Articles by Jim Sillars
Just a year on from the so-called Arab spring, the free vote of people able to exercise it is producing results that make the United States, the UK and other European states, shall we say, troubled. For Israel it has become an event replete with danger. The Arabs are voting for political Islam. That comes as no surprise to people who know the history of Arab-Western relations. It has been comical to hear pundits in the media talk portentously about how the West can help the Arabs to develop their democracies. Comical when one considers that for generations, not just a few years, the key Western powers – UK, France and the United States – have used and abused the rights of Arab peoples, and backed every anti-democratic regime (including [...]
Nick Clegg is, what we called in Ayrshire, an educated eejit, who claims those who want independence are extremists. John Swinney? A carbon copy of the old-fashioned bank manager, watching the nation’s bawbees, for whom caution, not radicalism, is a guiding principle. Nicola Sturgeon? Not yet seen breaking nurses’ legs and setting fire to hospitals? Alex Salmond? That chap cooing at the English on The One Show? He’s about as extreme as the Queen, a woman never seen to flinch with fear when he leans towards her during one of their chats on state occasions. We Scots will have to get used to the eejits. Nothing can prevent them coming up here with fantastic tales of what will befall us if we dare to be like other nations and become [...]
“It is no answer to say that things are better than they were. People live in the present, not in the past. … the lot of the ordinary man and woman is much worse than it need be.” “Boldness in words must be matched by boldness in deeds or the result will be universal malaise, a debilitation of the public will… “Audacity is the mood that should prevail among Socialists as they apply the full armament of democratic values to the problems of the times.” Nye Bevan In Place of Fear War on poverty is declared frequently by politicians, yet it remains unconquered. Poverty is corrosive. Whilst there are exceptions, the effect of long-term poverty is to beget ignorance and alienation from the rest of society. We now have people [...]
Some time ago the editor responded to one of my Cassandra columns by, with some irony, thanking me for cheering her up. I was, therefore, glad to read her pre-strike editorial noting the truth staring us in the face, that we are now a poorer society. Her argument that such a condition does not necessarily mean an unfair one, if the right priorities are struck, is sound. There will be no relief of poverty, not just material poverty, but of the demoralisation and destruction of ambition which accompanies it, unless we get our priorities right. To get a society that strikes the right priorities is going to require those living in Scotland to ask some searching questions of themselves, and admit some truths about Scotland’s future as part of the [...]
Second-rate option
It’s all about 2016. There isn’t an SNP mandate for a second question, yet Nicola Sturgeon invokes “democracy and fairness” umpteen times to justify its inclusion. But where exactly is the democratic test? As for fairness, it excludes a large number of people who would be profoundly affected by it, but who are not considered as having the right to vote – the English, especially in Geordie land.
Here, is what I suspect is the real scenario, unspoken and unacknowledged by the SNP in public. Alex Salmond’s consultation produces organisations demanding devo-max, the have-yourcake- and eat-it second question. Nicola’s mantra is then applied, and it goes on the ballot paper. Independence loses to devo-max and the SNP bows to the sovereign will of the people (like good democrats) and becomes the people’s champion of devo-max, in time to place a demand for it up front in the 2016 manifesto.
A defeat on independence will, far from scuppering the party’s chances in 2016, allow it to go to the maximum in its devolution demands, outstripping anything the unionists can offer because they will still be restrained by how far their senior English/UK parties are prepared to go. There are no restraints upon the SNP and, as the champions of what the people want, they will be returned to government with a mandate – this time not for independence, but devo-max.
Far fetched? Not so. The SNP MSPs, and the membership, has tasted power and likes it. None more so than its First Minister. A cold weekend of surgery work in Gordon instead of tea with the Emir of Qatar is ...
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