According to the Sun yesterday (page 2), David Cameron is planning to take on a much more active part in the No campaign. Having initially said that he would fight with every fibre of his being to keep Scotland's money in the union... no sorry, he actually said keep Scotland in the union, but we all know what he meant, he has been advised to keep a low profile, and let Labour do the spade work while the Tories pay for it.
Well, it seems that that isn't working too well.
Alistair Darling has been spectacularly unspectacular. He was always a strange choice, given his close resemblance to a London Tory, and his ability to make even something exciting sound dismally dull. Also, given his deep hatred for another of their "big hitters", Gordon Brown, and his dismal record as chancellor, his reputation for "flipping" and his propensity to travel around charging vast amounts for public speaking, he might have been better hiding in a cupboard.
Michael Moore was soundly beaten by Nicola Sturgeon in debate and was then replaced by the Beast, Alistair Carmichael, a reputed King Kong who was going to marmalise the DFM. Well, we all know how that turned out and little has been seen of him since.
Gordon Brown was hauled out to head an organisation that didn't exist, then transferred to BT to give us a lecture on pensions in Scotland (which coincided, unfortunately for him, in the release of dire predictions for UK pension). When everyone stopped laughing at their ineptitude ... Gordon was the man who wrecked UK pension funds... he was forgotten.
Then they were going to get out the big guns from the Lords... and Robertson made an amazing speech prophesying the end of the world order if wee Scotland got independence. When everyone stopped laughing at that he was shuffled back to the institution that is the House of Lords. The other big nobles have yet to be heard... McConnell, Reid, Liddle and ffoulkes.
Then they thought to get a Labour bruiser out... One Mr Roy, whose arrival to reinvigorate the No campaign was supposedly getting an ordinary person, not an Edinburgh lawyer type, or a belted Earl type, to speak to ordinary people... blether even.
Unfortunately on the same day 'No Blair' made an unfortunate remark about bigotry against gay people in the yes campaign (Brian Soutar, a known homophone, and multi millionaire Scottish businessman donated a large sum of money to YES)... which served to highlight the fact that the aforementioned Mr Roy (the no campaign saviour) had voted, in England, against the Labour party whip, against the introduction of equal marriage rights in that country.... a country where he had no constituency, on a matter which had no financial implications for Scotland.
So... having exhausted everyone else, they have to get the big cheese out.
We can therefore look forward to Mr Cameron popping up to Scotland on a regular basis to tell us that we are better together in...as he put it, "the sceptred isle, this England..."
Good luck with that, Dave.
Bring it on Dave. I imagine that he'll be a boon to the Yes campaign.
ReplyDeleteHe's Yes's secret weapon. And surely he's going to find it difficult to engage to a great extent without coming into contact with the other signatory to the Edinburgh agreement.!
DeleteAs a secret weapon, I think he'll as much use as an old dish cloot, used as a gasmask. JimnArlene
DeleteWell he has no choice now does he Tris, I mean he has, apparently, said he is ready to *ahem* debate with our Nige. So this has got me thinking, as it does from time to time as you well know.
ReplyDeleteAs the ubber unionists love trying to smear the S.N.P. by calling them the same as UKIP perhaps the First Minister should have a wee talk in the shell like of our Nige and do a deal. Perhaps our Nige would be prepared to allow the First Minister to swap places and go onto the debating stage with Cameron in his place. Can you imagine the look on Cameron's face if that was to happen? LOL
Cameron would be like the proverbial rabbit stuck in front of the car headlights. He'd be stuttering for ages and what's more he would not be able to move. We all know that the one thing he'd want to do is to leave the stage but if he did then that would just prove him to be the coward we all know him to be.He would have to stand there and take everything the First Minister threw at him with nothing to reply with. It would be gruesome but hilarious at the same time. :-)
Yep, I Know you get to thinking sometimes Arbroath!!!! :)
DeleteBut I hadn't heard that DC was considering a debate with Farage, although I think he should.
What ever you think of Farage and his band of nut cases (my favourite is some one telling Lenny Henry to go back to a black country when he was born in Dudley, the very centre of England's Black Country so called long before there were any immigrants!)
Anyway, whatever you think of him, he's a good performer. His main trouble is his party. In a one to one debate with Clegg he wiped the floor with him, and I've always thought that Clegg was cleverer than Cameron. The match will be hilarious and will almost certainly end up with a bigger vote for Ukip..
