Scottish independence results: NO side wins plebiscite!
Scottish independence results: NO side wins plebiscite!
- Thread starter BAK
- Start date
BAK
JF-Expert Member
- Feb 11, 2007
- 124,769
- 288,329
Eric Cartman
JF-Expert Member
- May 21, 2009
- 11,960
- 11,221
wakati wapo 6 kwa 2 tofauti ya kura zote ilikuwa ni 0.2% only majimbo sio issue sana maana mengine yana watu wengi zaidi hivyo large deficit can chage the course au ata kutoa ushindi wa jumla bila kuchukua council nyingi mwishowe.
I thought I should highlight that hili kutupa picha kamili wafuatiliaji.
BAK
JF-Expert Member
- Feb 11, 2007
- 124,769
- 288,329
- Thread starter
- #25
20/32 reporting, YES camp 45% NO camp 55% kwa hizo 12 councils zilizobaki sidhani kama NO camp watapata ushindi mkubwa na hivyo kubadili hizi percentage kama zinavyoonekana hapa. Kwa maneno hayo basi Wascotland wamekataa kujitenga na UK.
BAK
JF-Expert Member
- Feb 11, 2007
- 124,769
- 288,329
- Thread starter
- #31
5m ago [h=2]Sky News calls election for no side[/h]Sky News is now calling the overall result as a no.
That is not yet because it is mathematically impossible for yes to win. As Michael Thrasher, their elections expert explains, it is because the voting trends effectively make this an impossibility.
That is not yet because it is mathematically impossible for yes to win. As Michael Thrasher, their elections expert explains, it is because the voting trends effectively make this an impossibility.
simplemind
JF-Expert Member
- Apr 10, 2009
- 16,760
- 9,667
Glasgow votes Yes
Yes: 194,779
No: 169,347
Yes: 194,779
No: 169,347
simplemind
JF-Expert Member
- Apr 10, 2009
- 16,760
- 9,667
Siyo siri UK govt imelazimisha yes vote kwa vitisho.
Established power hates uncertainty,
especially any threat to its grip on the
political, economic and financial levers
that control society. And so it is with
elite fears that the United Kingdom,
formed by the 1707 Acts of Union,
could be on the verge of unravelling.
No informed commentator doubts that
elite interests will do all they can to
maintain hegemony in an independent
Scotland, should that historic shift
occur following the referendum of
September 18. But if it does happen,
there will likely be significant
consequences for the Trident nuclear
missile system, the future of the NHS
and the welfare state, education,
climate policy, energy generation and
other industry sectors, the media and
many additional issues; not just in
Scotland, but beyond, including Nato
and the European Union. There is
clearly a lot at stake and established
power is concerned.
Just over a week ago, to the
consternation of Westminster elites and
their cheerleaders in media circles, a
YouGov opinion poll showed that the
'Yes' vote (51%) had edged ahead of
'No' (49%) for the first time in the
campaign, having at one point trailed
by 22%. The Observer noted 'signs of
panic and recrimination among unionist
ranks', adding that 'the no campaign is
desperately searching for ways to seize
back the initiative'. The panic was
marked by 'intensive cross-party talks'
and underpinned George Osborne's
announcement on the BBC Andrew
Marr show on September 7 that 'a plan
of action to give more powers to
Scotland' in the event of a No vote
would be detailed in the coming days.
Confusion reigned in the Unionist
camp, and in media reporting of their
befuddlement. According to the rules
governing the referendum, the UK and
Scottish governments are forbidden
from publishing anything which might
affect the outcome during the so-called
'purdah period' of 28 days leading up
to September 18. So, how to reconcile
the opportunistic 'promise' during
purdah to grant Scotland new powers
following a 'No' vote? BBC News
dutifully reported the government
sleight-of-hand that:
'the offer would come from the pro-
Union parties, not the government
itself.'
Voters, then, were supposed to swallow
the fiction that the announcement
came, not from the UK government
represented by Chancellor George
Osborne, but from the pro-Union
parties represented by senior Tory
minister George Osborne!
