Stuart Dickson has alerted me to the details of a new poll. It's difficult not to raise a smile at the fact that in the wake of the SNP triumph, the first survey that the BBC decided to commission on the subject of Scottish independence was among English voters only. Have they employed David Aaronovitch as their polling consultant?! Here are some of the key findings -
A referendum is planned to be held in Scotland asking people if they support Scotland becoming an independent country. Do you think that Scotland should become a fully independent country, separate from the rest of the United Kingdom, or not?
(NB. Note the embarrassingly neutral inclusion of the word "separate" in the question - Alan Cochrane must be so proud.)
Yes - 36%
No - 48%
Nothing hugely of interest here, given that it's a decision voters in Scotland will take on their own. However, perhaps there are a few signs that the unionists' "Britishness is the new Englishness" propaganda campaign is starting to bear fruit south of the border. They ought to be careful what they wish for, though - at this rate they won't be able to taunt us with the line "Scottish independence is less popular in Scotland than in England" for much longer!
If Scotland was to become independent, do you think England would be better off or worse off, or would it make no difference?
Better off - 19%
No difference - 51%
Worse off - 21%
A surprisingly encouraging finding - if we can take it at face value, perhaps the myth of Scotland being "subsidised" by the fabled hard-pressed English taxpayer isn't as deeply embedded in the popular consciousness as we sometimes imagine.
Do you think a referendum should be held in the rest of the United Kingdom before Scotland is allowed to become an independent country, or not?
Yes - 45%
No - 47%
Commenting on this finding in the BBC report, Andrew Hawkins of ComRes is brazen enough to say this -
"That almost half of the English feel that they would like a say over Scotland's future suggests that the Union should be England's as well as Scotland's to determine."
No, it doesn't, Andrew, it suggests that almost half of English voters simply do not "get it" about self-determination. I dare say the overwhelming majority of Argentinian voters think the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands should be a matter for them to determine, but that doesn't mean they have a point.
Newsnight will apparently be discussing the poll this evening. I've no idea if Jeremy Paxman will be in harness for this one, but if so I dare say we all know what to expect...
Monday, July 4, 2011
Just how amateurish is modern journalism?
There's an utterly bizarre piece by Carl Packman running on Liberal Conspiracy at the moment entitled 'The Orwell Prize, Johann Hari and nicking words' which basically argues that Hari should not have the Orwell Prize withdrawn from him because George Orwell himself was guilty of much the same crime when he "copied" the plot of Nineteen Eighty-Four from We by the Russian author Zamyatin. Packman specifically calls the two plots "identical". Well, from memory, I've read Nineteen Eighty-Four three or four times and We twice, and indeed I read the two more or less back-to-back when I was studying English Literature many moons ago, so I think I might just have spotted it if they had been identical. There are certainly many broad-brush similarities - both novels feature a protagonist who rebels against an ultra-totalitarian state by falling in love with a woman, whom he ultimately betrays after psychological conditioning by not caring about what happens to her. But that kind of borrowing of ideas, which I gather Orwell openly acknowledged, falls light-years short of what Hari has done. Packman's own title gives the game away - Hari quite literally "nicked words" by directly lifting responses from interviews conducted by other people, and by using passages from the published work of his interviewees. In what sense did Orwell nick the words used in Nineteen Eighty-Four? He didn't. Argument falls.
This is of course just another example of a sustained attempt by some to defend Hari on the grounds that everyone is "at it" to some degree. But even if that were true, it's not so much a vindication of Hari as it is an argument for a root-and-branch reform of modern journalistic practices. My own minor brush with this kind of thing came as a result of the fact that I used to be an active contributor to Wikipedia. There were a number of occasions when something written in the mainstream media seemed uncannily close to my own Wikipedia edits, most notably parts of a Sunday Times profile of Alex Salmond that appeared in the run-up to the 2007 election. That wouldn't constitute plagiarism, of course, because it's perfectly permissible to copy Wikipedia articles without attribution, but all the same it was startling to realise that some professional journalists operate - seemingly routinely - in such an amateurish way.
