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I’ve just got back from three days in Edinburgh where I was totally immersed in the momentous decision that the Scottish people are due to make in the referendum on September 18th. I was a panellist at the Festival of Politics which was held in the superb Scottish Parliament Building just across the road from Holyrood Palace – the Queen’s official residence.
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I noticed that
Nero (age 17) was played by Christopher Biggins (age 27)
Britannicus (13) was played by Graham Seed (26)
Caligula (17 to 29) was played by John Hurt (36)
and at one stage Augustus (age 75) and Claudius (age 23) were in the same scene, played by Brian Blessed and Derek Jacobi (aged 38 and 37 respectively).
I suspect that these anachronistic ages were done deliberately for stylistic, artistic reasons, as if it were a low-budget amateur stage play in a theatre, rather than from the lack of available actors. Similarly the sole use of studio scenes with no long-range wide-angle shots or location filming.
Brian Blessed kept his eyes open, with camera on his face in close-up, and with no edit cuts, for 1 minute 48 seconds after Augustus had died.
Third!
That is both a very astute question and observation about Nicola Sturgeon from Mark. And the answer to this is No she wouldn't have run the campaign any differently than Alex Salmond has done, and Yes she should take as much responsibility for a No vote as Salmond. Nicola Sturgeon has been joined at the hip to Alex Salmond in recent years as Deputy Leader of the SNP, and she has also been in charge of the SNP's referendum campaign since Salmond appointed her to this Cabinet role in 2012. The fact that the SNP don't have coherent or credible Plan B is surely down to her failures in the effective role of SNP Government manager? It was also notable that she left her role as Minister in charge of the Scottish NHS just as some of the shine was coming off that department as well.
And while Sturgeon never had Salmond's media presence, she also never really had to deal with a less than impressed or critical audience until quite recently up here in Scotland. Having seen the shine come of the Sturgeon band wagon with the Independence Referendum now having central focus in Scottish politics over the last couple of years has been quite interesting. She really does come across as yet another 'cold' and quite clinical SNP politician, much like Salmond in many ways. Add this to the fact that Alex Salmond and the Yes Campaign have a serious problem convincing Scottish women voters, and you have to ask why she has not been able to recognise or neutralise this problem as such a central SNP Cabinet figure during the Independence campaign.
Our polling cards arrived yesterday. Four years ago none of my three lads were old enough to vote at the last GE, but now they are all eligible to vote on 18th September in the Independence Referendum.
Chortle.....as someone used to say.....
In the DVD set there is a 1965 documentary about the 1937 film version (which was abandoned after one month of filming), starring Charles Laughton as Claudius and Flora Robson as Livia. It says that Laughton struggled for ages to "find" the right character to play, and eventually got his inspiration from Edward VIII's abdication speech.
The ruling National party was thought to be cruising towards re election but over the weekend it has been engulfed in a hacking / dirty tricks scandel that is spinning badly out of control by the hour.
Polls have started to turn, as ever do your own research but I think there is massive value at current prices.
Poll last week only had them a couple of points ahead of the left win bloc, prior to hacking scandal. The media coverage has turned badly against them in past 24 hours
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/contactus/offices/scotland/indyref2014/polling/leaderimage.aspx
Yes 11/2 (William Hill)
No 1/6 (Betdaq)
Matched total to date at Betfair: £1.63 million
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11040226/Independence-referendum-Heres-why-Scotland-will-vote-No-probably.html
- "... the 1997 referendum in Scotland that lead to the creation of the Scottish Parliament.
It resulted in a massive YES vote (74.3%) to be exact. What is not often said is that polling throughout the campaign never put the YES vote that high. In fact in the weeks before the vote polls were showing support to be around the 55% mark.
What happened was a triumph of hope over fear. When people were in the voting booth, away from the press and TV media they lost their inhibitions and voted for a positive future.
The same will happen again."
Let's then suppose a Party is set up in the English border counties on the platform of joining Scotland. (The border was pretty fluid a thousand years ago, after all.) Let's further suppose that this Party wins, say, the Cumbria County Council election, and, at the GE after next, all the Parliamentary seats in that county.
Should it then be allowed to join Scotland? What if there are two referenda on the matter, in which Cumbria votes "yes" and Scotland votes "no"?
***
Or, alternatively, what if Scotland votes "no" by a smaller margin than the number of Sassenachs resident in Scotland?
That said, I have been leaning Yes for a while on the basis of the total conviction of independence supporters that they are going to win. Whatever others on here say I just don't believe that such a level of self-delusion is possible. The polls are measuring something unique in the history of the UK, so I don't think it's that unreasonable to postulate they may have been failing to do it accurately. And now they are clearly beginning to move to Yes, just as the Yes side predicted. I will be making my first political bet today for a while and taking advantage of odds that are bound to tighten significantly over the coming weeks.
