SCOT goes POP!

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?

"You're an idiot - now go and play with something sharp" says the No campaign's champion of courteous discourse

2013-05-09T02:54:00.000+01:00

I realise there's a slight danger of turning this blog into one long transcription of my exchanges on Twitter, and I'll try not to make too much of a habit of it, but as so many of us have had encounters with Duncan Hothersall over the years, I thought you might appreciate this one. For the uninitiated, Duncan was for quite some time practically the one-man online presence of Scottish Labour. Yes, even in the days when Labour Hame was but a twinkle in its Admin's eye, there was Duncan, fighting the good (or goodish) fight on Twitter. More recently, he's taken to sternly shaking his head at the largely mythical "Cybernat hordes", more in sorrow than in anger, and exhorting them to at least aspire to his own standards of decency. Rather like Matt Smith begging the humans not to harm the Silurian hostage, Duncan just yearns with all his heart for his hot-headed, misguided political opponents to be "better than this" - for the sake of their own souls as much as anything.

In the unlikely event that anyone took the nurturing tone of his 'advice' at face value, I fear that what you're about to read might be a bit like that moment when you first discovered there isn't a Santa Claus.

Duncan Hothersall : How is UKgov involved? Salmond wants to debate Cameron to make it look like they are the enemy.

Me : Salmond v Cameron is the choice of Prime Ministers in #indyref

Duncan Hothersall : Which is a bollocks argument and you know it.

Me : I knew you'd like it, because it has the virtue of being self-evidently true.

Duncan Hothersall : It's the ultimate expression of the false idea that #indyref is an election substitute. Current leaders irrelevant.

Me : Like Tony Blair was "irrelevant" in 2005 because he saw out less than half a term? Same principle.

Duncan Hothersall : UK elections don't pick Prime Ministers they chose governing parties. #indyref is nothing to do with either.

Me : So why do we have "Prime Ministerial (sic) Debates" in UK elections?

Duncan Hothersall : I think I have a new favourite idiotic #yesscot argument: Salmond should debate Cameron because #indyref is a choice between them as PMs.

Me : Glad you like it, but do you actually have an answer to the Prime Ministerial Debate point?

Duncan Hothersall : We had them precisely once. Are you even going to pretend you don't understand our democracy to score points? Sad.

Me : Does that mean you oppose them, Duncan? This is important.

Duncan Hothersall : Yes. Our democracy works on the basis of law, not TV programmes, and you know that fine well.

Me : So you do oppose such debates? Fair enough. On that issue and Trident, I just wish you had more sway with your own party.

Duncan Hothersall : Do you really think #indyref is a choice between Salmond and Cameron as PM? How about we clear that up first.

Me : I thought we just had cleared it up, but evidently I've missed something. Answer to your question - obviously.

Duncan Hothersall : Then you're an idiot.

Me : Ah, the famed positivity and civility of the No campaign on social media!

Duncan Hothersall : I'm being neither negative nor uncivil. Your stated position is idiocy. It's stupid.

Me : "You're an idiot." That's a quote. Bit of a stretch to say that's "neither negative nor uncivil".

Duncan Hothersall : It's an observation. Now go and play with something sharp.

Me : Hmmm. While I do that, Duncan, why don't you quietly reflect on whether you practise what you preach on standards of debate.

Duncan Hothersall : Let me just file that advice for safekeeping. It's a gem.

Me : Feel free. I'll certainly be filing the "idiot" and "play with something sharp" comments for when you next mention Cybernats.

Does James Mackenzie have a problem with alternative points of view?

2013-05-07T16:50:00.000+01:00

James Mackenzie, the supremo of the Better Nation blog, has in a somewhat haughty (and not exactly unprecedented) manner declared that he cannot bear to continue a Twitter discussion with me that he himself initiated, solely on the grounds that I failed to concur with his own point of view. I'll repost the exchange in full here and let it speak for itself, but there are a number of things that I find utterly dumbfounding about it. Firstly, there's the automatic assumption on two separate occasions that because I didn't agree with a radical feminist text/video that he directed me to, that I must not have bothered to read/watch it. It literally doesn't even occur to him that it's possible for someone to listen to radical feminist arguments in good faith and not be persuaded by them. Then there's the apparent belief that disagreeing with radical feminism is the equivalent of racism, and can be characterised as "radical sexism". As I said at the time, it's hard to think of a more Orwellian use of language than to accuse the people who DON'T think there is any difference between male and female victims of being the "sexists"!

I really do think the way in which James brought this exchange to an end is incredibly revealing of the mindset that lies behind Better Nation's notoriously unpredictable - and occasionally suffocating - moderation policy. One useful thing to come out of this is that we now know that Jenny Kemp wasn't responsible for the deletion of JPJ2's perfectly legitimate comment on her BN thread about violence against women. My guess is that it may have been James himself and he's simply forgotten, but we'll probably never know.

James Mackenzie : (in response to this blogpost of a couple of days ago) Having moderated comments for @nationbetter, and despite being passionately pro-Yes, I do see much more hate on "our" side.

Me : Given that you moderate comments for being "otherwise dickish", I take that observation with a pinch of salt.

James Mackenzie : But I'm specifically talking about dickish comments amongst others - not sure how your comment relates to the balance thereof?

Me : The point I'm making is that the approach you take to moderation at Better Nation often IS the problem. "Otherwise dickish"?

James Mackenzie : What makes you say that? How do dickish comments, especially ad hominem, improve the debate?

Me : The absolute worst thing for the debate is heavy-handed, unbalanced moderation. A "good debate" isn't you silencing people.

James Mackenzie : What makes you think it's unbalanced? I can assure you it's nothing of the sort. Where's this coming from?

Me : I've seen examples of comments that didn't get through moderation on BN, where there was no conceivable justification to delete.

James Mackenzie : By all means show me examples of what you mean. I've got a complete record in my email of everything ever submitted.

Me : If you give me half an hour I probably can. Someone posted one on my blog a while back.

James Mackenzie : Excellent, I'd rather get this away from unsubstantiated allegations!

Me : OK, here's what I had in mind. A comment by JPJ2 that took issue with Jenny Kemp.

