The Fainthearts
Posted on
April 14, 2021 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Presented without comment.
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I recd the SNP leaflet from George Adam Paisley again NO mention of independence NO surprise
How far down the river do people need to be to realise that Scotland has been sold out?
They probably realised that as in the 2017 and 2019 election turnouts no mention of indy meant people stayed away from voting, so if they again don’t mention indy there will be less of a turnout and they don’t want a massive majority as that would mean nowhere to hide but they will be happy for a minority govt with the greens
They’d be as well using Bob Geldof and just demand that “just give us your fucking vote”
There is being cautious and then there is being craven, cringing, cowardly.
Unbelievable. Poor SNP membership betrayed by it’s Leadership, employees and Parliamentary groups.
We need Alba to have some success this time and then grow big enough to have the power to get our independence.
Got ours from Kate Forbes yesterday. Plenty of achievements listef on the back. “Supported a farmer whose cow was killed due to faulty fencing by Network Rail”.
“Saved the aluminium smelter in Fort William”…actually oodles of tax payers money paid out to Liberty who went under, smelter still under threat.The list went on and on.
Independence? Nope.
GRA reforms and securing women’s rights? Not a chance.
Banality at it’s best.
#IStandStillWithNicola
SNP have become Fearties more like. Craven Fearties at that.
Same with Fergus Ewing, no mention of independence, equally, no mention of woke policies. Straight into the recycling bin along with the rest.
So, no mandate to hold an independence referendum sought?
Farmers, folk with gardens on busy roads: contact your local ALBA rep for a field/garden board. They’re about 2 foot high by 4 foot wide.
The boards that is, not the reps.
New movement required after this election,no politicians need
apply.
This game needs to end.
More vacuous, aspirational bullshit.
Why does the current bunch of SNP troughers have the air of ‘Opposition’ rather than ‘Government’ about them?
Could it be that it isn’t just the ‘Dear Leader’ who suffers from “imposter syndrome”?
So when Alex Salmond described the SNP as glacialists he really was giving them the benefit of the doubt.
That’s a pretty tepid list of aspirations. What exactly does “global leadership on climate change” actually mean – sending Greta a card on her birthday?
There are some pretty serious problems facing Scots and this is the best our “experienced” leadership can come up with? No mention of tackling poverty, hunger and despair. No mention of building a country fit for children to grow up in. No, just put an SNP sticker on the door to the food bank that says “Working towards a better future”.
Poverty of imagination. One more to add to the list of “things that are shite”.
So far the leaflets we’ve received have been 4 tory , 3 labour , 3 libdem , 1 snp and no need to guess what leaflet doesn’t have the word “independence” on it ? .
Yes that’s right , the snp leaflet doesn’t have the word “independence” on it at all .
If it wasn’t for Alex asking for us to vote snp in the constituency vote , they wouldn’t have been getting either of our votes at all and that’s after both myself and my husband voting snp for the last 40 years .
They’ve just been totally gazumped by Alba. It is such a delight.
Sturgeon knew in 2017 that the biggest threat to their eye watering salaries and gold plated pensions was one man, Alex Salmond.
The Unionists knew that the biggest threat to the filching of Scotland’s resources by the Westminster parliament was that same man, Alex Salmond.
So they tried their utmost to remove him for good. Unfair and biased processes introduced. Demonstrably false allegations made up. Illegal leaks to the tabloids from Sturgeons own close knit circle. The government, the civil service, the courts and even a police team assembled. All to get one man.
And guess what. He wouldnt go away. He just would not go away. He took them to court. He won unprecedented damages. He cleared his name. He kept his dignity.
In less than one months time, despite the ongoing smears, the obstructing of Inquiries, the besmirching of the jury, the ommittance from televised debates, despite every dirty underhand trick they’ve tried, in less than one month, Alex Salmond will walk back into the chamber at Holyrood as a democratically elected member of the Scottish Parliament.
Once there, he will quite simply resume his leadership of the Scottish independence movement. Each and every second he is in that building, he’ll show up Sturgeon and her SNP for what they’ve become. Their complete and utter lack of movement on independence and their complete and utter misleading of the pro-indy voter. There will be nowhere to hide.
She knows this, we know this. I absolutely cannot wait.
Only a couple of days left on the crowdfunder.
Time to put our money where our mouths are.
In January 2018 a number of independence minded friends decided to form the “Aberdeen Independence Movement” (AIM) to campaign for Scottish independence concentrating their efforts in the North East of Scotland. The headquarters is located in Aberdeen. It is an umbrella organisation whose membership is made up of WOKE minded independence activists of any political persuasion (so long as your are SNP). It is not affiliated to any political Party.
https://caltonjock.com/2021/04/14/aberdeen-independence-movement-membership-criteria-snp-and-woke/
I’d like to see Galloway (who I am not a fan of) elected.
He will cause a lot of problems for Nicola, she cant handle him, but Alex can.
So happy to see him in there just to open a new front on Nicola.
After all the more fronts she is fighting on, the better.
I was surprised mine actually had it listed after seeing someone tweeted Aberdeen Central didn’t mention it. Might be worth having a look at why that might be. I have a new candidate since Maureen. (Dim) Watt has stepped down so the leaflet had “our priorities” with independence at the top while Kevin Stewart had “My priorities” and no sign of Indy
Forgot to mention the leaflets look different from the one posted but mine and the other guys in my city looked exactly the same
I’ve only had one from labour so far, in the bin already.
I do have the oval Alba scotland flag stickers that I hot on ebay on my door and windows though. Maybe that’s scaring them away, who knows?
Stuart MacKay @ 5.31am.
Whenever I hear or see a politician or charity going on about child poverty, hunger or despair it really gets my goat. there is now a culture around the real issue of poverty etc where a great many people earn a really good living supposedly tackling poverty etc. Are they really wanting to eradicate the issues and put themselves on the dole? Don’t get me wrong there are a great many people who do put time and energy into the issue but there are a lot at the top who need these issues to continue to maintain their lifestyles just like a great many fecking politicians.
.
What gets me is that EVERY SNP MP, MSP AND COUNCILLOR has visited this Wings Over Scotland website.
They all know IndyRef2 is the ref that dare not speak its name.
They all love the money the UK state gives them as elected puppets. Why do so many unemployable green haired, work-dodging Sleeze-bags like BoakEilidhMax Yiff420 Ganga puffing kiddy sex photo sharing no marks try to self I’d as disabled due to split-ends in their Covid-hair do. BTW Eilidh, your Twitter photos are now with Police Scotland. Happy Anthropomorphic Sex BadgerCosplay Day in your local HMP sex palace.
The majority of SNP elected politicians are cowards. They are seat-warming expense-claiming Amadans. Plus some utter nut jobs. But the bulk are intelligent people who used to believe in Scottish Independence first but now ride the Cowards Express Gravy Train, destination Happy Pensionville. Diverted well away from IndyTown long ago,
IndyRef2 is dead in the SNP embalmer’s hands.
Now Stuart Campbell has his own stalker: Baron Sir Pete Wishart, MBE, OBE, CBE, ARC (Hons)., Lord of The House of Jockistan.
The typical, careerist self interested me, me, me type of Wokerati that has infested the SNP top office like Japanese/Jockanese knotweed on steroids. Stinkyfeet Pete should have stuck to playing the keyboard (badly).
Wishart is an example of so many spineless SNP political cowards in the make.
Aye Stuart you were right to post that heading without comment.
I suspect most of us here are wrestling with the merits/demerits of voting…
SNP1
Is this a price worth paying to achieve 6 to 20 ALBA MSPs and watch the Rt Hon Alex Salmond PC., MSP., hand Nicola Sturgeon her derrière each week at FM question time? I think YES but am choking on my cornflakes at the prospect of voting SNP1.
Last night on YouTube, I watched one of the FEW SNP members who had principles, Mr Kenny MacAskill MP., give a very fair minded and patient interview to Brillo Heed.
Sooner or later the penny will drop to the rank and file SNP members that Comfy Queen Nicola and Prince Comfy Feet Pete are both self interested parasites living off of a massive bribe from UK Westminster “short money” topped up by the occasional £600,000 (allegedly) stolen from YES supporters.
Meanwhile the Unionist press go into waves of faux meltdown and splash banner headlines that Sturgeon is the biggest threat to the Union. That lie is proven by posts at the top of this page.
Sturgeon and the vast ranks of temporary SNP elected seat warmers are going to do a Tony Blair very soon. The electorate will tell them all to fuck off. Do you think this impossible?
Check out what happened to New Labour in Scotland when the Scottish electorate found out they were a bunch of thieving, lazy, lying shysters.
Sturgeon is a luke-warm devolutionist. She is only interested in the free accommodation at Bute House, the ministerial limos.
Though she does have a dark secret?
INDYREF2, THE LOVE THAT DARE NOT SPEAK ITS NAME.
Probably think that if they were able to fool yes fans into voting for them they can do the same with the no faction – especially if there’s a big postal turnout despite nobody being allowed to go on holiday.
Telt ye! The tarnished throne at Holyrood has indeed become, in the words of the Bard of Avon, “a couch for luxury and damnèd incest.”
No mention of independence but a fair bit about ‘mitigating'(UK policies) on the SNP campaign leaflet. Let’s see how the SNP get on with mitigating further UK court rulings that overrule Scottish Bills. Didn’t work too well last time in December 2018-
‘the UK Supreme Court overruled part of a Brexit law that was passed by the Scottish Parliament. The Bill could have blocked some Brexit-related laws from taking force in Scotland without the SNP government’s consent.
But seven justices today said part of it was “outside the legislative competence” of the Scottish Parliament.’
No matter –
‘Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon insisted the ruling was a “vindication” for her because the rest of the Bill had no issue.’
Lovin’ that not so subliminal rainbow as well. That’ll keep some people happy. No words needed.
WHEEEEEEEEEESHT…….!
I think NS may be compromised. It’s the only explanation IMO. She seems to be terrified something will be exposed unless she behaves. What does the establishment have on her?
Couldn’t David Davis expose the Super Injunctions in HoC using Patliamentary Privelige?
Apart from getting Alba constituency seats, what is the point of voting SNP ?
The policy they are most vocal on, by some margin, is destroying hard fought for woman’s rights.
Still not voting SNP, my principles aren’t for sale.
PS, don’t shout at me, shout at Sturgeon, this is squarely on her.
Stuart MacKay, “So when Alex Salmond described the SNP as glacialists he really was giving them the benefit of the doubt.” – haha exactly. I liked the glacialist description too, but it maybe isn’t long term enough description.
I’ve got two leaflets through the door so far – one is Labour, a generic one claiming they are a Scottish party and plastered with Anas Sarwar, so I have no idea who my local candidate is – but I suppose we need general party leaflets for the list vote,,, it would be nice to know who they have standing though.
Anyway, I was sure my other, SNP, leaflet had the word independence on it so went to check & indeed it does.
This is Bob Doris’ own leaflet – not the generic SNP one – so I guess he has a choice of what to write (this is for Maryhill & Springburn constituency). There are 6 things on the main side with a big picture of Bob, and no ‘both votes SNP’ message, with all the generic NHS gets funding, bus passes for young people, new social security system – but also a new national care system – and the last item is “Deliver a new independence referendum – Scotland’s future is Scotland’s choice”. The bottom of the main side leaflet (one sheet of card btw) also has the rainbow ‘YES’ logo alongside “Vote SNP on 6th May. For a New Independence Referendum”.
So far so good, at least he mentions independence – though only in terms of a referendum & not promoting independence itself.
The other side of the leaflet has more blurb about Bob himself – turns out he’s the convener of the social security committee (I was vaguely aware of that), the one that’s not delivered yet – and at the end he says “I look forward to Scotland taking its place…I will champion the right to choose that future in a new independence referendum.” (Bold writing is his).
So a glacialist indeed (looking forward to something isn’t going to make it happen!) but at least he’s not ashamed of the word independence. Also on that side is a small photo of NS with a short very general quote. And right at the bottom of this side, with the contact details, above the SNP logo is ‘both votes’. (With ‘votes’ highlighted and not ‘both’) – so reasonably subtle if you were being forced to add that piece of nonsense.
So meh, whatever, inoffensive, and he has been an active MSP & gets involved in community projects (arguably what the councils should be doing) – but he’s never going going to push for independence. Not with NS at the helm. I don’t know if he, personally, was one of the jeering clapping and cheering MSPs egging on Sturgeon as she lied and obfuscated in parliament.
I doubt it’ll get people out voting either – lots of deprived areas in this constituency, so with no proposals for real change, I doubt many will be bothered. Apparently only 25% of electorate have applied for a postal vote, and the average turn out in glasgow is below 50%, so Alba need to get the their leaflets printed, distributed and through people’s doors fast to get their name and message into people’s minds.
Sturgeon’s whole life is a lie, a fraud it seems. The more you see the more you see it.
A failed lawyer on the verge of being drummed out her profession, a fraud of a marriage, fraud over the missing 600k, fraud over supporting independence, fraud in her continual lies and smears about AS.
None of us really know who this woman is.
All you can say for sure is that she and her slimy husband have been eminently blackmailable from the moment she entered politics to this very day.
Sham lawyer, sham politician, sham marriage, sham independence supporter, sham accusations, sham investigations, sham inquiries…
Getting the picture.
Do what you think is right with your constituency vote tartanfever.
Vote tactically against the SNP if that is what you think is right. ( I personally don’t think AS would disagree with that.)
It comes down to whether the SNP MSP on the constituency can be defeated realistically by tactical voting. If that is a waste of time then vote SNP1 as it makes no difference and you are freeing up space for ALBA on the list.
“Experienced leadership”. Sturgeon has been the most shit leader of a party imaginable. She’s presided over a culture of fear where a handful of bully boys get to hound women, she’s split and ruined the party. She doesn’t allow any debate. She’s spent the time since Brexit trying to stitch up, imprison and destroy the strongest people in the party who would have stood up to WM and kept us in the EU. Her role was to ensure Scotland Brexited with the rest of the U.K. and get WM safely through this election so they can strip Scotland of powers over the next 5 years unhindered. Last nights friendly establishment chinwag shows just how much on the same page they all are. Anyone still believing Sturgeons SNP will deliver independence needs their head read.
Al-Stuart says:
“Meanwhile the Unionist press go into waves of faux meltdown and splash banner headlines that Sturgeon is the biggest threat to the Union.”
That’s the bit that curdles my curds and whey, too. It’s almost as if they were all in league to mislead the Scottish electorate…
To paraphrase macdiarmid –
‘all is dead here, save careerism’
tartanfever says:
14 April, 2021 at 7:27 am
Apart from getting Alba constituency seats, what is the point of voting SNP ?
Reply
To keep Unionist out?
Keeping Unionist out of power in Holyrood is possible however keeping Unionist out of power in Westminster is impossible.
In view of that perhaps the time for ‘No Votes SNP’ will be in the general election.
Would it make any difference if we had zero SNP MPs?
The good ones might be able to join the Alba party.
SNP supporters say that we need to Wheest for Indy as it puts off people and that Nicola Sturgeon can reach parts of society that other proponents can’t. The people that they are talking about are SNP supporters, not independence supporters.
In short, by voting for the SNP, you are not voting for independence but for the SNP as a political party.
