After that Friday night’s George Galloway and Brian Wilson meeting I woke up on the Saturday morning intending to go leafleting. However, I spotted on Facebook that and old pal from Partick, Kenny Carson, was setting up a stall at the combined bus, underground and train station in Merkland Street that day.
I did a little bit of leafleting but then headed down to see Kenny and his mate who were on the stall. The reactions as overwhelmingly good - many punters expressing exasperation at being bulldozed by the Nats on the streets.
It’s a curious referendum in many ways considering it is a constitutional one - when you talk to ‘ordinary’ people they are more concerned about the NHS, pensions and jobs than they are by an obsession to blame the English for the bad weather. The only historical debates/lectures you get are from convinced Yes voters and activists.
One thing I do find unsettling is the number of waverers or non-ideological Yes voters is the idea that we can ‘give this a try’ - there is on the one hand no real understanding that the SNP will never give you an opportunity to reverse the decision or that the Yes unpreparedness on the currency, European integration, a central bank, etc, signals that they have not done the groundwork necessary for a smooth path to independence. It’s almost as though someone will wave a magic wand and things will be fine. And this is a mass phenomenon.
On the Sunday morning Drumchapel Together did a mass leafleting of the scheme from the Drumry roundabout, through the Hill, Kinfauns, Peel Glen, Southdeen and all the way through to Bearsden - just 17 ordinary punters, not political activists, who were involved in political activity for the first time in their lives. The went out with 12,000 leaflets and delivered to virtually every house in the Drum.
On Sunday afternoon I went out on an organised canvass with Better Together - normally there have been six of us, once there was eight (although the faces change from week to week) - after the dip in the polls it energised people and we had 18 in total turn up!
Last Tuesday the Drumchapel Together punters put up a stall in the shopping centre and I tagged along for an hour - they did very well. I think the fact that they were obviously new to politics helped with getting the message across to the voters - there is a huge well of support for the Union which in many areas is untapped.