ACTORS EXCEL at presentation. They earn millions creating a false impression of themselves. From the fanfare afforded to Hollywood actors Alan Cummings you’d think he was a superhero for the Yes movement. In truth the X-Men star is actually an ex-Scot offering a disaster movie script.
Yet, by the SNP’s policy on indyref back in 2014, Cummings would not be able to vote on independence even if he lived elsewhere in the UK, let alone the USA, but his recent resurfacing triggered me to think on his support a little further. The SNP do not believe Alan is a Scot. Not in the way that matters because while he may have the right to vote in a UK general election he has no such right were there to be a Scottish independence referendum under the rules used in 2014.
How can one support independence of a country that would not let you have a vote?
How is that remotely democratic, to deny Scots abroad the right to vote on losing their British citizenship?
Has the SNP even published what would happened to Scottish ex-pats if we went independent?
How could they not vote in a referendum, but then be given a vote in Scottish elections from overseas after that referendum?
Maybe the screenplay needs some further treatment before filming starts?
Alan lives in the United States, so too does his ex-Scottish colleague Brian Cox and Line of Duty actor Martin Compston. I wonder how they cope out there? Why would anyone want Scotland to leave the UK for differences so much less than those between Scotland and America? If these actors can survive in the USA why not Scots in the UK?
Let’s imagine the UK doubled its military spending and increased its nuclear weapons twenty fold. Would Alan approve? Maybe if we brought back the death penalty, abolished the NHS and maternity pay, slashed the state pension and removed the right to paid holiday and to join a trade union? We could be more like where they live?
Certainly there is scope here for abolishing all controls on handguns so they could be sold say in the Tesco store near Dunblane? Is this really such an insensitive suggestion? Whatever the imagined differences between England (or some part of England) and Scotland it is hard to see how they could be more than between Scotland and the USA.
It is well known that when it comes to tax on income the United States is much more generous to higher earners than in Britain. The gap between rich and poor, between the owner of the mansion and its maid, is huge. America is famous throughout the world for its wealth and income divides and for workers to depend directly on their employers for healthcare.
Basic indicators of public health, be it life expectancy or infant mortality rank America far behind any western European country or indeed many eastern European ones too. The questions remains, that apart from the very low taxes on income and the very low spending on social security for the vulnerable, what on Earth keeps these ex-Scots over the pond?
There is nothing stopping them coming home, to Scotland, as we are now. Despite the many failings of the SNP, is Scotland really worse than St Louis, Missouri or Gary, Illinois or Haarlem, New York? Is there a fatal shooting in Glasgow twice a week or a hurricane crashing through poorly-built housing in Greenock like there is in New Orleans?
Actors are very good at projecting fantasies, especially their own. Could it be that supporting an independent Scotland for these actors is just another acting job? Perhaps they wish to construct a villain as far removed from themselves as possible but I feel they protest just a little too much.
Hollywood is very woke on the surface but it is a world of plastic surgery, plastic people and plastic feminists who preach equality to their casting couch, while decrying poverty from their Beverley Hills balconies. Maybe this is why Scottish independence has such appeal, because it is such a fantasy, its grim reality need never be feared.
In truth, millionaire actors with large mansions and estates would be among the first victims of a SNP-led socialist state while the vast majority across the UK recoil in horror at social conditions, gun mania and capital punishment that is part and parcel of a way of life Alan, Brian and Martin have very readily adopted.
Such as with so many Hollywood fantasies, we rarely know who the good and bad guys are until the very end. Until then, the fantasy will endure.
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Cummings: by Greg2600 – CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79057262 Cox by Dmitry Rozhkov – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52456024 Compston: ThinkScotland screenshot
