Front page on the National in October 2023, Common Weal’s Robin McAlpine appears.
Three days ago, he was telling us:
The SNP is a failed project
It is hard to express how dark my mood is today or how much pain I feel for the future of Scotland and independence. The SNP is unreformed and unreformable, and the rest of us are just onlookers
There is a Karl Lagerfeld quote by which I live my life: “Sweatpants are a sign of defeat.” John Swinney is a sign of defeat. This is a sign of a party not only incapable of regenerating itself but seeming unwilling to try.
McAlpine is just one of those 2014 Indy influencers, such as Craig Murray (Alba & George Galloway), Campbell at Wings over and Kelly at Scot goes and Alba, who thought the SNP should listen more to their advice, were ignored, and are still in the huff. More on him below.
Failed projects?
Common Weal Membership? Try finding mugshots of the other members of this group and you might find one or two others but not one team photo to show us they have more than three and, as far as I can find, no published membership – hundreds and way down on 2014?
SNP membership? Around 70 000. Down under Yousaf but watch it now?
Common Weal Finance? By their own accounts, steadily down from £259 589 in 2019 to only £144 877 in 2022. https://commonweal.scot/governance/
SNP Finance? Around £4 million.
More on McAlpine, from 2020:
Once again, I was going to let this post, on a website with too few readers to mention, just go, but then I read some it. It’s frankly unbelievable.
After pretending that the wisdom of a Holocaust survivor has inspired his latest anti-SNP diatribe, he goes on to patronise any readers he has left and to make a number of patently false claims.
I won’t do them all, it’s not worth it, but these examples below give you a flavour, if a sour one:
As someone who doesn’t do social media, I have observed with bemusement as your Facebook feeds have mutually reinforced your opinions that the Scottish Government has done a decent job. I’ve watched the Scottish media back off its criticisms, seemingly afraid to run against the grain of opinion. Social media really is a danger to us all. Out here in reality, the statistics are damning and even a cursory glance at the timeline of events would put you straight quite quickly. Scotland is in lock-step with the UK in being one of the countries to be handling Covid least well. Day after day, the UK media is tearing strips off the Tory Government for the same things that are happening up here without comment. Both treated Covid as a hospital management problem, rather than an all-consuming crisis of public health, social wellbeing and economic security. Both were lax and shoddy on implementing control mechanisms like a proper testing system.
For better or worse, the political action takes place on Twitter. All the politicians, all the academic researchers, all the chiefs of police, all the NHS board executives, all the leading medics, all the trades unions, everything, appears there. If you don’t do social media, you’re about as relevant as a hermit up a column.
You’re observing us with bemusement? What a patronising, supercilious but unaware stance. O great one, tell us what to do!
Out here in reality? What reality? The one we’re constructing with each other, unavoidably using social media to democratise the process or the one you’ve put together, home alone?
The statistics are damning? Oh no, they’re not. The infection rate in England has been 35% higher and the death rate 45% higher. Care home deaths in England and Wales were much higher than in Scotland. After the first two months tied to the madness of the 4 Nations Approach, told what to do by their secret herd immunity gurus in SAGE, the Scottish Government’s strategy pushed levels of infection and deaths to a fraction of those in England. Today we benefit from that as we approach the winter from a much lower level than they would have left us with.
In lock-step with the UK? At every stage, stricter and more cautious and, critically, taking the people with them. Do you do opinion polls? You can follow them on social media. The Scottish Government has had the courage to diverge from the UK’s death march, under withering fire from the MSM.
The UK media, but not the BBC, has been tearing strips off the UK Government but you cannot seriously suggest they, especially their Scottish members, have been kind to the Scottish Government. The recent pile-on over hospitality, the regular demonising of the First Minister and the Health Secretary, the scaremongering over schools, the shifting of blame from care home owners and university bosses onto the Scottish Government…where have you been?
Right, there is more but I’ve got better things to do.
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“As someone who doesn’t do social media, I have observed with bemusement as your Facebook feeds…”
Says it all really… 🤦♂️
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every body is out of step, except oor Robin.
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There seems to be a H of a lot of people who want to jump onto the ‘I know best’ bandwagon…..many of whom share common ground in their mutual dislike of the SNP.
Thus what drives them is a desire to see the SNP fall….to be replaced by whom ?
Well reality is if the SNP were to fall they would be replaced by a party who are supportive of the UK….but these same individuals would wash their hands of any blame in this and instead would , as per, blame the ones they themselves helped bring down…..as in the SNP.
