View Full Version : The Leveson Facepalm, Salmond Approves
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxpqrjiDKkc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxpqrjiDKkc [0:23]
In my opinion this is more than just a slip of the tongue:
Most people, most MPs, seem to equate the Westminster Parliament with the English Parliament, which strongly suggests an attitude that is likely carried by the people working in government whether MP or civil servant. If they think it's really the English Parliament, then they'll operate in the interests of England.
Even Chance
14-Jun-12, 11:03
1-0 til Salmond. Nice one!
Quick and smooth reply, Good on you !
Well there you go boys and girls. Take your mobile phone, remove the battery and smash it with a brick :eek:
Well there you go boys and girls. Take your mobile phone, remove the battery and smash it with a brick :eek:
Another pointless response from you.
I lived for a couple of years up here with an Englishman.....and I well remember the problems I had to get him to substitute British or UK for English when he was not referring to anything to do with England. I was heartened when he started correcting his own children up from south of the border on holiday when they did the same......so it isn't just a Westminster thing, I don't think, it is an English mindset.
Too true Oddquine, it is an English mindset. I've lived in Hampshire for 10 years and have found that most of the English refer to themselves as being English first and British second, whereas I was raised to believe I was British first and Scottish second. Though I will give them credit where it's due, they do support Scotland in world competitions, they don't understand why the support isn't reciprocated. The one thing that does bug me, but I never let them know, is being called a Sweaty, or Sweaty Sock. Haggis Muncher, Jock, Jimmy etc I can take, it's the aforementioned I can't stand.
I find lots of people, including politicians and the media use the terms English and British interchangeably like they're synonyms of each other. That speaks to a certain arrogance and obvious cognitive bias as I've mentioned above.
I'm amazed at how easy - and freely accepted - it is to insult some groups in the media: making fun of the French, Germans and Scottish, etc seems to be okay, but using insulting terms or 'comedy' accents for others say the Indians or Africans isn't. Either it all should be okay or none of it should.
Even ignoring the obvious insults there's a constant stream of low level stuff that's always derogatory. I've lost count of the amount of the times the media, the BBC and tabloids especially, have mentioned deep fried food, binge drinking, sectarianism, etc when talking about Scotland, they'll mention stuff that's in no way relevant. The only reason I can see for mentioning it is as a constant reminder than Scotland and Scottish people are some how less in their eyes and of course those things don't even apply to most people in Scotland.
Now that I've mentioned you'll probably notice it yourself if you haven't already. I would make a drinking game out of it but I'd probably pass out and lose a couple days and it would give the BBC an excuse to mention binge drinking again.
John Little
18-Jun-12, 18:50
Aye - the English are out to get you - cos you' re Scots.They're always doing it - looking down at you.Better vote SNP and end it now...
Aye - the English are out to get you - cos you' re Scots.They're always doing it - looking down at you.Better vote SNP and end it now...
Nope, just the rich, powerful and influential who happen to live in the South East. They're out to get everyone though.
Still I challenge you to not see the media bias.
John Little
18-Jun-12, 18:59
Nope, just the rich, powerful and influential who happen to live in the South East. They're out to get everyone though.Still I challenge you to not see the media bias.Media bias is general. Doctors are getting stick right now. The Welsh get it. The Cornish, benefit claimers etc ad infinitum. Single mothers, asylum seekers, Rumanians. Stereotypes. Convenient stereotypes. Propaganda.
Aye - the English are out to get you - cos you' re Scots.They're always doing it - looking down at you.Better vote SNP and end it now...
I don't think the English are "out to get us".......I just don't think they consider us at all, or ever have. I don't think it is a deliberate mindset.......I just think it is pure unthinking imperial arrogance.
John Little
18-Jun-12, 19:56
Oh yes - I forgot that bit. Scotland is part of the English empire ain't it...
Media bias is general. Doctors are getting stick right now. The Welsh get it. The Cornish, benefit claimers etc ad infinitum. Single mothers, asylum seekers, Rumanians. Stereotypes. Convenient stereotypes. Propaganda.
Nope.......there is media bias to sell papers by appealing to the lowest common denominator, who will buy the likes of the red-tops and other tabloids because they do like to see their own biases confirmed by people they assume to have a modicum of intelligence.....makes them feel they are right and good about themselves. That kind of bias tends to come and go in waves...depending on which hate figures are top of the current pops, and that depends on what hook newspapers/the media can find to hang their sales boosting irrationalities on. The very fact you can list groups who have been trashed in the media on the back of specific articles about individuals within those groups simply proves that point.
