They should have bought a Porsche (Images from Getty)
George Galloway just couldn’t help himself. “I should mention before anyone else does that Nationalism and Unionism in Scotland are now led by RT [formerly Russia Today] hosts,” he wrote in a recent op-ed for the Kremlin-controlled broadcaster. “That Putin, eh, he thinks of everything. A two-horse race and he’s on both of them.”
Putin aside, Scottish voters are now having to contend with the return of two Scottish political heavyweights of yesteryear: Galloway and Alex Salmond, two RT hosts who now find themselves leading two new political parties.
Each is attempting to outflank their former tribes on the constitutional question, playing to their respective unionist and nationalist bases as strongmen who will hold the current crop of MSP’s feet to the fire. But in doing so, both risk doing more damage to the cause they claim to support. North of the border, there’s more than a lingering suspicion that both are using their creations as a vehicle for their respective egos, rather than as a genuine attempt to shake up the body politic.
The comparisons don’t end there. For while Galloway and Salmond are not quite the opposite of each other, they represent, in a phrase favoured by the former, “two cheeks of the same arse”. They are both, in effect, attempting to game the Scottish electoral system.
Unlike the House of Commons, where an MP simply has to record one more vote than their nearest challenger to win a constituency, the Scottish Parliament — as well as the Welsh Senedd — is elected using the Additional Member System. In Holyrood, there are 129 seats, of which 73 are elected using the traditional first-past-the-post system. Scotland is then divided into wider electoral regions, where 56 further MSPs are elected on a proportional basis. This “list” is designed to ensure that parties are not penalised for recording their support evenly across the country, rather than seeing it pooled geographically in a number of individual seats. Or so goes the theory.
But when the architects of devolution were deciding on this modified “d’Hont system”, there was a general assumption that the same parties competing on the list would also choose to stand candidates in the constituencies; this matters, because the number of constituencies a party wins is ratio’d out of their list returns to make the result more proportional.
Both Galloway’s party, All for Unity (also, confusingly, called Alliance4Unity), and Alex Salmond’s vehicle, Alba, are standing solely on the list. And at least in tactical terms, that may make electoral sense.
In Galloway’s plan, the SNP will likely take the overwhelming number of first-past-the-post seats, but with less than half of the vote. So if pro-UK voters simply cast their wider politics aside and vote for the leading unionist candidate in the constituency vote and the Alliance4UK candidate in the regional list vote, the SNP would be crushed. Nicola Sturgeon would be out on her ear and there would be no more talk of independence referendums.
Salmond’s offer to independence supporters is the inverse of Galloway’s claim. Because the SNP records so many first-past-the-post wins — and will likely do so again in May — they return very few MSPs from the regional list. In effect, goes the Alba narrative, thousands of true believers in independence have their list votes cast aside. But, says Salmond, if they decided to split their vote — SNP in the constituency and Alba on the list — Scottish nationalists could record what he calls a “supermajority” for independence. With so many pro-independence MSPs in Holyrood, Boris Johnson would be forced to capitulate and offer another independence referendum immediately.
On paper, there appears to be a logic to both arguments. But in reality, they are to varying degrees a combination of sleight of hand, misdirection and utter cobblers.
Both Salmond and Galloway fail to appreciate that Scottish voters are unlikely to put all other considerations to one side when they cast their ballot. Yes, there is tactical voting between Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem voters — Conservatives sweep up thousands of Lib Dem votes in the borders, many Tory voters in West Dunbartonshire are happy to vote for their local Labour MSP to keep the nationalists out and a fair whack of both Labour and Conservatives will cheerily vote for the avuncular Scottish Lib Dem leader in his NE Fife constituency.
But there is no wholesale transfer, nor would you expect there to be from such diverse political traditions. Indeed, because Scottish councils are decided on multi-member wards and with a single transferrable vote, where voters rank their choices, it is easy to track their second and third preferences. In the glut of council by-elections we have seen following the lifting of Covid restrictions, it is clear that as many — and sometimes more — Labour voters would rather give their second vote to the SNP than to the Conservatives, even if the Tories are best placed to keep a nationalist out of office.
Moreover, as the vast majority of pro-union MSPs are elected on the list system, rather than winning constituencies outright, adding another unionist party such as Galloway’s and splitting the vote four ways, rather than three, is likely to reduce each party’s share and allow more nationalists in through the middle.
I suspect that George Galloway — whose itinerant political career has taken in the Labour Party, The Respect party, the Workers Party of Britain and now All For Unity — probably knows this. This is not, after all, the first time he has stood for Holyrood; in 2011, he managed to record 3.3% on the Glasgow list.
Fast forward to today, and the most recent three Scottish polls have All For Unity failing to cut through. But while it looks unlikely that Galloway will return any MSPs, he could still gather enough votes to keep some pro-UK members out. For a man who refused to join the Better Together campaign at the 2014 independence referendum because “I hate the Union Jack”, who has previously called for a United Ireland and last week saw a clip resurface of him calling on the UK government to deliver a second independence referendum, it is almost as if his new party is just another grift to keep himself in the public eye.
