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Munguin hard at work in his luxurious
penthouse suite office today.
I want to say a massive thank you to Kay from YES Marchmont for sending Munguin this Bu Chòir badge after I mentioned on Twitter that he would like one.
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You know, some people are saying that the referendum has split Scotland, but I'm not so sure. Scotland, like everywhere else, has always been split in so many ways... Rangers, Celtic; West Coast, East Coast; Glasgow, Edinburgh; Hibs, Hearts; Labour, Liberal (well, we are talking about history), Conservative, SNP.
So Yes, No is just something else that people disagree over. Big deal.
Much more importantly, this campaign has energised people; folk who never thought for a second about politics are engaged. We have even managed to get 16 years old involved, because, traditionally, that is the age of adulthood in Scotland.
I have no idea what it is like for No campaigners but Yes people are coming together in from all corners of the community, rich and poor, posh and not so posh, and the atmosphere is electric. At meetings in town halls, churches, working men's clubs and community centres all over the country people have gathered to hear speakers like Nicola Sturgeon, Craig Murray, Jim Sillars, Chris Law, Stewart Hosie and so many others...even on Friday nights. That's something that's never happened in my memory.
I've never been to a BT meeting, many of them seem to be closed events, but I have no reason to believe that they will not be similar,a t least from the point of view that they are meeting of like minded people.
Whatever the result we will go on living here. And we will go on living with our differences. There will still be east and west; there will still be Labour and SNP, and probably some Conservatives; there will still be Hibs and Hearts.
But there will also be millions of people who are much more politically aware.
Whoever wins will not get an easy ride.
A politically energised society is one that won't just do the British thing and shrug its shoulders when the usual politicians' promises are broken.
So whether it is iScotland's fairer more decent society equitable society, or Brown's semi federalism... (with, seemingly, education and health taken back UK wide) remember that what you promise now will be expected.
This new Scotland is not going back in the box.
What a great picture of Munguin! I needed cheering up after dipping into the Graun today. Where they are at ShitCon level 4. Given up watching the news. But I'm sure "an independent Scotland would be at risk of Ebola" is tonight's headline.
ReplyDeleteLOL Yes. That gave us a bit of a laugh, until we realised that it is a probability.
DeleteThis may be a deal breaker though. It appears the aristos don't want us to be independent.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tatler.com/news/articles/september-2014/the-future-of-scotland
What they really mean is, they don't want to stop at the border so the chauffeur can show their passport, while travelling to and from the shooting estate!
DeleteThey are funny...
DeleteUmm I dont think the UK is going back in the box............which is a good thing perhaps the nations will awake at last we can hope
ReplyDeleteNo, either way things cannot ever be the same again... we're at a 50/50 situation just now. More or less.
DeleteThe trouble for the unionists is that if THEY win, they are going to have to get their changes past 590 English, Welsh and Ulster MPs... Most specifically 550 English MPs who already think that they are paying for the life of luxury we all live in the glorious socialist republic of Scotland.
I doubt that any leader in the next parliament will be strong enough to force his people to vote for these changes.
The Tories will have a powerful distraction in Boris who thinks we should get nothing, and that he should be prime minister because he went to Eton too and was a lot cleverer than Dumb Nuts Dave...and Labour will have people like Davidson adn Kelly who wants the SNP pandered to not one bit and Scotland to be left with nothing.
Labour have now made it clear that they want education and health taken back to Westminster...
UKIp may have a say... Can't see Nigel wanting more money spent on Scotland, and in any case they will all be trying to talk us out of trying to leave the EU.
I don't know why anyone would want the job.
Nick Clegg is probably lucky that he will go to the UN or Nato on a big fat salary with a noble title where he can creep up someone's backside and pretend to be important.
I thought BT meetings were held on the bus, on the way up from Derby.
ReplyDeleteLOL yeah... at £25 a day plus food...
DeleteI don't hate the 'average' No voter, Tris. Most of them have decided how to vote through Labour MP/MSP's and the British media. They honestly believe what they have been told, and think they are doing the right thing.
ReplyDeleteMy hate is reserved for the Unioinist politicians, media and lackeys. They know exactly what they are doing. I will never forgive them, no matter the result.
NO I don't hate them. I hate the lying politicians and their lackey unionist press and above all I hate and detest the BBC and their amateur reporters who use it to get their position across with absolutely no pretense at fairplay, that great British quality they keep on going on about.
