The vote for Scottish independence or not is looming (September 18) and there’s been a big bust-up in Scotland over a campaign run by some privateering Brits, determined to offer an alternative to the official ‘No’ to independence fronted by former Labour chancellor Alastair Darling.
The campaign, ‘Vote No Borders,’ has been orchestrated by former BBH partner Martin Smith (left) and executed by wily media agency John Ayling and Associates. It’s included taking over a whole issue of Trinity Mirror’s Daily Record and running a hard-hitting cinema campaign over the past two weeks. The upshot of the latter is that political cinema ads in Scotland (below) have now been banned by the cinema owners, who may or may not have come under pressure from the Scottish Nationalist ruling party – which is voting for independence, obviously.
Vote No Borders thinks that Darling’s efforts in the cause of a ‘No’ vote are pants (Darling’s a nice and capable guy but no campaigner) so they’ve taken the gloves off. Lots of business people on both sides of the border are said to be pouring money into their coffers.
SNP leader Alex Salmond, who’s been winning the debate over Darling so far, is said to be highly exercised by this new ‘British’ incursion. Just like Braveheart really.
(This is an updated version of last night’s story).
The cinema ads were not banned by the SNP. The pro independence Yes Scotland cinema ad was banned too. It was the decision of the cinema owners. Get your facts right.
PS: you’ll find the Yes Scotland ad here:
http://youtu.be/NclkfOjQle0
Very disturbing to see this in the article: “The upshot of the latter is that political cinema ads in Scotland (below) have now been banned by the Scottish Nationalist ruling party – which is voting for independence, obviously. ”
This is completely untrue. The adverts were banned by the cinema chains not the SNP. I look forward to this being clarified and your apologies for the error.
Happy to acknowledge that the campaign was banned by the cinema owners not the SNP.
Thanks for the update Stephen, but the SNP should not even be mentioned in this article. You may or may not be aware that further developments in this have happened and it seems the reason at least one of the Vote No Borders advertisements was pulled was because of a complaint made by Great Ormond Street Hospital concerning the NHS Vote No Borders advertisement.