While we're being distracted by all the pomp and bullshit around the three Westminster leader's visit today. While they're telling you how much they care about the union, how keen they are to do right by you and how valuable Scotland is and how much safer it will be as part of this much feted Union - don't forget that in return they've given us...
The 3rd most unequal - sorry the most unequal - society in the western world.
Food banks.
100,000 Scottish kids in poverty with more heading the same way.
A tax on the disabled and the poorest for daring to have a spare room.
An expensive pointless array of nuclear missiles 30 miles from Scotland's largest urban conurbation.
A coalition government we did not vote for.
A bill for transport infrastructure that comes no where near Scotland.
A bill for sewage treatment upgrades in a city 365 miles south of the Tweed.
Austerity.
Austerity.
And more austerity.
Massive debt.
(As of Dec 2013) 417 soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
(as of May 2011) 179 soldiers killed in Iraq.
To date, civilian casualties in Afghanistan - 18,000 to 20,000
To May 2011, civilian casualties in Iraq - 461,000
They have lied about...
Scotland's EU membership.
Being able to use our own currency.
The need for a currency union.
Scotland's NATO membership.
UK embassies actively seeking support for the Union from other countries.
Border posts.
NHS privatisation.
Scotland's abilities on the world stage.
Scotland's abilities within its own border (in every area of governance from defence to pensions to our very ability to exist.)
They tell us...
Within the UK we get the 'best of both worlds' - see above.
We get 'strength through unity' - see above.
'Pooling & sharing of resources' - see above - plenty pooling, not much sharing...
To trust them because they'll do now what they had the chance to do for years but didn't.
That they'll 'give us' more powers to raise tax to pay for things we've already paid for.
That while we'd be expected to take our share of the liabilities of the Union - we'd have no rights to the assets - which we paid for too.
We couldn't manage by ourselves
We couldn't afford it by ourselves
We'd be condemning England to perpetual tory government even although Scottish votes seldom count in Westminster general elections.
This list isn't even approaching being definitive; but Cameron, Clegg & Miliband will stand before the press and tell you to vote No because they care about your best interests.
They don't. They care about Scottish resources they currently have unfettered access to that you - via a Scottish Government YOU elected - should be controlling. They care about your ability to pay tax to a UK exchequer while ignoring the riches that pour from Scotland to London. They care about your enduring, unquestioning deference for an establishment so far past its sell by date the mold that covers it has gone moldy.
All they have are weasel words, empty promises they have no intention of keeping and a barely concealed sneering disregard for everything and everyone in Scotland except that which they can squeeze a profit out of to pay for their aberrant ways.
When the British State is finally forced in to giving some ground - it swims in its own beneficence and attempts to dress it up as a generous gift. It is a concession wrestled kicking and screaming from an establishment desperately - maniacally - clinging on to the last vestiges of a defunct empire.
Ignore these spivs - Just Vote Yes.
I can't help thinking it's yet another own goal.
ReplyDeleteCameron isn't much liked anywhere. Even Tories don't like him (and he is one of them); even the English don't like him (and he is one of them). The Scots aren't wild about Tory toffs at the best of times. He's said the referendum is nothing to do with him and he hasn't the nerve to meet our leaders face to face, because he knows he'd be beaten, or because he thinks he is too grand to debate with plebs like Salmond and Sturgeon.
He's hardly an asset to the No campaign.
Miliband isn't popular either. Despite the hateful Tory government he's only just in the lead in opinion polls. His own side say he's useless; he hasn't got any ideas; he's insincere and he's "weird", unappealing and accident prone. He's promised to stick with Tory policies on austerity. He's hardly an asset to the No campaign.
Nick Clegg... Oh don't make me laugh. The man sold his soul to the devil so that he and his nomark friends could sup at the table of the great and the good. They just forgot to get long spoons. Nick Clegg will say anything at all to get what he wants. He is unlikely to win his own seat next time round. He is roundly hated. Not only is he not an asset to the No campaign. He's a bloody joke.
Why do these people do it to themselves? Is it a political flaw to think that you are popular when you're hated? Does no one in their entourages have the nerve to tell them what kind of an half arsed idea this is?
Nothing to disagree with there Tris.
ReplyDeleteI wondered whether this would be the game-changer they've been talking about, the thing that'll tip people over to a Yes and open the floodgates
The three of them are incapable of sincerity so I rather hope so.
Pa
ReplyDeleteTotally agree and just blogged about my feeling today as I am very pissed off, below is a wee bit of it.
I am sick of the lies, I am sick of the media, I am sick of poverty, I am sick of foodbanks, I am sick of unemployment, I am sick of fear , I am sick of no hope, I am sick of the UK, I am sick of royal babies, I am sick of London, I am sick of Darling, I am sick of Labour, I am sick of just getting by, I am sick of wondering how I pay my bills, I am sick of being treated like shit in my own country, I am sick of something for nothing attitudes, I am sick of fake love and flying Saltires all over the UK and I am sick of those bastards that will keep me down.
Bruce
Getting a wee bit pissed myself Bruce.
ReplyDeleteWe're being held to ransom by the financial sector who are saying, (coincidentally timed with a visit from their whipping boys from Westminster) that if we vote no they'll piss off elsewhere.
Turns out this shitty union is actually just a protection racket. If the lies don't work they turn on the strong arm tactics - stay in the UK they say, its safer they say. Tell you what (they say) stay in and we'll skim a wee bit less off your bottom line and allow you some more leeway (although that leeway will only allow you tax more which by the way we'll also be skimming.)
Its fucking ridiculous.
It's nothing new really, from any of them.
ReplyDeleteUnionist attempts to tug at our heart strings around the loss of RBS because it's been 'in Scotland' for centuries is all part of the same pernicious campaign.
RBS hasn't been Scottish for decades. Its a UK bank operating world wide. Same with Standard Life - and I even I remember the tone they adopted during the devo referendum in 1998/9.
I saw that yes, quite gratifying. Robinson trying to bluster a point disguised as a question during a press conference and Salmond having none of it.
ReplyDeleteMore I say - we need much more!