They responded to Ingram for example by pointing out that 47,000 defence jobs have gone in Scotland since 1979, and rabbit on about the need to defend "Scotland's regiments".
This is hardly going to attract those anti-war activists who also have a vision of an independent Scotland, but shows clearly what direction the SNP leadership is pointing.
The Scottish Socialist Party has a different answer. Alan McCoombes, the SSP's press and policy co-ordinator points out that the SNP supports a "bloated defence budget, complete with an assortment of Scottish regiments - regiments which were created by the Victorian British state to protect its imperial possessions in Africa and Asia"
McCoombes points out that the British defence budget is grotesquely out of proportion and that Scotland's share of that budget in 2007 will total an obscene £3 billion. He continues:
"By cutting defence spending to the level of the Republic of Ireland - around £700 million a year - over £2 billion could be diverted into health, housing, pensions and free public transport"
The SSP's vote may well be squeezed in these forthcoming elections by voters believing that the best way to punish New Labour is to vote SNP.
But the party will be doing its utmost to ensure that Scottish voters are given a real political alternative - and Socialist Resistance will do everything it can to support them in so doing. Terry Conway On January 18, I happened to be visiting the Scottish Parliament at the same time as Tory leader David Cameron - and I got a better welcome than he did. I did wonder why there was a lone cameraman standing forlorn in the icy cold - and later discovered it was because no reception party had been organised to greet his arrival.
Perhaps this is not surprising, as it is well known there is no love lost between Annabel Goldie, leader of the Scottish conservatives and her party leader in Westminster. Despite the poor electoral record of the Conservatives in Scotland both in Westminster and Edinburgh, Goldie is unconvinced by Cameron's modernisation plans.
Meanwhile at least one prospective candidate in the forthcoming Holyrood election, Peter Lyburn, is calling on her to step down in favour of a rejuvenated leadership. Depending on the results on May 3, he may be joined by others.
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