But there is also media bias which is a bit different to the above...that kind is the regurgitating, promulgating and spinning of UK Government policies and politicians' pronouncements as if they were god-given truth....when they are mostly the production of people who have never lived in the real world.....and are working very hard to make sure they never ever have to live in the real world.........and the deliberate under reporting, misreporting, cherry-picking, completely ignoring of any other point of view but theirs, is no less insidious. And that is the kind of media bias which is facing the Scottish Independence debate until October 2014.
Neither the Westminster Government or any Scottish Government/Independence supporter at this time knows anything at all about what will happen if there is a YES vote......just as neither the Westminster Government or any Scottish Government/Independence supporter now knows anything at all about what will happen if there is a YES vote. The future is unknown country for all of us......but Independence supporters concede that fact.......we tend to do possibilities and optimism, based on the best case scenario. The Unionists, led by the self-interested Scottish Politicians lording it in the big pond don't just do worst case scenario..they flat out lie....and the media reports it all as fact.
Of course neither side is clairvoyant..though to read the Unionist media, you'd be forgiven for thinking the Unionists believe they are given the levels of scaremongering from no basis in fact.
Deciding to vote for Independence is a leap of faith and confidence, I admit that..... faith that we can all step up to the plate, weather the early problems, (and there will undoubtedly be some, if only due to the attitude of what is left of the UK when it comes to negotiations) and come out the other end a fairer and more equitable society than we have been for decades, if not centuries, in this Union....and confidence in our abilities...the abilities of a people second to none. We are a country which has given the world so many of its leading people and institutions, it seems inconceivable that the Scottish cringe factor has taken hold in Scotland to the extent that we no longer feel we are as good as the next man...the one, for example who is British to the core, lording it as sovereign over us...and is presiding over the rank trashing of the poorest and most disadvantaged in order to reduce income tax for the highest earners.
There is no more guarantee of a Union security blanket being there for the pro-dependence aficionados to have available for eternity to pull over their heads and go lalala than there is of an Independent Scotland becoming another Norway.......but on current and past performance in the UK........there is much more hope of the latter than the former.
John Little
18-Jun-12, 20:35
And until such time, until the dawn of the new age, both sides will indulge in propaganda, create myths, perpetuate stereotypes and snark at the opposition. Roll on 2014 and an end to it.
Oh yes - I forgot that bit. Scotland is part of the English empire ain't it...
Of course it is.....in fact it is one of the few bits of the Empire left over which they have total control. That is why we were subject to an incorporating Treaty of Union in 1707 rather than the federal one Scotland wanted.......incorporation gave England complete control.....federalism would have given them control only over the likes of foreign policy which impacted on both. The Union was a de facto annexation of Scotland.......but one we can get out of without taking to arms. Now aren't we luckier than the Irish or the Palestinians.
John Little
18-Jun-12, 20:46
Considering that there was no popular franchise in 1707 I am surprised that you can assert so strongly what Scotland wanted. I have always thought that it had more to do with the desire of the House of Stewart to incorporate their realms into one. A royal family of impeccable English extraction of course.
And until such time, until the dawn of the new age, both sides will indulge in propaganda, create myths, perpetuate stereotypes and snark at the opposition. Roll on 2014 and an end to it.
What you describe as propaganda on the Unionist side is simply lies, damn lies, manipulated statistics and scaremongering. Want lists of the absolute crap I've been reading in the UK media since the SNP was elected with an Independence referendum towards the end of this parliament specifically stated in their manifesto.
Propaganda is described in various ways.........but UK propaganda is official government communications to the public that are designed to influence opinion. The information may be true or false, but it is always carefully selected for its political effect.
What you describe as propaganda on the pro-independence side is more on the lines of information and ideas deliberately spread widely to help the independence movement. Do you really think we are going to sit dumb while the UK Government holds the floor on its own? But we can't really tell lies or manipulate statistics etc..because we don't have any incontrovertible facts to tell lies about..unlike the UK Government. We do commonsense and logic based on the assumption that eventually any negotiations, if they stall, will be subject to the application of International convention. We do what could be, all things being equal and as reasonably expected...Unionists and UK politicians do certainty from fudged figures....and the erroneous assumption that Scotland, after Independence, will have the same outlook as the UK does now....as in the war mongering.
I notice you are doing what so many do.......cherry-picking out the parts of a post at which you can sneer.......or not responding to any post at all, but just sneering because you can, rather than because you have anything useful or appropriate to say.
