SCOT goes POP!

Dubious legality and unpardonable folly

2013-06-19T02:19:00.001+01:00

I agree with the general consensus that Road to Referendum has been an excellent series that has hopefully presaged the broadcast media upping their game in covering the referendum. However, there was a factual howler in the final episode last night that really troubled me. Iain Macwhirter's narration suggested that one reason the SNP had struggled in the 1999 Holyrood election was that Alex Salmond found himself completely out of step with public opinion over "the United Nations bombing of Serbia". In reality of course, not only was the bombing of Serbia categorically not a United Nations operation, it wasn't even authorised by the UN. That is precisely what Mr Salmond was getting at when he described the unilateral action by NATO as being of "dubious legality". There was never even the slightest chance of UN authorisation, because of the veto powers of both Russia and China on the Security Council.

Leaving aside the factual error, did Salmond's stance on Kosovo really cost the SNP the 1999 election? Hardly. In fact, it may even have gained them a few votes, because a substantial minority of the electorate were opposed to the war, and it's reasonable to suppose that those people may have been more passionate about the subject than the majority who were willing to give Blair and Clinton the benefit of the doubt. No, Macwhirter himself put his finger on the real explanation for the election result - there was sufficient goodwill at that time towards Donald Dewar and Tony Blair that it was Labour's election to lose. And they didn't do anything to lose it. If the SNP made any kind of tactical misstep, it was the Penny for Scotland campaign rather than anything to do with Kosovo.

* * *

You've got to hand it to the "UK" Independence Party - they really are a class act. Having launched their Aberdeen Donside by-election campaign in the entirely logical location of a pub 125 miles away in Edinburgh, they went on to send a letter to the deceased MSP they want to replace, requesting his vote. Now they've given us a potted history lesson on how the SNP ceased to be an "anti-English" party after winning a by-election in Stirling that never in fact took place, but which Nigel Farage is quite sure he once read about in a book.

In the highly unlikely event that UKIP do win tomorrow, presumably their chap will turn up at the Welsh Assembly and demand to be sworn in.

A value judgement

2013-06-18T14:19:00.000+01:00

Kenny Farquharson on Twitter -

"What politicians like to describe as "Scottish values" are shared by tens of millions of English, Welsh and N Irish people."

So why do we keep voting overwhelmingly against the Tories, and ending up either with Tory governments elected by the rest of the UK, or with Labour governments that have had to tack so far to the right to appeal to Middle England that they are indistinguishable from Tory governments? Some people won't like to hear this, but if we measure values according to the governments and policies that people actually vote for, then "Scottish values" are probably shared more by the Nordic countries than they are by the south of England.

But I'll give you Wales, Kenny. Welsh and Scottish values are indeed very similar, as are the values held across large parts of northern England, and some pockets further south. But those areas just aren't strong enough in terms of population to swing the balance.

Question Time DNA

2013-06-14T04:00:00.002+01:00

Yesterday afternoon, our old friend Duncan Hothersall launched a half-hearted defence of the ludicrously unbalanced choice of panel for the Edinburgh edition of Question Time by querying whether it was really true that the show was intended as an independence referendum special. People keep calling it that, but where's the evidence, he asked. Well, I only saw the last twenty minutes or so of the programme, but from the way David Dimbleby was talking it was fairly clear that a full five-sixths of the show had been devoted to the referendum. It seems to me that if you walk like a duck five-sixths of the time, and quack like a duck five-sixths of the time, you must at the very least have a fair amount of duck DNA, and the composition of the panel should therefore have been duck-oriented.

I'll be interested to see the earlier part of the programme to find out whether Angus Robertson and Lesley Riddoch attempted to raise the issue of bias, and if so whether they were allowed to talk about it at any length. Certainly when Nick Griffin was on the show the entire debate seemed to revolve around whether the producers had been right to allow him a platform, so I see no reason why a similar discussion shouldn't have been permitted this time given the huge level of concern expressed. What particularly troubles me about the Question Time production team is their macho attitude - we saw it before in their arrogant reply to the criticisms of the notorious Glasgow edition of the programme in 2010. It's as if their default response to negative feedback from Scotland is not to pause for reflection, but instead to pat themselves on the back and bizarrely treat the criticisms as proof that they must be getting it right at "UK level". Scotland is terribly parochial, don't-cha-know, so if the Jocks don't like what we're doing we must be pretty much on the right track.

Hmmm. Wouldn't it be better to at least go through the basic process of working out whether your detractors' logic has some validity? As noted above, this was to all intents and purposes an independence referendum special, which in normal circumstances would entail parity of representation between the two sides of the debate. If for some reason there wasn't to be exact parity, where should the balance have fallen? 55% of the members of the elected Scottish Parliament are pro-independence. 51% of the list vote in the most recent opinion poll went to pro-independence parties. Two of the five parties represented at Holyrood are pro-independence. Therefore, if there were to be five representatives of political parties on the show, it seems clear that the correct number of pro-independence politicians was either two or three. How the producers could conclude that a 4-1 split in favour of the anti-independence side was appropriate is beyond me, particularly as they had to bus in two English-based politicians (representing essentially English parties) to achieve that imbalance.

The case for the defence from the producers seems to be that the programme had to be "of interest" to non-Scottish viewers, which necessitated the bringing in of box office names like Farage and Galloway. Clearly that argument is fatuous beyond words, but even if we take it at face value, why should that be inconsistent with a balanced panel? For instance, if we had to have a firebrand socialist with box office credentials, why couldn't it have been pro-independence Tommy Sheridan rather than anti-independence George Galloway? Or how about Margo MacDonald - wouldn't she have been just as good a watch in Finchley as in Fintry?

One last specific point - the producers' excuse for excluding the Greens does not inspire a huge amount of confidence that they in any sense "get it" about the distinctiveness of the Scottish political system...

"The Question Time panel is chosen carefully across the series and the Green party has appeared on the programme twice in the last four months. The Scottish Greens will be invited to appear on the programme in a future edition recorded in Scotland."

Is it just me, or do you get the distinct impression that they're not even aware that "the Green party" they're referring to is the Green Party of England and Wales, which is entirely separate from the Scottish Green Party? That's hardly a pedantic distinction either, given the Scottish Greens' participation in the Yes campaign. So it seems a primary rationale for the obscene under-representation of the pro-independence side last night was to avoid at all costs the appalling danger of giving slightly too much prominence to the Green Party of England and Wales "across the series".

Bonkers. Utterly bonkers. Who exactly is it that's being "parochial" here?

The No campaign. You can't join it. Nobody speaks for it. Does it exist?

2013-06-12T01:24:00.000+01:00

I really must resist the temptation to repost every single exchange I have with a certain controversial Labour activist on Twitter, but I feel that this one is very, very close to representing the pinnacle of the unique Hothersall art-form. If you don't have time to read through the whole thing, it goes something like this. Duncan thinks that the Conservative Home Secretary Theresa May does not speak for the No campaign, because she's an English Tory and only Scottish parties are officially part of the No campaign. He doesn't need to have a view on whether she would be welcome to formally join the campaign, because it's not actually possible for her to join. Well, OK, of course she can "join" - there's that big "join" button on the campaign's website, after all - but that doesn't mean she'd have really joined, she'd just be a sort of No campaign "fan". He categorically wouldn't encourage non-Scottish parties to get involved in the campaign because it's supposed to be "made in Scotland", but that doesn't mean there is any inconsistency in his failure to attack the campaign's reliance on large donations from outwith Scotland, because when he said he wouldn't encourage non-Scottish parties to get involved that obviously didn't mean he was discouraging them from getting involved. And please note that the fact he is neither encouraging nor discouraging them to do such a thing does NOT mean that he doesn't have an opinion either way. Incidentally, another reason Theresa May doesn't speak for the No campaign is that the referendum isn't about the current UK government, it's only about future governments. But even though Theresa May has every chance of being a member of one of those future governments, that still doesn't mean she can speak for the No campaign, because while the referendum may be about future governments, it isn't about the members of those future governments. That would be silly.