The purpose of the SNP should be to deliver independence, not to be the permanent government of a devolved administration. A lot of people have loaned their vote to the SNP to deliver independence and due to the Holyrood voting system will need to do that in order to get Alba representatives elected but that doesn’t mean that they will continue to do so in other elections which has different voting systems.
Alba Crowdfunder just under £45K 89% of target.
Only 2 Days left.
I’ll be going in again but I will confess I’m all contributed out now.
I’d be divorced if my wife knew how much money I’ve put in to so many
good causes fighting for independence.
I didn’t get one of the many blank cheque Tory PPE contracts so I can’t
pay in to the level of these guys.
Boris got £100K from the owner of JCB for a speech to his staff.
Malcolm Rifkin charges £5K for a letter of introduction.
Baroness Ruth picks up £20K from a Russian for a lunch that never happened.
Is Alex, after all he has been through, asking too much at £50K for a whole election campaign?
Look down the side of the sofa. Your country needs you.
Otherwise the word Independence will never be uttered again by an SNP official.
We must never lose sight of the social consequences in allowing the present administration to continue, even in a massively uneven partnership.
I would have thought that what our friend Rev Campbell has exposed during the last few days would be seared into your psyche, and is many times more important than the title of our Nation.
The vast majority of these weirdos are also Scottish, being Scottish is not a vaccination against the epidemic sweeping through the social fibre of this country.
Let’s work to remove every one of the degenerates and all who have supported them in Holyrood.
Luigi says: 14 April, 2021 at 7:24 am
Maybe it is simply that she has been compromised by power?
All she needs to do is to mutter independence a few times before every election and the mugs will permanently vote for her.
Unfortunately for her there is a new kid on the block to thwart her that goes by the name of Alba.
boris says:
14 April, 2021 at 6:21 am
I read elsewhere yesterday that this mob were trawling through the social media posts of known SNP members for any mention of support for Alba and talking about suspending offenders. I’d imagine that funds are too low to start chucking out ordinary grassroots members though.
Still SNP 1 and Alba 2 for me – they can dick around with their policies all they want but, like leopards, they can’t run away from their spots (ie Independence and Scottish voters). The SNP were created, designed and supported to deliver Independence and if they don’t deliver when we put them into a position to, well, that will be the end of them, in every way shape and form ! Keep voting them in (except in Glasgow Govan) until they have no option but to deliver, with or without the current First Minister.
They might as well rename themselves the SDP – Scottish Devolution Party – at least that would be honest.
Their mantra could be “We’re happy farting about with the limited “powers” granted us by our betters in London and kidding on we’re a “national government”. Besides it’s a nice wee number for all of us.”
Honesty is the best policy.
It’s depressing however that a large proportion of the “Independence Movement” would probably be satisfied with the above.
Until there is another Independence party, not voting for the SNP is [seen as] backing the union! No matter what Wings or anyone else says this is the number one fact above all others. Independence is also number 1 on the SNP pledge list: https://www.snp.org/pledges2021/ albeit it with a caveat. And a list vote for Alba without a first vote SNP is less effective than SNP/Alba.
Pacman…..Well said!
He wouldnt go away. He just would not go away.
What Sturgeon and her unionist pals don’t get if that the reason he won’t go away is because he has huge support, and he has huge support because he actually fights for Scotland to be independent. Has done his whole life and will continue to do so. Sturgeon is as terrified by that prospect as any unionist and that can be seen in how much she despises him and her role in the stitch up. I think many of us once though (the slow among us still do) ‘But what would her motive be for trying to have Salmond imprisoned and destroyed?’ We see it clearly now with Alba and her spiteful reaction to it.
Ruby says:
14 April, 2021 at 7:50 am
If the SNP have no intention of delivering independence in what way is voting for them “keeping Unionists out”? Surely the SNP are now, demonstrably, a unionist party and voting for them is voting unionist?
The word Leadership implies a direction being chosen then pursued and taking others with you.
I have never seen a Party making such obvious efforts not to win an election.
The STV promoted the Greens hard last night. The BBC doing the job this morning. All planet saving cuddly issues. The real Green values being hidden from the public.
Why no polls during the week the postal votes come out!
Important news!: Lorna Slater, joint leader of the Scottish Greens, interviewed by Nick Robinson at his sneering worst on the Radio 4 Today programme, made a more brilliant powerful and impassioned case for Scottish independence than I have ever heard from any of the current SNP politicos. Between 7:30 and 8 am.
In view of that perhaps the time for ‘No Votes SNP’ will be in the general election.
Hopefully Alba will be standing candidates at the next WM election. It would be good if they refused to take their seats and did something more productive with their time but they may have a better plan. If they’re not standing, how about a campaign to spoil ballots with “Not my parliament” ?
Can anyone who is more familiar with the events, shortly before Sturgeon left the legal profession (under a cloud) to join the political profession (which she will also leave under a cloud), tell me if I am getting this roughly correct.
Young Sturgeon a newly qualified lawyer found herself working for a bottom rung legal firm and failing miserably to do an adequate job, even there.
She was reported to the Law Society by a client for gross misconduct and an essentially an ‘Investigating Officer’ was appointed.
They concluded after their investigation that Sturgeon was guilty and had three cases of negligence to answer for.
That report went then ‘up-stairs’ at the law Society (presumably to an equivalent of a ‘Deciding officer’) who subsequently declined to take it further. A very short time later Sturgeon exited the legal profession.
So reading between the lines Sturgeon likely agreed to ‘fall on her own sword’ before she was thrown out… and then the charges would be dropped.
Later once Sturgeon is FM she promotes the very same Investigating Officer lawyer from the Law Society investigation into her (Olga whatshername) who found her guilty, to a plumb job in her judiciary, presumably to sweeten her up and keep her quiet about it all.
It was only the poor client who Sturgeon utterly shafted who became so frustrated at the lake of a comeuppance for Sturgeon’s negligent behaviour (which is really shocking by the way) who took it to the papers.
This then resulted in the strange little incident at the inquiry when JB questioned Sturgeon about, the story that never was, and the one that replaced it.
Is this about right.
PaulaJ says:
14 April, 2021 at 7:47 am
Aye, I always thought that about Labour and Tories in WM. Labour were only there to give the illusion of choice. The SNP seem to be there to keep the peace by pretending they will, one day, at some point, whenever bring about independence. Makes it look like we have an even greater choice when they are all the same under different rosettes.
Hold yer nose and vote for the fainthearts for the constituency. Then take a deep breath of lovely Scottish air and vote for Alba on the list. Y’all know it makes sense. We do this for Scotland. 🙂
Mac says:
14 April, 2021 at 8:06 am
Maybe when she “fell on her sword” was when she was recruited by the other side to shaft Scotland.
“You do this for us and we will take this trivial little matter no further and, what’s more, you will have a lucrative career in politics with plenty of perks”.
Jon Le Carre didn’t just make his stories up from nothing.
Frank Waring says:
14 April, 2021 at 8:05 am
Sorry, but the Greens have an alternative agenda too and I’m not swapping my personal freedoms far a national freedom that would leave me scared to talk about biology.
WeeChid says:
14 April, 2021 at 8:02 am
Ruby says:
14 April, 2021 at 7:50 am
If the SNP have no intention of delivering independence in what way is voting for them “keeping Unionists out”? Surely the SNP are now, demonstrably, a unionist party and voting for them is voting unionist?
Reply
Lets change it to ‘Keeping British Unionists out’
Zero chance of British Unionists offering independence
Scottish Unionists aka the SNP might be able to be persuaded to change their mind especially if the SNP MPs start speaking out.
I thought to add another wee donation and googled ALBA. I ended up filling in the relevant form and then having it rejected. I know someone was playing silly buggers and wondered if this interference might be the reason for a slow crowdfunder.
Perhaps this requires some investigation by ALBA.
Anyway , I searched out the real crowdfunder and gave them a wee bit more.
New SNP slogan
INDEPENDENCE – IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING
And of course the unionist parties can turn round and say that the SNP don’t have a mandate for independence because they never campaigned for it.
They have us by the cajones and they know it, but this is their last term.
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/albaparty
Link to Alba crowdfunder!
Well, here’s the real deal.
1) Out of the EU.
2) Free from the EU the UK is now pursuing a low wage, low worker protection, low food standards, low environmental protections environment to deliver a ‘ sweat shop economy off the coast Of mainland Europe. ( Think chlorinated chicken, hormone beef and you get the picture )
3) Introduce the Internal Market Bill that will enable Westminster to legislate and regulate in areas where the Scottish Parliament once had authority. ( Think food production regulation, environmental standards, the selling off of the Scottish NHS in a US tradecdeal etc )
4) Introduce a UK Government in Scotland administration in Edinburgh replete with imported civil servants to usurp the local institutions. ( Think of this as now being the body that administers Scotland – not MAFFS, SEPA, etc etc)
5) Introduce more nuclear weapons and increase the UK MILITARY presence in Scotland.
6) Continue with the plantation of Scotland. More settlers, more unionists, its a tried and tested policy. Indeed, just look at the areas of Argyll and West Dunbartonshire around Faslane and Coulport where Royal Navy personnel display on flag poles in their gardens Union Jacks. Ethnic or population engineering is a tried and tested policy. Look at Northern Ireland.
Not difficult to see now where Scotland is going and why all tslknof independence is off the SNP radar. Not difficult to see why thecestablishment were so keen for Salmond to be done down, why the media is suppressing Alba, and why Police Scotland are so hostile to politicians of an independence bent.
The recent Westminster minister’s of guard but on record statement that ‘ the devolution experiment will soon be over ‘ is absolutely accurate and Nicola Sturgeon is walking us into it.
The destruction of Scotland, its institutions, its people is now well underway……..and then you wonder what the sell out merchants have been promised. Vote em out – Sturgeon, Yousaf, Swinney and lets take back our movement. Most importantly, make Alba your regional vote.
tartanfever says:
14 April, 2021 at 7:27 am
I’m struggling with that too and, although my candidate is a supporter of women’s rights and not in the least woke, I can’t help but feel voting for her would be an endorsement of SNP policy – which to me seems to be to keep us in the Union but with enough devolved power to make us a country where women are reduced to handmaidens for the transcult and where working class and older people are, at best ignored, and, at worst, forced to comply through “re-education”.
Postcolonial theory tells us precisely where we are, and why.
What ALBA demonstrates, as JP Sartre described, is that the SNP are: “the tin-pot bourgeoisies that colonialism has already placed in the saddle”.
Sartre (and Fanon) also noted that the independence movement, after initial success loses momentum, and if it is to start again it “must throw their bourgeoisie overboard” and with it “the cult of the leader” who in Fanon’s words will make their own “accommodation with colonialism”.
The events we are witnessing have been played out many times before in many different countries, through the well trod path to national liberation, or continued subjugation. Its about time that the Scots better understood what independence is really about, and the realisation will be shocking for many as they come to know what it is, and why it is necessary.
“Maybe when she “fell on her sword” was when she was recruited by the other side to shaft Scotland.”
Yeah, maybe.
Her failure as a lawyer must have been crushing for her. She probably realized she did not have what it took to succeed at it.
She was looking for a way out, something else…
Her ascent to FM is perplexing seeing how generally crap she is at most things.
‘These are dark, even dangerous days in Scotland. The stramash between the country’s two most famous politicians, Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, has resulted in vital public documents being censored or banned, important information being suppressed, the media cajoled and cowed, the legal system brought into disrepute, the Scottish Parliament neutered and even bloggers being threatened with jail.’ – This is the way Andrew Neil sees it.
‘Hope for a better tomorrow’ – This is the way Nicola Sturgeon sees it.
Make your own mind-up.
How much power does Nicola Sturgeon have over all the SNP politicians?
I’m not convinced that getting rid of Nicola Sturgeon will magically sort everything out.
Sure Nicola Sturgeon is a dud but what about the rest of them? What about all the duds in Westminster?
There’s not a lot of choice in the HE but come the GE I would suggest ‘No Votes SNP’
“The enemies of Scottish Nationalism are not the English, for they were ever a great and generous folk, quick to respond when justice calls.
Our real enemies are among us, born without imagination.”
written by one of the founders of the SNP almost 100 years ago,
the only nation in the world ,ever, that has been offered independence and rejected it,
Our real enemies are among us, born without imagination.
They get what they want. Sturgeon leading the independence movement down one dead-end after another, always somehow inexplicably misplaying her hand and missing the opportunities… over and over, time after time.
She gets what she wants. To inflict all her wet dream woke garbage on Scotland. Making it into the wokey Disney land of her dreams. And then retire, after umpteen ineffective wasted years, as an ‘elder statesman’ to some talking shop job somewhere. Leaving the SNP and the independence movement a smoking ruin around her…
And we, well we don’t get what we want, obviously.
What I can say with certainty is that I believe Nicola Sturgeon is a wrong’un.
I just cant say for sure what is the extent of it, how far deep it goes.
It does not really matter now. What is required is still the same. She has to go.
Willie says:
14 April, 2021 at 8:24 am
“The recent Westminster minister’s of guard but on record statement that ‘ the devolution experiment will soon be over ‘ is absolutely accurate and Nicola Sturgeon is walking us into it.”
I’m beginning to suspect that’s why she was put there in the first place.
Control: Remember, Agent Sparrow, there must be no mention of independence in any of our election literature
Agent Sparrow: Why’s that, Control?
Control: We don’t want to scare off soft Nos
Agent Sparrow: How do we get them on board, Control?
Control: We play the long game. We appeal to their better judgement, demonstrating our deft ability in the provision of services and standing up for Scotland’s interests. When we are polling at or above 60% then we call a referendum
Agent Sparrow: Will we still require an S30?
Control: Of course
Agent Sparrow: What if Westminster say no?
Control: They won’t. They can’t
Agent Sparrow: What if they do, though?
Control: That would be a democratic outrage. The will of the Scottish people cannot be ignored. The international community would never accept it
Agent Sparrow: What about Catalonia?
Control: Ah, that was illegal. We’re not advocating a wildcat referendum
Agent Sparrow: How would we go about achieving our aims and ambitions if there’s no Holyrood? After all, the Tories seem Hell bent on whittling away at our capacity to legislate, brick by brick, stone by stone
Control: They can’t
Agent Sparrow: Says who?
Control: The Claim Of Right
Agent Sparrow: Do you expect them to respect that?
Control: If they don’t there will be consequences
Agent Sparrow: What sort of consequences?
Control: Bad ones
Agent Sparrow: Like what?
Consequences: Terrible things
Agent Sparrow: Could you be more specific?
Control: I could, but the information is classified
Agent Sparrow: It would be useful to know that we have some strategy in place
Control: We do, here’s our vision paper: Scotland 2121
Agent Sparrow: 2121? Is that a misprint?
Control: No, we don’t want to spook the soft Nos
Agent Sparrow: They’ll all be dead by then. Every page in that document contains the word “Redacted”
Control: Precisely. The younger generation is progressive and we like when things are progressive. The document is a draft; all drafts are redacted
Agent Sparrow: What if another party comes along that promises independence in a much shorter timescale and with credible options to S30?
Control: Then we endeavour to destroy it. Splitting the Indy vote is a constitutional outrage, gaming the system is transphobic and anyone who disagrees with us is a social conservative who must be imprisoned for crimes they did not commit
This must be south Scotland as it’s the same as mine. Lots of moneyed landowners around and a Tory stronghold to boot.
