There has been some complaint that Alba are not standing in the Rutherglen by-election, with some suggesting that Alex Salmond should have stood in the constituency. Personally, I’m glad that Alex Salmond is not standing in Rutherglen, simply because he would be viewed as a carpetbagger with no connection to the area.
The whole offer by Alba not to stand came across to me as insincere and political theatrics, as I felt they weren’t going to stand anyway; had they done so they would be painted as the bad guys who cost the Yes movement a seat. I’m fairly certain that the SNP can manage that on their own, and a catastrophic loss there may hasten the departure of Humza Yousaf, allowing the SNP to finally face up to the position they have put themselves, and by extension, the Yes movement.
Alba must now look to the next Westminster election, and while concentrating on electing Hanvey and MacAskill may be a priority for some within the party, Alba must be considering standing in other seats at the next Westminster election. From my own experience, in this area, the party are trying not only to run before they can walk, but are expecting to take gold in the process. It’s all very well folk attending various Nation Council’s and assemblies, but if you cannot even hold a quorate LACU meeting, who exactly are you representing? We have to get the foundations right, and at this time, in this area at least, the foundations which were laid have not been built on. If we cannot get those basics right then we cannot raise funds, organise activists or campaign. In short, we cannot win.
I suppose the last question we have to consider going in to the Rutherglen by-election is: will Alba encourage their voters to “hold their noses” and vote SNP? Given the reasons why people moved from SNP to Alba, a dignified silence would be welcome.
Some time back I submitted a petition to the Scottish Parliament which called on them to make it a legal requirement that if an elected representative of a political party resigned mid-term or otherwise no-longer represented their party, that this should trigger an automatic by-election.
On too many occasions, we have seen the blatant hypocrisy spouted by political parties when one of their councillors or MP’s resigns, or when for example a disgraced MSP resigns only to continue to remain on the public purse until election time. Surely, all political parties would support a move to clean up this grey and shady area of politics? Of course not!
On 22nd February 2023, the Public Petitions Committee met to discuss this very issue,and the outcome was quick and clear: The Scottish Government stated they had no plans to amend this legislation. No MSP had any comment on this, either for or against. Conservative MSP Alexander Stewart called on the petition to be closed and the committee unanimously agreed. Unbelievably, the reason they closed it and unanimously agreed to doso was that the “Scottish Government had no plans to change the legislation”! Isn’t the point of the petitions committee to discuss the merits or otherwise of the petitions, and recommend to the parliament whether it should pursue them or not – not the other way round!
I was quite clear from the beginning when I submitted the petition that it would achieve no change, turkeys after all don’t vote for Christmas,and politicians ultimately look after No1 – that seat on the gravy train must be protected at all costs!
So they next time that there’s a call for a Councillor or MSP to “do the decent thing” and resign, point the hypocrites in the direction of this clip, and ask why they didn’t support it when they had the chance:
If my priorities were genuinely for the environment, first and foremost, I’d be demanding that the Green party focus on those issues, and would want to see it take a neutral stance on other issues, especially the constitution. But that’s the views of someone who would take an active interest in party matters. For many voters the word “green” is enough, and like the SNP with “independence” it becomes a word to mask the other stuff they are actually trying to sneak through in the background, Gender Reform being a notable example.
I have long regarded the Greens as the “soft underbelly” of the independence movement, a party which is susceptible to a complete about face on its constitutional position, if the opposition were smart enough, and I am genuinely surprised that there has not been a British Nationalist Green takeover attempted, or even a rival offshoot which focuses primarily on environmental issues. The Scottish Green Party is small enough that it could be changed from a pro-independence party to a neutral or even pro-UK party with little effort, although this would take time to do. An easier sell to genuine green voters would be a new party, free of the baggage which Mr Harvie & Co bring with them. One only has to look at the effect that a “fake” Green Party had on their vote at the last council elections to see what an easy target they are.
For those independence supporters who still see them as an independence party, their refusal to join the non-party/cross-party AUOB demo on May 6th (unless they approve of who else will share a platform with them) must come as a final wake-up call. A rapid “rid-oot” of the main independence parties is long overdue, and quickly. If we lose Holyrood, we lose any chance of independence in the near future, slight as it may be. The SNP “might” be getting their act together. Will the Greens do likewise?
