UK PoliGAF |OT2| - We Blue Ourselves

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tomtom94 said:
Fear of the unknown, the constant talk about the currency union, that hilarious incident where all the businesses signed the letter to I think it was the Telegraph basically screaming "you can't leave!". Plus there was a lot of talk about how nationalist supporters were violent etc as well as accusations of BBC bias (which as I recall were statistically unfounded but you know how it is)
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But those are all reasonable arguments, aren't they?

Actually I'd say the bigger issue in Scotland was the desperate promises Better Together made in the last days of the campaign, which were wrong both from an English perspective and the perspective of 'don't make promises you have no intention of fucking keeping'.
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I agree.

kmag said:
The most egregious thing which comes to mind which comes to mind was Better Together implying (and occasionally saying) UK pensions wouldn't be paid.

Which was confirmed by the UK Government to be completely incorrect. Didn't stop the posters and the mailshots though.

pensionsrisk.jpg


Alistair Darling

"On the subject of pensions, what happens with separation? Nobody knows – certainly not the Scottish Government.”
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But Alistair Darling said that before the Lib Dem MP, no?
 
CyclopsRock said:
But those are all reasonable arguments, aren't they?



I agree.



But Alistair Darling said that before the Lib Dem MP, no?
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He and Brown repeated it in the final two weeks, just after that one poll showed Yes in the lead and the establishment collectively lost their heads for a bit.
 
Maledict said:
Bette togethers nonsensical claims about North Sea Oil?

Weird, in the current situation I would say it was the other way around. The SNP plans for North Sea Oil were wildly optimmistic, and given the current price of oil (which doesn't look to be shifting anytime in the next decade according to the industry reports), an independant Scotland would be utterly bankrupt at the moment? The SNP budget didn't work when oil was trading at 90 dollars a barrel. In the current climate?

Ultimately though, as Cyclops has said, campaigns for the status quo are always going to be slightly fear mongering. That's the nature of the beast - you can't avoid it, and it's not really fair to label it as "scare mongering". It writes off a completely valid argument - not every change is good, and there is value in having confidence about what the future holds. Businesses *like* stability, of course they are going to want the same tomorrow as they have today.
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The campaign wasn't slightly fear mongering, it was pretty much all that was shouted. I don't even know if I seen one thing that was a compassionate, positive and heart-warming statement from the better together campaign. The amount of vitriolic attacks on Salmond were off the scales. It carried on for the general election for Sturgeon as well. Even Corbyn as of late with David Cameron saying ridiculous things about him. Calling him a terrorist, I mean, what the fuck?

Yes Scotland has oil, but you know what, I don't really know anyone who voted for independence who really cared that much about oil. It's there, it's there for many other independent countries, and what most people want is to get away from Westminster and make our own decisions backed up by a government who appears to care about the ordinary people and not millionaires, banks and big corporations in a disproportionate way.

If anything it was the better together campaign going schizophrenic over oil, almost as if you could hedge a bet they were paranoid about the "repercussions" of losing it. Countries seem to do ridiculous things to get a hold of oil *cough*America*cough*, *cough*illegal wars*cough*. Even if Scotland had no oil, the majority of those who were pro-independence for the referendum would still be, if you ask me. We're a fairly small nation, and there's plenty of other small nations who do fine independently, who don't even have oil. It always will remain simply a geographic bonus to have oil, not a reason to tie yourself down to political decisions and fear-mongering.
 
Maledict said:
Bette togethers nonsensical claims about North Sea Oil?

Weird, in the current situation I would say it was the other way around. The SNP plans for North Sea Oil were wildly optimmistic, and given the current price of oil (which doesn't look to be shifting anytime in the next decade according to the industry reports), an independant Scotland would be utterly bankrupt at the moment? The SNP budget didn't work when oil was trading at 90 dollars a barrel. In the current climate?

Ultimately though, as Cyclops has said, campaigns for the status quo are always going to be slightly fear mongering. That's the nature of the beast - you can't avoid it, and it's not really fair to label it as "scare mongering". It writes off a completely valid argument - not every change is good, and there is value in having confidence about what the future holds. Businesses *like* stability, of course they are going to want the same tomorrow as they have today.
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I agree about the financial part of it but Better Together made a lot of absurd claims about the quantity of oil left in the North Sea despite constant reports to the contrary.
In general the campaign felt reactionary but only to things which fit their narrative.
 
kmag said:
He and Brown repeated it in the final two weeks, just after that one poll showed Yes in the lead and the establishment collectively lost their heads for a bit.
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I see! Cheeky monkies!

