Alba....Alaba...Ali Baba...Alex Salmond's Fairy Tale

[Stavros]

The news that Alex Salmond, the former First Minister of Scotland who led his Scottissh National Party to defeat in the 2014 Independence Referendum, has created a new party, reminds one of Nigel Farage, another constant loser who can't let go of his shipwrecked plank. Because I don't live in Scotland I have no direct say in this fairy tale, in which a loser like Salmond, his reputation as a bully and a sex pest cemented into the public imagination, has any chance of achieving what breakaway parties rarely achieve -relevance

Are Scots going to vote for Alba? Does Salmond retain public, indeed, popular support, or is this new vehicle another form of what is seen as revenge on his protege Nicola Sturgeon and a feeling he has that he is no longer welcome in the SNP? His party is unlikely to split the Nationalist vote because he has already stated Alba will not contest seats directly with the SNP-

"Salmond said that the list-only party expected to field a minimum of four candidates in each regional list, with the aim of electing Alba MSPs from every area of Scotland (https://www.theguardian.com/uk/scotland). Salmond also announced he would be a list candidate in the north-east region for the Scottish parliament elections, which will be held on 6 May."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/26/alex-salmond-launches-new-independence-focused-political-party-alba

It is a pity that Scotland clings to Independence as a political objective, when for the benefit of the UK, the reformation of the country as a Federal Republic is to be preferred, or some form of Federation, rather than the 'Union' as it is currently known.

The irony is that the roots of Alba lie in the Greek for White, and the designation of Alba that morphed into Albion, an ancient name for Britain, with the weird possibiity that Albania is a relative, etymologically at least, though some might feel the politics of Scotland the politics of Albania are not so different. For another designation of Alba in its early days differentiated the Picts of what is now Northern Scotand from the rabble in the Southern area.

As Scotland began, so it has contined...

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led;
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victory!

[Laphroaig]

I'm still undecided as to whether Salmond's intervention will be an aid or a hindrance but one thing is for certain, the sooner Scotland can get out of this toxic union the better. Hopefully Wales will see the light and then a united Ireland will let England wallow alone in it's self inflicted Brexit misery.

Promises were made and broken after the 2014 referendum. As a result reform is no longer seen as a viable option. That, along with the Brexit betrayal, will not be forgotten.

As for losers with a poor public reputation, you only have to look at Galloway on the other side...

[Stavros]

Tedious though it is to say, it is still too early to know what impact Brexit and the Covid Pandemic is going to have on politics in the UK in general, and Scotland in particular. The Independence idea is strong, but it seems the practical realities are as distant as they have always been, and I don't see Salmond helping the cause, it is pathetic really, and the sort of grandstanding that Galloway tried in the past with his own vanity project that went nowhere. It is sometimes hard to remember where Galloway comes from, as my instant reaction to his name is 'idiot' rather than 'Scot'. At least we won't have long to find out, given that the elections are in May.

What I also don't know is how resilient the Labour vote is in Scotland, as its apparent decline is - or ought to be- one of the bigest political stories of the decade, on a par with the collapse of the Socialist parties of Italy, France, Netherlands, and to some extent Germany too. I am not sure the Tories have made a good move wth Douglas Ross, as Ruth Davidson, for all the crap she often talks, is a fine performer and a robust debater. Had she wanted it, I think she could have a seat in Westminster and a stab at PM, but how much is just froth -dare I say, Scotch Mist?- I am still not sure, except for Ross who looks and sounds like a schooboy struggling with the grown-ups. After all, being effective on the telly is what did it for Boris, as with Blair -but not surly Brown.

[Laphroaig]

Brexit is already having a massive impact on the Scottish shellfish industry, ironically some of whom voted for it...

In theory Salmond's idea makes sense and they will undoubtedly get votes from independence supporters who for various reasons won't vote SNP. How many and whether SNP/Greens and Alba combined can reach the supermajority he's aiming for is up for debate.

As for Galloway...

https://twitter.com/georgegalloway/status/1375454488652288003

Starmer calling for Sturgeon to resign should she have been found to have broken the ministerial code while saying Hancock should remain in his position, despite being found to have broken the law in court sums up how out of touch and irrelevant Labour have become in Scotland.