James Mackenzie : I'd have probably let that through, but it's much more problematic than it looks: (at this point he directs me to a post on a radical feminist blog that offers a convoluted ideological justification for the silencing of alternative points of view)

Me : So you might - just might - have blocked that comment because it's at variance with your own ideology, which others dispute?

James Mackenzie : I'd have probably let one comment of that sort through, replied with that link, and said I intended to block others.

James Mackenzie : Do you accept that that specific argument is a regular tool used to derail consideration of violence against women, though?

Me : James, are you seriously suggesting that everyone has to buy into key tenets of radical feminism before they are fit to debate?

James Mackenzie : No, I asked you a specific question about your personal view about the way the "what about teh menz" argument gets used.

Me : This is ludicrous. This is exactly what I mean. "Otherwise dickish" is code for "doesn't accept the premise of my ideology".

James Mackenzie : No, it's a genuine query. Do you accept that that particular rhetorical approach regularly derails discussions about violence?!

James Mackenzie : Feel free to say "no, it doesn't", but if you thought it did, what would you do? Let another discussion get derailed?

Me : I don't. I believe in free debate, not silencing people on purely ideological grounds.

James Mackenzie : I mean, if there are better ways to deal with that problem, great, but I'm sure it's a real problem. And yes, I'm a feminist.

Me : Dealing with what "problem"? That people, in a civilised way, take a different view on the subject to you?

James Mackenzie : So you'd accept long screeds about the inferiority of other races on your blog?

James Mackenzie : Just checking: have you read the piece I linked to? That sets out the problem. More here. (at this point he directs me to a Google search for the cretinous and belittling phrase "what about teh menz")

Me : Probably - I'd argue rather than delete. Are you now suggesting that disagreeing with radical feminism is comparable to racism?

James Mackenzie : Fair enough. I'm saying that radical sexism and radical racism are quite similar, that's all.

Me : Yes, I've read it multiple times, and the first time was ages ago. I profoundly disagree with it. Is that allowed?

Me : What is "radical sexism"? The view that domestic violence of men is the same as domestic violence of women? I'm bemused.

James Mackenzie : Of course. Just as it's permitted for people to disagree with race equality. And to publish whatever comments they like.

Me : Sure. You pontificate on what other people do, so I'm just letting you know what I think about your ideological moderation.

James Mackenzie : One of those irregular verbs: "I let you know what I think", "you pontificate", etc.

Me : Do grammatical offences fall under the catch-all "otherwise dickish" category?

James Mackenzie : No, just noting a bit of skewed language. I'd have let that through ;)

Jenny Kemp : I just happened on this conversation. Just want to clarify I had no moderation rights on the blog I wrote for BN.

Me : Thanks, Jenny. Perhaps BN ought to make clear who is doing the moderating on any given thread to avoid confusion.

Jenny Kemp : Sounds wise. I had no idea there were comments submitted but not published. Not nice to be accused of silencing...

James Mackenzie : Author or whoever posted a guest post leads, does uncontroversial stuff, the rest goes round by email. No mystery.

Jenny Kemp : I didn't have any moderation rights on that thread. Unless I am remembering it wrong - but pretty sure.

James Mackenzie : Just out of curiosity, would you have approved a comment likely to turn the discussion into "what about teh menz"?

Jenny Kemp : probably because otherwise you're accused of silencing that argument!

James Mackenzie : Although we did publish a marginally better version of the same argument from the same person.

Me : Pictish Beastie also complained of having a post deleted in that thread, James.

James Mackenzie : I have found it. It alleges bias on @jennykemp's part in a pretty unpleasant way. We moderate attacks on guests more than on us.

Jenny Kemp : glad that one didn't make it through then.

Me : I haven't seen it, but I'm a tad sceptical of these judgement calls (ie. "pretty unpleasant") based on what you said yesterday.

James Mackenzie : Oh, it's entirely subjective. But my original point stands: I see much harsher language from my side vs the No side.

Me : Yes, it is highly subjective. Which is another way of saying that your point only stands in your opinion.

James Mackenzie : Ah, I meant "what's unpleasant" is subjective. I have no doubt you could double-blind the comments and see what scores worst.

Me : I think that would be a very useful exercise one of these days - and it's possible you'd be shocked by the outcome.

Doug Daniel : hasn't something similar already been done by a university that found it's actually unionists who are the worst?

Wings over Scotland : Mark Shephard at Strathclyde.

James Mackenzie : {citation required} ;)

James Mackenzie : Also, I have no idea what the cross-blogosphere average is, I'm just going by all the BN comments.

James Mackenzie : James, you might find this interesting. (at this point he directs me to this radical feminist video)

Me : When will we see "human beings speaking out against domestic violence, irrespective of the victim's gender"?

James Mackenzie : Are you agreeing or disagreeing with his argument there?

Me : That self-styled "anti-sexist activist" is in truth profoundly sexist, as is your Orwellian notion of "radical sexism".

Me : I'm disagreeing with it. I thought that was fairly obvious!

James Mackenzie : Not really. He talks about violence against other men and boys too.

Me : Is there any reference to female-on-male violence?

James Mackenzie : You've not watched it. I give up: let's not speak again. It probably frustrates you as much as it does me.

Me : Jesus, man. I spent twenty painful minutes watching that on your request. The least you can do is engage.

James Mackenzie : So why ask me what was in the film? Did you appreciate any of it, then, or was it all some kind of misandric plot?

Me : I asked you because I thought there was a possibility - however remote - that I might have missed something vital.

Me : I just don't agree with the premise of it. I'm surprised you thought for a moment that I would.

James Mackenzie : I'm genuinely surprised that anyone could ignore the strength of his argument. I don't see how we find common ground.

Me : This is what I don't understand, James. Do you think "debate" ought to be others seeking common ground with you?

James Mackenzie : Not with me per se. Starting any debate surely means aiming to understand each other's argument as a first basis?

Me : Yes, but understanding it is not the same as accepting it. You seem offended that I don't accept your worldview.

Me : Or is the offence that it's possible to understand it without agreeing with it?

James Mackenzie : I admit I don't understand how anyone can look at violence against women in the way you do. Let's not discuss more.

