After a thoroughly nasty set of campaigns from her opponents, the recall petition for Margaret Ferrier has succeeded, with the two major parties in Scotland (with loads of help from the media) managing to persuade just over 14% of the electorate to sign. Commons rules meant Margaret was not permitted to put her case before the recall was officially announced, but by that time Labour had already been campaigning for about 2 months. Margaret immediately leaves the Commons and will likely be succeeded in a by-election sometime later this year by a numpty from the Labour party, whose only contribution to the Rutherglen and Hamilton constituency will be his smirking appearance at the post-election photoshoot. You can be sure that he was only picked (over 4 real local candidates) because he agreed to do what he was told by his London bosses.
The recall petition was ‘cleverly’ arranged to conclude while Parliament was on holiday, so maximising the disruption as the by-election can’t be arranged until the Commons returns in September. It means that Rutherglen and Hamilton West will be without representation for some months, so constituents, please make sure you have no problems needing support from your MP until after the by-election and even then, hope that the MP has a team who have some clue and can be bothered to make the effort, though, as we’re talking Labour, that’s far from guaranteed.
Certainly, Labour’s contribution to the campaign was a series of leaflets more notable for their lies and smears than for their policy content. For one example, see here.
At least, you can understand what drove Labour to create the opportunity, first by voting in the Commons committee to make sure that a 30 day suspension was agreed, triggering the recall petition and then conducting this nasty campaign, disguising their party self-interest in a cloak of public concern. They desperately wanted this by-election success to demonstrate that Labour are back to being a political force to be reckoned with in Scotland, even though victory, if it happens, is likely to be more to do with the expected disintegration of the SNP vote rather than any increase in Labour support.
But what’s in it for the SNP? When Nicola Sturgeon prompted this witch hunt against arguably the most hard working SNP MP, but one whose support for independence was at odds with the leadership of the current party, the SNP were riding high in the polls, with the worst of the Hate Crimes Bill, the GRRB, DRS, the offshore wind auction and the rest still to come. Could she have anticipated the backlash and the impact on SNP support or, as many have said, could she have planned it?
But now, with SNP support heading for the toilet, Sturgeon’s replacement decided to continue the persecution of Margaret Ferrier, thus really annoying the large number of constituents who previously supported the SNP, but who had no desire to get rid of Margaret. Of course, they had no voice in the recall, but will certainly make their voice heard in the by-election.
Let’s not forget that the SSP, the Scottish Socialist Party, another supposedly independence supporting party, were also campaigning for the recall, even though they had virtually nothing to gain from a by-election. Perhaps they thought they were on safe ground with no actual independence party standing to point out that the SSP, like the SNP and the Greens, are another party who seem only committed to independence when it suits them.
So we are where we are. If Margaret chooses not to stand again, the constituency will lose a hard-working MP with a proud record of backing local issues and local people. Even worse, her replacement will be either be the Labour candidate who lies about being local (unless you think Partick is part of Rutherglen) or the SNP one, said to be the laziest councillor in South Lanarkshire. Some choice!
So the good people of Rutherglen and Hamilton West have a choice to make. We don’t yet know all who’ll be standing, but the two candidates who have so far been put forward by Labour and SNP are certainly not ones I would vote for (and I have a vote).
One last general point. Are the recall rules fit for purpose? Is the tiny 10% of the constituency electorate (OK 14% in this case) really sufficient to end the career of an MP, especially when the combined might of parties attracting virtually 100% of the voting public are campaigning for the recall? Is it fair that those who oppose the recall get no voice? Is it fair that parties supporting the recall get to campaign for weeks before the recall petition is officially launched, when the MP is prohibited by Commons rules from putting her case during that time? Is it fair that parties can spend up to £10,000 each and make use of party members time, limited only by the number of members in each party, when the MP is effectively on their own? I realise you can’t expect fairness from Westminster, but surely this is just too one-sided.
BEAT THE CENSORS Many Facebook sites are increasingly censoring bloggers like myself who can be critical of the actions of the SNP and the Scottish Government. They are attempting to prevent bloggers from getting their message out, so we have to depend on readers sharing the blog posts. If you liked this post or others I have written, please share this and take out a free subscription by clicking the follow button on the home page or on the posts. You will then be notified by email of any new posts on the blog. Thank you.
SALVO The progress of Salvo has been the most encouraging development since 2022. It is doing sterling work educating Scots about the Claim of Right and spelling out what it means that the Scottish people are sovereign, not any Parliament. Salvo has joined with Liberation.scot to develop campaigns the results of which will be available soon.
LIBERATION.SCOT We are seeking to build up liberation.scot to at least 100,000 signatures as part of our plan to win recognition at the UN as an official liberation movement. We intend to internationalise our battle for independence and through the setting up of the Scottish National Council we will develop our arguments to win progress in the international courts. Please help by signing up at liberation.scot. The membership of liberation.scot is also where the first members of Scottish National Congress will be balloted for selection.
So finally, we have the answer to what happens to SNP members when Nicola Sturgeon takes the huff.
Margaret Ferrier was much too keen on independence to have a place in Sturgeon’s SNP and, on top of that, she was getting too much publicity for all the hard work she put into campaigning. How dare she take some of the attention away from the glorious leader.
In Sturgeon’s SNP, you’re either ‘in’ or ‘out’, and Margaret wasn’t one of the ‘in’ crowd. So, when the chance arose to get rid of her, Sturgeon grabbed it with both hands.
“Off with her head”, said the yellow Queen, and all the obedient courtiers followed her lead. A nod and a wink to the media led not only to a deluge of column inches and TV and radio minutes, but also to a crowd of reporters (definitely not journalists) surrounding her home for days on end, making normal family life impossible. Imagine the stress that would be creating.
Losing the whip and suspension from the party followed, all arranged to make sure there was no let up on the stream of bad publicity, painting Margaret as pretty much the most evil person in Scotland, all this for trying to do your job and support your colleagues.
Sure, Margaret made a mistake. She should have waited until she got the result of the test, but she was under pressure to stick to arrangements she had made, particularly the debate she was leading in Westminster, where remote attendance was not permitted at that time.
While all other parties would have supported their member in such circumstances, the SNP were leading the charge to get rid of her. The difference between Margaret’s treatment by the party and that of other SNP elected members who made mistakes was huge.
Think of Patrick Grady, who made unwanted sexual advances to a junior member of staff. From the very top of the party, every effort was made to minimise the incident and support Grady, but not his victim. See The National’s view of it here. By the way, his punishment from Westminster was a two day suspension, though two years earlier, a Tory MP had been suspended for six weeks for a similar sexual offence.
Think of Jordan Linden, former leader of North Lanarkshire Council, also accused of sexual impropriety (SNP have a thing about sex, don’t they). Again a cover up and again more support for the alleged perpetrator than for the victim and those who reported it. A police investigation is on-going. See the Daily Record’s view here.
Calls for Margaret’s resignation followed. Do the ‘right’ thing, they all said. Just resign. Don’t make us have to get you suspended from Westminster and launch a recall petition. Just make it easy for us to replace you. Among the many calling for her resignation were members of her own constituency party. How could the local MSP and the local councillors be so quick to jump on the hate Margaret Ferrier bandwagon when they all owe their positions to the support they got from Margaret. They are the lowest of the low.
By this time, the Labour party had joined in the witch hunt. Sensing the opportunity to double the number of Scottish MPs (yes, they’ve only got one, Ian Murray, the only Labour party member in Scotland who owns his own Union Jack suit), they joined the SNP in campaigning as if the by-election had already been called.
