The Churn
A little over two years ago, three SNP MSPs contested the leadership of the party in the wake of the sudden resignation of Nicola Sturgeon. All were full of grand plans and dreams for the future of the party, the nation and the independence movement.
None of the three is leader now, and in nine months’ time none of them will be SNP MSPs. Indeed, it’s overwhelmingly likely that none will be an MSP at all.
And that, readers, is not a sign of a party – or indeed a Parliament – in good health.
We were quite surprised when Kate Forbes announced her intention this week to stand down at the election, though we’d be lying if we said we were unduly distressed. While undoubtedly a relative beacon of competence in the Parliamentary party (recognised recently by Guinness World Records as one of the world’s lowest bars), we’ve never shared the enthusiasm of some others for the Deputy FM.
We’re going to go ahead and say that we called it, again. But that enthusiasm, and the belief that Forbes was going to ride to the rescue, was probably why what passes for the “rebel” faction in the party failed to take action when it might have mattered and when this site urged it, back in the summer of 2023.
We’ll never know if things might be different now if they’d taken our advice. But what’s certain is that any (microscopic, and in our view non-existent) hope that the SNP could have been saved and restored to a functional state, rather having to be destroyed and replaced, walked out of the door with Forbes this week.
Because who’s left in the party who could do it? Most of the “rebels” are also standing down next May. Fergus Ewing, who’s 67, has already quit and will be standing as an independent. We can’t think of a single person likely to be an MSP after the election who could even remotely be trusted to rebuild the shambles that Sturgeon, Yousaf and Swinney have made of the golden legacy handed to them by Alex Salmond.
(Swinney is a natural-devolutionist caretaker who we’re not even sure will lead the party into the election, but if he does we don’t think he’ll last long after it.)
The two candidates being discussed by the chattering classes are Stephen Flynn – a cynical and treacherous careerist who knifed his way to the Westminster leadership and only ever speaks of independence in the most lukewarm terms, as a sort of vague aspiration for some unidentified point in the future – and Mairi McAllan, a dead-eyed robotic drone who only entered Parliament in 2021 but has had FOUR ministerial roles in that time (including the six months she had off for maternity leave), and is only being pushed forward because everybody’s all out of better options.
She’s basically the SNP equivalent of Kezia Dugdale or Jo Swinson, except with the added ability to detach her lower jaw and effortlessly swallow live mammals up to the size of a rabbit in a single gulp.
(Fun trivia fact! Flynn was also the first elected SNP politician ever to block Wings on Twitter, years and years ago when he was still just a councillor, and long before we’d started seriously criticising the party or, frankly, ever heard of him.)
And the grim truth is that we can’t even suggest a better alternative from within the party’s ranks, because everyone with even a scrap of courage or talent has been ruthlessly forced out by the Sturgeonite cabal over the last five years, leaving nothing but imbeciles and cowards behind. By all means tell us we’re wrong, but you have to come up with a name from this list, and we wish you the very best of luck with that.
The fact that the party couldn’t even produce a token challenger to Swinney – a proven failure full of old-cop-three-days-from-retirement energy, who’d ruled himself out as past it – should have told even the densest diehards that the game was up.
Because anyone who honestly believed there was the SLIGHTEST chance of the SNP delivering independence in the next term of Parliament would be fighting tooth and nail to lead the party right now. But not only do they not want to LEAD that Parliament, they don’t even want to be IN it. Swinney’s just the sap who got left holding the baby, like a stinky-nappy version of Pass The Parcel.
An astonishing 40% of current SNP MSPs aren’t even bothering to stand next year, despite the lucrative salaries – almost half the party’s entire cohort are ministers, with accordingly inflated wages – and the vanishingly tiny chance of anyone else wanting to hire such useless numpties for anything more demanding than licking envelopes.
In other words, they’re sacrificing the most money AND power they’ll ever have in their lives (and in most cases a near-certainty of being re-elected) just because they don’t want to be in the grotesque binfire that is the SNP any more.
And folks, anyone who thinks the undercooked leftovers and terminal seatwarmers (or the handful of awful YSI/OFI drone children who’ll fill out the ranks) are going to lead us to the promised land is in grave need of psychiatric intervention.
Those who needed to listen didn’t listen, the house burned down, and now there’s a biohazard in the ruins. The real danger now is the still-walking corpse.
It’ll hurt, despite everything. But in your heart you know what needs to be done.
It’s anyone other Independence candidate for me kn the constituency vote and Alba on the list.
Like many I know this is ghe only way forwards.
See me I won’t be voting SNP. God I wish this party would DIE. Got rid of one rotten apple only to be followed another of the money tree.
My hope for the future is at an all-time low.
Right now, Alba are unlikely to win any list seats unfortunately… and the ‘Liberate Scotland’ initiative is a non-starter — and deep down, I think most of those involved know it. At this point, it would be an achievement if it even outperformed RISE – Scotland’s Left Alliance in 2016. Their aim feels more like a token gesture, just to say “I told you so” after the election.
I don’t have any answers — just a growing sense of despair, and the creeping realisation that we’re all wasting our time and heading for another five years of misery.
Why do you think Liberate Scotland is “a non-starter”?
It seems entirely feasible to me. Dave Thompson, no fool and very experienced, attempted the same back in 2020. If Alex Salmond had brought Alba under that umbrella in 2021, things could have been very different.
Mainly due to outside of Scottish political Twitter next to one has heard of Liberate Scotland tbh.
It’s difficult enough for high profile names to get elected (Fergus Ewing for example is likely going to face an uphill struggle despite being the incompetent).
Would require a very hefty warchest, high profile backing & an unprecedented marketing campaign. But atm it seems to just be more of an online thing amongst a limited number of people.