Duncan's zealotry in insisting that absolutely nobody at all is empowered to speak on behalf of the No campaign (not its own members, not the UK government, not Ed Miliband, not even Dunc himself) calls to mind that old Rory Bremner gag about Gerry Adams -

"I demand that the British government withdraw all troops from the north of Ireland without delay. I demand that the DUP ceases its provocative language. I demand that the RUC stop its harassment of the nationalist community."

"And should the IRA disarm, Mr Adams?"

"Well, it's not for me to tell the IRA what to do!"

* * *

Duncan Hothersall : Special #YesScot debating rule number 253: Alex Salmond doesn't represent Yes; but Theresa May represents No if its convenient.

Me : So what's your own view, Duncan? Do you embrace Theresa May as a representative of your own campaign, or not?

Duncan Hothersall : Of course not. From the moment the Section 30 order was passed the referendum became nothing to do with the UK government.

Me : But isn't she also a leading member of the Conservative party, your comrades in arms?

Duncan Hothersall : #Bettertogether is a campaign involving Scottish Labour, the Scottish Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Conservative Party.

Me : So English politicians can't speak on behalf of those parties? What sort of 'better together' is that?

Duncan Hothersall : Of course they can speak on behalf of their parties. But you can't pretend they speak on behalf of the No campaign.

Me : This is hurting my head, Duncan. Would you listen to yourself?

Duncan Hothersall : Theresa May does not speak on behalf of the No campaign. How hard can that be to grasp?

Me : Would you welcome her if she "joined" the No campaign?

Duncan Hothersall : In what sense could she?

Me : What on earth do you mean? Do you exclude on the grounds of race, or something?

Duncan Hothersall : What? Ludicrous leap after ludicrous leap. I asked how could she join the No campaign. Do you have an answer?

Me : To the best of my knowledge she is eligible to "join". Are you saying that's wrong? If so, on what basis is she barred?

Duncan Hothersall : How? It's a simple question. I'm not barring anyone from anything. How could she join the No campaign?

Me : By joining! There is a "join" option on the website, for pity's sake! Are you saying she's barred, or not? If she is, why?

Duncan Hothersall : Oh you mean as a supporter? Well of course. But that wouldn't mean she then spoke on its behalf, which was my point!

Me : Ah, so you're saying people who join have not really "joined"? They're just a sort of fan club? Another sham exposed.

Duncan Hothersall : No. I'm saying supporters aren't spokespeople for the campaign. It's not hard to understand.

Me : You've spent the last twenty minutes asking how May could join the No campaign. You seem to think there's a distinction.

Duncan Hothersall : You asked "Do you embrace Theresa May as a representative of your own campaign, or not?" and I answered very clearly.

Me : I then asked if you would welcome her if she joined the No campaign. You didn't seem to think she could. Why?

Duncan Hothersall : "You didn't seem to think she could." Evidence for this assertion? I asked how she could, I didn't say she couldn't.

Me : All right, so why did you ask, when the "join" option is prominently displayed on the website?

Duncan Hothersall : I'm not particularly familiar with the website.

Me : I'm appalled.

Dun Garbhan : Last week you declared Indy had nothing to do with Cameron and were proved wrong, as usual.

Duncan Hothersall : Proved wrong? It's an opinion. One shared by Alex Salmond until very recently ("a referendum made in Scotland").

Me : So why do you accept donations from outwith Scotland?

Duncan Hothersall : Me? I have never accepted a donation in my life. Why are you addressing me as if I am a spokesperson for BT?

Me : So this logic means that "Cybernats" are irrelevant to the SNP and the Yes campaign?

Duncan Hothersall : Sorry, which logic is this now? The fact that Theresa May isn't a spokesperson for the No campaign? Have we finally agreed that?

Me : The logic that you are not a representative of the No campaign. Wouldn't be pretending not to understand, would you, Duncan?

Duncan Hothersall : Of course I am not a representative of the No campaign. Did you seriously think I was?

Me : So "Cybernats" do not speak for the SNP or the Yes campaign. Correct?

Duncan Hothersall : Of course they don't. Who has ever claimed they do?

Me : Good. After all the obfuscation, an historic admission. It will be recalled.

Duncan Hothersall : (responding to another tweeter) That is a ludicrously broken piece of logic.

Me : Do you think it's a mistake to ban "non-Scottish" parties from Better Together, Duncan? Where's the togetherness?

Duncan Hothersall : Nobody's "banned". BT is a campaign set up by 3 Scottish parties which includes individuals from all parties and none.

Me : So would you encourage non-Scottish parties to get involved? All hands on pump, and all that?

Duncan Hothersall : No, I wouldn't.

Me : Why not?

Duncan Hothersall : Because the campaign is doing fine as it is.

Dun Garbhan : (responding to earlier comment) It flies in the face of reality. Fact - Cameron, UK Ministers, Treasury, MoD, DWP et al are all promoting NO.

Duncan Hothersall : And in my opinion it's none of their business.

Me : So would you agree it's not the business of donors outwith Scotland to bankroll the No campaign?

Duncan Hothersall : I'd prefer it if campaigning was state funded. Neither side should be reliant on private donors.

Me : But as there are private donors, would you discourage non-Scottish donations just as you've discouraged non-Scottish parties?

Duncan Hothersall : No, and I haven't "discouraged" non-Scottish parties. I merely answered your question.

Me : So you're neutral on whether non-Scottish parties should get involved? Do you have an opinion on anything?

Duncan Hothersall : Yes. I think you're wasting my time, and you know damn well Theresa May isn't a spokesperson for the NO campaign.

Me : Duncan, I've indulged your logical gymnastics, but in the real world everyone knows the UK government speaks for No.

Duncan Hothersall : "In the real world everyone knows" = "I can't justify it but this is what I want to be true".

Me : Your entire campaign is about the UK government continuing to rule Scotland - and yet they don't (and can't) "represent" you?

Duncan Hothersall : No, it isn't, and you know it. #indyref is about Scotland in the UK, not about the current UK government.

Me : I didn't say "the current" UK government - I said "the UK government". Next excuse?

Duncan Hothersall : You said the current UK government speaks for BT. #indyref is about future governments, not current governments.

Me : So on that basis would you accept that Theresa May might be representing you, but you don't know it yet?

Duncan Hothersall : Stop being silly. #indyref is about constitutional decisions, not individuals currently in power.

Me : Stop moving the goalposts. You said it was about "future governments". Theresa May might be in a future government, yes?

Duncan Hothersall : It's not about the members of future governments. Stop playing the daft laddie.

Me : So it's only about future governments collectively? But wouldn't May be bound by collective responsibility, as per tradition?

Duncan Hothersall : (no reply)

ICM poll : Unprecedented surge for the SNP and Plaid?

2013-06-11T14:25:00.001+01:00

The Guardian have released the details of the new GB-wide ICM poll on Westminster voting intentions. Let me say from the outset that I'm a tad sceptical about the astonishingly high combined figure for the SNP and Plaid Cymru, and I do slightly wonder if someone at the Guardian made the error of subtracting the Green vote from the combined vote for 'others', and assuming that what was left could only be the nationalist vote. The fact that the BNP (which had 4% in the last poll) is seemingly on zero is particularly suspicious. However, until we hear otherwise, we must assume that the following figures are accurate -

Labour 36% (+2)

Conservatives 29% (+1)

UKIP 12% (-6)

Liberal Democrats 12% (+1)

SNP / Plaid Cymru 8% (+5)

Greens 2% (+2)

I can't check the historical data at the moment because the ICM website is playing up, but a nationalist vote of 8% must be some kind of record. To put it in perspective, Scotland and Wales have a combined 14% share of the GB population, which would suggest that more than 55% of the electorate in those countries currently support the SNP or Plaid. OK, that's the kind of freakish result that can occasionally happen when you're relying on very small Scottish and Welsh samples, and shouldn't be taken at face value. All the same, it would be very unlikely to happen if the nationalists weren't at least doing reasonably well.

