If he truly believes that, he's descending into a world of fantasy. He's talking about a party, let's not forget, which over the last couple of years has had one of the highest per capita rates of Mafia-style backstabbing and bloodletting of any political party in western Europe. And there are two very recent events that are more than a tad difficult to square with the "collegiate and harmonious" line -
* As I mentioned the other day, there are strong indications that a very senior member of Alba, possibly even one "of Salmond blood", tried to get the police involved in her bitter vendetta against an NEC colleague who resigned from the party after being relentlessly bullied. This incident apparently happened only around a month ago.
* The Electoral Commission website still shows that Alba's Nominating Officer, ie. the only individual who is ultimately responsible for approving Alba election candidates, is none other than Chris McEleny - the man expelled from Alba two months ago. It's hard to think of a less "collegiate and harmonious" state of affairs than to have an expellee in such a pivotal position. And under the rules, it's almost impossible to get rid of him unless he voluntarily resigns, which apparently he has refused to do. This is an almost unprecedented situation in British political history - I say "almost" because something similar happened to George Galloway's former party Respect. (By a strange coincidence, Alba's delightful Yvonne Ridley was heavily embroiled in that Respect clusterbourach - if you do a Google search, you'll even find a newspaper article from the time which tries to determine whether or not she was technically the Respect leader.)
I also get the impression that these two episodes are not entirely unrelated. Although the story about the police came to me in garbled form, the implication seemed to be that it had something to do with the Alba leadership's panic over the McEleny situation, which made me think I may have been on the right track in wondering whether they're concerned that they may have to nominally re-register the party under a new name, as the only viable way of getting round the roadblock of McEleny insisting on remaining as Nominating Officer.
MacAskill's comments were made in response to a Herald interview with McEleny a week ago, which I hadn't previously seen. It contains this extraordinary statement -
"You can't stay a big tent and a broad church but kick out people when they disagree with you."
Are we to take this as some sort of Damascene conversion, Chris? Or as some sort of long-overdue apology to myself, Denise Somerville, Geoff Bush, Sean Davis and Colin Alexander, all of whom you expelled from Alba (or de facto expelled) for fatuous non-reasons last year? There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repenteth, etc, etc.
McEleny also blasts MacAskill for turning Alba into a "1970s tribute act", which seems at least in part to be code for "he's taking too principled a stance on Gaza". I don't know if it's Stew's influence, but McEleny does seem to be increasingly flirting with the dark side on Gaza - see for example his ghastly retweet from a few weeks ago which mocked Greta Thunberg for caring too much about the issue, and did so from a firmly right-wing American, genocide-apologist perspective.
McEleny justifies all of this by saying Alba should be concentrating on bread-and-butter issues that matter to voters, but then bizarrely in the next breath he starts banging on like a true ideologue about the vital importance of Ash Regan's "Unbuyable" bill on prostitution law, which is not relevant to the lives of the vast majority of voters and which polling shows is an extremely low priority for them (and indeed polling also shows that voters oppose the principles of the bill in any case).
All of this reminds me that I received another press release from the National Ugly Mugs campaign a few days ago that identified a comment from the Scottish Government's Siobhian Brown which expressed scepticism about the wisdom of Regan's bill. If the SNP leadership aren't going to lend support to the bill, it's obviously far less likely to pass. The SNP are in principle sympathetic to the Nordic Model, but it makes perfect sense that if there's ever going to be legislation, they'd want to draw it up themselves, rather than allow Alba's only MSP to railroad it through in a half-baked form.
The Herald have once again drawn attention to Regan's now-notorious literalistic misunderstanding of the term "prostitution being driven underground". I hadn't seen the full quote before, and it truly is a thing of beauty -
"If you even think for one second, you cannot possibly drive prostitution underground. If you had a lot of women in underground cellars with a locked door, how would the punters get to them?"
Hopefully somebody will ask Regan if she wants to put clear blue water between herself and the SNP, just to see if she starts looking into the cost of a dinghy.
Reading between the lines of the McEleny interview, it's obvious that his expulsion from Alba has been upheld by the Appeals Committee (assuming he even put in an appeal at all). Given the time limits imposed by Alba's rules, the process must be over by now.
