I have just watched the snp debate on NATO and as expected the leadership managed to destroy another dearly held shibboleth for the true supporters of independence in the snp,
just as they did with the monarchy. Still at least they got a vote this time, people of my vintage who have been locked in combat with the snp for many years are as aghast as their own true members are that the snp would ever capitulate over NATO but they have.
The reason for this? Well; the reason was made pretty clear by the speakers who supported NATO membership. "NATO membership makes us more electable"! There in all its stark brutality is their reason for what they have done and in doing so they have destroyed the very souls of a lot of people who put them where they are today. I couldn't help but wonder what wee Jim Mitchell a seeker of independence to his fingertips would have made of this, or Bruce McFee or Bill McGuiness or Davy Mylet, loosely wrapped chancers every one of them but fiercely committed to the anti nuclear cause, the destruction of NATO and independence. They must have thought as they looked on at Derek Mackay MSP a young man who has risen without trace as he sat there with Salmond chairing the conference, he and his new younger watered down nationalists are now the keepers of the flame and things have "changed utterly" to paraphrase WB Yeats.
For snp people of my age "the game's a bogey, the ba's broke" what Salmond & Co. were saying today without any attempt to camouflage their meaning such is their grip now on the party was that everything is for sale and the currency is votes, no attempt was made to gloss over the new tacky populism, nothing; no matter how abhorrent or downright treacherous will be allowed to stand in the way of Alex Salmond's iron will, if he fails which he surely will, he will be happy to take everyone down with him.
The vote was very close, close enough in fact to stir talk of mutiny and schisms in most other parties but alas this is the snp and the truth is that the true nationalists; the genuine independence fighters have been dying the death of a thousand cuts for 10/15 years now. Today was their last hurrah, they will hang about for some time to come and we will hear the sporadic death rattle but nothing more.
Many old timers in the hall and sprinkled around the country will have had tears in their eyes as they stood looking at the triumphant platform and they could not miss surely that the platform was smirking at them.
37 comments:
I do agree that it is a very regretable politically motivated move for political gain.
Not the first time that a political party has changed policies in order to make themselves more electable to the public and won't be the last (does any political leader ever stand for principles?).
I am sick to the stomach that the Leadership of Labour, Tories and Libs are prepared to spend billions building shinier, newer subs and nuclear missles as a priority over schools and hospitals - I guess that you are too Terry?
I can't stand the way that so many political leaders in all parties (yes including Labour) seem to give their own party members and activists a kicking simply to present to the media and wider public some image of them being "tough on dinosaurs".
Salmond has done it on NATO,
Blair had his clause 4 moment,
Kinnock attacked Militant and their "purity of powerlessness",
Thatcher bashed the One nation tories....
Plus ca change.
“I do agree that it is a very regretable politically motivated move for political gain”
Obviously.
“I am sick to the stomach that the Leadership of Labour, Tories and Libs are prepared to spend billions building shinier, newer subs and nuclear missles as a priority over schools and hospitals - I guess that you are too Terry?”
You guess wrong, because of course the labour Party are not doing that.
Don’t make any mistake with me I have no truck whatsoever with the snp’s dishonest policy on WMD’S and if the Labour party’s priority was nuclear arms before Schools and hospitals I would not be in it.
The Labour Party is committed to getting rid of WMD’S more so than the snp who are perpetrating a cruel deception on the Scottish people and it is a bit more important than clause 4.
Kelly @ 2.25
Labour on nuclear weapons..
Councillor,who was the Foreign Secretary who refused to 'Go naked into the conference chamber?'
Byeck said...Kelly @ 2.25
Labour on nuclear weapons..Saturday, October 20, 2012 8:01:00 PM
Labour never had a Foreign Secretary who said this. We did have a Shadow Foreign Secretary Nye Bevan who said something like “that (unilateral nuclear disarmament) would be like sending our Foreign Secretary naked in to the conference chamber” and he said he would not do it.
Before you take the next predictable step I should tell you that I agree with him, my reason? I would not trust the Americans with nuclear arms when others had none.
I would also urge you to read what I said clearly, it is not an attack on their new fondness for NATO it is an attack on their treachery toward their own members who have opposed NATO for decades. Their naked populism and lack of moral fibre if you will.
Kelly @ 5.53
I relied on memory Councillor.
If Nye wasn't Foreign Sec...he damn well should have been.
I have a feeling Mother Russia, rather than Uncle Sam was on his mind at the time...or have I got that wrong too.
