Many thanks to Scottish Skier for pointing out a fascinating - and somewhat disturbing - detail from the Panelbase poll. The Sunday Times asked a series of questions that was clearly designed to justify a story about "anti-Englishness", so they must have been startled that what was actually uncovered was evidence that there is significantly more anti-Scottishness in England than there is anti-Englishness in Scotland. A full 22% of respondents in England and Wales have a negative perception of Scotland, compared to just 15% of respondents in Scotland who have a negative perception of England. The problem is particularly rife among Tory voters, 29% of whom dislike Scotland.
Ludicrously, the Sunday Times ignored their own findings, and went ahead with their pre-planned "anti-English" headline anyway. They clung to the fact that "one in four" Yes voters have negative perceptions of England - even though that falls short of the proportion of Tory voters in England who have a negative perception of Scotland.
It's hard not to suspect that this wave of anti-Scottish sentiment has been at least partly caused by the carefully-planned efforts of the Tory party and the right-wing London media to whip up Haggis-Phobia in the run-up to the general election, in order to maximise the chances of a Tory win. And these are the people who claimed they would always put "our beloved United Kingdom" before party interest? Don't make me laugh. Fear and loathing are not compatible with a glorious union.
On their own heads be it (again).
It's a bit Jim Hacker is it not?
ReplyDeleteLabour MPs in the last few days in the HoC have said the Tories English votes for English laws will lead to the breakup of the UK. Can someone explain to me how?
ReplyDeleteBy generating a casus belli for a second referendum - ie. Scottish MPs no longer being able to vote on matters that have a direct financial impact on Scotland would represent the sort of "material change" that Nicola Sturgeon was talking about.
DeleteOr it could happen a different way - EVEL is a fundamentally unstable system, so it would have to be replaced sooner or later, possibly with something more closely resembling an English Parliament. An institution like that might start to seek more and more powers for itself.
Going for a fully federal UK with an English parliament (or regional assemblies) would probably have more chance of keeping the UK together than this halfway house IMO. Generally if Scots voters see their MPs marginalised at Westminster (and with increasingly little influence at the top of the unionist parties) they are probably less likely to support the Union.
ReplyDeletePossibly, although if you imagine a situation where you had a genuine English Parliament, with a separate English government and an English First Minister, there would be a lot of people that might get frustrated with having to defer to a federal parliament on some issues.
DeleteWhich leaves the big question hanging in the air - why bother? The Union is dead - give it a decent burial, FFS, instead of its rotten corpse holding back the aspirations of the Scottish nation and shielding the English from facing the reality of being 'just' England.
DeleteThis is a difficult one.
ReplyDeletePeople south of the border just used to be people south of the border. I can't claim that some of my best friends are English, 'cos it ain't true.
But the level of anti-Scottish stuff in the MSM has tended to anger me to the point when scheduled to meet a brand new prospective family member who came from Manchester, I was ready to spend the meal needling this unknowing victim.
The sod spoiled it by announcing his intent to move to Scotland following the wedding as he couldn't wait to get out of England.
And thus, by doing nothing he spoiled a perfectly good meal just by being English. You just can't trust the sods.
Next time, maybe.
Could not agree more. The Tories have put party before country endless times over the last few years. They have put the Union under more threat than any other party (even the SNP) and have made it much harder for those of us on the left who continue to believe that we are Better Together to make our case.
ReplyDeleteShould the UK break-up I will regret it immensely, but the one small consolation will be the existential damage it does to the Conservative and Unionist Party and the ability of Tory politicians to lord it on the international stage. Once the UK goes, they lose their security council seat and any credibility they retain within the EU. Good.
