The first week of the SNP leadership campaign has been like the Titanic heading for the icebergs and at full speed.
The biggest problem is not of the fault of the First Ministerial hopefuls. Scotland right now is in the grip of three crisis – health service, cost of living and constitutional. That is what the public minds are focussed upon.
It is thus an extraordinary time for Nicola Sturgeon to plunge the SNP into an internal election. And it shows.
Kate Forbes had a torrid campaign launch. Seldom has a candidate come in for so much abuse so quickly. Her missteps on the interface between religion and politics were pounced upon by the press and then amplified to absurdity online.
Luckily for Kate Forbes, the general public, and perhaps the SNP membership, will want to give this bright, honest and likeable young woman a fair chance.
Humza Yousaf is the self-proclaimed continuity candidate. If you think all is well in the nationalist garden then Humza is your man. He carries the formidable support of the SNP HQ machine and is now the heavy odds-on favourite.
And then there is the outsider.
Ash Regan is the surprise packet of this campaign. Her manifesto is clear on independence, clear on gender recognition and clear on reuniting the national movement. She has also demonstrated courage in being the one Minister prepared to stand up to Nicola Sturgeon on the complete horlicks of the Gender Bill and it does take guts to govern.
So that’s the field and here is some free advice from the ALBA Party to each campaign. Call off the attack dogs in your camps, accent the positive, ignore the negative because if you do inherit the crown then you want to make sure that it does not turn out to be a hollow one.
Above all get onto an agenda which will galvanise the attention of the nation – for example, the fuel poverty crisis blanketing this land of energy plenty.
Try and fight an election which passes this “duffle coat test”. A couple of weeks back I was campaigning in a local election in Aberdeen. A woman came to the door in her coat. I assumed she was going out but no she was just in the house with her coat on.
So in the energy capital of Europe we have people sitting in their houses on a Saturday afternoon, frightened to turn on the heating.
If that lady in the duffle coat had a vote in the SNP election she would not really want to hear about gender recognition or which candidate would have voted which way on Equal Marriage back in 2014 and still less about each candidate’s religion.
She would want to know which incoming First Minister had a strategy for control of Scotland’s resources and allowing the people like her to benefit from the wealth of their own country.
If the candidates pass that test Scotland will be well on the way to winning freedom. Flunk it and the SNP ship will be holed below the waterline.
And Neale Hanvey MP on the ‘Windsor Deal’
“Any initiative to sustain a lasting peace in Northern Ireland will be welcome news for the entire island of Ireland and for the constituent countries of the UK, and should be supported by all politicians.
“The detail and implications of the Windsor Framework will require proper scrutiny but Alba Party’s focus will be on the glaringly obvious implications of double standards that disadvantage Scottish businesses. Scotland voted by an overwhelming majority to remain in the EU as did Northern Ireland, albeit to a lesser degree.
“This raises an obvious concern about unequal access to the economic benefits of the EU single market for the Scottish people and our businesses. The Prime Minister has repeatedly referenced the need to address a “democratic deficit” in Ireland, but it is simply undeniable that without equity of access for all remain voting parts of the UK he is actually creating a further democratic deficit for the people of Scotland.
“It is therefore abundantly clear that this can only be addressed by Scotland regaining our independence as an immediate priority.”
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Grouse Beater 
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
I’ve never disagreed with Alex, but on Kate Forbes he’s making the same misstate as he did with Sturgeon.
Ash Regan is the only one in my opinion who’s genuine.
If the SNP membership (what’s left of them) elect the “continuity candidate” then the SNP is doomed. Even if they somehow manage to avoid that trap, then there would be an enormous amount of work to be undertaken for that party to regain the leading role it once had in the minds of so many Scots.
Given the past 8+ years of acquiescence, avoidance of preparation and the distraction of ludicrous policies, that this coalition government has introduced that task may not be achievable.
We are not so much in a “cost of living crisis” as a “Cost of Union Crisis” because with a Scotland free of the shackles of Westminster-centric policies and economics, and from the deliberate impoverishment of our nation, it has the opportunity to use its own resources for the benefit of its people.
I wholeheartedly agree. Ash Regan is the best choice.
“the SNP membership (what’s left of them)”
Yes arthor49, after the ‘rupture’ in the movement, the rump now left comprising the SNP membership is mostly made up of the woke payroll, the middle class, and ‘new Scots’, most of whom, unable to discern the meaning of independence, are content to compromise with the colonial system (i.e. devolution) rather than break with it. A compromise is all that Yousaf and Forbes are offering, a break is never on their agenda.
Yet postcolonial theory tells us that only a complete break with the colonial system will liberate the people. Until then us Scots will continue to be economically plundered, politically exploited, our culture and languages obliterated, our people and nation perishing as we delay the day when our ‘alienation must cease’.
I agree entirely. Scotland is following the colonial script to the letter. I am convinced the odious woke ideology was imposed on Scotland by a bunch of charlatans to undermine the hard-won emanicpation of women. The liberation of women is a fundamental necessity for a social revolution, a guarantee of its continuity and a precondition for its victory.