Peter A Bell

There have been numerous occasions during Nicola Sturgeon’s tenure as leader of the SNP and First Minister when a promise as tenuous and lacking in detail as that which looks like making it into the party’s manifesto has been accepted. Even by an old cynic such as myself.

Whatever the faithful may claim. we don’t have answers to some very big questions about Sturgeon’s conduct and competence as leader of the SNP and de facto head of Scotland’s independence movement.

If it was possible to communicate with the people inside the armoured bubble where reside our political leaders, what would I say to them?

The coming Scottish Parliament election may not be the last chance for Scotland’s cause. But it is certainly the last opportunity of its kind.

Even disregarding the failure to capitalise on the momentum the Yes campaign had in the early years of Sturgeon’s tenure as First Minister and all the missed opportunities that predate the public health crisis, we need to be honest with ourselves about where we are at this time.

Misrepresenting a phrase is as nothing when you’ve told the kind of lies that trip off the forked tongues of British politicians pretty much every time they speak.

I pour scorn on these ‘list parties’ for sound, rational, considered reasons which have nothing whatever to do with loyalty to the clique of crazies or their enablers who have done to my party and Scotland’s cause such grievous harm.