The case for the vulnerable in Scottish Society

My partner and I home educate our son, who is a sufferer of Asperger's Syndrome and Cortical Visual Impairment.  Among my closest friends I count sufferers of Mental Health disorders and among many of my close acquaintances I have several who are recovering addicts.  I myself have suffered from Mental Health issues in the past.  I believe the current term for all of us is Service Users.  There is a great deal of stigma attached to these issues, but also a great deal to be overcome with the professions that we have to deal with on a regular basis.
Many of my friends, who are in delicate states of mind for all of their various reasons, have to go through the trauma of proving to the system that they genuinely need it's help, not just once, to their own GP for example, but to the benefit authorities, to social services, to schools and to charities and other grants giving bodies.  This puts an immense strain on the claimant, their families and their carers.  Changes that have already been implemented to the benefits system have left many vulnerable people being forced into work or go through a lengthy and stressful appeals system.  These are changes happening now, not the awful changes currently making their way through Westminster just now, but the changes already implemented.
I am not going to speak for any of my friends here, but I am going to cite the case of the treatment our family received from our local LEA.  Our son was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome when he was eight years old. We had already withdrawn him from our local school after Primary 1 because he was having clear difficulties that the school were putting down to bad behaviour.  If I were  to be truly honest, we were left feeling that we were to blame for his poor behaviour as being bad parents.   Before I go on, I feel I must mention in their most recent HMIE report they were given a rating of good at meeting learning needs and good for Learners's experiences.
When he came to Secondary age we all decided to give the School a second chance, as my son is very keen on Science and we lack a laboratory.  We took the long approach and contacted the LEA an entire year in advance of his joining S1, and tried to use that opportunity to describe his needs to the School so they could be able to deal with him sensibly.
Here I have to explain a little bit about Cortical Visual Impairment.  At the start of this process, we did not have this diagnosis for some of our son's issues, but we began a re-diagnosis period to make sure the School could get access to all of the relevant material about him.  This involved regular sessions on anxiety therapy, a lengthy re-assessment of his Asperger's, an occupational therapy report, a language therapist's report, visits to the Neurologist and eye tests.   Already that's at least six people we had to take our son to so that he could prove he had extra needs in a school environment, without including out local GP's who have both seen him for his issues.
We then spoke to our first Educational psychologist, who was very open to our thinking and supportive.  Unfortunately, she was standing in for her regular colleague and we did not get to deal with her again.  We began to go to the local school for meetings with the head master and staff, working to arrange a period of orientation for our son into the school.  We explained that he becomes highly anxious in unfamiliar places and  about crowded places.  We asked for a flex-schooling approach, as he has low levels of energy and would need a good deal of time to adjust to formal Schooling. We asked for support for him through classes so that he could have the extra help he needs with many tasks.  We asked for him not to attend classes like PE and Technical Design because of the noise levels and high number of potential triggers for our son's anxiety problems.  We asked for him to have a laptop for lessons because he suffers from a tremor that makes handwriting difficult.  Handwriting is also an issue for sufferer's CVI, we subsequently learned.
These might seem to the casual observer as quite a long list of demands, but we had at that point been dealing with our son's difficulties full-time for ten years.  We understood ad recognised his problems, and had gone to the trouble to make sure we had the medical advice to back us up.
