The Gaza genocide could be a watershed moment in the relationship between the BBC and its viewers - from now on, social media may start to become more trusted than the state broadcaster

With the recent 'generation anniversary' marking the passing of exactly one generation since the independence referendum was held in 2014, I was thinking back to the day after the referendum, when a conspiracy theory went viral on Facebook about the vote having been rigged.  A friend of mine posted it, and we probably all know at least one person who did that - feelings were raw, and a touch of wishful thinking was inevitable.  The story wasn't even mentioned on the BBC, and people probably - and with some justification - saw that as an example of why the mainstream media could be trusted far more than social media.  If an allegation is essentially without foundation, the mainstream media will ignore it, while it'll still be plastered all over social media if enough people want to believe it.

But contrast that incident with what happened the other day, when once again a story was all over social media but ignored by the BBC. For about 24 hours, every third or fourth post I saw on Twitter was a photo of Palestinian civilians being burned to death in a hospital tent by the Israeli military. I didn't watch the BBC that day, but I'm reliably informed that news bulletins didn't mention the story, even in passing.  That wasn't because the story was in any sense a conspiracy theory, or because there was a lack of evidence to confirm what had happened, or because there was any doubt that Israel was responsible for it.  The BBC simply made an editorial decision to ignore the atrocity, and it's extremely hard to see that it could have had any other reasoning than that the image of the Israeli state must be protected.  If any other state's military had burned civilians to death, and if it had been so well documented, it would plainly have been deemed newsworthy and might well even have been the lead headline.  The conclusion people are likely to draw from having been far, far better informed by social media is that the BBC is now less trustworthy than sites like Twitter and Facebook, because it is serving the agenda of a foreign power and acting against the interests of viewers by deliberately withholding important information from them.

This is one reason why the small minority of independence supporters who say "we're sick of hearing about Gaza, let's focus on independence" are so misguided.  Obviously the main reason for not ignoring Gaza is that we're all human beings and you don't turn your eyes away from an ongoing genocide.  But it's also the case that faith in British institutions such as the government and the BBC is being undermined before our eyes by the response to the genocide.  The penny is beginning to drop for many voters, particularly young voters, about how power is exercised in the United Kingdom and in the service of whom.  That process could indirectly lead to Scotland becoming an independent country, or at least prove to be a significant contributory factor.  

We've seen a similar effect before - I have no doubt that the SNP wouldn't have crept over the line for their narrow win in 2007 if trust in the Labour party hadn't been severely eroded by the illegal invasion of Iraq four years earlier.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

The Famous Hypocrisy of the Grouse

So it's a curious thing - as you may have seen on Twitter, I've been receiving some totally unprovoked abusive DMs from Grouse Beater of all people. I did have problems with him many years ago, but someone interceded to end the rift, I had a long phone conversation with him and we made our peace with each other.  Since then, I've gone out of my way to tread gingerly with him, and when I've seen him have blazing arguments with other people (including in the comments section of this blog), I've just stood right back and let him get on with it, even when I thought he was in the wrong. But even those precautions weren't enough, it seems.

So what's his foul-mouthed harrumphing about this time?  To be blunt, it's just sheer hypocrisy on his part.  As you may remember, he was expelled from the SNP several years ago for alleged anti-semitism.  Countless numbers of us defended him at the time, because his words were actually extremely ambiguous and were open to plenty of alternative innocent explanations.  But no good deed goes unpunished, as the saying goes, and he seems to now have a visceral loathing of many of those who defended him most strongly, because some of them have since fallen foul of strikingly similar abuses of the Alba disciplinary process and have dared to speak up about it, just as he spoke up about the SNP's ill-treatment of himself. Suddenly he's become a born again Stalinist, saying that anyone who has been trampled on should just shut up and slink away where he doesn't have to think about them or remember their existence, because it's just so darn inconvenient to the party that large numbers of people should actually know that abuses of power have taken place.  As long as he isn't the one on the receiving end, and as long as the people being silenced are ones he dislikes and would prefer to shut up, it's all totally fine.

In fact, let's be honest: he would be an enthusiastic cheerleader for someone being expelled for exactly the same reason he was expelled from the SNP, just so long as you first stick a blue Alba rosette on the Conduct Committee.

