This week my special guests are Josh Robertson and Robert Reid two of the younger members of Alba. I ask them what brought them into politics in the first place and what motivated them to stand for the party in recent elections. We discuss what steps we all need to take to encourage more young adults to become politically active. They tell us their pressing issues and how to address them. It was refreshing to listen to them. I hope you agree.
We introduce a new feature to Prism. Roger Anderson, the historian, begins a series of short videos on Scottish history and places of interest. This week, Ruthven Barracks the why and when. The history you never got at school will now become a weekly item on your favourite Scottish political show.
Later we are joined by Yvonne Ridley. We discuss the week past and how it affects Scotland. The Jubilee how relevant is it to modern Scotland? Keir Starmer said it was our patriotic duty to celebrate Elizabeth 1 Platinum Jubilee, do the panel agree, do you agree? We discuss the British baubles handed out to commemorate this latest royal junket. In this day and age are these now relevant or have they over time been devalued and debased?
Closer to home we ask is the £20 million set aside by Scottish Government for a 2023 Independence Referendum a sure sign that there will be a vote or is it merely another exercise in carrot dangling?
The Census with only 87.5% bothering to fill in the form will the information be of any use? Those that refused to comply will they, and should they be fined? Over budget and late is it just another Scottish Government failure or was there a genuine excuse fir missing the target by so much?
Right now I think ALBA is compromised by the very same inertia which flatters the SNP.
The thing that should be alarming the SNP is once that changes, the impetus which overcomes the inertia will be pent up exasperation finally reaching it’s breaking point. It will change very quickly into momentum, and once that tipping point occurs, the SNP will really have a job on their hands to retain control.
The bigger question however, is retain control of what? Nicola’s plan? Because that “mutiny in the ranks” will not be quelled with yet another tepid Section 30 placebo, or faltering step on the invisible road to nowhere.
Bring it on.
Breeks: I think that is so. I have thought for some time that we are the point where the Irish independence movement was just before Sinn Fein overtook the Irish Independence party of Redmond. Nicola Sturgeon is rather like Redmond: he dillied and dallied and dragged his feet, warming his backside in Westminster. It can’t go on; something will give sooner rather than later. I would be far more worried that the referendum she might be forced to try and bring forward is a bag of candyfloss, dissolving in the air. That would put us back years; in fact, it could lead to total collapse of the independence movement for the foreseeable future or it could drive us into a very much harder stance – as, again, happened in Ireland. Personally, I think if she is carrot-dangling again or if the referendum is unsound, we will enter a new, much harder position, but, unlike Ireland’s situation, we will take our case to the international community and the courts if we cannot hold a plebiscitary election because we have the constitutional tools to do that. I really do not believe that there is any other way to go.
Excellent again, BB. Good to hear from two younger people that their concerns are more economic and social based than gender based. So many young people are totally captured – not all, but very many. My own two grand-daughters think I’m an old bigot on this issue, but I’m fighting for them and their rights.
Absolutely agree that there are still good people in the SNP, and I wish to God they would stand up and be counted. If this referendum does not come off, or, worse, if it is unwinnable or weak legislation, I rather think they will. Whatever, we have a real uphill struggle ahead, and we need young people like thee to take us forward. One thing I would say, lads, and please do not take it the wrong way, but, most of us, when we look back at our younger selves, often cringe. The reason that it tends to be older people who become front-line politicians is because life experience is a necessary component of having the abilities to make the kinds of decisions that are not disastrous. Look around the world and see the younger politicians who have stepped up to the plate, including Nicola Sturgeon herself, Justin Trudeau and others who have made a pig’s ear of their administrations, and, consequently, the lives of those they rule over. Older folk can do that, too, no question, but they do it in a different way that might not be quite so fundamentally destructive. Biden, for example, driven by younger, ‘woke’ colleagues, has set America on a path of social chaos because the Democrat Party have been captured wholesale. We are living through an age of extreme vacuousness and shallowness right now where virtue-signalling ‘goodness’ is little more than a costume prop in the theatre of sanctimony.
Yvonne, bang on about the census – it is a protest vote on several levels, and it must be doubtful whether the data collected can be of any use. The fact is that the 2004 GRA was never intended to affect data, but it has. How the census material could have been extrapolated from the 2004 Act is a matter of insane bias that any reading will, or should, dispel. It is the 2004 GRA itself that require to be abolished as having been superseded by subsequent legislation. It is being used, in a wholly illegal manner in all kinds of ways and few members of the legal profession, from the police to the courts, have said a damned thing about it. It really is a national disgrace that the trans lobby is allowed to put forward so-called legal ‘facts’ that are pure rubbish, with no legal basis at all. This is what happens when you pass bad laws that do not address the underlying situation – like slapping a sticking plaster on a severed limb. The sorry fact is that these laws need to be challenged in court and that costs money.
How sad to listen to you all disrespecting the Queen. As a proud Scot I am glad your views are not held by the majority of the Scottish people. Still, if it passes your time each week to keep coming up with such self-opinionated views, good luck to you – but I will not be listening anymore.
We are missing you already.🤣🤣
Watch BBC or STV then you can get all the House of Hanover your wee colonised heart desires.
I rather think they might be held by the majority, G. Hartley. One thing is certain: little Prince George will never sit on the throne; and his father, Prince William, might not either. If the royal family opts for symbolic rule only, working as other royals do in other countries, they might survive merely as an institution with no power at all; otherwise, Queen Elizabeth might well be the last of her line – in Scotland, anyway.
How do you know what my heart desires? Your reply was as expected.
Good then you weren’t disappointed. You cannot have watched many Prisms or read many of my blogs if my republicanism and utter contempt for the Saxe Gotha-Coburgs and all they represent came as a shock to you.
Being a Yoon BB I have to say well done in getting people so young involved. Its rare in all parties and kudos for putting themselves up for election. You and I know how tough it is, right up to the count and after. There is hardly a door in Midlothian over the years that I have not knocked and you know the score while you are walking up the path. Anyway not commented for a few weeks but I have listened. Sturgeon is nowhere near getting a referendum. She is sucking you in. The latest on the currency is that we will know after indy is achieved. BB we Yoons do not have to do anything. Sturgeon is doing it for us. Great seeing her recovery so fast. From being completely floored to looking like a million dollars in a week. Yep. No wonder the term “Plastic Sturgeon” is trending. Using Covid as a cover could cause a bit of bother. Anyway well done on the Cup. Knew it 20 minutes before the end of ordinary time.
Those who want to keep the Queen dont get the fact that she is an embodiment of the class system. She represents a backward feudal state with a heretical Colonial structure with has the toffs and establishment at the top of the tree.This is not a democracy.
I dont want Scotland to fall into the trap of recreating a Medieval heretical country on the English model run by Prince John Economics where the rich dont pay tax and the rest of us pick up the tab. Viva Republic .Dissolve the Union.
Better tell Sturgeon that then as she is going to make any decision she wants. You have created a monster. Totally destroyed any democracy inside the SNP. She will make the decision on currency ( After Indy ??? ), Nato, Royal family, Defence. When you actually come round to having a conference it will be a waste of time. As I type we are on the cusp of another GE. This is Sturgeons worst nightmare. She needs Bozo for both to survive. No new Prime Minister will give a referendum so 2023 has sailed down the river.