I just happened to stumble across an excellent blogpost the other day detailing the most common logical fallacies. The examples used to illustrate each fallacy all relate to the bogus arguments deployed by proponents of a legal ban on sex work and/or pornography, but it was a very timely find given Nick Clegg's bizarre attempt to paint the huge number of people who believe in either independence or the status quo as 'extremists' -
"Mr Clegg said the Lib Dems vision of Home Rule represented the views of the Scottish people and argued that those who were for independence, or keeping the current constitutional settlement, were extremists.
“All the evidence suggests that is the mainstream of opinion and the extremists are those who either think that we need to yank Scotland out of the United Kingdom tomorrow, or those who say there should be no further change at all,” Mr Clegg said."
One of the fallacies explained in the blogpost is "Middle ground: the belief that the truth must be somewhere in the middle". Off the top of my head, here's an example...
Proposition 1 - Nick Clegg should be sentenced to thirty years' hard labour for fraudulently securing votes on the promise that the Liberal Democrats would vote against an increase in tuition fees.
Proposition 2 - Nick Clegg should be spared jail for fraudulently securing votes on the promise that the Liberal Democrats would vote against an increase in tuition fees, but should certainly be expected to resign forthwith.
Proposition 3 - Nick Clegg should be forgiven for fradulently securing votes on the promise that the Liberal Democrats would vote against an increase in tuition fees, and allowed to remain as Lib Dem leader for now.
In this instance, hard labour and forgiveness are clearly the 'extreme' options, which leaves resignation as the only moderate, reasonable, sensible course of action. And as Clegg is apparently keen to pray in aid the relative popularity of each constitutional option, it should also be noted that calls for his resignation represent 'mainstream opinion' in Scotland. Open and shut case, methinks - anyone who doesn't think Nick Clegg should resign immediately is clearly an extremist on a par with Nick Griffin.
Incidentally, I was intrigued to see in the Scotsman article that Clegg defines himself (rather like Ken Macintosh) as a 'devolutionist, not a unionist'. But at the Political Innovation conference just over a year ago, I clearly remember Caron Lindsay repeatedly insisting that the Lib Dems are a 'federalist, not a unionist' party. Whatever happened to that? Federalism and devolution are qualitatively very different concepts - albeit both very much unionist ones in the literal sense of the word.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Friday, January 6, 2012
Dragon-fire and moon-howlers
This blog is in severe danger of turning into @Admin4TheYoonYoon Tweet-Watch, but here goes anyway...
Tom Harris : Comment 22 under Michael Kelly's Scotsman article really makes you feel positive about Nats: "GTF back to Ireland"
Joan McAlpine : Poison is endemic on internet. I get plenty of it from unionists whether Lab, Con or Lib Dem.
Tom Harris : Yes, Joan - the biggest problem is with unionists' comments on newspaper sites...Good grief.
Well, as it happens, Tom, I'm in a rather good position to comment on this subject, because I'm a Nationalist whose name is Kelly (for good measure my middle name is Michael) and I have been repeatedly and 'robustly' informed by a delightful unionist poster over a period of months that I cannot possibly be a Scot, on the grounds that my ancestry is Irish/American/French-Canadian. The 'name' of the poster in question is Moniker of Monza, and he posts at Political Betting. There are dozens of his ilk at that site, and elsewhere online. So don't try telling me there isn't a massive 'CyberYoonYoonist' problem.
Oh, and the fact that I don't know the real names of any of those CYYs brings me neatly onto this -
Tom Harris : Calling all Nat moon-howlers: You want to be another "Braveheart"? Well "brave" doesn't equate to writing poison under a pseudonym.
A sentiment with which I can just spot the one minor problem, Tom - namely, why have you posted your 'less constructive' Labour Hame pieces under the pseudonym 'Admin'? Or at least that was your practice until the leadership campaign was safely lost. Is 'bravery' a quality that only Nats should ever be expected to aspire to?
To turn to the Michael Kelly article itself...well, perhaps the best way of summing it up is that it bears an uncanny similarity to the irate letters Norman Hogg used to write to Scotland on Sunday circa 1995, and even in those days it was like entering a time-warp. Exhibit A -
"He [Salmond] remembers taking Mrs Thatcher on, while the rest of us recall that it was the SNP that started the Thatcher era. By bringing down the Callaghan government in 1979, the SNP forced a general election at the time most propitious to the Tories, and thereafter they ruled the UK for the next 18 years."
My money's on 2543 (for the year that Labour will finally dispense with that particular chip on their shoulder). But let's run through the actual sequence of events yet again for Kelly's benefit. The facts are these - the SNP propped up an extraordinarily unpopular Labour government for years in the late 1970s, and did so because they believed that Callaghan was acting in good faith on Home Rule. But after Scotland voted Yes to devolution in March 1979, Callaghan refused to honour that mandate. So what exactly was the SNP supposed to do - carry on propping up a lame duck government in exchange for absolutely nothing? It's true that they didn't achieve anything by bringing the government down, but neither would they have achieved anything by taking the alternative course - there would still have been no Scottish Assembly, and Mrs Thatcher's rise to power would in all probability have been delayed by only a matter of weeks (five months at the absolute outside). The idea that Labour could have overturned a 20+ point deficit if only they'd been given an extra few weeks is risible in the extreme.
