The Fall Out Continues - thread 6

[TheShadowyFeminist]

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@Graffitiqueen

I was finding this all quite exciting and interesting but starting to feel a bit anxious. Would it be too much to ask for a bit of stability and someone to run the country in a boringly competent manner!!

Totally, can you just run the bloody country for a change?

I'd actually love to see an indy neutral party which was just focused on running the country spring up. But at the moment it wouldn't get anywhere as we have this ridiculous situation where Scots are apparently communicating their desire for another referendum by voting for pro indy parties, even though they might be voting for them for different reasons and even though there are pro indy folk who don't vote for them for various reasons.

Maybe we should just have an extra question on every second Holyrood election ballot paper: "Do you want a referendum on Scottish independence to be held within the next 2 years" with a guarantee that if the proportion saying Yes goes over x% we'll have one. At least it would be unambiguous rather than parties claiming votes mean something they don't necessarily.

That’s a great idea @StatisticallyChallenged! But it’s far too sensible for Scottish politics.

I'd vote for that statistically! (If you could just set up that party and field some candidates before the end of the month that'd be grand ) I kind of feel that's what the "unionists" should be doing... Just working within the existing system to benefit Scotland and the UK. But, hey, we are where we are...

It does feel like we need someone to go in & just sort the mess out, sticking anyone kicking off into the naughty corner til they can just grow up and behave.

@TheShadowyFeminist

It does feel like we need someone to go in & just sort the mess out, sticking anyone kicking off into the naughty corner til they can just grow up and behave.

That's going to a fucking big corner. Maybe Edinburgh Castle has a suitable dungeon?

Maybe they can send some of the team who are going to sort out Liverpool Council to run the country in a quiet seriously competent way .

Problem is the captains of industry and the like have other more lucrative fish to fry .

"The SNP are badly in need of an opposition that can materially impact their tunnel vision on policy and legislation. They've had far too easy a ride on things & grown arrogant with their grasp on power.
It's Indy with no alternative that creates that monster. And with the dire position of the non-Indy parties, it's going to take an alternative Indy movement to challenge it."
@TheShadowyFeminist - I couldn't agree more.
I can't stand AS. I can't stand NS. But I am happy that there is finally some opposition to the (appalling developments under the unchallenged monster that is now the) SNP party. Alba can challenge them without howls of 'not Scottish enough / not Indy enough'.
This has to be a helpful development, despite the caliber of the individuals involved.

I think we can all agree that making the sg more accountable can only be a good thing.

@titsintiers

I think we can all agree that making the sg more accountable can only be a good thing.

Why can't Scotland just have a formal Constitution (obviously limited by what the devolution settlement permits?). Then everyone would know what it says, whats illegal, what penalties there are and wouldn't be subject to having it changed at a whim or a moment's notice.

Since the SNP are so keen on the EU and nearly all other EU countries have modern, single document constitutional documents, I can't understand why they haven't developed one already. It could incorporate the ECHR as well, although obviously Scotland can't sign up to it as it isn't a nation state.

I agree @GreenlandTheMovie we should have a formal constitution.

SoS front page.

Tweet

"Salmond no longer fit to stand for public office"

I think Sturgeon will end up regretting kicking off her campaign with a negative focus on Salmond. It tells me she's rattled & possibly not listening to PR advice. Putting the focus on Alba/Salmond just comes across as vindictive as well.

Instead of trying to get the focus on her policies or Covid handling, she's attacking someone else. Unless she's deliberately trying to keep the focus off her policies (GRA hot potato)? Whatever the reason, it's poor.

That's not a terribly good look given the accusation that the whole purpose of the "conspiracy" was to keep him out of public life.

This is going to be a really negative campaign isn't it?

I think that’s a bad look for NS and it’s not impossible that the pressure is getting the better of her.

Not going to claim I entirely followed this but here’s someone who attempted to analyse the possible effect of Alba on seats:
mobile.twitter.com/leonardocarella/status/1375804171425873922

More defections.

“Neale Hanvey becomes second Westminster MP to defect from SNP to Alex Salmond’s Alba Party. Follows Kenny MacAskill.”

mobile.twitter.com/jamesmatthewsky/status/1375960982233710598

That analysis makes sense looking in aggregate, I think (it's late!)

What it does show is that unless the SNP do astonishingly well then Alba performing very badly risks harming the indy cause. Which makes sense; there is a scenario where Alba takes some votes which is just enough to tip a list seat from indy to unionist (places where SNP or Greens get the 6th or 7th list seat for example). I also don't think his analysis factors in ISP which also risks doing the same. Few thousand votes to each of ISP and Alba, coming from SNP/Greens could lose a seat.

In essence Sturgeon needs to completely annihalate Alba, or hope they get enough votes to take seats. The in between is the worst of all worlds

It also shows (and I would need to crunch the numbers to check) that in the event where pro indy votes are in the minority but Alba does relatively well then we could still end up with an indy majority.

