Not many people can claim to have been bullied by a former hostage of the Taliban, so there's always that

I know I said last night that I hoped not to post any further about Alba internal politics for a while, but the situation keeps escalating and escalating, and the intimidation is getting so direct and blatant now that it's almost entering into the realms of the downright comical.

This morning I received yet another direct message on Twitter from Yvonne Ridley - I no longer see much point in protecting her identity.  She was once again gloating and taunting me at great length about the fact that she claims to have inside knowledge that a decision has been taken to expel me from the Alba Party.  Her implication is that there are trumped-up charges about a breach of confidentiality rules (an allegation that I have already addressed and shown to be without foundation).

There are only really two possibilities here.  One is that Ridley is a Walter Mitty style fantasist and that none of this is true.  I take that possibility extremely seriously given what others have told me about Ridley's past behaviour.

The second possibility is that Ridley is telling the truth, but that would by definition mean the independence of Alba's disciplinary processes are a sham, because no hearings have been held, and I have heard nothing about an expulsion except from Ridley and her own boasts.

Over to you, Alba.  I await with keen interest to discover whether Ridley is telling the truth or lying.  I'm going to work on the firm assumption that it's the latter, and that Alba's internal procedures and commitment to due process are not some sort of window dressing for a Mickey Mouse organisation in which vindictive bullies wield arbitrary power. But if by any chance she's telling the truth, there will be very serious implications, and those implications will not just be for me personally.

And one final but important point.  Here is an example of the low quality of what passes for Ridley's bullying attempts - 

"If you want to elevate your wee blog, why don't you do a story on the Aye App."

Hilarious, Yvonne, hilarious.  Who needs the Morecambe and Wise Christmas special.  

I was completely oblivious to the point she was trying to make with that "joke" for about thirty minutes, and then it suddenly hit me between the eyes.  I am currently an elected member of Alba's Disciplinary Committee, and it was her little way of indirectly telling me that she knew all the details of one of the committee's hearings from earlier this year, and that she knew how I voted in that hearing.  The Disciplinary Committee is bound by confidentiality rules, and unlike the unknown person who seems to have briefed Ridley, I abide by those rules, so I will be saying nothing about it.  But if my interpretation of her little dig is correct, and I'm 99% sure that it is, it's revealing of something downright sinister.  Something appears to be seriously amiss in the upper reaches of Alba, and if the party is to emerge blinking into the light with a bright electoral future, there will have to be radical change.

Incidentally, to the very limited extent that I know Ridley, I was previously on good terms with her and had interviewed her twice for this blog's podcast.  So she has no reason for a personal grudge against me, and I suspect the motivation for her bile is that she thinks it will please the powers-that-be.  Perhaps she's hoping to be a list MSP.  I'm not sure there's anything much worse in life than the sidekick to the school bully who is only doing it because she wants to be liked by the 'in crowd'.

Thoughts on "marked cards" and "sealed fates"

I've been swithering about whether to go public with this, but I think it's probably important that Alba members are given some kind of insight into the scale of the bullying that is going on in private, because I know sometimes members express frustration that they constantly hear vague hints but are left none the wiser.  Someone who I only know very slightly, and who is either a current or a former Alba NEC member (I'm not quite sure of her present status) randomly sent me a private message on Twitter tonight seemingly just for the sheer joy of informing me that "my fate was sealed", ie. according to her I'm going to be expelled.  That's news to me, but we'll see if her prediction comes true, and if it does that will give me a little clue about whether the next taunt she went on to make had any factual basis or was just bluster.

In true Primary 4 fashion, she went on to delightedly tell me about very unflattering personal comments that her unnamed "friends", seemingly extremely senior people in the party, had been making about me in private as long ago as 2021.  Apparently my "card was marked" (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean) from the very first NEC meeting I attended three years ago, because I had been observed during that meeting and deemed to be lacking on what sounds like very crude "survival of the fittest" criteria.  The implication is that I was in some unspecified way 'blackballed' from that moment on, and that my predicted expulsion will be the natural culmination of that process.

It's reassuring to learn that I and others haven't unknowingly been living through some kind of Kafkaesque dystopia over the last three years.  If these taunts were in any way meant to dissuade me from my belief that Alba is in dire need of total root-and-branch reform, I must say they're having completely the opposite effect. I'm not naive enough to think other parties aren't just as bad, but incrementally these incidents are causing me to reflect quite a bit on how politics in this country needs to change, and change utterly, no matter whether independence happens or not.  Essentially politics needs to be humanised.