DeleteThe headlines today were sickeningly full of lies.
I'll be interested to hear if the BBC covers the humiliation of Old Etonian Nick Robinson on its 6 o'clock English news.
We've all got to live together after the referendum, whatever the outcome....but I desperately want to live in a separate country to IDS and the BBC!
DeleteFrankly I'd rather be on another continent from the BBC and a different plant... no make that solar system... from Smith
DeleteI promise Juteman to try and not hate or even dislike the NO voters, I will try, it will be bleeding hard though the consequences are so damnable and we will all suffer from their ill informed decisions.
ReplyDeleteNo I try not to. They include members of my own family and a few neighbours.
DeleteBut if we lose, I trust none of them will ever complain about any of the London imposed rules, taxes increases, or will ever moan about wars and UK troops being killed for the vanity of tubes like Cameron and Miliband.. They'll get damn all sympathy from me when they find themselves working till they are 75 and paying double for their electricity, or finding a nuclear power station or fracking unit being built in their back gardens, their kids uni fees being £15,000 a year, and a visit to a GP coming in at £50.
They voted for it. They wanted it. Hell mend them if they get it.
I don't think it'll be easy to forgive a no vote, borne from ignorance. Have these people not heard of the internet?
DeleteO/T, welcome back Nico.
JimnArlene
It's so hard to tell what is ignorance JnA.
DeleteOf course there are people who never think of looking at the internet. I've several neighbours who either don't have it, or don't know how to use it beyond email or youtube.
In a decent country there would have been some sort of balance from the news especially on the state broadcaster. but we don;t live in a decent country. We live in a corrupt country, where even insider dealing is ok if it will thwart the Yes campaign.
I reserve my detestation for this corrupt country.
I mentioned on Wings that this blitzkrieg on bad news stories has frightened a couple of folk i know. Over the last year, i've slowly turned them from Labour sheeple, into questioning citizens. They started off as No leaning undecideds, and declared to me that they would be voting Yes a couple of weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteBoth spoke to me individually today, and they were very worried. One is retired, i think with meagre savings, and the other is due to retire at the end of the year. I fully understand their worries, and hope i have reassured them. To be honest though, i think they are back to being undecided.
My hate is reserved for the Broons and Camerons of this world.
They seem to have found their level in life...scaring pensioners. Bravo.
DeleteWhen we were at school there were boys like that who loved bullying weaker or younger lads. We called them scum.
Yes. I can say I hate lowlife like that.
Try to imagine being a votet with no access to the internet. There are a lot of folk out there that depend on the MSM for their information.
ReplyDeleteOver the last few days, we need to speak to our elderly neighbours that have no internet access. Go out of your way to strike up conversations, and mention what you are reading online.
Hell, invite them in for a coffee and show them Munguin, even if they do smell of elderberries and wet hamsters! :-)
I thought Munguin spoke Penguish according to the Beak we live and learn. As to unionists politicians they have shown themselves to the scum of the earth and will be despised by both Yes an No voters alike with the despicable lies they have told.
ReplyDeleteMunguin is a polyglot. With an IQ of 250, he finds languages simple!
DeleteI think you are right. At the moment I feel nothing but detestation for Brown and Cameron, Stairheid and Lament and their lying cheating self serving ilk.
When their lies are shown to be that, and their promises turn to dust, the other half of the country will hate them too, and having a noble title won;t stop them going down in history as self interested parasites.
I'd not like to be a unionist politician now. I see that they got on the gravy train to Scotland today. No one ever heard of most of them, but their egos won't allow them to think that. To them they are giants in the world of international politics. i only recognised one of them Harperson and her man out for a family day on expnses. The rest were all mysterious nonentities to me.
I don't think Scotland will go back into the box and, sadly, I don't think rUK will get a chance to get out of it. Not for quite a while, at least, and I feel sorry for my friends and relatives who live there.
ReplyDeletePS. Over the moon to see Munguin with his Bu Chòir. Tha mi 'n dòchas nach fhada gus am bi e fileanta ann an Gàidhlig!
DeleteLet's hope that next Friday morning we're not having to worry about that, and that we can kiss goodbye to the perfidious Westminsterites.
DeleteMunguin is over the moon too... Thank you. Tapadh leat.
