He repeatedly challenges people in his article to explain how it's possible to get SNP list MSPs elected - so isn't it reasonable to ask how precisely he proposes to destroy the SNP, an infinitely more difficult objective? How would he even define "destruction"? Why has he concluded that internal reform of the SNP, as difficult as it undoubtedly is, is somehow *more* impossible than the total destruction of Scotland's leading party, which by his own admission is heading for another major victory in the constituency ballot next year? On what does he base his seemingly absolute faith that the destruction of the SNP, even if that could be achieved, would lead to a ready-made party of Wonder and Wisdom popping up out of nowhere to take its place, complete with levels of popular support that most new parties would need decades to have any remote chance of building up?
These are the questions I grapple with in today's YouTube commentary. You can listen via the embedded player below, or via the direct YouTube link, or on Soundcloud.
I have no intentions of voting anything other than SNP/SNP List as the stakes are too high. More voter that do this will help as was the case in 2011.
ReplyDeleteI engage much more with the written word than the spoken. Although I generally enjoy reading your blog the move towards so many videos is offputting.
ReplyDeleteAs I explained the other day, I've been struggling since 2021 to keep Scot Goes Pop afloat as a conventional text blog. In a sense I've just about succeeded, but I've been constantly lurching from mini-crisis to mini-crisis, because the fundraisers tend to make relatively slow progress and usually fall short of their target figure. I can't go on like this forever. People have been urging me for years to experiment with alternative funding models. Video content is certainly not my preference, I'd rather just carry on primarily as a text blogger, but I have to live in the real world, and if text is no longer really viable, I have to try other options. Supposedly video content is one of the main things that has replaced conventional blogging over the last few years. To work out whether video is viable for me as an alternative funding model, I'll have to get to the minimum threshold of 1000 YouTube subscribers, which will probably take me quite a while. So that's what I'm concentrating on at the moment. If I get to 1000 and find out it's not going to work, it'll be back to the drawing board. But business as usual still won't be an option - I'd probably have to consider Substack or something similar.
DeleteI agree with the op. Prefer reading at my own pace. No reason for both not to exist.
DeleteCould you not do a blog post of the text plus a YouTube Short? The biggest followers in YT can be Shorts getting the simple message over and the main article for the meat and bones.
Again, as I pointed out the other day, YouTube automatically generate a transcript of each video, so anyone who wants to read rather than listen can still do so. For YouTube shorts, I think the threshold I'd have to reach is several million impressions, whereas for conventional videos it's only 4000 watch-hours - much more easily achievable.
DeleteThe shorts often have a link to subscribe feature.
DeleteMy idea was having a short which leads to the blog with the substantial article included as a pinned comment plus a note/ to subscribe to the YT account.
DeleteIt's pretty standard route among many YT accounts.
The transcript is not the article and most likely not a prose but a dictation of text. Quite different things for the reader.
It's your thing, im just giving some advice. Take it or leave it.
"It's pretty standard route among many YT accounts"
DeleteIt may or may not be standard for some accounts, but that doesn't change the fact that the required threshold for Shorts is several million impressions, which is not realistically attainable for me, whereas the 4000 watch-hour threshold for conventional videos is perfectly attainable. It's not about taking or leaving advice, it's about what would realistically work and what wouldn't.
Sorry but thats not correct. You can make shorts with zero subs and zero views.
DeleteHere's one of many links.
https://youtube.com/shorts/F12PJgyVKyA?feature=shared
Im not saying use the shorts as your income maker. Using at as a marketing tool for the blog and channel.
The current approach risks losing the current audience.
"Sorry but thats not correct."
DeleteSorry, but it absolutely is correct, as you go on to tacitly acknowledge by saying that Shorts can't be an income maker. Finding a viable funding model is the *entire point* of switching to video content - there's literally no other purpose for doing it.
As for risking losing the current audience, I was absolutely upfront in my post a few days ago that videos I make tend to get significantly fewer views than the average number of page views for each blogpost. That suggests the current audience is geared towards text and I would need to some extent to find a new audience for regular video content. That's not ideal, but if the current funding model isn't sustainable, there's not much I can do about that - I need to find a viable alternative and that's all there is to it.
