Thursday, June 23, 2016

Good evening Edinburgh, this is Budapest calling. Here is how the Hungarian jury would have voted tonight.

As we approach the end of polling, it's interesting to note that Stephen Bush of the New Statesman is still saying that he thinks we might be looking at a Leave vote. That should be taken seriously, because he was one of the first to confidently predict that Jeremy Corbyn would win the Labour leadership, and he was also closer to the truth than most about the general election. However, his assessment about tonight is based on an assumption of relatively low turnout. The mood music on social media actually suggests a very high turnout, although there's weirdly contradictory information out there if you look hard enough - different people in London saying turnout is either abysmally low or heading for a record-breaking high.

Turnout in London is particularly important, as is turnout in Scotland and Northern Ireland, because those are likely to be Remain's three best areas (unless you count Gibraltar). Between them they make up about one-quarter of the UK's population.

Anyway, as we wait for that mystery to be solved, I thought I'd treat you (and this won't take long) to an abortive interview I did a couple of weeks ago with my Hungarian friend Anita, who has lived in Scotland for most of the last seven years. As you might expect, she's not best pleased about the fact that she has no influence over a decision that will arguably affect her more than the British and Commonwealth citizens who do have a vote. I was going to ask her fourteen questions and really give her a chance to sound off, but unfortunately circumstances intervened and it came to an abrupt end just after I asked Question 2.

Me : You were about fourteen years old when Hungary joined the European Union in 2004. Do you have any memories of that period?

Anita : Yeah, I have loads of them. The first thing we all thought was that we would have the euro, you know, join the eurozone. That didn't happen! But I knew that there were all these new possibilities, that we could move, that we could travel, and you wouldn't need a passport. You could just go anywhere and see the world. I'd never been abroad before, so it was something that I really wanted to do. And everyone wanted to do that.

Me : Did you notice anything different about Hungary after it joined the EU?

Anita : Prices went up, I noticed that. People started to leave...

And...well, yeah, that was it. Not quite Frost/Nixon, but clearly I have to walk before I can run.

16 comments:

  1. Scotland's chief returning officer Mary Pitkeithley just interviewed on BBC estimates turnout at 70-80% #EUref

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    1. Are you sure that was a live interview? I thought she said that quite early this morning?

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    2. From the info I received from local campaigners the turnout is better than Holyrood and nearer to Westminster turnout levels. Far better turnout than we expected and in the areas where we have a lot of support. No great enthusiasm though and voter glad it is over.

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  2. It'll be weird if Scotland ends up having the highest turnout in what has been presented as a primarily English referendum.

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  3. Glasgow Working Class 2June 23, 2016 at 8:08 PM

    Me! As well as Anita should realise that Hungary is not any different from the others in the EU who are off loading their youth to big brothers Germany, France and the UK. Scotland will join Hungary if we go for Independence. Our youngsters will leave in droves.

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    2. Now I know why you hide behind your nat si drivel GWC2.

      As soon as you try and make any kind of actual political or historic argument you completely expose yourself as even a worse imbecile than your on line persona would have us think.

      Scotland's youth, under the union, has always been it's greatest export. We are the only country in Western Europe to have had practically zero population growth in the last hundred years (go on compare it with England or any other European Country). Scotland made up 25% of the UK population in 1707, now it's close to 8! Half Scotland's population at the time of the act of Union lived north of Dundee, what is it now?

      Yet here we are, one of the best educated populations in the world with the highest ratio of top universities per capita. But who is benefiting from that educated workforce and those world class educational institutions? It's certainly not Scotland and it's tax payers is it!

      We have been farmed by this union from the very beginning, first for soldiers, for sheep, for resources and now for our educated population.

      That's been our fate through lack of Independence! It's been possible through our lack of control over what kind of economy we build to create the work place opportunities that highly a educated citizenship require.

      The higher your educational attainment in Scotland, the more likely you are to leave the country. This paradox is not some accident, its government policy! Just another extension of the 'Glasgow/Scotland effect' UK governmental policies which leave the 'left behind' remainder of our population socially and economically susceptible to poverty, disease and early death!

      This is your glorious 'family of nations' GWC2. Most abuse statistically does take place under cover of 'the family' though, so perhaps that phrase is more apt than we would like to admit.

      End London Rule. Build a Scottish Democracy.

      braco

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    3. Glasgow Working Class 2June 23, 2016 at 8:58 PM

      I thought the off load from Europe to the US formed the USA after robbing it from the natives! But who am I to give a history lesson.

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    4. Edith Snellgrove-WhitmanJune 23, 2016 at 9:02 PM

      He cannot give a history lesson as he hasn't a clue about anything.

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    5. Glasgow Working Class 2June 23, 2016 at 9:17 PM

      Anon, there may be an elite of Scottish educated but that is not from the lower classes and never will be and moreso under Nat si ism. The Scottish population only increased because of the industrial revolution mainly in places like Glasgow and Dundee. Most were immigrants from Ireland and England. My maternal grannie was English and paternal grandfather Irish. They came to Glasgow to work and did. And they had very large families. You do not hear about a wummin having 14 weans nowadays. I doubt they had much time to think about petty Scottish nationalism. A Nutter like you Anon would have stopped them at Gretna.

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    6. Couldn't have put it better myself Braco. When a country cannot export its goods it exports its people. Never judge people by their words but always by their actions. People vote with their feet. The most convincing argument of them all for Scottish autonomy can be summed up in one word EMIGRATION. The few children that are born here leave at the earliest opportunity and only a small number return and then only in their twilight years when the productive, tax paying period of their lives is over. We attract only retired people. Scotland's fate, it seems, is to be forever in a state of managed decline. Other countries complain of burgeoning populations, of schools groaning under the strain of trying to cope with an explosion in the numbers of children. Meanwhile back in Scotia, huge tracts of land lie empty, no one wants to come here and the few young people that do are cruelly denied the permission they need from Westminster's Home Office.

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  4. Who cares what GWC2 thinks anyway? He is clearly some kind of weirdo, deviant, knicker fetishist, with a fixation for Nazis.

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    1. Glasgow Working Class 2June 23, 2016 at 9:27 PM

      Not being an LGBT I do prefer women without knickers.

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    2. Nah, Dummy..........you just prefer women's knickers.

      To wear.

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  5. Deleted my comment as spell Check changed half the words. As far as stealing the land, I am sure we did. !! Not supporting that!

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  6. Glasgow Working Class 2June 23, 2016 at 9:31 PM

    Edith smelly is back.

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