We watched the Labour leadership hustings this week with interest. The most striking aspect in our eyes was the warm reception afforded by the audience to left-wing outsider Jeremy Corbyn, who’s been almost uniformly discounted, sneered at and worse by the commentariat (with the notable exception of the Guardian’s Owen Jones) as a suicidal option fit only for a return to the days of the Militant Tendency.
The main reason cited by pundits for dismissing Corbyn out of hand is a perceived failure to speak to “aspiration”, which seems to have been defined for the purposes of the argument as “poor people who want to become Tories”.
The thinking runs that the unemployed and low-paid don’t want to be that way forever (reasonably enough), and that therefore there’s no point in Labour trying to redistribute wealth downwards, because nobody wants to see themselves as still being poor in the future, so they won’t see any benefit from it.
There are all manner of things morally and ideologically wrong with that approach, but they’re pretty obvious so we won’t bother spelling them out here. Perhaps a more compelling one, though, is that it’s a really stupid way to try to win an election.
A casual observer might perhaps wonder if JK Rowling, no longer writing books about wizards for children, simply wants to be noticed.
Twice in the space of a few weeks she’s appeared on newspaper front pages bleating piously about the terrible hordes of cyber- and other-nats. Yesterday the Independent, Telegraph, Scotsman, Herald, Daily Record and more all ran dismal, whiny pieces about her (entirely evidence-free) claims that the SNP was infested with mad, bitter Anglophobes just waiting for a signal to invade Derby again or something.
No particular barrage of abuse appears to have been unleashed upon the former author to provoke the outburst, but seemingly for a lack of anything better to do with her time she had a good old moan anyway and the press lapped it up.
And the reason it’s all so very tedious is that the papers might as well run stories claiming that there’s a chance of rain tomorrow.
Yesterday we highlighted a quote from Labour MP Kate Hoey about how the party secretly expects their next leader, whoever it is, to be in opposition for the next 10 years, meaning the UK will have a Conservative-led government for at least 15 years. Kate Hoey is on the Labour fringes, but today one of the front-runners for the leadership job proved her right.
Over and over again in the years leading up to the independence referendum, Scots were warned of the many dire consequences of voting Yes. Among the No campaign’s prime targets for scare tactics were subsidies for renewable energy.
UK government subsidies drying up certainly sounded like a scary prospect.
Unionists got very excited last week when the Office for Budget Responsibility once again downgraded its long-term North Sea oil revenue forecasts (which in 2011 it was predicting at £131bn) to just £2.1bn over 20 years. The new figure was as usual treated as a gospel fact and deployed to attack both independence and full fiscal autonomy by proving that Scotland couldn’t afford to run its own affairs.
We and others pointed out the numerous flaws in that argument, but of course those are just points of view. We could all debate it all day and all night and never achieve a consensus. There is, however, an easy way to settle the matter, by which supporters and opponents of independence and FFA alike can both put their money where their mouths are and everyone will be happy.
The first five words of “The Vow” – the solemn pledge made by all three UK party leaders on the eve of the independence referendum – are “The Scottish Parliament is permanent”. This is what happened in the House of Commons this evening when the UK government was asked to make good on that pledge.
For the last month or so, the Unionist parties have briefly enjoyed the opportunity to taunt the SNP in the Commons over Full Fiscal Autonomy, challenging the party to bring forward proposals and accusing it of being afraid of the policy it campaigned and won on in the election. The Nats called the bluff, and today got the unsurprising result.
The reason given by Secretary of State David Mundell – who declined to appear on today’s edition of “Good Morning Scotland” to defend or explain the decision – was that FFA “would cost every family in Scotland £5,000”.
And we thought that figure had a rather familiar ring to it.
With scarcely a moment’s pause for breath or reflection, the Unionist polity and media has seamlessly switched its focus to the elusive beast that is “Full Fiscal Autonomy”.
(The SNP thankfully seems to have swiftly dumped the silly and short-lived attempt to rebrand it “Full Fiscal Responsibility”.)
Having deemed the anti-independence “Project Fear” strategy a success because it won the referendum – seemingly oblivious to the fact that what it actually achieved was to turn a 30-point lead into a 10-point victory, at the cost of the annihilation of Unionist MPs in Scotland – the exact same tactics have been deployed against FFA.
And the main problem with that is that there are in fact two FFAs. And the Unionist side is fighting against the wrong one.