For Alex Salmond, however, even his most devout opponents accept that he believes fervently in Scottish independence. It is a cause to which he has committed almost his entire adult life. Whether, though, he is fully invested in seeing his protégé, Nicola Sturgeon, be the one to deliver it is another matter.
The fallout between the two former allies has been seismic. It centres on a complex and unedifying series of events, involving Salmond winning a civil battle over Sturgeon’s government over the way it investigated allegations of sexual assault against him, and culminating in Salmond being acquitted of multiple allegations of the same nature. Along the way, Ms Sturgeon traduced the character of her former boss, mentor and friend of 30 years — and she has carried the attacks into this campaign, highlighting his gambling habits and suggesting his new party was about putting “self-interest first”.
For his part, Salmond appears to have buried the enmity he showed throughout the investigation into the Scottish Government’s handling of the harassment complaints, during which he accused a group of Sturgeon’s allies (including her husband) of colluding to have him removed from public life and jailed. He now claims he simply wants Alba representatives to help get the SNP over the line with a majority that the UK government can’t ignore.
But is this likely? While a new nationalist party throws a spanner into some of the statistical modelling of polls and results, the general rule of thumb is that you need 5% of the regional vote to start taking seats. Get more than 5% of the vote and Alba begins doing damage to the pro-UK cause by displacing some pro-UK MSPs; receive less than 5% and the damage is mostly inflicted on the nationalist side by taking SNP and nationalist-supporting Green votes without anything to show for it.
The most recent three polls, in which Alba has recorded between 2-3% of the vote, suggest the latter scenario is increasingly likely. Indeed, it’s hard not see Alex Salmond’s power play as anything other than a revenge mission. When he stepped down in 2014, he handed his deputy a parliamentary majority. Nicola Sturgeon promptly squandered it in the 2016 Scottish election — a setback which allowed the UK government to deny all claims that an independence referendum should be rerun.
But even if Alba does somehow manage to return the sort of “supermajority” Alex Salmond claims to be hoping for, there’s nothing to say that it will pay off. The UK Government would be well within its rights to point out that gaming the system isn’t the same as gaining support. After all, in recent polls a majority of Scots have not been in support of separation. It would also, I suspect, be easier to counter a fractured nationalist Scottish movement composed of squabbling splinter groups than an SNP majority.
Come election day, though, far more important will be the fact that voters simply don’t like the sense that they are being played; that so-called big beasts think the political stage is theirs for an encore even if there’s no applause.
Looking elsewhere at the likes of Laurence Fox and the multiple reincarnations of Nigel Farage, voters would be forgiven for wanting men of a certain age to deal with their midlife crises by buying a sports car, rather than launching a new political party.
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SubscribeCan we please just call another indyref, and this time allow the English to vote as well? The Scots will get their “independence” by an overwhelming majority, and the rest of us will no longer have to listen to their bleating.
Exactly. I’ve been saying that for many years.
An English vote to eject would also provide the English negotiators with a solid argument for harsh terms, as they would have a clear mandate to get rid of these people.
A large share in the British national debt would be great.
Their share of the public debt should also be based on the Barnett formula. They’d get 20% more of it. They’re 8% of the UK population so they can have 9.6% of the debt.
Far too generous, if I may say so.
Trouble is they’d want a CTA like Ireland and have rights to vote and work in England. Who wants millions of unemployed SNP drones heading to the Uk for a job?
Independence will release all the entrepreneurial genius and energy that is latent in every Scot, turning the country into a wonderful land of milk and haggis. They won’t need to come to England.
I honestly think they’ll be fine, although they’ll have to cut their public spending once it’s no longer being supplemented by the English. Although my original post is a bit snarky, I genuinely believe that if the Scots want independence, they should get it. As with Brexit, economics are not the only consideration.
I agree that anyone who wants independence should have it. I am all in favour of smaller or small states where those who govern are closer to the populace. And independence would force the Scots to cease their dependence on the English and set about providing for themselves.
That said, I think they will have to do more than ‘cut their public spending’. They’ll have to more or less cut it in half. And, ultimately, on the basis, I’m still not convinced that they’ll ever vote for independence.
I agree. The difference is that Scots nationalists don’t want independence per se, just independence from England. Despite historical, cultural, economic and familial links, they’d rather suck at the teat of Mrs Von der Leyen (if you’ll pardon the expression)
What if, as many of us voted for, we don’t want the quasi independence on offer from the SNP.
Unfortunately that has not been the case since the wonderful Dr Samuel Johnson pointed out to them in the eighteenth century that the “road to riches” was the A1 to London.
The Brightest Prospect A Man can see is the High Road to England..-Dr Samuel Johnson as Noted by James Boswell, In A Tour of Highlands &islands 1773?..
No thanks, I prefer HP Sauce on haggis. I’d be over the border in a flash if the Nationalist loons got their way. Don’t assume that everyone, or even a majority, are blue-face-paint idiots who think Braveheart is real. Mostly dole spongers, woke romantic academics, etc., etc Where I live 68% voted ‘No’ in 2014; mostly people with jobs, property and something to lose.
The lazy assertion that *if they want independence they should have it* ignores the fact that in 2014 we voted against it.
