Sturgeonland

[57vintage]

I'll accept what you write about the SNP. It is nearly impossible to argue, but...

Do you think our leaders down in London (the Tories) are doing a better job as a whole than what is happening up here?

No, of course I don’t. But it isn’t binary. That’s Animal Farm stuff again, “Surely you don’t want Jones to come back?” It’s been the flawed SNP defence of failure since they took power, ie “we’re not as bad as….” “our failure rates aren’t as bad as…” and so on. Apart from drugs deaths and nautical construction which are “taking the eye off the ball”.

I said previously that post-1999, the Scottish people have got used to looking to Holyrood for governance and leadership. It’s not a pretty picture, and I have every right to point out that both governments are filled with feckless, spin-addicted shysters and chatlatans who like the lifestyle but not the toil required. The fact that we now freely admit that we have ‘a political class’ should be like a mega-megawatt klaxon ringing in every lug.

I remain disenfranchised.

[57vintage]

People wonder why a lot of the public are uninterested in politics:

Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, Douglas Ross said "Where there is the strongest candidate to beat the SNP, you get behind that candidate."

We've nothing to offer you but don't let those *******s in.

"This is emphatically not the view of the Conservative Party," a Tory spokesperson said. [but we endorse the thinking behind it]

It’s almost as if tactical voting has never been deployed before, but my 2019 tactical vote will be my last. I’m sick to fûck of sending otherwise- invisible bland lobby-fodder to parliamemts to suck on the teat and change fûck all.

[Donanddusted]

Those wanting independence are called myopic but unionists need to take the mote out of their eye.

[TheDeeDon]

No, of course I don’t. But it isn’t binary. That’s Animal Farm stuff again, “Surely you don’t want Jones to come back?” It’s been the flawed SNP defence of failure since they took power, ie “we’re not as bad as….” “our failure rates aren’t as bad as…” and so on. Apart from drugs deaths and nautical construction which are “taking the eye off the ball”.

I said previously that post-1999, the Scottish people have got used to looking to Holyrood for governance and leadership. It’s not a pretty picture, and I have every right to point out that both governments are filled with feckless, spin-addicted shysters and chatlatans who like the lifestyle but not the toil required. The fact that we now freely admit that we have ‘a political class’ should be like a mega-megawatt klaxon ringing in every lug.

I remain disenfranchised.

For me and many others our only chance to make things better for Scotland is to split from the union. There is no other alternative.

I'm not expecting a land of milk and honey or even a "poof's paradise". Just something that little less shi t stained than what's currently on offer.

We can call the SNP this, that or the other. The alternative, for me at least, isn't even worth thinking about.

I became disenfranchised a long time ago and the only thing that still makes me cross the box on the ballot paper is the hope of an independent Scotland.

From that point we determine the sort of country we want to live in and I would be looking to Europe to model that on, rather than anything over the wrong side on Hadrian's Wall.

[donsdaft]

Hemmin 57 min.

I've always realised you've had it in for the SNP.
I've always just assumed that it's because you've been involved in politics at various levels and grew to dislike them, possibly because they were a danger to Labour ( albeit left wing labour)

But why against Scottish independence? Not just your obvious dislike of tartan wearing shortbread eaters.

[57vintage]

Hemmin 57 min.

I've always realised you've had it in for the SNP.
I've always just assumed that it's because you've been involved in politics at various levels and grew to dislike them, possibly because they were a danger to Labour ( albeit left wing labour)

But why against Scottish independence? Not just your obvious dislike of tartan wearing shortbread eaters.

I’m not against Scottish independence. I’m just fed up, and was glad to hear Kate Forbes articulate it during a podcast, of hearing ‘independence’ described in abstract, without its being made concrete by, as she said, showing the people of Cromarty or Dingwall what it will mean for them, what with the new spurning of the previous grievance major of “oooor ile”, big in the local economy, and what independence means for them in their daily lives.

Salmond tried hard with the 2013-14 White Paper, but there were huge structural gaps, a lot of premises based on guesswork, and some ill-fitting stuff that would be far more at hone in a Party manifesto (childcare provision was not strategic in the context). It’s probably the best effort there’s been, but it was vague, and based on too many ifs and buts to be convincing to enough voters.

I also think that the panic-buying of lavvie paper, diesel, and foodstuffs three years ago was as endemic north of the Tweed/Solway as it was elsewhere, trashing, as farcas I’m concerned, the “wha’s like us” fanciful insecurity-based exceptionalism that I hear spouted.