There are no doubts on this matter, with the current polling the SNP will get list seats in every region
ReplyDeleteYes.
DeleteThey will get a number of lists seats presumably because they are going to perform weakly in the constituency voting? And people within SNP are recommending this? Have they given up on appealing to the one million voters they lost over the past few years? Hopefully this gets a response other than the cretinous “there’s always the……..). (insert Alba or other lost cause of choice)
DeleteMy question is whether the SNP as a brand is strong enough now to carry the large percentages needed to break the deadlock on independence, rather than just win elections with 30-45% of the vote?
ReplyDeleteWhen we started taking labour votes, and people from the schemes started believing in something different, the SNP had a competent but fairly fresh government..that hadn't had scandals and inevitably..disappointment.
I dont think crushing the snp out of existence now is the way forward..but I do think if independence will ever be achieved, its more likely to come from a fresher brand appeal. So it leaves me wondering what the best course of action is.
I think the snp on the whole try their best but I dont see the francie boyles, the limmy's, the amdy murrays coming out for a tired old party. It needs something fresh.
As tired as the current SNP is, the lack of quality opposition is their biggest attribute.
DeleteI still think Stephen Flynn is our best hope of re-energising the party but for reasons I don't understand he's not very popular with some members. Forbes, McAllan, Gilruth etc aren't dynamic enough to turn the party's decline around.
It's still likely to be SNP 1 and 2 for me but not with much enthusiasm, if I'm honest.
Hi thanks for reply.
DeleteIm the same and that's exactly the dilemma.
Enough of "us".. will support the SNP to keep them in existence and relevant for public office but the energy needed to break a state and the enthusiasm needed is much greater than that.
Solidarnoc in Greece, various other parties in Europe..fresh..were needed to create the buzz. Has any independence party, having lost the confidence of a substantial part of its original vote ever succeeded under their name?
Labour and Tories get 30s, 40s% occasionally in England. The English font expect anything as radical as creating a new state. It's just the humdrum of normal politics.
Ill support the snp as only game in town but I dont see independence happening without a new party anymore. But the SNP need to be part of that solution as well. Not a breakaway as such, a reinvention..
I don’t think any individual is going to turbo charge the SNP or broader Indy movement. Competent governance and capable individuals are what is needed. Currently the Indy movement has neither in positions of SNP leadership or country governance and authority. These people do exist, but the N S clique that remains in control of the SNP prevent the removal of the current incompetent divisive element and the installation of these people. For as long as people such as Forbes and Cherry are treated in a hostile fashion by SNP and its ruling clique the downward trend in SNP fortunes will continue. Being slightly less shit than the unionists is not much of an aspiration, and isn’t going to change any minds from no to yes.
Delete"Solidarnoc in Greece"
DeleteEh? Do you mean Syriza?
I could have told you Stew was a nutjob ages ago
ReplyDeleteSNP have selected an incompetent Wokist to stand in Moray. it is clear that they are no longer an Indy Party. They are thick with traitors. They arent getting my vote on even the Constituency Vote now.
ReplyDeleteSo, you'll be voting Unionist, then. I think that was always your intention, given your screams about traitors and woke.
DeleteGood luck with that.
DeleteBe honest. You've never voted SNP in your life. We can see through you.
DeleteOnly you can be the best judge of your forward strategy for SGP James. I much prefer text but 'needs must...' I suppose.
ReplyDeleteI haven't looked at Wings for a long time. My guess he's likely to announce eventually that Scotland is lost and no longer merits his wisdom from Mount Olympus. He'll then likely just become another squalid little right wing propagandist from the south of England. Frankly - who cares ?
The latest Scottish sub-sample from More in Common (field work 26 - 28 July) is almost identical to that of YouGov in the same period. SNP 31%, Greens 10%.
ReplyDeleteThe validity of the argument to vote SNP on the regional lists rests with the SNP doing (relatively) catastrophically poorly in the constituency votes.
The party under Swinney lacks dynamism. If it could negate this by showing managerial competence this would be one thing, but they can’t.
Issues with the Water Regulator (corruption) and the ferry procurement body (gross incompetence), point to a government which has lost sight of priorities, and a drive to make life better for the people.