Hopefully this will be my last post about Alba internal politics for a while, but I'll keep you posted if there are any significant developments.

Do members of political parties lead best in the dark?

First of all, thank you to everyone who got in touch by email with supportive words after my unconstitutional removal from my elected role as a member of the Alba constitution review group.  The general sentiment was "shocked but not surprised".  There was one particularly interesting message from someone who actually contacted a key person in the Alba leadership a few months ago to ask for specifics about what was meant by Alba being a "member-led party", given the evidence of an increasingly top-down approach.  The reply was as follows: Alba is member-led because the members determine party policy, and they do so by electing a Conference Committee which sets the agenda for conference.

Now, that's fascinating, because in my blogpost of 21st April, one of the key points I made is that the members do not elect or control the Conference Committee.  It does have some "elected members", but those are elected by the few dozen people who attend National Council, not by the party membership as a whole.  And one of the specific complaints that has been made is that meetings of the Conference Committee have sometimes been swamped by a large number of other individuals who just somehow "appear" and are supposedly there "as of right" even though no-one can seem to quite identify the clause in the constitution that gives them that right. 

From what I've been able to deduce (although I haven't been told this by the Alba leadership, who were extremely non-specific), the blogpost of 21st April is probably what has been used as the pretext for my unconstitutional removal, due to a supposed allegation that it contained breaches of confidentiality.  I defy anyone to actually read the post and reach that conclusion - as you can see, it just contains generalised points about the arguments for and against constitutional reform, without revealing any details at all about what happened at meetings of the constitution review group or what decisions were taken.  Indeed I specifically made the point right at the outset of the post that I was bound by confidentiality rules and that I therefore wouldn't be commenting on the work of the group.  I do think it's wonderfully ironic that a post in which I simply tried to engage the members of a "member-led" party about the arguments for constitutional reform, a subject which you would expect the members of any "member-led" party to be making the final decisions on, has been regarded as a disciplinary matter because it's apparently of the gravest importance that the members of the "member-led" party are kept totally in the dark about the whole topic!  And heaven forbid that anyone explain to the members of a member-led party that they do not in fact elect the Conference Committee, when the bogus claim that they do is apparently the main basis for the notion that Alba is member-led.

The other justification for "member-led", incidentally, was that the NEC is "fully-elected".  Well, that's sort of true, but again, the point is elected by who?  You don't get to vote for the eight ordinary members of the NEC by virtue of being a party member, you have to purchase a vote by getting your chequebook out (figuratively speaking - it's 2024) and paying a premium.  It's a pay-per-vote system.  And is it therefore possible for wealthy individuals to purchase a significant number of votes on behalf of others who might then be expected to vote as a bloc?  Is there any safeguard in the system to prevent that happening, and can we be sure it hasn't already happened?  Last year, for example, when the results of the vote were mysteriously never published?  

These are the really serious questions the constitution review group should be grappling with, and getting on with sorting out, to ensure that in future the party members actually are empowered and in control.  Instead, apparently the priority is to keep them uninformed and to disenfranchise them by removing someone they've elected, because after all, how else would you go about demonstrating that the party is already member-led and that no substantive reform is required?

As for what I can personally do to get this situation resolved, obviously there are limitations because it would depend on the leadership reacting in good faith to the points I'm putting to them - nobody can force them to act like democrats or even to abide by the party constitution.  (Theoretically a court of law might be able to, but the operative word is "theoretically".)  What I've done so far is write back to the General Secretary to point out that the information he supplied me with was far too vague and raised far more questions than answers, and that not only did the NEC exceed their constitutional powers in making their decision, in one key respect they did so on the basis of completely false information.  

There has been no reply so far - which is fine, we're all busy people, but there's just something about a tweet I saw earlier from Shannon Donoghue (who as well as being a member of the review group also has family ties to the leadership) which makes me wonder if I'm going to come up against a collective line of "this is just too unimportant a matter to waste our time commenting on or replying to".  Well, I'm sorry, but the unconstitutional overturning of an election result is self-evidently a very important matter, and if I haven't heard back within a week (which I think is generally regarded as the reasonable amount of time within which a reply should be received), I'll certainly be chasing it up and looking for some proper answers.

