Let us resolve that this crisis must be the last time humanity ever faces a nuclear war scare. That means total nuclear disarmament.

I have two different theories about what's going on here.

Theory A: This is a deliberate neocon policy shift driven by Alyn Smith, Stewart McDonald, and their ideological godfather David Leask.

Theory B: It's thoughtless, reckless virtue-signalling.https://t.co/hdS253dRBb

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 9, 2022

My piece yesterday about Nicola Sturgeon's jaw-droppingly irresponsible suggestion that NATO should "consider" entering into direct military conflict with Russia via a no-fly zone triggered a predictably angry reaction from SNP leadership loyalists - but what was really interesting was the angle they took. There were two approaches they could have taken in supporting Ms Sturgeon's words - a) they could have doubled down on her behalf and insisted that NATO military intervention might well prove to be desirable, or b) they could have pretended that she didn't say what we all heard her say.  For the most part (although by no means exclusively) they plumped for the latter option, which in a way is quite reassuring.  It's intellectually dishonest, but it at least suggests that a significant chunk of the SNP's support base continues to regard what Ms Sturgeon was suggesting as unthinkable, and that she'd be crossing a red line if she persevered with it.

The section of Ms Sturgeon's remarks that several people pretended to misunderstand was this: "But on the other hand, Putin is not acting in any way rationally or defensively, and you know, we have a situation right now where perhaps the only thing nuclear weapons are deterring is the ability to properly and directly help Ukraine."  The reimagined version of these words is that Ms Sturgeon was suggesting that Putin's nuclear deterrent was so effective that we must under no circumstances set up a no-fly zone. In reality, she was plainly saying the polar opposite of that - she meant that Mr Putin's actions were so immoral that we should disregard (or "consider" disregarding) the nuclear threat and set up a no-fly zone to "properly and directly help Ukraine".  If you look closely, it's almost as if she perversely thinks Putin's malevolence somehow blunts the deadliness of his nuclear weapons and means that the only effect they have is to erect a psychological barrier to providing assistance to a country under attack.

Nuclear deterrence, as a concept, does not work like that.  It pays no heed to the moral rectitude of the person or country that possesses the nuclear arsenal.  The proponents of Britain's nuclear deterrent do not for one moment argue that it is our (dubious) benevolence and virtue that makes the weapon so 'effective' - but rather our amoral determination to obliterate the entire civilian population of our enemies if we are facing defeat. Jo Swinson, leader of the Liberal Democrats as recently as 2019, famously had no hesitation in saying that she would press the nuclear button, thus instantly incinerating untold millions of innocent men, women and children, while leaving untold more millions of innocent men, women and children to die slowly in the weeks thereafter from radiation sickness, horrific burns and starvation.  From the expression on her face, she said this with a degree of levity and with a lightness in her heart.  There are many variants of "liberalism" and "democracy", but this appeared to be a particularly exotic one. President Putin would be entirely comfortable with it.

Just under a decade ago, I wrote a column for the International Business Times arguing that nuclear weapons were "humanity's greatest problem" and that our long-term survival depended on eliminating them completely.  I remember feeling slightly embarrassed when I submitted the column, as if any editor that read it would think I was stuck in a Cold War time-warp.  But that is exactly what is so dangerous - we've been caught in a trance for the last thirty years, imagining that it's perfectly fine to have thousands upon thousands of nuclear weapons sloshing around, enough to wipe out our species dozens of times over, simply because NATO no longer faces a communist bloc in eastern Europe.  (In many ways that's comparable to the current bizarre trance we've slipped into about "the pandemic being over" even though 5% of the entire population are currently walking around with an active infection.)  The reality is that it was always the weapons themselves that were the problem, not ideological competition between communism and capitalism.

If there's any silver lining to come out of the current crisis, it's the education of a new generation about the nuclear threat, and the wake-up call to older generations that the potential for nuclear annihilation outlasted the Cold War.  Hopefully the penny will now drop that if we retain these weapons, nuclear 'close calls' will continue happening periodically, just as they did between the 1950s and 1990s. In each 'close call', there might be only a 1% or 5% chance of escalation to full-scale war, but eventually the law of averages will inevitably catch up with us and human civilisation will perish - perhaps due to a catastrophic strategic miscalculation such as the one proposed by Ms Sturgeon yesterday.  The only way to avoid that fate is global nuclear disarmament.  And, yes, that will be a formidable task for as long as Putin is in power - but we have to understand that we cannot ever "win a nuclear war" against him, and that arming ourselves to the teeth with more and more nukes is the opposite of a solution.