Besides which, it wasn't the SNP that brought Mrs Thatcher to power. It was the people of the UK who did so by voting for her in a general election. The most sacred belief of unionists like Michael Kelly is that the will of the people of the whole UK must hold sway in Scotland - this is known as 'maturity'. Callaghan's defeat in a vote of no confidence (in which Labour folk-hero Gerry Fitt's abstention was just as decisive as the SNP's votes, let's not forget) merely facilitated and mildly accelerated the process of the UK electorate choosing a government that was more to their taste. So why isn't Kelly able to celebrate that? Isn't the fact that he feels unable to do so (especially after thirty-three years, for heaven's sake!) a rather strong indication that he is on the wrong side of the constitutional debate?
"And he [Salmond] is trying his best to fix both the timing and wording of the referendum question – the former on the grounds that he promised it would be held late in this parliament: a promise for which there is as little evidence as for a dragon’s fiery breath."
You mean, apart from the footage from the leaders' debates, and from several high-profile interviews? If both I and Hugh Henry imagined all that, then clearly we both believe in dragons.
"However, the Thatcher stopper deserves credit for being so honest in the assessment of his role. It is further to his credit that he kept quiet about his heroics for so many years, allowing us to believe that it was Tony Blair and New Labour that finally lanced the Tory boil."
Please don't try to change the subject, Michael - Alex Salmond was talking about his role in the downfall of Thatcher in 1990, not the Tory government in 1997. And if we're being strictly accurate, she was actually brought down by fellow Tories. Indeed, there's more than a grain of truth in the old joke that the Tories won the 1992 election because they'd succeeded in doing what Labour had tried and failed to do for over a decade - remove Margaret Thatcher from office.
* * *
I must say I disagree with Subrosa on her call for an entirely new national anthem to replace Flower of Scotland. It seems to me there's a disconnect between the people and elites (including the SNP elite) on this subject - the people have already made their choice of anthem, but the elite simply can't leave it alone. My guess is that if a new song was commissioned, it would be a repeat of what happened in Russia following the collapse of communism - the public wouldn't take the new anthem to their hearts, and we'd have to revert to the old one again after a few years.
It's true, though, that the use of Flower of Scotland at sporting events needs a bit of imagination - it should be played fast, and definitely not by a pipe band.
Tom Harris : Comment 22 under Michael Kelly's Scotsman article really makes you feel positive about Nats: "GTF back to Ireland"
Joan McAlpine : Poison is endemic on internet. I get plenty of it from unionists whether Lab, Con or Lib Dem.
Tom Harris : Yes, Joan - the biggest problem is with unionists' comments on newspaper sites...Good grief.
Well, as it happens, Tom, I'm in a rather good position to comment on this subject, because I'm a Nationalist whose name is Kelly (for good measure my middle name is Michael) and I have been repeatedly and 'robustly' informed by a delightful unionist poster over a period of months that I cannot possibly be a Scot, on the grounds that my ancestry is Irish/American/French-Canadian. The 'name' of the poster in question is Moniker of Monza, and he posts at Political Betting. There are dozens of his ilk at that site, and elsewhere online. So don't try telling me there isn't a massive 'CyberYoonYoonist' problem.
Oh, and the fact that I don't know the real names of any of those CYYs brings me neatly onto this -
Tom Harris : Calling all Nat moon-howlers: You want to be another "Braveheart"? Well "brave" doesn't equate to writing poison under a pseudonym.
A sentiment with which I can just spot the one minor problem, Tom - namely, why have you posted your 'less constructive' Labour Hame pieces under the pseudonym 'Admin'? Or at least that was your practice until the leadership campaign was safely lost. Is 'bravery' a quality that only Nats should ever be expected to aspire to?
To turn to the Michael Kelly article itself...well, perhaps the best way of summing it up is that it bears an uncanny similarity to the irate letters Norman Hogg used to write to Scotland on Sunday circa 1995, and even in those days it was like entering a time-warp. Exhibit A -
"He [Salmond] remembers taking Mrs Thatcher on, while the rest of us recall that it was the SNP that started the Thatcher era. By bringing down the Callaghan government in 1979, the SNP forced a general election at the time most propitious to the Tories, and thereafter they ruled the UK for the next 18 years."
My money's on 2543 (for the year that Labour will finally dispense with that particular chip on their shoulder). But let's run through the actual sequence of events yet again for Kelly's benefit. The facts are these - the SNP propped up an extraordinarily unpopular Labour government for years in the late 1970s, and did so because they believed that Callaghan was acting in good faith on Home Rule. But after Scotland voted Yes to devolution in March 1979, Callaghan refused to honour that mandate. So what exactly was the SNP supposed to do - carry on propping up a lame duck government in exchange for absolutely nothing? It's true that they didn't achieve anything by bringing the government down, but neither would they have achieved anything by taking the alternative course - there would still have been no Scottish Assembly, and Mrs Thatcher's rise to power would in all probability have been delayed by only a matter of weeks (five months at the absolute outside). The idea that Labour could have overturned a 20+ point deficit if only they'd been given an extra few weeks is risible in the extreme.