Mainly due to outside of Scottish political Twitter next to one has heard of Liberate Scotland tbh.
It’s difficult enough for high profile names to get elected (Fergus Ewing for example is likely going to face an uphill struggle despite being the incompetent).
Would require a very hefty warchest, high profile backing (more than just Alba joining) & an unprecedented marketing campaign. Even then it would still be a challenge…
“The ‘Liberate Scotland’ initiative is a non-starter — and deep down, I think most of those involved know it.”
I find it extremely demoralising and negative that people are so willing and eager to write off others genuine attempts to salvage something from this debacle of Scottish politics
You are not alone even the Rev has made his negativity open and public
WHY would you not support people who are stepping forward at their own expense and time, TBQH I think Liberate Scotland, Salvo, SSRG, Liberation Scotland have done MORE for independence than ANYTHING the Scum Nonce Party have done in the last 11 years
I find it incomprehensible that the Rev wouldn’t investigate and collaborate with those groups in the possible chance that they would bring independence closer
As someone who has been door knocking 5 days a week since April for Alba, I can assure you that support, if translated to votes next year, will result in Alba MSPs in Holyrood.
Well done, Lorraine! 5 days a week is a big effort so thank you very much.
Also thank you for the encouraging news about the doorstep response to Alba.
I suggested to Alex at a zoom meeting from Inverness that Alba take up the Led by Donkeys methods. He took up one of their methods i.e. spotlighting a message onto buildings but an even better thing they do is play a punchy video on a mobile screen – a van parked somewhere for passersby to hear and see. They did one of Dominic Cummings saying that the Conservatives don’t care about the NHS at all.
I think that video of Alex [in a very serious angry delivery, unusually for him] saying he’d be damned if he’d let the idea of independence die, to watch the flame sinking. It is a very powerful, moving, speech and it would rouse people, I have no doubt.
“and the vanishingly tiny chance of anyone else wanting to hire such useless numpties for anything more demanding than licking envelopes.”
Plenty of them will find very well paid sinecures in Quango land/third sector organisations wholly funded by Scot Gov. I do accept that they won’t be doing anything useful nor demanding for said salaries though. But if they are Sturgeonites they will be taken care of – much to the detriment of Scotland!
An excoriating exposé of today’s SNP by the Rev. Nobody does it better.
“By all means tell us we’re wrong, but you have to come up with a name from this list, and we wish you the very best of luck with that.”
I’m going for Karen Adam as leader and Sally Donald as deputy.
That’s got to be the quickest way to destroy the SNP.
You’ve forgotten Emma Roddick. She would hurl herself to the floor at frequent intervals because of her self-identified disability of Borderline Personality Disorder. Nothing more guaranteed to wreck a government than that.
‘suggest a better alternative’…
‘come up with a name from this list’…
Ivan McKee
Jim Fairlie
Seem to not be completely useless
and
Martyn Day
would do the right thing if there were the right leadership.
To be completely fair, I don’t know Hannah Mary Goodlad from Shetland Islands
So, being generous and scrupulously fair at least 5 out of the entire list are not completely hopeless.
🙁
There’s quite a long way from “not completely useless” to “likely to restore the SNP and lead Scotland to independence”. Also, you’ve only named three and one “maybe” 😀
I wouldn’t know Hannah Mary Goodlad from the Shetland Islands either, but I live in the U.S.
AL
Sorry, have to disagree.
I watched STVs Scotland Tonight programme a few years back and the shows panelist’s ripped Farlie a new one.
To be honest I don’t remember the subject of the debate, the rest of the panel were in the studio, Fairlie “beamed in” from an office at Holyrood and it was a disaster.
He clearly had no handle on the brief of the subject being discussed and could only moodily shake his head as the other panelist’s demolished the irrelevant drivel he was spouting.
At that point I was still voting SNP, but alongside a phalanx of increasing non entity incompetence like that started me seriously questioning what if anything they were now about.
Maybe they caught him at a bad time but it would have been better to do just about anything other than what he did.
SNP was still riding high in the polls at the time so probably convinced himself he just needed to show up and hide behind general whitabootery.
What a clown.
Thanks AL.
That seems fair, I didn’t see that show.
With Sally Hughes’ similarly credible appraisal below, and
Andy McColl reporting that Ivan McKee is standing doon next year.
That’s the ‘well-lets-try-to-be-fair-here’ (please-let-somebody-try-and-post-some-good-news) barrel scraped doon tae the end then.
🙁
Ivan, sadly, is standing doon next year.
It’s anyone other Independence candidate for me kn the constituency vote and Alba on the list.
Like many I know this is the only way forwards.
OBVIOUSLY, THE BRITISH STATE cannot afford to lose its northern territories, such a loss would be a severe blow not just to its territorial integrity but to the BS’ global prestige, such of it that still adheres to the entity called the «UK».
The state of the nationalist cause in Scotland screams long term systematic subversion.
Anyone who thinks that ridiculous is either a fool, credulously naive or working for «them».
The subversion of nationalist movements by the British during their imperial hegemony, a field suspiciously rather scant in serious research, offers insights into the workings of deep intelligence when encountering something presenting existential high risk.
It may be that Scottish nationalism may have to go underground or take to the mountains to become in some respects «samizdat».
Interesting times ahead, potentially.
Certainly not times for those whose fav. colour is beige.
The MERE FACT that some people are even responding to your challenge
“Leaving nothing but imbeciles and cowards behind. By all means tell us we’re wrong, but you have to come up with a name from this list, and we wish you the very best of luck with that.”
