Today I was called a ‘pleb at the bottom of the heap’ by an SNP member who objected to my raising the question of the SNP commitment to Europe.
Let me demonstrate what a ‘pleb at the bottom of the heap’ in Scotland looks like:
Underemployed and unemployed graduates – the SNP have done nothing for these people, in fact have insisted on maintaining an influx of migrant graduates with fresh start grants despite there being no jobs for them. Many of these people do not vote SNP or for independence because they have correctly identified that they will have to go to England to find work and ill feeling between Scotland and England is not a good idea.
People who fell through the educational net. These people used to be sent to war by the UK, when they still had ground wars. The Conservatives are attempting to revive a dead fighting strategy with their announcement of cadet corps in schools. Let me remind you that people who fell through the educational net include Richard Branson.
People who have had to become ill in order to keep a roof over their heads. We still have a points culture of vulnerability which make it necessary for people to either have children they do not necessarily have the means to support, or develop illnesses to get sufficient points to obtain social housing.
People who would like to live in the house they bought and paid for, who do not have the means to keep funding increases in council tax and alternative taxation.
Elderly people who have worked all their lives and do not wish to disclose their means to the council, who cannot get the help they are entitled to as they would render themselves open to exploitation by the social work department. This means that they are charged for services which other people get for nothing, which then means they are considerably worse off.
People who live in areas who have been subject to large migrant populations, who object to people having unreported gangfights in the street, people defecating on their doorstep, and people getting attacked, sexually assaulted and raped in the street.
This is the last of half a dozen personal attacks, mostly on the basis of the survey this week. I actually had an individual attempt to tell me yesterday what questions I should be asking, which bore no resemblance to the questions I was actually asking in the survey. I told him to go and design his own survey. That is rather the point of my doing it. There is nothing to stop you asking the questions you want the answers to in the absence of anybody being able to discuss anything in the SNP or independence movement.
Like Loki, and paradoxically for much the same reasons, I now have serious misgivings about the SNP after the bullshit of last week. I no longer have any confidence that Scotland is good at anything apart from arguing about things that don’t matter in lieu of things that actually do.
I do not have a problem with the SNP making a directly oppositional stance to the Conservatives. What I do object to is the faux moral superiority demonstrated directly from the First Minister last week. Leadership should not be about grabbing the high ground and seeking yet more sources of conflict, but coming up with strategies to counteract the inevitable friction caused in the general population. Were I giving advice, it would be for the SNP to demonstrate how they plan to ease the problems for several local areas and actually improve things for the existing population before committing Scotland to taking on even more of the same problems.
I have voted SNP for years. I have supported independence until this point, but I now have serious doubts as to the honesty and awareness of SNP supporters of what is important to Scottish people. I had a somewhat idealistic view of making things better for Scotland via independence. I now think that all it will do is make things worse, for all of us ‘plebs at the bottom of the heap’ that constitute most of the Scottish population, actually.
Ironically I now see why Loki the rapper was so keen to see who would fund his book. He was actually doing a pre-book survey to see who actually gives a shit about Scottish people.