On a Difference of Opinion
One of the things the Better Together campaign tried to convince us of during the independence referendum campaign was that there was no significant political difference between Scotland and the rest of the UK in general, and England in particular. That always struck me as a tendentious proposition, but it's only in the last couple of weeks that I've run the numbers and discovered quite how false it was.
YouGov's startling remain/leave map is one of the pieces of information which started me investigating; the other was the claim by a Twitter user (I've forgotten whom) that Scotland wasn't really any more left wing than England.
Now, of course, what counts as 'left wing' depends on your standpoint; the particular Twitter user with whom I discussed this believed that Labour were left wing, and that the SNP were not. The Political Compass disagrees on both points, and I'd tend to trust the Political Compass as a fairly neutral observer on this. In any case, the question is not whether one party is or is not 'left wing' in an absolute sense, but whether one position is more (or less) left wing than another.
In defence of John Whittingdale
Life imitates art, but when it does so it's unsettling. I'm in the process of writing a novel in which the protagonist publicly defends the practice of BDSM. That provides a degree of safe distancing; I am not my protagonist and, in any case, hardly anyone reads my novels so it wouldn't be a great deal of exposure.
I don't normally write publicly about my sexuality, and I am also not someone who's entirely comfortable defending Tories. However, let's start.
A couple of weeks ago in a press interview, Kezia Dugdale said, in simple, dignified terms, that she had a female lover, and this was published without sensation. The press had known the fact, apparently, for years, but no-one had thought it appropriate to 'out' her. Her privacy was respected, as it should have been. In the days after the interview was printed, the Scottish press and the Scottish chattering classes congratulated ourselves at how much we'd grown up as a nation, that we no longer saw someone's sexuality as a matter for public discussion.
Draft letter to Nicola Sturgeon on BothVotesSNP
Dear Nicola Sturgeon
You know as well as we do that the Scottish National Party is — deservedly — well on the way to an epic victory in the coming election. You know that the SNP will win all — or almost all — of the constituency seats — and will deserve to. But you also know as well as we do that victory in this election — that forming the next administration — is not an end for the SNP: it is only a means to an end.
The end is to create a better Scotland, and you believe — as we do — that to achieve that requires the powers which will come with independence.
BothVotesSNP? That only helps Unionists
The SNP — including the normally-sensible Nicola Sturgeon — have been banging on incessantly for weeks for everyone to vote BothVotesSNP. This is utter madness, if what you care about is Scotland and our future as a nation. On the current polling, we get the following:
That is to say, pro-independence parties — SNP and Greens — would have a total of only 79 seats at Holyrood, against 50 pro-union seats. That is a majority, but it isn't overwhelming. The unionists will still get plenty of air-time, plenty of coverage, and, most importantly of all, plenty of tax-payers money in the form or salaries for MSPs, researchers and associated staff. With that money they'll be able to campaign.
And notice that seven of those pro-union MSPs are UKIP.
Let's hear it for Mugabe-style land-grabs
Those opposed to a substantive redistribution of land in Scotland accuse those of us in favour of substantive land redistribution of 'Mugabe-style land grabs'. The white people of Zimbabwe, we're told, 'own' lots of land on which they have productive farms. The elected president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, is, we're told, a bad man because he wants to seize this land off the nice white people and give it to his supporters (who are black).
Let's just recall a little history. Between 1810 and 1831, the Marquis of Stafford drove the people of Sutherland off the good land they had customarily farmed onto poor and marginal land, and replaced them with imported sheep farmers. The common folk of Sutherland did not consent to this; no legislative assembly in which they were represented gave authority for it.