Eurovision and Israel: No More Hiding Places For The BBC

Scot Goes Pop: The Final Fundraiser is underway (you can read more about why I anticipate it being the final one HERE) and it's already pretty close to halfway to its target figure of £1700.  A million thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made at the GoFundMe page HERE, or if you prefer to cut out the middle-man, direct PayPal donations can be made to my PayPal email address, which is:   jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Nigel Farage's rant about the native languages of Glasgow school pupils reveals Reform UK to be a FAR-RIGHT party

Today's video commentary below is in two parts.  Firstly, I look at how Nigel Farage's complaint that almost one-third of Glasgow school pupils do not speak English as a native language marks out Reform UK, as never before, as an out-and-out far-right party, rather than merely as "right-wing populist" or as "radical right".  The point is that there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to change their native language - Farage is therefore objecting to something intrinsic and immutable about the people themselves, rather than about a failure to learn English or to integrate.  His unspoken implication is that the only "solution" to the "problem" is to deport these people, or to just barely tolerate their presence as less worthy people who should never have been here in the first place - which is pretty much indistinguishable from the Nazis' initial attitude to German Jews in 1933/34.

I also point out the irony that if Reform UK had been a far-right party rooted in Scottish nationalism, it would probably have regarded a declining number of school pupils who speak English as a first language as a good thing, because it would regard Scots rather than English as the indigenous language of Glasgow.  So unwittingly Reform have not only identified themselves as far-right, but as a far-right party of another country trying to impose a "Greater English" culture on our own nation.  

That gives me the convenient opportunity to respond to a video I stumbled across in the summer from the YouTube channel Metatron's Academy - a channel which features many videos comparing closely related Romance languages and showing how they have a high level of mutual intelligibility, while firmly stressing they are indeed different languages.  But curiously, when the channel covers the speech of Scottish people and finds there is sometimes a greater barrier of intelligibility than there is between, say, Spanish and Portuguese speakers, it fails to join up the dots and recognise that this barrier means that the speech constitutes something other than the English language, rather than being just English in "a very hard accent to understand".

   

The Metatron's Academy video that I mention can be found HERE, while my 2021 interview with Len Pennie about the Scots language is HERE.  

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Scot Goes Pop: The Final Fundraiser is underway (you can read more about why I anticipate it being the final one HERE) and it's already pretty close to halfway to its target figure of £1700.  A million thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made at the GoFundMe page HERE, or if you prefer to cut out the middle-man, direct PayPal donations can be made to my PayPal email address, which is:   jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

If Rachel Reeves' rejection of an independence referendum "carries little weight", how can there by any remaining argument against a de facto indyref?

Stephen Flynn has said that Rachel Reeves' rejection of an independence referendum in the event of an SNP overall majority "carries little weight", but if it really doesn't matter what the UK government think, what is the remaining argument against, say, using an election as a de facto referendum?  It turns out that what Mr Flynn really meant is that Rachel Reeves' views don't matter because she won't be Chancellor for much longer, and Keir Starmer won't be Prime Minister for long either.  That of course implies that Mr Flynn thinks the views of the next Labour leader and next Labour Chancellor very much *do* matter, and indeed will be far more decisive in determining Scotland's future than any decisions made by the people of Scotland themselves.  In the video below, I explain why that's hard to reconcile with the SNP leadership's own campaign for "Scotland's right to choose", and I also suggest a way forward that would not require any direct reversal of the strategy agreed at the SNP conference two months ago.

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Scot Goes Pop: The Final Fundraiser is underway (you can read more about why I anticipate it being the final one HERE) and it's already pretty close to halfway to its target figure of £1700.  A million thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made at the GoFundMe page HERE, or if you prefer to cut out the middle-man, direct PayPal donations can be made to my PayPal email address, which is:   jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

"Utterly dominant": SNP soar to almost 40% support in latest Scottish subsample from YouGov

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Scot Goes Pop: The Final Fundraiser is underway (you can read more about why I anticipate it being the final one HERE) and it's already pretty close to halfway to its target figure of £1700.  A million thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made at the GoFundMe page HERE, or if you prefer to cut out the middle-man, direct PayPal donations can be made to my PayPal email address, which is:   jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Scot Goes Pop: The Final Fundraiser (plus an update about the video blogging experiment)

Click here to go straight to the fundraiser page.

Scot Goes Pop's annual fundraiser for 2025 ended up getting much, much closer to its target figure than I ever thought was possible, so a million thanks to everyone who contributed over the course of the year.  It really has made all the difference in allowing me to continue with the blog during what has been a financially very difficult year for me (it's been one of those years in which just about everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong).

I'm not planning to launch a full-scale fundraiser for 2026, because as you know, back in the summer I made the decision that I couldn't keep lurching from mini-crisis to mini-crisis forever, and that I was going to have to find a more sustainable funding model - either that or get out of the political blogging game completely.  Apart from anything else, I am heartily sick of the accusations of "grifting" and I am determined to bring the days of embarrassing year-round crowdfunding to an end (since 2021 it's become like the proverbial task of painting the Forth Bridge).  The grifting allegations are completely bogus, let me stress - nobody would be able to devote the sheer amount of time I have to writing about politics unless they either a) have private means, or b) can bring in funding from somewhere.  I do not have private means, but if my detractors do, then they have my congratulations.  And I've certainly never written anything I don't believe in the hope of attracting funding, which as I understand it is the essence of what grifting means.  A certain fake curate in Somerset used his Facebook page a few weeks ago to accuse me of doing exactly that, which frankly I regard as an absolutely despicable thing to say. Apparently to qualify as honest in what you write, you have to agree with all of his own political views. What should really terrify him is that I actually do believe every single word I write.