Captain Yossarian says:
Make your own mind-up.
Reply
You are too kind!
I’ve made my own mind up and decided neither Andrew Neil nor Nicola Sturgeon are worth listening too.
Next!
2 mentions of independence in Mairi Gougeon’s leaflet – just that we need it, not how or when it will be delivered. But the most interesting thing about her leaflet is – not a single photo of Nicola! I wonder when it was drafted. Angus North & Mearns.
I think i am done here – just one last act of vanity
– spoil constituency ballot with the words –
independence not a corrupt dictatorship – and then vote for alba on the list.
Scottish politics – I mean, who the fuck cares? A nation of cowards.
I’ll still forever read wings though!
“Jon Le Carre didn’t just make his stories up from nothing.”
I’ve read a few of his novels and Sturgeon does fit the profile of the characters he describes, their whole life, background and how they end up doing what they do. It is a very strange world all of that.
Sturgeon I think is super ambitious, driven.
When she failed as a lawyer she would IMHO have been capable of doing anything to pull that situation out of the fire.
Everything about her life indicates she really only cares about herself.
None of us know Sturgeon. That has become very clear this last few years.
Scot Finlayson @ 8:33 am
“Our real enemies are among us, born without imagination.”
This is actually only a part of the story. Our own people are not the root cause of colonialism nor the ultimate beneficiaries; though some (natives) may join in the melee and help ensure the status quo, and especially the bourgeoisie in order to protect their privileges and status, without the colonizer there would be no colonialism (Albert Memmi).
Forgive the rabid Yoon source, but this is also interesting:
https://mobile.twitter.com/AgentP22/status/1382033637680549890
That girl is not the first person I’ve heard say that. I’ve been against the Covid broadcasts for a long time now – especially as there’s no need for them to be presented by Sturgeon.
That short notice one yesterday about leaving your council areas was absolutely taking the piss as well; she obviously needed the exposure boost after a bruising weekend.
Well, it’s manifesto day for the SNP tomorrow, so it has effectively become their last chance to convince me to vote for them on the constituency vote by actually unashamedly putting independence front and centre of their campaign.
I’ve seen some folk (as I suspected they would) floating the idea that “it’s a given that they support independence, they don’t need to include it!”.
I’m sure there were Labour supporters in the 90s and early 2000s claiming the same as “socialist” policies disappeared from their leaflets and manifestos….
I can also just see Boris saying “well you didn’t bother your backside campaigning for a mandate for it this time, but yes of course I’ll give you your referendum”?!?
You’d almost think (and will see what the manifesto
says but…) that they were trying to engineer a situation where there was a disputed mandate only so they could just moan and do nothing.
“wathater says:
14 April, 2021 at 2:40 am
They probably realised that as in the 2017 and 2019 election turnouts no mention of indy meant people stayed away from voting, so if they again don’t mention indy there will be less of a turnout and they don’t want a massive majority as that would mean nowhere to hide but they will be happy for a minority govt with the greens”
2015 was not about Indy period and yet they got their best ever result, 2019 was about Indy and Brexit was it not?
WeeChid says:
“which to me seems to be to keep us in the Union but with enough devolved power to make us a country where women are reduced to handmaidens for the transcult and where working class and older people are, at best ignored, and, at worst, forced to comply through “re-education”.
Reply
Can you honestly see women in Scotland allowing themselves to be reduced to handmaidens for the transcult?
They would have to replace all women with replicants from ‘The Stepford Wife Factory’ for that to happen.
Talking of ‘The Stepford Wife Factory’ do you think that is where all the SNP politicians have come from?
I could add my tuppenceworth but I see you guys have got this.
So instead I’ll just say thanks Alex and Stu!
Alba leafleting starts on Friday!!
Rock and roll!
Chris McCleny is standing for Alba in my part of the woods, he is getting my vote, that’s a certainty, and his dad is still sticking with the SNP, he is also a good bloke, maybe he want’s to tackle them from the inside, if so, then we have two capable men on our side.
I happened to see some people on my brothers telly last night, most of them gave me heartburn especially that excuse for a man Rennie.
The labour guy was the only one I would have voted for, but as he is in charge of the scottish branch of the labour party I could never in a million years even contemplate that sickly thought.
So Alba and Chris for me, not made my mind up yet about the other vote, but if your reading this Stuart McMillan your not getting it cause your what is known as a slimy useless tit
FAINTHEART!
a new film starring «you know who» in a epic story of how to deceive most of the people most of the time.
OK, you’ve seen The Terror….now prepare to be even more gutted, eviscerated and have your brain smoothied in a blender.
A One world, be nice to your neighbour production in cooperation with How to manipulate the masses inc. funded by Billionaires Rule Yay!
And remember, Stay Safe you Turkeys!
Also are the SNP and greens going to deliberately offer differing “routes” again so that “it doesn’t count, the Greens said something different!” can be used? Is this why a coalition between the two is being punted? Is such a strategy the price for a wee shot of government for Patrick? Think Indy supporters should be told tbh.
I join the dots in a different way. The SNP is aware that independence is a low priority for around 80% of Scots at the moment. So why would they lead on it? It will alienate ordinary voters who’ve been swayed by the apparent strength of the COVID response and Sturgeon’s ability to appear convincing. On every real measure, she and her government have failed this country and the stench of corruption is obvious – but sadly it seems, only to those who seek it out.
She’s survived everything and will gain a majority now.
I don’t think the SNP are woke just because of the greens. There’s a large wave of woke among the young – who vote entirely with their hearts having yet to have that sinking feeling of seeing just how much comes off in tax. I don’t know about anyone else, but that was my moment of political awakening. It’s that young wave they are after, so I expect more of the same. They know that the lifers will vote for anything with an SNP logo. A vote is a vote. There’s no caveat that you held your nose while casting it.
Does anyone know if I can get official ALBA stickers and merchandise which puts money into coffers for them?
@Alf Baird,
we, the common herd ,were given a democratic chance to free ourselves but 55% said no,
“Our real enemies are among us, born without imagination.”
Robert Cunninghame Graham 1930 ish
I read a book many years ago when I was a young pup, about 16 or 17 years old.
It is called The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, Ricky Tomlinson discovered it when he was sent to prison for just being Ricky Tomlinson.
Scotland has been a ragged trousered philanthropist for centuries, its now time to stop this nonesense and care for ourselves first and foremost, then we can help others from outside our wonderful place of birth, you know it makes sense.
Alba forever, The country and the party
I watched this leaders debate this morning and the one thing I noticed was how these five leader all seemed happy with the Holyrood MSP members and its setup, from Ross to Harvie and Sturgeon they are happy with the current system for all there bull about the constitutional question. 7yrs and Sturgeon and her government haven’t made any progress at all from education to the NHS and no ground work for currency or pensions or what an Independent Scotland future will look like or how to achieve Independence, I got a leaflet through my door from the SNP and bin it straight away. I totally get why all these party’s are opposed to Alex and the Alba Party its the only party who want to push the issue forward.
Anyone calling themselves “true scot ” probably isn’t.
” The SNP is aware that independence is a low priority for around 80% of Scots at the moment.”
I simply don’t believe this . Any evidence ?
I am finding that every day I am happier and happier that I left the SNP and joined Alba.
P.S. STV are looking more and more like the lackeys they are.
Luigi@7.24
Perhaps it’s the other Murrell that’s been compromised but she’s the one over the barrel??
Whatever it is, the SNP in its current form is pointless. Their reason for existence is independence, a subject that now seems way down their list.
They are fast becoming another self serving anti Independence Party but with the monopoly on the bonkers policies.
I forgot to mention, that we guy Harvey, with that scrawny little coupon of his, and those weird looking glasses, he reminds me of that evil old git that lived at 10 Rillington Place London
Way back in the mid-late 1980s the SNP took a decision to become a ‘mainstream’ political party, with policies on a’thing and dropped their single focus on independence.
The SNP have been on this journey for almost 40 years and Alex Salmond was a key player in this process. Independence is simply politics to all of them. And like it or lump it they have been highly successful. Nicola Sturgeon has just amplified the message to achieve domestic political dominance, aided of course, by inept and/or corrupt opposition parties.
I remember going to the SNP National Conference in Dundee in 1987 as a local branch rep and despite terrible SNP polling at around 15-17% I could not get over how smiley a lot of the big names were ….. dressed in suits and high heels the conference was their Oscars and they loved it (almost as much as they loved themselves).
I, on the other hand, was depressed and could see no way forward that appealed to my patriotic nature. A bit like now.
The world has moved on, the social marketers backed up by their obedient AI led social media gurus, is handing us all over to the corporates to be consumed as the fodder we have become.
Some people decry patriotism and national self determination as divisive, and even racist. These people are fools because they believe in a dream that is ruthlessly promulgated by the corporations ‘ that we are all the same’ and that culture, language and a different world view are barriers to development (which to them is the amassing of huge power and wealth by corporations).
Frank Waring@8.05
Lorna Slater of the Greens may be more pro Indy than Nicola- wouldn’t be hard- but I heard her being interviewed about a month ago and she was talking about trans issues. She is really ‘keen’ to make it easier for children to transition, – have access to advice and puberty blocking drugs, because there was currently very little information for children.
Definitely more woke than Sturgeon.
Hi Astonished – I know polls can be gamed, so I will caveat the following by adding Stu highlighted a similar statistic in a post a couple of months back: Polls Don’t Mean Prizes (near the end) – and this was in the Herald earlier in the week: Independence is viewed as the most important issue by fewer than one in five people according to recent poll data.
The poll, carried out by Savanta ComRes for The Scotsman put independence as the most important issue for just 19% of respondents, and down from a high of 23% in the same series of polls.
..here’s the relevant link from within Stu’s article Polls Don’t Mean Prizes: https://archive.is/CpXPv
Sturgeon must surely know that the only way to negate Brexit, which Scotland will not recover from is Scottish independence.
In my wee town in Central Scotland I have had two leaflets from Labour and one from the Tories through my letter box but none from anyone else. Maybe the SNP have no money to print them or activists to deliver?
I am still struggling with voting SNP 1. As I see it, Ms Sturgeon will view any votes gained as vindication of her policies and approval of her personal performance. It does not help that my SNP MSP is a spineless creep.
Alba 2 is a given but I will vote tactically on 1.
I know that this is not what Alex is suggesting but I do have some morals and a conscience.
twathater at 2:33 am
I recd the SNP leaflet from George Adam Paisley again NO mention of independence NO surprise..
Did you get that far? I tore mine up the minute I saw the ‘SNP yellow’ livery beneath my letterbox, I caught a glimpse of Adam’s cowardly mush as I tore-into it and binned it.
I think we can now officially and categorically declare Sturgeon’s SNP as the genuine and easily-spotted article – The Scottish Tories.
The more of Salmond we see, the more Sturgeon will Tory, the more the ‘Nicla’ crowd will see what’s actually taking place under their noses. Only problem is, some of the ‘Nicla’ cases are so severe it could be years before they’re cured of the disease of denial, with some pathetic souls never being cured.
Mac @8:06am
Mac
Technically right. However I think you underplay the years of mental and physical abuse her client suffered. The restraining orders never filed, the legal cost applications never submitted.
If any women is owed an apology it is that woman.
The forms Sturgeon should have submitted, claimed to have submitted were found in the bottom of a filing cabinet when the new lawyer took over the case.
To my knowledge Nicola has never apologised to the woman for the years of abuse she had to endure because of her failures.
I emailed STV twice asking why Mr Salmond was not “invited” on their so-called Leaders’ debate. I was not given a reason. Basically, it was what they “decided” and that was the end of the matter. Absolutely no mention of ALBA on any of their news programmes. That’s more than just a coincidence. It’s absolutely clear that STV/BBC and the the print media have “decided” on a common strategy – completely ignore ALBA and Alex Salmond.
Charles Hodgson @ 7:26 am
Couldn’t David Davis expose the Super Injunctions in HoC using Patliamentary Privelige?
***
I THINK (might be wrong but sure I read it somewhere) that anyone south of the border can expose it as it’d only apply in Scotland. Unless one’s been taken out there as well of course!
I watched the leaders debate and the emphasis on recovery once Covid is no longer an issue.
Neither Sturgeon or Harvie, or any other pro-independence commentator on this topic, has mentioned that we will only have Barnett and a few hand-me-downs from the Tories to fund said recovery. Being independent on day 1 we would have full access to our $68 billion in tax revenues and the capability to borrow on the international money markets, or use QE, via our Central Bank.
Scotland has circa 30% of the UK’s natural capital which would underpin our new national currency, so creditworthiness should only be an issue for Westminster.
The Stepford Wives didn’t have a good ending for the main heroine, if I remember. She too was assimilated. We may all be fighting the battle from Cornton Vale, after chalking our protests on a wall. However, that’s only if we get any respite from fighting off the sexual predators behind bars with us who identified as female to be placed in a female prison.
Unfortunately there are plenty of handmaidens already who believe that the social expectation of women to be “nice” means they have to smile sweetly and say “Of course you are a woman if you feel like you are one.” The rest of us may have to be re-educated or shunned and “othered” by the cult of St Nic. No more Mrs Nice Gal from me.
After the 2017 GE, when they lost so many MP’s, I toddled along to the local SNP Constituency Meet…
Swinney and Wisharts do.
Swinney stated, ‘we got it wrong, we should have put the message of Indy front and foremost, our supporters are very angry and when they challenge me about it I just have to suck it up like a big sponge – we got it wrong.’
The local branch chair has made a point since then, of ensuring ‘Independence’ is put in black and white in all campaign brochures since then.
However, went to see him at the back end of last year, distinct change in attitude, very much a corporate body, ‘wheesht for indy’ type. Got seriously indignant that I was concerned about the missing money, he’d ‘never heard of such a thing’… this from a guy who reads EVRYTHING about indy, including wings.
So, they are fully aware that this is going to lose them votes, and they are doing it deliberately.
If you believe that a Supermajority has got the Britnats seriously worried, then by hook or by crook the logical next step they have to achieve (if they cannot remove Alba) is to ensure that the SNP do not win on the Constituency votes.
Their tried and tested method, is to scunner good people so much that they just don’t turn out to vote… which will impact Alba too.
To those on the Constituency Seats for SNP, those that truly want Indy, you MUST create some blue water between yourselves and the SNP HCB, GRA, Corruption bollocks – so that the Abla team can actually vote for you… and more importantly campaign for you – you are going to need all the help you can get.
Take away the only reason people vote for this snp is Independence what’s the fkn point then ?
They have lost any vote from me and anyone I can convince before the the vote that’s due shortly, I have been fooled so have the thousands that marched in the rain and made a real effort to talk friends and neighbours and try and convince them to support independence , a prosecution should be brought forward for fraud , asking people for money under false pretences .
And once again how is the police investigation going on about the Father Ted account ?
This idea of this lot running a country fk me who knows what they will get up to without adult supervision
Where is the fkn money ?
I remember a church advert that said ‘ Try Praying’. I wasn’t expecting a political party to adopt this policy.
Mind you. When you think about the Nicola zealots. They are a bit like one of these evangelical God’s army types. Next she will have us all singing and waving our arms like James Brown in ‘The Blues Brothers’.
