Tide turns against Unionist parties

WITH the three “Scottish” Unionist parties “all aboard” the S.S. Titanic on its fateful voyage to reach the hallowed shores of America – “Land of the Free” enterprise and whipped trade unions – blindly following the course set by Margaret Thatcher and her natural successor Tony Blair; can any of these parties change tack to avoid disappearing below the waves forever?

Already holed below the water-line, one would expect “abandon ship” to be the order of the day for the trapped Lib Dem stokers – rather than “full steam ahead” into a double-dip iceberg, as the “Ship’s Master” David Cameron and his inept navigator, George Osborne, refuse to alter course. So, what does Labour’s new “Captain Courageous” Ed Miliband propose? Exactly the same route, just at a slower rate of knots.

Then we have New Labour in Scotland, with three mid-ship persons vying for “promotion” to Second Lieutenant in a rudderless vessel, while its mutinous crew are sent on a fool’s errand to rearrange the deck-chairs as the ship is sinking. Meanwhile, some “Scottish” Conservatives delude themselves that by renaming their doomed craft the S.S. Progressive, their once mighty flagship can be raised from the depths.

Too late, the three Unionist parties realise that their “Titanic” is not “unsinkable” after all. Now, in a panic, they propose cosmetic changes to their organisational set-ups, to dupe the Scottish electorate into believing that their concerns and wishes are now all important to these new “Scottish patriots”. In fact, the real power-base remains unchanged – each Unionist party will still be subsumed and over-ruled by their respective, London masters, who will continue to pander to middle-England “for the greater good”.

The SNP’s victory in May was so clearly an anti-Tory vote, it is incredible that the “brains” in all three Unionist parties have mis-read the reasons for their crushing defeat. Mistakenly, they cite the lack of a credible “Scottish identity” as the primary cause and, although an important factor, the real message is – that a vote for any of these parties is now seen, in Scotland, as a vote for Conservative policies.

John Dobbins, Glasgow