An independent Scotland would just be far too modern for Michael Kelly's taste

NOTE : I'm reposting this (backdated) because it vanished when Blogger was down.

A curious line of thinking from Michael Kelly on Newsnight last night. He claimed that the SNP's stated intention to retain the monarchy in an independent Scotland was worthless, because it's inevitable that a modern, 21st Century nation would want an elected Head of State. Given that he evidently regarded this as some kind of 'warning', it seems we can draw three rather extraordinary conclusions -

1) The UK is not a modern, 21st Century nation, and this is a GOOD THING.

2) An independent Scotland would, on the other hand, be a modern, 21st Century nation, and that would be a BAD THING.

3) Kelly feels that Scotland's much-vaunted affection for the Royal Family is so shallow that there isn't even the remotest chance of us wanting to follow the example of Canada, New Zealand and more than a dozen other independent countries by retaining the monarchy. And yet he's inviting us to 'fear' the loss of something we supposedly don't really care about.

There's Labour logic for you.

Also on the same programme, we had Angus Macleod reassure us that the SNP has long since moved on from the dark days of the early 90s when it believed in "separatism and compulsory kilt-wearing". Well, that's a relief. But does anyone else suspect that he might just be getting the early 90s mixed up with either a) the early 50s, or b) a figment of Alan Cochrane's imagination?

And don't get me started on Paxman and his sudden urge to know all about the "nuts and bolts" of independence - but only if condensed into sentences containing no more than three syllables. Apart from anything else, it doesn't seem to have even occurred to him that the shape the SNP would like an independent Scotland to take, and the shape it actually would take, are not necessarily one and the same thing. For example, the SNP don't want Scotland to be part of NATO, but they would just be one of many players in a democratic decision-making process that would take place after independence, not before.