YESTINY

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.

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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...
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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...
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SNAPS ON SUNDAY

...VERY NEARLY

Gordon Foot-in-Mouth Brown

Want to explain either of these illustrations, Nigel?

There's a change afoot.

Well, I think I should start paying for the Sunday Herald
and stop paying for the BBC

So, who's for good and who's just plain evil?

Starting at the top and working all the way down

RICH ENGLISH TORIES SHORING UP BITTER TOGETHER...SO DO YOU HONESTLY THINK THEY GIVE A STUFF ABOUT YOU?

It’s difficult to know just what the actual figures for the No Campaign’s income are. 

Scotland on Sunday says that they have been given £1.6 million, while The Sunday Herald headlines says £1.3 million.

I wouldn’t know whether that is down to the fact that BT can’t count, or that the standard of Scottish journalism is dismally low.

I think it may be the former, as I read that Mr McDougall is said to be humbled by the amount of money that his supporters (almost invariably English Tories) have stumped up. But he goes on to point out that it is a great deal less than the “almost limitless” amounts that Alex Salmond can spend.

Now, I’m not aware of Alex Salmond having any say over the amount of spending that the YES campaign can make available to fight their side of the argument. No more, I would have thought than Ms Lamont can dictate how much the No campaign can spend.  Neither is strictly involved in the admin of these things, as Blair probably knows, even if he doesn’t understand it.

But Bair goes on to quantify this amount that Alex is spending as being “hundreds of thousands”.  Call me old fashioned but when I was at school, hundreds of thousands was probably a lot less than £1.6 million, or even £1.3 million. 

He states that this money (which Alex does, in fact, have control over) is taxpayers money which Alex has spent to answer the questions that the unionists and indeed the Electoral commission have demanded the government spend to explain their arguments. This clearly is totally different spending for the millions that the UKOK government has spent, authorised by David Cameron, getting Civil Servants in London to work on a variety of reports (then delivered in Scotland by his cabinet ministers).

I remember one showing that Scotland wouldn’t be able to defend itself against Iran, or North Korea, because no one in their right minds would want to be in a Scottish army, standing guard in a kilt, at Edinburgh castle and being photographed by tourists. They would, he implied, much prefer to be standing outside Buckingham Palace, wearing bright red uniforms and 3 foot hats, being photographed by tourists.

Another suggested that we were too stupid to have any kind of military intelligence units like MI5 or 6, because presumably anyone with brains in the Ukok was English and went to Oxford. When thought about Blair’s dodgy dossiers, I was somewhat relieved about that. I mean Scotland wouldn’t want to go to war illegally spending billions of pounds it didn’t have and killing hundreds of thousands of totally innocent people on the basis of some PhD thesis which was 10 years out of date, and full of holes.

Mr McDougal’s assertions though do prove one thing. How different life is in Scotland from in England. In England it is good to spend tax payers’ money to support a side in a argument; in Scotland that is bad. 

As a by-the-way, I was interested to see that an ex-MI6 person made a contribution to the funds, along with Sir (Goodbye Mr) Chips Keswick. Mr Keswick is:

73-years-old.

His full name is Sir John Chippendale Lindley Keswick.

He was educated at Eton College, the same as Cameron - His family business Jardine Matheson even employed Cameron for three months in an administrative post in 1997.

Sir Chips Keswick is the chief executive of investment bank Hambros, and is also a director at the Bank of England as was his father before him.

His hobbies are described as playing Bridge, and country pursuits - Shooting animals.

He is married to Lady Sarah Ramsay, daughter of the 16^th Earl of Dalhousie.

He has supported "Business for Sterling", and sat on the board of corporate donors to the Conservative Party.

Just your average Scot then, interested in preserving the average way of life in Scotland.

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On a related subject, I believe that SoS also has a story that Yes Scotland hasn’t made its appeal target. Probably designed for a good gloat, it has probably had the effect of encouraging everyone who can, to dig just that little bit deeper.

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Pass me a sick bucket...

