Fundraising for a comprehensive Scottish poll on GRA reform and gender issues

A couple of days ago, a poll was published in Ireland on "attitudes to gender", covering issues such as women's right to single-sex spaces, the integrity of women's sport, the right to intimate examinations being carried out by someone of the same sex, and whether people should have the right to change the sex listed on their birth certificate.  I was asked today whether I'd be willing to crowdfund and commission a similar poll for Scotland.  I checked to see if I would have broad backing, and people like Denise Findlay said they would be happy if I went ahead, so I'll give it a whirl.

On the issue of the questions: I'd consult, but probably the simplest thing would be to use the Irish poll as a broad guide.  I don't think there's any such thing as 'completely neutral wording' for poll questions on such sensitive matters, but I'd be looking to make sure that respondents have clarity on what they're being asked, rather than using trendy buzzwords like "inclusion" and "simplification of the process" which can lead to misleading results.  However, I'd also try to avoid falling into the trap of laying the specifics on with a shovel to such an extent that the questions become obviously biased in the other direction.

A full-scale poll will cost a few thousand pounds - I can't put an exact figure on it because different firms have different prices, and it also depends on the number of questions (and sometimes also the question format).  For the last two weeks I've been using the Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser to crowdfund this blog's next poll on independence and related matters, and that raised approximately £1000.  I'll make sure that money is used in the way intended - the GRA questions are something totally different.  It may well be that a separate fundraiser will be needed to make promotion easier, but I've got a very busy day ahead, so in the meantime if you'd like to donate, once again use the Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser and anything raised over the next few days will be put towards the GRA poll.  So to donate click HERE, or for an alternative payment method click HERE.

We need to get out of the United Kingdom because the Scottish Parliament is not safe within it

I'd heard a while back that the UK government were thinking of scrapping English Votes for English Laws (EVEL), but my reaction to the sudden news yesterday that they've actually gone ahead and done it (and without a vote, apparently) was "that's a bit casual, isn't it?"  It's the right decision in principle, but the fact that such a complete reversal was done so quickly and easily is a timely illustration of how a Tory government can simply reshape the constitution at a whim.  We need to get out of the United Kingdom because the Scottish Parliament is not safe within it.  Promises and conventions are utterly worthless, as has been demonstrated time and again over the last few years.

The main argument against EVEL was that legislation was being wrongly certified as "English-only" when in fact it had implications for the whole UK.  It may sometimes have been primarily English, but that's not the same thing.  It's quite difficult for a UK Parliament to pass laws that don't affect the whole UK to some extent, especially when there are things like Barnett consequentials to consider.

But we can safely assume democratic fairness is not the reason the UK Government have changed course - it'll be more to do with the dreadful optics of what happened on the morning after the independence referendum.  David Cameron and Gordon Brown had spent the entire campaign promising that a whole new thrilling world of enhanced devolution would open up for Scotland the moment we voted No, but instead the message was "right that's quite enough about Scotland, time to talk about England", just as soon as Scottish voters had been duped into rendering themselves powerless. People have long memories, and even if they don't remember that episode it's easy enough to remind them as soon as the next campaign gets underway.  Yesterday's tactical retreat will only repair a small amount of that damage.

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I was asked the other day if I was going to write about the recent controversy over the franchise for any future indyref.  My view is that we should stick to the principle that applied last time - ie. we should use the same franchise that applies to local government and Holyrood elections (albeit that franchise is now wider than in 2014, because it's recently been extended to cover non-EU and non-Commonwealth citizens, and also some prisoners).  That's the right thing to do as a matter of principle, because the people who have most at stake are the people who live here.  If there was such a thing as Scottish citizenship, there might be a case for also including Scottish citizens who live elsewhere, especially if they haven't been gone long.  But there is no Scottish citizenship, and it's laughable to suggest that we should create an ad hoc pseudo-citizenship for the purposes of a single vote just because the Tories think it would be helpful to bring in English-domiciled Scots who might be more likely to vote No.

On the other extreme, though, there are also pro-independence bloggers trying to come up with justifications for stripping Scottish residents of their right to vote because they originally come from England and would be probable No voters.  Apart from the anti-democratic nature of this proposal, I'd suggest it's extremely naive from a strategic point of view.  In the unlikely event that a referendum occurs via an agreed Section 30 process, we won't be able to rig the franchise.  If we go ahead with a unilateral vote (as we should), we can choose any franchise we like, but drawing a circle around likely Yes voters and excluding everyone else will simply lead to the result being safely disregarded, both by the London government and the international community.  Any vote that isn't scrupulously democratic will be a monumental waste of time.