“Fûck the English” isn’t good enough.

As Gram Parsons wrote,
“The man on the radio won’t leave me alone
He wants to take my money for something that I’ve never been shown”.

Interesting in today’s Scotland On Sunday that research is now showing that whilst support for independence is pretty static around the mid-40% mark, voters are sidling away from The Party.

The SNP is now becoming a problem now that Sturgeon’s iron fist is gone, and the former pee-heeing dissemblers are backtracking from their Sturgeon quim-licking that has been obvious to many of us for as long as she and her beard have been in the top jobs.

[Shetland Don]

Hemmin 57 min.

I've always realised you've had it in for the SNP.
I've always just assumed that it's because you've been involved in politics at various levels and grew to dislike them, possibly because they were a danger to Labour ( albeit left wing labour)

But why against Scottish independence? Not just your obvious dislike of tartan wearing shortbread eaters.

Maybe something to do with their vile, divisive, racist undertones, the fact that the Party became virtually synonymous with independence and made a complete mess of almost everything that they touched, failing ever to recognise their significant deficiencies. As for the financial risks of independence, the list goes on and on ….

[InversneckieDob]

No, of course I don’t. But it isn’t binary. That’s Animal Farm stuff again, “Surely you don’t want Jones to come back?” It’s been the flawed SNP defence of failure since they took power, ie “we’re not as bad as….” “our failure rates aren’t as bad as…” and so on. Apart from drugs deaths and nautical construction which are “taking the eye off the ball”.

I said previously that post-1999, the Scottish people have got used to looking to Holyrood for governance and leadership. It’s not a pretty picture, and I have every right to point out that both governments are filled with feckless, spin-addicted shysters and chatlatans who like the lifestyle but not the toil required. The fact that we now freely admit that we have ‘a political class’ should be like a mega-megawatt klaxon ringing in every lug.

I remain disenfranchised.

It's the disenfranchisement that's pushed me to independence.
It's not binary, no, but I'd ask you the question, in your lifetime do you envisage ever seeing a Westminster government whose policies and ethos you don't find morally, ethically and politically repugnant?
From me, it's a hard no.

In an independent Scotland I'd like to think we'd move away from a political class, towards a more mature politics.

Mebbe a naive pipedream but in 2023 when there are people ("hard working families" (tm)) relying on food banks, genuinely debating heat or eat........
And political discourse in Westminster is boiled down to a bunch of real-world-innocent gob-sh1tes braying at each other during PMQ, by fu ck it's time to take a bomb to the whole shooting match.

What would a post independence Scotland look like in the early stages?

Not a clue.
I've no doubt the Brits would try to stiff us in the terms off the divorce, that's when we'll need our big beasts and finest legal and constitutional minds to come to the fore.

Hopefully, the Unionist Scots would respect the result of the plebiscite and work "in the national interest" to put a model in place.

Me and my naive pipedreams again.

[InversneckieDob]

Maybe something to do with their vile, divisive, racist undertones, the fact that the Party became virtually synonymous with independence and made a complete mess of almost everything that they touched, failing ever to recognise their significant deficiencies. As for the financial risks of independence, the list goes on and on ….

Ah, The Gospel according to the Daily Mail!
On Easter Sunday, how appropriate.

I don't like to go down the "Whataboutery" Road but if you're looking for "vile, divisive, racist undertones" maybe have a look down the Palace of Westminster.
Except there you'll find overtones rather than undertones.

[57vintage]

You lost me at “I’d like to think”. That sort of ‘we’ exceptionalism fûcks me off. It’s one of the ‘one size fits all’ homogenisations that allows areas of Scotland to be treated the same way as the new Party heartlands where needs and aspirations are quite different. A sort of mini-Westminster.

One of the key props of the devolution I fought fûcking hard for in 77-79, and throughout the 80s and 90s via the Wright Convention when The Party was in the huff, was the PROCESS of devolution which had subsidiarity at its heart, ie DEVOLVING MAXIMUM DECISION-MAKING TO AS CLOSE TO PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE. That’s been total(itarion)ly trashed by the past 9 years of obsession with centralisation and control by She Who Has Just Run Away Before The Shîte Hits The Fan.

Eroding people’s local and regional identities isn’t attractive to me. My ‘micro-we’ is as important as anyone else’s macro.