This is of course just another example of a sustained attempt by some to defend Hari on the grounds that everyone is "at it" to some degree. But even if that were true, it's not so much a vindication of Hari as it is an argument for a root-and-branch reform of modern journalistic practices. My own minor brush with this kind of thing came as a result of the fact that I used to be an active contributor to Wikipedia. There were a number of occasions when something written in the mainstream media seemed uncannily close to my own Wikipedia edits, most notably parts of a Sunday Times profile of Alex Salmond that appeared in the run-up to the 2007 election. That wouldn't constitute plagiarism, of course, because it's perfectly permissible to copy Wikipedia articles without attribution, but all the same it was startling to realise that some professional journalists operate - seemingly routinely - in such an amateurish way.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
America's selective contempt for the rule of law
It's no great surprise to learn that US support for "freedom and democracy" in Libya carries a price tag - namely that the Libyan rebels basically kidnap a man, hand him over to US forces, and allow him to be bundled off to America without any extradition process to be "tried" for a crime that he has already been convicted of and punished for in Scotland. (Indeed, technically that punishment is still ongoing, because Megrahi remains on licence, and to the best of my knowledge has obeyed all the conditions of his compassionate release.) It's also no surprise to discover that American "respect" for Scots Law as the proper jurisdiction to deal with the Lockerbie case was conditional on getting the outcome they wanted, and that they feel perfectly at liberty to win themselves a second bite of the cherry by blackmail and brute force. And it's certainly no surprise to see the fingerprints of the clueless, clownish Senators Menendez, Lautenberg and co all over this latest development. Their wild demands for Megrahi to be snatched from Libya to face American "justice" would have remained utterly impossible had it not been for the thousand-to-one chance of the Arab Spring happening when it did, so how they must be purring with pleasure at the luck of it all - not the Libyan people's luck at finally having a chance to control their own destiny, but the senators' luck at having a bargaining position to cynically exploit for petty electoral advantage.
There is, of course, a glorious irony here - if US politicians feel able to unilaterally overrule the Scottish legal process and decide that Megrahi has not been punished enough, that means they know he has something to be punished for. And yet if they regard the outcome as the Scottish legal process as illegitimate in some way, then they should of course be reverting to the status quo ante, namely that Megrahi is a man who is innocent in the eyes of the law, who has an astonishingly thin circumstantial case against him, and who therefore may or may not be found guilty of the charge against him by a US court. So in what sense do they already "know" he's guilty? Why, because a Scottish court has told them so. What remarkably selective respect the US authorities have for the rule of law.
There is, of course, a glorious irony here - if US politicians feel able to unilaterally overrule the Scottish legal process and decide that Megrahi has not been punished enough, that means they know he has something to be punished for. And yet if they regard the outcome as the Scottish legal process as illegitimate in some way, then they should of course be reverting to the status quo ante, namely that Megrahi is a man who is innocent in the eyes of the law, who has an astonishingly thin circumstantial case against him, and who therefore may or may not be found guilty of the charge against him by a US court. So in what sense do they already "know" he's guilty? Why, because a Scottish court has told them so. What remarkably selective respect the US authorities have for the rule of law.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Come on, Tim!
Hard lines to Andy Murray for losing out at the semi-final stage again, although the first set offered a glimpse of what could have been possible. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm getting slightly sick of London media people saying "of course he's never going to win Wimbledon, we went through this every year with Tim Henman". Firstly, that's disrespectful to the consummate professional Henman, whose achievements were light-years ahead of any other English or British player for decades. Secondly, it's monumentally silly to still be framing Murray as "just another Henman" in the year that he reached his third Grand Slam final - Henman never reached any.
The main consolation of the result yesterday is that if Murray does ever make the ultimate breakthrough, I'd actually quite like it to happen away from Wimbledon and everything that goes with it - the "come on, Tim" brigade, and the onlooking "as long as he wins, I'm British for the day" aristocracy (of both the literal and sporting varieties). Why should one of the greatest Scottish sporting triumphs of all-time be entirely reduced to the tedious billing "first Briton to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry"? No, let's see it happen in New York this September, or Melbourne next January - the surfaces there suit Murray's game better anyway.