Meanwhile Boris is destroying Scotland’s economy and stacking up more national debt.
“Hope for a better tomorrow”
When you see “Hope” and/or it’s companion “Change”, you know you are dealing with Charlatans.
I just noticed the BBC tonight combined the vaccinations given in England and Scotland!
They gave the separate figures for N Ireland and Wales. I wonder why??
A quick check revealed.
First jab only
Scotland 50% of the population
England 40% of the population
We see you BBC. You are getting really predictable and shoddy in the quality of the propaganda.
So…
The defenders of this failure to mention independence seem to fall into two camps:
Camp A: Everyone knows it’s about independence
Camp B: We don’t want to scare “soft No’s”
Camp A: this is what led to a low turnout and loss of constituency seats in 2016. Independence supporters stayed home in their droves because the SNP were so quiet on indy.
Camp B: Don’t you think the soft No’s will be furious when they find they have been tricked into voting for a referendum?
I thought this election was about asking for a mandate to hold a referendum. You don’t get a mandate for things you don’t explicitly mention.
Ruby ….” I’ve made my own mind up and decided neither Andrew Neil nor Nicola Sturgeon are worth listening too.
Next!”
Hahaha aye , me too , plus ol’ Capn Y’s continuous love-song to fannybaws Anal Neil is getting really tedious .
Change that record will ye Capn , sounding a bit scratchy n was never much cop to start with
No mention of Scottish independence basically means that Sturgeon isn’t interested in it. Sturgeon is fooling us by claiming that we can grow the Scottish economy as part of the UK but the long term effects of Brexit negates that possibility. Scottish businesses have suffered a double whammy, Covid, and Brexit, there’s light at the end of the tunnel on the former, but on the latter there’s none.
Any forward thinking FM would realise that to get Scotland’s businesses moving in the right direction would mean opening up the EU market to them again, and Scottish independence is the only way to do that.
It appear to me that Sturgeon has decided to use Covid as a long term cover to avoid Scottish independence, under the pretence, that before independence she must first strengthen the Scottish economy, when infact that cannot be done whilst Scotland suffers from the devastating effects of Brexit, of which the only escape is Scottish independence.
He who hopes is lost, action speaks louder than words.
@Margaret Lindsay says: 14 April, 2021 at 3:02 am
Got ours from Kate Forbes yesterday. Plenty of achievements listef on the back. “Supported a farmer whose cow was killed due to faulty fencing by Network Rail”.
“Saved the aluminium smelter in Fort William”…actually oodles of tax payers money paid out to Liberty who went under, smelter still under threat.The list went on and on.
Independence? Nope.
GRA reforms and securing women’s rights? Not a chance.
Banality at it’s best.”
Amazed she didn’t have “helped a wee wummin up the road wi her shoppin un clapped her dug” as well.
This idea of this lot running a country fk me who knows what they will get up to without adult supervision
That they will not be running a country, managing its own elections, is the attractive part of the new configuration.
Once the payroll vote figure out that their longer term interests (ie the pay) lie without the current leadership, I can see them dusting off their saltires and tweeting about the referendum days.
The SNP’s transformation into the 21st century version of the Irish Parliamentary Party is pretty much complete. The only thing left is for them to start playing Westminster games – pledging to drop independence for confidence and supply, in exchange for crumbs off the table for the chippy jock plebs and a ministerial limo or 2.
If you think the [barely suppressed] bile and nastiness between Alba account and SNP account is palpable now, just wait till you see what it become after HR elections. We’ve (Alba) had to put up with the really thick and deluded among them, even promote their corrupt party, in order to get our own people into HR: kid gloves. I could’ve let-rip a million times if not for the end-result I desire.
I hate to say it, but this movement has become completely torn-asunder, shredded, beyond Life of Brian comparisons – mission accomplished – but I will not sit idly-by, all nicey-nice, on social media after May 6th whilst these naïve fools continue to assist Westminster holding power over Scotland.
Republicofscotland says:
14 April, 2021 at 9:42 am
No mention of Scottish independence basically means that Sturgeon …
It appear to me that Sturgeon has decided to use Covid as a long term cover to avoid Scottish independence, under the pretence, that before independence she must first strengthen the Scottish economy, when infact that cannot be done whilst Scotland suffers from the devastating effects of Brexit, of which the only escape is Scottish independence.
Hard to argue with that.
Willie at 8.24
What is the evidence that leaving the EU has led to a low wage economy?
Exactly the opposite is the case, as soon as we left, real wages started to rise for the first time since 2008. The reason is clear. The main driver of low wages was the oversupply of labour so that competition for jobs allowed employers to pay minimum wages.
Once the inflow of labour reduced then real wages started to pick up.
The whole Blairite economic strategy was based on maintaining low wages and what they termed a ‘flexible labour market’. Being in the EU and allowing free movement was an essential element of this.
But an economy based on low wages is necessarily a low investment and low innovation economy. Why should any firm invest in labour saving technology when workers are cheap?
The pro-EU line of the SNP under Sturgeon is just a continuation of their Blairite neo-liberalism.
The Blairite line was a repudiation of the traditional Labour opposition to the EU just as the Sturgeonite line was a repudiation of the traditional SNP opposition to the EU. It was Thatcher who was campaigning for joining back in the 70s referendum. Remember that joining Europe in the first place was pushed by the Tories and opposed by both Labour and the SNP on the grounds that it would prevent any deliberate industrial policy to maintain full employment.
That is exactly what happened. Scotland today is a shadow of the industrial nation we were before going into the EU.
Like Blair, Sturgeon is the willing inheritor of Thatcher’s legacy.
My SNP candidate believes in `activism through theatre`,
i`ll say that again incase you think you misheard me,
`activism through theatre`.
`If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.`
think i would prefer that than watching some `woke` theatre –
forever.
Funny thing is. I was outside ma Hoose when the postie came, he said I have flyers for your bin, oh says I more SNP lies. Aye he says that’s what I, getting whenever I meet folk, they tell me to keep it or they will shove it in the bin anyway.
Sturgeon is literally destroying the SNP before our eyes. She knows exactly what she is doing. They will still stay in government, though without a majority. Then over the next few years she will weaken the party further until it is a shadow of what it once was. By the time she retires the unionists will have nothing to worry about from the SNP.
She and the likes of Pete Wishart will be cosily retired from politics by then and won’t give a damn. I can easily see Sturgeon wearing ermine by that time. Even then, some people will still think that she tried her hardest to get us independence.
Nicola Sturgeon, the star of dystopia tv. Very very slowly winning round those soft No voters with the brilliant strategy of banishing the indy word. While her other half enriches himself year on year with party members’ and donors’ dosh.
Any remaining SNP members who are satisfied with the Murrells personal and political conduct must be prize simpletons.
Kenny says:
14 April, 2021 at 9:48 am
….
I hate to say it, but this movement has become completely torn-asunder, shredded, beyond Life of Brian comparisons – mission accomplished – …
Mission not accomplished, or even thought about. People who believe in independence haven’t changed, only their delegates have.
You don’t flip from dependency to independency and back again by reading the rags and watching colour television.
You might feel fear and doubt, but that’s it.
If someone gains your confidence, you’ll feel happier and more able to make your own decisions.*
*Unless you’re on the fm’s xmas card list for this year.
Douglas MacMillan @ 9:14 am
“Some people decry patriotism and national self determination as divisive, and even racist. These people are fools”
Well said Douglas. Without our own Scottish ‘national consciousness’ , which is not nationalism (Fanon), there would be no desire for Scottish national independence. National consciousness is about our identity, it is who we are, determined by our own culture and (Scots) language. National consciousness is the people on AUOB marches holding their saltires aloft. Our national consciousness is the only thing that differentiates us from other peoples. Without national consciousness we are nothing, and we will continue to be nothing.
Isabel Melville says:14 April, 2021 at 3:38 am
So, no mandate to hold an independence referendum sought?
and
ScotsRenewables says:14 April, 2021 at 9:41 am
So…
You don’t get a mandate for things you don’t explicitly mention.
There’s a Secret Plan.
I joined ALBA on the second day and now want to donate something on the site and send money to the crowdfunder.
I live in the EU. Has anybody else joined from abroad?
Did the checkout details accept foreign addresses etc.??
Was there any problems with the process?
Thanks for any help.
Donating for the WOS crowdfunders or SNP membership (I apologise, am not a member anymore..!) was easy, so I’m being a bit careful. 🙂
Also omitted is any mention of the total collapse in support the SNP faces, as a consequence of Sturgeon remaining leader. Her approval ratings are in free fall, according to recent snapshot.
Mark my words, this election is going to be extremely bad for the SNP… I mean documentary bad.
And that’s why Nicola’s face is hardly anywhere to be found. It’s why they’re suddenly scared to mention independence. And it’s why they’re playing the only card they’ve got, the card unpopular leaders and governments have been grasping for for centuries; ‘better with the devil you know…”
Enjoy the show. Everything get worse for the SNP over the next 3 weeks, much worse.
She has served her purpose, too many red cards this past few months, she is actively campaigning NOT to be re elected. Hence enter stage right Alex Salmond. Too many voters didn’t like him before the pantomime, more won’t now, exactly what bojo the clown’s puppeteer Tony the cottager blair needs. Its all pointless now anyway. The plandemic is much further along than they could ever have hoped for. The sheep couldn’t get jagged quick enough so they could virtue signal how righteous they are. Anyway gov. UK had this all mapped out 20+ yrs ago, have a swatch at the futures series, the future of cities is good but a tad pointless reading it now, as the needle has brought everything forward by Years. This is all down to you bloody socialists, your dystopian world awaits.
Ruby and Robert Hughes – Andrew Neil funded the Court of Session hearing with Lady Dorian and so he has done more to help Alex Salmond than anyone else has.
John H @9:59
“I can easily see Sturgeon wearing remind by that time”.
Yes, Sturgeon in the Lords isn’t hard to imagine. Sitting next to Wishart, who became Lord Schlemiel of Old Scone.
Ermine not remind.
John H. (The original one) says:
14 April, 2021 at 9:59 am
Sturgeon is literally destroying the SNP before our eyes. She knows exactly what she is doing. They will still stay in government, though without a majority. Then over the next few years she will weaken the party further until it is a shadow of what it once was. By the time she retires the unionists will have nothing to worry about from the SNP.
….
Well that’s the plan, but we have an election coming up and prognosticating on the the evils that will come does not excuse you from opposing them, now.
@David Caledonia says: 14 April, 2021 at 9:06 am
“I read a book many years ago when I was a young pup, about 16 or 17 years old. It is called The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, Ricky Tomlinson discovered it when he was sent to prison for just being Ricky Tomlinson.”
Ricky Tomlinson at that time was a particularly obnoxious member of the National Front and slavishly devoted to the racist bilge of Third Reich fetishist John Tyndall. He likes to pretend (and his Trotskyite luvvie mates aid him) in pretending it was all the folly of youth – the reality was he was 33 years old when he was jailed whilst acting as a particularly thuggish flying picket during the 1972 builder’s strike, and was in his 30s when he was an NF city council candidate in Liverpool.
While the law used to jail him was a disgrace, there were plenty in the building trade glad to see the back of him and his racist bilge. As the last Des Clarke (the other half of the “Shrewsbury Two”) said in his autobiography “The Key to My Cell”
“Tomlinson saw a Jew behind every pillar. He used to say: ‘What we need is a strong man to sort this lot out.’ He was an admirer of Idi Amin and Enoch Powell. He admired Idi Amin because he cleared Asians out of his country …
…Several times he said to the screws when he was arguing against the conspiracy charge: ‘How could there have been any conspiracy when I’m National Front and Warren is a Communist?’
All Tomlinson did was switch sides to the more “acceptable” bunch of thugs – which apparantly makes it all “alright” then.
So, the SNP don’t think that independence is a vote winner then.
I’d think they’d have access to stats, polls and so on, which led them to this conclusion, so what does that tell you about the chances of YES winning any future referendum if even the SNP don’t think there’s any appetite for independence?
Just been doing my internet shopping.
On the SNP website – independence “out of stock”. No resupply date available.
I know I know, the current SNP leadership stinks.
But please hold yer noses and vote SNP 1 and Alba 2. Just this once – I don’t believe we will have to do it again. Vote SNP on the constituency to help the Alba Party. Ye know it makes sense – even if it is a stinky sense! Holed yer noses.
Just this once folks. 🙂
@ Mac at 8:06 am
“Is this about right” more or less,
What I would add is at that period the Law Society had a problem with a blogger who had registered a name that the Society wanted and was running articles on shortcomings within the Society.He had access to the findings and their judgements
The fellow was a rugby player ,I think , and really didn’t like David McCletchie. Now I did read the the reports the Blogger published and the Sturgeon name.within the articles.
Whether the Law Society (each personally)had to cough up for Sturgeon’s error, I’m unsure
The Sheriff Olga Pasportnikov QC,would have been in charge of the investigation I didn’t see anything wrong in her bringing it to the fore, I thought it was merely her way of saying the crap that is going to land is nothing to do with me.
Looking into Sturgeon could have been given to many within the Law Society disciplinary panel
Scot Finlayson @ 9:04 am
“Our real enemies are among us, born without imagination.”
I know the quote, however it is rather an incomplete view given the main protagonists involved in Scotland’s constitutional drama, and I assume you know who they are. I would suggest you might wish to read Albert Memmi’s ‘The Colonizer and the Colonized’ which provides a detailed portrait of both.
AWhiteLife says:
14 April, 2021 at 10:06 am
She has served her purpose, too many red cards this past few months, she is actively campaigning NOT to be re elected. Hence enter stage right Alex Salmond. Too many voters didn’t like him before the pantomime, more won’t now, exactly what bojo the clown’s puppeteer Tony the cottager blair needs. Its all pointless now anyway. The plandemic is much further along than they could ever have hoped for. The sheep couldn’t get jagged quick enough so they could virtue signal how righteous they are. Anyway gov. UK had this all mapped out 20+ yrs ago, have a swatch at the futures series, the future of cities is good but a tad pointless reading it now, as the needle has brought everything forward by Years. This is all down to you bloody socialists, your s, your dystopian world awaits.
You’ve given up, not me.
Why didn’t you warn us 20 years ago?
Maybe, it was before the information infrastructure was not available for you to exist.
The level of sophistry and redirection apparent in these leaflets was what allowed WGD and his ilk, to argue that the SNP didn’t have any earlier valid mandates to pursue independence. Unfortunately, in Scottish elections the constitutional question is the elephant in the room that the SNP leadership don’t want to talk about as it would mean actually doing something about it.
The independence dream will never die. The means of achieving the dream will change to fit the circumstances of the day. SNP 1 Alba 2
ALBA crowdfunder:-
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/albaparty
Mist001 says:
14 April, 2021 at 10:11 am
So, the SNP don’t think that independence is a vote winner then.
I’d think they’d have access to stats, polls and so on, which led them to this conclusion, so what does that tell you about the chances of YES winning any future referendum if even the SNP don’t think there’s any appetite for independence
If they have not looked, they will not find.
If they have not promoted the idea, even with all the powers,press links and mandates, they have.
They do not want to.
Reading your opinions over the years, I think you are considerate with them.
