Vocal Voices

I moved this where it belongs.

I think we have finally seen the impact of a debate which was larger and more open than the person to person debates which had gone before. Even the BBC want to report the outcome of the latest YouGov poll which shows the Yes campaign ahead without undecided voters. For the first time.

In fact, on the yougov site itself the report shows that there are still 8% undecided. Of the voters polled, it was 47% Yes, 45% No with 8% undecided. given the rate of undecideds moving to Yes, the Yes vote could be quite high in the end.

I believe the televised debate last week with multiple members of each side of the debate was a deciding factor in getting people off the fence and making their minds up.

I have said this before but I'm going to say it again anyway. Almost all undecided voters are going Yes. The No campaign has not convinced them to either vote no or stay on the fence. Unless something drastic happens in government circles in the next 7 or 8 days, I expect this trend to continue.

Also I expect that all voters who say they are going to vote Yes will actually go to the polls. Whereas many who say they will vote No may not. I'm also pretty sure that if my Son was polled he would say he's a No vote Even though he is firmly in the Yes camp.

I must admit, I wonder if the "Better Together" campaign will be much like the outcome of the EU elections for the Lib Dems. "We worked hard but they did not understand the message". Oh they understand the message all right. They just don't agree with you. They have already stated that their best hope is to "Stay on message". The parallels are uncanny....

I wonder if my thoughts on the matter, which as a member of the UKIP I've managed to get pushed to the party chairman internally, will have any impact on positions in the next week? There is a political opportunity going here, which needs strategy. Not petulance. Do we have any strategists left I wonder?

It seems to be on a knife edge now and I think that the Scots will vote for independence. The campaign seems to have taken an 'anti-English' turn, rather than what is the best option for Scotland. If the Scots really are anti-English, perhaps it is better all round if they do go. I feel sad about it, but that's life.

In a mail I wrote recently to some of the politicians, I stated that the relationship has become abusive on both sides. Arbitration is not working and it may be that it is a time for divorce. Whilst the press will always push the egg throwers and the "Oy you Englis B'stard" heckler, the reality is somewhat different.

Nobody recognises the attitude of "let them leave and hell mend them" as an abusive attitude. If the English truly cared about the Scots and their position in the UK, they would not be saying anything like that, they would be saying "what are your concerns, how can we help".

As I see it the biggest impact of the televised debates has been the awareness factor for people who won't read the press and have their noses in TV or games. It allows many of them to "hear" what is being said about Scotland's place in the UK economy and some (or perhaps many of them), will then follow up to see if it is true.

The information is all there. All they need to do is go and find it.

Then it's a totally different ballgame. Because when the Scots learn that they are actually supporting the UK economy, not taking anything from it. When they learn that 90% of their North Sea Oil revenues have been taken by the rest of the UK and squandered, when they learn that Scotland will be significantly better off, economically, than in the UK.

Then.

They remember the English going on about whinging Scots who don't pay their way.

Then.

They get annoyed.

Then

They don't care whether it's going to be hard or not in the short term. All they want to do is get rid of those Sassenach's out of our government so we can do it for ourselves.

I feel sad about it, too.

I was born into a country that had the largest empire the world has ever known. A country
to be proud of. That has gone, and now, no doubt, the UK will start to disintegrate. After
Scotland it will be Wales, then perhaps Cornwall, Yorkshire, and any other areas where folk
get the urge to 'go-it-alone'. There's none so queer as folk.

The saying, "United we stand, divided we fall" springs to mind.

And why do Scotland say North Sea oil is theirs? Isn't it outside territorial waters?

The UK general election is in 2015. If the Scots vote for independence in 2014, how is this all going to work?

Say Labour win the next general election. I'm guessing Scottish independence won't have the i's dotted and the t's crossed by then.
So Labour have won - but if you deduct the number of Labour Scottish MP's from the total number and it's less than the Tories have, then what happens? The Tories could turn round and say "Whoa, hold on a minute, as far as we're concerned WE have a majority in England, Wales and NI, so we're not having a Labour government formed with the help of Scottish MP's who won't be here in a couple of years".

Interesting times ahead!

Today I see an article in the Daily Record talking about the different viewpoints put to women, by women on the independence issue.

The first is traditional Labour. Cherry pick the stats, don't compare like with like and go on about "great strides" made by Labour. Then it goes on about how, if the Scots stick together, they can stick it to the Tories in the next election and things will be "so much better" under Labour.