I think a lot of the catastrophising around the future of the UK rests on distortions of history and the same sort of anyone-but-Britain thinking that led to 3 years of the Bercow Parliament of clowns, trying desperately to get a 2nd referendum to undo the 2016 one that ended in December 2019 with (in effect) a huge confirmatory vote in favour of leaving.
Scotland is already slipping down inter-regional comparisons across the UK and Europe, partly as the oil era starts moving to an end, but also because the frozen conflict that the constitutional issue has become is having a constantly chilling effect on the economy.
Comparing say Glasgow and Manchester, or Birmingham, in 2000 with the two cities now is very damning for the long obsession with independence.
And the fact that Scottish drug deaths are three times worse than anywhere else in Europe is itself both jaw dropping (it is sufficient to raise the UK above 3 other EU countries which, were Scotland, less than 10% of the UK population, on a par with Wales and England would see the UK lower than these)- but also merely symptomatic of similiar social and economic damage that has resulted from 15 years of constitutional obsession.
They may want it, but that doesn’t mean we’d have to give it to them.
52% voted against independence.
Yes. the bright but sadly ‘quiet’ ones.
55% actually…. or to be very pedantic 55.3% with 44.7% of those 85% of the electorate who voted, being for it.
That’s wthout assuming the 15% of people, around half a million or so give or take, also not being that madly in favour of independence when they couldn’t be bothered to vote on the binary choice.
The whole Blackford and Sturgeon ploy of saying *Scotland will or will not do or think this* is little more than a form of grooming of the English, mainly London to be honest, population to try and get their goal by other means…direct argument having failed.
Dump them now & Northern Ireland, both are parasites we can no longer afford in this Corona Paradise we now find ourselves.
Of course by that logic you’d have to get rid of Wales and most of England as well
“Moderation in all things”. We shall have to draw the line somewhere, so the Anglo-Scotch border will do. (for now).
If you’re drawing line why not make it easy, just draw circle around M25 and dump everything outside of that !
No, ‘charity begins at home’. We can also probably afford Wales if we dump the other two.
Johnson is a crafty politician and it would not surprise me if any new Joxit referendum included an additional question about whether one’s own region should secede from the union. What will scupper the Nits will be the Shetlands and Orkneys voting not to be part of an independent Scotland.
This will remove pretty much all the hydrocarbon reserves. Existing North Sea production will not accrue to Scotland either, because the 1965 treaty apportions it between Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and the UK. As the UK will still exist post-Joxit, these fields will still belong to the UK. In short, there’ll be next to no oil and gas from day 1. This will not become apparent until it is too late.
Scotland will turn, probably quite rapidly, into a version of 1990s Romania, where something like a third of the population left the country.
Flodden & Culloden all over again!
You mean like the large number of ROI citizens who over the years took advantage of the CTA to settle in Britain and who surreptitiously promote Irish reunification within academia and the media.
Frankly, given the naked hatred shown on here towards Scotland, the last thing most Scots would want would be to visit the xenophobic toilet toilet England seems to be becoming.
Yes please . Please eject us from your post-imperial fantasy land .
Exactly, everyone’s happy. What’s not to like? The Scots can even go cap in hand to the EU to see if they can give away their new-found freedom to new imperial masters in Brussels and Berlin. Mutti may even make sturgeon a gauleiter of the new administrative region formally know as Scotland.
…and that’s been her plan all along, because it means permanent power.
Much like they were forced to go cap-in-hand to the English, three hundred years ago.
Reading the kind of xenophobic dross on here is a bit like bathing in spittle.
Even if the question is phrased along the lines of “Do you want Scotland to leave the Union, and if so, undertake to stop your bleating”, the Yes voters would continue to moan if succesful. Remember, if the independent state of Scotland is not a roaring economic success, we all know who will be to blame for that, don’t we …..?
Scotland will want English money in perpetuity, “independent” or not.
As they have had so copiously since 1707!
I’m English, Yorkshire, I moved to Scotland, I want to stay British.
You’d still be British… I cant imagine they’d force you to change nationality
Dual nationality , no problem .
Me – English (Lancashire by genetics but everywhere really)
Move to Scotland in the ‘80s.
Unionist and British…. but if these bozos don’t get silenced, I will sell the house and move “home”
Bye-ee!
Agreed, but can we make it a condition that they must take Liverpool with them?
No Northern Ireland. That would surely be fair since most of the “loyalists” originally came from Scotland.
Which its why the city is called Londonderry.
Superficially attractive, but I fear the SNP is perfectly capable of blaming its shortcomings on the independence settlement for decades to come.
Who cares, Dougie?
Not a single Englishmen!
Don’t like what’s happening in your country, you middle aged man, don’t try to change it by starting a political party, shut up and buy a sports car!
If a man said that to a middle aged lesbian women he would be called a ageist, sexist, misogynist and homophobic.
What’s the difference to you saying it?
Nothing but it makes you a misandrist.
I thought men in middle age crisis mode dumped the old wife and got a hotter newer model.
Honestly if you think it makes her a misandrist you should go and join the woke brigade.
Just using the same insults that are thrown at men by women
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander
What if it’s good for neither?
Isn’t it only the woke who have to pretend the goose and the gander are the same thing.
But yeah, 100% agree with you – hypocritical misandry.
