Welcome to the ninth of our
bi-monthly series looking back at the stories
which the main stream media in Scotland didn't offer much attention to,
and comparing them to those that hit the front pages. Our last edition covering late July can be found
here.
Don't make the games political, or we'll make it personal
The Commonwealth Games were a fantastic event for Scotland. There were
numerous trade deals signed which will generate more wealth and jobs for our country, and we proved to ourselves that we can produce a fantastic squad of athletes capable of competing with anyone.
Unfortunately, some of our athletes received bullying from UK organisations.
With a Yes vote, no Scottish athlete will ever be threatened for taking their own flag onto a podium (whether they choose to represent Scotland or the UK). This is one of the key aspects of independence: independent nations are equal nations. There are no second class national flags amongst independent countries.
Statistical Gymnastics (the BBC in Scotland is full of nincompoops!)
When it comes to manipulating figures, the BBC deserves a gold medal! We mentioned in our last edition of '
Not in the News' that the BBC had quickly altered figures on their website which originally showed Scotland as a net contributor to the UK. Now,
thanks to Scott Minto of Wings over Scotland, we know how they are 'justifying' this change.
The scam starts like this: the actual export figures for Scotland in 2012 (the most recent year for which figures exist) were £98,100,000,000 (ninty eight billion, one hundred million pounds). With this figure, Scotland is clearly an net contributor, which is why the BBC had to change it. But how do you change reality? The BBC followed 3 easy steps:
1) They excluded oil and gas from Scotland's figures (but not from the UK's). This is immediately biased as the equivalent action of removing funds generated by financial transactions in the City of London are never done or considered. The excuse offered is that there hasn't been a formal agreement yet between the Scottish and Westminster Governments regarding marine territory, although
this type of thing is covered extensively in the 'Delimitation of the territorial sea between States with opposite or adjacent coast' and other international agreements. It is also
Westminster who refuses to pre-negotiate. The BBC's solution is to assume that Scotland will have no rights anywhere (which is ridiculous).
Despite removing one of our most valuable revenue streams, Scottish exports would top £73,700,000,000 per year, which would still show us as net contributors. Something else needed to be done to talk us down.
2) The BBC excluded all exports from Scotland to the rest of the UK. No reason is given for this. The total affect of this change is to artificially lower our exports by £47,700,000,000 per year (down to £25,900,000,000). Yet even this figure would be too high for the BBC to use, so 1 more excerise in statistical gymnastics was required.
3) The 2012 figures, which are the most up-to-date, were replaced with the lower 2010 totals. The only possible reason for selecting 2010 and not 2011 or 2012 is to artifically put down Scotland's economic performance to fit into the BBC's narrative of lies.
Three unjustifible changes - assuming that Scotland has no oil or gas whilst predicting full UK control and no adjustments to the more volitile City money, the exclusing of all Scottish exports to the rest of the UK (but not the same in reverse) and the misleading of people by selecting out of date figures from a previous year - have been made by the BBC.
Sidestepping parliament and the people
On the 29th of July, CND (the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) reported that David Cameron had signed a secret, decade-long nuclear agreement with the Government of the United States.
This was done without the opportunity for Parliament to discuss the terms which will not be disclosed to the public or MPs. This is how democracy works at Westminster. You can read more about this story at
Newsnet Scotland.
The Times newspaper:
Making up Usain Bolt quotes so the no campaign doesn't have to. The Main Stream Media: Mo power, mo power, mo power, mo nonsense!
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| According to unionist newspapers, this is someone who doesn't like Scotland |
Do you hate or despise independence?
On the 11th of July popular independence site 'Wings over Scotland'
revealed the 16th questions being asked of Scots ex-pats living in the United States. These included such balanced questions as:
"Do you think that the Scottish Government has any real idea of the financial and economic costs of ending the Union?" and "Are you more persuaded by the analysis and concerns of The Banker magazine or assured by the statements of the Scottish Government?" (you can look at each of the questions, along with their preambles, here).
The poll was organised by The Friends of Scotland who claim to be non-political organisation. They sent the survey to just 300 people. With the biased nature of the questions revealed in advance only a desperate rag would try to present their results as any kind of serious analysis.
Oh Daily Record, who included it on their Scotland now site. Oh Scotsman, who advertised their rival's website just to let their readers see the results (but not necessarily the questions). Oh Press & Journal, who decided to ignore journalism and follow their tabloid peers.
It's hard to keep track of London's expenditure
Keeping up-to-date with all of the non-Barnett expenditure that the UK lavishes on London and the South East of England can be quite tricky (see one of our attempts here), but considering that this one project alone is likely to cost Scotland over £19 billion we thought we would mention it.
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| "Once the Galactic Railroad is complete in London, we'll consider replacing the broken 'give way' sign near Tomintoul." |
Plans to have 39.7% of all UK state investment spent where just 13.14% of the people live are being made. If we're independent, then we can prove to those outside of London that there is an alternative.
