LABOUR MSP LIST LEAKED

Hilarious. 

For the full list of fresh new talent, which looks uncannily like the full list of stale second rate numpties, see Stuart's hilarious piece on the leaked list.

CONTRASTING THE CAMPAIGNS... AND FUNDRAISING FOR A YES BLOG

I really thought that this was an inspiring video.  Such a diverse group of people, all with one purpose. It really cheered me.

**********

Over at one of my favourite blogs, Scot Goes Pop, James Kelly is looking to raise some money to help him continue to provide an invaluable service of dissecting the results of opinion polls... It's something for which I am incredibly grateful, as polling, and statistics, weighting,  and all that mathematical stuff is well beyond my limited intellectual powers. Of course SGP also posts on other matters, including some hilarious put downs of pomposity...as well as predicting the outcome of the Eurovision Song Contest (or not, as the case may be!). 

James has always been extremely supportive of Munguin's Republic and I'm delighted to see that the fund raising (for a modest £2,500) is going well. When we looked this morning it was standing at around £430, it is now at an impressive £1,687!

I know times are hard, but if anyone has a few groats to spare, there are worse ways of spending them...
**********
I was pleased to see that the Sunday Herald's declaration for 'yes' did them no harm at all in the sales stakes. Today's copy reports that last Sunday they sold 35,500 copies, up around 50% if my memory serves me well. They had 75,000 website hits, 2000+ retweets, and 4,600 members on a Facebook page...

I wonder what the Scotland on Sunday sales are looking like...
**********

AND SO IT BEGINS...

Mr Cameron's announcement to the press that he was going to take the fight on the independence referendum to the Nats and set standards and rules so that any referendum would be "fair legal and decisive", instead, presumably of "unfair, illegal and indecisive", were it left to the Scottish parliament to decide have kicked off, rather earlier than we might have expected, the campaign for Scottish Independence.


The Scotland Office has launched a consultative document and solicited responses from those who are interested. James Kelly at Scot Goes Pop drew this to my attention this morning in this post.


He points out that the consultation is a waste of time (well he actually calls it a "farce"). I largely agree. We all know what they think: they don't want Scotland to leave the UK. But over the few days since Cameron's rather sudden first mention of the UK government's intervention, made in the wake of his deputy apparent assertion that those who wanted either independence or the status quo were extremists, there have been a number of changes in tone. 


And as James points out, there is obvious difficulty from a PR point of view, in holding a consultation and then ignoring the results of it. 


Who knows if, or how, the UK government will persuade its supporters to complete the consultation giving the Westminster side, but it is certainly important that those of us who feel differently from the way Cameron would wish us to, do our best to balance the exercise by putting our point of view.


In his post James has generously offered first drafts of his responses to the consultation's questions. (They may be "first drafts" to him; they seemed like carefully honed responses to me.) And he has invited comments from readers.


I think that those of us who want independence for Scotland should take the time to take part in this exercise and the one that the Scottish government will launch. I hope that those of you who have blogs will consider linking to the Scotland Office site.


James has definitely come up with good stuff (far better than I'd have done) and my responses will certainly be influenced by his.


****

For those who are interested and who missed the broadcast. Mr Salmond was interviewed by James Naughtie  for the Today Programme this morning (Thursday, January 12) at approximately 7.50.


In the interview, which, as ever, he handled in the Alex Salmond way, courteously and intelligently, putting his point of view and never being flustered by Naughtie, he pointed out again that the SNP were campaigning for independence, but that he realised (as do we all) that there is a strong level of support for 'devo max' among the Scottish people. 


He said that the referendum would contain a yes or no option on independence, as has always been promised and as is demanded by Westminster, but did not rule out the possibility that it might contain another question relating to 'devo-max', if that was shown, by the Scottish Government's consultation, and in parliament, to have strong support.


****
I'd also like to draw you attention to an article at Lalland's Peat Worrier, and most particularly to a response from Peter Thomson, part of which reads:

".....In international law (which trumps Westminster) the sovereign people of Scotland have the legal right guaranteed by UN Charters, Helsinki Accords and the Treaty of Vienna to hold a referendum on the issue of independence. 

Further the UN legislation states the power from which the other is seceding can have no role in the organisation of or campaigning in the said referendum....."


I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on the legal legitimacy of this point of view? I can imagine condition's like these being put in place to protect citizens in a union where dirty tricks could reasonably be expected to be the order of the day. But if they do exist, they must surely be equally binding on a liberal democracy such as the UK...

LIBERTY? WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?

I’ve always been intrigued by the way that some Libertarians define their so called "liberty", and how the absolute imperative of them being allowed to do what they want is balanced against the fact that it denies that same liberty to other people.

If I were as eloquent as James Kelly, I would have written this article. Instead I suggest you might like to read it in its original form at Scot Goes Pop. It’s exactly what I would have said, if I’d had the wherewithal!!

There is an interesting tailpiece on the Welsh Referendum too, intelligently and amusingly written.