Rallying to the banner
It’s already getting hard to keep up with the string of well-kent faces and veteran indy campaigners leaving the SNP to join Alex Salmond’s new Alba Party.
It might be an idea to start maintaining a list.
(Asterisks denote later additions.)
Kenny MacAskill MP
Neale Hanvey MP
Cllr Lynne Anderson (until last week the SNP NEC’s Equalities Convener)
Cllr Caroline McAllister (its Women’s Convener)
Cllr Michelle Ferns (SNP councillor in Glasgow, who was instrumental in finally solving the women’s equal pay dispute created by Labour)
Cllr Chris McEleny (SNP councillor in Inverclyde)
Cllr Alistair Bews (independent, formerly SNP councillor in North Kincardine)
Cllr Leigh Wilson (independent, formerly SNP councillor in Mearns)
*Cllr Brian Topping (SNP councillor for 37 years)
*Cllr Shahid Farooq (SNP councillor in North Lanarkshire since 2012)
Corri Wilson (former SNP MP)
*George Kerevan (former SNP MP)
*Jim Eadie (former SNP MSP)
*Dot Jessiman (SNP NEC member)
*Craig Berry (founder and convener of SNP Common Weal Group)
Eva Comrie (lawyer and SNP regional list candidate for 2021)
Irshad Ahmed (SNP regional list candidate for 2021)
Cynthia Guthrie (businesswoman and member of SNP Finance Committee)
The new party’s new members/candidates are impressively diverse, despite the lack of any crude and/or illegal gerrymandered selection tactics to impose that diversity. They feature a range of ages from 20s to 60s, from all class backgrounds, six of the 12 are women, Eva Comrie is disabled (and we mean actually disabled, with an artificial leg, rather than just bad at spelling) and Irshad Ahmed of Scots Asians For Independence is the first high-profile BAME defector from the SNP to Alba.
They’ve joined for a variety of reasons, from delivering a supermajority (Hanvey) to the SNP’s dire weakness on women’s rights (Anderson, McAllister, Comrie), to its lack of serious commitment to a second indyref (Bews and Wilson), and the parlous, corrupt state of the SNP’s internal democracy (Ahmed, who told Wings last night that party HQ had bizarrely refused to let him see the results of the recent list elections until the COVID-19 crisis was over).
The increasingly panicky attempts of Unionists, bitter media columnists and woke SNP activists to paint Alba as some sort of last redoubt for old white men look more and more ridiculous with every passing day. We look forward to continuing developments.
Claire says 10:22
Re the Daily Record I recall Jackie Baillie asking NS about a story that was held back .. I took from this that AS was offered on a plate dare I say as an exchange .. My gut tells me NS/PM had their hand in this ..
Reply
Yes Nicola had an injunction put on that story.
It was to do with a secret tryst she had in a flat in Helensburgh.
Must be bad that she doesn’t want it revealed.
I bet it is worse than a fully clothed sleepy cuddle with another adult. LOL
Sturgeon is completely losing the plot. Now she is parroting the Tory line about ‘cheating’ they system. FFS, first she undermines the jury system and the courts. Now she is trying to undermine the voting system we have. All because she knows best. Apparently the poor voters can’t be trusted to think for themselves, because they might approve of combining their two votes to maximise indy parties.
So, in Nikla’s paranoid world of hate, having more MSP’s who want independence is a bad thing. But it’s ok if you vote Green for supposedly exactly the same reason because the SNP have stitched up a nice little deal with them, rewarding them for signing up to any non-independence repressive legislation they want – which, if the past is a guide, will not be put before the voters to ask for a mandate.
What a raging bampot, like Ceau?escu in his prime. Here’s a tip, Nicolae, you don’t get to tell the voters how to vote. Funny how she can’t talk policy or indy, just rage away at a party who have some serious policy, and strategy on it.
Having 3 Unionist Parties must be cheating.
Let us look no further than Aberdeen council to see how Laour turns a blind eye to their own rules.
We have Christine Jardine and Ian Murray as clear examples of Unionists playing the system.
Spare me the false indignation of Sturgeon.
Claire 10,42 am.
No jury on Rape cases would be undemocratic and dangerous.
Some years ago my wife was a jury member on an alleged rape case. The young woman involved had claimed eight years earlier that she had been raped by two young men. The young men had denied that they had raped her, claiming that she had consented.
