The big story in Scottish politics today is the one that cannot really be commented on due to Scotland’s strict laws about contempt of court and not saying anything in public which might prejudice the outcome of criminal proceedings. Last week former SNP Chief Executive Peter Murrell, the husband of former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, was charged with embezzlement following Police Scotland’s three year long investigation into SNP finances. No details have been released about the details of the alleged offence. The matter has now gone to the Crown Office who will decide whether the evidence warrants the case going to trial.
We cannot comment on the specifics of the matter but this development, and I strongly urge those commenting here to avoid any mention of this on-going legal case, however this development means that the SNP now faces the nightmare of going into a Westminster general election which was already expected to be difficult with the potential spectre of the criminal trial of a former senior party figure looming over its head. Hopefully this is the final chapter in the long running Operation Branchform saga, although Police Scotland has insisted that the investigation is on-going. While there are undoubtedly rocky days ahead in the short to medium term, we can begin to see the distant light of Scottish independence politics in the post Branchform, and post Salmond and Sturgeon era.
Achieving a nation’s independence is never easy, and Scotland’s pro-independence parties and the wider independence movement have perhaps been naive about the scale of the challenges that we face. The British state and its supporters were never going to make this simple and in the years after 2014 we made the mistake of assuming that they would play by the long established rules of democracy. However the British nationalists and their allies have shown no hesitation in ripping up those rules and replacing them with new ones more to their liking. The independence movement must acknowledge that it is not facing a principled and honest opponent.
Until 2021 there was a long established understanding that it is for the people of Scotland to choose the system of government that best suits their needs and that they could do so by electing a Scottish Government to Holyrood which reflects that. Yet in 2021 the people of Scotland had the temerity to elect a government committed to holding another independence referendum, and so the Conservatives, aided and abetted by Labour and the Lib Dems – parties which lost that year’s Scottish elections – decided to ignore a result which was not to their liking and sought to gaslight Scotland into believing that the people had not really voted for what they had in fact voted for by the well established rules of democratic elections in the UK. Shamefully, the great majority of the media in Scotland actively colluded in this deceit.
Nevertheless significant progress has been made, the idea of independence has now been normalised in mainstream Scottish politics, in itself a remarkable achievement given that it had previously been successfully kicked to the margins by the powerful forces of the British nationalist parties, the deeply ingrained Scottish cultural cringe, and a Scottish media which is overwhelmingly dominated by the traditional Unionism which has now been replaced by a nakedly aggressive Anglo-British nationalism.
It is only within the past couple of years that it has begun to dawn that we are facing British nationalist opponents who will not hesitate to stoop to nakedly anti-democratic means in order to thwart the legitimate drive for Scottish independence, shifting the goalposts in order to ensure that a democratic vote on independence is forever outwith our grasp. We now know that voting for a Scottish Parliament which has a clear and unequivocal mandate for a Scottish independence referendum is no longer deemed sufficient for a referendum by a Westminster which continues to insist that Scotland is a member of a voluntary union even as it refuses to specify any democratic route to another vote on independence which is not subject to a veto by a British Prime Minister.
We are currently in a stalemate, which suits the Labour and Conservative parties just fine, the independence parties and the wider movement have yet to work out how to break that stalemate in a way that ensures that a clear and unarguable majority of Scots are on board with it. With support for independence in a huge majority amongst younger age groups, that is not a situation that will last indefinitely. The log-jam will eventually break, and it will do so because of the demographics of independence support are gradually changing Scotland into a nation in which independence will become the settled will of the people.
The new era of Scottish independence politics which is gradually developing will be an era dominated and shaped by a younger generation of politicians, responding to the needs and concerns of a younger generation of Scottish voters who take the idea of Scottish self-government for granted and who are far less influenced by older and out dated notions of the supposed global importance of Britain and more able to see through the self-serving deceit of Westminster.
The cause of independence will be buffeted by storms, it will face crises and difficult times like those it is currently experiencing, but we are travelling on a river which leads inexorably and inevitably to one destination, the wide blue open sea of independence. Right now that river is turbulent and dangerous. The truth is that things will probably get worse before they start to get better, but get better they most assuredly will.
