ANOTHER 'CUNNING PLAN' WHEN NOTHING HAS REALLY CHANGED?

On my first reading Nicola Sturgeon's recent article in the National, This Plan is Ambitious AND Credible - it can win us Independence, (I will re-read it just in case I missed something) and apart from being worn-out by its length what most struck me is how Sturgeon's lawyer's mind is able to spin out bullshit ad nauseam and where we really learn nothing new.

A certain popular indy commentator (whose broadcasts I normally respect) got very excited about Sturgeon's puff piece over Easter, especially about her vague promises for a new currency. These promises are nothing new; they were made weeks ago in an attempt to appease the SNP membership some who were gearing up to oppose the disgraceful 'Growth' Report.

So why are informed indy commentators making such a big deal about it now? Perhaps because they are desperately looking around to comment on some good news emanating from the FM when in the real world there is none?

Sturgeon intends to go ahead with Wilson's neoliberal proposals, Sterlingization, the Six Tests and the ill-termed Solidarity Payment. And this piece in the National is nothing more than a suitably-couched declaration that nothing has changed, she's the boss and the rest of us had better shut it and eat up our cereal.

She glibly compares an independent Scotland's sterlingization to the early Ireland whose economy only ever began to flourish after the ditching of Sterling, not before it. She also tries to perform the impossible by assuring us that the Wilson proposals are 'only a framework and menu of options', that they are not exhaustive but prescriptive!

Well, if that's really true then why bother to push them in the first place in the place of something more dynamic to really address the needs of a young Scottish economy, our widespread poverty and a New Green Deal?

'There will be no austerity' she promises us while pushing for a fiscal policy that is ALL about the swingeing implementation of an extremely harsh Tory austerity. Tell people one thing and do the very opposite :(

So what is it to be, Nicola? Because it can't be both things at once. Or is that what you have convinced yourself can happen, you can have your neoliberal cake and eat it while the rest of the poor in this country nourish themselves on thoughts of How wonderful your new Neoliberal Scotland will be?

Somehow I can't see any of that happening and I really can't see the SNP Conference buying it either. Because if they do, not only would we be seeing a party which was considered Centre Left under Alex Salmond's management lurch violently to the Centre Right but a confirmation that Sturgeon's intentions for a New Scotland are really nothing at all but much more of the same old (but tartanized) Tory politics from which we are desperately hoping to escape :(

But to end on an encouraging note which is specifically aimed at the cyber-bullies who we all know and love. Your Leader has this to say to you:

"Vigorous debate is healthy and we should never shy away from new ideas. Being able to have these debates openly and honestly, and accommodate different views, is a strength of our movement, not a weakness."

Now there's a challenge!

https://www.thenational.scot/news/17586824.sturgeon-our-currency-position-is-ambitious-and-credible-it-can-win-us-indy/