Personally I’ve never understood why anyone from either side would want to post inflammatory messages online in order to provoke others into heated arguments. I have Unionist friends for that. If you really have enough time to devote an entire afternoon to self-righteousness (as I found out, trolling is time-consuming), presumably in order to feel better about yourself, you might want to step out into the daylight and question why you don’t have a girlfriend.
It was this very lack of understanding of the troll’s motivation that made me conduct some experiments this week. I very soon realised that being a successful troll is not as easy as it looks. It requires patience, commitment and of course an ability to wade swiftly through screeds of utter drivel.
These are just a few of the real conversations I had on Twitter with No campaigners.
At this point I realised my trolling was not being hugely successful. The No campaigners caught on to my trolly-ness and stopped feeding me, and of course if you don’t feed the troll, he dies.
I was beginning to lose heart and thinking I might not be cut out for the trolling business at all. I could either duck out now before serious bad karma set in or up my game and perhaps take more time reeling in my campaigners. I decided on the latter.
This exchange was so spectacularly stupid that for a time I thought the No campaigner was trolling me. I was pleased that I managed to draw out his deranged idea in some detail but still I believed I was probably the worst troll ever. I hadn’t really managed to wind anyone up and one campaigner even said he was ‘enjoying my Socratic pedantry’. I explained that there was no point in continuing if he was enjoying it. Even worse, I thought I was experiencing symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome and starting to empathise with the No campaigners. I even bought a UKOK hat.
But just when I was ready to throw in the towel, the following genius appeared on my timeline:
One of the main reasons Scottish unionist MPs are so desperate to keep the UK together is self-preservation. Post-independence, they’ll have no say in Westminster matters and with no affiliation to Holyrood, unlike MSPs, they’ll have no say there either. They’re going to be out of work.
As there are 59 Scottish seats in the Westminster parliament and 41 of them are held by Labour, it’s not hard to see who’ll be dealt the majority of the p45s. This could be a problem for the Scottish Government, as seeing Jim Murphy wandering the streets around Holyrood with his face tripping him would dampen anyone’s spirits.
Unfortunately, finding a solution might not be so straightforward. Most unionist MPs are unfamiliar with the concept of real work and if you handed them a shovel they’d probably ask what it was. Obviously, being unemployable is no hindrance if you intend to join Lord Foulkes in the upper chamber. But what if you want to be useful instead?
Let’s ignore the possibility that some, incensed at Scotland having chosen independence, might refuse to have anything to do with their native country. Instead, we’ll assume that self-preservation and love of limelight win out and that the redundants agree to make the most of it, albeit through gritted teeth and near-continuous whining.
First off, if they intend to remain in Scotland, they’ll find they belong to parties which don’t yet exist. Actual Scottish parties will have to be formed which don’t depend on being told what to do by Westminster. This could be challenging for many.
Some might hope to be parachuted into a safe seat south of the border. But as, in their own words, they’d be considered foreigners in the remainder of the UK, this could be problematic. It’s really only an option for Scotland’s last surviving Conservative MP, David Mundell, because one Tory more or less in England won’t be noticed.
For the rest, it means fighting through a selection process, competing with each other and standing in elections which they have no guarantee of winning – having told the electorate that they were rubbish for so long, the electorate have taken to returning the compliment.
In other words, even for the successful ones, getting back to work is going to take time. They could be unemployed for years in the interim period and still have no actual skills at the end of it.
That’s why I’m advocating a new Workfare scheme for former Scottish MPs. I know that this type of scheme has had terrible press and would not normally be considered by the Scottish Government. But as the vast majority of the MPs in question prefer to play by Westminster rules, it seems only fair to introduce, solely for their benefit, a system which they allowed to pass into law for the rest of us.
How it would work:
Following a Yes vote, there will be 18 months of deliberation whilst unionist MPs continue to draw a salary and ask each other whatever happened to the West Lothian question.
On independence day, some sort of severance package may be agreed, although the Scottish Government could avoid any part in this by retroactively introducing legislation, again in keeping with Westminster rules, to avoid having to make any payouts.
The former MPs will then be expected to stack shelves, mop floors and complete other menial tasks without payment for large profit-making businesses in order to gain references and experiences of the “working world”.
One MP who will not have to take part in the new scheme is the member for Glasgow South West, Ian Davidson. Davidson has been in several high-profile videos recently, and with his light and breezy charm, producers have marked him out as a natural for television. A new sitcom, “I’m not angry, I’m effing furious” is due to air in September 2014 when his light and breezy charm should be at a peak.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcvhS-G8WNA&feature=youtu.be/
In conclusion, unemployment is not funny unless it happens to an MP.
