Professor John Robertson OBA, Honest Ferry Correspondent
From Isle of Wight County Press, yesterday:
75 years ago, in May 1950: The cost of ferry fares were a source of grievance. Mr. H. Frohock, of St. Alban’s guest house, Shanklin, sent a letter to the County Press asking why it cost £3 to cross the Solent, when it only cost 5s (25p) to cross the Firth of Forth.
12 times more expensive! Things have actually improved relatively for the folk travelling to the Isle of Wight. It’s only 4 times more expensive these days. See:
‘Ferry cost stopped us booking a holiday to the Isle of Wight’ due to costs nearly FOUR TIMES times as much as a CalMac equivalent
From MSN 12 March 2025:
I’ve read that the number of visitors to the Isle of Wight staying in overnight accommodation during July, August and September last year fell by 14 per cent. Is that due to the poor weather last summer or other factors?
The cost of the ferries must be one of them. Having found a reasonably priced property to rent for all of us, we expected to pay around £150 to £180 per car, and we need three.
But we were shocked – it was going to cost a total of around £750. This was booking in December for a July holiday. Sadly this cost could not be justified when added to the price of the accommodation. So we’re off to the South Coast instead.
Crossings to the Isle of Wight range from 20 to 45 minutes to cover the 6 miles distance.
The comparable Oban to Craignure (Mull) return crossing by CalMac is a bit further at 11 miles but takes also about 45 minutes.
For one standard car with 2 adults and 2 children on 21 and 28 July 2025, cost per car – £63.40.
For 3 cars – £190.20. https://ticketing.calmac.co.uk/B2C-Calmac/#/desktop/step3
Just over a quarter of the cost of the Isle of Wight example above.
Why the difference?
Scottish Government subsidy for CalMac ferries. Shareholder dividends and executive bonuses for Isle of Wight ferry companies.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Hi John, O/T as usual, I thought that you might find this interesting. It is a long read but I hope, a good one.
British Ultranationalism and how the Scottish Unionists Are Morally Complicit.
The vacuous and politically impotent Sarwar and his side kick, the deceitful dyscalculic Baillie with their combined mendacity and their relentless obsession of him becoming First Minister of Scotland, without any desire to serve the public good, are either completely apathetic or too stupid in their empleomania to realise that they are, like their boss in England, complicit in the rise of the far right-wing highbinder opportunist Farage.
When left-wing British Labour in Scotland leader Richard Leonard contradicted swindler Starmer’s decision to back the Tory government’s Brexit ‘deal’ and vote against it at Holyrood, because of the economic damage he believed it would cause, Starmer removed him from office.
Since duplicitously being anointed the leader of the British Labour Party in Scotland along with the Tories, Liberal Democrats and the always overly eager London controlled Scottish media by his side, Sarwar has recklessly steered a campaign of division, fear, hatred and anger against the democratically elected SNP government and so too the people of Scotland.
Whether by design or chance, my opinion is, designed by Whitehall, Sarwar and Baillie’s polarisation and contentious politics, aided and abetted by the Tories and Liberal Democrats, are directly based on the politically divisive Opinion Formation Theory, which is, the process of influence, whereby individuals, or in their case voters, develop and reinforce opinions on political issues through conflict, by manipulation of information and the creation of “echo chambers”, further solidifying existing beliefs, making it harder to bridge divides. In other words, creating division.
From medium.com
“The echo chamber phenomenon has been an area of interest for many researchers, psychologists, and social scientists. At its core, an echo chamber refers to a closed system where individuals are only exposed to opinions and information that align with their own beliefs, reinforcing their pre-existing views without being challenged by contradictory evidence. This phenomenon is not only prevalent in political arenas, but it also finds its manifestation in various social and online platforms.
Echo Chambers can be detrimental in various ways. Most prominently, they hinder the growth of individual and collective knowledge. When one is continuously exposed to a singular viewpoint, the ability to critically analyse multiple perspectives diminishes.”
