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. 

Scot Goes Pop Fundraiser 2025: Another update, and a crunch-point

Click here to go straight to the crowdfunder page.

Many thanks to everyone who has donated since the last update.  Progress has been made, although the fundraiser is still only 46% funded with less than half the year still to go.  Obviously I chose the target as the minimum I would realistically need to keep the blog viable for a year, and on the current trajectory it's likely to fall well short - which leaves me back in my now-familiar position of lurching from mini-crisis to mini-crisis and having to constantly post these updates just to try to stay afloat.

I know we've had the conversation a million times before about alternative funding models, and I have genuinely been thinking about trying something new in recent weeks.  We're forever hearing that conventional blogging is "yesterday's medium", so one thought I've been seriously toying with is moving across either in part or wholesale to video content.  If I could multiply my number of YouTube subscribers by about five and post original content extremely regularly, it might be possible to gradually start making an income that way.  In a sense it would also allow me to keep the blog going because I could very easily embed each video here.  However, one thing I've noticed is that when I do occasionally make videos (the most recent one was earlier this year), they tend to get significantly fewer views than the average number of page views for each blogpost.  That implies regular readers are highly geared towards text content rather than other media, and that to build up a YouTube channel I'd need to largely seek a new audience.  That would take time, and the problem is much more urgent than that - hence the need to make the current fundraiser work somehow, by hook or by crook.  (Well, not crook, obviously.)

The other problem is that for the moment I don't have the technical skills or equipment to make videos to a high standard.  You might remember that just for the fun of it, I switched to video content for some of my coverage of the 2019 general election, and as can be seen from this example, the content itself was fine but the technical quality was, to put it mildly, bargain-basement.  I later invested hundreds of pounds in a camera which was billed as "perfect for YouTube", but after a few videos I gave up on it in despair and went back to doing the videos on my phone, because I just couldn't seem to use it properly.  I always seemed to be slightly out of focus in the videos, or the lighting was wrong, or there were weird shadows across my face.  What can I say, I analyse polls and give my political opinions - I've never claimed to be François Truffaut.  

It's a great pity there doesn't seem to be as much call these days for genuinely audio-only content - popular podcasts usually seem to have a video version as well.  Audio content is far easier to make to a decent standard, and I do have a high-quality microphone, which I bought way back in 2016 for a livestreamed debate with Tommy Sheridan about tactical voting on the list (the more things change, the more they stay the same!).  What I might do is concentrate on audio on a transitional basis and post the files on YouTube with a still picture attached, so I can make a start on gradually building up the channel while I'm getting my head around how I can make videos of adequate quality.

In the meantime, though, I'm going to have to keep plugging away with the current fundraiser, just to keep the show on the road in any shape or form.  So if you find Scot Goes Pop useful and you have £5 or £10 to spare, please remember that small donations are just as useful as larger ones.  If 400 people all donated £10 (and there are far more than 400 people who read this blog every day), the problem would be solved overnight.

Card donations can be made at the crowdfunder page HERE.

As an alternative, direct donations by PayPal can eliminate fees altogether depending on the option you select from the menu.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Donations are also very welcome by direct bank transfer if that is your preference, although for obvious reasons I've always been advised not to post my bank details publicly.  So if you'd like to donate that way, please drop me a line and I'll send you the details directly.  My contact email address can be found on my Twitter or BlueSky profiles.

Many thanks in advance to everyone who helps Scot Goes Pop keep going in some form.

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.