Both parties conducted pretty nasty campaigns, focussing entirely on spreading abuse and lies about Margaret Ferrier, though Labour wins the prize for the nastiest leaflet.
But none of this would work without a suspension from the Commons. Following an investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, the Standards Committee recommended a 30 day suspension, which had to be approved by Parliament before becoming effective. In the last 50 years, only three MPs have been suspended for 30 days or more, Ian Paisley Jnr. (DUP) for failing to declare family holidays paid by the Sri Lancan Government, Keith Vaz (Lab) for offering to buy cocaine for sex workers and the aforementioned Rob Roberts (Tory) for breaching Parliaments sexual misconduct policy. No other MP has been suspended for breaching Covid rules, even though many have admitted to doing so.
Yesterday, 6th June, a vote in parliament resulted in approval of the committee’s recommendation. Both Labour and SNP members voted in favour, with Alba MPs being the only Scottish MPs to vote against. A recall petition is therefore triggered, with a by-election if 10% of the constituency electorate vote for it.
The action of the Labour MPs is understandable as they see this as the opportunity to revive their flagging fortunes in Scotland. Party advantage always trumps common decency.
But what’s the excuse for the 14 SNP MPs who voted in favour. There’s unlikely to be any party advantage as the SNP are unlikely to win the by-election. So why? Did they think they were doing the ‘right’ thing? (don’t make me laugh), or was this a case of Nicola Sturgeon’s spite being carried forward despite the change of leader? Does Sturgeon still wield that much influence that they were too afraid to go against her wishes? Or was this another case of acting despite the likely party disadvantage. Not the first time this has happened, of course. I am reminded of the party refusing to support Neale Hanvey (another strong independence supporter) in the 2019 election despite the opportunity to remove the then shadow Scottish Secretary of State (Neale won anyway as an independent without party support).
Here are the 14 SNP MPs who put Nicola Sturgeon’s spite above common decency, failing to support an ex-colleague, despite several of them probably in part owing their position to Margaret Ferrier’s campaigning efforts.
Image courtesy of @Gillian_Emm
We’ll all remember these names next year when the UK general election comes along and we’ll be pleased to offer them as much support as they offered Margaret Ferrier, a thoroughly decent and hard-working MP who in no way deserves what she is going through.
BEAT THE CENSORS Many Facebook sites are increasingly censoring bloggers like myself who can be critical of the actions of the SNP and the Scottish Government. They are attempting to prevent bloggers from getting their message out, so we have to depend on readers sharing the blog posts. If you liked this post or others I have written, please share this and take out a free subscription by clicking the follow button on the home page or on the posts. You will then be notified by email of any new posts on the blog. Thank you.
SALVO The progress of Salvo has been the most encouraging development since 2022. It is doing sterling work educating Scots about the Claim of Right and spelling out what it means that the Scottish people are sovereign, not any Parliament. Salvo has joined with Liberation.scot to develop campaigns the results of which will be available soon.
LIBERATION.SCOT We are seeking to build up liberation.scot to at least 100,000 signatures as part of our plan to win recognition at the UN as an official liberation movement. We intend to internationalise our battle for independence and through the setting up of the Scottish National Council we will develop our arguments to win progress in the international courts. Please help by signing up at liberation.scot. The membership of liberation.scot is also where the first members of Scottish National Congress will be balloted for selection.
On and immediately after Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation, everybody who was anybody was either heaping praise on the dear, departed First Minister or telling the truth, I thought I’d have a go as well. Why not, I thought?
I had decided to wait until after Sturgeon’s final FMQ’s in the hope that she might show some humility or even some contrition for past mistakes, but, as we all know, Sturgeon believes she has never made a mistake, so admitting any failing was never going to happen. Just another example of wishful thinking on my part?
As most regular, or even occasional, readers will know, I’m not one of Sturgeon’s fans, though it was not always the case. Like many others, I was extremely disappointed when Alex Salmond resigned following the 2014 referendum, but I thought, in Nicola Sturgeon, we had a replacement who would continue to develop the case for independence. Independence, I thought, was certain in my lifetime, but I was a young and easily impressed 70-year-old then. Those were the days!
Little did I know that 2015 was the high point for the independence campaign and from then, it would be all downhill.
Who then would have been able to imagine the mandates given and the open goals ignored, not missed, because the SNP refused even to take a shot.
And who then would have been able to imagine what would have changed by 2023. Today, the party seem up to their necks in problems: the sudden, unexpected resignation of First Minister; the missing £600,000; the fiddled leadership election; the unlikely battlebus purchase; the former CEO arrested and questioned by the police for 11 hours and who knows how many more. But does this come as a surprise to anyone paying attention to what has happened, or not happened, over the 8+ years since Sturgeon took charge? It shouldn’t.
Let’s look at a brief history of Nicola Sturgeon’s time in charge of the SNP.
2015
The Westminster election, the first after the referendum and after Sturgeon’s coronation. Polling was showing overwhelming support for the SNP, so the leadership knew they were going to win big, though perhaps not just as big as it turned out. However, for reasons known only to Sturgeon, the manifesto included the statement below that a vote for the SNP was not a vote for independence, supposedly, but unneccessarily included so as not to frighten off potential SNP voters who might be ambivalent about independence. However, it’s unlikely the statement had any significant effect on the outcome of the election, but it set the scene for what was to come.
Here’s an extract from the 2015 manifesto. Is it significant that the heading says “Home Rule” (a unionist construct) and not independence? The remainder of the extract then lists a series of expectations which, as we now know, were never realised and, in any case, given the huge English majority in Westminster, were never realistic as the leadership would have known. It was not about “making Scotland stronger at Westminster” as that just wasn’t possible, so what was it about?
This was one of only four mentions of independence in the manifesto, none of which suggested there was any plan, or even any intention, to achieve it and, in the following twelve months, nothing was done. A failure.
2016
Two elections this year, or rather one election and a referendum. The election was for the Scottish Parliament, resulting in another big win for the SNP, though they just failed to repeat the majority achieved by Alex Salmond in 2011. This wasn’t a problem as they had the support of the Greens, who, at that time, were still considered to be an independence supporting party. More of that later.
The 2016 manifesto contained seven mentions of independence, a 75% increase compared to 2015, and it also promised some action. Unfortunately, as we came to expect from a Sturgeon led government, none of the promised action was ever delivered.
Surely the most significant statement was the one on the left, or at least, so it seemed at the time. Here, at last, were definite criteria for progressing an independence campaign. Note that no mention is made of the infamous Section 30, introduced later as yet another stalling tactic.
Of course, as we now know, the significant and material change in circumstances mentioned above did occur, but no use was ever made of it to progress independence.
2017
The election came as the result of a surprise decision by Prime Minister Theresa May (remember her?) in an attempt to get her Brexit bill through Westminster. She had hoped to get a larger majority and a stronger mandate for her plans, but instead, she lost seats and, ultimately, lost her job. However, the Tories’ loss of seats was tiny compared to the SNP’s. The SNP lost over a third of their MPs, falling from 56 to 35 by the simple expedient of ignoring independence.
The manifesto did contain 8 mentions of independence, but no promises of action. As can be seen from the excerpt on the left, being taken out of the EU against our will (in 2016) had morphed into once the final terms are known (by 2020), a handy 4 year delay. The party was also asking for a “triple lock” mandate. One mandate wasn’t enough to trigger action on independence, neither was two mandates, it had to be three mandates. As we now know, three mandates was still not enough.