I thought a misandrist was one of Prince Andrew’s young ladies.
I tried to downvote you but tis stupid system obviously likes your comment and won’t let me 🙁
It’s the best argument she’s got which says a lot about her, probably why she’s retreating to a non-elected lifetime sinecure in the House of Lords where she gets to (excuse the pun) lord it over all us plebs without having to bother with those pesky elections which she’ll leave to those much derided middle aged men who at least are submitting themselves to the voters
Rubbish…..
We need to get over the woke and PC BS….
It was a light comment, using a stereotype to make a point…..
This article works quite well until the final paragraph when ( sigh) we see that the underlying motivation is simply another attack on men, which is a shame. (but then, coming from a party that gave us Theresa May perhaps not surprising).
That final para should never have been allowed in by the editors and I’m quite sure that the author has some skin in this game so I’d be very surprised if she’s simply a curious bystander.
Too true, I’d almost forgotten it was Ruth Davidson writing this until the anti-men, anti-brexit dig at the end.
Yes agreed. Not quite sure why that petty dig is shoehorned onto the end, with a bit of arrogant pity for those who “didn’t vote the right way”. They don’t need your forgiveness.
Not a fan of Farage, never voted for him and doubt I would. But Ruth looks pretty silly here as he has had a significantly greater impact on the UK and its politics than she ever has, or probably ever will.
Exactly. Ruth Davidson having a dig at Farage is a bit like Scott McTominay having a dig at Lionel Messi.
Farage is Messi? Has Messi failed to ever score a goal in his career or something
Has Farage ever failed?
Since Ruth was referring to men its a fairly well known meme. Sitting here and thinking about it I’m not sure there’s an equivalent for women. Maybe mutton dressed as lamb?
It’s the “‘cause Trump,” U.K. version. Bash the non-conformists and expect people to applaud. Gaaah.
Ok, let us assume that all you say about Salmond and Galloway is correct, what have the likes of Ross, Sarwar and Rennie got to offer?
Ross and Sarwar scramble in their attempt at coming second. Big deal! As if a consolation prize is going to accomplish anything.
Bottom line, we are going to get 5 YEARS of more of the same, and nobody has the guts or the ability to do sod all about it.
Let’s not lay the blame at Galloway’s doorstep. I am afraid it has been your inability to build anything while in charge of the Tory party that is the issue. 5 years ago you fought a campaign on the second referendum. In the end you did OK, but what have you got to show for it? Zilch!
As an example, at the previous election I tried to reach out to you personally because I was concerned with education in Scotland, having two kids going through the system, and I was surprised that education was NEVER talked about. Needless to say, I received no reply, and education kept being not talked about.
5 years later here is Ross leading the same identical campaign as last time… So a vote for the Tory party is a vote against the referendum, but apart from that how is your party going to improve MY life? The SNP has failed miserably to do anything at all to make it better, but you offer no alternative.
The problem is not Galloway. The problem is that you say nothing.
As an aside, should Salmond manage to deprive the Gloop party of even one of their MSPs, he should be given a royal dukedom for services to the country.
As a middle-aged English man, this article is further proof that Scotland and England should separate. Why should we be constantly bombarded with your intractable nationalist clannism? It’s nothing to do with us, it doesn’t pay for a single dose of vaccine, in fact you all seem to swan around at vast expense to the taxpayer, the English taxpayer that is, it produces nothing, but always ends up with us being slagged off, when we don’t care and are sick to death of it. Enough is enough eh? Let’s see another of those referendum things, start rebuilding Hadrian’s wall and give the English a bit of peace as well as saving us a lot of our money.
And rescuing us from there ever being a Labour government again. Not even Blair, accomplished liar as he was, got a majority in England.
God, that’s a prospect to salivate over: getting rid of the Scottish tapeworm may also get rid of the Labour one.
It is naivety in the extreme to believe that this issue nothing to do with us and something we – the English – can look away from. Frankly all the more reason why any debate about independence needs to be broadened. For example… what happens to our nuclear deterrent if Faslane is ‘removed’ from the UK?; what happens to the Scots’ share of UK debt – is that all taken on by rUK?; what about the implications of economic crisis north of the border and the likely impact on sterling (as if we are somehow insulated)?; and more ominous, what about the risk of civil unrest from the sizeable proportion of the Scottish population that DOES value the Union?
The nationals will never accept ‘no’ to their demands (ie the recent comments about the girl eventually agreeing) but the manner in which they have dictated the tone of politics in Scotland with their own style of cynical, corrupt and incompetent leadership has become a cancer. Can I see the Union supporting Scots accepting independence and in response the SNP adopting a pragmatic, unitary approach to those who opposed them? Everything says that this is going to go badly wrong and make Northern Ireland look like the essence of stability. It is a nightmare that the English cannot escape even if they wished it.
I struggle to understand why the Scottish electorate cannot see the issues themselves but it doesn’t reflect well on the Unionist supporting parties that there is no effective opposition to the SNP. This is an inevitable train crash.
Scotland is a ‘luxury’ we can no longer afford! Give the cash to Hartlepool and Cornwall, they ‘really’ need it.