Audioboxer said:
If anything it was the better together campaign going schizophrenic over oil, almost as if you could hedge a bet they were paranoid about the "repercussions" of losing it. Countries seem to do ridiculous things to get a hold of oil *cough*America*cough*, *cough*illegal wars*cough*. Even if Scotland had no oil, the majority of those who were pro-independence for the referendum would still be, if you ask me. We're a fairly small nation, and there's plenty of other small nations who do fine independently, who don't even have oil. It always will remain simply a geographic bonus to have oil, not a reason to tie yourself down to political decisions and fear-mongering.
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I don't really think the point was oil/not oil, but in the last 15 years the only 3 years in which Scotland has contributed more tax to the UK than it's received proportionately to the rest of the UK have been years in which there's been booming oil profits. The rest of the time it's ended up being a net beneficiary from it's being a part of the UK (if we assume that the deficit is attributed to either population or GDP, not where the money's spent). The upshot is that an Independent Scotland would, tomorrow, be around £1,000 worse off per person than they are right now with the same levels of taxation and the same levels of public spending - so now, being independent and away from Westminster, they'd have the choice between cutting spending, raising taxes or greater deficit spending. That's why oil's a big deal in the debate, because when they had boom years this wasn't a problem, but it usually isn't a boom year and it's unlikely to be again for quite a long time, however many barrels there are still down there.
 
Audioboxer said:
Even if Scotland had no oil, the majority of those who were pro-independence for the referendum would still be, if you ask me. We're a fairly small nation, and there's plenty of other small nations who do fine independently, who don't even have oil. It always will remain simply a geographic bonus to have oil, not a reason to tie yourself down to political decisions and fear-mongering.
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I think it's pretty fair to assume that a lot of Scottish independence support comes from the perceived lack of influence Scottish people have on how their country is run and how differing Scottish political views have become from the rest of the country. Most would take a hit financially as long as they had a say in it.
 
Dan27 said:
He shouldn't pounce on it now - because compliance (or non compliance) has not been established. If he was to say something now, only for the UN to report nothing, that wouldnt be a good look...
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The fact that there is even an investigation in the first place isn't a particularly good look for the government, so there's certainly something to be said about it.
 
It doesn't look good but that is a dangerous line of reasoning. Getting arrested on suspicion of committing a crime looks bad but it doesn't at all mean that you have done anything wrong.


This whole hunt for extremist infiltration sounds fucking insane. It sounds McCarthy-ish. Where is the evidence for this? We've been very safe for a long time!
 
Protome said:
I think it's pretty fair to assume that a lot of Scottish independence support comes from the perceived lack of influence Scottish people have on how their country is run and how differing Scottish political views have become from the rest of the country. Most would take a hit financially as long as they had a say in it.
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Well a financial hit may be inevitable, but as you rightly said we would rather have a say in how we manage it and get out of it. The SNP's modest spending increases going forward (all based around economy investment) with a slower reduction of the deficit to start with seemed like a reasonable gamble. At least it was an alternative to austerity, unproven and risky, but something to try.

The privatization disease of the torries, mixed in with heavy cuts on the poorest, do not seem like a very good longterm plan regardless of the deficit reduction % claims. A lot of people's lives are already pretty fucked up in this country, fucking them up more with a potential future of the rich getting richer and the poorer pretty much digging their own graves isn't really a future of prosperity being built by the people, for the people. If you have a government that appears to care equally for the people, with compassion, and not favor the corporations, I guess you'd be willing to fight harder during the tougher times for the prospect of a fairer future. When it seems as if the hard times will just equal more inequality and corporation pandering in the future, it's tougher to have the will to fight through them, even if the short-term harder times are slightly easier than your potentially independent brothers up north. Which they're not anyway, we're in it together right now, better together, and what? Scotland staying in the UK has hardly prevented the torries from viciously going after these people in hard times. Jack shit is being done or going to be done against the banks, tax avoidance and everything else that is a disease born out of Westminster and London. The rich are scared of the rich, but also best friends with each other.

By the way not really targeting any specific rich individuals, or hard working business GAFers, but more-so the large companies who pull all the strings and would be happy to leech every public sector into privatization just to squeeze out unjust profiteering. Or those that do dodge taxes through loopholes on insanely large bank balances because all the millions they have just aren't enough to pay fair taxes on as next years yacht may need to be one model down if they paid the correct amount.
 
War Peaceman said:
It doesn't look good but that is a dangerous line of reasoning. Getting arrested on suspicion of committing a crime looks bad but it doesn't at all mean that you have done anything wrong.