Shows that we still have Scum Nonce Party apologists and sycophants who are more focused on PARTY BEFORE COUNTRY,
Flynn,Gethins,Fairlie,McKee,FFS in what world would any of these backstabbing slithering cowards fight for Scotland and her people, when they couldn’t even face up to a WEE POISONED DEVIANT PERVERT that had them shiting themselves, the BRUTISH state would pish themselves laughing
When you look at the competition in all the other political parties and realise that HR has an over abundance of imbecilic arsewipes YET the snp cabal win 1st prize in that competition hands down
I find it extremely difficult to understand people’s loyalty to a group of people in a political party who have OPENLY shown their contempt and hostility to the dreams and aspirations of their financial supporters and membership group,how can people accept the blatant lies and corruption taking place every day and still believe and support these blatant lying fuckwits,independence is truly fucked
This is a key comment by TURABDIN. Media-controlled Scotland is comprehensively “occupied” — to a saturation level patently inconceivable in brutally physical historical intrusions — by an England which is now one of the most sophisticated infiltration operatives on the planet. The inviolable territorial integrity of its UK manifestation is at stake. As is the geopolitical reach of Big Brother NATO. But let us not despair. Just think deeper. Many thanks to Stuart Campbell in this latter regard.
I know Flynn is not everyone’s cup of tea but he probably does need to be given the chance at leadership and he’s not a Sturgeonite.
Why? What’s he done to justify it?
He hasn’t done very much, but by the same token he hasn’t committed any major wrong either.
Not a ringing endorsement of Flynn, but unfortunately that’s the state the independence movement is in.
He’s the least incompetent snake oil salesman left ?
Steven Flynn?
Well yesteryears was the age of the lesbian party leaders, today on that suggestion would be the coming of the time of the slap-heads; Flynn and Lord Provost Swinney..
Buster blood vessel for Tory leadership, “you’ve been Tangoed” to head up Reform and let’s get Starmer de-wigged and all polished up and shiny like a cue ball 🙂
Stephen Gethins would do a good job. Not a Sturgeonite, has a few discredits but generally a man with good personal experience outside and relevant experience inside politics. He does not stand fools gladly and would bring respect, tolerance and honesty back to the party.
Jim Anderson says:
7 August, 2025 at 3:53 pm
Stephen Gethins would do a good job.
Jeezuz jumping FUCK!
Is this a troll post, are you a satirist or have you completely taken leave of your senses?
‘Jim Anderson’ would be a handy pseudonym for the boys from the 77th wouldn’t it!
You can shove your love for Gethins and his love for all things British where the sun don’t shine, pal.
They are all leaving because they know the SNP has been infiltrated and there is nothing they can do about it. It doesn’t matter how you think they have done it but the ‘British State’ would have been failing in their duty if they had not neutralised the independence threat.
Somebody half good enough when scrapping the barrel is not good enough at all.
That was how the last Scottish MSP ad first minsters as deputies played the role.
Goodness me, you need a firebrand with intellect and integrity.
Its like looking in the slurry for worm.
Stu,
have you ever thought about moving to Scotland to show them how its done,
I think you would make a more sincere prime minister of a genuine Scottish parliament than anyone Scotlands suggesting.
We need a fire brand who has integrity, a good moral compass combined with a sense of fairness and justice.
I was reading some of your earliest post around 2013 to 2014 on archive, and others that made commentary,
A lot of that knowledge and enthusiasm seems to be forgotten,
I sure if you come up to Scotland by sea the Council will provide you with every requirement for setting up a new home you will ever need, and they will set you up with mobiles and tickets to fitbaa. Trampoline lessons the whole kaboodle,
Until you arrive everyone seems to be dirling around in circles like whirleygig beetles.
Aye, if Stu thinks and keeps posting blogs about how shit the SNP is and how it needs to be destroyed, then he at least needs to be receptive and supportive to the alternatives that step up, or put his money where his mouth is and stand himself.
If he doesn’t then it’s getting akin to the lazy unfit drunken supporter in the terraces shouting at the athlete on the pitch how it should be done. All mouth and no trousers syndrome.
I’ve tried to nail him down on agreeing a deliverable strategy, but all I get is short shift as he’d rather play dung beetle battles on the internet with mentalists.
I think the problem is you and others seem to think we are on the brink of some seminal moment, and we just need some clever cunning plan to tap us over the line. As Stu has rightly said, independence is a decades away project that will require relentless work by serious and focused people with the right skills and resources to do it up until then. I don’t know if you read the London-based national media, if so when was the last time they even reported a story related to Scottish independence? It just is not a live issue in politics and not seen as a threat by the U.K. establishment because they know it isn’t. Stu standing is not the answer, it isn’t even close to it.
Aidan
Aren’t we on the brink of some seminal moment?
I thought the UN are about to gift us Indy and Chairman Murray is going to lead us into the promised land.
Well, perhaps not THE promised land for obvious reasons, but certainly A promised land.
@ Aidan
Unsurprisingly, you think wrong…
If you were even half alert, you’d know that I don’t think returning Scotland to self-governing status is an imminent prospect. But I’ve been calling out for the bones of a deliverable strategy to be agreed upon for fuck knows how many years and elections now. Because without an agreed strategy, then work cannot even begin to start in earnest, and “Indy not happening for years / decades / centuries…” is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Can’t even get clarity on which election to use as a plebiscite.
Poundshop devolved diddy parliament in Holyrood with fucked up voting system and franchise, and not enough time to deliver a strategy because so many of the supposed Indy “leaders” and influencers” haven’t got their A game on.
Or much more straightforward FPTP voting and franchise at Westminster with 57 constituencies (though the dumb fuck AI drunk bot will tell you 59), and where UK constitutional matters are reserved to, and more time to work towards turning a vote out.