The cause of independence is not a creature of the SNP, recent polling has proven that support for independence remains unaffected by the travails of the party, but the anti-independence parties will seize upon any electoral reverses suffered by the SNP and will use them to claim that it is all over for the dream of Scottish independence. They will redouble their attacks on the powers of the Scottish Parliament.
The SNP will get through this crisis. The party will regroup and reorganise, and it will do so on a foundation of support for independence which remains strong and undiminished and which grows more solid with every passing year. The cause of independence is bigger than any individual, and it’s not going anywhere. We will get through this, and we will be vindicated in the end. History is on our side.
This blog will continue to make ths case for independence and to highlight the hypocrisy and lies of the real enemies of Scottish independence, the corrrupt and rabid Conservatives and the morally and intellectually bankrupt Labour party. It will continue to offer what I hope is a calm and reasonable voice, articulating the humanity and compassion which drives this movement.
Later this week I will launch the blog’s annual crowdfunder. I hope you value my work enough to support it. I have continued to blog despite health challenges which have reduced my output, and I will continue to articulate the case for independence and to hold high a beacon of hope in the dark and stormy days that may lie ahead. On the other side of those days a new and better Scotland is taking shape.
Obviously recent developments will attract a lot of interest and people will want to express their views. However I must remind people that Scotland has very strict laws about contempt of court and you must exercise extreme caution in what you post. Ideally it is best to say nothing. I must also warn you that you are personally responsible for any comments you make.
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Wee Ginger Dug 
I understand completely, Paul. Thank you!
I appreciate your writings and will certainly donate – but I can’t afford much. Sorry…
What a time to be alive! Wars, deluges, plagues and perfidious Albion interfering and looting at will.
Future generations will thank us for just staying alive and carrying on carrying on, as I certainly intend to do. So glad you are keeping up the excellent work Paul and keeping spirits high.
And what a complete contrast to the gloom and doom from Bella Caledonia at the moment!
I’m not particularly religious, but I keep in mind the (alleged) last words of my patron saint, Dewi Sant /St. David:
“Gwnewch y pethau bach y gwelsoch chi fi yn eu gwneud a chadwch y ffydd.”
(“Do the little things you saw me do and keep the faith.”)
🙏
Completely acknowledged Paul. Hope the other duggers rise above the urge to comment. To be honest, a steely silence can be the stronger option and many of us have grown wiser and stronger since 2014, just waiting, watching and reading the truth.
Now how about the deceit, the lies, the criminal activities of those who seek to destroy Scotland?
They know who they are…above and beyond and out of control, stomping their butcher’s brand on everything, aided and abetted by the not-answerable-to anybody media.
Liars always get found out.
Keep the faith. Still winning. A better future.
Just to check, but will former* senior political party figures face charges from time to time in an independent Scotland? I’d ask about the union, but that’s already answered.
Anyway, if the answer is ‘Yes, but they’ll only ever be your own political figures, not another country’s forced upon you’, then I’m still definitely up for indy. If the answer is ‘No‘, then the same.
—
*Incidentally, if I leave a senior post at an organisation, am I still classed as a ‘senior figure’ in that organisation over a year later? I’d have thought the answer was no, but then I’m normal, not Brexit British.
Senior strategic political influential former big figure and stalwart of the party
‘Power couple’ but without any actual power.
“…but then I’m normal…”
ISTR Jasper Carrott saying he didn’t want to be normal because “serial killers are normal”. And went on to say that whenever a serial killer’s neighbours are interviewed they always say “He looked so normal.”
So, like Jasper, I don’t especially want to be normal.
Mind you, I never had a senior post in an organisation either… 😀
😂
Lo, I loved Jasper Carrott.
Thankfully I’m not normal. My daughter says this. She say’s analysing multiple excel sheets of data and making graphs out of this when you are not at work is definitely not normal! 🙂
Speaking as a dyscalculic, your daughter is wise beyond her years! 😀
What the independence movement needs right now, above all, is for Labour to win the UKGE, but lose in Scotland on say 3/10 of the vote, ideally on a historically low turnout UK wide.
