Ten years ago this month I was in a pub called The Porter in Bath with my girlfriend and her family, buying everyone whiskies and gabbling deliriously (I’d been up for over 40 hours at that point) about the significance of what had just happened.
Alex Salmond’s SNP had just broken the Scottish electoral system, winning an absolute majority of seats in a Parliament designed expressly to stop that from ever happening. A total of 72 pro-independence MSPs had been elected, and it was already clear that an independence referendum was going to happen despite the Labour Party’s best efforts. It was impossibly exciting.
This month I sat and watched 72 ostensibly pro-indy MSPs be elected again, but this time with my heart breaking, knowing that they would achieve nothing and indeed had no real intention to even try.
We’d actually planned to leave Chris Cairns’ fabulous cartoon at the top of the front page all day today, but this post is important so we’re putting it in here again (no, Chris, you don’t get paid twice) so we can say this.
Because no matter how much you hate the Unionist parties or certain of their individual MSPs, if you want Alba MSPs elected today there are several seats where youreally, really can’t afford to vote SNP on the constituency ballot.
THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM
Chapter I
Ignorance Is Strength
Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the essential structure of society has never altered.
Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other.
The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable.
Our always-alert readers will probably have noticed that Nicola Sturgeon’s constant catchphrase this week has been how Yes supporters still need to “build the case for independence”, rather than actually do anything to achieve it.
But the thing is, she’s the leader of the SNP. Building the case for independence is literally her job, and she’s now been doing it for six and a half years. So how much progress have we made?
It’s pretty stark when you see it laid out like this.
In just four months, the SNP – because if you aggressively assert sole ownership of a political campaign, there’s nobody else you can blame when it goes south – have turned a 10-point lead for independence into a seven-point lead for the Union with the same polling company.
And while that’s pretty brutal in itself, it’s not even the real fly in the ointment.
Remember when we’d had 20-odd Yes-majority polls in a row, and all the courtiers of Queen Nicola Of Trans were telling us that it was solely down to her personal strategic genius and cunning masterplan of gently persuading soft No voters by, um, not actually taking any steps to achieve independence in case it scared them?
Just over a hundred years ago, the rights of women in the UK were still entirely decided by men. Women didn’t have the vote (a small minority would be given it in 1918, but most would have another decade to wait), there were no women in Parliament, and women basically had no say in anything that happened.
Record scratch and jump-cut to the present day.
That’s Kirsty Blackman, an SNP MP elected in 2015 who wouldn’t even have been allowed to stand for election a hundred years earlier, and who seems determined to take women’s rights back to that century.
It really is deeply dispiriting the see the level of utter burning contempt in which Nicola Sturgeon holds the independence movement, if this is the sort of ludicrously insulting garbage she thinks it’ll swallow.