Jeff, you'll be liberated! Don't worry about it ;-)
DeleteGreat Scot, I'm fucked up big time then! My in laws ( expat Scottish ) children and wife are born from Scottish parents in East Africa. Families come from Kilwining and Stonehaven, me born in Carlisle and taken home to Ecclefeckan born to a English/Scottish mix married to a German, then rapidly shipped to East Africa. Now here I am in Lancaster with residential links in Tanzania, Indonesia and Germany and Bervie, because my brother found the best Chipshop in the planet and moved next door to it. We, upon return to the UK in 96, made our families homes ( extended with GP/GM/Wife and sister and our brood) in Wiltshire. I left the UK following first graduation in 82 and had been travelling and working in Europe and Africa from 73. In 82 I bagged my first career job in London, Packed up all our kit and went for it. Lasted three weeks, cost a bloody fortune, and the parting was from the nefariously placed unit manager " having out maneuvered the personnel department" that now I had made the great trip down to the smoke I would be fine but he had promised the job to the man who was now taking my job. So the company and me had shelled out quite some thousands while the unit manager was simply going to place his selection no matter what the personnel might say or appoint. I made four times as much cash in hand working for a group operating several hospitality and food operations in Covent garden and North London. Cashed in and cashed out of the UK until 96. If I had stayed I would have starved. Obviously mine road was to travel far, live well and earn very little. :-)
ReplyDeleteLooks like George Osborne borrowed your "Earn very little" philosophy for yesterday's budget...
DeleteAnonymous David
When Cameron used that anti-scot rhetoric to effectively bully labour out of no.10, a line was crossed. A lot of damage was done to Scotland's reputation by better together, particularly when Osborne was allowed to make that wretched "sermon on the pound". It cemented the idea that Scotland really was a fully 100% subsidised state. But by making a Scottish vote that might prop up labour seem illegitimate, Cameron made sure that any vote that Scotland delivers would be suspect. We couldn't even vote monster raving loony and not be seen as trying to seek an unfair advantage. For labour to actually join in on the abuse that was clearly aimed at them, was surreal. The UK MSM has never stopped campaigning against Scotland. It's stuck on permanent campaigning mode now & its being informed by a relentless anti-scottish, anti-snp rhetoric that can only tear their precious union apart. There is almost something quite sickening and disturbing about it all. Having secured a no vote, its as if they feel entitled now to monster and rip apart Scotland and that we can do nothing about it. But that's the mistake Thatcher & Major made. Back then it was only the conservative party that got clobbered for it. This time it is British politics itself that is going to suffer for it.
ReplyDeleteEnglish Jockophobia should be challenged, but it doesn’t keep me awake at night.
DeleteWhat is worse is the amount of parrot-fashion endorsement of this same anti-Scot rhetoric by fellow Scots. Its totally heartbreaking.
All I've seen last 24 hours is Labour attacking SNP
ReplyDeleteI just had a taste of the other side. I was leafleting in a village this morning - nothing especially political, just notification of our (SNP) MSP's summer surgery tour of the rural communities. A man refused the leaflet, saying that he was English so he was against the SNP. I explained that as she was his representative he was entitled to ask her for help no matter which party he supported (he later mentioned having approached David Mundell, the Westminster MP, about something different).
ReplyDeleteHe repeated, I'm English so I'm against the SNP. I said, that's a shame, because the SNP isn't against you. I then got a long-ish tale of his being shouted at by "an SNP member" to the effect that "you English" had caused us to lose our independence referendum, get back where you came from, and the rest. I explained that if an SNP member had said that and it could be found out who it was, it would be an expulsion matter.
It turned out that the person probably wasn't an SNP member, just a random Yes campaigner or supporter. I spent some time explaining that there are people with no sense and no manners everywhere in life, and that I was sorry he'd encountered someone like that in the Yes campaign. I managed to more or less "talk him down" over the next ten minutes or so and we parted on good terms with him accepting the leaflet and that our SNP MSP was there to work for him just as much as for anyone else in the village.
But my God, what damage one single loud-mouthed fanatical oaf can do.
Given that your racist english ccolonist was A) making it up and b) never going to vote fore anything other than english rule why give a fuck about their imaginary experience?
DeleteWhy don't english people who want to live under tory rule just fuck off back to england where they will be surrounded by like minded bigots?
You wouldn't treat white colonists in Africa making the same whining complaints about the natives with any respect. No difference here.