 The very first hurdle was over induction and orientation time.  The school already ran a series of induction days for all upcoming primary sevens from our area and our son was invited to these.  No extra orientation time at all was offered, even though we repeatedly requested it.  Next  our son had to undertake a series of tests with the (new) Educational Psychologist, to prove once again that there were areas in which he both had difficulty with and others were he excelled.  Then there were more meetings, and the school was still not prepared to meet the things we had asked for.  Our son attended some of the induction days.  We had more meetings, complaints had to be made about the conduct of the staff at some of these meetings as things were beginning to become highly stressful for us with the schools continuing intransigence.
Summer came and went, and a full year into the process of trying to get our son into school with suitable provisions, he did not finally begin until September, when at last the school made concessions over flexi-schooling and laptop provision.  They insisted all along that their teachers would be well informed and had been trained to deal with problems of our son's nature.
Pause for a second here and consider Aspergers Syndrome.  Asperger's is a condition on the Autism spectrum.  It is considered to be 'high-functioning' meaning that those with the syndrome are usually highly intelligent, often obsessive, verbally communicative and capable of a reasonable degree of independence in many areas.  They can also suffer from a severe dislike of sudden change and any uncertainty, and they are often very awkward socially.  They can be very comforted by ritual and routine.  But, and this is an important but, these are only general symptoms and some sufferer's can be very different or not have some of those symptoms.  A lack of imagination is often a symptom, but one thing our son does not lack is imagination, he is a keen story writer and also an expert at creating scenarios that make him panic when faced with unfamiliar or sudden events.
The year he was in S1 contained so many disasters that to list them here would be both tedious, draining and, frankly, personally upsetting.  Our son was repeatedly accused of bad behaviour and the school repeatedly blame us for imposing "preferential" treatment for him.  We went as far as to get take out an FOI on his records, place formal complaints, take those complaints to the council's Corporate Complaints dept., get sick line's from the doctor because our son was becoming increasingly anxious with every day at school and to attend mediated meetings where nothing constructive ever took place. It ended with an ultimatum from the school that we either send our son Full-time, part-time to their timetable or to withdraw him from school again.  By this point we were going through the process of talking to a child psychologist and a neurologist about our son and they both agreed that the classroom environment was an unhealthy one for our son.  They recommended we went back to home education, which is exactly what we did.
This was not the end of the process, as we now had to deal with the de-registration process, which was a trial in itself this time.  Last time we did it we withdrew Alex over the course of one summer and it was actually painless.  This time we had to meet a social worker and an officer from the LEA to approve our request.
The number of people we have had to explain our son to has been phenomenal, but worse still is the number of so-called professionals that have failed to listen to our advice about our son has been nothing short of criminal.
We are not alone, we are not unique.  The heavy weight of the hand of the state on it's vulnerable members is not currently a source for good at all, but a source for great stress and worsening of many problems.  If you take the case for not extraditing Gary McKinnon, a large part of it hinges on the possibility of the likliehood of introducing psychosis to Gary because sufferer's of Asperger's and ASD are much more prone to such things while under stress than other people.
The UK Government wants to make this harder for vulnerable people.  They will want to put my son into a work placement when he is older, and we cannot trust them not to send him somewhere where his problems will be exacerbated.  The UK Governement wants to decide whether terminally ill people should be assessed to see if they are fit for work.  The UK Government plans to introduce big changes to DLA for children.  The UK Government plans all in a timeline that runs all the way through the referendum campaign up until 2016.  These benefit changes are utterly unwelcome and frankly cruel, and we can avoid them by gaining our Independence from such toxic Westminster policies.  The economic argument is familiar but the social democratic argument is becoming clearer.  We need to have Scotland's future in Scotland's hands to redress the awful damage the current system does to our vulnerable people.  We have to opportunity to bring some sanity and unity to the process of helping our vulnerable people.  That's good enough for me to vote yes.