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According to the Politico 'scoop', one reason for Blackford's departure if it happens would be that his troops think he's been too SOFT on Joanna Cherry, you know by 'just' sacking her rather than withdrawing the whip. It's like stepping into bloody Narnia.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 10, 2022

Stewart McDonald and Alyn Smith, the two most unsuitable replacements for Blackford in the entire SNP parliamentary group, are naturally touted as his most likely successors.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 10, 2022

A neocon SNP group leader, combined with the withdrawal of the whip from Ms Cherry, would obviously be a calamity for the independence cause, although the silver lining would be that it's hard to think of a more effective recruiting sergeant for the Alba Party.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 10, 2022

On a more positive note, Blackford's departure could yet be a good thing if he's replaced by someone like Philippa Whitford or even Tommy Sheppard. (Joanna Cherry presumably has no chance due to some people's irrational hatred of her.)

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 10, 2022

 *  *  *

Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.) 

No, Nicola Sturgeon, direct conflict between NATO forces and Russia must not be "considered"

In spite of the well known preoccupations of the SNP's wholly unsuitable defence/foreign affairs team at Westminster, I wouldn't have faulted the Scottish Government's response to the Ukraine crisis until today. However, I see that Nicola Sturgeon has given an interview in which she says that, although she understands the case against a no-fly zone, "all of these things must be considered". That, astoundingly, means she's more hawkish on NATO military intervention than Boris Johnson and the Tory government.

Let's be clear about what a no-fly zone would actually mean. It would mean direct war between NATO and Russia. If Russia attempted to fly over Ukraine, NATO would attempt to shoot the Russian planes down. I know some will argue that's not genuine war, but was the Battle of Britain not genuine war simply because it was confined to the air? Russia has the world's largest nuclear arsenal, and NATO is a nuclear weapons alliance - something the SNP have long objected to, because they understood the appalling risks of nuclear states coming into direct conflict with each other. Now, it appears, the SNP leadership are not merely willing to countenance those risks, but are actively prodding the UK government and others to throw caution to the wind. What is happening to the party we thought we knew?

This, to put it mildly, is not a game. The future of human civilisation is at stake. We could literally all be dead within weeks if a strategic miscalculation is made. You don't provide humanitarian relief to the people of Ukraine by turning their country into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Nicola Sturgeon may not hold any direct power to make these decisions, but she does possess a measure of 'soft power', and people with that kind of power contribute to a climate of ideas that can prepare the ground for a change in policy. I would urge any SNP members reading this to contact their parliamentary representatives and try to re-instill some common sense into the Scottish Government's pronouncements before it's too late.

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FitzyFan asked yesterday if I could provide more analysis of last week's Savanta ComRes poll on independence.  I'm afraid I can't, because there's still no sign of the data tables.  I don't even know what the fieldwork dates were, and that's the most crucial point of all - were they before or after the invasion started?

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Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.) 

Every year in the last fifty has contained a world event that the current SNP leadership could have used as an excuse for postponing an indyref yet again

If the current SNP leadership had been in power in 1973:

"For now, the SNP's exclusive focus must be on the Yom Kippur War. The people of Scotland would expect no less."

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 7, 2022

If the current SNP leadership had been in power in 1981:

"Are you seriously suggesting the people of Scotland should have a vote on their constitutional future before we have clarity on who shot JR? GROW UP."

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 7, 2022

If the current SNP leadership had been in power in 1996:

"We will hold an independence referendum in due course, but first our young people must have time to grieve for the break-up of Take That. No time limit can be put on grief."

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 7, 2022

The above tweets attracted a hysterical response from certain quarters, to which all I'd say is that the SNP leadership loyalists doth protest too much.  They evidently know that this is the point at which they have to double down and claim that the war in Ukraine is yet another totally unforeseeable event that must, sadly and inevitably, delay the supposedly "scheduled" 2023 independence referendum yet again.  If they don't maintain that pretence with the utmost seriousness and self-righteousness, a large chunk of the SNP's own support base might start to think that the leadership have cried wolf once too often.  Actually, they're likely to start thinking that anyway.