The main consolation of the result yesterday is that if Murray does ever make the ultimate breakthrough, I'd actually quite like it to happen away from Wimbledon and everything that goes with it - the "come on, Tim" brigade, and the onlooking "as long as he wins, I'm British for the day" aristocracy (of both the literal and sporting varieties). Why should one of the greatest Scottish sporting triumphs of all-time be entirely reduced to the tedious billing "first Briton to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry"? No, let's see it happen in New York this September, or Melbourne next January - the surfaces there suit Murray's game better anyway.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Inverclyde by-election : SNP vote share up 15% from general election
Labour have held Inverclyde more comfortably than had seemed likely at the close of the campaign, but nevertheless there was a hefty fifteen-point surge in the SNP's vote, with the Liberal Democrats once again being squeezed almost to the point of embarrassment. Here is the full result -
Labour 54% (-2)
SNP 33% (+15)
Conservatives 10% (-2)
Liberal Democrats 2% (-11)
UKIP 1% (-)
That represents a headline swing of 9% from Labour to SNP, although as with the Holyrood election it seems likely that there was heavy movement from the Liberal Democrats to both SNP and Labour, with a middling shift direct from Labour to SNP.
I've noticed quite a few Labour-friendly online commenters suggest tonight that what this result shows more than anything is the difference between voting patterns for Westminster and Holyrood. Well, I have to say, I still don't buy that for a moment - unlike general elections, by-election campaigns for each parliament tend to be more or less interchangeable, and my guess is that a Holyrood by-election in the equivalent constituency would have produced a similar result. However, the contrary point of view is ironically a useful enough fiction for the SNP, so by all means let Labour peddle it if they really want to!
I always felt that Objective One for the SNP in this election was to avoid a Glasgow NE-style drubbing, and the inevitable subsequent headlines about "the bubble bursting". They've achieved that, although clearly a victory or a defeat that was narrower still would have been preferable. However, I don't think we should overlook how much more difficult it is to win safe Labour seats in by-elections when Labour are in opposition at both Westminster and Holyrood. It's not impossible to do so, but it's always going to be like trying to climb a down escalator, and therefore what happened in Inverclyde is certainly not directly comparable with the contests in the previous parliament when an unpopular Gordon Brown was still in Number 10. In time, this result could end up looking extremely creditable for the SNP - although in truth the long-term impact in either direction will probably be minimal.
Oh, and a final thought - the acceptance speech by the new Labour MP was excruciatingly, ridiculously awful. It may seem like sour grapes to say that, but it's simply a fact. I've felt all along that McKenzie was the weakest of the four main candidates, so depressingly there's more than a whiff of the old "monkey with a red rosette" syndrome about the result.
Labour 54% (-2)
SNP 33% (+15)
Conservatives 10% (-2)
Liberal Democrats 2% (-11)
UKIP 1% (-)
That represents a headline swing of 9% from Labour to SNP, although as with the Holyrood election it seems likely that there was heavy movement from the Liberal Democrats to both SNP and Labour, with a middling shift direct from Labour to SNP.
I've noticed quite a few Labour-friendly online commenters suggest tonight that what this result shows more than anything is the difference between voting patterns for Westminster and Holyrood. Well, I have to say, I still don't buy that for a moment - unlike general elections, by-election campaigns for each parliament tend to be more or less interchangeable, and my guess is that a Holyrood by-election in the equivalent constituency would have produced a similar result. However, the contrary point of view is ironically a useful enough fiction for the SNP, so by all means let Labour peddle it if they really want to!