If/when ye have time, I recommend listening to Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh’s interview on Barrhead Boy:
https://www.barrheadboy.com/
I wasn’t impressed with Tasmina when she first appeared on the scene, but boy was I wrong. What an intelligent, articulate lady. If that is the calibre of Alba Party candidates, no wonder the Brtish establishment is doing it’s very worst to pretend the Alba Party doesn’t really exist.
“Move on, move on, nothing to see here – it’s all a figment of your scotch imagination!”. 🙂
Meg merrilees says:
14 April, 2021 at 10:25 am
ALBA crowdfunder:-
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/albaparty
Bump this one all over the interwbnet thing
I wonder if Sturgeons political progress was not despite her actions as a lawyer, but because of them. In short, she earned favours by arseing things up deliberately. Her behaviour as FM appears to suggest she has the skill set.
Just had two SNP flyers from the postie. One from SNP party and one from John Swinney. Not one of them has any mention of independence. There is no point in voting for a party who doesn’t want independence. I wish Alba were standing constituency candidates too. It would make voting much easier.
At this rate I’m going to be trying to trace any Irish ancestors so that I can move there as soon as my Irish passport arrives.
Willie @ 8:24 am
“Well, here’s the real deal”
An accurate synopsis, Willie.
It is now a clear choice of either national independence or Scotlan nae mair, and an ever more subjugated pile of worthlessness and humiliation.
Haud yer nebs fowks! SNP ane (except NS cabal) / ALBA twa
Charles Hodgson says:
14 April, 2021 at 7:26 am
“Couldn’t David Davis expose the Super Injunctions in HoC using Patliamentary Privelige?“
———
If he could then so too could Kenny MacAskill.
But I suspect Mr Speaker would stop any of them before they could get far.
@ Mist001 says:
14 April, 2021 at 10:11 am
So, the SNP don’t think that independence is a vote winner then.
I’d think they’d have access to stats, polls and so on, ‘
You make a good point, and at this period in time, I think we have to look at the opinion polls with a huge degree of skepticism.
Lets recap:
Support for Indy hovered at the 50% mark until October ish 2020.
Just as Nicla was approaching the November SNP Confernence – suddenly BIG leaps in support to almost the 60% mark.
And there were a lot of them. Normally when you get an Indy poll showing over 50% support, the very next thing you get is an absolute drowt of any more polls. But no, there were between 10 and 20 of the damned things.
It was enough to ensure there was no VONC in Niclas leadership at the conference.
Trouble with polls that high supporting Indy, is it weakens the argument for not either holding a Plebiscite Indy Election (in May 2121, so just months away) or actually formally requesting that S30 order with a time limit on it, and a disclaimer that ‘no reply’ will be deemed a refusal – all good ammo in an upcoming HE.
So the polls had to drop. And drop they did.
Brexit happened in January 2021 – deeply damaging. That was the only big change. No good news for the Brits at all…. and yet, and yet, suddenly support for Indy dropped back down to the 50% ish mark again.
However, the new rallying cry was, ‘look at Nicla’s approval ratings’.
And they too have now conveniently dropped to 0 – just in time to discourage/dishearten the Indy / SNP voter from turning out to vote.
I normally take the view that ‘rigging’ opinion polls serves no-one because the rigger ends up lieing to themselves.
But this time out, I’m taking the view, that the Britnats have the money to hold their own opinion polls that do not get published, and the published ones to influence. I’m guessing that rigging an opinion poll isn’t too difficult for the Britnats to do, all things considered.
One other thing worth keeping in mind. The political triangulation/New Labour technique, was to make the political parties so similar, that there was nothing to chose between them, and ensure the voters had no one else to vote for.
These voters do not then rebel, stand for election themselves or form new parties. These voters get heartbroken and scunnert, then just stay at home.
It’s a very succesful method, tried and tested. And it is absolutely what is happening now, in front of our very eyes with SNP.
No wonder they’re bricking it over Alba and Alex.
Cynicus says:
14 April, 2021 at 10:46 am
Charles Hodgson says:
14 April, 2021 at 7:26 am
“Couldn’t David Davis expose the Super Injunctions in HoC using Patliamentary Privelige?“
———
If he could then so too could Kenny MacAskill.
But I suspect Mr Speaker would stop any of them before they could get far.
So where does the harm in asking lie?
If the SNP don’t think independence is a vote winner when opinion polls are showing over 50% support, what on earth is the point of them.
I mean wow, just wow.
I don’t think the SNP are Independence winners.
And sadly, they don’t appear to have the necessary grit to even be able to stand up for devolution.
Surely now we must concede that Sturgeon has to be batting for the other team? Incompetence doesn’t cover this, greed doesn’t either in my opinion. I know many were of the opinion that the MSM were keeping their powder dry for the election and then would go all out on the GRA and HCB but there is little evidence of this. We are only a few week away, maximum impact would have been to break these revelations a few weeks ago. A few murmours here and there but that’s it.
They are keeping Sturgeon in place as she is the voice of the establishment, defender of the realm and the last slim hope against Alec. I am of the opinion this could have been years in the making.
The SNP are done, finished. The intention was to have them in power forever but they didn’t count on the return of Alec. He’ll make the New SNP look to the electorate like the imbiciles they are. I’ll
Wager Sturgeon never faces him down in open debate, her fragile ego couldn’t take the beating.
True Scot @9:18am
Guess that means that when SNP get more than 20% of the vote it’ll prove they embraced the fine art of cheating long long ago and, tyrannical health regimes and legacy trust issues notwithstanding, muffled hallelujahs might be in order after all.
Luigi said at 10:27 am:
“If/when ye have time, I recommend listening to Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh’s interview on Barrhead Boy:
https://www.barrheadboy.com/
I wasn’t impressed with Tasmina when she first appeared on the scene, but boy was I wrong…”
Thanks for that Link Luigi—it’s a good interview.
Tasmina is the number 1 ALBA Regional List Candidate for Central Scotland.
https://www.barrheadboy.com/scottish-prism-13th-april-2021-tasmina-ahmed-sheikh/
Just donated to Alba Crowdfund its at 91%- last two days.
Graf Midgehunter says:
14 April, 2021 at 10:04 am
I joined ALBA on the second day and now want to donate something on the site and send money to the crowdfunder.
I live in the EU. Has anybody else joined from abroad?
Did the checkout details accept foreign addresses etc.??
Was there any problems with the process?
Thanks for any help.
Donating for the WOS crowdfunders or SNP membership (I apologise, am not a member anymore..!) was easy, so I’m being a bit careful. ?
I joined right here, with an irish and UK passport, I am a binary EU citizen, with certain rights towards my spouse and I.
There should be no problem.
This could be dictated by the Great Dictator herself. A vague list of feelgood aspirations with dubious claims inflated into ‘facts’. A false piece of PR as you are likely to see.
Half of them are the results of Westminster policy, whether you like it or not. The others are just nonsense – such as on education and jobs. The desperation to use covid as a demonstration of the Great Leader’s abilities is laughable, but explains exactly why she hogged the press conferences as if it showed someone in charge, which the covid record would refute easily.
But the most egregious give away is the absurd ‘global leader on climate change’. This demonstrates exactly the diminutive Nikla’s desperation to be seen as a ‘global’ progressive leader and her delusions of grandeur. Ask your candidate if their claims about climate change are reflected in their refusal to do anything at all about the scandal and inequity of land ownership in Scotland, which has a direct effect on climate change.
The whole thing is a demonstration of their utterly vacuous claims to be an actual government, while in reality being the branch office of WM, administrators with a little local wiggle room, but very little real power. They have convinced themselves they are a government, and thus why do they need to promote independence? The trappings of office have convinced them of their own ballooning self-importance, betrayed in Sturgeon’s arrogance about who should be allowed on election programmes, as if she, as a candidate, gets to choose and dictate.
This juvenile list of pretension is designed to make impressionable people believe she runs an actual government, and to put aside any ideas which might upset the middle classes she serves, such as independence, climate change action, social democratic ideas of equality and redistribution etc. It is a huge conjuring trick, which of course also omits their record on controversial subjects such as hate crime and trans policies.
They are shameless, lying hucksters, just like Johnson and his mob, immune to democracy, real debate or radical ideas which we desperately need. They have got so comfortable in office with their inflated salaries and benefits matching their inflated egos. People who now believe they have an absolute right to rule, without any challenge, scrutiny or checks and balances. They are the establishment sine qua non. And need to be opposed and exposed for exactly that reason.
Imagine a football manager who didn’t think his team could win!
Would an athletics coach every express doubt that his team could win!
When has a cycling coach dismissed the chances of his teams potential!
Now look at the SNP leadership attitude to Independence. They need a spine and ALBA is it!
SNP/ALBA ( I know the first vote is hard)
I have been convinced for quite some time now that what we have seen for the last 6 years has been nothing but smoke and mirrors and industrial scale deception. In my opinion, the SNP died on 14 November 2014, the day a political fraud, with no intention whatsoever to deliver independence and quite possibly with someinconvenient skeletons in her closet, took over its leadership.
There appears to be a cell unit within the SNP including the usual suspects (those that are always in the press pages patronising us, bossing us around, insulting us to silence us) and the leadership itself.
It seems to me this cell has been tasked with forcing a directional change of SNP policy towards becoming more pro-Israel, pro-neoliberalism, pro-USA, anti-Russia and of course pro-UK. I think there are plenty of examples of this.
By the look of it, this cell has also been tasked with ejecting from the party the most active pro independence members, and perhaps that is one of the reasons why their leaflets are now far more appealing to devolutionists than to pro independence supporters. I think there are plenty of examples too that some of the most active and vocal pro independence members have left the party in disgust and some of them joined Alba.
In other words, that unit has been tasked with deconstructing the SNP as an anti establishment pro indy party to transform it into another British establishment compliant political arm, innocuous to the English and American establishments, and willing to comply at all times with instructions of abusing the colony of the north as the testing ground for harmful policies that are simply too politically toxic to try in England.
This queer theory crap the political fraud is forcing down our throats is the poll tax all over again, isn’t it? Impose and test it in Scotland to see the damage before extending it to England. Or even worse, impose it in Scotland sparing England from the damage so the UK can persuade some foreign government to close some toxic for Scotland trade deal.
Hurting Scottish people you say? Well that is what UK “patriotism” is all about, isn’t it? Wave the UJ a couple of times and the pain will soon go away or be welcome as “pride”. To be exploited and to be used as the human shields for England is what the people from the colonies are there for and what they ought to aspire to at all times. Isn’t it?
Everything this woman has done in the last 6 years has been to stop if not derail independence. Every move. Every speech. Every delay. Every political conspiracy. Every taxpayers’ penny spent. Every “mistake”.
She has deliberately closed most doors that were opened to us to dissolve this union when Mr Salmond stepped down and is now continuing at pace to lock the door of the referendum. During the last 5 years she used the con act of the S30 to delay it. I am convinced she was hoping to use the S30 as the ultimate permanent padlock on indyref, but too many saw right through her deception.
That is when the queen of covid oscar deserving role emerged. COVID was a convenient extension of the S30. When the effect of COVID as a tool to stop indyref started to wear off and the lockdowns could not be prolonged forever, up it came the next tool: the devastating economic effects of COVID. Never mind the queen of covid could have closed the borders and stop the virus continuously entering back into Scotland. But the economy excuse is also wearing off, particularly when Mr Salmond is already announcing having plans to deal with it.
So, the next tool is already in the testing stage:
the last email from Martin Keatings is very clear. After attempting to derail the court case, this woman is now already warning England’s government that she will pass the bill in Scotland’s parliament before it is established if it is the competence of Holryood. Just as she did with the continuity bill, this move will give plenty of time to Westminster to block it before it gets the royal assent and retrospectively change the law to permanently block it. It now seems the continuity bill was just a wonderful opportunity to test that this route would work for Westminster when the time to block in an England court, with English law, Scotland’s right to hold indyref arrived. With that continuity bill, she has set up a precedent of English law quashing Scots law, didn’t she? So why wouldn’t it work?
Why hasn’t she been expelled from her post after the shenanigans with the complaints procedure against Mr Salmond and the grotesque bill her incompetence forced upon Scotland’s taxpayers?
Why hasn’t the Lord advocate been expelled after his evident corruption and after completely trashing the reputation of the COPFS?
Because it seems to me that the entire British establishment, and that includes her, the sycophants in the cell unit, the crown agent, the lord advocate and of course the civil service, have been behind this with one objective and one objective only: to stop Mr Salmond getting back into Holyrood and derailing their project to permanently stop independence.
That is the reason why this political fraud, why the propaganda mouthpieces of the British establishment and the British establishment are now losing their sht pumping propaganda like crazy against Alba instead of seriously scrutinising Sturgeon, the civil service that did not conduct due diligence checking the background of the organisations it is funding, Stonewall, LGBT YOuth Scotland and ILGA for that infamous charter.
But we have seen it all before. Haven’t we? It is always the same moves, the same tactics, the same propaganda.
In 2015 we saw civil servants leaking to the press a memo about Sturgeon. Carmichael was framed for it, while the civil servant that leaked it left scot free and even got a better job. Well, has any civil servant been sacked for allowing confidential, sensitive information to exit Sturgeon’s SGov and entering a newspaper? Oh dearie me no!. What we have seen is raises in salaries at our expense and shockingly, Evans’ boss in Whitehall being parachuted to the HoLs out of the way instead of demanding from him a full official investigation as the one conducted when the memo was leaked in 2015.
What we saw in 2015 with Miliband stating that he would not work with Sturgeon if the SNP won, is exactly what we are hearing from the political fraud saying that if Alba gets into HOlyrood she would not cooperate. The same script, the same propaganda, the same lies, the same deception, the same contempt for the voters and quite possibly the exact same person/team writing the script.
For years Labour has been telling us the lie that the only way we can stop England forcing on us a tory government is by voting labour in Scotland. “Who are we going to vote otherwise? Now the exact same pathetic script has been adopted by Sturgeon’s SNP to tell us, even more aggressively (desperately, actually) if you are an independence supporter, who are you going to vote for if not SNP? or more pathetically, telling us that if we do not vote SNP we are “unionists” when Sturgeon’s SNP has been far more unionist than the tories since she took control of the SNP in 2014.
Socialists and the grass roots in labour were kept in check by being continuously insulted as antisemitic. The most active pro-independence politicians in the SNP and most impatient pro yes activists have been insulted and called cybernats, unionists, transphobes, homophobes, racists and Russian trolls. In some extreme cases, they were even called several of those things at once or subjected to malicious prosecutions.
WE have seen over and over again the exact same deception game been played in front of our eyes for the last 6 years: the only way Sturgeon’s SNP looks like an independence party is when it is lined up simultaneously with tories, labour and libdems and even Greens. The moment you put a real pro indy party in the line, they are ousted as what they are: unionists and charlatans.
That is why Mr Salmond cannot possibly be in the TV debates. That is why he cannot be in HOlyrood or Westminster. That is why they are not airing Alba’s manifesto. That is why Ms Cherry cannot be in the front bench. They have to maintain the illusion that the political fraud and her eviscerated SNP are seeking independence when it is clear as day they are doing the precise opposite.