It's also worth making the point that it would be very difficult to devise a rule for excluding English people in Scotland that wouldn't also exclude a lot of EU citizens - and the latter would probably vote overwhelmingly Yes in the hope of Scotland rejoining the EU.

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Donations made to the Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser until the end of this week will be put towards our next opinion poll.  If you'd like to donate, please click HERE.

The BBC clearly wanted an all-English panel for an "English event" last night - but note how different logic conveniently applied to its coverage of Glasgow 2014

Heartbreaking.

On and off the pitch, this team is the very best of our country.

They've done us proud.#EURO2020

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) July 11, 2021

"Our country"? Which country is that, Sir Keir? What's its name?

Just for future reference at elections and so on.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) July 11, 2021

Waaah. Why didn’t the English man talking about the English members of the England team mention Scotland?

— Football Realist (@FootieRealist) July 12, 2021

Because as the leader of the British Labour Party, he uses the term "our country" in an entirely different way to try to deny Scotland its right to self-determination. Interesting, isn't it, how pointing out this blatant hypocrisy touches such a nerve?

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) July 12, 2021

I had a quick look at the betting markets at half-time last night, and at that point England were the equivalent of an 80% chance to win the trophy.  So just for an hour or so we were in totally uncharted territory.  Both Scotland and the UK have changed radically since 1966, and the dynamic of an English win in a major championship would have been totally different from that sole previous occurrence.  I've never subscribed to the view that the insufferable triumphalism that followed would necessarily have driven people towards independence, but the theory would certainly have been well and truly put to the test.  We could already see the signs of both the London media and political class over-reaching themselves massively by insisting that the England team's run was somehow a success for the whole United Kingdom and that the whole United Kingdom must be at one in celebrating it.  (A notable example was breakfast TV presenter Susanna Reid, who was clearly determined to believe - in defiance of all evidence - that the idea that a large number of Scots were supporting Italy was a wicked myth.  Britain is required to be one big happy family, apparently, and that's an end to the matter.)  Essentially it was an attempted erasure of Scotland's existence, and I'm not sure the population at large is quite as willing to tolerate that now as they were 55 years ago.

None of this would be an issue, of course, if Scotland had its own broadcast media.  Stuart Cosgrove suggested yesterday that Scotland was the only one of the 24 countries in Euro 2020 that didn't have its own homegrown TV coverage of the competition.  Initially I thought he must be wrong about that, because Wales was also one of those 24 countries, but perhaps he was thinking of S4C's limited Welsh language coverage.  Either way, apart from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, there was no country in Europe last night that was forced to watch the game through an English prism, with presenters and commentators alike talking at viewers as if they actually are English themselves.  I was particularly struck by Jurgen Klinsmann's demotion from the main BBC panel of pundits, even though there would have been obvious value in having insight from someone who had actually lifted the trophy in 1996.  It seemed that the BBC's logic was that this was an English event - it was taking place in London with the England team involved, and therefore there had to be an all-English team in front of the cameras.

But here's the thing: by the same logic, the 2014 Commonwealth Games was a Scottish event. Glasgow was not hosting it as a British city - Scotland is an entirely separate nation in Commonwealth Games terms, with its own participating team. Not only did the BBC not allow a Scottish presentation team to front their coverage for all UK viewers, they didn't even allow that to happen for Scottish viewers. Gary Lineker was one of the presenters, and I remember him reacting derisively when people asked where the Scottish presenters were, as if that was a ludicrously narrow-minded question to ask.  It cuts both ways, Gary: where were the non-English voices last night?

Actually it was worse than that - the BBC's coverage of Glasgow 2014 was a politicised disgrace.  It was just a few weeks before the indyref and everything was very deliberately 'Britished' for viewers.  The distinction between the various Home Nation teams was presented as a bit silly and artificial, with all the events functioning as a kind of training exercise for the glorious Team GB assault on the 2016 Olympics.  There was even a preview of the Olympics, and not once was it even mentioned that the participation of Team GB was contingent upon the referendum result. A No vote and business as usual for Team GB was just assumed.

The London broadcasters are institutionally incapable of serving Scottish audiences adequately, let alone properly.  Tinkering around the edges will never make any difference - the only thing that will cut it is the full transfer of legislative powers over broadcasting to the Scottish Parliament.  If you agree, and if you haven't signed our petition yet, you can do so HERE.  Please also share it with your family, friends, and anyone else who you think might be interested in signing.

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Donations made to the Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser until the end of this week will be put towards our next opinion poll.  If you'd like to donate, please click HERE.

