Once in a generation

Eck: Nah nah nah, it's only once in a generation, guv, innit? That's how historic the decision is, folks. Just once, like. There won't be another.

He no longer has any credence to accuse Britain of breaking the vow, as the nats are wilfully contriving to accuse over hastily when there hasn't yet been time to take extra powers through parliament since the election. Everyone knows, and will know, that he and the SNP have broken their word, clear and stark, and have always planned to.

no caviar thanks to Sturgeon

On Ed Miliband's Facebook page, a nat has written, about this devastating election:

- "You sealed your fate when you joined forces with Cameron and sent an army of MPs up to Scotland to bully,coerce and scare the Scots into voting no in the Indy Ref, that fate was further sealed when you treated the SNP as the enemy in the election. You are an idiot that has let the whole nation down."

My reply does not come from a voice who was always unionist, it comes from a voice who went into the ref open minded to see which side would be more liberal on keeping Scotland open to its diaspora, and suspected the nats might pander to racist voters by not being generous towards the broader diaspora gut never imagined they would actually taint our history with the fascism of betraying citizenship of their own country for the first generation diaspora. here is what I said on the economic issue, to the Tory near future we have all been slammed with, and remembering that the propsect of "no more Tory gvoernments we didn't vote fro" was the best sounding line in Yes's campaign:

- "The SNP made themselves an enemy and forced Ed's hand to do that, because they bragged so hubristically that they were going to dictate all his govt's actions. It's their fault. They cheated Ed of the win he was heading for, destroyed the govt they wanted to get, took away from us at the brink of reality the most progressive govt since before Thatcher and gave us another 80s-like trauma. They knew they were frightening voters in England and that the Tories were seizing on it.

Sturgeon said they were going to force CND disarmament. Any surprise at an 80s-like result to saying that? They were going to force a highly austere and absurd fiscal independence for Scotland, and force what Labour's economic policy would be - and talking so dictatorially made it credible for the Tories also to stick on them that they would force another referendum. In fact they were on a carried away ego trip, campaign publicity was their only means of leverage on Ed's govt towards even the more meritorious of their ideas - their anti-austerity line which only stood up if they did not get fiscal indy! - the SNP would not have had any means to force Ed's govt to do fiscal indy or CND, for their only threat was to put him out and Tories back in, electorally impossible for them to do hence already pledged not to. But only the minority of voters who take enough serious interest in politics to understand the system's workings realised this. The tragedy of this election is it has been swung on irrational feeling, that could not have happened if more humans were disposed to think.

We would still be worse off if Yes had won the ref, and if this election still had the same outcome in rUK despite no nationalist scare to cause it. As a so-called independent state avoiding the austerity burden of creating currency reserves by instead choosing to keep our spending and economic policy dictated to us by the Bank of England, we would now be under this Tory govt which would have a stable big majority instead of a precariously tiny one. We would have no future prospect either of voting it out or of having a leftward leverage in parlt if they lose their majority mid term. That's the difference if you take Scotland out of the election, last time we made the difference of the Tories not getting a majority, this time we made the difference of keeping it tiny enough to be unstable. "

Sturgeon's campaign hubris blew it

HOW ARE THE NATS NOW GOING TO COPE WITH THE SPECTACLE THAT THEIR OWN ACTIONS EXTINGUISHED THE GOVERNMENT THEY WERE HOPING TO CREATE AND GOT THE TORIES BACK IN?

THE HUBRIS OF BOASTING THAT YOU WERE GOING TO DICTATE TO A LABOUR GOVERNMENT AND FORCE IT TO DO A LIST OF GOODIES? WHEN YOU FORCED THE ISSUE OF THOSE CLAIMS, IN THE CAMPAIGN AND THE DEBATES, YOU FRIGHTENED VOTERS IN ENGLAND AWAY. YOU ENABLED THE TORIES TO SCARE THEM THAT YOU COULD FORCE THE UNION FURTHER APART IF LABOUR GOT IN. THOUGH YOU COULDN'T DO THAT, VOTERS BELIEVED IT AND FELT SAFER BY NOT ALLOWING THERE TO BE A GOVERNMENT INFLUENCED BY YOU AT ALL, AND RAN HOME TO THE TORIES AT THE LIKELY BLOODSTAINED COST WE ALL KNOW.

