Despite the cockiness of their Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, who seemed to be enjoying overmuch kicking a woman when she is down – and it would be hard to find anyone closer to the floor than Liz Truss at the moment.
However, Truss is not the only one in staring down the barrel of catastrophe. I can reveal that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP, who have been doing a lot of crowing over the past few days, do not have their own troubles to seek.
Their boast that there has never in history been a country so ready for independence as Scotland is an out and out lie, a travesty of the truth, a fantasy and a fallacy.
I have been looking on the internet at the YOURS FOR SCOTLAND blog by Iain Lawson, who was once the public face of the Conservative Party in Dunbartonshire, an outspoken Tory who found he lacked support from the electorate here and eventually, in despair some say, switched to the SNP.
Big Iain, son of the late Rev Alexander Lawson, of Dumbarton Presbytery, who did politics on the periphery of various councils and committees, was a “rummel ’em up” merchant, and it appears he hasn’t changed a bit.
His blog this week looks at the “interesting” numbers involved at the recent SNP conference in Aberdeen, where Nicola Sturgeon controversially revealed her wafer thin plans for an independent Scotland.
Sturgeon’s chances of independence for Scotland are about the same as Truss’s chances of holding on to the premiership after the next UK election – a dug’s and nane, as they might say in Brucehill, Bellsmyre, Bonhill and downtown Dumbarton and the Vale.
“No wonder the party was e-mailing members the evening before conference asking members if they wanted to be delegates! Annual National Conference Elections 2022.”
SNP smearmeister, the tedious Cllr Jonathan McColl, who represents Lomond on West Dunbartonshire Council and whose political views would be more at home in Belarus than Balloch, was was elected to the SNP’s National Executive Committee by two votes out of a total of a miserly 50 votes cast.
WEST SCOTLAND (Open List)
Jonathan McColl – 26
Graeme McCormick – 24
Iain Lawson commented: “I am struck by how few votes are now required to become a NEC member. To give an example have a look at the West of Scotland region where only 26 votes were required for victory. This is a Party that claims 119,000 members, the West of Scotland must account for at least 15,000 of those numbers but only 50 votes in total were cast.
“When you look at this voting, just over 800 votes in the most contested election there seems very few people involved in these elections. Now I know it is delegates voting but the West of Scotland has has 9 constituencies within it and there should also be a lot of branch delegates as well. Yet 26 votes, under 3 per constituency were sufficient for victory?
“These numbers do not suggest a dynamic Party rather a lethargic one with fading involvement from the grassroots.”
Lawson also tackled the question of secrecy and censorship, which the SNP has an obsession with at national and local level – they imposed a ban on The Democrat in West Dunbartonshire which astonishingly is being kept in place by the new Labour administration, which has taken over from them.
He said: “Unfortunately some pro Indy websites are not pro Indy. They are pro SNP sites and ban any content on their sites which dares to question the SNP or the SNP leader. They seek to censor discussion and free expression.
“Fortunately many of my readers share the articles on Yours for Scotland frequently and because of this the attempted censorship is proving ineffective. This support is very important and I thank everyone who share and protect freedom of speech and choice.”