John Little
18-Jun-12, 21:21
I am neither cherry picking nor sneering.I just marvel at so many people whose version is correct
.Those who cherry pick things and twist it into the form they want.And I pity the poor chap from Paisley I was speaking to the other day who felt in his heart that he wanted the Union to stay but that he was being made to feel not a proper Scot and unpatriotic by the stuff being pumped out like the stuff earlier on this thread.
There's an awful lot of people ready to speak for Scotland or so it seems to me.But when all is said and done the people of Scotland will speak their mind.I hope they do it coolly and without the effete and languidly arrogant English Imperialists you conjure up affecting it.
You are a Polemicist.
What you describe as propaganda on the Unionist side is simply lies, damn lies, manipulated statistics and scaremongering.<snip>
I notice you are doing what so many do.......cherry-picking out the parts of a post at which you can sneer.......or not responding to any post at all, but just sneering because you can, rather than because you have anything useful or appropriate to say.
You've not posted on these forums in many a moon. Which category do you wish to associate yourself with then?
My best guess is that Scotland will never achieve independence. I've been proved wrong before. I hope I'm proved right this time.
I am neither cherry picking nor sneering.I just marvel at so many people whose version is correct
.Those who cherry pick things and twist it into the form they want.And I pity the poor chap from Paisley I was speaking to the other day who felt in his heart that he wanted the Union to stay but that he was being made to feel not a proper Scot and unpatriotic by the stuff being pumped out like the stuff earlier on this thread.
There's an awful lot of people ready to speak for Scotland or so it seems to me.But when all is said and done the people of Scotland will speak their mind.I hope they do it coolly and without the effete and languidly arrogant English Imperialists you conjure up affecting it.
You are a Polemicist.
I'd prepared a reply to your post, then I realised you were addressing OddQuine.
Oops.......
Neither the Westminster Government or any Scottish Government/Independence supporter at this time knows anything at all about what will happen if there is a YES vote......just as neither the Westminster Government or any Scottish Government/Independence supporter now knows anything at all about what will happen if there is a YES vote. The future is unknown country for all of us......but Independence supporters concede that fact.......we tend to do possibilities and optimism, based on the best case scenario. The Unionists, led by the self-interested Scottish Politicians lording it in the big pond don't just do worst case scenario..they flat out lie....and the media reports it all as fact.
Of course neither side is clairvoyant..though to read the Unionist media, you'd be forgiven for thinking the Unionists believe they are given the levels of scaremongering from no basis in fact.
Deciding to vote for Independence is a leap of faith and confidence, I admit that..... faith that we can all step up to the plate, weather the early problems, (and there will undoubtedly be some, if only due to the attitude of what is left of the UK when it comes to negotiations) and come out the other end a fairer and more equitable society than we have been for decades, if not centuries, in this Union....and confidence in our abilities...the abilities of a people second to none. We are a country which has given the world so many of its leading people and institutions, it seems inconceivable that the Scottish cringe factor has taken hold in Scotland to the extent that we no longer feel we are as good as the next man...the one, for example who is British to the core, lording it as sovereign over us...and is presiding over the rank trashing of the poorest and most disadvantaged in order to reduce income tax for the highest earners.
There is no more guarantee of a Union security blanket being there for the pro-dependence aficionados to have available for eternity to pull over their heads and go lalala than there is of an Independent Scotland becoming another Norway.......but on current and past performance in the UK........there is much more hope of the latter than the former.
If you accept you are in the minority in wanting independence, how will the rest of us be persueded by guesses and hope? The answer is we won't. So why waste all the time and energy? and anyway the lizards have already decided what will happen
John Little
18-Jun-12, 23:07
I'd prepared a reply to your post, then I realised you were addressing OddQuine.Oops.......My dear M - I should not dream of addressing you in such a fashion - I know you to be balanced and sound in judgment and your word carries weight. Perish the thought!
Theres an interesting side issue on this whole England/Scotland affair happening at the moment. Dare I mention the football? I had to laugh the other night when Gary Linekar commented on how good it was to see Scotland represented at the Euros by a referee. :lol: My good friend was livid and threatened to pull his head off. This is the same friend who is a staunch Unionist but supports any team who are playing against England. When I pointed this fact out to him he called me a traitor for wanting England to win. All good natured mind you but rather interesting.