Bizarrely, what seemed to trigger him tonight was that the people he calls "the Famous Five", which seems to be an alternative name for Shannon Donoghue's "wee gang of malcontents", have been paying generous tribute to Alex Salmond and saying very complimentary things about him. 

I asked Grouse Beater if he would prefer them to be making disrespectful comments about Mr Salmond at a time like this.  Unsurprisingly, he didn't have much of an answer.

Could I just say to @Grouse_Beater, who has been sending me totally unprovoked abusive DMs and blocking me before I could reply: you, sir, are a hypocrite. You, sir, are a coward. I'm not going to tolerate this behaviour from anyone, no matter what my previous respect for them.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) October 15, 2024

So where does the independence movement go from here?

Robin McAlpine's latest piece presents the independence movement as having been "orphaned" by Alex Salmond's death, with a sudden realisation that "we're going to have to do it on our own", and with no sign of a new generation of Salmond-like charismatic leaders to guide us to the promised land.  Others have expressed similar sentiments, but I must say I don't see it that way.  If the orphaning occurred, it was several years ago.  When Mr Salmond appeared on mainstream media in recent years, it was generally only to commentate on the fortunes of his former colleagues, in much the same way that Roy Hattersley used to pop up now and again to give his thoughts on New Labour.  Mr Salmond was no longer really seen as an active participant in the political process, even though on paper that's exactly what he was.

It's possible that he could yet have become an active participant once again on more than just paper, and that was what all of us in Alba hoped for, but my own view was that was becoming less and less likely due to Alba's direction of travel - in other words its drift towards authoritarianism (with accompanying mini-purges), which made it more and more of a narrow sect centred around a few closely-knit families and friends, rather than the open, welcoming space for everyone on the radical end of the independence movement that it really needed to be to have any hope of creeping up to the level of support that might win it Holyrood list seats.  Now is not the moment to be commenting in detail on the extent to which Mr Salmond's own decisions contributed to Alba going down that wrong path, although in fairness he may sometimes have been faced with impossible dilemmas given his heavy reliance on those who were keeping the party afloat financially.  

So even without the tragic loss of Mr Salmond, it's highly likely that independence would have had to be won by a new generation of talent within the SNP's own ranks.  (Unless of course John Swinney actually *does something* in his remaining time as leader, but we all know he won't.)  Realistically, that probably means Kate Forbes and Stephen Flynn.  The current ruling faction clearly want Flynn to be the next leader with Forbes in a lesser role, whereas I firmly believe it should be the other way around - Forbes as leader, Flynn as second-in-command.  But either way they look like being the two key figures.  Charisma-wise, how do they compare with Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon at a similar stage in their careers?  I would actually say extremely well.

In my blogpost in the minutes after Mr Salmond's death was announced, I mentioned that he single-handedly converted me to the cause of independence with his persuasiveness in a 1992 episode of Election Call hosted by Nick Ross.  That's absolutely true, but I have other memories of his TV performances from around that time which are much more mixed. When he stood for SNP leader in 1990, I was very, very young, but I was just about old enough to be taking a tentative interest in politics, and I remember him taking part in an informal debate with his opponent Margaret Ewing on Left, Right and Centre - Kirsty Wark's show, although Brian Taylor was the moderator for the debate.  Taylor asked the two candidates how they differentiated themselves from each other, and Ms Ewing was extremely clear - she felt she had a stronger focus on social justice.  But Mr Salmond kept speaking on her behalf, saying that Taylor was going to fail to identify any divisions because Ms Ewing actually agreed with him about absolutely everything.  I found that tactic slightly irritating, and I bet I wasn't the only viewer who reacted like that.  

Mr Salmond himself used to recount an incident from the late 80s, when he got annoyed with Robin Day for shutting him down on an episode of Question Time.  Day asked him to watch the programme back and see if he felt the same way afterwards.  He took that advice and phoned Day later to apologise, because he realised that he had gone too far and had been in danger of losing the audience, and that if anything Day had done him a massive favour by stopping him.  So in a nutshell Mr Salmond was not the finished article in the late 80s and early 90s, and we tend to forget that.  He was a good debater but he still had plenty left to learn, and plenty of rough edges to smooth off.  Even by around 1995, when he was 40 years old and had started to rack up a few electoral breakthroughs, he wasn't yet being talked about as one of the finest politicians of his generation.  He grew in stature over the late 90s, and even during the four years in the early noughties when he was no longer leader.