Does Scotland really need a councillor for every 4,500 people, an MSP for every 42,600, and an MP for every 93,000? There are 1,227 paid politicians in all. Seems a bit over the top to me.
At least they are elected unlike the House of Lords with 794 members the second largest parliamentary chamber in the world after the equally undemocratic Chinese People’s Congress.
Absolutely – the Lords is an abomination in a supposedly democratic country, and should be abolished. 2 wrongs don’t make a right though, that’s still a ridiculous amount of troughers for a district with a smaller population than the Midlands.
It’s a nation .
If you say so.
We first said so categorically in 1320 in the Declaration of Arbroath ,the first such declaration in Europe .
Oh dear. Bit nasty.
Oh dear not a squeal from Wales I trust?
No. The Midlands actually.
A few weeks ago someone with an identical name to yours claimed to be speaking from S Wales. I remarked at the time that ‘they’ seemed to hail from the Tatra Mts.
You must be the unfortunate victim of identity fraud.
Only to ‘sell yourselves for English gold” in 1707, as your great bard put it so succinctly!
Sorry, but I think you will find the Swiss got there first in 1291AD with the:
The Alliance concluded between the people of the alpine areas of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden: or in the original:-
“homiesvallis Uranie universitasque vallis de Switz accommunitas hominum Intramontanorum Vallis Inferioris”.
Ouch!
Really? Not all of you thought that:
“Farewell to all our Scottish fame
Farewell our ancient glory
Farewell even to our Scottish name
Sae fam’d in martial story
Now Sark runs over the Solway sands
And Tweed runs to the ocean
To mark where England’s province stands:
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
What force or gile could not subdue
Through many warlike ages
Is wrought now by a coward few
For hireling traitor’s wages
The English steel we could disdain
Secure in valour’s station
But English gold has been our bane:
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
I would, or I had seen the day
That treason thus could sell us
My auld gray head had lain in clay
Wi’ Bruce and loyal Wallace!
But pith and power, till my last hour
I’ll make this declaration
We were bought and sold for English gold
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!”
Well put Sir!
That’s Bliar and his reforms for you.
Phony Bliar.
Correct, the House of Lords is an abomination, and all its members should be sent to the Arena, as in the good old days of “Damnatio ad bestias”.
All the more worrying given that the general calibre of Scottish politicians is pretty poor.
I was probably going to reluctantly vote for the Scottish Conservatives in May but after that pathetic jibe in the final paragraph I’m not going to bother. I think I’ll find a middle-aged man to vote for as long as he’s not a woke cultist who feels the need to virtue signal all the time or an authoritarian lunatic who wants to police what I say in my own home.
That’s shortsighted, though. I am going to vote Labour, a candidate that the Labour party has so much faith in they didn’t even put her name on the leaflet that came through the door, but she has the best (albeit tiny) chance of unseating my drone msp.
As an outsider, I don’t claim to know a lot about Scotland. If I was acting as a recruiter and wanted to select someone for a job, I would look at the CVs of the applicants. Both Galloway and Salmond can show that they worked for RT – a considerable achievement. What does Sturgeon have to offer?
Here in Wales, we have a list of candidates who are all grey, pathetic no-hopers. Please can we have a couple of ex-RT people to liven things up?
I doubt that Nickie would accept an offer but why not try John Swinney
Both men are slurred for having been RT hosts. I hold no brief for either of them, but RT today is more trusted by the British public than the BBC, as is Al Jazeera.
That’s worrying, I wouldn’t trust either organisation. I despise the BBC and don’t believe a word they say, but having read RT articles it’s clearly a Russian propaganda tool and equally untrustworthy. Frankly, Galloway should be in the Tower for his cosying up to Saddam during the gulf War, so I can’t help feeling that RT is just employing politicians who despise the UK in order to sew anarchy.
I’ve heard of left-wing knitting circles, but people coming together to ‘sew anarchy’ is new to me.
That aside, I haven’t had a TV for over 20 years so I can’t speak with any great authority on RT. However, from what I’ve seen it doesn’t seem to be any worse than any other arm of the MSM, and may be superior in some respects.
Oops… That should have been “sow” as in sow seeds, not “sew” as in sew fabric. Can I get away with blaming autocorrect?
Now don’t get crotchety!
Nicely done sir
Hahaha
Yes I also have that problem, with some dammed ‘gremlin ‘ from Woke -Silicon Valley hiding inside my I-pad.
It even has the temerity to speak to me on occasion! I know not how.
I think this statement is delusional.
It is a fact that a survey last year revealed that the British people trust RT and Al Jazeera more than they trust the BBC.
Did it say the same people trusted Al Jazeera more, or did it say that Al Jazeera’s audience trusted Al Jazeera more than the BBC’s audience trusts the BBC? The latter is quite different.
I personally would trust Al Jazeera or RT more than the BBC, on the same basis I’d trust a watch that I knew always ran 5 minutes fast per day. If you know about it, you can adjust accordingly.
That says too much about the British public for comfort .
Or in fact, about the BBC
Most people in Britain have probably never heard of RT let alone believe what it and it’s deciples spout.
Two things about Joxit seem obvious to me.
One is that the SNP expects to be defended etc by the UK even after Joxit, so one of the ways they will balance their budget will be by spending nothing on defence.