Thankfully, that’s exactly what polls say is going to happen. All of them say this. Total consistency. The nightmare scenario for the UK is coming; Scotland getting a hated English Labour government it didn’t vote for.
A bonus on top of that, would be the SNP winning again 2019 style. A super bonus would be a defacto referendum giving a Yes. There is considerable uncertainty over the former scenario. All we know is that if turnout projections go up, the established correlation is that this will only benefit the SNP. At the same time, a higher turnout will see Yes go up too, and from it’s current narrow majority for Yes, as Yes support directly correlates with SNP support in polls. Now folks say that link broke in early 2023. That’s wrong; all that happened is a new correlation formed, one where less SNP share was needed for the same level of support for Yes.
Folks, think of it this way and worry less about the SNP. If your focus is all on the SNP, you fall into the unionist trap. They want to be talking about seat loses for the SNP. What the absolutely don’t want Scots to be talking about, is Labour losing the election in Scotland on a historic low turnout for unionism, so Starmer having no mandate for here. The whole union survival is built on the premise of Scotland returning to Labour when the Tories are defeated UK-wide.
The polls all say that’s absolutely not going to happen, and that Labour will lose here, and badly, on a fundamental, union breaking level, no matter how the SNP do.
For independence, we need support for the union to crumble. Then a vote for Yes becomes a mere formality. Polls show that support for the union is crumbling. I cannot see how unionists can stop this. It’s 70+ years in the making. The certainly won’t stop it by attacking the SNP. If your house is falling down, trying to tell everyone that your neighbour is an erse won’t stop this.
The Greens are standing candidates for the general election and are already mulling over the plan of what to do in case of a future Labour win in Scotland, Alba are standing candidates as are Labour Tory and Lib Dem, two of these parties are not likely to get any elected MPs but will remove votes from the SNP, so how are votes for them showing support for Independence when the only party England cares about is the SNP?
I’m not against the BHA as such, but the Greens are not dependable, and Alba? well c’mon
It’s all very well shouting we support independence hear us roar when England turns its head saying “did you hear something there”? Greens? Alba? what’s a Green Alba? “don’t bother me I’m drinking my Sherry”
It used to be three opposition parties to the SNP, now we have five plus the entire British media, I’m not so sure we should be singing “things can only get better” just yet
Now Yvette Cooper is following her boss, Starmer, and writing an article for the Daily Telegraph: “Labour will stop the boats”
Delightful…not.
If they were really serious about ”Stop the Boats ” , then they would have put Chris Grayling in charge of them !
This is entirely an English issue.
The last time,a very long time ago,that Scotland suffered from illegal boat people,they were coming from the direction of Norway.
Maybe their coming back for their chess set.
😀
What Yvette Cooper writes is just balls by any other name …
Yes, I meant to say that – I’m sure my fellow political anoraks on here will get it.
Cheek!
I got it. And I’m more of a leaky umbrella 🙂
I’ll bet they have a plan. It’ll go something like this –
As soon as you see a boat, U-turn it back. Simple. It’s the Labour way these days. They’ve been practising.
The British State is well versed in the Dark Arts and will be busy strategising how they can LEGALLY/ILLEGALLY or DEMOCRATICALLY/UNDEMOCRATICALLY stop Scottish Independence .
They have already tested the waters by some politicians ( English ) complaining that THEY ( The English ) should have a say /vote in a Scottish Independence Referendum .
Then we have the limp lettuce that passes as The Scottish Secretary who has stated that 60% or 70% or 80% or is it 90% of the voters must support Independence before HE will ALLOW a vote . Just like Stalin , HE will be the judge of whether we meet that threshold . ( Clearly , when he was born , they threw away the wrong bit ! )
No doubt there will be a secretive unit at work deep within Whitehall busy seeking the best way to thwart the Scottish YES voters but dressed up as a ‘democratic ‘ and perfectly reasonable explanation along the lines of Catch 22 !
Makes the question asked really important. Has to be explicit and remove the unlawful claim to jurisdiction by Westminster.
asking the people of Scotland to give permission to the Scottish Parliament , effectively making the Scottish Parliament sovereign, to negotiate withdrawal from the 1707 Treaty of Union.