Ruth Davidson used to have a decent reputation (for a Tory) in Scotland. However, a lot have seen the other side of Ruth during the desperate failed political assassination of Sturgeon and have changed their minds on her. Her successor as Scottish Conservative leader, Jackson Carlow, was a disaster and laughing stock. Douglas Ross is a clown who's not even well respected in his second job as a football linesman.

[Stavros]

Brexit is already having a massive impact on the Scottish shellfish industry, ironically some of whom voted for it...

In theory Salmond's idea makes sense and they will undoubtedly get votes from independence supporters who for various reasons won't vote SNP. How many and whether SNP/Greens and Alba combined can reach the supermajority he's aiming for is up for debate.

As for Galloway...

https://twitter.com/georgegalloway/status/1375454488652288003

Starmer calling for Sturgeon to resign should she have been found to have broken the ministerial code while saying Hancock should remain in his position, despite being found to have broken the law in court sums up how out of touch and irrelevant Labour have become in Scotland.

Ruth Davidson used to have a decent reputation (for a Tory) in Scotland. However, a lot have seen the other side of Ruth during the desperate failed political assassination of Sturgeon and have changed their minds on her. Her successor as Scottish Conservative leader, Jackson Carlow, was a disaster and laughing stock. Douglas Ross is a clown who's not even well respected in his second job as a football linesman.

At the moment, it is a treadmill, and I am not sure the May elections will change a lot, as from what you say the SNP may lose votes but not enough to benefit the other parties, setting aside the unknown support for Alba, though breakaway parties have a dismal history in the UK. We may have to wait another year for Covid to subsde and Brexit return to the top of the agenda for real chage to happen, if it is going to happen.

I was going to say something about Galloway, but he isn't worth the effort that it takes. And one notes his party has been a permanent flop since he started it, but it was always a one-man show. And thanks for the remark on Ross, I had no idea of his role as a linesman -there must be a joke in there somewhere, but I can't think of one.

[rodinuk]

And thanks for the remark on Ross, I had no idea of his role as a linesman -there must be a joke in there somewhere, but I can't think of one.

he’s already been sidelined *boom-boom*

[Stavros]

he’s already been sidelined *boom-boom*

Hmmm...not exactly Frankie Boyle material, Scotland's dark demonic destoyer. But it will do for now. Thanks!

[Laphroaig]

And thanks for the remark on Ross, I had no idea of his role as a linesman -there must be a joke in there somewhere, but I can't think of one.

He writes his own...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax_VfEuTYfA

[Stavros]

He writes his own...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax_VfEuTYfA

Nice one, Cyril!

[Laphroaig]

Polls these days seem to be notoriously unreliable but it's not looking good for Salmond's comeback.

https://archive.is/Haims

[Stavros]

The historical record is not kind to parties that seek to challenge an established hegemony such as we have in the UK. The irony is that the SNP itself began as a fringe outfit that struggled for relevance, until its victory in a bye-election in Hamilton on the 2nd day of November, 1967. Fun fact, either on that day when it was released or shortly thereafter I bought Cream's Disraeli Gears, so though I remember the SNP's victory as a news item, my focus at the time was on the music.

And to add to the above, it took the SNP decades to estabish itself as a party of relevance capable of breaking the Conservatve/Labour hegemony in Scotland, much as the Labour Party, founded in 1900 did not become a relevant party in the UK until the 1920s. The point is that since then, breakaway parties have failed, mostly because of the leadershp as well as a lack of sufficient appeal to the electorate.

The unusual case of UKIP is shot through with the fact that when Farage took over the leaderhsp from Alan Sked, he changed the trajectory of UKIP which had been to challenge the UK's membership of the EU within the UK, and took the party into the heart of the EU itself, in the process monetizing its prospects through the EU Parliament gravy train into whose generous trough Farage stuck his snout as deep as it would go. But, the man's abysmal management of the party and the fact that any nutcase and neo-Nazi could join it meant UKIP under Farage was constantly having to discipline, punish or expel candidates and members, so that when Farage gave up the leadership the party fell apart in bitter arguments and rivalries.

