. It's natural, it's like when you are a kid and you think you can trust all grown ups to tell you the truth, you never want that innocence to end. But whether you watch the BBC, ITN, Sky or Fox, whichever channel you get your broadcast news from just stop for a moment and actually look at how this news is being delivered. Once you have opened your eyes though, there is no going back. You have been warned!



The image above is from last nights BBC News at 10 and it's an example of what we have come to expect from our news outlets, what we have above is a journalist interviewing another journalist and all news broadcasters do it. It is journalistic opinion presented as expertise, editorial presented as fact. Television news is supposed to be impartial but when you see a BBC journalist interviewing his colleague it's basically the same as saying "in this newspaper's opinion.." They stand in the street outside a closed door and interview a fellow employee, asking them questions they already know the answers to. In this way they can present their opinion as if they are simply reporting what the experts said. Look out for it, journalists interviewing journalists.

You may have seen yesterday that the FT came out in favour of the Union, it was seized upon by the Better Together campaign and widely reported. But did you look at the language used?


It was an editorial, an opinion piece. In an economic newspaper, possibly one of the most highly regarded there wasn't much in it that was backed up by economists, it was simply an opinion. However when this article appeared in February, arguing that Independence would be beneficial to Scotland's economy and more in keeping with the FT's more traditional reporting it was widely overlooked. Similarly when The Adam Smith Institute argued that using the pound without a formal currency union would in fact be better for Scotland this was also ignored.

And Pensions? Its no wonder there is confusion but the fact is your UK state pension will not be affected, which is a shame because it could be a lot better It would be quite nice to retire before I die as well, perhaps whoever we elect here will change that. The fact is a No Vote does not provide pension security, what it provides is the certainly that you will get whatever party England elects next and whatever changes they deem necessary to your pension. Remember when the retirement age was 65?

But what this all adds up to is a very subtle manipulation of the information that is getting to you, a slow trickle of fear and doubt and reinforcement that it would be safer and easier to stick with what you know. And it does work. Fear does work but only if it isn't too blatant. Luckily we have had a few years of this campaign to allow it to bed down. But something has happened lately, I don't know if you have noticed! The tide has begin to turn. As more and more people become wise to the lies they have started to use their internet connection and have found other media outlets and other sources of information unconnected to either campaign and have started to find out what the media and No Campaign have been hiding. And more and more have, like me, started to change their mind. You'll notice the links throughout this blog, click them. See for yourself, it really isn't too late!

Oh, one last thing! Additional powers. These were promised in the weeks before the 1979 referendum as well and nothing ever came of them. Indeed William Hague has gone to great lengths this week to point out that these are not promises of policy change but "campaign statements" for reasons that escape me! But let's have a look at what's on offer. This is Johann Lamont, leader of The Scottish Labour Party talking about how she would use the additional powers on offer. Remember, this isn't a UK politician tell us what we are being offered but the leader of the Labour Party in Scotland detailing her ideal scenario on how these powers would be used. Something to look forward to!

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Westminster: An Arranged Marriage.

I've blogged a couple of times in recent weeks about the upcoming referendum and who doesn't love a trilogy? So here we are again.

I know I've been banging on a bit about this and I'm probably getting on people's nerves. There is no "but", that's simply a statement of fact! I shall now bang on a bit more!

Now I know I have only recently embraced Independence after a life long aversion to it and I've detailed my journey in the previous posts but I didn't simply arrive at this decision on a whim. One thing I have been asked by a few people was to explain what prompted me to change. I'm not setting myself up as the poster-boy for switchers as I am certainly not alone, but I will go into a little more detail about the specific thing that eventually convinced me that I was on the wrong path.

I've touched upon the fact that I slowly became aware of the bias in the media and the lies of the Better Together campaign, this was a gradual thing that started to make me question my position. I used to take as truth the facts and statements I read in the news, I've always known the tabloids were full of lies so I would check and double check anything I read against several sources, preferably broadsheets before I would believe it. If something appeared in the Daily Mail and no-where else it's clearly bullshit but if you find it on the BBC website as well then it must be true, right? But over time I started to realise that there was another layer of the media that reported things that the BBC and other mainstream outlets simply ignored. And now, more than at any time in the past, Social Media is playing a massive part in the way in which people get their information and interact with the campaign. It is in this area that the Yes Campaign are doing a better job of getting their positive message across.

A friend of mine came away with a perfect summary of the campaign last night; "Yes groups post information. No groups post pictures of Alex Salmon made up to look like Hitler" and this is absolutely accurate. When I was arguing in favour of the Union I was on the No websites but I also looked in on the Yes boards in an effort to "know your enemy". This was where I started to learn things and noticed the difference in approach between the two opposing sides of the campaign. At one point I took myself off of all Yes sites because I could tell I was becoming convinced by their facts, information and verifiable links to independent sources! How very dare they attack my long held beliefs with the truth!!

The "us and them" nature of the debate has really got to me and it continues to do so, it is not necessary or in any way helpful. I really don't see the need to demonise your opponents and make it personal. Don't vote Yes because Yes voters are nasty people!

But this was a very slow burn, it happened over time, the turning point for me was when I realised the following.

When Labour were in government things weren't so bad, I voted labour so I was happy with the way things were, when the Tories came to power things very quickly went to shit. I hadn't voted for The Tories and I disagree with almost all of their policies, you probably do too. But the thing that I suddenly realised was that although Labour got in, it was nothing to do with me and it was nothing to do with Scotland. At that time Scotland traditionally voted Labour so if the rest of the UK agree then we end up with the government we voted for but in 2010 they didn't so we got a Tory/Lib Dem government. This was the metaphorical straw that broke the allegorical camel's back. Neither you or I have any say in which government is elected, it's completely left to chance. If the rest of the Union vote for a party you like them you are in luck, if they do not you'll be stuck with whoever they choose and you have NO say, you have NO voice. You are completely powerless to change that! Now the Tories could conceivably get voted out next year and our lives and the lives of those who are currently suffering under their austerity measures could improve. They might get better. It's just your luck though, there's nothing you can do to influence that.

And this is why I decided enough was enough. You might not like The SNP, I sure don't but whichever party you vote for in Scotland, they will still have to operate within the confines of whatever government is in power in Westminster, wouldn't you like to change that? If you don't like SNP, vote them out. If you don't like The Tories, cross your fingers and hope for the best.

And just to back up my claim above here's a picture of David Cameron made up to look like Hitler.

Just kidding. Here are some facts. The figures were pulled from Wikipedia and the UK government website, the graphic was produced by Wings Over Scotland. The links to these sources are at the bottom of the page.

The table above shows the results of the Scottish electorate's votes versus the rest of the UK electorate's. You can probably guess which way it went each time.

The table below shows a comparison of the results of every election from 1945 with the Scottish votes and without. See the massive difference?

It's not an inferiority complex and it's not about having a chip on your shoulder, it's a simple case of mathematics. Scotland's population in 2011 was 5,254,800, London's was 7,825,200 (according to the Office of National Statistics). You see where the problem lies. England simply has more people than the other parts of the UK so we will always be subject to whatever choices they make. Either you can live with that or you would like to do something about it. That's your choice. Self-determination sounds very "Nationalist" and "Bravehearty" but when it comes down to it this is the real choice you have to make.

The question should really be "Should Scotland be allowed to elect a government that represents it's people?" I would say the answer is Yes.

If the answer is No then you will get whatever government England chooses. As long as you are OK with that.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_Kingdom_general_election_results_in_Scotland

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/rp2003/rp03-059.pdf