Surely in a democracy every one is free to choose. Imposing our views on others or hating them seems a slippery slope. I get frustrated with those who disagree with me very very frustrated but as a professor in politics i can reference where hate begins and persecution follows.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog though.
In a democracy yes but don't live in one when MSM is fighting on the NO side peddling deliberate lies fed by lying politicians for personal gain. Not only that they are picking on the vulnerable in society scaring some them witless to the extent of hoarding food worse than murderers in my book.
DeleteAnon. Thanks for your kind words. I’m flattered that a prof of politics like Munguin’s Republic.
DeleteAs I’ve said I don't hate people for being no voters. I may think they haven't thought it through and consider them a bit dim... (In one particular case, a person said to me he was voting no because he didn't have time in his busy life to think about politics. I think he's an idiot and he’s my brother!).
The emotion is reserved for the politicians who knowingly lie.
The men or women who warn OAPs that they won't get their pension; that Scotland will be shunned by Europe, or Nato, or the UN... an outcast. What dross, but people may believe them.
Great Ormond Street; Blood transfusion services, Doctor Who, currency... MPs who say that even if they knew for a fact that Scotland would be better off alone, they would vote for the union (and their expenses).
I loathe those who have lied from day one to fill their pockets, further their careers and obtain aristocratic status and a free pass to collect £300 a day for dozing after a cheap liquid lunch.
And I detest them for the impression that they give that Devo max is a done deal, when I imagine that it is anything but. Indeed Hague admitted that today. Osborne said it was a promise, Brown backed him up, and Hague said it is aspirations.
But as for people who genuinely believe that the UK is a good place to live... well, no I don’t hate them.
I feel sort of sorry for someone who thinks the UK is OK. Maybe they have never been abroad to proper democracies. I wish I could understand why any human would prefer bombs to medicines. Maybe it’s because they have constantly be scared into thinking that trident is all that saves us from being blown to pieces by the Russians. The bile that comes from people like Curran about foreigners would perhaps worry the naturally intolerant.
I am mystified why anyone would think that having clout was good, especially when surely anyone can see that they don't really have any clout at all. It’s all for show. America has clout.
As I said, I think they are dim, but I don't hate them.
I think in fairness the print media has the right to take the side it wishes, CH.
DeleteBut licence fees pay for the news services of the main tv channels and they are biased. Presumably they wish to preserve the status quo where they get vast sums of money from the public purse. And the best way to do that is keep on the right side of the English Culture Secretary, who is known to be an pretty far right blokey.
I've become so disillusioned by the BBC that I stopped my licence fee payments and disconnected my set.
I'll not pay for their propaganda.
Of course I don't think we live in a democracy at all. From top to bottom it is bent and unjust. I agree with you that scaring vulnerable people with lies is beneath contempt.
But then, just look at the class of people who are doing it... BBC, Public School boys... you don't have to look very far to see what kind of people many of them are.
I've been to a couple of Lib-Dem things - not quite BT, but my MP (who organised the meetings) is involved with them somehow. I didn't expect the high number of dissenting voices; there were more (in percentage terms) to question Ming Campbell than there were for Willie Rennie. He, incidentally, gave the SNP a hard time for having the temerity to win an absolute majority; when I asked him if this was a reflection of the poor quality of the opposition that they faced, he said he'd rather not comment on that. Oh well!
ReplyDeleteDerek
LOL Typical, Derek. The Lib Dems thought that they would always be the junior partner in the coalition and have some serious power for the first time in 80 years with their Labour mates.
DeleteAnd it's all the SNPs fault when the public didn't vote for them... and infact when they were so unpopular that they only got 5 seats.... jeez.
I doubt many care what Campbell thinks... but I'd be surprised if anyone gives a stuff what Rennie thinks.
technically democracy is a wonderful concept but fatally flawed.Ask Plato or Aristotle. I do despair of the inaccurate arguments that go unchallenged. However what we have is a democracy ask the people of Catalan,Kosovo or even the Flemish. We should concentrate our ire in getting our points across to the undecided. Politics around the world is as corrupt as in the UK. The yes campaign does it's self a great disservice by shouting down meetings by the BT campaign. It makes us look like rent a mob. The SA in Weimar Germany would be so proud. Be confident in our argument. Never forget that whoever we are we should have the right to express our opinions even if they are total bollocks". When we lose that right we live in dangerous times.
