Passion not politics will decide Scotland's future

IN A SIGN that the pressure is building the leaders of the three main parties will travel to Scotland today to promote the better together campaign.

Forgoing Prime Minister Questions David Cameron, Ed Milliband and Nick Clegg are hoping that by providing a united front they will sway undecided voters to their side.

With eight days to go until the referendum the trio may find that it is too little too late, particularly as in an attempt not to alienate current supporters they will not be appearing on the same platform. Instead the 'united front' will be more of a three pronged attack as they travel to different parts of the country to give impassioned pleas to Scots to remain in the United Kingdom.

In a joint statement yesterday Messrs Cameron, Milliband and Clegg stressed that keeping Scotland in the union was their priority.

"That's why all of us are agreed the right place for us to be tomorrow is in Scotland, not at prime minister's questions in Westminster.

"We want to be listening and talking to voters about the huge choices they face. Our message to the Scottish people will be simple: 'We want you to stay.'"

With recent polls showing the two sides level and the Yes campaign still gaining momentum this last ditch attempt to play on the passions and emotions of voters may not be enough to stave off a split next week though.

Leader of the Yes Campaign Alex Salmond has called the move a sign that the No campaign is panicking as the threat of Scottish independence looms large on the horizon.

 "'I relish David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg coming to Scotland - collectively, they are the least trusted Westminster leaders ever, and this day trip will galvanise the 'Yes' vote.

"No-one believes their panicked pledges - it is a phoney timetable for measly powers. A 'Yes' vote delivers a real timetable for the full powers that Scotland needs."

He added: "The No side have lost their poll lead, and people are switching directly over to Yes - if David Cameron thinks he is the answer to the No campaign's disintegration disarray, let him put his case to the test in a head-to-head debate."

The recent news from polling results will not be adding to the confidence of the No campaign. Having already thrown Gordon Brown into the fight in a desperate bid to appeal to core labour voters they are now showing that they have started to realise that this campaign will be won on emotions rather than logic.

Where the campaign has failed is that it has tried to combat Mr Salmond's passionate patriotic propaganda with rational arguments, most notably about currency. This is not going to be a vote based on the head though. When people vote on independence it will be with their hearts. For months cries of "Freedom" and "Bannockburn" have resonated far more than "the pound" and "taxes". As both sides enter the final leg one day of passion may not be close to enough to save this troubled marriage.

Hypocrisy can't stop condemnation of Israeli offensive

Israeli supporters and officials have condemned numerous statements against the slaughter in Gaza as hypocrisy on the part of British politicians.

Drawing comparisons to Britain and America's invasion of Iraq in 2003 several senior Israeli politicians have called on current and former MP's to retract their comments opposing the blood shed.

Earlier this week former deputy Prime Minister John Prescott brought Israeli anger after accusing the country of war crimes in its ongoing bombardment of the beleaguered region.

Writing in the Mirror Mr Prescott said: "Imagine a country claiming the lives of nearly three times as many as were lost in the MH17 plane tragedy in less than three weeks.

A nation which blasted a hospital, shelled and killed children from a gunboat as they played football on the beach and was responsible for 1,000 deaths, at least 165 of them children, in just two weeks.

Surely it would be branded a pariah state, condemned by the United Nations, the US and the UK. The calls for regime change would be deafening."

Mr Prescott continues by acknowledging the part which the Palestinian authority Hamas has played in the conflict with its rocket attacks on Israeli territory before saying: 

"But who is to say some of the other 20 per cent weren’t innocent too? Israel brands them terrorists but it is acting as judge, jury and executioner in the concentration camp that is Gaza."

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has been among those to call on Israel to stop its attacks, which have hit UN buildings where people were sheltering, amid a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

 "It is amounting now to a disproportionate form of collective punishment. It is leading to a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which is just unacceptable," he said.

"I really would now call on the Israeli government to stop. They have proved their point. Israel of course retains the right to react. But you cannot see the humanitarian suffering in Gaza now and the very great number of deaths in Gaza without concluding that there is not much more going to be served in Israel's own interests … to see this festering humanitarian crisis get worse. It incubates the next generation of violent extremists who want to do harm to Israel."

Despite the majority of casualties in the conflict being innocent civilians the Israeli government has refused to back down, claiming that Operation Protective Edge is a responsible and proportionate defence of is people, going as far as to say that they "have a policy - we don't target civilians".

The figures tell a different story though. More than 1360 Palestinians, mostly civilian, have been killed since the attacks started on the 8th of July compared to 58 Israeli's, two of whom were civilian. Earlier this week Israeli fire hit a United Nations school, not the first UN building to be attacked, something which Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said they would investigate and possibly "apologise" if they felt it was needed.

On Wednesday the IDF also breached a further ceasefire, claiming that truces only were in place where Israeli forces were not operating, by targeting a market where women and children were trying to gather supplies while they believed they may be safe.

Israel's argument that Britain is being hypocritical in its coverage of the abuse seems to warrant further attention, however. For the claim to be proven then it must by rights acknowledge that it has no legal justification for the level of armed intervention which it is currently engaged in, as many experts have stated was the case with former Prime Minister Tony Blair's engagement in Iraq. Even if this were the case though hypocrisy is no reason not to condemn an act of slaughter. In 1290 the English King Edward I instigated the expulsion of all Jews, leading to the "great Jewish expulsions" of the Middle Ages. Hypocrisy would not allow us, or many other countries, to have done all they could to intervene in a holocaust happening again. Hypocrisy cannot stop us from taking the right action now and calling for the senseless killings of innocent Palestinians to end and end now.