As I completed last month\u2019s Flag I said\nsomething like there are going to be European Elections, I\u2019ll have to get out\nmy SNP poster – and lo, it came to pass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The SNP decisively won the\nEuropean Election, and took 3 of Scotland\u2019s 6 seats, our best ever\nperformance; I am very pleased to see\nChristian Allard, who had been an MSP but got squeezed out in a gender balanced\nselection, to my recollection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was also more than pleased\nat the election of Aileen MacLeod. I first met her at a General Election in\nOchils Constituency in 1999, I think, Annabelle Ewing was the candidate. Anyway I was out leafletting around Alloa\nwhen this young couple got sent down from the HQ to help me. The young man was\nMungo Bovey, whom I knew vaguely, but I had never met the young lady before; the next day she appeared again, on her own\nand I asked her \u201cWhere\u2019s Mungo today?\u201d \nShe said \u201cWho?\u201d, and it transpired she had never seen him before! She was elected in 2011, and became a\nMinister. In 2016 we had a vast influx\nafter the Referendum and she lost out; in 2017 when Edinburgh West needed a\nreplacement for Michelle Thomson I thought she would be ideal, but I heard that\nshe had been ill. Glad to see she has recovered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alyn Smyth was elected\nPresident of the EFA \u2013 European Free Alliance, a position formerly held by Ian\nHudghton MEP, who has now retired. The\ndynamics of Europe have now changed and the EFA will have a bit more clout,\nvery likely a lot more than the UK in the interim while they are there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the European Elections\nthere were 32 authorities and the SNP came first in 30 of them, the other 2\nbeing Orkney and Shetland, which were Liberal. \nThis outcome had the newspapers resurrecting the Yellow Map which the\nScots Independent created in the Scottish Election in 2011, where the SNP won\n69 List seats, but was only allocated 16 as we had won 53 Constituency seats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the General Election of\n2015 we resurrected the Map, as we won 56 out of 59 Westminster, a result\nbeyond our wildest dreams \u2013 I remember watching the results on TV as they came\nin, and my wife saying \u201cThis is just a dream, we are going to wake up in\nthe morning and find out it didn\u2019t\nhappen!\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately, Prime Minister\nTheresa May went for walk in the Welsh Hills and decided she needed a bigger\nmajority, so we had an unscheduled Election; \nSNP MPs did not have time for their \ngroup to bed in, so we lost 21 seats. \nMrs May finished up with a smaller majority and had to go with our cap\nin hand to the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, forking out over\na billion of our cash as a bribe. Mrs\nMay learned only a five word sentence during her reign \u2013 \u201cNow is not the time\u201d\nand she did not get our money\u2019s worth either. \nWhat an unmitigated disaster!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To vote or not to Vote?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A bit of controversy in The\nNational over voting for other parties. \nI remember, many years ago, when during the local elections in the\nconstituency I live in, the SNP did not have a candidate – it happened very\nfrequently my friends \u2013 it was a different political world. Anyway I carefully considered how best to use\nmy vote tactically. I do not remember\nfor whom I decided to vote, but on the day I went in to the polling booth\ndetermined to do this; I went in, wrote\nSNP on the ballot paper, as I could not face voting for a Unionist \u2013 it was\ninstinctive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also during the Scottish\nGovernment Election of 2016, I was very unhappy at how the Constituency had\ndeselected our sitting SNP MSP, but I just gritted my teeth and voted SNP, as I\nwas incapable of doing anything else, and by the way, we lost the seat and our\nmajority in the Scottish Parliament. If\nyou doubt this we are only 1 seat short of a majority, that 1 seat, which went\nto the Liberals, would have been SNP\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, in the stramash\nabout someone claiming to be an SNP activist showing their support for\nindependence by voting against it strikes me as very strange reasoning. There were oodles of words but I never read\nthem, having more important things to do \u2013 like sleeping in the chair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Good planning<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Very pleased to see that we\nare to start planning the future government of Scotland; as anticipated we see the weeping and\nwailing and gnashing of teeth from the Unionist side. They are filled with self righteous\nindignation, as this wee Scotland starts to make plans to run big\nScotland. There is no doubt in my mind\nthat they will fight us to the last gasp; \nthey have no alternative strategy but to come up with the dated