Could be a cue for a song … “There were three Indy mandates, Spaffed against the wall …”
The SNP had been unprepared for the election, both financially and politically, coming less than a year after the double expenditure in 2016 and being in the middle of their mid-term fallow period, when they didn’t normally feel the need even to talk about independence. Despite unionist media claims that thousands of SNP voters transferred to unionist parties, the simple truth is that about half a million independence supporting former SNP voters just couldn’t be bothered turning out to vote for a party that didn’t consider independence a priority.
In the following twelve months, no action was taken to further the cause of independence.
2018
The start of arguably the worst action ever undertaken by Sturgeon’s SNP, the attempt to discredit Alex Salmond to prevent his return to front-line politics, an attempt that eventually culminated in a High Court trial on trumped-up sexual assault charges.
The action had actually started towards the end of 2017, when a decision was taken to introduce a procedure covering sexual assault charges against former ministers. How this developed is covered extensively by Calton Jock in his posting about the case, so those who want to find out more can read it here.
Sufficient at this stage to say that a procedure covering harassment by former ministers was specially produced by a combination of politicians and civil servants working in concert (some might call it a conspiracy) to prevent Salmond returning to politics. Salmond’s view was that the procedure was flawed and unfair. After several unsuccessful attempts by him to have the procedure reviewed independently, he was forced to take the Scottish Government to court, resulting in a win for Salmond at a cost of over £500,000 to the Government (and the taxpayer). Interestingly, the Scottish Government had continued with the case despite legal advice and only gave in when their own legal team threatened to resign when they found out the Scottish Government had been lying to them.
So determined were the plotters to remove Alex Salmond from politics, that following the loss of the civil case, they escalated the case to the police. Salmond eventually went to trial in 2020 facing 14 charges, all from people with a connection to the Scottish Government. This was despite an unprecedented attempt by the police to drum up other accusations by interviewing over 400 other women with even the slightest connection to Salmond and despite various members of the Scottish Government trying to induce their contacts to make complaints.
Salmond was acquitted of all charges, but that has not stopped members of Sturgeon’s government and other SNP supporters continuing to smear him.
Obviously, with all these legal shenanigans going on, no progress was made to bring independence closer.
2019
The 2019 General Election came again as a surprise and again was an attempt by the Prime Minister Boris Johnson to increase his majority to make it easier to get his often controversial legislation passed. His attempt was much more successful than Theresa May’s earlier attempt, though, despite the large majority he gained from the election, he failed to last out the full term.
The SNP went with a manifesto that was long on the advantages of independence, but short on the actions the Scottish Government were intending to take to achieve it. The extract below is typical of the content of the manifesto.
The manifesto contained 17 mentions of independence, mainly telling Scots how independence will improve their lives, but there was not one mention of how the SNP proposed to achieve it. The extract on the left was typical, proposing a referendum in 2020 with no idea how it might be brought about.
But then came Covid, an excuse for delay so good, that it is almost impossible to believe that Sturgeon herself wasn’t responsible for the pandemic. Covid not only gave the SNP the excuse to stop campaigning (obviously every single person in the government was so tied up with Covid, that no one could be spared for anything else), but it also allowed laws to be passed to prevent all other campaigning, and it was obvious that no election or referendum would be held during the pandemic. This was despite elections and referendums going ahead in other countries with Covid restrictions in place. What was special about Scotland?
It wasn’t as if the restrictions led to Scotland surviving the pandemic particularly well. The Scottish death rate may have been the best among the home nations, but was still among the highest in the world.
So the promised 2020 referendum was cancelled but Covid did give Sturgeon the opportunity to enhance her reputation through frequent television appearances.
2021
The 2021 Scottish election, when Sturgeon advised candidates to remove references to independence from their election literature and when the SNP gerrymandered the regional list to put Sturgeon supporting woke candidates at the top in each region, displacing independence supporting candidates like Joan McAlpine. This was the point when I gave up all hope of the SNP ever returning to being a party of independence. I resigned. Better late than never?
Unlike most of the earlier manifestos the 2021 version contained several promises of action. Look at all the promises made in the in the extract on the left and try to think when these independence related actions went ahead. (Spoiler, they didn’t.)
As I’ve said, promises don’t always lead to delivery in Sturgeon’s SNP.
Another planned event in this year which didn’t go ahead was the Scottish Census, held every ten years since 1801 and only cancelled once, in 1941 because of WWII. Using Covid as an excuse, the Scottish Government postponed the census till the following year. The census went ahead as scheduled in all other parts of the UK. It is not known what particular aspects of the Scottish census made holding it in 2021 too much of a risk, but other events would suggest that the Scottish Government must have gained some advantage. No results have yet been released from the delayed census.
However, what did go ahead was the passing of the Hate Crimes Bill which made it a criminal act to say something which another person took offence to, even if no offence was meant. Of course, if a criminal offence is to be determined by another’s opinion, it is difficult to know in advance whether what you say is against the law. Better to shut up and not take the risk. Was that the real objective?
Here is an extract from the bill (now an act, but not as yet in force as Police Scotland have said parts of it are unenforceable). Note that the impressively long list of characteristics doesn’t include sex, subject to a later decision on whether it should be included or not, which means hate speech against women is not included. It is ironical that a man wearing a dress is covered by the legislation, but a woman isn’t.
The Scottish Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, described in the extract on the left, led to the Gender Recognition \Reform bill. Interestingly, as with the Hate Crimes Act, the protected characteristics mentioned do not include sex.
Following the election, the SNP decided to formalise the relationship with the Scottish Greens and they were invited to form a coalition with two Green MSPs becoming government ministers. It was about this point that both parties, having for years been flirting with gender reassignment policies, seemed to become full-on transgender parties, dropping their interest in Scottish independence beyond its use as a marketing tool. In the eighteen months following, the impression was widely gained that Scottish Government policies were either designed by the Greens or were designed to keep the Greens on-side.
2022
The one action the Scottish Government took in relation to independence was to ask the Westminster Supreme Court if the Scottish Government was permitted to hold a referendum on independence. Unsurprisingly, the Supreme Court said no, as everyone in Scotland expected, with the apparent exception of Scottish Government ministers.
However, there was no follow-up action, no attempt to argue against the decision.
The one major parliamentary activity was the debate on the Gender Recognition Reform Bill. To say the bill was contentious would be the understatement of the year. The main area of disquiet was the inclusion of self-id, not mentioned in the SNP manifesto. This removed the need for a medical diagnosis of gender disphoria, replacing it with a simple unsupported declaration that the individual is now of a different sex (or gender). Poll after poll has consistently shown that a large majority of Scots are against the government’s plans for the introduction of self-id, but no changes were made to take account of these objections. In fact, the provisions contained in the bill were entirely designed with reference to only the minority point of view. Women’s majority viewpoints were ignored, were even declared “invalid” by Sturgeon.
Westminster have indicated that they will use the provisions contained in Section 35 of the Scotland Act to strike down the GRR Act due to its impact on the UK-wide 2010 Equality Act. The Scottish Government have decided to take legal action against Westminster to overturn the decision, an expensive action which is extremely unlikely to succeed. It is perhaps indicative of the relative priority placed by the Scottish Government on these pieces of legislation when they are contesting the Westminster decision affecting Gender Recognition Reform, which only a small minority of Scots support, but just accepting the Supreme Court decision affecting independence.
