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Implications of Scottish Independence

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Soapy Sam said:
What do those on either side (or none) think of the revamped BT "No thanks" slogan?
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Well on one hand it’s a negative message instead of positive. On the other it may soften the word “No” enough to swing some undecided. I have some sympathy. The Nats made sure they had the positive answer on the ballot paper and it was first choice. That has to be worth a few percent on the day?

Every interview by the Yes side is on message with positive language and finger pointing at the negative No campaign. The lottery money has been put to good use I’d say. It's hard not to use negative language whilst cheerleading for a No vote. But still, Better Together need to up their game and get their communication team sorted out.
 
Strawberry said:
Big deal, a handful of idiots on twitter. I'm sure she's had worse said to her by Potter haters over the years.
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Don't forget the "hacked" account.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-27793975

Meanwhile the Lally affair rumbles on.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-27795389

I see the much-referenced English-based website is at the centre of this particular CyberNat attack though the original source is claimed to be Alex Salmond's office.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...ack-on-mother-who-spoke-up-for-the-Union.html

Jim Sillars tried to dampen things down today in a decent radio interview although he rather spoiled it at the end by implicating The CIA and MI5!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb5cwsZyalY
 
mummymonkey said:
Well on one hand it’s a negative message instead of positive. On the other it may soften the word “No” enough to swing some undecided. I have some sympathy. The Nats made sure they had the positive answer on the ballot paper and it was first choice. That has to be worth a few percent on the day?

Every interview by the Yes side is on message with positive language and finger pointing at the negative No campaign. The lottery money has been put to good use I’d say. It's hard not to use negative language whilst cheerleading for a No vote. But still, Better Together need to up their game and get their communication team sorted out.
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I think this is a significant point. There is obviously significant subliminal value in having the "Yes" option, and marginal value in being the first response on the ballot paper. Psychologists have long known the incredible power of the word "Yes", and the coexisting negative values attached to the word "No". In my opinion, the referendum is incorrectly worded for just this reason. I believe that a more appropriate form would have two statements to choose from, along the lines of:

a) I want Scotland to become an independent nation.
b) I want Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom.

It would be incredibly interesting to see just how the ballot paper was put together, how it turned into a single "Yes" and "No" question, and how "Yes" became allocated to the pro-independence side.

And regarding the rebranding of BT to "No Thanks", I think that they probably realised that they had to put up with all the negative connotations of the word "No" in order to provide a strong and explicit identity link to the appropriate (i.e. "No") box on the ballot sheet. I would be almost certain that the "Better Together" slogan was initially seen as a clever way of promoting the "No" vote without actually having to employ the word "No", and through implying "positive" reasons for putting a cross in the "No" box. I would imagine that they (along with the "Yes" campaign) are doing a lot of private polling and focus group work, and I suspect that through this work they discovered that the link between the slogan "Better Together" and the cross in the "No" box was not as firm as they might have imagined.
 
Francesca R said:
Shareholder turnout percentages are given on page 15. That is for all AGMs and typically the numbers are boosted by (i) institutional investors who are generally more active in governance than the general public and (ii) broker voting by proxy which happens particularly in the US on non-material issues even if the shareholder doesn't return ballots.

Don't think you will find statistics for votes to change articles or charter.

A powerful reason why shareholder voting turnout is lower than public elections/referenda is that they have the alternative option of selling (which obviously has a much higher switching cost in the case of getting out of Scotland or whatever)

It is reasonable to suppose that the Scottish referendum turnout will be at least 80% in my view ETA: (The bookies have markets in that too, and the betting is about 75%)
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I agree with all this. The point I was making was that in order to change a company's constitution/charter/name etc, a 75% majority of all eligible voting rights is required (NB not 75% of those present: 75% of the entire eligible total). I was pointing out that this bolsters a point of view that these sorts of "change vs stay-the-same" questions are a different kettle of fish than things such as election of board members (or members of parliament...), and as such they require demonstrably higher levels of support in order to be viewed as legitimate.
 
Francesca R said:
You missed out (e) which is the theory of rational ignorance. And under that idea, a non-voter does not consider it worth her while to educate herself about pros and cons, because her vote will make approximately zero difference to the outcome, so she assumes that the smartest marginal voter will make the correct decision and she does not need to bother. Which is in accord with a default assumption that non votes defer the decision to those who do.

This is a real effect that happens all the time in elections and can easily apply to referenda.
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Ah but while I have a qualified agreement with your point, I would argue two things:

1) I am suggesting that these sorts of "change vs no-change" votes are fundamentally different from the more usual "either/or" votes (see previous post(s));

2) While there will be some (e) individuals in the referendum, I am arguing that of my original (a) and (b) individuals, there will be significantly more (a)s than (b)s - in other words, of all those who do not vote due to apathy despite actually holding a point of view on the issue, there will be significantly more who hold a "No" point of view than a "Yes" point of view.

So even (for example) if, of all the non-voters, (c)s (d)s and (e)s comprise 40% of that group, this means that the other 60% of non-voters will be (a)s and (b)s. I am arguing that this 60% would not be split 30/30, but perhaps something closer to 50% (a) and 10% (b). And this in turn would mean that one couldn't simply assume that the non-voters should be split 50/50 between those with "Yes" and "No" tendencies.
 