Me : Why not? Because you must remain in a closed world, sealed off from other views? Explains BN moderation.

* * *

UPDATE : Predictably (again this is not exactly unprecedented) James Mackenzie unfollowed me on Twitter the moment he saw this post. Oh well, at least now I can follow suit and dispense with Twitter updates branded with the mildly disturbing 'dog smoking a pipe' image!

UPDATE II : And now he's going around calling me a "misogynist". Well, we may as well be treated to the full repertoire...

Questions to which the answer is "don't ask questions with your mouth full, you obnoxious child"

2013-05-07T02:44:00.000+01:00

It's strategy, Jim, but not as we know it. The No campaign seem to have convinced themselves that the masterstroke that will win this referendum is the revival of Labour Hame's highly-successful (ahem) Questions to Which the Answer is 'Er...' series.

I thought I'd take the liberty of replying to some of the more straightforward of the latest batch of '500 questions' - it'll free up our finest minds to deal with the questions that are cunning enough to require more than three seconds to answer. A word of warning - it's just possible you may spot a couple of recurring themes here.

Q. How would Scotland be better represented in the international community after independence if it was no longer a member of the G7, G8 or G20 as it currently is within the UK?

A. Because we are currently "represented in the international community" by David Cameron and William Hague.

Q. What is the Scottish Government’s strategy for achieving a separate Scotland’s membership of the Food and Agriculture Organisation?

A. Apply.

Q. What is the Scottish Government’s strategy for achieving a separate Scotland’s membership of the International Atomic Energy Agency?

A. Apply.

Q. What is the Scottish Government’s strategy for achieving a separate Scotland’s membership of the International Civil Aviation Organisation?

A. Apply.

Q. What is the Scottish Government’s strategy for achieving a separate Scotland’s membership of the International Labour Organisation?

A. Apply.

Q. What is the Scottish Government’s strategy for achieving a separate Scotland’s membership of UNESCO?

A. Apply.

Q. What is the Scottish Government’s strategy for achieving a separate Scotland’s membership of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation?

A. Apply.

Q. What is the Scottish Government’s strategy for achieving a separate Scotland’s membership of the World Food Programme?

A. Apply.

Q. What is the Scottish Government’s strategy for achieving a separate Scotland’s membership of the World Health Organisation?

A. Apply.

Q. What is the Scottish Government’s strategy for achieving a separate Scotland’s membership of the World Meterological Organisation?

A. Apply.

Q. What is the Scottish Government’s strategy for achieving a separate Scotland’s membership of the World Tourism Organisation?

A. Apply.

Q. What is the Scottish Government’s strategy for achieving a separate Scotland’s membership of the Commonwealth?

A. Apply.

Q. What is the Scottish Government’s strategy for achieving a separate Scotland’s membership of the OECD?

A. Apply.

Q. What is the Scottish Government’s strategy for achieving a separate Scotland’s membership of the International Olympic Committee?

A. Apply.

Q. What is the Scottish Government’s strategy for achieving a separate Scotland’s membership of Interpol?

A. Apply.

Q. What is the Scottish Government’s strategy for achieving a separate Scotland’s membership of the International Maritime Organisation?

A. Apply.

Q. What changes would an independent Scotland make to personal taxation bands?

A. The answer to this question depends very much on which party wins the Scottish general election. Rest assured that an independent Scotland will not be a one-party state, and that multi-party elections will be held. As three of the five main parties that will contest those elections are currently part of the No campaign, in many ways you guys are slightly better placed to answer this question than we are. (Unless you're not very optimistic about getting elected. But it can't be that.)

Q. Would an independent Scotland introduce a 10p tax rate?

A. The answer to this question depends very much on which party wins the Scottish general election. I refer you to the earlier reassurance that an independent Scotland will be a multi-party democracy and not a one-party state.

Q. Would a Local Income Tax be introduced in a separate Scotland? If so, when?

A. The answer to this question depends very much on which party wins the Scottish general election. I refer you to the earlier reassurance that an independent Scotland will be a multi-party democracy and not a one-party state.

Q. What would be an independent Scotland’s approach to fiscal policy, and what would be the implications for taxation of business?

A. The answer to this question depends very much on which party wins the Scottish general election. I refer you to the earlier reassurance that an independent Scotland will be a multi-party democracy and not a one-party state.

Q. What will be the tax allowance on business mileage?

A. The answer to this question depends very much on which party wins the Scottish general election. I refer you to the earlier reassurance that an independent Scotland will be a multi-party democracy and not a one-party state.

Q. What will be the rates for Company Car taxation?

A. The answer to this question depends very much on which party wins the Scottish general election. I refer you to the earlier reassurance that an independent Scotland will be a multi-party democracy and not a one-party state.

Q. What will be the exemptions applied for Company Car taxation?

A. The answer to this question depends very much on which party wins the Scottish general election. I refer you to the earlier reassurance that an independent Scotland will be a multi-party democracy and not a one-party state.

Q. What will be the Capital allowances for Ultra Low emission vehicles?

A. The answer to this question depends very much on which party wins the Scottish general election. I refer you to the earlier reassurance that an independent Scotland will be a multi-party democracy and not a one-party state.

Q. What will be the Capital allowances for energy saving machinery and equipment?

A. The answer to this question depends very much on which party wins the Scottish general election. I refer you to the earlier reassurance that an independent Scotland will be a multi-party democracy and not a one-party state.

Q. What will be the Capital allowances for railway assets and ships?

A. The answer to this question depends very much on which party wins the Scottish general election. I refer you to the earlier reassurance that an independent Scotland will be a multi-party democracy and not a one-party state.

Q. What will be the Capital Allowances for mineral extraction?

A. The answer to this question depends very much on which party wins the Scottish general election. I refer you to the earlier reassurance that an independent Scotland will be a multi-party democracy and not a one-party state.

Q. Will Air Passenger Duty continue to be collected in a separate Scotland?

A. The answer to this question depends very much on which party wins the Scottish general election. I refer you to the earlier reassurance that an independent Scotland will be a multi-party democracy and not a one-party state.

