Cameron is deluded to think the Scots would miss a chance to kick the ‘effing Tories’

Foot in mouth moment: David Cameron asks Scotland if it is "fed up with the effing Tories". Of course it is.

Foot in mouth moment: David Cameron asks Scotland if it is “fed up with the effing Tories”. Of course it is.

It’s a miracle the number of people ready to vote ‘Yes’ for Scottish independence doesn’t multiply exponentially every time David Cameron opens his mouth.

Today he probably thought he was being daring when he said, “People can feel it’s a bit like a general election, that you make a decision and, five years later, you can make another decision, if you’re fed up with the effing Tories, give them a kick and maybe we’ll think again.”

His aim was to belittle the idea that kicking the “effing Tories” is a good idea in this context. The trouble is, he was saying it to Scotland – a country that the “effing Tories” have been kicking since at least Margaret Thatcher’s premiership, if not before.

These good people have been victimised time and time again – used as the testing-ground for heartless policies like the Poll Tax, or forgotten when investment opportunities came around.

They aren’t to blame for this – they didn’t bring it on themselves as Scotland has habitually rejected Conservatism for decades. A Conservative government in Westminster is completely unrepresentative of the Scottish people.

That is why Cameron’s next words were so disastrous. He said: “This is a decision about not the next five years, it’s a decision about the next century.”

If ever there was an incentive for Scots to vote ‘Yes’, that was it.

Vox Political does not want Scotland to vote ‘Yes’.

Not because the rest of the UK will be stuck with the Tories for decades to come – the Telegraph might want to spout this claim as fact but Tony Blair proved it was false three times in a row.

Not because the financial implications are complicated, either – although it would be interesting to know how much of the UK’s national debt would go across to a newly-independent Scotland.

Vox Political wants Scotland to remain in the Union because the Union is stronger with Scotland than without. The United Kingdom, including Scotland, has spent years clawing its way out of a financial tragedy that was the fault of only a few overprivileged nitwits but affected millions, and we’ve been doing it despite the worst efforts of the Conservative-led government in Westminster.

How much longer will we all have to struggle – in both a newly-independent Scotland and a ‘rump’ UK – if we are separated and diminished?

The arguments for separation don’t make sense. We should stay together, kick the Conservatives out – forever – next year and move forward from there. Any other choice could ruin both countries.

But it is up to Scotland to decide all our fates.

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26 Comments

  1. hilary772013 September 10, 2014 at 10:22 pm - Reply

    Mike I have family in Scotland and you are so right.. the biggest asset to the YES vote is David Cameron.. If this referendum had been conducted prior to 2010 the NO vote would have been assured but now I think it is too close to call but I have a feeling we will see the YES vote win thanks to the Tories.. God help us all if it does.. FRIGHTENING!!

  2. kevin fitmaurice-brown September 10, 2014 at 10:28 pm - Reply

    Cameron’s little schoolboy antics and comments ( who the hell writes the rubbish he speaks anyway ) makes fools of the government about once every hour and provides a platform for Scotland to leave England. Cameron is currently running a one man show to provide all the reasons the Scots need to decide to leave England to its fate. Stupid, childish, immature, little schoolboy finally shows us all what an idiot we have had running our country. well running it down on behalf of his idiot corporate pals.

    • Mr.Angry September 11, 2014 at 7:18 am - Reply

      Here here Kevin, well said.

  3. Mark Potter-Irwin September 10, 2014 at 10:34 pm - Reply

    It would have been sensible for the UK to show how much it values Scotland when we were “Better Together” instead of now promising to be faithful now she is threatening to leave.
    Is there a refuge for battered UK nations apart from independence?

  4. Malcolm Burt September 10, 2014 at 11:23 pm - Reply

    If the polls are anything to go by,the B.B.C. have the no`s 6 points clear,& like the blog my heart wants Scotland to remain a part of us.All this aside should Scotland decide to go,then Cameron has brought it on himself & he must accept full responsibility for it.We must remember that if we are better together,why have we not been better for the last decade?We cannot,& nor must we give any credence to Cameron`s promises of more powers to Scotland if they stay with us.I don`t see how he can do for Scotland what he can`t do for Wales or Northern Ireland.I think we can safely write the national debt off at 1.5 trillion G.B.P.& we all know that debt is a great tool of fear & oppression.

