Eddie Hitler

Is this what's happening or is there some chance that a S35 challenge could fail and that they have had legal advice to this effect (which would, presumably, mean that they didn't agree that it was about existing powers of the Scottish Parliament at all)? They have charged into quite a few legal battles they ultimately couldn't win. Once bitten and all that?

It was announced - 19 October 2023. Well, it was announced that that's the proposed date - far less clear that it's actually going to occur on that date, given the legal wrangling about competence etc and the seeming unwillingness of the UK Government to "allow" it. I don't think we can say anything has been "called", unfortunately, only proposed.

There is no such thing as a "Soft No" who's sitting around deciding what they think on the constitution based on what some folk shouted at a Tory or James Cook. It's a convenient fiction (for politicians who are actually supposed to be winning support over to Yes, but are failing to increase support currently) to pretend that it would all be in the bag if only "Mental McSmith didn't shout at James Cook at a protest and be so uncouth". Now I am not arguing that shouting at a Beeb reporter is warranted, or helpful, but I don't think it's going to turn anyone beginning to think "Jeez, I am worried about the way the UK is going, these energy prices etc etc!" from someone considering voting Yes next time into a No. It's imagining that relative no-marks have way more power to affect folk than they really do and, in fact, you are only likely to convince any of those protestors with a large ego to think they have more sway than they do and encourage them to do it again by peddling this sort of nonsense. Most folk don't even know who James Cook is, far less care who might have shouted at him. It's down to Westminster to piss enough people off, or leading Yes politicians to impress enough people with their vision, whether "Soft Nos" change their minds or not. "We'd be winning if a clown didn't shout at James Cook", isn't the answer.

Jettisoned almost a year ago. Think SNP party members then tried to bring a motion to their party conference to push it back onto the agenda and were roundly ignored.

Fair enough. A well-put reason to go the whole hog, which could be explained to the electorate in a post-independence referendum on the subject.

Why is this a binary though? "Westminster doesn't offer...the EU offers". It seems like it's an either/or in your world view, we are shackled to Westminster or we are in the EU. There are other arrangements possible, such as joining EFTA or the EEA. There are more than two options and breaking away from Westminster does not, should not, automatically mean "join the EU". That should be a foreign policy decision taken after independence (albeit I think the majority would be for it, but you still need to settle it from the point of view of an independent country),

Please state the benefits and protections and, in particular, the benefits and protections that we couldn't also obtain from some other arrangement, such as being in EFTA. "It functions" is quite a low bar by the way; surely we could expect more than that? I think there is a debate for an independent Scotland to have on such issues and I don't really like "but it lets us be part of something bigger!" type arguments alone because they are a bit mindless and the sort of thing that people who couldn't articulate any reasoning for a No vote last time hit out with (a much simpler "I just prefer being British/identify as British" would have been more honest in most cases and is, of course, a perfectly valid position as it's not anyone else's place to tell someone what they identify with).

Voted Yes in 2014 and will do whenever given the chance again (I have to say I am not convinced we will be at the booths in 2023) because it's about a point of principle and I think Scotland should be independent. Politicians are going to have to be of a higher calibre though; no whining about everything being everyone else's fault (but this isn't a reason to vote No, Westminster politicians do this as well).

So what would constitute a material change in your eyes? You don't think a quite drastic change in foreign policy approach (voted down here) is a big thing? What would be? Or are you just wedded to the idea that you personally have decided how long there should be between votes and that's that, other folks' policy preferences etc just don't matter (even when they were the majority view within Scotland)? Whatever happens until your personally decreed amount of time has passed is "just the way it goes"?