2023
What can be said about the SNP in 2023? If the SNP are to continue as Scotland’s major political party, changes must be made. Their position of virtual domination in Scotland was created by Alex Salmond and was continued by Nicola Sturgeon only by virtue of her ability to use Alex Salmond’s legacy as a marketing instrument. Her skill was to persuade so many to believe that today’s SNP was still the SNP of 2014, while converting the party into a vehicle for her own ambition, her true ambition, to become Scotland’s most famous political figure of the 21st century. Her every action was based on enhancing her own reputation, not on enhancing the chances of Scottish independence. It was this desire for fame and success that seemed to drive her to seek to destroy those who represented a challenge to her position or those who would disagree with any policy she supported. She wouldn’t ever change her mind, because changing your mind or being persuaded to accept a different opinion was weakness and weakness couldn’t be tolerated.
One aspect of Sturgeon’s SNP has been its ability to deliver electoral success. Unfortunately, this success has created two situations which have contributed to their current problems and may even become the reason for their downfall.
Electoral success persuades those who are benefitting from that success to accept unquestioningly everything the party does, whether they agree or not. A lack of debate within any party leads to the party stultifying, not developing.
Electoral success also attracts those who are not in tune with the party’s goals but who seek electoral success for its own sake, simply for the money, the power and the fame which it brings.
Sturgeon’s SNP has a substantial number of elected members who fit into one or both of these categories and more and more members are starting to realise this, causing the current steady stream of leavers, the loss of membership income and the potential loss of seats and therefore income at next year’s Westminster election.
Postscript
For the government of any country considering independence, there are two actions in particular that they must take.
Firstly, they must begin a continuing process of educating the citizens of the country to show them the benefits that each will gain from independence. This process should begin as soon as independence is mooted and must be continued right up to the date of decision. It should be constantly updated to reflect the then current circumstances. Only then will the people be persuaded that independence is essential.
Secondly, they must begin a continuing process of readying the country for independence by reviewing its infrastructure, its systems of governance, its financial systems and its trade and political relationships and upgrading or replacing where necessary. It is essential that, when independence comes, the country is independence-ready and does not have to go through a period of months or even years of adjustment, preventing the country from getting the benefits of independence that its people were promised.
In both of these areas, the Scottish Government can only be described as having failed.
There has been no consistent campaign to show the people what independence will mean and why they should vote for it. What efforts the Scottish Government have made have been limited to telling the people to persuade their family, friends and neighbours without providing the materials and the information necessary to support such a campaign. The Scottish Government should have been leading the charge, not introducing road blocks.
There has been little effort made to ready the country for independence. The introduction of a few tax processes and social security processes is not good enough. The lack of trading and other relationships with our European neighbours is not good enough. The lack of a truly Scottish Civil Service able to run an independent country is not good enough. In almost every area, the Scottish Government’s attitude has been either there’s plenty of time or we can’t be bothered because nothing’s going to happen for years. Neither attitude takes us to independence. Neither attitude is a winner.
Things have to change and have to change fast. Let’s finish with an instruction to the Scottish Government. Let’s hope the government, under its new leadership, will pay more attention than the lot that went before.
Scottish Government. The time to start is now. It’s time to shit or get off the pot as our American cousins say.
BEAT THE CENSORS Many Facebook sites are increasingly censoring bloggers like myself who can be critical of the actions of the SNP and the Scottish Government. They are attempting to prevent bloggers from getting their message out, so we have to depend on readers sharing the blog posts. If you liked this post or others I have written, please share this and take out a free subscription by clicking the follow button on the home page or on the posts. You will then be notified by email of any new posts on the blog. Thank you.
SALVO The progress of Salvo has been the most encouraging development since 2022. It is doing sterling work educating Scots about the Claim of Right and spelling out what it means that the Scottish people are sovereign, not any Parliament. Salvo has joined with Liberation.scot to develop campaigns the results of which will be available soon.
LIBERATION.SCOT We are seeking to build up liberation.scot to at least 100,000 signatures as part of our plan to win recognition at the UN as an official liberation movement. We intend to internationalise our battle for independence and through the setting up of the Scottish National Council we will develop our arguments to win progress in the international courts. Please help by signing up at liberation.scot. The membership of liberation.scot is also where the first members of Scottish National Congress will be balloted for selection.
While we will all acknowledge that Margaret was wrong to travel to London while waiting for the results of a test, her travel back was following advice given to her by parliamentary authorities, advice also given to several other MPs, what we also need to acknowledge is the huge difference between the treatment she has received, both from the media and from politicians, and the treatment meted out to others who broke the rules. In particular, the response of her “friends” and colleagues in the SNP must have been particularly difficult for her to bear.
Known not to be a keen supporter of the SNP’s gender reform plans, but a keen independence supporter, she received no help from the party, who took the opportunity to try to rid themselves of someone who wasn’t following the party line.
A party member lauded a few months earlier by Nicola Sturgeon for being the hardest worker in the party, she was suddenly the most evil person in Scotland. Nicola Sturgeon immediately called for her to resign, a call that was echoed by many other members of the party, particularly many in her own constituency. It must have been sickening to have the Rutherglen SNP MSP and several local SNP councillors, all of whom had only been elected to their positions through Margaret’s efforts, turn on her, joined enthusiastically by the convenor of the Rutherglen constituency association, her former campaign manager. Politics may be a dirty business, but surely this was beyond reprehensible.
No help, no sympathy, no duty of care, only ‘get out of here, we don’t want you any more’.
Of course, the moment it hit the news again, we had Humza Yousaf, himself in his position under extremely suspicious circumstances, calling for her to resign, just like his former (current?) boss and vowing to spend money the party doesn’t have to campaign for a recall, despite the increasing likelihood of a Labour victory in any by-election. It seems that it’s more important to get rid of a pro-independence MP from Westminster in case she shows the SNP benchwarmers up. However, as we’ll see, not all Covid rule breakers are bad.
It should be pointed out that Margaret broke no Covid laws. At the time only government guidance existed, not legally enforceable, which is why she wasn’t charged with breaking any Covid laws. There were none. Margaret was charged with reckless endangerment, a charge no other MP, or indeed, no one else has ever faced in relation to the Covid crisis. Here’s an extract from Scottish Government advice at the time.
Extract from Scottish Government advice as at October 2020 (highlighting is mine)
We want people to be safe. We are not advising that people who have already booked holiday accommodation in October need to cancel. More generally, please think about whether you need to travel, especially if you live in or would be travelling to, or through, the central belt. The Scottish Government is asking people within the central belt areas to think carefully about whether they need to travel outside their local health board area and, where that is necessary, to plan to do so safely.
Working from home is expected of all those who can. Non-essential offices should remain closed. Public transport use should be minimised as much as possible – such as for education and work – where it cannot be done from home.
At the time MPs were not allowed to take part in commons business remotely. Margaret was scheduled to lead a debate on that Monday, which she could not do from home. One of the reasons for travelling to London was her desire not to let her colleagues down. Ironic, really.
Was her treatment different from that meted out to other political figures? Let’s look at a few examples.
Peter Gibson (Tory MP)
The Darlington MP travelled 250 miles with covid during lockdown, and encouraged constituents to do the same. Speaking to a local newspaper, Mr Gibson said he first came down with a cough on March 18 – before the lockdown, while working in Parliament, and was advised to take the train home. When it was suspected that he had covid, he was advised to travel to and isolate at home, undertaking a 250 mile train journey from London.
He hasn’t been sanctioned and he’s still an MP.
Kit Malthouse (Tory Minister)
POLICING minister Kit Malthouse sparked virus panic in the Home Office after breaching Covid rules, it’s claimed.