The pattern was similar for Nicola Sturgeon.  Before Mr Salmond's dramatic comeback, she had been intending to stand in the 2004 leadership election, but no-one was in any doubt that she would have lost to Roseanna Cunningham.  That seems incredible in retrospect, but the 34-year-old Sturgeon simply wasn't seen as the political titan she later became.  I've said myself that I never rated the younger Ms Sturgeon - I thought she mimicked Mr Salmond's style of delivery but lacked his charisma.  I felt she came across as an automaton.

Which is as much as to say that politics isn't tennis - ie. it's not necessarily a young person's sport, and there's no reason to assume thirtysomethings like Forbes and Flynn have yet reached their peak.  They're already highly regarded and as they become older they could easily emerge as statesmen/stateswomen on a par with Salmond and Sturgeon.  My question is not whether they're charismatic enough, but whether they're sufficiently committed to do what it takes to bring about independence, or whether other priorities will get in the way.

I had a long conversation with Alex Salmond during the 2023 SNP leadership election.  Although that was eighteen months ago, I think that was the second-last time I spoke to him before he died - relations subsequently cooled after I started taking a stand against the Alba leadership's increasing authoritarianism.  I don't think I'm revealing any state secrets in saying that he regarded Humza Yousaf as having no interest at all in delivering independence, and that he broadly sympathised with the strategy Ash Regan had set out (although he was at pains to point out that Ms Regan was genuinely not 'his' candidate and she was not doing his bidding - it was just a natural convergence of views).  However, I knew Ms Regan had next to no chance of winning, so I asked Mr Salmond the only question that seemed to matter: "what about Kate Forbes?"

He paused for a moment, chuckled, and said "well, I think she does support independence".  OK, that's a start, I said.

As far as Alba's own potential role is concerned, I and others have tried over the last year to democratise the party but hit a brick wall, which leaves power heavily concentrated in the leader.  That means absolutely everything depends on who is elected to replace Mr Salmond.  It shouldn't need to be as 'all or nothing' as that but unfortunately it is.  If an authoritarian machine politician becomes leader, the party will be essentially finished.  A reforming leader might just give it a fighting chance.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Alex Salmond's appearance on the Scot Goes Popcast, 6th April 2021

A couple of you have asked for the link to Alex Salmond's appearance on the Scot Goes Popcast at the time of Alba's founding.  You can watch the video version below.  I was one of umpteen alternative media people (and indeed mainstream media people) who were given a slot with him that day, so he'd already been going for hours by the time it was my turn - his mental stamina was incredible.

Although I was an enthusiast for the Alba project and I may already have joined the party by the time the interview took place, I didn't allow my journalistic pride (or my blogger's pride if you prefer) to desert me - I made sure I asked him a few awkward questions.  One in particular had longer term significance than I could possibly have realised at the time.

It's only 25 minutes long, so sit back and allow yourself to be transported back in time three and a half years to what already seems like a very different political era.

John Mason's ridiculous expulsion suggests the SNP have learned absolutely nothing from the Rutherglen debacle - you can't throw seats away like confetti and expect there to be no consequences

The SNP's decision to suspend the whip from John Mason a couple of months ago was interesting. They did it on the grounds that he had denied Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, which suggested to me that the party had moved an extraordinarily long way in a relatively short period of time.  It was only a few years ago, of course, that they were expelling Grouse Beater and suspending Neale Hanvey on very dubious allegations of anti-semitism, decisions that were followed by informal but pompous online seminars from the party's self-appointed enforcer of identity politics doctrines, Fiona Robertson.  She decreed that the SNP had to adhere to the IHRA definition of anti-semitism in full, because minority groups have the absolute right to determine for themselves what constitutes bigotry against them.  If the SNP had continued down that road, they would have ended up occupying exactly the same space as the Starmerites, and Mr Mason would not currently be getting expelled for denying the Gaza genocide, he would be receiving a medal.  I mean that absolutely seriously, because the claim of genocide is precisely the sort of criticism of Israel that the IHRA definition was intended to disallow and make unsayable.