In a week when Michael Forsyth and Ian Paisley made sense.

I can't decide which quote this week amazes me more.  Is it the Reverend Ian Paisley's magnanimous statement :

The Scottish people are a canny lot, I should know, my mother was Scottish! I fail to see what all the angst is concerning the question to be put in the upcoming referendum. The Scots know exactly what they want, know how to get it, and probably would greatly appreciate it if we left them alone to make their own decision.

or is it Michael Forsyth's basic admission that Government Ministers know more about the south of France than Scotland :

 "I think that's probably true.  What alarms me is that when I got into the House of Commons in 1983 almost every Tory supported the Union and was committed to it.  Now I find Conservative MPs saying in increasing numbers 'Why do we need Scotland?' and abandoning the unionist position." 

 Does this sound like, with two years left to go, that the Unionists are giving up?  Much as I'd like to say yes, I doubt it.  When the balance sheet of the UK becomes more closely examined in the run up to 2014, then we'll see real panic set in.  I've seen a lot of commentators say that the Unionists are already panicking, and while this may well be true of Scottish Labour seeing as they have so much to lose come May this year, I don't think either the Tories or the Lib Dems are quite at that point.  The Lib Dems have been in gentle decline for almost a century, and this taste of power that Cameron offered them has turned so sour that the gentle decline is turning into a head long plunge to oblivion.  The Tories have only one MP in Scotland and don't really care much for the devolved party in Scotland.  They just don't care enough from a political stand point.  Currently, we're not worth the trouble we're causing.
No, the Lib Dems and the Tories aren't panicking, they are being condescending.  The scare stories being circulated by them are truly what they think will bring us back into line.   There's no co-ordination between any of the parties, simply because it's not being given enough credit yet for true cross-party action, and with Labour tail-spinning north of the wall, because they are on the brink of losing their northern fiefdom long before the referendum, they can't risk co-ordinating with the other parties because of their obvious toxicity.  Do you think Johann Lamont was truly grateful for Ed Milliband's token public statement of support for the Co-alition line on Scotland, knowing full well how toxic the Tory brand is in Scotland? Of course she has to play the faithful underling, but she deals with the day to day politics of Scotland and has in the past tried to link the SNP to the Tories to try and gain from that same toxicity.
Michael Forsyth is right though, they aren't getting their act together at all, and Scotland is already well engaged in the debate about her future. Meanwhile, Westminster just keeps throwing occasional glances our way to see if we're still too scared by their stories to vote yes.  The polls still look that way.  Anyway, we can see the gradual upward trend towards yes from poll to poll anyway, so we know that with time on our side, we are going to win.
But here's the point, and here Ian Paisley has the right of it too, some point within the next two they will realise that we are a canny lot, that the pro-independence arguments have been well thought out and are being positively put to us, while they have been busy engaging most of their attention elsewhere and occasionally throwing their laughably negative nonsense our way to keep in the debate.  Remember how confident Iain Gray was this time last year?  Remember their campaign?  The Unionists haven't given up, but for the most part they are kidding themselves.  Labour has a clue about what's going on, but doesn't have a clue about what to do about it.  The Tories and the Lib Dems are too caught up in Europe, the banking crisis and Westminster politics to really have a clue at all.
We have momentum now, but we musn't take it for granted that the current state of affairs is going to remain.   Michael Forsyth's words may well lead to the beginning of a waking up to what this Referendum really means for the whole of the UK, or maybe it will be someone else further down the line, but eventually there will be a co-ordinated and well funded No campaign and we will have to start the fight for real.  We are holding pretty much all of the cards now, but we've got to watch out for our opponents bluffing us!

Russell Brown MP, a case study in Scottish MP's in Westminster

My local MP is Russell Brown of the Labour party.  He became my MP due to boundary changes that created Galloway and West Dumfries incorporating my old constituency of Galloway and Upper Nithsdale.  Galloway and Upper Nithsdale had been in a state of regular change from Tory to SNP for many years, with negligible Labour support, so to suddenly find myself in a Labour constituency in such a way  felt a little undemocratic to me.
Now I have a very strong feeling of the wrongness in Scottish MP's voting on matters of English interest only, so I decided to have a look at Mr Brown's voting record.  It's pretty depressing reading, to be honest.
Russel Brown voted moderately for University Tuition fees, for the hunting ban (a matter which is reserved to Holyrood for Scotland, personally I agree with the Hunting Ban), for greater autonomy for English Schools, voted for the English smoking ban, for the introduction of Foundation Hospitals in the English and Welsh NHS,  for the anti-terrorism laws and  he never rebels against his party in Parliament.
Other things that Mr Brown has voted for which were Reserved matters, in spite of strong opposition in Scotland are for the introduction of ID cards, against a wholly elected House of Lords, for the Iraq war, against investigation into the Iraq War and for replacing Trident.
Yes, Russell Brown is the fairly elected representative of Galloway and West Dumfries, but in all of the above things I can't see him adequately representing Scottish interests in Westminster, and am disgusted by his record of voting for controversial legislation in Westminster that does not affect Scotland and would not pass into law in Scotland.
I believe that we should all be challenging our Unionist MP's on their voting record in Westminster as a part of our argument for Scottish Independence.  It's as equally valid an argument to say that they have no mandate on English affairs as it is to say that the Coalition Governement of Westminster has no mandate to dictate on Scottish affairs like the Referendum.  This is a double standard that can be eradicated by Independence, as we well know.
Go have a look at your local Unionist MPs voting record here, and you just might feel motivated to write to them and express your feelings about their voting on English matters that have nothing to do with them.
We so-called cybernats are often accused of being anti-english, but looking at the record above I almost feel that Russell Brown is anti-english as he is having a hand in dismantling Free Education in England and England's NHS, two cornerstones of what Unionists believe make Britain a fair and equal society.   
As we move towards the Referendum, it is important to inform ourselves just about how our Scottish MP's are representing us in the Westminster Parliament.  I personally do not want to be represented in a way which allows English people to rightly complain that they are helping to take away such vital things from English public life.  I want the English to have the same level of care in health and education as we Scots enjoy, but it's not for us to dictate that to them.  I also want the Americans to have those same cornerstones of a fair society, but I wouldn't dream of sending Scottish congressmen to America to vote either way on these matters.
Independence is a very simple premise, in the end.  It is the the right for the people of a country to determine their own government and services.  English Independence from Scotland is just as important to me as Scottish Independence from England, because that is going to be the only way we will achieve fair democracy in these  islands.  So long as MP's like Russel Brown continue to be sent south to intervene on the behalf of their party in English politics, that just isn't going to be achieved.