Shannon does so adore the word "wee". "Wee gang", "wee blog", etc, etc. The only snag may be that Alba could end up as a very "wee party" if the nonsense of the last few months carries on for very much longer. So far it appears that it will. https://t.co/oLHk649Ys2

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) September 11, 2024

Just seen this reply to Shannon. I don't criticise anyone for accepting a platform that's offered, and there may be a case for going on a far-right podcast to put the alternative point of view. But when the far right podcaster then praises you and talks to you like a mate...? https://t.co/m7C0IhWH0W

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) September 11, 2024

BREAKING: Propaganda outfit "Scotland in Union" caught fibbing about their own poll - the claimed numbers in the press release do not tally with the data tables, which actually show the SNP 1% ahead on the Holyrood constituency ballot

As you may already have seen, I have an analysis piece in today's edition of The National about the new Scotland In Union / Survation propaganda poll, and you can read it HERE.

Once again, Survation have agreed to use Scotland In Union's slanted question as a substitute for a genuine independence question, and I remain baffled as to why, because by this point they know perfectly well that it always, literally always, produces purported "independence support" several points lower than genuine independence support in conventional polls.  This is precisely the sort of stunt that brings the polling industry into disrepute, and Survation do have to accept some direct responsibility for it, because they're not usually shy about standing up to paying clients about the wording of poll questions that are potentially unclear, confusing or biased.  Indeed on headline voting intention questions they would generally say a flat no to the client changing the standard question, even by a single word.  My guess is that they very foolishly allowed a precedent to be set and afterwards found it impossible to say no to repeat runnings of the dodgy question.  However, the good news is that the 59-41 "pro-UK" split is very much within the normal range for the question, and thus lends support to the impression from the recent Norstat poll that support for independence has remained relatively stable since the general election two months ago.

Of much more interest are the Holyrood voting intention numbers from the poll, because Survation haven't distorted them by allowing their client to rewrite the question.  Not for the first time, though, I'm slightly confused by the reported results from the press release, because they don't seem to tally up with what would appear to be the definitive figures from the newly-published datasets on the Survation website - at first I thought it may just be an innocent mistake and that someone was looking at the wrong table, but no.  Having re-read the press release, it's obvious that Scotland in Union are intentionally playing silly buggers. Here are the real results, which contrary to the impression given by the press release actually show the SNP one point ahead on the constituency ballot.  

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:

SNP 31%

Labour 30%

Conservatives 12%

Reform UK 9%

Liberal Democrats 9%

Greens 6%

Alba 1%

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:

Labour 28%

SNP 27%

Conservatives 12%

Greens 10%

Liberal Democrats 10%

Reform UK 9%

Alba 2%

Now that we know the real numbers, it doesn't actually feel like a radically different story from the recent Norstat poll - for the SNP to have any sort of lead in what should be Labour's honeymoon period is an extraordinary achievement and probably bodes well for what we can expect once the Labour government's unpopularity grows.  However, although I'm optimistic about the SNP remaining the largest single party in 2026 and possibly remaining in office, I'm not at all optimistic about the pro-independence majority being retained, and a big part of the reason for that is the 9% vote share for Reform UK, which would easily win Farage's party list seats.  This is one of the big problems we have with media bias - it's much easier for an anti-independence "insurgent" party to make a breakthrough due to the passive benefits of UK-wide coverage, whereas a pro-independence party will by definition by Scottish-only and will struggle to get a look-in.

This is a poor poll for Alba, there's no getting away from that, and it confirms what I and others pointed out about the recent Norstat poll, ie. that the 5% figure supposedly showing Alba on course for list seats was an illusion caused by Norstat's house effect.  Norstat is the successor firm to Panelbase, which all the way back to 2021 has repeatedly overestimated Alba's share of the vote, possibly due to the chance factor of having a disproportionate number of committed Alba supporters signed up to their polling panel.

In my blogpost last night about the Alba leadership's decision out of the blue to strip me of one of my three elected positions within the party (something which as far as I can see they have no right under the party constitution to do), I made reference to one of the uglier features of Alba internal politics recently, namely the leadership's cultivation of a "stab in the back" mythology that blames all the party's ills on a "wee gang" of "malcontent" ex-members.  In a recent email to Alba members, the party chair Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh made a song and dance about the Norstat numbers and then said this: "Inevitably, all signs of success from ALBA will be met by a handful of ex and disgruntled members who, when not fighting with each other, spend their lives on X tweeting offensive material about their former colleagues."

