The dogs of war
Wings Over Scotland continues to regret the Scotsman's failure to provide a viable link to the commentary of former Glasgow Lord Provost, Michael Kelly. The veteran Old Labour stalwart's columns rarely fail to provide a chuckle, and today's is a peach.
Kelly is no stranger to the barking mad, particularly where the SNP is concerned, but his latest column makes an extraordinary assertion even by his standards.
"By bringing down the Callaghan government in 1979, the SNP forced a general election at the time most propitious to the Tories, and thereafter they ruled the UK for the next 18 years. This was not a mistake. The SNP calculated that by allowing the Tories to inflict maximum damage on Scotland they could portray themselves as saviours."
That's right, folks – the SNP quite deliberately installed the Tories in power for two decades, apparently able to accurately foresee that a subsequent Labour administration would create Scottish devolution (a strategy, let's remember, that was designed by Labour to "kill nationalism stone dead"), then handle it so badly that the SNP would be able to form a minority administration eight years later, then oppose that administration so spectacularly ineptly that the SNP would win a majority at the next election and finally be able to hold a referendum on independence.
(With such an incredible vision stretching 32 years into the future, you have to wonder why the SNP didn't also back every Grand National winner in the intervening time and have a lot more money than it does now.)
But we shouldn't be too unkind to poor Dr Kelly, an elderly man who appears to be suffering from the early stages of dementia. Later in the piece he attacks the SNP's scandalous intent to determine the Scottish Parliament's legislative schedule, on the tissue-thin basis that it runs the Scottish Govermnent. Barely controlling his rage, Kelly accuses Alex Salmond of
"trying his best to fix both the timing and wording of the referendum question – the former on the grounds that he promised it would be held late in this parliament: a promise for which there is as little evidence as for a dragon’s fiery breath."
We're not sure how many dragons Dr Kelly sees in the average day around Parkhead, but evidence of Salmond's promise on the referendum timing is rather easier to come by. A quick Google initially produces this Telegraph article, which quotes the First Minister saying during a BBC leaders' debate on May 1st that economic concerns would take priority and push the referendum bill "into the second half of this Parliament", gleefully reporting the statement as a "massive retreat".
(The Telegraph piece also quotes the then Lib Dem leader Tavish Scott making the case for not bothering with a referendum at all, which he'd go on to repeat on an STV debate a couple of days later, saying "If you want independence you can vote for it on Thursday". He had in fact made the exhortation several times on the BBC debate, going so far as to say "This election is about independence, if people want it they can vote for the SNP". Oddly, neither Scott nor the rest of the Lib Dems have since been heard describing the election result as a vote for independence.)
Should the former Provost not wish to take the Telegraph's word for it, the relevant part of the debate can be seen and heard on the BBC website. Now, about those dragons.
The 1979 no-confidence vote on Callaghan's Government which brought it down still rankles with Labour.
I suspect that part of the reason is that despite Labour happily hobbling the 1979 referendum with the 40% rule courtesy of scottish born Labour MP George Cunningham and the votes of Scottish Labour MP's Robin Cook, Peter Doig, Willie Hamilton and Bob Hughes among others and despite the fact that Callaghan refused to whip the Labour party to oppose the Repeal Order on the Legislation which was all that Cunningham's amendment demanded they still expected the SNP to support the Labour Government.
The outrage the Labour party in Scotland still feel is that after bullying the upstart SNP new boy whose presence had caused all the devolution legislation he didn't sit in the corner and whimper as he should have but stood up and whacked the Labour party on the nose.
Callaghan's Government was a dead man walking and unelectable after the Winter of Discontent and nothing the SNP did could have changed the fact that the Labour party in England was unelectable for 18 years until they elected a Tory as their leader and adopted the Tories' clothes so I think that punch was worth it from the squeals that still emanate from time to time from Labour.
One interesting fact is that the Liberals, as they were at that time, voted with the SNP to take down Callaghan's Government but you never hear about their part in the vote from Labour sources and Labour were happy to cosy up to them in the Lib-Lab coalition in the Scottish Parliament.
The silence on the Liberals part in the vote is telling and the outrage is all about how Labour still can't get over the fact that the SNP stood up to them and their dirty tricks in 1979.
Oh dear,
let us jsut make this quick
I am not so sure of Kelly's Dragons but I reackon he does suffer from Demons.
The man is h(a)unted