Alf Baird on Faces In Sand: ““..dismantle a political and economic union that he claims doesn’t exist” The problem surely lies with those such as yersel…” Oct 25, 22:36
sarah on Faces In Sand: “Dan, thanks for the info on trees. I brought the chestnut tree up from Kent as a sprout 25 years…” Oct 25, 21:56
Lorncal on Faces In Sand: “I absolutely agree, Northcode, that we need to make a powerful case for independence across the board, but, after an…” Oct 25, 20:52
Dan on Faces In Sand: “@ Sarah They are not my Hazel or Sweet Chestnut trees. They are just planted locally along a roadside. I’m…” Oct 25, 20:31
sam on Faces In Sand: “That there was colonialism of Northern Ireland was an idea widely considered by many groups and individuals during what is…” Oct 25, 20:12
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: “Wheesht, Xaracen! Dinna tell the Picts we Scots stole most of the country from. Got to say, it does seem…” Oct 25, 19:44
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: “My benchmark 30 seconds of internet research reveals the budget of BBC Scotland TV to be £42 million PA. The…” Oct 25, 19:36
Insider on Faces In Sand: “sarah @7:13 This is solely due to the vicious, heartless colonialism that we Scots suffer under. But never fear…in Alf’s…” Oct 25, 19:33
Xaracen on Faces In Sand: ““Ex Injuria Jus Non Oritur” -Illegitimacy cannot create legitimacy. A wrongful act cannot become a lawful one through time alone.…” Oct 25, 19:21
sarah on Faces In Sand: “Dan, how come your hazel nuts actually contain nuts? I gathered some off the ground a few days ago and…” Oct 25, 19:13
Dan on Faces In Sand: “Link to Barrheadboy article (and comments) posted today which shines some light on influencing aspects that are factors in shaping…” Oct 25, 18:32
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: “Maybe 1606 and 1707 are times, not dates? Then it makes sense.” Oct 25, 18:27
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: “Mental impairment is a badge of honour these days. It brings loads of societal advantages too, not to mention free…” Oct 25, 18:23
Captain Caveman on Faces In Sand: “Well, this “sassenach yoon” cage is indeed freely rattling, I will readily concede. Rattling with wry, incredulous laughter. 😀” Oct 25, 18:22
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: “Quite difficult to see how any sane, rational person can be opposed to rewilding per se. So I guess Confused’s…” Oct 25, 18:00
Spartan 117 on Faces In Sand: “You do know all the estates up here are owned either by Arabs (their 737s arrive at Inverness regularly, one…” Oct 25, 17:49
Dan on Faces In Sand: “Not stuck indoors for me today. Yesterday was mostly indoors though sitting out the gales and rain after spending the…” Oct 25, 17:45
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: “““authoritarian logic” as you call it by implication emanates from oppressive state entities and its mouthpieces (i.e. you Northcode), not…” Oct 25, 17:44
Spartan 117 on Faces In Sand: “I see I’m not the only one who raised an eyebrow at The Nutty Professor’s bizarre posts above. Well said…” Oct 25, 17:44
sam on Faces In Sand: “Northcode says of Alf Baird: He then implies that Scots who disagree with his “Scotland is colonised” argument are mentally…” Oct 25, 17:26
Dan on Faces In Sand: “So Northcode, were does the likes of Plato and his Allegory of the Cave fit in with your junk and…” Oct 25, 17:24
Confused on Faces In Sand: “this weather, eh? – thank god for the aga, warms the whole house, cooks your dinner and dries out your…” Oct 25, 16:38
Alf Baird on Faces In Sand: “On the contrary, “authoritarian logic” as you call it by implication emanates from oppressive state entities and its mouthpieces (i.e.…” Oct 25, 16:11
sarah on Faces In Sand: “Since we’re all stuck indoors, there’s some crowdfunders to donate to, and youtube from SSRG conference to listen to. 1.…” Oct 25, 14:46
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: ““This isn’t metaphor – it’s literal pathologisation” Good post, Northy. Alf’s attitude is straight out of the Bolshevik handbook as…” Oct 25, 14:43
Northcode on Faces In Sand: “Alf Baird is claiming exclusive access to “reality”. He writes: “The unveiled reality enabling the colonized mind to recover…” This…” Oct 25, 14:17
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: ““Scotland requires authentic statesmen more than parish pump politicians” You say that, TURABDIN, yet the decades come and the decades…” Oct 25, 14:14
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: ““It’s the sheer indefatigability and lack of self-awareness that shocks you” It’s of fascinating academic interest, certainly. I’m of the…” Oct 25, 14:01
TURABDIN on Faces In Sand: “MODERN COLONIALISM IN ACTION https://venezuelanalysis.com/opinion/venezuela-from-revolution-to-recolonization/ USA, the country that supported Saddam Hussein in a proxy war against its neighbour then…” Oct 25, 13:51
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: ““reminds me of the evil Nanny from the Omen with that glaikit satanic glare she has” Ah, the wondrous wittering…” Oct 25, 13:39
