Polls schpolls....

I see her majesty's Daily Record has a new indyref poll published today which gives slightly different results from previous polls.

Those clever wee monkeys on both sides of the debate who care about such things have welcomed the findings as good news for their side. Quite clearly they can't both be right; however they can both be wrong. And if they read too much into these polls I think they are.

As a simple footsoldier in the great national separation rammy I don't pretend to be an expert in opinion poll methodology or accuracy. However, I have been out campaigning since the turn of the year and have asked literally hundreds of my fellow bairns how they intend to vote in the referendum and I've got to say that not even a quarter of them are saying they'll vote YES.

We've been here before of course.

In 2011 our canvass returns of Labour Party supporters suggested that our vote was holding up and we were on course for victory. A combination of perhaps the poorest campaign in Labour Party history and voter apathy conspired to give us the kicking we deserved and deliver an unfettered nationalist administration.

This is different.

We're not just speaking to Labour Party supporters in this campaign but to everybody. I've gone down whole streets and failed to find one person who say they will vote YES. I genuinely can't find the 40+% YES vote identified by the opinion polls.

On Sunday we were out in a solid, well-maintained council estate in Falkirk and I spoke to an elderly lady who we had identified as a Labour supporter. I asked how she intended to vote in the referendum. She became quite coy and was a wee bit embarrassed saying that she 'wisnae really sure' OK, I replied I'll put you down as an undecided. 'Och, I'll probably vote no..' she said. Great said I, we're going to be campaigning throughout the summer for a no vote. 'Och, I'll definitely be voting no' she laughed 'I jist didnae want tae say no to you, son..'

Anecdotal I know.

I just wonder how many respondents to the opinion pollsters 'didnae want to say no' to them too...

Why can't we just play nice?

Nicola was spitting feathers again yesterday.

She was not a bit happy.

Apparently some old guy had said something about separation with which she had taken exception.

And boy, did she give him both barrels.

The freedom phasers were set to 'outrage': flared nostrils, narrow eyes and an appetite for retribution that would have an Old Testament prophet blushing. It was all there, from personal attack to the "what gives you the right" routine - why Nicola was so enraged that she even forgot to deploy the mid-sentence chuckle.

Yep, she was THAT angry.

She didn't actually address any of the points raised, of course.

She was too busy ripping the poor guy's throat out whilst simultaneously whining about being bullied and insulted.

It's a neat trick and one which has served the SNP well.

It doesn't serve the debate well and the aggressive victimhood punted by the SNP, along with their support of vicious pro-separation websites is poisoning this debate and will result in a divided and embittered country post-referendum regardless of the result (which will be no, obviously).

There is a direct link between every cybernat polluting the internet and every hissing and jeering indy debate audience member with the tactics adopted by the SNP for this campaign.

They should consider what kind of country they really want before they continue with their destructive campaign.

What if...

A long time ago in an alternate galaxy far far away...

A few Labour Party members give up their party membership in order to join the SNP. After they join they set up a "Nats for the Union" group and claim that Mr Salmond is a big fat idiot and the SNP should abandon separation.

The media see through this clumsy ruse immediately. They ask obvious questions like, 'How long have you been a member of the SNP?' and 'Who's funding you?'. In this alternate universe the senior Labour figures who supported these dirty tricks are taken to task for undermining the debate. They are rightly pilloried for dragging the referendum campaign into the gutter.

Meanwhile celebrity Labour supporters who joined the "Nats for the Union" sham group are treated with contempt for being complicit in such an obvious fraud. Their bleating excuses about how they really would support the SNP if only they would change their leader, membership and policies are met with the derision such a lot of old cobblers deserve.

In this alternate galaxy when the broadcasters receive a press release for the sham group's 'conference' they file it away with the rest of the schoolboy pranks they receive on a daily basis. They most definitely do not report it without mentioning the fact that this group is not a bona fide SNP group nor do they fail to mention that the majority of this so-called SNP group don't actually support the SNP.

Meanwhile back in our own galaxy...

Sincerest form of flattery or a cynical counterfeit?

Just when you thought the Scottish separation debate couldn't sink any lower or get any more depressing along comes an example of the kind of cynical dishonesty which disgusts and disillusions people in equal measure.


The SNP know that they cannot succeed without the kind of support enjoyed by the Scottish Constitutional Convention: a broad-based campaign which had support across Scottish society - from churches, community groups, trades unions and business groups - all undeprinned by the democratic authority of (most) of our political parties.


There is one serious impediment to the SNP's plans to emulate the convention. Where devolution had the overwhelming support of the vast majority of Scots, separation remains very much a minority interest. What to do?


