A few people have been asking me for my thoughts on Mhairi Black's decision to leave the SNP, so that's the subject of today's YouTube commentary. You can listen via the embedded player below, or via the direct YouTube link, or on Soundcloud, or on Spotify.
If you have a few seconds after listening, I'd be grateful if you'd subscribe to my YouTube channel, because I'm trying to build it up.
After I recorded the above, I spotted a monumentally stupid reader's letter in the Scotsman, accusing Mhairi Black of "inconsistency" because of her stance on Palestine and in favour of LGBTQ rights. The guy then proceeded to basically do the whole "but what if you were gay in Gaza?" meme, although he presumably was blissfully unaware that he was doing a meme, and also blissfully unaware of what memes are. The answer, of course, to the question "but what if you were gay in Gaza?" is "you would be murdered by Israel, just like heterosexual people in Gaza". That's actually a form of equality, I suppose.
Mhairi Black should know, the Scotsman reader prattled further, that Hamas opposes decriminalisation of homosexual acts. OK, and? Mhairi Black has never, to the best of my knowledge, expressed any support for Hamas, so where's the inconsistency? Do you mean that she has to drop her opposition to genocide in order to look sufficiently condemnatory of anti-gay laws that by all accounts are rarely enforced anyway?
Nothing ever changes. The Scotsman readers' page remains whacko central.
Scotsman “readers”? All seven of them.? No one really gives a fuck what these cretins say.
ReplyDeleteVery good YouTube summary (I have subscribed). As you say, losing one of Scotland's most naturally gifted conviction politicians is very unfortunate, but if it leads to a softening of the hard left within the SNP that will be a positive thing.
ReplyDeleteThe push for independence kept the broad church together. It was no surprise whatsoever that the broad church collapsed when Sturgeon / Swinney backed off on indy around 2017 and have then effectively dropped it as a realistic goal since 2020.
Meanwhile in the Herald an SNP 'grandee' claims that Mhairi Black wasted her exceptional political talents. The 'grandee' is none other than Jim Sillars, whose own political talents were rather thin. By the way, why does Sillars remain in a party he obviously loathes ?
ReplyDeleteDonald Trump is more Scottish than 43% of Scottish Green MSPs, if you're a blood and soil type.
ReplyDeleteHow do you know? Unless you have the dna you can't confirm one way or another,
ReplyDeleteHo doesn’t know and doesn’t care. He’s a lowlife trying to promote a soil and blood narrative to discredit the Indy movement.
DeleteThe dilemma facing the Indy movement is based on the fact that support for Indy is remaining historically high while support for the SNP has plummeted. Please don’t tell me they’re still the biggest party so are still doing something right. Losing one million votes tells you they are clearly doing something(s) very badly wrong. But the level of complacency among the SNP hierarchy is staggering. Even the “biggest party” claim is under threat. The time is now for a campaign of non cooperation with Westminster, and direct conflict over the issue of energy costs. A scheme should be put in place for significantly cheaper electricity, on the grounds of health, a reserved matter. Imaginative use of legislation and growing a pair are what is needed. Gender agenda entryists, spare me your mock outrage at the growing a pair reference. Feel free to substitute your preferred genitalia reference.
ReplyDeleteIt’s interesting because it was always accepted that the SNPs success came when it stopped the talk of being a broadchurch but instead embraced Salmond and Sturgeon’s vision to outflank the Labour Party from the left and once more give Scottish voters the option of centre left, progressive and social democracy government. The voters backed the new SNP and we had policies that led the way from a progressive and centre left position. People who would never have voted SNP, people who dismissed them as tartan Tories started to vote for them as they had become the route to the kind of government not possible, or electable given the centrist or centre right consensus at Westminster. If the SNP is to ditch everything that Salmond did and return to the centre it’ll be more than Mhairi Black who will ditch them. If the SNP cannot offer an alternative the broadchurch Labour Party what is the point. An SNP that cannot be radical, that cannot fight for a different kind of politics to the kind that Forbes supports isn’t an snp that can take the central belt and ordinary people with it.
ReplyDeleteA wee hint. If you want to get engagement, especially on YouTube, don't put Mhairi Black in the title (who nobody cares about) when the most interesting thing you talk about is Salmond nearly rejoining the SNP!
ReplyDeleteThe more sensational your title the better.
I was accused of using a "clickbait" title yesterday, so I can't seem to win.
DeleteThe people who have stopped voting SNP or have been scunnered from voting at all are the kind of folk that Mhairi Black could have appealed to. The push for independence has come from the left in my lifetime so far and the SNP is in a position where it’s at real risk no longer seen as progressive by progressive voters - at the same time it’s not conservative either and its instincts are more progressive than not. I think the party has been shaken as a whole by the power of Ewing, Cherry and Reagan to tear the party apart - with the willing help of the unionist press. It’s too scared to be bold because these figures have managed to turn some yessers against the party.
DeleteEwing, Cherry and Regan - yesterdays people.
DeleteWho are today’s people John Swinney and Pete Wishart 🤣🤣🤣?
DeleteWhat was the name of the Twitter account?,Sounds like it’s worth a follow!
ReplyDeleteWell, you need to be shameless if you want a YouTube channel to grow, it's just a fact of life. Nobody likes it. Salmond is a bigger draw and your news is likely to provoke reactions. Hiding it behind the KitKat muncher seems a wasted opportunity.
ReplyDeleteAlba were always up against it as Sturgeon and her gang managed to do a real number on Salmond's reputation. Sturgeon even going as far as saying he was guilty on multiple daily Covid briefings. Disgraceful stuff from Sturgeon. Swinney was there when it all happened and tried cover it up.
ReplyDeleteAlba woes were self inflicted.
Delete12.29 some of their woes were self inflicted but not all of them by any means. IFS is right.
DeleteAnon at 8.06. Can you be more specific? What was done, who did it, and how did it inflict a fatal blow to Alba? If you cannot give detail your claim is meaningless. Alba’s woes were entirely self inflicted.
Delete1.01pm read 8.07pm.
DeleteGood riddance to the anti Indy Wokist
ReplyDelete