Alibi

I agree that a far more aggressive approach is needed in dealing with WM, rather than Swinney's meek forelock tugging "please sir can we have some more" grovelling. However the only way to mitigate further than is done at the moment would be to raise taxes or cut existing stuff, and either of these would be electoral suicide. the approach would be to demonstarte that independence would allow us to fund additional services and benefits, and I'd suggest that pledging to keep defence spending low would be a good start. I see that Starmer is wanting to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP - why is he so keen to do that rather than try to avoid getting dragged into wars and/or seeking to promote peacemaking across the globe? follow the money yet again...

The form of taxation is reserved, but if the SG can find the money to mitigate the effects, they could in theory do so. However as they have a fixed budget and can't borrow, they can't mitigate without making cuts elsewhere.

Be interesting to see if Liz Lloyd gets her collar felt or if she is untouchable. I'd like to think the truth will come out. BTW is there any suggestion that the £600k and the motorhome are in any way linked to the Salmond stitch-up plot? I'm assuming Peter Murrell is also part of that plot.

There's also the fact that if this additional benefit was paid, the money would be spent and would end up going back to the UK government in taxes. People aren't just going to stick it in their tax haven bank account and sit on it. At least it shows up these carpertbagger Labour MPs for what they are - Tories with a pink tie. Happy to send £3 billion a year to Ukraine to fight a proxy war that keeps the arms industry going, and huge sums to finance the genocide in Gaza again to the benefit of the arms industry, but give kids a better life? Fuck that. Utter scum, the entire LabTory Ponzi scheme.

Not sure what you're referring to there, but he's certainly not my mate. I have no idea who he actually is. Just someone with whom I disagree on that particular subject.

Which is the predator? Sturgeon? Or is she the monster?

Sorry but can't follow what you mean there. Sturgeon wanted to stop any further oil exploration surely? Now Labour are doing just that (which is a stupid move IMHO unless you can persuade all other oil producing countries to do the same). What is it you want the SG to do? My own view is that we should continue to explore and produce hydrocarbons while at the same time moving to reduce the burning of hydrocarbons - there are a lot of better ways to use hydrocarbons than burning them. Personally I think electric cars are a short term thing - eventually we will move to hydrogen which when combusted produces only water vapour.

I see Starmer is already talking about incresaing defence expenditure to 3% from the previous targt of 2.5%. why do politicians never suggest trying to work towards peace? It's always about enabling wars.

Just reinforces my decision not to renew my membership. At the one branch meeting I went to after rejoining (must have been some time last year as my membership ran out last September) I got the distinct feeling that there were some folk there whose priorities did not really include indy. I'm not referring to the candidate, Tracy Little, who I voted for last Thursday.

The more you think about it, the more it seems that there was a plan behind all the goings on. Also noticeable that Loz Lloyd seems to be popping out the woodwork frequently these days. She has become a go-to person for BBC Scotland. That rings alarm bells. She's UK civil service. Nuff said...

Yes, but given that the SNP rarely got list seats due to having taken so many constituency seats, there was an opportunity to get a supermajority if enough people could have been persauded to vote for an alternative pro-indy party in regions where the SNP wouldn't get list MSPs. Basically everywhere except South of Scotland and the Highlands. Don't know if it would still work because the SNP first vote might be lower now, and in any case the SNP would never have the imagination to do something like that. They don't want any other pro indy parties getting any traction.

That and her involvement in the Salmond stitch-up were huge red flags. I do wonder if corrupting the NEC was just a means of forcing through her GRR obsession or if it was part of a plan to harm the indy movement from inside. Why did she do the things she did? We need to know what she was really up to and who, if anyone, was pullng her strings. and we need to know soon because if we just stumble on with Swinney in charge then the 2026 election is going to be another disaster.

And a fat lot of good it did them. The "front page of manifesto" sentence about independence was just posturing. We have less than 2 years to the Holyrood elections and unless there is urgent action Sarwar is going to get in power, promoted by the MSM and BBC Scotland. Swinney needs to go. He is a chartered accountant of a politician, grey and uninspiring. That bright yellow glasses thing was cringeworthy. I would also hesitate about Forbes becoming leader because she's just too nice. Stephen Flynn showed that he would take no shite when he refused to say he would support England at the Euros - we need someone who will noise up the opposition like that, we don't need "nice". Joanna Cherry would also be invaluable, and she would be able to get us away from the self ID nonsense (which is the real problem with GRR, not the actual concept of GRR per se). Finally there needs to be a major purge of the infiltrators - surely some people must know who they are? Crucially the party needs to distance itself from Sturgeon - her involvement in the Salmond stitch-up should have set alarm bells ringing a long time ago but nobody was prepared to take her on directly. Keep going with Swinney and the party will be dead before 2026. Oh, and any SNP politician who genuflects to Prince Charles as Sturgeon did should be expelled from the party. No need to be rude to him but neither should there be any suggestion that we are somehow lesser people than the royal family. The clock is ticking.

I’m not an SNP member, Plinth. Did rejoin so I could attend a branch meeting to see what was going on but fair to say it didn’t end well when I spoke out against the demonisation of Salmond. Never went back & didn’t renew. I voted SNP though. The party needs rebooted. At the moment there is no valid alternative but no change will mean extinction. A civic movement is needed, Indy without constraints like must be in EU, get Indy then add policies to a blank canvas.

^^^^ This. ^^^^^