Saturday, August 1, 2020

Since Scotland broke away from the disastrous Westminster-led response to the crisis, our outcomes have been dramatically - not "marginally" - better than England's

I raised a dubious eyebrow at this comment today from David Herdson over at Stormfront Lite -

"And what’s true in England is true in Scotland too. While Nicola Sturgeon likes to pat her administration on its back, the truth is that cases are rising there too, and the death total is still worse than just about everywhere else in Europe. Having marginally better outcomes and considerably better communication skills than London is nothing much to write home about."

 Of course there's a grain of truth in that - over the entire course of the pandemic to date, Scotland can be reasonably said to have had a poor outcome by international standards.  But what that doesn't tell you is more important than what it does.  The vast bulk of infections and deaths were front-loaded in the early part of the crisis when Scotland was in almost total lockstep with the Westminster-led "Four Nations" approach.  The modelling suggests that almost 100,000 people were infected in Scotland the week before lockdown - that's nearly 2% of the entire population in just seven days.  I personally know people who were infected that week, and probably most of us do.  That was being allowed to happen by an intentional policy choice of herd immunity.

At some point, the penny dropped in Scottish Government circles that we were not in fact facing the "mild infection" that the likes of Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance had briefed them about, and as a result Scotland has diverged sharply from the policy south of the border.  To the best of my knowledge, the extent of the U-turn has never been publicly acknowledged, but it's been almost total.  We've gone from Jason Leitch saying in his Grand Complacency Tour of the TV studios in February/March that almost everyone was going to get the virus and that was totes fine, to a specific goal of eliminating the virus completely.

That hasn't left us with merely a difference of "communication" styles between Scotland and England (although the communication in Scotland has self-evidently been vastly superior), but a difference of substance.  And that divergence hasn't just led to "marginally better outcomes" as David suggests, but to dramatically better outcomes.  He's correct that case numbers in Scotland rose on Friday to their highest level for two months - but that was a rise of 30.  That's still well behind England on a per capita basis.

That said, past performance is no guarantee of future results, and Scotland's success story is about to be tested as never before by the gamble of opening schools on a full-time basis in a matter of days from now.  It's ironic, then, that David's piece is a call for the reopening of schools to be prioritised.

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Posted by James Kelly at 6:37 PM 58 comments
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Friday, July 31, 2020

YouGov poll: Nicola Sturgeon's net personal rating is 87 points higher than Boris Johnson's

YouGov today published results of a full-scale Scottish poll, but it only contained favourability ratings for various leading politicians.  It would be odd to conduct a poll of that sort without also asking for voting intentions, so I'm wondering if there might be more to come, possibly for a Sunday newspaper.  In the meantime, we have the familiar picture of Nicola Sturgeon towering over her unionist competitors - 

Net favourability ratings:

Nicola Sturgeon (SNP)  +36
Rishi Sunak (Conservative)  +7
Sir Keir Starmer (Labour)  +1
Richard Leonard (Labour)  -28
Jackson Carlaw (Conservative)  -32
Matt Hancock (Conservative)  -38
Dominic Raab (Conservative)  -38
Priti Patel (Conservative)  -48
Boris Johnson (Conservative)  -51
Michael Gove (Conservative)  -57
Dominic Cummings (SAGE)  -69

I know some will say that this is mildly encouraging for Sir Keir Starmer, but given that he hasn't had much time or opportunity to get on anyone's nerves yet, I'm not sure a neutral rating is much to write home about.  Meanwhile, these numbers are a rude awakening for anyone in the Tory ranks who would fondly like to imagine that Michael Gove's Scottish background and accent are some kind of secret weapon - he's somehow less popular than even the Prime Minister.

To return to the subject of last night's stitch-up at the SNP's NEC, quite blatantly intended to prevent Joanna Cherry and James Dornan standing at next year's election, what I would say is this.  When we have a wildly popular leader, who commands respect and admiration in Scotland, the rest of the UK and to some extent even internationally, it would plainly be in all our interests to be able to get behind her and achieve a thumping, united mandate next May.  But if that's going to happen, it really does take two to tango.  You can't turn the SNP into a cold house for those with certain perfectly legitimate views (for example self-ID sceptics) and then lecture the people you've alienated about how they still have to vote for you anyway.  Maintaining a big tent requires a bit of give and take, not just a one-way process of take.  Nicola Sturgeon is in so many ways a good leader, and now would be an excellent (and indeed essential) moment for her to demonstrate that once again by asking for the NEC's decisions to be urgently reviewed before any lasting damage is done.  

