X Close

The great deceit of Scottish nationalism The independence movement has never cared for facts

'He has the capacity of his predecessors to protect himself with false and meaningless rhetoric' (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

'He has the capacity of his predecessors to protect himself with false and meaningless rhetoric' (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)


February 15, 2024   6 mins

Scottish nationalism’s two defining leaders experienced an identical cycle of political boom and bust. Both were originally the objects of the most ardent public dedication; both were subject, at the end of their reigns, to prolonged investigations by a police force they had, in its modern centralised form, created. Alex Salmond, arraigned on two counts of attempted rape, nine of sexual assault, two of indecent assault, was found not guilty of all charges in 2022. Police investigations into Nicola Sturgeon’s period in office, apparently revolving around the use of party funds, continue.

But there is a further, non-criminal, charge against both characters: mendacity. In their defence, it went with the job. The project of Scottish nationalism has always demanded that its leaders lie, or at least obfuscate, or grossly exaggerate. Sturgeon, who resigned (on flimsy grounds) as First Minister of Scotland a year ago today, was even better at that than her mentor. While he has always projected something of a wide-boy public persona, she leant on a reputation for rectitude, control and dedication to a great cause.

Since Sturgeon’s resignation, and his victory in the subsequent leadership contest, Humza Yousaf has attracted the same accusation — only without the period of public popularity his two predecessors enjoyed. And this is inextricable from the movement all three represent: their personal and political calamities are the products of an integral deceit at the heart of the independence project.

This first became glaringly apparent with Salmond’s original tilt at secession in 2014. In his reshaping of the SNP, he used (or abused) his economist’s training to produce a 667-page document which claimed that Scotland, the region with the highest public spending in Britain, could single-handedly accelerate to Scandinavian levels of child and maternal care (without Scandinavian levels of tax). This shaky mound of assertions was then blown apart when, in the following year, the oil price crashed from $110 to $50 a barrel and the independence referendum was spurned by a majority of 55%. Without the economic ballast of the former and democratic will of the latter, Scottish nationalism seemed a dead scheme, buried beneath a pile of half-truths.

Salmond resigned and Sturgeon slipped into his place. She was left with the job of sustaining confidence in the vision of independence when the oil price fall translated into a “black hole” in Scottish revenue and expenditure of £18.6 billion. Had independence won, as the then leader of the Conservative opposition Ruth Davidson pointed out, it would have meant vast cuts to every public service. Faced with a propaganda disaster, the new First Minister resorted to windy rhetoric: “I believe and always will believe that the best way forward is to be in charge of our own resources, so we don’t have to be subject to the kind of cuts coming at us from the UK government, but instead could be masters of our own destiny.”

This response, ignoring facts in favour of faith, was in part the fruit of Sturgeon’s apprenticeship to Salmond. And given her own steely structure of personal commitment — secular, yet infused with a Calvinist rectitude — it was to be Sturgeon’s sword and shield through years of leadership. Thus when, following a Brexit that had the support of only a third of Scottish voters, she thickly underscored what the loss of membership meant to Scotland. Brexit became a way to showcase, as in one March 2021 speech, Scotland’s national if not actual autonomy: “… a country and not a region of a unitary state. Scotland’s position is therefore unique — a country, in a voluntary union, which has been removed from the EU against the will of the majority who live here.”

Nothing there of the difficulty, maybe impossibility, of re-joining the Union while keeping sterling (as the large majority of Scots wish) or of refusing to join the euro — as all new entrants must. Nor was there any mention of the necessary erection of a trade border between Scotland and the rest of the UK. Sturgeon always waved away such realities, pointing instead to the independence of other “small” countries like Ireland, Finland and Denmark. The latter is a constant comfort blanket for SNP leaders: Sturgeon opened the Scottish government’s Nordic Office in Copenhagen in August 2022, one of a chain of such centres designed to give the impression that Scotland is already a nation with a foreign policy. To serve such a vanity, when denied a meeting with Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, the First Minister submitted herself to a brief early morning photo opportunity with a grim-looking Jeppe Kofod, then Foreign Minister. The cosmetic appearance of international status trumped realpolitik.

Sturgeon’s energetic self-righteousness and authoritarian governing style sustained her and her party — until, on 15 February 2023, she resigned, citing weariness and a realisation that the leader’s post “can only be done, by anyone, for so long”. It was a thin rationalisation of departure by one so dedicated to the goals and power of her office. But in her subsequent public appearances, she has seemed overtaken by fatigue. Appearing for five hours at the Covid Inquiry in January, her self-command was tested by a barrage of questions from Jamie Dawson KC, both on her reluctance to retain email and other messages among her colleagues, and on the possibility she used her daily media appearances to “politicise” the lockdown — something which this most political of politicians firmly denied.

