It will be interesting to see how the population votes at the next ScottishElections AND Westminster Elections. Can't predict the outcome of that one.
22nd Sep 2014 1:18 pm
comedyharvey
Member Since: 04 Jul 2010
Location: Gloucestershire
Posts: 1727
I watched Andrew Neil interview Sheridan last week. He reminded me of some seventies, Trotskyite, union leader, bit of a dinosaur to say the least.Arthur.
Comedy was a horse, Harvey a dog, both sadly gone. Thought I was choosing a password!
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22nd Sep 2014 1:21 pm
euangibson
Member Since: 24 Dec 2010
Location: Borders
Posts: 11027
I know where John's gone.... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29314400"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool,than to speak out and remove all doubt" ?.....what rubbish...
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22nd Sep 2014 5:19 pm
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 72921
Looking forward to his post from the Caymen Islands.
22nd Sep 2014 5:32 pm
Hairy Dan
Member Since: 19 Jan 2011
Location: Co. Durham
Posts: 12319
Although with all the 'proof' This lot have it could be a dodgy win and we would have to go through it all again
Member Since: 31 Dec 2005
Location: South West
Posts: 23566
JMC wrote:
I've got to go too. Will be working tonight until the small hours. I'll leave you with a thought about the payout of bets on NO though.
It's a bookies con!
They are trying to tempt more people to bet on a No vote. Bookies aren't daft you know. Most of the money in Scotland is on a Yes vote and it's at much bigger odds too. The bookies are going to lose a lot of money when it's a Yes, so they are tempting people in to bet on a No in order to recoup some of the losses.
Tattie bye!
It seems as if John was led to believe that the bookies were bluffing. I wonder who might have spun him that yarn? Perhaps it was the king of yarn spinners himself! 2006 D3 HSE (Original & still the best)-GONE
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22nd Sep 2014 5:54 pm
Gazellio
Member Since: 09 Jan 2011
Location: Chilterns
Posts: 4130
I did keep posting the odds for him.....
22nd Sep 2014 6:06 pm
Discotres
Member Since: 25 Jan 2010
Location: London
Posts: 8491
DSL wrote:
Looking forward to his post from the Caymen Islands.
Is that a mans man Island? funnily enough it sounds just like the Cayman Islands in the caribbean
The pies are going cold
22nd Sep 2014 6:21 pm
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 72921
Close enough for government work.
22nd Sep 2014 6:23 pm
Dave T
Member Since: 03 Jul 2009
Location: Glasgow
Posts: 6903
Hairy Dan wrote:
Although with all the 'proof' This lot have it could be a dodgy win and we would have to go through it all again
You know the thing that really gets me, all this video evidence that people took on their phones and did nothing with until too late! Surely you go straight to the presiding officer or the police while something could be done.
This is just going to rumble on and onJoined the BMWX5 45e group
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By 2:30am on Friday morning I was standing (in my kilt) outside the count location in Arbroath with the cool morning air, conditioning my tears. I knew we'd lost this particular area, though not by much. I'd just finished inside chatting to Mike Weir who is one of the few Westminster SNP MP's and I knew that the realisation had dawned upon him too. As the incumbent MP, he had high hopes for his own constituency.
I left the count before the declaration, having watched in disbelief the results from Clackmannan and especially from Orkney. One of my counting agents, who had made his own way to Arbroath without a car, asked me for a lift home and we both knew it was over for the county of Angus. Twenty miles of silence, only interrupted by the radio noise of more unfavourable results......
I got home and switched on the TV and watched as more and more red areas appeared. Then came Dundee! Wow! Game-on again with the prospect of Glasgow still to come. When it arrived I was looking at 49%:51% on the screen and my spirits rose again. However, I already knew by this time that a convincing win was not on the cards. I really didn't want a win by only 1%, so I stayed with the TV until 6:30. It was not to be. A nation had held its sovereignty in its hands for the first time in three-hundred years, only to return it unhindered, to Westminster. The first time any country region had ever rejected its own independence from the Empire.
An hour and a half later, I woke suddenly from a bad dream. No poetic license here, I dreamt I had been stabbed in the back (at a cafe on a caravan site(!), whatever that's supposed to mean) by an unknown assailant.
I went to my office and spent the day spontaneously bursting into tears. It was like unexpectedly loosing a very close relative. Even when on the phone with a customer in an oil company, I couldn't help myself. The other end of the line fell silent, not knowing what to say.
So there you have it. I was totally broken on Friday. Not upset, not humiliated, not even angry. Just completely broken.
Now, I'm not looking for sympathy, not here of all places. I must admit that a few on here (including some who haven't even posted on this thread), sent me e-mails and PM's which helped immensely with my grief - and make no mistake, it was (and still is) grief.
I think it was Sunday when I got-up the courage to look at disco3 and again. I was humbled by some of the words by those on the other side of the debate. Thank-you to those who were good enough to say what they said - you know who you are. I couldn't bring myself to the keyboard, but I did send DG a PM to let him know I hadn't jumped off a cliff! Besides, the thread was locked at the time anyway.
So, where are we now?
Gracious, magnanimous, humiliated, defiant, enraged? Perhaps none of these and perhaps all of them at once. But let us now deal in the only facts we have at hand.
Firstly, we secured 45% of the public vote with an 84% turnout. Well, at least I predicted one thing accurately - I did say it would be an 84% turnout. In football terms that's a win by five goals to four. A good match, but not what you'd call a walkover by any stretch of the imagination.