Byeck said...Kelly @ 5.53
Sunday, October 21, 2012 8:12:00 PM
I think you have got that right, he thought like I would have done about who our real friends were and the unprecedented sacrifice made by Mother Russia to whom we all owe our freedom.
Kelly @ 4.30
Can't help thinking the sacrifice might not have been so great had Joe not decimated his officer cadre a few years earlier.
These were the lads who knew their business, the professionals. Not the brightest button in the box, our Joe.
Byeck said.Kelly @ 4.30 Monday, October 22, 2012 7:43:00 PM
“Not the brightest button in the box, our Joe”
Certainly not like the drink sodden cretin Churchill, I’ll give you that, and certainly overshadowed by luminaries like Regan, Bush and Ford later on.
Still it must be comforting and convenient for you to know with such certainty that one of Capitalism’s most threatening enemies was such a pantomime villain, and obviously frustrating that you and me owe our lives to him and Mother Russia.
Kelly @ 12.51
He didn't cull his officer corps then?
Byeck said...Kelly @ 12.51
Tuesday, October 23, 2012 3:17:00 PM
I really don't know but I think a more interesting question would be do you trust the West's descriptions and accusations of the man who was in charge of trying to destroy their corrupt capitalist system.
Would those American seekers after truth Joe McCarthy or J Edgar Hoover lie about Stalin?
Kelly @ 11.39
So you 'really dont know'what happened to the Russian officer class in the thirties.
Suspect you dont know about Beria, Mexico City or the Katyn Forest either, and you a history buff too!
“So you 'really dont know'what happened to the Russian officer class in the thirties”
I know like you what the CIA told me.
Let me see Beria? Stalin’s head of secret police and a real bad guy, womaniser to boot? Mexico City? Trotsky? “the greatest Jew since Jesus” (Earnest Hemingway) murdered by Stalin’s agent? Katyn Forest? Polish Officers, Russian Massacre? Yes I know it was all covered by Hollywood.
Tens of millions died in Europe in Stalin’s time, killed by Spanish Flue except in Russia where the millions who died at this time were killed by the devil Stalin.
So you really don’t know about Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, My Lai, Kenya, Ireland etc.?
What about Russia, Stalin and the Red Army? Do you know about them? Do you know what you owe them? The difference between us seems to be, while we both seem to like history, you believe everything that the system you live in has fed you while I am a bit less trusting. Perhaps I am being guided by my Irish ancestors.
Kelly @ 6.57
I hate to shatter your rosy glow and I wish there was a kinder way to put this Councillor, but in 1989 Russia admitted the Katyn massacre.
You're behind the game again, this time by some 22yrs, Kelly.
Byeck said...Kelly @ 6.57 Thursday, October 25, 2012 8:14:00 PM.
Not only do I know about Katyn but my two dogs and the dogs they play with in the park know about it as well.
Did the Russians commit atrocities? Yes., did we? Yes, so where does that leave us?
There are massive discrepancies over the events at Katyn and again it depends on whose version one believes. Your problem it seems to me is that you are quite prepared to condemn the Russians while accepting that the bombing of civilians in defenceless cities is OK because it was us who did it. Not a very honourable position IMO.
Kelly @ 11.54
Councillor dear, I'm basing my argument on the Russian account of the atrocity, not any Hollywood version or that of your two dogs.
And weren't Russia and Poland on the same side, fighting the Nazis?
Game set and match to the Man in the White Hat yet again.
"I'm basing my argument on the Russian account of the atrocity"
No you are not.
Werent Russia and Poland on the same side, then?
Byeck said...Friday, October 26, 2012 6:26:00 PM
Weren't we on the same side as the Russians as well then?
Kelly @ 11.38
Course we were on the same side as Russia and Poland, you little Tinker, in fact, we, and Poland, were getting tore in while Joe was signing his 'Let's carve up Europe' treaty, with Adolf.
And luckily the NKVD didn't take Captain Mainwaring and his mates into Epping Forest to discuss ideology over a hot bullet. I think the distance put them off.
I've now awarded myself the rosette (Blue) as Best in Show and Outright Winner, so let us move on.
Byeck said...Kelly @ 11.38 Saturday, October 27, 2012 4:03:00 PM.
How can you be outright winner of anything when I still don't know what you were trying to say.
Kelly @ 5.33
Honestly, it's like taking candy from a baby... Winston would be ashamed of me.