Colour me unsurprised to see the cold dead hand of Ian McCann still at work as SNP Compliance Officer. Once upon a time I thought this role was about maintaining standards within the SNP. I’ve now come to believe this post is instead designed to gather up all the dirt on individuals within the party, and find how best to cover it up while simultaneously hanging it over the heads of the miscreants to keep them on a short leash and in line. What we have here in one office is an Aegean Stables worth of internal party sleaze, thrown into one massive bucket and suspended by a single wire, over which the Sword of Damocles hangs. Unfortunately for the cabal who were in charge, that sword has fallen, and the contents are beginning to tip out. The election of the continuity candidate Humza Yousaf may well delay the spillage, but to be honest the damage is done. I’m also unsurprised to see Neil Gray mentioned as part of Mr Yousaf’s campaign team. May of the shenanigans I observed in Airdrie under Mr Gray and Alex Neil are now saw writ large on the national stage. I recall the 2015 Westminster selection process for the Airdrie & Shotts seat which saw a plethora of anonymous complaints to SNP HQ about Mr Grays opponents. Candidates such as Craig Murray failed vetting, while others were removed from the short list at the last second to leave a two-horse race in which one candidate was illegally endorsed by office bearers and complaints of GDPR breaches were sent to Nicola Sturgeon, Peter Murrell, Ian McCann and Scott Martin – where they were quietly ignored. There are a few new faces in the list of names calling on the SNP to sort it’s act out in North Lanarkshire in relation to the Jordan Linden scandal – but they are asking the wrong people for help. Asking Ian McCann for help here is like asking Fred West for tips on laying a new patio. The SNP membership need to finally grow a pair and demand action from their leadership to create the fair, open and honest party we were promised – and stop sitting back, eyes glazed after consuming too many carrots, pretending all is well because they are being told all is well. It’s almost fucked beyond repair, and if they don’t act soon then “Once in a generation” will be the best we can hope for.
The Believe in Scotland Facebook page has long since been a waste of time as far as I’m concerned. Apparently politically neutral, I’ve found that you cannot float ideas about what a future Scotland might be like, and you cannot make comments which are not entirely on message. It also doesn’t allow discussion of individual politicians demerits, but does allow praise, no matter how unwarranted or undeserving, so long as it is for the SNP or Nicola Sturgeon (or INSERT NEW SNP LEADER HERE).
Some time back I posted on Believe in Scotland a link to my petition to the Scottish Parliament which would make it a requirement for politicians who leave their parties/jump ship to other parties to resign and force a by-election. To me, this would remove the hypocrisy which we hear every time a politician stands down, that they should “do the decent thing”. Why isn’t the decent thing law? Not an overly divisive topic you might think. Wrong. This was removed. So I tried to ask it as question: should a future Scotland have an open, fair and transparent system, how should that work and what were people’s thoughts. Similarly, removed. Anything outside the Groupthink is deleted.
The fact that we can no longer criticise the SNP or discuss what a future Scotland should look like (if it’s not in line with projected SNP policy) means that Believe in Scotland, for me, has become a waste of time as regards a place of debate. Gordon Macintyre-Kemp has helped produce some fantastic resources for the Yes movement, but as a facilitator of open debate he is abysmal. When you put out such cringe-inducing statements on a forum for “debate” about a figure who has divided the Yes movement, and whose inaction has led to the formation of multiple independence parties (Alba, ISP for example), you should not be surprised to receive replies which are not in line with yours from the “broad church” of the independence movement.
I had to respond: Thank you Nicola – for resigning at long last. You led a ship that was sailing towards it’s destination, steered it into the doldrums before smashing it on the rocks of gender reform. It’s now time for a new captain to take charge , pump out the bilge, and get this ship sailing again. Independence is back on!
For a long time now I have seen Nicola Sturgeon as a block to independence. My first concerns were at the Hydro event in 2015 when she announced her “gender balanced” cabinet, where she was promoting people on the basis of their gender – not ability. I’ve never supported this type of thinking. When you need the best people in post they MUST be there on merit. To do otherwise is to accept that you may be promoting mediocrity over competency.