Votes at 16

I'm going to begin this article by explaining why this issue is particularly close to my heart.  My son, who is current;y 13 and a half will be 16 years old in the summer before the Referendum.  We've discussed this with him, as we often discuss politics in our house, and he is very keen to be able to vote on Scotland's future.  It will be his Scotland after all, at least he'll have a part share of Scotland with all of our young people.
When I was at the Spring Conference I attended a fringe meeting on Votes at Sixteen and was highly impressed with the young speakers on the panel, in particular Grant Costello MYSP and David Linden were passionate and articulate speakers who we should be watching out for in the future.
The gist of the meeting was a very simple, at 16 young people can get married, get a job, join the armed forces and most crucially, pay taxes.  The very notion that someone who contributes to the state with a portion of their hard earned money has no say in what the make-up of the elected government is actually a complete contravention of democratic principals.  In her maiden address to Parliament, Winnie Ewing backed the contemporary bill passing to reduce the voting age from 21 to 18, but also suggested that it should be dropped to 16 rather than 18.  The policy of votes at 16 is not a new one for the SNP, and was backed by a party motion at conference in the 1980's.  The idea that the SNP want to bring forward this issue now because they believe that 16 and 17 year olds are more likely to vote for Independence is a poorly constructed argument by the opposition parties.  Just like any voter at any age, they can determine which way they choose to vote for themselves, and it's certainly presumptuous of the anti-independence camp to say that they believe this age group will support Independence.
A study recently found that it is vitally important to establish voting patterns early in a voters career.  People who begin early and are engaged on an important issue are much more likely to become repeat voters than people who do not start early.  The upcoming referendum represents an ideal chance to start a healthy pattern of high voter turnout in an Independent Scotland. Current voter apathy means that large swathes of the country are going without representation, because they are not being engaged on issues that they feel affect them and they don't believe that politics improves their lives.  If we can engage the young through the referendum, then we can create a generation of people who are engaged in politics and do believe that it can make a difference to their lives.
We must work fast to get the franchise for 16 and 17 year olds to give them the chance to vote in the referendum, as it will take time to get the legislation through Westminster.  The first step is to get the 100,000 signatories to the e-petition on the Government website.  Sign it here and help a future generation have a say on the biggest question to ever be put to the Scottish people as a whole.