There's no reason at all to think he was making it up. There are people around who say these things, as you have just demonstrated.
DeleteThe reason is that he will talk to other people, and some of the other people he will talk to may be persuadable. If the only experience he has to talk about is a nasty one, then the SNP's reputation will be damaged. If he can be persuaded that he was insulted by some random zoomer rather than an SNP member, and that actual SNP members speak to him reasonably and with respect, he may be less negative.
"But my God, what damage one single loud-mouthed fanatical oaf can do."
DeleteConfirmation bias: when the media/government/authorities are presenting the idea that the SNP are anti-English, all it takes is a single loud-mouthed fanatical oaf (even if they aren't in the SNP at all) to convince people.
What's important (and very encouraging) is you got through to him enough for him to at least accept the leaflet. Once people realise we aren't two-headed monsters but just human beings, it can be quite nice.
I find it very helpful in such conversations that I lived in England for 25 years myself. As it happened the conversation turned to railways, and travelling south by rail, and of course I had a lot of experience doing that myself. We parted by agreeing that we were pleased about the new Borders Railway, but a wee bit jealous because it doesn't actually come anywhere near us.
DeleteEnglish-born people living here are part of our communities and the only way to defuse this hostility is to make them welcome as part of the community. They have a reason for moving here and staying here, and it's obviously not because they hate Scotland or Scottish people.
You've illustrated perfectly why I'm concerned that the BTL comments on Wings potentially do so much damage.
DeleteThe articles continue to excel, but BTL many seem to vie for most vituperative poster status, despite the Rev's valiant attempts to cut out the most ignorant, viz the bot to substitute the Q and T words.
It's really no surprise that many of the more thoughtful posters have gravitated from there to here.
I'm very much in the unionist camp, but I've always felt that Stuart Campbell gets unfairly targeted. His articles are very good, even if I disagree with them. I think he gets tarred by association due to some of the more unhinged people (Who obviously exist on both sides) who spend time on his website or link to him on social media.
Deleteall it takes is a single loud-mouthed fanatical oaf (even if they aren't in the SNP at all) to convince people.
DeleteNa, it doesn't. The electorate are not that stupid.
But yeah, oafs are not helpful usually.
I think part of the problem with Stuart is that he swears like a trooper on Twitter, under the Wings logo, even though he doesn't do it on the blog. Those of us who know him shrug it off as just his little idiosyncrasy, but it does allow a bridge to be built between him personally and some of the btl zoomers on the blog. Unionists are always headlining some lurid tweet of his and implying that this is representative of his journalism, when in fact nothing could be further from the case.
DeleteThere's no way you'll stop him doing it though. Might as well try to turn back the 12.40 from Paddington. And sometimes he's hysterically funny, too.
Jeff!!!What the f**k you've made my day.
ReplyDelete"A full 22% of respondents in England and Wales have a negative perception of Scotland, compared to just 15% of respondents in Scotland who have a negative perception of England."
ReplyDeleteWhat were the statistics for Wales?
More evidence that the so-called "united" kingdom is falling apart.
ReplyDeleteI doubt the English are anti Scottish. It is the Scottish Nationalists that are anti English. Why would the Nats want to leave the Union and hand power over to the EU. That can only mean hatred of our neighbour who we have mixed with for over three centuries. The trouble with the Nats is they they are dishonest. Just tell the truth you do detest the English.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's your regularly scheduled troll post for this evening.
DeleteI wish someone would accuse us of hating the Welsh or Northern Irish for a change.
DeleteThe only structured, widespread and co-ordinated evidence of hatred towards any Country, during both the Referendum and the GE campaigns, was by the Conservative Party and their tame right-wing MSM.
ReplyDeleteThe sheer number of Anti-Scottish articles, Anti-Scottish phraseology, Anti Scottish cartoons and images - as well as the utterly misogynous garbage directed at Scotland's First Minister - was massive and relentless.
This was NOT reflected in the Scottish-based Press, in relation to Anti-Englishness.
There was none.