AFTER THIS DAY OF ELECTORAL SPASM WENT FOR YOU, THIS HISTORY WILL HANG OVER YOU THROUGH THE NEAR FUTURE. YOUR ACTIONS TOOK AWAY THE GOVERNMENT YOU DREAMED OF, FROM ALL OF BRITAIN: TOOK AWAY AT THE BRINK OF HAPPENING THE TANGIBLE CHANCE OF THE MOST EGALITARIAN GOVERNMENT SINCE BEFORE THATCHER, SINCE THE ONE YOU PUT OUT IN 1979, AND SUBSTITUTED THE WORST CASE INSTEAD.

Not listening makes us blue.

How fair will it be for an election to be swung by the psychology of "don't understand"?

Today's Tory press are trying to muddle with the situation around a Labour government's relation to the SNP. Following Miliband's renunciation 2 days ago of any deal with other parties, now several front pages saying: oh look, we've caught them out, they will do a deal. This is based on some of the Shadow Cabinet explaining that a minority government would go from vote to vote talking to other parties to get as much as it can of its own business through. That is not a deal. That is what Miliband already explicitly explained that that is not a deal. It is exactly what happens when there is not a deal, it is the way any minority government has to function, the other parties can jostle with it on passing or not passing each item of its business. It's the way the SNP minority government of 2007-11 worked, getting business through with Tory support so often that to be logically consistent these papers should accuse it of having a deal with the Tories, exactly what is terrible for the SNP ever to be seen by its voters to have. But logically consistent is what these headlines have an interest in not being. To understand what it or is not a deal takes willingness to listen to explanations and understand the system. For the real human minds of many voters, knee jerk prejudice is easier and saves mental effort. Oh look, this headline has made it sound like this means a deal, so it probably does, so it does. Conclusion reached, end of story, mind closed to further listening.

.Because the story is written to fit prejudice that what the politician says is likely to be lies, the voter leaps to the simple conclusion that it is indeed lies in this case. To make any effort to understand the system would be an unwelcome mental effort. It could threaten 2 things for the voter, (i) a prejudice, (ii) their self-esteem of being right in leaping to the hasty conclusion. because these things are threatening, they must be shut out of mind, by insisting: no no no, I DON'T UNDERSTAND. Even if they would understand perfectly well if they chose to listen. So now, anyone trying to explain the technicality of why a minority government's work to pass each vote is not a deal, and why these shadow ministers have not confessed there will be a deal, will just get "I don't understand", and based on it an impatient refusal to listen. And that psychology in enough voters could change the election's outcome.

The voting reform referendum in 2011, already, appeared swung by a "don't understand" prejudice. The argument that the proposed new system took more effort to understand, succeeded in appealing to voters to reject it. That worked better as an argument than the case that it was a fairer system. So this is irrational psychological process is totally capable of swinging election outcomes.

The atmosphere towards Labour is now frighteningly like 1992. SHOULD AN ELECTION BE GIVEN TO THE TORIES BY A KNEE JERK PEER PRESSURE AND A PSYCHOLOGY OF REFUSAL TO LISTEN TO SIMPLE EXPLANATIONS?!! That is the present danger.

Shout down all other parties.

A selection of the words of SNP supporters at present.

Labour's Kezia Dugdale in yesterday's daily record thought voters need to contemplate that this is who the present SNP are, on this wave of emotion:

• Candidate known on Twitter as "Paco McSheepie" calls No voters quislings, thinks pensioners should not have the vote, and says an SNP majority in this election would be grounds to declare independence unilaterally.
• Candidate in Paisley says an SNP win of over 30 seats would be grounds to call a second referendum. Called that "the rope that a hung parliament hangs on."
• Candidate in Inverness: "Never mind the referendum, just declare independence."
• Candidate in Midlothian: "It wasn't a No vote, just a not yet."

There was more talk of UDI in the latest Scots Independent pamphlet, not one you see on the newsstands, I saw it on the reference shelf of a library in Edinburgh. Gordon Wilson, former SNP leader, whose anti-gay religious views hardly make him seem the SNP's radical wing, is another one writing of a UDI without a referendum. So radical it's treasonable, he wrote for the nats to prepare to do that if a British referendum on the EU goes for leaving it.

