Those first three paragraphs. Ooft.
And the rest of it doesn’t pull many punches either. Let’s hope it’s just the first crack in the dam. The opportunity for the others in the party to find their courage is fast ebbing away, and history will be unmerciful if they don’t seize it.
This is, strictly speaking, semantically, true:
It is, however, as the famous phrase goes, not the whole truth.
Tuesday’s front page headline in The National was roughly the political equivalent of introducing yourself to your new next-door neighbour by saying “Hi, nice to meet you, I’m Jimmy from No.22 and it definitely wasn’t me who killed your cat last night”.
Humza Yousaf’s great masterplan of an independence strategy is imploding faster than the OceanGate Titan, and scarcely any less disastrously. And unless you’re one of the colleagues, family or friends of the tragic victims on board the doomed vessel, it’s even more painful to watch.
This one goes out to all the “rebel” MSPs at the SNP desks in Holyrood.
Because it’s nearly time for you to choose whether you want to fight, or die meekly.
The word “packed” is working very hard here.
Because the video Riddoch tweeted tells a rather different story.
We’ve seen some hilarious demands for “unity” in the independence movement in the last couple of years, almost all of them from the most divisive figures ever to wave a wee plastic Saltire (Pete Wishart, Neil Mackay, Wee Ginger Dug etc etc).
But this effort from the SNP’s new airhead mascot takes the shortbread.
Winnie Ewing, who has sadly passed away a few weeks short of her 94th birthday, was the second SNP politician I ever heard of.
My dad met her, and would speak of her with Billy Wolfe, the party leader who was also his employer at a forest machinery company in Bathgate (and our family friend), during her second term as an MP in the UK Parliament.
She now joins my dad and Billy as people who worked for the cause of independence but died before it came to fruition, after many wasted years under the leadership of Nicola Sturgeon.
Still wondering what Humza Yousaf’s going to say to the SNP’s pretend “conference” on independence strategy this coming Saturday? Well, wonder no longer, because this morning he told Sky News.
In other words, he’s waving the white flag and praying for a miracle.
Well, no wonder they’re having trouble shifting tickets.
Because that’s all you’re getting for your tenner, SNP members.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