She was brought to tears at times: whether they were involuntary or staged was much discussed. The breakdowns likely had elements of both. She was, after all, always aware of the need to present herself as the unsleeping leader of her afflicted people, even as she admitted to an overly-delayed lockdown and Scotland showed the highest rate of Covid-related deaths in care homes.

It was a difficult return to political life, but her own successor and protégé has fared even worse. Humza Yousaf has copied Sturgeon in feeling “never really… comfortable” with the word “national” in the party’s name (she had found the word “hugely problematic”). But, little more than an epigone, he proves daily that he has none of her force.

Instead, he makes absurd mathematical leaps: where Sturgeon had the idea that instant negotiations on independence with the British government should begin when a majority of votes were cast for the SNP, Yousaf has proposed that a majority of seats in the UK parliament — where Scotland has 57 seats — would serve as a trigger for an attempted secession. Yet polling in October found only 13% of voters agreed that the SNP’s winning a majority of seats was a mandate, and only 15% supported the “most seats” proposal.

Yousaf has inherited a party that has proved itself unable to fulfil its only policy — secession — while neglecting its other responsibilities. Health, Yousaf’s responsibility before becoming leader, is in deeper crisis than in England. In education, once the pride of all Scottish classes, the decline represents a national catastrophe.

Still, unionists cannot rejoice. Support for the SNP has declined steadily — it is now level with a resurgent Labour Party — but support for secession remains high, in most polls only slightly below 50%. The aspiration of independence has a positive image, and it has young legs — Scots born after the mid-Eighties are more than twice as likely to favour secession than those born in the late Forties or earlier. Graduates, once less inclined towards independence, now support it in droves. Meanwhile, this constituency are repulsed by the party most associated with unionism: the Conservatives.

This social-ideological feat accomplished by Salmond and Sturgeon has meant that Scots’ politics have become very considerably dislodged from material issues — money, jobs, public services — to alight on the more fashionable bases of identity and cosmopolitanism. But again this is an illusion. The SNP, as populist in its policies and propaganda as any party in Europe, might claim a principled difference from conservative England for its liberal views on immigration, gender, the EU and public spending. But it has many fewer immigrants per head than England, and its unpopular attempt to allow men claiming to have changed gender to be housed in women’s prisons failed. The SNP is a liberal vanguard atop a conservative nation.

“The SNP are a liberal vanguard atop a conservative nation.”

And this was further revealed in the leadership contest Yousaf fought a year ago. He won narrowly, securing 52.1% to Kate Forbes’s 47.9%. But her aggressive scrutiny of his ministerial record considerably exposed the SNP’s general mediocrity: “You were a transport minister and the trains were never on time, when you were justice secretary the police were stretched to breaking point, and now as health minister we’ve got record high waiting times.” Her religion — she is a member of the doctrinally strict Free Church of Scotland — was held up by Yousaf’s supporters as a threat to the party’s liberal positions on gender and other matters. (Yousaf, a Muslim with as many non-liberal commandments to obey, was not so challenged.) But the fact that she came so close to winning does indicate a strain of conservatism running through the party, as well as some internal doubts about its achievements in government.

A performative politics — developed by two great political performers, Salmond and Sturgeon — has for the moment triumphed in a Scotland whose older self-image as a country of rational, enlightened and prudent citizens has been allowed to lapse. This gives the unionist forces a large problem — but possibly also an opening, especially for the Labour Party. The more that Scotland’s liberal, credentialed classes become dominant in nationalism, the more the material interests of the majority, especially the working- and lower-middle classes, will be ignored. A party which could mobilise the latter, and offer a fresh and genuine image of national renaissance, could benefit greatly from SNP decline.

For now though, while Yousaf’s lacklustre leadership will damage the SNP, it has so far not damaged its cause. He has the capacity of his predecessors to protect himself with false and meaningless rhetoric, covering up the chasm where policy delivery should be. And that’s because he lives in the virtual world Salmond and Sturgeon created, where a country only needs to burst the bonds of UK oppression to become Denmark. They had the rhetorical energy to sustain the illusion: he is unlikely to develop it further. Yet as long as nationalism still endures, someone else — Kate Forbes perhaps, a very Christian soldier — could emerge to pick up the standard, and take it onward as another false promise to an already wounded nation.


John Lloyd is a contributing editor to the Financial Times and is writing a book on the rise of the New Right in Europe.


Join the discussion


Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber


To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.

Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.

Subscribe
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

79 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
9 months ago

Salmond was not ‘found not guilty of all charges’. He was not found guilty of any charges as one was not proven. Sorry to be pedantic, but there is a distinction.

James Carr
James Carr
9 months ago

Many years ago when I was at college in Glasgow studying Scottish law our lecturer defined not proven as “we know you probably did it but we can’t prove it.”
He was also keen to remind us of English tanks in George Square in 1919. What that had to do with Scots law I could never fathom.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  James Carr

“English tanks!” British surely?