ReplyDeleteProf
Oh, I absolutely agree that shouting down people like Murphy was an own goal, however enjoyable it might have been for the people, and however legitimate that cries of 'Red Tory', and 'in bed with Fascists' might have been.
DeleteIf I'd been Murphy though, I'd have looked at the people doing that and thought to myself..."There should be my people". They didn't look like Tory voters to me!
To be honest, I've never heckled anyone yet, but if I'd have been in the room when Brown was going on about pensions (which he totally wrecked [private] and [public] which we know the UK government has covered, because we paid the UK for them), or when he was telling people that Great Ormond Street would no longer treat Scots... I think I would have shouted LIAR.
Because he is, and it ill befits a person who was once a serious politician to lie so blatantly to the vulnerable... and most of all because the press won't challenge these lies, someone has to.
But overall the Yes campaign has been concerned with getting over positive arguments, and let's be honest, apart from one ex Labour voter getting a bit carried away and throwing an egg at Spud, there's been no reports of serious bad behaviour from YES supporters.
On the other hand No supporters appear to have tried to kill the first minister by forcing him off the road, and another one has threatened to kill him, and been punished for it. A Yes shop was firebombed, a Yes pensioner was pushed to the ground and his arm broken, a yes pregnant woman was kicked in the stomach.. and a 12 year old was glassed.
Two rights don't make a wrong, but it's fair to say that with grassroots campaigns, you can't control everyone adn there has been a lot of provocation. However, I wouldn't support any violence ever.
That's why I've pleaded with people to stay away from the OO march this weekend.
They are there for trouble. It's their business, and the press will spin anything into the fault of Alex Salmond. They so hate him.
tris
ReplyDeleteSeems to me an awful lot of people who do not normally vote are registered for the Referendum . And given most of those with money ( like the snp msps etc )
are already on the register.It appears to me a large part of the uptake are coming from the poorer sections of Scottish society.
which could lead to the outcome of those on social security voting for more social security.............a yes vote for sure...............
Niko. I think that probably Labour and Conservative MSPs and MPs are on the electoral register too. Not just SNP ones.
DeleteIt is a good thing that people in the proper part s of society are taking an interest. For too long the attitude of the very poorest has been... why should I vote. Doesn't matter who gets in, they are all the same.
And I can understand why that is.
Once upon a time you would have said, that was rubbish.
But Blair bought into the Thatcher legacy and as Jimmy Reid said, he didn't leave Labour, it left him.
Folk at the bottom don;t think they have a party that represents them.
But however they vote, surely they will be voting for what their interests are. i mean Tories vote for foxhunting and low benefits, high profits, high rents and good hunting, fishing and shooting.
Why shouldn't the poorer vote against the horrendous treatments at the hands of IDS or the Labour equivalent. Let's be honest the UK government either party has laid waste to the welfare state.
Pensioners will vote for better pensions; those on long term sick will vote for a better deal so that they won't be hauled before some junior nurse to be humiliated every year.
It's fair. it's their country too. Doesn't just belong to the Salmonds and Goldies, Lamonts and Lord mcConnell of this world.
But Scotland isn't just going to be about more benefits. That's what the Tories say about Labour.
Do you think that because people are poor they should be encouraged not to vote, lest they voter themselves a bigger share of the cake?
The Labour view there from Niko as regards the poorest. Maybe Labour could organise work camps for those on benefits?
DeleteThey will have to do something. They are going to stop benefits to under 22s. So presumably they will starve to death.
DeleteBit daft because on the balance of probability these people are unlikely to vote Tory!
So Nico,
DeleteYou've converted to neoliberalism,vote no and everyone has a job? Hmmmmm
Well maybe that's why we are better together. Suddenly, after all this time, they are actually going to create some jobs that pay above the benefit rate...ie the lowest amount you can live on without dying of cold or hunger.
DeleteGoodness that Munguin is becoming a right Jacobin in his old age! Have word Tris :P
ReplyDeleteI would, mate, but you need an appointment form his private secretary to see him these days.
DeleteOh and he says, he'll have less of the OLD AGE if you don't mind. He's only 5 and don't you wish you'd been a media mogul at 5!
Plus he points out he has very good contacts in Beijing!
Be warned.
:)