Another is that the EU, having annexed Northern Ireland and previously broken its own rules to admit Greece to the euro, will certainly break the rules again and admit Scotland immediately, so as to punish Britain further for having left.
Added to ‘these people’ in your other comment, Joxit makes you seem nice.
While plausible in theory, based on their antics and attitude in recent months, even the EU would draw the line at admitting such an economic basket case – one whose economic situation would be even worse once allotted a share of UK national debt and deprived of the Barnett formula funding.
Then there is the implacable opposition of Spain, Belgium and possibly other member states unwilling to create a precedent for breakaway nations / regions.
The SNP (Salmond) lied about eligibility for EU membership in 2014 and had to be put in its place by Barroso. Before any discussion of a second referendum, it needs to be made clear to the Scottish electorate that nothing has changed. If anything, Scotland would at best be put at the back of a queue behind sundry Balkan states.
Please don’t tell them that, they might vote to stay
That was before Brexit though. Now Brexit has happened and the EU hates us. What better way to punish us than to annex more UK territory? When did Belgium or Spain ever matter within the EU?
Not being Germany or France, prima facie they don’t. But they retain a power of veto over accession of new members – until and unless the rules are changed. But that never happens of course…!
Whilst I would love to see the Eurocrats paid back for NI by giving them wee Krankie and her Marxist cronies to deal with, the reality is we would still have them on our border moaning more loudly than ever about the evil sassenachs whilst expecting handouts in reparation for prima nocta; after all Braveheart was about historically accurate and Mel Gibson’s accent.
But would we care, Adrian? We just put up a hard border, we tax hard any trade that crosses English territory, and otherwise we ignore them.
They could never defend themselves; It would be Magersfontein all over again, “Charge like hell in both directions”! As a Guards Officer observed.
Of all the motivations which have emboldened men into politics, I am sure that ‘pro men/anti women’ was never one. However, politics seems to attract many middle-aged women of a certain orientation with a ‘pro women/anti men’ agenda. For someone representing people, a constituency, this is a malign distraction
Presumably they don’t want men to vote for them.
Although Galloway is a carpetbagger and a charlatan it’s difficult to see how the parliament wouldn’t be improved by his presence.
Not so sure about Salmond.
‘In Holyrood, there are 129 seats, of which 73 are elected using the traditional first-past-the-post system. Scotland is then divided into wider electoral regions, where 56 further MSPs are elected on a proportional basis.’
And therein lies the problem. Far, far too many of these people, the vast majority of them mediocre at best.
129 seats in Holyrood = 1677 seats in Westminster per capita!
Exactly. What a repulsive racket the whole thing is.
For Parasite read Scotchman!
Very boring final paragraph. Not surprising the Conservatives don’t do well in Scotland
I have a Scottish friend, a good friend, lived in London for many years.
Recently retired and returned to Bonnie Scotland.
On the night of the last ‘IndeRef’ I told him in a ‘What’s App’ message and one must understand it was in jest, but did underline my sentiments as an Englishman.
“If you vote for Independence then YOU personally can pack your bags, send ME the keys to your flat, return to Scotland immediately, hand over your Passport and British currency at the last Police station before the border, and apply to me for a ‘visit visa’ to return to ENGLAND after you have your NEW Scottish passport issued. Please note that you will be forbidden to take gainful employment on this visa, as it will only be a ‘Visit Visa’ to sort out your personal affairs.
I did also say that UK Government may take up to 3 months to issue this visa, and this is AFTER you receive your new Scottish passport.
Yes, I was joking with him, but these whiney moaning Scots who do not have (as a country) two pennies to rub together and whom live off grants from London should really shut the f… up. Because if anyone did have ‘some cojones’ in Westminster this is exactly what should be done the very next day, as all Scots in England would be residing illegally without a visa.
I assume you would expect the exact same treatment of every English person living within the EU?
@brazenraddish5
Obviously my proposals were a little draconian, however I know personally of some ill-treatment on the continent already in these first few months since the withdrawal agreement (still not ratified by those unelected inept ‘criminals’ the EU, I hasten to add).
I also lived, or should I say resided, in Italy for 22 years, for 2 years in Spain, and have now applied for residence in Finland (Wife is Finnish), so I fully understand those ‘fucionarios’ (as they are called in Espana), who work (and I use this word loosely) in Gov’t Offices, are just too lazy to get any matter resolved, and consequently leave it hanging ………………… i.e. the applicant is without documents and therefore soon to be in contravention of the rules.
I might add that when I went for my interview with Finnish Immigration (with my wife as support), I can assure you that I was the only ‘European’ in that whole waiting Room/Reception/Office Floor, let alone the only Brit ……………… if you follow what I mean.
I do follow you. I also follow your staggering hypocrisy. One type of treatment merited for the Whiny Scots. Another type for The Englishman Abroad.
I do not understand. What hypocrisy?
I am applying for legal residence and to pay taxes in the country of my wife’s birth. What could be less hypocritical?
Or didn’t you like my comment that I the only Brit, was trying to be polite about others applying that day?