However, Alastair Darling, leader of the
pro-Union 'Better Together' campaign,
told Sky News that all new powers for
Scotland had already been placed on
the table before the purdah period.
What had been announced was
'merely... a timetable for when the
Scottish Parliament could expect to be
given the limited powers already
forthcoming.'
Thus, an announcement setting out a
timetable for enhanced powers was
completely above board and not at all
designed to influence the very close
vote on independence. This was
establishment sophistry and a deeply
cynical manipulation of the voters.
Media manipulation was exposed in
stark form when Nick Robinson, the
BBC's political editor, was rumbled by
viewers able to compare his highly
selective editing of an Alex Salmond
press conference last Thursday with
what had actually transpired. Robinson
had asked Salmond a two-part question
about supposedly solid claims made by
company bosses and bankers - 'men
who are responsible for billions of
pounds of profits' - that independence
would damage the Scottish economy.
Not only did the full version of the
encounter demonstrate that Salmond
responded comprehensively, but he
turned the tables on Robinson by
calling into question the BBC's role as
an 'impartial' public broadcaster. The
self-serving report that was broadcast
that night by Robinson on BBC News at
Ten did not reflect the encounter which
the political editor summed up
misleadingly as:
'He didn't answer, but he did attack
the reporting.'
The distorted BBC News reporting was
picked up on social media and no
doubt encapsulated what many viewers
and listeners, particularly in Scotland,
have been observing for months, if not
years. One reader wrote an excellent
email to us in which he said:
'Honestly, this is just ONE example
of pathetic bias which more and
more Scots are seeing through. I've
long been a follower of your site,
and I make a point of reading each
and every alert. This is the first time
I've taken to contacting you, and as
I said, I imagine lots of others will
be doing just that on the same
subject.
'I've seen so much media bias with
BBC Scotland since the turn of the
year, but it's now getting to
laughable proportions. And now
that we have the entire London
press-mafia crawling all over it too,
it's daily headline news - all doom
and gloom about how Scotland will
fail, Scotland will be bankrupt,
there's no more oil left, jobs will go,
etc etc. It's been diabolical.'
The BBC's dismissive response to the
public complaints about Robinson's
skewed report concluded with the usual
worn-out boilerplate text:
'the overall report [was] balanced
and impartial, in line with our
editorial guidelines.'
It is not only the bias in BBC News
reporting that has alienated so many
people, but the way the public
broadcaster fails to adequately address
public complaints - on any number of
issues.
Scaremongering-A-Go-Go
On the day following the YouGov poll
result (September 8), frantic headlines
were splashed all over the corporate
media:
'Ten days to save the Union' (Daily
Telegraph)
'Parties unite in last-ditch effort to
save the Union' (The Times)
'Ten days to save the United
Kingdom' (Independent)
'Scotland heads for the exit' (i, a
tabloid version of the Independent)
'Last stand to keep the
union' (Guardian)
'Queen's fear of the break up of
Britain (Daily Mail)
'Don't let me be last Queen of
Scotland' (Daily Mirror)
And, of course, the laughably over-the-
top Sun:
'Scots vote chaos. Jocky horror
show'
Corporate journalists pressed on with
their scaremongering over Scottish
independence. In the Telegraph,
business news editor Andrew Critchlow
intoned ominously:
'Scottish homeowners face
mortgage meltdown if Yes
campaign wins.'
The same newspaper published a piece
by Boris Johnson arguing:
'Decapitate Britain, and we kill off
the greatest political union ever.
The Scots are on the verge of an act
of self-mutilation that will trash our
global identity.'
A Times editorial twitched nervously:
'The British political class is in a
fight for which it seemed
unprepared. It needs to find its
voice'. ('Signifying Much',
September 8, 2014; access by paid
subscription only)
Larry Elliott, the Guardian's economics
editor warned that an independent
Scotland 'would not be a land flowing
with milk and honey'. Jonathan
Freedland, the Guardian's executive
editor who oversees the paper's opinion
section and editorials, bemoaned that:
'If Britain loses Scotland it will feel
like an amputation...the prospect
fills me with sadness for the country
that would be left behind.'