When she was made aware of allegations of bullying within the SNP in North Lanarkshire there was no response – except a block from her personal account. Was I unsurprised to see the shit-show which then unfolded in North Lanarkshire SNP? No, and when I saw the same type of behaviour unfold at national level, with dirty tricks aplenty design to remove the likes of Alex Salmond from Scottish politics, to block Joanna Cherry from Holyrood, or the action directed at Craig Murray which landed him in jail, was I surprised? No. It turned out that this wasn’t a few bad apples, but a whole rotten barrel.
The independence movement was marched uphill so many times, taken advantage of by a group of shysters who knew that they just had to dangle the carrot of independence to get them to follow. How that comfy slippered elite must be laughing – all the way to the bank…
In the wake of Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation, Gordon MacIntyre Kemp asked this:
In response to this question posed by Mr MacIntyre-Kemp, I answered honestly:
Suffice to say this was not a popular take. I won’t reproduce all the replies, but it’s fair to say that my thoughts were described as not being helpful and more suitable for a No voters page. In response I did say that “One of the biggest problems over the last few years has been the inability to look at ourselves self-critically. It’s very easy to point and shout YOOOOON! when dealing with uncomfortable topics of discussion. Goodness knows, it’s almost impossible to introduce them to this particular forum as they are deleted by the admins. But address them we must. The SNP have been a huge disappointment in many areas, and we are long past the point where we can wheesht for indy. In the face of increasingly out of touch, right-wing administrations in England we should be romping ahead in the polls. People should be demanding independence to get us out of here. Instead we are watching an inept Scottish Government bounce from failure to Scandal, with little sign of success on the horizon. Good, open,honest governance will lead us to independence. I do hope it comes soon,because I’m getting tired of waiting.”
When it was pointed out that the SNP’s raison d’être was independence, and why would they have no appetite for independence I responded that “They have an appetite for carrots. I believe that they have settled in to a comfortable period of semi-colonial administration. They have created a cottage industry in which they, their friends and families now depend on for their income. In short – it pays the mortgage. I believe they will not regain a true desire and appetite for independence until they are deprived of that which they have become reliant on just now – their income. Of course, I fully expect such sentiment to be deleted by the admins. But if we cannot acknowledge reality then we are only lying to ourselves.“
True to form, Admin intervened.
Followed by:
Unfortunately, said “feedback” doesn’t exist. For now I’m unable to make any comment on that page. To be honest, why would I? If you can’t talk honestly about our movement, or the SNP, then you are kidding yourself on. An echo-chamber of self-congratulation might be a comfortable place to spend time for some, where Eastasia will remain at war with Eurasia and the grain harvest will be the best it has ever been, and we’ll all live happily ever after – the way we always have.
Just a brief observation about something which has been niggling away for a wee while. Around this time last year I could pick up a 500ml carton of milk for around 55p-60p across a variety of supermarkets, and around the £1 mark for the 1 litre carton. Similarly most branded white loaves were selling at around the £1 mark also. We are being told that inflation is running at around 9%. That being the case I’d expect that 500ml carton of milk to be coming in at around 65p, and the litre carton in the vicinity of £1.10.
So why am I seeing the smaller carton of milk coming in at around the pound mark – around 40% higher, while the larger carton and the loaf now generally sell for about £1.30 – 30% higher! Much of the everyday shop has risen significantly, and I am unsurprised to see trade unions looking for pay rises in the 10% bracket – way above the below official government sanctioned offers of 2%-4%. Even that 10% figure won’t go far in dealing with the real rise in prices for everyday items – and doesn’t even touch the hike in energy prices.