The task to maintain this illusion falls on the England parties. By filling up their campaign leaflets with anti referendum nonsense they continue to prolong the illusion the SNP is really seeking the referendum, or even independence. It is of course deliberate and all an act aiming to deceive. But this is an act where the unionist parties are the ones tasked with giving for free credibility to the SNP rather than the SNP itself working to earn that credibility. This is why the political fraud can get away with polluting our mailboxes and insulting our intelligence with leaflets that do not contain the word independence even once and still pretend to be pro independence. It is a house of cards built on no foundations at all and we have been fooled with this tactic since this political fraud took control of the SNP.
But Alba is threatening to kibosh all this deceptive set up, hence their urgency.
The day Mr Salmond launched ALBA, the British establishment (and I include STurgeon in it), realised the political conspiracy that started sometime in 2017 (I refuse to believe Mr Salmond simply lost his seat without some kind of “help”), failed miserably.
Millions of taxpayers’ money wasted in this enterprise, the credibility of the Sturgeon as a pro indy gone, the credibility of the Lord Advocate, the crown agents, the entire civil service in Scotland, the COPFS, the parliamentary committee and even our judges gone, and they achieved absolutely nothing, apart of opening the eyes of a few more voters to the reality that for as long as Scotland remains in the union, democracy and justice are just an illusion.
It is very likely that Mr Salmond will get back in Holyrood, continuing to expose STurgeon for the political fraud she is, and his presence there will continue remind us of the political conspiracy and how the COPFS, civil service, lord advocate and Holyrood committees are nothing but unprincipled tools of the British establishment that sooner walk over justice, ethics and democracy than allowing Scotland get anywhere near independence.
What is worse, the British establishment has failed to deny all those yes voters Sturgeon has been working so hard for the last 6 years to disenfranchise, a vehicle to channel their rage, to express their disgust for the corruption and lack of democracy and justice, their disgust at Sturgeon’s procrastination and to communicate their desire for independence, all while helping to eject a bunch of unionist MSPs, from Holyrood.
AT all possible effects, the political fraud has failed in her ultimate mission. She may have succeeded in delaying independence for 5 years, but she has failed in her main task, which was to keep Salmond out of politics and to make us believe we can be governed fairly in the UK as a devolved nation. She is advocating for SNP 1 and 2 knowing that such strategy will give free seats to unionist parties, because without “unionist” parties in sufficient numbers in Holyrood, her and her party will be exposed as unionists too.
The British establishment needs a political fraud leading the SNP in power because if it is one of the English parties who forms government, the union won’t last. If the SNP does not get a majority and the greens lose their seats because of Alba, then Alba may well get the levers of power.
Clearly Sturgeon’s SNP is in dire need of a wee boost after more and more people see Sturgeon as a political fraud and after the recent fiasco involving ILGA, Stonewall and LGBT Youth that puts serious questions over Sturgeon’s government interest in protecting our children. What better way to restore Sturgeon’s shattered credibility about her concerns about children and support for Scotland’s “autonomy” than to hand to her an opportunity to insult the tories for being so nasty stopping a children’s bill? Or is the children bill another test run to clear the way for when the indyref bill needs to be blocked by England’s government?
It is all an act, isn’t it? Rescuing and keeping Sturgeon in power and giving her SNP carcass a majority appears to be far more important for the British establishment than giving Dross an ounce of credibility or his branch a chance.
“DON’T MENTION THE WAR”
She is clearly chasing the Unionist Voters who enjoy the freebies that they can get in a devolved Scotland.
DON’T VOTE FOR THE FRAUDSTERS THAT ARE THE SNP.
I will be campaiagning for Sarwar to take the Constituency seat and ALBA the List.
I will be doing all I can to make sure Sturgeon loses her seat.
GLASGOW SOUTHSIDE,,,
SARWAR 1 AND ALBA 2
And seemingly Mr Sarwar won last night’s STV debate.
Go Sarwar!!!
There are actually some screwballs out there advocating an SNP 1 and 2 vote,,, just like their hero Sturgeon asks us to do.
#DONT VOTE SNP,,,EVER AGAIN. IT’S A WASTED VOTE,,, LET’S DRAIN THE SWAMP.
Any body got a link to the Press conference ?
It’s a generic leaflet going out nationwide. No candidates, just the sainted Nic. If you want to see the candidate there’s a web address you can go to. Seriously. The SNP is now a unionist devolution supporting party; it has had 6 years to work for another referendum and has done nothing. That is why Alba is being constantly monstered by the media and the SNP. There is only one serious pro independence party in Scotland and it is Alba. The SNP has been hijacked by the union, is now fully onside with London, and Alba is in danger of being strangled at birth.
That’s another wee donation from me.
Two days left, 4k to raise. Let’s not let ourselves down here.
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/albaparty
Part 2 over on Iain Lawson’s site
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2021/04/14/how-we-got-here-part-two/
Boris Johnson:
[telling Scotland it was betrayed]
I’m afraid that your friend Sturgeon… is really… my friend Sturgeon
(Apologies to Mr Fleming)
Andy and Tartanfever
The paradox here is that if your wish is to impose limits on the SNP, you need to vote for them.
If SNP win the constituencies, the divisor this imposes on them will put them out of the running for list seats. The traditional result of this is the Unionist parties filling their boots. But if SNP voters wake up and smell the Internal Market Bill, a vote for Alba can completely flip this.
We can have a supermajority which can call a plebiscite Holyrood election if the UK continues to block a legal path to independence.
Glasgow Southside is a different matter. It is legitimate to consider that as a verdict on Sturgeon’s own competence and personal integrity, and vote accordingly.
Joe Fitzpatrick’s leaflet for Dundee West mentions independence a third on their to-do list, after “Protect our NHS” and “Prioritise Scotland’s recovery from the pandemic”, but then Dundee is pretty pro-independence.
ALBA crowdfunder now on £45,901 from 1101 supporters.
that’s an increase of 41 people and £2,125 since 8.16pm last night.
Keep it coming – even a tiny amount from a lot of people will help. We’re in the Last Chance saloon now folks.
This may be our only serious chance at Indy for the next 5 years it’s got to be worth it!
Spread the word. Put it on facebook.instagram, whatsapp, twitter- everywhere.
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/albaparty
LET’S DRAIN THE SWAMP.
DON’T VOTE SNP,,, EVER AGAIN.
Macaulay culkin
It’s a generic leaflet going out nationwide.
Not if you look on the BBC North Britain website. Article titled –
Scottish Election 2021: Who should you vote for? Compare party policies.
SNP, top of list of 5 parties, top of their policies Independence and another referendum.
Lies, damned lies.
Paul Cockshott says:
The whole Blairite economic strategy was based on maintaining low wages and what they termed a ‘flexible labour market’. Being in the EU and allowing free movement was an essential element of this.
True.
Story from the Irish press not too long ago, where they accidentally told the truth a bit too plainly:
Not enough migrants arriving to keep pay down – Central Bank -Independent.ie, July 30 2019
Bankers and big businesses love the EU, so the professional political class that works for them does too. It’s less obvious what the benefit is to ordinary people. But we’re sold the European Project as if it was a benevolent association (that just so happens to be backed 100% by corporate behemoths). It’s anything but.
This, BTW, is how Woke got subsituted for actual progressive politics.
If you’re not going to bat for the working classes anymore, who want stable employment, wage rises, and careful restrictions on migration, gotta have something to shout about on Twitter. Preferably something that gets the sma’ folk at each others’ throats without troubling the real owners of the country.
Hence:
Graham Campbell SNP #IStandWithNicola
·
12 Apr
And this: Let’s defend our LGBTQI+ community from haters wherever they lurk. Demand all political parties condemn homophobic/transphobic hate speech & campaigns by marginal far-right extremists. Deny them any platform for hate – be it within mainstream or fringe political parties
Graf Midgehunter says:
14 April, 2021 at 10:04 am
” I live in the EU. Has anybody else joined from abroad?
Did the checkout details accept foreign addresses etc.?? ”
Yes . I joined from Spain , well , Catalonia to be more accurate . No problem doing son
This on my SNP candidate’s leaflet alongside a picture of him with Nicola Sturgeon.
‘Independence
In Scotland, we have a right to choose our own future – whatever Boris Johnson thinks. Brexit, and its chaotic aftermath, have only served to prove how little the UK government thinks about Scotland’s needs or wishes. Scotland’s future lies as a small, prosperous, fair, independent country. The route to that future lies in an independence referendum. If you agree, then there is only one way to ensure it happens, and that is by voting for a pro-independence government – the SNP.’
Too right Jim @11.18
Loosing too many SNP seats only reduces the divisor to increase SNP list seats at the expense of Alba. So again vote SNP 1 and Alba 2.
One exception or maybe two we could live with is taking Sturgeon out. Granted she’’s on the list but she’s number two, the Glasgow region got no list seats last time, and of course this time I do believe that a huge list vote will go to Alba.
We got to keep em to change em%,
Red, and the ‘hate speech’ directed at those who disagree with that last paragraph is just ignored or encouraged .
I could weep.
The trouble with not voting SNP1 is that increases the chances of the absolute roasters and deviants on the SNP list getting in. Faux disabilities and perverted views.
Indeed, Willie @ 11:42 am
I appreciate folk are very angry, but ye really have to vote SNP for the constituency if Alba is to have any chance on the list. If I know some people would like to bloody a few prominent SNP candidates’ noses, but if the SNP loose a constituency, they will take a corresponding list seat, probably at the expense of Alba. It’s not rocket science.
Revenge is a dish best served cold – and a few Alba list seats would certainly set the cat(s) among the SNP pigeons. It would make for a very interesting Holyrood term. But ye have to vote SNP for the constituency.
Hold yer nose and do it – ye know it makes sense. 🙂
The whole SNP scenario stinks like a truly massive swindle on the Scottish people.
Folks are trying to rationalise it saying the SNP doesn’t see Indy as a vote winner. If that was true, then the SNP wouldn’t be touching the toxicity of Transgender insanity with a barge pole, and nor would it be merrily alienating Scotland’s feminists and female population in general.
I don’t believe the SNP is doing anything to win votes. It is acting like a parasite on the neck of Independence, contributing nothing, indifferent to the welfare of it’s host, and caring about nothing except filling it’s own stomach.
The Unionist media can’t believe it’s luck. The longer Sturgeon is kept safe from scrutiny, the more damage and despondency she suffers upon the Independence community, and they can then market that disillusionment as a slump in support for Independence.
Sturgeon is helping the Union to survive, destroying the SNP, and creating disillusionment throughout the YES community, and you won’t see an ounce of guilt in her demeanour.
The Scottish population is being swindled by a dishonest Unionist media, (no change there), and a disingenuous SNP party that is far too comfortable with the status quo, blinded by hubris and happy to con the people it’s meant to be answerable to. It’s not in any hurry to risk jeopardising it’s snout in the trough.
Independence? Forget about that until Sturgeon is behind bars where she belongs. The SNP has forgotten about it already.
That the SNP is still thriving in the polls says nothing to me about the SNP, but speaks volumes about how complacent and ill informed the Scottish electorate is when it comes to politics. It’s not their fault, it’s the media I hold responsible, but I refuse to believe that anybody who is alert and aware to what has been going on, can be remotely content with Sturgeon or Sturgeons SNP.
We are annoyed, but we are the political anoraks alert to what’s happening, ahead of the game, and ahead of public opinion. We don’t get our briefings and updates (nor our indoctrination), from the anodyne mainstream media.
I don’t think the Scottish electorate are stupid or slow, but I do think there is a great deal of inertia when it comes to changing ideas. To illustrate I mean, in my opinion, we didn’t see the YES of 2014 reach full bloom in time to win the Referendum, but the impetus and momentum kept going after the Referendum and peaked (I think) when Scotland returned 56 out 59 SNP MP’s to Westminster in 2015. That was the high water mark, not the 2014 referendum.
A high water mark perhaps, but most of the available evidence tends to suggest there has been very little retreat from that high water mark. It was a peak in support for Independence which has stayed remarkably steady, but a peak in support which the SNP has betrayed and exploited.
For now, I think the SNP, and Sturgeon, are living on borrowed time, and taking full advantage (literally) of a Scottish public which isn’t fully up to speed with the swindling duplicity of Ms Sturgeon. But the clock is ticking…
Do not believe this isn’t a false and orchestrated reality. It is a completely false reality. It is also the essence of why Alex Salmond has been denied a platform to speak to the electorate. “They” cannot afford to let that happen.
I’m in Alex Salmond’s region.
So I’ll be voting SNP 1, to ensure Alex gets elected.
Andy
I understand how you feel.
We will all be feeling much worse though if Alba don’t win any seats. The best way for Alba to win seats is for the SNP to win the constituency seats. That is just the grim reality of the D’Hondt system.
Don’t take my word for it. Download this very useful spreadsheet and play around with the numbers for your region. You will see for yourself what works best for Alba and Independence.
https://blog.stevenkellow.com/excel-dhondt-proportional-representation-calculator/
(…and ALBA 2, obviously)
Andy says:
14 April, 2021 at 11:32 am
LET’S DRAIN THE SWAMP.
DON’T VOTE SNP,,, EVER AGAIN.
Reply
‘I see your true colours
Shining through’
Kcor-Andy & his multiple accounts is a hoot!
Nothing on Joan McAlpine’s leaflet about independence either.(Except a vague “Deliver a democratic vote on Scotland’s future after the pandemic – so definitely not this year or next year then). No mention of mitigation for people who have suffered because of the increase in the pension age in fact not much for older people at all – unless you need care – the rest can carry on working – even if it f**ks up your mental and physical wellbeing. Pay rise for NHS staff (because nobody else deserves one). Free school meals, free laptops and doubling the Scottish Child payment – because it’s “Aw aboot the weans” – except that when some of us were weans we got sod all then and now, that we’ve reached an age when we expected, and paid for, retirement, we get sold all again. Tough if you “wasted” part of your life caring for others and didn’t earn enough to retire without the state pension. You don’t matter (and if you are a working class indy supporter, they really don’t want your sort voting for them anyway). Even up to 22 year olds to get free council tax – probably the generation that creates more waste than anyone – but they can get their bins emptied for free.
But they let me have a free bus pass that I can’t use because it no longer feels safe to travel on public transport. Woopie f*****g doo.
Sorry about the rant but as a childless, should be pensioner I’m raging at being ignored by this and all parties – and I’m sick of them sidelining independence.
Mhairi Black soon stopped with the support for WASPI women when a more fashionable cause came her way. Now she thinks most of us are c**ts because we believe in basic biology and the protection of women’s sex based rights. No wonder they had to increase the pension age – with all those “new women” coming forward at 60 because of their late onset femininity. Twats.
Apparently in the leaders’ debate Sturgeon laughingly rejected the idea that Johnson would allow her to introduce a UBI to Scotland – yet she tells us he will cave in and allow a referendum. Aye, right enough. Whatever. F**k off.
Gerry Hassan calling Alex Salmond homophobic.
https://twitter.com/GerryHassan/status/1382282676858716163
This needs to be reported if someone is on Twitter.
Nikla is totally safe from ever gaining independence. Her latest bluster about a referendum is solely for the sucker voters. She knows Johnson will just ignore any requests to be ‘allowed’ to hold one. So she can gain votes under false pretences and keep up her act as Queen of Scotland, with witch hunts for any objectors.