Yes, in the literal sense the current war was largely unforeseeable, but what we do know and what we have always known is that major world events will crop up fairly frequently and regularly.  If you squint hard enough, every year in the last fifty has contained an event that could have been used as an excuse by the current SNP leadership for kicking independence into the long grass.  This is not even the first time in the last decade that Russia has invaded Ukraine, and yet other countries' politics have gone on.  It's the third time this century that Russia has invaded a fellow ex-Soviet republic, and yet other countries' politics have gone on.  The Soviet Union was at war in Afghanistan every year between 1979 and 1989, and yet other countries' politics went on.  The US and its allies were at war in Afghanistan every year between 2001 and 2021, and yet other countries' politics went on.  Israel has been in conflict with its Arab neighbours almost constantly since it came into existence in the 1940s, and yet other countries' politics have gone on.

Let's be honest: the only genuine reason the SNP leadership have ever had for postponing an indyref (a reason as opposed to an excuse) was Covid.  It would have been pretty much impossible to hold a referendum during full lockdown, and for campaigning reasons it might have been undesirable to hold it during a partial lockdown.  But with all of the governments of the UK prematurely declaring a return to normality (even though the virus is still absolutely everywhere), that reason no longer applies.  If the Scottish Government are now immediately latching onto yet another totally unconnected "delay is unavoidable" narrative, it's hard to escape the conclusion that they're not looking for opportunities to bring independence about - they're frantically searching for excuses to run away from it.

We as an independence movement don't have to continue going pointlessly round in circles like this.  There's a political party out there that doesn't just believe in independence as a nice idea in the abstract, but actually wants to achieve it in the real world, and with an appropriate sense of urgency.  Please consider giving Alba your first preference vote in the local council elections in May, and let's see if we can get the campaign for independence firmly back on track.

Just read that @Ianblackford_MP is suggesting @ScotGovFM might delay IndyRef due to Ukraine war
I hope this is mere speculation because if it’s delayed again @theSNP will lose many supporters
We have accepted too many delays already…this would be the last straw😡

— Patricia Farrington (@xraypat) March 7, 2022

"Blackford suggests SNP might delay GRA Bill Vote over Ukraine Crisis" will never be a headline in the coming weeks.
That alone should tell us everything about the current @scotgov and @theSNP

— Robinov VileCybernatski (@RobinBarclay1) March 7, 2022

"our plans for holding #indyref2 next year"

There comes a point where it's almost like believing in Santa Claus.https://t.co/kvDCjRKnCf

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 7, 2022

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Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.)  

Beware the siren voices of tribalism that could help to elect unionist councillors in May

My number one mega-fan in the Wee Ginger Dug comments section, "Hamish100" (who famously couldn't run away fast enough when I offered him a chance to debate me openly on the podcast) has complained about my brief explanation yesterday that I wasn't blogging about Alba NEC meetings due to confidentiality rules.  I must say that I don't quite follow the point he's making - as I understand it, NEC meetings in the SNP are governed by similar confidentiality rules, and even if someone says or does something totally outrageous in an SNP NEC meeting, we only ever find out about it if it's leaked to Iain Lawson.

But whatever Hamish's problem is (he doesn't seem too sure himself), you won't be surprised to hear he thinks it's yet another reason for SNP supporters to help get unionists elected in the council elections in May - 

"Vote SNP, or Scottish Greens . Don’t put a number against anyone else seems a reasonable approach so I have been told"

So you've been told? By who? By someone high up in the SNP, perhaps? Make no mistake, this destructive anti-Alba tribalism carries the very real risk of needlessly getting Labour or Tory councillors elected.  Alba will be standing in a large number of wards, often with credible candidates who have a high profile locally.  They have every chance of being elected - if they get transfers from the surplus votes of SNP candidates who are sure to be returned to office.

In May, I will have no hesitation in asking Alba supporters to help the independence cause by giving their second, third and fourth preference votes to SNP and Green candidates.  If some people in the SNP can't bring themselves to return the favour, my question to them is simple: at what point did independence cease to be your priority, and why?

Elsewhere on the same thread, the Torrid Threesome of Hamish, Alec "LOL" Lomax and Grizebard criticise "divorced from reality" blogs for discussing gender self-ID rather than Ukraine.  They think this is evidence that the writers of those blogs are "parasites on the movement with other motives in mind". So let me get this straight, chaps.  The Scottish Government, through their own free choice, introduce gender self-ID legislation in the middle of the worst European war since 1945, and that is apparently NOT evidence that the Scottish Government are "divorced from reality", and "parasites on the Yes movement" who have "other motives in mind". But if anyone dares to COMMENT on what the Scottish Government have done in the middle of the war, that's somehow a different story?

Er, how does that work?

*  *  *

Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.) 