The Scots have a word for this. Shoogly. Half truths made to fit a picture which is all about fear and possible chances in a future dominated by England but maybe, just maybe the Scots can make a difference.

The second is a former Labour advisor. She talks about opportunities there to be grabbed. About previous failures driven by England and impacting Scotland. She talks about people making this decision for themselves and not for any political party.

For a moment, forget the research, forget the private polling, forget the lengthy political treatises about what wins elections and what doesn’t. Just think of your own life. Do you want to surround yourself by the folk who tell you that “you cannae dae that” and “it’ll never work”? If women had listened to these folks in years gone by, we’d never have won a smidgen of equality and we’d certainly never have won the right to vote.

But we didn’t because, simply, we can’t afford to. So the unsurprising news is that scare stories – great, small and at times downright ridiculous – are pretty poor substitutes for genuine, engaging, down-to-earth conversations.

Then there is the "Stay and get Labour to Fix It all".

There is an argument that we should “stay and fight”. Wait for 2015. Work hard for a Labour victory and all will be well. Except it won’t. Not with public commitments from the UK Labour shadow cabinet that they will, in government, continue the economic model that has brought so much misery to so many.

That last part is particularly stinging for a No campaign led by Labour. No Scot has forgotten that one of their own, a Labour leader, created an economic environment so unstable as to almost default the UK economy. These arguments about labour "Fixing It" are not going to work with many Scots as they know Labour F'd it big style in their last 13 year run. Scots may not like the medicine, especially as they can afford more for themselves when independent, but they certainly don't want the architects of the disaster back.

And she continues, just to hammer the point home

Not while they insist they will maintain, and indeed increase, the cuts in welfare support taking the feet from under thousands of families across Scotland and pushing more children – now one in four – into poverty.

When talking about grass roots women's movements on independence and the change they have wrought, she says

A quick look at what folk have come up with so far shows a remarkable degree of agreement. But, more than that, it shows that when the question is asked, no one needs to go away and ponder for weeks before they answer. People in Scotland know the kind of country they want for themselves and their families.

The she continues.

They just need to be asked. Then, through grassroots activity, they gain the confidence to put their answers into practice. And the first step in that is a vote for independence.

She finishes with one of the strongest messages that, to me, came out from the televised debate last week.

Independence isn’t about having more of the same but with tartan round it. It offers all of us the chance to create a country built on values of fairness, social justice and equality.

Is it any wonder that Women (and we know that the undecided are predominantly women), are coming off the fence and down on the side of Independence?

Saying that the bulk of the Scots have become Anti-English is extremely unfair. The bulk of the Scots have been given a chance to become Pro-Scots. If the tables were turned I have no doubt that the English would do exactly the same but with less angst and in larger numbers. Something everyone might want to stop and think about. Because whilst Independence will mean a large jump in finances for Scotland, that same vote for England would bring the opposite, almost disastrously so. Yet the English would jump into that fire without a second thought.

Food for thought.

Bring on UKIP!

cromwell wrote:The UK general election is in 2015. If the Scots vote for independence in 2014, how is this all going to work?

There is no question in my mind. The existing Scots MP's would remain until the final separation. They would be barred from any business except where it includes Scotland and would not count towards the formation of a UK government.

That is the ONLY way that this could possibly work and any MP voting for anything else in this parliament would lose his English seat in a second.

I'm more interested in what would happen to all those Scots who currently inhabit English seats.... By the way they're largely Labour.

There are lots of things to be sorted out but one thing is clear. The SNP have stated the referendum is binding on the Scottish "Government". The second they enter an intent to secede, they are no longer part of the UK for government outside of Scotland.

medsec222 wrote:Bring on UKIP!

As I told the UKIP recently. Even with the secession of Scotland, the UKIP could easily cost the Tories the election and could bring back the worst of all worlds (for me), a Lab-Lib pact.

In the last election the UKIP cost the Tories more than 30 seats by splitting the vote. That will get worse. A lot worse, in the next election. Perhaps up to 60 seats. With the UKIP only winning one or two of them.

This is not a scenario I would like to see.

And the debate broadens

The campaign to keep the UK together must overhaul its campaign in the final days to offer a more “proudly Scottish” choice – and Wales should be offered any powers made available to Scotland too, the First Minister has claimed.

Did the "better together" campaign really think that Scotland could get all those "goodies" (as seen by everyone else), without the other parts of the UK getting the same? Even when Scotland has already paid for these goodies and not received the benefit of the payment.

I love this stuff....