Byeck said...Kelly @ 5.33 Saturday, October 27, 2012 8:29:00 PM
All I know about this is that you do not like Stalin, despite him saving your country and most likely all of your family as well as what we now laughingly call the free world.
I digress but, did you read the recent news about papers released from secret Government vaults, secret wartime documents etc.? It would appear that dear old Winston wanted to carry out summary executions of all German prisoners above a certain rank or level of importance and those not summarily executed would be put in prison for life. Again without charge or trial. Not unlike the American prisoners in Guantanamo today actually.
Anyway the drink sodden old brute could not get Roosevelt and Stalin to support him and they went to trial.
Stalin’s decency and his humanitarian conscience would not allow him to stand four square beside the drunken old half witted war criminal Winston and murder people because they were on the other side. See honour? see decency" see sobriety? Churchkill hated all three. Now, if Old Joe had made that suggestion eh?
Dear Byeck,
Accurate estimates indicate more than thirty million famine related deaths occurred in British India between 1870 and 1910. At school, I never learned of Queen Victorian as a mass murderer. Army officers shot starving Indians as they begged for food at the doors of warehouses packed with grain. Do you regard Disreali or Gladstone as mass killers?
Ponder thereon!
Rilke
"Stalin’s decency and his humanitarian conscience"
Pure comedy gold. Keep them coming, Terry: you're hilarious.
Anonymous said...Sunday, October 28, 2012 10:41:00 PM.
"Pure comedy gold. Keep them coming, Terry: you're hilarious"
Well it was you who started it.
Stalin’s decency and his humanitarian conscience"
Pure comedy gold. Keep them coming, Terry: you're hilarious.
Sunday, October 28, 2012 10:41:00 PM
No I didn't: you did. You must be the only man in the world who still swallows all that WWII era "Uncle Joe" crap. Face it, Terence; the man was a psychopathic gangster. What attracts a wannabe free thinking progressive like you to someone like that?
Anonymous said...Tuesday, October 30, 2012 9:30:00 PM
Someone like what? “what attracts me”
I’m neither attracted or repelled by Stalin, I’m interested in him and more importantly, I’m interested in the truth, And I started thinking for myself a long time ago.
What do you really know about Stalin, out with what western propaganda and the CIA have told you? What I know about him is that at the end of the war he went overnight from being “Uncle Joe” to being the most evil man on earth so I tried to make sense of all that.
I came to realize that he stood at the head of one of the most powerful nations on the planet with one of the biggest war machines ever built. And here is the salient thing that I also know, he was a communist! Any hints in there? Go figure.
Terry,
Your party supports WMD and NATO membership. Therefore as part of that apparatus you too support them. How can you take a stance against NATO and WMD when your party supports membership and retaining WMD...
Running Man said.. Tuesday, November 06, 2012 1:26:00 PM
“Your party supports WMD and NATO membership”
Have you checked this? I think you will find if you do actually check instead of making things up that Labour supports the abolition of WMD’S I would guess that is true of all political parties and all countries, I do not agree with the snp dishonest position on this though.
I can’t say for certain but I would be surprised if NATO’s position was not the abolition of all nuclear weapons. The snp might be able to fool the gullible but count me out of that number.
As ever you avoid the direct question, you and I and everyone else knows that Labour support WMD and therefore by default so do you. Saying that you don't support them as you'd possibly give them up under a set of impossible circumstances is deceitful.
If you continue to argue that Labour do not support WMD(despite supporting new Trident) then what is your beef with the SNP wanting to remove them? Your stance is nothing to do with Nuclear arms or NATO membership.
Its just like your party, you are anti whatever the SNP is pro, Labour's policy boils down to "We're the opposite of whatever the SNP say they are"...Labour have no substance , no policy and nowhere to go.
The SNP took your left of centre position in Scotland when Blair was in charge of the ship and you are at a loss of how to get it back.
Running Man said...Wednesday, November 07, 2012 10:20:00 AM
I don’t avoid the direct question. You and I and everyone else do not know that Labour supports WMD’S. If it’s impossible as you say why are you bothering? Are you one of these disingenuous clowns who try to get people to believe that not having WMD’S in Scotland makes us safe? My beef with the snp position is that it is gesture politics to win votes Scotland with or without WMD’s is irrelevant and the snp are lying when they say otherwise. I am not and labour are not against everything that the snp support that is simply childish. The snp have no substance, no policy and no where to go. Labour are the party of the left that’s why we advocate that people who can afford to pay for benefits do so while the snp want to crawl to the rich to buy their votes with free benefits which they don’t need. Today we read that the snp are to remove legal aid from the poor, party of the left my Joe Royle. I enjoy stimulating debate don’t you?
