Some free - and mostly sincere - advice for Scottish Labour

Scottish Labour have finally learned the lessons of two decades of defeats and realised what they need is another soul-crushing machine politician from Lanarkshire that no-one has ever heard of. Better late than never. https://t.co/4i1D5Labcq

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) August 16, 2026

I'm sure all of us sometimes make exaggerated or over-simplified criticisms of unionist organisations for partisan reasons, but I really do feel the sentiment in the tweet above is 100% fair comment.  Quite literally the more Scottish Labour fail, the less they seem to learn.  I sometimes wonder if Labour constantly think back to the 'good old days' when Scottish people would vote for anything in a red rosette and assume that means soul-crushing machine politicians from Lanarkshire are actually incredibly popular, and that the voters are just having an inexplicably prolonged break from following their natural desires. 

A bigger issue is perhaps that Scottish Labour's branch office status prevents them from taking any action to solve the problem even if they ever get to the point of correctly identifying it.  When UK Labour lose to the Tories, they generally move a bit to the right to win voters back from the Tories, just as David Cameron moved the Tories a bit to the left to win voters back from Labour.  But when Scottish Labour lose to the SNP, they can't take the logical step of meeting the voters they've lost to the SNP halfway, because their bosses in London won't let them do that "for the greater UK good".  So instead all they've got left is to pathetically beg SNP voters to "please stop caring about that thing you really care about, we're going to do the total opposite of what you want but please just vote for us anyway", and wonder why that doesn't work any better on the fifth attempt than it did on the first.  Having said that, it did kind of work as a one-off in 2024 due to special circumstances, which is the worst thing that could possibly have happened to Labour because they'll now be even more baffled when it doesn't work again.

I always say that every election in which the SNP shy away from the de facto referendum route to winning independence is just a monumental waste of time, because it doesn't really create an alternative way forward, it just postpones the inevitable.  A de facto ref is the only viable option, and that penny will inevitably drop eventually, so it's just a question of how many years or decades we waste before arriving at that unavoidable destination.  In precisely the same way, every election in which Labour run away from finally making their peace with Yes supporters simply delays any chance of a Labour comeback, because making their peace with Yes supporters is the only way a comeback is possible and they'll inevitably reach that conclusion at some point.  It's not inconceivable that Monica Lennon could have successfully reached out to Yes voters, but it is totally inconceivable that Joe Fagan or Michael Marra will, so the way things are shaping up Labour will just end up wasting yet another five years.

What would Labour making its peace with Yes-voting Scotland look like?  It wouldn't look like Labour becoming a pro-indy party, but it probably would mean them coming up with a credible and concrete answer to the perfectly reasonable question: "if the UK is a voluntary union, how does Scotland leave if it wants to?"  Their answer wouldn't necessarily have to resemble the one that pro-indy parties would want - it could be a fresh solution that addresses any concerns Labour themselves have about exercises in self-determinations, assuming that any of those concerns are not totally bogus.  If they genuinely believe that 2014-style referendums are too disruptive, for example, they could simply stipulate themselves that any mandate should be sought in a scheduled election, and that whether pro-indy parties win more than 50% of the vote in combination would be the test of success or failure.  It's quite a challenging threshold for the Yes side, after all, so why fear it if you truly believe that Scots aren't that fussed about indy?

The bottom line is, though, that Scottish Labour will have to painfully come to terms with something that Northern Ireland unionists came to terms with nearly three decades ago when they signed the Good Friday Agreement - ie. that the territory they live in will henceforth have the right and the ability to choose to leave the UK in practice and not just in theory.

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This is Post 3 of "Seven Days of Retro Scot Goes Pop" - a shameless gimmick in which I attempt to solve this blog's funding problems in the space of a week with a conventional text-blogging marathon to help promote my Ko-Fi donations page, during which period pre-moderation in the comments section will be switched off.  My target for the week is to either get up to 60 regular monthly supporters on Ko-Fi (as of this evening I have 19), or to reach £1500 in one-off donations to the page, or some sort of combination of a bit of both.  In an equally shameless attempt to coax KC's stinking rich Tory landowner chums in Surrey into helping to fund Scot Goes Pop, I have pledged to try to leave pre-moderation switched off even after the seven days are over, but only if at least one of the targets is met in full.  Yes, it's time to play hardball with our resident "Nessie" enthusiast.  

