Eighty years on from the horrors of Nagasaki, Scotland must redouble its determination to join the international ban on nuclear weapons after independence

Today is exactly 80 years since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki - only the second use of a nuclear weapon in warfare, and also the last to date.  It self-evidently must remain the last if human civilisation is to have a realistic chance of surviving.  Today's YouTube commentary is partly prompted by TSE's wretched editorial in Stormfront Lite three days ago, which marked the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing by saying that actually the indiscrimate mass murder of tens of thousands of men, women and children, almost all from the Japanese ethnic group (let's face it - it was genocide) was totes cool because it supposedly saved more lives indirectly than it destroyed.  That's a classic example of history being written by the winning side, because there would have been none of these self-justifying logical gymnastics if the Nazis or Japan had nuked British or American cities - it would have been seen with absolute clarity as the obscene crime against humanity that it was.  If taken seriously, TSE's logic would also give present-day leaders a free pass to use nuclear weapons as a "vital life-saving tool" and to basically destroy the world in the process.

You can watch via the embedded player below, or via the direct YouTube link.

Controversial Wings blogger boasts it will be "easy" for him to DESTROY the SNP - but he's WRONG

Here's why the independence plan of the "SNP rebels" is MORE workable than John Swinney's own plan

I suppose on some level you have to admire the chutzpah of John Swinney, winner of the coveted 100% rating in the 2025 Guide To The World's Worst Plans For Winning The Independence Of A Country, in criticising *someone's else's* independence plan for being "unworkable", but that's what he's just done.  In today's YouTube commentary I explain why the plan of the so-called "SNP rebels" is self-evidently far more workable than Mr Swinney's plan, and at the end I also point out the single worst feature of the Swinney plan - meaning that we'd practically be better off going into the election with no plan whatsoever than with the Swinney plan.

You can watch via the embedded player below, or at the direct YouTube link.

Triumphant SNP romp to 24-point lead over Labour in epic YouGov crossbreak

For today's YouTube commentary, I bring you the results of the weekly GB-wide poll from YouGov, which are unusually good for the SNP on the Scottish subsample.  I also discuss Andy Maciver's view that John Swinney's new independence strategy, insisting that only a single-party outright majority for the SNP will count as a mandate for independence referendum, "accepts the fact" that independence is off the agenda.  I explain why Mr Maciver is wrong about that, because John Swinney is not accepting a fact - he's needlessly creating a reality that forces independence off the agenda for at least five years.  The SNP faces a choice of two futures at its conference, because Mr Swinney's target of an SNP-only majority is totally unachievable, whereas the alternative proposal of seeking an outright mandate for independence on the list ballot, and with votes for all pro-indy parties contributing to that mandate, is perfectly achievable, and if successful would push independence right back onto the agenda again.  Why is John Swinney pushing for obviously the wrong one of those two strategies?

It may be that he wants to get back to his comfort zone, and intends to engineer a situation where he can say "we went all out for a cast-iron mandate that couldn't be ignored, but fell pitifully short - that shows how far away we are from building the trust of the people, and we now have to accept that's going to be a very long-term project".  I think that may be part of it, but it's not the whole explanation.  I think he also believes that the SNP will get a better election result by linking independence to votes for the SNP alone and setting the unattainable target, and he is therefore using independence as a tool to win elections for the SNP, which he regards as an end in itself.  He therefore isn't unduly concerned if the independence cause is harmed along the way. Most SNP members, I would suggest, think it should be the other way around - they understand that independence is the goal, and that the SNP should be used as a tool to win that goal.

You can watch the video on the embedded player below, or at this link. 

Kate Forbes' departure feels like a setback for the SNP and for independence - but can someone seize the moment and transform it into an opportunity?

Today's YouTube commentary is of course about the shock news that Kate Forbes, who would have been one of the two clear frontrunners to succeed John Swinney as First Minister, has taken herself out of contention by announcing she will be stepping down from parliament next year.  That leaves the way almost totally clear for Stephen Flynn, which is a problem for two reasons: a) opinion polls show he is less popular with the public than either Forbes or Swinney, possibly because he comes across as more belligerent, and b) while he seems very ambitious, it's ambition for himself and for his party, not ambition to make Scotland an independent country in the very near future.  Which is a paradox, because you'd think a man hungry for power would want to be Prime Minister of an independent country, not a First Minister hopelessly constrained by the limitations of the devolved settlement.  Could Forbes' departure make space for someone new to enter the mix and present themselves as the alternative to Flynn with a credible roadmap to independence?

This may be a good moment to remind you that in one of my other recent videos, I mentioned that Alex Salmond had apparently reached some kind of understanding with Kate Forbes that if she had won the March 2023 leadership election, Salmond would have returned to the SNP and effectively disbanded the Alba Party.  You can watch that video HERE.

But for today's commentary about Forbes' departure, you can listen via the embedded player below, or at this link.

Should the State of Palestine possess an independent nuclear deterrent?

Tonight's YouTube commentary is a sort of challenge to the minority of Scot Goes Pop readers who I discovered a few months ago actually believe that nuclear deterrence is a valid concept that works.  I ask them to consider the following: if a hypothetical and highly debatable "threat" from Russia is enough to mean that the UK must have an independent nuclear deterrent, surely the State of Palestine, which faces a much more imminent and proven threat from its nuclear-armed neighbour, must either have its own deterrent or be protected by another country's deterrent?  And if you think that this would not reduce the risk of a nuclear attack on Palestine or might even increase the risk, doesn't that mean deep down that you don't believe nuclear deterrence works, and that it therefore can't work for Britain either?

You can watch via the embedded player below, or via the direct YouTube link, or you can listen to an audio-only version on Soundcloud.