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Scott2006

Observer: Victory For The SNP must not lead to retreat

3 short pieces from the Observer on Sunday I don't think anyone mentioned.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/scotland/comment/0,,1923022,00.html A Leader comment that actually mentions the UN Security Council seat as a potential loss for Scotland's interests. Laughing

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1923003,00.html A united SNP has become a proper political party ... this goes on in a blog format to say the writer doesn't want the SNP to win next May... typically unionist.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/scotland/comment/0,,1923009,00.html Sturgeon vows to kill off 'discredited' council tax.

I agree strongly with doing away with the council tax in Scotland which is out of control in its rises year on year. A local income tax is surely the way forward and would be welcomed across Scotland I believe. Could this be a policy to unite the SNP and LibDems?
azzuri

Good first post Scott - thanks for posting the links to the articles and I hope you enjoy the forums.
SLG

Can't believe the editor of the Guardian saying this a referendum on independence would "fatally weaken these islands' ability to act as a force for good in the world". Utter bollocks. It won't have a great deal of effect as the population of England is growing so rapidly that the population and economic importance of the rotUK or England won't miss Scotland much. I can only see it having a positive effect by taking some of the old Imperial mentality out of Britain's dealings with the world.

I'm really disappointed, I used to read the Observer when I lived in England and while it generally ignored Scotland, I assumed it would take a slightly more open minded approach.

As for the second piece... "If the other parties want to maintain the union, creating a more sophisticated country than an entirely independent Scotland". Why? Who cares about a more sophisticated country? Surely it's about best managing Scotland's resources for the good of it's people and to have constructive relationships with other countries in the region and in the world? This is a Unionist who is grasping for a reason for Scotland to remain in the Union.
IF Convenor

Independent countries are less sophisitaced than incorporated ones? On what basis? Ignorant clap-trap.
Niall

A Charaid.
These articles are only the vanguard of the Anti Independence messages coming from the Unionists. They will get even more strident and viscious nearer to the elections. I would not be the least surprised, if the security services stage some spectacular event and ascribe it to extremist nationalists in order to discredit the pro Independence parties. They have always dusted of the Dublin Dumpling and arranged for a 'Terrorist outrage' to happen before elections.

The rise of pro Independence sentiment in Scotland has got the Westminster establishment running scared. The British Government needs Scotlands resources, earnings and GNP more than ever to help plug the black hole in the government accounts. The thought of the Scottish cash cow disappearing for good must look like disaster staring them in the face.

Well they will just have to accept that the union is dead and needs to be decently buried, because Scotland will be Independent and will create a new, fairer and more prosperous country than it is now.

Airson Alba!
Niall.
garye

"A force for good in the world"

What was the figures for dead Iraqis from the last Lancet report? Over 650,000?

Britain a force for good? Aye right. Imperialist pish.
October1974

I like the quote ' Labour in Scotland are dead from the neck up'
FALSYDE

A wee echo to Niall's response.

We have it on VERY GOOD authority that our friends "daawn sauwff" are now rattled a wee bit. The comment we have received is that the arrival on the scene of a nationalist centre right party is "a paradym shift which must be considered seriously". We are, and have no illusions about getting collectively and individually a serious kicking in the run up to May. So anything you read about nationalist individuals or groups take with a bucket of salt. Things may well get mucky because quite simply we the Scots have every thing to gain, and they have everything to loose. Who gives a s..t about a seat on the Security Council, is this not the same place as we speak that sits on its hands and watches ANOTHER African genocide in motion, Darfur has no oil!
Aventinian

garye wrote:
Britain a force for good? Aye right. Imperialist pish.


Like it or not, Britain has been a force for good in the world, just as America was before they elected a cretin as their president.
Corby Boy

It has also been a force for bad. Read massacre's at Culloden, India, South Africa (including concentration camps), Northern Ireland - Bloody Sunday and everywhere the 'British' have suppressed native peoples in the name of 'civilisation'.

Scotland historically has tendered not to have been imperialistic, until it entered into union then all changed, ashamedly.
FALSYDE

Aventian I think history will be the best judge for this.

I would say we have done some good for sure but the question needs to be asked, at what price and who paid it. Omitted from the negatives would include the Maori and Aborigines of Aus, Indians in North America and a few Africans along the way too.
garye

Aventinian wrote:
garye wrote:
Britain a force for good? Aye right. Imperialist pish.


Like it or not, Britain has been a force for good in the world, just as America was before they elected a cretin as their president.


You forgot the bit in my quote about the 650,000 dead Iraqis.
Aventinian

Corby Boy wrote:
It has also been a force for bad. Read massacre's at Culloden, India, South Africa (including concentration camps), Northern Ireland - Bloody Sunday and everywhere the 'British' have suppressed native peoples in the name of 'civilisation'.


I agree. Everything has its downside. British Imperialism, however, is not the simplistic evil that certain lefties try to make out.

