Do you ever attempt to trace the route you took to the politics you hold? I don't mean the nature of your politics - whether you think trickle down economics or collective farms are good ideas - I mean the critical thought, or actions, or characters that poured the foundations upon which your politics sit?
No, not the band...
I can remember a few things. The first one was Margaret Thatcher. Now, before I go any further - in my defence - she was PM from 1979 to 1990, I was six years old in 1979. I grew up with her in power, I remember thinking she was tough and because I was a child - assuming she was right - which kids tend to do with adults. That's my defence and I'm sticking to it.
I also remember John Major becoming PM, and wondering how another human could be that grey.
At this point, we must jump forward a little to 1997 - which is where any default trust I had in politics was lost - with New Labour and Tony Blair. 'Default trust' is probably over-selling it, up till that point, politics wasn't on my radar. Perhaps becoming older more generally meant I paid more attention, or, I heard Tony Blair speak and some instinctive, preternatural part of my brain thought 'aye aye, you need to watch that one', so that's what I did.
New Labour and Tony Blair basically set the tone. With the Tories, what you saw was what you got - a bunch of grasping entitled cunts, New Labour though... Oily, sneaky... The stealth tax was born, sham-marketing had crashed into politics. Tony Blair and the people he had around him realised it was either no longer possible - presumably due to the internet - or no longer practical to expect us proles to accept policies that were Shit But Good For Us. They needed to be branded, packaged and sold - like a family car, or an insurance policy, or a JML kitchen tool.
It's a JML slide-chopper, or a stealth tax...
TL/DR version? New Labour made me cynical.
Then came an awakening - probably interlinked with the reformation of the Scottish Parliament. I was into that, a definite both-votes-yes, but I didn't vote SNP in the first elections, I voted Liberal Democrat. I won't try to explain that, except to say I vaguely recall resolving never to vote Labour ever (which I haven't), or for the Conservatives, who will probably always be irreformable bastards.
That was the only time I didn't vote SNP in a Holyrood election. (On the list I tended to vote Green out of pity and some vestigial understanding that a vote (recently) for the SNP on the list was a waste of time.)
I impart all that pointless information because when I was growing up politically, Alex Salmond was not a popular figure. At best he was a bellicose curiosity not to be taken seriously, at worst he was a threat to the fabric of the UK. It's fair to say, both notions were ingrained - even if only subconsciously.
Alex Salmond in 1997 - the absolute fiend!
What I mean to say is, I never fully lost that baggage. After 2014 - when Nicola Sturgeon took over - I had more trust in her because she came with less baggage. I have no doubt the psychology of losing the referendum played it's part too, but either way, I thought she was a different kind of politician and one I could trust - to an extent I hadn't been able to since Blair robbed me of my political innocence in the 1990's.
My point is, fellow independence travellers have become selective with the cynicism that allowed them to see through the bullshit. It turns out, it's only activated if it's unionist bullshit. Worse than that, it's malfunctioning to the point where anything a unionist politician says is dismissed - completely negating the idea of an opposition. The opposition parties at Holyrood are not great, but they should not be dismissed completely - or Scotland is a one-party state.
We need to recall the journey which caused us to question everything we're being told. We need to to spend more time on what's being said instead of who's saying it.
dilbert.com
We can't give the things which suit our agendas a by - if we do that, then we're no better than those who seek to hold us in the UK - all we're doing is propagating that same rank mendacity, and I can't get on board with that.
It leaves people like me with an uneasy compromise, we support people who's actions we don't agree with - on the promise we can get rid of them at some tenebrous point in the future, all of this while being castigated for daring to ask for explanations to the issues which are causing us to be apprehensive in the first place - it's an impossible situation.
The Alba Party may not be perfect - but neither is the SNP - no party is perfect. What it does is give people like myself an insurance policy and a much better compromise position. Is it too much to ask, that if I can compromise enough to vote SNP in the constituency, that ardent Nicola fans can do the same and respect my right to vote Alba on the list vote?
Pa
ReplyDeleteMy journey is similar in some ways. I was born in 68 but didn't really grasp anything until the 80s and the devastation of unemployment for my Dad. He was unemployed for 7 years and the effect it had on him I remember being scary. Here was a man who had fought in the war, actually fought from 39 until he was eventually allowed out in 46 from the Navy thrown on the scrap heap like a rag by the Tories. That was the start of the hate I have for the Tories, seeing people around me with nothing or the ones who had a job appearing wealthy and the division this caused in my community was horrible. We were poor and even today I just can't figure out how my parents kept food on the table and clothes on our backs, there was always a birthday gift and a Christmas present but there were no holidays and few treats. We lived in a damp house in Whitfield and the winter was always cold, I know what it is like to get bed with coats on the bed, I know what it is like to have beans on toast for dinner. I hate the Tories for that and I hate what they did to my Dad.
I remember my Dad really not liking Kinnock at all and supporting Gordon Wilson of the SNP even though he thought he was a pompous prat. My Mum and Dad thought it important to vote but didn't really like politicians at all, didn't trust them and always said they will let you down and look after themselves, they were right.
I started to believe in independence then, I couldn't get my head around the fact that I was told I was British but everything was English that and English this. No Scottish history at school unless it was Scotland failing at something. Then Alex Salmond came along and I remember seeing him on the news and he was not backing down, he was tearing into the Tories and Labour, he was actually speaking up for Scotland. So I started to support the SNP right up to 2016 when I started to have serious concerns about the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon. I flirted with the Liberal Democrats as my politics really do lay in that direction but found a party that was unionist to the core and not liberal in any shape or form, it was just a name.
Now my journey is I will not vote SNP, I will never vote SNP again. They like Labour have betrayed my trust and my vote and they will never see it again, I will vote Alba and that is it. I despise Nicola Sturgeon and what she has turned the SNP into and what Scotland is becoming, and I despise the MSPs/MPs and members sitting back and allowing it to happen. I will give the independence cause another 5 or 6 years then I will walk away and enjoy what is left of my life because to be honest deep down I don't think Scotland we ever become independent because we are broken and colonised, the last hope for me is someone like Alex Salmond because I have given up on most the people, depressing but true.
Your post is really interesting.
DeleteI remember the miner's strike, but it seemed very far away from where I was - although I'm not that far away from mining communities.
I remember seeing the poll tax riots, I was supposed to pay it for about 9 months but never did.
Reading your post, I can see now why you'll never vote SNP again. I try to focus on the good things they've done (bedroom tax, all the stuff they've kept as a social cost as opposed to a personal one...)
The thing with the current SNP leadership is, the things they've got wrong - they got SOOOOOO wrong. It's difficult to get past it.
I can't debate this with friends any more. They say AS is a sex pest, but when asked, can't back it up with anything other than here-say. 'Who listens to the women?', they ask - did they miss the entire court proceeding? Did they miss the absolute fact that the only people who were 'officially' found guilty of not listening to women was ScotGov?
I don't know AS like you do, I do believe however, that he's so much more committed to independence than NS is. I also think that's why she was complicit in trying to bring him down. I think they argued/disagreed massively about how independence was being abandoned - and that's why what happened, happened.