As we are all Italians today...

...here are five classic Italian Eurovision entries to get the old patriotic juices flowing.  First up is the first ever Italian winner of the contest in 1964, Non Ho L'Età by Gigliola Cinquetti.

   

Non Ho L'Età translates as "I'm not old enough", which is rather appropriate, because when Italy won for a second time twenty-six long years later, Cinquetti was still slightly younger than the victorious singer Toto Cotugno. The 1990 winning song was an anthem for European unity, with the main lyric "Unite, unite Europe" sung in English. Enjoy it while you can, because it will doubtless soon be banned by the Brexit censors.

   

Cotugno and Cinquetti went on to host the 1991 contest together in Rome. 

Next is what in my opinion is the greatest ever Italian entry, even though it only finished 4th in 1997: Fiumi di Parole by Jalisse. This was the last time Italy participated in the contest for fourteen years.

   

After Italy returned to the contest in 2011, they were widely praised for the high standard of their entries. A particular favourite of mine is the 2012 song, L'Amore È Femmina by Nina Zilli, which finished 9th.

   

 And last but not least, the third Italian winning song from this year: Zitti e Buoni by Måneskin.

 

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Donations made to the Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser until the end of next week will be put towards our next opinion poll.  If you'd like to donate, please click HERE.

Sinister Euro 2020 selfies from Hampden Park

I've been meaning to post these for quite some time, and I'd probably better do it now, just in case events on Sunday evening mean we never want to think about Euro 2020 ever again (not that we'll be given a choice in the matter, of course).

One of the stories my dad used to dine out on was that he went to the World Cup final at Wembley in 1966 (I believe he wanted England to win, so "like father, like son" doesn't always hold true), and he couldn't sit down for the entire match because he'd just been inoculated against smallpox.  He showed me his programme once or twice when I was growing up - we've probably still got it somewhere, but God knows where.  

So when I heard that Scotland would be co-hosting a major tournament for the first time, I decided Euro 2020 was going to be my nearest equivalent.  It wasn't looking very promising for a long time, though - I had almost given up hope on the tickets I bought about twenty-seven years ago, but somehow I came through the automatic lottery that decided which of the original ticket-holders would still be able to go.  Naturally, then, I wanted to prove for posterity that I was actually there, so I took a truly excessive number of selfies.  I must say I didn't fully appreciate until I looked back on them how downright sinister I would look in poor lighting, wearing a mask, but who knows, this could be a whole new art-form.  (The first one is a screenshot from a video I just happened to be taking as the second Czech goal flew in.)

There's a serious point here, though.  At the very start of the pandemic, I had a ticket for the Scotland v France rugby match at Murrayfield.  I assumed the game would be cancelled, because the Irish authorities had already done the sensible thing and cancelled the Ireland v Italy match, but oh no.  That was when Jason Leitch and Catherine Calderwood were hellbent on herd immunity and actively wanted the population to be infected in an orderly manner.  Mass events like rugby matches and Stereophonics concerts were rather useful for them in that respect.  The SRU sent out emails with fatuous quotes from Calderwood about how there was going to be a "public health drive" at the game - simply meaning that people would be asked to wash their hands.  Eventually I decided I didn't want to be part of such a reckless experiment, so I stayed at home and accepted there would be no refund - and watched on the TV, to my astonishment, a game in front of a virtually full house.  Can you imagine how many people must have been infected that day, with no masks, no social distancing, and the virus raging uncontrolled?  That's perhaps why we should be a bit cynical about any pious comments made by political leaders about the likes of Margaret Ferrier.  The impact of what she did was trivial compared to the untold deaths caused by the unforgiveable irresponsibility of decisions made in February and March 2020 by our leaders, and by advisers like Leitch.

Apologies that these photos aren't all in the correct order, by the way.  See if you can work out which game is which: as David Frost used to say, "the clues are there..."

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Donations made to the Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser until the end of next week will be put towards our next opinion poll.  If you'd like to donate, please click HERE.

Scotland at a crossroads: will the SNP give up the fight against the virus, or the fight for independence, or both?

So I'd like to recommend a couple of articles to you this morning.  The first is written by someone beyond these shores, about how Britain has just become the first country in the world to surrender to Covid.  It's an absolutely excoriating piece, and reading it may permanently change how you see the situation.  All that's really missing is the ceremony on an aircraft carrier where Boris Johnson hands over the instrument of surrender to the virus.  This isn't even about a horrendous summer, autumn and winter to come - in other words, taking the hit and getting it over with.  The point made is that we're surrendering to an occupying army that will be with us for years or decades to come - Covid will now become endemic in Britain with new seasonal variants every year.  We will all catch the disease again and again and again, and in spite of the relentless propaganda from the BBC's in-house pro-virus correspondent Nick Triggle, that's a choice we're making.  There's nothing inevitable about it - other countries are choosing a radically different path.

