If the purpose of the Scotland Matters billboard was to convey information then we would have ample justification for saying it had failed. But conveying information is no part of its purpose.
Ignorance is strength
Tag: British Nationalism
The man with the plan
When Boris Johnson shows me something and says look at my plan I expect to see a bungling buffoon stuck on a zip-wire. For no reason other than that is the image I simply can't help associating with the vacuous ideologue.
The limits of oppression
One of democracy's imperfections is its fragility combined with its appearance of robustness and resilience. Those whose direct personal experience is confined to a broadly democratic society do not easily imagine anything other. The corollary being a tendency to take democracy for granted. If only they realised how tenuous is our grip on the freedoms we assume to be ours by dint of nature, they would fear for those freedoms.
Distracted
This British Nationalist propaganda unit is not there to help spin Tory policy, although it may do so incidentally. Why would the British government need to 'spin' policies it has the power to impose regardless of what the people of Scotland want?
No democracy please! We’re British!
Listen to the British parties! Actually listen to what they say! They are not saying they will accept and cooperate with a referendum that they are satisfied is fully democratic. They are saying they will not tolerate any referendum IF it is democratic. Or BECAUSE it is democratic. Or because they fear it MIGHT BE democratic.
An existential battle
Without the Union, the pretence of the British state as a major player on the world stage becomes unsustainable. Without the Union the reality of 'Great Britain' as nothing more than the structures of power, privilege and patronage which serve the few at the expense of the many becomes undeniably evident.
It’s all relative
Douglas Lumsden has come up with a wizard wheeze. I say Lumsden has come up with this wizard wheeze, but there's a better than good chance that he didn't. It's likely that the idea first hatched in the mind of some lowly aide or assistant who, lowly as they might be, was still closer to the hierarchy than Douglas Lumsden and therefore able to inveigle their wizard wheeze into the party's decision-making contraption. The wizard wheeze may well have come to Douglas Lumsden in the guise of a boon bestowed from above. A gift Douglas Lumsden knows he can't refuse lest the British patronage spigot be turned off and his career in British politics ended prematurely.
Be aware!
Those who consider themselves part of the wave of democratic dissent risen in Scotland must decide whether they are content to remain a dissenting tendency within the British state or whether they want to be a countervailing power - and are prepared to organise accordingly.
Overtures
You were warned!
A pile of pish
It is vital that we properly understand the British establishment in order that we may choose our weapons and formulate our campaign strategy accordingly. At present, the Scottish Government's approach to the constitutional issue assumes that a new referendum will be in all significant ways a repeat of the first one. This is a fatally mistaken idea. Especially when combined with the folly of believing tales of terrified Tories.
