Some rare good news for Scottish Unionists

[Emrys]

8. There have been tensions within the SNP for a while.

Last edited Wed Mar 31, 2021, 03:24 PM - Edit history (1)

The recent defections reflect that and may resolve some of them (heaven knows what'll happen once the election results pan out, but there's been a lot of bridge-burning over the last few weeks!). And then there's these imported headbangers to add to the mix ... Meanwhile, the SNP claims a sustained intake of new and renewed members in recent weeks, so it's swings and roundabouts. Some have said this is a process of splitting and sorting that might have been expected in the aftermath of a successful independence referendum.

Alba's recruitment of candidates has inevitably been rushed. There's been no hint of disapproval or disciplinary action from Alba about Arthur. Walker's transgression is distasteful, but not off the scale, and he has apologized, but it pales in comparison with the daily abuse directed at Sturgeon anyway. What's been especially disappointing from some of the more vocal (well, I really mean manic) online Alba supporters is their defence of Arthur and their whataboutery. In fact, we've heard little from Alba itself since its inception apart from announcements of fairly high-profile joiners and candidates. Their selection process is a mystery. I guess that's going to have fallen to Salmond in the main. I think vetting's been a luxury they haven't been able to afford.

There will be some good people in Alba once is configures itself, despite my current hard feelings. Whether they can form something longer-lived than the election period and housetrain the headbangers remains to be seen.

We had the first leaders' debate last night on BBC. Salmond wasn't invited as the party's too new and has no polling record (also, letting him in would have opened the gates to the likes of George Galloway, who's continued his carpet-bagging descent into madness and hopefully further irrelevance by setting up his own party, All For Unity, where he's trying to band together with harder-core unionists and general anti-SNPers in a craven turnaround from a year or two ago when he instructed people to shoot him if he ever banded together with the Tories).

It was a poorly set up format, cramming into an hour or so questions to Nicola Sturgeon, Anas Sarwar, Willie Rennie, Douglas Ross, and a first outing for the Greens' co-leader Lorna Slater.

Sturgeon was competent if a bit subdued, but didn't really need to do much other than hold it together anyway. Rennie was worthy but boring. Sarwar was more impressive than his predecessor (which is a low bar, but one he easily cleared). Slater was the star for many (I was impressed, myself). She came across as energetic and on top of her brief, and judging from social media, seems to have gained quite a few list votes for the Greens. Ross became a predictable disgrace after a lukewarm beginning.

The questions from the audience in a Zoom format were disappointingly repetitive, the first few mainly calling on Sturgeon to focus on Covid etc. rather than a second referendum, which at least gave her an opportunity to point to all she has been doing in the last term of Holyrood. There was an outburst from one questioner - one of only two identifiable independence supporters who was called on (which says something about the lack of balance of the show) - who described the party leaders other than Sturgeon and Slater as "branch managers" among other things (which is accurate, if intemperately expressed), but he was soon hushed up by the compere, Sarah Smith. Another was a Chilean who'd settled in Scotland some years ago, who expressed appreciation that he (and others, like my American citizen wife) can vote in this election after the franchise was extended and ended up being someone who'll vote SNP at constituency level and Greens on the list. None of the questions touched on Brexit, which is crazy and let Ross off the hook.

Despite accusations from mainly Ross, but with all the others except Slater wading in, that Sturgeon is overly obsessed with a new referendum, Ross mentioned it 19 times during the course of the debate, versus the others' bare handfuls of mentions.

There were two real highlights, both involving Sarwar and Ross. Ross tried to engage Sarwar in some sort of anti-SNP alliance last week, at which Sarwar, to his credit, reportedly told him to "grow up". The two clashed in the middle of the debate, then again at the end, in response to a closing softball question from the audience about the leaders' role in combating online abuse among their supporters, which the other leaders showed solidarity in condemning and committing to continuing to oppose, whereas Ross inexplicably tried to blame any and all discord on the continued calls for a new referendum and let fly at Sarwar (whose ethnicity has meant he's been subject to more abuse than most) for supposedly not being anti-independence enough. Sarwar was having none of it and reprised his "grow up" line (I can only find a Twitter video at the moment, but it may be on YouTube):

Link to tweet

It was (for me) strangely invigorating to see a Labour leader show some natural, heartfelt and well-placed fire after the doldrums of Richard Leonard's time in that post. It reminded me of Biden's "Aw, shut up, man" moment in the debate with Trump.

Some, me included, interpreted the dynamic as Sarwar having accepted, intelligently, that the real contest in this election is for second place (and Ross also realizing and panicking about this). If it means Labour joining in in knocking justified chunks out of the Tories rather than continuing to focus solely on slagging off the SNP, I'm all for it!