There’s more than one way to do it!
I have a few observations to make in that connexion:
Firstly, I think we all have to learn to campaign and let campaign – we shouldn’t waste our time criticising other people’s campaigning efforts but instead spend our time doing what we think is right. After all, as Perl programmers are fond of saying, there’s more than one way to do it. Also, nobody can know for sure what will work till afterwards.
I tend to think that one of the main reasons why the Yes parties didn’t do better at the last Holyrood election is that people spent far too much time arguing about the merits of “both votes SNP” versus “second vote Green”, rather than taking the fight to the Unionists.
Secondly, the main reason why some activists spent some of their hard-earned money on these billboards is that they’re frustrated so little campaigning is happening. If Yes Scotland II had already been up and running (hopefully using a better name than that!), spewing out campaign materials and putting up billboards, the vast majority of people would simply back them up and send their money to them. It’s because nothing is happening that people get frustrated and start doing things on their own.
Activists aren’t employees that can be commanded to do something different by their manager. They need to see that something is happening, especially when the situation in the UK post-Brexit is so dire and so ripe for a change for the better.
Thirdly, it has been suggested that this shows that Tommy Sheppard’s idea about paid organisers in the SNP was right. I’m not so sure. I agree community organisers would be really useful, but they’d have to work with the wider Yes movement, not just with the SNP. I can’t imagine that those Yes activists who aren’t members of the SNP would take very kindly to getting told not to undertake certain campaigning activities by a paid SNP organiser.
The two last points show why we need Yes Scotland II to get up and running as matter of priority. We need somebody to produce campaign materials (and of course the SNP cannot really do that before they call the referendum), and the Yes movement community organisers need to be employed by some organisation other than a political party.
In the meantime, we should all focus on campaigning for a Yes vote in the next referendum, not on criticising each other. There’s more than one way to do it.
They have made their target.
I for one will be donating more if they ask again. Too many people I know accept what the BBC and the tabloids say as gospel. Anything , and I mean anything that might put the tiniest crack in that belief is fine with me.
I personally think billboards are a good idea, but I would probably have chosen a purer pro-indy message. I’m not going to criticise other people’s choices, though.
I’m all for the billboards. Anything that draws people’s attention to the BBC’s subliminal anti Scottish propaganda is a good thing. It just takes a few to notice in order to start pointing it out to others.
Talking of which; the BBC were at it again last night re Scotland’s NHS. Scotland has the best performing NHS in the UK and in some departments, in the world. To hear the BBC last night anyone would have thought it was ready to collapse about our ears.
Good on them. Saying what should have been said continuously for the last 2 years.
Even if all it does is open a few minds previously closed.