Friday, December 31, 2021

Time for the Bells?


Peter A Bell is justly recognised as a national treasure - and a firm favourite with the kids, as you can see from the classic poster above.  It's always a very special treat when he sends me a novel-length diatribe and then "warns" me that he will be publishing it on Facebook or on his blog as a "precaution" just in case I "censor" him.  That's the type of fearsome threat that makes empires shudder.  Let's face it: the union is as good as dissolved.

I don't know if anyone else has this problem with Peter, but I find his prose very difficult to read.  That's not a problem I've ever had in the disputes with Jeggit or Stuart Campbell, both of whom are very readable even when they're saying things that don't really stack up.  But with Peter, it's often so hard to work out what he's actually angry about, or why anyone should care that he's angry, that I end up having to take a rest every couple of sentences, which means that I sometimes don't even finish reading his comment or post.  In all honesty, that was something I was conscious of even when I was still on good terms with him a few years ago.

So instead of torturing myself by attempting a line by line response to his latest "constructive contribution to the debate", I'll just make a few general remarks about Peter's current idiosyncratic positioning in opposition to both the SNP and Alba, which drives pretty much all of his furious missives these days.  The problem in a nutshell is this: he imagines himself as somehow equidistant between the SNP and Alba, and thinks he can act as a 'bridge' between members of the two parties, but in reality he's significantly further away from the SNP than Alba are.  Alba's route-map to independence is much more radical than what the SNP propose, but Peter's belief in a unilateral declaration of independence is much more radical still.  And yet he thinks the problem can all be sorted out by Alba accepting that the SNP are the only possible vehicle for achieving independence, and the SNP leadership in turn accepting that Peter has been right all along about UDI - something which is of course light-years away from what they would ever accept.  As with the embarrassing #Referendum2018 episode, he feels sure that the SNP could be just a little push away from seeing the light, whereas they actually look upon him and his views as totally batty, and would be far less likely to listen to him than they would to even Alba politicians.

It's precisely because the SNP are not open to alternative ideas on achieving an independence mandate that Alba was formed - and yes, because of the party's current position in the polls, it's going to take an awful lot of hard work to gain traction and achieve our objectives.  But the solution is to get stuck in and actually do that hard work.  It's not to delude ourselves into believing that there's an easy silver bullet available if Peter A Bell can just have a stern word with Nicola Sturgeon.

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Barring something unexpected, this will be the last Scot Goes Pop blogpost of 2021. It's been another epic year for the blog: we've commissioned no fewer than three full-scale opinion polls, and produced fourteen podcasts with well-known guests such as Alex Salmond, Chris McEleny and Yvonne Ridley.  If you'd like more of the same in 2022, donations are still very much welcome at the fundraiser page HERE.  Or, if you prefer, you can donate direct via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

15 comments:

  1. Bell's writing is awful. He and Kavanagh could learn a few lessons about brevity, if nothing else. But it's Bell's somewhat sneering tone that I find grating, and (whether or not he has the background for it, I do not know) he seems to fancy himself as some sort of armchair psychologist. This is something a few journalistic types seem to engage in, presumably in order to position themselves as some sort of expert rather than just some other person with an opinion and a platform.

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  2. Bell's latest ranting screed is nothing but a verbose diatribe of gibberish.

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    1. Not the real Independence for Scotland. Just a WGD numpty fake.

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  3. """""""Peter A Bell is justly recognised as a national treasure"""""""... was a bit startled when I read that till I realised it was irony - he's alright though but takes himself too seriously and much overestimates his importance and contribution to our movement.

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  4. Wherever Peter Bell stands it always seems to rain on him

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  5. James type need to get Robyn McAlpine on your podcast in the New Year! That would make a great interview!

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  6. To be fair, Bell even gives that weel kent liar Skier a run for his money in producing meaningless, unintelligible nonsense.

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    1. The bloody imposter is back. Why don't you just go back to where you belong ya numpty and that is WGD.

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  7. Juryless trials and sexual assault.

    In the National Joanna Cherry says:

    " By contrast, in cases where there are two or more complainers, giving evidence of similar behaviour against the same man, it is vanishingly rare not to get a conviction, unless of course the complainers are not believed because there is evidence from the surrounding facts and circumstances, including defence evidence, which shows they have not been telling the truth."

    " Not been telling the truth" yep that means Sturgeons pals are liars and always will be no matter how many Britnat journalists (Garavelli)/broadcasters (Wark) give them a platform to continue to lie. Sturgeon, of course, proved beyond any doubt she is also a liar during the Scottish Parliament Inquiry.

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    1. The WGD numpty Not-My-Real-Name says this about the Maxwell trial:

      " Shows how different things are for the wealthy elite compared to Joe public where they, the wealthy elite, are given a public platform to challenge a jury's verdict on behalf of a ......RELATIVE.........you see they are so used to getting away with everything and not being held to account........"

      Change wealthy elite to Sturgeon and change RELATIVE to FRIENDS and you have exactly what Sturgeon did re the Salmond criminal trial. In fact it is worse because Sturgeon is in charge of Scotlands Justice System.

      There is no chance of the WGD numpties seeing the truth of this as their heads are too far up Sturgeons arse to let any light in.

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    2. Not the real Independence for Scotland. Just a WGD numpty fake.

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  8. Happy new year, folks. Only one more year to the referendum! So exciting

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  9. Now that Pension Pete Wishart has got a new pair of slippers for Xmas I'm guessing the next thing he is looking forward to is his annual delivery of carrots. The old ones from 2017 must be so rank rotten that not even a WGD numpty would go for them.

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