Set aside, for the moment, your personal feelings about the SNP. Put from your mind, temporarily, antipathy to this or that policy or position. Take your frustration and anger at Sturgeon's abject failure to properly lead Scotland's independence campaign and stick it at the back of your sock drawer. It'll still be there when you … Continue reading Twins
It is now three months ─ 91 days, to be precise ─ since First Minister Nicola Sturgeon stood in the chamber of the Scottish Parliament and delivered what has come to be known simply as her independence referendum speech. More correctly, we should say that she took to her feet to deliver her latest independence … Continue reading Bare words
For the Sturgeon/SNP loyalists there is no possibility of bad news concerning their hero as they simply will not hear it. I am a realist. I have not the slightest interest in Panglossian fantasy politics. Or mindless faith positions. I have wits enough to know that one cannot chart a course without precise knowledge of … Continue reading Time’s up!
There are three points that your resident realist must make about The National's predictably breathless report of the latest polling before the Sturgeon claque arrives littering the place with streamers and drowning out all pragmatism with their shrill fantasies and hymns to the anointed one. Firstly, noting Professor John Curtice's comments regarding the fall in … Continue reading The barren, unchanging landscape
Richard Walker isn't angry. And he doesn't want you to be angry, either. At least, not so as anybody would know. It's understandable that you might be angry. Your anger is justified. But if you want to be accepted as a genuine independence activist then you must not let that anger show. Inwardly, you may … Continue reading Are you angry yet?
Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it's my age. Or maybe it's the fact that I've been spending too much time online 'engaging' with people who would be best ignored were it not for the fact that the constitutional issue is so important. The aggravation and the frustration and the sense of futility are very wearing. … Continue reading Down and out
"We are not four separate nations…" - Liz Truss The British Prime Minister-in-waiting could hardly be more explicit about the 'One Nation' British Nationalist agenda she intends to pursue. British politicians are now quite openly denying Scotland's existence as a nation. What is true for Scotland also applies to the rest of the periphery. Only … Continue reading Saving Scotland
Regardless of which rat emerges victorious from the sack of the Tory leadership fight, the next British government will be the most brutally anti-Scottish administration since the military occupation of Scotland after Culloden. They may not come swinging swords and cudgels, but their purpose will be the same as it was then ─ to eradicate … Continue reading The British are coming!
The timeline for restoring Scotland's independence is not a matter of choice. If bold, decisive action is not taken to initiate an equally bold and decisive process before the next UK general election, we may find ourselves in a situation even more precarious than now. Who can now doubt that the next UK general election … Continue reading Timeline and gameplan
The threat to which The Sunday National refers has been looming for years (Tory leadership race 'poses Thatcher threat to Scotland amid lurch to the right'). Arguably, it has been looming for decades. But it can be said with certainty that it is over the last decade that the threat of far right-wing British governments … Continue reading The threat
Peter A Bell 