Q. What will be the Air Passenger Duty Rate for differing types of flights i.e. long/short haul?

A. The answer to this question depends very much on which party wins the Scottish general election. I refer you to the earlier reassurance that an independent Scotland will be a multi-party democracy and not a one-party state.

Q. Will Highland/Island airports be exempted from Air Passenger Duty?

A. The answer to this question depends very much on which party wins the Scottish general election. I refer you to the earlier reassurance that an independent Scotland will be a multi-party democracy and not a one-party state.

Q. Will there be differential rates of Air Passenger Duty within Scotland?

A. The answer to this question depends very much on which party wins the Scottish general election. I refer you to the earlier reassurance that an independent Scotland will be a multi-party democracy and not a one-party state.

Q. What will be Air Passenger Duty/taxation regime for private planes?

A. The answer to this question depends very much on which party wins the Scottish general election. I refer you to the earlier reassurance that an independent Scotland will be a multi-party democracy and not a one-party state.

Q. Will all income tax levels in a separate Scotland remain the same as other parts of the United Kingdom?

A. The short answer to this question is "you are a moron". The longer answer is that it depends very much on which parties win the various Scottish general elections that will take place between now and infinity, and it also depends very much on which parties win the various UK general elections that will take place between now and infinity. I refer you to the earlier reassurance that an independent Scotland will be a multi-party democracy and not a one-party state, and I would also add at this point that the remainder of the UK is also unlikely to abolish democracy, although you never know I suppose.

Q. What happens if the Scottish Parliament has a different view on the line of succession for the Monarchy?

A. Jupiter explodes and millions die. Alternatively, see my answer to this question the last time it was asked (in almost word-for-word identical fashion) by Gordon Brown. And don't jump to conclusions - I'm sure not all of the 'real Scots' who spontaneously submitted these 507 questions are former Prime Ministers of the UK.

Now, having got through that little lot, I wonder if someone from the No campaign would be prepared to answer a question - just one solitary question - of my own.

If Scotland votes No and remains part of the United Kingdom, what will be the basic rate of income tax that decent, law-abiding, hard-working Scottish families have to pay in the year 2033?

Don't you DARE ask for our votes before giving us the number.

By all means let's be civilised, but let's do it because we're human beings

2013-05-05T16:11:00.000+01:00

Let me say straight away that I quite like Susan Calman - I've seen her live a few times, and while she's maybe not rip-roaringly hilarious, she's certainly a 'feel-good' performer, and on the amusing end of the spectrum. I wouldn't previously have said that I've got a lot in common with her, but as a result of the controversy over the last few days I've realised there are a couple of little things. For example, we both feel that we've been the subject of rather nasty personal abuse on the internet as a result of comments we've made about the independence referendum. Because of my expression of support for independence on certain unionist-dominated websites over the years (OK, mainly one website), I've been called a "c**t", a "Nazi", a "w**ker", a "t*at", and a "traitor" to Britain, and told that like all Scottish nationalists I'm not a true Scot, and that I should f**k off back to Ireland or Quebec or wherever it is I really "come from". (That's just the stuff I can remember off-hand.) And like Ms Calman, I've sometimes written blog-posts to let off steam about the abuse.

There the similarities end, though, because in those blog-posts I actually quoted some of the abuse (and of course for doing that I was always accused of "Nat whining"), whereas Ms Calman only referred to being told about something she hadn't actually read, without even the vaguest hint of where it could be found. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has succeeded in tracking it down, which must at least leave open the possibility of a "Chinese whispers" effect being at play in her original claim. Oh, and the other difference is that I didn't have much of the print and broadcast media indignantly weighing in on my behalf.

And now we're solemnly told over and over again that while there may be abusive online warriors on both sides, the "Cybernats" are much, much worse than the "CyberBrits"? Well, with respect to Ms Calman's talent, that's a considerably funnier joke than she or any other comedian is ever likely to come up with. One of the great mysteries of our time is why the only personal abuse that is invisible to the eye of unionist media commentators is the abuse of nationalists by unionists.

As a long-standing victim of precisely the type of abuse that Ms Calman seemingly has merely been told she is a victim of, there's something else I'd like to say. Until this blogpost, I had only previously made one brief comment about the controversy, and that was a tweet in which I asked an ITV reporter if he could point me to evidence to support his claim that Ms Calman had suffered abuse. At the time I wrote that tweet, it would never even have occurred to me that it could be perceived as anything other than entirely innocuous. But from the bizarre reaction of people (who I would otherwise regard as intelligent) to equally legitimate comments made by others, I'm beginning to realise that by merely questioning the evidential basis of Ms Calman's claim, my tweet was probably regarded as a full-blown part of the "barrage of abuse" that she supposedly suffered, and that led to her deleting her Twitter account. The logic seems to be something like this - "If someone says they've been abused then they have been, and if you ask them for evidence you are compounding that abuse and are worse than the original abusers (who may or may not exist). Oh, and if the complainant happens to be a woman, you're also automatically a misogynist."

That attitude is chilling, it's Orwellian, and it's an affront to free speech. But it gets even better. If you still refuse to be cowed, you'll be told something like this -

"Just take a step back and think about whether what you've said is going to make a Yes vote in the referendum more or less likely."

Ah, the nuclear option - if you can't think of a logical reason why someone should be silenced, try to frighten them into submission with "even if you've got a point, don't say it out loud, because you're helping the other side". I can't remember what RevStu's response was when an SNP councillor tried that line on him, but if it had been me I think I would have said that I simply don't see every word I utter through the prism of vote-winning or vote-losing, and if I did I would cease to be human. Given that the Yes campaign is dominated by the left, there's inevitably a strong radical feminist strain within it, and I can think of posts on this blog (opposing the Swedish model on prostitution law, for instance) which some people probably think I should have been "disciplined" enough not to write, just to avoid the million-to-one chance that the sight of a random independence supporter saying such things might cost one or two radical feminist votes at the referendum.

Nope. Sorry. I'm not a robot. If I was employed by the Yes campaign or by the SNP, I might feel obliged to act like a robot for the greater good, but even then I'd probably be unsure whether the tactic was really paying off. The electorate aren't fools, and they can smell a lack of authenticity a mile off.