On the Bonnie or Fracked Banks of Loch Lomond
Crude attempts at silence
Following an analysis of the initial (but as yet not publicly announced) results, Prime Minister David Cameron hurriedly visited the Shetland Islands (something that his predecessors had not done
in over in over 30 years). He said
little to the press and
no further comment has been offered by No 10. Workers are not due to return to the site until after the referendum.
Questions remain as to just
how much wealth Scotland has. But the UK Government don't want you to know before you vote. Perhaps because the answer would guarantee a Yes.
For context, here is a quote from a spokesperson for the confederation from earlier this year:
"The early conversations that took place between the EC and the CBI were
at relatively junior official level and confined to narrow compliance
issues,"
CBI statement
So let's take a look at who the 'relatively junior' officials were:
I guess the CBI consider a director (and his assistant) of its (
admittedly very small) Scottish branch to be nothing more than a junior official. For once I think I may have to agree with them.
But where is the BBC in this story? As paying members of the anti-independence group they would have better access to information than most. Why is there no mention of this story on their news website? It's not as if they
haven't highlighted the CBI in the past or stressed the importance of the views of these junior officials...
I guess they will keep us waiting until Friday the 19th of September.
No vote guarantees a raid on our troops' pensions
The UK Government
will tax service personnel more for their pensions as a result of changes to the tax system from April 2017. The rules surrounding the introduction of a flat rate pension system means that those on a second state pension will no longer receive a rebate on their national insurance (potentially affecting anyone who is a state employee). This will cost the
average Army private £162 a year in additional tax.
Amongst undecided who watched the STV debate between First Minister Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling MP, the Yes side won by 54% to 46%. So who does the newspapers and the BBC declare as the winner? Alistair Darling!
Our favourite quote came from
Wee Ginger Dug:
"But for the most part the currency question is technocratic
pseudowaffle. It’s one of those practical problems to which there is a
practical solution. And there are several solutions, ranging all the way
from a formal currency union to sticking the UK national debt up George
Osborne’s arse and setting up a new Scottish currency, and all points
in between. My personal favourite is the sticking it up George Osborne’s
arse option, mainly because I’d like to see the look on his face. You
can probably tell I’m not primarily motivated by economic arguments
there."
We don't need Westminster's approval
Contrary to suggestions made by the mainstream media, Scotland does not need Westminster's approval to use the pound or any other currency.
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| These countries share the same currencies, some officially, others unilaterally |
Why my juggling has prevented atomic war
I have been juggling for a number of years. There has been no nuclear wars during that time. Therefore, my juggling is the reason why there has been no nuclear wars.
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| This is how I learned to juggle |
That is the argument put forward by Annabel Goldie MSP. Voting against the removal of nuclear weapons from Scotland alongside her Tory, Labour and Liberal Democrat allies, the representative for the West of Scotland said:
It feels almost embarrassing to point out that non-nuclear states have also avoided nuclear conflict during that time.
FREEDOM (of information)!
Our freedom of information request found the the UK Government's leaflet 'What staying in the United Kingdom means for Scotland'
had no BSL or audio versions. You can read the full story
here.
The BBC, which used the low number of orders for the BSL version of the White Paper to attack the Yes campaign, has, as of yet, not given the same attention to an even worse example by Westminster.
We can only speculate as to why...
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| "I say the BBC is biased!" "And I say the BBC is incompetent!" (at least they agree the BBC is full of nincompoops!) |
All aboard the love boat
Love is in the air as 200 people who aren't able to vote in the referendum told us that we should vote no because they care so much about us. You can check out some of their personal messages below.
First on the list - Piers Morgan:
David Starkey:
"If we decide to go down this route of having an English national day, that means we become a feeble little country, just like the Scots and the Welsh and the Irish."
David Starkey, BBC Question Time
Rob Liddle:
"The only reason any people remain in Scotland is on account of the extremely cheap alcohol available in supermarkets, plus a ready supply of heroin for when the alcohol runs out...Soon Carlisle and Berwick will resemble those awful UN transit camps you used to see in Rwanda; in this case the inhabitants would be millions of displaced, grey-eyed Jocks pleading for a fix of lager or subsidised methadone."
Rob Liddle, Sunday Times
Post script - we understand that Mick Jagger will be releasing an album to support the 'no' campaign. Songs include: 'Sympathy for Westminster', 'Tory money is on my side', 'I know it's only child poverty (but I like it)', 'Under our thumb', '19th September Nervous Breakdown' and finishing with 'It's all over now'. The album will be called 'Tax Exile on Downing St'.
The Scotsman is telt!
Wings gives you no bull!
Popular online blog
Wings over Scotland has produced its long awaited 'Wee Blue Book'! Digital versions can be downloaded from its website in an easy read format for laptops and smart phones (
click here). On its first day it achieved
over 100,000 downloads. A physical version will also be coming soon.
It is a fantastic read and covers the main issues of the referendum campaign. Short and sweet, it is bound to be a big help to those who are looking for more information (and we know they won't find it in the newspapers - as seen
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here and above).
Occupancy rates at over 1,000,000%! 999,000,000 people at risk!!!
Join us again near the end of August for our next look at what's 'not in the news'!
Drew
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