In a way it's ironic that the Alba Party have become so vehemently anti-monarchy, because they certainly believe in the principle of Royal Families within their own ranks. Famously, Christina Hendry and her family have special status because they are "Of Salmond Blood", while in Ayrshire the Corri Nostra clan of Corri Wilson, her daughter Shannon Cullen (formerly Donoghue) and her son-in-law Chris Cullen are able to lord it over the common folk, in part thanks to their chumminess with the party's de facto leader Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh. Good luck to any Alba member in getting the normal party rules to apply to any of these people - they act with total immunity and total impunity.
Not long before my enforced departure from the Alba Party, I was subjected to low-grade bullying by both Chris Cullen and Shannon Donoghue as she was still called. Most of it occurred in person and therefore away from the public eye, but by September 2024 she was emboldened to start making extremely personal public attacks against me on Twitter - a blatant breach of the party's Code of Conduct, which luckily doesn't apply to Alba royalty like Our Shannon. She probably felt able to do that because she knew by that point that Josh Robertson and "The Squad" had been quietly informed that they would be instructed to expel me before the year was out - whereas I was still oblivious to the fact that any action against me was even in the pipeline. I was astonished to see that one of the people who piled in behind her while she was publicly bullying me was the notorious far-right podcaster Craig Houston, who spoke to her in distinctly chummy tones as if he regarded her as a personal friend.
That was because she had been a guest on his podcast/YouTube channel three months earlier. As the mask had so clearly slipped and she was no longer making any secret of her hostility towards me, I felt able to point out on this blog that her decision to take part in that podcast was extraordinarily ill-judged, given that she represents a party that is ostensibly left of centre. I said that it may be justified to take part in public discussions or debates with far-right individuals as long as the purpose of the exercise is to challenge their views or to offer an alternative, but that wasn't what had happened in this case - the conversation on the podcast had been cosy bordering on intimate, and had been firmly in the service of Houston's own political agenda.
Her decision has aged extremely badly, because Houston has in recent days been at the forefront of despicable protests outside a primary school, which has been targeted because it is hosting English language lessons for adults in an effort to help migrant families integrate into society - something you would think the likes of Houston would thoroughly approve of if their rhetoric was honest. Instead they are opportunistically seizing on the occasional presence of immigrant adults in the same building as white children, and are using it to whip up racial hatred.
Interesting company that Shannon Cullen, and by extension the Alba Party, has been keeping. When I was actually an Alba member, I used to think the allegations that the party was right-wing (usually based on the trans issue) were patently absurd, but in retrospect it's not hard to see that some senior Alba figures would actually feel pretty comfortable in Reform UK if the independence issue was set to one side.
Regarding Reform UK, are they just possibly downward bound now? It’s too early to say that with any certainty but we now have both: the beginnings of a polling trend + likely cause with regards to their self inflicted mishaps. Here’s hoping.
ReplyDeleteMore importantly, the WM government has declared no independence referendum even if Swinney gets SNP majority. We need a plan B or at least a plan that for once is credible. Swinney's plan is a con and always was. As for the Alba party who cares? It's the walking dead and every move they make is like a writhing zombie. Forget them and let's move forward to find a way to get WM off our backs and bring an end to the SNPs confidence tricks. I always had a wee suspicion that Swinney's plan wasn't going to work. In fairness to our over lords they always said we're not getting indyref 2. Time to move to a different approach.
ReplyDeleteAnd the serious alternative to the SNP is ?
Delete"More importantly, the WM government has declared no independence referendum ..."
DeleteThat was actually Freeze Reeves said that, and considering how she's broken just about every Labour manifesto promise from the get go as the Yanks say, if she's consistent it means we'll get one within a few months!
Unless she changes her spots and stops being "economical with the truth" as those Westminster liars say.
It's as close to an official statement on a second referendum as we're likely to get from WM and, predictably, it completely takes the wind out of the sails of John Swinney's strategy.
DeleteHow can the SNP campaign on something which is now a certain dead end?
4.48 That's not entirely true. The SNP can still promote the Swinney plan as part of their HR26 campaign but they will need to be much more specific about the process now, particularly the secret plan to bring Westminster to the negotiating table.
