Friday , October 4 2024

Tag Archives: SNP

In Liz we Trusst

Politics is partly about opinions and persuading others to vote for those opinions, but it is much more about truth. In an election we are faced with a choice between Labour and the Conservative parties. Each puts forward a set of policies and personalities and the voters choose between them. …

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Sturgeon lacks the intelligence in both senses of the word

There is a moment in the Godfather when Vito Corleone tells his rather dense son Sonny “Never tell anybody outside the family what you’re thinking again.” He was right. The fact that Sonny revealed his opinion leads directly to an assassination attempt on Don Corleone and indirectly to Sonny’s death. …

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The SNP have just been badly defeated

Things haven’t been going terribly well for Nicola Sturgeon in recent weeks. Her one-time Covid elimination strategy looks still more foolish now when even New Zealand has had to abandon it. If the saintly Jacinda Arden cannot manage to keep Covid from spreading in a country two and half thousand …

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A new wicked Tory Poll Tax?

The SNP has responded to the rise in National Insurance by calling it a poll tax on Scottish workers. The complaint is that the tax rise will be used to fund health and social care in England, which will mean Scottish tax payers paying for something they won’t use and …

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Refusing to serve Dominic Cummings is mere bigotry

Last year Boris Johnson went on holiday to the Applecross peninsular in the West Highlands. After a few days his presence there was discovered and he and his family were forced to leave. This year we learn that Dominic Cummings went to the Ceilidh Place in Ullapool and the staff …

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The worst thing the SNP can do to you

What’s the worst thing the SNP could do to you personally? Many Pro UK people would assume that it would be if Sturgeon achieved her goal of Scottish independence. But this is not true. Whatever we might think about the economic consequences of the breakup of the UK these would …

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The Great Indy and Ref Swindle

If I go around knocking on doors collecting for a local cancer charity, but it turns out the money is going to me, I am liable to be convicted of fraud and might expect to spend some time in jail. If Nicola Sturgeon asks independence supporters to provide money for …

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Could the SNP avoid a hard border after Scexit?

While support for the SNP remains high and while many Scots support independence at least in theory, there is no question now that both face an intellectual challenge over EU membership. For this reason, the independence movement has become divided over how to overcome the challenges caused by Brexit. While …

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How to make her unhappy

I have been writing less since the Scottish Parliament election. The mood has changed. It is partly because it is summer. I have been more interested in using the sunshine to travel around Scotland than write about Scottish politics. But it’s not just me. Both sides of the constitutional divide …

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The only difference between Hartlepool and Hamilton is nationalism

The North East of England is the place that feels most similar to Scotland. It is post-industrial like the Central Belt. The accent and dialect are similar as is the culture. If by an accident of history, the North East of England were part of Scotland no one would notice …

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How to beat the SNP next Thursday

I haven’t been writing much about the Scottish Parliament election lately. This is for a number of reasons. I am not very interested in election campaigning. I’m better at political argument. I have minimal interest in the peculiarities of the electoral system where we have one vote for the constituency …

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The hard border job creation scheme

It’s 2025 and I’m about to begin my latest journey to Berwick upon Tweed. Every month or so since independence I’ve had to get up early so that I can get to a giant hypermarket that has been built just over the border. But it would be unfair to suggest …

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The Sturgeon/Salmond Pact

It’s not very long ago that Alex Salmond was accusing Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government of conspiring to put him in jail. Now he wants her not only to continue as First Minister, but in a few years most likely to be the first leader of an independent Scotland. …

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How to maximise the Pro UK vote in Scotland

It’s important to understand how the Scottish Parliament election system works to find the best way to defeat the SNP and other pro-independence parties such as the Scottish Greens and Alba. The latest poll is as follows SNP 42%    Cons 22%   Lab 17%     Green 8%    Lib Dems 8% The SNP has had around a …

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Humza’s hate crimes

The Scottish Parliament has passed Humza Yousaf’s hate crime bill by 82 votes to 32. It has been modified considerably since being introduced. Attempts have been made to assure us that free speech is protected. But the whole concept of hate crime is fundamentally flawed, and this is not changed …

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Should All for Unity have Sturgeon worried?

All for Unity – Unity’s the name, and unity’s the game. The party, founded as the ‘Alliance for Unity’, but renamed at the behest of the electoral commission is the creation of (gorgeous) George Galloway, and until recently, it was led by him too. Jamie Blackett is the man in …

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Teflon Nicola

Nicola Sturgeon compared the legal case which the Scottish Government lost to Alex Salmond paying him more than half a million, with the case about minimum unit pricing for alcohol. She said that in every such case there is negative legal advice and if a Government ceased every case whenever …

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Resign Sturgeon

Nicola Sturgeon thinks that Alex Salmond is a fantasist living in an alternative reality.  It was his behaviour towards women that led to his going to court rather than a conspiracy orchestrated by her. She thinks there is no evidence whatsoever that she did anything wrong. It is quite clear that …

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Sturgeon has no mandate for anything now

Imagine there was an inquiry into a Government’s handling of a sexual harassment case in another country and we were following the details from afar. How would we react if we discovered that someone called Fabiani was the chair of this committee, but she had previously been sacked by someone …

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The EU has undermined the SNP argument

The fundamental misunderstanding that forms the basis of Scottish nationalism has been undermined by a statement from the European Commission. When the UK finally left the EU, the Government decided not to continue to take part in the Erasmus Program, but instead to replace it with the Turing Scheme. The …

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