Alastair Darling launches Better Together Campaign in Napier University with a media blitz, makes Yes Scotland launch debacle look even worse!

Dear All

The Yes UK Campaign has formally launched this morning led by former UK chancellor Alistair Darling.

And it seems that unlike the debacle of the ‘Declaration of Cineworld’, the launch was well received by the press.

Because the launch was pitch perfect towards the people that matter most ordinary people.

The Yes Scotland Campaign could be characterised as very much the opposite, Alex Salmond meeting the rich who in turn give him their blessing and support.

Who in their right mind picks a cinema to launch an independence campaign?

Rushed, botched and woeful!

Have you heard the expression just say no?

Well someone should have stood up when Cineworld was proposed and said loudly:

‘F*ck no’!

But no one did because no one had vision.

This morning Yes Scotland got a lesson in campaign launching.

A recent poll stated after the Yes Scotland launch support for independence dropped.

It dropped.

Momentum has stalled and now Yes Scotland is going backwards.

Today’s launch of ‘better together’ was all about ordinary people, it was the right strategy, pitched at the right audience and in the right place.

Darling argues Scotland could have the "best of both worlds", with a strong parliament at Holyrood and a secure place in the United Kingdom.

He compares independence to buying "a one-way ticket to send our children to a deeply uncertain destination".

And of course if you think back, recently Ruth Davidson blew Nicola Sturgeon out of the water on the BBC when she pulled out a letter that the SNP had never contacted the EU regarding Scottish membership of the European Union either as a government or as an opposition.

In submarine terms, Ruth Davidson took out Nicola Sturgeon with a bow shot, after that Nicola Sturgeon was left floating on her ‘liferaft’ in the ‘Pacific’ banging on the freedom drum.

To understand what a bow shot is, watch 'Run Silent, Run Deep' starring Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster.

The strategy of Yes Scotland so far has been wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong, there is supposed to be a major re-launch later in the year to try and start up the momentum.

As the ‘Decalration of Cineworld was all about Alex Salmond’s day with the rich and the 'important', Alastair Darling homed in on the real key to Scotland, ordinary people living ordinary lives.

Now, the real fight for Scotland starts.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University