This week, here are some thoughts on the May election. Please feel free to share widely. You can either share this page or direct people to YouTube using this link: https://youtu.be/aXUizxV2VD0
Don Roberto & Me
A blog about Scotland and being Scottish
Don Roberto & Me 
excellent stuff Jamie.
you are great on video 🙂
Neil
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Neil Baker writer and communications consultant +44 (0)7973 894358 Web: http://www.neilthewriter.co.uk Twitter: @neilbaker Instagram: @neilbaker LinkedIn: wwwuk.linkedin.com/in/writerneilbaker Come on a Dark Angels writing course: http://www.dark-angels.org.uk/ _______________________________________
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Very good Jamie, could be the start of a new career. Not in agreement with that very last comment though. Depending where you live, second vote Green.
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Thanks – not sure about the career, might be a little old for that! But there will certainly be more to come. On the Green vote issue, see my reply to Drew below.
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Always interested to hear your lucid commentary, Jamie. The passion and urgency in this excellent piece to camera only added to it.
Like the commenter above I was with you all the way until the final exhortation to vote SNP 1 & 2. I appreciate that’s a sound tactic in many places but the Scottish electoral system is designed to confound even the best laid plans. In several areas of Scotland – notably Glasgow and Edinburgh, but elsewhere too – using your second vote for the Greens can be more effective in delivering another seat at Holyrood to the pro-independence vote.
Despite a lot of acrid attacks from certain factions within the SNP, the Greens are robust allies in the independence movement. Moreover, Green policies and political power will be crucial in another, larger, and arguably equally urgent issue facing us all – how to rebuild society for the mutual benefit of the environment and humanity.
Notwithstanding, thank you for an excellent piece to camera. Thoughtful and thought-provoking as ever!
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This is such a complex issue, Drew, and I’m sure you know I mean no disrespect to the Greens (I have in the past given my second vote to the Greens), but it does depend very much on who you listen to. My understanding is that for this election above all others, the SNP needs to get as big a share of the list vote as it does of the constituency vote, in order to secure the absolutely crucial overall majority that will confer legitimacy on everything that follows. The maths are arcane and very hard to follow (as intended, no doubt) – and I’m open to persuasion that my take on it is wrong! But I do fear the consequences of not doing everything humanly possible to get that clear SNP majority in the bag. Thank you anyway for your gracious response; it’s impossible to disagree that there’s a bigger issue at stake, but at this precise juncture it feels a little as if there are two competing urgencies!
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Believe in Scotland/Business for Scotland will be doing work closer to the election to see where it makes sense to not waste the second vote. Once the info is available I will make sure it gets to you. In the Highlands folk should vote for Andy Wightman who has moved to Lochaber and is standing as an independent.
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Thank You that was an Excellent analysis of what is important in voting SNP next May
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I was feeling down about our hopes. This has re energised me and i have shared widely. Thank you.
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This is an excellent video and your sincerity shines through, but… what evidence can you show that the SNP under Sturgeon are prepared to confront the British state and fight for independence?
A fight is what will be required – I do not mean physical violence but sustained opposition, leading to civil disobedience if necessary. From speaking out on GERS, to consulting on a constitution, to making May a plebiscite election, to withdrawing SNP MPs from Westminster, to engaging with instead of denigrating the wider indy movement, where is the action? In multiple ways it is clear this woman wants power, first; independence comes a very distant second. As Maya Angelou famously said, when someone shows you who they are, you do well to believe them the first time.
The SNP has legions (well, fast decreasing) of good sincere activists who believe in indy, but the entire party has been stitched up like a kipper – local branches are kept out of the loop, their motions shredded by HQ. They don’t even know until the last minute which gender woowoo candidate will be parachuted in to gain a seat. The NEC is run by unelected people who have never in the last 3 years even TALKED of independence and have acted grossly ultra vir. So much money has disappeared that the party depends on Short money from WM just to stay afloat, barely! Mostly, lawyers, SPADS and the MSM (£3.0 million bung) get rich. Sturgeon has thrown in her lot with a highly vocal minority of transgender activists.
All this could be corrected if the party base still had control, but it no longer does. Sturgeon has perfected a takeover. It has become a Murrell family business where opposing voices are ruthlessly silenced.
No leader who sincerely wants to “max the Yes” would drive through hugely controversial, women-biology denying, thought crime targeting bills like GRA and HCB weeks before a vital election. Let’s not even talk of the stitch-up of Alex Salmond. This should tell you who she really is. On past performance – usually a good indicator – she will drop indy two minutes after winning a majority. Nobody who wants to hand the starting gun for independence to Boris Johnson to fire is a true fighter for the freedom of Scotland. Nobody who ruthlessly sidelines superb indy talent like Joanna Cherry (and who cannot even bring herself to express sympathy for the appalling sexual abuse heaped on a good woman who has delivered knockout blows against the Tories) is anything more than a vile machine politician. Are you really saying “a little corruption is ok, let’s sort it out later” ? You really think she will deliver the Scotland that you, and we all, dream of?
We see how corruption made manifest in the Lord Advocate, the COPFS, the police, the top civil servant (whose contract was inexplicably renewed with a hefty salary bonus, when Sturgeon had a golden opportunity to send her back to the British State). You think this will magically stop if we reelect her?
With due respect, you are deluded, Jamie.
Anyone who thinks that independence can only be achieved with the celebrity reality queen St. Nicola is not thinking straight The SNP needs shock therapy. Of course, Independence will come. What are a few yeas in the life of a nation? You can only dislodge the malign grip of the Murrells by delivering a blow at the ballot box. That is the sole decision point (along, so far, with the judiciary) that they have not managed to pervert. The best outcome would be a surge producing a new list party that can hold their feet to the fire. The next best will be a coalition including Unionists, because the sheer shock and consequent groundswell of anger at that outcome would so shake the SNP to its roots that it would generate a new leadership dedicated to indy.
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Sounds like Nicola nicked your sweeties or maybe you’re a plant trying too hard to grow discontent in the Independence garden..!
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I have just recently been alerted to your blog via a posting in WeeGingerDug. Wonderful videos, genuine and informative. Your fame must be spreading as you have already attracted the attention of SNP nay-sayers. You are obviously getting things right.
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Thanks Alistair. I’d be interested to know where the WGD reference was if you can remember?
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Reference to your blog was made in the comments section of the following WGD post – https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2021/03/19/the-two-doors/
Both of your recent videos were shown at 1.09PM and 5.04PM respectively on 20 March and were well received.
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