Savanta ComRes poll: voters remain evenly split on independence

Apologies for being so late with covering yesterday's Savanta ComRes independence poll for the Economist.  I wasn't too busy or anything like that - I was just totally oblivious to the fact that there was a poll out.  This is the problem when there are no polls for extended periods - I just start forgetting to check, and it looks like I wasn't alone in being caught napping.  At time of writing, the lists of polls on both Wikipedia and What Scotland Thinks have yet to be updated.  Feel free to give me a little prod if I overlook any other polls in future.

Should Scotland be an independent country? (Savanta ComRes / The Economist)

Yes 49% (-1)

No 51% (+1)

That's a trivial, margin of error change from the January poll which still leaves us with a statistical tie (ie. due to the margin of error, the poll is essentially saying that either side could have a slight lead). What none of the MSM reporting of this poll takes any account of is that ComRes have been on the No-friendly end of the spectrum over the last year, sometimes producing quite substantial No leads, so in a relative sense, a 49-51 split is a decent result for Yes.

I haven't found the fieldwork dates yet, and those will be crucial.  If the poll was conducted in whole - or even in part - after Russia invaded Ukraine, the numbers will look even better for Yes, because international crisis situations would typically be expected to reduce support for constitutional change at home, if only temporarily.

There are supplementary questions asking about the timing and circumstances of an indyref.  I'm going to ignore the unionist spin on those and withhold judgement until I see the exact question wording and the detailed results.

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For Alba members out there, just to let you know we had an NEC meeting this morning - that's the sixth we've had so far.  The reason I haven't been reporting about them on the blog is simply the confidentiality rules, but rest assured they've been taking place regularly and I've been attending them.  I think you'll be really excited when you see how credible and extensive a challenge Alba will be mounting at the council elections in May.

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Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.) 

Full text of Alba Party's response to Scottish Government's gender self-ID announcement

ALBA ADVISES ROBISON “PAUSE DIVISIVE GRA CHANGES BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE” 

In response to Shona Robinson’s statement on the Scottish Government draft GRA Bill, Equalities Convener of the ALBA Party, Eva Comrie, said; 

“The ALBA Party asks for a pause to the Gender Recognition Act reforms until the views of women’s groups and the EHRC are fully taken into account. 

ALBA’s main issue with the Bill is the removal of a medical gatekeeping which will allow any male to identify as a female on his own say-so. This will open up women’s services and spaces to a whole new category of men. 

ALBA believe that the Government’s GRA reforms are ill thought out, will not improve the life chances of Trans people and comprise a risk to the rights and safety of women, which single sex exemptions were designed to protect.

For the above reasons and without significant changes to the bill, ALBA will continue to wholeheartedly oppose these reforms. 

ALBA requests that the Scottish Government pause GRA reform legislation until the views of women’s groups and the EHRC are fully taken into account, and the legality of the reforms, given the recent For Women Scotland court ruling on the separating of sex and gender reassignment, be assessed.”

Explanation 

The Government describes this process as a simple administrative change, whilst also making bold disputed claims that it is life saving, urgent and absolutely essential. 

The Scottish Government claims that the Bill has wide support; when questioned on the principle of improving the experiences of trans people the majority of the population agrees. No decent citizen could challenge the overhaul of a process described as degrading and intrusive. Reform to alleviate negative experiences of a minority group is a laudable aim, but the stance adopted by legislators in this case, risks the sacrifice of the same or single sex protected rights of women. 

The specific reforms invite controversy, for they comprise the removal of the need for medical certification of a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and two years of living in the assumed gender, to be replaced with a simple affirmation by way of self identification and a three month period of reflection. 

In other words the change of gender, or as the legislation describes this, the change of sex marker on a birth certificate, becomes a simple process open to all, devoid of gatekeeping and for now with limitless unknown unmeasured impact.

Once the true impact and intent of this Bill are made clear, it alarms and is opposed by an overwhelming majority of the population, including women with lived experience of trauma, life long feminists, faith groups, parents, voluntary organisations and professionals who fear its manipulation by bad faith actors. The First Minister of Scotland has stated on record that these views are not valid. 

The espoused concept that being a woman is a feeling or performance to be opted in and out of is comical to some and downright offensive to others. Multiple well founded concerns have already been raised about the impact of self ID on the rights of women and the potential for abusive men to exploit such an ill-considered and easily manipulated process. Numerous incidents of trans identifying males housed with female prisoners in Scottish prisons, with no consultation with women’s groups, and the resultant injury and distress to prisoners so affected, bear testament to the ad hoc, careless disregard the Scottish Government has for women’s rights which they seem content to surrender to male feelings. 