There’s far too many comfortably off happily getting by with the status quo Tracey Chapmans Talkin’ bout a revolution, and not enough Adam Ants working to actually Stand and Deliver it.
The likes of Robin McAlpine churning out blogs complaining about planet Armageddon and then taking foreign holidays. Just fuck off with that hypocritical shite will you.
And Stu playing both angles with his Indy isn’t a priority for voters spiel, but then when it suits pointing out nothing can really be done to address the voter’s main expressed priorities without Scotland regaining all major powers currently controlled by London Rule. Way to fuck your credibility and piss folk off through inconsistent messaging.
You’re right Stu. It all comes back to Sturgeon. She got rid of anyone who showed any sign of ability.Anyone who might be competition for her. She then replaced them with a bunch of useless Yes men and women. That’s why the party is now dead in the water.
If there is anyone left who has some common sense and who might manage to take control, then the first thing they should do is to recall some of the old guard. People who actually know how to do things. But that’s incredibly unlikely. So goodbye SNP.
I feel that Alba should have rethink and put up constituency candidates in 2026. Plainly the current strategy of only standing on the list won’t wash as the SNP won’t play ball. We need to have an alternative indy party to vote for.
Liberate Scotland is an alternative independence grouping to vote for. If Alba came under this umbrella, it would help all of us, I think. They had the chance to do so in 2021 but Alex, personally, declined to join Dave Thompson’s Action For Independence umbrella.
You’re asking the wrong question, who in Scottish society is based place to take on the cause. Looking in the SNP is like looking in the bin for your dinner and complaining that it all looks shit.
Fuck off somewhere else then?
The SNP has undoubtedly gone the way of the Irish Parliamentary Party just over a century ago. What comes next is anyone’s guess, but the ONLY saving grace in all of this mess, is that despite the onslaught of the British establishment and unified anti-independence voice of the mainstream media, half of the people remain resolute in their commitment to it, with the percentages generally increasing as the age groups lower. If these peoples’ beliefs aren’t going anywhere, there is at least a faint glimmer of hope.
We got a photograph of him at AUOB Glasgow standing beside a giant carrot. TIME TO LOOK IT OUT
It has been pre-arranged for Flynn to take over from Swinney.
They manoeuvred Audrey Nicoll out to vacate the seat for him to stand.
Kate Forbes standing down in the same week that Donald Trump visits Scotland… that’s British American Project, Freeports Forbes. She’ll be OK.
Jim Fairlie is now a well trained, obedient, Swinney loyalist, any genuine desires he had for Indy are now deeply buried under gravy, at one time, had it in him to be a very good representative, never had and never pretended towards leadership aspirations.
Flynn will be encouraged to stand, as will the rat swallower, to make it look as if the party has a pulse, but the real fight will be between ‘big hitters’ Alyn Smith and Angus Robertson. BaBa Blackford will be encouraged to stand down from the party and given a seat in the House of Lords for services to his bank balance.
The new rules of the party – whereby a certain percentage of the membership is needed – before a Vote of No Confidence in the leader can be instigated, mean that since actual membership numbers are top secret, this will be impossible to verify, stopping that from the get go.
Meaning that, when Swinney goes, it will be a managed hand over to the next ‘leader’ to continue to gatekeeper the Political route to Independence and hoover up Indy votes, thus preventing it.
In a sane world, the leader to emerge would be highly capable and squeaky clean. In our world, it’s likely to be the opposite.
If only there were some scandal/dirt on Alyn Smith or Angus Robertson that prevented them from standing. If only…
If there is a rebel movement with the SNP, determined to get the party back on track, I’d suggest you have one possible way of at least landing a punch and that would be standing a rival on the Constituency Seat in Perth and Kinross area and ousting Swinney that way. Good luck.
Scotland is closely following the well-trod decolonization template whereby the dominant national party “first hesitate and then choose neutralism” (Fanon).
This is, as you imply, not in any way “a sane world”. A colonial society: “is a world divided into compartments, a motionless, Manichaeistic world. The first thing which the native learns is to stay in his place, and not to go beyond certain limits. The native is trapped in the tight links of the chains of colonialism” (Fanon).
As we see, this is now the function of the dominant national party that has opted for neutralism, and seeks “an accommodation with colonialism”.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
If only there were some scandal/dirt on Alyn Smith or Angus Robertson that prevented them from standing. If only…
If only Sally, If only eh?
But who would dish that dirt?
Party rivals? The Establishment media?
I’d suggest you have one possible way of at least landing a punch and that would be standing a rival on the Constituency Seat in Perth and Kinross area and ousting Swinney that way.
Well only 679 of us voted for that bonnie feghter at the 2021 election.
Who will forever have our gratitude and respect. 😉
feckin typo. 🙁
2024 election.
It never seems to get any better, or is it just me…
Sadly Robert it is not just you. From my view it looks like the most depressing ,dispiriting mess.
That’s what they want – depression makes us lethargic.
So we have to look at the good things that are being done, grit our teeth, and do what we can to help.
The Yes campaign was most active in the last few months before the referendum – it nearly worked. We have 9 months to make a difference, to support the real independence candidates, to inform the wider public of what is available in the ballot box, and explain [yet again] the effect on list votes when a party wins a constituency seat.
Forbes never was convincing as a MSP and certainly not one who was remotely interested in independence. Her true home is in Balamory.
Well, Arthur Griffith was a journalist, an early 20th century blogger, who went on to found Sinn Fein and with it electoral success, the instigation of the policy of abstentionism and eventually the establishment of the Irish Free State.
Something to think about, Rev.
Yes, please, Rev.