Besides which, it wasn't the SNP that brought Mrs Thatcher to power. It was the people of the UK who did so by voting for her in a general election. The most sacred belief of unionists like Michael Kelly is that the will of the people of the whole UK must hold sway in Scotland - this is known as 'maturity'. Callaghan's defeat in a vote of no confidence (in which Labour folk-hero Gerry Fitt's abstention was just as decisive as the SNP's votes, let's not forget) merely facilitated and mildly accelerated the process of the UK electorate choosing a government that was more to their taste. So why isn't Kelly able to celebrate that? Isn't the fact that he feels unable to do so (especially after thirty-three years, for heaven's sake!) a rather strong indication that he is on the wrong side of the constitutional debate?
"And he [Salmond] is trying his best to fix both the timing and wording of the referendum question – the former on the grounds that he promised it would be held late in this parliament: a promise for which there is as little evidence as for a dragon’s fiery breath."
You mean, apart from the footage from the leaders' debates, and from several high-profile interviews? If both I and Hugh Henry imagined all that, then clearly we both believe in dragons.
"However, the Thatcher stopper deserves credit for being so honest in the assessment of his role. It is further to his credit that he kept quiet about his heroics for so many years, allowing us to believe that it was Tony Blair and New Labour that finally lanced the Tory boil."
Please don't try to change the subject, Michael - Alex Salmond was talking about his role in the downfall of Thatcher in 1990, not the Tory government in 1997. And if we're being strictly accurate, she was actually brought down by fellow Tories. Indeed, there's more than a grain of truth in the old joke that the Tories won the 1992 election because they'd succeeded in doing what Labour had tried and failed to do for over a decade - remove Margaret Thatcher from office.
* * *
I must say I disagree with Subrosa on her call for an entirely new national anthem to replace Flower of Scotland. It seems to me there's a disconnect between the people and elites (including the SNP elite) on this subject - the people have already made their choice of anthem, but the elite simply can't leave it alone. My guess is that if a new song was commissioned, it would be a repeat of what happened in Russia following the collapse of communism - the public wouldn't take the new anthem to their hearts, and we'd have to revert to the old one again after a few years.
It's true, though, that the use of Flower of Scotland at sporting events needs a bit of imagination - it should be played fast, and definitely not by a pipe band.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Elgin has more in common with Southend-on-Sea than with Yetts o' Muckhart : FACT
Just a very quick query for our old friend @Admin4TheYoonYoon. I'm struggling to reconcile the logic of these two recent tweets -
"But the point of my original comment was that to win *in the UK* we need to win the support of former Thatcher voters."
"Indeed. But since Scotland and England aren't that different, the Union is a good idea."
Righty-ho. So if Scotland and England aren't that different, why do Labour need Thatcher voters to win in the UK, but not in Scotland? Indeed, given that Admin endlessly scoffs at the notion that Scotland might, in some specific ways, have more in common with Scandinavia than with the south of England, could he explain why social democratic parties certainly wouldn't need the support of Thatcherites to win in a hypothetical Scandinavian political union, but do in the British political union?
Tom's final pearl of wisdom for the evening was this -
"Glaswegians have more in common with Manchester, Newcastle and Liverpool than they do with Edinburgh or Aberdeen."
No need to back that up, Tom, the assertion will do fine. Actually, in the light of Labour Hame's side-splitting spoof New Year's message from Alex Salmond ("Wha's like us? Absolutely no-one"), perhaps someone should pen an @Admin4TheYoonYoon message in which he explains that not only does Scotland have more in common with England in every conceivable area of policy or culture than with any other nation on earth, but that every individual town or village in Scotland has more in common with a hamlet in Shropshire than with any other location in Scotland itself.
"But the point of my original comment was that to win *in the UK* we need to win the support of former Thatcher voters."
"Indeed. But since Scotland and England aren't that different, the Union is a good idea."
Righty-ho. So if Scotland and England aren't that different, why do Labour need Thatcher voters to win in the UK, but not in Scotland? Indeed, given that Admin endlessly scoffs at the notion that Scotland might, in some specific ways, have more in common with Scandinavia than with the south of England, could he explain why social democratic parties certainly wouldn't need the support of Thatcherites to win in a hypothetical Scandinavian political union, but do in the British political union?
Tom's final pearl of wisdom for the evening was this -
"Glaswegians have more in common with Manchester, Newcastle and Liverpool than they do with Edinburgh or Aberdeen."
No need to back that up, Tom, the assertion will do fine. Actually, in the light of Labour Hame's side-splitting spoof New Year's message from Alex Salmond ("Wha's like us? Absolutely no-one"), perhaps someone should pen an @Admin4TheYoonYoon message in which he explains that not only does Scotland have more in common with England in every conceivable area of policy or culture than with any other nation on earth, but that every individual town or village in Scotland has more in common with a hamlet in Shropshire than with any other location in Scotland itself.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Vote for Ron?
In theory I have the right to vote in the forthcoming US presidential primaries, although it remains to be seen whether I'll actually be able to exercise that right, because on previous occasions my requests for a ballot paper have only met with a 70-75% success rate. However, assuming I do get the opportunity, I'll be in the novel position of deciding who to vote for in the Republican primary - there's absolutely no point in participating in the Democratic ballot, because for better or worse it's a foregone conclusion that Barack Obama will be the candidate. So here's the dilemma : how do I go about deciding who is the least worst of all the extreme right-wing candidates vying for the presumptuous post of Global Emperor? Or should I even be trying to decide that? Should I instead vote for the most extreme candidate of the lot, to maximise Obama's chances of being re-elected?