Paul Cockshott says: “Scotland today is a shadow of the industrial nation we were before going into the EU. Like Blair, Sturgeon is the willing inheritor of Thatcher’s legacy.”
Well said Sir. Blairism (the ‘softer’ version of Thatcherism) is, sadly, pervasive in every aspect of politics now. We only feel the SNP’s version of it more strongly because they’re the ones currently in government, but it would be no different if we had Labour or the Tories in Holyrood.
The idea that the working person’s wage decreases as a result of now not having the free movement of people within fiscally disparate nations is preposterous. As an active trade unionist I can tell you that the only reason for having continual unfettered movement of people is to keep labour costs down and to increase the wealth of big businesses and their shareholders.
The idea that a substantial amount of people in Scotland now barely scrape a living in the gig economy with next to no rights and a family to feed is an anathema to me, and is part of the shitty legacy of EU membership that will take years to heal.
If you disagree you’re probably not a bad person, you’re just part of a middle-class who’s only interaction with a working class person at the lower end of the wage scale is a charitable but patronising smile when they’ve just delivered your pizza.
I’ve just got the flyer through and what I noticed is that despite the total lack of a mention of independence on it, they are still more than happy to put “both votes for indyref2” in the very corner.
Talk about having your cake and eating it…
I usually skim or scroll past long posts here.
However…
Mia has now joined Breeks in my exception to that policy.
Again I salute you Mia.
I think that Alba crowdfunded shall beat the target.
Will The BBC mention that? will the MSM? will even the National?
They’ve gone full devolutionary sell-out now, and brazenly so, for all to see. Shameless, troughing bastards.
paul says: at 11:00 am
Graf Midgehunter says:
at 10:04 am
Thanks Paul..!
I’m afraid I’m not convinced by the unconditional acceptance and constant repetition of the “you have to hold your nose and vote SNP 1” argument by some folk on here. It is in its own way just as wrong headed as the “both votes SNP” mantra trotted out by unreasoning Sturgeonistas.
Yes, IN GENERAL the message is OK as far as it goes, but there is very little to be said for enabling an SNP or SNP/Green majority. With luck Alba will take some seats, particularly from the odious ideological bin fire that is the Scottish Green Party, as well as depriving British nationalist seat warmers of their cosy 5 year sinecures. But…and it’s a big but… if Alba gains too few seats to exert any real influence we’ll be little further forward than if Alba had never been formed. Sure, it’s a start and the party can hopefully embarrass the SNP devolutionists and gradualists, and start building for a real challenge in 2026, but to make a real impact we need to box clever and politically decapitate the beast by voting tactically in a few constituencies.
Sturgeon, Swinney and Robertson are them obvious candidates to target.
@ScottFinlayson, 8.40
we, the common herd ,were given a democratic chance to free ourselves but 55% said no,
Given that exit polls demonstrate that an election is legitimate, why were there no exit polls for indyref14? Why did 800,000 names disappear from the electoral register the following year? Why was there no investigation of the phenomenal postal vote returns in four constituencies? The cherry on top of the cake is having the natives blame themselves for the result. Someone is laughing at our expense.
paul says: 10.11am.
“prognosticating” So that’s what’s been wrong with me. I knew I hadn’t been feeling well lately. 🙂 🙂
Hi Luigi at 12:01 pm.
You typed,
“but if the SNP loose a constituency, they will take a corresponding list seat, probably at the expense of Alba. It’s not rocket science.”
No guarantee of that, Luigi. In the 2016 election, SNP lost the Aberdeenshire West constituency to the Tories so had 9 out of the 10 constituencies but still had NO MSPs elected for the NE Scotland region.
Robert Hughes says: 11:39 am
Graf Midgehunter says: 10:04 am
” I live in the EU. Has anybody else joined from abroad?
Did the checkout details accept foreign addresses etc.?? ”
———————
Yes . I joined from Spain , well , Catalonia to be more accurate . No problem doing son
————–
Thanks Robert.
I know this is too far fown the list to be paid any attention to but leaflet for Sarah Mason, Edinburgh west candidate has the following in bold at the top of the reverse side…
“Scotland has the right to chose an independant future in Europe”
I don’t know who she is but perhaps she’s just made a powerful enemy.
John H. (The original one) says:
14 April, 2021 at 12:46 pm
paul says: 10.11am.
“prognosticating” So that’s what’s been wrong with me. I knew I hadn’t been feeling well lately. ? ?
I am always here to help.
Just received my leaflet.
“Vote John Swinney or you’ll be stuck with Boris Johnson’s
Tories”. No mention of Indy .
That’s it. Apparently Holyrood elections get rid of Boris!!
Off to donate to Alba who are at least honest and at best a true party of Independence.
Andy Ellis @ 1241 pm
Andy, the Alba party need to get a foothold in Holyrood. They must win at least a few seats. Otherwise we are back to square one – another four years of inertia and GRA/hate crime legislation. All this talk of “decapitation” is fanciful IMO. A complete non-starter.
Any losses of SNP constituency seats will inevitably hurt the Alba Party more. The SNP will take the first list seat if they loose the constituency. Besides, the “decapitation” argument is far less likely to attract enough public support than the “supermajority” idea. It’s a matter of choice I suppose but decapitation-voting is negative, a complete waste of time and potentially self-harming IMO.
Some people think that if the Alba Party pick up one or two seats, it won;t make a difference.
Believe me, it will make a massive difference. One foot in the door and all hell breaks loose.
Graf Midgehunter says:
14 April, 2021 at 12:37 pm
paul says: at 11:00 am
Graf Midgehunter says:
at 10:04 am
Thanks Paul..!
As above, I only want to help.
SNP 1, Alba 2 for now!
Hi Luigi.
See my 12:48 comment.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-fainthearts/comment-page-1/#comment-2647889
“The paradox here is that if your wish is to impose limits on the SNP, you need to vote for them.”
That’s not a paradox. It’s a contradiction. And it’s incorrect.
There are no doubt hypothetical scenarios where voting SNP on the constituency will benefit Alba on the list, but there are also hypothetical scenarios where it makes no difference either way.
People that are saying we need to vote SNP to help Alba are guessing and we can speculate quite confidently that in many cases it will prove to be untrue.
The bottom line is this; Alba will be competing with all other parties on the list vote. The divisor will “punish” those that win constituency seats and, comparatively speaking, enhance the prospects of those that don’t when it comes to the list.
What difference does it make who Alba is competing with on the list? It only makes a difference if you have an emotional attachment to the SNP. I don’t. I support independence, but getting it is less likely if the SNP and Sturgeon do well in this election.
It’s worth bearing in mind that the party that has most vociferously attacked and harmed Alba, is the SNP.
If there’s a paradox here it’s this: the best way to fix the SNP and get it back on track is to punish them in the election and hope that the damage is so bad that they are forced to get rid of the unhinged sociopath who caused all the damage in the first place.
Andy Ellis says:
14 April, 2021 at 12:41 pm
I’m afraid I’m not convinced by the unconditional acceptance and constant repetition of the “you have to hold your nose and vote SNP 1” argument by some folk on here. It is in its own way just as wrong headed as the “both votes SNP” mantra trotted out by unreasoning Sturgeonistas.
The arithmetic is there, the current SNP leadership are slightly preferable, as they,aligned with common feeling, suggest they would be a great ally in the pursuit of independence.
But if they are not, we’ll see what happens for the carrerists.
Did ireland,or india or anywhere else wait for permission on a UK controlled referendum?
Yes, IN GENERAL the message is OK as far as it goes, but there is very little to be said for enabling an SNP or SNP/Green majority. With luck Alba will take some seats, particularly from the odious ideological bin fire that is the Scottish Green Party, as well as depriving British nationalist seat warmers of their cosy 5 year sinecures. But…and it’s a big but… if Alba gains too few seats to exert any real influence we’ll be little further forward than if Alba had never been formed. Sure, it’s a start and the party can hopefully embarrass the SNP devolutionists and gradualists, and start building for a real challenge in 2026, but to make a real impact we need to box clever and politically decapitate the beast by voting tactically in a few constituencies.
Sturgeon, Swinney and Robertson are them obvious candidates to target.
I’m in NS constituency and got a leaflet through the door about an hour ago. The only mention of independence is on a bottom right hand corner of the part with the address on it, it says Both Votes SNP For Indy Ref 2 but this is a separate administrative part of the leaflet, it isn’t part of the main message which is things like Equip children to succeed in tomorrow’s world (is that a rogue apostrophe?).
Re NS being compromised, there is the possibility that it is the Greens and some of her own colleagues within the SNP who have dirt on her hence the detour into la la land. There is also the possibilty that she knows that if she stood against this a later career within the EU or UN would be a non starter.
Andy Ellis says:
14 April, 2021 at 12:41 pm
You sound as pissed as I am, Pay attention as the host exhorts you to.
Independence will give you a greater say, and hopefully more scrutiny.
It would be a tad ironic if the SNP regained Aberdeenshire West from the Tories but Swinney loses his seat to Murdo Fraser.
Could be a repeat of the 2016 regional result, where the SNP had nobody elected from their list.
All to play for Alba.
@Luigi
I’m a founder member of Alba. I joined within hours of it being announced. Of course it’ll be great even if we manage to take a few seats: every party has to start somewhere. It’s fair enough if you think a decapitation strategy is fanciful, I happen to disagree. It won’t be easy naturally given the vagaries of the d’Hondt system, but it’s certainly worth a shot in my view.
I certainly won’t vote SNP in Edinburgh Central given the candidate and his role in targeting Joanna Cherry and his ultra loyal Sturgeonism, but to be honest I don’t think I could vote for them anywhere. I’m sure the supermajority strategy will have resonance and work in most places, but I’d sooner risk dropping a seat or two on the list to get rid of a few big SNP names and help stop them getting a majority on their own.
A supermajority is a great concept and I see the logic of pushing it for britnat consumption, but if the supermajority also entails an SNP or SNP/Green majority we can kiss progress on indy goodbye for at least 5 years anyway. I have little confidence the SNP have the political cojones to change their deeply dysfunctional party from within.
Anton Decadent says:
14 April, 2021 at 1:18 pm
“I’m in NS constituency…..”
————
many of us here would give a right arm (and both feet) to stand in your shoes!
Sarwar 1
Alba. 2
@ Paul Cockshott at 9.54
You are right that the Tories were keener on the Common Market than Labour, but this
is wrong.
The UK joined the Common Market / European Communities on 1 January 1973, when Edward Heath was Prime Minister. The referendum on 5 June 1975 was held to gauge support for continuing that membership. Harold Wilson was by then PM.
A lot of people claim to have “voted to join” but there was no such vote.
crazycat says:
14 April, 2021 at 1:36 pm
@ Paul Cockshott at 9.54
You are right that the Tories were keener on the Common Market than Labour, but this
It was Thatcher who was campaigning for joining back in the 70s referendum
is wrong.
The UK joined the Common Market / European Communities on 1 January 1973, when Edward Heath was Prime Minister. The referendum on 5 June 1975 was held to gauge support for continuing that membership. Harold Wilson was by then PM.
A lot of people claim to have “voted to join” but there was no such vote.
Who cares?
Who can change history?
Why not change now?
It might help in the future!
I understand the rage, Andy, I really do. However, IMO the priority is for Alba to gain a foothold, establish a bridgehead in Holyrood. If that happens then things really kick off. If AS and a few colleagues gets back in Holyrood, Alba and Scottish independence will no longer be ignored.
It’s not just arithmetic, it’s presence, it’s perception. Get Alba in and all hell breaks loose. 🙂
Leaflet from SNP candidate for central Ayrshire, Siobhian Brown –
” I believe that Scotland should take it’s place in Europe and the world as an independent country”. And an extensive statement on her support for independence. But the text is all contained in the inside cover. Does seem to me that SNP HQ instructed candidates to wheest about Indy. So well done Siobhian.
1. Get Alba in Holyrood.
2. Give Alba time to establish.
3. Allow Alba to deal with the fainthearted (in due course).
4. Get your revenge on the fainthearted at the next election.
That’s the natural order IMO.
Brian Donthetoon @ 1:21 pm
Fair enough Brian, I take your point, I still think it is more likely than not that a SNP constituency loss will deny Alba a list seat. I agree though – nothing is guaranteed.
Brian Doonthetoon says:
14 April, 2021 at 1:21 pm
It would be a tad ironic if the SNP regained Aberdeenshire West from the Tories but Swinney loses his seat to Murdo Fraser.
Could be a repeat of the 2016 regional result, where the SNP had nobody elected from their list.
All to play for Alba.
Sounds like win win to me.
Worst case is the weakest member is elected.
Received an email from Peter M. asking me to renew my membership early.
I can whistle “Dixie” or even sing “The bonny Blue Flag”
“Sturgeon, Swinney and Robertson are them obvious candidates to target”
Let’s not forget Yousaf, the father of the hate bill. Sturgeon’s mouthpiece in Holyrood whose arrogance blew the lid on the deception of Sturgeon’s covid strategy.
I will never forget the day Yousaf’s arrogance attempted to quash dissent among yes supporters demanding the borders to be closed to stop the virus.
This man chose to call them racists to protect the interests of the British state, instead of, as he was expected, taking the opportunity to progress Scotland’s autonomy by closing those borders and acknowledging the evidence:
Leaving Scotland’s border with England wide open has allowed the virus to continuously re enter Scotland. It is futile to subject the citizens of Scotland to continuous, damaging lockdowns, if you are not prepared to lock the main port of entry of the virus, which is the borders.
Yousaf might have been attempting to silence those yes supporters because they were calling Sturgeon’s bluff and exposing another of her deceptions: unless she was prepared to close the borders, all her words about wanting to eliminate or contain the virus in Scotland were as vacuous and meaningless as her claims to want to deliver indyref or seeking to progress Scotland’s autonomy.
What Yousaf achieved was more people realising Sturgeon’s SNP sooner fires viciously its own troops to protect the union than advancing Scotland’s interests by pushing for more autonomy.
It was remarkable that at the time SNP shills were emerging from under the rocks claiming that demanding to close the borders was handing the opposition a stick to beat us with because it would mean we were opportunistically using the virus to push for more autonomy!!!
So in the eyes of Yousaf and the SNP shills, we yes supporters are demanded to accept that it is far more important that the England parties do not have any criticism of Sturgeon or her SNP’s actions and are not seen as opportunistic, than to protect our loved ones, ourselves, and our NHS from a deadly virus. Frankly, dying to avoid giving the opposition a reason to criticise the SNP or to not be seen as opportunistic seems rather a lot to ask, even if it is the queen of covid herself or the father of the hate bill himself who asks.
Yousaf’s ill advised move insulting the yes supporters made obvious to many that if you have no intention in closing the main source of entry of the virus into Scotland, you cannot credibly claim lockdowns and tiers’ are public health tools designed to prevent or contain. You are using them at all effects as stealth political tools to control the public response to something.
I must admit I have wondered at times until what point Sturgeon left deliberately those borders open to ensure she had a reason to force lockdown on us on demand at a time the UK was at its weakest and when she was handing our powers and selling us down the river. You don’t need to be Einstein to realise that if you leave the border with a country that has much more infections and much more population than yours do wide open, your infections will raise soon after and because of the nature of the virus, around 2 weeks after the infections re-start, you start to see deaths that will justify your lockdowns. I mean, it is not exactly rocket science.