A comprehensive article on Griffith is online here:
‘ARTHUR GRIFFITH: REACTIONARY FATHER OF THE FREE STATE’
By Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh
link to irishmarxistreview.net
Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh (McCluskey) is a spirited and voluble Northern Irish Marxist. Senior lecturer in history at St Mary’s University College Belfast. Fluent Irish-language practitioner and proponent. Bilingual blogger commentator (BLOSC on WordPress).
amazon is amazing … one of its lesser known features is SELF PUBLISHING.
Anyone with an account can do this : upload a PDF, get it published as a book and have it printed on demand.
(I can hear the grinding gears of the site’s resident tits birling away … never mind a substack, get some of this … )
– the Best of Main vol 27 …
or
– Ellis Launches a CounterBlast against the Moonhowlers and the Monstrous Regiment of Blood and Soil nativists – the trilogy, prequels and postquels
you also get to choose your own cover imagery/art – get a black and white pic of yourself on the back, looking windswept and interesting, for the chicks
… now with the imminent, well its about a week away, publishing of our greatest ever and ever leader and no mistake much better than that old guy who felt up my pal so he did she told me when we were at the prosecco … aye …
some wags have already taken advantage of jeff bezos feature
link to archive.ph
– that’s an archive copy, but go to the page on your own account and click on “read sample”
Nikki’s real effort comes in just under the 500pages – so it’s what, a 6 hour read depending; but you will need to take a lot of notes I think (she will have missed something), then you will need some time for the lit crit angle; can she actually write? Does it have “some professional writer’s” input all over it?
– I might wait for the AI summary.
Odds on – the MI5 buy 1000 copies, straight into the blue bin at Millbank.
Entertaining post 🙂
Had a glance today at Mairi McAllan’s Wiki. Had done so before, but these faceless Stepford Wife (who don’t need no man, baby!) apparatchik chicks are so generic it’s impossible to remember any salient details after reading about them ten seconds later. Couple of things stand out:
Lawyer (of course).
No real jobs outside governmental/fourth sector roles (of course).
“Before entering politics, McAllan co-founded human rights organisation RebLaw Scotland, which aims to use the law as a tool in the fight for social justice and held its first conference in 2017, worked as a corporate lawyer specialising in energy and natural resources and was a voluntary director of East Ayrshire’s Women’s Aid.”
‘RebLaw’. For the sake of fuck. Read: social justice ideologue type, with a smattering of de rigueur misandry, as per the Women’s Aid side of things.
Also:
“McAllan served as a special advisor in the Scottish Government on environmental matters. First to then Environment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham and then to then First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.”
Sturgeon loved having young middle class women working under her, didn’t she? You don’t hear much, if anything at all, about her doing anything for young men. Total sexist, genuine creep.
So, we have a social justice slinger, mixed with misandry, and a Sturgeonite to boot. All the ingredients for a total disaster recipe. She was also the delusional egomaniac saying that world leaders approach the Scottish government (and, by proxy, people like her and her wee cabal of Mean Girls high school female prefects) for advice. Madness.
I have to admit, I am totally fucking sick of this idiocy, as is any sane person. I was going to say that Scotland deserves better than this vapid, cliquish, clownish, decorticated drivel…but I wonder if we even do anymore. Which is how devastated and depressed government since 2014 has got the average person feeling. Shaking my head here and sighing.
Funny you should say that. Scotland is full of middle class clever pussy. But the ones I’ve met are sluts.
Calum Kerr is the only person on that list of SNP candidates that could have what it takes, however even then that’s a struggle. Flynn will win whatever future contest hands down. Doomed.
On further research: McAllan did not ‘co-found’ RebLaw at all. It started in 1992 from a Chicano lawyer in America. So the Scottish branch is just a copycat organisation from American politics extending its febrile tendrils across the Atlantic. As usual. And not only that, it comes from the type of sniffy social justice angle that looks good on paper, but has helped destroy Scottish politics over the last few years. Mind you, the USA owns Scotland and England, basically, so this shite is hardly surprising.
link to benchmarkadvocates.co.uk
Meanwhile and OT but important nonetheless, another day, another cover up!
Where a bug in the software used in cases in the court system, caused details to vanish or be hidden.
This went on for a number of years, so stand by for some healthy payouts.
This comment however stands out about *any* government.
“There is a culture of cover-ups,” one told the BBC. “They’re not worried about risk to the public, they’re worried about people finding out about the risk to the public. It’s terrifying to witness.”
Amen to that…
link to bbc.co.uk
In my experience meeting with Scottish Ministers since Holyrood began, and before in the auld ‘Scottish Office’, it is always the case that their senior Whitehall civil servants set the agenda and the limits of what Ministers can and will do. SNP Ministers have always, and with few exceptions, restricted themselves accordingly. So it disnae maitter wha leads the SNP, they will still remain subordinate to a foreign kingdom and its officials running what is a colonial administration.
Independence obviously requires a radical transformation of the present colonial reality and therefore depends absolutely on radical political leadership. It stands to reason then that those of us seeking independence should only vote for radicals. The reason the SNP elite has not and cannot deliver independence is that they are not radical, they have no intention of transforming colonial society; instead as we see they seek only ‘an accommodation with colonialism’ (Fanon).
The first thing that needs done after election of a nationalist majority in any colony is to change the leadership and management of all state institutions and departments. Estonia sent their colonial overseers back to Moscow and appointed Estonians in their place. The SNP didnae dae this even after 6 elected ‘nationalist’ majorities. Which explains why we are where we are – i.e. naewhaur – and the country is a mankit midden.
I suggest you look up the 20th century history of Estonia and the USSR/Russia if you want to compare it in any way whatsoever with Scotland and the UK.
“Estonia sent their colonial overseers back to Moscow”
Half the regulars on here would have an Independent Scotland begging Moscow to send us a new leadership cadre.