Before my New Year's Resolution to stop posting at PB, I explained my dilemma over there. The poster Edmund of Tokyo had some very solid practical advice - I should plump for Rick Perry, because he has the dual attributes of being fundamentally unelectable, but also not the sort of chap who would blow up the world in the unlikely event that he is elected. This is a persuasive argument, but I'm actually coming round to the peculiar idea that I might vote for Ron Paul instead. I say 'peculiar' because in many ways he stands for all the things I most detest - abolition of what little there is of a welfare state in the US, completely unfettered gun ownership rights, etc, etc. But the beauty of a Paul candidacy would be the long-overdue airing of certain issues that will otherwise remain buried, ie. does the US have any right to maintain a global empire in the 21st Century? Is it really OK for it to carry out extra-judicial killings on other countries' sovereign territory? Should it stop and question its uncritical support for Israel once in a while?
And if the calamity happened and Paul actually was elected President, one point of reassurance is that he would have a relatively free hand to pursue his constructive agenda in the foreign policy sphere, but to some extent might be hampered by Congress in his attempts to leave the poor to starve.
All of this may be totally academic, of course, because if Mitt Romney wins the Iowa Caucuses today (Tuesday), the momentum behind him would probably be unstoppable, and the contest would be over before it really started.
NOTE : 'Vote for Ron' is slang for voting for no-one, or for 'none of the above' (RON stands for 're-open nominations').
Before my New Year's Resolution to stop posting at PB, I explained my dilemma over there. The poster Edmund of Tokyo had some very solid practical advice - I should plump for Rick Perry, because he has the dual attributes of being fundamentally unelectable, but also not the sort of chap who would blow up the world in the unlikely event that he is elected. This is a persuasive argument, but I'm actually coming round to the peculiar idea that I might vote for Ron Paul instead. I say 'peculiar' because in many ways he stands for all the things I most detest - abolition of what little there is of a welfare state in the US, completely unfettered gun ownership rights, etc, etc. But the beauty of a Paul candidacy would be the long-overdue airing of certain issues that will otherwise remain buried, ie. does the US have any right to maintain a global empire in the 21st Century? Is it really OK for it to carry out extra-judicial killings on other countries' sovereign territory? Should it stop and question its uncritical support for Israel once in a while?
And if the calamity happened and Paul actually was elected President, one point of reassurance is that he would have a relatively free hand to pursue his constructive agenda in the foreign policy sphere, but to some extent might be hampered by Congress in his attempts to leave the poor to starve.
All of this may be totally academic, of course, because if Mitt Romney wins the Iowa Caucuses today (Tuesday), the momentum behind him would probably be unstoppable, and the contest would be over before it really started.
NOTE : 'Vote for Ron' is slang for voting for no-one, or for 'none of the above' (RON stands for 're-open nominations').
Saturday, December 31, 2011
That's one New Year's Resolution sorted out...
Like most people, I tend to fail miserably at keeping my New Year's Resolutions (with the notable exception of 2009, when I made two very bold ones and somehow managed to fulfil them both, albeit it took me until September). But I certainly don't have to look very far for a task to set myself in 2012, and that's to keep as far away from PoliticalBetting.com as humanly possible. I drifted back there just before Christmas for the first time in a good few months, and you might have thought that the long break would have meant that I wasn't quite as much of a marked man as before - but not a bit of it. No, all I have to do is turn up and mention the word 'Scotland' or 'independence', and the usual suspects descend on me like a pack of wolves, just like I've never been away. On Thursday I was accused of bigotry for making the blindingly obvious point that it would be profoundly foolish and grossly insensitive of David Cameron to break the decades-long convention of only appointing Scottish MPs to the post of Secretary of State for Scotland. When I clarified for the benefit of the poster in question that "Scottish MP" was shorthand for "MP representing a Scottish constituency", and not for "anyone who isn't English", I was effectively told that it wasn't up to me to decide what I meant!
And then of course there was the annual farce that is the Poster of the Year poll. Don't get me wrong, David Herdson is without doubt an infinitely worthier winner than last year's (albeit I certainly haven't forgotten his pompous and spectacularly ill-judged intervention in an exchange involving me during the summer), but the fact that the only two out-and-out left-wing posters involved in the poll finished last and second-last respectively tells its own story. The under-performance of the superb left-wing/Nationalist poster Mick Pork in the newcomers' poll was also very striking.
I was also somewhat startled to learn from Poster of the Year runner-up Richard Nabavi that "even James Kelly awarded me one star, in a rare show of cross-party generosity" (this was sarcasm, for the avoidance of doubt). The problem was that I hadn't actually revealed to anyone how I voted, and as Richard's information was accurate, I naturally drew the obvious conclusion that my vote had been selectively leaked by the site proprietors. After I complained about this, it transpired that there was an innocent (albeit much less obvious) explanation, but for my trouble I was then subjected to a torrent of inane drivel about my "paranoia" and "MI5 surveillance". And just to make the day complete, I once again had to put up with the site's resident bore "Neil", who paradoxically spends virtually all of his time telling everyone else how boring they are.
But the final straw came last night when I tried to respond to this truly jaw-dropping post by regular poster HD2 -
"An interesting point is why a site with such high average IQ posters (compared to many internet blogs) and which is run by a Liberal LD has such a perceived preponderance of right-of-centre posters!
