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-From the Lord Ashcroft poll it's clear that the over 65's delivered 'victory' to the No side.
-Given the (indisputable) scare tactics of the No side about security of pensions (contradicted by the Treasury) the above is deeply unsurprising. Add in their greater likelihood to vote by post weeks before the actual vote and you're seeing a huge swathe of some of society's most insecure and vulnerable voters being influenced by inaccurate information given out by the three main political backers of 'Project Fear' (again, their title). Class act.
They're not indisputable, unless you have indisputable evidence? I've not seen any yet...
I'm quite prepared to believe that it may have happened to some degree, but what about the other factors that would have influenced older people's votes? The 57,000 Scots who died fighting under the Union flag in WW2, which many of them lived through? A more conservative approach to breaking up the Union in older people? That wouldn't be surprising: it wasn't that long ago that Queen and Commonwealth were held in such high regard. Outdated now but it may well have affected the willingness of older people to vote yes. Many, many other factors too.
-The purdah period agreed by Cameron in the Edinburgh agreement stated that within the last 30 days of the referendum, no substantive changes to the proposals on either side would be made. This is intended to stop the very same last minute desperate offers of Devo Max that Cameron, in his statesman like composed wisdom, didn't want on the ballot. He did it anyway in the last three days because he was going to lose Scotland, and having said the only thing he could have to get a No vote, now looks to be reneging on it-leaving Brown looking like even more of a gormless twat that he did after Blair kindly made him nursemaid to the recession and the war on terror. So, we'll never know how many more than 1,617,989 people would have voted yes if he'd stuck to the format of the in/out referendum he himself stipulated, will we?
Lesson here being never trust Cameron, ever. But Lord Ashcroft's polling which you like quoting so much shows that most people who voted no knew they were going to vote no well ahead of referendum day. 72% always knew they were going to vote no or had decided a year or more before the referendum.
Pensions was a big reason no voters voted no, but so was keeping the pound: an issue the SNP never properly addressed.
-Now that Cameron's made his solemn vow to bribe people to vote no, if he backs out, he's basically lied to the Scottish electorate a la 1979. It makes it perfectly justifiable for the SNP to call another referendum.
Except that Lord Ashcroft's polling also shows that No voters think the referendum should settle Scottish independence for a lifetime, whereas unsurprisingly most yes voters think it should be revisited within a decade.
There were more no voters than yes voters. You are badly missing the point.
Fox-
Except that Lord Ashcroft's polling also shows that No voters think the referendum should settle Scottish independence for a lifetime, whereas unsurprisingly most yes voters think it should be revisited within a decade.
There were more no voters than yes voters. You are badly missing the point.
If Devo Max isn't delivered as explicitly promised, and the SNP get re-elected with the intention of calling another referendum, this is democracy, regardless of whether people in the London like it or not. Because of the broken promises, and the scale of the Yes grassroots movement, Yes are likely to win it. You're badly missing your own point.
Given the front page of the Times today this is looking more and more likely, and just saying 'never trust the UK's Democratically elected Prime Minister ever' doesn't really a) endorse democracy either, and b) support your own views that another referendum is somehow illegitimate. If the head of the UK lies to the people of one of the constituent countries to get a vote, he's making himself even more illegitimate than the fact that the SNP actually have a larger majority than him, as do the losing Yes side in terms of vote percentage.
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Like several on here, you're choosing to willfully ignore quite clearly stated parts of my posts, I'll summarise seeing as you can't parse the text for yourself:
-From the Lord Ashcroft poll it's clear that the over 65's delivered 'victory' to the No side.
-Given the (indisputable) scare tactics of the No side about security of pensions (contradicted by the Treasury) the above is deeply unsurprising. Add in their greater likelihood to vote by post weeks before the actual vote and you're seeing a huge swathe of some of society's most insecure and vulnerable voters being influenced by inaccurate information given out by the three main political backers of 'Project Fear' (again, their title). Class act.
-The purdah period agreed by Cameron in the Edinburgh agreement stated that within the last 30 days of the referendum, no substantive changes to the proposals on either side would be made. This is intended to stop the very same last minute desperate offers of Devo Max that Cameron, in his statesman like composed wisdom, didn't want on the ballot. He did it anyway in the last three days because he was going to lose Scotland, and having said the only thing he could have to get a No vote, now looks to be reneging on it-leaving Brown looking like even more of a gormless twat that he did after Blair kindly made him nursemaid to the recession and the war on terror. So, we'll never know how many more than 1,617,989 people would have voted yes if he'd stuck to the format of the in/out referendum he himself stipulated, will we?
-Now that Cameron's made his solemn vow to bribe people to vote no, if he backs out, he's basically lied to the Scottish electorate a la 1979. It makes it perfectly justifiable for the SNP to call another referendum.
If you sincerely don't understand any of the above as being self-defeating tactics, not to mention constitutionally and morally dubious behaviour on behalf of the UK government then really, it's not surprising you can only interpret the issue the way you do, and your voice will inevitably be joining the chorus of the newly outraged little ukipers who can only understand Scottish self-determination in relation to their own wants and needs. You're badly missing the point.