Mr Malthouse, 54, took a test on his way to the office but did not wait for the result before going in. It later came back positive. Staff were forced to self-isolate and the Home Office’s HQ in central London had to be deep cleaned and the air vents changed, the Sunday Times reported.
Mr Malthouse has said he did not have symptoms and had taken a “precautionary” fast-acting test which delivers results within 30 minutes. (Why did he do that if he didn’t have symptoms?) Government guidance says workers should remain socially distanced after taking a test until they receive the all-clear.
He hasn’t been sanctioned and he’s still an MP.
Dominic Cummings (Advisor to the PM)
Dominic Cummings trips have been well publicised, first to Durham, 264 miles from his home in London, apparently the only place where he and his wife could get childcare, and then to Barnard Castle, to test his eyesight. You might think an eyechart would be the safer way.
Much embarrassment for the Tory party, but no jail time for Cummings.
King Charles III
As Prince Charles, he and his entourage travelled from his normal residence in England to Balmoral, where, as he had symptoms, he was tested and found to be positive. He and his wife self-isolated, but members of his staff were seen in the village, risking the spread of the disease in an area previously free from infection.
No action was ever taken against any of them.
Ian Blackford (SNP Westminster leader)
Ian Blackford isolated himself after a 600-mile trip to his Skye home while the UK was in lockdown, while calling for Dominic Cummings to resign or be sacked for his trip to Durham. He denied wrongdoing, as MPs were entitled to return home from London to self-isolate.
No action has been taken by either the party or the police.
Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater (Green MSPs)
Scottish Greens co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater were forced to apologise after being pictured in a pub, breaking Covid rules on indoor social gatherings. The two leaders, along with fellow MSP Ross Greer and another man, were seen together in an Edinburgh bar. Edinburgh’s Covid restrictions at the time meant only three households were allowed to be together in indoor hospitality.
The Scottish Greens said its MSPs had made an “honest mistake”.
For the greasy gender Greens, an apology was enough to get them off the hook. The only action taken was for Nicola Sturgeon to reward them with a promotion to her Cabinet, an action repeated by Humza Yousaf. It appears that some Covid rule breakers are acceptable to the SNP leadership.
So why the difference in treatment? Nicola Sturgeon was obviously annoyed because Margaret was strongly in favour of independence, but not a strong believer in the party’s concentration on gender issues and we all know what happens when Sturgeon gets annoyed. No one gets away unscathed with annoying Sturgeon. And, of course, anyone in the party who wants to make progress has to follow Sturgeon’s lead or they’ll likely suffer the same fate. It was the reaction of the SNP leadership that triggered the media frenzy and resulted in the action from the same compliant prosecution authorities and police that had delivered the earlier stitch-up of Alex Salmond.
Ironically, Margaret might be saved by the Tories who don’t want to create a precedent which might affect the decision in the on-going Boris Johnson affair, but we won’t know until the Commons returns from their Easter break.
It was a depressing result. I had almost convinced myself that Forbes would win as it looked as if she had done a deal when she changed sides half way through. If a deal was done, it wasn’t to make her Deputy FM as we saw later with the appointment of Shona Robison, the GRRB queen. You can see Sturgeon’s and Harvie’s sticky fingers all over that. Forbes was apparently offered Rural Affairs (I thought rural affairs were Yousaf’s speciality) which would have been a big demotion from Finance, which she wisely refused. Interestingly, I thought there were rules about sacking or demoting someone on their return from maternity leave. Perhaps they don’t apply to politicians. The rest of his gender neutral cabinet will, I’m sure, be equally interesting.
Of course, Yousaf is not afraid to play the race card. Constantly referring to himself in the election as a minority, he implied that only he of the three candidates was able to have an opinion about trans issues. He also made a statement in Parliament complaining that white people occupied most senior positions in Scottish society, ignoring the fact that the Scottish population demographic is about 96% white.
What else can we take from the election? It looks like the majority of SNP members are not independence supporters. No one would vote for Yousaf if they were, though some might have voted early for Forbes before she changed sides. Ash got only 5.5k votes, much less than I expected though I didn’t really expect her to be better than third. I don’t believe that anyone who voted for Ash Reagan would have put Yousaf as second choice. The two are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. Combined with the nonsense of him saying in an interview that he was ahead on first preferences, this reinforces my view that the vote was fiddled.
Can we still consider the SNP as a party of independence? After eight and a half years of Sturgeon’s inaction and with Yousaf saying and showing every sign of being more of the same, it seems unlikely that the Scottish Government will initiate any moves or undertake any preparation for independence in the next three years. However, you can be sure they’ll make a lot of noise just before the Holyrood election.
I think SNP may lose a lot of seats in UK GE, but that will make no difference as SNP MPs achieve nothing in Westminster anyway. The real danger is 2026. SNP may lose a lot of constituency seats, especially if Alba stands, which I think they should, as the SNP are just one more devolutionist party, but it’s going to take a lot of hard work (and luck) for enough ex-SNP votes to go to Alba to get them elected in any constituencies, so we’ll have to depend on list seats to get an independence majority. And we need an independence majority because the unionists will take their chance to destroy Scotland if they’re in the majority.
It was interesting that Yousaf’s first actions were to beg for an S30 (almost instant rejection, but duty done) and to cosy up to his soul mates in the Greens. Gives a clear indication of what this administration is going to concentrate on.
I wonder if the police investigations into the missing money will continue. Will we ever find out what all the £600k was spent on? We have heard that about £200k went to keep Angus Robertson afloat until he could get a seat in HR. Is it true? It has been suggested that £100k+ went to pay Alyn Smith’s costs for his defamation of the guy in charge of the Brexit party. Is it true? And the rest? Who knows? Maybe on the alleged office refurbishment? Maybe just to keep Sturgeon and Murrell in the standard to which they had become accustomed? Whatever, we know it’s gone and after next year’s UK election, the reduction in seats will mean a corresponding reduction in Short money, so perhaps the SNP won’t have enough to keep them afloat. What then, I wonder?
This makes the election of Yousaf all the more surprising. The SNP must have expected the reaction they got and the likely fallout in terms of membership losses, so what advantage did the party get that was more valuable than the loss of money and position? I suppose we all have our own ideas. Has Yousaf agreed to keep the location of the buried bodies a secret, while perhaps the other two wouldn’t have? Who knows, but it must have been something really important to risk this level of rejection.
Where do we go from here? Is it time to write off the SNP as having any role in the independence movement or should we wait for a few months to see what happens? I think from the reaction to news of the election on Twitter, where umpteen people announced that they were resigning from the SNP and joining Alba, means many independence supporters have already made up their minds. So it looks as if we have but two alternatives. Either we decide that the independence movement can no longer rely on politicians and the people have to make it happen or we have to quickly build up a replacement to the SNP, likely Alba. Both seem fraught with difficulty, but we have one advantage. The UK GE can give us a pointer to which route is working better and we don’t really have to worry too much if we get the tactics wrong because, as I said earlier, the result doesn’t matter if more or fewer SNP MPs get elected as they’ll do no good in Westminster anyway.
So let’s decide what we’re going to do, go for it full steam ahead, and if it doesn’t work out next year, we’ve got two years to revise the strategy before the more important election in 2026.
LATE NEWS Yousaf’s Cabinet announced. The team of all the talents – NOT. He managed (deliberately?) to insult the only two decent ministers (Forbes and McKee) from Sturgeon’s last cabinet by offering them reduced roles which they both turned down. Instead, we have a bunch of GRR pals, pretty much all of them unsuited to their roles, none more so than Shona Robison, who can only count past 10 if she takes her shoes off, Shirley-Anne Somerville, who would have been unsuited for any post, and Angela Constance, the only minister who can give Yousaf a run for failures, so bad that even Sturgeon got rid of her. None of the Cabinet will make Yousaf look bad, but he can do that all himself.