So many independence supporters would prefer to stick with the SNP in May.  Make it possible for them.  Don't put up needless walls.
Posted by James Kelly at 9:37 PM 45 comments

A factional and self-destructive decision

























Posted by James Kelly at 2:57 PM 43 comments
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Thursday, July 30, 2020

The SNP leadership should just chill out and stop trying to artificially obstruct Joanna Cherry's bid to become an MSP























Posted by James Kelly at 4:54 PM 52 comments
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Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Before they burn their bridges, leading figures in the SNP ought to remember that Alex Salmond is a man with options

Following on from my bewilderment over a period of weeks as Iain Macwhirter acted as an unlikely cheerleader for herd immunity, it's refreshing to once again find something to agree with him about, and I see that his column today will argue that Nicola Sturgeon should seek a reconciliation with Alex Salmond "before it's too late".  I think from the SNP leadership's perspective that point should really be beyond dispute.  The period after Mr Salmond's acquittal ought to have been a time of healing, but instead a number of senior SNP parliamentarians foolishly made comments that were obviously intended to make it very difficult for the former leader to be welcomed back into the fold.  It became clear that one or two of them really did believe in the nonsensical claim peddled by the controversial journalist David Leask that the man who had led the SNP for almost one-quarter of its entire existence to date, and who they had served under themselves without any apparent difficulty, was somehow not part of the "real SNP" (whatever that might be).

We live in an infantile age where anyone who makes even the smallest mistake or misjudgement can find themselves characterised as an irredeemable monster.  In the eyes of several individuals very close to the top of the SNP, Alex Salmond was at some point reclassified, practically overnight, from a respected statesman to an "enemy of women", and absurdly the verdict of the court made almost no difference to that assessment.  Even if they truly believed that the demonisation was justified, they seemed to have lost sight of the realpolitik of the situation, which is that Mr Salmond, unlike the vast majority of politicians, is a man with options.  It's not actually possible to deny him a future in politics by simply freezing him out of the SNP, because he has the option, if he wishes to take it, of a bright future in politics outside the SNP.  His critics might think it's unfair or distasteful that he has that option when others don't, but all that matters is that he does.  You'd almost be forgiven for thinking that people close to the leadership actively prefer the idea of his comeback being outside the SNP, given that their actions make that outcome somewhat more probable - but the idea that they're doing it intentionally makes absolutely zero sense given the obvious potential for electoral damage to the party.  The more plausible conclusion is that sound strategic judgement has given way to identity politics zealotry.

During the 1980 Labour leadership election, Denis Healey famously treated his natural allies with contempt.  He told them they had "nowhere else to go", and that he would instead concentrate on wooing the left in his ill-fated bid to defeat Michael Foot.  A few months later, some of the MPs that Healey had antagonised left to join the newly-formed Social Democratic Party, and one of them sent him a note that simply read "found somewhere else to go".  The SNP leadership are acting as if Mr Salmond has nowhere else to go.

As I've said a number of times in recent months, I'm personally in two minds about whether it would be a good thing or a bad thing for the independence movement if Mr Salmond ends up launching a new list-only party.  On the face of it, things are going exceptionally well at the moment - support for independence has never been higher, and thanks to Nicola Sturgeon's handling of the pandemic there is unprecedented faith in Scotland's ability to govern itself competently.  That progress could in theory be squandered by the self-inflicted wound of a major new divide in the pro-indy camp.  But, on the other hand, even sky-high support for independence would be of absolutely no use to anyone unless the SNP leadership actually do something with it.  If a Salmond-led party emerges, at least we'd immediately have something that we don't have right now - ie. a very credible route-map to Scotland becoming an independent country in the aftermath of the 2021 election.  The new party would not win a majority, it would not become the largest single party, and it would not form a government on its own.  But it would have every chance of becoming a kingmaker, and it would presumably use any leverage it gains to insist on a way forward that is not dependent on the granting of a Section 30 order.

In all honesty, and in spite of my mixed feelings about the strategic wisdom of launching a list-only party, if Alex Salmond was to decide to take the plunge I'd probably put my doubts to one side and get behind the initiative.  Right now I'm a proud supporter of the SNP because it's the only large party with independence as its raison d'être, but if another large and credible party comes along with a stronger commitment to independence, the equation would obviously change radically.