And there's also a choice to be made here in Scotland.  SNP spokespeople at Westminster have criticised Boris Johnson's strategy, but as per usual we're not departing from it properly.  There'll be a slight delay in the lifting of restrictions, and mandatory mask-wearing will remain in place for the time being, but the bottom line is we're still ludicrously 'going back to normal' at the exact moment that cases are soaring.  We're engaging in a partial surrender rather than a total one, and that is a matter of national shame.  There is still, however, time to reverse course.

But what if we don't? That brings me on to the second recommended article - Lesley Riddoch's piece in The National stating with admirable clarity that an independence referendum must be held in 2022, otherwise we'll miss the boat for this whole parliament.  The irony is, of course, that if the SNP leadership urgently change direction and act responsibly on Covid, it would become somewhat easier for them to make the case for delaying an indyref beyond 2022.  But as I've said before, they can't have it both ways - if they stick with their current intention to join Johnson in giving up the fight against the virus and telling us "we must learn to live with it", there are no remaining excuses for giving up the fight for this country's independence.  So which is it to be, guys?

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Donations made to the Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser until the end of next week will be put towards our next opinion poll.  If you'd like to donate, please click HERE.

Now is the time to partition Plague Island

I was rather alarmed last week that three people independently said to me that Jason Leitch and co appear to have reverted to their March 2020 position of trying to achieve herd immunity through mass infection.  I've long since stopped watching the briefings, so I wasn't entirely sure what this referred to, but unfortunately it's become clearer and clearer over the last 48 hours or so.  Boris Johnson has decided to end the fight against the virus on an arbitrary date that is only a fortnight away.  "If not now, when?" he asks fatuously - the obvious answer to that question being when vaccine coverage is as comprehensive as it can possibly be, which is far from being the case at this stage.  I presume what this is really about is that we're now in summer, and any scientific advice to wait until the autumn must be disregarded because the cretins on GB News and in the Daily Mail will be whingeing about missing out on their month in Santorini.

It also should be a statement of the blindingly obvious that even when it's safe enough to remove the bulk of restrictions, common sense, non-onerous rules like the mandatory wearing of masks on public transport and in shops should remain in place for as long as the virus is in wide circulation.  That actually enhances personal freedom because it allows people to travel and to do normal things in relative safety.  But no, apparently the danger of Neil Oliver's nose developing a slight itch is more important than public health, and Johnson has decreed that masks can go as well.

As per usual, what appears to be happening in Scotland is that we're just going along with whatever the London strategy is, with a slight delay and with a few modifications to give us the illusion of being more careful.  That would explain the change of mood music from Leitch, because sooner or later he'd need a narrative to justify removing restrictions while the virus is ripping through the population.

One thing I would say is that the SNP leadership can't have it both ways on this.  Their stated reason for indefinitely delaying the calling of an independence referendum is that we're in the middle of a public health emergency and their sole focus has to be on that.  But if we're about to fall into line with Johnson's "to hell with it" approach by getting everything back to normal from mid-August onwards, there's no longer any excuse for failing to use the mandate for an indyref as a matter of urgency.

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Any donations to the Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser over the next couple of weeks, up to a total of £5000, will be put towards our next opinion poll.  If you'd like to donate, please click HERE.

Ski Monday

Three days ago, I made a call for donations to the Scot Goes Pop fundraiser in the hope of commissioning another opinion poll later in the year - anything donated in the next couple of weeks, up to a total of £5000, will be put towards the next poll.  The response has been great so far, with around £600 raised, so thank you for that.  However, I've paid the penalty in another way - I've been bombarded for 72 hours (and I use the word 'bombarded' advisedly) with unpleasant email messages from a certain individual.

Let me say something in all seriousness.  People who have donated to Scot Goes Pop fundraisers over the years have been vitally important in keeping the blog going (and more recently in making it possible to commission opinion polls, which are very expensive and are usually the preserve of mainstream media outlets).  But I simply cannot be expected to hand over editorial control to anyone who may have donated months or years ago.  I know the vast majority of people are grown-up enough to understand that, and would never dream of thinking they should be able to dictate what I can and can't say here.  But apparently this principle does need to be spelt out for the benefit of a small minority, or at least for one person.