Mike Small said this the other day -

"You’re going to threaten Susan Calman? Really? Are you? Susan Calman? Then you’re going to defend it or explain it? Really? Count me out of that brigade. What’s the Goldman quote? 'If I can’t dance to it, it’s not my revolution' should be turned to 'If I can’t laugh, it’s not my revolution'...

It’s time for the independence movement to move on and stop the push-button responses to infantile unionist baiting. Let’s have a lightness of spirit and re-set the agenda onto what we can do, what we will do and what we hope for."

The first problem here is that Mike has seemingly fallen into the aforementioned self-supporting cycle of illogicality that results in someone who politely asks for evidence that the abuse took place being reimagined as "an abuser who is defending or explaining the abuse". Not good enough. But as for a "lightness of spirit"? Agreed, there were a few things that were (genuinely and as a matter of record) said about Ms Calman that were petty and vindictive, and would have been far better left unsaid. But the reason they'd have been better left unsaid is that human decency is a good thing, not because we're automatons who must conform at every step with the Blueprint for Victory. Human beings are lighter of spirit than robots.

Darling : "I'm in the wrong campaign!"

2013-05-05T12:34:00.000+01:00

This seems to be the top tweet featuring the #indyref hashtag at the moment -

"@TogetherDarling I don't want to & I shouldn't have to choose between being Scottish & British, I'm both!"

Someone explain to him that Scotland is, always has been, and always will be part of an island called Great Britain, and that "British" is not a name reserved for citizens of whatever political state London happens to be capital city of at any given moment. It's the birthright of all of us on this island.

Maybe he thought he was signing up to be leader of the "Better Not Let the SNP Build the World's Biggest Chainsaw" campaign. Easy mistake to make.

Keep it together, darling.

Fancy becoming a contributor to Scot Goes Pop?

2013-05-05T02:35:00.000+01:00

In recent months, the visitor numbers to this blog have reached unprecedented levels. Although that's a good thing, in a way it generates its own type of pressure - having sweated blood over the last five years (and it's now exactly five years) to build up a steady readership, there's a need to continue producing new content constantly, otherwise those readers would disappear soon enough and all the hard work would have been for nothing. Writing a solo blog sometimes feels like a self-imposed life sentence, and with the best will in the world it's murderously hard to keep the required pace up when you have a million-and-one other commitments.

A few weeks ago, Tris and Marcia both mentioned the possibility of a fund-raising campaign. Unfortunately, that's not a realistic option - in spite of the increase in traffic, Scot Goes Pop just isn't in the same league as a Wings Over Scotland or a Bella Caledonia, so there's no way on Earth that I'd be able to raise enough to allow me to blog on a full-time basis. And in all honesty I'm not sure that I'd want to do that anyway - I simply don't live and breathe politics in the way that many other bloggers do. I've never been active in the SNP, for example.

A potentially more plausible way of squaring the circle would be for Scot Goes Pop to cease to be a solo blog, and to open its doors to other contributors. I'm not just talking about the odd guest post here and there - I mean giving others full posting rights and allowing them to publish here on their own initiative whenever the spirit moves them. I haven't the faintest idea whether anyone would be interested in doing that, but I thought I'd at least pose the question and see what happens.

So if you were to become a contributor, what would be in it for you, I hear you ask? Well, basically you'd have a platform for your views, and a guaranteed audience - not a massive one, by any means, but a decent-sized one.

If you think you might be interested, feel free to drop me a line at the email address at the top of the sidebar, and we can talk it over. There'd be a few important ground rules, but hopefully nothing that would prove too onerous. Oh, and as this is a pro-independence blog, it would obviously help enormously for you to be in favour of Scottish independence!

* * *

As far as I can see, there's still no sign of the full-scale YouGov poll on referendum voting intentions that we were expecting. However, there is a YouGov poll on whether the UK government should reverse its stubborn refusal to accept the Electoral Commission's recommendation that it should agree a joint position with the Scottish government prior to the referendum, allowing voters to know the exact meaning of a Yes or No vote. 67% of voters think the UK government should enter into such an agreement, and only 21% do not.

So let's recap...

1) David Cameron used to think that all Electoral Commission recommendations should be accepted without question - until the Electoral Commission made a recommendation he didn't like.

2) David Cameron thinks that the EU should enter into negotiations with him before his own in/out referendum, but doesn't see why exactly the same principle should apply in Scotland.

3) The electorate think that David Cameron should accept the Electoral Commission's recommendation, and enter into pre-referendum negotiations with the Scottish government.

The Prime Minister is fast running out of legs to stand on.

Disaster for Labour : local election results confirm they are headed for defeat in the next UK general election

2013-05-03T16:54:00.000+01:00

Leaving aside for one moment the London media's new-found love affair with a hard-right party (a match made in heaven if ever there was one), what really matters about the English local elections is what they tell us about the likely outcome of the Tory v Labour battle for power in the next general election. And the answer couldn't be much clearer. Here are the BBC's projected national vote shares...

Labour 29%
Conservatives 25%
UKIP 23%
Liberal Democrats 14%

29% is obviously a laughably low share of the vote for a major opposition party seeking a mid-term launch-pad to get back into power. Labour can justifiably use the UKIP surge as an alibi for that vote share, but what they can't use it as an alibi for is their pitiful four-point lead over the Tories at a time in the electoral cycle when they should be miles ahead. The reason UKIP isn't a credible excuse is that polling evidence shows that five times as many UKIP voters come from the Tories as from Labour. In other words, if UKIP hadn't been around, the Conservatives would almost certainly have outpolled Labour in these elections.

But even if we take the raw figures at face value, the BBC's graphics quickly demonstrated why Labour's four-point lead is hopelessly inadequate. At the same stage of the electoral cycle in the 1983-87 parliament, the Labour opposition had a bigger lead of 5% in the local elections - and went on to lose the general election. At the same stage of the electoral cycle in the 1987-92 parliament, the Labour opposition had an even bigger lead of 8% - and went on to lose the general election. The same fate befell the Tory oppositions that held a similar small lead in the mid-term local elections in the 1997-2001 and 2001-05 parliaments. The historical evidence is absolutely unambiguous - the results of these elections point to a Tory victory in 2015.

