It scarcely seems possible, but if anything my treatment at the hands of the Appeals Committee last night was even more contemptuous than my treatment by the Disciplinary Committee on 5th December. The Disciplinary Committee allowed me to attend the hearing for just twelve minutes, but I think last night it was more like nine or ten minutes before I was told to leave. There's a very straightforward reason for that: it was absolutely blindingly obvious that the leadership loyalists on both committees were under strict instructions to ask me no questions at all, presumably to avoid giving me any ammunition. I'm not letting my imagination run away with me there - when I was a member of the Disciplinary Committee, I sat through enough meetings with Christina Hendry to know that she had any number of menacing and inappropriate questions to ask Geoff Bush (for example) when she was in the middle of expelling him for no good reason, but mysteriously she went all bashful in my case and didn't say a single word until after I left the meeting. Jackie Reid and Geraldine Harron took the same approach, as did John Caddis and a couple of others last night.
After the sheep incident yesterday I found myself unexpectedly short of time, so I spent two hours under considerable stress writing a little speech. You really do come away feeling you've been treated like dirt when you go to all that trouble, and then read out the speech knowing full well that only one person is actually listening to you, and all the others are just sitting there with bored expressions waiting to follow the instructions they've been given. The whole outcome was 100% predetermined months ago, just as Yvonne Ridley boasted was the case long before I was even suspended.
Incidentally, the meeting yesterday was almost postponed at the last minute. Corri Wilson wrote to me at around 5pm saying that the convener of the Appeals Committee wasn't available, and giving me a choice of either postponing or going ahead with a temporary chair appointed by the NEC. I chose the latter option because McEleny has been mucking me around for months on end, and I wanted the process over with once and for all. But several people I spoke to felt I was making the wrong decision and that I was "walking into a Tasmina / Corri trap". They felt it was a stunt to replace a convener who is known to be relatively fair-minded with a temporary chair from within the clique that was hellbent on expelling me. I didn't know who that person would be until the meeting actually started, but it turned out to be Debbie Ewen. When I mentioned that name after the meeting was over, the reaction was: "Sorry James, but you're toast. Debbie takes her orders direct from the Corri Nostra." Make of that what you will, but my own sense of the arithmetic is that I would have lost the vote no matter who the chair had been. From the body language, three people were unremittingly hostile, and I would imagine I lost the vote 3-1, or possibly 4-1 if Ewen herself took part.
When I and others joined Alba in 2021, many people taunted us about how we were going to live to regret it. I was extremely confident that wasn't true, and that even if Alba ultimately failed I would have no regrets about joining, because the party had been set up for the right reasons and with the very best of intentions. With the benefit of hindsight, I'd have to concede I was completely wrong about that. If I'd had any idea of the authoritarian freak show I was walking into, or of the toxic culture of bullying that I would be caught up in, I'd never have touched Alba with a bargepole. Having realised I'd made that mistake (and I'd certainly fully woken up to the situation by around a year ago), I felt the best thing to do was work from within to try to get the party onto the right track. You might remember that I wrote a blogpost saying it's a bad idea to invoke Katy Perry by constantly changing political parties "like a girl changes clothes". But now that the decision has been taken for me, it's something of a relief, and I'm quite happy to hold my hands up and admit that it was a big, big mistake to join Alba. I sincerely apologise to anyone who was influenced by me and ended up joining Alba themselves, and I hope anyone in that situation understands that I was genuinely unaware of the true nature of the party.
Essentially Alba is a private club run for the exclusive convenience of a few dozen people belonging to a few closely connected families and friends. It's tarted up to look like a party with internal democratic structures accessible to all members, but that's just window dressing. If anyone from outside the ruling elite tries to use the democratic structures to push for change, they'll hit a brick wall, and if they push too hard, they'll swiftly find themselves suspended or expelled.
How did such a grotesque situation come about? In the months leading up to Alba's creation, Alex Salmond phoned me a number of times. He was obviously courting the pro-indy New Media in case he wanted to get a new party off the ground quickly (although he clearly decided subsequently that the New Media was of no value to him after all, because Alba ended up alienating almost all of the main bloggers apart from Wings - and even Wings generally tells readers to vote unionist rather than Alba). However in none of those phone calls did Mr Salmond actually share his plans, and I didn't feel it was my place to ask him to. But luckily I was in touch with someone who did know his thinking.