Just as they will be cheering to the rooftops if Moscow re-colonises Estonia and the rest of the liberated Eastern European colonies in the coming years.
Funnily enough Bastard TAX you and your fellow Rooshia haters and Scotland haters would much prefer to BEG Is rahel to send us a new Is rahely leadership cadre, OH WAIT it appears we already have one installed and they are running sorry (ruining) the uk
This contribution from Professor Baird contains 220 words.
Of these, only seven, ‘auld’, ‘disnae’, ‘maitter’, ‘didnae’, ‘dae’,’naewhaur’, and ‘mankit’, are arguably Scots.
He should be ashamed of perpetuating the colonised mentality of which he complains.
Thanks to Alf Baird for reminding us on another thread of that staunch supporter of Wales and the Welsh people, Professor John Robert Jones (1911-1970), who spoke out against the investiture of Charles, Prince of Wales (now King Charles No.3), in 1969 and who penned these words:
“…not that you are leaving your country, but that your country is leaving you, is ceasing to exist under your very feet, being sucked away from you as it were by a consuming, swallowing wind, into the hands and the possession of another country and civilisation.”
Jones captures that sense of loss which pervades a people colonised by a foreign power – for him the sense of loss resulting from the colonisation of Wales by England and of which he writes in his book ‘Prydeindod’ (Britishness) that analyses the destructive force underpinning the ideology of ‘Britishness’.
Britishness is an ‘ideology’ utterly alien to the Scots and can hardly be said to reach beyond the level of a shallow manufactured cult let alone that of an ideology.
‘British’ feels like a branding exercise; a self-promoting commercial advertising campaign thought-up by some second-rate publicity outfit.
Shakespeare is eminently suited for a bit of the old paraphrasing in an attempt to describe what the idea of ‘Britishness’ has done to Scotland.
This cursed plot, this arrogated earth, this colony, this soulless place that once was Scotland…</b
Good to see you back NC.
I was worried that your owner had bought a new slave to replace you and sent you down the mines to be worked to death.
That’s the sad fate of real slaves. You really shouldn’t tell the world that you’re enslaved, just in case there’s some truth in that karma thingy.
The reason that the Snp don’t do anything to gain entry to sit in the devolved government they first have voluntary to take the Oath before and for the wage packet.
Alf Baird,
Northcode
Of course Shakespear the man whom invented the The incorrect story of Macbeth, and slipped up on invented timelines,
Witch hunts were very much of Shakespears time period, not of Macbeths timeline, he was just trying to suck up to the king for approval and recognition. As the king feared witches.
The great Sherlock Holmes detective of London, England ‘story writer’, Arthur Conan Doyle was of course Scottish Born, but often people do not realise this, that brittishness will steal anything including things that can be nailed down.
Scottish inventions become British inventions and English inventions are English or British,
Sport is the same, depending on wether Scots win or loose the competitions. Will decide on wether they are Scots or British,
That is were Colonialism will go that bit further an steal your history too..
Now that we’ve got this colonialism sorted out. Try saying something that isn’t repeated and most importantly something interesting and relevant to the real world.
Are you guys going to butter each up or grow up.
Too late!
OK
You first.
Northcode.
The Welsh know the more accurate History of Scotland and Ireland, as Scotland knows the more accurate history of Wales and Ireland, like wise with Ireland regards Wales and Scotland.
IS BRITISHNESS TRULY ALIEN to the Scots psyche?
As an observer, and I hope an informed one, from outwith the culture it seems Scots were not without an intitiating function in the creation and maintenance of the British supra nationality possibly conceived as a counter to the political reality of the country’s de facto political & cultural annexation.
North British railway, North British distillery, British Linen Bank etc are examples of complicity with the British model and the relationship of Walter Scott, considered an advocate of things Scottish and yet a political Unionist, is an exemplar of that famous Scottish antisyzygy.
The conflation of British with English is not entirely due to anglo-hubris either. In literature English has been a portmanteau word for honesty, fairplay and Christian values vis à vis the rest; pace John Buchan. In the British Empire whose foundations are historically rooted in Englishness especially English law and language was a broad platform for the adventurist and opportunist which many Scots, as individuals, took advantage of. Their engagement contributed much to the economic viability and territorial integrity of the imperialist project.
The historian Linda Colley maintains that Protestantism, in the times when such things informed national identity, was the glue that bonded Scotland, instrumentally Lallans speaking Scotland, and England into the Union. Of all Scottish institutions the Kirk, regardless of theological differences with anglicanism, was in its heyday probably the most «British» in its perspectives.
Having early on effectively adopted English as its liturgical language that is no surprise.
Britishness should have more focus placed on it as the operative factor in the scoto-english equation than the current manifestation of Scottish nationalism seems prepared to grant. Is that manifestly too intellectual, too European a step?
Writing as someone whose distant ancestors contributed to the Ottoman empire more than it merited and were in moments of conceit even happy to be considered «Turks» albeit being culturally and religiously totally unturkish, Scotland’s historic situation has familiar elements.
Playing the Ottoman card gave my forebears a relatively easy life as well as a good income until it all fell apart, thanks in no small measure to a certain Lawrence.
But there begins another lamentable story of plus ça change….
“IS BRITISHNESS TRULY ALIEN to the Scots psyche?”
Naw.
But somebody will be along in a minute to claim we Scots never took part in the imperial project, that Glasgow was never the second city of empire, that no Scot ever colonised anywhere, that no Scot has ever held high office such as Prime Minister, that no Scot has ever reached the pinnacle of military command, that no Scot ever got fantastically rich, etc. etc.
A pound to a penny they will couch their rebuttal in the King’s English too.
