The Perfect Storm

David Cameron speaks at the annual CBI conference

It’s been a disastrous week for Better Together after Loretto Boy was demolished on live TV in front of the largest live tv debate audience ever. Next up came the PR nightmare that is turning women voters off No in droves; closely followed by new revelations about CBI incompetence breaking Electoral Reform rules (‘Cameron Walks into a Storm’). But as David Cameron brings every fibre of his being to Glasgow tonight, a perfect storm is brewing that will put the finishing touches to BT’s worst week as their campaign collapses under the weight of its own narrow self-interest.

Yesterday big business was supposed to come riding to the rescue in the open letter in the Scotsman. Unfortunately including the likes of HSBC, BHP Billiton, arms manufacturers and others it opened itself up to ridicule. As Derek Bateman pointed out (‘Three Cheers for Us’):

Failure after failure at HSBC led to the London-based bank being used as a conduit for “drug kingpins and rogue nations”, a 300-page report compiled for a US Senate committee has found. The July 2012 report and investigations by US authorities led to the UK-based bank being fined almost $2bn for failing to stop criminals using its banking systems to launder money. 
Are these the role models we are to respect? The role of big business as a sort of backstop, a trusted security blanket and comfort-to-all in times of uncertainty is such an outdated concept in post-crash Britain it makes BT’s Patronising Lady ad look cutting-edge. The unionist orthodoxy is mired in the early 1970s. The world has moved on. We are in a post-deferential world, as Cameron is about to discover.
Nor is there a monopoly on business backing.  Today more than 200 ordinary business people have signed a letter, which appears in today’s Herald.It’s about scale and purpose. Cameron’s message of ‘big is better’ is outmoded and one-dimensional. They are still operating in a globalist world where size out-trumps ethics. It won’t wash.
As the CBI lurches about still believing it lives in a world where no-one is watching, Better Together believe that the answer to their woes is to bring David Cameron north of the border. From Johann Lamont’s ‘boss class miserabilism’ to this weeks advert farce these people’s poor judgement is a boost to Yes day in day out.
It’s the perfect storm and here comes Captain Cameron to drive the good ship Britannia onto the rocks.

Comments (19)

Leave a Reply to Les Wilson Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

  1. oldbattle says:

    Will someone ask Cameron if he has shut down his father’s off-shore tax havens? Tax havens from where DC received the wealth that funded his Tory career. This is from the Guardian 2012 “Ian Cameron went on to act as chairman of Close International Asset management, a multimillion-pound investment fund based in Jersey; as a senior director of Blairmore Holdings Inc, registered in Panama City and currently worth £25m; and he was also a shareholder in Blairmore Asset Management based in Geneva.”

  2. David Agnew says:

    As I saw on twitter recently and it seems very apt:

    I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one:’O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted me Better Together

  3. Craig B says:

    Bosses of the Co-op Bank and HSBC lecturing us on how to run business, eh? That they let this see the light of day is evidence of panic in the unionist camp. Job creators? From Wiki.

    “Green was succeeded as Chairman by Douglas Flint; Flint was serving as HSBC’s finance director (chief financial officer). August 2011: Further to CEO Stuart Gulliver’s plan to cut $3.5 billion in costs over the next 2 years, HSBC announced that it will cut 25,000 jobs and exit from 20 countries by 2013 in addition to 5,000 job-cuts announced earlier in the year … According to Reuters, Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver told the media, ‘There will be further job cuts. There will be something like 25,000 roles eliminated between now and the end of 2013.’ ”

    “In 2012, HSBC was the subject of hearings of the U.S. Senate permanent subcommittee for investigations for severe deficiencies in its anti money laundering practices. On 16 July the committee presented its findings. Among other things it concludes that HSBC has been transferring $7 billion in banknotes from its Mexican to its US subsidiary, much of it related to drug dealing, was disregarding terrorist financing links and was actively circumventing U.S. safeguards to block transactions involving terrorists, drug lords and rogue regimes, including hiding $19.4 billion in transactions with Iran.” http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC

  4. macart763 says:

    No I really don’t require the lords of corporate Britain to tell me how uncertain and fearful they are about independence. I really don’t care if they pack up their bags and leave. If they are uncertain about thriving in a country whose government is directly accountable through popular sovereignty, then with the very greatest of respect, they’re not wanted.

    Basically they can shit or get off the pot.

    1. Beau says:

      Sorry to tell you this pal, but your obviously way out of touch with the general consensus from the Scottish people. You assume that we all think like you: and we don’t. Following my trail of thought you try to appease your unionist friends with flattery and compliments. Shame on you.
      The general consensus with the Scottish population is we don’t want to talk to them any more, we just want them to fek off.

      Beau

      1. macart763 says:

        Are you sure you’re replying to the right person?

        I kinda said in my post that they could pack up and leave.

  5. J Galt says:

    Let’s get Boris up to put the tin lid on it!

  6. Mike Robertson says:

    Great article! This has been a train wreck of epic proportions for Better Together (not that you would guess reading the very selective BBC news page). Narrow minded, self interested Chief Executives listen to their lord and master remind them why they must obey the laws of low taxation and low wages….. while the rest of us are once again reminded why the UK is in a mess and why a YES vote is an absolute must.

  7. Clootie says:

    Is the World to continue as a spreadsheet to be fought over by a handful of greedy soulless individuals.
    OR
    Do we start to regain our humanity.

