Why are the Noes suddenly getting frightened?

With the referendum now just four weeks away the Westminster supporting team seems to be getting more and more frightened, which is curious when you consider the lead that they have in the polls. The latest sign of this wobbliness is the charge that an independent Scotland would not be a member of NATO and would not be able to watch the BBC.

Come on, are we supposed to be frightened by this? The Scottish National Party split over membership of NATO, and it took all of Alex Salmond's loquaciousness to get the party to accept an independent Scotland's membership of America's warmongering organisation. He did that to try and get the middle class onside for independence, but since that has obviously failed,  why should the rest of us not view with equanimity the thought of Scotland being free not just of London, but of Washington as well? I would go even further and say that the thought of the Russian navy making a goodwill visit to Leith fills me with rather a nice warm glow, and if they send half the fleet, well, that just shows how much goodwill they have, doesn't it? 

Who knows? Maybe President Putin will pay us a state visit? I don't know about you, but I much prefer a pussy lover to a bitch carrier...

Sadly, that will not happen because Scotland controls the northern seas, and is right next door to America's unsinkable aircraft carrier. Do you really think that the USA will permit London to make life difficult? The Westminster politicians will be slapped very firmly into line and told not to play silly buggers with America's strategic interests.

As for Auntie Beeb, what can I say? I use Cyber Ghost when I am abroad to watch British television and I also use it here in Scotland to watch American TV programmes that are not supposed to be shown outside the USA, and there are hundreds of others just like it. Most of them are free, easy to use, and they all fool the internet into thinking that you are pretty much anywhere in the world that you choose.

I wish I had an explanation for this latest bout of hand shandery from Westminster's stooges, but I don't. Refuting their latest spurts is easy, but trying to figure out why they are shooting their loads in this highly entertaining manner is rather more difficult.

All I can say is that something has loosened bowels in London that has made them throw caution to the wind and order everything to be thrown at the independence movement.

Annabelle Fuller is back in Nigel Farage's office

Senior figures in UKIP are reported to be furious that Nigel Farage is allowing Annabelle Fuller back into his office, according to one well-placed source in the party hierarchy. It's still unclear if she has returned to work for the party or is she is merely providing decoration. If the former is the case then it confirms the story that my source gave me some time ago which was that Farage had promised Annabelle that she could return to work for him once the dust had settled.

The question is has the dust really settled? We need to remember that German born Kirsten Farage is reported to have gone seriously Teutonic over her husband's alleged relationship with busty Annabelle. So if she really is back and drawing a salary for her activities, then it is unlikely that Kirsten will be unaware of this fact.

This leads people to ponder what deal has been done to stop Kirsten Farage screaming her head off?

Will the Scottish BBC cover the Edinburgh NO parade on the 13 September?

Craig Murray is reporting that the massive Orange march against Scottish independence that is planned for the 13th September here in Edinburgh will not be covered by the BBC. Craig's source says that this is because the Beeb does not want to “present an unfairly negative image of the No campaign.” As things stand this is just gossip from someone in the BBC to a blogger, and we will just have to wait and see if the story turns out to be accurate or not. 

That said, you can understand why the Better Together camp might want to keep their unofficial allies at arms length, which is why the Orange Lodges had to set up a separate outfit which they have called British Together. It must be terribly embarrassing for Better Together to know that the bulk of their support comes from the old feudal Scottish aristocracy, a pissant middle class that wants to keep its anthills to piss from and an army of thuggish, Protestant football fans who are grouped in the various Orange Lodges.

However, we are under no obligation to help them keep their dirty little secret under wraps. If Scotland votes no, then the victory will be due to the drunken buffoons that you can see in this short video. The aristos and pissants may head Better Together, but the bulk of the No voters are people who leave the rest of us feeling in need of a bath.

You can also understand why some pissants at the  BBC may just want to play down this fact by not giving coverage to a march in Edinburgh that is expected to involve thousands of swaggering dipsos staggering down Princes Street in central Edinburgh on the Saturday before the referendum.

I shall write to BBC Scotland and try and get some clarification about their plans for the march and I urge everyone else to do the same.

Edinburgh Fringe 2014: Mr Peewee, the Drumming Puppet

Meet Mr Peewee, the Drumming Puppet, who was entertaining the crowds today on Edinburgh's Royal Mile.

The Radical Independence Campaign gives yes a second wind

The train crash that was the independence debate last week appears to have persuaded rather a lot of yes supporters into volunteering their time in a last ditch attempt to snatch victory from what looks at the moment like certain defeat. In particular, groups like the Radical Independence Campaign have redoubled their efforts on the vast council estates which surround every major Scottish city with their slogan of Britain is for the rich, but Scotland can be ours.

It's an uphill battle, because out of a voting age population of just under 4.5 million, an estimated 300,000 are not even registered to vote and anything up to a further 700,000 probably won't bother casting a ballot.

