I wonder if Keith Brown is as nostalgic as I am for the days when speeches such as the one he's reportedly addressing to the SNP conference-like-thing sparked enthusiasm rather than soporific ennui. I wonder if he's even aware of the negative effect the "rallying cry" now has on those who were once positively affected. … Continue reading Reading the room?
If Nicola Sturgeon is correct and the Section 30 process is the only "legal and constitutional" way to a new independence referendum, does this not mean that all other ways are 'illegal and unconstitutional'. And yet here we have two other very senior figures in the SNP saying, in effect, that what Nicola Sturgeon has identified as the only "legal and constitutional" way isn't in fact "legal and constitutional" at all!
Don't tell me the British are panicking! I'm not stupid and I will not be patronised! They are not panicking! They are calmly, coolly and arrogantly going about the business of protecting and advancing their own narrow interests at the expense of anyone they can push the cost onto. Scotland being at the head of that particular queue! They are perfectly relaxed; leaning against the Union knowing it will protect them so long as they preserve it.
In the context of the fight to restore Scotland's independence, it doesn't matter if the SNP win. It doesn't matter if they win by a huge margin. It's essential that the SNP wins. But only because this ensures that the British parties lose.
The closest thing to information Keith Brown might impart to these eager new arrivals on the Yes side is that it depends. Whether and when there is a referendum depends. What form the referendum takes depends.
Comments such as Keith Brown's and the kind of headline The National makes of it, serve only to encourage dangerous complacency and promote the ludicrous notion that we need only wait and independence will come to us.
British Nationalists see a different reality. A reality defined, not by anything substantial or measurable, but by faith-based ideology. A better headline might have been 'Majority of crypto-theocrats deny existence anything that conflicts with their beliefs!'. Although I can well understand why The National went with its own version.
We can do whatever we are sufficiently determined to do! We have whatever power we choose to assert! We are under absolutely no obligation to obey any rules other than those we make for ourselves! We have to be seen to be willing to defend our democracy! I expect our politicians to do the job we elected them to do!
The SNP leadership has seized on the Ashcroft poll with the eagerness of someone accused of a serious crime who has suddenly been offered an alibi. At last! Something they can represent as vindicating the relentless waiting that has become their only discernible strategy.
The BBC no longer merely promotes the Union, as its charter commands. The BBC has now adopted - or allowed to develop - an editorial stance which actively opposes a lawful democratic campaign for constitutional reform which is supported or condoned by the majority of Scotland's people.
Thinker. Listener. Talker. Reader. Writer. No attitude immutable. No conclusion final. No opinion humble.
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Peter A Bell 