WHAT AN EPIC BETRAYAL OF A GENERATION

News teams from 120 countries descended on Scotland for the big vote. No doubt their editors back at home had tasked them with collecting footage of joyous flag waving crowds celebrating the birth of the world’s newest country.

Well they never got the chance of course.

In my neck of the Scottish woods, 65% voted for the union. You would think that would mean there would have been cars honking celebratory horns and beaming winners in their ‘No Thanks’ T shirts hugging each other in the streets.

Instead there was nothing. Instead there was a feeling of an all pervading quiet doom. I guess the conversations between the foreign journalists on the ground and their bosses back in the studios of the world must have been getting quite fractious by the late afternoon.

For Christ’s sake there’s got to be some sort of celebration somewhere? Don’t give me this shit! Have you any idea what it has cost to send you idiots out there! Jesus! FIND ME SOMETHING!!!

And then the word must have moved through the grapevine. There is a big ‘No Thanks’ celebration kicking off in George Square in Glasgow. Thank Christ. And what did the news teams of the world find when they arrived in George Square? Well they found a large drunken crowd waving Union Jacks. No doubt they must have noticed quite quickly that these were Union Jacks with a difference: for these were Union Jacks Shankill Rd style, complete with the Red Hand of Ulster.

The crowd with the Union Jacks were singing Rule Britannia with their faces twisted with aggression and offering defiant Nazi salutes to the gathering police lines.

The crowd with the Union Jacks were ripping a Saltire from a tearful teenage girl who was all on her own.

Flares. Police dogs. A kettled group of terrified ‘Yes’ people. Broken glass. The thump of a police helicopter overhead.

So here was the view of our night of celebration in the wake of 55% of Scots opting to stay in the Union.

Business for Scotland estimated that the air time the country was given around the world would have cost $800 million had the country had to buy it on the commercial market. We could have sent out pictures of streets mobbed with joyous crowds.

But we didn’t.

Instead we gave them pictures of skinheads wrapped in the Union Flag giving Nazi salutes whilst they belted out the national anthem.

You could call it missing a trick. Yes, you could call it that.

But it was much more than that.

It was an epic betrayal of a generation.

Scots voted ‘Yes’ all the way to the age of 55. Had the over 65’s been excluded from the vote, then ‘Yes’ would have won the day by 54% to 46%.

But the over 65’s were not excluded from the vote. And the over 65’s voted for the Union in their droves.

73% of over 65’chose the Status Quo because they had been frightened into doing so. The scandalous dog whistle politics of the Establishment got right into their heads and persuaded them to walk away from their grandchildren. They were told that their pensions were at risk. They were told that they would no longer be able to watch ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ and ‘Eastenders’. They were told their power and grocery bills would go through the roof.

The pension lie was the most unforgiveable. A Pension Minister from Westminster announced at an early stage of the campaign that there was a cast iron legal obligation in place which meant that anyone who had paid their National Insurance premiums to HM Treasury would be paid their pension regardless of where they were living. That is why millions of Brits have moved south to the sunshine of Spain where their pensions are paid in full every week.

The ‘Yes’ campaign did all it could to spread this particular Government word. But all we had were public meetings and the social media. Many of the over 65’s don’t use the social media. Many don’t leave the house much.

Instead they read the Daily Express and Daily Mail and the Daily Record.

And they watch the BBC.

And any one of these main stream media outlets could have clearly reported the words of the Westminster Minister when he gave his absolute confirmation that pensions would honoured in full. They could have given this group of loyal customers a proper service. They could have given them some clear, easily understood information which would have enabled them to make a balanced decision free from fear.

But they were not given that clear information.

Instead they were bombarded with wave after wave of lies and misinformation. Project Fear carpet bombed the over 65’s with lies much like the RAF once upon a time carpet bombed Hamburg.

And it worked.

73% of over 65’s voted for the safety of the status quo complete with food banks, nuclear weapons, illegal wars, and £1.5 trillion of debt.

The newspapers who lied for the Establishment love nothing better than to fill their column inches with horror stories about how appallingly bad British teenagers are. They love nothing better to dwell on tales of binge drinking and teenage pregnancy and low levels of numeracy. They paint pictures of our children as being feral beings in hooded tops who are a constant threat to any innocent passer by. This is why so many over 65’s are too frightened to leave their houses.

Not surprisingly the media failed to notice how many of the newly enfranchised 16 and 17 years olds became actively involved in politics as the campaign gathered momentum.

When the day came, well over 80% of this much denigrated generation turned out to vote for the very first time.

And 71% of them voted ‘Yes’. They voted for a better Scotland to grow up in. They voted for no more nuclear bombs and food banks and benefit sanctions.

They voted for hope over fear.

Well, the silver haired generation killed that hope and yesterday a smug faced David Cameron told us all that the hope had now been killed for a lifetime.

Within hours of the final result, the world moved on as the great alliance of the parties of the Westminster gravy train started to fall apart. The solemn vow to the people of Scotland which only days earlier had been plastered across the front page of the Daily Record was broken before dusk fell.

Boris Johnson was asked about the vow. What vow? I never made any vow.

Surprise, surprise. It wasn’t what it said on the tin.

Well shock, horror and stop the front page. The British Establishment will lie through its teeth to hang onto its cosy world.

These days it is almost impossible to find anyone who will admit to voting for Margaret Thatcher in 1979, which is quite ridiculous when you think that she won well over 40% of the vote.

In a matter of weeks, it will be similarly hard to find anyone up here who will admit to being one of the 55% of Scots who voted in the name of fear. But by then it will matter not a jot.

Our moment has come and gone. The young voted for something better and got the door slammed in their faces. The Establishment won and the people lost. A quiet air of doom has settled over the country and never again will Scotland be able to hold its head high in the world.

It really happened.

 

We really became the first people in history who were too scared to take our destiny into our own hands. Not surprisingly the rest of the world is gobsmacked. What about Braveheart and all that?

There is no Braveheart.

Instead there are a million frightened pensioners living out bleak and lonely lives behind their closed doors. Watching Bruce Forsyth on a Saturday night is as good as their lives get. They proved to be an easy mark. They were easily scared.

But please don’t blame our youngsters for what happened. They voted overwhelmingly for hope and they did so with wonderful enthusiasm.

And they were betrayed.

A lot of people should be very, very ashamed about that betrayal.

And instead of the world getting to see millions partying on the streets, we gave them pictures of thugs draped in the Union Flag singing Rule Britannia and pretending they were at a Nuremburg rally.

God help us.