Mr  Hammond take note...

His wrinkly old coupon looks like a baby's bum.
 Maybe he uses dirty nappy  instead of Oil of Ugly?

Erm...I'VE NOTHING MUCH TO SAY...

David Cameron and Alex Salmond were both invited to write a piece for the Sunday Herald, explaining their views on independence. A page was left for each leader to fill. Both Downing Street adn Bute House got the same information.

Bute House filled a page with reasons to vote for independence. Downing Street managed 132 words. 

The Herald asked them for more, but Downing Street didn't bother to respond, so the herald printed empty space where the prime minister's argument might have been.

No wonder the man won't openly debate with the First Minister. 132 words doesn't go a long way in a debate.

Even then what he said, although thankfully without any sign of UN, EU, G8 references, was trite meaningless rubbish which wouldn't stand up to any analysis. See for yourself.

David Cameron: In a year from now, people living in Scotland will be making a choice which could radically change their country for ever. Scotland’s future will be in Scotland’s hands. 

Munguin's Republic: Which, with respect, is exactly where it should be. 

DC: I hope passionately that Scotland decides to remain within our United Kingdom. 

MR: Well, you are one man, but as you have pointed out when you have been trying to duck out of a face to face debate with the First Minister,  you are an Englishman and it isn't really anything to do with you. It's a decision for Scots to make. Your opinion is as important as anyone else's in the world, but not any more so. Of course, as the Prime Minister of the UK, you have a vested personal interest in not going down in history as the man who lost Scotland

DC: What we have works, and it works well. 

MR: Does it? For whom does it work? Does it work well for people whose taxes go to pay for things that they may never see, and which don't do them any good? London Olympics, High Speed trains? Does it work for the average Scot paying more tax than people in other parts of the UK, and getting less back? Does it work for the people in certain parts of the central belt who have a lower life span than people living in the Gaza strip. No. It doesn't. It works nicely for you and your elite in Oxfordshire and the other home counties, who are being subsidised by us.

DC: Ours is a unique union of nations. It’s a union of people too. And together we've achieved so much. 

MR: Why is it unique as a union of nations? It was certainly contrived, but I'm sure many others were. It certainly wasn't democratically arrived at, but I am sure that that is hardly unique. There's nothing unique about two countries being in a union, and to a certain extent it is obvious that the peoples of the two nations will in some way be affected by that union. Again I fail to see any uniqueness. Of course, it has been long lived, but time alone doesn't actually bind people in any real sense of the word. And what did we achieve, and was it necessarily because we were together that we achieved i?. You chunter on regularly about us fighting Fascism together, but we did that with nations from all over the world, not least the USSR and USA, neither of which are in a union with us. Indeed the second one was and left!

DC: We are a family of nations within one United Kingdom. Now is not the time to reduce that relationship to one of second cousins, once removed. 

MR: Why? What are we at the moment? Don't tell me we are equal partners? Brothers? If so why is it that over and over again Scotland votes against your policies, but has them imposed. Royal Mail privatisation...Bedroom Tax. Scotland opposes and Westminster imposes. We have a Tory government with one Scottish Tory MP out of 59! The Scandinavian system is one of, call them 'sister' nations or 'cousin' nations, working together. But they aren't ruled by the same government. They don't even have the same systems of government.

DC: The 18th September, 2014 is Scotland’s date with destiny. It will be time for Scotland to decide.

MR: Yep, we know. It's in my diary. Thanks.

DC: The best of Scotland and the best of British, or a leap into the unknown?

MR: And is the future with the UK not unknown? Who would have predicted in 2007 the mess that 2008 would bring. Certainly not you or your party who were enjoying the loads of money culture that abandoning banking regulations allowed!

DC: Scotland’s future is in Scotland’s hands.

MR: Aye, you said. You'd think having only expended a few minutes to write a 100 or so words, that you might have taken the trouble to make sure you didn't repeat yourself.

SNAPS ON SUNDAY

And, just for a laugh...