It really is getting quite tiresome to see criticism of the Scottish National Health Service being deflected with the stock response that it is performing better than England. That’s basically an admission that it is failing, albeit at a different rate. Since Covid, most, if not all GP surgeries have closed their doors to walk in admissions and are operating on a lottery system, whereby the phone lines open and all hell breaks loose as the lines become jammed with people trying to get appointments. I have spent endless hours on redial, selecting from various menus, sometimes successfully, often in vain, trying to get the opportunity to speak to a receptionist who will vet my ailment, before being passed to a nurse or GP, who will then assess whether I will be allowed to attend an appointment. Having been given an appointment I will then head off to the surgery, armed with a book, knowing that the appointment time I have been given is when I must be there, not when I will actually be seen, and I should be prepared to wait for a considerable length of time. But I have an appointment and am one of the lucky ones. On a recent visit to a GP’s surgery I saw a woman breaking down in tears, having spent two days trying and failing to win the telephone consultation lottery, begging to be seen – still only to be stonily told that she must phone for an appointment! It is horrific and humiliating to have to watch people having to shout their personal details and ailments out in front of a packed waiting room to a receptionist screened behind glass. Your embarrassing medical problems are no secret here. There is more discretion in the local pharmacy at least, where special customers are fast-tracked behind a curtain to receive medication.
Many people are now being locked out of medical care. If you have no credit on your phone then you cannot see your GP. If you are working office hours and wish to arrange a more routine GP appointment this is regularly refused because appointments are for “emergencies only”. If we keep excluding people from medical care then we push problems down the line, perhaps until a point where they have developed more serious conditions.
We need the Health Secretary to intervene and immediately reinstate the availability of walk-in and routine appointments to end the frustration and misery that is being caused merely trying to access the system. This isn’t even to mention the problems affecting our hospitals, running at capacity, and with a list of missed targets as long as your arm, despite the efforts of the workforce.
Brexit was almost seven years ago and we knew then the effect it would have on staffing. Seven years is surely long enough to have created recruitment and retention programmes to build up our SNHS to required levels. More people are needed to ensure staff are not burned-out covering vacancies and shortages – a major cause of people leaving that particular line of work. Understaffing is a political failure. Failure to achieve targets set by politicians is a political failure. Every SNP failure is used to undermine the case for independence (while conveniently ignoring that Mother England is a failed state), but our SNHS is too important to be allowed to fail, nor should we be viewing a different level of failure than England as a success. The Scottish Government must up it’s game here. The only way to protect our SNHS in the long term is to gain complete independence to shape a system ourselves, for our needs, not a colonially managed Barnett budgeted one with mitigation round the edges. If Humza Yousaf is not up to the job then for all our sakes, move him aside and find someone who is – before critical becomes terminal.
Amend the Scotland Act 2016 to automatically trigger a by-election if an MSP/Councillor leaves their party
In the UK political system there seems to be no set standards pertaining to what should happen when an elected MSP, MP or Councillor leaves or otherwise no longer belongs to the party that they were elected to represent. In recent years we have seen a number of prominent national politicians, as well as minor local ones, leaving their parties but remaining in their elected positions. In some cases they may remain superficially independent, still voting alongside their former colleagues while some scandal or other settles down. In other cases they will cross the floor and join with another party entirely (or remain on the face of it independent whilst supporting them in every other manner). In some cases they will remain absent from parliament,
Whenever such an act occurs there is usually shouting from members and supporters of the party they have left that they should “do the decent thing”, stand down and hold a by-election. This is a hypocritical stance as almost every party contains some representatives who have done the same thing.
We, the people, seem however to be left out of this whole process and there is a real democratic deficit which should be addressed. We understandably lose trust in the politicians and the political system when such an act takes place.
I feel that it is now time that the Scottish Parliament addressed this and rebalanced the issue in the favour of the people and make the “decent thing” a legal requirement. We cannot reform Westminster, but we can clean up the Scottish system. We need to see the introduction of a level playing field, where going forward every elected representative of the people knows that if they are elected on a party ticket, using that party’s financial resources and using the efforts of that party’s members who go round and leaflet and campaign on their behalf, then should they no longer represent them in any way, shape or form, then that contract is broken and a by-election should be triggered. In such a case they are then free to return to the people and gain a new mandate, as an independent candidate or as a member of another party. It is for that reason that I have submitted a petition to the Scottish Parliament to address this very issue, and it can be found on the Scottish Parliament website, petition number PE1987.