The Psychology of the Echo Chamber: How Our Brain Seeks Affirmation and Polarizes | by Donna L Roberts, PhD (Psych Pstuff) | Psych Pstuff | Medium
Divide and Conquer
Opinion Formation or political manipulation has been employed for thousands of years by coloniser nations, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Spanish and Portuguese in Central and South America, the Dutch in Indonesia, the Belgians in The African Congo and other parts of the world, Britain and France in North America, India and the Caribbean and obviously Germany, of course they also all used this form of psychological propaganda against each other, as they vied for control of key territories and resources.
https://us.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/19016_4984_Donsbach_Ch01.pdf
Read “Force and Opinion” by Noam Chomsky, an excellent piece of writing, you won’t be disappointed.
Force and Opinion
Opinion Formation Theory
Opinion formation refers to the processes through which individuals in mass publics develop their viewpoints on various issues or topics.
“Empirical research adopting this view focuses on information processing and thus examines the role of perception, reasoning, and memory on attitude formation. The conclusion is that people generally do not attend to, understand, or care about politics. What attitudes they express are typically unstable, inconsistent with one another, and do not reflect any overarching ideological point of view.”
Information Processing – an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
Opinion Formation Analysis
Information Processing:
People constantly receive information from various sources, such as: media, social interactions, and personal experiences. They then filter, interpret, and weigh this information to form an opinion…….In Scotland we are bombarded with negative information across all media platforms with the aim of demoralising support for Scottish Independence, “project fear” has never gone away.
Social Influence:
The opinions and beliefs of others, especially those we trust and respect, can significantly influence our own opinions. This is often referred to as social influence or peer pressure……. In Scotland the BBC, STV and including the digital and printed media, denigrate the SNP Scottish government on a daily basis, thus, the 50+ generation who are more likely to watch, read and believe their propaganda, in turn pass these opinions onto their family. On a positive note, people born between 1999 and 2007 who live in Scotland do not have the same baggage of unionist propaganda that the older generations do, showing that opinion formation being generationally handed down in Scotland is now becoming diluted and or hopefully ignored.
From a study by The University of Edinburgh, published 18 April 2025, which used data from the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, found that 70% of 18 to 26 age group had a probability of supporting an Independent Scotland.
Is Scottish independence inevitable? The relationship between birth cohort and secessionism in Scotland. | Centre on Constitutional Change
Commitment and Consistency:
Once we form an opinion, we tend to seek out information that supports it and avoid information that contradicts it. This is a form of cognitive consistency……. In other words, in Scotland, the damage is done, or so the unionists hope.
Evolution Over Time:
Opinions are rarely static. They can evolve and change over time as individuals gain new information, experiences, or interact with different perspectives…….This is consistent with the long term plan of the SNP, remember 318 years of anti Scottish propaganda, “the Scottish Cringe”, takes time to nullify. That is not an excuse merely a fact.
Attitudes as a Component:
Opinions are often linked to our attitudes, which are our overall evaluation of something, including cognitive beliefs, emotional feelings, and behavioral intentions.
All directly connected to the type of information we receive. This influences our political behavior and decision-making……. In Scotland, negative information means bad decision-making. Although this has its basis in Cognitive Theory it has its direct connect to Opinion Formation whereby cognitive biases, heuristics, and cognitive dissonance impact political attitudes, voting, and policy preferences.
https://www.unifr.ch/datanetwork/en/assets/public/documents/articles/The%20fragility%20of%20opinion%20formation.pdf
Cognitive Complexity in Political Contexts | Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics
For more detail I recommend Walter Lippmann’s book published in 1922, “Public Opinion”, which focuses on the role of the media in shaping public opinion and the importance of expert analysis in democratic societies.
He states, “News truth and conclusion: the function of news is to signal an event, and that signalling, eventually, is a consequence of editorial selection and judgement; journalism creates and sows the seeds (news) that establish public opinion. Under the impact of propaganda it is no longer possible, for example, to believe in the original dogma of democracy. Where we act on that theory we expose ourselves to self-deception, and to forms of persuasion that we cannot verify”.
Scottish Wellbeing
As Baillie and her confederate unionists attack our Scottish NHS relentlessly, she is also attacking the happiness and wellbeing of the Scottish people, this in turn is an attack on the “social bonds” of the Scottish Nation and has led to fear and anger, along with the fragmentation of the Yes movement. Scaremongering is an obsession with the unionists.
“The experience of positive emotions, feelings, and affect are fundamental building blocks for cultivating resilience, flourishing, vitality, happiness, and life satisfaction which ultimately contribute to physical and emotional wellbeing.”