James Carr
James Carr
9 months ago

No, he definitely said “ENGLISH! 🙂

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  James Carr

Another ‘Braveheart’ nutter then, or whatever they were called in those days!

Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
9 months ago
Reply to  James Carr

I read somewhere that this mythologised rubbish about Churchill sending in the tanks is now on the Scottish history curriculum in schools. It may or may not be true (about the curriculum), but the fact that it wouldn’t surprise me if it is true speaks volumes. And yes, that is what ‘not proven’ means, despite your former lecturer’s clear eccentricities.

William Amos
William Amos
9 months ago
Reply to  James Carr

Interesting. The first assertion indicates a catastrophic lack of ontological rigour which is amply borne out by the utter falsehood about ‘English Tanks’ being uncritically accepted and transmitted in the second assertion. How such a person becomes a lecturer in the law is another question.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  William Amos

I gather from a friend of mine who was lecturing at Edinburgh in the late 1950’s that it was as bad even then!

Closet Scots Nats all over the damned place.

We were FAR too generous in 1707. Still we were ever an absurdly generous people it must be said.

Ian_S
Ian_S
9 months ago

The poor Scots — their best days are well behind them. Now they’re true believers in gender cant, and they’ve got a Muslim as their head of government. From their famous thrift, stubbornness and ingenuity, to feeble-minded patsies of woke globalist elites. What a shame, truly.

William Shaw
William Shaw
9 months ago
Reply to  Ian_S

The SNP have spent years effectively brainwashing the young people of Scotland as part of their education; creating more independence voters year by year.

Peter F. Lee
Peter F. Lee
9 months ago
Reply to  William Shaw

Now we know how easily and effectively we can brainwash the young whilst they are in school; I wonder why there is no pushback from those creating curricula.

Bret Larson
Bret Larson
9 months ago
Reply to  William Shaw

You deserve what you vote. Should be pretty funny when they jettison oil and gas and then want public spending. So yes, I very much hope they vote for independence. Smaller countries are good and then they have to work for themselves.

Paddy Taylor
Paddy Taylor
9 months ago
Reply to  Ian_S

And judging by the photo, Yousaf is going to be livid when he realises that someone’s nicked his burger.

Mrs R
Mrs R
9 months ago
Reply to  Ian_S

Pity it is not only Scotland that is suffering – see Ireland, London, Wales and much of the rest of England.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
9 months ago
Reply to  Ian_S

“They” (the Scottish people) actually aren’t – or at least only a small minority are. Which is why Sturgeon fell, you might recall. Are your views in complete accord with those of England’s current ruling party?

MJ Reid
MJ Reid
9 months ago
Reply to  Ian_S

We are not “poor Scots”! Why? The SNP are a minority government who had to bed down with the Scottish Greens. The majority of us have little truck with the fantasy of independence, even if we might have wished for that in our youth. Independence is a pipedream and when graduates get settled in the real world, they too realise that it is a nonsense that the Scottish people cannot afford.

Right-Wing Hippie
Right-Wing Hippie
9 months ago

To paraphrase Patrick McGoohan as Edward I in Braveheart, the trouble with Scotland is that it’s no longer full of Scots.

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
9 months ago

To a lesser degree maybe, but in an identical manner we have the same in Wales.
Plaid Cymru (via the Senedd) recently commissioned a very expensive report about independence. The result can be summarised thus:
Independence for Wales is viable but in the short/medium term people would be poorer.
Immediately PC seized on the word ‘viable’ – let’s get on with it then. No discussion of the ‘poorer’ part.
Older people, say over 50, have this thing called ‘common sense’. They clamp straight onto the ‘poorer’ thing. Younger people, who haven’t developed common sense don’t really know what ‘poorer’ means.
So the politicians have a plan – brainwash school children, hope that the older people die quickly (maybe by having a bad NHS) and then independence will be automatic. Who wins? The politicians.
In Scotland there would be no reason to have an SNP party unless independence was the main policy – lots of juicy jobs for the politicians and their staffs. The same is true for Plaid Cymru in Wales.

Ian_S
Ian_S
9 months ago

Seems a bit cynical. Would it not also have something to do with fashionable decolonisation agendas spread by academics and progressive ngos?

Mrs R
Mrs R
9 months ago
Reply to  Ian_S

It is weird how the decolonisation ideology has been embraced as Britain itself is rapidly colonised.