But I'm only human and being constantly told I'm a grifter takes its toll.  I want that to stop, which is why the YouTube monetisation model has so much appeal - it doesn't rely on reader/viewer contributions at all.  I'd be able to stop crowdfunding, keep all of the content completely free, and embed all of the videos on this blog.  But as always in life, there's a snag.  In order to even *apply* for monetisation, I have to reach two very challenging thresholds - I need at least 1000 YouTube subscribers and 4000 watch-hours over the last year.  It's taken me five long months of making regular videos to reach the second threshold, and I still haven't reached the first one - as I write this I have only 911 subscribers.  That may not sound like much of a shortfall, but based on the current rate of progress I probably won't get there until around Christmas Day, give or take a few days.  The application process will then apparently take around 30 more days, with no guarantee I'll be successful.  Even if I'm approved, it will then take yet another month or two to find out whether enough funds are coming through to make the idea work.  Based on what I've read about average earnings on YouTube, it should just about be feasible as long as I'm making videos extremely frequently, but the problem is that there's a huge amount of variation on either side of the average, and if I find myself on the wrong side of that equation, I'll be right back to square one.

If YouTube doesn't work out, Plan B will be to move over to Substack or something similar.  That's very much the second-best option, though, because it would mean leaving this site behind and putting at least some content behind a paywall.  But I will give that a try if all else fails.  And if neither YouTube or Substack work out, I will reluctantly call it a day at that point.

So as you can see, I'm basically in total limbo until I can get through the YouTube application process.  The paradox is, then, that to get to the point where I can stop crowdfunding, I'm going to have to crowdfund one last time.  I've done some sums to work out a realistic figure for what I'll need to raise to get me through this long transitional period, and I reckon £1500 will just about do the trick.  To give myself a bit of leeway and to take account of GoFundMe fees, I've set the target for the final fundraiser at £1700.

Incidentally, some of the "Kelly is a grifter" mob have specifically made an issue of the fact that I went on a short holiday in late August and made a couple of videos for the YouTube channel while I was away (one in Sark and one in Saint Malo).  It's probably true that if I hadn't made that trip, I'd be a few hundred pounds closer to safety now, but what can I say?  I unexpectedly found a bargain-basement deal for five nights in Jersey, the weather was fantastic, and I came back feeling refreshed and like I'd actually had a proper summer.  So from a personal point of view it still feels like the right decision, but there are so many little decisions in life that are effectively trade-offs, and there are no right or wrong answers.  For the most part I do live frugally.  I did go and see a special showing of Metropolis in Edinburgh on Thursday night (which was fascinating - as far as I can remember it's the first full-length silent film I've ever seen), but that was my first proper night out in weeks.

I also realise I'm tempting fate by calling this the "final" fundraiser so definitively, but put it this way - in any foreseeable circumstances it'll be the last one.

If you'd like to donate, please click here to go to the fundraising page.

Just a word about GoFundMe's fees: technically they eliminated their fees a few years ago, but they do still push you extremely hard to leave them a sizeable tip, and I think you have to manually adjust the suggested tip down to zero if you don't want to pay them anything.  Additionally they use an external payment processor, which does still charge a small fee.  There is, however, a way of cutting out the middle-man and paying no fees at all, and that's to make a direct donation via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or of course there's also the option of direct bank transfer.  If you'd like to do that, please drop me a line and I'll send you the necessary details.  My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the mini-bio on my Twitter profile or on my BlueSky profile.

I'm very much aware that Christmas is around the corner, so please only donate if you can afford to.  Remember also that small donations are just as valuable as large ones - if even a modest percentage of the people who read this blog on an average day were to donate just £10 each, the target would be reached instantly.

And if you have a Google account, there's also a way of helping without paying a penny - and that's by subscribing to my channel on YouTube.  If I could somehow speed up the process of getting to 1000 subscribers, that could potentially make a big difference.

STUNNING YouGov polling confirms SNP are far more popular with voters in Scotland than *any* of the London parties are with UK voters

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With just over one month of the year left to go, the 2025 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser is still short of its target figure.  If you'd like to help keep the lights on during the several months it will take me to find out whether an alternative funding model is viable (realistically it could be a wait of around four months or more), card donations are welcome HERE.  Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.

IT'S OFFICIAL: Rachel Reeves confirms Scotland is in a FORCED union with England, not a voluntary one. She claims there is literally NO democratic path to independence. So is this a material change of circumstances that should lead to the SNP strategy being revisited and reconsidered?

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With just over one month of the year left to go, the 2025 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser is still short of its target figure.  If you'd like to help keep the lights on during the several months it will take me to find out whether an alternative funding model is viable (realistically it could be a wait of around four months or more), card donations are welcome HERE.  Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.

Does the Alba Party's "princess" Shannon Cullen regret her ill-judged association with far-right agitator Craig Houston, now that he's been whipping up racial hatred outside a primary school?

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.

Landmark YouGov poll shows how SNP could win independence by holding the balance of power in London

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With just over one month of the year left to go, the 2025 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser is still short of its target figure.  If you'd like to help keep the lights on during the several months it will take me to find out whether an alternative funding model is viable (realistically it could be a wait of around four months or more), card donations are welcome HERE.  Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.

Scotland becoming a "YouGov democracy" is not the road to independence

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With just over one month of the year left to go, the 2025 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser is still short of its target figure.  If you'd like to help keep the lights on during the several months it will take me to find out whether an alternative funding model is viable (realistically it could be a wait of around four months or more), card donations are welcome HERE.  Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.