If we win, well then we’ll have what none of us has ever had before: a country of our own.
I think it says something about modern life that the best quote that a Scotsman can find to fit the moment when Scotland got the balls to take a step closer to leaving foreign rule for the first time in centuries was something said by Mel Gibson.
I had real trouble voting yesterday. The Tories I didn’t have to think about of course, the LibDems are sell-out bitches of the Tories (we really need a proper Liberal party back) and there was the question of Labour. Jackie Baillie is our MSP and seems to do a good job, she was always getting back in, but my vote is precious to me, as odd as it sounds I feel the weight of history in that piece of paper and the fight to give me the right to put my cross on it. So I can’t tactical vote, or worse still not vote, but the SNP had upset me so much with some ridiculous decisions that I thought of saying “Go on Jackie, wire in…”. Until that bloke came up, looks like one of Dick and Dom, the Labour leader and proclaimed that he wanted Scotland back. I’ve always said that Scotland was worn like a cub scout achievement badge on Labour’s sleeve to annoy Westminster and that stupid bastard proved me right in front of the whole country. Add to that the LibDems bending over and touching their toes for a little bit of the limelight and Scotland has voted SNP.
Who knows where it will go, the TV is full of speculation, but we really don’t know. One thing I hope for is a restoration of national confidence. It’s too easy for folk here to sit on their arses and blame south of the border for all our troubles when it’s actually all our own fault, apathy and lack of self belief gets mixed into our porridge and shortbread.
National pride doesn’t have to be realised at the expense of anyone else, the more we take control of our own affairs the more we’ll grow up, maybe then we can stop bubbling in the corner saying that the big boy did it and take responsibility for our many failings and rejoice in our glories too. Mistakes are okay, not trying in case you make them isn’t.
Here’s to the future. Whatever the hell it is.
I had the same dilema and ended up voting for an independent and the greens
I also think an SNP majority might be A BAD THING.
However, I also think the Scottish public are a sophisticated electorate and that they vote differenrlt in different elections.
So while we think that Alex is the right man to look after Scotland’s interests and the right man to stand up to the Con/Dems , I also think an independence vote would return a resounding ‘No’
(two words – Iceland and Ireland).
Aye, it was dire having to vote in Wales yesterday. The constituency ballot had Tory / LibDem / Labour / Plaid… call that a choice? At least there was a longer list including Green on the regional PR list ballot.
The only easy one was the AV referendum :)
Aye, I don’t see full independance unless something huge changes.
But, the possibility of it is a threat of sorts, and I can see it being used as leverage in Westminster.
It’ll be interesting for sure. I wonder if we’ll be coast to coast in wind turbines in four years?
Matt, our regional list was two feet long :o)
We got one Green in at the last count which is important, there’s really not much variety in there this term.
“It’ll be interesting for sure. I wonder if we’ll be coast to coast in wind turbines in four years?”
As far as I could see from down here in the land of milk & honey whoever got to hold the reins up there were rooting for more wind power. It’s just that Wee Alex wants “more than 100%” coming from renewables…
Why not come for a walk on the 17th?
http://alansloman.blogspot.com/2011/05/wake-for-wild-tuesday-17th-may-2011.html
That whole renewables thing has been one of my biggest worries.
Read the Wake thing on your blog there, that could be a possible depending on what else is doing.
Email me your address Pete and I’ll send you the ‘wheres and whens’. My contact details are on the same blog post.
Cheers
Alan
Done!
Passionate summary of events. Felt exactly the same, wanted to vote SNP in some ways, but Menie Estate – Trumpville, the Beauly-Denny power line and Monadhliath have really angered me. What’s the alternative to the SNP, an out of touch Labour, never again Libs or the Greed is Good party. Depressing…
Re: Your comments regarding self determination.
I was saying the same thing in work today as justification for voting SNP.
Personally I don’t think anything regarding standard of living, economy etc would change significantly if Scotland became independent. We would gain in some aspects and lose in others.
What we would gain though would be self belief and we would be more confident and more self reliant. A bit like growing up and maturing.