Sam Hill
Sam Hill
9 months ago

Perhaps, but isn’t that a political decision? That is politics in the dictionary-definition sense of a decision about the allocation of power. If people do want to be independent knowing that it will, at least for some time, make them poorer then isn’t that a political choice that is within reason? True independence is of great value. After all, within living memory a lot of people in Eastern Europe voted for their independence quite cognisant of the fact that it would probably make them poorer. There may have been some level of regret about that vote perhaps, but I would suggest that is as much to to with the quality of post-independence government as much as anything else – politics and government are not the same thing. You may not get the independence you vote for, but I think voters are quite aware of that.
Indeed it is fair to say that the economics of the EU were a central part of the 2016 referendum campaign – it is hard to say that people voted to LEAVE unaware that it would likely result in some level of economic dislocation. Admittedly the wildly unequal distribution of the EU/open agenda economic benefits was the real issue there, but I think the same principles would apply to Scotland and Wales.
There is a distinction, I think between independence per se and nationalist politicians. There is nothing I think unreasonable about wanting an independent Scotland but also having grave reservations about having that Scotland led by the current woke SNP. In the case of Scotland specifically if Denmark can be independent then I see no reason per se why Scotland can’t. I do think that some in Scotland need to wise up pretty quickly, most notably about the EMU convergence criteria.
What I think is less reasonable is the current UK model where devolved administrations get an ultra sweet deal: a seat and expenses for the very long term and an ability, reasonable or otherwise, to just blame ‘Westminster’ for each and every ill (and in Wales the plan is to increase the size of the Senedd by a third).
Your last paragraph is the real meat of the issue. If the SNP want independence then fine, go for it. If they don’t want it now then say so openly. At the moment they are just grimly effective at maintaining the sweet deal. That said, someone is voting for it.

Anna Bramwell
Anna Bramwell
9 months ago
Reply to  Sam Hill

It didnt make them poorer.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
9 months ago
Reply to  Anna Bramwell

It certainly did very many of them in the short term. Unemployment from inefficient Communist state run industries. And in the long run, as Keynes said, we are all dead.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
9 months ago
Reply to  Sam Hill

You’ve just said it all.

Ted Ditchburn
Ted Ditchburn
9 months ago
Reply to  Sam Hill

I think the whole thing could be sorted to Scotland’s advantage, and the UK’s, by inserting a clause in the devolution agreements that make secession illegal and secessionist activity subject to sanction.
Germany, France and Spain, and many other countries, have such legislation so it is hardly controversial. The ‘sweet deal’ of devolution can then be properly exercised, as it was under non-secessionist Labour in the 1990s (I am not a supporter of Labour) and indeed extended to the regions of England, some of which are larger than Scotland.
Many of the conditions of the growth of the SNP are disappearing or reversing, so I think they will continue to decline, and I also expect support for Independence to decline, though less precipitously.

j watson
j watson
9 months ago

Agree with much of this.
Of course the irony is much the same twaddle spouted by the Brexiteers about ‘bursting the bonds of the EU’, whilst giving fuel to the nationalist nonsense in Scotland.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  j watson

This nonsense is the result of Blair’s ‘devolution agenda’ and has NOTHING to do with Brexit.
Not only will Blair be correctly vilified for eternity for Iraq but also for destroying the United Kingdom.

Rob N
Rob N
9 months ago

And the Gender Recognition Act and all that followed. Though the Conservatives have been hugely complicit in all our disasters: gender, freedom of speech, immigration etc etc. May they all get the destruction they deserve and are bringing on us.

j watson
j watson
9 months ago

Don’t worry CH. Suspect Starmer’s Labour, if elected, will save the Union for you. The nationalist narrative always gets less traction when Lab in power.
Now the position in NI perhaps more tricky given the history and the gradual change in demographics. But again usually a Lab Govt takes the sting out of many Nationalist gripes.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  j watson

Even Michelle O’Neill* can’t be stupid enough to kick us out, sadly.

(*Sinn Féin.)

Jeff Dudgeon
Jeff Dudgeon
9 months ago

Northern Ireland’s £13 billion Barnett formula subsidy would have to continue after secession, M’ON avers.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  Jeff Dudgeon

Thanks I thought Mr Harry Child’s 49 BN was slightly OTT!

Harry Child
Harry Child
9 months ago

Do a bit of research, the figures for devolved payments is on the Goverment website.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  Harry Child

And it says 49 billion?

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  Jeff Dudgeon

Why?
We were never so generous to the Republic a century and more ago.

Paddy Taylor
Paddy Taylor
9 months ago
Reply to  j watson

It’s often overlooked – by those who seem to consider Scotland as a Remain monolith – that more people in Scotland voted FOR BREXIT than had voted for the SNP in the previous election.
Not to mention the fact that over a third of SNP voters (34.9% according to a June 2016 Survation poll ) themselves voted for Brexit in the referendum.

j watson
j watson
9 months ago
Reply to  Paddy Taylor

The incoherence of thinking in SNP supporters about independence no real surprise to either of us I suspect, nor the Author.
Point though is Scots did not vote for Brexit. The same sort of Tory Englanders as imposed the Poll Tax on Scots 30+ yrs ago first thus perpetuating a narrative not helpful to the Union.

