Rigging the referendum consultation?

Pot calling kettle black?

There are numerous problems with this accusation. First, of course, there is the simple fact that all consultations in recent years have been run under very similar lines, like the consultation process for the Smoking Ban, run by the Labour/Lib-Dem coalition Scottish Executive. But there's a much bigger problem, if you ask me, and one that Labour seem to have conveniently forgotten.
Over the first few months of the year the Scottish Office at Westminster has also been running their own consultation. They are very keen to tell us that the vast majority of respondents want the referendum brought forward to 2013, for example. That's very interesting, I'm sure, but considering that the Scottish Labour website not only gave you a form for your email address and name, they very kindly filled out the rest of the form for you with this suggested response.

The referendum on Scotland’s constitutional future is hugely important, and I want to have my say on how the referendum is run. I want it to be legal, fair, and decisive.LegalI do not want the referendum to be subject to legal challenge or dragged through the courts. Clarity on which parliament has the legal responsibility to call the referendum must be sorted out.FairI want the referendum to be supervised by the Electoral Commission, and I am opposed to any attempt to water down their role. They must have the legal power to rule on the wording of the question.DecisiveThere should only be one question in order to give a definitive answer on whether or not Scotland remains part of the UK. I do not support attempts to muddy the water with further questions on other matters. I want the referendum sooner rather than later and do not see the need to wait almost three years.Please take my views into account.

They also suggested a subject for you too, since, possibly, being Scottish makes this all too difficult for you. Just in case you were in any doubt this is their idea of how to respond to a consultation, to the right of the form there was a little message, "Sending the message on the left means you will send an email response to the Scottish Government consultation." There were 3000 responses to this consultation, which is now closed. The claim that 70% of respondents did not want to wait to 2014 rather uncannily echoes the wording of the above suggested response. I've been unable to find a breakdown of how many of the 3000 responses came through the Scottish Labour website. I made my own through it, but of course I deleted the suggested response. I've also made my own, non-anonymous response to the Scottish Government consultation.
Last night on Newsnight Scotland Kezia Dugdale seems to categorically accept Jim Eadie's contention that 1500 of the responses each from both the Scottish Government and the UK Government consultations came through the Labour website as above. 1500 amounts to half of all the responses received for the UK Government consultation altogether? Who's rigging it? At around 6.46 Kezia Dugdale makes her admission.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B04p9uf5bKs&feature=player_embedded#!

I'd like to suggest to Scottish Labour that they look to their own arguable rigged referendum consultation before criticising the Scottish Government's one. Unfortunately, the problem isn't just in the Scottish Labour Party. Our own dear Scottish Secretary seems to see nothing wrong with calling the Scottish Government's Referendum consultation rigged even while telling us all quite clearly the extent of the jiggery-pokery going on with his.


On Good Morning Scotland this morning, Scottish Secretary Michael Moore said that of the 3000 or so responses to The Referendum on Separation for Scotland consultation, the UK Government "had 740 that are the text of which was the same as the Labour party text on their website".


He claimed that this didn't concern him, "because that was consistent with a number of others from across Scotland who are also in favour of a single question and wanting to have this sooner rather than later".


So in other words, more than 25% of their responses consisted of Identical Text, and Michael Moore doesn't believe his consultation needs independent verification.


He also claimed that this UK Government consultatiation, "confirms support for the Government's approach to the referendum, that we need to have a legal, fair and decisive referendum", without out even a hint of irony!



Now I took myself off to the Scottish Government Referendum Consultation website because Michael Moore told us in the same interview that the Scottish Government had put a similar automatic response to their question on The Question, but I didn't find that there at all. In fact every box below every question on the on-line form is left blank for your very own response, as if we Scots do indeed have brains enough to answer these important questions for ourselves.