I always felt that Objective One for the SNP in this election was to avoid a Glasgow NE-style drubbing, and the inevitable subsequent headlines about "the bubble bursting". They've achieved that, although clearly a victory or a defeat that was narrower still would have been preferable. However, I don't think we should overlook how much more difficult it is to win safe Labour seats in by-elections when Labour are in opposition at both Westminster and Holyrood. It's not impossible to do so, but it's always going to be like trying to climb a down escalator, and therefore what happened in Inverclyde is certainly not directly comparable with the contests in the previous parliament when an unpopular Gordon Brown was still in Number 10. In time, this result could end up looking extremely creditable for the SNP - although in truth the long-term impact in either direction will probably be minimal.
Oh, and a final thought - the acceptance speech by the new Labour MP was excruciatingly, ridiculously awful. It may seem like sour grapes to say that, but it's simply a fact. I've felt all along that McKenzie was the weakest of the four main candidates, so depressingly there's more than a whiff of the old "monkey with a red rosette" syndrome about the result.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Questions to which the answer is 'this is a really bad line mate, we'll catch up another time, yeah?'
The latest in Labour Hame's thrilling series of "let's ask nationalists a question, delete most of the answers for no apparent reason but nevertheless leave a handful of highly compelling ones, and then pretend the question was UNANSWERED anyway" is this -Why does Alex Salmond think he needs a referendum before he can negotiate more powers for Holyrood?
Answer : Because he has spent the last two months since the election doing his level best to negotiate more powers for the Scottish Parliament without a referendum, and the evidence of our own eyes confirms that it's like trying to get blood out of a stone. By contrast, a government that has a referendum mandate under its belt has tremendous moral authority in negotiations and is far more likely to succeed.
But as ever, what is more interesting about the question is what it unwittingly reveals about the inner contradictions in Labour's own thinking. Perhaps they can now answer the following -
If you think that an elected Scottish government has a mandate to negotiate more powers without a referendum and indeed should find it easy to succeed in doing so, why did the Labour government at Westminster refuse to enter into such direct negotiations with the SNP administration between 2007 and 2010?
I'm way ahead of you here, guys - the question will be UNANSWERED.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Labour's Inverclyde candidate fails to learn the lessons from the first debate
Although Iain Gray didn't exactly sparkle in any of the leadership debates during the Holyrood campaign, he never quite repeated his finger-jabbing low of the first STV debate, which suggested that he had at least analysed what had gone wrong and learned from it. Sadly, the same can't be said for Labour's Inverclyde by-election candidate Iain McKenzie, who made an idiot of himself in the first debate by trying to shout down the 20-year-old Lib Dem candidate and failing, and who in the second debate yesterday simply tried yet more of the same. Having spent much of his own first answer lambasting Anne McLaughlin of the SNP without any interruption, it looked absolutely ghastly when he reacted with such fury to McLaughlin returning the compliment that he instantly boomed "I'LL NEED TO STOP YOU RIGHT THERE". It also didn't look great when he later tried to shout down the moderator Isabel Fraser when she was admonishing all the candidates for speaking over each other - McLaughlin, by contrast, looked completely in control of herself and just smiled mischievously at the collective telling-off. Angus Macleod suggested on Twitter that McKenzie's agitated performance may be a sign that Labour are worried about losing the seat - I've no idea if that's true, but you'd certainly be forgiven for suspecting that.
McLaughlin had also very cleverly prepared a "heads I win, tails you lose" trap for McKenzie - she again asked her question from the first debate about whether he, as the head of the Labour-Tory coalition on Inverclyde Council, could guarantee that there would be no compulsory redundancies. If he had repeated his non-answer from the first debate, the implication would have been obvious - as it was, the fact that he gave a completely different answer this time and offered a firm guarantee allowed McLaughlin to claim a first success as a prospective MP for Inverclyde.
A quick word about Sophie Bridger of the Lib Dems - I thought she had improved markedly from Thursday, although her hesitant response on the question of whether the operational life of Hunterston should be extended gave the impression once again that she simply hasn't done her homework on the local area properly. Her best moment, ironically, came when Isabel Fraser challenged her on her agent's comment that the Lib Dems couldn't win - Bridger refreshingly didn't try to flannel her way out of a sticky question, but instead smiled and admitted her agent had been foolish to say it. David Wilson of the Tories, by contrast, after a reasonably impressive first debate, came across as insufferably smug this time.