Jonathan Nash
Jonathan Nash
9 months ago

“This first became glaringly apparent with Salmond’s original tilt at secession in 2014.”

No. It has always been glaringly obvious. That they got away with it for so long is down to the utter failure of a cowardly and fawning press to do their job in a democracy and hold the shysters to account.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  Jonathan Nash

To think that some so called journalists have actually received Knighthoods is simply staggering is it not?

POSTED AT 10.40 GMT and immediately SIN BINNED.
What was the trigger?
Restored at 10.59 GMT.

Carl Valentine
Carl Valentine
9 months ago

I am reading this at 23:20 G’N’T and it says you posted 6 hours ago? Has your clock stopped?

Mike Downing
Mike Downing
9 months ago
Reply to  Jonathan Nash

I think it’s also due to a kind of reverse sexism that women like Ouuir Nicola and St Jacinda of the Antipodes got a fawning, free ride for so long. Plus the MSM’s relentless appetite for Tory bashing.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago

How much longer is England supposed to put with this nonsense?
The Barnett Formula should be scrapped immediately and these “needy beggars” reduced to the financial servitude they so richly deserve. Enough is enough.

(* Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.)

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
9 months ago

I can see that it’s difficult to disagree with you. But wouldn’t it be true to say that the alternative – Westminster- isn’t a very attractive option?
I believe that none of these shysters would get any following at all if Westminster worked well. It is the weakness in the centre which is destroying the peripheries.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago

Good point, I had almost taken it for granted that everyone regarded Westminster as an expensive cesspit.
The last twenty of so years have been catastrophic for this country. Our so called leaders should be disgusted with themselves. ‘Never in human history has so much damage been inflicted on so many by so very few.’*

(* With thanks to WSC.)

William Shaw
William Shaw
9 months ago

This is the crux of the issue.
Westminster is probably one of the most incompetent governments in Europe. Practically every decision destroys British competitiveness and productivity.
It’s difficult to express how broken it is.
If Westminster was even semi-functional and the right decisions were made for the economy there would be a lot less talk of independence.

William Shaw
William Shaw
9 months ago

Golden handcuffs

William Amos
William Amos
9 months ago

‘England’ is a generous term. Surely there is hardly a region, county or borough outside of the Home Counties which is properly self funding.
It is a strange kind of patriotism that looks at the bodily integrity of the nation with the eye of a parsimonious grocer.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  William Amos

I’m no patriot, just a baffled observer sir.

Mind you didn’t the Corsican pygmy describe England as a ‘nation of shopkeepers’ or something similar?

Carl Valentine
Carl Valentine
9 months ago

Andrew Marr in his book described us as a nation of shoppers. (Well we don’t make a lot anymore 🙁

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
9 months ago

I think Barnett needs to be reformed but…….Thank goodness then that you aren’t in political power! So you wish to dissolve the Union? Where by the way, would the nuclear submarines go then?

Win the political argument with the smaller nations, don’t act in a way to totally piss them off with a much bigger England.

By the way, Londoners could say much the same, let’s cut off our tax subsidies of the rest of the country. There are always transfer payments within states.

John Tumilty
John Tumilty
9 months ago

I am English. I think the Scottish are a wonderful people with a proud history. Scotland is a beautiful country. These are the real traits of our neighbours whether they are independent or not. The SNP is just a passing breeze.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  John Tumilty

If we could get rid of Glasgow* I would tend to agree with you.

(*Bar the Cathedral, the wonderfully named St Mungo’s with its Blackadder Aisle.)

Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
9 months ago

I would happily accept the secession of much of Greater Glasgow and Dundee, to the extent of even allowing a ‘Danzig Corridor’ through the Central Belt to link them (we can always build a flyover or tunnel). Everywhere else voted to stay in the UK and by quite some margin in many places. Although I would be sad if DC Thomson had to go.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago

Duplication.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago

Good idea, and it would provide much useful employment for the feckless J*cks!

Perhaps even DC Thomson could be persuaded to move to salubrious Edinburgh?

POSTED AT 15.09 GMT and immediately SIN BINNED.
Is the censor a ‘chippy little J*ck’ I wonder?

Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
9 months ago

Perhaps a humourless one?
I don’t know if you ever read Viz, but some years ago, they ran a strip entitled D.C. Thomson, the Humourless Scottish G!t, in response to Thomson’s complaints around copyright infringement in their frequent parodies of the Beano and Dandy. Thomson’s responded with a one-off return of The Jocks and the Geordies, with the Geordie characters resembling the Donald Brothers, then editors of Viz. Well worth looking it up.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago

Yes I fondly remember Viz and shall look it up! Thanks.