Jackson’s Entry must take some of the responsibility for this. Candidate vetting favours Humanities graduates lacking real life experience, and an employment history preceding party politics.
Lacklustre performance, and technical incompetence could be ameliorated by radicalism, but it ain’t.
In the recent vote to proscribe Palestine Action, the SNP cohort chose to abstain rather than vote against. It now appears that Parliament was given a false prospectus by the Home Secretary with regard to the criminal intent of Palestine Action.
Things have reached a pretty pass when the advocates for Scottish independence trust the British state.
The SNP are merely the Irish Parliamentary Party for the 21st century.
Aye of course. They were never getting your vote ever. Every election time we have have I’ve voted all my life but not this time brigade. So predictable as they are so boring.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it a difficult task for SNP supporters, given that in elections most people vote based on what's currently being presented — the manifestos on the table, etc.?
ReplyDeleteFew walk into a polling station and vote for a party based on what they hope it might become if its members somehow manage to change it from within. A vote is generally seen as an endorsement of the manifesto and the leader putting it forward. Expecting the electorate to vote on any other basis is naive at best.
You'd better take that up with Stew - he wants people to disregard the, y'know, unionism in Unionist parties' manifestos and vote for them on some sort of spurious 'pro-independence' basis.
Delete"To win independence, we must first kill independence", etc, etc.
My issue: When a Leader starts outright lying to supporters to win votes.
ReplyDeleteJohn Swinney knows fine well how our voting system works and why the fluke majority in 2011 is unlikely to ever happen again. He also knows fine well that Westminster won't respect any democratic result and grant us a referendum.
Telling supporters that both things can happen is a lie and he knows it.
Anon 8.16.. you're at the lash .You and other pseudo nationalists want nothing more than the SNP lose the Scottish election.
ReplyDeleteCampbell is a genuine imbecile, twisted by his deep hatred of anything and everything to do with the SNP.
ReplyDeleteHis so-called advice will only be followed by the vanishingly small clique of similar imbeciles who, driven by that same hatred, want to burn the entire indy house down with absolutely nothing to replace it.
They will have almost no effect on the vast majority of pro-indy Scots in 2026.
I also notice the usual unionists on here posing as indy supporters and spouting their usual guff about the SNP.
It will not work.
They are as transparent as Starmer's blatant Zionism.
Scottish political discourse will be very much improved when Campbell and his tiny band of halfwits ars shovelled into the nearest gutter where they belong.
Keep Somerset tidy !
DeleteBut isn't Campbell Tasima's and Alba's declared 'hero' as was at their homage to 2014 events - so presumably he's on a retainer for Alba and the rest of the anti-Swinney/SNP yes movement bods who have Swinney pinned as their bogeyman?
DeleteOh dear. Make sure to come back on post 2026 election and apologise for your complacency. That’s if the right wing grouping in power has not, by then, already banned this site as anti-Brit. In the meantime can you explain where the one million lost Indy voters (fact, not opinion or unionist propaganda) have gone to? Or to put it another way, why have approximately forty per cent of the Indy supporters in Scotland decided they will not be voting SNP? Try to answer these questions instead of your tiresome “you’re a unionist” tripe
DeleteSomerset? Is that in Engerland?
ReplyDeleteGood use of the question mark.
DeleteReporting Scotland telling Scots that the world’s largest wind farm Berwick Bank off the coast of Fife has been approved by Swinney. Not a word by them that all the electricity is going down to England. Not a word by them about any economic benefits to Scotland - probably because there are none. A massive eyesore off the coast of Scotland that will be there long after it stops sending electricity to England and they are rusting hulks. It was all about the risk to seabirds - true but that was just deflection from the real problems for Scots.
ReplyDeleteSwinney, the perfect FM for England.
BBC also saying Berwick Bank will provide double the electricity requirements of Scotland. No word of it all going to England. Propaganda by omission. Also there are all the other wind farms in operation and planned for the East coast of Scotland. Any word on electricity bills in Scotland being very little in the future due to all the surplus electricity being produced in Scottish waters. Nope not a word. Scotland keeping the lights on in England and paying high bills for the privilege of being “Better Together”. Better for England that is. Other Britnats then also want to build nuclear power stations in Scotland as well. Surely Swinney will not sign up to this as well.
ReplyDelete