Although I'd like No to win, there's a growing part of me that is also fascinated to see how it all plays out with a vote to end the UK. It really will be a momentous time, rivalled only in the last 100 years by the end of WW2.
The Scottish vote is going to have big effects on English public policy, not least regarding nuclear weapons. I have seen many Yes-supportive comments from English people largely on the basis that a Yes result makes it far less likely that England will continue to throw vast sums of taxpayers' cash down the drain labelled "Trident".
Hopefully we won't have our very own West Bank...
I, Claudius is excellent. I agree entirely that Livia stole the show, though there were fantastic performances throughout.
Bloody weird seeing Patrick Stewart with hair and Brian Blessed without a beard.
Welcome back, Mr. Smithson.
Interesting times ahead if that happens.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C5Pa9YvAqLs
The Scottish people are sovereign. The people of Cumbria and Cornwall are not: they are subject to the English parliament.
I never understood JackW's confidence of 60:40. I think he ended up 60.5:39.5. He may still be proved right but this always seemed closer to me.
It is dangerous to rely on anecdotes but my perception from various conversations and public events recently is that Yes has run the most appalling and incompetent campaign imaginable. And, for many, that does not matter at all. They readily recognise that there will be problems, that Salmond and Sturgeon do not have any credible answers to a whole host of questions but they feel Scottish and want Scotland to be an independent country.
I feel the opposite way. It would not matter a damn to me if I was going to be a few thousand better off in an independent Scotland. I would still vote no in a heart beat. The UK is my country and I am desperate for it to remain so.
The campaign has throughout been bogged down in trivia and incompetence but Scots are now coming to terms with that question. Are they Scots or British? It is a biggie and I am really not sure which way they will jump.
For me this is going to be the key to the next debate. Attacking the incompetence that is Salmond is almost pointless. Darling must sell the UK, our shared values, our role in the world, the opportunities that we have together. My advice to him would be to almost ignore Salmond and speak to the camera.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=482J16Lkims
Cheery chap isn't he?
More to the point, forget Cumbria, will Berwick Upon Tweed apply to secede from England and join the new independent nation of Scotland?
Let's hope so, it will ease the case for the Wuffingas Kingdom of East Anglia to finally be rid of the yoke of the Wessex idiots and breathe free once more. #fortifythegreatouse
The Scots will not cease to be British if they vote Yes on 18 September. Great Britain is an island and no vote on Earth can ever change that. Only extremely long-term geological changes could alter that.
Not sure going to Ireland and telling them they're all British would make one universally popular.
A month to go until a fateful day indeed. I hope the result's clear-cut. The worst thing would be a squabble over a tiny margin of victory for one side.
The referendum is certainly top of most people's minds atm. I was at a toddler's birthday party on Saturday and it was pretty much the only non-child centred conversation topic. On a completely non-scientific sample of people-wot-I-spoke-to basis, then Yes is ever so slightly ahead, but there are certainly lots of haverers out there.
We now have a well armed and experienced Kurdish army wanting a Kurdistan, which presently one would expect to be carved out of Iraq, Turkey, Iran and to some extent Syria.
Who are going to be the good guys then?
His behaviour is indicative of Darling's Project Fear mindset. George Galloway knew him as a young man: "Darling was to the left of Mao Zedong."
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/if-the-recession-hits-will-alistair-be-our-darling-970975
- a powerful vision for an independent nation
- dissatisfaction with the status quo
- it can be done without undue risk
BT has hammered away at the third and the currency spoiler was masterful. If Salmond can repair the damage and set out a simple roadmap to being independent he could turn the tide. This will include some backtracking but needs must:
"we will ask for a permanent currency union and make the case, if we cannot agree then we shall ask for a period of time to introduce an independent currency... If that delays the date of independence a couple of years, so be it. We shall seek membership of the European Economic Area and should it be right for Scotland's economy, we may seek membership of the EU and Euro in the long term. The priority in the medium term will be secure the benefits of being an independent nation with an independent currency.... If some Banks relocate their headquarters to London, so be it... We will make it attractive for them to keep their operations in Scotland and even encourage other UK banks to relocate jobs to the Scottish Enterprise Zone..."
I was brought up in Edinburgh and my parents always made sure that the family were out of the city during August. Most Edinburgh friends have similar experiences.
The disadvantage of fleeing the capital in August is that my tender skin was bitten to hell by Ardnamurchan midgies and clegs.
The only reason the PKK came to a deal with the Turkish government is that they wanted their fighters and expertise within the Kurdish areas of Turkey and Syria.