Having seen that evidence, John Reid bizarrely protested that the BBC hadn't mentioned the 1981 local elections, which he regarded as the most appropriate comparison, because the centre-left vote was split in the early 1980s in the same way that the centre-right vote is split now. There are just a couple of tiny problems with that theory, John -

1) In spite of Labour's huge handicap in 1981, Michael Foot actually won those elections by a margin of 3% - almost exactly the same lead that Labour have managed this year. They went on to a crushing defeat at the general election two years later. Not much comfort there.

2) If the split in the centre-right vote is such a huge opportunity for Labour, why did they so spectacularly fail to take advantage of it in these elections? And given that they failed to take advantage of it in the favourable context of a mid-term poll, why the hell would it be rational to assume that they are much more likely to take advantage of it in the context of a general election when the governance of the country is at stake? Hint - it wouldn't be remotely rational to assume that.

Labour's position isn't hopeless, but given the electoral disaster they have just suffered it seems to me that something fairly dramatic is going to have to happen if they are to win the general election. That something could be internal - either a radical change in policy direction or a change in leader (both are unlikely). Or it could be external - the Tories could shoot themselves in the foot so catastrophically that Labour win by default.

But as things stand, the Yes campaign are fully entitled to shout a simple truth from the rooftops - the Tories are heading for victory at the next election, and if you don't want to be ruled by them, the only alternative is to vote for independence.

* * *

Gerry Hassan also made the valuable point today that UKIP are in favour of the de facto abolition of the Scottish Parliament. After the Tories' acceptance of the principle of devolution, we assumed that the spectre of a right-wing government in London unilaterally scrapping Holyrood (as Mrs Thatcher scrapped the GLC) had vanished, but that may not now be the case. If UKIP start to win MPs, who knows what stance a future UKIP-Tory coalition might take towards Scottish self-government? It may well be that a No vote in next year's referendum would put at risk the long-term future of the devolved parliament.

* * *

There were of course no elections in Scotland yesterday (apart from a couple of by-elections, one of which was won by the Borders Party and the other by an independent), but the SNP's sister parties in Wales and Cornwall had battles to fight. Plaid Cymru had a terrific result in Anglesey, becoming the largest single party by some distance. And Mebyon Kernow had a respectable result in the unitary Cornwall authority, winning a handful of seats - quite an achievement given that they presumably receive next to no coverage in the broadcast media.

Clegg In Seventh Heaven As Libs Lick Lousy Loony

2013-05-03T02:02:00.001+01:00

The future of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party was called into question tonight, as it sensationally found itself pipped for seventh place in the South Shields by-election by (and I'm not making this up) the Liberal Democrats.

Chastened Loony candidate Alan "Howling Laud" Hope commented : "I must admit I just didn't see that one coming. Finishing in eighth place is one thing, but to lose to Clegg's mob has always seemed unthinkable - until now. If something like this can happen, then no Loony stronghold can be considered safe at the next general election. Our long-cherished dream of compulsory tracking devices in hairgrips could be fading fast."

Election expert John Curtice went even further, suggesting that the party's humiliating defeat at the hands of a "comedy" candidate marked the final confirmation that "the strange death of Loony England" is well underway.

Meanwhile, the Lib Dems' unexpected seventh place raised hopes that Nick Clegg's party might even save a deposit or two at the general election, possibly somewhere in Cornwall.

The result in full -

Labour 50.4% (-1.6)
UKIP 24.2%% (+24.2)
Conservatives 11.5% (-10.1)
Independent - Khan 5.4% (+5.4)
Independent Socialists 3.0% (+3.0)
BNP 2.9% (-3.6)
Liberal Democrats 1.4% (-12.8%)
Official Monster Raving Loonies 0.8% (+0.8)
Independent - Darwood 0.2% (+0.2)

Swing from Conservatives to UKIP - 17%
Swing from Labour to UKIP - 13%
Swing from Conservatives to Labour - 4%
Swing from Liberal Democrats to UKIP - 19%
Swing from Liberal Democrats to Official Monster Raving Loonies - 7%

House of Commons report confirms that Scottish independence would be a force for good in the world - and that Duncan Hothersall is wrong, again

2013-05-02T01:50:00.001+01:00

It's rare that a report by Westminster's Foreign Affairs Committee paints such an inspiring picture of the benefits that independence would bring not just to Scotland, but to the wider world as well. Here are just a few of the highlights -

1. The UK might lose its veto-wielding power in the UN Security Council.

This of course would be a GOOD THING. Britain's special perks at the UN are relics of imperialism that ought to have been stripped away decades ago. Countries in the developing world are rightly furious that a nation on the fringes of Europe, with less than 1% of the global population, has the permanent, in-built power to protect its own selfish interests by vetoing resolutions that would otherwise have the full force of international law.

2. The UK might not retain its nuclear weapons, because of the difficulty of moving them from Scotland.

This of course would be a GOOD THING. The fewer countries in the world that have weapons capable of wiping out millions of people within seconds, the less chance there is of human civilisation coming to an end in the near future. On the whole, I'm rather in favour of human civilisation.

This also confirms that Duncan Hothersall is wrong in his claims that the unilateralism of independence supporters is a sham, and that we'd simply be voting to move the weapons elsewhere rather than eliminate them. In fact, if the Commons report is correct, the only meaningful chance any UK citizens will have to eliminate nuclear weapons will be by voting for Scottish independence.

3. Confusingly at variance with highlight no 2, Scotland might be "forced" to continue hosting nuclear weapons for decades if we want the UK's support for our applications to join international organisations.

This is of course a GOOD THING, or at least it is if you read between the lines and spot the implicit recognition that the Trident issue is Scotland's bargaining chip from heaven, which can potentially be used to counter London's immature intransigence on a whole range of other issues as well.

4. A truly independent Scottish foreign policy is a misnomer, because in practice we'd be forced to go along with whatever the UK wanted.

Well, this would probably be a bad thing on the whole, but I can only assume that the committee itself regards it as a GOOD THING. After all, it would mean following in the finest traditions of British foreign policy, which is to do whatever the Americans instruct us to do.

