Jim Sillars

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Articles

My personal tribute to Alex Salmond

Dec 1, 2024 | yesthink.scot | Jim Sillars

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThe Lothian skyline bade Alex Salmond a bonnie fareweel after his memorial service in Edinburgh on St. Andrews Day, 2024. Below are the thoughts of Jim Sillars, who attended the service in St Giles' Cathedral. Alex Salmond and I had episodes in our political journey of agreement and strong disagreement. Neither of us was perfect or free from error in our judgements.
I'd reject his Holyrood plot and send him homewards

Nov 14, 2024 | msn.com | Jim Sillars

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JIM SILLARS: I'd reject his Holyrood plot and send him homewards

Nov 14, 2024 | dailymail.co.uk | Jim Sillars

Stephen Flynn is a smart, ambitious operator, as Ian Blackford found out when ousted as SNP leader in the Westminster parliament. The next Flynn step is to get to Holyrood as the means to take leadership of the party when John Swinney draws his pension. It is as transparent as a piece of glass. There is nothing wrong with personal ambition. It drives people to success in business, sport, music and other human activities. Without ambitious people, society would stagnate.
JIM SILLARS: I'd reject his Holyrood plot and send him homewards

Nov 14, 2024 | thisismoney.co.uk | Jim Sillars

Stephen Flynn is a smart, ambitious operator, as Ian Blackford found out when ousted as SNP leader in the Westminster parliament. The next Flynn step is to get to Holyrood as the means to take leadership of the party when John Swinney draws his pension. It is as transparent as a piece of glass. There is nothing wrong with personal ambition. It drives people to success in business, sport, music and other human activities. Without ambitious people, society would stagnate.
JIM SILLARS: Dragged to court day after day, they publicly humiliated him. It was unjust and malicious. But history will be his ultimate judge

Oct 13, 2024 | dailymail.co.uk | Jim Sillars

The first time I met Alex Salmond, I knew he had something special as a politician. He was young and raw, but few I have met learned and developed faster. That ‘something special’ is of course an intangible that is impossible to define but obvious and recognisable when you meet it. He became a politician of the first rank not only in Scotland but also in the UK and Europe. He was a match for anyone at the highest levels of government, domestically and internationally.
"Alex Salmond's untimely death has an important consequence"

Oct 13, 2024 | heraldscotland.com | Jim Sillars

Jim Sillars (left) with Alex Salmond in 1992 (Image: Newsquest) I am not a hypocrite, nor would Alex wish me to be. I was an ally with Alex in the SNP for a long period, and a critic of his party management for a number of years.
A day of reckoning is coming for the US - and for Europe

Sep 24, 2024 | heraldscotland.com | Jim Sillars

Among the hundred countries balloting in 2024, only one is of global importance: the United States, the world’s hegemon. Whether it can keep that status is a vital question for Americans, and although we have no votes, for Europeans too. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris never ask and answer it. The US emerged as hegemon from the Breton Woods conference of 1944, where it created the present rules-based world order that all are expected to obey, rules it often ignores because it can.
Nicola Sturgeon is to blame for Yes movement's demise but it can return even stronger

Sep 15, 2024 | heraldscotland.com | Jim Sillars

Alex Salmond’s “once in a generation” claim was hyperbole. The 2014 referendum was an interregnum. The issue of Scotland’s constitutional future has still to be definitely decided. When that test will come, I know not. That it will come I am certain, and optimistic about the result. The justified electoral hammering given to the SNP as represented by the Scottish Government has led many unionists camp to believe independence is dead.
'Someone has to tell the truth': Jim Sillars letter to SNP members

Jul 9, 2024 | heraldscotland.com | Jim Sillars

From Jim Sillars Open Letter to SNP Members 8th July 2024 Fellow Members, Someone has to tell the truth You will not like what I have to say. But someone has to tell you the truth. What makes me so arrogant in claiming I am able to do so? Well, I am at the end of my political life. My ambitions are behind me. Also, I have been proved right in my critique of the leadership over the past decade, and saw last Thursday coming.
JIM SILLARS: A damning verdict on my party's record

Jul 5, 2024 | dailymail.co.uk | Jim Sillars

In keeping with the weather, a bitter, destructive wind of change swept through the ranks of the SNP’s Westminster candidates yesterday. Have some sympathy for those no longer holding the title of MP, for it was not they who were judged by the people. The guilt lies squarely on the shoulders of John Swinney. His pitch to the voters that if SNP won a majority of seats he would seek to start independence negotiations was always ludicrous.