Particularly as over the majority of the time the site has been running the UK has been under Socialist management, and at no time under Conservative, Libertarian, (sane?) management.....
Is it because we 'righties' have more time (team tim clearly have more than any of us, though) or is it simply that, as I strongly suspect:
a) intelligent people are in favour of individualism, not collectivism, which makes them 'right', not 'left' politically
b) the ACTUAL centre-ground of politics is well to the right of (eg) Cameron, so those on the Left perceive anyone to the right of (eg) Brown as being 'right-wing', when they are merely 'centrist'"
When I attempted to inject a tiny bit of sanity by pointing out that a rather simpler and more plausible explanation was a snowball effect (ie. a site with overwhelmingly right-wing posters tends to attract even more right-wing posters, and repel left-wing posters), my comment was swiftly deleted. Which eloquently illustrates another possible explanation for the dearth of left-wing posters at PB - a rather less-than-even-handed approach by the editors and moderators.
* * *
And that pretty much brings to a close another year of posts at Scot Goes Pop. See you in 2012 - always assuming I make it back in one piece from the Edinburgh street-party, which I'm going to for the first time!
And then of course there was the annual farce that is the Poster of the Year poll. Don't get me wrong, David Herdson is without doubt an infinitely worthier winner than last year's (albeit I certainly haven't forgotten his pompous and spectacularly ill-judged intervention in an exchange involving me during the summer), but the fact that the only two out-and-out left-wing posters involved in the poll finished last and second-last respectively tells its own story. The under-performance of the superb left-wing/Nationalist poster Mick Pork in the newcomers' poll was also very striking.
I was also somewhat startled to learn from Poster of the Year runner-up Richard Nabavi that "even James Kelly awarded me one star, in a rare show of cross-party generosity" (this was sarcasm, for the avoidance of doubt). The problem was that I hadn't actually revealed to anyone how I voted, and as Richard's information was accurate, I naturally drew the obvious conclusion that my vote had been selectively leaked by the site proprietors. After I complained about this, it transpired that there was an innocent (albeit much less obvious) explanation, but for my trouble I was then subjected to a torrent of inane drivel about my "paranoia" and "MI5 surveillance". And just to make the day complete, I once again had to put up with the site's resident bore "Neil", who paradoxically spends virtually all of his time telling everyone else how boring they are.
But the final straw came last night when I tried to respond to this truly jaw-dropping post by regular poster HD2 -
"An interesting point is why a site with such high average IQ posters (compared to many internet blogs) and which is run by a Liberal LD has such a perceived preponderance of right-of-centre posters!
Particularly as over the majority of the time the site has been running the UK has been under Socialist management, and at no time under Conservative, Libertarian, (sane?) management.....
Is it because we 'righties' have more time (team tim clearly have more than any of us, though) or is it simply that, as I strongly suspect:
a) intelligent people are in favour of individualism, not collectivism, which makes them 'right', not 'left' politically
b) the ACTUAL centre-ground of politics is well to the right of (eg) Cameron, so those on the Left perceive anyone to the right of (eg) Brown as being 'right-wing', when they are merely 'centrist'"
When I attempted to inject a tiny bit of sanity by pointing out that a rather simpler and more plausible explanation was a snowball effect (ie. a site with overwhelmingly right-wing posters tends to attract even more right-wing posters, and repel left-wing posters), my comment was swiftly deleted. Which eloquently illustrates another possible explanation for the dearth of left-wing posters at PB - a rather less-than-even-handed approach by the editors and moderators.
* * *
And that pretty much brings to a close another year of posts at Scot Goes Pop. See you in 2012 - always assuming I make it back in one piece from the Edinburgh street-party, which I'm going to for the first time!
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Brazen : Westminster considers legislating to force the SNP to break its election pledges
I trust if the plan being touted in today's Scotsman ever sees the light of day, we'll hear no more from the unionist parties about "broken SNP promises" - because what is being suggested is that Westminster could literally legislate to force Alex Salmond to break his word on the timing of the independence referendum. It beggars belief - first they move heaven and earth to prevent a referendum being held in 2010 as planned by the SNP, and call that an SNP broken promise on the grounds that Salmond didn't go through the motions of putting a doomed bill to the vote. This time, after a dramatic mood-swing, they're pondering a clause in the Scotland Bill to force the referendum to be held earlier than was pledged. Well, we can accuse them of many things, but certainly not of consistency.
One intriguing point here is that if they do attempt to do this through the Scotland Bill, they'd still need legislative consent for the bill as a whole from Holyrood. They didn't show much sign of making the necessary compromises to get that consent before this latest revelation, and heaven only knows how much ground they'd have to give to get the new wheeze through.
* * *
I've just received an early Christmas present in my inbox -
"Jimmy, you are my long-awaited man!
Greetings my dear! I am a beautiful woman from Russia and I dream to meet you.
I am very energetic but within reasonable limits. But still there is a lack of one person in my life.
That is why I am here. I am waiting for my special man to come to my life. Doors to my soul are open for him. Look at my pictures...I will be waiting for you."
I'm so glad she gave me fair warning about only being energetic "within reasonable limits" - I'd have been bound to do something rash like enter her for the London Marathon otherwise.