Enabling any man to identify as a woman risks removing and ridiculing the purpose of dignity, privacy and safety of women’s changing rooms, hospital wards, and refuges. Enabling men to identify as women will impact on attempts to address historical structural inequality including the gender pay gap, the lack of female representation on boards, and in many sectors of employment such as STEM.

Human rights are inalienable but responsible legislators reinforce those in precious laws which state our values - as the Equality Act 2010 provides - but where those rights compete or conflict, those same lawmakers are enjoined in a democratic and respectful society to navigate these complexities openly and honestly. In this regard, by every possible measurement the Scottish Government has failed miserably. They have failed to consult openly, refused to publish two sets of consultation responses openly or comprehensively, negotiated with the proponents of the reforms, but only with great reluctance did they agree to listen to those who voiced concerns or opposition. This is not the means by which feminists protect the rights of women, and in the secrecy and apparent stealth of their attempted reforms there are signs that the Government may have materially worsened the experience of Trans people in Scottish society. 

When Scotland was amongst world leading nations in introducing same sex marriage, despite the warnings of political consequences, the Government of the day listened to all points of view, treating everyone’s opinion on the matter as valid, and most importantly, by ensuring respect at the heart of the process. This approach enabled the nation to embrace legislation that had at times been opposed by many and attracted controversy. 

Sadly, the Scottish Government has now succumbed to bullying politics of shouting slogans and shutting down debate while smearing those with a different world view or the temerity to question the prevailing ideology; that closed mindset does our country’s reputation no favour, stifles democratic debate and risks, rather than advances, equality. 

It will now be for members of the Scottish Parliament to scrutinise this legislation.”

Not content with stitching up his own country, Blair McDougall is now seemingly hellbent on risking global nuclear destruction over the next few weeks

There's an article on the BBC News website today entitled "Would Putin press the nuclear button?"  You might expect that to turn out to be a routine ask-the-question-and-then-say-the-answer-is-no piece, but quite the reverse - the conclusion is that there are circumstances in which there might well be a nuclear escalation.  It's pointed out that Putin said in 2018 that if someone tried to "annihilate Russia", the global nuclear destruction that would follow would be regrettable but "why do we need a world without Russia in it?"  

In the real world, of course, there is no prospect of Russia being annihilated, but it just depends on how broadly Putin interprets that concept.  He might, for example, feel it covers an outcome in which Russia fails to reconstruct its former Empire by meeting its military objectives in Ukraine.  Now, to be clear, if nuclear war is triggered because Ukraine successfully defends its independence and Putin gets in a huff about it, there's nothing much anyone can reasonably do.  Ukrainians can hardly be expected to allow an invader to trample all over them just to try to keep one man's temper under control.  This is the scenario that initially made the Trump presidency so frightening - that one man's personality defects could directly lead to the end of human civilisation.  It turns out that Trump had a 'filter' (probably due to the fear of Trump Tower being blown up), but perhaps Putin doesn't, if he can openly speak of circumstances in which the world would no longer be "needed".

So Armageddon-by-temper-tantrum is one thing, but a nuclear reaction sparked by avoidable western recklessness would be a different matter entirely.  Blair McDougall, the ex-Better Together chief who famously finished third in what he called a "two-horse race" in the East Renfrewshire constituency five years ago, called the other day for NATO countries to take direct military action against Russia in Ukraine, on the basis that it we don't go to war with Putin now, we'll inevitably end up at war with him later on when he's stronger.  That's uncannily similar to the rhetoric of the right-wing hawks of the Cold War era who used to say that a Soviet invasion of western Europe was inevitable (clearly it wasn't, as it turned out) and therefore we had to pre-empt it by attacking the Soviet Union.  If that advice had been heeded, it's likely that none of us would be here now - there would have been total nuclear destruction at some point in the sixties, seventies or eighties.  By the same token, if Blair McDougall gets his way, there's a very significant risk that we'll all be dead within a few short weeks.  This isn't just yet another example of "McDougall sounding off" - it really is by far the most insanely irresponsible thing that he's ever said or done.  You don't help Ukraine by turning it into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

A nuclear-armed world is not the choosing of the pro-independence movement in Scotland.  Hardly any independence supporters have any sympathy at all for the concept of nuclear deterrence.  (Possible rare exceptions include the SNP's neocon duo of Alyn Smith and Stewart McDonald, but even they feel the need to use carefully coded language about the subject.)  It's the Blair McDougalls of this world who have left us with Trident on the Clyde, and it's McDougall's chums in the GMB who fatuously regard "maturity" as meaning an acceptance that nuclear weapons should be thought of as a job creation scheme for Helensburgh, and regard "immaturity" as meaning the belief that we should take some account of the millions of men, women and children whose lives would be snuffed out if the weapons were actually used.