On the broader picture, at this stage in mid-term an opposition party heading for victory should have a comfortable double-digit lead. Labour's slender seven-point advantage does nothing to change my view that the most likely outcome of the next general election is a Tory victory.

UPDATE : The above figures are now confirmed - the SNP are on 7%, comprising a whopping 55% of the Scottish subsample. Plaid Cymru are on 1% (16% in Wales), while the BNP have indeed slumped to zero.

The love boomerang

2013-06-10T14:45:00.002+01:00

I read a few days ago that the No campaign's latest wheeze is to recruit supporters in the rest of the UK to "lovebomb" Scottish friends and relatives. On the face of it, this does seem to be an acknowledgement that there just aren't enough passionate No supporters within Scotland itself to go round, and it also sounds about as promising a strategy as the Guardian's idea of getting readers to write to Ohio voters to instruct them to vote for John Kerry as President. But we mustn't get too cynical yet. Let's think through how it might work in practice...

Dear Natalie,

You may not remember me, but I'm Felicity, your fifth cousin (twice removed) from Wisborough Green. That's right, we met about sixteen years ago when your side of the family got locked out of Jeremy's wedding reception, and your uncle screamed abuse at us through the door for the next two hours. Hope there's no hard feelings, old girl, it was a rum affair anyway, and who wants to listen to Atmosphere by Russ Abbot on a constant loop just to drown out the ramblings of a foul-mouthed Glaswegian?

Now you're probably wondering why I'm contacting you again after all this time. Well, it's quite simple. I want to tell you just how much I love, value and appreciate the contribution that you and all those other great Scottish people make to our United Kingdom. To be honest, I'm not quite sure why I'm telling you this now. Maybe it's got something with this "independence" nonsense I've been hearing about recently? OK, we both know it's not going to come to anything, but it just set me thinking about how diminished I'd feel without you guys. No more blue in the flag. No more skirl of the pipes to welcome visitors to Britain. No more of those non-Conservative Scottish MPs at Westmin...OK, some evils must be endured for the greater good.

So that's pretty much what I wanted to say. I know you're sensible enough to vote against this "independence" malarkey anyway, but if by any chance you ever find yourself feeling slightly neglected up there, you just write to your cousin Felicity and she'll give you a damn good talking to about just how much we need you.

Yours in memory of the Raj,

Felicity

* * *

Hi Felicity,

I think you might be getting me confused with someone else. I was definitely at Jeremy's wedding reception, although I do remember you pouring tequila down my dress when I said I was going to open the door and let our Mancunian cousins in. But never mind about that. I can't deny I was really excited to hear about how much you value our place in the United Kingdom, and I was wondering if you could clarify the following points for me -

1) Do you value us enough to house Trident somewhere near Wisborough Green if we ask for it to be removed from Scotland?

2) Do you value us enough to let us make our own decisions on welfare policy?

3) Do you value us enough to give us an opt out from London's illegal wars in future?

4) Do you value us enough to give us access to our own natural resources?

When I read your letter, I could sense the selfless love dripping from every word, so I feel sure that you will be able to answer all four of these questions in the affirmative. I must admit I had been thinking of voting Yes to independence, but if you can confirm that you value us enough to make these sacrifices, you may just have a convert on your hands.

I eagerly await your response.

Cheers,

Natalie

* * *

Dear Natalie,

Did I mention how much I love kilts?

PB's Tory moderators lose the plot yet again

2013-06-09T17:12:00.001+01:00

So it seems we must return (as is always inevitable sooner or later) to the subject of the delightful Ms Plato, the passive-aggressive, "libertarian floating voter with a fiscal conservative twist" queen of the right-wing forum Political Betting. Her comedy value just never stops increasing - over recent weeks and months she's taken to huffing and puffing on Twitter about how awful and unfair PB has become (apparently not spotting the irony that she used to endlessly tell me how "sad" I was for talking about the site on this blog, which she "never reads"). She also now repeatedly claims to "hardly ever visit PB anymore" - which would be a tad easier to take seriously if she hadn't posted on the site 1468 times (and counting) since the introduction of the new Vanilla comments system a few short weeks ago. That's more than virtually anyone else.

Anyway, a couple of weeks back, she let us in on her reasons for (supposedly) not gracing PB with her presence any longer - apparently the vast majority of comments on the site are now "pointless". I suggested to her that was a rather startling observation coming from someone who spends a great deal of her leisure time posting cat videos and such like on a forum about political betting. I may also have vaguely mentioned something about her being the "Queen of Pointlessness". Well, what fury I caused - it was almost like the good old days. Ever since then, she has tried to "bait" me every time she spots me on the site by announcing that "it's time for a cat video". I then typically say something like : "Quite right, Plato. This is a political betting forum after all." Which is invariably the cue for a lengthy rant along the following lines -

"Mr Kelly, you have just demonstrated that you have no sense of humour or irony. What you didn't realise is that I was baiting you there. Yes, that cat video was entirely for you. It was a trap, Mr Kelly, and you walked right into it. You did this in spite of me warning you the last time that I only post cat videos to bait you, that this is a trap and that you had just walked right into it. The fact that you read my warning last time and responded to it (and have also done so on at least eight other occasions), and yet still walked right into my trap again today, shows that you have even less of a sense of humour or irony than I thought you did. But please keep continuing to do this. I win every time you respond to me. Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha."

There's a kind of meta-irony going on there which I'll just leave hanging in the air, but suffice to say this is one for the connoisseurs of self-awareness (the lack thereof) everywhere.

One of these exchanges occurred yesterday, and I was intrigued to notice that my posts started disappearing, while Plato's initial cat video "bait" remained (naturally) intact. My suspicions were confirmed when a chap calling himself "PB Moderator" (ie. an incognito Tory-supporting poster with Little Hitler powers enabled) instructed me to "DESIST IMMEDIATELY". This was somewhat puzzling, so I asked him what precisely I was supposed to desist from doing. I was informed that I was now banned from responding to Plato, or even referring to her directly or indirectly. (He hurriedly added that an equivalent ban would apply to Plato, prompting chortles from all those with any experience of the selective way in which PB "rules" are enforced.)

I made clear that I had no intention of abiding by such a ludicrous rule, especially given the abuse I and others are routinely subjected to by right-wingers at PB without the slightest protection from the moderators (I was called a member of the Ku Klux Klan recently). I also indicated that if any more of my posts were censored, I would simply put them up here instead. That scenario has now arisen.

Plato : OT for anyone watching US TV new show releases - here's the countdown list for broadcast dates.

For anyone tempted to watch the old Simon Baker [The Mentalist] series The Guardian - save those minutes and spend them doing something more pleasurable, like standing on a plug.

Its just dreadful - and annoying. I can't recall the last time I saw such an unlikeable cast since Mad Men.

Me : "Dr. Who is a children's programme isn't it ? :)"

In my opinion it isn't. It's a family programme intended for both children and adults.

This has the distinction of being the only subject on which I've ever agreed with Tom Harris on Twitter.

PS. Welcome back, Plato! We've missed you!

Plato : @PB Moderator

I saw your posting yesterday, am delighted and will comply with your request.

I hope for everyone else's sake its enforced.

Me : So no more cat videos? You may be delighted, Plato, but I can assure you the rest of us are in mourning.

Sam : Why are you bothering with this relentlessly boring baiting of Plato?

Surely you realise you will get banned soon? Or is that what you want so you can moan about how unfair it all is?

Me : I think we established yesterday that you and I have very different senses of humour, so there's probably not much point in you trying to understand.

As for whether I get banned for such a cretinous reason, that's a matter for others, but rest assured I would complain about it, yes. Loudly and at length. I comply with all reasonable requests, such as refraining from talking about subjects that would cause legal problems. That's as far as it goes, and as far as it should be expected to go.

Me : As stated yesterday, all posts that are cynically censored will henceforth be appearing elsewhere. I see this process will now have to begin.

Charles : Do us a favour and post the link to your website can you?

That way when we don't read it it's a deliberate choice rather than just laziness.