As far as Iceland and Ireland are concerned, the reason they are being bailed out is because they(collectively) borrowed recklessly and behaved imprudently.
Being independent had nothing to do with that. And it is worth remembering that they still have a better standard of living than us and are likely to for the forseeable future
Scotland has finally grown the balls to give the finger to the westminster led parties and decided to elect outright a party who will not simply bend over in the shower for the likes of Cameron or god help us nerd milliband,this has got to be a good thing for the auld country,it surely can’t be worse than what we have had,this is the most exciting scottish politics has been for about 30 years, since that Labour government fu@#ed us and the Tories stepped in and helped themselves to our oil!
Fatwalker – RBS followed exactly the same high risk, vast balance sheet to to (derivative heavy) assets stupidity as the icelantic and Irish banks. HBOS was little better. The Uk goverment was – just about– able to bail us out of what was essentially a Scottish banking crises. And the banking sector is far from out of the woods.
We might be a confident nation, but we are not a big one or an economic powerhouse.
Oh – and I vowed never to vote SNP when they ruled out nuclear. Stupid stupid windfarmtastically stupid
Well said!
All good points here. There is no absolute right or wrong, it’s how work through it is the test we’ll be judged on.
DavidG. I don’t disagree at all but… I seem to recall the UK getting bailed out in the seventies by the IMF. And the UK will have the largest deficit (as a proportion of GDP) of all the developed countries. So I don’t see that belonging to the UK is any better.
After all there are loads of small countries that didn’t need bailing out.
It is also true that if RBS had gone under it would have affected the rest of the UK and many other countries like the US (Citizens bank) as much as Scotland as that was where the bulk of their business was done. So there would have been an EU /multi national response.
The Scandinavian banks has a similar problem in the nineties (though not as large) and handled it well.
Finally, there is the possibilty that an independent Scotland would have had the mooted oil fund similar to the Norwegian’s which could have been used to help out though I doubt that we would have been disciplined as they have been with it…it is now the second largest fund of its type in the World
Oh and I should have pointed out… a relatively small part of the deficit was used to bail out the banks. The majority of the UK deficit was used to stimulate the economy or was existing deficit that had been run up when labour decided to abandon their economic discipline(for laudable reasons in many cases) after their first term.
The one advantage that the UK did have was that it could guarantee a lot of bank borrowing when the confidence in the banks was low. Most bad debt fears simply did not materialise and the majority huge losses by the banks were paper losses where they made assumptions that loans were not going to be repaid. This will actually increase bank profitably in the future as the default rate has been significantly less than many prediction (up to now at any rate)
We shouldn’t really have been surprised by the result.
The performance of the SNP as a minority government as far as the majority of the Scottish voters are concerned, has been very good.
They have an excellent leader and they presented a positive campaign.
The other parties in comparison resorted to their usual negative campaigning.
The Scottish voters also voiced their views on the Liberal sellout and also the seemingly clueless Scottish Labour Party who seem to be following the path of the Scots Tories in disappearing up here, because they are merely branch offices of London based organisations.
But although one of your contributors rather ignorantly described the First Minister a “wee Alex”, even the most critical of his political opponents recognise the work that his party has done.
His interview on BBC Scotland tonight was indicative of his common sense. He said quite clearly that the timing of Scottish independence will be determined by the Scottish Electorate. Not by him or by the SNP. He knows full well that however much the SNP want independence, the planned referendum could quite easily be rejected by the electorate.
What most of your contributors have also not quite realised, is that the renewables policy had the backing of the majority of the Holyrood MP’s. Otherwise it would have been defeated, in the same way the other parties voted against other measures the SNP wanted to introduce.
Whilst we all value the outdoor world, our concerns and demands will just need to get into the queue along with other matters, such as Health, education, jobs, caring for the elderly and many, many more.
Unfortunately our concerns count as not important to the general public, who are much more upset when major job losses are announced, or child benefit is cut, or when the M8 is blocked for a day or so because of snowfall.
Interesting times lie before us, both South and North of the border.
Maybe we’ll be seen as a country instead of a region.
The patronising patter of anybody English on the BBC over the election made me seethe.