Morgatron on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Said it for a number of years. Stu and Robin to to lead us to independence. Come on guys. You…” Mar 29, 07:35
Sven on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Mark Beggan @ 21.49. I recall it particularly well as I was working in and around both RN Coulport &…” Mar 29, 07:08
Sven on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Big Jock. “John has a secret plan.” Ah, if only some kind person would tell him what the plan is…” Mar 29, 06:56
Mark Beggan on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Vietnam war documentary. I recommend The Ten Thousand Day War. An American documentary made in the 1970’s.” Mar 29, 06:54
Mark Beggan on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Saint JFK! Not the mad shagger with the sexual appetite of a rabid dog? This war has been raging since…” Mar 29, 06:01
Young Lochinvar on Protest But Don’t Survive: ““Arrogance, ignorance and hubris” of the decision makers and Presidents involved.. (And yes that includes saint JFK).. An interesting summary…” Mar 29, 04:45
James on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Working class hero Wilma Flintsone’s just not worth wasting time on, cut and paste is all she’s worth; Utter bollocks…” Mar 29, 02:47
Young Lochinvar on Protest But Don’t Survive: “GF Lose the woke crap and Messr McCrone pointed the way decades ago. It’s not the publics fault so many…” Mar 29, 02:05
Derek on Protest But Don’t Survive: “May I introduce you to the concept of the question mark?” Mar 29, 00:24
sarah on Protest But Don’t Survive: “@ George Ferguson at 7.43 p.m. “There is no movement” I belong to a three pro-independence groups and people in…” Mar 28, 23:30
George Ferguson on Protest But Don’t Survive: “@Bilbo There is no reply button on your post for me to press. I am not an advocate for Reform.…” Mar 28, 22:31
Mark Beggan on Protest But Don’t Survive: “40 years ago this year the Chernobyl rain fell on Scotland.” Mar 28, 21:49
Mark Beggan on Protest But Don’t Survive: “We demand George’s best post gets reposted. I really want to read it now.” Mar 28, 21:48
Sven on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Northcode @ 20.02. Ah my respected friend Northy, if only you could comprehend this “incomprehensible language” in which you post,…” Mar 28, 21:42
Campbell Clansman on Protest But Don’t Survive: ““I don’t think that the movement has been captured, only the politicians.” In the real world, “Movements” are ALWAYS “captured…” Mar 28, 21:33
George Ferguson on Protest But Don’t Survive: “I am not doing something right here. A double post on the last thread will be met with hammers. My…” Mar 28, 21:33
Mark Beggan on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Did you know that a society is at its most collective during times of war.” Mar 28, 21:27
Bilbo on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Unless they really go for nuclear, Net Zero can only work if they carpet the whole island with battery storage…” Mar 28, 21:24
Bilbo on Protest But Don’t Survive: “@ George Ferguson I was going to comment about that Reform ‘homophobic’ joke on the previous post but it’s more…” Mar 28, 21:16
Rev. Stuart Campbell on Protest But Don’t Survive: “So you can’t tell, but you can tell?” Mar 28, 21:09
Frank Waring on Protest But Don’t Survive: “This may be the last chance in any of our lifetimes to put down the dead weight of UK history…” Mar 28, 20:45
George Ferguson on Protest But Don’t Survive: “@Mark Beggan Another one of my post meets the axe.I thought this was a free speech blog. I answered your…” Mar 28, 20:45
DavidT on Protest But Don’t Survive: “On a bright and sunny day?!? The wind chill was absolutely perishing, mind.” Mar 28, 20:28
Geri on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Whatever happened to being a Collective? We don’t all have to like each other.” Mar 28, 20:23
Northcode on Protest But Don’t Survive: ““The irony of citing Goebbels to prove a point had not escaped me…” I agree… the irony you refer to…” Mar 28, 20:02
George Ferguson on Protest But Don’t Survive: “@Sarah There is no movement. None of the people you mentioned will get elected. Even Stu with his legendary supporters…” Mar 28, 19:43
Mark Beggan on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Protect and Survive how chilling was that. The 4 minute warning. That was a real fear. Not made up on…” Mar 28, 19:40
George Ferguson on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “The 18th ranked side beat the 40th ranked side one nil. What did I learn?. Conway is a good utility…” Mar 28, 19:28
