Wednesday, May 09, 2007

In For A Nicol

The world and his wife can see that there's no majority in Holyrood for a referendum on independence. So why, then, are the Lib Dems insisting on this being dropped, as a precondition to even sharing a cup of coffee with Alex Salmond and Robin Harper?





Could it be that they don't really want to be in government at all, but don't have the courage to say as much?

(High cartoon from today's 'Scotsman').

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

There should be a cadre of liberal democrat para-militaries in the background of that cartoon.

The uniform would be cub-scout (short trousers), with LibDem yellow woggle and beige balaclava.

Richard Thomson said...

With Tavish Scott as the 'Sixer', no doubt.

Who would be 'Akela', though? Menzies Campbell or Gordon Brown?

Unknown said...

Richard, that is such an argument for you guys to just drop it the referendum issue. You can't get it through the Parliament, so why insist on it as a precondition for negotiations.

I don't believe that, in any of the conversations between the leaders, any ground was given by Alex Salmond at all.

Richard Thomson said...

As far as I was aware, SNP offers of talks without preconditions meant exactly that - no preconditions on a referendum from the SNP, but no preconditions from anyone else, either.

You and I both know that with the will, a way could have been found through this, without the need for anyone to lose face. Even the Greens' proposals for 'talks about talks', without anyone from the SNP even being present, didn't seem to find any favour. Maybe my oft-referenced ST article goes some way towards explaining why.