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Scottish politics - the 2024 general election and the fall of the SNP

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 On the night of July 4th I went to bed about 23:00, shortly after seeing the general election exit poll. This was the first time in about sixty plus years I hadn’t stayed up until about 06:00 watching the results roll in. Why go to bed early, this time? Well, it was pretty clear what the outcome was going to be and while very happy that the Tories were going to be well and truly kicked out of office, I also didn’t want to sit and watch the SNP lose seat after seat (which they did). Also, any joy that the Tories would be taking a beating was balanced by what appeared to be a very right wing Labour Party - which, from what it was saying, was going to be far away from the left wing Labour Party I’d have welcomed. But that indicates one of the reasons why I support Scottish independence; in UK terms, the Labour Party can only get into power by going to the right (just like Blair did) - and this time that was against a Tory government increasingly disliked by even the majority in England.
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World affairs - The Israeli Hamas war (genocide) continued.

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It is now over seven months since the despicable attack on Israel by Hamas and Israel still continues to extract revenge in what can only now be seen as an attempt at genocide. Israel, of course, denies this claiming that they are just defending themselves by seeking to totally get rid of only Hamas (not all the Palestinian people) - but the shooting, bombing and starving of ALL Palestinians strongly suggests otherwise. Note that I describe the Hamas attack on Israel as ‘despicable’: this is the case but, as I’ve pointed out before, if you back a wild animal (or a human being) into a corner then it is liable to strike out viciously and violently. Even Israel’s allies have moved, if not sufficiently, to condemn Israel’s actions - only to be rebuffed by the same old, tired lies of the right wing Israeli government. I repeat what I said in my first post on this issue: it is impossible to remove Hamas while Israel continues to subjugate and oppress the Palestinian people and while some of
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Scottish politics - the (deserved) demise of the SNP (another rant)

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Foreword and forewarning: This post has grown into being another rambling rant about the SNP and Scottish independence - when it was originally intended as a fairly brief analysis looking at why the SNP’s standing in the opinion polls has collapsed in the way it has. Unfortunately, new factors came to light as I wrote - and things got a bit out of control as what I was writing grew to encompass this additional information. So, advance apologies.   Anyone with an interest in Scottish politics will be well aware that the SNP is currently in a free fall situation as regards it’s standing in opinion polls. What follows is an attempt to understand why that has happened - with maybe a pointer as to what comes next and how to fix the problem (if it can be fixed). Firstly, a background as to what I think went wrong. During August 2021 Scotland’s SNP government made a power sharing deal with the Scottish Greens. In my view a serious mistake which inexorably led to support for the SNP collapsing
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Inhabited, west coast Scottish islands - Canna and Sanday

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The island of Canna is the western most of Scotland’s Small Isles. It is also the second smallest, after Muck - if, that is, you consider Canna along with Sanday as a single island (which is usually the case). If you consider them as two islands then Sanday is the smallest (even smaller than Muck) and Canna then becomes the third smallest (or third largest). Take your pick. In this post I’m going to do a bit of both: together and separate as it is sometimes impossible to tell (from the articles I read) to know, one way or the other, if the information is solely about Canna or Sanday or both. This meant that I, too, had to write about both islands in the same post, just to reduce my chances, as much as possible, of providing inaccurate information. Canna is sausage shaped (long and narrow), lying roughly horizontally east to west, with a bit of a waist in the middle. It would therefore be more accurate to describe it as two fat sausages joined end to end with a wee bit of a bealach join
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Inhabited, west coast Scottish islands - Rùm

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The isle of Rùm is the largest of the Small Isles at roughly 10.4 hectares. It is also the most northerly. I’ve read it described as diamond shaped (as in playing cards) but I see it more as a square which has been twisted through 45° such that one corner points to the south while the other three point east, north and west, respectively. What is the difference? In a diamond, the distance between the north and south corners is usually longer than the distance between the east and west corners. No difference apart from that. Rùm is also the most mountainous of the Small Isles (or, perhaps, hilliest when taking real mountains into consideration). There’s very little level land to be found on Rùm. The area towards the southern corner holds the highest of Rùm’s hills/mountains, with five between 2000 and 3000 feet (but without any reaching the magic 3000’ of a Munro). The highest peak, at 812 m (2664 ft) is Askival. Every other corner of the island, however, is hilly with many summits betwe
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Current affairs - the Israel Gaza war (update)

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As always when discussing this issue, I have to make it clear that any negative comments I might make about Israel relates only to the Israeli government and not the Jewish people, either in Israel or elsewhere. It’s a pity I need to do this but what I see as the Zionist movement have made an excellent job of turning any attacks against Israel into anti-semitism. This, of course, gives Israel a free hand to behave as it wants to do. For example: Recently a prospective Labour candidate somewhere, and a Muslim, seemed to suggest that Israel had allowed the October 7th Hamas attack to go ahead just so it could then invade Gaza and use the attack on Israel as an excuse to carry out the atrocities we’ve all seen. The Labour party dropped it’s candidate like a hot potato. Much as I have no love of the current Israeli government, I suspect this person’s statement was pretty unlikely to be the case (as if there was any evidence for this then there would be very serious consequences for those t
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Inhabited, west coast Scottish islands - Eigg

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 The Isle of Eigg is the second largest, after Rùm, of the Small Isles. It is also the most easterly and only about ten miles west of the Scottish mainland. It is roughly triangular in shape with a bite out of the coast (the Bay of Laig) which faces north westwards towards Rùm. There seems to be some dispute if the name has Gaelic or Norse roots although it probably means ‘notched’. Does that definition refer to the ‘notch’ created by the Bay of Laig or the ‘notch’ in the skyline created by An Sgurr (see below) - or is the name derived from something completely different? It would seem that there is no definitive answer to that so it looks like everyone can decide for themselves. That aside, Eigg is roughly 5 miles long, north to south, and 3 miles wide, east to west. Running down the centre of the northern end of the island is Beinne Bhuide, which appears to be reasonably flat on top but surrounded on three sides (not the south) by almost vertical cliffs with grassy slopes below them
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