David GTD
David GTD
9 months ago
Reply to  John Tumilty

A passing and very pungent fart, more like. Only it’s the type which lingers!

Harry Child
Harry Child
9 months ago

Why no mention of the effect that a independant scotland would lose the £49 billion given to them under the Barnett formulae, paid for in the main by English taxpayers? I have come to the conclusion that the SNP wave the flag for independance not with the hope of achieving it but as a threat to screw more money out of Westminster.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  Harry Child

Do you by any chance know how much Northern Ireland receives from the Barnett formula?

Niall Cusack
Niall Cusack
9 months ago

15 billion GBP, since you ask, and not nearly enough in the light of 800 YEARS OF BRUTAL SAXON OPPRESSION!
(Moi, je suis de provenance normande, ca. 1250 CE, et, comme l’a dit Giraldus Cambrensis, “Hibernior ipsis Hibernicis”.)

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  Niall Cusack

BRUTAL SAXON OPPRESSION indeed! There weren’t many Saxons around for the first few centuries.
More like Anglo-Norman Thugs such as your good forebears and some Flemish and Welsh mercenaries. It sounds as if your chaps turned up just as the Medieval conquest began to seriously falter.

If that 15BN is correct it makes the Sc*tch settlement even more generous/preposterous on a per capita basis.

Carl Valentine
Carl Valentine
9 months ago

,

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  Carl Valentine

What does this mean Mr Valentine?

Paddy Taylor
Paddy Taylor
9 months ago

Like the fable of the Scorpion and the Frog, Journalists complain of being stung by the duplicity of Polticians, who shrug it off with “it’s just my nature”.
The media played a very large part in how Ms Sturgeon – despite the pitiable shambles she made of devolved powers – was still able to boast on stepping down “I enjoy approval ratings after eight years in government which most leaders would give their right arms for.” There was almost no scrutiny of the very obvious failings of her govt.
It should have been those failures that brought her down – long before her doomed efforts to convince us that simply uttering the words could transform men into women, or the bilking of funds donated to the Independence war chest being used to prop up the party.
Ms Sturgeon – abetted by a pliant presspack – was able to sell lie that Scotland is more internationalist, more welcoming, more “European” than those ghastly “wee Englanders” south of the border. That the caring, sharing Scots would welcome any outsiders and fold them into their ample, comforting bosom. Very few in the media ever seem to counter this narrative – even though it was palpably untrue.
Never judge someone’s utterances when everything’s going fine. How they react under pressure will be what gives you their true measure.
Perhaps the press could have reminded these oh-so hospitable Europhile Scots of Ms Sturgeon’s earlier reaction to José Manuel Barroso, then President of the Commission, when he countered the SNP’s assertion that an Independent Scotland could remain part of the EU, stating: “(A) new independent state would, by the fact of its independence, become a third country with respect to the EU and the treaties would no longer apply on its territory” – a position backed up by the then Council president Herman van Rompuy, Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy and Commission VP Viviane Reding.
Sturgeon’s remarkably vitriolic response was to announce “There are 160,000 EU nationals from other states living in Scotland, ….. If Scotland was outside Europe, they would lose the right to stay here.’ That threat was amplified by Robin McAlpine, who jumped in to say that Scotland would only “be out the EU for as long as we can afford to put every single EU citizen in this country on an EasyJet and send them back to their countries”. 
Just imagine, if you can, how the BBC would have framed such a jingoistic outburst if a Tory PM had spoken those words.  Nick Robinson’s glasses would have steamed up in fury, and Katja Adler would probably have wet herself live on air in horror.
Yet even though the UK’s position was always that EU Nationals were welcome to stay (in return for reciprocal rights for UK nationals in the EU), wee Nicola endlessly criticised Westminster for their approach and insisted she had always wanted EU nationals to remain. “As EU citizens in the UK you have had to endure years of careless indecision on what the future holds for your lives, your careers and your families… The hardest part of dealing with Brexit has been meeting EU citizens across Scotland, who want to stay here but who do not know what steps they need to take and whether their rights will be secured.” 
I’m prepared to be corrected but I’m not sure I ever saw anyone in the British media actually push back against such obvious untruths.
How is it, given their appalling track record with every one of their devolved powers, and their blatant xenophobia, that the SNP largely got a free ride from so much of the British and European press?
As I’ve noted previously, there is a tendency among the leftist media to extol the virtues of their preferred leaders for what they represent, rather than what they actually did, or how the nation benefitted from their time in office.
Any objective review of Sturgeon’s time in office would make for pretty unflattering reading, as would Jacinda Ardern’s or Justin Trudeau’s – even more so Merkel or Obama’s – yet they are fêted as statesmen having done remarkably little to earn such accolades.
The SNP provided a useful camparison against a very unpopular Tory Govt in Westminster, and the media played that for all it was worth. UKIP and Donald Trump were lumped in with Orban and Bolsonaro as ugly nationalists. Nationalism was akin to Nazism, if you read the Guardian. Yet the SNP’s clearly anglophobic nationalism never seemed to get any pushback. The SNP’s record in Govt – by almost any available metric – has been much worse than the Tory’s, though you’d be forgiven for not noticing if you relied on a supportive press to inform you.

