trust a journalist?

Joyce Macmillan is no star of positivity in referendums. It was me whose letter against her chairing of the Edinburgh launch of the Yes-Yes campaign in 1997 was published headed "Worse than Westminster?" in Charter 88's journal Citizens, an edition from early 1998. Frustrating it is no longer online to link to, it was once, since Charter merged into Unlock Democracy. She slapped down speakers who made any point from their personal life experience in support of the campaign and proposing the campaign could use their point. She showed she just wanted it to be an elite class's safe controlled campaign pushing out anything so unpredictable as real life.

Already before this, at a day event by Oxfam in 1996 that she chaired, when I raised the constitutional case against rent and mortgages she chose not to make the 2 politicians beside her (Menzies Campbell and George Foulkes) respond to it on grounds that "I don't think anyone know what you're talking about" without making any opening for me to explain in full where it comes from so that she would know what I was talking about, and without expressing any concern that her newspaper colleagues had not made it known to her.

Within this year she was writing in her column that a No win is inevitable and getting cornered by electoral luck into holding the referendum at all was tragic for the SNP. But last night she was on Newsnight, with a totally changed position, saying the No campaign is too negative about the country's virtues and predicting that if it continues their support will evaporate, i.e. a Yes win. This from a position of declaring as Yes-inclined now herself.

This is selective. It should follow equally that Yes support will evaporate if that campaign continues not taking voters seriously:

• by having policies that require the agreement of some party outside our new state, Britain or the EU, that has already said it won't agree.
• and By spivvily not responding to enquiries for clear positions on items like the citizenship item raised here already.

If we are just faced with 2 spivvy campaigns both messing us around and not addressing details seriously, the winning side may be the side of not voting at all.

Unlock candidates

Time to expose a most startling piece of censoring from a different source.
Unlock Democracy!

It calls itself "The UK's leading campaign for democracy, rights and freedoms". Successor organisation to Charter 88.

It has just circulated to its subscribers papers for an internal election for its council.

" No candidate may pro-actively campaign for election online, or allow anyone else to campaign on their behalf." - What the hell is wrong with campaigning online? No explanation given.

Candidates may inform their existing friends and social contacts that they are standing and may answer direct questions about their candidacy, if asked. This rule applies to the informal use of social media (Facebook, Twitter etc). However, there is inevitably a thin line between informing and campaigning via social media and there are circumstances in which a candidate may not be able to control how their communications on social media are subsequently relayed by others.

For these reasons, the Returning Office advises candidates to take great care in communicating via social media their decision to stand. The Returning Officer may disqualify any candidate who they deem to have made a public statement to promote their candidacy".

WHAT THE HELL REASON OR PURPOSE IS THERE, IN OUR "LEADING CAMPAIGN FOR DEMOCRACY" PUTTING UNDEMOCRATIC GAGS ON ITS OWN PROCESS? Would you trust any public election that gave one official the personal discretionary power to "deem" anything factual whose effect is throwing candidates out of elections? That is the same as It is a power of bias over the whole election, to control and select who can stand in it. The same trick as often practised by dodgy unfree states when they put on a controlled show of elections, that we know not to recognise as fair as a result.

Here that person will be a judge of folks' performance at an impossible task of walking on eggshells, at a requirment to get right something so excruciatingly narrowly defined that even in writing the instructions they admit it will be very easy to get wrong, yet still impose the rule and on pain of exclusion from the election. This is totally not reasonable at all. A process with impossible to avoid pitfalls is not a fair or open process at all.

Time to lose trust in Unlock Democracy. What is being protected by an election that no participant can be sure of getting right? and WHAT IS WRONG WITH SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGNING? WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS?