Unsurprisingly, Scotland's media ─ mainstream, alternative and social ─ is awash with speculation about who will be Nicola Sturgeon's successor as SNP leader, First Minister and de facto head on the independence movement now that she has chosen to step down. Much of this speculation is poorly informed, based on no more than a potential … Continue reading A mountain to climb
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
Congratulations are due to The National for managing to eschew purple prose of the 'soaring' variety in its latest report on polling for Scottish independence. The article continues to peddle the SNP/Scottish Government line that support for Yes is increasing. But on this occasion The National only goes as far as describing the polling results … Continue reading Reasons to be cheerless
Alyn Smith MP would have to talk a huge amount of sense about the constitutional issue to get his credibility account back in the black after his oft-repeated inanity about Scotland never having been closer to independence. His column in The National today doesn't even make a dent in his overdraft. Admittedly, he is not … Continue reading All pain and no gain!
There were 15 polls* published between the 2014 referendum and the 2015 UK general election. The average for Yes is 45%. There have been 16 polls published since the 2021 Scottish Parliament election. The average for Yes of the first 15 of these polls is 45%. Most people won't need the import of this explained … Continue reading Flatlined!
That the Union has always been a bad deal for Scotland is not in doubt. Even in those periods of history in which a case can be made for saying Scotland has benefited from being in this purposefully grossly asymmetric political union - such as the age of the British Empire - any claimed benefits … Continue reading Our own worst enemy?
When I was a child I spoke as a child I understood as a child I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things.I Cor. xiii. 11 When I was a child I believed as a child. When I was a child I could be deceived as a child is deceived. When I was a child I was wishful as a child is … Continue reading Keeping it real
The only reason the polls aren't higher is Nicola Sturgeon's failure to take advantage of these circumstances. It is a failure of strategic political thinking stupefying in its self-serving stupidity. A series of appalling misjudgements - such as committing to the Section 30 process and choosing to fight Brexit rather than the Union - has left the independence movement in disarray and Scotland's cause in a precarious state.
Peter A Bell 