If you are going to repeat the same accusations, propaganda and also omit all positives in respect to the SNP as the Scottish government ,as the MSM , rogue media and opposition parties always do, then what do you, as an opponent of the SNP, expect the average non politically engaged voter to assume/conclude and thus ultimately perhaps do in any election when they vote ?
Is it also not telling that The National , another supposed independence newspaper, is giving this a front page headline, on what he, McAlpine, states is his “best assessment” which just so happens to be an “assessment” that concurs, in it’s content, with much of what we read and hear from the pro UK media and too opposition parties to the SNP…..as in #SNPBAD.
NMRN
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Millions of people vote for the SNP. Massive victories. They appreciate the SNP policies. Especially since Westminster controls much of the Scottish revenues. Maybe some responsible newspaper would publish the Accounts. Common Weal a small group of agitators do not know where it is at.
Greens muck up recycling. Items already recycled. Trans over emphasis affects a small number. Airbnb legislation mucking up the tourist industry. Hardly any. Rent controls are not needed. Build affordable houses. The SNP Gov are doing that.
Common Weal a small pressure group. Does not rule the roost. Put up candidates or stop looking for cheap publicity.
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If Robin has all the answers , let him start a political party and , with his obvious grasp of what is ”right” he will soon be the frontrunner for Independence .Or , he could stand for Holyrood /Westminster and with his evidently superior ‘manifesto’ get elected and change the World !
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And I “observed with some bemusement” that this was front page of a supposedly pro-indy newspaper. The worst I’d thought was that it might be the Herald.
Of course, being pro-independence isn’t necessarily the same as pro-SNP and I wouldn’t be a committed SNP voter except for one thing. They’re the only party big enough to get us out of this… what’s the word…? Clusterbourach?
What the blazes is the National playing at? Do they have another party in mind? One which would implement this amazing assessment? And, if not led by Mr McA, then by whom? Being politically under-educated, I couldn’t possibly give my “best assessment”, but even I have a few ideas…
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The ‘National’ is anti SNP, I stopped buying it (in both senses of the word) years ago, they do the push pull tactics, one minute pro indy next minute, anti SNP and pro Labour even.
It’s not a ‘Scottish’ rag is it not connected or owned by a bigger Britnat uoutfit in London?
I know some very good pro indy bloggers write for it but imo it’s a trojan horse. Stopped reading anything to do with ‘common weal’ after I went to a talk by McAlpine at an SNP venue many years ago he could hardly have been more ANTI SNP! No thanks.
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Indeed.
The Herald with a ‘saltire’ draped on it that tends to slide off increasingly often.
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Conspiracy Theories. It’s a newspaper. it carries all kind of pro independence views.
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TOTAL DOG POO
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It is wise to take Scot National with a large grain of salt. They have some good writers/bloggers but that shows just how bizarre some of their coverage of Scottish politics is. If Common Weal and Robin McAlpine were ever relevant, they certainly are not now.
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WHY DOESN’T THE NATIONAL (or someone with the necessary resource and access) – compile, describe, analyse and report on the now multiple versions of more or less well developed strategies for gaining Scotland’s independence?
There’s a lot to choose from, with various degrees of difference between them. From a quick brainstorm, they could assess the proposed solutions from the following sources: Alba Party, ISP, Common Weal, Salvo, Graeme McCormick (SNP and potential leadership challenger), SNP (Sturgeon version), SNP (Yousaf version), SNP (emerging Swinney version), Scottish Greens, Peter A Bell etc. – you many know of (many?) others, perhaps your very own!
So what are the various ‘theories of change’ being proposed? Do they provide an explicit, coherent and complete ‘logic model’ each for their envisaged route from ‘inputs’ all the way through to delivering the desired ‘outcome’, an independent nation-state? What are the dependencies/inter-dependencies, the risks and uncertainties inherent in each of these ‘theories of change’? Which ones are mutually exclusive? Which ones in concert might be reinforcing?
Or do we continue – by design or otherwise – to indulge in a debate (or toxic name calling) with little or no framework for critical evaluation of proposes solutions which results – arguably – in continual divisiveness, in insufficient critical assessment and in an inability, perhaps an unwillingness, to either agree to pursue multiple paths without rancour or to do the hard work to reach consensus across parties or factions on one or a complementary group of actions?
All the while Unionists smirk at our failures to come together and those yet to be convinced voters get no compelling message, no hopeful, inspiring narrative of what might possible for Scotland’s future and how – crucially – we might feasibly obtain the agency to realise it.
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“I’ve watched the Scottish media back off its criticisms, seemingly afraid to run against the grain of opinion.”
In which universe did he watch this happen?
That was enough for me. We’re talking serious whackadoodle looneytunes.
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