DeleteNo more vague waffle.
Labour have just reinforced the log jam which Swinney had promised to break. He needs to show his hand. I want to vote FOR something which I believe will work.
I won't do blind faith. Not again.
Help me out here. It's May 2026. SNP win a parliamentary majority with Yes parties getting 45% of the vote. Next day Swinney demands a referendum. Prime Minister Burnham says don't be daft, 55% of Scots just voted against one. What's the response to that? Please, someone, just answer this question because I'm tired of asking it
DeleteHi Keaton I'll try. Swinney could argue that it's a FPP election in a representative democracy and that by the same arguement PM Burnham with only 35% of the vote can't govern as he had been rejected by a 65% of the population. But that's about it. Burnham would just say 'now is not the time' as it seems to work wothout any acrimony. Here's another one, SNP wins majority of votes 51% not including other pro independence partys and Swinney demands a referendum and PM Burnham with only 35% of the vote says 'now is not the time'. What do you think Swinney would do? That is the real problem and the same one we've had since 2014. That's why a different approach is required.
DeleteKeaton, I believe the standard response is 'WM is denying democracy, anyway....toilets'.
DeleteHilariously (and I'm not sure how well known this is), Craig Houston is the leader of the Scottish branch of the SDP. That doesn't in any way diminish how far to the right Houston is, but it does demonstrate what has happened to the SDP. Their party political broadcast last year "satiricially" had someone react to them by saying "the far right are at the door!". Houston as leader means that's no longer satire.
ReplyDeleteRoy Jenkins and Shirley Williams will be turning in their graves.
DeleteShirley Williams was the one who first opposed the UK Health and Social Care Bill, got a few meaningless amendments, and then SUPPORTED the Bill - Act - which allows 50% privatisation of, well, anything in the NHS. That petition and outrage over her supine caving in united us Nats and Yoons posting in the Grun at the time (2012).
DeleteIt’s legally not the same SDP as the one that existed to 1990. The successor party to that year is the LibDems. The current SDP is analogous to AFC Wimbledon in that MK Dons is the legally the successor to the one-time English FA Cup wining club Wimbledon FC.
DeleteVery obvious now, that Alba and their wee pet-gerbil in Bath were the extreme right dregs of the yes movement.
ReplyDeleteThe Bath gerbil has already abandoned self determination for Scotland and has defected to extreme right unionism with Reform.
It is only a matter of time before the rest of that weird little Alba clique join him there.
Would you still welcome their vote in an independence referendum?
DeleteDid Better Together renounce their far right votes?
DeleteDid Better Together renounce their far right votes?
DeleteThat would have put them in the low thirties
The Corri Nostrils will dip into any trough that feeds them. They would no doubt jump straight to Reform to get back into parliament (where mum goes the kids go) but even Reform wouldn’t be daft enough to go near them.
ReplyDeleteisn't "far right" just a middle class dogwhistle for working class, so they can viciously attack the poor people they hate more than anything, while retaining the moral high ground?
ReplyDeleteCraig Houston's main problem as a youtuber is he would make you fall asleep before he makes his point.
"isn't "far right" just a middle class dogwhistle for working class"
DeleteNo. Hope this helps.
James I think it might be time to stop attacking ALBA - I suspect your card if not already marked, was marked in bold after you spoke out in my support in my own ludicrous expulsion case - I would have done the same for you btw. Attacking ALBA is kinda "fish in a barrel" exercise now , minnows, maybe mackerel on a good day.
ReplyDeleteDuring my time on the Alba Disciplinary Committee (which of course was ironically curtailed by my own expulsion), there were several cases including your own. All of them were totally bogus, all of them were score-settling of one sort of another on the part of the leadership, so I'm sure I displeased the leadership every single time by voting/speaking in the 'wrong' way. But the bigger issue was my clashes with Donoghue, Cullen and others over the constitution review, because that touched on the source of Tasmina's grip on the party. They could have easily just outvoted me, but even having me there expressing dissenting views seemed to be too much for them to cope with.
DeleteI agree with you that Alba is now essentially dead, but I just blog about whatever seems most interesting on any given day.