There's no way that 'crowdfunded editorial control' could possibly work anyway.  There will always be moments when a parting of the ways occurs - for example, in March 2020, the independence movement was split between people who were critical of the Scottish Government for putting lives at risk by staying in lockstep with Boris Johnson's catastrophic herd immunity stategy, and people who wanted to remain loyal by saying that anything the Scottish Government had decided must be for the best.  That division will have been reflected among people who had previously donated to the blog - so the only way to avoid offending donors would have been to say nothing or to blandly sit on the fence.  But would that have made anyone happy? Of course it wouldn't.  People didn't donate to pointlessly preserve a blog that says absolutely nothing and that stays neutral on all of the big issues.  Quite the reverse.  What most people want is a strong pro-indy new media that is truly free and forthright.

It's the same story with the split between the SNP and Alba in March of this year.  Most pro-indy voters may have stuck with the SNP, but if the Twitter polls I ran were any guide, readers of the blog were much more evenly split - indeed, probably the slightly greater number switched to Alba.  No matter which way I'd jumped, then, I would have upset a substantial number of readers - but I did need to jump one way or the other.  Sitting on the fence just wouldn't have been credible.

Anyway, I know most people understand that perfectly well, and I thank you once again for your amazing support over the years.  The current fundraiser can be found HERE.

Funding for future Scot Goes Pop polling

Last Sunday, I was very, very close to trying to raise funds for a snap opinion poll, because there had been no independence polling for well over a month, which seemed crazy given that the SNP and Greens have only just won a resounding mandate to hold an independence referendum.  In theory there could have been a marked swing to Yes and we'd have been totally oblivious to it.  Literally a couple of hours after I had that thought, the Panelbase poll for the Sunday Times appeared right on cue, so there's no longer any great urgency.  However, it looks like the monthly ComRes polls for the Scotsman have been discontinued now the election is over, and with the SNP leadership and the mainstream media seemingly reaching an unspoken agreement to jointly take independence off the agenda for the foreseeable future, we may well find that polls are few and far between during the rest of the year.  I think it might be an idea to try to have some funding ready to go so I can fill at least one of the long gaps.  I'll keep an open mind about the exact timing - just the most suitable moment that crops up over the next few months.

Apart from the independence question, there are quite a few other subjects that I think should be asked about - for example, attitudes to the renewed mandate to hold a referendum and whether people think it covers all Plan B options, voting intentions for the local elections next year, the issue of the Royal family's interference in Scottish politics, and perhaps also the devolution of broadcasting to tie in with our petition.  And if any or all of these subjects are adequately covered by other polls before I run mine, there are plenty of other questions worth asking.

Because the Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2021 hasn't reached its target yet (I stopped promoting it before the election so as not to distract from fundraising by pro-indy parties), I don't think it would be a good idea to have two fundraisers underway at the same time, so I've once again done what I did earlier in the year - I've increased the target figure of the general fundraiser by a few thousand pounds, and any money that is donated within the next couple of weeks, up to a total of £5000, will be set aside specifically for the next poll.

Part of the reason I've decided to get the ball rolling is that Scottish Skier has been trying to blackmail me with the notion that donations will dry up now that I'm no longer running the blog in a way that he approves of.  (He in all apparent seriousness believes that Scot Goes Pop is now an "anti-Yes blog" run by either Stuart Campbell or the British government.)  He might well be right for all I know, so let's find out!  Seriously, though, I'm sure you all know me well enough by now to realise that I try to handle these polls responsibly, and that I always ask questions that will be of interest to the whole pro-indy movement.

If you'd like to donate, please click HERE.  (Or an alternative payment method can be found HERE.)

Surprise Batley & Spen result boosts independence movement by keeping hopeless Starmer in harness

I've compared by-elections to the 1983 Darlington contest several times in the past, but the surprise Labour hold in Batley & Spen is perhaps the closest comparison of all.  Just as in 1983, it was expected that a Labour defeat might help to finish off a weak and unelectable Labour leader, but just as in 1983, a Labour win against the odds has instead shored up that weak and unelectable leader.  Ultimately that's bad for Labour and good for Labour's opponents, including the SNP and the whole independence movement.  Even those who have a favourable view of Anas Sarwar must accept that Sarwar is not the leader of the Labour party, Keir Starmer is. The public have made up their minds about Starmer, and yet Labour now seem to be stuck with him.

You also have to give George Galloway some credit - although he's failed in his main objective of bringing down Starmer,  his 8000 votes were vastly in excess of the derisory support I expected him to get.  Clearly he's still taken seriously in some quarters.  Perhaps the lesson is that he should stick to posing as a socialist, rather than the de facto Tory he's become in Scotland.