There are some people who can only assign Scotland’s corrupt and malign excuse for government and public administration to some dark unionist conspiracy

It suits their prejudices

A simple examination of the motivations of those who have created the current cluster might reveal a few things

Devolution is a Labour creation designed to keep their Scottish Labour mates in clove, and remove some of the Westminster checks and controls (hardly wondrous but still far superior to the watered down variety in the devolved administration)

The SLP was famously venal and corrupt even before devolution, some of its fiefdoms rivalled banana republics. This has been a feature of unchallenged Labour local government for decades, just look at Liverpool.

Unfortunately the plan went awry when the upstart SNP took over. Unfortunately they have proven to be just as keen on creating a kleptocracy, funded by public money, jobs for the boys and girls, nepotism, backhanders and favours all the way down

They even corrupted those organisations that might have stopped them by politicisation, amalgamation ( easier to control one police force than eight) and well judged influence
The media is a case in point which has long since ceased to be an effective check on the Scottish government and administration

The same process has occurred in Wales although limited by the devolution settlement ( again sensible Welsh voters have no appetite for the cabal in Cardiff getting more power)

I think under Salmond it wasn’t too bad but once Sturgeon took over the process accelerated. The SNP hierarchy is famously full of sycophants, nepotism and grifters with little evidence of competence as a criterion for selection

Party management is similarly tribal and aimed at perpetuating the convenient arrangements

So the SNP mirrors what is going on in Liverpool, quelle surprise

Problem is it is hopelessly ineffective, and corruptible by other interest groups who have exploited the party’s lack of probity and intellectual rigour to further their causes. Again no different to the infiltration of Labour local government my extremists like Militant Tendency etc

Ideological purity is no substitute for hard cash

So it’s down to Scottish voters, they have been complicit. The SNP has been assiduous in rewarding its clients

The reason why the referendum went the way it did is I suspect many Scots realised just how much worse things would get with SNP in charge in an fully independent state

The wheels have now fallen off, despite a rearguard action by the placemen still in a position to influence things

Or it could be a unionist conspiracy…..

It’s beyond barking mad to think that the Westminster establishment are somehow machinating and orchestrating political events in Scotland.

It’s far more likely that what we are all witnessing is the rather tawdry slo-mo implosion of some cheap and nasty people find themselves in a position to ram-raid the SNP till, because they’ve ensured over the years that feckless and gullible supporters of Indy chip up the money, and thought that nobody in Scottish devolved life is going to call them out.

I suspect that you are correct in your view as to the 1707 James Che guff not standing up in court, and the reason that the legal grown ups haven’t pushed that for the last 300+ years. It all seems a bit of a nonsense.

Still, it’s a harmless obsession. Even if 10,000 wannabe and never-were Bravehearts marched down the Royal Mile, waving saltires, nobody with any authority is going to give them the time of day.

Instead of harking back, look to the future and describe how Scotland could be better ruled. No doubt Jamie Hepburn is working on that right now, publication imminent. The immediate problem there is that the devolved government has demonstrated the opposite.

Are the unionists protecting her and by implication Humza or not”

Isn’t it about time ScotNats took responsibility for this whole sorry tale instead of trying to pin every failure on the hidden hand of Unionists?

“James Che, … I asked you a question about what you expect to be done about what you write.”

James Che’s understanding of the events around the 1707 Treaty are not shared by many here, and certainly not by me. I do however accept her view that, in Westminster, the English establishment’s use of the Treaty to govern the UK is at odds with the Treaty’s terms (though not in the way she claims), because it assumes far more authority over Scotland than is warranted under the Treaty, and because of the fact of the sovereignties of the Treaty’s two Principals.

I’ve explained this before here and elsewhere how this happens, why it is illicit, and what implications follow from that. But I post this comment to answer the question you asked James in my own way.

I expect and require my elected representatives, who were elected by me and my sovereign Scots countrymen in every constituency in the Kingdom of Scotland, to properly represent the interests of my Kingdom as a full sovereign and equal Partner and Principal of that Treaty, in the governance of the Union, and especially in the governance of my Kingdom in that Union.

I expect and require my elected representatives to be properly knowlegable about what the Union is in terms of sovereignty, constitutions, and democracy, and in terms of the limitations and obligations imposed by the Treaty on the Union and its parliament, and in particular to properly understand that Scotland’s sovereignty means that England’s MPs cannot outvote Scotland’s MPs on any matter at all because they can only ever agree an English position on any matter, and England has no authority over Scotland at all, Period!

Therefore I also expect and require my elected representatives to hold the English Kingdom, Principal and Partner in the Union to proper account for his actions and those of his MPs, and to hold Parliament itself to account for its abusive failure to replicate the sovereign parity of the two Kingdoms in its internal voting systems. Because of Scotland’s sovereignty, no English decision is in any way authoritative over any Scottish MPs’ decision, or over Scotland itself, without the majority agreement of the Scottish representation of the sovereign Scottish Kingdom, Principal and Partner in this Union. The authority of England’s MPs in the Union Parliament is exactly equal to the authority of Scotland’s MPs, because their differing numbers don’t matter, only the equal sovereignties of their parent kingdoms matter.

So, what do I want done about the abuses by the English Partner in the Union? I want Scotland’s MPs to actually stand the fuck up for Scotland and do their bloody jobs and tell the English MPs to sod the fuck off whenever they presume to overule any Scottish MP majority decision, on any matter. I want Scotland’s MPs to make that Parliament utterly unworkable until England’s MPs and their smug establishment fixes that voting system to fully respect our equality as sovereigns. I want a deadline set that says that if the system isn’t fully operational when that deadline expires, Scotland will END the Union.

That will do to be getting on with. Either way, there will still be the need for full reparations and compensations, along with the unwinding of rather a lot of fraudulent legislation that purports to be Union legislation but was only approved by the English partner.