    If we do not start to change our values then the destination is very clear and looks very much like a dozen books and films in which thoughtful writers such as Orwell tried to warn of our future. When they accumulate money they move on to property then assets such as energy and water, all that matters is control.
    War was their main tool for many years and remains one used at key times now due to the knowledge that we are less likely than before to fall for simple propaganda. (Although Iraq, Libya etc proves we have not came as far as we should have in the UK.)

    These people have been terrified of the democratic one person,one vote system for almost hundred years. However they found a solution. Divide and control plus switching off voters. It is no accident that votes cast in elections is often under 40 percent.
    The main parties at Westminster (as America) are simply puppets being worked by the elite. Study the actual difference between the parties and you will find minor variances these are shouted about at full volume while the main policies sail through as you are distracted.

    The drive is always the same. The money is always from the same sources.

    They are terrified of parties like the Greens, the SSP, the SNP because they do not have the controls in place in these organisations – yet. They assumed that the London puppets (I include the Lords of course) would carry on forever and therefore put all their resources into that domain.

    The YES campaign has shown that we can unite and work together to build something much fairer.

    This vote is even bigger than Scotland’s future. It will show that people can regain control. That is why they are fighting so hard to stop a domino falling – it may lead to others following.

    1. macart763 says:

      Completely agree Clootie. We will need to have that pint someday. 🙂

      1. Clootie says:

        Without doubt! Look forward to it, a celebration pint would be even better.

  8. Les Wilson says:

    Yes a train wreck indeed, and just how are these “captains of Industry” going to resonate with ordinary Scots.
    They are all cosy with the Tories eta al, and seek to look after their own interests by supporting the Union.
    They do not in the main seem to speak for their businesses but on a fudge personal level.

    Make no mistake if they were to move their businesses, others will fill the gap. There will be plenty opportunity in a business friendly Scotland, and English big business will also come here, remember there is real possibility of rUK leaving the EU. If they do we will have a bigger flood coming here.

  9. Smashing piece, what it shows is that the various constituent parts of the political beast “Better Together” from the Tammany Hall class traitors of Keir Hardie House to the sleaze fuelled members and fellow travellers of the present government is that they quite simply do not get it when it comes to Scottish independence.
    Scottish Labour have long viewed anything which impacts negatively on. their self appointed role as the natural p.
    arty of government as being self evidently wrong. The Tories cannot conceive of a situation where consideration of the common good is allocated a higher priority then narrow and selfish personal self interest.
    What I think has become increasingly clear during this campaign is the degree of commonality exhibited by all the Westminster based parties. That is to say an unspoken agreement that the things that matter in present day society are pursuance of a narrow right wing economic agenda where concepts such as equality and egalitarianism are myths of a bygone era, suitable only to be trundled out when it suits the political establishment, a la “We’re All in it Together”. Poverty arises essentially from moral failings and as such, as in the days of the Great White Queen, the poor are to be punished for their poverty. Never of course to be assisted, far less empathised with. Probably the final non sine quo of modern Britain is that everything foreign is suspect. That goes for the EU, immigrants and most insidious of all the asylum seeker, who makes the mistake of actually believing the insidious propaganda excreted by the British state.
    Perhaps most egregious of all in their litany of errors is a refusal to believe that any right thinking person would be less than thrilled by a role of dishonour that includes such highlights as the illegal invasion of Iraq or the more recent involvement in the liberation of Lybia.

  10. Alasdair Frew-Bell says:

    The Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, the direct ancestor of HSBC was an agency for the importation, diffusion and sale of opium, against the wishes of the Chinese imperial government, in the latter days of the British empire. No surprises there or that the same exploitative “entrepreneurial” mindset of the buccaneering privateer is still active in the system.

  11. Well said Mike. I especially like “a post-deferential world”.

  12. Andy Nimmo says:

    See Breakfast on BBC were up to their subliminal best this am. Mentioned both letters (fair play) I grudgingly accept but only showed the NO version to camera for quite a lengthy spell.
    No corresponding showing of YES letter.

  13. gonzalo1 says:

    BT were in the Haldane (near Balloch) today. They were canvassing. Things got a bit rough for some of their canvassers as there are some unruly folks up there with a lot of time on their hands. One of them then divulged that he was getting paid £8 an hour to canvass with a prepared script. Is this legal? There are a number of people who have said it breaks electoral rules.

  14. Lochside says:

    Sums up BT really….I canvassed the Haldane with 16 others for RIC/YES and we were welcomed by many and shunned by virtually none…. not one of us ‘hired’…..all of us volunteers who turned up on the day.
    Yet BBC and MSM repeat, ad nauseum, the lies about the grassroot campaign on ‘both’ sides!

    When the truth about this campaign comes to be written about how the ‘YES’ campaign was sustained by thousands of ordinary Scots versus paid drones and SLAB party ‘NO’ hacks, the rest of the world will get a wake up call as to the overwhelming deceit of the rotten British State.

Help keep our journalism independent

We don’t take any advertising, we don’t hide behind a pay wall and we don’t keep harassing you for crowd-funding. We’re entirely dependent on our readers to support us.

Subscribe to regular bella in your inbox

Don’t miss a single article. Enter your email address on our subscribe page by clicking the button below. It is completely free and you can easily unsubscribe at any time.