Saturday 15 November 2014

GEORGE MONBIOT TALKS TO INDEPENDENCE LIVE...


Thanks to Cynical Highlander for pointing us it the direction of this interview.

27 comments:

  1. Factoids

    49 adults out of every 50 in Scotland is not a member of the SNP.

    20 % of snp members said they voted no

    the snp lost the referendum by 10%

    The average membership fee paid to the snp is
    £1 a month less than they would pay for bag of chips

    the sovereign will of the Scottish people as expressed in a
    snp organized and mandated poll is considered totally worthless
    snp democracy at work.

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    1. the snp lost the referendum by 10%

      The Yes movement lost by (55.3 - 44'7)% = 10.6%/2 = 5.3% in other words like a football game where you lost 11goals to 9 because of an abysmally ref/media bias, you'd be looking for a rematch to correct that injustice ASAP.

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    2. I do not think the SNP can take lectures on democracy from the UK parliament or any of their supporters. You really consider the present, or past, UK to be a democracy?

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    3. Factoid: "an item of unreliable information that is repeated so often that it becomes accepted as fact" OED.

      So here are some more points you might like to take into consideration. Call them 'factoids' if you wish.

      Based on an adult population of around 4.8 million and a guessed (because Labour will not disclose their figures), Labour membership of around 13,000, approximately one third of one percent of the population is a member of the population is a member of the Labour Party in our country. This compares with around 2% for the SNP.

      A significant proportion of those who voted Labour at the last Holyrood election in 2011 voted Yes in 2014. According to YouGov’s on the day poll, 27% did so, while Lord Ashcroft’s immediate post- polling day poll put the figure at 31%. Both figures are fairly similar to the average figure of 33% in those polls that were conducted in the last week of the referendum. If this behaviour signals conversion to the nationalist cause then the party is apparently at risk of losing up to one in three of the already diminished band of supporters it had three years ago.

      Meanwhile, the body of support the party enjoyed in the 2010 Westminster election is apparently even more fragile. According to Ashcroft no less than 37% of this group voted Yes on 18 September, while a poll conducted by Opinium shortly before polling day suggested that as many as 47% did so.

      http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2014/10/labour-worried/ By John Curtice.

      The SNP did not lose the referendum. They were on the losing side along with the other left of centre parties, Greens, SSP, Labour for Independence, etc.

      Labour did not win the referendum. They were on the winning side along with other right leaning parties, namely the Tories and the Liberals, Ulster Unionsits, the BNP and UKIP. The only left leaning party on their side was an English Party, Respect.

      Unwaged membership of the SNP can be as cheap as £5 a year. Unwaged people are OAPs, people on long term sickness or unemployment benefits, students, and people under 18.

      Labour offers the same sort of low fees to people in similar situations. They are having a recruitment drive at the moment. I know, I got a phone call from them.

      I seriously doubt if you can call polls organised by Tory aristocrat Ashcroft and analysed by Mr Curtice, SNP polls.

      I'm no great fan of opinion polls. People say things to pollsters that they do not mean. People make promises that they do not keep when the time comes, but the last poll I saw this morning showed the SNP with 57 of the 59 seats in Westminster, and this is only the latest in a series of polls to show the same sort of trend.

      Finally of course there are people who voted SNP for sensible government and yet voted no in the referendum.

      Seriously, would any thinking person vote for Johann Lamont as first minister and Jackie Baillie in charge of the health service? And will it make any difference that Thatcherite Murphy will undoubtedly follow Lamont?

      Until Labour stops sending their A team to Westminster where the big expenses are, and sending a pile of dead wood to Edinburgh, where there is almost no chance of making either your fortune or your name, that situation is likely to remain.

      Oh, ah you appear to have forgotten to mention "!the vow". Maybe you'd like to comment upon that...

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    4. As John points out the UK is one of the least democratic countries in Europe.

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    5. Actually some people who VOTED SNP voted NO, not SNP members. So perhaps this lie is another that the losers should consider Niko.

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    6. After the myriad of dubious reasons from the cybernats why the snp lost
      one should perhaps consider an ancient Chinese proverb..


      The longer the explanation, the bigger the lie.

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    7. Correct Helena. I should have mentioned that.

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    8. Well Niko (I'm assuming it's Niko), it's poribably better than a denial, which is what we see from good old Labour.

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    9. The Labour Party appear to be offering membership of £5 a year to anyone...

      https://secure.scottishlabour.org.uk/page/content/membership/

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    10. Even the rich.

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  2. Anon,

    Tris has explained to you very gently as is his wont where you are mistaken or misled. All I need to add is that under Thatcher and Blair the Uk was as near as dammit to a dictatorship/

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    1. An Elective Dictatorship is its best description with an unelected HoL larger than the politburo in China.