Overall verdict - another clear win for Anne McLaughlin, but this time without anyone laying a glove on her.
Anne McLaughlin (SNP) 9/10
Sophie Bridger (Liberal Democrat) 7/10
David Wilson (Conservative) 5/10
Iain McKenzie (Labour) 4/10
McLaughlin had also very cleverly prepared a "heads I win, tails you lose" trap for McKenzie - she again asked her question from the first debate about whether he, as the head of the Labour-Tory coalition on Inverclyde Council, could guarantee that there would be no compulsory redundancies. If he had repeated his non-answer from the first debate, the implication would have been obvious - as it was, the fact that he gave a completely different answer this time and offered a firm guarantee allowed McLaughlin to claim a first success as a prospective MP for Inverclyde.
A quick word about Sophie Bridger of the Lib Dems - I thought she had improved markedly from Thursday, although her hesitant response on the question of whether the operational life of Hunterston should be extended gave the impression once again that she simply hasn't done her homework on the local area properly. Her best moment, ironically, came when Isabel Fraser challenged her on her agent's comment that the Lib Dems couldn't win - Bridger refreshingly didn't try to flannel her way out of a sticky question, but instead smiled and admitted her agent had been foolish to say it. David Wilson of the Tories, by contrast, after a reasonably impressive first debate, came across as insufferably smug this time.
Overall verdict - another clear win for Anne McLaughlin, but this time without anyone laying a glove on her.
Anne McLaughlin (SNP) 9/10
Sophie Bridger (Liberal Democrat) 7/10
David Wilson (Conservative) 5/10
Iain McKenzie (Labour) 4/10
REVEALED : My hurt at being stalked on Twitter in a creepy, weird way
A few hours ago, I received this tip-off from Political Betting stalwart Tim -
"I see a couple of the Sarah Brown baiters/Tears for Piers merchants have taken to abusing you on the twittersphere"
Well, obviously this piqued my interest, but the trouble is that with a common name like 'James Kelly' it's difficult to track down any mentions of me using the search function. However, it soon dawned on me that it was more a question of checking the Twitter pages of one or two of the usual suspects, and in the end it took all of thirty seconds to find the exchange in question. No prizes for guessing who it was...
Jason Manc : Could we deep fry James Kelly and feed him to Alex Salmond?
Plato : LOL a mere snack I suspect.
Fitalass : Blimey, I see that you are becoming a regular feature on someone's blog. Creepy.
Plato : I'm sure its fascinating - I blocked someone on Twitter...
Fitalass : Oh, were you being followed by him or someone else?
Plato : Whoever it was sent me a link to a certain blog - I just blocked them immediately - worthy of a certain Mr Ireland.
Fitalass : That is just creepy. Have you suddenly got any other followers tweeting out odd or dodgy links & stuff?
Plato : I get several a day that I assume are spam accounts trying to flog stuff - I never look at them either so pointless!
Now, it has to be said this exchange is rather amusing on a number of counts -
1) Plato may think she's blocked me on Twitter but as far as I can see she hasn't. This follows the familiar pattern of her repeatedly claiming to "put me on ignore" at PB, but mysteriously still being aware of everything I post.
2) Even if she had blocked me it wouldn't have made any difference, because I wasn't one of her followers and - for obvious reasons - had no plans to become one. (And unlike Facebook, you can still see the tweets of people who have blocked you, so the chances are I would have remained completely oblivious to it.)
3) The "link I sent to Plato" (which Fitalass, aka 'ChristinaD', bizarrely tries to lump in with automated internet marketing spam!) was of course no such thing - I simply followed the normal practice of referencing Plato's username in a tweet that was about her, and which happened to have a link to a blog-post at the end.
4) It's somewhat curious that Plato disdainfully claims (ie. "I'm sure it's fascinating") not to have followed the link, because by that point she had already discussed its contents with me on more than one occasion!