According to The Herald, Better Together plan to ‘step up debate in 2013’ by asking Scots what they would miss about Britain should Scotland vote for independence. Aside from the matter of Anas Sarwar showing us what their idea of stepping up debate looks like, who said anything about leaving Britain? Britain is an island, and even the most optimistic Yes voter knows removing Scotland could be tricky. You might as well ask what we’d miss about the sky.
Why not ask ‘what would you miss about the United Kingdom?’ or more specifically ‘what would you miss about Westminster?’ I’ll tell you why not. Because nobody cares about them. They don’t resonate in the public subconscious the way the word ‘Britain’ does. Britain’s the land of The Beatles, Matt Lucas and Team GB, and in the run-up to the referendum you’re not likely to be given a chance to forget it. Expect to see the line between Britain and the United Kingdom deliberately blurred, because opponents of Scottish independence are counting on you not to know the difference.
What they want you to think:
Britain/United Kingdom: Interchangeable.
Westminster: Seat of government and the only possible place for proper decision-making.
The facts:
Britain: Island.
United Kingdom: Political union.
Westminster: Home of Scottish Questions, a half-hour pseudo-debate where our sole Conservative MP, David Mundell, speaks on behalf of Scotland to a restless house eager to get on to more important matters.
It’s not possible for Scotland to leave Britain, just as it’s not possible to “lose our culture” through a political re-arrangement. What we’re leaving is a political entity.
The political entity is called the United Kingdom and it has a famous flag. The flag gets mistaken for the flag of Britain, but it’s the flag of the union. It has a lot to answer for, but it’s also become a weird kind of fashion symbol across the globe. It’s unusual amongst fashion symbols in that it’s indescribably ugly, but nonetheless it’s everywhere. Even Cubans have it on their handbags. Probably serves us right for all those Che Guevara t-shirts.
If you show the flag to an American and say that’s where you’re from, they’ll probably ask if you know Austin Powers. If you have no flag and say you’re from the United Kingdom they’ll probably ask where you learned to speak such good English.
The United Kingdom has a parliament. It’s called Westminster. It’s a bit like our parliament, but with ermine and rituals. Scotland doesn’t really need ermine and rituals and it doesn’t really need Westminster either. If we wanted to antagonise Europe and suck up to America we could do it ourselves.
Ah, Westminster. How I’ll miss you. Your pomp. Your splendour. Your pointless, unelected lords. You’re a monument to a bygone age. An age of empire, class divisions and privilege. But no matter that the Office for National Statistics has declared us the most unequal nation in Europe; according to Better Together, this is “as good as it gets.”
On Twitter, I asked the people who really matter – my fellow plebs, the Scottish voters – ‘what would you miss about Westminster?’ Most popular response was ‘nothing’, but that wasn’t going to help me write this article. So I kept prodding as I need all the help I can get. Here are the runners-up, which I may or may not have tweaked.
Governments we didn’t vote for.
Posturing on the world stage pretending we have an empire.
Pointless wars.
Trident missiles that will never be used, except accidentally.
Irrational antipathy towards Europe.
Chronic toadying to America.
Eagerness for US-style healthcare that even the US doesn’t want.
Dismantling of the welfare state.
Privatising everything that isn’t physically nailed down, despite the disastrous effects on the rail network and the utilities.
Having to pay for lords’ duckhouses and moats.
Lords.
MPs too busy scaremongering on independence to vote against welfare cuts.
Michael Gove.
Ah, Westminster. You refuse talks on independence then complain that Holyrood doesn’t have all the answers. You warn we’ll be a pound worse off under independence, unaware that most of us would happily pay more just to be rid of Gove. Your Scottish MPs claim they’ll be “looking out for Scotland”, but only once you eject them. You call Holyrood “a dictatorship” and illustrate exactly why we stopped voting for your parties. You say a Yes vote would put 19 hundred thousand billion jobs at risk. You say nobody will like us and we’ll be left sitting in a corner crying.
Yes, Westminster, I’ll miss your carping. But most of all I suppose I’ll miss your vision of a 21st century United Kingdom: joyless, unfair, unimaginative & frightened.
There is light at the end of the tunnel, Yes people. And with the Section 30 bill passed, Westminster’s role in the referendum process is over. Altogether now: ‘Missing you already!’
- See more at: http://nationalcollective.com/2013/01/22/what-would-you-miss-about-westminster/#sthash.pGKOcxiv.dpuf
Bluesky
Email
Facebook
Share on Bluesky