[BITList] Got it at Last

[HUGH]

Fred,

The SNP got in on the crest of a surge of New Labour unpopularity.  The Tories had been a spent force in Scotland for a while, and the Lib Dems were not much of a force.  The Scottish Socialists had succumbed to infighting, so it was the SNP v New Labour.  Both New Labour and the Conservatives are seen as Unionists, and the Union has not been looked on with favour in Scotland for some years. Old Labour would have maintained the status quo, since their long stading appeal to many, eg, to me, overrode objections to the Union, but they are history.  Lacking a credible alternative, I voted SNP, but in doing so I made a conscious decision to place in abeyance many years of opposition to them.  I had seen them as merely anti-Labour, but I had to recognise that my antipathy to New Labour made that objection redundant.  At the moment I can't say if I'm fish or fowl.

Regardless of what you or I think, devolution is a fact, and no amount of farting around by Westminster will change that one iota.  Fred, I don't for one moment subscribe to the notion of a Scottish Mafia in Westminster.  This is a favourite theme of the gutter press in England.  Much is made by them of the nationality of Gordon Brown and various others from north of the border currently in power (we'll leave Blair out of it - he is no Scot), and such crass xenophobia only serves to fuel the move towards a wider devolution. It ignores the vast number of previous incumbents who were not Scottish, and in so doing leads anyone with a brain to assume they would prefer there not to be a Scot in power.  Such a policy would disenfranchise anyone from north of the border - I don't have to do the sums, the consequences are obvious and inevitable.  Brown is a Unionist through and through - he would have no political future in an independent Scotland.  The man is a petty minded buffoon - he lacked the common courtesy even to speak to Salmond after the SNP victory, let alone, as political ettiquette demands, congratulate him.

Is independence round the corner?  No.  Will the Union be strained? Yes, very.  Will Old Labour revive? Maybes aye, maybes no.  Will it snow tomorrow? Probably.

That's enough politics for one day.  I've got a floppy drive that refuses to work and no idea why.

Regards,

Hugh.

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