BEAT THE CENSORS Many Facebook sites are increasingly censoring bloggers like myself who can be critical of the actions of the SNP and the Scottish Government. They are attempting to prevent bloggers from getting their message out, so we have to depend on readers sharing the blog posts. If you liked this post or others I have written, please share this and take out a free subscription by clicking the follow button on the home page or on the posts. You will then be notified by email of any new posts on the blog. Thank you.
SALVO The progress of Salvo has been the most encouraging development since 2022. It is doing sterling work educating Scots about the Claim of Right and spelling out what it means that the Scottish people are sovereign, not any Parliament. Salvo has joined with Liberation.scot to develop campaigns the results of which will be available soon.
LIBERATION.SCOT We are seeking to build up liberation.scot to at least 100,000 signatures as part of our plan to win recognition at the UN as an official liberation movement. We intend to internationalise our battle for independence and through the setting up of the Scottish National Council we will develop our arguments to win progress in the international courts. Please help by signing up at liberation.scot. The membership of liberation.scot is also where the first members of Scottish National Congress will be balloted for selection.
Just a quick post prompted by recent events which made me really angry.
Yesterday, I innocently sent an email to my local Yes group offering to forward copies of postings from a guy who calls himself ‘smitty’, who claims to be a mole in the Humza camp. I thought it might be of interest to the members. However, it appears I made a mistake by saying that the postings were BTL comments on the Wings website.
From some replies I got, it seems that not only is Wings vile, but anyone who posts a comment on the Wings’ website is equally vile and those who replied had no interest in seeing smitty’s postings. I have to confess now that I have myself posted comments on the Wings website, so I suppose I must be one of the vile people. I’ll wear this vileness with pride.
I have my own views on vileness and where vileness lies.
In my opinion, true vileness in the Yes movement can only be found in the SNP leadership who have, for the last eight and a half years, used independence as a marketing tool with absolutely no interest or intention of actually delivering it. During that period, nothing has been done to bring independence closer, no campaigning, no preparation, nothing.
In fact, there is an argument that the SNP leadership have actually sought to prevent independence while pretending to support it. Surely, no party supporting Scotland and Scottish independence would ever have ignored so many opportunities, would ever have concentrated solely on controversial and divisive policies, would ever have sold our offshore wind future to multi-nationals for buttons, would ever have ignored the opportunity to improve the island ferry services, would ever have appointed known unionists in senior party and government positions and all the rest.
Nicola Sturgeon, Peter Murrell, John Swinney and virtually 100% of the elected members of the SNP are only in it for the money. They have no interest in delivering independence because it might mean loss of an income that most would have no chance of replicating in the real world. These people have probably destroyed the chance of independence in my lifetime. No other leaders of the SNP have ever had that accolade.
Using the same criteria as with Wings commenters, everyone who still supports the SNP must also be tainted with vileness. After all this time, how can anyone support the leadership’s vileness without some of it rubbing off. (As an aside, any SNP member who votes for Yousaf in the current leadership election is only voting for a continuation of their vileness.)
So, is there a difference between Wings and his commenters and the SNP leadership and their supporters. Yes, there is.
If you think Wings and anyone who has ever commented on the Wings website are vile, you are at liberty to ignore them. They are, after all, only expressing personal opinions which can have no lasting impact on the rest of the world. These people have no power.
However, the same cannot be said of the vileness of the leadership of the SNP. These people have power. They cannot be ignored. Through their control of the SNP and the Scottish Government, their vileness affects everyone in Scotland. It affects unionists, who are happy with the lack of progress on independence, though they pretend not to be. It affects independence supporters, who are increasingly distraught as they see opportunity after opportunity slip by.
So, who is the more vile? Is it those expressing personal opinions on a website that you can chose to ignore, or is it those who have the power to force their vileness down the throats of everyone in Scotland?
Each of you can decide for yourself.
BEAT THE CENSORS Many Facebook sites are increasingly censoring bloggers like myself who can be critical of the actions of the SNP and the Scottish Government. They are attempting to prevent bloggers from getting their message out, so we have to depend on readers sharing the blog posts. If you liked this post or others I have written, please share this and take out a free subscription by clicking the follow button on the home page or on the posts. You will then be notified by email of any new posts on the blog. Thank you.
SALVO The progress of Salvo has been the most encouraging development since 2022. It is doing sterling work educating Scots about the Claim of Right and spelling out what it means that the Scottish people are sovereign, not any Parliament. Salvo has joined with Liberation.scot to develop campaigns the results of which will be available soon.
LIBERATION.SCOT We are seeking to build up liberation.scot to at least 100,000 signatures as part of our plan to win recognition at the UN as an official liberation movement. We intend to internationalise our battle for independence and through the setting up of the Scottish National Council we will develop our arguments to win progress in the international courts. Please help by signing up at liberation.scot. The membership of liberation.scot is also where the first members of Scottish National Congress will be balloted for selection.
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
He said it was 1984, but George Orwell could have been talking about the SNP between 2015 to 2023.
Or perhaps it was Hans Christian Andersen that got it right when he wrote (and I paraphrase) the SNP have no clothes.
For years now, the SNP leadership has been asking members to ignore what was happening, or not happening, to ignore what they were doing, or not doing, and continue to believe they were working towards independence. Party members must believe the party is working towards independence, even if all the evidence appears to prove the opposite.
The 2015 UK election, with 56 out of 59 seats for the SNP was not the time. The 2016 EU referendum, when Scotland voted remain, but England voted leave, was not the time. The 2017 UK election, when the SNP again gained a majority or seats, was not the time. The 2019 UK election, when the SNP again gained a majority of seats, was not the time. Concentrating on the GRR Bill to the exclusion of any effort to advance independence was because it was not the time.
Ah, but, the lack of any obvious signs of action was countered by the party by telling members that Nicola had a “secret plan”. Sturgeon had a plan that had to be kept so secret that it could never be revealed to anyone, not to her colleagues, not to her close friends, not to the members of the party and certainly not to the Unionists. The “secret plan” was a sure-fire winner, but only if it came as a complete surprise to everyone when it was finally revealed.
Then came the resignation and it appeared that Sturgeon had failed to share with anyone the details of the “secret plan” before she resigned. With her no longer in charge, how would the party be able to implement the “secret plan”? That’s when all the years of conditioning of the party faithful really paid off. The resignation is all part of the “secret plan”, said the faithful. The Unionists will be wrong-footed by this unexpected action, said the faithful. They won’t know how to react, said the faithful. Independence is certain, said the faithful.
Perhaps Sturgeon intends to whisper details of the plan into the ear of the new First Minister, always assuming that the person elected as leader of the SNP does actually get elected as First Minister. Obviously, the best way to be sure that would happen is to elect someone the Greens approve of. Of the three candidates, only one is certain to to carry forward Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘legacy’ because you can be sure he (och, I’ve given the game away now) has no ideas of his own, as, like most of the ministers, he’s been doing what he’s been told since he was appointed. Obviously, he’s the only one that will be acceptable to the Greens.
Not to worry, the Greens have plenty of ideas and you can be sure they’ll blackmail the SNP into adopting them. Of course, you could wonder about a cunning plan to destroy the Scotch whisky industry in the guise of the reduction of alcohol use, about a cunning plan to reduce the choice of bottled and canned drinks available in Scotland, about the destruction of the Scottish oil industry, about the reduction in car use by allowing roads to deteriorate to the point they become unusable and about the destruction of the Yes movement by concentrating on women with willies to the exclusion of independence. Are they prices worth paying for Green support?