* * *

On a vaguely related theme, this poll from YouGov caught my eye, because it was conducted across seven different European countries...

How serious a threat do you think North Korea poses to your country?

BRITISH VOTERS:

Serious threat 15%
Minor threat/Not a threat 74%

GERMAN VOTERS:

Serious threat 19%
Minor threat/Not a threat 68%

FRENCH VOTERS:

Serious threat 26%
Minor threat/Not a threat 62%

DANISH VOTERS:

Serious threat 4%
Minor threat/Not a threat 90%

SWEDISH VOTERS:

Serious threat 3%
Minor threat/Not a threat 90%

FINNISH VOTERS:

Serious threat 3%
Minor threat/Not a threat 90%

NORWEGIAN VOTERS:

Serious threat 6%
Minor threat/Not a threat 85%

So, unsurprisingly, the majority in all seven countries are wise enough to realise that David Cameron's claims that Europe is under threat from North Korea are a load of old twaddle. But what I find particularly interesting is that the populations of the four small independent nations (none of which have an 'independent nuclear deterrent', and two of which are not even NATO members) feel under considerably LESS threat of nuclear annihilation at the hands of Kim Jong-un than the populations of the three much larger countries (two of which do have an 'independent nuclear deterrent').

Shurely shome mishtake, David?

* * *

I have it on reasonably good authority that a full-scale YouGov poll on referendum voting intentions is on its way. It will be the first such poll by the company this year, and therefore also the first YouGov poll to use - after a fashion - the finalised, Electoral Commission-approved question. I say "after a fashion" because Kellner's mob have by all accounts persisted with their indefensible practice of using a biased preamble to 'explain' the question to their respondents, who they apparently think are too stupid to understand the meaning of the words "Should Scotland be an independent country?".

Rest assured that I have my customary "YouGov credibility in tatters" headline ready to go when the moment arrives.

Here's why Labour are probably going to lose the next UK general election

2013-04-30T15:19:00.000+01:00

Until recently, I tended to go along with the conventional wisdom that the balance of probability points to a Conservative defeat at the next UK general election - not because Labour have in any sense got their act together, but simply because the Tories are starting from such a low base and have the electoral system loaded against them. That didn't mean we couldn't make the argument that a vote for independence is a vote against Tory rule, but it did mean we would probably have to get across the slightly more sophisticated point that the Tories are the natural party of government in the UK, and that Labour's spells in office only come about when they tack to the right and adopt Tory policies.

But my view of the likely general election outcome is evolving rapidly. Just take a look at the latest GB-wide ComRes poll -

Labour 38%
Conservatives 32%
UKIP 13%
Liberal Democrats 9%

Given the almost-inevitable unpopularity of Westminster governments in mid-term, a mere six-point Labour lead at this stage has "Tory victory in 2015" written all over it. But in fact Labour's position is even weaker than it appears, and the reason is that a large chunk of the UKIP vote will drift back to the mainstream parties by the time of the general election. Some of it will drift back to Labour, but the lion's share will naturally be going to the Tories. To get at the true underlying state of play, what we really need is a polling question that excludes UKIP from the equation, and YouGov helpfully provided one last week -

If you had to choose, which of the following options would be best for Britain?

A majority Conservative government 29%
A majority Labour government 29%
A coalition between Labour and the Liberal Democrats 13%
A coalition between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats 9%

Even if those figures are combined, a Labour-led government of some description is only favoured by a wafer-thin margin of 42% to 38%. That is an utterly hopeless position for Labour to be in at this stage of the electoral cycle. You won't be surprised to hear that the figures in Scotland are radically different - we prefer a Labour-led government to a Tory-led government by an overwhelming margin of 57% to 21%. Well, we can prefer that to our little hearts' content, but it won't make a blind bit of difference unless we take control of our own destiny at the independence referendum.

I'd suggest the real challenge for the Yes campaign will be to convey to voters just how weak Labour's true position is, if the party's poor showing in the polls continues to be disguised by the UKIP surge.

* * *

Many thanks to the 155 people who voted for this blog in last week's WoS poll. Scot Goes Pop finished eighth on the "which is your favourite Scottish political site?" question, and tenth on the "which Scottish political sites do you visit at least once a week?" question. It wasn't that far away from being better still on the latter question, because just fourteen votes separated sixth and tenth place. But I'm more than happy to finish in the top ten on both questions, mainly because it gives me a long-overdue excuse to update the tagline in the masthead! The previous wording of "voted one of the UK's top 100 political blogs" referred to the most recent Total Politics Awards, which took place way back in September 2011.

You might remember that I ran a similar poll last year, and RevStu has provided some analysis of the changes in voting patterns since that poll. It's worth pointing out that the comparison isn't an exact one - my poll was restricted to blogs (hence the exclusion of Newsnet Scotland, which is a news website like the Scotsman rather than a blog), but on the other hand included a smattering of non-Scottish sites. It also had a smaller 'electorate', which may well explain the apparent contraction in the number of sites that are read by over 50% of voters - it could be that last year's voters were more likely to be among the hard core who read a large number of blogs. I'm also slightly sceptical about the apparent sharp drop in popularity of both Better Nation and A Burdz Eye View - again, that could simply reflect the profile of the Wings readership. Admittedly, there doesn't seem to be the same buzz about Better Nation that there once was, but A Burdz Eye View appears to be going as strong as ever.

Last but not least, warm congratulations to this blog's oldest friend Tris, who had an absolutely fantastic result - Munguin's Republic finished fifth on the 'overall favourite' question, and eighth on the 'most-read' question.

* * *

If you happen to have a few pounds burning a hole in your pocket, why not make a donation to the National Collective fundraising drive? It has just four more days to run, and they're getting tantalisingly close to their target figure (reaching that figure will save them hundreds of pounds in fees).

Don't these bleedin' Jocks have a sense of humour?

2013-04-27T18:07:00.000+01:00

One of the great taboos on Have I Got News For You is audience interaction. It just doesn't happen - the audience are there to be heard (laughing and applauding) and not seen. So for this decades-long convention to be abruptly broken last night, there must have been some very special comic imperative at play, right? Well, yes. It was apparently utterly essential to conduct a straw poll to determine whether the London audience thought that the Scots (who everyone knew were watching, naturally, this being a 'national British programme' and everything) should "bugger off" or not. In case you're wondering, the overwhelming verdict was that we should, indeed, "bugger off".

