It’s too late for the SNP to rein in the cybernats

‘It is better to ride the tiger’s back than let it rip your throat out’ is reputedly how Tony Blair rationalised his close relationship with the Sun. The quote is thrown back at him by critics who imagine their preferred mode of politics untainted by tiger-riding. In fact, Blair is not alone: Bill Clinton rode the tiger of white male independents then spent much of his presidency pandering to them on crime, welfare and ‘values’. 

For the Liberal Democrats, it was post-Iraq Labour discontents and students, who brought them two million votes across two elections and who turned on them when they teamed up with the Tories and put up tuition fees. Labour MPs are currently tiger-riding Jeremy Corbyn and left-wing anti-Semitism in the hopes it will return them to power. Everyone does it, and everyone ends up with a bloody neck in the end. 

The SNP’s tiger began baring its teeth after the 2014 independence referendum.