Letters / Off to the bookies
Well – it’s been some time (but not long enough, really) since Dorothy O’Brien of Brae has popped-up to take an ignorant pot-shot at (this time) my recent comments on the situation of The Last of the Scottish LibDems and the ludicrously-juvenile and unrealistic SNP (Closet SNP fan; SN, 25/05/15).
She’s obviously a big fan of my writings, and even more obviously of the SNP, even though she tends to get hold of the wrong end of the stick all the time (possibly because she has no idea how to use the SN archive in order the check precisely what I’ve written previously) – so I’d be intrigued to hear how she thinks the Scots will react when they finally realise that they’ve all been ‘had’ by Salmond and Sturgeon.
The recent general election saw the well-deserved and near-total destruction of the LibDems, Tories and the Labour Party north of the border: so I can’t see who’ll be able to get themselves elected in place of the SNP, and then step up and fix whatever mess Sturgeon and Salmond’s followers inflict on Scotland during the next few months. And in fact, why would they want to?
I thought back in 2010 that, dangerous though it would have been for the country as a whole, it would have been poetic justice for Brown and New Labour to have been elected instead of what became the Tory-LibDem Coalition, so that they (New Labour) would have been forced to stay in place and clean up Brown’s staggering mess from the previous thirteen years of misrule; and I tend to feel exactly the same way now about the SNP, but with no reservations at all.
After all, if the SNP mess things up in Scotland, it’ll only affect about five million people, so the rest of the UK could safely sit and laugh at the Scots’ credulity for having voted for such dross.
My feeling is that confidence in and support for the SNP will slide steadily from here on, as the wealth-generators in Scotland gradually decide to ship out to somewhere that’s being run a bit more realistically.
Elections will probably descend into total farce, with the majority of ballot papers being spoilt as a sign of voter contempt for what’s on offer. I’ll simply do as I’ve done before, and consult the bookies’ odds on the way that I think things will turn out.
I made a nice little drink out of the previous election outcome, and only regret that I didn’t bet more heavily.
That, in my opinion, is the way to treat politics and politicians these days: with contempt, and with the intention of making an honest profit out of the stupid and dishonest things that they continue to do.
So, Ms O’Brien – am I a closet fan of the SNP, or one of their bitterest enemies? Answer – neither of those things: just someone who wants to see them crash and burn as they so richly deserve to.
And they will – and I’ll be off to the bookies for another win when they do it.
Philip Andrews
Unst
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