SNP are fundamentally misreading the nature of Alba’s appeal to voters

I’m not in any way going to defend Alex Arthur’s past views on Romanians and the vaccine (I was vaccinated last week, incidentally). But the jubilation in some quarters yesterday about a supposed failure of “vetting” brought home to me just how fundamentally the SNP are misreading the nature of potential Alba Party voters. Anyone looking for a safety-first party with bland candidates who have never gone off-script in their lives would be sticking with the SNP anyway. The real attraction of a new party is for people who want a bit of fire, a bit of passion, a bit of authenticity, a bit of free-thinking, and a bit of risk-taking – even if that means the odd mistake here and there. Why do they want that? Because that’s the sort of party they can imagine delivering independence, rather than settling in and enjoying the next thirty years of devolution (or however long is left before the Tories abolish the Scottish Parliament). So, no, yesterday’s events will not have put anyone off. Indeed for a new party trying to get noticed, there’s a case to be made that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.