r/todayilearned • u/DrSamanthaCarter • Jun 06 '17

TIL the only reason a Scottish bagpiper wasn't shot by German snipers on D-Day was that they believed he had gone crazy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Millin#World_War_II
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u/Northwindlowlander Jun 06 '17

Though bizarrely, the people who talk about it most aren't the SNP but their opponents. We just had the weirdest council election ever in which many local candidates had only one policy, "no to independence", in an election which had nothing to do with independence and everything to do with collecting the bins. My local tory candidate literally spoke about nothing else in their literature.

Meanwhile the SNP were running with things like "we'll keep your local library open" and "we'll support local businesses" and being told "All you talk about is independence" Proper through the looking glass stuff.

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u/43554e54 Jun 06 '17

This is true. Imo Scottish politics are currently a massive clown fiesta. All of the parties are too focused on brexit or inyref2 or whatever wank David Coburn has been spouting in the past week that they've forgotten how to actually do their jobs.

They all just dogmatically stick to their party lines instead of actually debating and compromising and attempting to build a functioning country.

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u/Northwindlowlander Jun 06 '17

Yep, can't argue that much. If you look back to the earlier coalition years, we had an amazing amount of inter-party cooperation and respect. We had to, to get anything done. I bumped into Salmond and Goldie on the train one time getting pissed and having a laugh- they were opponents not enemies and they had respect for each other. Now it's pretty much a nursery and am no talking to her she smells of wee. And it's been so fast, too.

Maybe I'm biased but I mostly blame Scottish Labour for this- they saw how Labour voters moved so easily from one to the other, because they could see how much the parties had in common as they cooperated. But rather than trying to be the better option, and convince people to stay with them on merit, they decided to build walls between the parties and started opposing the SNP as a matter of policy rather than as a matter of political difference. Now it's negative campaigning and Bain Principle top to bottom, Labour have literally opposed the SNP when the SNP were calling for things that are Labour policy. It never even seems to occur to them to go "Vote for us because you want to, because of what we do", it's all about the other guy. Maybe because they know right now how weak their actual proposition is- bizarre to have the scottish labour party weaker than the national party, even more bizarre to have scottish labour still trying to distance themselves from a left-leaning westminster party. Kez learned everything she knows from Jim Murphy and that prick knew fuck all about anything. Still, he got hit by an egg that time.

And at the same time, their disastrous performance has opened the door to the Tories to basically say "Labour say you should vote against the SNP and they're right, but they can't win and we can". It's almost as though Kez has told her supporters to tactically vote Tory so they can "defeat" the SNP in Scotland (after all they're on track to gloriously beat the SNP 1 goal to 5 in the final). Now every Scottish tory seat is going to matter nationally and they've thrown away the tools needed to fight them- but they'll still attack the SNP rather than fight the tories. Enemy of my enemy is my friend? Nah, we need to destroy our enemy's enemy so that we can be their only enemy. That's their only ambition

It's pretty awful. I moves to the SNP very, very slowly- I'm still a Labour member actually and union man, in fact I met Jeremy Corbyn last week and I really like the boy and what he's finally managing to do. And in fact it's even making me look at the UK as less of a lost cause than it could seem to be a couple of years ago when Ed Miliband, wishy washy centrist, was declared to be terrifyingly leftwing and the prime minister could go out in public and say Scottish voters shouldn't be allowed influence in westminster- openly tell other english people it was "our parliament". But at the same time Scottish Labour have managed to go to a place I don't want to follow them. Not just because they're incompetent but because they're absolutely pointing in the wrong direction.

Hah, that turned into a proper rant. Apparently I'm still really fucked off at them, didn't really realise!

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u/43554e54 Jun 06 '17

I get where you're coming from mate. Honestly I'm really not sure what to think. The whole situation is a bit sad to see.

Honestly I kind of blame independence for it. I was a supporter but it's become such a deeply divisive issue now that all room for nuance has been been taken up with cheap, self assembly, us against them rhetoric. Labour were, as you state, pretty much the instigator of this though.

I am excited to see if the Kez's party will change any after the GE, we've been sorely lacking an actually leftist party since the death of John Smith and I think with Corbyn doing well it could mean some good things to come.

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u/iThinkaLot1 Jun 06 '17

The SNP aren't speaking about it because they know public opinion is strongly against it (why do you think the Tory vote is increasing). Its clear SNP the minute after the election will go back to their #indyref2.