It was suggested to me at one point that he intended to model the new party after the Brexit Party, ie. with "registered supporters" rather than members to ensure he retained total control. I assumed that plan had been ditched when I saw the Alba constitution was on paper a little more democratic than the SNP's, but in retrospect the registered supporters model is exactly what Alba ended up with - it's just that those people were called "members" and there was a big pretence that they had a say in how the party was run. The best evidence that it was a pretence is the blatant rigging of the October 2023 internal elections. When the "wrong" people won, Mr Salmond simply voided the results (which he had no constitutional power to do) and ordered the elections to be re-run, and then put intense and wholly inappropriate pressure on the "wrong" winners to stand aside, which they duly did. He justified this extraordinary action by standing up at conference and brandishing a "dossier" supposedly containing evidence that his family had been targeted during the elections and that there had been a plot to sabotage conference. None of that was true. I have been told by no fewer than three different people, all of whom I trust, that Mr Salmond later openly admitted to someone that no dossier had ever existed and that the whole thing was a gigantic bluff to justify the unjustifiable. The rigging of those elections would have been one of the biggest scandals in modern Scottish political history if it hadn't been for the fact that journalists see Alba as a total irrelevance and just weren't paying any attention.
Something else I was told by my source in early 2021 is that Mr Salmond wasn't sure whether a new party was going to be possible due to the difficulties of securing funding. It looks like an awful lot of deals were done in the final weeks before the party was launched, and those deals ended up forging the shape of Alba's ruling elite. That explains the really odd line-up of parliamentary candidates last July. It possibly explains the special status that everyone knows certain individuals enjoy within the party. Several people in the know have told me that Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh regards Alba as "her" party in a very literal sense, and that being party chair was non-negotiable for her. That could well be why it's proved impossible to persuade the leadership to accept one member, one vote for NEC elections - the thinking is that Ahmed-Sheikh needs to finish top of the NEC ballot to justify her appointed position as chair, and of course the only way to guarantee that any particular candidate tops the poll is by retaining the downright weird "pay per vote" system that is in place at present.
As far as Yvonne Ridley's special protected status is concerned, that apparently is not to do with money but instead the foreign media contacts she brings to the table. She apparently opened a lot of doors for Salmond and Ahmed-Sheikh, which was regarded as invaluable, and therefore pretty much anyone will be sacrificed if they displease Ridley. An Alba member once called her an "Islamist" and McEleny went completely nuts - I've seen the email exchange.
Now that I no longer owe any loyalty to the Alba party, I want to help Alba members make up their own minds about the state of their own party by putting as much information as is realistically possible into the public domain, so I'll be running a series of articles loosely called "THE ALBA FILES". (Before anyone panics, it's only a name.) I'm going to start with the text of the defence document I submitted to the Disciplinary Committee in the run-up to the December hearing. So check back later if you'd like to read that. In the meantime, I'll leave you with an anonymous comment that was left on this blog the other day, and that I think is bang on the money -
"If anything good has come of your membership of Alba, James, it's this: for years, I thought a lot of Alba High Command left the SNP because they could no longer stomach the authoritarian pivot by SNP leadership.
As your time in the party has shown, it turns out they actually left not because they disagreed with the authoritarian direction of the SNP, but because they were not the ones in charge of that authoritarian direction.
And I include Tasmina, McEleny, and Salmond himself in that. A bunch of self-absorbed, temper-tantruming egoists whose anti-authoritarian 'principles' turn out to have been a bunch of self-serving rubbish.
Aside from MacAskill, the whole upper echelons of the party reek of authoritarian overreach and self-interest. The SNP writ-small, if you will."
FREEDOM!!! Well done for seeing it through, James.
ReplyDeleteSurely there'll be a book about the brief history of Alba one day.
FREEDOM!!! - hardly Jakey. James like any member of a political party is free to leave any time they want. The impression I got was that James wanted to reform Alba not escape. The Alba leadership were not keeping James prisoner - quite the opposite - they clearly wanted rid of him. Real freedom is when the party you vote for is not overruled by another country.