And if you believe in a nuclear world, as McDougall does, you have to play by the nuclear rules.  That means nuclear-armed states can, at most, engage in proxy wars with each other.  The non-participant state in a proxy war can certainly provide arms, training and other logistical and diplomatic support to its proxy, just as we're seeing in Ukraine right now.  But what you can't ever do is have the nuclear states in direct conflict with each other, because as soon as that happens the risk of nuclear war becomes unacceptably high.  For all the recent sneering about how Russia is now a downgraded power, and a mere sidekick to China with "an economy the size of Spain's", it remains the case that Russia has more nuclear weapons that any other country on the planet - slightly more even than the United States.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDING: At the risk of turning this into an online bazaar, I have an exciting (well, semi-exciting) new way that bargain-hunters can help support this blog.  I realised recently that I have a few Amazon gift e-vouchers piling up in my inbox, and as much as it's always nice to stock up on purple cardigans and French arthouse films, actual money would probably be of more use at this point.  So I'd be willing to pass the vouchers on in return for, let's say, 90% of their face value.  If you'd like to get a small discount on your purchases and help Scot Goes Pop at the same time, drop me a line at my contact email address of:   icehouse.250@gmail.com

The invasion of Ukraine

So I'm sitting down to write this at 4.30am, when most people in Scotland are fast asleep and will be unaware for another couple of hours that a Russian invasion of Ukraine appears to be underway.  It reminds me vaguely of being half-asleep in the middle of the night, with the TV on with the sound down, when the Gulf War began in early 1991 - I think there was snow on the ground that night as well. 

I think we all have to show a bit of humility and admit that we can only guess exactly what the trajectory of this story is.  A family member asked me a few hours ago whether I thought this was the beginning of some sort of 'world war', and I scoffed at the idea - but, there again, almost no-one recognised the significance of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand when it happened in 1914.  What I can say with a degree of confidence, however, is that whatever occurs is not going to be Alex Salmond's fault, in spite of the absurd efforts of the political and media establishment to pin the blame on him.  Why is there an Alex Salmond Show on a Russian state-funded TV channel? Ultimately it's because our own London-run/London-regulated media has failed to make space for the important alternative perspective the programme represents - a perspective which has almost nothing to do with Russia, incidentally.  

If that space existed, no-one would need to turn to RT and this whole question would be an irrelevance.  My own personal experience chimes with that - I was interviewed on RT last year, and I must have been interviewed on Radio Sputnik somewhere between six and eight times over the years.  By contrast, I've only been interviewed on Scottish/UK mainstream media three times (twice by the BBC and once by the Bauer radio network - and the latter was on the subject of poppies).  That doesn't mean I'm a Russian stooge - I've simply taken the opportunities that were actually offered to me and that's how it's played out.  I know other people in the pro-independence alternative media, aside from a chosen handful of regular 'safe' contributors, have encountered similar disinterest (if it's possible to encounter disinterest) from the domestic MSM.  If you deny a group of people with certain beliefs a voice and a platform, then you must look to your own conscience if they're offered a different platform and you happen to disapprove of it.

For once in my life, I would actually agree with something that Boris Johnson said yesterday - that freedom of speech means that politicians should not get to decide to take TV stations off the air.  Do we think, for example, that other countries would have been justified in shutting down the BBC World Service's operations at moments in history when the United Kingdom was a military aggressor - most obviously during the Suez Crisis in 1956, or during the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003?  And if we don't think that, what actually is the distinction we're drawing?

I also thought it was rather unedifying to see Nicola Sturgeon and Ian Blackford trying to distance the SNP from the man who actually led the party for just under one-quarter of its existence to date.  Indeed, there was only a gap of a few days between Alex Salmond ceasing to be the SNP's Foreign Affairs spokesman and Ian Blackford becoming the SNP's Westminster group leader in 2017.

Lastly, a word on what it means to be a supporter of self-determination when we look at Ukraine.  It inescapably means that Ukraine has an inalienable right to independence from Russia, and that we must view President Putin's denial of Ukraine's right to exist with outrage.  But it also means that Crimea and the Russian-speaking parts of eastern Ukraine have the right to leave the Ukrainian state, and even to unify with Russia, if they freely choose to do so. It's not good enough to mutter the words "territorial integrity" as if that's some sort of magic wand that makes the right of a people to self-determination disappear in a puff of smoke.  That said, the exercise of self-determination is rarely, if ever, going to look like a military invasion from an external actor with its own self-interest firmly in mind.