Cheers!

Me : You're not the target audience, Charles. Lefties need to know what really goes on at PB - people such as yourself understandably don't care, because it doesn't affect you and presumably never will.

Incidentally, many PBers do read Scot Goes Pop. My most faithful fan comes from Lombardia.

Charles : As far as I can see it only effects (sic) people who put OGH at legal risk (IMHO he's got a conservative stance on this, but I can understand that he's risk adverse) and those individuals who are needlessly rude to others.

We all know you think you're superior to Plato for some reason. None of us really care - for most of us you are just two people who post on the same website. It's just boring to read your jibes.

Be the bigger man.

ScottP : LOL

The mods will rue the day they took on JK

Me : "As far as I can see it only effects people who put OGH at legal risk (IMHO he's got a conservative stance on this, but I can understand that he's risk adverse) and those individuals who are needlessly rude to others."

The former doesn't apply to me, and as for the latter - DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH. I could give you chapter and verse on the abuse I have been subjected to here, without the slightest protection from the moderators, and I'm supposed to accept that the real problem is me being beastly to that poor, delicate wee flower Plato?

Try harder, Charles. Or just stop trying.

Thankyou for correcting our defective memories, Mr Gove

2013-06-09T01:45:00.001+01:00

England's Education Secretary Michael Gove at the Scottish Tory conference a couple of days ago -

"There's no question that Scotland could survive if it were independent. Don't let anyone talk Scotland or the Scottish people down. We never have, we never will."

It seems therefore that the Tories have NEVER talked Scotland down. Hmmm. So given that some of us have this strangely vivid recollection of David Cameron sneeringly making the following comment to the House of Commons on October 27th, 2010...

"if you had an independent Scotland, you wouldn't be flying planes, you'd be flying...by the seat of your pants!!!!!!!!"

...that must have been a figment of our collective imagination, right? And the sight of the Tory benches erupting into gales of laughter afterwards must be another false memory. I must say the whole incident still seems weirdly lifelike to me when I think back to it, but there you go. I didn't go to Oxford, so I'm easily confused.

As a matter of interest, Michael, if David Cameron had said something like that in a hypothetical parallel universe, what should we have done about it? You've made abundantly clear we're not to stand for that kind of nonsense, after all.

* * *

UPDATE : Here's a disgraceful "video" that appears to show David Cameron making the "seat of your pants" comment (at about 0:48). Another of Peter Curran's cunning forgeries, no doubt.

Face the challenge, darling

2013-06-08T15:35:00.001+01:00

I've got better things to do than watch our Old Etonian overlord address the conference of a fringe party, but Left Foot Forward quotes him as saying : "There is simply no challenge we face today where breaking up Britain is the right answer."

Leaving aside the fact that Scottish independence isn't about "breaking up Britain", I have to ask - really? How about these challenges - rehumanising our welfare system, scrapping the London veto on weapons of mass destruction being removed from our shores, and finding a way to opt out from London's illegal wars. In what sense does independence fail to meet those challenges, and what is the better alternative that the status quo can provide?

* * *

Spotted at the No campaign's official Twitter feed -

"A fantastic reception for our new #ForcesTogether video and for our Chair @TogetherDarling at our fringe #indyref"

"Thank you to everyone @ScotTories Conference who came along to our fringe. An unbelieveable turnout & great atmosphere in the room #indyref"

OK, the video is indeed "their" video, and Alistair Darling (does the moniker "TogetherDarling" make anyone else feel slightly nauseous?) is indeed "their" chair. But how exactly is the fringe of the Scottish Tory conference "their" fringe?

It's hard to escape the conclusion that the No campaign's Twitter feed is being manned by Tories. After all, who else would be capable of discerning a "great atmosphere" let alone an "unbelievable turnout" at a Scottish Tory conference? (Albeit maybe the latter point will become slightly less unbelievable if Labour continue to helpfully make up the numbers by sending along former cabinet ministers.)

* * *

"#tweetlikeBetterTogether" is fast becoming my all-time favourite Twitter hashtag. These are all from Old Glenbogle -

"The UK is just great. It's like a bag of Revels". #tweetlikeBetterTogether

"You know those little multi-coloured things on the top of a doughnut. The UK's like that." #tweetlikeBetterTogether

"Do you remember 'Watercolour Challenge' with Hannah Gordon? Well, that's why we're better together." #tweetlikeBetterTogether

"You can, like, buy a return ticket to London. In advance. That's barry. That's Britain" #tweetlikeBetterTogether

"What about the Caravan Club of Great Britain? Well? What will happen to that?" #tweetlikeBetterTogether

"I love Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding. But I live in Glasgow. I don't want to lose all that". #tweetlikeBetterTogether

"I'm backing Britain. We're great at queuing." #tweetlikeBetterTogether

"The best things come in threes. So does the UK. Like Twix bars." #tweetlikeBetterTogether

"We speak English, not foreign. Don't become separatese." #tweetlikeBetterTogether

Make your voice heard - what percentage of the vote do you think Yes will get?

2013-06-06T14:01:00.000+01:00

There's a poll (an online, self-selecting one) running on PB that might interest you - it's asking what percentage of the vote you think the Yes side will get in the independence referendum next year. I've voted for the 50.01% to 60% option. Click HERE to take part in the poll.

Rhoda Grant and the elusive consultation response

2013-06-03T02:59:00.000+01:00

I haven't been following the news compulsively of late, so I only discovered a couple of hours ago that Labour MSP Rhoda Grant recently published the results of the consultation on her ideological desire to criminalise the purchase of sex. As regular readers will know, I responded to the consultation (to oppose the proposal), and my first thought was to quickly double-check that my response had actually been taken into account. I was slightly disturbed to see that my name didn't seem to be on the list of 953 respondents. It was hard to be 100% sure because the names weren't presented in alphabetical order, but I went through them three or four times without any luck. My fears were not allayed by the shorter list (which appeared to be intended as comprehensive) of the types of individual who had responded -

"campaign and community workers (in a personal capacity but with experience of working in relevant organisations (Wellcome Trust, Exodus Cry Houston Prayer Watch, Cardiff and Merthyr Tydfil group, Street Ministry, NGO, Navigators, Stop the Traffick, Act for Justice, Youth with a Mission (YWAM), Stellas Voice charity, Act for Justice group, Dunfermline)
Queens Park Baptist Church Action for Justice Group, Glasgow
co-ordinator & befriender for Destiny Lifeline which is part of Destiny Church
workers with a faith-based justice non-profit organisation
anti-trafficking workers and supporters
director of Prevention for Exodus City
worker with homeless and city mission
worker with victims of abuse
worker in a women’s hostel
volunteers with Glasgow City Mission
workers with homeless charities
worker for Women’s Aid refuge
sex workers (male and female)
homosexual sex worker
migrant and sex worker
independent escorts
worker in a massage parlour
contributor to an escort forum
people who use escort services
worker in psychosexual somatics
Christians
parish minister
parish worker
church goer
baptist minister
member of the North Devon House of Prayer in Barnstaple
local church Senior Pastor in east end of Glasgow
manager of a Christian drop-in centre
academics
lecturer
guidance teacher
teachers
counsellor
psychotherapists
psychologist
undergraduate Law student
student
independent researcher on male violence against women
German researcher based in Berlin
retired solicitor and criminal prosecutor
trained paediatric occupational therapist
military doctor
GPs
addictions medical officer
health visitor
social worker
family mediator
victims and offenders mediator
workers in nursing
scientist and scientific journal editor
freelance writer
writer and performer
business owner
foster parents
worker with Barnardo’s Scotland
registered child minder
worked in the Police force
retired police officer"

None of those descriptions apply to me. The only one that is even vaguely close is "freelance writer", but that would be a bit of a stretch, and certainly isn't how I described myself in my submission. I had horrible visions of having to trawl through hundreds of responses to see if I had been incorrectly put in the 'anonymous' column, but first of all I decided to check similar names. To my relief, I discovered that my submission was there, but under the name 'James'. Quite why my surname had been withheld is a bit of a mystery, as it certainly wasn't something that I requested.