DeleteScotland is a colony and until that changes none of us have freedom.
Pamphlet
DeleteI imagine a public health leaflet: "The risks of SNPism, and how to protect yourself against it".
DeleteIt's so sad that Alba has turned into this nasty clique. Although not a member of any party, I was pleased when it was set up as I hoped it would put pressure on the SNP to focus on independence again. I'm sure you're not the only sincere person who was hoodwinked by this clutch of oddballs. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteIndeed, and hear hear for James's valiant stand against another corrupt cabal at the top, blocking progress for Scotland's independence movement.
DeleteWe will only achieve the goal we seek when our own actions match our words.
They were nasty before setting up Alba, some of us were witness to their behaviour in the SNP
DeleteUnlike serial wanderer Tasmina, though, something tells me your next political party will be to come back home.
ReplyDeleteWhy aye in 2025, readahs. No, it's all right, I'm not going to spend 45 painful minutes droning on about internationally responsible keffiyeh-friendly policies in purest Geowdie.
ReplyDeleteI just want you to know that I've been giving Shannon remedial writing lessons and she'll shortly be right up to speed.
So tremble, false bloggahs - and remember...I will return!
Not remotely surprised, James.
ReplyDeleteI have always seen Alba as a vanity project and have always believed its over-riding mission was to destroy the SNP.
The fact that their internal systems seem to be based on the Brexshit/Reform Party is also no great revelation, as I have always seen Alba as on the Right Wing Fringe of the Yes Movement.
'Pay Per Vote' is about as control-freak as it gets.
And, as you correctly state, if Alba had been scutinised in anything like the way SNP and other Parties have been - rather than being ignored as a collection of half-witted has-beens - it would have completely fallen apart long before now.
The sooner this conspiracy-laden pretendy party disappears and takes its even more nutty Bath Balloon Bestie with it, the better for the rest of us Yessers.
The same control freak mechanism used in the SNP which Alba was very much modelled on, at least as a concept. I left the SNP because the leadership clique there had effectively removed members from the running of the party.
DeleteAs for right wing, I'd say the vast majority of members I've met are on the left.
David Francis says Alba’s overriding mission was to destroy the SNP. Methinks David has been reading Wings too much.
DeleteNope.
DeleteJust reading very numerous posts from Alba members/supporters/voters.
That was enough.
Well said David.
DeleteReading too much Wings can damage your health.
DeleteVery best of luck in future James, I look forward to following your journey and reading the forthcoming articles you mention. Alba members are demanding the whole truth come out about Sturgeon, but as yet haven’t realised they need to turn the microscope a bit closer to home. There is still time to fix it if they’re brave, but I fear they’ll supinely accept more of the same at their upcoming conference.
ReplyDeleteMote and beam come to mind.
DeleteAnonymous says:- " Alba members are demanding the whole truth come out about Sturgeon, ......."
DeleteOrdinary decent independence supporters are also demanding the same. It's not just an Alba thing but some silly SNP members think it will all just go away if Alba go away. It won't. That's why SNP is at 30 to 35% and independence is 50 to 55%.
And Alba are on 1%
DeleteAnon at 11.32am - and the SNP are on 3% in the U.K. they seem to determined to keep Scotland in.
DeleteIf it’s pay by vote can certain key people “bought” more votes? How does this link with electoral rules?Incidentally, the finances of labour Lib Dem’s tories reform all need looking into. The SNP has had that pleasure due to certain individuals complaining to the polis.
ReplyDeleteHow many members are left in Alba ?
ReplyDelete1. Members that just pay their membership fee but do not attend any events or play much of a role in the party
2. Members who are in denial
3. Members who are supportive of the leadership cliques. Thinking wrongly that they are valued and trying to win brownie points by being as nasty as possible to the wee gang of malcontents
4
The inner circle cliques
Clique 1
Corri Family
Taz Family
Clique 2
Kenny + Salmond family
Neale
Angus Brendan
Clique 3
Ash
Chris (?)
Kenny and clique 3 are at war
Clique 1 is staying very quiet
It's horrible.