Last but not least, we have MacAskill's delusional claim that Alba could win between eight and sixteen list seats next year. Eight seats would mean they'd have to treble their 2% list vote share in last week's Ipsos poll. They'd have to multiply it by six to get to sixteen seats. Let's get real, Kenny - it's not going to happen. Alba remain firmly on course for zero seats.
* * *
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That the Alba project has failed completely after only a few years is thoroughly depressing.
ReplyDeleteThe party that we hoped would at least become a thorn in the side of the SNP, forcing them to concentrate on independence, never really got off the launchpad (not a real one, they were never going to the moon, Ash).
All those snide put downs by the likes of Wishart about Alba being a 'pop up indy party polling at 1%' etc have proved to be true and, if anything, is likely to have strengthened the SNP's own high opinion of itself. Their monopoly of the Yes movement reinforced, they are even less likely to adopt the change in focus many of us are calling for.
Total agreement with you. It's a real shame because the SNP need reminded why they exist, although most people understand that in government the SNP also need to show competence and care for the population. A conundrum that needs fixed.
DeleteIf you look at some of the people attracted to Alba membership in its early days, there is a similarity to the types attracted to Reform.
DeleteSo true, Boyd and Zell. Alba failed, yet the need for an alternative to the corporate, self-absorbed careerist SNP remains. They are the spitting image of the Labour Party that they replaced as Scotland’s hegemonic power. Every single wart and all.
Delete@Anon. Reform is what it looks like when the British media is on your side, and fancies you in government.
@K Boyd, Alba were never formed to have anything to do with Scottish independence, haven't you had the memo yet? the gaff's been blown, YES movement? what is that and who and where are they?
Deletehow long should indy people keep supporting the SNP for?
ReplyDeleteanother 10 years of doing sodall, 20, 30.
at what point do you realise that with them, nothing will be done, for they do not care; indy nationalism is as hollow as labour socialism
Good luck to the reformers trying to take the party back to independence. It won’t be an easy task, though. Like Labour, the rot is at the top and has the monopoly of power to reject you. You’ll need patience and backbone. Indeed, you’ll need a miracle.
DeleteLabour droppped socialism in the last century. In that time the SNP have been toying with the idea of not being Conservatives
DeleteI suppose that when your deputy leader is a combo of Margret Thatcher in stilts and the leader of the DUP you better keep her well hidden.
DeleteHow long shall individuals realise you don’t jump on another bus which doesn’t have an engine, wheels or even a driver.
DeleteBest to vote Tory or Labour then eh
DeleteAch, there's always Alba.
Deletesturgeon drove the indy bus over a cliff, broke the steering wheel, set it on fire and threw the keys at useless who fumbled them
DeleteIt’s all very well to laugh at Ash Regan. That’s all.
ReplyDeleteAs for Forbes 'my personal beliefs are not not definately not ever my political thing ever'. Fuck off gently
ReplyDeleteWhy?
DeleteAlthough some aspects of our political stagnation in Scotland
ReplyDeleteare reasonably clear to me I genuinely don't understand where the Swinney leadership thinks that its approach is likely to take it.
Winning a new majority in '26 by standing on the ground that Labour used to occupy before its most recent slides to the right is simply doomed.
Like it or not Reform is rising in England and stands some chance of forming the next UK government. If it does it will simply abolish devolution, or if Farage is not quite strong enough, gut Scotland's limited powers down to token level leaving SNP parliamentarians with their salaries and pensions while they 'count paper clips' in their empty offices.
Mr. Swinney's polite and tentative input will be ignored as we are locked more tightly into a failed state with all of the horrors of English, lounge bar, Trumpism.
The rabbit in the headlights has a better chance of success than 'Swinneyism' in that brave new world. Are they blind or are their aspirations so low that pensions really are enough for it to seem worthwhile ?
Answers on a postcard.....
Everybody and his dog knows Farage will abolish Holyrood when he wins the English PM job, the problem is Scotland is full of dummies that think joining in with the English system and voting something else makes a difference, it doesn't
DeleteThe only way to combat England is to vote SNP and at the very least that keeps telling England we want nothing to do with their politics
The English already don't like Scots in the same way they don't like anybody who's different from them, no matter what the colour, so what do we do about it?
