Do you like the SNP? I don’t but do not on any account imagine that they are going to disappear in a puff of smoke. Like MacBeth’s witches they are brewing trouble and it is sensible to assume that they will achieve their goal of an independent Scotland sooner than you ever imagined.
But what else is happening that we may be ignoring? Jeremy Corbyn is being mocked in the right wing press for his bonkers policies. (There is still a left wing press; the Morning Star is published six days a week online.) But the press ignore that he was elected in a democratic process and assume that he will either be quickly ousted as Labour leader or lose the 2020 General Election and resign. There is no doubt that he will have an interesting few years in the run-up to the election but he will gather a coterie of left-wingers or, frankly, opportunistic, self-serving and ambitious politicians – plenty of them, natch – around him. So I think it is more likely than not that he will lead Labour into the election in 2020. Now, what do we know of Jeremy? He likes to reach out, making him sound like Eva Peron doing a walkabout or Imelda Marcos in a shoe shop. Well why shouldn’t he reach out to the SNP? He already opposes a nuclear deterrent, as do they, and he has actually reached out to people much more distasteful than the lovely Nicola and that thug Alex.
So we go into the 2020 election with the economy in good shape, George Osborne leading the Conservatives, the UK still in the EU after the referendum and UKIP in disarray. But the combination of Labour and SNP will just win and form a coalition. By 2025 Scotland will be independent, probably earlier.
I’m on my way up to the river Annan in Dumfriesshire for a couple of days fishing. Next time I may have to remember to take my Passport.
