New Moral Saviours

“The greatest nations have all acted like gangsters and the smallest like prostitutes.” Stanley Kubrick

Yes… I can’t tell anymore whether the SNP’s austere sincerity since election is a good thing or an intelligent thing. They’ve managed to straddle public opinion with the high values and expectations of its membership, and crucially, the non-member fringe groups (of which I am a proud member of at least two).

The terror attack showed a Presbyterian restraint on linking the issue to Scotland’s involvement with the union. Clearly the SNP leader knew that its ousted Fundie wing would do that for them, and still be onside.

You’re wondering why, aren’t you? How can the fundies stay loyal after being chucked, or at the very least distanced? They do it for the same reason that Socialist Workers vote Labour in General Elections: to keep the ones they REALLY dislike out of power. For the fundies: that enmity is reserved for Labour.

The SNP approach, in my opinion, is a rather bi-polar one. The SNP acts all statesman, and allows fundies to whore themselves to the independence argument. For people like me: EVERYTHING is about independence. Two things happen: the SNP look like ministers (after 73 years of trying and dreaming) and finally get an official stamp. Also, the independence argument gets pushed, covertly by the SNP and overtly by bloggers, independentistas, anarchists, left indies, indy indies and whatever the hell I am this week.

I guess this is how a Socialist Worker must have felt in 1997 when Blair got in. Whilst Tony et al got their Special Branch Escort and their expensive Ministerial Suits; the Socialist Workers were putting on their lippy and mascara and trawling for business on picket lines and at anti-thisandthat rallies. I used to laugh, and now it’s my turn (and I was an SSP member…)

With the benefit of hindsight, it turns out three things happened to cause this:

1. Most of my friends are SNP supporters. They’re the ones in Black T-shirts and kilts, by the way. Siol.. Siol… Siol nan… etcetera. It’s part social psychology and part necessity to keep the independence dream cooking until it’s ready.
2. My amigos in the SRSM come under the second thing that happened. We were rather schizophrenic about the Solidarity and SSP debacle. Yes Tommy was a bit of a bastard. And Yes he is a great politician. But no MSPs got elected and one of those parties got less votes than the BNP. Everywhere. There’s a stark fucking reality check for you right there.
   
3. Combine this with cliché numero three and you have yourself a campaign badge for the executive whether you want one or not: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” This is a cliché whether you’re in Siol nan Gaidheal, a Dalek in Doctor Who or talking to that psycho in work you’d rather not, but you know pisses the boss off… But it’s still a valid tactical position.

“The profession of a prostitute is the only career in which the maximum income is paid to the newest apprentice. It is the one calling in which at the beginning the only exertion is that of self-indulgence; all the prizes are at the commencement. It is the ever-new embodiment of the old fable of the sale of the soul to the Devil. The tempter offers wealth, comfort, excitement, but in return the victim must sell her soul, nor does the other party forget to exact his due to the uttermost farthing.” William Booth