The only breakaway party to rival UKIP was the SDP that was formed from ex-Labour MPs when their party voted to leave the EU as a matter of policy in 1981. Unlike UKIP, the SDP had too many leaders, and a poor organisation that meant a lot of the candidates they had emerged from nowhere with no experience of front line poltics. Because the Labour Party did not fall apart -and under the leadership of Neil Kinnock and John Smith purged the party of Militant and changed its policies, it was no surprise the SDP fell apart within years, though at the time the two Essex boys (Ivor Crewe and Anthony King) declared an age of party 'dealignment' which never happened -in England and Wales- but which has happened in Scotland, a trend that had begun years before.

The flaw in Alba is thus all to obvious -it is Alex Salmond's vehicle, a blade chibbed at the face of a Scottish political machine that has spit him out, with a sense of grievance and entitlement that suggests it will not last long. On that basis, one has to appreciate the success of the SNP, which had been organizing well in the years before Ewing's victory in 1967 and thus had developed a substantial campaining machine with a message that was been fundamental to Scottish politics long before that- and through devolution has transformed it, with Salmond in recent years being a particularly effective leader.

That the SNP has received such a wide spread of support in Scotland seems to open the door for other parties, but it is in fact something difficult to achieve, as the Green Party has discovered in England. And in Germany, where the Greeen Party has had its most important victories in Europe, they seem unable to double their vote, becoming a perennial small, if influential party only capable of achieving junior status in a coalition.

In the US, Trump realised after his first tug at the Presidency failed, that he needed a ready-made organization and thus decided the Republican Party was it, in the process, and even after his defeat in 2020 undermining the prospects for any third force to challenge the existing hegemony. Why our systems seem to function best with limited choices has a complex explanation that is rooted in social movements that existed before the parties came into existence, or which changed in response to a changing environment, as happened with the Democrats in the 1920s. Thus, there was talk of a break-up of Labour in the Corbyn years, but the breakaway party Change UK flopped almost as soon as it started, and there seems to be no alternative, even as Keir Starmer struggles to re-establish Labour as a coherent alternative to the Conservatives.

The fate of the SNP now rests on its record in government rather than the pathetic antics of an embittered Baron who has been evicted from his castle. But as a party the SNP is here to stay.

https://www.snp.org/50-years-on-from-winnie-ewings-historic-hamilton-by-election-victory/

[Stavros]

The sudden death of Alex Salmond may not cause an earthquake in Scotland, or anywhere else, but it does summon up remembrance of things past, such as his fraught relationship with 'Mr Golf', Donald J Trump.

From a lunch between the two (who paid the bill?) in New York (at Le Perigord, whatever that is -do they do burgers and fries?) various claims have been made about promises of this and that, the key being that while Trump hates wind farms, which were part of Salmond's green energy future for Scotland, they both warmed to the idea of Trump creating thousands and thousands of jobs in Scotland, jobs which, guess what?, never materialized.

In the end, Salmond realized Trump is a con-man, and said so. After Trump opposed independence for Scotland for its impact on Golf (!) this-

"“One little thing, what would they do with the British Open if they ever got out?” Trump asked. “They’d no longer have the British Open. Scotland. Keep it in Scotland.”
Salmond, who led the campaign ahead of the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 — and resigned after voters opted to remain part of the U.K. — responded by saying Trump was “a complete and utter nincompoop.”
“Donald Trump’s opposition to independence should seal the deal for the SNP [Scottish National Party] — and to do it on the basis of Scotland losing the ‘British Open’ is typical,” Salmond said, clarifying that the prestigious golf tournament is called The Open, not The British Open.
“The Grand Canyon is a minor crevice compared to the vast chasm of ignorance of that man,” the former MP said.".
Alex Salmond: Trump is ‘a complete and utter nincompoop’ – POLITICO (https://www.politico.eu/article/alex-salmond-trump-is-a-complete-and-utter-nincompoop/)

More detail here-
Why did it take Alex Salmond so long to turn on Donald Trump? | Anthony Baxter | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/20/alex-salmond-donald-trump-scotland)