Golfnut
People can vote savvy. SNP GE.
Other Independence Parties on the list Holyrood & STV election
D’Hondt a quota. To try to stop Independence parties. Introduced by unionists without a mandate.
More people vote for Independence. Vote out the unionists. Support still increasing.
Tories will be gone.
Appeal to the UN. Self governance and self determination when people vote for it. UN principles.
“Stop the small Scots”
Keir Starmer in a real fankle now claiming that he and Labour are more patriotically English than the Tories
What happened to the one country one union one nation? are we back to being four great nations again except Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland are not represented patriotically by the patriotic English politicians today? maybe our turn tomorrow eh, or *soon*?
The more they try to win votes in England the more they sound like Genghis Khan
No immigrants, no democracy for Scotland, no foreign courts, no Labour Lords, no bad actors in the media, no lefty lawyers, no Jews crossing the street today, if you get raped it’s your own fault for wearing a short skirt, infected blood was bad but we’re still not paying any of you, WASPI women who cares, Horizon good Horizon bad but still we’re not paying you until you’re all dead, water charges up 44% because of EColi, worst performing NHS in the UK but we don’t care because we’ll tell the media to tell you it’s the bestest, England has the highest car crime in Europe that’s why your insurance in Scotland and Wales has doubled where there’s hardly any car crime at all but we don’t care because There’ll always be an England and England shall be free” God save the King, flags wave in slow motion
Now let’s all come together and thank England for all the conquering they’ve done just for us
@Dr Jim, I guess you mean this. His newest column article in the Sunday Torygraph.
We now know his national identity. I was sure he was an English nationalist. Now we have it straight from the horse’s mouth. Not a ‘proud brit’ like Brown, but ‘proud English’. One to bookmark!
As I said, lining up to be Scotland’s first – and last – hated English Labour PM.
I so want him to win this election in England. On a stupidly low turnout of course!
Meanwhile, word is that loads of lefties are going to vote Tory due to the police investigation into Angela Rayner and her tax affairs.#
https://archive.ph/MXi9t
Labour is now the true party of English patriotism
I have no time for those who flinch at our flag. The cross of St George belongs to all who love this country…
…I’m proud to be English precisely because it’s a place where we can disagree – whether that’s a debate in the House of Commons or in the local pub – and still celebrate a common identity, a shared history and a future together. That’s what makes Britain the strong democracy that’s the envy of the world.*
And I won’t let the Tories chip away at our boldness and confidence. To be proudly English means to be proudly ourselves, to hold firm to our convictions and be able to speak our mind – and be civil when others speak theirs. No, Labour is the patriotic party now. We will celebrate St George’s Day with enthusiasm, an enthusiasm shared by each patron saints’ day on our isles…
…I want… A country with a proud national identity, confident on the world stage and sure of its future. And where we share the responsibility to write the next chapter of British history we pass on to our children.
If you think Scots are coming home to this lol. This is why his ratings in Scotland are tanking. New English Conservatives is exactly what he’s building.
Come on Sarwar, make sure all those Northern Englandshire Labour candidates for the GE proudly wave ‘the country’s flag’ on St. George’s day! Hope they know the words to Jerusalem.
—
*It’s not, that’s why everyone left the empire, or will soon.
#Only joking. That would be totally nonsensical, so won’t happen.
Incidentally, this says to me that Starmer think’s there isn’t a cat’s chance in hell that he’ll win Scotland. Which is supported by every single poll to date; 3/10 votes on just a 34.5% turnout for the union.
He knows he’s going to lose here, and so lose Scotland completely sooner or later. Quite possibly as early as 2026.
I am just left wondering what’s going through the minds of Scottish Labour. I cannot but enjoy the incredible irony that Labour winning the GE is such bad news for them.
Here’s a new poll for you, this time all about “flegs”.
Which flag do people in Britain think represents them best?
https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2024/04/which-flag-do-people-in-britain-think-represents-them-best/
That would be 56% Yes ex DK at least based on flags. However, when forced to chose, the ‘equally’ tend to split down the middle. That would give you 69% Yes. A little lower than what you seen in the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, but within error. That and polls right now do seem to be oversampling unionists.