5) As I understand it, part of the ever-shifting basis for Fitalass and Plato's charge that I am some kind of "creepy, weird stalker" is that I have discussed them on a public forum (ie. here) without their express permission. Indeed, just the other night, Fitalass claimed with characteristic melodrama that the fact I had done so had "genuinely made her feel physically sick". Clearly the penny has yet to drop for both women that discussing views that have been expressed by others on the record and in a public space (ie. nothing whatever to do with their private or family lives) isn't known as stalking, it's known as political blogging. I would certainly be surprised to learn that Plato seeks written permission from Lib Dem HQ before going off on one about Chris Huhne on a daily basis - but let's leave that to one side. I'm just so incredibly humbled to uncover conclusive proof from Twitter that both Plato and Fitalass practice what they preach with such rigour - and I'm delighted to announce that I'll be continuing to follow their shining example in future.
By the way, if Plato wants to know what 'creepy, weird stalking' really looks like, she might want to cast her mind back to the time someone tracked down Tim's full name and home address, and posted it on the internet out of spite. Oh, wait a moment - wasn't it her that did that?
"I see a couple of the Sarah Brown baiters/Tears for Piers merchants have taken to abusing you on the twittersphere"
Well, obviously this piqued my interest, but the trouble is that with a common name like 'James Kelly' it's difficult to track down any mentions of me using the search function. However, it soon dawned on me that it was more a question of checking the Twitter pages of one or two of the usual suspects, and in the end it took all of thirty seconds to find the exchange in question. No prizes for guessing who it was...
Jason Manc : Could we deep fry James Kelly and feed him to Alex Salmond?
Plato : LOL a mere snack I suspect.
Fitalass : Blimey, I see that you are becoming a regular feature on someone's blog. Creepy.
Plato : I'm sure its fascinating - I blocked someone on Twitter...
Fitalass : Oh, were you being followed by him or someone else?
Plato : Whoever it was sent me a link to a certain blog - I just blocked them immediately - worthy of a certain Mr Ireland.
Fitalass : That is just creepy. Have you suddenly got any other followers tweeting out odd or dodgy links & stuff?
Plato : I get several a day that I assume are spam accounts trying to flog stuff - I never look at them either so pointless!
Now, it has to be said this exchange is rather amusing on a number of counts -
1) Plato may think she's blocked me on Twitter but as far as I can see she hasn't. This follows the familiar pattern of her repeatedly claiming to "put me on ignore" at PB, but mysteriously still being aware of everything I post.
2) Even if she had blocked me it wouldn't have made any difference, because I wasn't one of her followers and - for obvious reasons - had no plans to become one. (And unlike Facebook, you can still see the tweets of people who have blocked you, so the chances are I would have remained completely oblivious to it.)
3) The "link I sent to Plato" (which Fitalass, aka 'ChristinaD', bizarrely tries to lump in with automated internet marketing spam!) was of course no such thing - I simply followed the normal practice of referencing Plato's username in a tweet that was about her, and which happened to have a link to a blog-post at the end.
4) It's somewhat curious that Plato disdainfully claims (ie. "I'm sure it's fascinating") not to have followed the link, because by that point she had already discussed its contents with me on more than one occasion!
5) As I understand it, part of the ever-shifting basis for Fitalass and Plato's charge that I am some kind of "creepy, weird stalker" is that I have discussed them on a public forum (ie. here) without their express permission. Indeed, just the other night, Fitalass claimed with characteristic melodrama that the fact I had done so had "genuinely made her feel physically sick". Clearly the penny has yet to drop for both women that discussing views that have been expressed by others on the record and in a public space (ie. nothing whatever to do with their private or family lives) isn't known as stalking, it's known as political blogging. I would certainly be surprised to learn that Plato seeks written permission from Lib Dem HQ before going off on one about Chris Huhne on a daily basis - but let's leave that to one side. I'm just so incredibly humbled to uncover conclusive proof from Twitter that both Plato and Fitalass practice what they preach with such rigour - and I'm delighted to announce that I'll be continuing to follow their shining example in future.