* * *
If you enjoy voting in online polls, you might be interested to know that the superb Nationalist posters Mick Pork and TheUnionDivvie are among five people in the running for Political Betting's "Best Newcomer" of 2011. Naturally, given the nature of the site, it's a bit of an uphill struggle for them to get votes, so I thought a small plug might be in order! You can find the voting form here.
* * *
Last but not least, a very happy Christmas to you all!
One intriguing point here is that if they do attempt to do this through the Scotland Bill, they'd still need legislative consent for the bill as a whole from Holyrood. They didn't show much sign of making the necessary compromises to get that consent before this latest revelation, and heaven only knows how much ground they'd have to give to get the new wheeze through.
* * *
I've just received an early Christmas present in my inbox -
"Jimmy, you are my long-awaited man!
Greetings my dear! I am a beautiful woman from Russia and I dream to meet you.
I am very energetic but within reasonable limits. But still there is a lack of one person in my life.
That is why I am here. I am waiting for my special man to come to my life. Doors to my soul are open for him. Look at my pictures...I will be waiting for you."
I'm so glad she gave me fair warning about only being energetic "within reasonable limits" - I'd have been bound to do something rash like enter her for the London Marathon otherwise.
* * *
If you enjoy voting in online polls, you might be interested to know that the superb Nationalist posters Mick Pork and TheUnionDivvie are among five people in the running for Political Betting's "Best Newcomer" of 2011. Naturally, given the nature of the site, it's a bit of an uphill struggle for them to get votes, so I thought a small plug might be in order! You can find the voting form here.
* * *
Last but not least, a very happy Christmas to you all!
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Admin : Probing the psyche
Where does he find the time? No sooner has Admin been appointed by Johann Lamont to the vital role of Shadow Minister for Conducting a Review Into the Use of Modern Technology (looks like he'll be rivalling Wendy Alexander's old status as 'Minister for Everything'), than he's back at the Labour Hame grindstone, churning out yet more public-spirited citizen journalism. In his latest article, he poses the thought-provoking question -
"Does it matter that a prominent nationalist website doesn’t consider accuracy as important?"
Thought-provoking, I mean, in the sense that it provoked a few other questions to creep into my own thoughts. For example -
1. Does it matter that a right-wing politician joined a left-wing political party solely for the purposes of career advancement?
2. Given his stated concern about the supposed lack of journalistic standards at Newsnet Scotland, does it also concern him that his repeated use of the term "NewsNat Scotland" would have fallen foul of the Better Nation moderation rules had he submitted his piece as a comment there, let alone that it would have precluded the article's use in virtually any other serious publication?
3. What is the significance of his repeated use of the spelling "Yoonyoonist" when characterising the speech patterns of nationalists, given that it is a perfectly natural phonetic rendering of how anyone would pronounce the word? (Unless of course "Un-yun-ist" is preferred in the Harris household.) Could it, by any chance, betray his extraordinarily authoritarian mindset, ie. that he is incapable of seeing people who diverge from his own views as 'mature'? That his brain automatically converts their speech into 'baby-talk', and the only response he can imagine is to try to patronise them into submission? In a nutshell, does he have a deep subconscious need for others to see him as a father figure who they look to for guidance and chastisement? And should we fear for his well-being now that his own party have comprehensively rejected him for the father role, instead preferring him for the (admittedly mega) technology review role?
4. Does he have no sense of shame about going into apoplexy over hair-splitting examples of the "inaccuracy" of others, given that it's only a matter of weeks since he lied through his teeth that a nationalist banner outside the Royal Concert Hall had read "End English Rule", and given that we all know he'd never have half-heartedly acknowledged that gross inaccuracy unless he'd been supplied with incontrovertible photographic evidence? What conclusions are we entitled to draw about a politician who does lack such an appropriate sense of shame?
"Does it matter that a prominent nationalist website doesn’t consider accuracy as important?"
Thought-provoking, I mean, in the sense that it provoked a few other questions to creep into my own thoughts. For example -
1. Does it matter that a right-wing politician joined a left-wing political party solely for the purposes of career advancement?
2. Given his stated concern about the supposed lack of journalistic standards at Newsnet Scotland, does it also concern him that his repeated use of the term "NewsNat Scotland" would have fallen foul of the Better Nation moderation rules had he submitted his piece as a comment there, let alone that it would have precluded the article's use in virtually any other serious publication?
3. What is the significance of his repeated use of the spelling "Yoonyoonist" when characterising the speech patterns of nationalists, given that it is a perfectly natural phonetic rendering of how anyone would pronounce the word? (Unless of course "Un-yun-ist" is preferred in the Harris household.) Could it, by any chance, betray his extraordinarily authoritarian mindset, ie. that he is incapable of seeing people who diverge from his own views as 'mature'? That his brain automatically converts their speech into 'baby-talk', and the only response he can imagine is to try to patronise them into submission? In a nutshell, does he have a deep subconscious need for others to see him as a father figure who they look to for guidance and chastisement? And should we fear for his well-being now that his own party have comprehensively rejected him for the father role, instead preferring him for the (admittedly mega) technology review role?
4. Does he have no sense of shame about going into apoplexy over hair-splitting examples of the "inaccuracy" of others, given that it's only a matter of weeks since he lied through his teeth that a nationalist banner outside the Royal Concert Hall had read "End English Rule", and given that we all know he'd never have half-heartedly acknowledged that gross inaccuracy unless he'd been supplied with incontrovertible photographic evidence? What conclusions are we entitled to draw about a politician who does lack such an appropriate sense of shame?