Carl Valentine
Carl Valentine
9 months ago
Reply to  Paddy Taylor

Great post Paddy

Adam Smith
Adam Smith
9 months ago

Scotland’s biggest issue is de-population. All of the talent moves south as soon as they can. What’s left is a rump of Third World immigration and drug/alcohol abuse. Scotland would be a Third World country without the Westminster shilling.

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
9 months ago
Reply to  Adam Smith

Did you wife leave you for a Scotsman, Adam? Maybe you support the England rugby team and are bitter about their regular beatings by the Scots?
There has to be something to prompt your unhinged rantings against Scotland.

Gordon Hughes
Gordon Hughes
9 months ago

The Nationalist movement has always been split into factions, but those factions have become more separate and the main ones are now primarily concerned with oppressing the rest.
The ur-Nationalist movement was heavily rural, relied on resource incomes and was very strong in the North of Scotland. It benefited from oil & gas but was socially conservative and fiscally cautious. Many disliked Edinburgh almost as much as Westminster. The second faction is the Strathclyde clique whose main goal was to shake down Westminster, directing public spending to the decaying industrial areas of Scotland – not just Glasgow but Dundee and the Central Belt other than Edinburgh. The third faction is the urban public employees who want to grab as large a share of public money as possible even though the quality of public services is declining visibly and rapidly.
The ur-Nationalists are definitely outsiders and are being targeted by the third faction in alliance with the Greens who impose wind farm developments, restrict rural practices and employment, and target the oil sector. The poor quality of public services affects the old industrial areas particularly, because what professionals want to work there? To offset high costs and poor management, the Scottish Government promises to spend more money on public services by raising income and other taxes. That is driving both the finance sector and better-paid professionals out of Edinburgh. Who would want to locate or expand mobile new businesses in Scotland. For all of the guff it is a profoundly uncompetitive location for either large or small businesses. Things are likely to be much better in either Ireland or the Baltic states.
Overall the SNP – and their Welsh equivalents – excel in spending other people’s money. To my mind the best comparator for Scotland is not Denmark but is Maryland with an ageing industrial base, a large rural hinterland, and the good luck to be right next door to the pot of gold that is Washington, DC. But its prospects as an independent country would be dire.

William Amos
William Amos
9 months ago

‘Mendacity’ and even ‘lies’ are asserted in this rather bad tempered and uncharitable piece but the assertion is ‘not proven’ to borrow a term from Scots Law.
Come now, providing projections of future outcomes based on contingent developments, such as oil prices or border arrangments or proposed economic or fiscal unions is not ‘lying’ it is presenting a political case for a political project.
We saw this species of journalistic mischaracterisation at a national level during the argument over secession from the European Union and its aftermath. A political proposal is just that, it is neither a prophecy nor a diagnosis but rather a projection, submitted to the electorate for it’s scrutiny. Adult voters know the difference between the poetry of the hustings and the prose of governance.
Need I add, ‘I say this as an unwavering unionist’.
P.S.
I believe Ms Sturgeon is of Catholic extraction rather than ‘Calvinist’.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  William Amos

A Taig you say? That’s NOT good.

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
9 months ago

Racist Grandpa has found the sherry again!

William Amos
William Amos
9 months ago

I find it interesting that the term you employ there is considered an official slur on the Index Verborum Prohibitorum and yet ‘Tory’ which came into usage at the same time and to describe the same faction in Scotch-Irish Politics (first used in an English context by Titus Oates) is still employed so lustily as a perjorative north of the Tweed.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  William Amos

“It’s folly to be wise………………”

Dougie Undersub
Dougie Undersub
9 months ago

Whether by accident or design, the decision to scrap tuition fees for Scottish students at Scottish universities has been a masterstroke in the indoctrination of the young. No longer does impressionable youth head for universities across England and Wales, they almost all stay in Scotland. Fewer English students wish to study at the prestigious Scottish universities where they will feel themselves second class – and poorer – citizens.
Hence young Scots have far less – in most cases no – exposure to the rest of the UK than of old, with no non-Scottish friends, acquaintances or work colleagues. The SNP’s grievance culture can easily find a home in this environment. While the brightest and best still tend to head South for career advancement, the lumpen, albeit credentialed, proletariat remain in Scotland, enjoying participation in the great, national whinge.
On a longer timescale, the end of national service, followed by the steady decline in the size of our armed forces, has greatly reduced the opportunities for young Scots to experience life outside Scotland and to mix with Paddy, Taff and Scouse. It was always wrong to think of Brexiteers as Little Englanders but it seem that Scottish Nationalists, for all their hopes of rejoining the EU, really are Little Scotlanders.

