Shock and awe is for losers

Ian Smart is personally convinced that as the polls show no sign that the SNP have a hope of winning the referendum in 2014, there will be no referendum. Yesterday he added a post which he was referring to on Twitter as “Shock and Awe” about how the “Better Together” campaign will push their argument.

Well, here I propose to let them inside the briefing room. I expect the same “shocked and outraged” response from my SNP readers as some more naive Democrats expressed about Rove. But, while maybe not quite in the Axelrod and Plouffe class, the people around Eck are more street wise. They’ve already wargamed this and realise that they do not have the counter arguments. That’s why they are desperately trying to avoid having a Referendum at all. The good news is that the Tories are apparently coming round to imposing it upon them.

(For my own thinking about this, see

• #SOPA and #Indyref: Why the Tories are going to fight foul
• Why devomax doesn’t work
• Why two questions?

You’re welcome.)

Yesterday the Sunday Herald ran a story about Alex Salmond which they attempted to dress up as a negative story, but which is actually pretty nice.

#SOPA and #Indyref: Why the Tories are going to fight foul

Tomorrow, 18th January, Reddit and English Wikipedia and quite a lot of WordPress and various other online communities, big and small, will be blacked-out from 5am, British time, to 5 again the next morning (midnight to midnight, Eastern Standard Time, or the hours Washington DC keeps). This is a protest against the SOPA and PIPA legislation: more links here. This is not actually a post directly about SOPA and PIPA, which none of us outside the US can actually do anything about anyway aside from note what this legislation is, why the US government is doing it, and, if you’re a geek with a talent for explaining stuff to politicians, writing to your MP and asking to meet with them to explain why threatening a website owner with five years in jail for the 21st-century equivalent of recording a film on your VCR with the intention of watching it over and over again is stupid.

There, I said I wasn’t going to talk about it. Excuse me. I’ll move on.

Why will the Tories fight foul? What does this have to do with US Congress legislating on the Internet?

On ZDNet Government, David Gewirtz writes: 5 reasons why SOPA, PROTECT-IP and other legislative idiocy will never die:

• You can’t really compete against consumer behavior.
• Fear sells.
• There’s a lot of money to be made from fear.
• Politicians need lobbyists.
• Lobbyists have a disproportionate influence on politicians.

First of all, let’s consider: assuming that the Tories want the Union to be preserved, what’s their best means of going about it?