But, to be honest, without any subterfuge, Cameron should debate with Salmond. Whichever way you look at it, he is the head man in the UK, and Alex is the head man in Scotland.
Like them or loathe them, they are the people who will be negotiating the future of Scotland one way or the other after the referendum.
It has nothing at all to do with Darling (a part time back bench opposition MP), although I'd love to see him head to head with Alex.
Someone who says that he will defend the union with every fibre of his being and refuses to debate with the First Minister of the country in contention, is a fraud.
I also had a wee laugh at William Henwood's remarks about Lenny Henry but the punchline was still to come.
DeleteHenwood himself comes from Africa.
http://tinyurl.com/qgw69qf
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
DeleteYou couldn't make that up....
The unionists have been shooting the messenger when it is their message that should be shot.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely, playing the man instead of the message. That's because it is easy to lampoon a person...and we all do it, me included.
DeleteIt is much more difficult to argue the case...and when they have tried they have had to use lies...
You won't get into Europe;
You won't get into Nato;
You'll have to use the Euro;
You can't use the pound;
There's only two years of oil left;
The pensions would collapse;
You'd have to pay a lot more to be in Europe;
But you won't get in anyway;
We'll annex the land that the WMDs are on;
There'll be barbed wire border crossings and watchtowers;
You'll need a passport to see your granny;
Your kids will be "foreigners " ugh... and you'll want to disown them because foreigner are all bad, innit;
We won't sell your whisky;
Your phone charges will soar to phone your auntie in Bradford;
Your electricity prices will soar;
You will be undefended from monsters from Mars;
The world will do into meltdown;
No one will join your army;
You'll lose 6,000 jobs at Faslane;
We won't get our war ships from you... or any other ships;
and on and on and on...
All of which are untrue, and everyone with any intelligence knows are untrue.... not to mention insulting.
But it's hard to be positive when all you have is:
"the greatest union of countries in the history of the known world";
Fought side by side against the Germans in world war I and II.
Fought Napoleon;
Clout in Europe;
Clout in the UN;
Clout in Nato;
Countries either admire or fear us;
Clout in everlasting amounts;
More clout;
Weapons of Mass Destruction;
Embassies in the most outlandish places;
Even more clout.
Not an easy sell to people who don't really care about "clout".
I thought that the story this morning was going to be Dave & Nige, about how a Prime Minister was prepared to debate with a man who has no MP's at Westminster but will not debate with a man who is his equivalent in Scotland, has MP's, MSP's and MEP's . How insulting is that to the people who elected Mr Salmond. Then along came the Sunday Herald.
ReplyDeleteIt is, I suppose, very insulting.
DeleteAt the same time, it shows that he is terrified of Salmond and he knows his arguments are weak and that he wouldn't get them across.
After all, he isn't a particularly clever person. He got where he got because of who he is and whom he knows (and a very important letter from someone at Buckingham Palace). He doesn't have an in-depth knowledge of anything much, (although he can take in briefings, and isn't a particularly bad performer at the dispatch box).
But he does get easily riled, and he almost seems to have a red mist moment, from time to time. They call it his "Flashman" moments.
On the other hand, since Alex Salmond was a lad at uni, he has been passionate about Scotland as a country. He had no connections at Buck House. He got where he got because he is good... and whether you like him or not, you can't argue that.
It is what he is, what he does. It runs in his veins.
He wouldn't have to be briefed on the subject.
He is an economist so he could pretty sharpish dissect anything that Cameron said, in detail, and leave Cameron foundering, because he has already shown that he doesn't understand economics (when he confused deficit and debt).
Alex is unflappable, in public at least. No matter how much the pressure Eck stays calm, stays polite and explains his point (countless interviews with people who are clearly against him...Wark, Paxman, Naughtie).
But as you say. The Herald is a game changer. They may force this debate.
"Whatever we say about the MASSIVE readership of Wings, Mr Bateman, Newsnet, Scot Goes Pop, Bella, and other prominent sites... we must accept that largely these are read by politically interested and motivated people on both sides of the debate.
The main stream press may be dying on its feet, but they are still out there with their headlines, and even if people don't buy they they see the front pages on the news stands.