Opinion Formation – an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
Emotional wellbeing is strongly linked to making sounder, more effective choices. People with better emotional regulation tend to make more balanced and thoughtful decisions, aligned with their values. Conversely, intense or poorly managed emotions can lead to impulsive or harmful choices and you are more likely not to consider the long-term consequences of your actions.
Intense, negative emotions such as anger or fear can lead to rash, high-risk decisions, especially when you’re feeling vulnerable.
The National Library of Medicine report from 2008 has a more detailed explanation.
BEING EMOTIONAL DURING DECISION MAKING—GOOD OR BAD? AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION – PMC
75% of the variability in levels of happiness is explained by six factors:
1) The perceived availability of social support.
In Scotland this is constantly attacked by the fear inducing Baillie, Sarwar and all British unionist politicians including the media, making the elderly and the vulnerable feel dread, anxiety, fear and apprehension.
2) National gross domestic product (GDP).
Attacked every year by the unionists. I still don’t understand why the SNP continue to play along with Whitehall’s game on this.
3) Average healthy life expectancy.
“Among constituent countries of Great Britain, life expectancy between 2021 and 2023 was highest in England (79.1 years for males and 83.0 years for females) and lowest in Scotland (76.8 years for males and 80.8 years for females).”
Life expectancy for local areas of Great Britain – Office for National Statistics
4) The perceived freedom to make life choices.
In Scotland we have a constant barrage from Sarwar et al of misinformation, “job losses”, “reckless SNP Government” “no future”, “negative negative negative under the SNP Government”, all geared to make the Scottish population feel resentment and anger toward our SNP Holyrood Government.
5) Generosity as indicated by self-reported monetary donations to a charity.
Outwith London, Scotland is the most charitable nation in the UK. Therefore it is the one thing they do not try and cannot negate.
Donation nation: The geography of charitable giving in the UK | Centre for Cities
6) Perceived levels of corruption.
We all know this one, blue tents, camper-van, fraud, ferry fiasco, SNP bad……the list is endless. Most recent being Ross and his “playground” staged antics at Holyrood, leading to him being expelled from the Chamber, whereby he and the media can report on how the devolved Scottish Parliament is anti-Tory and biased toward the SNP Government.
Other research based on multiple waves of the World Value Survey has shown that the greater the inequality in income within nations, the greater the inequalities in national happiness and life satisfaction. This is surely proof of why if Scotland, with it’s wealth of resources, was an Independent nation we would be one of the world’s richest countries per head of population, which in turn would make us one of the most happiest and satisfied.
The neuroscience of positive emotions and affect: Implications for cultivating happiness and wellbeing – ScienceDirect
So how does Opinion Formation Theory connect to Sarwar, the dentist, and his British Labour Party in Scotland with their incompetent inexpert car crash mismanagement of social and cognitive political psychology and the rise of Farage’s far right Reform party?
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction
Not for one minute am I suggesting that Sarwar is a fan of, or working alongside Farage and Reform, I would hope the opposite is true. What I am saying is that the unionist parties in Scotland have taken their fear inducing negative misinformation propaganda way too far and being amateurish, and let’s face it just not very good at politics, their addiction to bad news propaganda for Scotland has backfired on them and opened Scotland’s doors to Farage and the far right-wing.
Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate
Research indicates that anger and fear are significant drivers of support for far-right parties and policies, particularly among those who are dissatisfied with the status quo and feel a need for action against perceived threats, including those related to immigration or social change.
“Fear, like other negative emotions, can trigger our anger. While fear leads us to feel vulnerable and not in control, anger can be energizing and empowering. As such, it can become the go-to reaction to experiencing fear. Promoting fear and anger is a hallmark strategy used by authoritarian leaders to intensify our sense of threat and subsequently gain power.”
Fear and Anger: Similarities, Differences, and Interaction | Psychology Today United Kingdom
“Anger and a lack of trust in traditional political institutions – rather than fear – are the key drivers of support for radical right and anti-immigration political movements in Europe”.
Study suggests anger drives voters to turn to far right parties | King’s College London
There are several reasons why system-directed anger may shape voters’ preferences for populist radical right parties. A first argument is one of political information. People experiencing anger are less likely to thoroughly process political information and to more often seek out information that confirms their pre-existing beliefs leading to stronger opinion polarization and a more extreme vote. Secondly, anger might lead to votes for populist radical parties through these parties’ anti-establishment claims.
