Alex Salmond vs Nicola Sturgeon


So what do you do when you're talking to someone about voting for Alba on the list and they say "I'm no voting for that Alex Salmond" then go on to tell you all about the terrible things he's done to women and all about his ego.

Or maybe it's the other way round and you're talking about voting for the SNP on the constituency and they say "I'm no voting for that Nicola Sturgeon, she cares more about gender than Independence and she tried to jail an innocent man"

This is where personality politics leads us. To a situation where two people can agree on the substantive issue (Independence) but are blinded to the bigger picture because personalities are getting in the way.

I have a personal hatred of personality politics, it isn't good for the voters and it isn't good for politicians.

The fact is that politicians use their charisma and personality to garner power, firstly within their own party, to rise to the top, and subsequently with the voters.

There is no immediate solution to this issue, so what do we do in the meantime?

We use the politicians as much as well can.

In this scenario, where the goal is Independence, we need to play our various options against each other.

Here we are talking about Alex Salmond vs Nicola Sturgeon.

We don't need to like either, but as both are in competition, we can use that to our advantage.

The best example of this is UKIP (to be clear I am NOT comparing either party to UKIP).

UKIP had very little electoral success outside the EU elections, but the threat that they could have domestic success forced the Tory government to concede the EU referendum, to preserve their own seats in Westminster.

Alba is a similar threat to the SNP, although not in constituency seats, but more in the makeup of the Scottish Parliament.

Alba being a list only party gives the electorate a better way to use the competition against each other, because it's no longer about a vote every 5 years, it's about every vote in Holyrood, where SNP MSPs could defect.

The reality is there could be constant pressure on Nicola Sturgeon to advance Independence ASAP in order to preserve her majority/minority government.

So back to the question, when people say they cannot vote for either party because of the personalities, or even the other policies.

Firstly I would say, forget the other stuff, if you give Alba your list vote, this parliamentary term is going to be all about Independence.

And this could very well be our last chance, that is why we cannot rely on one party, we need competition to deliver Independence.

And when it comes to Independence we've been here before in 2014 and what did we say?

We told people that they weren't voting for Alex Salmond or the SNP, they were, like all politicians, transient. 

They were voting for an Independent future for Scotland that would be forever and see many politicians come and go over the years.

Ironically some of the people who will have made that very argument in 2014 are now the ones who say they can't vote for Alex Salmond.

Remind them of 2014.

Remind them they are voting for Independence, not a politician, a personality or a political party.

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