But that’s what we’ll get if we elect Yousaf as SNP leader and First Minister, because he’s pledged to continue with all Sturgeon’s policy initiatives to keep the Greens onside. Is this the fresh thinking that nearly everyone says we need? Given his performance as a minister, do you think this would be a good choice as Yousaf’s campaign song?
Finally, here’s a view of where Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government are at. This was written before the resignation but clearly shows that ministers in the Scottish Government who have all been repeating Sturgeon’s utterances and telling everyone they were sacrosanct will now have the same difficulty as Sturgeon trying to reconcile their previous statements with today’s understanding.
In the leadership election, for pity’s sake, all you SNP folk, don’t vote for someone who’s pledged to change nothing, who’s going to continue the madness of the last few years. Vote for someone who will really bring fresh thinking to the job and bring the SNP and the Yes movement back on track.
BEAT THE CENSORS Many Facebook sites are increasingly censoring bloggers like myself who can be critical of the actions of the SNP and the Scottish Government. They are attempting to prevent bloggers from getting their message out, so we have to depend on readers sharing the blog posts. If you liked this post or others I have written, please share this and take out a free subscription by clicking the follow button on the home page or on the posts. You will then be notified by email of any new posts on the blog. Thank you.
SALVO The progress of Salvo has been the most encouraging development since 2022. It is doing sterling work educating Scots about the Claim of Right and spelling out what it means that the Scottish people are sovereign, not any Parliament. Salvo has joined with Liberation.scot to develop campaigns the results of which will be available soon.
LIBERATION.SCOT We are seeking to build up liberation.scot to at least 100,000 signatures as part of our plan to win recognition at the UN as an official liberation movement. We intend to internationalise our battle for independence and through the setting up of the Scottish National Council we will develop our arguments to win progress in the international courts. Please help by signing up at liberation.scot. The membership of liberation.scot is also where the first members of Scottish National Congress will be balloted for selection.
One of the constant refrains from the Westminster government is the need to balance the budget, i.e. restrict spending to the level of income. This is constantly used as the excuse to impose austerity on the general population, although, of course, austerity applies only to us plebs, not to MPs, who can vote themselves larger increases in salaries than the rest of us can ever hope to get and can claim expenses of the sort most of us can only dream of.
But that is is a mere pittance to what government friends and the top 1% make (and what MPs can make after they retire from their lifetime of serving the public – 🤣)
For example, there’s the £37bn allocated to the UK Test and Trace system. No one really seems to know how the money is being spent and, in any case, it has produced no discernible improvement in pandemic outcomes (see this from the Commons Public Accounts Committee). Most of that money seems to have gone to private companies and individuals and there’s more billions given to friends and colleagues of MPs to supply PPE, without using sensible (or even any) purchasing rules. Much of it turned out to be useless and is now costing more millions to store before costing even more millions to be destroyed (and we’re not just talking about Michelle Mone here, that’s the tip of the iceberg).
Then there’s the generally accepted statistic that billionaires worldwide (that’s people worth more than $1,000,000,000) increased their wealth by 54% (that’s more than $540,000,000) during the pandemic, sparking renewed calls for a wealth tax. See this report from CBS News. How did your finances do in the pandemic? In the UK, Westminster would only introduce a wealth tax if there were enough loopholes in it to allow all the really rich to avoid it. Their money is all hidden away in tax havens anyway.
For those of you who haven’t yet seen what $540 million looks like, it would create a column almost 37 miles high. When added to the existing billion, that would total 105 miles. Of course, that’s just the minimum entry qualification to the billionaires club. If you were Bernard Arnault, currently the world’s richest man, you would have to contend with a stack 11,130 miles high. That’s almost 25 times as high as Ben Nevis. Billionaires must be really grateful for electronic money.
Recent events are highlighting just the difference between Westminster’s treatment of their mates and the plebs. With government-created inflation running at over 10%, Westminster are refusing to even discuss sensible pay rises for workers who only a year or so ago were being applauded (some with weekly government sponsored gratitude sessions) for risking their lives keeping the country running. You would have thought the government would have been only too happy to reward these important workers with a decent pay rise. Perhaps, having given so much to all their mates, they’ve got nothing left? Aye, right!
Anyway, back to balancing the budget. I was pointed recently to a list of all the countries arranged by income (thanks Macalba). What I noticed from the list was that I had to go down to the 53rd biggest country in the world (Qatar) before I found one who had a budget surplus. (Qatar, of course, has all that oil income, no doubt making it easy to run a surplus. If only Scotland was in the same position.) That’s the 52 biggest countries in the world, all running a budget deficit (and that includes the UK). In fact, top of the list, the USA, the country our government is always seeking to emulate, had, in round figures, a deficit of $4trn on an income of $6trn. To paraphrase Mr Micawber, annual income 6trn dollars, expenditure 10trn dollars, result happiness. I think that’s roughly what he said. By the way, Scotland is not included in the list, not even as a dependent territory, though, if included, Scotland (around $75bn income) would rank above New Zealand (40th – $72bn) and very close to South Africa (39th – $76bn).
So why Westminster’s fixation on a balanced budget? We all know Westminster does nothing that doesn’t benefit Westminster, so what’s the point? Well, as I’ve said, a balanced budget is the excuse for austerity, so perhaps the question ought to be – what’s the point of austerity?
Handing out less money to the plebs must mean there’s more left for the really deserving rich. So, is this the reason? Is it just, as the Four Preps almost said in a song I liked as a teenager:
Musical Interlude
♫ Eliminate the proletariat More money for you and me ♫
(What do you mean, you’ve never heard of the Four Preps. You obviously need educating on the finer aspects of pre-Beatles American popular music. Listen to a song from them that also references other famous groups such as the Fleetwoods, the Hollywood Argyles, the Platters, the Four Freshmen, the Kingston Trio and Dion and the Belmonts. You can listen to it here on YouTube. For best experience, imagine each group as your favourite bunch of MPs/MSPs. “Gosh, Angry, how old are you?“)
Back to the serious stuff.
Or could there be a more sinister reason? Are the Tories really intent on taking us back to the early twentieth century or even the late nineteenth when workers had no employment rights, when your job and your income were dependent on doing exactly what your boss told you and when you could be sacked on a whim if you showed the faintest sign of being a nuisance or if you wanted a living wage?
Other legislation planned by the current Tory government includes banning strikes in certain industries by imposing legal minimum service levels (how long before it becomes everybody) and removing or revising EU based benefits like holiday pay, maternity/paternity leave and maximum working hours. Another Brexit benefit?
Is the attempted imposition of below inflation wage increases, the cuts in real-terms benefit levels and the relatively relaxed approach to huge increases in energy and food prices just part of a softening-up process to make us plebs even more grateful for the pittance in wages or benefits we’re getting than we already are? Remember that the UK is already a low wage economy, with the lowest levels of benefits and pensions in Europe and many families in the UK dependent on foodbanks to survive.
Foodbanks are a fairly recent phenomenon in the UK. First opened in 2000, the numbers have grown to over 2,600. How long will it take before we’re all dependent on food banks, except, by then, they will be funded through charitable donations from the rich, because none of the rest of us will be able to afford it. Makes you think of Victorian times. I hear that Tories are even considering reintroducing workhouses. I wouldn’t put it past them.