Strawberry said:
Big deal, a handful of idiots on twitter. I'm sure she's had worse said to her by Potter haters over the years.
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But if Scotland were to declare independence, would Harry Potter belong to iScotland or rUK...?

That's not as facetious a question as it might sound actually, since these sorts of intellectual property issues might be a major headache under an independence scenario. It's usually not that hard in principle (though often laborious and difficult in practice) to apportion people, tangible assets (together with their cashflow profiles) and bank balances. But intangible assets might become extremely tricky. Not just in such obvious cases as intellectual property rights, but also in other areas of goodwill (meaning "goodwill" as used in the financial sense).
 
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Information Analyst said:
Makes you wonder if the Weirs have received comparable abuse....

ETA: Seems they did, but didn't get the same media attention.
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Depends what you call comparable. Rowling seems to have been abused by mouth-breathing morons on Twitter. Rowling of course is a public figure.

The Weirs were systematically monstered in articles published in the red-top press - the DM I think.

http://wingsoverscotland.com/this-that-and-the-other/

It was as a result of that that they (who are normally very private people) wrote a letter to the press pleading for the abuse to stop. That itself was twisted against them.

http://wingsoverscotland.com/what-an-********-looks-like/ (Oops, you may have to do a search for that, there is a naughty word in the url.)

A part of that was then quoted out of context to claim that they had "gone public" to ask Alex Salmond to rein in the cybernats.

http://wingsoverscotland.com/what-might-have-and-what-did/

All documented clearly on Wings, with extensive quotes and links. In contrast it's quite hard to find the attacks on Rowling, somewhere in the murkier depths of Twitter. And the alleged abuse of Clare Lally doesn't seem to have happened at all. Reasoned criticism is not abuse.

ETA: One might also bear in mind that while the Weirs merely gave the money without making any comment, Rowling issued a speech claiming that the Yes campaign was all about "racial purity" and comparing independence supporters to Death Eaters. I have a sneaky feeling that the Twitter abuse was to a large extent triggered by that statement rather than the donation itself.

Rolfe.
 
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LondonJohn said:
But if Scotland were to declare independence, would Harry Potter belong to iScotland or rUK...?

That's not as facetious a question as it might sound actually, since these sorts of intellectual property issues might be a major headache under an independence scenario. It's usually not that hard in principle (though often laborious and difficult in practice) to apportion people, tangible assets (together with their cashflow profiles) and bank balances. But intangible assets might become extremely tricky. Not just in such obvious cases as intellectual property rights, but also in other areas of goodwill (meaning "goodwill" as used in the financial sense).
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Neither, it would belong to J.K Rowling. Where she chooses to be a citizen of if there is a yes vote is her own business.
 
And another thing. I've seen worse abuse directed against Rowling by teenage girls who were upset that Harry and Hermione didn't end up as a couple. I once spent most of a day when work was very quiet reading that stuff with mounting incredulity.

The reactions of people she had just compared to Death Eaters were mild in comparison.

Rolfe.
 
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Rolfe said:
And another thing. I've seen worse abuse directed against Rowling by teenage girls who were upset that Harry and Hermione didn't end up as a couple. I once spent most of a day when work was very quiet reading that stuff with mounting incredulity.

The reactions of people she had just compared to Death Eaters were mild in comparison.

Rolfe.
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I think we can expect increasing numbers of No Thanks personal "atrocity stories" if the Yes side gains further in the polls. The scary stories haven't worked, so a new tactic is required.

That is not to absolve or excuse the morons who have insulted Rowling or anyone else, from either side.
 
It's OK for JKR to compare Yes voters to Death Eaters, or for Better Together to present a member of the Scottish shadow cabinet and political activist as "an ordinary Mum". It's "vile abuse" when the less restrained elements react to the former, and the perfectly rational elements simply point out the latter.

That's what's going on here.

http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2014/06/12/spin-and-smear/

And there are some suspicions that the nastiest comments may be posted by actual No activists pretending to be "cybernats". Mainly though, it's absolutely fine when unionists call us Nazis (and not just Twitter trolls but Alistair Darling and other prominent politicians), but anything we say will be assumed to be "vile abuse".

When Susan Calman claimed to have been told by someone else that she had been abused on a blog post, she chose not to look for this blog post but deleted her Twitter account and went whining to the press. There was no blog post. There was no abuse. All there was, was a couple of people in a side conversation in a thread about a completely different BBC comedy programme (HIGNFY) remarking that they also found Calman's performance on the News Quiz singularly unfunny.

However, Gordon Brewer on Newsnight Scotland claimed to have seen this material, and to have judged it "too offensive to show on the BBC" (after 11 pm!). He then went on to attack the "cybernats" for this alleged "vicious attack" for which no evidence at all has ever been discovered. Nobody ever mentions the documented incident of someone tweeting Frankie Boyle's home address with the comment "He's Yes, kill him" or something similar.

It seems that the No side only have to claim something happened for it to become immutable fact and Yes is excoriated, but anything the No side actually does is brushed aside as normal robust debate and move on don't be a crybaby.

Rolfe.
 
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