ReplyDeleteThe UK in sinking fast and collapsing to it's right. We have over 50% indy support but our parties are shite and we have no unity on effective strategy.
Building the non party movement on a combined strategy of tactical voting and direct action seems to me the only way for now.
The parties have become energy sapping wasters of effort. New leadership will have to emerge from the struggle.
Alt Clut says:- " our parties are shite". Very true Alt Clut but the members of these parties are shite as well because their attitude is: ' but it's our shite party not that Alba lot or not that SNP lot or not that Greens lot.'
DeleteThe parties are full of self serving grifters and party drone members who are loyal to the self serving grifters.
Not that simple.
DeleteSome members are toadies but others cling to the idea of winning parties back to an 'independence as first priority' approach. While that's not impossible it seems pretty unlikely to me. Long ago I did many years of entryist work in the Labour Party in England. We had quite a lot of success in winning over individuals to a more radical approach but wherever our approach made headway purges followed from the top down.
Alba seems to me pretty ridiculous as it has 'jumped' the stage of building itelf into a mass party before initiating the purges ! It seems to be just a sterile sect used as a vehicle for a few egos on the road to nowhere.
The SNP's careerist elite don't want to be bothered by the 'irrelevant' ideas of activists. They prefer the road summed up by Ramsay Macdonald a hundred years ago - "We must convince the powers that be that we are not wild men". Good, old fashioned complacency and arrogance.
Both parties have become black holes tearing the energy out of activists.
Those genuine activists who stay in membership are good people who can't bring themselves to leave their abusers !
So, no I for S - you and I are not in agreement.
Whit are there two Alt Cluts?
DeleteFrom the outside, all this Alba Party infighting seems enormously petty and inconsequential.
ReplyDeleteJames, you are better off out of it.
Caroline Lucas of the Greens on BBC Newsnight actually says:- " The BBC should call that out. The truth is the truth and the BBC should be really promoting that. "
ReplyDeleteThere you go the English still think the BBC should be telling the truth to its viewers as that's what they are brainwashed in to believing is the BBC's role and those of a colonised mind in Scotland also believe.
Incredible that a politician like Lucas cannae see the BBC's role is to be the propaganda arm of the British state and the BBC's truth is something that is variable depending on the needs of the British State.
Interesting.
ReplyDeleteVERY important thread from James and one which might affect his own future as a political blogger and which also might well tweak the content/direction/standpoint of this site.
And only a dozen responses in 4 hours.
WHERE are all the 'usual suspects' on here - and all their multiple/anon aliases?
My guess is, they have found what James has just said too unpalatable to digest/accept and, given its very Alba-Specific content, they are really having great difficulty turning it into another SNP Baaaad meme.......and let's face it, that is ALL they really want to do with everything.
James - as I suggested previously, get yourself OUT of the political fringes of our Movement and into its mainstream, where you can do the most good.
And ditch that bunch of fringe whiners at the same time.
My totally impartial, unbiased view, of course.
Hi David, I am more than happy to do David Francis baaaaad posts. You are a pretty obnoxious poster/troll and that is my 100% biased viewpoint.
DeleteYou turn up on SGP and within days you start telling James what to do and other posters to go away. Your arrogance is off the scale. If James wants to turn SGP in to an SNP propaganda site that is his right. I guess the SNP needs more WGD and Bella sites these days but Scottish independence does not.
At least you have restricted your shite to only 12 lines this morning, pal.
DeleteQuite an achievement for someone who can normally fill a large set of incontinence-knickers, with some to spare.
Any one who disagrees with IFS is either a troll or snidey or both (in his own mind).
DeleteTbf, fellas, both youse two are.
DeleteDavid Francis - you ain't very good at arithmetic - explains a lot.
DeleteLomax - your memory is going - I've told you before that not anyone who disagrees with me I say is a troll. You on the other hand are the king of one line snidey remarks and you kindly demonstrated that once again in your one line snidey remark at 11.34am. I can't say I have ever read you detailing anything you disagree with me about. That would need some thinking and effort on your part. One line snidey remarks is your trademark.
Alec Lomax -
DeleteI actually pity him/her/it.