So in a way Mr Mason's initial suspension had a kind of positive symbolism to it, if only because it was a demonstration that the SNP had decisively moved away from the Cult of Fiona, at least in one specific sphere.  But any upside of it only really applied if the suspension was going to be strictly time-limited, and initially the clear indication was that it would be.  To expel the guy from the party altogether is an absolutely shocking decision, and I think there's a warning here for everyone, no matter what your views or beliefs: if you celebrate a disciplinary process being abused against an individual because you disagree with his or her politics, it could easily be you or a friend of yours on the receiving end if the wheel turns and another faction ends up in power, or even if there's a more gradual evolution in the leadership's prevailing views, which is the case here.  Conversely, if you oppose disciplinary action because you can see that an individual is being targeted for their views, you really have to check yourself and make sure that you actually do oppose that abuse of procedure as a matter of principle, and not just because the victim is a fellow traveller of yours.  What we've seen in Alba over the last few months is almost unarguable proof that many people who blasted the authoritarianism of the Sturgeonite SNP are actually totes cool with authoritarianism as long as it's the supposedly "correct" views that are being heavy-handedly enforced, and the supposedly "wrong" views that are being cracked down upon and silenced.

Don't get me wrong, and I hope my Twitter history leaves no room for doubt on my views about the situation in Gaza.  I think Mr Mason's views were abhorrent, and seem to mainly reflect the weird obsession that evangelical Christians have with the Israeli state.  But the correct response to those views would have been to condemn them and face them down, not to try to expel them out of existence by expelling the man who expressed them.  Apart from anything else, this decision suggests the SNP have learned nothing from the debacle of the totally unnecessary Rutherglen by-election, which heavily contributed to Labour's momentum in Scotland in the run-up to the general election.  The obvious lesson should have been that you can't throw parliamentary seats away like confetti for virtue-signalling purposes, or at least not without suffering heavy consequences sooner or later.

As with Neale Hanvey in 2019, I wonder if the stated reason for Mr Mason's expulsion is not entirely honest and is a proxy for the real underlying reason.  In Mr Hanvey's case, it was disapproval of his gender critical views, and in Mr Mason's case it may be his views on abortion that have rendered him 'undesirable'.  He can't really be openly disciplined for his abortion stance because it would look like an attack on freedom of conscience for religious groups.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Simply astounding: just three months after their "loveless landslide", Labour have *lost their poll lead* and have a vote share similar to John Major in the mid-90s

I said a few days ago that crossover seemed to be approaching, and although we still haven't quite hit that point yet, a major landmark has today been reached with the first GB-wide poll from any firm since March 2022 that does not show Labour in the outright lead.  To put that in perspective, Boris Johnson was still Prime Minister in March 2022.

GB-wide voting intentions (More in Common):

Conservatives 27%

Labour 27%

Reform UK 21%

Liberal Democrats 13%

Greens 7%

SNP 2%

During the period between the Trussmageddon and the general election, I used to occasonally squint at polls showing a dip in the huge Labour lead and wonder if we were seeing the earliest hints of a turnaround.  That was never the case, and in retrospect it looks like a Labour landslide (at least in terms of seats) was inevitable from the day of Kwarteng's mini-budget.  But it turns out that all that needed to happen for Labour to lose their lead was for them to actually get into power and for voters to experience the disappointment first-hand.  It's surely likely to get even worse for them, because incredibly the right-wing vote is still almost evenly-split between the Tories and Reform UK, and as soon as that starts to consolidate, a Labour vote share of circa 27% will leave Starmer in an incredibly deep hole.  It's the sort of vote share John Major had in the depths of his unpopularity in the mid-90s.

The fieldwork for this poll seems to have been mostly conducted before James Cleverly's shock elimination from the Tory leadership election, which Labour regarded as Christmas coming early.  We'll see, but I'm not convinced that it's going to make such a difference, or at least not in the way they're banking on.  A hard right Tory leader might even speed up the process of consolidating the combined Tory/Reform UK vote.

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Just a quick note about the blogpost I put up yesterday before the dreadful news about Alex Salmond came in. I announced that I was taking a break from blogging to prepare properly for the Alba disciplinary hearing, which was scheduled for Thursday night, and in particular to compile my written submission, the deadline for which was tomorrow afternoon.  I'm abandoning that plan, because I'm assuming the hearing is now almost certain to be postponed.  That may yet prove to be a dangerous assumption, but I think it's one I have to make in the circumstances.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Alex Salmond, 1954-2024

Hopefully it goes without saying that my earlier blogpost today, which briefly mentioned Alex Salmond, was written before I heard the awful news.  I went out for a walk a few minutes ago, and my phone started buzzing with Whatsapp messages from Alba members in a state of complete shock and bewilderment.  

