Ten years ago in the approach to the indyref, Scotland famously did not have a single pro-independence daily newspaper, but now it has precisely one. Plenty of indy supporters criticise The National for plenty of different reasons, but whatever you think of it, surely it’s obvious that it’s in all our interests that the paper does not fail or fold. That’s why the negative reaction to Owen Jones’ appointment as a regular columnist seems miguided in the extreme to me – he’s one of the star commentators of the British press, and hiring him can only boost the paper’s credibility and hopefully its readership too.
I have plenty of problems with him as an individual, mostly due to his intolerance towards anyone who disagrees with him on the trans issue. But in many ways he’s a good fit for a pro-indy paper at the moment because he seems to have genuine admiration for the way Humza Yousaf has spoken up about Gaza, and he is also scathing about Keir Starmer – which he made the subject of his first regular column. He pointed out that even in comparison with the centre-right Tony Blair, there is no inspirational progressive vision on offer from Starmer. We could mention devolution at this point, which was an obvious incentive for Scots to vote for Blair in 1997, but the reality is that Starmer will probably further undermine devolution, not build on it.
What seems to be about to happen is Scotland’s equivalent of the Quebec portion of the Canadian federal election in 2011, when the pro-independence Bloc Québécois finally lost majority status after six consecutive election wins. But for that to happen required a so-called ‘French Kiss’ from the New Democratic leader Jack Layton, who offered substantial constitutional and language concessions to the sovereigntist support base. By contrast, Scotland seems to be selling itself to Labour in return for nothing but a Glasgow Kiss, and that’s the real tragedy.
Moderation policy: I’ve decided to experiment with switching pre-moderation off in the comments section of this blog to encourage more free-flowing debate. The quid pro quo, though, is that I henceforth reserve the right to delete (or possibly edit) any comment for absolutely any reason I see fit, and without explanation, so please only comment if you understand and accept that. Part of the reason I had to switch pre-moderation on in the first place was the sheer exhaustion of endlessly having to deal with people demanding explanations for their comments being deleted – so please note that any comments criticising or querying moderation decisions will generally be deleted without reply (and that applies no matter how many times you indignantly re-post them!).
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I am currently fundraising in the hope of running a new Scot Goes Pop opinion poll in the near future – details can be found HERE, and the fundraiser page itself is HERE.