Both Scottishness and Britishness have an overarching European and Western identity based on Christianity and old-fashioned liberal/conservative democracy. That does not mean that they are the same.
Of course, many Scots embraced the Empire with gusto (usually from the ranks of the administrators – middle management) although some did climb the greasy pole to the stars. Many still do so, clamouring for, essentially, English honours and such baubles.
Enough of a sense of Scottishness had been retained and maintained that we still, many of us, particularly independistas, understand that our lack of momentum and lagging economy can only be fixed if we leave the Union.
The does not and should not mean that we cannot be good neighbours in future and co-operate across a broad range of issues – like the Scandi countries – but means simply that we fell constrained and held back by the Union because England, as the largest part – or, at least, the London and South-eastern part of England where power resides – is alien to us.
“London and South-eastern part of England where power resides – is alien to us.”
Hmmm.
In excess of 110,000 Scots live in London – these are people who were born in Scotland – and in addition there are many more of second and subsequent generation descent.
Thus, in terms of Scottish population, London is the third-most populous Scottish city in the UK.
An inconvenient fact, Lorn, but luckily you’re one of the few regulars on Wings BTL who can deal with facts!
As to whether our problems can ONLY be fixed if we leave the union, another awkward fact is that there are plenty of parts of England that are doing no better than our own deprived areas.
A decent WM government, pursuing sane policies, would rejuvenate these parts of England and Scotland both. That’s why support for Reform is rising in Scotland too.
And it’s impossible to argue that we are being drowned by white sizzlers AND we’re lagging behind at the same time. We’re drowning in white sizzlers because things are better here than in the shitholes the sizzlers left behind. Another inconvenient fact!
The heart of the matter is that Scots, and Scots alone, would be in control with one layer of government operating. Blame comes home, no more whinging.
The rest is conjecture. England is not what she was, demographic changes are seeing to that rendering the future even more unpredictable.
Everything since James IVs marriage to Margaret Tudor our history has just been a long drawn out play. As father of the bride English Henry VII said; the larger always swallows the smaller.
1503; That was when the writing was put on the wall, since, well people have just had to survive in the circumstances they found themselves living through.
Colonialism “is always a co-operative venture with native elites” (Fanon).
The native elites assimilate into the oppressors culture, speak his language, and adopt his ‘values’, which include sacrificing thair ain fowk an naition. Scots were and are nae different.
Private (i.e. colonial) schools and elite universities help the social segregation and socio-linguistic prejudice along.
Every colony was run more or less like this.
And this post also helps to perpetuate the socio-linguistic prejudice of which the learned professor complains.
He is actively complicit in our linguistic subjugation.
“..historian Linda Colley ..”
The Tory one?
From an interview in PROSPECT magazine with Colley.
Q. Among the things that bind nation states together are what you have called elsewhere “constitutive stories”. These, you argue, are an essential part of nation-building and of the sustaining of nation states. Economic well-being is not enough, you’ve argued. Nations need these overarching stories to tell about themselves, too. Now, in the February issue of Prospect, John Kay says of the referendum campaign in Scotland: “[It] is characterised by a near exclusive focus on economic issues.” Do you agree with one implication of that, which is that the Scottish Nationalists are in danger of forgetting that the promise of prosperity isn’t enough?
LC. I actually think the SNP, and certainly Alex Salmond, do realise that economics is not enough. Part of Salmond’s adroitness is that he understands the importance of language. And he recognises the importance of history—choosing these patriotic anniversaries for various important SNP junctures. So I think he is appealing to gut sentiment in a way that it’s quite difficult for the unionists to contend with. But I would argue that they [the unionist side] could still try harder than they have.
High Tory sympathies or no, that makes good sense to me.
“Scottish Nationalists are in danger of forgetting that the promise of prosperity isn’t enough”
Indeed, which is why postcolonial theorists concluded that “independence is a cultural emotion” (Fanon).
Alex Salmond did seek to stress the “importance of language” which is the basis of our identity, but he arguably focused on the wrong language, i.e. Gaelic, whilst ignoring the Scots language whit gies maist o us Scots oor naitional identity an whit maist Scots speak e’en theday. In this I suspect he was led by his colonial officials whose objective is to divide and rule, as is still the case.
Yea you are correct. This an outside cultural point of view.
You are referring to the past. Have you ever been in a Kirk lately, that is if you can find one that’s open and not luxury flats. The Scottish people have grown out of dogmatic religion. Paganism, spiritualism, occultism are all on the ascendancy. The Scottish people are moving forward. We don’t need a middle man to connect with the divine creation.
The empire is all gone but it served a purpose for mankind. Good or bad it made the world a smaller place. As each nation emancipated from the empire it kept a lot of the empires systems and organizational skills. Many nations are based on the ‘British’ ‘French’ system both in the military and civil service.
The Woke ideology is to hang on to these injustices of history and then blame you in the present.
Have you been in a mosque lately?
The next time you’re on Lewis they have one there you can visit.
I guarantee it won’t have been turned into flats.
Sorry Lewis doesn’t count.
ONE MIGHT ARGUE INDEFINITELY about that «mission civilisatrice» empires from e.g Alexander the Great on sought to execute but in the end something «alien» was imposed by force against the will of the indigenous people; Alexander btw is also remembered as the destroyer of Persepolis, burned while high on the fruits of Persian luxury which he claimed to despise.
The effect of such missions was generally to second rank the indigenous culture no matter how sophisticated that culture might be. Many of the areas experiencing turmoil today had lines across maps drawn by imperialists sitting in comfy chairs in Paris and London, Moscow, Washington and Beijing many of whom knew and still know little about the territories in question.