Don't shoot the messenger here, but as today's poll shows, those "signs of success" are largely imaginary.  Alba have been stuck on 1-2% in every election they have fought so far, and they remain stuck on roughly 2%.  The past and present do not necessarily predict the future, but as things stand Alba are not on course to win list seats, let alone to get close to Alex Salmond's stated target of 15% of the list vote.  That may be a brutal truth that people don't want to hear, but it is the truth.  Scotland desperately needs a real independence force with substantial list representation, but if Alba are going to achieve that or even play a partial role in achieving that, a fundamental rethink is going to be required, and the sooner we face up to that fact, the better.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: 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

A personal statement on the Alba leadership's bizarre and unconstitutional decision to remove me from a directly elected party role

First, some context.  Almost as soon as I started participating in Alba internal elections in 2021, I received representations from members urging me to push for democratisation of the party, in particular a fully elected NEC.  To be frank, I don't think I did enough to argue for that type of reform during my year on the NEC (2021-22), partly because it was a very new experience for me and I was slightly overawed at meetings (and I probably wasn't alone in that).  But I was determined to make up for that last year, and so I made one member, one vote for NEC elections the centrepiece of my pitch for the Membership Support Convener election. I very nearly won that election - I narrowly topped the first round vote, and lost the second round vote to Daniel Jack (who I gathered was largely opposed to reform) by a margin of just 50.5% to 49.5%.

All was not lost, though. Because of the total chaos that engulfed the NEC elections last year, a special constitution review group was set up to consider issues such as democratisation.  It was far from perfect - only four of the eight members were to be elected, with the other four appointed by the NEC itself (which arguably has a vested interest against reform), and even the four elected members were not to be elected by the membership as a whole, but by the small selectorate of the National Council. Nevertheless, the outcome of that election in January was exciting, with three of the four successful candidates, of which I was one, being pro-reform. We didn't necessarily agree with each other on the exact nature of the reforms we wanted, and we were always going to be outnumbered by the four NEC appointees, but nevertheless we had a powerful moral mandate which we were optimistic would bear at least some fruit.

That mandate has now been subverted and turned upside down.  The candidate who topped the poll was within a few weeks effectively forced out of the party by some of the most disgraceful behaviour I've ever witnessed - but I didn't blog about what happened (except in the vaguest terms to try to alert people to the fact that something was terribly amiss), precisely because I do take the confidentiality rules seriously and I do abide by them.

Without that person it was always going to be a much more uphill struggle, but I thought back to my regrets about being too passive on the NEC, and I was determined this time I was going to stick to my guns and speak up for what I believe in and what I was elected to push for.  If I can blow my own trumpet just a bit, I really do feel I went the extra mile.  I was subjected to mockery and pretty blatant bullying attempts, and it would have been very easy to just roll over and go with the flow and say "OK, OK, Alba is already as democratic as it needs to be", but I did not do that.  Why not?  Well, because my aim was not to please the leadership and get a plum spot on the Holyrood list, but instead to actually meet the group's remit and try to make Alba fit for purpose.  I was almost in a state of shock after some of the meetings, that's how difficult they were, but I kept plugging away.

My reward for doing that has been to be informed by Chris McEleny this evening that I have been removed from my elected position as a member of the constitution review group.  I have since checked and I am reliably informed by someone with legal expertise that this action is completely unconstitutional - ie. there is quite simply no provision in the Alba constitution for overturning an election result and removing an elected member of a committee or group.  This therefore appears to be yet another example of the NEC making up the rules as they go on, following on from episodes in which office bearers have stepped down and been replaced by hand-picked appointees, even though the constitution clearly states that the runner-up in the relevant office bearer election should automatically fill the role.  Not to mention, of course, the notorious "dossier" incident at last year's conference in which the original ballots to elect the office bearers were unilaterally nullified by the leadership after they had already taken place. No-one knows whether that was because the "wrong" people were deemed to have won - but if that was the case, internal party democracy would clearly be a sham.  My own unconstitutional ousting from a directly elected position does little to dispel that depressing suspicion.

The nominal reason given for my removal is almost an irrelevance, because it has nothing to do with the real reason, but for what it's worth the excuse given is a breach of confidentiality.  I am extremely confident I am guilty of no such breach.  Helpfully, because the alleged breach presumably took place on this blog or on Twitter, people can make up their own minds as to whether I have done anything that would justify this extraordinary sanction.  What I actually did was write a blogpost or two discussing the general issues relating to the constitution review, which was an entirely appropriate thing to do because we are constantly told that Alba is a "member led party" and that members will make the final decisions.  However, I made very sure I did not disclose details of the group's meetings.