Incidently, the concentration camps in South Africa were designed with good intentions. It was only the unpredicted spread of disease that made them negative, and they were soon disbanded when the British public protested.

Quote:
Scotland historically has tendered not to have been imperialistic, until it entered into union then all changed, ashamedly.


Come off it - Nova Scotia, Darién. The only reason we weren't better imperialists was because we didn't have the same access England did to trading routes etc. Post-union, the Scots managed to fit themselves quite nicely into the imperialistic role.

FALSYDE wrote:
Aventian I think history will be the best judge for this.

I would say we have done some good for sure but the question needs to be asked, at what price and who paid it. Omitted from the negatives would include the Maori and Aborigines of Aus, Indians in North America and a few Africans along the way too.


Indeed, will be. I think it's far too early to judge objectively. But I do believe history will be quite kind to the British Empire. History tends to ignore deaths and highlight civility.
Mctosh45

Aventinian,
Darien was a malarial swamp hardly a bold Imperialist adventure as far as putting down the natives!

Blockaded by the Spanish at the behest of the English.
Mctosh45

I would also point out that this missadventure bankrupted Scotland & was a major contributing factor which led to the Act of Union.
Niall

Mctosh45 wrote:
I would also point out that this missadventure bankrupted Scotland & was a major contributing factor which led to the Act of Union.


A Charaid.
A slight correction is needed here. Scotland had to finance a war with France which the people did not want or even approve of. Half the Army in France was Scottish and was a huge burden on the Scottish exchequer. Add to that a famine which lasted for seven years, which meant any surplus funds had to be applied to purchasing foodstuffs from England at extortionate prices due to the English navy blockading Scottish ports which effectively cut down food imports from the low countries.

'S mise le meas
Niall.
Mctosh45

Niall,
Yes, tis' a sorry tale, thought I'd leave the rest out didn't want to depress everyone too much. Doen't show our Eglish neighbours in such a good light, does it Aventinian??
IF Convenor

Darien was not about acquiring land or exploiting the indigenous people or their natural resources. Darien was about opening up a land route across the Isthmus of Panama and trans-shipping freight between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. It was ingenious and, if left unmolested would have made Scotland extremely rich.

Also, on the subject of Darien bankrupting Scotland, all the money lost at Darien was privately invested so, although it obviously affected the tax base available in Scotland, it did not directly cost "Scotland" the sums it is generally supposed.
Aventinian

Mctosh45 wrote:
Niall,
Yes, tis' a sorry tale, thought I'd leave the rest out didn't want to depress everyone too much. Doen't show our Eglish neighbours in such a good light, does it Aventinian??


They had no loyalty to us. We were foreigners who were operating against their commercial interests. What else were they going to do?
Mctosh45

Aventinian wrote:
Mctosh45 wrote:
Niall,
Yes, tis' a sorry tale, thought I'd leave the rest out didn't want to depress everyone too much. Doen't show our Eglish neighbours in such a good light, does it Aventinian??


They had no loyalty to us. We were foreigners who were operating against their commercial interests. What else were they going to do?


Look everyone an English apologist, foreigners in our own land the United Kingdom. Laughing Laughing Laughing
SLG

Aventinian wrote:
Mctosh45 wrote:
Niall,
Yes, tis' a sorry tale, thought I'd leave the rest out didn't want to depress everyone too much. Doen't show our Eglish neighbours in such a good light, does it Aventinian??


They had no loyalty to us. We were foreigners who were operating against their commercial interests. What else were they going to do?

We shared a common monarch though, to which they were meant to be loyal.
Scott2006

While looking at the Guardian/Observer site found this piece also by
Ruaridh Nicoll where he asks What is the point of the Scottish National Party? I've seldom read a comment that misses the point in quite so many ways as this one does. Anyone agree with Ruaridh Nicoll?

A comment from the 4th May 2003
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,949328,00.html

Quote:
And the loser is ...
Last week's election has hit the separatist cause hardest

What is the point of the Scottish National Party?
I ask the question as someone who used to vote SNP, back when Thatcher and Major were in power and the Nationalists had a rebellious joie de vivre, a sort of hit 'em from behind and run Jacobitism that appealed to my youthful sense of fun.

I once interviewed the former 'führer' of the East German neo-Nazi movement; a tall, blond thug called Ingo Hasselbach who possessed a certain, disturbing charisma. He said he never really fitted into the neo-nazi movement because, in between beating up Turkish immigrants, he enjoyed nothing more than smoking joints and listening to Hendrix. He adopted far-Right politics, he said, because nothing wound up the communists so much as drawing swastikas on municipal buildings.