Then there's this I found through Facebook. A vision of democracy tweeted by one "Mulder1981":
"The SNP winning another landslide victory shows that Scotland wants change. The SNP should shout down all other political parties in Scotland and self-govern the nation towards independence. It's the will of the people who are politically engaged and care about the country's future and potential. Alba gu braith."

This line is familiar from some well known nationalist histories just across both the Irish and North Seas from us. Not good ones.

Common travel binned already: try visiting Ireland.

Britain has been breaking the British Isles common travel area with Ireland, affecting both parts of it, without admitting so in any prominent political outlet.

Since 2010, shows this paper from when they started it, www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/257182/cta.pdf, they have done immigration checks on the crossings from Northern Ireland to the mainland. It is shocking to see it, as I did on the Belfast to Cairnryan crossing, with "immigration enforcement" on their uniforms, checking identity and asking exactly immigration type questions about where you were travelling to - on a domestic travel route that is wholly inside the UK. It is not caused by NI's history, any extra security because of that would be security rather than open explicit immigration checking. Dangerously it does not make NI feel treated like part of the union, does it? The idea behind it is supposed to be, that the Republic is more liberal on immigration, and the Irish peace requires there to be easy crossing into NI by road an appearance of open border between the 2 parts of Ireland, so Britain will let the Republic's policy govern who can reach NI but it will still put a trap in an unexpected place to catch folks trying to reach the British mainland. This is why it is only being done in one direction, coming from Ireland, not going to it.

A friend who has visited family in the Republic reported that he was asked for his passport when crossing into NI on public transport! This is exactly what is not supposed to happen under the common travel area, and all our media debate on the EU and during the referendum took as common knowledge that it does not happen, that we have a happy little passport-free travel area with the Irish Republic. Googling, you can find stories since 2011 of this happening. It's not being publicised in media and politics, it's only folks who travle to Ireland and experience it who are getting to know this is happening.

As a No voter who is migration liberal and has no love at all for Britain's present border culture, I'm writing against Britain's practices here and accusing that they weaken the union. But this revelation is more of a problem for nats than unionists, because during the referendum the Yessers relied heavily on claiming they could predict that rUK would keep the common travel area with us because it would be rational. They insisted cavalierly that we could dismiss as bluff all contrary talk. Some Yessers actually relied on this, to argue that my anger at Yes's citizenship plan betraying the Scottish diaspora was unnecessary, because the common travel area resolved it. Predicting common travel's certainty to remain in place would mean, all the Scots born in the rest of Britain to emigrant parents and still living there at the date of indy, who Yes intended to betray without unrefusable citizenship of their own country, would still always be free to move home as part of common travel. So it would not matter how deficient and full of loopholes Yes's rules for Scottish citizenship were. This is clearly disproved by what is happening to Ireland. If intrusive migration checks are now capable of being intruded sinisterly upon civil liberties even inside the UK, between its nations, and if we are illicitly and dishonestly breaking the travel area with the Irish Republic too, both of these shocks show how easy and casual it would have been for rUK to put them onto a new Scottish state's border.

It's obviously another reason not to vote Conservative if you care for the union.

which scare wins?

In this campaign, opponents of each of the 2 British major parties are bound to seek to portray the other as a threat to the Union. After all, the Union is popular, as we know: it was chosen in a referendum quite recently.

None of the right wing newspapers accusing Labour of risking the Union simply by being willing to cooperate with the SNP on economic issues in a hung parliament, have itemised exactly what risking effect this is supposed to have upon the Union? But when a Tory sympathetic paper, the Sunday Times, runs in a front page column that the Conservatives would give Scotland financial home rule, fiscal independence, separation from the security and mutual support of the shared British budget, that is the one to be scared of.

It makes the Conservatives a worse threat to the Union. Fiscal independence fits with Tory attitudes on self-reliance and anti-welfare, make Scotland pay for itself jolly good eh what? No, and not what we voted No for. They are the ones who have been disturbingly leaning to this idea ever since the Smith process, when you will remember it was Labour who stepped in to say no that's too far in separation. It's Labour who are holding the line against fiscal separation.