I expect we are all familiar with online trolls. For those who may not be, a troll in the context of social media, below-the-line comments etc. is a person who intentionally antagonizes others online by posting inflammatory, irrelevant, or offensive comments or other disruptive content. Most of us have developed strategies for dealing with the … Continue reading Beware of the trolls!
Our focus, I think, rightly needs to be on holding the UK Government to account and promoting the brilliant work of the Scottish Government where possible, but making that case for Scottish independence. Now walking out of the chamber on a weekly basis will not achieve any of those aims. It just means there's going … Continue reading Nothing to lose?
I begin to suspect that Gerry Hassan doesn't want to talk about process because that is the difficult bit. Any fool can talk about policy. We regularly elect scores of such fools. Anyone with a bit of imagination can speak of their 'vision' of Scotland with independence restored. But without a process by which independence … Continue reading Don’t mention the process!
I confess my heart leapt just a little when I read the headline in The National announcing an 'SNP bid to amend Scotland Act to allow Holyrood to hold indyref2'. Could this possibly be the kind of bold, decisive action some of us have been urging on the SNP/Scottish Government for several years? Was the … Continue reading Bolder! But wiser?
Given that participants are being vetted by Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp, and that a 'code of conduct' is being prepared for those who are approved, there doesn't seem to be much possibility of any fresh thinking coming out of this Scottish Independence Congress. If there is one thing Scotland's cause desperately needs it is fresh thinking. Gordon … Continue reading Unity for failure?
Treat with great caution claims that majority support for independence has “crystallised”. Certainly, we are seeing a sequence of polls indicating majority support. But we've seen this before. From June 2020 to January 2021, Yes led in 20 successive polls. Thus far, the latest sequence of polls showing a Yes lead numbers only 4. So … Continue reading Keeping it real
There shall, I'm certain, be more than a few nods of agreement when I say that I find the behaviour of Sturgeon/SNP loyalists and apologists at all times maddening and on occasion quite sickening. The behaviour of some of these sad creatures over the last few days has fallen into the latter category. Quite unintentionally, … Continue reading And lo! Arses were covered!
Where nothing moves. Average Yes in 12 polls* following Sturgeon becoming leader = 45.25% Average Yes in 12 most recent polls to 5 December 2022 = 46.00% SNP/Scottish Government under Sturgeon has failed to advance Scotland's cause at all in eight years! #DissolveTheUnion #ScottishUDI *Polls using 2014 Referendum Question
I like to tell the story of the vague epiphany I underwent some years ago when, during the open discussion section of a meeting at which I was guest speaker, someone used the phrase "dissolve the Union". One of the things I most enjoyed about those speaking engagements was that I almost always came away … Continue reading Old thinking. New thinking.
If you are clutching at straws, at least make sure they are real straws. The straw some independence activists had been clutching at was the notion of persuading Nicola Sturgeon to commit political hara-kiri by resigning and ultimately forcing an extraordinary general election as her colleagues in the pro-independence parties blocked the election of a … Continue reading A straw to clutch
Peter A Bell 