I don't have much experience with parliamentary consultations, and I must say that the process of responding to this one hasn't filled me with huge confidence. It just doesn't seem satisfactory that responses have to be sent to a person (ie. Ms Grant herself) who has a vested interest in the consultation having a particular outcome. OK, in this instance she seems to have processed the responses conscientiously (although I had my doubts for thirty or forty minutes), but there's an important principle at stake here - sporting events use neutral referees for a good reason. Apart from anything else, the mere perception of bias in the conduct of a consultation could be enough to deter responses from one side of the debate, and thus skew the outcome.

Whether that's the explanation for the depressing outcome of this consultation is anyone's guess. But there's not much doubt that the majority of submissions were from a narrow bunch of ideologues who were encouraged to reply en masse. Hopefully parliamentarians will once again be able to wade through the sea of dogma, and home in on the evidence-based responses from academics that ripped Ms Grant's arguments to shreds.

* * *

UPDATE : Perhaps I spoke too soon - this blogpost refers to 70 submissions that are missing from the consultation, "all opposed".

The youth of today and the youth of yesterday

2013-06-02T16:18:00.000+01:00

Those delightful chaps over at the No campaign's official Twitter feed seem terribly excited about a new poll of the referendum voting intentions of 14-17 year olds. It does seem to have been an honestly conducted poll, but a number of points need to be borne in mind about it -

1) It sits rather oddly with the results of the last two Ipsos-Mori polls, which clearly showed that 18-24 year olds were the most likely to vote Yes to independence. There isn't a direct contradiction because we're talking about two different age groups, but it does seem somewhat improbable that 14-17 year olds would be the most conservative age group, while 18-24 year olds are the most radical. After all, 18-24 year olds are the 14-17 year olds of yesterday. Are the two cohorts really so different, and if so, what factor or factors can possibly explain that? Or does something magical happen to people around the date of their 18th birthday? Or is this polling evidence failing to tell the whole story?

2) The poll was conducted by telephone, and it may well be that young people aged 14-17 are more susceptible to a feeling of obligation to give the 'expected' answer to an authority figure down the line. A similar survey conducted online would be interesting for the purposes of comparison.

3) Perhaps most importantly of all, the poll was conducted by Market Research UK. This is presumably the same MRUK that became notorious for their inaccurate polls during the 2007 Holyrood campaign. Because they were the Herald's official pollster, this led to a number of comical articles which earnestly reported that Labour were sailing to victory, ignoring the fact that virtually every other pollster had the SNP in the lead.

4) Regardless of the true state of play among the youngest voters, we need to keep a sense of perspective about the overall significance of the youth vote. 16 and 17 year olds will make up only a very small percentage of the electorate next September, and will probably turn out to vote in lower numbers than older age groups. (I expect the turnout to be unusually high across all age groups given the importance of the vote, but it will be proportionately lower in the youngest groups.) Thus, the decision to give 16 and 17 year olds the vote will only swing the balance if the result is incredibly close.

The No campaign also tweeted this comment from 17-year-old Michaella -

"I like the fact that we are part of something bigger and staying united makes sense to me."

I also like being part of something bigger, Michaella, and staying united with the rest of the EU makes perfect sense to me. Unfortunately, Scotland's status as part of the parochial, right-wing UK is imperilling our continued membership of the European family of nations.

Luckily, we have a unique opportunity to do something about that.

Positive straw in the wind for the SNP as European elections inch closer

2013-05-28T15:29:00.001+01:00

It's been far too long since I irritated "Carlotta Vance" by reporting the results of a Scottish subsample from a GB-wide poll, so I thought you might enjoy this one from ComRes...

Westminster voting intention:

SNP 36%
Labour 33%
Conservatives 17%
Liberal Democrats 6%
Greens 4%
UKIP 4%

European Parliament voting intention:

SNP 39%
Labour 19%
Conservatives 17%
Liberal Democrats 10%
UKIP 9%
Greens 7%

Of course these figures carry the usual huge health warning, because they're not properly weighted and are based on responses from less than a hundred people. Nevertheless, the fact that Labour's vote appears to drop sharply when voters turn their attention to Europe, while the SNP's vote creeps up, is highly encouraging given the potential significance of next year's European elections, which will take place just three months before the independence referendum.

Question Time for Scotland's 'Popular Front'

2013-05-27T16:20:00.001+01:00

The SNP website has today isolated a number of specific questions for the No campaign from Jim McColl's interview in the Scotsman -

1. How will a No vote rebalance the UK economy away from its London-centric focus?

2. What options will a non-independent Scotland have other than UK-driven austerity?

3. What further incentives will there be for business in a non-independent Scotland?

4. How can the UK's one-size-fits-all approach to welfare be tackled in a non-independent Scotland?

These are all fantastic, because they get to the heart of objectives that most people in Scotland share, and challenge the No campaign to specify their plan for realising those objectives - if, of course, such a plan exists. In reality, their answers would be...

1) The UK economy does not have a London-centric focus, because all parts of the UK are equally precious to the London government and Bank of England (aye, right).

2) There is no alternative to UK-driven austerity.

3) No current plans.

4) We're not going to tackle the UK's one-size-fits-all approach to welfare, because we don't see it as a problem.

Doesn't strike me as a winning manifesto. But the Yes campaign shouldn't stop there - it should produce its own version of the ludicrous '500 questions' document, which ought to go down exactly the same road of demanding answers to specific policy questions. If the No campaign think it's perfectly reasonable to ask what the rates of income tax will be in an independent Scotland (even though we don't have a clue which party will be governing an independent Scotland), let's see if Scotland's 'Popular Front' of Tory, Labour and Lib Dem can come up with a joint position on what the rates of income tax will be in a non-independent Scotland over the coming decades. It seems only fair.

But the questions I'd really like some answers to are these -

1) By what date can we expect these non-specific "new powers" to be transferred to the Scottish Parliament in the event of a No vote?

2) If substantial new powers are not delivered by the date you have just specified, will you undertake to immediately resign from public office, or to issue a public apology if you are no longer in public office?

3) Would you agree that a second independence referendum will become a moral imperative if new powers are not delivered with the speed and on the scale currently being hinted at by the No campaign?

On grandiose claims about self-selecting polls

2013-05-24T03:24:00.000+01:00

I've got nothing against self-selecting internet polls - I've run a few myself over the years, and they can be quite entertaining if a lot of people take part. But at the end of the day they are unweighted, unscientific voodoo polls, and even if several thousand people took part they wouldn't tell you a thing about the true balance of public opinion. They are, in the immortal words of Peter Snow, "just a bit of fun".

Last September, Subrosa ran a self-selecting poll on her blog about whether an independent Scotland should be an EU member or not. The results were as follows -

Yes - 110 votes
No - 176 votes
Stay in the UK but leave the EU - 72 votes
Unsure - 29 votes

(The other obvious option of staying in both the UK and EU does not seem to have been provided.)

TOTAL ANTI-EU - 248
TOTAL PRO-EU - 110
UNSURE - 29

Both at the time and then again yesterday, Subrosa made quite extraordinary claims about the significance of those results. I challenged her on both occasions, pointing out that bloggers tend to attract readers who agree with them, and she was kind enough to respond. I must say, though, that I found her responses somewhat baffling. Here was the first one in September -

"Yes James, I am anti-EU and that will continue. Many of my readers disagree with me about lots of issues and I respect their opinions.

If you're suggesting that this poll is invalid because it's turned out to be 50/50 then I think you're wrong.

In no way am I stating the poll is an accurate reflection of the whole of Scotland but at least it proves that 176 people don't want an independent Scotland in the EU - if nothing else. :)"

The first couple of sentences are irrelevant because I hadn't suggested there was anything wrong with an individual continuing to be anti-EU, nor had I disputed that some (ie. "many") of her readers disagree with her.

The third sentence is peculiar, because self-evidently the poll hadn't turned out to be 50/50, nor had I suggested that was the reason for it being invalid.