Ok, seems to be a Scottish subsample. A larger one yes, but not a full Scottish weighted poll.
Just sent this to my former neighbour ‘I support independence and used to vote SNP but maybe now Labour*’
Reaction thus:
Christ…..
Not good
—
*I don’t believe he’s ever voted SNP. He’s told me too many times how he does support indy and used to support SNP for that to be true.
England is a monarchial based Reich, in no imagined universe can such a system ever be a democracy
Just because the people are allowed to vote in no way makes any country democratic if the configuration of the voting system is such that finance and power can dictate a winner
That’s a description of the mafia, or America or Russia, or funnily enough all the countries with massive military power and police states
Notice how we never hear the opinions of the leaders of countries like Estonia and places like that, they don’t seem to count because they’re not big and powerful, nobody has any respect for those little places as though the people in those places aren’t important enough to know anything
Just like Scotland, except we’re not even a country, so we get openly mocked ignored and devalued because we accept being a peninsula colony of England
Ireland used to be treated like that, not now though eh, I don’t wonder what changed
The MOD are objecting to more wind turbines being erected in Scotland because it “interferes” with their radar and ability to defend the UK, they say
They could practice in Rwanda, or mibbees get better radar ?
I’ve given you a donation Paul. I love your blog and your logical positive analysis of Scottish politics. Keep up the good work. You are needed and appreciated.
Well done for not just looking at one single, highly misleading number, namely mid-term headline voting intention. It’s wrong most of the time.
There is no doubt that Labour are losing hearts and minds, and that’s from a starting position of the same support as they had in 2019, when they suffered their worst defeat since 1935.
https://archive.ph/FlBsp
Labour are ahead in the polls, but have they won hearts and minds? These charts suggest not
As 2014 came to a close, it seemed Ed Miliband would be the next prime minister, with the Labour party leading David Cameron’s Conservatives as the general election approached.
But when the May 2015 results came in, it was Cameron who headed back to Downing Street…
…The public is not as satisfied with Starmer as it was with Blair or Cameron
Starmer’s latest net satisfaction rating was -31 points in April. This is significantly lower than Cameron’s rating at the same point in his tenure as opposition leader, when his rating was +8.
It represents Starmer’s worst rating as Labour leader, and is roughly equivalent to the ratings Miliband and William Hague were receiving after a similar time in office.
As bad as Ed f’n Milibland and worse than Cameron. Slow clap from the unionists for Starmer!
As for the experts saying this ‘doesn’t matter’. Well in terms of getting seats, no it does not. If only 50% turn out and Labour gets less than half of that to vote for them while the Tories struggle to get above 1/5, Starmer will get a supermajority. It’s just that will totally ruin the UK and lead to its break-up, as neither he nor his party will have any popular democratic mandate for any policy they try to implement. That cannot possibly go well.
OMG, no way I can support the union now!
https://archive.ph/1kSjJ
Two men charged with spying for China under Official Secrets Act
A UK parliamentary researcher and another man have been charged with spying for China after allegedly providing information which could be “useful to an enemy”.
That’s it, I have to vote for indy! The SNP case had me back to the union, but now I’ve flipped again!
🙂
So what’s the score right now? We have Angela Raynor under police investigation, that Tory who just resigned for misuse of campaign funds, now a union parliament dude charge with spying, vs one guy that used to work for the SNP under the microscope?
#totally_irrelevant_to_whether_scotland_becomes_independent_or_not
https://archive.ph/0Hi94
nicolasturgeon Supporting McDermid Ladies in the League Cup Final with @quineofcrime@profjosharp@hannah_bardell and the legendary Rose Reilly
Totally OT, but Sky News released footage of the ” openly jewish ” altercation in London, after the perp had spent the day touring TV channels demanding heads should roll… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDcFuYRulVI
Even jewish groups marching with the protestors were making clear Mr Falter was a troublemaker, but this footage proves the point, leaving an awful lot of egg on some high placed political faces….