By the way, if Plato wants to know what 'creepy, weird stalking' really looks like, she might want to cast her mind back to the time someone tracked down Tim's full name and home address, and posted it on the internet out of spite. Oh, wait a moment - wasn't it her that did that?
Sunday, June 26, 2011
No good deed goes unpunished by the BOA Brit Nat zealots
To return briefly to the subject of the GB Olympic football team, some rather startling choice of language from the Mail -
"The British Olympic Association have confirmed the GB teams will be run by the English FA but can include players from any home nation. However, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland remain implacably opposed to a Great Britain team, claiming their separate nation status could be under threat and there are fears their players might be intimidated into declining.
Those fears were not allayed by an SFA spokesman saying it would be viewed as 'treachery' for a Scot to play for Team GB. The managerial appointments will put Pearce on a collision course with the FA of Wales over the probable selection of Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey, and with the Scottish FA over his goalkeeping choice and possibly other players."
Heaven forbid that the SFA should concern itself first and foremost with defending the interests of Scottish football, rather than "allaying the fears" of fretting London journalists that it might do something untoward like...well, defending the interests of Scottish football. The SFA is called the Scottish Football Association for a very good reason - it's supposed to be the governing body of football in a country called Scotland. That means it shouldn't have to "intimidate" players into not participating in the Olympics - it should be able to, you know, decide. If the BOA and English FA choose to play cynical and legalistic games to circumvent that "problem" and get what they selfishly want, they and their cheerleaders in the London press are in absolutely no position to moan if the SFA respond in kind by playing hardball to protect Scotland's football autonomy as best it can in difficult circumstances. This wasn't a fight of the SFA's choosing - they entered into a compromise deal that everyone should have been able to live with (to allow an English team to nominally represent GB), but their good faith has been betrayed. No good deed goes unpunished, as the saying goes.
I even saw a journalist the other day who described the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish administrators as "traitors" - a curious form of treason it is that basically consists of NOT selling out your own countries.
Incidentally, it's amusing to spot in the Mail article that the English FA will not consider Euro 2012 players for selection in the GB team. Since it was the BOA's supposed zeal for non-discriminatory selection policies that was the pretext for breaching the deal with the Celtic associations, I trust they'll be coming down on the FA like a ton of bricks...
"The British Olympic Association have confirmed the GB teams will be run by the English FA but can include players from any home nation. However, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland remain implacably opposed to a Great Britain team, claiming their separate nation status could be under threat and there are fears their players might be intimidated into declining.
Those fears were not allayed by an SFA spokesman saying it would be viewed as 'treachery' for a Scot to play for Team GB. The managerial appointments will put Pearce on a collision course with the FA of Wales over the probable selection of Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey, and with the Scottish FA over his goalkeeping choice and possibly other players."
Heaven forbid that the SFA should concern itself first and foremost with defending the interests of Scottish football, rather than "allaying the fears" of fretting London journalists that it might do something untoward like...well, defending the interests of Scottish football. The SFA is called the Scottish Football Association for a very good reason - it's supposed to be the governing body of football in a country called Scotland. That means it shouldn't have to "intimidate" players into not participating in the Olympics - it should be able to, you know, decide. If the BOA and English FA choose to play cynical and legalistic games to circumvent that "problem" and get what they selfishly want, they and their cheerleaders in the London press are in absolutely no position to moan if the SFA respond in kind by playing hardball to protect Scotland's football autonomy as best it can in difficult circumstances. This wasn't a fight of the SFA's choosing - they entered into a compromise deal that everyone should have been able to live with (to allow an English team to nominally represent GB), but their good faith has been betrayed. No good deed goes unpunished, as the saying goes.
I even saw a journalist the other day who described the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish administrators as "traitors" - a curious form of treason it is that basically consists of NOT selling out your own countries.
Incidentally, it's amusing to spot in the Mail article that the English FA will not consider Euro 2012 players for selection in the GB team. Since it was the BOA's supposed zeal for non-discriminatory selection policies that was the pretext for breaching the deal with the Celtic associations, I trust they'll be coming down on the FA like a ton of bricks...