There was a time around early last summer when the virus infections and deaths were at a minimum in Scotland. It would only have taken for another 3 weeks of full lockdown and for locking the borders to completely eradicate the virus in Scotland.
What did the political fraud do instead?
To lift the lockdown and leave the borders wide open. Result? You guessed it: exponential increase of infections, increase of deaths and of course the need for “the remedy”: an extra half a year of lockdowns.
I think it is pertinent to ask if her deliberately leaving Scotland’s borders open was one of her long list of 6 years of “mistakes” or rather an unscrupulous and unprincipled political strategy to quash dissent and force Scotland to remain in the union when England was at its most vulnerable.
I do not think her incredibly poor handling of covid has ever been challenged properly. She simply followed the script from Westminster with a few cosmetic changes to maintain the illusion of autonomy. But if New Zealand could pretty much eradicate the virus, so could have Scotland. The only difference between New Zealand and Scotland is that New Zealand has a proper prime minister in control. Scotland unfortunately has to do with a Westminster lapdog with an serious allergy to the practice of autonomy and with a taste for dictatorship.
That should keep Midlothian SNP happy! their candidate loves the gravy train too much, just like the MP and councillors!
@Luigi 1.51pm
It’s not (just?) a matter of rage tho’ bud. It’s always been apparent that having “new entrant” pro indy parties had the capacity to either be game changers if they held the balance, or ineffective if they didn’t. When the prospect was first mentioned I was pretty hopeful, then in recent months it looked like it wouldn’t happen and we were stuck with SNP gradualism for another 5 years with no way to engineer plebiscitary elections. I’d more or less given up in fact and was openly advocating spoilt ballots and just giving up on the SNP as a lost cause and starting to construct a new “real” Independence Party. Luckily we now have that in Alba, tho’ I fear it may have been left too late to make enough of an impact in May’s elections. It would have been ideal if Cherry and a few other “names” had signed up, but we are where we are. Time will tell.
I agree that presence and perception are important, so the bigger the number of Alba MSPs the better. However, if there aren’t enough to hold the balance or we only gain a handful, we have to accept we’re in this for the long haul. The SNPs gradualism and lack of progress will be a great recruiting sergeant, as will the rank political stupidity and regressive nature of the HCB, self ID/GRA plans, and gradual recognition by many progressives that the SNP & Greens are now deeply misogynistic and captured by cancel culture zealots and abusive men’s rights activists. The authoritarian agenda of the Woko Haram cadres in both parties will eventually blow up in their faces. Either their membership will rebel and force change from within (tho’ that seems unlikely in my view) or they will see an element of their support desert them for Alba and other parties.
We have to prepare to stand Alba up as the real alternative to the etiolated devolutionaries in the SNP.
Mia says:
14 April, 2021 at 2:22 pm
“Sturgeon, Swinney and Robertson are them obvious candidates to target”
Let’s not forget Yousaf, the father of the hate bill. Sturgeon’s mouthpiece in Holyrood whose arrogance blew the lid on the deception of Sturgeon’s covid strategy.
You surely not qualify your list, they are better together than apart
I will never forget the day Yousaf’s arrogance attempted to quash dissent among yes supporters demanding the borders to be closed to stop the virus.
This man chose to call them racists to protect the interests of the British state, instead of, as he was expected, taking the opportunity to progress Scotland’s autonomy by closing those borders and acknowledging the evidence:
Leaving Scotland’s border with England wide open has allowed the virus to continuously re enter Scotland. It is futile to subject the citizens of Scotland to continuous, damaging lockdowns, if you are not prepared to lock the main port of entry of the virus, which is the borders.
Yousaf might have been attempting to silence those yes supporters because they were calling Sturgeon’s bluff and exposing another of her deceptions: unless she was prepared to close the borders, all her words about wanting to eliminate or contain the virus in Scotland were as vacuous and meaningless as her claims to want to deliver indyref or seeking to progress Scotland’s autonomy.
What Yousaf achieved was more people realising Sturgeon’s SNP sooner fires viciously its own troops to protect the union than advancing Scotland’s interests by pushing for more autonomy.
It was remarkable that at the time SNP shills were emerging from under the rocks claiming that demanding to close the borders was handing the opposition a stick to beat us with because it would mean we were opportunistically using the virus to push for more autonomy!!!
So in the eyes of Yousaf and the SNP shills, we yes supporters are demanded to accept that it is far more important that the England parties do not have any criticism of Sturgeon or her SNP’s actions and are not seen as opportunistic, than to protect our loved ones, ourselves, and our NHS from a deadly virus. Frankly, dying to avoid giving the opposition a reason to criticise the SNP or to not be seen as opportunistic seems rather a lot to ask, even if it is the queen of covid herself or the father of the hate bill himself who asks.
Yousaf’s ill advised move insulting the yes supporters made obvious to many that if you have no intention in closing the main source of entry of the virus into Scotland, you cannot credibly claim lockdowns and tiers’ are public health tools designed to prevent or contain. You are using them at all effects as stealth political tools to control the public response to something.
I must admit I have wondered at times until what point Sturgeon left deliberately those borders open to ensure she had a reason to force lockdown on us on demand at a time the UK was at its weakest and when she was handing our powers and selling us down the river. You don’t need to be Einstein to realise that if you leave the border with a country that has much more infections and much more population than yours do wide open, your infections will raise soon after and because of the nature of the virus, around 2 weeks after the infections re-start, you start to see deaths that will justify your lockdowns. I mean, it is not exactly rocket science.
There was a time around early last summer when the virus infections and deaths were at a minimum in Scotland. It would only have taken for another 3 weeks of full lockdown and for locking the borders to completely eradicate the virus in Scotland.
What did the political fraud do instead?
To lift the lockdown and leave the borders wide open. Result? You guessed it: exponential increase of infections, increase of deaths and of course the need for “the remedy”: an extra half a year of lockdowns.
I think it is pertinent to ask if her deliberately leaving Scotland’s borders open was one of her long list of 6 years of “mistakes” or rather an unscrupulous and unprincipled political strategy to quash dissent and force Scotland to remain in the union when England was at its most vulnerable.
I do not think her incredibly poor handling of covid has ever been challenged properly. She simply followed the script from Westminster with a few cosmetic changes to maintain the illusion of autonomy. But if New Zealand could pretty much eradicate the virus, so could have Scotland. The only difference between New Zealand and Scotland is that New Zealand has a proper prime minister in control. Scotland unfortunately has to do with a Westminster lapdog with an serious allergy to the practice of autonomy and with a taste for dictatorship.
Believe in Scotland have posted a poll putting Alba on 6% which would give them 5 seats and put SNP 3 short of a majority. The Greens would get 10 seats.
Game on?
https://www.believeinscotland.org/exclusive-greens-and-alba-flying-high-on-list-but-snp-majority-in-danger/?fbclid=IwAR1zlZTSKSBCvKf6Nu5Tz4I3azM5G3imwvI4oSeI5jbLOOYGB1L0QFpNR7k
Agree with several posters on here. There has been a perceptible shift in what was once called the ‘left’. Some who comment on here from a right wing perspective seem to see the trajectory of the SNP as being due to ‘leftist’ influence but it’s something quite different, a repositioning of those who might have been considered to be on the ‘progressive’ wing of politics.
Rightly, some upthread have noted that an important step on that road was Blairism and the fact that Thatcher herself saw Blair as being her natural successor. Blairism was the triumph of Thatcherism. Blairism was notable for dividing their own voters into the ‘underclass’ and ‘aspirational working class’. Some of Blair’s colleagues could hardly conceal their contempt for those they considered beneath them, displaying the ‘not one of us’ attitude familiar to Thatcherism.
(Eventually the ‘Red Wall’ fell as part of the backlash against New Labour, a warning of what can happen if you persist in despising loyal voters.)
What has happened to the SNP is familiar to us from what has also happened to a greater or lesser extent throughout Europe. In fact, the partial success of progressive politics has been its own undoing. Many of the old working class have been able to transition to what they now consider as middle class – university educated, salaried, home owning. The connection with the working class they might have sprung from has been broken, solidarity gone as old communities are abandoned.
The SNP looks to many of us like Blairism Mark 2 for the same reasons, young university-educated, set on a comfortable career with little identification with the working class and only too willing to jettison those who are ‘not one of us’. They have gladly embraced another cause, the new cause of the young – GRA and transactivism – precisely because it is classless and divorced from all those old, boring and often complicated, issues of poverty and inequality of opportunity.
It’s also the reason why they become so aggressive when encountering disagreement. They have never considered that their new ‘inclusive’ and righteous cause might encounter justified criticism. It does genuinely upset their intransigent beliefs. Hence no debate, since debate might mean the possibility of modifying your views. The very thing that binds them and gives them the comfort of solidarity is to have an identifiable enemy which can be made to represent all that is negative to them. There can no rapprochement, according to them.
Got my SNP leaflet through the letterbox yesterday and it was hastily rerouted via the back door and straight into the recycling bin before the postie had got out the front gate. Shortly afterwards i got another one from the local candidate which is chock full of blatant lies! They won’t be getting my vote!
Angela Constance is West Lothian MSP, no mention of Independence on her leaflet so she can go swing on a tall bridge she won’t be getting our vote on May 6th 2021, 2016 repeating all over again.
I’m not falling for the SNP line where having a referendum during the next parliament, vote for the SNP to secure that referendum, the SNP have done that old line before and I’ve heard it all before “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” I don’t think so.
I too got the mandatory SNP leaflet where they omit the dirty word ‘independence’. Its in the bin. What I’m really curious about – anyone got any leaflet from any candidate spelling out the SNP’s intention of pushing through the GRA bill, what GRA stands for and why it’s important trans people get into women’s safe spaces? Because I’ve not heard of anyone getting a leaflet with this issue being highlighted for legislation in the new term.
Why would they not want to tell Scotland about their wonderful new focus? I can’t imagine why they’re hiding that, waiting for the moment to… well, not spring it on us, so much as get it in under the wire so Scotland can’t object.
Anyone got a leaflet explaining how it’s going to be legislated for?
Nyah Fearties!
Disappointed to overhear Jeane Freeman the other night there on R4 Political Thinking going toe-to-toe right down the line with none other than King Liar himself, Nick Robinson.
#LeadersNotManagers
The picture doesn’t show it but on that SNP leaflet it does say on the bottom right “both votes SNP for indyref2”
Andy Ellis, who is best to vote for in Edinburgh Central, if I can’t hold my nose tight enough to support Robertson?
I could vote for Bonny Prince Bob but he has no chance of being elected.
I asked Mia and she said it was the British state’s fault that independence wasn’t mentioned even once in the SNP manifesto.
Does anyone know who was responsible for writing the SNP manifesto?
We can then know for sure who those agents of the British state who have infiltrated the SNP are.
Luigi says,
“I think NS may be compromised. It’s the only explanation IMO. She seems to be terrified something will be exposed unless she behaves. What does the establishment have on her?”
This:
““The circulating rumour, no idea if it’s true, is that some little time ago (before the pandemic) Nicola caught her French girlfriend with another woman in a hotel (in Edinburgh, I think) and created such a scene (possibly including violence but accounts vary a bit) that the police had to be called by hotel staff. And that there is a superinjunction preventing any reporting of this.”
Mac says,
“Sham lawyer, sham politician, sham marriage, sham independence supporter, sham accusations, sham investigations, sham inquiries…”
Well said.
To add to that, superinjunctions bought with embezzled money to cover up her shams.
IMHO, she is the most evil woman ever to have lived in Scotland.
Ruby says,
“Reply
Lets change it to ‘Keeping British Unionists out’”
Says the one who is voting SNP 1&2:
Ruby says (“Three choices”),
“I’m voting SNP 1/2 because I want Nicola Sturgeon to have to face the consequences of her actions.”
Ruby says,
“I’m not convinced that getting rid of Nicola Sturgeon will magically sort everything out.”
Says diehard Sturgeonist.
Ruby says (“Three choices”),
“I’m voting SNP 1/2 because I want Nicola Sturgeon to have to face the consequences of her actions.”
@Ann Rayner
I’m voting for Bonnie Prince Bob: the alternative was a spoilt ballot. I know he won’t win, but it would give me huge satisfaction to see him deprive Robertson of the seat.
Andy Ellis says,
“I’m afraid I’m not convinced by the unconditional acceptance and constant repetition of the “you have to hold your nose and vote SNP 1” argument by some folk on here. It is in its own way just as wrong headed as the “both votes SNP” mantra trotted out by unreasoning Sturgeonistas.”
Totally agree.
It has to be: Best tactical choice 1 / ALBA 2
In Glasgow Southside, it has to be Labour (Sarwar) 1 / ALBA 2.
I know Ruby will be furious with that:
Ruby says,
“I’m not convinced that getting rid of Nicola Sturgeon will magically sort everything out.”
Ruby says (“Three choices”),
“I’m voting SNP 1/2 because I want Nicola Sturgeon to have to face the consequences of her actions.”
That is the leaflet I got today and it clearly states “Both votes SNP for INDYREF 2” on it. Someone is being economical with the truth here.
Mia says,
“Let’s not forget Yousaf, the father of the hate bill. Sturgeon’s mouthpiece in Holyrood whose arrogance blew the lid on the deception of Sturgeon’s covid strategy.”
If you want Yousaf out, why are you dead against advocating a tactical vote for Sarwar to get Sturgeon out in Glasgow Southside?
And don’t repeat your stupid excuse that you want both Sturgeon and Sarwar out because as you have been told many times before it is not possible:
Rev. Stuart Campbell says (Scheming on a mirage),
“It’s much the same as the Glasgow Southside situation. You’re not choosing between Anas Sarwar and Nicola Sturgeon – Sarwar is top of the Labour list so he’s getting in no matter what happens. What you’re effectively doing with your constituency vote in Glasgow Southside is choosing between two SNP MSPs – Sturgeon or Roza Salih. If you’d prefer Salih, vote Sarwar on the constituency paper.)”
Rev. Stuart Campbell says (Rallying to the banner),
“If you believe Sturgeon is a block on independence it’s a very rational position.”
@Mist00 14 April, 2021 at 10:11 am
So, the SNP don’t think that independence is a vote winner then.
I’d think they’d have access to stats, polls and so on, which led them to this conclusion, so what does that tell you about the chances of YES winning any future referendum if even the SNP don’t think there’s any appetite for independence?
———————————————-
I have to say you must be smarter than you look on your profile pic. You are are likely to be 100% correct , the SNP knows what people are thinking via polling and of course from feedback from own members at branch level. There are a lot of people in Scotland know they have benefitted from furlough money and this plague isn’t over yet by a long way. More tham 10K Scots have died (most with families with votes) , huge errors with care Homes , a dentist pretending to be a virus expert and the hiring of an American propagandist spouting bollocks on social media that she doesn’t have the qualificatiosn to be doing , now many might fall for all that deception but the fact is the SNP hasn’t come out this Pandemic as well as they would like you to think they have and polling will be telling them that too. I’m sure i saw some polling myself a few weeks ago where Independence was 5th on a list of priorites, can’t remember who produced it though, but SNP’s actions speak for themselves.
I see the image has been edited to remove the reference to Indy Ref 2. Why would this be done other than to misrepresent the truth and to try to undermine the SNP?