In a less virulent form, voting SNP felt the same.
Post-devolution, this act of rebellion has lost its strength. I remember wondering what would happen to the party if it ever achieved independence; I presumed it would split. Now that we're happy spending time testing the compromise of devolution, the SNP has shied away from independence and attempted to develop an entire philosophy of its own. If this election has proved anything, it is that SNP policies are almost identical to those of Labour. For this reason, the fault of voter apathy lies with the SNP.

Without the fun of rebellion, independence parties are nothing. Just look at what happened to Plaid Cymru in Wales last week. It fell apart. We were more lucky, offered the alternative of electing a radical fringe. It would be a joy to believe that the success of the Greens, Scottish Socialists and the other independents heralds a new era in Scottish politics. And wonderful to imagine that Robin Harper was about to become our own Joschka Fischer (although hopefully more pro fisher).

Unfortunately, I have the niggling feeling that the success of the smaller parties is due to that apathy, that low voter turnout. It is a political truth that the more the majority stay away, the more the process is placed in the hands of extremists. Look what has happened in the councils of England.

As Scots, we should be pleased that when the electorate is distilled down to half its volume, the flavours that grow stronger are those of the Greens, the SSP and even those kooky old souls, the Scottish Tories, rather than the likes of the BNP, UKIP and the Scottish Peoples' Alliance. It is good to know that success came to those the SSP and the Greens ... who look companionably on asylum-seekers rather than the opposite.

There is no doubt the Parliament will be more fun. In the old Parliament, the outsiders sat in a single three-seat row, Tommy Sheridan, Denis Canavan and Robin Harper lined up like a fading welt on the flesh of the chamber. Now they're a bruise.

Under parliamentary rules, the Greens and the SSP will be able to have a say in what business the MSPs discuss, and take a fuller part in the proceedings. With the Labour/Lib-Dem majority only two strong, there will be plenty of room for imaginative politicking.

But if this is new politics (and we should be sceptical), it's the inadvertent creation of Scottish Labour, the social-democratic behemoth at the centre of our society. Labour's failure to engage its Left is responsible for the rise of the Scottish Socialists. Its failure to listen to its constituents is responsible for the arrival of Dr Jean Turner in Bearsden and Strathkelvin. Its failure to inspire Blair-style confidence is responsible for Tory leader David McLetchie dismissing the Enterprise Minister Iain Gray in the Pentlands. We voters know where we are with Labour, and can react against it.

On the basis of this, one might ask what the Liberal Democrats have to add. The answer is more than the SNP. The Lib Dems traditionally offer a vote to those who want to care, but prefer to avoid feeling responsible for their actions. This includes the spread-out populations of the Highlands, long ago weaned off the Tories who, idiotically, decided to back the landowners rather than the people who live there.

The Lib Dems have also been showing a tendency towards imaginative policies, supporting environmentalism and threatening an increase in taxes to support public services, which saw support slip in redoubts like Orkney and Shetland.

So both Labour and the Lib Dems have their place, and the SNP doesn't. What's more, the Nationalists seem to be going out of their way to make the Parliament more dull, which is unforgivable. Margo Macdonald may have made it back the chamber (a mixed blessing), but the party did manage to get rid of two of its most impressive figures at this election, and all by themselves. To deselect Mike Russell, their Culture spokesman, seemed careless, despite his pomposity, but to get rid of Andrew Wilson was downright pathetic.

With the Greens and the SSP both pro-independence, the only possible reason for the SNP's existence was to put the case for detaching the economy from London control. And the only MSP with the power and the nous to argue this effectively was Wilson.

Without him, the SNP is just another focus-group-led, social-democratic party, and that's one too many. They are to politics what Scottish Blend is to tea. And I'm not sure we even need Scottish Blend.
SLG

He's right, the centre ground is overpopulated. And if I was a Unionist, I'd say that it is the SNP that's getting in the way. Being for independence, I think it's Labour that are in the way - never mind all the other associated failing of the Labour Party.

At the end of the day, the SNP won't get into power by being a 'radical' party. They need to go for the populist centre ground and the strategy seems to be on the verge of paying off. Nor is there a need for another radical party, I think the SSP, Solidarity and the SGP have that covered.
Mctosh45

SLG , I agree to a certain extent, but the true middle ground in Scotland is left of centre & it behoves the S.N.P.to camp full square on this ground.

I also agree with the writers comments about Andrew Wilson & Mike Russell how the S.N.P. DESELECTED these two was a travesty! I know Mike has been put back up list

But what has happened to Andrew Wilson? To my mind after Alex Salmond the best political & economic thinker & speaker around.The S.N.P. CAN ILL AFFORD to WASTE POLITICAL TALENT like these two.
SLG

Mctosh45 wrote:
But what has happened to Andrew Wilson? To my mind after Alex Salmond the best political & economic thinker & speaker around.The S.N.P. CAN ILL AFFORD to WASTE POLITICAL TALENT like these two.

I heard that he's very happy in his job at the moment. You're right, it was a real waste of talent. I imagine he's still involved to an extent.

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