Nick Robinson

[Mr Rational]

See all this 'it was secretly organised by YES/SNP' - it's a load of shite. If anything, it was detrimental to our side and I know that folk within the SNP we're going nuts over it. It was a bunch of yahoo McGlashans pissing about a place that didn't give a flying f**k about them.

They would have been better canvassing that day like the sensible people were.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

I'm not sure why you thought that directly responding while answering literally none of the questions in that post would salvage any credibility for you.

Age: 24

Says it all.

Think's he fucking knows it all.

Oaksoft is so right about you.

Did you bother to read the other posts before?

Or did you just do your usual deliberate out-of-context assassination attempt?

A poor man's Sensible.

[dirty dingus]

Pat Lee isn't an SNP councillor he left the SNP and is standing for Solidarity at next years election. Also most of the speakers at the BBC protests were more from socialist parties/groups than SNP supporters.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Pat Lee isn't an SNP councillor he left the SNP and is standing for Solidarity at next years election. Also most of the speakers at the BBC protests were more from socialist parties/groups than SNP supporters.

The original poster claimed it had nothing to do with the SNP or the Yes campaign.

Pat Lee was still an SNP councillor at the time - certainly in October - but I am aware that he had "disagreements" with other elements.

There was an orchestration to the events - my own view is that it actually diverted from the real issues and made the Yes campaign look petty. Obviously the OTT response from others - comparisons to shall we say, other "historical groups", are wide of the mark too.

In my own or opinion the issue with the BBC is not bias but increasingly lazy journalism.

[dirty dingus]

The BBC were pretty petty too, trying to get professor john robertson the sack after his analysis found bbc scotland to be bias over it's referendum reporting.

[Mr Rational]

Jesus H fecking Christ - no it wasn't organised by the SNP or Yes.

I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Jesus H fecking Christ - no it wasn't organised by the SNP or Yes.

I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall.

You keep telling yourself that.

I've never yet seen a large-scale protest that didn't have some political input in the background - be it party political or from an organised pressure group.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Alex Massie has written several articles on the issue of bias at the BBC. This is an interesting one from June last year:

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/06/yes-of-course-the-bbc-is-biased-against-scottish-nationalists/

Yes, of course the BBC is biased against the Scottish Nationalists.

There are many reasons for this but let’s begin with the first and simplest: it is the British Broadcasting Corporation. Who could have imagined that an organisation that, rightly or not, sees itself as both creator and guardian of much of modern Britain’s identity and culture might think itself threatened by a movement hell-bent on destroying, or at least significantly changing, that identity and culture? I know, me neither.

Now of course the BBC is not consciously or deliberately biased against the SNP and against Scottish independence. It is scrupulous about ensuring ‘No’ voices are balanced by ‘Yes’ voices just as, in other areas and debates it does its best to be seen as an impartial, disinterested, referee.

I’ve written about this before but it bears repeating that the BBC’s news coverage is invariably suspicious of government initiatives. This is, in general, only proper even if it also inevitably means the corporation’s news coverage is infected by a bias towards the status quo. New ideas must be tested and known knowns are preferable to known unknowns.

A general election is a different kind of beast. Come election-time the BBC will, quite properly, subject the opposition’s proposals to scrutiny too. They will be asked to prove their readiness for office just as the government will be asked to justify their claims to another term.

But not all political debates are as clear as a general election. Not all choices are alike. It’s for this reason, among others, that the corporation views British membership of the EU as a good – and settled – thing and thus the burden of proof is upon those who wish the United Kingdom to leave.

The BBC gives UKIP plenty of airtime (partly because Mr Farage’s party exert a kind of appalling fascination and partly because BBC executives worry, deep down and just a little, that they might be missing something important) but you’d be hard-pressed to make a convincing case that it’s largely favourable coverage.

The Scottish independence question is much more like the european question than it is like an ordinary general election. The burden of proof is presumed to lie with those advocating separation not with those who can live with the status quo.

And so it is understandable, I think, that independence advocates are given a tougher time than Unionists. The status quo is not intolerable so why change it? Now, sure, nationalists disagree. They think the status quo is intolerable. But, perhaps puzzled by all this fervour north of the border, the BBC wants them to explain why that might be the case.