This whole hunt for extremist infiltration sounds fucking insane. It sounds McCarthy-ish. Where is the evidence for this? We've been very safe for a long time!
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It's all about control. Don't forget the Green party's only member in the house of Lords has been under surveillance for 'possible extremism'.
 
Audioboxer said:
Well a financial hit may be inevitable, but as you rightly said we would rather have a say in how we manage it and get out of it. The SNP's modest spending increases going forward (all based around economy investment) with a slower reduction of the deficit to start with seemed like a reasonable gamble. At least it was an alternative to austerity, unproven and risky, but something to try.
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Yeah, I agree.
I personally voted Yes because of Austerity and the Tory/LibDem government at the time. Although like most people I would have preferred a Dev-Max option.
 
Protome said:
Don't forget all of Better Together's nonsensical claims about North Sea oil.
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The SNP's White Paper was predicated on a $110 oil price. Today it's $47. Is it still scaremongering when it comes true?

Edit:

WTF? This thread shifted along a fair bit after I started that post!

Edit2:

Audioboxer said:
I don't even know if I seen one thing that was a compassionate, positive and heart-warming statement from the better together campaign.
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You didn't see this???

web-scotland-1-pa.jpg
 
Uzzy said:
Looks like the Lib Dems are going to do something useful and help kill the Tax Credits changes in the House of Lords. Which could have the side effect of causing a major constitutional crisis. So that'll be fun.
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http://www.theguardian.com/money/20...es-lords-to-back-down-over-tax-credits-motion

Shot down already.

Just met Julian Huppert, a very interesting person. Wish I could have had a more in depth conversation with him as he had to dash, but learnt a lot about the dilemmas one can face as an MP. His take on the Lib Dem collapse is very interesting as well.
 
Moosichu said:
Just met Julian Huppert, a very interesting person. Wish I could have had a more in depth conversation with him as he had to dash, but learnt a lot about the dilemmas one can face as an MP. His take on the Lib Dem collapse is very interesting as well.
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I've not met Huppert, but I did meet Farron a couple of weeks ago. Good chap, but I was nervous as holy hell due to it being an interview - which I didn't do well at for good reasons.

Also is that photo seriously Milliband and Joe Anderson with a Scottish flag?

Anderson's a crook of the lowest sort. I'm not surprised if Scots would repel in horror from a Sontaran backing the In campaign.
 
I'm starting to think Corbyn wants the MP's to sack him, the new policy chief hates half of the PLP "a collection of abject shite".

Oh well it got a chuckle out of me, even if my hopes of both sides somehow working together are fading.
 
PJV3 said:
I'm starting to think Corbyn wants the MP's to sack him, the new policy chief hates half of the PLP "a collection of abject shite".

Oh well it got a chuckle out of me, even if my hopes of both sides somehow working together are fading.
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It is not the most diplomatic, but is he wrong?

Did he watch the leadership contest? If those were the best (non-Jarvis) candidates, then... they are fucked.
 
Moosichu said:
http://www.theguardian.com/money/20...es-lords-to-back-down-over-tax-credits-motion

Shot down already.

Just met Julian Huppert, a very interesting person. Wish I could have had a more in depth conversation with him as he had to dash, but learnt a lot about the dilemmas one can face as an MP. His take on the Lib Dem collapse is very interesting as well.
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huppert was my local mp! he was a nice guy, we should have voted for him again, but everyone thought the election would be a close run thing so they voted for the labour guy instead. rofl.
 
Nicktendo86 said:
Seumas Milne is Corbyn's new director of comms and strategy. Wowsers, the disaster gets deeper.
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So aside from the fact he's a Guardian journalist, what exactly is the issue? (Genuinely curious since this is the first I've heard of him and all I can find is that Robert Harris once called him a Stalinist, which I would consider a point of praise)
 
godelsmetric said:
huppert was my local mp! he was a nice guy, we should have voted for him again, but everyone thought the election would be a close run thing so they voted for the labour guy instead. rofl.
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He said 'a lot of people came up to me after the election to say they would have voted for me if they knew I might have lost'.

Seriously, why do some people vote like that?
 
tomtom94 said:
So aside from the fact he's a Guardian journalist, what exactly is the issue? (Genuinely curious since this is the first I've heard of him and all I can find is that Robert Harris once called him a Stalinist, which I would consider a point of praise)
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He's a pretty manic supporter of anything anti-western and anti-NATO which puts him into bed with some rather nasty people. And when people call him a Stalinist, I don't think they mean in a socio-economic-philosophy sense but rather because he routinely rewrites history to pain the USSR as not really all that bad, and... well, I quote...

