scotlandisdifferent

My last post has been met with incredulous hostility by some commentators, hostile incredulity by others (all in personal communications), so I need to flesh it out a bit. To provide continuity with the previous post, I thought of heading this one "Where it's really at, asshole", but since the skeptics were my friends I've forborne to do this. The first point in my previous post - that Nicola Sturgeon would either commit or not commit to an indyref this year - was not controversial (how could it be? - it covered all possibilities). In the event, NS's response contained many fine words and high aspirations, but you should always listen to the small print. What she actually said was, " it is still my hope [that we can get an indyref in 2020]". That doesn't sound like commitment to me. My second point - that SNP policy is based on the belief that indyref without a Section 30 order would create too much hatred and division to be sustainable - attracted ...

That title reminds me of a linguistic joke, so let's get that over with: New student at Harvard, seeing a clearly established student whom he can ask for information: "Say, is this where the library's at? Established student (snootily): "This is Harvard. We don't end sentences with a preposition." New student: "Oh, I'll rephrase my question. Is this where the library's at, asshole?" To the point, now. It's been a long time since the Scottish independence movement has been anything other than murky, unpredictable, unbelievably baffling or just plain hopeless. However, things are beginning to turn the corner, with some upcoming dramatic events:- This coming Wednesday, it is said, Nicola Sturgeon will set out her response to BJ's refusal of the request for a Section 30 order. This either will or will not contain a commitment to an indy referendum this year. It's difficult to see how it will plausibly do that. But if it doesn...

I left a few points hanging in my previous post . One was that AMS, being a proportional system, makes tactical voting impossible. Tactical voting, under a first-past-the-post system, is where your preferred party is polling third, with the two despised enemies neck-and-neck at the top: you vote for the enemy you despise less, because at least it will keep out the other scum. But under AMS, where parties with even 4% of the vote get seats, voting for the less-despised enemy simply gives them a better chance of a seat, and reduces your own party's chances of winning one. Another complication is how we should properly refer to the two votes that you have under the AMS system, and I sidestepped this issue by calling one the 'constituency' vote (which is not controversial) and the other the 'second vote'. However, even 'second vote' won't do, because the ballot paper could well ask for your constituency vote in its right-hand column, and what I've called...

Looking at blogs and Twitter, I see a disturbing lack of knowledge about how the Holyrood voting system works. Even the basic fact that you have two votes seems incomprehensible to some voters. Given that the next Holyrood election will be upon us in or before Spring 2021, and is likely to be crucial for independence, readers might welcome this short 'Voting for Dummies' guide. 1. You have two votes. One is called your 'constituency' vote, and elects the MSP for your constituency. It operates under the first-past-the-post system (FPTP). We're all thoroughly familiar with that, so it needs no further comment. 2. Your second vote has various names - your 'regional' vote, your 'list' vote, your 'second preference vote' - but they're all unsatisfactory, so for the moment let's just call it 'your second vote'. 3. Your two votes are votes for different things. With your constituency vote, you vote for a person, the person you want t...

Craig Murray's petition to bring in OSCE observers for the next Scottish referendum (which I hope you've all signed - DO IT NOW!) has resurrected the doubts about postal votes in 2014. These doubts solidify, for some people, into the claim that the 2014 referendum was rigged by the UK Government packing the postal vote with "No" ballots, as evidenced by the extraordinarily high postal turnout. This is a consoling narrative for those indy supporters who were gutted by the massive "No" wrecking-ball that crawled out of the woodwork on September 18th to steal the referendum (which many Yessers feel in their bones was in truth a clear victory for Yes) and demolish their dreams. So we need to look at that claim again now. The claim The detailed account of this rigging (the "Dunoon Report") has gained some traction among the Indy community. It was authored by Andy Anderson, Education Officer of the Dunoon Unit of the Democratic Socialist foundation, and...

According to a recent poll, if achieving Brexit meant that Scotland left the UK, then 63percent of Conservative Party members would consider that a price worth paying. This is of course good news for independence. The Unionist narrative for the last decade has consistently been that Scotland lives off England's £14bn annual subsidy, a fiction that GERS was designed to support. In that case, you might ask, why does the UK not just get rid of the scroungers and used the saved cash to paint another slogan on a bus? The reason is in The Answer That Dare Not Speak Its Name: that Scotland in fact contributes so much to the UK economy in natural resources and human skills that, without it, the UK Battleship Galactica would be holed below the waterline and bound for the deep glug-glug. A call to kick out the scrounging Jocks exposes this Unionist hypocrisy, and leaves Unionists with no message. Wee Ginger Dug puts this far more forcefully than I can, so I give you his words: What British n...

The memory-failing spouse and I attended a dementia-friendly performance of Mozart's The Magic Flute , by Scottish Opera, a few days ago. It was a matinee, sparsely attended, disappointing no doubt for the singers, but for the audience it meant that there was no audience-intrusion to distract us from the top-notch performance, and the unpretentious simplicity of the occasion was overwhelming. Readers will remember that there are three strands to this opera - the heroic couple Tamino and Pamina, who undergo ordeals, and summon up their courage by playing a magic flute; the nasty flim-flammerie of the Queen Night, whose aim is to plunge all other characters into such despair that they kill themselves; and the earthy clowns Papageno and Papagena, who just want to shack up together and have a million kids. It's all underpinned by a fourth strand in the person of the sorcerer Sarastro, who runs what can only be called a think-tank. This is an institution that promotes the same equal...