If you might be interested in making either a small recurring monthly donation or a one-off donation, please check out my Ko-Fi page HERE.

Stew reacts badly to poll showing the SNP with a double-digit lead over Labour - let's fact-check his meltdown

The controversial Faragist blogger Stuart Campbell, known almost universally as "Stew", urged his followers to help elect a Labour government at the 2024 general election on a tactical anti-SNP basis.  It's unsurprising, then, that he hasn't coped at all well with the news that the SNP remain well ahead of both Labour and his beloved Reform UK in the first full-scale Scottish poll of the Burnham era, but I'm afraid to say that the blogpost he's written in response to the poll contains a number of inaccuracies and misleading claims - a major shock to us all, I'm sure.  Let's go through some of the key points in his post and see how they compare with factual reality.

"Not done with celebrating defeat in an imaginary UDI yesterday, The National has gone with another big polling-based front cover today"

That's very peculiar wording.  What does "defeat" in the context of UDI, whether real or imaginary, actually look like?  It would probably look like failure to attract international recognition for the new state, but you'd be well past the point of caring about domestic opinion polls by that point.  And yet all that Stew is referring to there is another question in the poll showing that 45% of voters in Scotland would support UDI even in current circumstances, which he apparently thinks is some sort of poor result.  Most commentators in fact believe it's an astoundingly high figure.  It's certainly much higher than I would have predicted if I'd known that question was about to be asked.

"That 29% figure [in Westminster voting intentions] is actually one point DOWN on the SNP’s support in the last UK election, at which they lost 39 MPs and recorded their worst result in 14 years."

Technically true as far as it goes, but the latter part of the sentence looks fairly redundant given that Stew actually preceded it with a screenshot of John Curtice projecting that 29% would see the SNP win 30 seats - a massive increase of 21 from that disappointing previous general election result.  That's the nature of first-past-the-post - a party's own vote share is far less important than the size of their lead or deficit in relation to other parties.  That's why Labour's trivial increase from 32% to 34% transformed a landslide defeat for Jeremy Corbyn in 2019 into a landslide victory for Keir Starmer in 2024, and it's why the SNP could lose a percentage point or two in vote share at the next election and still treble or quadruple their number of seats.  If that happens, Stew is going to look faintly ridiculous if he tries saying "yeah, but just think how bad the result would have been for them if it was still 2024".  It's not still 2024, Stew.  Get over it.

"It’s also a whopping NINE points down on their constituency vote in the Holyrood election just three months ago"

That's a very silly apples-and-oranges comparison.  In February, a Find Out Now poll showed the SNP five points lower on Westminster voting intentions than on Holyrood constituency voting intentions.  You can't compare the SNP Holyrood constituency vote in May with a Westminster voting intention poll now and say it shows a drop in support for the SNP, because it doesn't and can't possibly show any such drop.  It's simply a measure of a completely different thing.

"It is by any measure a miserable set of figures for John Swinney’s party"

Well, it's not a miserable set of figures by *ANY* measure, now is it, Stew, I mean let's be serious here.  One obvious measure is the number of seats that the SNP would win, and on that measure it's a stellar set of figures for the SNP.  Another obvious measure is how the SNP's vote share compares with Labour's, and on that measure it's a stellar set of figures for the SNP.  A third obvious measure is how the SNP's vote share compares with Reform UK's, and on that measure it's...well, you get the idea.  

"30 seats at Westminster would of course be worthless in any practical sense anyway. In recent years we’ve seen the SNP have 56 out of 59, and we’ve seen them hold the balance of power in a hung Parliament, and neither situation was weaponised to any discernible effect."