Freedland quoted with obvious
approval an unnamed 'big hitter' in the
'No' campaign who claimed:
'none of this would be happening if
there were a Labour government in
Westminster.'
This is the classic liberal-left fairytale
that things would be different if only
Labour were in power: a delusion that
all too many voters in Scotland, as
elsewhere, have seen through ever
since it was obvious that Blairism was a
continuation of Thatcherism.
Freedland sighed:
'When I contemplate the prospect
of waking up on 19 September to
discover the union has been
defeated, I can't help but feel a
deep sadness.'
Given Freedland's role as a Guardian
mover and shaker, with a big input to
its editorial stance, it was no surprise
when a Guardian leader followed soon
after, firmly positioning the flagship of
liberal journalism in the 'No' camp. The
paper pleaded: 'Britain deserves
another chance'. But the pathetic
appeal for the Union was propped up
by a sly conflation of independence
with 'ugly nationalism',
notwithstanding a token airy nod
towards 'socialists, greens and other
groups'. The paper's nastiness
continued with the unsubstantiated
assertion that 'a coded anti-English
prejudice can lurk near the surface of
Alex Salmond's pitch'.
Ironically, one of the Guardian's own
columnists, Suzanne Moore, had a
piece published two days earlier that
inadvertently preempted the nonsense
now being spouted by her paper's own
editors:
'The language of the no camp
Westminster, bankers, Farage,
Prescott, the Orangemen and Henry
Kissinger is innately patronising.'
To which we can now add the
Guardian.
She continued:
'Do not give in to petty nationalism,
they say. Just stick with the bigger
unionist nationalism; it's better for
you.'
In the Observer, sister paper of the
Guardian, Will Hutton was virtually
inconsolable:
'Without imaginative and creative
statecraft, the polls now suggest
Scotland could secede from a 300-
year union, sundering genuine
bonds of love, splitting families and
wrenching all the
interconnectedness forged from our
shared history.'
He ramped up the rhetoric still further:
'Absurdly, there will be two
countries on the same small island
that have so much in common. If
Britain can't find a way of sticking
together, it is the death of the
liberal enlightenment before the
atavistic forces of nationalism and
ethnicity a dark omen for the 21st
century. Britain will cease as an
idea. We will all be diminished.'
Writing for the pro-independence Bella
Caledonia website, Mike Small
responded to Hutton's apocalyptic
warnings:
'Unfortunately he has
misunderstood the basic tenor of
the British State, that is to cling to
power, to centralise it, and to
shroud it in obscurity.'
Small added that Hutton's caricature of
the 'Yes' camp as 'the atavistic forces of
nationalism and ethnicity' is 'such an
absurd metropolitan misreading of
what's going on as to be laughable.'
Small's crucial point is one we should
remember when listening to senior
politicans; that their first priority is
always to cling to power. Craig Murray
was scathing about the leaders of the
main Westminster political parties, and
their last-ditch desperate trip to
Scotland last Wednesday to 'save the
Union':
'Cameron, Miliband and Clegg. Just
typing the names is depressing. As
part of their long matured and
carefully prepared campaign plan
(founded 9 September 2014) they
are coming together to Scotland
tomorrow to campaign. In a brilliant
twist, they will all come on the
same day but not appear together.
This will prevent the public from
noticing that they all represent
precisely the same interests.'
Murray nailed what is at stake when he
said that the 'three amigos' 'offer no
actual policy choice to voters', and he
gave a list showing how tightly they
march together:
'They all support austerity budgets
They all support benefit cuts
They all support tuition fees
They all support Trident missiles
They all support continued NHS
privatisation
They all support bank bail-outs
They all support detention without
trial for "terrorist suspects"
They all support more bombings in
Iraq
They all oppose rail nationalisation'
In short:
'The areas on which the three
amigos differ are infinitesimal and
contrived. They actually represent
the same paymasters and vested
interests.'