That's horseshit btw, at least in the sense that there was widespread awareness of any such thing. I seem to recall Ruth Davidson, in the run up to the referendum, going to great pains at one of the televised indyref things to tell people there was no chance that the Tories would win the 2015 GE outright and that therefore there would be NO Brexit vote, far less a Leave result. Some folk might still have watched that and went "well, I don't trust her so it could happen" but to suggest that the population at large went into soothsayer mode and knew "full well" that we might be outvoted on the EU when it wasn't at all certain to the casual voter that there would even BE a vote is purest revisionism. Not least because it was thought around that time that Labour were going to win the 2015 GE (and even that they would win the Scotland-wide part of that vote and THAT didn't happen as many people would have predicted either; unless you're going to tell us that everyone knew there were going to be 56 SNP MPs as well).

2014's became "binding" because of the Section 30, no doubt. This is why (in all fairness, although she's been flogging a dead horse on it for ages as it isn't forthcoming) Sturgeon has continued to state that she would want to go ahead with that in place. A non-binding "consultative" referendum could still be held (although there are questions over how easy it would be to get councils to go along with organising it). Some will scoff but it is worth pointing out that this would have the same status as the European referendum which was also "consultative" and "non-binding" but (and there's no point anyone moaning about this being pointed out) it became politically impossible to ignore the result because the largest country in the UK voted for it. The same principle should apply following any Yes vote, i.e. "well, the Scots voted for it so they should get it, non-binding or not" *should* apply but of course it won't because those who don't want Scotland to become independent would twist themselves in knots to deny this while saying Brexit needed to be honoured. The issue of course is would Westminster be brought to honour the result when it had not transferred away the power this time? It's a mess and wholly undemocratic but legally it would not be "wrong" for them to refuse if the legal situation is (in fact) that permission is required - something which, to my knowledge, remains legally in dispute.

Typically, the language of "sacrifice" is used, as in "you need to sacrifice" to be able to have somewhere to live. Leaving aside the realities of the economy we live in, it's still crackers how some see housing as something which should be priced as a luxury (I accept that reality says that it IS, I am just not convinced that this most basic of needs should be and that's why everything's fucked!).

Yes, I accept that and that it has also been floated more in recent days. However, she in essence has been saying she would not do that for years now and went along with the terminology of calling it "wildcat". I'd like to think she'd stick that in the rear view if opponents tried to use it against her but I am really not convinced of that; hers is a government that tries to avoid negative publicity at all costs and whether oppo are willing to let the chance to throw "but you said no wildcat referendums!" back in her face is out of her control, so I could see her characteristic caution and apparent unwillingness to upset even her political enemies (beyond occasionally telling us that the Tories are bad) holding sway.

I'm a bit bemused by the idea that there was any kind of "indyref announcement" today. The campaign, such as it is, has been launched and re-launched about 6 (conservative estimate) times since 2016. But there's no date. It's still "make the case", which Sturgeon has been saying needs to be done the whole time. I am not disagreeing that a case needs to be made, more that anything said today was any kind of significant leap forward. How is it going to happen? She previously indicated she would not engage in any "wildcat referendums" (a term I think was a lot of bollocks for her to use, but she's painted herself into a corner by doing so, so that now any moves to go without S30 will be thrown back in her face as "wildcat", even though a non-s30 ref would be as binding as the Brexit one in law, i.e. consultative and not at all binding, but politically difficult to ignore). To be clear, I'm someone who's voting Yes (or for independence through any other voting mechanism) just as soon as I get the chance, but I don't see anything today that tells me that I am going to any time soon. It just sounded like more of Sturgeon's rhetoric - indeed we heard the (fair enough) comparisons with the Nordics, Malta, Austria, Denmark etc etc years ago when that Growth Commission carry on was unveiled.

All entirely fair points. It is of course true that Labour (and the Tories, for that matter) have been winning seats where they never dared tread previously. I would maintain that hanging about waiting on an accident of maths and then a Labour party willing to slit its own support (by offering its coalition/confidence and supply/whatever arrangement partners a referendum to leave) is not sort of strategy for an independence party to have. It's just waiting for things to fall into your lap. I recognise you were not responding to that point as such, of course.