The fourth sentence is technically accurate, but so what? The fact that 176 people hold a particular viewpoint is spectacularly unimportant in the overall scheme of things. Even if we assume that every single one of them was a Scottish resident (almost certainly not the case), that would constitute a mere 0.00003% of the population.

And here was her response to me yesterday -

"A great majority of the readers of this blog support independence James and have done for many, many years. It's quite strange that you're implying the majority are against the EU because I would disagree.

What was interesting about my tiny poll was the number of people who were undecided about the EU yet continually we're told that most of us support it.

Believe me not all my readers agree with me; in fact many take the trouble to tell me just how strongly they disagree and I respect their views."

First of all, I didn't "imply" that the majority of Subrosa's blog readers are anti-EU - I was simply looking at the poll results which clearly suggested that was the case. And was the number of undecideds (a mere 29 people) really the most interesting thing about the poll? How exactly does that contradict the idea that "most of us" support membership of the EU?

And once again, I hadn't disputed that some of her readers disagree with her - I simply pointed out that it was unsurprising that the majority do not.

What am I missing here?

The Omniscare

2013-05-22T09:51:00.000+01:00

Hello, I am Robert MacDonald, guest poster. I yearn for the day I can get rid of Alex Salmond - by voting Yes in 2014. But what will that shining post-referendum future hold? I thought I'd share one vision of our future, as imagined by the Better Together campaign and their supporters. Have a read and decide for yourself how credible this future is. We can't say we weren't warned...

The Scottish elector woke up the day after the referendum. He went to get his morning newspaper, and read the front page headline 'Cochers Choppers Off'. The rest of the paper reiterated all the stories it had run in the previous two years warning him of the dangers of independence.

He set about tidying his spare room because his mother-in-law, retired and living in Spain, had been evicted because Scotland was no longer an EU member. However on arriving at the airport he found that the runway was out of action, because the English had preemptively bombed it... as they were scared of terrorists.

He had a bit of bother paying for the taxi back into town as the only currency he had to pay with was Scottish pound notes which were no longer legal tender, except it wasn't Scottish notes. It was Euros. Even though Scotland had been kicked out the EU.

He went to the bank to withdraw more but found that he was suddenly tens of thousands of pounds into his overdraft, his bank's Scottish customers having been saddled with the entirety of UK banking debt. Unfortunately, despite taking on all the debt, he couldn't see how he was going to pay for it, as the remainder of the UK had kept most of Scotland's prize asset, oil revenues. And this was only the start of his economic woes. The economy was crashing about his ears because Moodys no longer rated the economy AAA. I mean, AA. I mean...

As an Englishman living in Scotland, he was careful to keep his voice down on the streets, in case an increase in anti-English violence was targeted at him. However as an Englishman of Pakistani origin there was not much he could do to hide his skin colour. He decided to blend in by eating a deep fried mars bar, and the chip shop was full of Catholic children who had nowhere else to go now their schools had all been forcibly closed. But as he walked home surrounded by a gaggle of children he came under attack from the Orange Order, who had gone paramilitary at the loss of Scotland's UK status.

Back home, to soothe his jangling nerves he switched on TV to watch his favourite programme, Eastenders, but it was no longer available - in fact, the whole of the BBC appeared to be jammed, despite being sure his wife's cousin in Ireland could get it. He looked at his father visiting from England and asked "what now?" "Charades!" came the reply.

Whilst entertaining themselves with charades his father had an unfortunate accident miming 'Blade Runner'. Our Scottish elector rushed him to A&E - only to be turned back, as the NHS would no longer treat anybody who did not live in Scotland, and vice versa.

He phoned his sister in London to tell her this terrible news only to be told to 'get lost'.

he went to the pub to drown his sorrows but beer was suddenly as expensive as Norway, and he couldn't afford more than a pint. Especially as he was now as poor as an average Bangladeshi.

Deciding to drive out into the countryside he couldn't afford petrol as the price of oil had suddenly shot up. Or maybe it had plummeted. It was all too volatile to be sure.

He looked up in the sky and there? What was that? Nuclear missiles from North Korea! His last mortal thoughts on this accursed day of Scottish independence, as the nuclear missiles rained down and the last helicopter left Edinburgh for Carlisle: 'Thank goodness Alan Cochrane, at least, is safe - if only I had heeded his warnings'.

Panelbase poll : Yes campaign closes gap to just eight points

2013-05-19T13:45:00.000+01:00

I'll have to make this a very quick post because I'm in a mad rush, but the latest Panelbase poll on independence has thankfully contradicted Ipsos-Mori by showing the No lead dropping. Here are the figures -

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 36% (-)
No 44% (-2)

And the SNP's lead in Holyrood voting intentions remains at ridiculously high levels for this stage of mid-term -

Constituency vote:

SNP 45% (-2)
Labour 30% (-)
Conservatives 13% (+1)
Liberal Democrats 5% (-)

Regional list vote:

SNP 45% (-)
Labour 27% (+2)
Conservatives 13% (+1)
Greens 6% (-2)
Liberal Democrats 6% (+1)

There's also a question asking how people would vote on the independence referendum on the (fairly plausible) assumption that Britain will be leaving the EU -

Yes 44%
No 44%

* * *

I'm the editor of this week's Scottish blogging roundup, which has (to say the least) something of a Eurovision theme. You can read it HERE.

Eurovision 2013 : Prediction for Saturday's final

2013-05-18T03:21:00.000+01:00

It's become traditional at this time of year for me to say "oooh, this is a tough one", but actually I don't think it is this time, at least in terms of guessing the winner. I don't really get the hoo-ha over Denmark (admittedly the staging is very effective), but sometimes a consensus is just so overwhelming that you have to accept it's probably right. This is, after all, a popularity contest. So I suspect Eurovision is heading back to Copenhagen, which offers us a neat symmetry given that Denmark were also the winners the last time the contest was held in Sweden.

But who will finish second? That's much more problematical. The bookies suggest it will be a close fight between Ukraine and Norway, but the more I've thought about it, the more I've come to the conclusion that the Ukrainian song is slightly overrated (I still expect it to be in the top six or seven). Until about an hour ago, I was firmly of the view that the true contenders for the runner-up spot were Russia and Norway. Both had points in their favour - the Russian song is perhaps more televoter-friendly and has the inbuilt advantage of the ex-Soviet bloc vote, while Norway has the better draw and is more jury-friendly (ie. it's the best song left in the contest in my opinion). On balance, I reckoned that favoured Russia slightly.

But now I've seen the German dress rehearsal and I'm totally confused again. If that performance beguiles the audience in the way I think it might, in a sense it kills both Russia and Norway - it kills Russia because it's the very next song in the running-order, and it kills Norway because it's a similar type of music. On the other hand, I still can't help thinking back to all those occasions when strong dance tracks have fallen flat on their face at Eurovision (that was the main reason I was sceptical that Loreen would win last year). Another possibility is that the vote could be evenly split between Germany and Norway, allowing Russia to come through the middle. Who knows, so I'll just have to make a wild guess.

The Netherlands is one of those entries that is pretty much guaranteed a very strong 'niche' vote that will fall short of outright victory - my guess is it'll slot in somewhere between about fourth and seventh. The wildcard this year is of course Finland, replete with its wedding dress, lesbian kiss, and lyrics that are so un-feminist that James Mackenzie deleted them to enhance the debate. There was a time, not so long ago (2002, in fact) when gimmicks like that would have been more than sufficient to win the contest. I think we've moved on from those days, but time will tell.

So here's what I've got...