Brian Doyle
Brian Doyle
9 months ago

This article simply cannot go unchallenged,and happily Do so Not by defending the case for Scottish Independence by flipping the coin and putting Westminster nefarious, incompetencies , subtle use of propaganda via its state propaganda unit
In the Form of The BBC ( Requires a name change to ABC i.e. Absurdistan Broadcasting Corporation ) , Delusional concept of UK,s position globably with regards Economic, Military and Geo Political influence

So any care to the explain any or all of the following
1. How the clown Boris was ever allowed
Into the palace of Westminster
Resulting in proving a old Islamic proverb ‘ That when the clown enters The
King’s palace, then it is the Palace that becomes The Circus ‘

2 If you produce a Balance sheet for the UK then you find that nett liabilities are in
Excess of Nett Asessts to the tune of
£ 8.2 Trillion which technically constitutes Bankruptcy

3. How and why the GERS Formula is deployed to show Scotland,s fiscal status

4 How The Republic of Ireland if you use GDP / Head of population and factor in PPP
Then they are number 1 globably
Yielding a figure of $ 134,384 per citizen
Being a gentleman I refane from stating what position the UK sits at in this table

5. How’s HS 2 Going in terms of program ,costs , expected Average speed and cutting of current journey time
However I can tell you China in the same time frame has constructed and has operational over 6200 Km,s of HS rail the latest line to open
Top speed of 386 Km/ Hr and journey time cut from 4 hrs 31 mins to 39 mins

Be very careful how you respond to this

6 How the deployment of the 2 Aircraft carriers getting on in reaching full capability
UK were the 1st to build a carrier and built a good few more since

China,s 1st home design and build carrier The Shangdong and since becoming fully commissioned and operational approx at the same time
As HMS Prince of Wales
Shangdong available time spent at Sea 89 %
Prince of Wales 9 %

Once more proceed with great caution
If you elect to reply

7. British Army’s new APC so far £ 6 Billion spent not one operational

8. How’s the New Nuclear power Stations going in terms of Budget and program

9. How’s UK,s efforts going in increasing
Economic productivity The key to successfully

10 How does UK state pension compare to the other top 30 Nations

And those 10 questions are your starter for a hundred more
Then if answered give me your case for
This Union
Methinks a deafening silence shall prevail
However if any are stupid enough to endeavour to Answer even one of the 10
Far less the the 100 to follow
Then my sword shall be withdrawn and your head sliced off
Tis the most clever of Warriors who wins
By merely placing their hand upon his sword

Brian Doyle
Brian Doyle
9 months ago
Reply to  Brian Doyle

Since my original post, so far only 4 downvotes and no answers presented
Conclusion supporter,s of The Union and
Opposers of Scottish Independence
Truly are devoid of any reasoning as to why The Act of Union should not be dissolved
But more importantly so it appears that
Indeed you truly are Tigers , but ones made of Paper
You all know the Sword that my hand lays upon if withdrawn exactly what follows shall be swift and sure
Boo and The Paper Tiger folds and disappears

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
9 months ago
Reply to  Brian Doyle

Have you considered treatment for your verbal diarrhoea?

Ted Ditchburn
Ted Ditchburn
9 months ago

The belief of many in the ‘nearly 50% ‘of support for independence, even as support for independence supporting parties plummets, is very soft.
This is often overlooked when all we hear from are the ultra-committed politicians and their penumbra of acolytes and pundits.
Sturgeon committed 3 strategic errors that have removed the possibility of a 2nd referendum for at least 25 years.
The first was denying real ‘loser’s consent’ to the referendum result. She began undermining from day one and creating illusory ‘material differences’ to justify that.
The second was going after Alex Salmond, first botching the lower bar offered by a retrospective ‘Disciplinary & Grievance* procedure tailored to ensnare him by an acolyte’s inattention to detail (a chronic failure in nationalist politicians and their politicised civil service). Then falling at the much higher bar of criminal prosecutions that couldn’t avoid looking politically motivated to some degree.
Her final one was allowing the very bizarre Greens into government and granting them real power because of her perceived need for an entirely cosmetic ‘majority for inde’ in the current Holyrood set up to allow her to ramp up the bombast.
The bombast failed and her gamble on a second ref for October 19th last year crashed and burned. The Greens meanwhile continued to create and take the lead on the dismal failures of policy that helped bring her down, principally DRS and GRR, and attack the North Sea oil industry which remains the great security blanket of Nationalists, and antidote to any and all measured economic arguments that worry so many people.
She deserved to fall for her political mistakes, her tears are for herself, and her legacy will only deteriorate.