Saturday, June 25, 2011
North Ayrshire Labour councillor thinks that Scotland should be forced to stay in the United Kingdom even if the majority vote for independence
In grasping for ways to thwart the democratic self-determination of the Scottish people, the fundamentalist unionist tendency have already test-driven the 'UK-wide vote' wheeze and the 'two referendums' wheeze, with conspicuously little success on both occasions. It was only a matter of time before someone completed the set by seizing the mantle of George Cunningham and deciding they may as well stop faffing about and just get on with rigging the ballot itself. Dear old friend of this blog, the mysteriously bashful "Braveheart" of Councillor Alex Gallagher fame, had this to say in a recent post -
"It therefore seems unacceptable that the currently effective governance of the country could be overturned by a simple majority of Scots voting in a one-off referendum.
If the turnout at a referendum was at the same level as recent elections, a 51% vote in favour of independence would need the actual votes of less than a third, maybe even a quarter, of the electorate. This is no basis to create a new country. If the referendum is to go ahead there must be a threshold - two-thirds of votes cast or 45% of the electorate, or some similar substantial proportion – that would secure the acquiescence of the minority in the upheaval implied by breaking up the UK."
Two-thirds of the votes cast? I never agreed with George Robertson about much, but I wholeheartedly agreed with him in 1996 when in unveiling the devolution referendum he declared that never again should the will of the people in a constitutional referendum be overturned by a "fancy franchise". What Councillor Gallagher is suggesting is that 66% of people could vote Yes to independence and 34% could vote No, and the result would be ignored. It's a phrase I've used before, but that isn't self-determination, it's a hostage situation.
Incidentally, isn't it curious that Councillor Gallagher, a self-styled "sensible, moderate, fellow, who thinks that the Tories have the wrong recipe for a decent society" is quite happy to enthuse about the status quo of Tory rule from London as "effective governance"? Indeed, he's so sure of himself on the latter point that he arrogantly thinks that even if a majority of Scots take a diametrically opposite view on the "effectiveness" of London Tory governance, their views should be taken no account of whatsoever. It's also worth pointing out that the Welsh Assembly was established after a 50.3% - 49.7% vote in favour, on a turnout of roughly 50% - does Councillor Gallagher think that the current Labour administration in Cardiff Bay is an abhorrence that is getting in the way of "effective" Tory governance from London? I can only assume he must do.
"It therefore seems unacceptable that the currently effective governance of the country could be overturned by a simple majority of Scots voting in a one-off referendum.
If the turnout at a referendum was at the same level as recent elections, a 51% vote in favour of independence would need the actual votes of less than a third, maybe even a quarter, of the electorate. This is no basis to create a new country. If the referendum is to go ahead there must be a threshold - two-thirds of votes cast or 45% of the electorate, or some similar substantial proportion – that would secure the acquiescence of the minority in the upheaval implied by breaking up the UK."
Two-thirds of the votes cast? I never agreed with George Robertson about much, but I wholeheartedly agreed with him in 1996 when in unveiling the devolution referendum he declared that never again should the will of the people in a constitutional referendum be overturned by a "fancy franchise". What Councillor Gallagher is suggesting is that 66% of people could vote Yes to independence and 34% could vote No, and the result would be ignored. It's a phrase I've used before, but that isn't self-determination, it's a hostage situation.
Incidentally, isn't it curious that Councillor Gallagher, a self-styled "sensible, moderate, fellow, who thinks that the Tories have the wrong recipe for a decent society" is quite happy to enthuse about the status quo of Tory rule from London as "effective governance"? Indeed, he's so sure of himself on the latter point that he arrogantly thinks that even if a majority of Scots take a diametrically opposite view on the "effectiveness" of London Tory governance, their views should be taken no account of whatsoever. It's also worth pointing out that the Welsh Assembly was established after a 50.3% - 49.7% vote in favour, on a turnout of roughly 50% - does Councillor Gallagher think that the current Labour administration in Cardiff Bay is an abhorrence that is getting in the way of "effective" Tory governance from London? I can only assume he must do.
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