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

James Cleverly's elimination is the perfect illustration of what can go catastrophically wrong if you try to "game the voting system"

Very long-term readers will recall that in past Holyrood elections, especially 2016, I cautioned at considerable length against the dangers of trying to "game the voting system".  Prominent Green supporters and RISE both argued that it was perfectly possible and even necessary to game the system, because the SNP were supposedly "guaranteed" to win at least 65 constituency seats, and therefore any SNP votes on the list would be "wasted".  It was claimed that SNP supporters had some kind of duty to abandon their first-choice party on the list and instead vote for a second-choice pro-indy party.

The point I made was that the list vote was actually the more important of the two votes, because the overall composition of parliament is roughly proportional to how people vote on the list ballot, not on the constituency ballot.  Therefore, in general, people would be very foolish not to vote for their first-choice party on the list.  If anything, it's the constituency ballot that lends itself to tactical voting, but if you try to play silly buggers on the list there's a severe danger of ending up with a perverse outcome.  Yes, in theory it might be possible to game the system by voting for a second choice party on the list, but only in conditions that don't and can't exist in the real world - ie. 100% opinion poll accuracy, foreknowledge of how everybody else is going to vote, and certainty of exactly how many constituency seats that will translate into for each party.

This position of "vote for your first choice party on the list, don't listen to the siren voices telling you it's safe or necessary to abandon your first-choice party on the list" was cynically misrepresented for years by the usual suspects such as Kevin Williamson, Mike Small and Stewart Bremner as "James Kelly trying to suppress the Greens and RISE by pushing the 'both votes SNP' or 'SNP 1&2' line". And that really was an appallingly cynical misrepresentation, because they carried on doing it even after I repeatedly pointed out that I didn't use the phrases 'both votes SNP' or 'SNP 1&2', and that I actively objected to the latter because it misleadingly implies the constituency and list ballots are 'first preference' and 'second preference' votes.  I also pointed out that my advice to anyone whose first choice party was the Greens was that they should vote Green on the list, which was plainly not consistent with the idea that I was some sort of "both votes SNP" drone.  I simply objected to SNP supporters being duped into using their most important vote for another party - and I had no control over the fact that ultimately it was only SNP supporters who were being targeted by the "game the system" scam.

Although yesterday's bizarre outcome in the Conservative leadership election took place under a completely different voting system, it's nevertheless the perfect illustration of some of the points I used to make about what can go wrong if you try to game the system.  What seems to have happened is that some James Cleverly supporters looked at the result of the penultimate ballot on Tuesday, concluded that their man was guaranteed to make the members' run-off, and that it was therefore safe and smart for them to vote for one of the other candidates.  Some of them voted for their second-choice candidate to try to eliminate whoever they regarded as the most objectionable candidate, while others may even have voted for their least favourite candidate on the logic that this would make the members' run-off more winnable for Cleverly.  The latter group must feel particularly idiotic now, because far too many of them attempted the tactic and ended up accidentally eliminating Cleverly from the race altogether.  In other words, they assumed perfect foreknowledge of how everyone else was going to vote, and discovered the hard way that such foreknowledge simply isn't possible in the real world.

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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 Tories opt for a hard right turn - as they almost always do

Well, if you needed any evidence that the betting markets are not some sort of predictive God, or that sudden movements on them are not proof that punters have inside knowledge, here it is (yet again).  Robert Jenrick dropped like a stone on the markets earlier, probably on the logic that James Cleverly had enormous momentum behind him after his performance at the party conference (and in yesterday's ballot), and that Jenrick supporters would defect to Badenoch to stop Cleverly.  That actually was a reasonable enough assumption, but it hasn't happened.

Kemi Badenoch 42
Robert Jenrick 41

James Cleverly 37

I can't say I'm sorry about Cleverly's elimination, because in a field of insufferable candidates I find him the most insufferable of the lot, but this does mean that whatever happens from here the Tories will once again be choosing a radical right leader, as they did so successfully with Liz Truss two years ago.  Unless Badenoch stumbles badly, it seems highly likely that she'll be the winner, and I suppose the one consolation is that she's known for her gender critical views - but she's an extremist on many other issues.  

On the ECHR issue, which I think might ultimately have a decisive role to play in Scotland becoming independent, Jenrick is committed to withdrawal and Badenoch says it "might" be necessary to withdraw.  

I wonder if Allison Pearson's stroppy column threatening to defect to Reform UK if Cleverly won, and other contributions like hers, may have played a part in Tory MPs' mysterious last minute cold feet about Cleverly.

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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

Crossover nears: Labour's GB-wide lead over the Tories cut to just one point

The batch of three GB-wide polls that I mentioned the other day were ominous for Starmer, because they showed Labour had lower percentage support than under Jeremy Corbyn in the crushing 2019 defeat.  But at least they still showed Labour in the 30s, and with a cushion of sorts over the Tories.  Neither of those things are true in the new More In Common poll, which has the worst results for Labour in years and years.

More In Common GB-wide poll:

Labour 29%

Conservatives 28%

Reform UK 19%

Liberal Democrats 11%

Greens 7%

SNP 2%

Now that we've seen a poll that is a "statistical tie", it's surely only a matter of time until some poll somewhere along the line shows an outright Tory lead.  It's also possible that once the Tories get into the lead, they could stay there throughout much of the course of this parliament, building a clear expectation of a change of government in 2028 or 2029 - that would be in line with the logic of Labour having got off to such a record-breaking awful start in government.  But clearly much will depend on whether the Tories elect a leader who the public regard as credible.  And on that subject, the result of the penultimate MPs' ballot has just been announced - 

James Cleverly 39

Robert Jenrick 31

Kemi Badenoch 30

Tom Tugendhat 20

I suggested on Sunday that Jenrick supporters might look at the ConHome poll, which showed that Badenoch was the only person who could beat Cleverly in the members' run-off, and reluctantly switch to Badenoch on a tactical basis.  It looks like that may have happened to a very small extent, because Jenrick has lost two votes and Badenoch has gained three.  There had been chatter that maybe Jenrick might "lend" some votes to Tugendhat to try to engineer a Jenrick v Tugendhat run-off, which the poll suggested was the only winnable scenario for Jenrick.  But that was never going to work, because Jenrick simply didn't have enough votes in hand to get both himself and Tugendhat over the line.

So the only real question now is whether a few more Jenrick supporters might defect to Badenoch, because if they don't, Cleverly will probably sail to victory.

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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