Three out of the four elected group members were elected on a pro-reform ticket.  Only one of those three now remains.  The consequence is obvious: there will be no reform.  Party members have had no say whatsoever on this cynical overturning of their democratic choice.  What I would say to Alba members is this: your "member-led party" is being stolen from you, right in front of your eyes, and if you're going to get it back you'll need to fight for it.  If you trust the people in control to do the right thing by you, you're going to be very badly let down, as you already have been time and again.

There has been a concerted effort in recent months by leading Alba figures to weave a "stab in the back" mythology in order to blame all of Alba's ills on a "wee gang" of "malcontents" who have left the party.  I'm breaching no confidentiality rules in saying that Shannon Donoghue, Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh and others have tried to get that embarrassing playground narrative going, because they have done so entirely openly and on the record.  Well, let me make this clear, guys: you can bully me, mock me, belittle me, find fault with my nose or whatever, but unlike others before me, I will not be leaving, no matter what the provocation.  Unless you come up with a pretext for expelling me (and that would not surprise me in the slightest), I will be going precisely nowhere.  I will be fighting to have this wrong put right and to ensure Alba's internal democracy is upheld.  I will probably fail, but by God I'm going to try, and I urge all Alba members of good conscience to join me.

Despair for unionists as first post-election poll suggests Labour's narrow victory has had NO EFFECT on support for independence - the Yes vote stands at a heady 48%

As you may have gathered, I've been travelling in recent days, so I'm sincerely indebted to our resident unionist troll KC (who somewhere along the line misplaced the Sunshine Band) for reminding me that independence support stands at a remarkable 48% in the recent Norstat poll, which is a fact well worth its own blogpost.  KC says he's never been so despondent on the constitutional issue, and I can certainly understand why.  He and his fellow travellers presumptuously imagined that Labour's narrow 35% to 30% win in the general election in Scotland would somehow "draw a line under independence", and if I'm being honest even I expected some sort of honeymoon effect for Labour that would have a temporary negative impact on Yes support.  That simply hasn't materialised, with only statistically insignificant changes on the previous poll from the same firm.

Should Scotland be an independent country? (Norstat)

Yes 48% (-2)

No 52% (+2)

Although the final pre-election Norstat poll had Yes on 50%, that can probably be attributed to margin of error noise.  The high 40s has been the most typical range for Yes with Norstat and its predecessor firm Panelbase, so it does look as if the general election result has had no knock-on effect on independence support whatsoever.  Unionists like KC must be wondering: if the shock value of SNP defeat didn't spook voters into abandoning independence, what will ever do the trick?

The most likely answer is that nothing will, and that exceptionally high support for independence is here to stay.

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The other important polling news is that Labour continue to fare extraordinarily poorly at GB-wide level.  A new BMG poll has them ahead of the Tories by just four points, raising the possibility of crossover in the near future, which would be downright embarrassing for Starmer just a few weeks after his landslide.  My view is that the post-election polling has confirmed that it was indeed a 'loveless landslide', with no great appetite for Labour even on polling day, and with some tentative signs that their early actions in government may already be alienating people.

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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 start making some serious progress now 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

Doing a Donald Trump pose in front of the Northern Lights

We interrupt our normal programming to bring you the important news that I've finally seen the Northern Lights.  And I didn't cheat by going to Norway or anything like that - it was in Scotland, albeit the far north.

More analysis of the Norstat poll

Just a quick note to let you know I've written some more analysis for The National about the weekend's Norstat poll, showing the SNP ahead in Holyrood voting intentions.  You can read the article HERE.

Poll disaster for Anas Sarwar as the SNP have the advantage in first post-election survey

I've seen some dreadful mainstream media takes on polls, but the Sunday Times' write-up of their new Norstat poll, the first full-scale Scottish poll since the general election, is particularly appalling.  What obviously ought to be the headline story here is that there is absolutely no honeymoon for Labour whatsoever.  Labour won in Scotland by five percentage points last month, and I would have fully expected at least a temporary bounce putting them ten, fifteen, perhaps even twenty points ahead.  That would be the typical pattern when a party returns to power after a long period, but it simply hasn't happened.  The SNP have instead trimmed Labour's lead in Westminster voting intentions to three points.  If this as good at it gets for Labour, they have major problems.

Scottish voting intentions for the next UK general election (Norstat):

Labour 32%

SNP 29%

Reform UK 12%

Conservatives 12%

Liberal Democrats 8%

Greens 5%

Of even greater concern for Labour, though, is that the SNP have a slender lead in Holyrood voting intentions.  Again, if Labour can't take the outright lead at this stage of the electoral cycle, when exactly would they be expected to do it?  What moment in time is ever going to be more favourable than this?