A week with Unionists

This week I've had a few very interesting debates with unionists regarding Scottish Independence.
One of my neighbours, a very amenable chap whom I've known for about 20 years, engaged me in discussion about Independence after discussing the mooted STV series about William Wallace (Fingers crossed for Gerard Butler as Wallace!).  We both had a few snide comments to make about the historical accuracy of Mel Gibson's effort, but that brought us round to the oft mooted opinion of Unionists that much of Scottish Nationalism is about looking back into the far past and being caught up in a foolishly romantic idea that it was somehow better then than it is now.  Not true, ladies and gentlemen, would you swap the wonders of the internet, electricity and indoor toilets for the hard fought Independence of the 1300s?  I wouldn't, I'd quite like to have a modern Independent Scotland thank you very much.
He made a point about nationalism that I'm sure many people are familiar with, that all nationalism is bad as it implies that somehow we as a people who believe in our nation do so from the vantage point of looking down on all other nations.  He even used the Hitler argument, which is a hard one to take while keeping a smile on your face!  I told him that our nationalism isn't about being better than others, it's just about being better placed to deal with Scotland's unique problems.
So of course, he switched tacks to say that without England, Scotland couldn't pay it's way.  I mentioned our pay our of tax, he asked me how much we get back so we agreed to go away and check those figures exactly.  Alex Massie answered the question for me, we pay out 9.4% of UK tax and receive 9.3%  of expenditure, figures which are taken from the GERS report.  My neighbour has written to our local MSP for the same figures, who just happens to be Alex Fergusson, so I'm already a little curious as to what kind of reply he'll get!
By comparison to the other discussion I had, where my opponent quoted Nigel Farrage at me, this was a very civilised and pleasant debate, in spite of the use of the H-word.  Throughout all though, I kept smiling and trying to put my point across with figures and facts.  We have two long years ahead of us where these arguments are going to become more common and we, as supporters of Independence, are going to become incredibly practised with our arguments.  It could get unpleasant for some of us.  My neighbour did tell me he feared that anti-english attacks would increase towards the referendum, but this is something I certainly don't agree with.  My advise is this - Keep Calm and Keep Debating.  Let's not rise to the inflammatory language and engage only with those arguments that are based in rationality and not plain prejudice.  This debate will get hot, but don't let it be the pro-independence believers that lose their tempers and resort to negative or pejorative language.

Minimum Pricing, Prohibition and Portugal

I have yet to be convinced that Minimum pricing of Alcohol will be the solution to Scotland's crisis relationship with this legal drug.  If we look across the North Sea, as we are frequently advised to do because of the many great successes of Social Democracy to be seen there, we can also see an anomaly in the Minimum Pricing argument.   Yes, Scotland is set to be the first country in the world to legislate a minimum price per unit of alcohol, but in Scandanavian countries Alcohol is taxed heavily, thus driving the price up anyway.  Alcohol is a serious problem in these countries,  as the following map, taken from the Economist,  clearly shows:

 British consumption of alcohol does outstrip that of Norway and Sweden, but not of Denmark or Finland.  Taxation of alcohol in Finland and Denmark is higher than in the UK, as can be seen in the map below, taken from the WHO Global Status Report on Health and alcohol in 2011.

So you can clearly see that although higher taxation can be effective, there are obviously other factors in play with dangerously high alcohol consumption.  The cultural argument is well known both here and in Scandinavian countries, spirits are enjoyed liberally and are considered a part of our respective national identities.  Other factors, such as low levels of daylight in winter and vitamin D deficiency could certainly be considered to be common contributing factors, but while we cannot change these factors, we can change our cultural perspective on alcohol, and, by extension other drugs.

Let's now consider that Scotland doesn't simply have an alcohol problem but a drug problem in general.  Last year the Global Commission on Drug policy effectively declared the War on Drugs as a failure and produced a report calling for a change in attitude from prohibition and criminalisation of Drugs to treating drugs as a health issue and focusing on education and rehabilitation.  In fact, the opening paragraph of the report was :

The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. Fifty years after the initiation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and 40 years after President Nixon launched the US government’s war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed.

Which brings me now to Portugal.  In 2001, the focus of drug policy in Portugal was switched from the criminalisation of drug users to the rehabilitation of drug users.  A full summary  can be found here on Wikipedia, but the important factor for me is this.  When someone is found in possession of a personal amount of a drug, or being dangerously out of control under the influence of drugs, instead of being sent to court (unless of course someone else has come to harm in which case they will go to court for that part of their behaviour) they are asked to attend an expert panel not unlike the Children's panel we have here in Scotland for dealing with most youth crime.  The panel will make recommendations to help the person change their behaviour, including attending rehabilitation centres or taking courses of substitutes like Methadone.
I don't really see the point of the dividing line of legality we have between alcohol and other drugs in Scotland. I believe that all people with drug issues would benefit greatly from a system like that in place in Portugal.  Instead of spending the night in the cells and then being charged with being in Breach of the Peace, a person with an alcohol problem should be attending a panel of experts who can help them find a course of dealing with their problem.  If a similar thing happens with a heroin, cocaine or amphetamine addict, they should be going in front of exactly the same panel to help them deal with their problem.  Only in the case of other criminal law being broken by someone under the influence should that person end up in a criminal court for their behaviour.  Drugs, including alcohol, are a health issue first and foremost and should be treated as such.  Glassing someone in the pub because you are drunk and out of order is both a health and a criminal issue and should also be treated accordingly.
If all drugs in Scotland were treated equally, with allowances for reasonable use and a system in place to help abusers before they become a criminal problem, then perhaps we could finally deal with our long established problem with drugs.  EU law does not allow for the legalisation of prohibited drugs, but it does leave room for decriminalisation.  Let's take the problem of supply away from the hands of criminals, as we can see that this does indeed work with Alcohol and Tobacco, and take the problem of the social consequences out of police cells and prisons and allow the police and criminal justice system more time to deal with the violent crime, theft and other genuinely dangerous issues and people.
Of course, this can only really be achieved with Independence, and this is a debate I would like to see become part of the constitutional process after the Yes vote in 2014.