If Labour “builds momentum” from here, for which I’ll assume you mean maintains a lead of at least 10% since anything else would be “falling back”, they would almost certainly win a majority and would not need to do any deals with anyone. Although boundary changes may change this a bit (they were mooted, though not sure if they are in place for next GE or not), Labour has won a majority (in 2005) on marginally over 35% of the vote. There’s really only a tiny chance they will ever mathematically have to go cap in hand and let the SNP have a referendum, and an even smaller chance they’ll do so in practice. No-one should be relying on this scenario ever bearing fruit.

In some cases, it's just thickness as well. They don't like football, so it is not a valid way to enjoy yourself/not important/it can't be providing that function and "even if it does, who cares how you want to spend your time? You've to do what I want"'.

Re the football/mental health thing, why do these folk saying "why can't you just go without it?" think folk go? It's because it's fun and cathartic. They will (you'd hope anyway) all have things they do which they consider to be fun and cathartic (possibly trying to get football banned, mind). So when, as they are in some cases, they shriek about how "the social" won't give their man counselling or how other people are vying for limited mental health treatment, they might want to consider the likely effects of their demands that this fun and cathartic activity for other people be stopped, i.e. they might find that the mental health services they are upset about not being able to obtain become even more deluged because some people cannot access their usual source of catharsis/contentment. I make no attempt to say whether case numbers etc are "that bad that fun must be stopped", but it's certainly the case that some folk are a right spiteful lot regards how they think other people should be allowed to spend their leisure time and what's "worthy" in that regard.

The problem with your point 1 that no-one ever seems to be able to cover is why are Labour (when dependent on that SNP support to govern) entertaining a scenario which would see it disappear, I.E. when independence would mean no Scots MPs, SNP or otherwise, to prop them up? Even if you imagine that they’d say “ok but you don’t get to hold it till near the end of the Parliamentary term”, then all they’re doing is kicking the “we can’t win without some Scottish support” problem down the line till then. In any case, and without knowing what the alternative is necessarily, if independence is required hanging about hoping for an election result to throw up a rare result giving the SNP the balance of power and then relying on the goodwill of the Labour Party neither seems particularly satisfactory or a likely route to success. As I’ve said, it’s tricky and I’m not saying there’s another easy fix but I’d also be reticent to vote for anyone saying “give us your vote and then the Labour Party will make it easy for us to break up the union, honest”. It’d be disingenuous of them to pretend that it was more than a long shot that the result would be achieved in the first place, far less that a unionist party will play ball now.

Vaccined twice and awaiting a booster. However, it is not quite right to say that these folk are punishing the population, rather political leaders are punishing the rest of us through their political choices (but are delighted that the un-vaxed will take the blame as a population divided won't turn on them instead).

Leaving aside what anyone thinks about their respective approaches, it's similar to Boris. You will just get loads of people saying that "he/she's doing his/her best!" and add to that "I am not going to blame her for wanting to be safe rather than sorry!". Some folk may well still change their opinions on her, though. Just not that many because too many "admire her" rather than expecting her to do a good job re this or other policies. When you do admire someone, you will let them away with being rubbish.

No chance of that. Robertson is very much in the “inner core” and is the preferred heir apparent of Sturgeon herself to be her successor, whenever she eventually departs the scene. He’s far more “inner core” than some of the ministers in more prominent positions, e.g. Kate Forbes, Humza Yousaf. He will be saying nothing.

Tell you what, if it's all too much 'theatre' for you, why don't you just stay in out of the road and stop whining, you insufferable c*nt? You're all about what's convenient for you. But what if it's not convenient for other diners to put up with your shit?

If we don't test identified contacts and don't isolate them what is the alternative especially in certain professions. Really cant see an issue with testing to avoid isolation at least in the short term. You simply cannot have staff identified as close contacts in say a hospital going untested if you want to stop isolating given the incubation period of the virus. That would literally leave health boards wide open to litigation attempts no matter how hard it would be to try and prove. You would have those staff coming into contact with the vulnerable day in day out. Simply not going to happen. Yes, but if you just want to pretend it isn't happening in order to make sure you get your own way, you don't think like that.

Insightful. Thank you.