So it was the SNP's party conference a day or two ago. The SNP reiterated their stance that getting rid of nuclear weapons is a
reason for independence and will never become a bargaining chip in future negotiations with the British government.
Would anyone like to see how The Scotsman newspaper (one of the most widely circulated in Scotland) reported the conference in their big Sunday paper, after the conference was over and it was time for assessments?
The headline their chief political editor,
Kenny Farquharson, chooses is about Nigel Farage whose party has lost their deposit every time they've stood in Scotland, apart from in Euro elections. I'm not even going to give that disgraceful photograph a mention.
The other journalists (there's about 6 big names and they all know each-other) were reporting about football fans protesting outside the conference at some kind of sectarian law and how much the SNP delegates cheered when a visiting poet/playwright made a few digs at the royal family on the stage. That's apparently important because the SNP are Monarchist on paper. You can see the priorities of our press.
You should have seen guys like Kenny when Labour were having their conference. That smug little self-important swine was absolutely creaming himself over the prospect of Labour's devolution proposals, then when they finally came they were so awful he spent the next few days analysing them (a good start, he said, meaning he was disappointed) then he spent days trying to debate with Labour politicians about the proposal's shortcomings.
For the SNP conference he spent the whole time talking about how Alex Salmond didn't read his speech as well as he normally does and casting up stuff about the SNP's conference tribute to Margo MacDonald, a very famous ex-SNP independent politician who died last week. He was talking about how they expelled her and shit;
Those of us who remember the vicious SNP leadership briefings against Margo are bemused by the #snp14 platform Margolove.
I feel like we're fighting against a brick wall, I really do. Right now he's complaining about how pro-Yes activists are so down on Farage and the Tories.
What a curious view of an inclusive Scotland some Yes folk have: "no place in Scotland for Farage", even though his party currently /
/ outpolling Lib Dems and Greens in Scotland; the yearning for Scotland as "a Tory-free zone", even though more than 400,000 Scots voted /
/ Tory in 2010, just short if the SNP tally; the squeamishness about English "colonists", especially in the arts; the appetite for some /
/ newspapers and journalists to meet their demise after Indy. Disnae seem very inclusive to me. Thankfully most senior SNP folk are /
/ appalled at this. The civic nature of our nationalist party is one of Scotland's greatest achievements. But the #indyref has been an /
/ eye-opener about some of the camp followers.
That little bit about the newspapers and journalists is a reference to the comments made by my fellow pro-Yes activists where they regularly wish the Scotsman and Kenny will go up in smoke one day. I certainly do. I really, really do.