There are things I can say now, which I couldn't before. The postal votes were heavily weighted by No's. The vast majority were also in an age range which suggests that a lack of Internet and an ability to be easily frightened about pensions by Gordon Brown via the BBC, meant that the 'grey vote' handed a 70:30 lead to Better Together. I witnessed dates of birth ranging form 1911 to 1925 and was humbled by this. My feelings are mixed about this vote being carried by people who might well have not been around to see an independent Scotland in a couple of years time. However, it would be a braver person that I, who would suggest disenfranchising people who had been through two world wars.
Anyway, back to the facts.
The 'silent majority' spoken of during the campaign were fairly silent and they were a majority, but not by much. They were fed a diet of state sponsored propaganda and in the last weeks, the pensioners were being telephoned and told that they would lose their pensions if they didn't vote No, or f they didn't vote at all. The BBC will not come out of this without blood on their hands.
Politics in Scotland has changed - significantly. The people are engaged. Unlike previous elections, the 'Yes/No' thing is still the main topic of conversation. Even more significantly, the word 'Labour' is now a toxic brand in Scotland. Ed Milliband is in real trouble come May next year. To illustrate this point, there was a group called 'Labour for Independence' which appeared as a break-away from London Labour. On Friday, they tried to kick-start a new party in Scotland. It was shut-down before it could get off the ground due to their use of the word 'Labour'. This was a Yes campaign group who were completely attacked by their own side on Friday because of 'that word'.
The Lib-Dems? Danny, friend of 'highlands', had better start looking for a new job. When the dust settles and the pigeons come home to roost, those who spent their time doing their country down, will not be sent back to Westminster for their troubles. When they don't get their peerages for services to queen and country, they might well start to squeak. Only time will tell, but their personal heyday is past.
No point talking about the conservatives. The grey vote which saved their precious empire will not be there for long, nor will it appear for any old local or national election. They reacted when necessary to a cry of wolf, but the next time there will be nothing to scare them with. An ordinary election isn't worth fretting over when a pension isn't at stake anyway.
So what was my mistake? I regularly speak to many people in my circle and the Yes voting contingent was >80%. I have a few friends and acquaintances who said they'd vote No, but they were out on a limb in my real world experience. Perhaps what this says is that I don't speak to many pensioners. Derek (DSL) would have been a lone voice at a gathering in my house last week. It's not hard to understand that the Yes victory was assumed in my mind based, not upon disco3, but the real world in which I live and work, amongst people who actually had a vote.
Where are we now? Strangely, the Yes side are in the driving seat. We are in a position to hold Westminster to account and they are already coming-up as 'wanting'. We have an engaged and somewhat shocked electorate. When you consider for a moment that we potentially have a majority of under 75's, the people on the streets, rather than the people in nursing homes, you'll understand why the '45' aren't going off quietly and licking their wounds.
Beyond this, there are swathes of people who are already regretting their No vote publicly. They have come out and said that they were scared, but when they discovered the error of their ways, it was too late. Doubtless it's the Twittering youth, but they are already discovering they have been lied to. For them, it's the first time and it will be long remembered. Of course, none of this matters and I dare say there are a few Yes voters who might be found to say the same thing.
Anyway, we have promises, pledges and vows, all of which the victorious campaign was fought on. Just this time, an engaged electorate are watching and pointing every time something is reneged upon. And there will be much to point out. All we need now is for a forensic investigation by a reliable source of what actually happened to scare a nation.
So where am I left today? It may sound a bit melodramatic but I feel like a stateless person. I'm embarrassed to wear a kilt or to fly a Satire. The idea of singing Flower of Scotland is utterly laughable and I struggle to look some people in the eye, whether they are now remorseful or otherwise. A small number of the 'silent majority' have outed themselves now that it's all over. Their words have not been met with glee.
I note that UK politics is in a bit of disarray now. They might just be the ones to lose the union yet, without the SNP having too much of a hand in it. I've always believed that England has a democratic deficit in terms of the unfair Westminster system. I've never wished for Scots MP's to vote on English matters. It's not right. But to change the system and answer the 'West Lothian question', especially when you've suddenly married this issue with your promises on further devolution, might just prove to be the undoing......
I looked at the BBC website this morning and was met by the face of Tony Blair proposing ground troops in a far off land. Not much about the Scottish political scene. I shook my head. Under the carpet in a week is my thought on the matter now. Forget it and get back to business as usual. I suspect another referendum in only a few years. I'm just not so sure that it will come about by the SNP pushing for it on their terms. There are moves afoot elsewhere, in other parts of the union, which might just do the job for us.The older I get, the more I realise that people confuse wrinkles for wisdom
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22nd Sep 2014 6:40 pm
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 72921
John, I haven't read the above (waaaaaay too long for my limited attention span) but good to have you back.
Now s'pose got to read it.
22nd Sep 2014 6:44 pm
Robbie
Member Since: 05 Feb 2006
Location: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Posts: 17932
I read that blog and it is full of rubbish. I love it when someone states a made-up 'fact' about how UK elections are run before announcing what actually happened as evidence that it is rigged. Do we now have hordes of people thinking that they should have been asked for photo ID before voting??Land Rover - Turning Drivers into Mechanics Since 1948
The election wasn't rigged. I was there at the postal votes and at the count. There was nothing whatsoever that was underhanded about the way the vote was counted or administered. There was plenty underhand about the process leading up to the vote and we knew it at the time.
The stuff on the Internet about vote rigging is all guff. Produced by a fifteen year old in their bedroom who has no idea whatsoever about the process. The vote was not rigged. The older I get, the more I realise that people confuse wrinkles for wisdom
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22nd Sep 2014 6:54 pm
Discotres
Member Since: 25 Jan 2010
Location: London
Posts: 8491
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
This lot have it could be a dodgy win and we would have to go through it all again 
