What is in Kelvin's Head?

The morning after the day before

19/09/2014

Yesterday was an extraordinary day in Scotland. I don’t think that any of us really knew how tense it was all going to get until the day itself.

There is much to celebrate in the turn-out, which was phenomenal. In recent weeks, people have engaged in a political process in ways I’ve never seen before and which to be honest I couldn’t have foreseen.

Last night I tweeted that I was hoping for a No vote but that if it was a Yes then I hoped that the Yes would be overwhelming. In the end the vote was a slightly stronger No than most people seemed to think possible at the end. However, the truth is, no-one that I spoke to yesterday during the polling was prepared even to guess. We simply didn’t know what the outcome would be.

I have to say that though I was clear that I was hoping for a no vote, there has been much that has impressed me in the Yes campaign. Much of that campaign was positive and throughout the campaign it did indeed seem as though the momentum lay there.

I’ve been consistently unimpressed by the Better Together campaign. It was negative and miserable throughout. It never represented what I felt at all. I was far more impressed with the campaign run by those with whom I disagreed on the independence question itself.

The Yes campaign won the social media battle hands down but not the wider argument. And I think the reality is that Independence has been decided for a generation. This was the time for that change if it was ever going to happen – an ineffective Labour party in Scotland, a hated coalition of Liberal Democrats and Tories in government, charismatic and hopeful leadership on the Yes side and the most powerful street campaigning I’ve ever seen were all things that seemed to make the case for change more powerful.

Those of us in Scotland have decided that we don’t want to leave the United Kingdom. However let the message ring out that no-one who voted yesterday wants to live in Foodbank Britain.

I found listening to those who disagreed with me on the Independence Question that I very often agreed with them on their motivation for seeking significant change.

I remain convinced that the only solution to the West Lothian Question that will be stable is major constitutional change in a federal direction. I’m not satisfied by the idea that Westminster can continue as usual but with Scottish MPs just not voting on matters that affect England only. I want to see an English Parliament. I want to see major reform of the House of Lords. I want to see more devolution towards local government. I want to see fairer (and slightly higher) taxation, particularly a higher council tax to pay for better local services decided on by local people.

We have disagreed about how to achieve change but there are values that have come to the fore, largely through the incredible campaign that the Yes side have fought that we can unite around. I have many friends who will be disappointed, hugely disappointed today. However there is an enormous amount in which they can be very proud. An outstanding turnout, a campaign that brought social justice right to the fore, change being talked about by everyone in politics and political engagement across the board from people who have never cared or voted before. These things have changed Scotland for the better and when the dust settles we will see that things can never be the same again.

One of the members of my own congregation who is one of the strongest supporters of the Yes campaign I know said to me yesterday, “Even if it is No, Yes has won”. He meant, I think that the positivity of the Yes campaign can’t be killed off and that constitutional change is coming anyway. I know that he and many others will be disappointed by the actual result. However, I agreed with him yesterday and I agree with him today.

#indyref, independence, Scotland

7 responses to “Reclaiming the web”

Paul Hutchinson

14/10/2015

Thank you for making me think in a different direction just before pausing for lunch. I have never had a blog, so came quite late to Internet social discourse, and have engaged more since joining one major network in 2010 and another in early 2014 – normally using those networks rather than a comment box such as this. Not all of us are natural creators of substantial original content, but like to be thoughtful in brief exchange, and so both those major networks, though cursed with many difficulties, serve those brief exchanges quite well. I do agree that the endless recycling of links (on both of them) can be wearying, and I do wish that some old friends would be a little more self-critical. But the price of any kind of social discourse is that one is vulnerable to the otherness of the other.
I feel I ought to be writing a more substantial comment here, but hope that this is enough. The time is not always there to offer deeper reflection: but sometimes a blogger needs to hear at least a small splash from the stone thrown down the well!

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1. Kelvin
  
  14/10/2015
  
  Thanks for the comment, Paul. I’m aware that not everyone is a content creator, but perhaps what I miss is the sense of discovering different communities online and keeping the comments more or less in one place helps with that.
  
  The glory days of 50 or more comments on a post are probably over. I suspect I mourn the sense of community being created even more than I miss the interesting reflections of others. Retweets and shares are always welcome – but they are the means of amplification. Becoming loud isn’t the same as becoming wise, nor the same as becoming connected.
  
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Seph

14/10/2015

It’s a damnable shame—and mostly the fault of Facebook. Twitter at least has an etiquette of sorts, wherein it is considered impolite not to respond to the original tweet, which is usually made by the blogger in question.

Facebook, in short, is the scourge of the Internet. I have often been in groups which have decided to do all of their organizing on Facebook, despite my protests that I’m not on Facebook and don’t want to be, and really an e-mail list would be just as easy, and would they like me to set one up. This inevitably leads to my marginalization within the group, as no-one bothers to keep me abreast of the discussions to which I am not party.

Can you tell I’m upset about this?

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Daniel Lamont

14/10/2015

I am only an occasional user of Facebook but I know what you mean, Kelvin. And indeed, I never read the comments ‘below the line’ on newspapers like ‘The Guardian’. You offer some useful advice. I read yours and one or two other blogs on a regular basis but don’t always comment. However, I can see that the author of a blog would like some feedback. I would be sad not to have the blogs that I do read because they do give me a sense of what people are thinking and an odd sense of community.

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Father Ron Smith

14/10/2015

My own contribution to the blogopshere is, I’m afraid, Father Kelvin, limited to comments I make on other people’s blogs (such as ‘Thinking Anglicans’ and ‘Anglican Down Under’ – a local NZ forum; plus my own blog ‘kiwianglo’, where i pluck articles that interest me personally from the web and provide my own commentary. This still interests me, personally, and provides my few readers with information they might not otherwise be bothered to glean for themselves. Like you, I am no longer an avid Facebook fan.

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David Campbell

16/10/2015

Hi Kelvin – thoughtful as ever – and yours is invariably the first blog I turn to each day. That you bring pressing issues to a wider audience and to people who know, or used to know, the church you serve is a great thing. I’m still blogging relatively strongly, but it’s certainly a different blogging experience when work is set in a very different context and especially community from previously, writing these days mainly for myself about things that interest me, although not quite at the address you have in your Blog Roll. http://www.limpingtowardsthesunrise.com is where it’s “all” happening.

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1. Kelvin
  
  16/10/2015
  
  Thanks David – nice to hear from you. I’ve amended the link.
  
  I don’t think many people use blogrolls to find blogs these days but whenever I remove it my mother complains…
  
  Reply