Let us be brutally honest here though. Turkeys do not vote for Christmas. Barely any of our elected politicians will support this act, which is why it is now being put to the people of Scotland through a petition. Politicians will always seek to insulate themselves from the will of the people. Whether this petition succeeds or fails, ultimately it will reveal whether our politicians in Scotland are acting in the people’s interest or their own. I would encourage anyone who wishes to see a parliament which works in a morally proper fashion and which puts the people before the politicians to sign this petition before the closing date of 6th December 2022.
If you agree that this reform is needed then please sign the petition below, and please LIKE and SHARE this petition to help gain as many signatures as possible. Thank you.
Despite the collapse of the UK Government, the sacking of the Chancellor and the crashing of the pound, the First Ministers use of the word detest still seems to be causing much wailing and gnashing of teeth in Tory circles. I’m not a regular viewer of BBC Debate Night, as I seldom watch the BBC in any case, however I did catch Tory MSP Jeremy Balfour’s performance on the show on Wednesday, and I really wish I hadn’t. Aided by a number of Tory plants in the audience, and a set-up question, Mr Balfour claimed that the First Minister’s phrasing that she detested Tories bordered on being a “hate crime”. I will not indulge in whitabootery and lay out a long line of British Nationalist commentary, from the UK Government or their supporters as a counter argument. I’d be here all year. I would however address one thing Mr Balfour said. He stated that you can detest Tory policies without detesting individuals. Can I just point out that Tory policies do not originate in a vacuum? They originate from the Tories themselves, be it at the lower levels where they feed their petty, spiteful demands up the chain, or from the top where they chase the right wing voters, promising to sanction more people, deport more people, punish criminals harder and heavier, and puff themselves up as they play havoc with other people’s lives and destroy families in the UK and abroad. Many Tories deceive themselves that they are “good” Tories who only want the best for their community, while turning a blind eye to the less palatable activities of their party, but I’d remind Jeremy that there’s an old Scottish saying, “If ye run wi’ the craws, ye get shot wi’ the craws”. If Jeremy Balfour does not want to be associated with such detestable, inhumane and repellent policies then perhaps he should join a less detestable, inhumane and repellent party which has less detestable, inhumane and repellent members. Until that day he should not be surprised if people are less than enamoured with him and his circle of friends, and choose to find him as detestable as those he surrounds himself with.
The SNP’s loss of North Lanarkshire Council after a mere 3 months of control is a disaster which was completely foreseeable and completely avoidable. Yet the red warning flags which the membership waved were ignored by all and sundry and this is the result. The Jordan Linden debacle was an open secret, and while others in the SNP failed vetting for the most spurious of reasons, Mr Linden had a path cleared for him, one he was most clearly unsuitable for.
SNP (Now Labour) Councillor Michael Coyle in 2017: “The people have shown they do not want independence”.
Even less of a surprise was the defection of Councillor Michael Coyle. In 2017 he was quoted after the council elections as saying that “the people have shown they do not want independence” in response to being asked why the SNP failed to win control of North Lanarkshire Council. In reality, it was the infighting, backstabbing and pursuit of personal gain within the party which saw the SNP come up short.
It is amusing to see the mugs who shouted down the people who tried to warn the party of such behaviours now standing open mouthed in horror as their rock-solid councillor moves to the British Nationalists. Yesterday Anas Sarwar crowed of his victory and that Labour were taking back control after months of “sleaze”. It will be interesting to see whether Mr Coyle is rewarded with a paid convenorship for his duplicity (not to mention the loss of his job with SNP MSP Neil Gray).
A number of years ago I raised a petition with the Scottish Parliament with the aim of ensuring that if an elected representative resigned from the party they were elected to stand for, that should automatically trigger a by-election. The SNP led parliament rejected this. I am now seeing much wailing from SNP members that Cllr Coyle should resign and force an election. Indeed his fellow Airdrie South Coucillor Paul DiMascio demanded that very thing within hours of Cllr Coyle’s treacherous defection. That ship has sailed, and there is as much chance of Cllr Coyle doing the honourable thing and resigning as there is of me winning the Tour-de-France. Perhaps now the members of the SNP can force a much-needed change in our democratic system from within their party, lest this type of thing happens again, because one thing is for sure; it is not in the personal interest of any politician to implement such change. Until that day, the rules of politics are that there no rules, but one. Look after your own interests, first and foremost.
An Independent Scotsman 