Their wee world of Sturgeon/SNP-Hating bilge is gradually slipping away from them and there is absolutely nothing they can do about it.
Swinney has proven to be far more capable - and popular with voters - that they thought and the swing back to SNP is now pretty consistent.
IFS and his ilk have NOTHING to offer the Yes Movement, apart from their constant whining.
They are like a bad smell which no amount of air-freshener can purge.
Fortunately, they are becoming more and more irrelevant with every passing day.
And.........if Branchform finds no case to pursue against Sturgeon - as perhaps looks increasingly likely - they could well implode.
As a side-note........the more James spills the beans on the inner-workings of Alba, the more 'the shine' seems to come off Salmond.
As I have said many times, he was indeed a giant of Scottish/British politics in his time, but also a very flawed human being and those flaws are now becomming more apparent.
David Francis ……………………….. a very flawed human being and these flaws are many and all too apparent as he demonstrates in his posts every day on SGP.
DeleteMaybe, pal.
DeleteProbably right, in fact.
But really hard to judge YOUR flaws, when you hide behind your 'anonimity' like a coward, isn't it.
David Francis is baaaaad. Very very baaaaad. Part One
DeleteAre you sure you are an SNP member? All you do is bring the SNP into disrepute. Pronouns are important in the SNP and yet there you are calling me him/her/it. Indeed you say:- " I actually pity him/her/it."
Deliberately misgendering someone is that not a major no no in the SNP if not a Hate Crime ( I'll let you check Yousaf's Hate Crime Law). I have made it clear to many of you trolls over many years on SGP that I am a he but you persist in misgendering me and using hateful pronouns. David Francis is baaaad but is he a hateful bigot as well. Time for the SNP to investigate this member of ?????? Branch. Calling me an it and then an Ilk is just outrageous!
Are you really a member of the SNP David? Why so shy in saying what branch you are a member of? You claimed to kick the asses of your fellow branch members. You have also admitted in a post that you supported the British Labour Party in the past. Baaaad David, Baaad David. So you are a self confessed lapsed Unionist. Sure you ain't really KC turning up in another phoney independence supporter guise to create havoc and disharmony.
Baaaad David also claims the shine is coming off Salmond. Well very baaaad David has been working away relentlessly at that shine and it isnae to polish it. In another post very baaaad David links Salmond to the Al Fayed events. Now this is exactly what the Britnat Herald did with its large picture centrefold piece linking Salmond with every serial killer and child murderer in recent history during his trial. Contempt of court by the Herald. Not in Scotland the colony it ain't. Baaaad David claimed the Alf Fayed event is the same as Salmond. It's not.
The polis in the Fayed case are investigating themselves for not doing anything when the Fayed complainants raised their complaints when Fayed was alive. The polis in the Fayed case are also investigating any others who helped Fayed cover up his activities. They are not investigating Fayed as that is a waste of time as dead people cannae be prosecuted but Baaaad David tries to tell you that the polis are investigating Salmond again after new complaints.
The Al Fayed complainants want financial compensation. The Salmond complainants are not suing anyone, they are hiding away under a cloak of anonymity because the criminal trial exposed them as peddlers of false complaints. Otherwise they would be suing Salmond when alive for damages and suing the SNP and the Scot Gov today. There is the rape case of the footballer ( David Goodwillie) who was acquitted of rape in a criminal trial but the complainant subsequently successfully sued him in a civil court.
There is only one civil case underway and that is the case raised by Salmond against the likes of Sturgeon, Lesley Evans and Liz Lloyd for their actions in government and that recommences in May this year.
Logically, if very baaad David really believed the Salmond complaints are like the Fayed complainants he would be advocating for the Scottish polis to be investigating others in the Scotgov and SNP for covering up and assisting Salmond's wrongdoings just like they are doing with the Fayed case. People like Iain McCann, SNP had complaints raised with him and he did nothing.
Nothing but false accusations and smears and people like very baaad David like to continue to propagate the smears with his false comparisons and that is no better than the Britnat Herald. Disgusting stuff by the Herald and David Francis.
David Francis is baaad. Very very baaad. Part two.