Not just the BBC either, of course, most of the press too. In January I suggested one of the Yes campaign’s goals was to shift the burden of proof to Unionists. Not Why should Scotland be independent? but Why shouldn’t Scotland be independent? They have had some success in doing so, at least in as much as Yes-supporting columnists parse every announcement made by any Unionist while declining to subject the SNP’s claims to any comparable scrutiny. But, still and with these exceptions duly noted, in general the media still thinks, or still behaves as though it thinks, the burden of proof lies with the Yes side.

The media doesn’t subject Unionist counter-offers to independence to as much scrutiny because, in general, it thinks those promises of more powers after the referendum an issue of mere secondary importance to be wrestled over once the main battle has been decided.

As the Liberal Democrats will tell you, the media struggles with any story that has more than two sides. The press is minded to deal with or consider what No means after there has been a No vote, not before. There’s not much point in obsessing over Labour’s plans for a new Scotland Act until they’re in a position to deliver that Act. Same for the Tories.

But the SNP have their referendum and it’s happening now. So that’s what attention will focus upon. They want to make a change – a whopping great radical change too – and so weaknesses in their case are, probably inevitably, going to attract more attention than weaknesses in a case that says, actually, we can just muddle along much as we have muddled along until now.

Perhaps that is unfair but it’s also the way it is. Yesterday’s gathering of a few hundred protestors angry at BBC Bias is, I think, understandable but misguided. Understandable because it’s part of a nascent dirk-in-the-back interpretation of a No vote (if Scotland votes No!) but misguided because it rather risks making the nationalists look like petty, chippy, clowns. Which is a look the modern SNP has spent thirty years moving away from.

One final thing: there is a curious part of the nationalist movement that rather objects to British people playing a part in this referendum. Sometimes you get the impression that some (doubtless a minority!) nationalists think it is disgraceful that the British government uses taxpayers’ money to make the case for maintaining the UK. As though the UK government should be a disinterested observer in this debate. A cute but rather fanciful notion.

Now the BBC is not a wing of the government but it would hardly be a surprise if, somewhere deep inside its institutional consciousness, it believed the break-up of Britain would be a bad thing. In that respect nationalist insinuations about The Unionist Implications of the Great British Bake-off are not quite as far from the mark as they might initially seem. But, look, it’s the BBC.

[Mr Rational]

Well, you can also believe what you want to as well.

If it was organised as a protest, even under the counter, lead activists and other folk involved would have been given a wee heads up and there was nothing saying 'go to this'.

There was a lot of communication going on at the time none of it was to do with this (I kept every single email and correspondence I had in the two years), we were telling folk in Edinburgh not to attend and concentrate on our own patch as it was counterproductive to the overall campaign.

You know what, believe what you want. I'm arguing with an idiot that had no clue what went on other than what he has read from labour HQ.

Enjoy yer night.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Well, you can also believe what you want to as well.

If it was organised as a protest, even under the counter, lead activists and other folk involved would have been given a wee heads up and there was nothing saying 'go to this'.

There was a lot of communication going on at the time none of it was to do with this (I kept every single email and correspondence I had in the two years), we were telling folk in Edinburgh not to attend and concentrate on our own patch as it was counterproductive to the overall campaign.

You know what, believe what you want. I'm arguing with an idiot that had no clue what went on other than what he has read from labour HQ.

Enjoy yer night.

Read from Labour HQ?

Not been a member for 23 years so that's not possible.

The SNP have previous for organising protests like this:

https://mobile.twitter.com/chrislawsnp/status/473032862997159936

What's also interesting is that every single one of the rent-a-quotes used around the time are from nationalists who are active on social media. And if it wasn't "organised" then why were so many (my own brother and various cousins of my mother) urging people to attend via their twitter accounts?

As I said I have no problem if they wanted to protest - that is their right - I just think it was a complete distraction (like the whole Murphy's Mob storyline) from the real stories that mattered.

[strichener]

Read from Labour HQ?

Not been a member for 23 years so that's not possible.

The SNP have previous for organising protests like this:

https://mobile.twitter.com/chrislawsnp/status/473032862997159936

What's also interesting is that every single one of the rent-a-quotes used around the time are from nationalists who are active on social media. And if it wasn't "organised" then why were so many (my own brother and various cousins of my mother) urging people to attend via their twitter accounts?