The case didn’t go to court at that time for lack of evidence, but a phone belonging to one of the men was confiscated by the police, as the man had said that he had filmed the event then deleted it later. At that time it wasn’t possible to retrieve the video from the phone. However eight years later technology had advanced to the point where it could be retrieved. Police approached the woman and showed her the new evidence which showed her laughing and enjoying having sex with the two men, even encouraging them.
She still claimed that she was raped, so the case had to go to court. One of the men had meantime emigrated to Australia, and had to return at his own expense for the trial. They were both found not guilty, and it emerged that the woman had been afraid that her father would find out about her wild drunken evening, so had made up the rape story. I don’t know what happened to her, but I think this story proves that men can be victims too.
John H
I agree entirely with your comments .
The Scottish Criminal Bar Association expressed serious concern over the recommendation on the management of Sexual offences cases.
It said that “ Any real improvement in the process of delivering justice is welcomed, but the voice of the unjustly accused should be heard as loudly as any other group “ Thomas Ross QC told SLN
“ that we should be in no doubt as to what the purpose of the suggestion is : to affect conviction rates. “
Fairliered says:
30 March, 2021 at 9:16 am
Liz G @6.59
Thoughtful comments. I would add two things. We need to be careful not to lower ourselves to the SNP loyalists “debating” level. I want to see Sturgeon at FMQs answering to Alex Salmond.when it is announced that her husband has been arrested.
I think Petey will be chucked under a bus, the words out that Nicola has already moved the girl friend into the Uddingston love nest!
I am ready to stand as a candidate for the ALBA Party should you require a female person of colour. I was going to stand as an independent candidate but simply did ot have the funding, here is an excert from a comment I made on the recent BBC Disclosure programme re the lack of ethnic women in Holyrood.
20 yrs ago even before “Devolution”, I asked why are there no black/ethnic women newreaders, (ok we had Shareen Nanjiani for a nanosecond in front of the STV cameras) weathergirls or parliamentarians in Scotland. (30 years after Trev & Moira hit our screens in England bearing as they did their Scottish overseers ancestors names with their clipped elocuted tones!
Tonight we got a sad 30 minutes BBC programme “Disclosure Scotland” on the subject ! Is that all we’re worth? I did tout the idea of such a programme to the BBC more than 2 decades ago to no avail !
Now 5 braves souls have thrown their hats into the Holyrood ring, perhaps one will succeed, possibly Kaukab Stewart SNP, a candidate with the might of the SNP party machine behind her.
Every party in Scotland without exception has simply paid lip service to diversity, stopping short of doing enough to make it a reality. I was going to stand as an Independent because although I’m mostly but not totally SNP supporting, I could not fully commit to throwing ourselves back into a corrupt EU needing root & branch reform. But this time I simply could ill afford the luxury of being an Independent!
Onward & upwards towards a new day of tokenism, got to start somewhere I suppose !
@Gail Gyi says: 30 March, 2021 at 2:07 pm
“here is an excert from a comment I made on the recent BBC Disclosure programme re the lack of ethnic women in Holyrood.
20 yrs ago even before “Devolution”, I asked why are there no black/ethnic women newreaders, (ok we had Shareen Nanjiani for a nanosecond in front of the STV cameras)
Shareen Nanjiani was the chief presenter of Scotland Today for NINETEEN YEARS, you cretin – hardly a nanosecond Only the late John Toye (whom she replaced) did it for longer. Before that, she was the mainstay of their outside broadcast reporting team from 1983 onwards.
She was also one of the foremost opponents of “Uncle Tommery” – having people in positions because of their skin colour, and famously told an English television executive who asked her what it was like to be an Asian woman presenting on Scottish television to “get a life” (which probably contributed to her downfall as STV became “Anglocised” – that and ageism).
By the way folks, Gail Gyi has been punting her pish since 2007, but still no takers.
link to heraldscotland.com
Captain Yossarian says:
30 March, 2021 at 10:44 am
TNS2019 – Sir, my problem school is currently being checked by the best engineers in the country and I’m optimistic we will get an honest outcome this time.
You have worked hard to get to this stage and I admire your stamina. It should not be like this.
For all that I understand the logic of voting SNP1/ALBA 2 to further independence, I cannot bring myself to vote to the current regime.
There is something wrong with those who betray our heritage by abusing the organs of government and I believe that we need new blood.
If we can ditch Swinney, we break the axis at the top of the SNP, and if NS also goes, there is hope for a new beginning.
Mark Boyle’s Herald link archived…
link to archive.is
Is Alba practising race or gender-based discrimination when selecting potential candidates?
