by Peter Thomson
Maybe’s aye, maybe’s na.
The ecstatic days of May 5th are behind us. The sickness at the heart of the Parliamentary Union is now clear to see. Many of us pro-independence voters are getting a bit touchy about what is seen as the odd ‘summer gaff’ by SNP backbenchers at Holyrood being blown up into a non ‘crisis’ by the very same parties that are failing to deal with a major and real crisis on their own Westminster doorstep.
The usual suspects in the North British media are doing their best to turn Lord Steele’s ‘dummy spitting oot’ into a story about SNP neo-fascism and the SNP ‘lust’ for a one party state. Yet the falling sales and audience viewing figures tell a different story about the Scottish public’s real view of where they want Scotland to go and the growing contempt for the North British media’s too poor, too wee, too stupid line. The Westminster propaganda line is like an old 78 record with a crack in it, jumping to repeat the same thing over and over again but few Scots now listen to His Master’s Voice.
It is clear the world of business is sensing the dead hand of Westminster may well be lifted from Scotland pretty soon. Wee Eck forcing Westminster’s hand over the North Sea HDVC supergrid has given quite a few the heads up. As a result Scotland is seeing large levels of inward investment by multi-national companies with their European HQ and R&D being set up in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. International money is being poured into the tidal energy sector. A rough back of the fag packet calculation indicates the total inward investment in Scotland over the last year is around the £1 billion mark. This is reflected by an economy growing faster than the rest of the UK and employment levels which are comparatively high for a world down turn, though you would not believe it if you were following the ‘news’ in the Scottish ‘olds’.
On the downside the English riots and the North British media’s hysterical reporting of them have caused major damage to the tourism sector. There are already major losses being reported in small and medium sized hotels from last minute cancellations by overseas visitors across Scotland – not including the money these visitors would have fed into many rural and local economies. Is this the Union benefit the likes of Steele, Forsyth and Reid seek to propound?
Amongst us pro-independence wallahs there is much angst and uncertainty. Is the SNP moving too fast or too slow? Just when will the SNP release the attack dogs? How much longer will the SNP allow these scurrilous attacks by the media to go unanswered? Why wait until 2014 for the referendum? What about UDI?
We independistas are also clearly suffering from summer fever with too little information and too much time in which to speculate about it. Maybe we all need to take a holiday until the SNP formally announce their program for the next five years after the summer recess.
We can be certain the Referendum Bill will be the headliner, the reorganisation of Scottish police forces appears on the radar, potentially removing another area of current Unionist patronage via the Labour held councils. And maybe Swinney will take the bull by the horns and shut down the Crown Estate’s holdings in Scotland by statutory order, triggering yet another bout of too wee, too poor, too stupid hand-wringing by Westminster. In the meanwhile the process of levering out the Unionist cabal from quangos and other positions of vested interest continues in a slowly, slowly manner.
Me? I would prefer a quango bonfire but that is probably just the summer fever talking. I just need to get back out on the golf course as soon as the rain has moved elsewhere.
‘Fish are jumpin’ and the weather is hot …’
Aye. And I wish!