I have no problem at all in concentrating on the positives in this post, because I can pay no finer tribute to any politician than that they were the person who originally converted me to the cause of Scottish independence.  I'm sure I must be one of tens of thousands of Scots, perhaps hundreds of thousands, who can say the same of Mr Salmond, which speaks volumes about his communication skills and powers of persuasion.  I can pinpoint the exact moment of my conversion - it was an edition of Election Call presented I believe by Nick Ross, during the 1992 general election (when I was still too young to vote), and Mr Salmond was given the chance to answer viewers' questions about independence at unusual length, which he did very fully and convincingly.  At some point towards the end of the programme, it was as if my objections just suddenly ran out and I said to myself "yeah, I agree with that", and I haven't changed my mind since.

In the years afterwards he was my political hero, running rings around Labour politicians in knockabout debate but also courageously going where others feared to tread, saying what needed to be said about the Kosovo and Iraq conflicts, and saying it in pitch perfect terms.

I was devastated when he stepped down as SNP leader in 2000, and I literally punched the air in delight when I heard he would be standing as leader again in 2004, just hours before nominations were due to close.  I knew that might make all the difference, and by God it did.  Without his comeback the SNP would never have taken power in 2007, we would never have had an independence referendum in 2014, and the extra devolved powers would never have come to Scotland after the referendum.  If Donald Dewar was the father of devolution, Alex Salmond was the father of its post-2014 deepening.

For my money the crowning glory of his career was his unforgettable performance against Alistair Darling in the second referendum debate, which came so close to winning outright independence for Scotland.  You can see an excerpt below.

While I take a few days off to prepare properly for my Alba "disciplinary" hearing, it may be a good time to give the 2024 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser one last big push

I may not be blogging much over the next few days, because I've still got to compile my written submission for my Alba disciplinary hearing, and the deadline is fast approaching.  I still find it hard to keep a straight face when I write the words "disciplinary hearing" given that what I'm accused of is so unbelievably vague and ultimately amounts to "making criticisms of how the Alba Party is currently run, in a way that the leadership finds irritating", which in any sort of genuinely democratic party would actually be something to be proud of, not to be "disciplined" for.  Nevertheless, in spite of the inherent absurdity of the situation, I do intend to take both the disciplinary and likely appeals process extremely seriously, and thus to devote the necessary time to it.  I most certainly don't criticise any of the people who 'jumped before they were pushed', because I now know as well as anyone the stress and potential mental health impact caused by a vexatious and/or malicious disciplinary process.  However, the fact that people have 'voluntarily' left, at least nominally, has given their detractors the excuse to dismiss them as "a wee gang of malcontents" who were always hostile to the party (which could not be further from the truth, incidentally - many of the people who have left were, until they started to be bullied or victimised, extremely committed to the party and personally loyal to Alex Salmond).  

If the leadership have already decided to get rid of me, as Yvonne Ridley claimed a few weeks ago, I want it to be abundantly clear to everyone that I am not voluntarily leaving, that my departure is 100% due to an expulsion that will be incredibly difficult to justify, and that if the expulsion hadn't occurred I would have stayed in Alba indefinitely.  Indeed if Chris McEleny hadn't arbitrarily suspended my party membership pending the hearing, I would currently be running as a candidate in the Alba internal elections, both for Membership Support Convener and for an ordinary NEC slot.  So for those reasons I do need to 'go through the disciplinary process properly', even if I strongly suspect the outcome is already set in stone.

Given that there'll be a natural pause in blogging while I write my disciplinary submission and prepare my verbal presentation for the hearing itself, this may be a good moment to give the Scot Goes Pop annual fundraiser for 2024 a last big push.  There are only two-and-a-half months left in the year, and it won't be all that long before I'll have to start thinking about a 2025 fundraiser.  But as things stand, the running total on the 2024 GoFundMe page is only around halfway towards its target figure.  In reality the situation is a bit better than that, because there have also been direct donations via Paypal, but it's fair to say that I'm still a long way short of where I need to be to secure the blog's future.  I've been continually lurching from mini-crisis to mini-crisis for about three years now, and although I've always been able to just about keep things afloat with these repeated appeals, I can't guarantee that will always be the case.  To use the well-worn cliché, if everyone reading this blogpost today chipped in a couple of pounds, the problem would be solved within 24 hours and I wouldn't even need to mention fundraising for a few months.  But of course in the real world it doesn't work that way.  

