What now for Scotland?

Stuck on the eastern shore of Loch Fyne—by wind, weather and a technical problem with the ferry due west to Tarbert—I thought I was doing the sensible thing by waiting for updates from CalMac. About half an hour (if that) drive-on-drive-off made much more sense than driving east to Tighnabruaich, north to Glendaruel (I have no idea how to pronounce the second one), northwest to Strachan, north to St Catherine’s, northeast to the Rest and Be Thankful, then following that for over 80 miles along the entire length of Kintyre (via Tarbert) to eventually reach Campbeltown! It did, until the weather eased (temporarily) only for a fault with the ferry to cancel all sailings till, at least, tomorrow lunchtime. So I drove…

…and arrived about 5 hours later, to an oasis of calm. (I won’t say where at this point because candidates aren’t meant to do any favours for voters so advertising is out.) En route, I did a lot of thinking. And talking to myself (that car pool site really isn’t working for me). As well as rehearsing my Concession Speech (the easy one) and my Acceptance Speech (remember, do not thank the hens, at least not individually) in case people really want to hear multiple speeches—at midnight, in Campbeltown, in November—and mentally drafting the guess who’s coming to dinner scene of my kids book, I started thinking about Scotland.

Well. Not started. I’m going to confess something to you (good for the soul). On Twitter, last week, I muted the following words:

• Gaza
• Israel
• Palestinian
• Israeli
• flag

(I had already muted “Sam Smith”)

I just couldn’t take any more. People were using the more gruesome photos and videos to score points over each other. I mean people here, in Britain, who have no friends or relatives living in the Levant, who are clueless about its history and cultures, have never spend a day there and do not understand one word of any Semitic language, ancient or modern.

Some people (echoing the words of a famous resident of South Kintyre) were saying “give peace a chance”—and getting sacked, cancelled, threatened or heckled for it. So I decided, no! Enough! I’ll pray with anyone, Muslim, Christian or Jew, or anyone else of goodwill, in support of that message. So I blocked the hate and despair and the cycle of revenge killing…

…and started thinking about Scotland instead. After all, I’ve got more hope of making a change here than there (I’ve got zero there). So that’s why I took the photo of the wee Saltire fluttering in the wind on the bow of the Rothesay ferry. Quo vadis? Where are you going to end up, Scotland?

There’s a gang in Holyrood right now who want us all under the thumb of their World Economic Forum overlords who clink and drink their ostentatiously expensive champagne every year at Davos while they plot to appropriate our freedoms even more.

There’s a bevy of legal beagles who simultaneously want to up conviction rates of sex crimes by doing away with juries and a verdict on the standard of evidence peculiar to Scots Law, while treating young offenders (up to the age of 25) like misunderstood children and giving convicted male sex offenders the opportunity to harass and rape women provided they state that that’s what they are too.

Meanwhile, people whose only experience of fishing and farming is catching Countryside (and occasionally holding up a wee lamb for the ghillie to snap a nice shot to convince anxious voters that a London stockbroker is a Scottish crofter) have put all sorts of crazy regulations in place. Like fishermen can’t sell their prawns to the local fish shop but have to go through some suit in Glasgow in order for them to come back less fresh and more expensive. Or farmers under pressure to shoot their cows—not because there’s no abattoir but for the suddenly trendy idea that they’re magically, in a way no-one can prove, somehow causing it to get hotter.

(Can’t say I’ve noticed it getting any hotter, can you?)

So I think someone in local government patiently repeating the good sense of the good people of South Kintyre (who do have the requisite experience and know what they’re talking about) would be a good thing.

Polling stations open in fifteen minutes. Find out where your local one is HERE and vote for me, Alan McManus For Future’s Sake—Freedom Alliance!

Saltire, blowing in wind on dreich day, on bow of ferry approaching Rothesay. Houses and trees onshore.

(Photos copyright the author may be used—unconnected to commerce and without transformation—with a link to this blogpost)

Promoted by Cath Evans of Freedom Alliance, 83 Ducie Street M1 2JQ.

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