These 'paymasters and vested
interests' are surely trembling with fear
at the power now residing in the hands
of voters in Scotland. As George
Monbiot observes:
'A yes vote in Scotland would
unleash the most dangerous thing
of all - hope.'
He expands:
'If Scotland becomes independent,
it will be despite the efforts of
almost the entire UK establishment.
It will be because social media has
defeated the corporate media. It will
be a victory for citizens over the
Westminster machine, for shoes
over helicopters. It will show that a
sufficiently inspiring idea can cut
through bribes and blackmail,
through threats and fear-
mongering. That hope,
marginalised at first, can spread
across a nation, defying all
attempts to suppress it.'
Whatever happens on Thursday,
skewed media performance on Scottish
independence - in particular, from the
BBC - has helped huge numbers of
people see ever more clearly the deep
bias in corporate news media.
SUGGESTED ACTION
The goal of Media Lens is to promote
rationality, compassion and respect for
others. If you do write to journalists, we
strongly urge you to maintain a polite,
non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.
Established power hates uncertainty,
especially any threat to its grip on the
political, economic and financial levers
that control society. And so it is with
elite fears that the United Kingdom,
formed by the 1707 Acts of Union,
could be on the verge of unravelling.
No informed commentator doubts that
elite interests will do all they can to
maintain hegemony in an independent
Scotland, should that historic shift
occur following the referendum of
September 18. But if it does happen,
there will likely be significant
consequences for the Trident nuclear
missile system, the future of the NHS
and the welfare state, education,
climate policy, energy generation and
other industry sectors, the media and
many additional issues; not just in
Scotland, but beyond, including Nato
and the European Union. There is
clearly a lot at stake and established
power is concerned.
Just over a week ago, to the
consternation of Westminster elites and
their cheerleaders in media circles, a
YouGov opinion poll showed that the
'Yes' vote (51%) had edged ahead of
'No' (49%) for the first time in the
campaign, having at one point trailed
by 22%. The Observer noted 'signs of
panic and recrimination among unionist
ranks', adding that 'the no campaign is
desperately searching for ways to seize
back the initiative'. The panic was
marked by 'intensive cross-party talks'
and underpinned George Osborne's
announcement on the BBC Andrew
Marr show on September 7 that 'a plan
of action to give more powers to
Scotland' in the event of a No vote
would be detailed in the coming days.
Confusion reigned in the Unionist
camp, and in media reporting of their
befuddlement. According to the rules
governing the referendum, the UK and
Scottish governments are forbidden
from publishing anything which might
affect the outcome during the so-called
'purdah period' of 28 days leading up
to September 18. So, how to reconcile
the opportunistic 'promise' during
purdah to grant Scotland new powers
following a 'No' vote? BBC News
dutifully reported the government
sleight-of-hand that:
'the offer would come from the pro-
Union parties, not the government
itself.'
Voters, then, were supposed to swallow
the fiction that the announcement
came, not from the UK government
represented by Chancellor George
Osborne, but from the pro-Union
parties represented by senior Tory
minister George Osborne!
However, Alastair Darling, leader of the
pro-Union 'Better Together' campaign,
told Sky News that all new powers for
Scotland had already been placed on
the table before the purdah period.
What had been announced was
'merely... a timetable for when the
Scottish Parliament could expect to be
given the limited powers already
forthcoming.'
Thus, an announcement setting out a
timetable for enhanced powers was
completely above board and not at all
designed to influence the very close
vote on independence. This was
establishment sophistry and a deeply
cynical manipulation of the voters.
Media manipulation was exposed in
stark form when Nick Robinson, the
BBC's political editor, was rumbled by
viewers able to compare his highly
selective editing of an Alex Salmond
press conference last Thursday with
what had actually transpired. Robinson
had asked Salmond a two-part question
about supposedly solid claims made by
company bosses and bankers - 'men
who are responsible for billions of
pounds of profits' - that independence
would damage the Scottish economy.