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Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.) 

Team Muirhead scale the Scolympic heights - which is more than can be said for the Mirror and the Express...

First of all, huge congratulations to Eve Muirhead and her team for securing what will undoubtedly be regarded as one of the all-time great Scottish sporting achievements.  I'm sure I was one of many tens of thousands who stayed up to watch the whole game against Japan in the wee small hours.  However, if you'll forgive the shameless self-indulgence, I really must take a moment to mark the fact that the Olympic curling over the last couple of weeks has also unexpectedly provided me with a little highlight of my own blogging career.  

As long-term readers will know, I genuinely am a big curling fan.  I think it probably goes back to the fact that there seemed to be someone in the BBC Scotland hierarchy when I was growing up in the early 90s who was sympathetic towards curling and used to make generous space in the schedules for highlights packages from events like the Scottish Junior Championships.  (Those days are long gone, sadly.)  So I was exposed to the sport back then, and since around 1999 I've been religiously glued to either Eurosport or the World Curling channel on YouTube every November, March and April, when 99% of people probably don't have a clue anything is even happening.  I've been to the Scottish finals day in Perth a few times, and I remember in 2016 a very nice chap from UK Sport approached me in Braehead when I was practically the only spectator (an exaggeration, but only a slight one) for the Norway v Sweden men's semi-final in the European Championships, and said "bit of a disappointing turnout, isn't it?"  So I think it's reasonable to say I'm not exactly a fair-weather fan, unlike the jingoistic Brit journalists who jump on the curling bandwagon for a couple of days every four years and then immediately forget the sport even exists.

Yes, Douglas Dickie of the Mirror, and yes, David Walker of the Daily Express, I'm looking at you.  Thanks to James Sellars on Twitter, I've only just found out that my occasional wind-up tweets about "Scottish and European curling" and "Scolympic silver medals" have triggered no fewer than two barking mad articles in national newspaper websites - one in the Mirror yesterday entitled 'Scottish nationalists hijack Team GB curling silver medal for divisive agenda', (which cluelessly uses a photo of David Murdoch's silver medal-winning team from eight years ago!) and one in the Express way back on 8th February entitled 'Nationalist blogger slammed for 'hate-filled' anti-British comment on the Winter Olympics', with the sub-heading 'James Kelly, who is a pro-independence blogger and says he is an elected member of Alba's National Executive Committee, was criticised for his tweet about curling'.  Even better, the Express went to all the trouble of getting a Scottish Conservative spokesperson to make an official comment about my tweet.

Words fail me.  I've finally made the big time now, and it's all thanks to the Roarin' Game.  It's  amazing, isn't it?  Think of all the deadly serious topics I've covered at length on this blog over the years, from gun control to the death penalty, from Covid to the destruction of devolution.  Not even the remotest flicker of interest from the mainstream media.  But a bit of throwaway banter on Twitter about the indisputable fact that the "British curling team" are all Scottish, and it's like the end of civilisation as we know it.

One day, someone will write a book about the fascinating psychological phenomenon of a minority winter sport proving to be more "triggering" for the Brit Nat hordes than practically any other subject I can think of.  The Express noted that I was heavily criticised for my tweet, which is perfectly true, but what they didn't bother mentioning is that almost all of the criticisms came from borderline-fascists, many of whom seemed to think I couldn't be Scottish because I have an Irish surname.  "Is dat royt, James?" was a particular highlight.  Blair McDougall must be so proud.

I've learned something valuable over the last couple of weeks. If you want to *really trigger* the Brit Nats, you don't have to say 'It's Scotland's Oil' or even 'the Pentland Firth is the Saudi Arabia of tidal power'.

You just have to point out the curlers are Scottish.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) February 19, 2022

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Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.) 