With almost two years to go before the next election, there’s loads of time left for the Tories to do untold damage. Even if we get a Labour government at the next election, who would put money on them reversing the worst of the Tories’ excesses. After all, they’ve been promising to abolish (or reform) the House of Lords for more than a hundred years. Anybody notice a change? Oh yes, there are even more Labour peers. By the way, does everybody know that the Lords is the second biggest legislative chamber in the world, second only to Chinese National People’s Congress.
In any case, if the Tories throw a few goodies to the electorate before the election, who’s to say they won’t get back in. But, no matter who gets in, the balance in a balanced budget is always against you.
And by the way, with so much to look forward to, I hope you all have a great New Year. 😉
And if you want a song from the same era, why not try this, Tommy Steele’s Independence Movement anthem to Nicola Sturgeon.
BEAT THE CENSORS Many Facebook sites are increasingly censoring bloggers like myself who can be critical of the actions of the SNP and the Scottish Government. They are attempting to prevent bloggers from getting their message out, so we have to depend on readers sharing the blog posts. If you liked this post or others I have written, please share this and take out a free subscription by clicking the follow button on the home page or on the posts. You will then be notified by email of any new posts on the blog. Thank you.
SALVO The progress of Salvo has been the most encouraging development since 2022. It is doing sterling work educating Scots about the Claim of Right and spelling out what it means that the Scottish people are sovereign, not any Parliament. Salvo has joined with Liberation.scot to develop campaigns the results of which will be available soon.
LIBERATION.SCOT We are seeking to build up liberation.scot to at least 100,000 signatures as part of our plan to win recognition at the UN as an official liberation movement. We intend to internationalise our battle for independence and through the setting up of the Scottish National Council we will develop our arguments to win progress in the international courts. Please help by signing up at liberation.scot. The membership of liberation.scot is also where the first members of Scottish National Congress will be balloted for selection.
Last year, I blogged about what should happen in 2022 to bring independence closer. It’s important to realise that they were not predictions because, if they were, I would have had a pretty poor score. Nostradamus would have little to worry about. For those brave enough to want to imagine what life would be like if these non-predictions came about, you can read the wish list in full here.
In 2021, Sturgeon’s reason (excuse?) for delaying independence was Covid Even though so much was possible during a pandemic, Scottish election, self-id and Hate Crimes, it just wasn’t the right time to progress independence, or even talk about it.
2022 saw a new independence delaying strategy. As the effects of the pandemic faded, meaning it couldn’t be used again, Sturgeon instead referred the concept of an independence referendum to Westminster’s Supreme Court, knowing that a negative response would provide another reason for delay. The Supreme Court obliged by ruling that an independence referendum was outwith the Scottish Parliament’s competence, allowing the promised 2023 referendum to be ditched, without even a real whimper of objection from the Scottish Government.
So much was going to be done in 2022, a new referendum bill, an updated independence prospectus and agreement on the referendum question. What was done was no new bill, three papers on life after independence (widely mocked as useless) and the floated possibility of a three question referendum, including enhanced devolution, which received such overwhelming derision that it hasn’t been mentioned since, though, I suspect, it’s not forgotten.
I suggested that the biggest blockage on the road to independence was Nicola Sturgeon and her leaving would be a big boost for the independence campaign. Given that she didn’t leave and the independence campaign continued to flounder, does that mean I was right? Maybe.
I also suggested that a way to ‘encourage’ the SNP to move on independence was to vote for Alba, ISP or other independence supporting parties instead of the SNP in the local elections. Instead, the SNP got an increased share of the vote and, as a result, took that as confirmation that no movement on independence was necessary. So they did nothing.
So what are my non-predictions for 2023? I still think that Sturgeon’s departure is essential for there to be any movement on independence. Will she go this year? With all her objectives achieved, Hate Crimes, Self-Id GRR and longest serving FM, what’s left to do? I guess only her fear that her work might be undone if she left would keep her in post. Depends how much faith she has in her possible replacements. Given she knows how much she had conned Alex Salmond by 2014 into believing she was the perfect replacement, she could be worried that her potential replacements are similarly conning her.
Without Sturgeon’s departure, it’s hard to see any progress being made. Even with her departure, if she’s replaced by one of the SNP Looney Bunch, most likely Robertson or Smith, then there’s little chance of anything happening. There are no elections planned for 2023 (at the moment) and the chances of the SNP Government resigning to force an election are remote. In fact, more non-existent than remote.
So it’s looking as if 2023 is going to be a pretty fallow year. Unless someone from Salvo or Liberation knows different.
Despite all the depression I’ve tried to spread, I hope you and yours have a happy New Year, and may all your non-political wishes come true. Political wishes? – we can always hope.
Slainte Mhath. Saor Alba.
BEAT THE CENSORS Many Facebook sites are increasingly censoring bloggers like myself who can be critical of the actions of the SNP and the Scottish Government. They are attempting to prevent bloggers from getting their message out, so we have to depend on readers sharing the blog posts. If you liked this post or others I have written, please share this and take out a free subscription by clicking the follow button on the home page or on the posts. You will then be notified by email of any new posts on the blog. Thank you.
SALVO The progress of Salvo has been the most encouraging development since 2022. It is doing sterling work educating Scots about the Claim of Right and spelling out what it means that the Scottish people are sovereign, not any Parliament. Salvo has joined with Liberation.scot to develop campaigns the results of which will be available soon.
LIBERATION.SCOT We are seeking to build up liberation.scot to at least 100,000 signatures as part of our plan to win recognition at the UN as an official liberation movement. We intend to internationalise our battle for independence and through the setting up of the Scottish National Council we will develop our arguments to win progress in the international courts. Please help by signing up at liberation.scot. The membership of liberation.scot is also where the first members of Scottish National Congress will be balloted for selection.
As promised, here’s the update. There was no reply to my second email, even after the vote, so I send a third email commenting specifically on the vote to allow sex offenders to obtain a GRC. I’ve added a copy of email 3 at the end.
As most of you will be aware, I am not a fan of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill (GRR) currently making its extremely swift progress through the Scottish Parliament and likely to become law by the end of this week.
I wrote to my MSP expressing my views and, surprisingly, got a brief reply.
I thought it might be interesting to see the correspondence. This was my initial email …
Click on the images to make them a bit bigger.
And this was the reply.
As you can see, the response fails to address most of the points I raised, contenting herself with gender reform being in the manifesto (self-id wasn’t), that I wrongly described her as a medical professional (I didn’t) and saying practically all the correspondence she’s received has been supportive (must all have been from SNP members). However, she does say she will vote for the bill to support “one of the most marginalised and discriminated against communities in our society”.
With that in mind, I replied …
I await a further response. However, as it’s likely that, if I get a response, it will come after the vote, I thought it might be worthwhile getting it out before the vote. If I get a response, I’ll update the post.
Here’s email 3. Maybe it will be graced with a response.
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SALVO The progress of Salvo has been the most encouraging development since 2022. It is doing sterling work educating Scots about the Claim of Right and spelling out what it means that the Scottish people are sovereign, not any Parliament. Salvo has joined with Liberation.scot to develop campaigns the results of which will be available soon.
LIBERATION.SCOT We are seeking to build up liberation.scot to at least 100,000 signatures as part of our plan to win recognition at the UN as an official liberation movement. We intend to internationalise our battle for independence and through the setting up of the Scottish National Council we will develop our arguments to win progress in the international courts. Please help by signing up at liberation.scot. The membership of liberation.scot is also where the first members of Scottish National Congress will be balloted for selection.
Angry Weegie 