Monday, December 19, 2011
Mr Popular
Nobody does unintentional comedy quite like the Guardian these days...
"The least well-known Scottish leader in its history, Lamont defeated another lesser-known backbencher, Ken McIntosh, and popular Westminster backbencher Tom Harris, the MP for Glasgow South, to win. McIntosh won 40.3% and Harris 7.95% of the vote."
Call me peculiar, but I always thought elections were a rather good test of popularity. So let's recap : Tom Harris is "popular", but he's just taken a gubbing at the hands of "the least well-known Scottish Labour leader in history" and "another lesser-known backbencher". Heaven only knows what would have happened to him if he'd been unpopular.
Ah well. Scottish Labour's gain is the blogosphere's loss. Or something like that.
And I really do think the Guardian are grossly overstating the scale of the challenge facing Johann Lamont as leader. Surely it's high time the press picked up on the inspiring message of hope and renewal that Labour's electoral college has just decisively delivered, ie. "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
"The least well-known Scottish leader in its history, Lamont defeated another lesser-known backbencher, Ken McIntosh, and popular Westminster backbencher Tom Harris, the MP for Glasgow South, to win. McIntosh won 40.3% and Harris 7.95% of the vote."
Call me peculiar, but I always thought elections were a rather good test of popularity. So let's recap : Tom Harris is "popular", but he's just taken a gubbing at the hands of "the least well-known Scottish Labour leader in history" and "another lesser-known backbencher". Heaven only knows what would have happened to him if he'd been unpopular.
Ah well. Scottish Labour's gain is the blogosphere's loss. Or something like that.
And I really do think the Guardian are grossly overstating the scale of the challenge facing Johann Lamont as leader. Surely it's high time the press picked up on the inspiring message of hope and renewal that Labour's electoral college has just decisively delivered, ie. "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Scottish Labour persevere with their highly successful core vote strategy
Well, it would be massively over-the-top on this occasion to repeat what I said about the Tories a few weeks ago. Labour haven't made a historic error - not that choosing Johann Lamont wasn't an error, but it's hard to pretend that the alternative would have been much better. There was no-one on the ballot paper who could have matched Alex Salmond's charisma (and that includes Admin, in spite of his own high opinion of himself), and neither was there anyone who really "got it" about where Labour have been going wrong. Macintosh perhaps came closest with his idea of dropping the word 'unionist' from the party lexicon, but I doubt there would have been much in the way of substance to complement the change of language.
And the same problem holds true of Lamont. OK, no-one can accuse her of concealing the fact that she's going to continue to conspire with the Tories to obstruct the Scottish people's aspirations for a more powerful parliament, but on non-constitutional matters she actually talked the talk today. For instance -
"Our one test will be what is in the interest of the people of Scotland, not what's in the interest of ourselves."
"I will reach out to people across Scotland who maybe never thought of themselves to be Labour..."
Now, does anyone think for a moment she's the person to do that? She has "core vote strategy leader" written all over her - and that strategy certainly worked a treat back in May.
And the same problem holds true of Lamont. OK, no-one can accuse her of concealing the fact that she's going to continue to conspire with the Tories to obstruct the Scottish people's aspirations for a more powerful parliament, but on non-constitutional matters she actually talked the talk today. For instance -
"Our one test will be what is in the interest of the people of Scotland, not what's in the interest of ourselves."
"I will reach out to people across Scotland who maybe never thought of themselves to be Labour..."
Now, does anyone think for a moment she's the person to do that? She has "core vote strategy leader" written all over her - and that strategy certainly worked a treat back in May.
Friday, December 16, 2011
On whimsical moderation policies...
I've no wish to restart the mini-feud I had with James Mackenzie a few months ago, but given that a few posters here have recently suggested that Better Nation is moving towards a Labour Hame-style moderation policy, I was intrigued to spot this exchange in the most recent comments thread -
Holebender : You’ve just proved to me that you know nothing about the SNP or Alex Salmond.
James Mackenzie : You're wrong.
Davie Park : In response to Holebender’s assertion that;
“You’ve just proved to me that you know nothing about the SNP or Alex Salmond”.
you respond in modest fashion by citing one of your own opinion pieces to demonstrate that
“you’re wrong”.
The piece cited comprises your theories based on a personal judgement of the motivations of the SNP hierarchy.
For what it’s worth, I think that the SNP is a broad church that will, in all probability, have a limited life once independence is acheived. But to make the judgement that the preferred outcome of a referendum for the SNP and Salmond would be ‘Devo Max’, seems to me utterly fatuous. One would think, being a Greenie, that you’d understand conviction politics. Apparently not.
Incidentally, as the Greens are in favour of independence, I’d be delighted to hear your views on why independence would be good for Scotland, James.
James Mackenzie : To be honest, I’m not sure why I approved a comment containing that assertion. Ho hum. But I thought that explaining my own thinking might best be done by reference to my own thinking. Sorry if that’s hard to get your head around. And yes, good challenge at the end there. I’ll do that.
Indy : Your thinking is fundamentally flawed however by your lack of understanding of the SNP or its members. You should read James Mitchell’s survey stuff. That is actual evidence, not opinion.