Whatever people thought about the Soviet Union and its allies and what was going on in those countries, there was a sense throughout the twentieth century that there were alternatives – socialist political alternatives. The Soviet Union and other states of that type would devolve in different directions, but I don’t think most people expected that it would collapse into a form of feral capitalism and social disaster.
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Never mind the mass starvations, political murders, gulags and system of political patronage running through the whole country - at least there was an alternative to capitalism! Which - as I'm sure I don't need to tell anyone here - is basically useless since no one could actually execute upon that alternative, since they had no choice. If you were unfortunate enough to be born in the USSR, you couldn't choose capitalism. It seems that, to him, the historical narrative is more interesting than the fact that it caused basically everyone but the elites forced to live under it nothing but abject suffering.
 
Anyone else think the WEP will collapse now they've moved from lofty high end ideals to slightly implausible and highly contentious policy proposals?

I doubt anyone involved would take my opinion on it seriously, but all that seems to be on Twitter is breathless bluster from the very tight core and genuine anger from a lot of members on their sex work position.

It was an inevitable problem - a list of six lofty goals is something the Labour party could agree on I'm sure. How to actually get there? No chance. That's basically why political parties exist in the first place.
 
tomtom94 said:
So aside from the fact he's a Guardian journalist, what exactly is the issue? (Genuinely curious since this is the first I've heard of him and all I can find is that Robert Harris once called him a Stalinist, which I would consider a point of praise)
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Google his name and Lee Rigby. Guy is a scumbag.

Will certainly aid the Tory's Britain hating narrative.
 
Kuros said:
Google his name and Lee Rigby. Guy is a scumbag.

Will certainly aid the Tory's Britain hating narrative.
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Yeah, I'm inclined to agree.

Columnists are generally paid internet trolls, no matter what side of the political spectrum. They are subsequently bad political appointments, because they will have said an awful lot of stupid shit in the past and it's very, very easy to dig up.

Edit: Probably the only exception being Boris, and how his comedy oaf routine has transmogrified him into a being of pure teflon.
 
Kuros said:
Google his name and Lee Rigby. Guy is a scumbag.

Will certainly aid the Tory's Britain hating narrative.
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Cameron's 'labour are now a threat to security' sounded daft but Jezza has done nothing to counteract that statement. In fact, his appointments have helped fuel it.

Milne's views are deplorable, and he is now in charge of Corbyn's communications and strategy. Unbelievable. The Tories should be under massive pressure now with tax credits and Europe but labour look even more unelectable.
 
The weirdest thing is that it's such an overtly political appointment - you don't have opinions like that and have them be glossed over. He was appointed because he has those views. Which is a little weird because whilst obviously the Comms people need to be able to defend the party's actions and decisions, they're meant to work around the party. As such, it's hard to see this as anything but tacit approval of those views by Corbyn and co.
 
CyclopsRock said:
He's a pretty manic supporter of anything anti-western and anti-NATO which puts him into bed with some rather nasty people. And when people call him a Stalinist, I don't think they mean in a socio-economic-philosophy sense but rather because he routinely rewrites history to pain the USSR as not really all that bad, and... well, I quote...

Never mind the mass starvations, political murders, gulags and system of political patronage running through the whole country - at least there was an alternative to capitalism! Which - as I'm sure I don't need to tell anyone here - is basically useless since no one could actually execute upon that alternative, since they had no choice. If you were unfortunate enough to be born in the USSR, you couldn't choose capitalism. It seems that, to him, the historical narrative is more interesting than the fact that it caused basically everyone but the elites forced to live under it nothing but abject suffering.
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Going solely by that quote, you've utterly and completely misread what he wrote. It's technically correct.

Is this the lee rigby thing?
 
War Peaceman said:
It is not the most diplomatic, but is he wrong?

Did he watch the leadership contest? If those were the best (non-Jarvis) candidates, then... they are fucked.
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No he isn't.

My frustration with the Labour party is headache inducing and it isn't that hard to sort out which makes it worse.

The "modern" wing of the party is the biggest problem because they would only need to compromise on a few policy areas to placate the base of the party. Ed was almost there but ended up wishy-washy and boring.

Corbyn is going to get fired, my only hope is the next leader responds to the feeling in the party and moves on areas like housing, but it's all or nothing in the PLP.
 
Coriolanus said:
Going solely by that quote, you've utterly and completely misread what he wrote. It's technically correct.
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Sure nothing's incorrect, but there's a pretty strong undercurrent of "and what a shame it is that we don't now." as if the existence of the Soviet Union is better than its absence.
 
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