Terry,
Labour are no longer the party of the left. Once a great institution that looked after the working man, it panders to the English middle classes in the same way the Tories do. I'm not personally against that but to continue to deny it is deceitful.
Honestly are you happy with the current situation within the Labour party. I'd imagine you are much further to the left of where Ms Lamont and Mr Milliband have you.
The idea that benefits are going to thousands of millionaires is a soundbite. The items(bus passes,prescriptions etc) being banded about by London Scottish Labour cover only about 3% of the Scottish Government expenditure. So even if we removed it from everyone is only that 3%. How many millionaires use the bus ?
Means testing would actually cost more than it would save, again its gesture politics from the Plastic Left.
WMD's make no impact on our security and to be honest they never did. It didn't stop Argentina nor did it stop us getting kicked out of Suez. It had no impact on those nutters who attacked Glasgow airport. Its a big stick that we're unable to pick up ourselves. A white elephant at sea which has more chance of an accident causing us harm than saving us from harm.
You are correct , the SNP are pushing populist policies. Imagine them having the crazy notion to do what voters want.
Labour are on a path to win English middle class votes and that leaves Scots disenchanted with Labour as we are naturally more to the left. The strategy is set and the usual Labour Dogma will mean it will go till it works or fails completely. The party isn't agile enough and has lost its way.
Do you not think removing the 10% tax rate was pandering to the middle classes of the Shires ? Or does that not count as popular politics ?
Running Man said.. Thursday, November 08, 2012 10:22:00 AM
Labour are still the party of the workers and the trade union members that’s why the capitalist press and parties snp included are always attacking us.
I have never been happy with the Labour Party if being happy with the party was what drives me I would have joined the snp like all the other sheep.
I don’t know how many millionaires use the bus and I'm not that interested I am only interested in making sure that benefits go to those who need them and not to those who don’t.
I went to be means tested before and that system would indeed be expensive to use but that was 45 years ago, this is now.
WMD’S are a worldwide threat and Scotland is an irrelevance in this matter, you lot are afraid to tell the truth about it, anyway you are with NATO, a first strike nuclear weapons organisation so that old story is now banjaxed.
Populist policies, what voters want? When are you going to ban immigration and bring back hanging? The reactionary streak and right wing philosophy is never far away with the snp is it?
Labour will chase votes from whoever agrees with us and Scotland is no more left than anywhere else.
10p tax rate ? under Labour the poor and needy were the best off they have ever been.
You can’t beat a good debate can you ‘runaway man’
Deary Deary Me Terry! You really are ignorant of what is really going on in the world. Who was it that bankrolled Lenin, Stalin, Hitler etc - I'll give you a clue it is the same people who control YOUR party and ALL the others, who control YOUR unions, All the Central Banks, The EU, UN, NATO etc,etc etc.
You really do need to go and do a simple bit of research to find out what is really going on.
Billy said.
Sunday, November 11, 2012 8:45:00 PM
“Who was it that bankrolled Lenin, Stalin, Hitler etc - I'll give you a clue it is the same people who control YOUR party and ALL the others, who control YOUR unions, All the Central Banks, The EU, UN, NATO etc,etc”"
Yes Billy you have warned me about them before. It’s the wee green men from Mars isn't it.
Terry,
Poor never been better off, what about the U turn on the 10% tax rate ? A policy change that falls straight into the Thatcherite camp.
As I said previously and you conveniently ignored, Labour support Trident and NATO yet you try to lambast the SNP for keeping half of that...
Labour in Scotland will never recover until it throws off the shackles of London private schooled MP's who play at socialism while being actual millionaires. Who probably still don't use the bus.
BTW you look like you could do with a wee jog now and then yourself....
Running Man said... Wednesday, November 14, 2012 8:42:00 AM
Thatcher was brought to power and Salmond thinks she wasn’t that bad and the poor are always better off under
Labour. We have Always been in favour of getting rid of nuclear weapons the snp have just proved that their opposition to them was bogus. Labour are doing OK and fighting back rather well.
“BTW you look like you could do with a wee jog now and then yourself....”
I’m fat and you are plug ugly, I can go on a diet what can you do?
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