SNP leader Alex Salmond threatened one of his rivals that he would not be a candidate for the next Holyrood election unless he withdrew parts of his “very dangerous” book.It will be interesting to see how this pans out. At least some folk in the SNP realise that an independent Scotland would need to ditch a massive amount of the country's socialist culture.The Banff and Buchan MP told Michael Russell his new book – which made searing criticisms of Salmond and his policies – was incompatible with standing for the Nationalists.
He sent his colleague handwritten notes, which the Sunday Herald has obtained, highlighting sections of the book he objected to.
Russell, the former MSP who fought Salmond for the leadership in 2005, then salvaged his candidacy by making humiliating changes to his book
Much more surprising is this piece in the Scottish edition of the Sunday Times:
Michael Fry says the union no longer works and the Tories don't either.Mr Fry is now a floating voter:Studying the Union is bad for your unionism. I can say this with confidence after researching the subject for the past four years so that I could write a book to mark its 300th anniversary on May 1.
I have chased up original material from Perth to Paris, London to Los Angeles. And, at the end of it, have come out a nationalist — quite a journey for someone who was a Conservative candidate for the British and the Scottish parliaments.
That said, I am not rushing off to join the SNP. In terms of belief in liberal democracy, a limited state and capitalist system, I find the nationalists almost as deficient as the Tories, or indeed as any other party in Scotland. SNP policies would be disastrous. They would quickly ruin Scotland if they came in on that programme.There's more about this elsewhere in the Times and more will follow in this blog...
1 comment:
Comment made on previous template:
Davie Hutchison
I think there is a shift on. 7 years into devolution and its clear that the predictions that devolution would kill nationalism stone dead have been shown to be patent nonsense.
On the right former unionists like Niall Ferguson and Michael Fry ahve accepted that independence is the only way forward and on the left unionists like Tam dayell have accepted that not only is Independence for Scotland inevitbale but its preferable to the satus quo.
In terms of the SNP's business policies if they didn`t stand up then why would a respected businessman like Sir Tom Farmer donate £100k to the party?
9 October 2006, 14:30:28 GMT+01:00
Post a Comment