On:
In: Jim Lynch

In such a confusing time it is difficult to know where to start.  I thought of looking back at various attempts to split the SNP; most of my comments will be personal. I see Jim Sillars  has thrown his hat in the ring, so it is worth emphasizing that every time he is quoted as a former Deputy Leader of the SNP people may not be aware that this was only for one year;  he managed to spend a lot of money, and members voted him out. I cannot remember exactly when but he made a proposal about more public demonstrations /civil disobedience  – this was passed at theRead More →

On:
In: Jim Lynch

As a daily reader of The National I look forward to doing the Crossword each day; I do this at lunchtime.  However this does not happen on a Sunday! So at lunchtime on the Sunday I usually read Gerry Hassan – it is quite often in the 7 Days, a broadsheet, and difficult to handle. This week the 7 Days broadsheet had a front page by Hugh MacDonald  entitled ‘“The Wait of History” most of my time in the SNP’.  I never met Hugh but I knew his father, also Hugh MacDonald, SNP Vice Chairman for Publicity  at the time of the Hamilton by election.  He worked for Beaverbrook Newspapers,Read More →

On:
In: Jim Lynch

As I am starting to write this on Monday 30th November I take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy St Andrew’s Day – I am a slow writer at the best of times. SNP Conference The SNP Conference is on at present, and I have it on Zoom, but I am not able to watch and write The Flag at the same time. However I did go through to the next room to watch Nicola’s Speech, which I followed avidly, and one part jumped out – £500 for every member of the NHS payable in this financial year. The master stroke is that sheRead More →

On:
In: Jim Lynch

I just had my 86th Birthday, Fri 23 Oct, so I am waxing philosophical: “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day until the last syllable of  recorded time.And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.Out out brief candle, life is but a poor player , who struts and frets his hour upon the stage , and then is heard no more.It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” I used to think this was from Hamlet, who seems to soliloquise a lot, but it is from MacBeth;  IRead More →

On:
In: Jim Lynch, Uncategorized

Well, as the constitutional debate goes on, I allowed my curiosity to get the better of me. We know, or have continually been told , that “Jerusalem” has been England’s sporting anthem – this has always struck me as bizarre, as I could not imagine gangs of shaven headed tattooists warbling away about “And was the holy lamb of God in England’s pleasant pasture seen”, so I checked the web. According to reports it is only the anthem for rugby and cricket not for the football oafs. However surely this is a part of England’s place in the World, and a mythical visit by JesusRead More →

On:
In: Jim Lynch

What a lot of items to choose from in this week’s Flag, so I thought I would give a few details as to how it was created. The Flag is an offshoot of the Scots Independent Newspaper. The SI, as we use the shorthand, was founded in November 1926 by Scots living in London.  The first page was written by James Clark;  I met his son Duncan, at an exhibition of the  Scottish Political Archive in Edinburgh.  The SNP was not officially in its present form until 1934, approximately 6 months before I was born! (The Scottish Political Archive is at Stirling University, and isRead More →

On:
In: Jim Lynch

Well, I did not think I would be able to do another Flag, but here I am again. Since the last Flag I did, 3 Jan, my life has changed quite a bit; on 20th January I fell at a pedestrian crossing in Corstorphine.  I was picked up by a lady, Karen O’Shaughnessy, and the Pedestrian Crossing attendant. Mrs O’Shaughnessy kindly brought me home. My son took me to the Western  General Hospital who found I had a broken arm;  we also went to Edinburgh Royal and got a brain scan which was OK.  The next day I was taken in to the Western General. Read More →

On:
In: Jim Lynch, Uncategorized

I wish you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year;  who knows what this year will bring forth, but we start with 48 seats in Westminster, something we must learn to live with.  The Unionist camp, whose name is legion, mutters and grumbles at us only getting 45% of the votes cast as we did get 80% of the seats.  However these are their rules, not ours, or to phrase it correctly a win is a win is a win. I had an odd experience this morning; I was renewing my car insurance.  I did this at the weekend but had to telephone the currentRead More →

On:
In: Jim Lynch

When I started this yesterday I should have qualified it by stating how things changed rapidly when in a General Election. I ended up commenting on how hectoring Andrew Neil was to Nicola Sturgeon, talking over her, not listening to answers and generally being more obnoxious than he used to be – or am I just being forgetful? However the next day he did the same to Jeremy Corbyn; Mr Corbyn, like Nicola, kept a calm sough and did not shout back. I wait to see with interest how he behaves against his beloved Boris. To my wife’s great astonishment I did not watch theRead More →

On:
In: Jim Lynch

Among all the cantrips in the weeks up to Halloween Operation Yellowhammer has emerged yet again; to remind readers, this is the panic created by the Government and its toadies to get a deal of any sorts through the House of Commons or be faced with a No Deal scenario. This will be forced on it by a greedy dictatorial EU – well that is their interpretation. Mrs Theresa May was the one who decided to move Section 50, think that is the section, and then had to go bonnet (ladies do not wear caps!) in hand to the EU to agree the terms ofRead More →