Thursday, May 1, 2014

Scottish independence: Millionaire Malcolm Offord launches pro-Union campaign to make sure that ordinary people get their say publicly on Scottish independence, although there is a battle for the emotional battleground, this war will be fought on facts



Dear All

Right at the launch of the ‘Declaration of Cineworld’, Scotland’s ‘jolly fat man’ Alex Salmond showed that his campaign for Scottish independence is a rich man’s campaign.

Poor people could be involved in menial capacities such as leafleting and setting up street stalls.

Salmond ……… £2,900 a night hotel rooms!

SNP used the con of holding Cabinet meetings in local halls to draw in the people who they treated like mugs while they secretly enjoyed a life of luxury.

Now following on from the Nationalists setting up little groups, a new PRO-Union campaign putting ordinary people has been put together by Greenock-born financier Malcolm Offord. The idea is to put ordinary people at the forefront of the referendum to tug at the heart strings of Scots and send out an emotional plea.

They say think that this hasn’t be accomplished by the Better Together movement.

The creator of the £400,000 No Borders project says it will be all about the voters expressing their feelings about keeping the Union.

Video testimonials giving people their ‘15 minutes of fame’ so to speak will be put up, it will allow people to ask the questions that Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon don’t want to answer.

You can find the site at votenoborders.co.uk.

The site goes live today, and the big lunch complete with advertising is this month.

Registered with the Electoral Commission as a "permitted participant" in the referendum campaign, and unaligned to Better Together, No Borders has already raised £150,000 in the kitty and hopes raise another £250,000 before the September 18th vote.

The driving force behind it is Greenock-born financier Malcolm Offord.

In the past he has been a donor of more than £100,000 to the Conservatives.

Votenoborders is all about being grassroots and non-party political.

He said:

"This is going to allow the voices of ordinary Scots people to be heard, so they can express their feelings about ­keeping the Union in language which hasn't been heard in this campaign so far. It's not going to talk about technical issues like currency or EU membership, but practical things like passports, the post office, the NHS or families being split up. It's about people saying they don't want to separate. If we're going to become two foreign ­countries we will need a border between us. We don't want to put up barriers. [If we vote Yes] we'd take ourselves out of a very secure and comfortable place and be shivering, slightly alone, on the outside. We'd have made it more difficult for ourselves, unnecessarily."

And this to set off on why it is better to stay in the UK is Elizabeth Bashir, 70, from Cardonald in Glasgow, who says she "loves being Scottish."

She also added:

"It'll be a sad day if it comes through if it's a Yes vote. I would hate to see it."

Offord, 49, says his new venture is because of frustration with the grassroots progress of Better Together, given the setup of Better Together, it will be hard to gel parties who traditional have fought against each other. Yes Scotland does have that problem because they are seen as an SNP front. They have one voice, Alex Salmond.

Votenoborders is complementary and required according to Offord, on the team is Fiona Gilmore, founder of Acanchi, a London-based consultancy advising governments on brand management and "country positioning strategy".

It will be interesting to see if she can go from country positioning strategy to people positioning strategy, the target is working class; the area specifically is the Central Scotland and core Labour voters.

Seems that this could be the start of a flood of "permitted participant" in the referendum!

I wonder if Alex Salmond thinks the phoney SNP indy groups was such a good idea now?

Poor Salmond, not a visionary at all!

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Object to a rich man's campaign that uses ordinary people -- and then advertise...a rich man's campaign that uses ordinary people.

Um...

G Laird said...

Dear Anon

What part of treating ordinary working class people as mugs and menials do you appear to be struggling with?

Ever heard of cheap labour?

As you say...... um!

Yours

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

G Laird said...

Dear Anon

What part of treating ordinary working class people as mugs and menials do you appear to be struggling with?

Ever heard of cheap labour?

As you say...... um!

Yours

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Anonymous said...

Thisgrassroots campaign had almost half a million quid before it even had a website. It is registered as a company in London, fronted by a London financier and Tory donor -- and one of thethinktanks architects of Ian Duncan Smith's welfare cuts, Malcolm Offord.

VoteNoBorders is registered as a company in London run by Avanchi, a very high-end PR consultancy which has one of Edinburgh's poshest business addresses in Charlotte square.

It specialises in doing PR for countries - changing their image and making folk feel patriotic. It's run by one Fiona Gilmore.
It does PR for countries -- paid for by governments. It lists countries it has done "nationbuilding" and PR for - Israel, Saudi Arabia and "England".

It has been employed by the government to do just what it is doing now.


Another of the folk in charge of VoteNoBorders is a Gary Waple - another high0-end banker, he workls for the Bank of England. A relative of Gilmore,(the families shared a Hamstead address) he is listed a few years back as a director of Avanchi too.

VoteNoBorders was registered as a business on 18 March and registerd as a NO campaigner next day - born with almost half a million quid in its kitty: origin of the dosh not given.

This is not a grassroots campaign. It is a high-end government PR consultancy and family business.

We've all been had.

-- yours sincerely wee e

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much with regard to giving my family an update
on this subject matter on your site. Please understand
that if a completely new post appears or in the event that any adjustments occur about
the current posting, I would want to consider reading a lot more and finding out how to make good usage of those strategies you
talk about. Thanks for your efforts and consideration of other people by making your
blog available.

Anonymous said...

Hi there, I enjoy reading all of your article. I wanted to write a
little comment to support you.

Anonymous said...

Hey very nice blog!