Winners - Denmark (Only Teardrops - Emmelie de Forest)
2nd - Russia (What If - Dina Garipova)
3rd - Norway (I Feed You My Love - Margaret Berger)
4th - Germany (Glorious - Cascada)
5th - Netherlands (Birds - Anouk)

Possible dark horses - Iceland, Finland, Ireland

As for me, I'll be sticking to my non-English language rule and voting for Iceland (or possibly Estonia, which I slightly regretted not voting for in the first semi), but my heart will be with Norway all the way. This is the third year in a row that I won't particularly be cheering on the UK, mainly because the internal selection means that I don't really feel I have any stake in the entry. Weirdly, Fraser Nelson has a lengthy piece in the Spectator on that very subject, in which he makes a number of points that I've made before myself - for example that Jonathan King, for all that he is a thoroughly objectionable human being, was the last person who actually had a well-thought-through plan for finding the right UK entry. I think Nelson takes his argument to an extreme, though - it's not as if an internal selection process is in some way 'un-Eurovision'. (The great French ballads of the early 2000s were internally selected, for instance.) And I think passing the contest onto ITV or Sky would be a terrible idea - say what you like about the BBC, but at least they faithfully broadcast both semi-finals every year, which I'm not sure ITV or Sky could be trusted to do.

The real step forward would of course be for Scotland to have its own entry. Hopefully only three more years to go...

Farage à trois

2013-05-17T16:47:00.000+01:00

Earlier today I was asked by the International Business Times to put together a quick piece about the Farage incident. You can read it HERE.

Sturgeon wins first setpiece TV independence debate

2013-05-17T00:39:00.000+01:00

I think pretty much every independence supporter who watched tonight's STV debate will have come away feeling considerably more confident. It has to be remembered that TV coverage of the campaign proper will resemble this debate much more closely than the phoney TV war we've seen up to now, which has typically consisted of a pro-independence spokesperson being outnumbered two-to-one, three-to-one, or even four-to-one if you count the occasions when a 'neutral moderator' like David Dimbleby joins in with the unionist sneerfest. With the two sides of the argument having a scrupulously equal chance to put their case tonight, it was very noticeably the No side that found itself on the ropes most often. Perhaps that can be explained away by the fact that Nicola Sturgeon is simply a more able debater than Michael Moore, but if so that begs another question - where exactly is the match-up that is going to favour the No campaign? Alex Salmond v David Cameron? Blair Jenkins v Blair McDougall? Nicola Sturgeon v Alistair Darling? Dennis Canavan v Johann Lamont? Tommy Sheridan v Nigel Farage? Each and every one of those looks to favour Yes, and by quite a distance in some cases.

The most worrying sign for Moore and co was surely when Sturgeon scored a hit by pointing out that Moore had castigated the UK economy under the stewardship of Labour, while Alistair Darling had castigated the UK economy under the stewardship of the Tories and Lib Dems. How are the No campaign going to square this circle? Are they only going to present a united front in defending the UK in terms of very dry constitutional structures? Or are they seriously going to try to present a united front in defending the UK in respect of weightier matters like economic performance and welfare policy? If so, the likes of Nicola Sturgeon are going to continue having enormous fun pointing out their hopeless lack of credibility. It's a particular problem for Labour, of course, who tell us that the Tories are ghastly and we must get shot of them, but who simultaneously work with the Tories in a campaign that seeks to uphold a constitutional system that guarantees the Tories will continue to rule over us most of the time.

The other direct hit that Sturgeon scored was when she countered Michael Moore's scaremongering on the currency question by pointing out that the Liberal Democrats had proposed joining the euro as recently as their 2010 general election manifesto. Moore's rueful smile at that point was perhaps his most eloquent contribution of the whole evening!

Here's how I scored it -

Nicola Sturgeon (Yes campaign) 8/10
Michael Moore (No campaign) 6/10

And don't take my word for it - both of STV's pundits, including the venerable Mr Ponsonby, declared that Sturgeon had finished ahead on points.

* * *

I did reasonably well with my prediction for tonight's second Eurovision semi-final (eight out of ten correct), but unfortunately one of the two I wrongly picked out was San Marino, my favourite song in the whole contest. I haven't been so disappointed by a song's non-qualification since Kate Ryan's Belgian entry failed to make the cut in 2006. I'm not entirely sure what went wrong - the staging was maybe a little bit uninspired, and it had the handicap of being in the notorious second spot in the running-order, but nevertheless when you look at what it was up against it should still have qualified with ease.

Ah well, I'll just have to cheer on my second favourite Norway on Saturday night (and I might sneakily admire their oil fund while I'm at it).

Eurovision 2013 : Prediction for Thursday's semi-final

2013-05-16T05:06:00.000+01:00

I got seven out of ten right on Tuesday, which is probably roughly par, given that no-one in their right mind would have predicted Lithuania's success. I can just about understand how Belgium made it through, but Belarus remains a mystery. Perhaps it was the big silver egg hatching open to reveal a half-naked woman that did the trick? Who knows. But I was delighted to see that my fears about Ryan Dolan's live performance were totally unfounded, which means Ireland must now be in with a great chance of a top ten finish on Saturday night.

Watching Russia and Ukraine perform back-to-back brought home to me that not only is Russia the better of the two songs, it also has a greater impact as a performance. A simple catchy tune, a massive key-change, lyrics about world peace...yes, I think the Russians have bought the manual. So while the bookies may yet be proved right about Denmark being the likely winners, I have a feeling they may have the wrong country in second place.

If I'd been voting 'honestly', I probably would have plumped for either Russia or Ireland (it would have been a close call), but as I've mentioned in previous years I have a personal rule of only voting for entries sung entirely in a language other than English. So that left me scratching my head about whether to vote for Estonia, Moldova or Cyprus. In the end I went for Moldova on the somewhat illogical grounds that they were the same performers who last year brought us the insane genius of "you have never been to my show, you haven't seen before how looks the trumpet".

As you'd expect, Swedish television produced a much slicker show than some of their counterparts have managed in recent years. It was a great idea to have just one presenter and therefore dispense with the customary scripted flirting, although I'm not sure Petra Mede was the ideal choice as sole host. Her English diction is undeniably exemplary, but surely there's more to life than diction? All in all, though, I enjoyed the show far more than I expected to, partly because my expectations were fairly low. A number of the songs seemed better than I remembered somehow.

Here's hoping for more of the same tonight. These are the ten countries that I think will go through -

Iceland (Ég á Líf - Eythor Ingi)
Azerbaijan (Hold Me - Farid Mammadov)
San Marino (Crisalide - Valentina Monetta)
Norway (I Feed You My Love - Margaret Berger)
Georgia (Waterfall - Nodi Tatishvili and Sophie Gelovani)
Finland (Marry Me - Krista Siegfrids)
Greece (Alcohol is Free - Koza Mostra featuring Agathon Iakovidis)
Armenia (Lonely Planet - Dorians)
Malta (Tomorrow - Gianluca Bezzina)
Switzerland (You and Me - Takasa)

I hope I'm wrong and that Israel make it through at the expense of one of the above ten (well, except Norway or San Marino), but I have a feeling it may be too uncompromisingly intense an entry.

Can 'freedom and democracy' cope with independence?

2013-05-15T13:04:00.000+01:00

I have a new article at the International Business Times, which attempts to put the significance of the independence referendum in some kind of international historical context. You can read it HERE.

Eurovision 2013 : Prediction for Tuesday's semi-final

2013-05-14T03:30:00.002+01:00

'Fraid so - it's that time of year again. Without wanting to put you off before we even get started, I don't think this is a vintage year by any means in terms of musical quality. As far as I can see, there are only really two class entries in the field - Norway's Margaret Berger with I Feed You My Love, and San Marino's Valentina Monetta with Crisalide (Vola). If there was such a thing as a 'most improved entrant' competition there could only be one winner, because - astonishingly - the superb San Marinese song is brought to us by the same combination of singer and composer that was responsible for last year's cringe-inducingly awful novelty entry The Social Network Song (Oh Oh - Uh - Oh Oh), which failed to qualify for the final after limping to 14th place in the first semi. Incidentally, if by any chance San Marino win it would be the first victory for a micro-nation since Severine won for Monaco in 1971 - a result that led to Edinburgh staging the 1972 contest after Monaco passed up the chance.