  5. Stephen Bee September 11, 2014 at 1:12 am - Reply

    I suspect a little bit of reverse psychology by Cameron..plead with scotland to stay in the expected hope they’ll actually vote yes and leave…which means Labour lose around 40 seats I believe pretty much assuring a further 5 years of Tory rule..to finish off what they’ve started. I hope I’m wrong, but ideally I would like the Scots to vote Yes and show up Westminster for the bunch or ragtag corrupt criminals they are…and thus arouse the english to take the tories into perpetual battle with the working class who will, hopefully, oust the tories for all the right reasons..and they go down in remembered history for the most total a**holes in living memory..but then pigs might fly..:-(

    • Mike Sivier September 12, 2014 at 12:37 pm - Reply

      I don’t think he’s that intelligent.
      Labour can still win an election without Scotland – look at the victories of 1997, 2001 and 2005 for proof. I believe there is an article on the Huffington Post site that may indicate the same, today.

  6. Rupert Mitchell (@rupert_rrl) September 11, 2014 at 6:50 am - Reply

    The South obviously does care about Scotland and the people want unification. We are all stronger together and a Labour government will achieve equality for all. I hope Scotland cares about us too.

  7. Mr.Angry September 11, 2014 at 7:17 am - Reply

    I just hope Cameron is pleased with himself and his atrocious tory policies and his team of plonkers that have divided a nation. His presence in Scotland I am sure would have infuriated the Scottish people even more so. God knows who had written his speech they must have taken illegal substances.

    I personally do not want Scotland to go it alone but can’t blame them as the thrust of the policies by this evil government have impoverished not only the Scots but the whole bloody country.

    I was never interested in politics until the last 5-6 years I was too busy working my butt off and paying taxes like most people. Then in your latter years you start to listen and read what is going on and how your country is being run and what a learning curve it has become.

    I am still trying to come to terms having now understood the ruling classes are nothing more than a corrupt bunch of criminals that are exempt from the laws of the land.

    “Snouts in the trough” has never been such a perfect or fitting phrase for these individuals.

    Heaven help us all and if the Scots do get independence I wish them well and hope it will improve the Scottish way of life which I am sure it will.

    If this shower get in again I hope Wales and Ireland consider going it alone, then we could draw a circle around the M25 and rename it New England.

  8. Roche September 11, 2014 at 8:20 am - Reply

    Yesterday in the Commons both William Hague and Harriet Harman spoke to beg the Scots not to secede. Then after a Labour MP stood up and spoke against the Bedroom Tax dear little William stated that it shouldn’t be got rid of because it would cost the taxpayer money, which is kind of funny because the Scots hate the Bedroom Tax passionately and want to see it gone ASAP. Osborne did the same thing on the Andrew Marr show virtually slavering at the prospect of making swingeing cuts to social security if he remained Chancellor. Not exactly the best way to win friends and influence Scottish people to vote to maintain the Union was it?

  9. tommaz jay September 11, 2014 at 10:41 am - Reply

    Scotland deserves better and now has a chance to decide its own destiny. If we, in the remainder if the United Kingdom suffer because of their independence we have brought it upon our own heads by allowing a Tory elected (or not) [government to] decimate the whole of the UK as far as social policy is concerned with its eugenics agenda.
    The Scots don’t believe a word that the UK politicians of any party promise them because they have heard it time and again. If the boot was on the other foot and the UK was ruled from Edinburgh and a chance of self-determination was offered to us would we take it? Dead right we would.
    If Scotland becomes independent, and I think it will we will just have work in the same way as we do with, say Ireland. We need their oil, water, electricity and most importantly their wealth in the form of our exports to them.
    It’s a bit patronising to say that we worry about how they will survive as an independent nation and far, far too late to say we are sorry for sh***g on you for the last three hundred years, can we be best friends again?
    At the end of the day it all about the money, nothing more, nothing less in the words of the pretender at number ten.

  10. Gary September 11, 2014 at 12:47 pm - Reply

    In Scotland the campaign has been ongoing for two years. But its nice of Dave to pop up and remind us, from behind closed doors, that this is NOT an election but a referendum. One thing not spoken about much is the opportunities provided by a YES vote to everyone else. Obviously Scottish MPs have to go but Scottish Lords will have to go too! And how, exactly, do you define a Scottish Lord?? This would necessitate a root and branch reform of Westminster, perhaps dislodging enough of the old boys network to make it something approaching a modern democracy. This, and the probability of having to devolve more power to the regions may be the kick start to British politics it so desperately needs. And don’t forget, this could also lead to the scrapping of Britain’s nuclear weapons!

