Wings Over Scotland

When we suggested yesterday that the SNP was turning into New Labour, we didn’t expect them to go to quite so much trouble to provide us with a timely illustration.

In happier times, almost seven years ago, a united and focused Yes movement had a bit of fun at the expense of Labour MP Ian Murray when he had a huge pearl-clutching fainting fit over someone putting a couple of stickers on his constituency office.

Record-scratch and jump-cut to the 2021 SNP.

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We’re sure most alert readers will by now have seen the purported “leak” of the actual results of the SNP’s mystery-shrouded regional list selections. While the figures are highly believable, we haven’t yet been able to obtain any corroboration for them being anything other than a plausible hoax.

The SNP has of course denied them, but they also denied our recent leak from the party’s draft manifesto and we know for sure that that was real. The trouble with lying all the time is that nobody believes you even if you occasionally tell the the truth.

Of course, there would be an easy way to prove the numbers were a fake – release the real ones, which is in any case the most fundamental element of transparency in a democratic election. And whatever they are could hardly be any more embarrassing than the rumours, which have candidates topping the list (and likely to get seats) on a shocking 2.4% of the vote.

Heavens, even Annie Wells managed 8.6%.

But there’s a much more important reason the SNP will never release the real results.

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An extraordinary find by alert reader Ian Brotherhood in the archives.

(Click to enlarge.)

The paragraph at top right is a particular eye-catcher.

It brings us genuinely no pleasure at all to report that events in Scottish politics are panning out exactly the way we’ve been telling you they would for nearly two years.

Because this is the worst of all possible worlds.

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There’s a strange new affliction affecting the SNP: fear of figures.

Now, we should say that we don’t believe for even a second that the SNP has actually had 10,000 new members in the last two days. It’s ridiculous to the point of insulting. But purely for the sake of argument, let’s imagine it was true.

Why would you say it like that?

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Finally, after an astonishing four and a half days of “counting”, the SNP have released their candidate rankings for the regional list in this year’s Holyrood election. We’ll give you the results first, and then something much more interesting.

NO SKIPPING STRAIGHT TO THE END, THOUGH.

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Like an old man getting up for the fourth time in the middle of the night, the Scottish Government has squeezed out another little dribble of its legal advice in respect of the conduct of its shambolic investigation into false allegations against Alex Salmond.

And to push that gross analogy to its outermost limit, it must have found releasing one of the documents in particular as painful as passing a rather large kidney stone.

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What puzzles many about the Alex Salmond situation is motive. It’s incredibly difficult for some Yes supporters to imagine any motive that could justify the awfulness of what Alex Salmond has been put through by his successor, and so they reject the whole idea of any sinister goings-on out of hand.

However, it’s far easier to understand what went on when you look at the personality of Nicola Sturgeon and her historical pattern of behaviour.

Because the core fact is that Sturgeon simply cannot bear to lose. She’s very single-minded, and doesn’t really adapt or regroup in the face of adversity. When events and new information make problems for her ideas and plans, she just keeps going – often creating more problems as she tries to force the plan back on track.

Sturgeon’s main priority – in common with most politicians – is to stay in power and to boost her own image and profile. We can look at some hot topics and her behaviour around them, and gain clear insights into what happened to Alex Salmond and why.

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It’s not a parody account, we checked.

Your guess is as good as ours, folks. Perhaps all other women were unavailable.

We thought readers might like a look at the draft SNP manifesto introduction (written, we hear, by Mike Russell) that’s currently being passed around branches for comment.

So here it is.

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Having once been a Scottish Labour MEP, I joined the SNP 10 years ago because I believed we needed the party to secure independence. I was warmly received by local and national members including Alex Salmond.

I became an active member in Edinburgh West and represented them at conference, became a member of the National Council and almost became the MP for Kilmarnock, losing narrowly to Alan Brown (now the MP) in the selection.

(I was incidentally almost blocked from running because I wasn’t “sufficiently loyal”. I was allowed to stand on appeal because Kenny MacAskill on the appeal panel said, “Well Hugh if you don’t agree with a vote in Parliament couldn’t you just go to the opera instead?” I agreed and was approved accordingly.)

My relations with the SNP have not admittedly always been plain sailing. I resigned once, when Nicola Sturgeon held up the front page of the Sun during the 2016 election after it tactically decided to back the SNP in Scotland (whilst supporting the Tories in England) because Murdoch always liked to back winners.

This raised serious questions about Nicola’s judgement and made me suspect she isn’t as smart as she thinks.

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