As I said I have no problem if they wanted to protest - that is their right - I just think it was a complete distraction (like the whole Murphy's Mob storyline) from the real stories that mattered.

If it was organised by the SNP or Yes campaign, you have not provided a single shred of proof. For that reason, I call your claim bullshit.

Perhaps the issue here is that you cannot differentiate between supporters and the organisations?

[doulikefish]

Dted masks slips every now and then folks

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Dted masks slips every now and then folks

The mask slips? No, I just don't like bullshit. Ordinary people? My arse.

I have pulled up Labour in the past for similar nonsense - remember Claire Lally - "ordinary" housewife?

The point is that you don't spontaneously get a protest of 1000-4000 people (depending on whose estimates you believe) without some sort of organisation - trust me, been there and done it.

[vikingTON]

Age: 24

Says it all.

Think's he fucking knows it all.

Oaksoft is so right about you.

Did you bother to read the other posts before?

Or did you just do your usual deliberate out-of-context assassination attempt?

A poor man's Sensible.

^^^ sobbing uncontrollably

Given that you have still failed to answer basic questions undermining your 'SNP organised the protest' thesis, it's safe to say that this flailing breakdown is doing nothing to salvage your trashed credibility.

[vikingTON]

The point is that you don't spontaneously get a protest of 1000-4000 people (depending on whose estimates you believe) without some sort of organisation - trust me, been there and done it.

An unproven assertion that, even if true, still does absolutely nothing to establish that the SNP was the party doing the organising. You can comfortably attract that number through an effective social media shitstorm.

And of course, if we were to take your whining conjecture and whataboutery as fact, then at least one of the Unionist parties must have organised the bigot knuckle-draggers 'celebrating' in Glasgow the day after the referendum. Can't achieve those numbers without hidden, party political organisation.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

^^^ sobbing uncontrollably

Given that you have still failed to answer basic questions undermining your 'SNP organised the protest' thesis, it's safe to say that this flailing breakdown is doing nothing to salvage your trashed credibility.

Nice try.

I said that it had not been organised by ordinary people but political activists.

This whole argument started because someone said the protest had been organised by ordinary people - I would argue that many of the key organisers were far from ordinary people.

Whether this was endorsed initially by the SNP at a national level is a different matter - but backing the protesters Salmond certainly gave that impression.

That being said, I am aware that Sturgeon did not particularly want the focus on the BBC protest. Of the protesters she said they would prefer that they were:

“not protesting against something but campaigning for something”.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

If it was organised by the SNP or Yes campaign, you have not provided a single shred of proof. For that reason, I call your claim bullshit.

Perhaps the issue here is that you cannot differentiate between supporters and the organisations?

And you can't differentiate between ordinary people and political activists.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

An unproven assertion that, even if true, still does absolutely nothing to establish that the SNP was the party doing the organising. You can comfortably attract that number through an effective social media shitstorm.

And of course, if we were to take your whining conjecture and whataboutery as fact, then at least one of the Unionist parties must have organised the bigot knuckle-draggers 'celebrating' in Glasgow the day after the referendum. Can't achieve those numbers without hidden, party political organisation.

For your last part I'd agree that was organised too.

With or without endorsement from above is the question?

[strichener]

Not organised by the Scottish Government, the SNP or the Yes campaign.

Aye, right.

One of the major organisers was Pat Lee, an SNP councillor in South Lanarkshire.

Another Organiser was Moira Williams, a well-known SNP supporter.

But, of course this wasn't run by the SNP . . .

And you can't differentiate between ordinary people and political activists.

You make no mention of political activists (as a group) in the above posts. Meanwhile you do try to portray events as being organised by the SNP or Yes campaign. No amount of back-tracking takes you away from your initial positings as shown above. So, do you have any proof that the SNP or Yes organisations were behind these protests. Anything? Did they finance it, print the banners etc. etc.

[Fide]

Anyone that agrees with Nick "I'm trying to punt a book" Robinson in his pathetic mewlings about alleged SNP led organisation of the BBC demos should check the back of their head for buttons.