Spring Conference

I broke my conference duck at the weekend, and it proved to be a truly valuable experience.  I'm still mulling things over, there was an awful lot to take in after all, but I wanted to write a short post about the experience.
The first thing that really hit me was just how busy it was.  I've been to the SECC plenty of times, I've been involved with exhibitions there and been to events there before, but the constant tide of the yellow ribboned conference pass brigade was impressive.
I started my day queuing for my pass behind Angus Robertson, and quickly found myself engaged in lively debate with all the people around me.  This theme of friendliness, excitement and openness was one that continued throughout the weekend.
There was no contention in the passing of the morning's motions, but that was hardly surprising as there is a definite sense of togetherness and purpose in the party at the moment, which was evident throughout the weekend.  In contrast to the Lib Dem spring conference that's just gone where Nick Clegg was defeated on two motions, it shows where the momentum in British Politics is heading.  I say British because the cause of Scottish Nationalism is still a British issue, whether we like that or not.  Those British Politics are heading for the skip though, while we will walk away with our Scottish Politics intact and refurbished, ready for the challenges the world is facing now.
The actual business of the conference is already well documented.  Go watch Angus Robertson and Derek MacKay's speeches on the Independence Roadshow touring the branches currently on youtube, as they were both excellent and worthwhile.
I skipped the first round of fringe meetings to go to lunch with a relative, sorry!  But I paid for that by having to be in one of the four overspill rooms for Alex Salmond's speech.  Even in the overspill room, the atmosphere was bright and optimistic, fuelled by the First Minister's words and passion as well as our collective enthusiasm for this immense task we are now heading into.
And it is immense.  We still have a lot of persuading to do, but it is not a task we are not equal to.  We have time on our side, and we have positivity on our side.  We will soon be riding the wave of successes in the upcoming council elections, purely because the other parties are showing their tiredness and this is reflected by their slump in the polls across the board.  This is all much to the advantage of our cause, because the other parties simply can't match the energy and enthusiasm that was gathered in the SECC at the weekend.
Returning on Sunday it seemed as if people were more and not less energised after the hectic day before.  At lunchtime I attended an excellent debate on Votes at 16, which is an issue that needs to be tackled quickly if 16 year olds are going to get the chance to vote in 2014.  I  can't really see any viable counter to the proposal either, it's as simple as the cause of American Independence.  No taxation without representation!
This time I was quick off the mark so that I could grab a seat in the main hall for Nicola Sturgeon's speech.  Alex Salmond passed comment on her favourite tv show being Borgen as he introduced her to the hall, but joking aside, I am looking forward to a time when we can call her Prime Minister of Scotland.  I've always admired her, but the reasons for that were brought home to me as she spoke to the conference.  Tellingly, the largest round of acclaim came for her assertion  that "as a priority, rid this country, once and for all, of the obscenity of Trident nuclear weapons on the river Clyde."    No version of Devo-max, lite, plus or even 2.0 can deliver on this massively important issue, nor can it deliver on preventing our soldiers being sent to die or risk themselves in illegal wars.  This, to me, is a stronger argument than anything economic, because while Britain trumpets it's influence in the world by piggybacking on Trident and the "Special Relationship", Scotland could be creating it's own influence in the world as a Nuclear free and peaceable nation.  I know which I prefer.
All in all, my first conference was a highly enjoyable and envigorating experience which has galvanised my desire to get involved in making sure we have a yes vote in 2014!