  11. Samuel Miller (@Hephaestus7) September 11, 2014 at 1:11 pm - Reply

    As an individual from Quebec who voted in both of my province’s 1980 and 1995 independence referendums, my view is that Scotland’s independence vote will be won by the ‘no’ side; several days ago, I opined that the ‘yes’ side didn’t have enough momentum at this late stage. Given the immense importance and life-changing implications of the vote, there will be many individuals who will change their minds at the last minute and ultimately vote no. That is what the 1995 Quebec independence referendum demonstrated.

    That said, I do support the ‘yes’ side because I regard Westminster’s draconian welfare reforms as having been catastrophic for Britain’s sick and disabled.

  12. Samuel Miller (@Hephaestus7) September 11, 2014 at 1:18 pm - Reply

    There are interesting parallels between Quebec and Scotland. Standard Life is threatening to quit Scotland if voters back independence. Sun Life Financial left Quebec on January 6 1978, about a year after the separatist Parti Québécois had taken power on Nov. 15, 1976.

  13. jaypot2012 September 11, 2014 at 4:57 pm - Reply

    I live in Scotland and I know for myself that the only way to rid ourselves of Westminster is to vote Yes!
    I know for sure that these “promised new laws” will not come into fruition. The Scots have good memories and know how they have either been ignored or used for decades and they trust no party leader from Westminster.
    Maybe this will give a kick up the erse to Scottish Labour who are as weak as a newborn kitten, they may grow a set and become a party that Scotland can have as a party for people, like it used to be.
    I am sick and tired of the continual lies and threats that have been going on for a long time now and are getting worse. If businesses want to leave Scotland then that’s fine, others will take their place. Jobs will be made and we’ll get rid of the weapons of mass destruction, to name just a tiny bit of what independence will do for us.

    • jaypot2012 September 11, 2014 at 4:59 pm - Reply

      Forgot to say, after the vote and if we do win independence, I will be celebrating more as Cameron has to resign :D :D :D

      • Mike Sivier September 11, 2014 at 10:05 pm - Reply

        I will be disappointed if the vote is ‘Yes’ but – as you point out – there’s a silver lining to every cloud.

  14. tommaz jay September 11, 2014 at 10:12 pm - Reply

    Is free speach dead

    • Mike Sivier September 12, 2014 at 12:46 pm - Reply

      What do you mean?

  15. Joan Edington September 12, 2014 at 11:40 am - Reply

    As a Scot who will be voting Yes (sorry Mike), I will be doing so as much because of the lies and antics of Cameron, Clegg and Milliband as my true wish for the chance of a real democracy, if slightly poorer and with less power internationally. I simply can’t see any of the evil trio, whoever is in power in London after 2015, granting the extra billions they are attempting to bribe Scotland with. There is enough unrest down south about The Barnett Formula, that is seen to give us more than our share as it is, despite Scots paying more tax in per head than they get back. There would be a revolution if we were given any more. Ah! Maybe one of those would be worth staying for.

    • Mike Sivier September 12, 2014 at 1:16 pm - Reply

      What about the antics of Salmond? He hasn’t been straight with you.
      Remember you won’t just be slightly poorer; you’ll be starting with your share of the UK national debt as a millstone around your neck, and fewer resources with which to pay it off.
      Your distrust of the “evil trio” is well-placed in two cases but unfounded in the third. Can you demonstrate a time when Ed has ever lied to the public about what he was doing?

      • Joan Edington September 13, 2014 at 11:32 am - Reply

        Yes, we both know that Cameron and Clegg are true liars since we have seen the results of many of them in action. Perhaps in Milliband’s case it might be too strong a word. Maybe it is just that he is making promises that he has no legal right to make. Is that a white lie? They all descended on us together making these promises, which several undecided voters will take for gospel, when they have no ability to carry them through without them being passed by a Westminster government. If not lies, certainly deceitful.

        • Mike Sivier September 13, 2014 at 11:48 am - Reply

          No, he can make those promises, because MPs from his and the other parties are likely to vote them through in order to keep Scotland in the union.

      • Joan Edington September 13, 2014 at 12:08 pm - Reply

        I think that is what they hope Scots will believe but is unlikely to happen for the reason I gave in my original post. Once they had secured a No vote, there would be no way the Scots could hold them to these promises. English voters, by far the majority, would (quite rightly I would say) be against them.

        • Mike Sivier September 13, 2014 at 2:00 pm - Reply

          In Ed’s case, I stand by my claim that you have no grounds to believe he would not keep his word.
          On the whole, it does seem that the party leaders would have a more believable case if they had enacted these promises before the referendum takes place.
          English voters wouldn’t have had any say in the matter if the changes were enacted during this Parliament – and there’s plenty of room for that.

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