Thursday 20 September 2012

Saturday's SNP demo: A Scottish homage to Catalonia or a tartan Clochemerle?

Last weekend almost a hundred thousand folk took to the streets of Scotland to celebrate Team GB. It was a demonstration of affection and pride in our athletes who contributed so much to the success of Team GB at London 2012.

Nobody organised buses for them and there were no political parties urging their supporters to attend, nor twitter or facebook campaigns to whip up support: just normal Scots demonstrating their appreciation for the athletes of Team GB.

So, you would imagine that with all their resources and their boasts about the slickness and efficiency of their digital campaigning the SNP will be able to match these numbers at their demonstration in Edinburgh this weekend.

In fact, if the SNP are to breathe life into their moribund Yes campaign then it's critical that they do exactly that. However, as Saturday approaches the organisers are beginning to realise that the numbers at their celebration of separation - dubbed GirnStock by nat-watchers - are going to fall well short of those who came out to support Team GB.

However, it is not just the lack of numbers which is giving the nats a headache; it is the pressure of ensuring that those who do turn up manage to subdue their more outre prejudices and whackjob conspiracy theories and behave themselves - 'Scottish Not British' banners and anti-English chants will sink them and the SNP highheidyins know it.

Already, the SNP have demanded that a small group of tartan trots with a taste for flag-burning and armed insurrection stay at home. However, for every excommunicated wild-eyed trot there are scores of SNP members who will quite cheerfully describe the union flag as a butcher's apron and declare their hatred of all things British: shamefully, that goes for plenty of SNP MSPs too.

And that should be a worry for them.

The SNP should be very concerned that their planned family-friendly day of fun and tartan celebrities on Saturday could very quickly degenerate into a demonstration of all that is bad with nationalism: bitterness, bigotry and blind prejudice.

So far the SNP have successfully gagged their lunatic fringe - but for how much longer can the nats rely on the silence of their bams?

20 comments:

  1. Apprently a bus is being run from London, so desperate are they to increase the numbers.

    Now what was it used to claim Scottish Labour did?

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  2. I've heard there's been a rush of late bookings on the Continental flight from Newark to Edinburgh - the US being, of course, where some of the most extreme Nat bampots actually live.

    I'm very tempted to hire a cheap motor, dangle some UJs out of the windows and drive around near the route...

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  3. Hah! Poor Brit-nats, no corresponding event from Darling & co for you to get all decked out in stripes & boaters, is there?

    Never mind, you will all fit in the "cheap motor"! Poor wee lambs.

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  4. Personally I have been shopping today as is my usual custom, boosting aggregate demand to support the economy.

    I don't really see the need for a demo - isn't that what you do in opposition?

    The crowds that came out in Glasgow were boosted by the Council workers who were let out early & the union flags were given away. I think the most genuine show of affectin was for Andy Murray & wasn't that grand. At last he has started winning things.

    I kind of feel sorry for Donald Anderson he is an old boy now & all this using him as a propoganda tool against the SNP strikes me as a bit nasty.

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    1. Great to hear from you Observer.

      Hope you and yours are doing well.

      Thanks for your post although I deny completely using anybody's tool against the SNP...

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    2. Here is a real bog http://reidfoundation.org/2012/09/is-this-the-end-of-scottish-labour/ - not this mickey mouse poor man Councillor Terry Kelly rip off blog that grahamski runs.

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  5. Incidentally Grahamski you are aware that the march has nothing to do with the SNP?

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    1. Is that the sound of cocks crowing in the background?

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  6. Just read about it & Margo made the very sensible point which has become my mantra.

    If every person who is now committed to independence can persuade just one other person to vote yes then the result is in the bag.

    Now I am not going to persuade you Grahamski, but I reckon there are a good few prospects at my work & as I have said in other forums if we all aim for three or four then we are bound to get one.

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    1. There's a good few folk at my work who say they are for separation but I'm working on them.

      For every one of ours you get we'll take one of yours...

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    2. Wishful thinking. Once having crossed the Rubicon you don't go back.

      The way I see it we are about even between the definite yes & no votes. The majority are in the middle, wanting more powers but a bit shy of the full indy.

      Two years to go I reckon that the Gods are on our side.

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    3. Observer

      "..we are about even between the definite yes & no votes.."

      And you accuse me of wishful thinking?

      I don't know if you've done any canvassing/campaigning for the YES team yet.

      I've done a wee bit for the Better campaign and my (admittedly) unscientific experience has been that of the folk willing to say, the NOs outnumber the YESs by about three to one.

      Now that's just standing outside a supermarket and at a street stall asking everybody who passes, no proper weighting - oh, and about a third of the folk we asked didn't want to say.

      Freakily those figures correspond with the opinion polls which gives the YES vote around about thirty per cent mark.

      No matter how persuasive you may be I think that's a mountain too high...

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    4. Opinion polls as you know say that the majority of Scots want more powers short of indepencence. Scots are not going to be given that choice & Eck by chance or by purpose is going to be able to say that the unionists kettled the electorate into a position where they can say yes or stick with the status quo.

      Lamont jumping up & doing her best impression of Gideon in a kilt is hardly going to inspire confidence in the status quo.

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  7. So it had nothing to do with the SNP but strangely the Fat Controller was top of the bill?

    How very strange. i always assume that being First Minister with a busy schedule he is unlikely just to pop along without some input from his party.

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  8. You do look kind of edgy in that hoody. A marvellous day and the 10,000 plus who attended behaved impeccably if only the same could be said for you unionists losers. Such numbers as the NO campaign and Lurch Murphy could only dream of. He gave us some priceless publicity with his sad attempt at smearing. What is it with Labour and shooting their feet? For the record the event was organised by Jeff Duncan with no input or aid from the SNP. Another Scottish hero makes history. Suck it up losers.

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    1. 10,000 plus.

      Independent estimates put the attendance at around 5,000.

      If you are going to tell porkies why not make it worthwhile: A gajillion bravehearts marched you say?

      Why, that's impressive and no mistake....

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    2. As a veteran of demos as I am sure you are as a rule of thumb you take the Police estimate & double it.

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  9. http://keyboredwarrior.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-ugly-face-of-bnp-in-edinburgh.html

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    1. Dear goodness the SNP and BNP fight over flags.

      Two sides of the same repulsive coin..

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  10. Anyway it's a day to be a pleb & enjoy it. Down with the patricians!

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