The past is not dead, it is in fact all we have that is fixed, but it ought not to overcolour the present, a present where new forces of technological sophistication are capable of pushing everybody into the second rank unless those forces are well understood and harnessed for the «good» of the many.
Empires have always used technological sophistication, not just trickery and deceit, to advance their interests.
These new empires, ruled by a selfserving plutocrats, have no need of armies and lines on maps just docile populations presided over by complacent or compliant governments.
Good point but everyone remembers Alexander the Great. No one remembers the indigenous people. You don’t build an Empire by being nice. You round up the intelligentsia and everyone falls in line. You massacre some people and everyone gets the message. Today you lose your job. So you could say we’ve come along way.
As long as people think they are better or ‘chosen’ above the rest.Then empires will be built on the backs of the many.
MB
If a God of love and light ever existed then he is long dead.
Someone, some “thing” else now sits in his place.
(with acknowledgment to Vincent Price)
Will the Scots save England from England, is an interesting question,
Because it is laws being passed in Westminster that allows the influx population programs,
It is the judges that repeatedly use human rights laws from the EU after Brexit and have ignored democracy votes in a way that makes a choice between the haves and have nots,
I was watching a excessive England is Britain blog and the hypocracy in that blog coming from a man whom claims to have studied Law and the English constitution while in prison,
However he links The Word “British” rather than the word England to the Fabian Society,
He also mentions.
The Scottish Ferries,
That Scotland does not have a devolved government,
That the four nations on Britain are now just British, (nationality Act,)
That America got its constitution from England.
That England will be invaded through Scotland.
And that Ruskies won the Second world war,
That the young men coming to Britain will be put in the police force or army and given weapons to shoot you if you cause civil unrest.
Now its open class war between the rich the poor that don’t have lawyers. For upper control.
But still he fails to mention that it is not just England that is Great-Britain and if England wants ( saving ) by joining forces with Scotland, Ireland and Wales it might be time to negotiate new terms more favourable to the other three nations and withdraw the colonial arrogance of Englands great Britain that started America beginnings, on the right foot.
And Scotland was lost and fooled a longtime ago.
Its simple.
How to save England lessons.
A bit more humble pie.
Now one would think this is a English case for a asylum home, but he has convinced himself and some others and has written to Scotland,
You will find the interview on Shaun Attewood, youtube.this week,
Close enough information, for you to be able to find it quite easily.
To simplify matters, perhaps a lot of the so called sizzlers are Scots returning home because demographic circumstances have changed so much and so quickly in the last few years,
And perhaps they bring with them new aquaintenes also fleeing from the changes down south,
Jim Fairlie is a decent chap. Well liked in his constituency including by country folk/farmers. Supported Forbes and has no truck with the Twittler Youth / Qwerties.
Whether ruthless enough to remove the scum?…that is open to question.
It’s depressing; there’s no other way to describe it.
Independence might as well be astrology, for all the likelihood it has of being a reality under the current crop of seat warmers. For anyone who supports independence ahead of political party it’s just pointless looking at the SNP. They’ve effectively purged anyone with a hint of independence zeal and replaced them with little soundbite SNP drones that all say they’d love independence but don’t do anything about it. The little drones aren’t to blame, of course. Nah, that’s the last crop, who got fully onboard the SNP ideological shift because getting paid was more important than having actual principles.
I used to be solidly SNP. And now, for a whole range of reasons, I’m struggling for a reason to actually vote for their constituency candidate; they’ve got no chance of getting my vote on the list.
And I’m still getting the human equivalent of an empty bucket, on Facebook, trying to convince me that ‘both votes SNP can get an overall majority.’ And they’re steadfastly ignoring that the entire system is meant to prevent that happening, or that the list part of the vote isn’t just a straight PR allocation of seats.
While the 2011 result was a fantastic thing at the time, now it’s an absolute fucking curse because people who don’t understand fully how Holyrood elections function will insist it’s repeatable.
It isn’t, but you can’t tell these utter wallopers that, because they ‘know’ they’re right.
And you simply cannot reach people who ‘know’ they’re right. I know that’s true, because I used to be one of them, but I couldn’t understand why both votes didn’t produce an overall majority in 2016 when the SNP won nearly every constituency so I learned about it. And then when the SNP insisted that it could produce an overall majority again in 2021 they utterly lost me.
Because if I could work out why it didn’t work in 2016, with my limited mathematic ability (I don’t think an O Grade in maths gets me much more than limited, put it that way) I understood perfectly that the SNP leadership, who should know how the election system works, were either so stupid they thought it would deliver what they said, or were completely deliberately lying to the electorate out of grubby self interest.
Now, apparently, the rats are deserting the sinking ship for a variety of ‘reasons.’ The money is no longer good enough to keep them on the ship, and that’s horrendous news for anyone who wants independence.
I await the mild criticism from those standing down of the SNP leadership. It’s quite obvious from Brendan Angus MacNeill, who was out of the SNP some time ago, that it was toeing the line that shut him up while he was still in the SNP. Because now he’s happy to sink the boot in that the party richly deserves.
However you want to view their departure, it’s not a good look for the SNP prior to what should have been a pivotal election. Of course, it’s not going to be a pivotal election, because it’s John Swinney, Mr Almost Average, in charge and his stated position is he’ll act if they get an overall majority… that they’re not going to get. He’s not an idiot, he knows that. But he’s a typical politician in that regard, in that he thinks enough people believe what he’s saying to keep the SNP in power.
And honestly, I hope the electorate are paying attention, but I seriously doubt it.
Getting the list vote to turn from the SNP is our only option, because if the SNP are running off a cliff we need independence supporters are in there after next May. And this should be at the detriment of unionist politicians, because those anti Scottish fuckers rely on the list to make their numbers look good.