Curiously, guest host Ray Winstone later made a joke about an anti-Pakistani comment by a politician, who he described as a "prat". The audience roared with laughter, congratulating themselves with no apparent trace of irony on their politically correct, tolerant sense of humour. This of course comes hot on the heels of the notorious recent Question Time incident, when an audience member suggested that "we should dump our nuclear waste in Scotland and then give them independence", prompting hysterical giggles from the programme's English host, English panel and the rest of the English audience. Clearly this sparkling (and immaculately non-racist) Jock-bashing wit is not restricted to actual comedy programmes on our "national British" television networks.

So what actually lies behind all this thinly-disguised loathing and rage? It seems to be a confusing mixture of a belief in the London media's fantasy that Scotland is "subsidised by hard-working English taxpayers", and anger at the fact that Scotland is inexplicably considering walking away from all those (ahem) "subsidies". You'd think the latter point would provoke delight and relief, but no, instead the message is something along the lines of "yeah, bugger off back to us with your tail between your legs, so we can subsidise you some more and hate you for it". Alternatively, the muddled thinking may possibly indicate that on some unconscious level they do in fact suspect that the Scots probably aren't getting the better end of the deal.

And before we hear the predictable squeals of "don't these bleedin' Jocks have a sense of humour", let me make a constructive suggestion. How about a comedy programme shown throughout the UK, with an all-Scottish panel, in which the Scottish host asks the all-Scottish audience - "If the English ask for the nukes after independence, who thinks we should just tell them to bugger off? Who thinks we should do the world a favour by holding onto Trident, disarming unilaterally and not offering a penny in compensation to the London Treasury? Sounds fair to me, yeah guys?"

Let's see if all that can happen without acres of column-inches being devoted by the London media to a solemn discussion of the dark tide of anti-Englishness in Scotland - and, naturally, its all-important relationship to Braveheart.

Notes on a non-scandal

2013-04-25T17:00:00.000+01:00

In the latest scare story about Scotland's currency that has been concocted by the No campaign (and of course in this respect the UK Treasury is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the No campaign), there's one particular bit that leaves me in gales of laughter. It's the apparent belief that Scots will somehow be 'scared' into voting No by London's threat to take away our banknotes. For starters, as the SNP have pointed out, no-one with an ounce of sense is going to take the threat seriously - if it's feasible for Scotland to have its own banknotes as part of the UK, it's a bit of a stretch to suggest that it suddenly wouldn't be feasible as an independent country. But on a more fundamental level, even if it was true that our banknotes are under threat, who exactly is going to be deterred from voting Yes for that specific reason? Here's how different sections of the electorate are likely to react -

Group 1 - People who actually care about Scottish 'national prestige' and distinctiveness. These people would almost certainly see the demise of the banknotes as regrettable. But by definition they will also care about the far more meaningful trappings of statehood that would come with independence, and will regard them as infinitely more important than the trivial issue of banknotes. Who in their right mind among this group will think that the design of banknotes is more important than whether Scotland has its own representation at the EU and UN?

Group 2 - People who don't give a monkey's about Scottish 'national prestige' and distinctiveness. These people will only be persuaded to vote for independence if they believe that it will improve their lives and the lives of their families, and make the world around them a better and safer place. Who in their right mind among this group will think that the design of banknotes is more important than the question of whether we should get inhuman weapons of mass destruction off our shores, or whether we should put an end to London's monstrous welfare "reforms"?

Group 3 - There isn't a third group.

* * *

What terribly sad news about Brian Adam - arguably the most genuinely likeable guy in the whole parliament.

Now that the daffodils are back, it's time to vote for a blog that is fighting for the things that really matter

2013-04-24T17:30:00.000+01:00

My fellow citizens, these are uniquely dangerous times that we live in.

Lord Fraser wants to call in the RAF to bomb Glasgow Airport. The Treasury wants to rip out the soul of this nation by taking away our banknotes. Richard Baker still wants to be a government minister.

These are just three of the unpredictable and growing menaces that threaten our survival.

As the great lady once said, this is no time to go wobbly.

Scotland MUST retain its independent blogging deterrent.

Conventional forces such as Better Nation and A Burdz Eye View are all very well, but what this country really needs is a blogging weapons system that can annihilate whole cities with its mind-numbingly detailed coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

If so...

Vote liberty.

Vote oxygen.

Vote for a blog that is tough on Tavish, and tough on the causes of Tavish.

Vote Scot Goes Pop in the WoS favourite blog poll.

Thankyou. May God bless you, and may God bless the United Yetts o' Muckhart.

(DISCLAIMER: Just like Trident, voting for this deterrent is no guarantee that it will actually work. On the plus side, this one won't cost you £25 billion.)

Poll : Which Presiding Officer has been best?

2013-04-22T18:16:00.000+01:00

Bit of a random one, this, but I've been thinking about how the reputation of Commons Speakers at Westminster has so rarely matched up to my own assessment. For example, Betty Boothroyd was treated by all sides with something approaching adulation, but I thought she was a fairly poor Speaker in a lot of ways. She had a very "macho" attitude (odd for the first woman to hold the position), and on one occasion reacted to an attempt to shout down Simon Hughes with the words "oh spit it out, man, there isn't going to be quiet". Her rulings were hopelessly inconsistent, and often seemed to be based more on what mood she was in than on the parliamentary rulebook. And that's before we even come on to her meltdown during Michael Mates' resignation statement.

So that's the (very roundabout) inspiration for today's poll. Holyrood has now had four Presiding Officers - which do you think has been the best? The voting form can be found at the top of the sidebar.

UPDATE : Apologies, but I've had to abandon the poll. There was some kind of technical fault - to begin with votes weren't being recorded at all, and then once they were recorded they started disappearing again! For what it's worth, George Reid appeared to be the most popular Presiding Officer, with Lord "just call me Sir David" Steel firmly in bottom place.