After the dust settles from another hectic week the two sides in the separation debate are left glaring at each other like a pair of punch drunk boxers reeling from a bloody encounter neither of whom are quite sure where they go from here.
Those in the Better campaign need to devise a strategy which allows them to engage with an opposition who refuse to be bound by normal conventions, like speaking the truth for example. The separatists need to try and figure out if their tactics of bold assertion and repetition really is the best way forward.
But the events of this week have the whiff of a turning point about them.
To recap, the First Minister was asked a direct question, "Have you sought the advice of your law officers?", he was going to give a typically slippery answer but was interrupted by Andrew Neil before he could insert his sneaky wee caveats. So we're left with the First Minister of Scotland answering a direct question thus: "We have, yes - in the terms of the debate". That was the end of the answer to that question.
From that answer any reasonable person would think wee Salmond had admitted that legal advice on EU membership had been sought from Scottish law officers. Mr Neil certainly did and when he asked "What did they say?" he moved the interview from the subject of seeking legal advice (which had been established ) to what that advice actually was and it was in answering this question that wee Salmond tried to sneak in his caveats.
Wee Salmond maybe didn't mean to lie but that's exactly what he did in that interview. Remember the old Yiddish proverb, Alex: 'A half truth is a whole lie'
One thing is for sure, things will never be the same again. Everything that is now claimed or asserted by the SNP must come with a huge health warning: in trying to be cute wee Salmond has shown himself to be too sleekit for his own good and in trying to protect him his party have shown themselves to be cynical opportunists whose much bragged about reputation for probity and competence now lies in tatters.
A high price to pay to dig wee Salmond out of a hole into which he so arrogantly swaggered.
"whose much bragged about reputation for probity and competence now lies in tatters."
ReplyDeleteOnly in the eyes of the highly respected Labour Party, perhaps, Graham?
Conan,
DeleteNot only Labour but every neutral who saw the interview, I would imagine.
The sight of nat after nat trotting out the feeble lines that only the unfair and unreasonable would take the answer, 'we have, yes' to mean 'we have, yes' is enough to give you the dry boak.
Remember that Tory who tried to wriggle out of a blundering mis-speak by claiming that when he said 'want' he meant it in the Old English sense not the modern sense?
That's you lot this week, that is...
and they've poisoned the debate with their ludicrous wriggling.
Tell me again, how many SNP parliamentarians are in prison as we speak?
ReplyDeleteHow many warmongering Labour PMs that should be, aren't?
My favourite part of this particular episode however was the laughable attempts on TV by Nicola Sturgeon, Jamie Hepburn and Stuart Maxwell to spin the line that Salmond was misunderstood. They were just as unconvincing as he was.
ReplyDeleteSo not only has the fat controller tarnished his own image, but he has also spread it through his party. Long may he continue to do so.