Weekend reading
With the weather getting increasingly foul and wintry, why not curl up this weekend with an intriguing collection of Scottish political stories and commentary? The stuff's coming thick and fast these days, so get cosy on the sofa with a blanket and your laptop/iPad and work your way through this lot.
Over in the Scotsman, Joyce McMillan – not exactly noted as an SNP cheerleader – takes a sober look at the state of the nation(s) and concludes poetically that the times they are a-changin' in terms of people's attitudes towards independence, as the Scottish electorate looks for an alternative to the austerity future that isn't forthcoming from the UK opposition parties. Deeply sceptical of nationalism, McMillan nonetheless arrives at a near-Damascene epiphany: "in the absence of any better progressive project, there is a strong temptation to take a deep breath, and give it a go".
Dear old Alan Cochrane on the Telegraph is suffering no such doubts, lashing out at Labour's former First Minister Henry McLeish for giving succour to Cochrane's hated Nats over such issues as the anti-sectarianism bill, apparently in the belief that having held Holyrood's highest office somehow makes a person less entitled to offer his honest opinions than anyone else. Even Cochrane, however, is forced to also note the humiliating gaffe by the Tory leader Ruth Davidson at FMQs on Thursday.
The Express carries the latest attack on the SNP's referendum plans by Scottish CBI leader Iain McMillan, who fulminates furiously that uncertainty over independence will damage business – exactly as he's previously said of devo max, and indeed as he said back in 1997 about devolution. (McMillan's claims to speak for all of Scottish business in these outbursts, incidentally, has been disputed in the not-too-distant past by significant members of that community.)
Labour comedy relief Tom Harris, meanwhile, puts forward the view that what the Scottish people need most urgently in the coming years is someone who can make fun of the First Minister. Given that Harris is currently amusingly ranked by the bookmakers as fifth in a three-horse race for the Labour leadership, we're not sure he's going to have much chance to test that theory out.
Malcolm Harvey, formerly of the increasingly-erratic and confused Better Nation (which this week bizarrely invited us to take pride in the achievements of current Tory MPs who are implementing the coalition's brutal austerity measures but happened to be born in Scotland), has left BN and started a brand-new blog which promises an assessment of the current state of all the Holyrood parties. He opens proceedings by examining the condition of Scottish Labour, and his prognosis isn't good.
And on a related note, Labour Hame slightly surprisingly publishes a piece which faces up to the reality of Labour's current positioning on the political spectrum – namely, the fact that by any empirical and rational measure it is currently a party of the centre-right rather than the centre-left. The piece, by previously-unknown correspondent James Chalmers, concludes by saying the unsayable – that the only hope for Scottish Labour is to decouple itself from the right-wing UK party and operate in an independent Scotland, which would be more sympathetic to Labour's old values.
More tomorrow.
…the increasingly-erratic and confused Better Nation…
That is sadly true as it used to be a good place to have discussions and to post comments. Last night I replied to Aidan Skinner who described my views as, "ignorant and offensive", in a comment on the, "Why aren’t we more proud of our Scottish Tories?", post.
It went into the moderation queue and then disappeared. I put a comment into the same thread this morning asking if it had been lost or moderated and that went into the moderation queue and then disappeared after a few hours as well.
"Better Nation" seems to be turning into a green tinged version of Labourhame where it's not bad language or personal abuse that gets you censored but simply views or arguments the moderators disagree with. They can disparage your views online but you've got no right to reply.
For future reference, questions about Aidan's national identity seem to hit a raw nerve with him.
You’re not wrong there. I posted a perfectly reasonable and considered reply to that same part of the thread, making a fair argument without personally abusing anyone (heck, I was even sort of nice about Norman Tebbit!), and my post vanished too. Later on Twitter Aidan announced that it was because it had been “boring”.
BN does indeed seem to be turning into Labour Hame 2 – see also Kirsty C’s shamefully dishonest spin on the Nov 30 protest vote – and with regret I’ve taken it off the WoSland blogroll. (Not that that’s going to hurt them any, but I can no longer stick by the endorsement that used to be in the link and I’m not going to put it in “Zany Comedy Relief”.)
BN’s moderation was always absurdly lily-livered (I recently got a post blocked for nothing ruder than saying in passing that James was an “anti-roads fundamentalist”, which is staggeringly obviously true), but since taking on a couple of full-time Labour supporters as editors it’s (perhaps coincidentally) gone completely beyond the pale.
I’m especially disappointed in Aidan as he’s always seemed like a smart chap worth debating with, but you’re right – he seems to have a real hair-trigger reaction to issues of national identity. Wonder what it is he doesn’t like facing up to?
For what it's worth, incidentally, only a user's first post is pre-moderated on WoSland, which is an anti-spam measure. All subsequent posts from the same person are passed automatically. No posts are censored or deleted unless they're solely abusive or illegal. Grown-up discussion, including heated disagreement, is welcome here.
I suspect, "boring", means that Aidan couldn't think of any counter arguments and was not prepared to lose face on the thread.
My comment was also polite but I don't think I'll bother with Better Nation anymore either. I can accept being moderated for bad language, personal abuse or promoting racist or sexist views but not for defending my views against another commentor, (who happened to be a moderator), with logical and well thought out comment.
"Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction."
I think the, "dangerous thought", in Aidan's case is the simple question, who am I? For a man in a party dedicated to preserving the British state, the British Establishment and the British identity trying to get him to define himself as British was like pulling teeth and he still only managed to mumble, "Scottish and British" in the end.
Many thanks for including me in your round-up. I'll get a link to here in my links section just when I have another spare half hour for blogging.
New scenery for me – I hope it lives up to the lofty standards people appear to be holding me to!
Malc