Not only did the full version of the
encounter demonstrate that Salmond
responded comprehensively, but he
turned the tables on Robinson by
calling into question the BBC's role as
an 'impartial' public broadcaster. The
self-serving report that was broadcast
that night by Robinson on BBC News at
Ten did not reflect the encounter which
the political editor summed up
misleadingly as:
'He didn't answer, but he did attack
the reporting.'
The distorted BBC News reporting was
picked up on social media and no
doubt encapsulated what many viewers
and listeners, particularly in Scotland,
have been observing for months, if not
years. One reader wrote an excellent
email to us in which he said:
'Honestly, this is just ONE example
of pathetic bias which more and
more Scots are seeing through. I've
long been a follower of your site,
and I make a point of reading each
and every alert. This is the first time
I've taken to contacting you, and as
I said, I imagine lots of others will
be doing just that on the same
subject.
'I've seen so much media bias with
BBC Scotland since the turn of the
year, but it's now getting to
laughable proportions. And now
that we have the entire London
press-mafia crawling all over it too,
it's daily headline news - all doom
and gloom about how Scotland will
fail, Scotland will be bankrupt,
there's no more oil left, jobs will go,
etc etc. It's been diabolical.'
The BBC's dismissive response to the
public complaints about Robinson's
skewed report concluded with the usual
worn-out boilerplate text:
'the overall report [was] balanced
and impartial, in line with our
editorial guidelines.'
It is not only the bias in BBC News
reporting that has alienated so many
people, but the way the public
broadcaster fails to adequately address
public complaints - on any number of
issues.
Scaremongering-A-Go-Go
On the day following the YouGov poll
result (September 8), frantic headlines
were splashed all over the corporate
media:
'Ten days to save the Union' (Daily
Telegraph)
'Parties unite in last-ditch effort to
save the Union' (The Times)
'Ten days to save the United
Kingdom' (Independent)
'Scotland heads for the exit' (i, a
tabloid version of the Independent)
'Last stand to keep the
union' (Guardian)
'Queen's fear of the break up of
Britain (Daily Mail)
'Don't let me be last Queen of
Scotland' (Daily Mirror)
And, of course, the laughably over-the-
top Sun:
'Scots vote chaos. Jocky horror
show'
Corporate journalists pressed on with
their scaremongering over Scottish
independence. In the Telegraph,
business news editor Andrew Critchlow
intoned ominously:
'Scottish homeowners face
mortgage meltdown if Yes
campaign wins.'
The same newspaper published a piece
by Boris Johnson arguing:
'Decapitate Britain, and we kill off
the greatest political union ever.
The Scots are on the verge of an act
of self-mutilation that will trash our
global identity.'
A Times editorial twitched nervously:
'The British political class is in a
fight for which it seemed
unprepared. It needs to find its
voice'. ('Signifying Much',
September 8, 2014; access by paid
subscription only)
Larry Elliott, the Guardian's economics
editor warned that an independent
Scotland 'would not be a land flowing
with milk and honey'. Jonathan
Freedland, the Guardian's executive
editor who oversees the paper's opinion
section and editorials, bemoaned that:
'If Britain loses Scotland it will feel
like an amputation...the prospect
fills me with sadness for the country
that would be left behind.'
Freedland quoted with obvious
approval an unnamed 'big hitter' in the
'No' campaign who claimed:
'none of this would be happening if
there were a Labour government in
Westminster.'
This is the classic liberal-left fairytale
that things would be different if only
Labour were in power: a delusion that
all too many voters in Scotland, as
elsewhere, have seen through ever
since it was obvious that Blairism was a
continuation of Thatcherism.
Freedland sighed:
'When I contemplate the prospect
of waking up on 19 September to
discover the union has been
defeated, I can't help but feel a
deep sadness.'
Given Freedland's role as a Guardian
mover and shaker, with a big input to
its editorial stance, it was no surprise
when a Guardian leader followed soon
after, firmly positioning the flagship of
liberal journalism in the 'No' camp. The
paper pleaded: 'Britain deserves
another chance'. But the pathetic
appeal for the Union was propped up
by a sly conflation of independence
with 'ugly nationalism',
notwithstanding a token airy nod
towards 'socialists, greens and other
groups'. The paper's nastiness
continued with the unsubstantiated
assertion that 'a coded anti-English
prejudice can lurk near the surface of
Alex Salmond's pitch'.