Make the English publicly despise us at every turn, they always blow it themselves, they can't help it, they've always been a racist country against every other country except the only one who kicked them out, America
Make the English show that they hate Scots as much as they hate everybody else, then Scotland will vote in the numbers we need
We can't get rid of them, but we can turn our backs on them
If Salmond made a mistake, it's that he stood down in 2014, thereby paving the way for the political class to assume power. Grim. 50-60% for indy and all we've got are toytown politicians.
DeleteMore anti-SNP stuff. The closer we get to the 2026 election the more we'll hear of the likes of this.
DeleteSalmond was the political class, an opportunist who accepted the shilling, he was respected as a politician but not liked by anyone in the SNP because of his efforts to gain devo max and not full independence
DeleteWhy won't you people see the truth?
3.30pm the vote in 2014 was for independence not devomax. Stop posting a load of pish.
DeleteFrom a recent article in the Yorkshire Bylines, about American extreme right funding and shaping of Reform UK in their own image -
ReplyDelete"A scan of X accounts reveal some Reform voters to be violently racist and susceptible to conspiracy theories...."
Ditto some Alba and WoS freaks.
For freaks look no further than men who think they have a cervix and women we have a penis. Unthinkable I know but apparently there are some people who actually believe that. Very freaky if you ask me or most folk
DeleteI think MasCaskill knows the game is up but his loyalty to Salmond prevents him from saying so as in his mind it may smack as disloyal.
ReplyDeleteThe game is up and all of us have to move on from the death of a spouse, family friend of colleague. Not to do so is to,forever remain in denial.
For those careerists in ALBA he’ll mend you.
So the SNP decided not to vote against proscribing Palestine Action. They abstained. Disgraceful conduct by the SNP and all these MPs who didn’t vote against it.
ReplyDeleteI hope you're not suggesting the SNP are now pro Israel?
DeleteStop telling lies. The Westminster govt deliberately listed three organisations, two of whom are terrorist organisations beyond the pale. A vote was a vote affecting all three. If SNP has voted against they would have been accused of blocking the proscription of two terrorist groups, but you already know this. Just toddle off back to the Mail.
DeleteWho are these new terrorist organisations Labour also proscribed - Oxfam and Save the Children?
Delete1.10 you crawl back to your doss house for down and out drunks.
DeleteOk Stu
DeleteAnon at at 6.17 and 6.21. You don’t do truth do you? Unionist? Yep. And two posts minutes apart . Sad wee man.
DeleteOff you go. The village misses you.
Just watched the Owen Jones / Piers Morgan thing. Toe curling.
ReplyDeleteAs it is revealed that Farage has been taking economic advice from Liz Truss - LIZ TRUSS FFS!!! - it is plainly evident to most rational people that Reform UK has all the intellectual heft of a chicken on cocaine.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, common sense is surprisingly supplied by a bunch of extremely wealthy individuals collectively known as the Patriotic Millionaires who state -
"(Wealth) Inequality has reached a tipping point and its cost to our societal, economic and ecological stability is severe - and growing every day"
These individuals, who all have a net liquid worth, excluding property, of over £10 million, strongly advocate for them and their cohort of multi millionaires and billionaires to pay an additional 2% in tax on wealth over that £10 million threshold and say that would raise over £20 billion annually for the UK Exchequer.
They also dismiss the alleged threat of a mass exodus of very rich people from the UK as completely overblown hype which will never happen to any meaningful degree.
They are right, of course.
Taxing the very rich a very small bit more is far preferable to cutting benefits for the very poorest, the elderly and the disabled.
The moral, as well as the fiscal case for doing exactly that, is extremely clear.
The SNP Scottish government has been attempting, in at least a reasonably meaningful way, to do exactly that, tax the better off a little bit more within the powers they have and good on them for going down that fairer path.
Reform UK and indeed all the unionist parties are avoiding that fairer path like the plague and are merely storing up all the very bad outcomes highlighted by the Patriotic Millionaires.
Society will not be able to avoid those outcomes for much longer without catastrophic repercussions for all of us.
Continued WM Control will only worsen and hasten this tumbling house of cards.
Scotland must get away from that control as soon as possible.