I think you need to wake up and realise what is happening ALL over in Europe including the UK. 102 new asylum seekers yesterday came ashore I understand — we’ll keep going shall we…….. 100 per day — you do the maths!
Scotland does have a problem, and it’s the same one the rest of the UK has. We are overrun with corrupt globalist politicians, and crooked liars, who are going along with the one-world-government, “build-back-better” Klaus Schwab agenda. We cannot find an honest, truthful politician to vote for. We cannot find a party that we trust to represent our voice. The Scots are done with Labour (a Marxist communist party), they cannot trust the Conservatives, because of their track record on Universal Credit, and the Covid-19 hoax,(yes, Hancock, we see right through it), and of course, you then have the treasonous SNP who would collude with a foreign power to relinquish the country, and sovereignty, of the people to that foreign power. We see Hamza Yousef stomping the jack-boot of Islam on our freedom of speech, and right to peacefully assemble. and we see a government who have done everything in their power to destroy our small businesses, whilst promoting the corporate giants. I looked at the voting list for my area and it filled me with abject despair. There is no one there I can trust.
Try Independent,SDP, or Reform they aren’t perfect but If they do well, Like Ukip,brexit party Successes in European elections,it’ll P**** off the political Class infesting Our Councils,Westminster ,Lords,holyrood,Cardiff etc…Conservatives DONT Conserve, see Plans to concrete over Farms &Green fields, Labour,doesn’t care for Workerts, Lib-dems are illiberal!
Same here in Ireland, perhaps worse, as voters are duped into reorganising our constituion. It’s depressing.
There seems to be more than a little wounded English pride running through these comment pages, but please remember that Scotland voted by a not insignificant majority to remain part of the UK in 2014 in a referendum, billed by both Sturgeon and Salmond as a once in a generation vote.
Polls might suggest one thing, and polls have been proved consistently unreliable in the last few years have they not, and the SNP’s vote is consistently majorly flattered by the UK’s outmoded FPTP system in terms of its Westminster representation, so please remember that there are millions of individuals, both in NI and Scotland, who still consider themselves to be, over and above everything else, citizens of the UK.
It is never your right or place as an ‘English person’, but one part of the UK, despite your understandable exasperation, to deny the rights of other UK citizens living in other parts of it to democratically choose to remain so.
Well put…
In most discussions of the Indyref 1 results the geographical concentration of the Independence votes is ignored. Yet almost all the regions voted against; the Borders especially were 2 to 1 in favour of the Union. I would bet that the same would happen again even if the overall vote were to be marginally for Independence. What then? Would the Borders, Dumfries & Galloway, Aberdeenshire, South Ayrshire, Orkney and Shetland, etc. be content to be governed by a left-wing clique living in a thin strip of land between the Forth and Clyde?
Yes. I spend half my life in Dumfriesshire.
About the dig at the end. For goodness sake get a sense of humour, it’s essential in this life and the woke brigade are gradually extinguishing it. And yes I’m a man, post middle age and proud if it
“Looking elsewhere at the likes of Laurence Fox and the multiple reincarnations of Nigel Farage, voters would be forgiven for wanting men of a certain age to deal with their midlife crises by buying a sports car, rather than launching a new political party.”
A really good article that ends with this absolute classic, worthy of either Marina Hyde or John Crace. The Guardian should offer Ruth a column.
Scottish Conservatives need to find some backbone and find something good to say about conservatism and the Union. Their campaign currently consists of bleating about how nasty it would be to have a referendum. Almost half the country wants a flaming referendum, and a referendum-negative campaign is not going to win any of these over, though a union-positive one just might.
One gets the distinct impression that Scottish Conservatives have absorbed too much of the SNP’s anti-Tory propaganda and half believe that conservatism and unionism are unpleasant-smelling creeds that they best not draw too much attention to lest they become more unpopular…this presumably why they have done their best to turn the Scottish Conservative logo into a saltire, so they can appear to be a bit more nationalist and SNP-like.
It’s not just them of course. Successive UK governments seem to have forgotten that Scotland is an integral part of the UK, and that it is their right and duty to make political life as difficult as possible for parties such as the SNP whose aim is to destroy the UK…not to hand them endless extra powers and funds, and allow them to trot overseas to confer and ally themselves with foreign powers who can help them in their ambitions.
I say good luck to George Galloway. If Davidson and the rest of the opposition had done their jobs properly over the last ten years and championed the UK in Scotland, Galloway would not have seen an opportunity. A Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party that is half-apologetic for both its conservatism and its unionism is not going to convince voters.
Agreed .
The IndyRef2 clarion call is certainly “heart over head”
The unionist reply, such as it is, seems based solely on “IndyRef2 bad”
There is both a head AND a heart argument for the Union ….
What do we get from the unionist parties?
Crickets……
From henceforth, the SNP will be known informally as ‘The People’s Front of Judaea’ and ALBA as ‘The Judaean People’s Front’ (or ‘Splitters’, for short). Both of them loathe Alliance4Unity (the Campaign for a Free Galilee).
Stone them !!
Blasphemers! Like Deuteronomy of Gath was it not?
Well we all need Ruth The Mooth who reaches for ermine at the first smell of gunfire to tell us about Scottish politics.