Ironically, one of the Guardian's own
columnists, Suzanne Moore, had a
piece published two days earlier that
inadvertently preempted the nonsense
now being spouted by her paper's own
editors:
'The language of the no camp
Westminster, bankers, Farage,
Prescott, the Orangemen and Henry
Kissinger is innately patronising.'
To which we can now add the
Guardian.
She continued:
'Do not give in to petty nationalism,
they say. Just stick with the bigger
unionist nationalism; it's better for
you.'
In the Observer, sister paper of the
Guardian, Will Hutton was virtually
inconsolable:
'Without imaginative and creative
statecraft, the polls now suggest
Scotland could secede from a 300-
year union, sundering genuine
bonds of love, splitting families and
wrenching all the
interconnectedness forged from our
shared history.'
He ramped up the rhetoric still further:
'Absurdly, there will be two
countries on the same small island
that have so much in common. If
Britain can't find a way of sticking
together, it is the death of the
liberal enlightenment before the
atavistic forces of nationalism and
ethnicity a dark omen for the 21st
century. Britain will cease as an
idea. We will all be diminished.'
Writing for the pro-independence Bella
Caledonia website, Mike Small
responded to Hutton's apocalyptic
warnings:
'Unfortunately he has
misunderstood the basic tenor of
the British State, that is to cling to
power, to centralise it, and to
shroud it in obscurity.'
Small added that Hutton's caricature of
the 'Yes' camp as 'the atavistic forces of
nationalism and ethnicity' is 'such an
absurd metropolitan misreading of
what's going on as to be laughable.'
Small's crucial point is one we should
remember when listening to senior
politicans; that their first priority is
always to cling to power. Craig Murray
was scathing about the leaders of the
main Westminster political parties, and
their last-ditch desperate trip to
Scotland last Wednesday to 'save the
Union':
'Cameron, Miliband and Clegg. Just
typing the names is depressing. As
part of their long matured and
carefully prepared campaign plan
(founded 9 September 2014) they
are coming together to Scotland
tomorrow to campaign. In a brilliant
twist, they will all come on the
same day but not appear together.
This will prevent the public from
noticing that they all represent
precisely the same interests.'
Murray nailed what is at stake when he
said that the 'three amigos' 'offer no
actual policy choice to voters', and he
gave a list showing how tightly they
march together:
'They all support austerity budgets
They all support benefit cuts
They all support tuition fees
They all support Trident missiles
They all support continued NHS
privatisation
They all support bank bail-outs
They all support detention without
trial for "terrorist suspects"
They all support more bombings in
Iraq
They all oppose rail nationalisation'
In short:
'The areas on which the three
amigos differ are infinitesimal and
contrived. They actually represent
the same paymasters and vested
interests.'
These 'paymasters and vested
interests' are surely trembling with fear
at the power now residing in the hands
of voters in Scotland. As George
Monbiot observes:
'A yes vote in Scotland would
unleash the most dangerous thing
of all - hope.'
He expands:
'If Scotland becomes independent,
it will be despite the efforts of
almost the entire UK establishment.
It will be because social media has
defeated the corporate media. It will
be a victory for citizens over the
Westminster machine, for shoes
over helicopters. It will show that a
sufficiently inspiring idea can cut
through bribes and blackmail,
through threats and fear-
mongering. That hope,
marginalised at first, can spread
across a nation, defying all
attempts to suppress it.'
Whatever happens on Thursday,
skewed media performance on Scottish
independence - in particular, from the
BBC - has helped huge numbers of
people see ever more clearly the deep
bias in corporate news media.
SUGGESTED ACTION
The goal of Media Lens is to promote
rationality, compassion and respect for
others. If you do write to journalists, we
strongly urge you to maintain a polite,
non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.
Alikua halila kuona mgawanyiko unatokea mikononi mwake
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