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:

SNP 33%

Labour 30%

Conservatives 12%

Reform UK 9%

Liberal Democrats 8%

Greens 5%

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:

SNP 28%

Labour 28%

Conservatives 14%

Reform UK 9%

Greens 8%

Liberal Democrats 7%

Alba 5%

Seats projection: SNP 41, Labour 40, Conservatives 18, Greens 10, Liberal Democrats 8, Reform UK 8, Alba 4

The general election result was supposed to be the springboard for a return to Labour dominance at Holyrood, but it doesn't look much like that at the moment.  I suspect the Sunday Times were bitterly disappointed and probably surprised by these numbers but decided to doggedly stick with their predetermined narrative anyway by headlining their own speculation that Labour would still be able to form a government from second place with Tory support.  Well, maybe, but this is not an election to Aberdeen City Council we're talking about here.  If Labour do a deal with the Tories, however informally, to freeze out the 'winning' party, it's going to be noticed. It would be fraught with danger for them and would be an inherently unstable situation.  Good luck to them pitching for anti-Tory votes in the future if they go down that road.

And perhaps more to the point is that there's no reason to assume that the real election result will be as 'good' as this poll suggests for Labour given that they should be at their peak of popularity right now and may be suffering from mid-term blues by the time 2026 comes around.

It looks like the results from supplementary questions are also favourable for the SNP.  John Swinney's party are more trusted than Labour on all policy areas other than the economy, and even on the latter the SNP trail by a trivial two points.  So it may be that the underlying position reflects the headline numbers.

It's rare for the seats projection of any poll to show Alba on course for seats, so the Alba leadership will understandably leap on this, but I have to once again point out that Norstat have a track record of reporting inflated Alba vote shares, which means that if Norstat show Alba on 5%, it's not unreasonable to assume that the real figure is 2% or 3%.  I'd be very surprised if any telling breakthrough has really occurred yet.

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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 start making some serious progress now 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

FUNDRAISING UPDATE: Scot Goes Pop (still) needs your help to continue!

With the usual distractions of August, blogging has been much lighter than usual recently, but as September approaches we'll soon be back to politics with a vengeance.  The recent general election was a wake-up call for all of us that the massive unionist bias of the mainstream media remains a monumental problem. The most obvious and important counterweights are The National and the Sunday National, but those are such a small percentage of the MSM that they do need to be supplemented by a thriving pro-independence alternative media.  

Nobody is indispensable, and I'm not suggesting that Scot Goes Pop necessarily has to remain part of the mix. But whatever alternative media does exist going forward, it'll require a degree of funding to be sustainable.  That's just inevitable.  Political writing, whether you choose to call it blogging, or journalism, or citizen journalism, is incredibly time-consuming and whoever does it on a regular basis needs to keep body and soul together.  I do have other sources of income, and I live on a shoestring budget, but nevertheless I rely on some fundraising to make it possible for Scot Goes Pop to keep going.

Until 2021, our annual fundraisers always used to hit their targets pretty quickly.  There's been no drop-off in readership since then, but the fundraising has become far, far more of a problem - I can think of three or four possible reasons for that.  I've had to promote the crowdfunders over a much more prolonged period, and even then they've generally fallen well short.  This year, I took a prolonged break from promoting the crowdfunder over the general election period, but I'm going to have to start making some serious progress now if Scot Goes Pop is to have a realistic chance of continuing.

Many thanks to everyone who has already donated over the last few months.  If you'd like to donate, there are three main options - 

For card payments, the crowdfunder page is HERE.

Payments can also be made direct by Paypal.  In some ways that's a better option because the funds are usually transferred instantly and fees can be completely eliminated depending on which option you select from the menu.  My Paypal email address is:   jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

I know a few people prefer direct bank transfer, and if you'd like to do that please email me and I'll send you the details. 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).

Some of you have also suggested that this might be a good time to commission an opinion poll, to get post-election baseline numbers. Again, that would be funding-dependent.  I had hoped to run a poll before the election (in fairness that was when we all thought the election would be in October or November), but the fundraiser for it was well short of its target after a couple of months and I had no choice but to go back to the general fundraising.  I'll still get the poll done as soon as it's possible.  If you're donating by Paypal specifically for polling, please add a note saying "for the poll" or something like that.

Apologies for interrupting normal service with this post, but it was getting to the point where it was unavoidable.  Many thanks once again to everyone who has donated so far.