That's simply untrue.  The SNP haven't held the balance of power in a hung parliament since the late 1970s, and it would be a bit of a stretch to call that "recent years".  But when they were in that position they successfully 'weaponised' it to really quite remarkable effect, directly bringing about the Scotland Act 1978, which would have resulted in a devolved Scottish Assembly being set up if it hadn't been for the Cunningham wrecking amendment.  Since 1979, there have been just two hung parliaments, and the SNP held the balance of power in neither.  Alas, it was utterly impossible for the SNP to 'weaponise' something that only existed in Stew's fevered imagination.  In reality, it was the Liberal Democrats who held the balance of power in the 2010 hung parliament, and it was the DUP who held the balance of power in the 2017 hung parliament.

The odds remain against the SNP holding the balance of power after the next election, but if it does happen it'll be the very first time in recent years.  We'll just have to see if they use that opportunity as skillfully as they did last time around in the days of Jim Callaghan.

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This is Post 2 of "Seven Days of Retro Scot Goes Pop" - a shameless gimmick in which I attempt to solve this blog's funding problems in the space of a week with a conventional text-blogging marathon to help promote my Ko-Fi donations page, during which period pre-moderation in the comments section will be switched off.  My target for the week is to either get up to 60 regular monthly supporters on Ko-Fi (as of this evening I have 19), or to reach £1500 in one-off donations to the page, or some sort of combination of a bit of both.  In an equally shameless attempt to coax KC's stinking rich Tory landowner chums in Surrey into helping to fund Scot Goes Pop, I have pledged to try to leave pre-moderation switched off even after the seven days are over, but only if at least one of the targets is met in full.  Yes, it's time to play hardball with our resident "Nessie" enthusiast.  

If you might be interested in making either a small recurring monthly donation or a one-off donation, please check out my Ko-Fi page HERE.

Seven Days Of Retro Scot Goes Pop - a marathon of conventional text-blogging with comment pre-moderation switched OFF - yes, it's the fundraising gimmick to end them all - it's going to be mayhem - you asked for it, you've got it, so strap yourselves in and prepare for the consequences

Click here to go straight to my Ko-Fi donation page.

Those of you who have been keeping an eye on the footer of each post will know I've been making slow but steady progress towards using Ko-Fi to make it sustainable for me to continue creating regular content.  Ko-Fi is a basically a no-frills equivalent of Patreon that allows people to either set up small recurring monthly payments, or to make one-off donations of any amount.  I was really fortunate to receive notification of a significant three-figure donation today (I won't mention the person's name in case he wishes to remain anonymous, but it was actually from someone who I know holds unionist views, which if anything makes me even more grateful).  However, just to put in perspective how slow it's proving to make telling progress, that single donation accounts for more than half of what I've raised so far on Ko-Fi over two or three months.  Before today, the total stood at just under £250.  Because I'm now lucky enough to have seventeen regular monthly supporters (thanks to each and every one of you), that figure will increase every month, but as things stand it will increase by about £100 per month.  That still leaves me well short of sustainability - realistically I need to try to make it to around sixty or seventy regular monthly supporters, or attract a significant number of one-off donations, or some sort of halfway house between the two.

I'm pretty confident I would get to where I need to be if I keep plugging away for another six to nine months, but it's the familiar Catch-22 problem - I won't be able to keep putting in the time to keep plugging away for nine months unless I reach sustainability by...well, by yesterday basically, but probably a week from now would do at a pinch.  It strikes me that my only chance of increasing the pace as dramatically as that is to devise some sort of promotional GIMMICK, and hold on to your hats, folks, because I think I might just have come up with one.  

Barely a week goes past without me receiving at least one message or comment asking me to do one of two things: either a) start conventional text-based blogging again, or b) turn pre-moderation off for the comments section of the blog.  The latter is often KC, and his request translates as "please allow me to totally wreck your comments section with inane Nessie content", but obviously there are also plenty of others who would much prefer to have free-flowing real-time discussion in the comments section.  That would be my ideal too, if it wasn't for the fact that on a daily basis comments are submitted that are racist, homophobic, pro-genocide, defamatory about me or others, or that occasionally contain downright illegal content such as death threats.

As for conventional text blogging, some people are adamant that I would find that financially sustainable with a Patreon or Ko-Fi type funding model.  I must say that wasn't my impression between 2021 and 2025 when I was still blogging regularly, but admittedly I was still relying on 'boom and bust'-style annual fundraisers at the time, so I haven't really properly put it to the test yet.  In the readers' poll I ran a few weeks ago, a significant proportion of you wanted me to try a mix of YouTube videos and text blogging, and of course the only way to find out whether that will actually work is to give it a spin for a trial period.