Those clever wee monkeys over at SNP HQ have come up with the answer. If the real Labour movement won't give its support for separation then just fake one that does.


There was the SNP claim that a 4,000-strong CWU branch backed separation. That fell apart almost immediately when it was revealed that rather than the thousands claimed, the vote for separation wasn't in the thousands, or even the hundreds for that matter, but in the dozens.


Their sham Labour Party for Independence is going the same way. Its launch looked like a badly-organised stunt, senior SNP figures have been caught impersonating Labour supporters and its website is a mix of mysogyny, bile, paranoia and swivel-eyed grievance-fuelled bampottery. In fact the only link to the Labour Party seems to be the logo they've stolen.


The cynicism and dishonesty in presenting a fake grouping as bona fide, complete with support from senior SNP figures, is a new low in an already shabby campaign for separation. LabourForIndy is a cheap knock-off; it's a con; and the SNP are clearly behind it.

The mystery here is why the media are so reluctant to report the deception...

ALEX SALMOND IS A BIG FAT IDIOT and other observations...

On BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme Alex Salmond claimed:

“There are pretty fundamental reasons why it is not going to be the case that they would refuse a formal currency union"

Hmmm..there's a pretty fundamental reason for believing that they would; like they've already said as much. In a UK Treasury report published this year this statement was made: "In the event of Scottish independence, the economic rationale for the continuing UK to enter a formal sterling union with another state is not clear" and George Osborne - you know, the guy who will dictate the policy of the UK in the unlikely event of a yes vote - has said a formal currency union is unlikely...

Undeterred the bold Alex blunders on: "sterling is as much our currency as it is George Osborne’s"

Wtf? The Bank of England is wholly owned by the UK Government and has its targets set by the UK Treasury. If we leave the UK we leave its currency and lose the protection of its central bank.

Mr Salmond finished with this doozy: “We will get the formal currency union..because they can’t claim sole title over the assets to the United Kingdom, unless of course they want us to accept no share of the liabilities of the United Kingdom”

Oh right, so we're back to threatening to walk away from our responsibilities are we? And presumably we'll retain our triple AAA status even though we would be a state who refuses to pay its debts. This is AAA buffoonery even by Salmond's own exceptionally high standards.

This year has been a harrowing one for supporters of separation. It has been made infinitely worse by the the first minister who has blundered from one disaster to another and from one crackpot announcement to the next ludicrous assertion.

We go into the summer holidays comforted with the knowledge that the UK is safe as long as Alex Salmond plays a leading role in the campaign to break it up....

Who's laughing now?

The online attacks on Susan Calman by the self-appointed guardians of Scotland's dignity should surprise nobody who has been paying attention to the separation debate.

That the debate online has descended to this level is hardly surprising when the behaviour of the SNP leadership and party machine is considered. You need only read the increasingly churlish and chippy press releases produced by SNP HQ and its front organisation YESnp Scotland to see that angry wee nat syndrome is not confined to the outer reaches of cyberspace bampottery.

Furious wee men ( for it is usually men) are employed to churn out ever more bitter and petulant nonsense. They spend their time hissing that they don't need to take lectures from the bastard English. That whoever has contradicted their masters are a disgrace and should be ashamed of themselves. That those who disagree with them are anti-Scottish. That they and Scotland are synonymous; so an attack on them is actually an attack on Scotland and every single one of us. And as they poison the debate with their venom and spite they continue to peddle the lie that they are unrelentingly positive...

This is shenanigans: it is cheap, shallow and divisive politics and it diminshes us.

Every time we see our First Minister enraged not at the iniquities in our society but at something like a magazine making jokes he shames us. Somebody should tell him as gently as they can that when he goes off on one he is not protecting Scotland's reputation, he is making a fool of himself and embarrassing us - he may be a chippy, angry, pathetic wee man but we are better than that.

Whenever a person has to endure the kind of online abuse Susan Calman was subjected to it should be remembered that those patriots twirling their virtual claymores and shrieking abuse don't exist in a vacuum - they are merely an online extension of the ugly, nasty and snide nature of the failing and increasingly flailing campaign currently being waged by the SNP.

A genuine question for the SNP.

Ever since their assertion that a separate Scotland would have automatic EU membership was blown out the water the SNP have been arguing that they would now negotiate membership from within the UK between 2014-2016.

I may have got this wrong but haven't they been told recently that the EU would only negotiate with member states?

The SNP state that Scotland will be still be part of the UK until separation negotiations conclude supposedly  in 2016.

So my question is this: who in the EU has agreed to change their position regarding negotiating with anybody other than member states?