      People in UK think/brainwashed that because they can vote for different coloured rosettes with the same policies then that constitutes democracy at least North Korea is more honest and merged the colours openly.

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    2. The facts are that:

      The UK is headed by a non elected monarch who has real political power and uses it, as does her son and heir. This is undemocratic.

      The UK has a house of parliament which is populated by a variety of different groups none of which is elected in any real sense. There are the appointed peers, ex ministers, large party donors, people who need to be kept quiet, etc... nominated by political parties. There are bishops of one religion (and only one sect of that religion) who are appointed by the Queen on the advise of the Archbishop of that Church and the Prime Minister. There are hereditary aristocrats who are elected from among their own number, by their peers. There are two constant and completely hereditary peers: The Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Colmondeley, both have some role in royal protocols in England. None of this is approaching democracy.

      There is a House of Commons, elected by FPTP in which approximately 66% of the seats never, or very rarely, change hands. In a multi party state an MP can easily be elected with less than 30% of his constituency vote. A party can form a government and frequently does, with around 35% of the popular vote.

      As we can see from various scandals (and one I'm told just about to break) these people, and their friends in the "establishment" most of whom went to the same schools and universities, can maintain discrete silences on even the most grave crimes, by using secret services who nominally report to the Prime Minster.

      The whole place is utterly riven with corruption from top to bottom.

      If you don't hear from me again it will be because MI something or other is holding in their underground cells or I have been rendered to Uzbekistan and am being boiled in oil, or being made to have dinner with Tony Blair, whichever is more repulsive.!!

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    3. http://online.wsj.com/articles/how-the-house-of-lords-mixes-politics-and-business-1415693056

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  3. If you don't hear from me again it will be because MI something or other is holding in their underground cells or I have been rendered to Uzbekistan and am being boiled in oil, or being made to have dinner with Tony Blair, whichever is more repulsive.!!

    Uh That's why you keep citing me in some of your posts to put you further down the list/s. mm some friend you turned out to be! LoL

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    1. It's called pooling and sharing! LOL

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    2. CH, we will be there with you do not worry, Tris, John and myself will have to get Niko (god help us) to get us out and that is not including Abroath1320 and all the rest. Great piece I am glad you found it, you clever person. Interesting, I will be surprised if George Monbiot works again, but then they have to keep one rebel in the ranks to make them look unbiased.

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    3. Niko? Where are you?

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    4. He's busy writing his Bar's tariff dish of the day Pure old fashioned mince garnished with a bitter sauce or his speciality of Tripe on its own.

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  4. George Monbiot raises an interesting point about the Scottish established media.

    How healthy is Scottish devolutionary democracy when we have a media so heavily unrepresentative of the social attitudes and political views of the wider society?

    Not just on the independence issue, but across a whole range of issues.

    I have a lot of time for Mr Monbiot. He's an excellent writer on environmental issues for development too.

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    1. Dean, we have a very unhealthy situation here with several things. We have a political system which is being maintained by the media, we have people in the BBC who make no secret of their political affiliations and actually cannot given their relationship with so many in the Labour Party. They talk about THEIR party when discussing the Labour Party Conference, we are supposed to thin they are disengaged? We have a situation where people in this country want things to change who are being thwarted by those in power elsewhere in Britain who are working for a different agenda. Ed Miliband has no interest in matters Scottish, that could be seen by his hurried entrance and exits from meeting in Scotland during the Referendum and must have been seen by those who have voted Labour all their lives. All this maintained by the media be it broadcasting or the newspapers who lets face it are now the mouthpiece of the Establishment in this country.

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    2. I am reminded of DC Thomson.

      They produced the Courier, the Evening Telegraph, and at one time the People's Journal in Dundee (not to mention the Sunday Post which was at saturation level in the city).

      The editorials and tone of the articles in these papers was heavily Conservative. And yet for many years Dundee staunchly returned labour councillors and Labour MPs, and when Labour went too far, they started voting in SNP.

      Again despite the local papers' unionist stand, Dundee voted for independence.

      Maybe it's something to do with the reading level in Dundee! :)

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    3. Very proud of Dundee and you shine like a beacon over the rest of the East of Scotland, Tris.
      Just come from a meeting in the Branch held in the Glen Pavilion, first shift. The Branch is over whelmed and this I think is reflected throughout Scotland, we have another 1,000 members and today was a way of finding out how to use them. I am more and more impressed with the standard of .membership with the new members, they are full of ambition for Scotland.

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    4. it's all very cheering Helena...

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  5. https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSUsoyfWbi69kXpXISr8BGPzqCKWrxVbTcRSfiWXFI6DleO9zkzEw

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