Many thanks to everyone who has already donated this year, and if you have done please just ignore this post.  But if you haven't donated yet, and if you find Scot Goes Pop useful and would like to help it continue, here are the various options - 

Card payments can be made via the GoFundMe crowdfunding page HERE.

Direct Paypal payments can be made to my Paypal email address:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

I know a small number of people prefer direct bank transfer - for the necessary details, please email me.  My contact email address is different from my Paypal address and can be found on my Twitter profile or in the sidebar of this blog (desktop version of the site only).

"We were supposed to have momentum!" laments Anas Sarwar, as Labour flatline in one by-election and go backwards in another - results that are consistent with a nationwide lead for the SNP

Last week brought two SNP by-election wins in Dundee, this week has brought two Labour by-election wins in North Lanarkshire, including one in a ward where the SNP topped the poll last time around.  But in actual fact the underlying message of both weeks is identical.  The net swings to Labour are small enough to point to a small SNP lead nationally, which is a far cry from the typical pattern in by-elections prior to 4th July.

Mossend and Holytown by-election result, first preferences (10th November 2024):

Labour 36.5% (-2.9)

SNP 34.8% (-7.8)

Reform UK 15.6% (n/a)

Conservatives 7.5% (-5.3)

Liberal Democrats 4.9% (n/a)

UKIP 0.7% (n/a)

Fortissat by-election result, first preferences (10th November 2024):

Labour 36.6% (+0.1)

Progressive Change 24.0% (n/a)

SNP 20.3% (-10.6)

British Unionist Party 10.9% (-7.9)

Conservatives 5.6% (-5.6)

Liberal Democrats 2.6% (n/a)

The swing to Labour in Fortissat was 5.4%, and in Mossend & Holytown it was a mere 2.5%.  That averages out as a 3.9% swing across the two by-elections, which if applied to the whole of Scotland would leave the SNP in the lead by around four percentage points - very similar to what we've been seeing in opinion polls recently.

Furthermore, the small Progressive Change party that performed so strongly in the Fortissat ward is essentially a straight breakaway from the SNP, so it would seem logical that it took more votes from the SNP than from Labour.  If so, the pro-Labour swing may even be slightly exaggerated due to local factors.

Reform UK's good showings remain a cause for concern, but we can at least celebrate a setback for the hardline Brit Nat BUP in the ward that is the closest thing they have to a heartland (they got a councillor elected there in 2022).

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

My US election dilemma (advice is welcome)

Those of you of a certain vintage may remember that the Guardian newspaper was widely regarded as having made a complete fool of itself twenty years ago when it tried to influence the US presidential election by getting its readers to send personalised letters to voters in Clark County, Ohio, urging a vote for John Kerry rather than George W Bush.  If it had any effect at all, the perception was that it slightly increased Bush's margin of victory in Ohio, because people disapproved of outside interference in American affairs.

Anyone who was involved in that miscalculation may draw some satisfaction from learning that the boot is apparently on the other foot this year, and people from the US are sending handwritten notes to registered voters overseas urging them to vote.  I received the above note from a lady in California a couple of weeks ago, and although it doesn't say "please vote against Trump", I do detect a bit of a subtext there! 

But here is my dilemma. I have a history of voting for left-wing third-party candidates in presidential elections, but in 2016 and 2020 I held my nose and voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden respectively, on the basis that any election in which Donald Trump is on the ballot is an emergency and you don't muck around.

The same logic applies this year, but I just could not have imagined the scale of the Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the Biden/Harris administration's seemingly unconditional backing for the genocidal Netanyahu regime.  Any vote for Harris thus feels like an endorsement of the genocide.  Additionally, I felt happier about voting for Clinton and Biden because they seemed to have abandoned their previous support for the death penalty, which is a key issue for me, but I gather opposition to the death penalty has been removed from the Democratic platform this year, and Harris is being evasive about her own position.

I'll have to make a decision very soon, so I'd be interested in your thoughts.  What would you do?  Vote against the genocide by voting for the Green candidate Jill Stein, or vote against Trump by voting for Kamala Harris?

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk