General Election in the offing and the misinformation begins
published this on 12:09 am, Tuesday, 9th February, 2010Community News| Politics | Comments (rss) | Respond | Ping |
Please can we have a grown up election campaign in Argyll and Bute, even if nowhere else?
Can we have politicians who engage in argument and discussion of the issues with the electorate instead of using fact-free emotional triggers as a short cut?
The first approach pays tribute to the intelligence of the voter and brings substance and respect to politics. The second simply treats voters as mindless and easily frightened cannon fodder who will react en masse rather than as individuals.
For Argyll has tried hard to bring reason and evidence to politics in Argyll:
- publishing a series of articles on how the European Union structures work; and clarifying what you are actually voting for and what you are not voting for in the Euro elections. We like to think that these – which were surprisingly heavily read – played a small part in Argyll’s encouragingly higher voter turnout in June 2009.
- publishing a series of position statements on a list of commons topics by the two leading challengers for the Argyll and Bute Westminster seat, Councillor Gary Mulvaney for the Conservatives and Mike Mackenzie for the SNP.
- publishing profiles on both of these candidates – which will soon be joined by a profile of the sitting MP, Alan Reid of the Liberal Democrats – with republishing of the Mulvaney and Mackenzie profiles in sequence.
In the position statements, both challengers stayed away from party political points scoring (the rules of our game prevented each even mentioning the name of their own or any other party), discussed issues with insight and a level of informedness we don’t often discover – and which dignified politics.
After all this – it has been disappointing to hear from Mike Mackenzie that, in a recent fact-finding visit to Helensburgh, he found his party regularly accused by residents of ‘planning to shut down the base’ – the UK nuclear submarine base at Faslane, with its weapons storage facility at nearby Coulport.
Mr Mackenzie feels that behind these political dirty tricks is the fact that the SNP achieved its best ever result in the Lomond and Helensburgh area at last year’s Euro Election and recognises how important the large population of this area is in determining who wins the Westminster Argyll and Bute seat.
He says: ‘The SNP has made it plain it hugely values the Faslane base and that it sees a greatly enhanced role for this well regarded conventional navy base. The idea that an independent Scotland with huge oilfields, huge fishing grounds and a command of a vast area of the North Atlantic requiring adequate defence would close this facility is absurd.
‘It is very obvious that some elements have been misrepresenting the SNP position. There are no prizes for guessing who these might be but the fact that the SNP is now in government has reduced its opposition to panic and the spreading of a continuous stream of misinformation and distortion about us.
‘I am appalled that malicious misinformation about the SNP’s position on the Coulport/ Faslane base has become a feature for this coming election.
‘I believe that scaremongering about people’s jobs is utterly despicable and completely unacceptable.
‘The SNP, along with the LibDems and the majority of sensible public opinion, remains opposed to the renewal of Trident.
This in no way suggests the closure of the base.
‘I am afraid that Lib Dem, Labour and Tory spokespersons have been guilty of deliberately conflating the Trident facility, which employs comparatively few people, with the much larger work force tied to the conventional base.
‘We will make sure that everybody in this area is made aware of the truth and in the present climate I don’t think sensible people will appreciate being fooled by politicians.’
Regardless of personal political preferences, no one is wise to accept what any politician at any level says to them, without asking for chapter and verse of the evidence – and checking it out for themselves.
The right to vote is something people fought and died for and many in other countries do not have.
After the centralising of power under Thatcher and Blair and the profoundly damaging culture of dishonesty and removal of civil liberties that has characterised the Blair and Brown administrations at Westminster, the power of the vote is all we have left.
We need to use it and to use it thoughtfully. Anyone who expects us – or entices us – to use that one great popular democratic instrument casually and without evidence deserves neither our compliance nor our respect.
It would be great to see Argyll follow its stand-out performance in the Euro elections with another standard-setting vote following an exciting, engaged and honourable campaign.
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February 9th, 2010 at 10:26 am
Perhaps ‘For Argyll’ will ask Gary Mulvaney why he has published the ‘SNP will close Faslane’ lie in his recent large leaflet. I cannot believe that he genuinely believes this to be the case but would be most interested in his explanation! Many Thanks
February 9th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
You will not get it, Dorothy.
I have tried on several occasions but answers do not emerge.
I asked Alan Reid why he was trailing a “graph” in his latest information leaflet with the result of the last general election back in 2005 – the last decent result that the Liberal Democrats had acheived in this constituency but light years away from the realities of today.
