The SNP should count themselves fortunate. After 17 years in power, their policies are still subject to interrogation and intelligent debate.
Their London counterparts - who have occupied power for almost as long - aren’t in the same position. What policies the Tories do come up with - like National Service - are so absurd they read like a drunk’s 3am toilet-tweet.
The discussion around the Conservative government this election isn’t about their ideas but the rat-like betting habits of its spiv members before the party gets tossed in the garbage like a tub of rancid butter.
Rather than debate, the Tories evince boak.
However, once you subject SNP policy to some scrutiny, the party’s luck runs out. Take the environment. John Swinney perhaps foolishly drew attention to the SNP’s track record on net zero and the North Sea the other day.
He called on Labour leader Keir Starmer - a man whose imminent arrival in office brings barely a wan smile to the face of the most determined optimist - to reinstate his pledge to spend £28 billion annually on green policies.
Absolutely, John, I thought. Then I recalled events in April this year when the SNP scrapped Scotland’s targets of cutting carbon emissions by 75% come 2030.
It’s a curious mix, isn’t it? Telling political rivals to pull their finger out and fulfil their promises, while turning your own pledges into confetti.
Evidently, there’s always an excuse. It runs along these lines: ‘Westminster-something, wicked Conservatives-something, Red-Tory-Labour-something.’ Does anyone still buy that?
Yet now that Honest John has raised the environment, lets wander through the SNP’s recent history on climate policy. It rather fascinating, if you’re into double-dealing and lies.
Here we are in March 2022. The SNP has ruled out new oil fields in the North Sea. Nicola Sturgeon - remember her? - kiboshed drilling saying Scotland should accelerate the transition towards renewable energy.
That’s nice to hear for environmental folk. It’s sure to win their votes, right?
In November 2022, the SNP issued its strongest opposition yet to fossil fuels, when Environment Secretary Mairi McAllan said: “We do not agree with the UK government issuing new oil and gas licences."
Read more Neil Mackay
In January 2023, the Scottish Government was considering a quicker end to North Sea oil and gas. A draft strategy aimed for the fastest possible transition to secure a “bright future” focused on renewables in the North Sea.
The Scottish Government announced a presumption against new oil and gas exploration as part of its energy strategy.
In September 2023, the SNP accused the UK government of “climate denial” for approving new oilfields like Rosebank, saying Scotland remained on “the right side of history”.
However, a different tune was also being played by others in the SNP. Stephen Flynn, an MP in oil-rich Aberdeen, began attacking suggestions for a windfall tax on fossil fuel companies. In January this year, an article appeared in The National headed “SNP confirm support for continued use of fossil fuels”.
Kate Forbes then claimed the SNP “never said no” to new oil and gas licences. Did we dream it?
Unlike previous SNP comments, these statements played well not to environmentalists, but business.
Meanwhile, SNP MP Tommy Sheppard kept environmentalists strung along claiming it was “reasonable to assume” that the party would continue advocating for a presumption against oil and gas licences.
Come June, Forbes was claiming that the SNP were “in-between” Tories and Labour when it comes to new North Sea licences.
Your party is in-between alright. In-between taking the Scottish people for eejits and outright laughing in our faces.
Then just days ago, John Swinney - Honest John, honest as the day is long - said North Sea oil and gas would still be needed for Scotland’s net zero transition.
Look, it doesn’t really matter if you’re a ‘ban fossil fuels now’ environmentalist who likes to spray-paint Neolithic monuments on your gap year after Eton, or a lumpen climate change denier who spends their time revving an SUV in the drive for kicks, either way the SNP is at it.
The party is speaking out of both sides of its mouth simultaneously. It’s sending one message to the urban, liberal Scotland of the Central Belt, and quite another message to rural Scotland and the oil-dependent north-east. In other words, the SNP is plain sleekit.
What does it really believe? We’ve seen the pattern repeat and repeat. Is it really the progressive party of Sturgeon, or the socially conservative party of Forbes? Is it the leftie party of Humza Yousaf, or the business-comes-first party of Fergus Ewing?
What are we being asked to vote for? In truth, we’re being asked to vote for a party which believes in nothing collectively aside from a nationalist vision of independence.
The SNP has failed both the north-east and the environment. Like Simple Jack on his way to market, the party under Sturgeon sold the nation’s renewable assets in the ScotWind deal for a handful of magic beans. This deal could have provided the billions we need for the ‘Just Transition’. Instead foreign investors and private companies got rich on our backs.
Read more Neil Mackay
Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going. The Scottish Government doesn’t have a functioning industrial strategy when it comes to renewables. We’ve neither the manufacturing capacity nor supply chains to move to net zero in an intelligent fashion.
This election has turned into an exercise in meaningless promises, from all parties. It is as if the electorate is the child of an absentee parent. Every now and again, mum or dad turns up - smelling a little hungover - and promises that they’ll buy us the best bike in the shop come Christmas. But when Christmas rolls around, we get a rotten apple in our stocking, and a note telling us the bike will be there on our birthday. We’ll be dead before we ever get that bike.
The SNP is as ‘cakeist’ a party as the Tories - they want a slice of the environment, but they’ll eat a bit of the North Sea too. All the electorate wants is honesty. We know managing the transition to net zero is difficult, just don’t lie to us about it.
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