If you accept you are in the minority in wanting independence, how will the rest of us be persueded by guesses and hope? The answer is we won't. So why waste all the time and energy? and anyway the lizards have already decided what will happen
Because guesses and hopes are all we will get from the Unionists....given nobody knows for sure what the economy etc is going to be like tomorrow, far less in 2014.:roll:
What makes the guesses and hopes of the pro-Independence supporters any more pie in the sky than those of Unionists.....bar we don't hope that an Independent Scotland will crash and burn..the Unionists do..while we know it won't....
We don't guess about some things, though...there will be no nuclear weapons in Scotland after Independence...we won't be rushing into illegal wars on the instructions of the USA after Independence...and there will be very little difference in the Union status quo if we vote No to Independence, despite the fact that the majority of Scots, would vote for an appreciable and meaningful level of useful fiscal devolution short of leaving the Union altogether if that was to be an option.
By the way....I'm not expecting entrenched Unionists to change their minds, or even trying to persuade them do so...those who have decided two years ahead of any information and the vote, I fully expect them to vote the way they have already decided. I certainly will do so for political Independence, because I am no less entrenched.
Discussion of the issue, however, is not aimed at changing entrenched minds...it is aimed at helping the undecided come to a conclusion....because it is the undecided who will decide for Scotland?
Because guesses and hopes are all we will get from the Unionists....given nobody knows for sure what the economy etc is going to be like tomorrow, far less in 2014.:roll:
What makes the guesses and hopes of the pro-Independence supporters any more pie in the sky than those of Unionists.....bar we don't hope that an Independent Scotland will crash and burn..the Unionists do..while we know it won't....
We don't guess about some things, though...there will be no nuclear weapons in Scotland after Independence...we won't be rushing into illegal wars on the instructions of the USA after Independence...and there will be very little difference in the Union status quo if we vote No to Independence, despite the fact that the majority of Scots, would vote for an appreciable and meaningful level of useful fiscal devolution short of leaving the Union altogether if that was to be an option.
By the way....I'm not expecting entrenched Unionists to change their minds, or even trying to persuade them do so...those who have decided two years ahead of any information and the vote, I fully expect them to vote the way they have already decided. I certainly will do so for political Independence, because I am no less entrenched.
Discussion of the issue, however, is not aimed at changing entrenched minds...it is aimed at helping the undecided come to a conclusion....because it is the undecided who will decide for Scotland?
One very big hope that a lot is hung on, is the goodwill of the UK in any post independence negotiations.Something I am pretty sure won't be there. Post Independence, the UK Gov will be under unprecedented pressure to not give anything away at all. As the Government that allows the break up of the UK they will be guaranteed to lose the following election. There will be nothing in it for them. And don't underrate general human nature, there will be a dearth of goodwill for a very long time. Much like the 700 year old grudge held by some Nationalists.:Razz
One very big hope that a lot is hung on, is the goodwill of the UK in any post independence negotiations.Something I am pretty sure won't be there. Post Independence, the UK Gov will be under unprecedented pressure to not give anything away at all. As the Government that allows the break up of the UK they will be guaranteed to lose the following election. There will be nothing in it for them. And don't underrate general human nature, there will be a dearth of goodwill for a very long time. Much like the 700 year old grudge held by some Nationalists.:Razz
What makes you think they'd have any more right to former property and institutions of the UK than an independent Scotland would, the UK/Britain would cease to exist and two new states would emerge, if one of the states wants to call itself the UK/Britain that's fine but it wouldn't be the former country.
I'm sure there would be long discussions regardless, they'd have to be fair though. The country that didn't act fairly would undermine its position on the international stage and in any further negotiations.
As someone who as of yet is undecided, I find myself moving towards independence ever so slightly due to the things I read on the org. This may change a few times yet over the next two years as more information is made available to folk such as myself but I for one am glad of the time given to mull over it.
What makes you think they'd have any more right to former property and institutions of the UK than an independent Scotland would, the UK/Britain would cease to exist and two new states would emerge, if one of the states wants to call itself the UK/Britain that's fine but it wouldn't be the former country.
I'm sure there would be long discussions regardless, they'd have to be fair though. The country that didn't act fairly would undermine its position on the international stage and in any further negotiations.
No I think it will still be UK/Britain... sans Scotland
No I think it will still be UK/Britain... sans Scotland
Heh, yeah doesn't work like that. That's why Westminster is so scared, they're worried other countries will use it to push them out of things like the UN security council.
Heh, yeah doesn't work like that. That's why Westminster is so scared, they're worried other countries will use it to push them out of things like the UN security council.
How so?:confused
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