You also have to ask yourself...why?
Newspapers have views...usually of their proprietor.
The sillier papers just reprint whatever the proprietor says...hence the number of times that Private Eye can point out that Rupert has tweeted something, only for it to appear as a story the next day in the Sun..
...Or that Desmond has announced something and it is all over the Star and the Express the next day.
Broadsheets are, I think, a little more careful.
But they always have a very large eye on public opinion (unless they are DC Thomson).
There is not a lot of sales in saying things people don't want to hear.
So I suspect that the Herald has taken the view that the feelings of the country are now on a pro independence trajectory and that flogging the dead horse of unionism is the way to sell fewer and fewer copies and to be able to charge less and less for advertising.
I'll be buying the Herald today, and on future Sundays.
Maybe a sizeable boost in sales for the paper will make other failing titles think again.
We were trying to remember when we last bought a newspaper and last bought a Sunday Newspaper, Husband used to walk down at lunch time before I retired so I reckon it was around 2007 for the newspaper but longer since we bought a Sunday. So I bought the Herald today, it is a souvenir. Will wait and see how it goes before it becomes a regular item.
DeleteThe Herald's my paper of choice anyway; it's far less parochial than the Scotsman and far more... socially aware, if you like? Somewhat hard to describe what I mean. I'm pleased that they have finally nailed their colours to the mast.
ReplyDeleteDerek
They have been more balanced in their reporting thus far and I have bought it on occasions.
DeleteYes, it is a move forward. I wonder who will follow.
i think everybody planning to vote yes should buy the Sunday Herald. If other papers see the rise in circulation maybe just maybe they would be prepared to subject the BT press briefings to the same level of scrutiny of Yes Scotland's.
ReplyDeleteAgreed
DeleteI've got my herald!
ReplyDeleteIt is clear the naw campaign is floundering amid a sea of Tory cash, Labour frontmen and LibDem moaning...
Good lad...
DeleteI think this will be a blow to them, no doubt.
It is the first domino.
Just come up and debate with AS, ya big girl's blouse.
ReplyDeletehe he
DeleteApparently the Better Together camp, have decided to lets says seem more positive rather than negative, or at least that's what they're mumbling. My point is, is it even possible for the leader of the BT camp Alistair Darling to appear positive, he may be the master of doom and gloom with his deadpan face, and Dennis Healy eyebrows.
ReplyDeleteBut can Mr Darling, act positive, or even portray a smile, without it looking like the onset of armageddon, I think not, ergo the BT camp will have to replace, Mr Darling, with someone who actually smiles, and seems more of a positive person, but whom, will it be?.
Thankfully though no one will in all honesty take the BT camp seriously, due to the doomsday scenario's they've staked their reputations on like currency and pensions, being none existant in an independent Scotland. How many more times will BT and Westminster cry wolf, before they realise, no one is taking notice.
The thing is that there are people who believe them.
Deletepeople reading the Sun and the record, and no farther, actually believe that there will be no pensions, and perhaps not that we will invaded by outer space but that we will have problems with defence... or that we will be left with no money at all, or have to join the Euro, and that that would be a disaster...
There are people who don't read blogs, and who have no idea that great holes have been blown in the arguments.
Most of them probably don't read the herald, I accept.
So it would be good if other papers decided to go the same route.
It's unlikely that they will, but more sales is more sales, and most of them are morality free zones.
I remember when the Sun was telling people to vote Labour in England and SNP here...
Well the two women who were behind the counter in Dunfermline Asda were all for No, we are obviously still too wee and too poor in their eyes to be independent. They did not seem to be looking to be convinced otherwise. So I left them to their business. Seems a bit odd that they had been asking people if they were a YES or a NO but even though I was the fourth YES they still held to that view.
DeleteSome people are not for convincing...
DeleteMove on and leave them behind, I say.
Tris
ReplyDeleteIf true it's like Christmas has come early. What is not annoying about David Cameron, he either has an unbelievably big ego or they really are in a panic. With the Herald coming out today , and the sun possibly likely to follow suit I think bT might be thinking it's squeaky bum time.
With 5 months to go the strategy definitely is working, I just see how bt can stop the slide although I suspect they will say if we vote yes we walk away with nothing, and the might just be the thing that wins it for yes
Bruce