Why the results of the BBC / ComRes poll on GRA reform are less reliable than the three recent polls showing massive opposition to gender self-ID

You may have seen yesterday that BBC Scotland commissioned a poll about reform of the Gender Recognition Act.  Having been through the process of commissioning a GRA poll myself a few months ago, and having approached more than one polling firm before ending up with the excellent Panelbase, I'm instinctively very sceptical about any poll that purports to show strong support for the proposed reform, because I gained the firm impression that some pollsters themselves live in fear of being branded 'transphobic', and that question wordings can end up being heavily skewed by that fear.  Even if BBC Scotland themselves approached the exercise without an agenda, it's entirely possible that the intended questionnaire may have 'evolved' quite radically after engagement with the polling company.  As soon as I looked at the Savanta ComRes data tables, alarm bells started ringing in my head.  Just to take one trivial example, it's stated that there was one question that was asked only to "cisgender" respondents.  Given that the use of the word "cisgender" is strongly opposed by one side of the debate (indeed many gender critical feminists find the word highly offensive), that does not inspire confidence that the devisers of the poll were coming from a place of studied neutrality.

And I would also have to say that some of the mainstream media's reporting of the poll yesterday was truly dire.  In particular I would single out The Scotsman's reporting, which seemed to be going out of its way to give the misleading impression that there is widespread public support for the contentious proposed reforms.  This is becoming an established pattern for The Scotsman, and it's really quite curious for a publication that has a long-earned reputation for being conservative with a small 'c'.  My guess is that a small group of young reporters have essentially seized control of the paper's editorial stance on the GRA and have turned it into an unlikely bastion of identity politics zealotry.  Essentially the con was that they drew attention to the wrong question and portrayed it as if it was the 'headline result' that measured public opinion on the matter of controversy, when in fact it did no such thing.  Here is the exact wording of that question -

Given this information on the previous pages, to what extent, if at all, would you support or oppose making the process to acquire a Gender Recognition Certificate easier for transgender individuals?

First of all, that's a 'motherhood and apple pie' question which is deliberately framed to make it as difficult as possible for respondents to give a negative response - few people will want to disagree with the idea that life should be made easier for a minority group.  But even leaving aside the issue of virtue signalling, many opponents of gender self-ID either actively support making the process of obtaining a certificate easier, or are genuinely open to the idea.  So to portray the substantial majority on this question as proof that the public are overwhelmingly behind the Scottish Government's specific proposed reform is an extremely cynical red herring.  I'm also puzzled by the words "given this information on the previous pages", because there doesn't actually appear to have been much information on the previous pages. All there seems to have been is a brief definition of the word "transgender" (unless something is missing from the data tables).

So the really pivotal question is not the fluffy one about whether making life easier for people is a nice idea - it's the specific one about gender self-ID.  And that produced a much closer result.

To what extent, if at all, do you support the following amendments to the process for obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate in Scotland?

Allowing transgender people to self-identify by removing the requirement for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria (a condition where a person experiences discomfort or distress because there's a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity)

TOTAL SUPPORT: 40%

TOTAL OPPOSE: 38%

That's a statistical tie, and to the extent that the media gave this result the coverage it should have warranted, the failure of journalists was to not put it in the context of the three preceding polls in recent months that showed a very different picture.  The Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll, the Murray Blackburn Mackenzie / Survation poll, and the For Women Scotland / Panelbase poll all reported massive opposition to self-ID.  It's unlikely that public opinion has been transformed so rapidly in such a short space of time, so the reason for the contradiction is likely to be bound up in methodology or the question wording.  I suspect it's primarily to do with a lack of specificity in the ComRes question, which may mean that many respondents weren't clear about what they were being asked.  

In fairness, the question is nowhere near as dreadful as the notorious Pink News / YouGov poll that asked an ultra-short and ultra-vague question about whether people should be able to self-identify, without even a shred of explanation of what the concept of self-ID actually means (many respondents may have thought they were being asked about a "state of mind", rather than a concrete change in legal status).  ComRes do explain that self-ID discards the need for medical diagnosis, and they do explain that the question is being asked in relation to the process of obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate. But what appears to be totally absent is any explanation of what a Gender Recognition Certificate is, or the rights that are gained by obtaining one.  By contrast, the self-ID question in the Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll was crystal-clear that what was being asked about was a legal change of gender or sex that would be written onto an individual's birth certificate.  

On an issue like this where the level of public awareness is relatively low, the most accurate or meaningful results will be gained from poll questions that are the most specific and informative, and the least meaningful results will come from poll questions that are the most vague.  The ComRes question is somewhere on the middle of that continuum, and I would therefore suggest that the results are somewhat less credible than the three recent polls showing wide-scale opposition to self-ID.

Nevertheless, the ComRes poll does pick up public opposition to specific parts of the proposed reform, namely that the time people must live in their acquired gender before obtaining a certificate should be reduced from two years to six months, and that the minimum age at which a certificate can be obtained should be reduced from 18 to 16.

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Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.)