DeleteBaaad David also says it is very unlikely that no case will be found against Sturgeon. He provides no evidence for this assertion and cannae say where the missing £600k is. Sturgeon has never backed her husband and only claims SHE has done nothing wrong. She NEVER says there has been no wrongdoing by anyone. You have a party leader who between her and her husband and a party Treasurer over £600k disappears but David thinks this is not an issue. My advice to people in David's SNP branch, if David asks you for a loan, walk away. David highlights one of his many flaws in that he is more concerned about people imploding ( " they could well implode") if Sturgeon is not prosecuted rather than where the £600k is.
We do not get better politicians in Scotland by covering up their wrongdoings. But people like baaaad David don't care about this - it's all about protecting the reputation of the organisation. Same attitude as all these church sex scandals. Deny, cover up, deny, destroy information and redact papers.
.....but David Francis isnt as WE as you Ifs....is he?.No.
DeleteIfs is sooooooooo WEE.
Well, you did a politics degree, and this is all a practical learning experience. For the likes of me, it perhaps explains a bit of my own experience as a member / committee as well. I guess a lot of debate and decision is done BEFORE any meetings and perhaps a lot of meetings are just formalities, something to write minutes about.
ReplyDeleteI also think from what others have posted, there are good branches and bad ones. But that even the "bad" ones have little or no influence up the chain. And it does seem to be a strict hierarchy which isn't what you'd expect in a political party where all members should be equal. And it does seem to be a lot about the elected politicians - MP, MSP and Councillor. It really really shouldn't be, it should be within the party constitution or change it, the overall direction of a party which for us should be Independence, and then policies.
That's off the top of my head. Anyways, perhaps after Indy without that constitutional divide to be number 1 for many, parties will occur that put true democracy at the top.
This in fighting helps no-one.
ReplyDeleteJames is one of the few big hitting blogs on scottish politics. What specifically was enough to banish him and make him an enemy?
So so weird.
I don't agree with making the party over bureaucratic with loads of elected posts and so on.. but how hard is it to unite everyone under a very simple independence is a priority message??
The alba leadership have done the party a disservice here.. and I don't even agree with James on everything he wanted to do with the party.. but expulsion? The party is finished.
I wouldn't expect too much from someone who can't wrap his jacket around his hand and disentangle a sheep from some brambles.
ReplyDeleteIt's not that easy, I bet you've never done it yourself.
DeleteI have.
For your information, my friend, I stood and watched the SSPCA officers free the sheep, and even with special equipment it took them a good twenty minutes. Not only could I not have done it, you could not have done it. The sheep was also extremely emaciated and had a skin infection, and it was not a job for an enthusiastic amateur. So take your sneering elsewhere, there's a good chap.
DeleteAnon at 12:07 -
DeleteAwww diddums
Anon at 12:07
DeleteI would expect too much from someone who hides behind 'Anonymous' to make bitchy comments. Liberace never did.
You must be relieved its over and you're out of it. If anything, you should feel a touch of pride that they felt you were sufficently dangerous that they had to go through all the formal processes to make sure it was official. I bet you've caused them no end of stress!
ReplyDeleteI left the SNP some years back, but I never joined the rush to Alba, for the simple reason that I felt Alex Salmond (RIP), for all I respected him, was yesterday's man, and should have been a grandee, not a leader. When I saw the likes of Eva Comrie leave, I felt justifed. They're a joke of a party now. Just another SSP or Solidarity. Hell mend them.
To be fair to SSP, they at least managed some sort of electoral success before they imploded. Four years on, and for all their troubles Alba hasn't come anywhere close to gaining single elected office at any level.
DeleteIf Salmond thought his name recognition alone would be enough to propel success, he was gravely mistaken. He seems to have wanted to emulate Farage's success, completely overlooking the fact it took Farage years of active campaigning and years of failed by-elections to build any sort of significant momentum.
His failure to seize the initiative and stand in the Rutherglen by-election was the fatal, defining moment. An act of cowardice or political stupidity, it was the final nail in Alba's coffin, and proved that he thought success would inevitably fall into the lap of his tartan trews with no hard work.
All politicians have a shelf-life. Even the best and most cunning lose the political astuteness that made them so formidable in the first place. Salmond was no different, and Rutherglen was the moment that finally became obvious.
