Devolved or Independent Thinking?

Scotland braced for winter of discontent

So says The Herald as if we are to be surprised. What's predictable is their manipulative tool of posting a picture of John Swinney beside the headline. Oh yeh, you know when Labour are going to pass the buck when The Herald is in the vanguard with this type of crass propaganda exercise.

Yes folks we are about to see just exactly how Labour destroyed the UK economy but it's all going to be the SNP's fault.

Certain political facts come into play here. Firstly, Scotland is in surplus and doesn't need cuts and secondly, Swinney can only spend what he's given under the devolution settlement. That's right, Scotland is taking the medicine for a disease it doesn't have - ever heard that one before? More importantly it's going to be administered and we can do nothing about it. Even more importantly than that, Scotland is going to be made to think it administered the medicine itself.

Yes, we are heading for years of unionist doublespeak ala Orwell. The unions are on side - they are activating in Scotland seperately - that never happened when Labour were in power North and South of the border. The Herald and other Labour mouthpieces are planting the seeds of blame-shifting before the massive unrest to come - and they know full well that it's coming. They backed Brown's 'stimlus' and 'quantative easing' (money printing) policies after all i.e. more debt. That was right after they portrayed him as the best chancellor ever who had 'abolished boom and bust'!

How do they get away with it? Well, you see - the SNP are doing their bit to help the unionist cause.

You see, had the SNP came out fighting long before the last general election with a 'Britain is Bankrupt' campaign, there would be no doubt about who to blame for the mess we are in. That would have taken vision though and political guts. Right now their campaign could have shifted focus to 'Prosperity with Independence or Austerity with Union'. Still nothing. There's to be no coherent campaign on what is the worst economic climate faced by the UK since The Great Depression. This is political negligence on a monumental scale. Once the SNP ridiculed Blair for comparing Holyrood to a parish council - now they're playing the part.

Without a 'Bankrupt Britain' campaign the SNP can't defend itself against the coming onslaught of unionist propaganda. If they thought losing the agenda before the London election was bad just wait and see how people will react when the blame for the New Great Depression is placed at their door. Voters ain't gonnie listen to bankers' platitudes - that will ingrain the idea that they are culpable. Swinney is being forced to make decisions about spending cuts, everyone with a gripe is going to be angry at him and the unionist press is going to have a field day.

Swinney is going to be Mr. Cuts. The SNP are going to be associated with those nasty Tories who just love slashing public services. People, this is a PR disaster for the SNP who are now on course for a mauling at the next Holyrood elections. Make no mistake, Britain is nose-diving as an economic power and that means a massive change in living standards. People are not going to be happy about this and they will want to blame those in power now.

Had there been a 'Bankrupt Britain' campaign while Labour was in power, people would have known who was to blame. Labour MSP's would be laughed at for blaming Swinney and The Herald would be short of propaganda angles. Now the unionists in Scotland are going to run amok. That massive political opportunity has been missed by a feckless election campaign and a leadership posted missing.

By not wanting to talk about independence they've been kiboshed. Now they splutter and stutter about how the cuts are Westminster imposed. Without a coherent and slick political campaign about 'Bankrupt Britain' no-one is going to listen. As Britain heads South we need to sear that message into the minds of the Scottish electorate.

It must be clear who is to blame, it must be clear that Britain is the basket-case not Scotland, it must be clear that Scotland's only lifeboat is independence.

It's not clear. And in the smoke of confusion the electorate will be conned into distrusting the SNP. Consequently, the movement towards independence will be put back generations. A future independent Scotland will be associated with financial decline. That is the legacy that Salmond will leave behind unless he finds the political animal within and fast.

I've heard SNP apparatchiks parrot the same thing over and over that the agenda comes and goes and you just have to sit tight and wait till it comes back again. That is an apparatchik speaking and nothing to do with political vision. A party positions itself according to circumstances, sees what's coming and makes the agenda their own.

The former is the mentality of the devolved thinker, the latter the mentality of the independent thinker. We need to know what kind of thinking the SNP is doing: devolved or independent?