Sadly, it may be necessary to arm the Kurds. But if and when we do so, we have to be aware that it may cause the conflict to spread and cause significant regional problems later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey–PKK_conflict
The new 2015 general election ARSE projection and JackW Dozen will be posted here on Pb at 9am tomorrow.
The midgies have been hellish this year!
I still think No will get 55%+ but it will hardly be a ringing endorsement of the Union if 45% of people in Scotland want it over with. There is a question of what a knock on effect it will have on England. My guess is once the English realise that nearly half the Scottish population feel no commitment to them, their own interest in the Union (already flagging) will wane further. English nationalism will rise somewhat, although I'm still doubtful of its true potential. How will ethnic minorities feel about that? The Welsh won't be going anywhere in the short run for lots of reasons but a serious English nationalism might change a few minds. And how long would the English want to keep subsidising the alien culture of Northern Ireland?
Big questions for Unionists on both the left and right as to how they have managed to screw this up so badly.
Not a particularly party political point. Like lots of bad things in recent times, it was started by Labour and continued by the Coalition.
Oh, and Clegg announcing the Cornish minority bullshit was a mind-bendingly stupid move. How many years before appeals for a Cornish Parliament? In a pathetic attempt to get a tiny bit of popularity he's sown a seed which could (decades down the line) help tear apart England.
- The twin festivals of patriotism of last summer - the London Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee - failed to provide a boost for feelings of "Britishness" among the English, according to new research.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10093611/British-identity-is-waning-in-England.html
Gotta love those "non-political" Olympics!
Working in Edinburgh in August is indeed horrible, especially on the Royal Mile where I am based. I have suggested on a few occasions that we need a faculty machete to carve our way down to the consultation rooms.
Here be dragons. We are off the map.
Err, you do understand why Smith, Steel, Bruce, Campbell, Cook, Brown, Dewar and Co had to implement devolution, don't you?
Far from being "pointless", it was absolutely essential. It was the only way to protect their own Lib-Lab jobs and power base.
You are on stronger territory when you say "ill-considered".
Yes supportive people in Scotland are underestimating the money they would have to spend on defence, not to mention where they would get their soldiers sailors and airmen from.
Britain is an island, but Great Britain is a political construct created by James VI/I in an attempt to unite the two Kingdoms of Scotland and England.
If you ask me the single biggest contributor to where we are now is FPTP. Neither the Scots nor the English have delivered a majority of Tory or Labour votes for decades. Salmond is right to say Scotland does not get what it votes for, but neither does England or Wales or Northern Ireland.
Your circuit's dead,
there's something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
"So only political union is gone , we can choose to keep or not keep all other relationships. Only unionists are whinging and making a big deal of it and threatening us with them taking their ball away."
The clearest reference would, I think, be currency union. But that's clearly something most of those south of the border don't want.
Fully agree with you and I'm now regretting not registering for a postal vote at my parents.
I do think some of this yes polling momentum is simply swing back from the good No polling that appeared after the first debate.
Regarding your description of the appeal of the Yes campaign I think that alot of it is similar to a mid life crisis with a number of Scots being bored and just wanting to try something new. People have got used to voting without it resulting in any real change so the danger is Yes wins narrowly and then alot of voters suffer buyers remorse when the bill arrives.
Still worth remembering No is still in the lead.
I detect a real move to YES. On Thursday at the Glenmorangie Highland Gathering in Tain, our Rotary stand was next to the Better Together one. It was busy all day. Every overseas/English visitor who stopped to chat to me at our Rotary stand asked me about the referendum and how I thought the vote would go.
As a Scot, I hope it is an 80+% turnout and either NO by at least 10% or YES by at least 1 vote. If it is a narrow NO, we will simply be back doing it all again within 5 years. That would be seriously bad for the Scottish economy.
- "Great Britain, also known as Britain, is an island in the North Atlantic off the north-west coast of continental Europe."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain
Have fun trying to edit that particular page to impose your own novel definition!
A good counter-example is Karl Rove's on Fox on election night 2012, who simply refused to believe the projection of Obama's victory.
He could not believe it, just could not believe it, he thought the Republicans were going to win.
There's abundant evidence of high delusion at the top of the Romney camp. They simply didn't believe the state projections when swing states were called for Obama.
Very, very high levels of self-delusion are possible in politics.
We are so lucky to have you on this board. Anyone who thinks differently to you about anything at all should be taken out and shot. Obviously.
And do we not have a (peaceful and political) nationalist uprising now?
Mr. Dickson, can't say on that particular example but Wikipedia isn't always right. The nonsense about Alexander being a Greek king stands out as a particularly enormous error.
stop being a turnip
when a relationship changes it changes in many ways. When you leave the house no-one owes you anything and the Irish who these days have much better relations with the english than the scots will eat your dinner.
All this nonsense that it will be the same is just Salmond fibbing to the gullible.