Govangirl, Bertie, thank you for your kind words. I’m glad you enjoyed my input over the last six months or so on this thread, its been enjoyable from my point of view too. There have been some excellent contributions and I can certainly recognise a well-constructed argument even if I don’t agree with it.
We will of course still disagree, Govangirl, on the best way forward for Scotland but of all your and particularly Shona’s arguments for Scotland staying in the UK I found the ones around solidarity and unity the strongest and most difficult to argue against. These are things I believe in and where for example businesses merge the reasons often cited are synergies, comparative advantage and economies of scale etc. (although that is often code for job losses!). Where I think this falls down is that the UK is not a partnership of equals.
Govangirl wrote:Hume, there's always something to blame: if it's not the 'biased media' (and certainly on Tuesday night Mr Dimbleby gave a much easier ride to Salmond than he did to Brown!!) then it's the nasty lot at Westminster!!!! Please accept that if it is a No then it is the will of the majority of the people and not that it is 'not valued by some' as you put it!
I agree with that too. I said Dimbleby was very good that evening and allowed both to put their points across largely uninterrupted, which itself was refreshing. If you felt Brown got a rougher time then it was probably because there were a lot more holes in his arguments
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I’ve not really kept up to speed with the aftermath of the referendum, probably partly intentional but also partly outwith my control. As others did, I probably said this was the most important thing to happen for 300 years. As it happens, following some news received in my household a couple of weeks ago, the referendum wasn’t even the most important thing to happen last Thursday, never mind the last 300 years.
I was therefore away from home from midday on Friday until last night, just in case anyone was thinking I was avoiding the Forum
. I recall a situation a good number of years ago when I was at Uni and was doing my Saturday job in the afternoon. Aberdeen were playing Celtic and my flatmates (Celtic) were at the game. Anyway, we got beaten 7-0 (actually it happen about three times that season but this was the first) and I was due to meet them in the pub afterwards. Clearly I didn’t want to go but it was either that or face them around midnight, which would have been worse, so I went to the Celtic pub to face the music! So here I am, facing the music.
Before leaving on Friday, I had time for quite a surreal experience. I had stayed up until about 4am but thought I needed some sleep before driving to Oban. Despite being scheduled to be off, I woke to a text at 7.40am about a client wanting to invest money on the back of the No vote. Quite a lot of money I found out in a follow up call at 8am, enough to give all us Yes voters a pound each.
Regarding the quote above Govangirl, I know you think Yes supporters go on about a biased media. I like to think I can be rational even coming from a strongly held position. In my view the BBC is the most disgraceful organisation. Comparable things that went unreported as they could have been damaging to the No campaign were top of the agenda if there were negative implications for Yes. Conversely, positive stories for Yes never received anything like the exposure those for No.
I have no objection to negative stories being reported, even if that happens to be more on the Yes side. My problem was the way in which these were reported. There were many many examples, one which stuck in my mind was when Mark Carney came to Edinburgh shortly after George Osborne had ruled out a Currency Union. Carney spoke for around 25 minutes and was highly positive about how a Currency Union can operate across territories but did state at one point how there could be risk and it would involve ceding a degree of sovereignty. Nothing alarming really but these two lines were repeated for days on the BBC and were taken completely out of context. No focus was given to the other points he made. That is simply not balanced journalism and there were multiple examples of this type of thing. Its no surprise though is it, is anyone really honestly able to say they think the BBC is unbiased?
What we saw in the last two weeks on the campaign was the full force of the British Establishment come down on Scotland to prevent us voting Yes. Government, businesses and the media colluding to make a mockery of the democratic process.
I strongly believe we would now be in negotiations about the setup of a new State called Scotland if it were not for the BBC.
As for result itself, younger people favoured Independence more than older people. Probably not surprising. Three quarters of those over 65 voted No. I wonder what impact Better Together telling people they would lose their pension in an Independent Scotland had on that age group?
Speaking generally, those living in statistically poorer areas favoured Yes, whereas those in more affluent areas favour No. This is quite telling, isn’t it. People in Glasgow (I got that bit right, Bobh), North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire have made a cry for help and to a large degree, Scotland as a whole has ignored that. These people are categorically NOT Better Together. Does this not also dismiss this nonsense about Nationalism. Huge population bases of traditional Labour territory, where the SNP cannot buy a seat, voted Yes. Please don’t tell me these people are nationalists. I nearly fell of my seat at one point listening to Michael Forsyth on STV, when he said that perhaps only half of the Yes vote was a nationalist one. It suited Better Together to use the term ad infinitum before the polls closed. Same with Danny Alexander, who said something about needing to recognise that it wasn’t just SNP voters who were voting Yes. Could have fooled us, Danny!
From what I have read, which is little, ‘The Vow’ is already falling to pieces and I fear Scotland has been badly duped. The parties providing the ‘guarantees’ are already giving out conflicting messages. What happens next in that regard will determine how quickly the issue of Independence is re-visited. It looks like the campaign for Independence has already found another gear and if additional powers are not delivered another referendum soon would be entirely justified. If the promises are delivered, the issue should be left alone for a little longer.
In summary, I am hugely disappointed as I felt this was a chance for us to create a modern democracy and leave behind a system of elitism. Staying in the UK will only ever allow us to see tweaks round the edges as the baton passes endlessly from Labour to Conservative and back again. I was hugely attracted to the idea of improving society from the bottom up, rather than the top down and hopefully we get there one day. If we don’t get there one day as an independent Scotland, I still hope we get there as the UK, although I think the chances will be greatly diminished.
In terms of those shameful scenes from George Square, those do not represent No voters any more than threats of violence received by Shona represent Yes voters. Burning Scotland flags, violence against passers by and spitting on police officers is pretty awful. Can you imagine if one of them threw an egg though - it would have been on the BBC news for a week solid...or maybe not.
I’m proud of myself for voting Yes. I am happy I will be able to tell my two kids I was one of the ones who voted for real change.
..and well done Glasgow!