and\noutmoded \u201cMother of Parliaments\u201d which is floundering and sees no clear way\nahead. They say that once upon a time we\ncould rely on calm measured and principled policies emanating from Westminster\n\u2013 that time, if it ever existed, is long gone. \nWe now see the two main parties riven by personal rivalries, and the\nonce third party, the Liberals, starting to wake up after the Brexit vote. I say starting to wake up, but South of the\nBorder only with a wee boost in Orkney and Shetland. It is my assessment that that they owe most\nof their current progress to Vince Cable, a former Glasgow Labour Councillor,\nwho saw a better chance in England, until Nick Clegg exchanged his principles\nfor a Ministerial car. The possible\nelection of Jo Swinson as their leader puts them back in dubious territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marching on<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There was an All Under One\nBanner March in Galashiels last Saturday and a new and unwelcome entry into the\npolitical scene; nails were strewn across the road where the Bikers for\nIndependence were riding. This is not political, this is criminal; the bikers\nrode in in a disciplined fashion, not too close together for safety\u2019s\nsake. Burst tyres can lead to crashes\nand there was danger to life and limb; I\nunderstand there were seven bikes damaged. \nThis is an alienation of democracy, and the perpetrators deserve jail\nsentences, and also the loss of their driving licences. I have no doubt that the police will know who\nthey are, but probably do not have the proof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This kind of action mirrors\nthe scenes in Glasgow where Union Jack wavers disrupted the march there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n D Day<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In my boyhood all of our\nholidays were spent with relatives and I vividly recall staying in the Miners\u2019\nRows in Cowdenbeath with my aunt, two rooms with no inside toilet, and one room\nriddled with damp. We stayed in a three\nroomed house with bathroom and kitchen in Dundee, so Cowdenbeath was an\nadventure. We would leave the house, get the No 3 bus down to the town and get\nthe ferry, the Fifie, to Newport. Once there we got a bus to Lochgelly, a long\nand dreary trip as there was a blackout; \nin Lochgelly we got another bus to Cowdenbeath \u2013 it seemed like ages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We also stayed with one of my\nmother\u2019s cousin in Carfin; they had a council\nhouse with three bedrooms and a kitchen\nand bathroom. The journey then was bus\nDundee to Perth, bus Perth to Stirling, bus Stirling to Glasgow, then a bus to\nMotherwell, and a last bus to Newarthill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is not a nostalgic happy\nmemory; my memory of Carfin was of long lines of Army lorries, armoured cars,\njeeps and tanks on trailers. We children\nwatched out of the window, clapping and cheering, and shouting inanities \u201cHow\u2019s\nJeannie?\u201d and such like. It was some\nyears after that we realised this was the build up to D Day, and that many of\nthe soldiers would not come back; I would have been 9 years old at the time 75\nyears ago!<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was prompted by the 65th<\/sup>\nAnniversary of D Day and the State Visit of the US President, Donald\nTrump. This has attracted widespread\nprotests, and one Unionist contributor has reminded us how many American troops\ntook part in the Second World War. There\nis no doubt that we would not have won that war without American aid; however America did not enter the War until\nthe Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour. It\nhas been said that Churchill knew about the attack but did not warn the\nAmericans because he believed it to be the only way America would become\ninvolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, Donald Trump is the\nAmerican President, but he wants his writ to run in the UK too, so we need to\nbe wary of any offers he makes. \u201cTimeo\nDanae et donae ferentes\u201d \u2013 I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts, as the\nTrojans found out to their cost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I completed last month\u2019s Flag I said something like there are going to be European Elections, I\u2019ll have to get out my SNP poster – and lo, it came to pass. The SNP decisively won the European Election, and took 3 of Scotland\u2019s 6 seats, our best ever performance; I am very pleased to see Christian Allard, who had been an MSP but got squeezed out in a gender balanced selection, to my recollection. I was also more than pleased at the election of Aileen MacLeod. I first met her at a General Election in Ochils Constituency in 1999, I think, Annabelle EwingRead More →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2508"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2508"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2509,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2508\/revisions\/2509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}