I do hope not. That would most definitely be a backwards step.
We should be selecting our candidates on the basis of merit and character rather than the colour of their skin or which sex they happen to be born as.
Racism and sexism have no place in a forward thinking new political party!
ok we had Shareen Nanjiani for a nanosecond in front of the STV cameras
Quality satire.
LOL at Andy ‘Three Commas’, rushing to the defence of Kcor / Rock.
The standard of troll on this site really has gone down recently, dear oh dear.
Heard an interview with AS this morning – fluent, convincing, full of positivity.
Then I heard an interview with Neil Hanvey – best I can say is that he needs to study some of the positive things ALBA is doing and have them firmly in his head. He managed to answer well but it was quite stilted at times.
He missed the prime point – that ALBA is only standing on the list but asking people to vote for the SNP for the constituencies. The reason for that is precisely because a million list votes did not bring the SNP ANY MSP’s at the last election so it is a wasted vote.
ALBA has been formed to get round that problem.
When asked if that was undemocratic and gaming the system AS replied that there are currently three parties fighting against the SNP for the constituency seats so no one can surely complain if there is now another party on the same side as the SNP to redress the balance.
I can’t imagine that ALBA will be given many media opportunities at prime time so it is crucial that likely interviewees are fluent and concise with the answers and reasoning.
Re buried stories . I heard a bit of gossip 3rd hand but originating from a source close to the SNP head office that Nicola Sturgeon had bought Andy Murrays mothers house in Auchterarder as a love nest for her and her French lesbian lover.
I’ve been reading comments since to see if there was any mention of this , but apart from the odd comment about Nicola being lesbian I’ve seen nothing else relating to this online .
Iirc I was told about it autumn 2018 , so might fit in with the DR burying it in exchange for dirt on AS.
Yes Aunty flow couldn’t agree more that race and gender should not form the criteria for candidate selection.
Maybe someone should tell the SNP NEC that who recently provisioned for folks to go to the top of the list based upon the colour of their skin and or their declared ethnicity.
Skin tone meters, or nose width micrometres may come across as a crass comment, and it is, but that is the type of comment that selection on physical characteristics encourages. We should select on ability and make every effort NOT to see colour. Seeing colour, selecting because of it, in my opinion feeds difference.
I don’t think the SNP are doing the right thing with this. Quite the reverse. This is the mentality of the minority Trans lobby who are causing so much division.
Pete M, the French lesbian lover thing keeps cropping up repeatedly and if Sturgeon is lesbian so what. Its allowed, its legal, so what.
The morality of two timing your spouse is another thing and of course using influence to cover up, or being compromised because of a cover up is a different story.
People should not throw stones. Sturgeon is currently making an exhibition of herself throwing stones. Absolutely no stateswoman whatsoever. And quite frankly could you picture Ursula Von Der Layen or Angela Merkel publicly cat calling their political opponents.
Or what about Boris Johnson, what would she cry him wre she to engage with him.
Sturgeon’s behaviours very much reflect who and what she truly is. A fish wife, with a fish wife’s tongue. She really needs to calm it down.
Willie.
I’ve no problem with anyones sexuality , my mentioning of it is because it’s a story the tabloids could have a field day with if they chose to.
You can imagine the headlines of course if it was f.e Alex buying a love nest for a gay lover …
It has been announced that Shahid Farooq, a North Lanarkshire SNP councillor, has jumped ship to Alba and will be a candidate in Glasgow – even though he’s from Coltness and represents Motherwell
Like WTF? Why isn’t he standing for Central?
This guy also has links to Anas Sarwar and at least one other person of dubious merit.
link to heraldscotland.com
He also has bad press for repeatedly trying to get a liquor licence against the wishes of the local community which has a bad enough problem with underage drinking.
link to dailyrecord.co.uk
Not happy. Not happy one bit.
Having Corri “Trougher” Wilson as a candidate is bad enough, but there seems to be a distinct lack of proper vetting going on and some highly peculiar choices of candidates in some areas.
“Great! We’ve got a cripple on board at last! That gives us some more diversity points and someone else to hide behind when the need comes.”
What a world we live in. If you’re a trans wheel-chair bound minority you’ve got the pick of potential political candidacies or university brouchure covers across the nation. ?
I guess judging someone by the content of their character still doesn’t happen yet.
And now Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh is the candidate for Central.
link to twitter.com
Now I am REALLY not happy and starting to have second thoughts.