At the moment, the Unionist MSM and the Tories are continuing the scare stories about everything Scottish - it still has not stopped.
Really does seem that they are absolutely determined to ridicule, deride or just (as in the Westminster English MPs blocking of ALL Scottish amendments to the Scotland Bill) ignore Scotland.
There also seems to be a complete inability of some of the denser Unionists to acknowledge that there is a world of difference from a deep dislike and mistrust of the Westminster political system, as opposed to any particular nationality.
There is no evidence at all your comment is a typical Nationalist soundbite with no substance at all. You have a mission to promote division between the British people and it has not worked except with your own petty narrow minded followers.
DeleteNo evidence?????????????????
DeleteDid you read the MSM?????
You are either wearing a pair of blue-tinted specs or a are a few bricks shy of a full load.
Or.......you are just a dense Unionist.
No, he's just a troll. Don't feed him.
DeleteI should have mentioned that the SNP have entered Westminster so they have to play with the rules which allow all members to have an opinion. You mentioned English showing your bias. And the Nats played by the rules and kicked Labour out 1979 knowing Thatcher would butcher jobs in Scotland. You were not interseted in working people and the poverty imposed just petty nationalism.
DeleteFrom James Callaghan's autobiography "Time and Chance"
Delete"“It was the adverse effect of the two Devolution referenda in Scotland and Wales that finally ended the Government’s life. Both were held on 1 March 1979, St David’s Day, for John Morris, the Secretary of State for Wales, had hoped that the compliment would strike a patriotic chord in Welsh hearts. But the valleys were deaf to the sound of our music, and rejected the blandishments by a huge majority of four to one.
The Scottish result was better, with a slim majority voting in favour, but this counted as a defeat as the Devolution Act had provided (against the Government’s will), that 40 per cent of the total electorate must vote in favour*, so with those who abstained added in, the total fell well below the required figure.
On the surface this was a surprising result, and I concluded that in the back of people’s minds, the merits of the case had become entangled with a vote on the Government’s popularity, which was not high even in Scotland because of the recent industrial disputes.
Michael Foot telephoned me at home on Sunday 4 March to discuss the results. He was deeply disappointed for he had made Devolution his cause, and had overcome every obstacle to get the Bills through Parliament. These results required the Government, in accordance with the two Acts, to now lay an Order before Parliament for their total repeal.
Michael is a fighter and he still thought the day could be saved. Why not, he said, lay the Repeal Order before Parliament, but invite the House to reject it? This would leave the Scottish Act on the statute book in accordance with the wish of the majority of those who had voted. But it would not come into force until a second Order, known as a Commencement Order, was laid, and this should be postponed until after a general election.
It was an imaginative proposal, but from the start I did not approach it with an open mind.
Michael Cocks, the Chief Whip, had spoken with some of Labour’s Devolution rebels. In his view the difficulty within the Party was much greater than any from the Scottish National Party and the Whips’ judgement was that the Government could not rely on the votes of Labour Members from Merseyside or the North if we moved to reject the Repeal Order.
For three years we had believed in ourselves and in our capacity to govern and to win, despite all the odds against us. Now I sensed this was no longer true. Nearly thirty years earlier, as a junior Minister in the Attlee Government, I had watched demoralisation set in and a thick pall of self-doubt begin to envelop Ministers as they and the increasingly paralysed Government Departments and Civil Servants waited for the inevitable election.
In 1979 seven months of life still lay ahead before a general election need be called, but I did not wish my administration to drag out the next few months, surviving only by wheeling and dealing. From the moment I knew we could not win a vote of no confidence I preferred to put the issue to the test of a general election.
Even if the vote had gone in our favour I did not expect the election to be long delayed. Since Christmas the Government had suffered severe set-backs on incomes policy and on Devolution, and we could command a majority in the House of Commons for neither.
Contrary to the myths which have sprung up since 1979, Labour did not lose support in the general election – our national vote was in fact slightly higher than it had been nearly five years earlier in October 1974, when we had won more seats than the Tories. It demonstrated how much steady understanding and support existed for what we had tried to do.