Not just Hanvey - also Lynn Anderson the SNP Equalities convenor.

She was one of the “new brooms” elected in the teeth of opposition from the hierarchy last autumn. She’s on record in one of the papers saying that she found the SNP doesn’t have an equalities strategy. Then the transphobia definition was imposed.

No wonder she’s left.

Hopefully a sign that Alba will have pro-women policies.

So they have two of the people who are in a really strong position to explain why the NEC shenanigans have been so problematic and poisonous- but if they are going to try and run a positive campaign and recommend SNP1 they will be severely hampered in how much they can say about what’s been going on. Meanwhile the SNP will go full tilt on sex pest ego trip messaging. It’s going to be a really tough campaign.

For me the NEC shenanigans are just as serious as the inquiries but they’ve been under thr radar. Correct me if I’m wrong but the membership voted off “woke” Fiona Roberston and voted in Lynn instead, who is GC.

Roberston then got back on through her positions on two of the soecial interest groups that automatically get NEC seats - Out for Indy and a disability group - and carried on pushing for the transphobia policies and the potentially illegal BAME/disability in top place policy.

So the views of the membership were swept aside. The wrong views, you see.

It just adds to the impression of a party whose leadership can’t be held to account.

@StatisticallyChallenged

That's not a terribly good look given the accusation that the whole purpose of the "conspiracy" was to keep him out of public life.

This is going to be a really negative campaign isn't it?

I think it'll be brutal.

The SNP don't seem to know how to handle this, their entitlement to Indy support without accountability shines through & the gutter sniping from the SNP is I think indicative that the smear/harassment tactics endorsed by the hierarchy evident by their inaction & silence while members were being targeted, is going to dominate the election.

I think the SNP were likely to be affected by the whole enquiry stuff, but not fatally so. It their inability to park all that & have their campaign & activist support irrationally focused on opponents I think will cause further harm. It's ironic that the harassment & bullying that's been rife in the SNP which is behind a lot of the defections (which seems to be what the harassers want - to bully them out of their party or at least cow them into shutting up) now cannot be curbed when needed so instead of silencing those people/voices, they're amplifying them instead. While making that nasty bullying more widely evident to people who might not have been aware.

We've got 6 wks of this to go 🤦🏻‍♀️

My feeling is that NS isn't too concerned about how alba (or is it ALBA, like ASDA and has to be written all in capitals?) performs in the sense of taking away SNP seats. Or even how it affects pro indy seats overall (though that modelling is really interesting... I hadn't considered the impact of a lacklustre performance by alba re taking votes from the greens in particular but not enough to take seats) . I think she is concerned about having an alternative indy party that could act as a serious focus for disaffected voters (or MSPs, MPs, councillors) in the future that she can't brush off as "working for their Westminster masters". And she won't be able to say "this is the only road to independence" any more, as there will be an alternative voice in parliament not afraid to say otherwise.

I agree it's liking likely to be a negative campaign from the SNP on this, though, yes, as alba is going for the SNP1 approach, they can't be too negative in return! Wonder if this will take away some of the negative campaigning re labour especially? And if that will affect marginal labour (or Tory) / SNP constituency seats?

It will be very interesting to see if the Labour people rumoured to be considering joining will actually do it - I think that might make a significant difference to everybody's tactics. Depending on who they are it might shift the sense of ALBA as full of old male reactionaries, and there is clearly a gap in the market for pro-indy or indy-curious Labour folk who would never vote SNP for historical reasons.

And she won't be able to say "this is the only road to independence" any more

This is I think her biggest fear as it's effectively guaranteed her & her party's dominance in Scottish politics. Without it, she has to justify other aspects of their 'vision' via their manifesto & atm that's not very appealing to a lot of people (mainly women).

I had a wry chuckle at one campaign claim - they promise to supply all children P1 - P6 with a laptop/tablet/chrome book. Which is a bit late given we're a year into this pandemic & it's basically their failure to do this when it mattered that they're 'pledging' to do something about.

I think there's a lot of malaise in where the SNP is now - they've been in power a long time, and grown complacent of both the electorate & their claim to that power. It's like they don't think they need to work for it at all, as the polls basically tell them they've got enough support no matter what. And that is ultimately their main issue. They seem to have forgotten how to actually persuade people of their positive attributes because the polls tell them they don't need to beg for votes & the arrogant entitlement to power seeps through. And this also seems to fuel the nastier elements of that party as they don't feel the need to stamp out the appalling behaviour of the likes of the OFI/YSI wings of the party as they can't see it harming their prospects via the polls.

They're basically a bit of a shit show atm and Salmond throwing his curve ball into the mix with so little warning at the start of their election campaign has just sent wild panic through the whole party & they're reacting instinctively - negatively & nastily.

Is the snp manifesto out yet?

I agree Shadowy, I think we're likely to see lots of deflection and whataboutery in this campaign. Not the sort of behaviour I want to see in a mature democracy.