Sunday, August 31, 2025
Too Wee, Too Poor, Too Sark?
Sark is a tiny British crown dependency off the coast of northern France with a population of only 500, and yet it has more political autonomy than the nation of Scotland. Technically it's part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, but that's almost meaningless because unanimity between the three island parliaments (Guernsey's, Alderney's and Sark's) is required for any Bailiwick-wide decisions to take effect. So effectively Sark is in control of all its affairs apart from foreign relations and defence - something akin to what George Galloway used to call "Devo SUPER Max", although in fact it's superior to that because Sark isn't even in the UK and thus enjoys a measure of sovereignty. I visited Sark on Tuesday, and recorded this quick video message to try to bring a new perspective to the perennial "too wee, too poor, too stupid" jibe.
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Scottish politics seeing some significant developments, three come to mind:
ReplyDelete1. Reform U.K. stuff. They are not right wing enough for Elon, he’s pushing an even more out-there party: Advance U.K. Elon can move votes 🗳️ over there, maybe not huge numbers but say if 3% Scots voters go to Advance then that’s directly off the Reform column. Whereas Nige now has a MSP he’s wary of this flank attack and has sent his troops even further right to head it off, weakening I’m his centre. In sum, upshot would likely be zero Advance MSPs (thankfully) and fewer Reform ones too. A double win :-)
2. Tories going max oil and gas North Sea recovery, sod Net Zero. That’s going to play very well where I live, in the NE of Scotland, and Reform’s march Right will help keep more moderate Tories on board too. Good news at last for them.
3. Other parties: Scottish Labour vote very shaky and susceptible to big Sultana Party losses, assuming that party finally launches and grabs what’s sitting in the table with their name on it already. LibDems seem to have some momentum, see that MSP defection Tory with the tartan tie and short hair. Greens look a mess to me, eg with Sultana Party challenge in mind, but then I always struggle to take a them seriously - their eternal panto reminds me of student politics. SNP just cary on with little change, a bit like the drive from Perth to Stirling a largely unending vista of as you were.
My advice to the SNP would be to go full on Oil & Gas to win back the NE.
I expect the Scottish Greens to put in a serious amount of groundwork towards some sort of alliance with the SNP post HR26. They will probably have fewer MSPs but that might not matter if they hold the balance of power again.
DeleteI doubt we'll see a full on Bute House Agreement again but Greer and Swinney are very tight so an unofficial alliance, at least, is on the cards.