Both the yes and no camps are aware that the legitimacy of the vote will be questioned if turnout is low, so both are encouraging people to register and then use their vote. Newspapers have got in on the act, with the Sunday Post running a registration campaign. It is possible to register up until midnight on the 2nd September, and Radical Independence activists are carrying around registration forms along with their usual information leaflets. There is even a special registration form for the homeless, who merely have to nominate a park bench or doorway as their normal abode, then they can vote at the polling station that is closest to that place. Their voter card can be sent to a church, homeless day centre or even kept for them to collect at the registration office. If people still do not vote, then it will not be for the want of trying on the part of the various campaigns.

The problem is that although the vast majority of wealthy and middle class types are likely to vote, that is not the case with the working class, as only just over half have said that they are certain to vote. You can understand their position, since if they don't vote they are ignored, and if they do they are also ignored. Many of the council estates have never been canvassed in any election in living memory. The Tories and Liberal Democrats know that they have few votes on those estates, and neither of them have enough members to canvass, anyway. Labour was happy with its one-party state, and although the SNP began to make inroads, their lack of members who could carry the message on the doorstep held them back.

The Radical Independence Movement has changed all this. If they succeed in  getting the poor to vote then Scotland will become independent. Otherwise it won't. 

Why we should vote yes for Scottish independence

A No vote on the 18th September 2014 is a vote to accept the defeats of the past three decades and more. It is an acceptance that there is no alternative to government of feral capitalism, backed by a repulsive voting bloc of  middle class types and aspirational, Southern English scrotes. Vote no and from deep within the bowels of Hell, Thatcher will have won another victory. On Earth, her scabby minions will laugh, and proceed with their nefarious schemes to further impoverish the ordinary man, and his wife and their children.

On the other hand, if you vote yes you will be giving the two-fingered salute to all of them - to the banksters and the employers, of course, but also to the employers' men. The people who have been given a bit of prosperity by the system and who are now determined to keep it. The pissant people, who are happy with the pathetic anthills that they piss from.

This isn't about a currency, as civilisations are remembered for their artefacts and not their bank rates. It is about the ordinary people of this part of Britain deciding together that they want something better for their children than a country where their working lives are spent with zero-hour contracts, interspersed with long periods on the social. A world where people have to dance to the tunes played by lardy-arsed managers with their National Front haircuts and cheap suits who get a hard-on from giving people grief. On the 18th September we have the chance to wipe the smiles off quite a few fat, smug well-fed faces. Isn't the thought of that worth a trip to the polling station?

Let's be honest: Alex Salmond messed up the debate comprehensively. He was still trying to persuade the middle class that everything will be the same after a yes vote, when common sense tells us that it won't be. Independence is a gamble, a step in the dark, but it is one worth taking.

It is worth it because we know that without independence the future will be as awful as the past. Nothing will change and we will still live in a world where bedroom taxes, zero-hour contracts and benefit sanctions are the people's lot.

If you look at it in those terms, you have the choice between waking up on the 19th September and knowing that the future will be exactly the same as the awful present, or waking up to the possibility that for the first time in over a generation, the future might just be better.

Vote yes to make that possibility a reality.

Thoughts on the referendum debate

I came away from the debate feeling that Alex Salmond had tried to be too clever by half and that his opponent, Alistair Darling, had landed some solid punches to emerge as the winner on points. Given that Salmond needed to demolish his opponent to have a hope of clawing back some votes, this might go down as a night that the nationalists will rue for many years to come.

The hardest punches were over the future of the currency that Scotland will use after independence. All Salmond could say was that of course there will be a currency union, but quite rightly Darling pressed him for a Plan B and  Salmond  ducked and weaved to avoid answering.

Now he could have come out fighting and said that if London gets stroppy it can kiss goodbye to the Faslane nuclear facility on day one of independence. Oh, and remember that share of the UK national debt that will fall to Scotland? Well, you can shove it. There are lots of issues that the UK will want Scotland to agree to, and thus lots of issues that can be traded off in the negotiations. The problem is that Salmond did not take that line.

Alternatively, the First Minister could have said that Plan B would be for Scotland to continue allowing the Scottish clearing banks to issue sterling denominated notes that are backed one hundred percent by interest bearing treasury gilts that are held in London. Darling would have replied that there would be a shortfall between the currency in circulation and the needs of the economy, which is true, so Salmond could have said that taxes on the middle class would have to rise, assuming that oil revenues and excise duties did not cover the difference. Given that the middle class is pretty overwhelmingly on the no side of the debate that strikes me as what the Americans call a no-brainer. 

Salmond gave none of those answers, and stonewalled his way through - which is why some people started to jeer him in that section of the debate.

I can understand why this strategy is being followed, because Yes Scotland wanted to get as many people onside as possible, and assumed that the working class would vote yes so it needed middle class support. The problem is that large chunks of working class people are so disengaged from this debate that they are not even registered to vote.

The referendum is now just six weeks away. I really do not know what Yes Scotland can do to turn this debate around.