But, tempted by promises of lower taxation and with memories of the winter, the abstaining Tories of 1974 had flocked back to their Party’s colours and this gave Mrs Thatcher a large majority of seats. It was a miracle that we had governed as long and effectively as we had.”
Sorry to burst your bubble pal
LOL!
DeleteThe standard of Unionist Troll has definitely dropped, on here.
At least the older ones had a sense of style and weren't so obviously slow.
Still.....................with only three Scottish MPs and the very strong probability of losing a good few MSPs next year, you gotta sympathise with the poor wee things.
They really are becoming a total and utter irrelevance up here.
@Glasgow WC
DeleteIf you accept as i do that Scotland is a Country then to me it seems legitimate to hold the view that just maybe we would be better of with control of our own resources and finances.
Would you agree?
I also understand some people feel more 'British', cherish the Act of Union and feel loyalty to the Queen and her Westminster Government. This is also a legitimate viewpoint to have.
I admire loyalty but loyalty can be used and abused and never has that overt loyalty been abused more obviously than in the last few years.
Would you agree?
I find it interesting that you label those in favor of Indy as 'narrow minded followers' as although there are of course some of those on the 'Yes' side these seems a great many more of that description on the Unionist side as we face another 20 years of Tory Rule.
Or is it 'better a hundred years' than have those narrow minded types in control?
I wont ask if you agree. But will you consider that maybe we are not all driven by some 'Narrow Minded' Anti-English xenophobia?
AJ
Sigh. Don't feed the troll. He probably won't even read it and if he does he'll find something to twist against you. Go read a good book or something!
DeleteSeems I have found a Cabal of history deniers who unlike me were not around 1979. When you start the troll and do not feed the troll nonsense says it all.
DeleteI do look forward to showing my passport at Gretna bringing in the food parcels.
A working class man who believes we need eternal rule by the elitist Brit establishment of pedophiles who hate the working classes.
DeleteAnd calls others 'history deniers' (Sorry GWC but i did laugh at that!)
Can you remain this brainwashed forever? I refuse to believe it.
AJ
I sure as hell was around in 1979, and voting too. I remember all too clearly how Labour cheated us out of our devolved parliament, leaving the SNP no option but to vote against them.
DeleteI also understand that the LibDems voted against them too, and that they were doomed anyway. Thatcher was coming, inexorably, and even if the entire vote of confidence thing hadn't happened at all, she'd have been in Downing Street within a few months regardless.
There's also the little matter of the Callaghan government being utterly useless and incompetent, while at the time nobody had any idea what a horror Maggie would turn out to be. I remember being marginally relieved when she got in, thinking we needed some sort of change to get us out of the constant strikes and rubbish-filled streets.
I didn't know she was going to devastate my community for decades to come, and neither did anybody else.
Labour like to write their own little version of history that removes all blame from them, then shout at people who remember how it was and know that they're lying.
Oh God, now I'm dong it too. Don't feed the troll.
DeleteI seem to recall we got a referendum and a lot of people failed to attend the polls. So you admit the SNP who pretend they hate the Tories voted against Labour helping pave her way to power. The Nats are culpable in the destruction of Scottish jobs.
DeleteI wont vote for either arse-cheek of the establishment enablers of pedophilia or the UKIP arseholes.
Delete(Nor will i cast a vote for the Neo-Libdem shriveled hairy scrotum's)
Thats just me.
The Torys are busy destroying the lives of ordinary people the length of the country and turning Scotland into a colony and you talk of 1979.
Its 2015 you know.
AJ
You seem obsessed with peados is that why you are anonymous?
DeleteGaavster your long winded reply to my comment was a case of you creating a long winded bubble of irrelevance. The SNP voted down the Labour government. That is factual history. The Nats assisted Thatcher into power and that is factual history. So when the red headed twin Nationalist supporters sing their sad Linwood no more just remember the SNP role in that.
ReplyDeleteGo away you unionist clown troll. Glasgow Working Class indeed! Lol!
ReplyDelete