JUST HOW LOW CAN THEIR ARGUMENTS GO?

What can you say about the so-called debate that was held in the London parliament yesterday?

It's hard to put it into words.

The unionists relied for their all their arguments on a catalogue of lies and slanders.

This seemed to centre around the notion that the Scottish parliament and the Scottish government was being run by a dictator who brooked no argument. Comments about the dictatorship were made with a straight face by people who surely must remember the Thatcher government, when any kind of thought independent of the "kitchen cabinet" was crushed by the handbag; or the Blair government which made its decisions on his sofa, with Alistair Campbell running things, and paged updates on policy to MPs and ministers alike so that no one ever spoke out of line. Worse still, some of them served in the Brown government, where a remark of disagreement was likely to result in severe injury caused by dodging a flying mobile phone, or a coffee table hurled into the wall. I bet Alistair Darling knows a thing or two about how to dodge unidentified flying objects.

The Scottish government was elected, against all odds, as a majority government in a system which was designed not to elect majority governments. It was thus elected with 45% of the popular vote. Of course it is likely to win the arguments in parliament, just as the Tory/Liberal government in England is likely to win their arguments in the London parliament. It's called having a majority. It is the way that people voted. Democracy, if you will. Live with it, people.

The incredible ignorance displayed by the members of parliament, mostly Labour and mostly from Scotland, was jaw dropping. But one Tory member from Epping Forest appeared to think that Scotland was already an independent country... Eleanor Laing said: Scotland should be, is and always has been an independent country. It is a non-question. There is no point going through the rigmarole of a referendum, spending hundreds of millions of pounds, to ask a meaningless question.” Jaw dropping, no?

The thug Davidson pointed out that the referendum would take place in the year commemorating the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn which he said " is celebrated mainly because Scots slew large numbers of English people". (No mention of the Scots who were slain, I note.)

Well, firstly, you ignorant idiot Davidson, it is not celebrated because of that. Indeed it is rarely, in my experience, celebrated at all. But it might be helpful for a rounded and reasonable debate to remember that Scotland and England were separate countries in 1314, and the English were in our country. A bit like the Argentinians being in the British Falklands: they were the invaders and we sent them packing.

He continued that the referendum would come after a year of celebrating all this slaughter of our neighbours... but there seemed to be no recognition that, although it would not be unusual to celebrate or commemorate the END of a war, the British government has ordered a year of commemoration in 2014, of 100th anniversary of the BEGINNING of a war in which millions lost their lives, Englishmen, Scots, French, Russians, Germans... and on and on and on...

Of course a commemoration in 2018, when the war finished, wouldn't give the Brit Nats any chance to wave their union flags before the referendum.

Wings over Scotland has done an analysis of some of the most outrageous things that people like Sarwar, Davidson, Curren, Darling et al, had to say. Almost every single one a lie or contortion of the truth. I urge you to read it. 

I'm not sure if they realise how insulting all this is to Scots, or how many people they have driven from "no voters" to  "don't know", with their childish, sorry excuses for arguments.

Anas Sarwar said, when he was appointed to head the Labour campaign for unionism, that he wanted to raise the level of debate. 

I can tell him now that not only has he failed. He has failed dismally.

******
Wings over Scotland has a poll on what kind of Scotland we would like to see after the referendum. I had fun filling it in...