The SNP want to leave the UK, continue to use sterling and prepare for readmission to the EU. It should take a pro-union advocate 2 minutes to explain why that would leave Scots facing a generation of austerity. The Scots cannot remain in a monetary union with the rUK, a non-EU member, but don’t want their own central bank, so they’ll be left with no lender of last resort, buying sterling on the open market.
It’s madness – go it alone by all means, but continuing to use the currency of England (or the Euro) which they’ll have to buy on the open market, means no say on interest rates and major loss of control of money supply to defend fiscal policy – it’ll make the Tories look like Corbynite tax and spenders. The SNP’s plan is emphatically not independence and will destroy any hope Scotland has of escaping the clutch of Westminster.
Piss or get off the pot Davidson. You no longer have a speaking part.
If there’s one irrefutable argument for giving the Scots independence, its the quality of their politicians. Not one of any merit. Awa wiv ye!
I’m a proud Scot and Brit (well at least I thought I was until I was reminded in no uncertain terms, that being born there to Scottish parents plus generations before hand disqualifies me on the basis of not wanting to withdraw from a very successful Union, oh and because I support the mighty Glasgow Rangers)
Everything and I mean everything is a ” plot” MI5, MI6 (somewhat bizarrely), The Royal Family, the Tories, the Masons, Scottish Parliament, Devolution, and of course the Mighty Glasgow Rangers etc etc, just pick anything even their corruptLegal System and cronyism that’d make “Call me Dave” blush.
I seriously think a good slogan for these moon howlers would read “infamy, infamy they’ve all got it infor me”
Nevertheless whilst Ruth makes some valid points regarding the system its much like the Libdums with PR and the Democrats in the USA to an extent with regard to the Electoral College in that you can’t win an election on the basis of a system thats not in place.
Which in a fairly laborious way bring me to my point: What do the Scottish Tories offer to not only the 2 million people who voted no a “generation” ago..er hem, but also to the rest of Scotland? And if they do indeed offer something different to the SNP one party Government, why does the fact I neither hear from her, Dross or even BJ what it is.
If the Unionists in Scotland could have a reason to get off their “arses” to vote for either of the 3 main parties, my own feeling is all the huff and puff about Independance would be academic. To me at least a lot of this reminds me of Bexit, where despite all,the nonsense from the SNP etc , the case for the Union seems as though it is Project Fear mark 2.
Snotty column about two people trying to make a difference. Why not explain why tory policies are (supposedly) better than theirs. God, how I dislike party politicians…
At least the terrible twins are coming back to democratic Scottish politics , not buggering off to a sinecure in an unelected chamber ! Is that your equivalent of the sports car Moothie ?
I see that Ms Davidson indulges in a bit of ageism and sexism in her last paragraph. Is this wise in Humza’s Scotland?
Hmm…wonder what I ought to do about my mid-life crisis? He: ‘better set up a political party’. She: ‘better go down to the IVF clinic and have a baby’.
Wales is doing the same eg Gwlad, Propel. Btw Propel’s Neil McEvoy did well on RT. More widely though…
Beware ageism. Are you barring older men from politics because 30-50 something women want to grab the turf?
Also, we need new parties. blocked experienced males will form new parties, in Scotland and in Wales. Because they have self-confidence, experience and want to offer something. All at an early stage in 2021 but lets see what the seedlings grow into.
I am unable to disprove to myself that the current situation is optimal for the SNP and the SNP vote, to enjoy the fruits of Union while bitterly bemoaning how the Union blights the land. That’s why the SNP vote is huge while the Indyref yields No and will continue to do so.
There is a further dynamic at play; there is currently little incentive to vote for Unionist parties since the Labour/Tory split divides the alternative to SNP and the Union/Independence split only operates in the Indyref. i.e. There is no cost in voting SNP that cannot be blocked in the ref. It’s a logical driver for a polar SNP vote. Voting SNP is cost free. Scotland gets an SNP government in spite if itself. I believe it is described by Taleb and others as populations normalising to their most intransigent members.
Ain’t that the truth. Ditto in Wales; it doesn’t matter who you vote for in these regional assemblies so why wouldn’t you vote the way they do? It makes rational sense. But it needs to be resolved.
Have you ever considered that people may well vote SNP as 1) They aren’t a bunch of xenophobic, right wing, English nut jobs as most of the posters on here appear to be and 2) The Westminster HQ’d parties have nothing to offer?
the fact she starts this off with a pathetic attack on rt with a kremlin mouthpiece jibe, simply shows shes just part of the herd.
She IS part of the herd, a very establishment centre-left politician of exactly the type that’s been ruining this country for 30 years. That said, RT is definitely a Kremlin mouthpiece, and both Galloway and Salmond are loathsome.
Three out of three. Congrats.
What do you find loathsome about Salmond, out of interest?
When do English people get the right to vote in indyref? I can’t wait to present Scots with independence, without dowry payments, though.
Scottish ‘independence’, such as it would be, would be bad for both England and Scotland particularly at this time, never mind that a majority of Scots no that long ago democratically voted to remain part of the UK.
Careful what you wish for, whatever side of ‘Hadrian’s Wall’ you’re on.
It’s a pity she is not running a Tory party somewhere ….