Open letter to Alex Salmond; independence is dead in 2014, reset the date to June 2018 and send Government Ministers back to their portfolios

Dear Alex

Independence is dead.

The George Laird view.

There are many reasons why you will lose in 2014 but a generic reason is that the SNP Government is not fit for independence.

You want someone to blame?

Okay…. You!

I know you are a hard worker, I have seen it; you do volume and quality on the campaign trail.

Let’s take the standard big three of government, health, law and order and education.

Things are slipping in the health brief, people aren’t getting treatment they need, a culture of bullying has emerged and the scandal of people not getting blankets is simply ridiculous.

Whose fault is that?

Nicola Sturgeon.

Does that look like something that the SNP would have a field day in Holyrood with as the opposition?

Oh aye!

Law and Order, quite simply, this portfolio was a disaster from 2007 to 2011, now nothing changed post election, UK Supreme Court and Cadder stand out as reasons why independence isn’t going to happen.

Sack Kenny MacAskill, appoint a Justice Minister and junior Justice Minister.

Education, possibly the worst of the three, Universities cuts, college cuts, teacher problems and CfE, no vision, no direction, no ideas, shambles, utter shambles, worse still, not even the ability to recognise it in the SNP.

Mike Russell, clueless and ineffective, he needs someone to set 'his' agenda for him.

You aren’t going to win independence because you can’t even get your own house in order never mind a nation.

Of what you don’t have control of, defence, foreign affairs, work and pensions and the rest of reserved issues, you aren’t trusted.

That wake up call was ringing loudly in 2010, 6 SNP MPs.

Was anything done to fix those problems?

No!

It was treated as ‘just another election’.

But it isn’t just another election it is a hole, the size of the Grand Canyon in your thinking.

So, the SNP is publicly campaigning for independence but the reality is, you are praying for devo max, to show something for your efforts.

This country isn’t ready for independence and you haven’t done the work to prepare the country for independence.

Your timing of 2014 is wrong, the SNP Government needed two full terms in office, the second term wasn’t about independence, it was about public sector reform and you have kicked that into the long grass.

You better send a ‘ball boy’ into the long grass and get it back.

The Council elections show that political map of Scotland isn’t yellow now!

In Glasgow, that campaign was a shambles from start to finish. I could go over the nuts and bolts of that debacle in detail but I can’t be bothered as it isn’t relevant to the main thrust of the piece.

You have let the Labour Party back; they have split the country in two, shut you out of using councils as campaign vehicles and set themselves up for further gains at Holyrood FPTP.

Westminster 2015, you can forget that! For all the good that campaign will do, you might as well be SSP or Solidarity.

Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont yesterday took time out to accuse you of floating a possible second question on further devolution as part of the independence referendum because she knows that you fear you won’t win the vote to leave the UK.

You aren’t fighting for independence; you are fighting for the “consolation prize” as she puts it.

If you go with two questions, you are admitting independence is unwinnable and if you go for the single question, you are going to get stuffed, followed by a crushing Westminster defeat in 2015.

Then Holyrood 2016 will see several of your MSPs gone.

So, for the benefit of SNP and SNP HQ who read my blog regularly, the new date for Scottish Independence is June 2018.

And as several in Glasgow SNP know, George Laird is always right, since I have a knack for calling elections results spot on.

Remember Glasgow 2012!

You have already lost the independence referendum.

Finally, my idea for the Scottish National Police Force, changed by the SNP and royally f*cked up by your ‘crew’ trying to be creative, return it back to my original idea of keeping the old police boards, create eight zones and set the national board as twenty one members. Two elected councillors from each zone and 4 independents plus a chair.

In future when I give an idea don’t let the idiots tamper with it.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University