Now that James is out of it I wonder if he is able to shed any more light on the decision to not stand in Rutherglen.
DeleteWas AS talked out of it or did the gambler lose his nerve? Or, was he more concerned with the SNP losing the seat and didn't want to split the vote?
Ruthergen was where many of us lost faith in the project.
Sounds as though the SSPCA might be the best outside bet for Holyrood.
DeleteBut about Rutherglen , although it seems like a key moment of loss of nerve, wasn't there actually a fairly tight debate between ordinary members? I got that impression.
"Now that James is out of it I wonder if he is able to shed any more light on the decision to not stand in Rutherglen."
DeleteThe only rumour I heard was that it was because of McEleny's trial for threatening behaviour at Greenock Sheriff Court. No idea if there was any truth in that, although the timing is more or less consistent with it.
Um The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals?
DeleteRutherglen was very strange. Up until end of June Salmond, as far as I could tell, was positive on standing in Rutherglen.
DeleteWe would talk about it and make plans
My plan was to get the postal vote register, and immediately post-recall petition, deliver personal letters to postal voters. We would knock the door so it would combine personal letter delivery with canvassing. All my data from the by-elections showed that this was effective
I’d written a report for the entire constituency with the polling areas to target in priority order.
Then a decision must have been made that I was not party to - that we wouldn’t contest Rutherglen of course it wasn’t communicated to the NEC
It could have been Chris’s postponed trial which would fall during the campaign (although it was further postponed)
Or it could have been that Salmond and Tasmins were too busy with the Ayes Have It which ran at the fringe in August, to think about Rutherglen
Or it could be lack of cash a GE by-election campaign is very expensive
Whatever the reason they simply ran down the clock to the end of August.
Did No preparation. I could not even get Chris to get the postal vote register, despite many requests.
So we’d lost a month in fact longer because we should have been preparing in July
Despite all this there was a debate and a reasonably close-ish vote
I still voted to stand but the vote was lost
James' line about people just being annoyed their clique not being in charge re SNP/Alba could have been written with this particular poster in mind.
DeleteThe
That’s the point isn’t it.
DeleteMy ‘clique’ won. Yours had to cheat and it was a pyrrhic victory as you burn the party down
Mair trouble for Tel Aviv Keith. Second poll in a row to put Labour in a tie, this time with the Tories (RefUK trailing by 4%). Field work 6 - 8 Jan, population sample 2,011.
ReplyDeleteScottish sub-sample; Con 18%, Lab 20%, LibDem 10%, RefUK 17%, SNP 30%.
The Fixed Term Parliament Act is about to be stressed like never before.
We should start doing rUK samples of these to ram home the point how England and Wales are pulling us right wards against our will
Delete"The Fixed Term Parliament Act is about to be stressed like never before."
DeleteNot sure if that's a joke? The Fixed Term Parliaments Act was repealed by Boris Johnson.
Well folks, not long now. The momentous day of Glen Sannox entering service is fast approaching, 7 and a bit years since she was launched, to great fanfare, by wee Sturgeon!
ReplyDeleteYou prefer no ferry and fergusons shut down?
DeleteAnon 9.08 does
DeletePitiful from anons@10:49 &11:37.
DeleteI think most of us can agree that the situation with the ferries is nothing short of a scandal, and has been for a number of years.
DeleteWe also have to accept that the SG is mostly to blame. At least John Swinney has finally apologised to islanders for the debacle. Let’s hope things improve from here.
Have you seen the size of the Glen Sannox? it is practically of cruise ship proportions
DeleteDo you accept the amount of interventions by CMal that slowed down the construction of the Glen Sannox having to tear down existing work and reinstate it only to be told on four separate occasions to tear it down ?
Do you accept the four sackings of high placed officials in CMal during this project with no explanation as to why?
Do you accept that during the pandemic barely a spanner was turned in the construction of these vessels yet the media and opposition fail to ever mention that delay but include it as some form of incompetence on the part of the government to make the pandemic magically go away in Ferguson's ?