So my gimmick to try to make a big move forward towards Ko-Fi sustainability is going to be a bonkers seven-day marathon (or should that be slog-fest) of text-blogging, very much like the good old days of Scot Goes Pop.  The beauty of this idea is that text blogging isn't quite as time-consuming as video creation, and thus makes a marathon slightly more feasible.  Despite the risks, I'm going to go the whole hog in trying to make this work by switching off pre-moderation for the whole provisional seven-day period.  But please note this means you should NEVER assume that anything that is posted in the comments section has been actively approved by me, even if it's been up for quite a while.

False claims will undoubtedly appear for a period of time before I have a chance to delete them, so let me at least just pre-empt the far-right poster who regularly submits comments claiming I am "definitely gay and in the closet", seemingly on the basis of nothing more than the fact that the pitch of my natural voice is not all that deep (except when I say "hey Stew", obviously). The reality is that if I actually was gay, I would be embracing that and shouting it from the rooftops, because gay men tend to be exceptionally well-dressed and trendy.  It should be obvious even at a cursory glance of the videos that I am in fact boringly heterosexual.  Furthermore, when I was last in a relationship I once posted a photo of my then girlfriend on this blog. That led to readers giving her a nickname which became a running joke for two or three years.  So, to put it mildly, you're barking up the wrong tree on that point, as on so many others.

And just a little thought for KC.  For reasons that both common sense and science have so far failed to explain, this blog seems to be your entire life.  In spite of the fact that I haven't published your comments for years (except for the special KC Amnesty Day), you without fail continue to submit several comments every single day as if nothing has changed.  It's a tragedy in its own way.  You now, if I may say so, have a golden chance to secure your heart's only true desire: the ongoing ability to actually get an audience for your thrilling "more chance of a confirmed sighting of Nessie", "give up on this independence nonsense you fools!!!", and "a de facto referendum would be good but I'd prefer a plebiscite election" comments, but *only* if I reach my challenging Ko-Fi targets over the next seven days - ie. to either get up to 60 regular monthly supporters, or to raise around £1500 in one-off donations.  The latter should be an absolute doddle for you to arrange, because we all know your mates are all stinking rich Tory landowners in Surrey.  If this seven-day experiment works, I'd be mad to change anything, so I would leave pre-moderation switched off if at all possible.  But if the experiment fails and I fall well short of the targets, I will undoubtedly switch pre-moderation back on permanently, and you, KC, will be left for all eternity screaming into a void where no-one can hear you.  Your fate is in your own hands and your rich Tory mates' hands.  Is this a form of soft blackmail?  Well, yes, I suppose it is, frankly.  You're KC and you deserve nothing else.

For those of you who like the YouTube videos, rest assured that whichever way this experiment goes, the plan would be to continue making videos.  But the next seven days will help me make a final decision about whether it's sustainable to continue with a mixture of both videos and blogging, or whether I should concentrate on the videos only.

These are incredibly difficult targets I'm setting in such a short timeframe, but I've got to the point where I need to start hitting those targets if I'm going to continue making content of any type.  If you'd like to become a Ko-Fi supporter, please click HERE.  On the right-hand side of the page, you can choose either "one time" or "monthly" depending on whether you want the donation to be recurring or not.  You can either select one of the three suggested amounts, or manually input any amount of your choice (above the minimum of £3).  I'll keep you posted over the course of the seven-day Retro Scot Goes Pop marathon on any progress made towards the dual targets of 60 regular monthly supporters or £1500 in one-off donations.  Only one of the two targets needs to be met for the time being (or a midway blend between the two would also do the trick).

And again, a million thanks to all of you who have already contributed.

Analysis of the very strange Clacton by-election result

Just a quick note to let you know that I was up early this morning to write an analysis piece about the Clacton by-election result for The National, and you can read it HERE.