It's safe to assume that, unlike me, the SNP leadership don't have even the slightest doubt in their minds that the cause of independence is best served by the Yes movement remaining largely united behind the SNP, and the SNP only.  If that is indeed their verdict, it would plainly be logical for them to reach out to Mr Salmond.  If they don't, they'll have no-one to blame but themselves for any negative consequences that follow.
Posted by James Kelly at 6:02 AM 117 comments
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Tuesday, July 28, 2020

BREAKING: It's the other guy who's obsessed, insists angry man for the 34,289th time

Alert readers (ahem) of Wings Over Scotland may have noticed that in the vast majority of the countless blog/social media posts Stuart Campbell has used to rant about Scot Goes Pop over the last year, his main - and rather curious - complaint is that I am supposedly "dementedly obsessed" with him.  It does beg the question of whether he genuinely thinks his audience is too thick to notice the colossal irony of that charge, because one thing I'm quite sure of is that he's not too thick to have noticed it himself.  One of his stock tactics has been to demand answers to certain questions, and then when I do what he demands and provide the answers, he uses my reply as further evidence of my "demented obsession".  On the most recent occasion he attempted that stunt, only a couple of weeks ago, I actually asked him for an assurance that if I gave him the reply he was angrily insisting upon, we could dispense with the increasingly tedious "demented obsession" repertoire, even if just this once.  He gave that assurance.  So I posted the reply he wanted, and as it happens I haven't blogged about him since (although needless to say I always reserve the right to blog about any subject at any time of my choosing).

But wait, what's this?  Today brings word of the 34,289th post on Wings about the subject of the James Kelly "demented obsession", and it does read like someone who has lost his cool somewhat -

"the usual suspects stamping their feet and pouting about it yet again on social media, in particular the firmly-ensconced SNP MP Pete Wishart and the worryingly obsessed former poll-analysis website WINGS OVER SCOTLAND IS BAD AND TERRIBLE AND STUART CAMPBELL SOMETIMES DOES SWEARS SO NOBODY WOULD EVER VOTE FOR HIM! Goes Pop."

 Blimey.  Given that I haven't even been blogging about him, what could possibly have sent the poor Reverend into such a meltdown?  As far as I can see, it appears to be a complaint about a mere two tweets I posted yesterday in relation to a newspaper report about him and his interminable on again-off again plans for a new Wings political party.  Let me just gently reiterate a piece of advice I've given to Stuart in the past - if it really bothers you this much that people are commenting on you and your actions, you might not be ideally suited to a political career.  Because if you do enter the political arena, you're going to regularly make the news (as you've just done), and people will comment on social media about those news stories.  It really does go with the territory.  If you can't even cope with two mildly critical tweets, it might be best that you reach that realisation now, because there'll be a lot, lot worse to come from people far more hostile than I am.

As for his belief that swearing is a national pastime in Scotland, and that anyone who doesn't think an abusive leader is an electoral asset must be living in the 18th Century, I can only repeat what I said in my reply two weeks ago.  When Stuart imagines Scotland, he appears to imagine a pub full of working-class football supporters.  That's not totally inaccurate, of course, but it's only part of Scotland, and it's not even the dominant part.  A female friend spontaneously said to me afterwards "he's wrong, you know, extreme swearing would totally put me and a lot of other people off voting for a party like that".  Personally, I've no doubt that's correct.  Stuart disagrees, but if he puts it to the test he'll be in for a rude awakening.

"We’ve watched in bafflement as James Kelly in particular has interpreted this complete silence as a series of “U-turns” and “re-U-turns” so lengthy and contorted that we honestly have no idea what he even thinks our plans are now, despite the absolutely extraordinary amount of time he spends ranting about us."

 Hmmm.  What I've actually been doing, of course, is replying to his own crazy-paving utterances on his plans.  Some of those utterances have been publicly posted in the comments section of this blog, so it's a bit pointless for him to pretend he's remained "silent" on the topic.  But, hey, if you think your readership is that gullible, why wouldn't you try the Orwellian "Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia" line?  I doubt it's any coincidence that Stuart's favourite book is Ninety Eighty-Four.

Honestly, Stu - I've got the memo.  You're trying to pathologise criticism of your budding political career because you know that the criticism is well-founded and has the potential to hit home.  But if pathologising my own critique as "dementedly obsessed" was ever going to work, wouldn't I have given up in embarrassment by now?  Do I come across as someone who'll be deterred from pointing out the dangers of a Wings party to the independence cause any time soon?  Maybe it's time to try a new tack.  In fact, here's a radical thought - you could actually engage with the criticisms, and debate like a normal, mature politician.  You might just need the practice...
Posted by James Kelly at 6:47 PM 16 comments
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