Jim Spence: Are SNP any further forward in bid for independence?

The Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”.

I wonder if the SNP – formed in 1934 and in power in Holyrood for nearly 16 years – are any further forward in their quest for independence than that first step.

In the campaign to replace Nicola Sturgeon, none of the three candidates offer a compelling vision of how to reach independence or what that independence would actually mean for you and me.

It’s arguable that none of them are in touch with the major issues affecting the majority of voters.

Humza Yousaf said: “Whoever is first minister…if somebody is from an LGBT community, they need to be able to look at that first minister in the eyes and they need to believe that that individual isn’t just going to tolerate them, but is going to celebrate them.”

But that community has no lesser rights than any other group – and what does celebrate them actually mean?

It’s not a slight on anyone who is LGBT to suggest the SNP’s obsession with sex and gender issues has revealed them to be far removed from the major day-to-day issues affecting people.

Jim Spence quote on independence: Hardcore nationalists will always fall for the Braveheart guff. But I recall the words of the late John Hume, of the SDLP, and the wise advice he received as a boy from his dad: “You can’t eat a flag.”

Meantime, Ash Regan’s big wheeze is to refuse the Stone of Destiny permission to head south for King Charles’ coronation.

I’m tempted to swear but the editor would rightly cut it out.

It’s 2023 and a supposedly serious potential leader of Scotland’s biggest political party is getting worked up about a giant stick of rock.

I’d rather the useless big lump (and I mean the stone) was used as a cornerstone in the foundations in a massive new house building programme to tackle our serious accommodation shortages, than be used in a pointless symbolic gesture redolent of student politics.

And Kate Forbes – already marked out by some as a religious dogmatist – says she’ll set out an action plan for the next 10 years.

Which leads to the logical question – just what has her party been doing for the last 16 years when they’ve been in power?

The action plan comes as a BBC documentary highlights the fact Scots are now travelling in increasing numbers to Eastern Europe for private operations for hips and knees which they’ve given up waiting on our NHS to provide.

It’s hard to resist the conclusion that if the SNP now exists for anything it’s to fight a perpetual independence battle which they know they won’t win, but which keeps MPs, MSPs and a whole retinue of staff and the apparatus of the party machine on the gravy train, with the promised land always just around the corner for the easily led.

Hardcore nationalists will always fall for the Braveheart guff.

But I recall the words of the late John Hume, of the SDLP, and the wise advice he received as a boy from his dad: “You can’t eat a flag.”

Increasing standards of living and improving the health and education and housing, and all the other things which make for a better life for folk, should always be the main mission of politicians.

There’s a new game in town which may prove attractive enough for many folk who’ve voted SNP previously, to at least have a gander at what it’s offering.

Labour under Keir Starmer is resurgent.

Scotland was once a Labour fiefdom until, like the SNP, they grew complacent.

If Labour show common sense and connect with the big issues facing people – and not the minority topics the nationalists seem hell bent on – they may yet make this SNP leadership campaign irrelevant.