Scotland has two new state of the art ferries, plus hundreds of jobs were saved and possibly hundreds more created into the future
This was done by Nicola Sturgeon in the face of the British opposition and their media plus the constant whining of the fake Salmond Alba fake Wings revenge party
The steel industry was also saved in Scotland by Nicola Sturgeon during a time when all Salmond ever did was pump out what police Scotland referred to as *spurious information* as he *assisted* police Scotland with their Operation Branchform enquiries
Anon@1:09, The contract to build the two ferries was awarded to Fergusons by the SNP SG in an attempt to make political gain, which has, of course, backfired so spectacularly.
DeleteYour defence of the SNP, and Sturgeon in particular, is quite incredible!
You come across as a gullible brainwashed fool.
Delete1.09pm - that has got to be Dr Jim again. Jimbo sees Sturgeon as Scotland's saviour. St Nicola lives and breathes despite the bad Britnats making up stories about a motorhome to crucify her.
Question for Jimbo - do you pray every night for the return of the saviour?
Second question for Jimbo can you ask the saviour when praying to take a break from writing her book and save Grangemouth. Her main disciple John the Redactor isnae doing the business.
Definitely Dr Jim at 1:09. Somehow manages to blame Alex Salmond for the ferry fiasco while he 'quotes' something from the fresh air between his ears.
DeleteDesperation from the remaining Albanach.
DeleteAnon @ 1.09pm whoever it is claims “Scotland has two new state of the art ferries”. Apart from the fact that they are new the rest of that statement is delusional nonsense. Does that mean the ferries ordered from Turkey are what - inferior? Norway’s ferries are inferior?
DeletePresident Jamez is a very great man who may be capable of standing in forthcoming Twechar by-election.
ReplyDeleteOne day there will be a statue to this punished martyr in Cumbernauld. (And we will enforce morality laws against those who call it "Plook On A Plinth".)
Note to Anon@8:47, the Fixed Term Parliament Act was repealed in 2022.
ReplyDeleteAnon 1026- you may be breachin certain laws for your scumbag comments. Let’s hope so.
ReplyDeleteReally? What fragile, fascist, controlling universe do you live in? Go clutch your pearls tighter, Precious x
ReplyDeleteperversion is wrong. Seek help.
DeleteThat is it for me sadly, resignation from Alba membership submitted. Yes I know as simple retired member it will be of no concern to the high heid yins of Alba but I feel better about leaving. My only concern is now being politically homeless as I will not renew my membership of the SNP under the current leadership or lack of genuine attempt to achieve independence.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile , thank you Mr Kelly for your always informative blog and commitment to the cause of independence. Scotland aye.
That is the point they should care.
DeleteThey should care about every member of Alba. When Jacqui was membership Convener she contacted every person that resigned to ask why and to try to persuade them to stay.
Every member should be valued and respected
I've demanded a meeting of my local LACU and posted James' blog in the WhatsApp group - I will insist on the truth.
DeleteThought I'd entered my name - also my LACU is the Angus one.
DeleteAnon1050 f off and grow a pair
ReplyDelete1128 Oh dear- let’s hope you don’t have any kids
DeleteYup
ReplyDeleteAlba had to be alive to be considered dead.
ReplyDeleteAlba being authoritarian etc doesn't bother me. As long as their authoritarian about being ruthless in their pursuit of independence. SNP's problem isn't they re authoritarian. It's that they're nawbags.
ReplyDeleteTheir ruthlessness hasn't connected with the Scottish electorate.
DeleteDe ruthlessness isn't the reason why you anonymous nawbag. De reason why is too many so called indy supporrersare fake yes woowoo trendies who aren't real yes and SNP sifingeoth the brits on unionist tv to discredit them.
ReplyDeleteSide with
DeleteGo back to school and this time pay attention to your teacher.
DeleteWell it's been a long time coming James, and you put a lot of effort into trying to reform the party, but as it turns out it's unreformable. You are right to treasure the right of ordinary members to influence party policy. I imagine you will be feeling relieved you don't have to hold your tongue any longer.
ReplyDeleteAs Alba is gender sceptical and the SNP and the Greens are gender gullible, a fairly determined attempt was made to recruit me to Alba recently, but I declined because if Independence is to have a chance the SNP need to be reformed.
Whatever party you do join James, good fortune to you.