He replied to me in lofty tones that it was only relevant to compare “like with like” in such instances. Why then I asked innocently had he used the same 2005 election graph when he was canvassing on behalf of George Lyon in the Euro Election last summer?
Then it all went quiet.
February 9th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
For Dorothy: This is the value of participatory online democracy – the evidence always gets out.
February 9th, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Perhaps For Argyll could also ask Mr Mulvaney why he is standing as an Argyll candidate but persists in getting his leaflets printed in Glasgow? Surely he should support Argyll printers?
February 9th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
The idea that Faslane would be closed when Scotland becomes independent is plainly nonsense. A small independent country strategically placed in the North Atlantic would certainly have its own navy. We have a long coastline, we have a fishing industry to protect, we are strategically placed in the north Atlantic to guard trade routes between Europe and America. It would not be a large navy. We can get an idea of the size by comparing it with other countries in North Europe like Denmark and Sweden.
Faslane would be the logical main base for the Scottish navy with a secondary base at Rosyth. There would inevitably be a deal done to keep the Royal Navy submarine base as it is after a political settlement is reached. We would want the Trident missiles removed from Scottish soil as soon as it can be practically arranged. But for other units of the Royal Navy to use facilities at Faslane for many years after independence seems to be a perfectly reasonable policy to me.
A gradual decline in the workforce over many years is what I would consider a fair possibility. It would not descend into closure, So the opposition claims that the SNP want to close Faslane are scaremongering. It is coupled with the unseemly hypocrisy of fighting to preserve jobs at Faslane by our sitting MP while his party holds a policy of nuclear disarmament.
February 10th, 2010 at 12:24 am
I think if Gary Mulvaney has actually printed on his leaflet an assertion that the SNP will close the base,when in actual fact the SNP’s published policy is to retain and develop the base, he requires to retract that statement publicly.
I was with Mike MacKenzie on Saturday when several constituents repeated this untruth and I thought it was as a result of the Jackie Baillie misinformation campaign. Now we know the source. For the record just over 900 people are employed on the base on the Trident programme out of several thousand workers and of the 900 plus a large proportion are not locally recruited. Sadly, I threw Mulvaney’s leaflet away after reading very little of it.
February 10th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
Mulvaney and his Tory minders have clearly decided to go negative regardless of the facts, in the hope and expectation that mud will stick.
Blatant lying for short term votes is the hallmark of a deeply cynical and mendacious electoral machine, concerned not with political values but naked power as an end in itself. So much for skein of ‘honesty’ that Cameron has been peddling over the past few years.
As for Mulvaney, he has exposed himself as a mere cipher of Tory HQ, a marionette who would dance to whatever tune that Cameron called, regardless of Argyll & Bute’s interests.
This Constituency needs an honest, down to earth & hard working MP, determined to stick up for Argyll & Bute and Scotland as we face £800 million worth of cuts this coming year alone. That man is Mr MacKenzie.
February 10th, 2010 at 8:02 pm
What effect would the snp’s so called defense policies have on the many POL jetty workers in Kintyre ?
They’d face the dole queue for sure .
it’s about time this threat to the workers and the security of our country was highlighted . all power to Gary Mulvaney and any other candidate who exposes the separatist nonsense of the snp and the ill thought out policies parroted by their failed candidate .
February 10th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
kintyre1
Any idea of what the SNP’s defence policy is by any chance?
Didn’t think so.
February 11th, 2010 at 11:11 am
kintyre1
To give you a wee hint – you can very easily access the SNP’s defence position if you are actually serious. Let’s see you do so. Then come back with an informed position on it.
February 11th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
no Royal Navy no need for the POl depot
February 11th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Is that the best you can do?
Name us any small country with a coastline that doesn’t have a functioning navy.
As I said – access the SNP Defence Policy then come back with some informed points rather than witless scaremongering.
February 11th, 2010 at 8:34 pm
is writing letters to defend fraudsters the best the snp can do ?
February 11th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
nationalists want to destroy the British Royal Navy and replace it with a fleet of off shore patrol boats!
the small state the snp admire so much , the republic of ireland , has 8 patrol boats the sort of thing you find in the crinan canal .
what an insult to our homeland , to our history , our armed services and our professional armed forces personnel who have fought and died defending our freedom and our liberty .