Populist radical right parties often profile themselves as agents of change, i.e., as outsiders and challengers to the system which they consider to be irresponsive to the needs of the people. They assign blame to the abstract category of “elites” as being responsible for social or political problems and this rhetoric resonates more strongly among individuals who feel angry with the political system. Anger can thus compel individuals to back parties that blame the establishment.
Frontiers | Angry men and angry women: gender, system-directed anger and populist radical right voting in Belgium
“I know that I know nothing”
Platonian Paradox from “Plato’s Apology” (399 BCE)
In what has been labelled as the Platonian paradox of democracy, autocratic political forces that may threaten the very existence of democracy as an institution in the long run are free to run for office and be elected to exercise their destructive aspirations. People have, indeed, on many occasions, allowed themselves to be ‘devoured’, and entrusted authority to populist ‘tigers’, such as plutocrats, tyrants, and buffoons who have been able to impress or bribe voters with charisma and enticing promises. Democracy is the power of the loudest, owing to the fact that a victory in elections is often attained by the power of propaganda rather than the power of merit.
Forces placing themselves to the right of the political spectrum tend to glorify traditionalism, financial self-reliance, and in Scotland, British national identity.
In essence, “the nation” has been depicted by the far right as an overarching entity that unifies individuals in response to perceived threats or shared fears, encompassing concerns such as poverty, political instability, and catastrophes. In their narratives, politicians from this ideological spectrum have focused on eliminating proven and exaggerated threats that vary greatly, from galloping electricity prices to the “Islamisation of Europe”.
Conventional wisdom holds that public anxiety increases support for far-right movements and agendas. Radicals capitalise on and amplify emotional responses to shifting social orders and challenging political or economic conditions, effectively employing fear as a means to accomplish their objectives. This phenomenon can be elucidated through the Affective Intelligence Theory, which posits that individuals experience fear when they perceive a threat to their well-being originating from an unknown source. The theory contends that fear aids in exaggerating the magnitude of a threat. As a result, fearful individuals become more receptive to persuasion, given their uncertainty in confronting such threats.
Fear as a tool in the hands of the European far right – EST
Social media manipulation of public opinion is a growing threat to democracies around the world, according to the 2020 media manipulation survey from the Oxford Internet Institute, which found evidence in every one of the 80+ countries surveyed.
The United Kingdom is one of these “countries”.
Social media manipulation by political actors an industrial scale problem – Oxford report | University of Oxford
Industrialized Disinformation 2020 Global Inventory of Organised Social Media Manipulation.
https://demtech.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2021/02/CyberTroop-Report20-Draft9.pdf
Mobilise
Farage is exploiting the political negative rhetoric employed by the Scottish unionists and as a far-right opportunist he is attempting to capitalise on Scotland’s misinformed discontent, anxiety and fear to advance his populist extremist ultranationalist British agenda.
“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there “is” such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”
– Martin Luther King Jr., April 4, 1967, Riverside Church, New York
I want a Scotland where fairness and justice prevail.
A Scotland where everyone has equal access to opportunities, resources and rights.
A Scotland that eliminates systemic inequities based on factors such as race, gender, socioeconomic status, or disability.
A Scotland that looks after its old and vulnerable as well as its young.
A Scotland that is free from another countries propaganda, misinformation and scaremongering.
A Scotland that has a free NHS.
A Scotland that has free education.
A Scotland that has free prescriptions.
A Scotland that is free from right-wing and far right-wing hate.
A Scotland that is free from racism.
A Scotland that is free from fear.
A Scotland that is nuclear free.
A Scotland that has the freedom to decide for itself.
I want Scottish Independence.
How to stop the unionist’s misinformation and anti Scottish propaganda and how to stop the rise of the far right in Scotland?
Simple…….don’t vote for any of them!
VOTE SNP
JB
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Fantastic
off to repost
John
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OK, I know, are you sure you’re the Prof here John? I’ve had this with that other one, stewartb. I’m going top start offering Honorary professorships, from the Noam Chomsky University of Propaganda Studies, Kilmarnock Campus
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Re the younger voters, I’d add the effects of the introduction of Modern Studies into schools and the moderation of History teaching content away from uncritical British Empire and largely English 18-20C content.
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