But cream rarely rises to the very top at Eurovision, so you won't be surprised to hear that neither Norway nor San Marino are tipped to win. Instead the bookies are favouring Denmark and Ukraine, very much in that order. I can just about see the appeal of the Ukrainian song, but I must admit Denmark is leaving me cold (which is a reversal of last year, when I thought Denmark deserved a far better result than they got, or ever seemed likely to get).

There are a number of other songs that are very pleasant to listen to, for example Iceland and Russia. I've got a particularly soft spot for Only Love Survives by Ryan Dolan, which I managed to vote for in the Irish national final. However, if that final is anything to go by, the live performance may prove to be something of a problem for Ryan. There's also the slightly peculiar Dutch entry, which isn't my cup of tea, but could easily have been a 1960s James Bond theme song if it had been written fifty years ago.

One huge positive about this year's contest is that almost half of the entries (17 out of 39) are sung in a language other than English. The fact that this has happened without any change in the rules, and without there having been a non-English winning song since 2007, is pretty remarkable.

Down to business, then. In no particular order, here are the ten entries that I think will qualify from Tuesday's first semi-final -

Croatia (Mižerja - Klapa s Mora)
Netherlands (Birds - Anouk)
Estonia (Et Uus Saaks Alguse - Birgit Õigemeel)
Ireland (Only Love Survives - Ryan Dolan)
Ukraine (Gravity - Zlata Ognevich)
Cyprus (An Me Thimasai - Despina Olympiou)
Serbia (Ljubav Je Svuda - Moje 3)
Russia (What If - Dina Garipova)
Denmark (Only Teardrops - Emmelie de Forest)
Moldova (O Mie - Aliona Moon)

2013-05-12T00:45:00.000+01:00

Hello, I am Robert MacDonald, guest poster. As an experiment, James has kindly allowed me space on his blog. It's Sunday morning, so I thought I'd dip my toes in the pop-water with a couple of parables. Can you spot the allegories?

The Parable of the Pig Farmer
There was a pig farmer who worked hard on his farm. He fed and mucked out the pigs, went to market, and helped suckle the piglets. He was around pigs every day.

One day he went to a dance in the local town. The people held their noses as he walked by. He did not understand why. Finally a woman approached him. "You smell of pig shit," she said.

"Do I?" he said. "I work hard to give you your bacon."

But the people didn't like the smell of the pig farmer, so they told him to leave.

The Parable of the Oak Tree
One day an acorn fell and took seed. It started to grow. Next to it was a larger oak. "It's stormy up here," said the large oak. "Let me shelter you. You can grow in my shade." The young oak agreed. It was glad to be protected from the winds. But the large oak also took most of the sunshine. Birds and other creatures preferred the large oak. People carved their names on its side. It was hard for the young oak to grow very well. But it didn't complain. It was only a tree.

One day a great storm came and the large oak fell. And all the small oaks it was sheltering flourished.

The Parable of the Crabs
The Kingdom of Scotland is like this. A fisherman caught some crabs to sell, and put them in a creel. One tried to climb out, but the rest dragged him back inside. Some of the crabs realised if they painted their shells red, they could climb out the creel together, and the other crabs wouldn't stop them. So that is what they did.

When the fisherman returned to sell the crabs, the red ones had gone.

The Parable of the Surfers
One day the surfers gathered to talk about a problem. They liked surfing, but they didn't like all the sewage in the sea. It made their life unpleasant and dangerous. It was not just bad for the surfers - it was bad for every creature in the sea.

"What shall we do?" said one of the surfers.

"We can't stop the sewage being pumped into the sea ourselves," said another.

The surfers decided they would shout as loudly as they could about the sewage in the sea, and hope it would shame the polluters into taking some action.

Nobody had cared about the sewage before the surfers started shouting. But when the people heard, they decided it was time to do something about it. And the days of the polluters were over.

The Parable of the Caravan
A caravan of camels was crossing the desert. They got lost, and the leader led them into quicksand. They started to sink and get into difficulty. "I don't think we should carry on!" shouted a man at the back. But the leader wouldn't listen. She decided to continue on.

The man at the back was worried. He wanted to stay with his friends, but he was scared of the quicksand. He decided to stop and think about what to do. The rest of the caravan carried on.

A sandstorm blew up. The man couldn't see his friends. He was scared and lonely. When the sandstorm died down, his friends had gone.

He couldn't tell if they had sunk into the quicksand, or if they had safely reached the other side. But he knew one thing. Whatever had happened to them, he was safe.

The Parable of the Guard Dog
One day the Smiths needed a new guard dog. The dog breeder assured them that he had a new dog with all the good features of their old one. The Smiths took it and were happy. He attacked some strangers without provocation. One of the Smith children was upset, but Mr and Mrs Smith didn't care, so long as the dog was still guarding their family.

Then Mr Smith discovered one night that the dog was letting in burglars to steal the family's food, and covering up the evidence. The Smiths were angry, and arranged to have the dog put down.

The Smiths got themselves a new guard dog, but it was no better than the previous one. They wondered if they even needed a guard dog at all.

Ipsos-Mori : SNP retain lead in Scottish Parliament voting intentions

2013-05-10T05:04:00.002+01:00

As you'll probably have seen by now, the latest full-scale Scottish poll from Ipsos-Mori is out, and it shows the SNP government retaining its gravity-defying lead over Labour in mid-term. However, the gap has narrowed. Here are the full figures -

SNP 39% (-4)

Labour 36% (+1)

Conservatives 16% (+3)

Liberal Democrats 8% (+1)

The figures for the independence referendum show the No campaign increasing its lead somewhat, essentially returning us to the status quo ante from the last poll but one from the same company - although the Yes share is still 1% higher than it was in that poll. Curiously, though, the focus of Ipsos-Mori's Christopher McLean (who may or may not be TSE's 'prominent pollster' Chuckle Brother) is not on the headline figures, but on the figures for the segment of the sample who claim to have already made a firm decision about how they will vote in 500 days' time. Mr McLean gets rather carried away with his own logic, first pointing to the percentage of respondents who claim they are certain to vote, then to the percentage of that percentage who claim they are certain of how they will vote, and then working out what proportion of the "remaining" voters the Yes campaign would need to convince to have a chance of winning. The one tiny flaw in this logic? The graphic right above Mr McLean's analysis helpfully demonstrates that at least 5% of the voters who claimed in the last poll in February that they had already firmly decided how to vote have changed their minds since! And that change isn't some kind of mirage caused by an increase in the proportion of the electorate that has reached a decision - in fact the number of respondents who say they have decided has fallen from 567 in February to 558 now. So while the 'definitely decided' question may be moderately useful in distinguishing 'softer' voters from 'firmer' voters, the reality is that responses to that question can't be taken quite as literally as Mr McLean seems to believe - many of those 'firmer' voters remain up for grabs.

The recent YouGov poll commissioned by the SNP offers another way of looking at the underlying state of play. Respondents were asked if they'd be more or less likely to vote Yes - or if it would make no difference either way - if they were persuaded that independence would make Scotland fairer and wealthier. The combined total for those who claim to have already decided to vote No, and those who perversely would be less likely to vote Yes if they anticipated greater fairness and wealth, is 45%. The combined total for those who claim to have already decided to vote Yes, and those who would be more likely to vote Yes in the specified scenario (and who can therefore be assumed to at least be consciously open to the idea of voting for independence), is 47%. So that demonstrates a clear potential route to a narrow victory - if Yes Scotland run the perfect campaign. In reality there probably isn't such a thing as the perfect campaign, which means that at least some of the people who currently think they are firm No voters will need to be converted. But the fluidity detected by Ipsos-Mori in the supposedly 'already decided' group suggests that is perfectly doable. With a year and a half to go, there's all to play for.

* * *

One point that will presumably be of some concern to the anti-independence campaign is that their figurehead Alistair Darling now has an outright negative personal rating - and that's in spite of the fact that he doesn't even have any ministerial responsibilities that might be making him unpopular. What can he possibly be doing so wrong? Could it be that his relentless negativity is beginning to wear thin on the public?