James Mackenzie : My view is that the members are predominantly genuinely committed to independence rather than office, and that their other political views cover a spectrum broadly from the Tories to the Greens. Feel free to tell me what’s flawed there. I just think the top team love office more, and no survey data or interviews can prove or disprove that. It’s a hunch.
Also, a quick reminder of why other comments have been deleted.
At that point, James links to the Better Nation moderation policy, which reads as follows -
We love a good frank debate here, and we really appreciate your contribution.
However, we will always delete:
Anything we think is potentially libelous,
Anything which is purely insulting, or
Anything spectacularly off topic.
We may edit or delete where comments:
Are neither constructive nor original,
Are ad hominem or otherwise dickish,
Provide supporting evidence for the existence of Godwin’s Law,
Use phrases like “ZaNu Liebore” or “Scottish National Socialist Party”, or
Are longer than the post itself.
The decision of the editors is final. If a comment of yours is deleted and you want to post it on your own blog, do let us know and we’ll be happy to send it on.
Although my experience with the American gun enthusiasts in 2009 led me to the point where I will always defend to the death the right of individual bloggers to determine what comments are published on their own blogs, I've nevertheless become increasingly cynical about attempts to define hard-and-fast moderation policies, especially ones that include humorous or whimsical language, which is typically there to camouflage the catch-all clauses which basically cover "and any other comment we take a disliking to". Bear in mind that the primary purpose of spelling out a moderation policy is to provide a tool to bash people over the head with, ie. "it's your own fault, if only you'd followed these very simple rules your comment wouldn't have been deleted", so if that policy includes rules as meaninglessly non-specific and subjective as "neither constructive nor original" and "otherwise dickish", it pretty much defeats the whole point of the exercise.
There has quite literally never been a comment posted in the whole history of political blogs that could not have been perceived by somebody, somewhere as "unoriginal", "unconstructive" or "otherwise dickish". I'd be willing to bet that the bulk of any contentious deletions have been justified by those rules, rather than the more specific guidelines that few people could have any real complaint about.
Holebender : You’ve just proved to me that you know nothing about the SNP or Alex Salmond.
James Mackenzie : You're wrong.
Davie Park : In response to Holebender’s assertion that;
“You’ve just proved to me that you know nothing about the SNP or Alex Salmond”.
you respond in modest fashion by citing one of your own opinion pieces to demonstrate that
“you’re wrong”.
The piece cited comprises your theories based on a personal judgement of the motivations of the SNP hierarchy.
For what it’s worth, I think that the SNP is a broad church that will, in all probability, have a limited life once independence is acheived. But to make the judgement that the preferred outcome of a referendum for the SNP and Salmond would be ‘Devo Max’, seems to me utterly fatuous. One would think, being a Greenie, that you’d understand conviction politics. Apparently not.
Incidentally, as the Greens are in favour of independence, I’d be delighted to hear your views on why independence would be good for Scotland, James.
James Mackenzie : To be honest, I’m not sure why I approved a comment containing that assertion. Ho hum. But I thought that explaining my own thinking might best be done by reference to my own thinking. Sorry if that’s hard to get your head around. And yes, good challenge at the end there. I’ll do that.
Indy : Your thinking is fundamentally flawed however by your lack of understanding of the SNP or its members. You should read James Mitchell’s survey stuff. That is actual evidence, not opinion.
James Mackenzie : My view is that the members are predominantly genuinely committed to independence rather than office, and that their other political views cover a spectrum broadly from the Tories to the Greens. Feel free to tell me what’s flawed there. I just think the top team love office more, and no survey data or interviews can prove or disprove that. It’s a hunch.
Also, a quick reminder of why other comments have been deleted.
At that point, James links to the Better Nation moderation policy, which reads as follows -
We love a good frank debate here, and we really appreciate your contribution.
However, we will always delete:
Anything we think is potentially libelous,
Anything which is purely insulting, or
Anything spectacularly off topic.
We may edit or delete where comments:
Are neither constructive nor original,
Are ad hominem or otherwise dickish,
Provide supporting evidence for the existence of Godwin’s Law,
Use phrases like “ZaNu Liebore” or “Scottish National Socialist Party”, or
Are longer than the post itself.
The decision of the editors is final. If a comment of yours is deleted and you want to post it on your own blog, do let us know and we’ll be happy to send it on.
Although my experience with the American gun enthusiasts in 2009 led me to the point where I will always defend to the death the right of individual bloggers to determine what comments are published on their own blogs, I've nevertheless become increasingly cynical about attempts to define hard-and-fast moderation policies, especially ones that include humorous or whimsical language, which is typically there to camouflage the catch-all clauses which basically cover "and any other comment we take a disliking to". Bear in mind that the primary purpose of spelling out a moderation policy is to provide a tool to bash people over the head with, ie. "it's your own fault, if only you'd followed these very simple rules your comment wouldn't have been deleted", so if that policy includes rules as meaninglessly non-specific and subjective as "neither constructive nor original" and "otherwise dickish", it pretty much defeats the whole point of the exercise.
There has quite literally never been a comment posted in the whole history of political blogs that could not have been perceived by somebody, somewhere as "unoriginal", "unconstructive" or "otherwise dickish". I'd be willing to bet that the bulk of any contentious deletions have been justified by those rules, rather than the more specific guidelines that few people could have any real complaint about.
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