I know that Reform have been putting the idea about that Count Binface is an unfunny tool of the establishment, but I think it's beyond dispute that he provided at least three moments of true genius over recent days, albeit two of them required some help from the hapless (or at least hapless when faced with a novelty by-election candidate) Jon Craig:

1) When an American interviewer asked him about his place on the political spectrum, Binface replied: "I am the Galactic Centre, and everything else just revolves around me like little planets."  The interviewer then asked him if he could put that in American political terms, and he said "yes" and repeated in an American accent: "I am the Galactic Centre, and everything else just revolves around me like little planets."

2) When Jon Craig asked him why he "stood here in Clacton", he replied "because that's where the election was, Jon".  A flustered Craig followed up with "right...but why...why...", prompting Binface to point down at the count taking place while they spoke.  "Look, can't you see?"

3) Later in the same interview, Binface identified himself as a fan of Ceefax and Lovejoy.  Craig suddenly got quite excited, and said: "Lovejoy, that's going back a bit.  Denis MacShane!"

The Scottish REVOLUTION! Almost half of Scottish voters demand U.D.I. in history-making poll

I now have seventeen regular monthly Ko-Fi supporters, thanks to another recent sign-up.  I reckon if I could get up to several dozen monthly supporters that would make it sustainable for me to keep making content.  If you'd like to help inch me closer to that target, please visit my Ko-Fi page HERE.  Remember that if a recurring monthly donation isn't suitable, the page also accepts one-off donations of any amount.

Analysis of the first full-scale poll of Scottish voting intentions for Westminster of the Burnham era

Just a quick note to let you know I have a new article in The National about the freshly-released Westminster numbers from the paper's Find Out Now poll, which show: SNP 29%, Labour 18%, Reform UK 17%, Greens 10%, Liberal Democrats 10%, Conservatives 10%.  You can read the article HERE.

Scotland wants OUT of Burnham's United Kingdom PRISON, shows dramatic independence poll

An audio podcast version of the above video can be heard HERE, and will soon be available on Apple Podcasts HERE.

I now have sixteen regular monthly Ko-Fi supporters - many thanks to them all.  I reckon if I could get up to several dozen monthly supporters that would make it sustainable for me to keep making content.  If you'd like to help inch me closer to that target, please visit my Ko-Fi page HERE.  Remember that if a recurring monthly donation isn't suitable, the page also accepts one-off donations of any amount.

Bafflement as Gerry Hassan claims the 1979 devolution referendum, in which Scotland voted for devolution but didn't get it, is proof that Scotland is in a "voluntary union"

An audio podcast version of the above video can be heard HERE, and will soon be available on Apple Podcasts HERE.

I now have sixteen regular monthly Ko-Fi supporters, thanks to a new sign-up a few hours ago.  I reckon if I could get up to several dozen monthly supporters that would make it sustainable for me to keep making content.  If you'd like to help inch me closer to that target, please visit my Ko-Fi page HERE.  Remember that if a recurring monthly donation isn't suitable, the page also accepts one-off donations of any amount.

Robin McAlpine wants us to stop using the ballot box to try to win independence, and to start using opinion polls instead. That is, with all due respect, totally crazy.

An audio podcast version of the above video can be heard HERE, and will soon be available on Apple Podcasts HERE.

I now have fifteen regular monthly Ko-Fi supporters, thanks to someone new signing up over the last 48 hours.  I reckon if I could get up to several dozen monthly supporters that would make it sustainable for me to keep making content.  If you'd like to help inch me closer to that target, please visit my Ko-Fi page HERE.  Remember that if a recurring monthly donation isn't suitable, the page also accepts one-off donations of any amount.

"Does PALESTINE need nuclear weapons?" - a perfectly logical question if nuclear deterrence is supposed to work

An audio podcast version of the above video can be heard HERE, and will soon be available on Apple Podcasts HERE.

I now have fifteen regular monthly Ko-Fi supporters, thanks to someone new signing up over the last 24 hours.  I reckon if I could get up to several dozen monthly supporters that would make it sustainable for me to keep making content.  If you'd like to help inch me closer to that target, please visit my Ko-Fi page HERE.  Remember that if a recurring monthly donation isn't suitable, the page also accepts one-off donations of any amount.