Author: Peter A Bell

Thinker. Listener. Talker. Reader. Writer. No attitude immutable. No conclusion final. No opinion humble.

War of words

~ Peter A Bell ~ 6 Comments

We are all aware of how that fateful phrase 'once in a generation' has come to haunt Scotland's cause. I don't doubt there are times when both Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon wish they'd never offered up that particular hostage to fortune. What makes it truly regrettable is that they could easily have left it out. It wasn't essential. There are other ways of saying the same thing. Not so with the word 'supermajority'. It's not a throwaway remark. It refers to a very specific concept. A concept which is very much part of this election campaign. There isn't really an alternative. There may be other ways of saying the same thing. But none, I suspect, that wouldn't sound painfully contrived. We're stuck with it now.

Comparing offers

~ Peter A Bell ~ 27 Comments

Nicola Sturgeon has set her sights so low that pretty much any offer Salmond makes is going to look better. And, being the crafty politician that he undoubtedly is, he not-quite-promises no more than he has to. No more than will seem a prize next to the not-quite-promises Sturgeon is putting on the table. Sadly for Scotland, neither of them is offering what we need at this time of our nation's great peril.

Shifting sands #2

~ Peter A Bell ~ 15 Comments

It is certain that we cannot rely on the SNP/Nicola Sturgeon doing what is required. They might yet surprise us by adopting the Manifesto for Independence. But it has to be said that this looks very unlikely. It is not the case that Sturgeon has lost her desire for independence. It's undeniably the case that she has lost her passion for independence. These days, it's no more than a preference. The SNP could have been in a position to make independence as inevitable as they keep telling us it is. They chose not to. As a member of the party I want the leadership to know that this is a dereliction that I do not forgive and shall not forget.

Shifting sands #1

~ Peter A Bell ~ 13 Comments

Obviously, any splitting of the independence vote would weaken the Scottish Government's mandate. To establish what I termed a 'super-mandate', the party of government would ideally have over 50% of the popular vote on both ballots. The SNP was always going to be the party of government - barring an unthinkable catastrophe - so the first task had to be 'persuading' the SNP to adopt the Manifesto for Independence. Or at least the critical parts thereof.

Sturgeon’s last chance

~ Peter A Bell ~ 19 Comments

Sturgeon hopes that her statement will be seen as a commitment to urgent action. She provides the notion that those blinkered by their idealised perceptions of Sturgeon can take and inflate into a binding promise. But to the vanishingly little extent that it is a promise at all, it is one that she can easily wriggle out of. We have to wonder why, if the situation is as perilous as she describes, she is so reluctant to give a real promise while at such pains to be perceived as doing so.