One of those pedantic troublemaking I’m right guys, the problem was he was right but you just know he was an annoying git about it
We’ve been putting up with this stuff in Scotland with Orange lodge marches for years, try crossing through them and the cops will stop you before you get killed by the nutters
If you listen very carefully, you can hear the explanation for the intervention, he was observed trying to disrupt in line with the march, NOT trying to cross the road….
I counted at least 5 minders with him and one on camera during the police intervention – The edited bit which made the headlines was part of the bigger piece they filmed, luckily the Sky cameraman caught it all too…
Apparently wearing symbols of your religion with the sole intent* of showing people what this is, isn’t being ‘openly religious’.
Or somehow the officer was wrong to state the facts before him.
—
*If you go out in public openly wearing symbols of your religion, be a Kippah or a crucifix, your intent can only be to inform others what your religious is and/or your level of observance, i.e. you are being ‘openly religious’. Regarding the Kippah, any head covering does the job, and is not a requirement of Judaism as a rule I understand. If a Jewish man wears the Kippah, the intent is to be ‘openly Jewish’, no doubt about it.
This is why e.g. priests don their robes; to make sure people know they are a priest.
So he should hide the fact he is Jewish? Orthodox jews tend to wear their kippah daily and not just in the synagogue.
If he, and others, are not allowed to wear the kippah in public then surely the veil/hijab should come under the same scrutiny?
No reason to at all. I was just saying he really wants people to know he’s Jewish, hence wears the Kippah.
For many religious people, their religion is between them and their god; nobody else’s business. A private matter. They don’t wear it on their sleeve so to speak. I don’t walk around with an ‘I’m an agnostic’ t-shirt on as I see no reason to tell everyone walking past that.
Others like to make sure people know their beliefs, even if the latter could not be less interested. This can range from wearing subtle symbols, to very obvious ones, right through to preaching out loud in public. All legal unless you are trying provoke trouble by doing so.
This gent wears the Kippah as he wants to create some sort of reaction from other citizens. I am not sure exactly what reaction he wants and from whom, but he wants one, that much is true. It might just be a very positive reaction, such as seeking to form a bond of fellowship with other Jews. I do this with my saltire on indy marches.
In this instance, the police felt he was try to provoke a negative reaction by interfering with peaceful marchers, and on the basis of their religion. So they blocked him. The full video to me shows the policeman in question dealing exactly as he should with the situation.
Even if the gent had seen an actual group of known antisemites / far righties mouthing off, and he headed towards them with the motive of getting them to abuse / attack him, the police should fine him for stirring up trouble that would otherwise have not occurred.
It would be the same if I marched over with my Yes saltire to a group of unionist thugs knowing they’d likely react badly towards me and commit crime. They might throw the punches, but I was the cause off the problem, so deserve my ear felt. Instead, I should ignore them and march on past.
It’s all about the motive and whether you are seeking to get a negative reaction to the symbols of your beliefs, not the symbols themselves.
Looked to me like he wanted a negative reaction, ergo was stirring up trouble.
I don’t think he was right. Try crossing the road in front of an Orange March, wearing a Celtic jersey or “openly” showing your religious belief. Might be seen as a “provocation” in order to have the marches banned.
Much as I agree with that in the case of the Orange Lodge I don’t agree in the case of solidarity with Palestine. So we’re stuck with freedom of speech and freed of assembly.
I thought the police were very restrained in this instance. “Disingenuous” is the word to describe Mr Falter.
Ah but in Scotland we are not allowed freedom of speech, the English supreme court decided that we cannot be asked or answer questions of which they do not approve, even if we want to
They could have ruled that if Scotland answered YES to the question of independence they would not allow the implementation of that answer, instead they disallowed the actual question that any lawyer would easily argue in any other situation was freedom of speech
England’s supreme court silenced Scotland by not allowing us to speak, or the world would have seen and heard what Scotland said, and that would have been bad publicity for England’s claims of being a democratic country
The BBC would have reported this kind of action by any other country as banana republic dictatorship
I’m openly Scottish, unlike the North British cringers. 🙂
Aye righty oh Kier if you say so.
Cue the music the spitfires over Buck house and the slow motion wavy flags
From that article on IPSOS polling I flagged above:
https://archive.ph/FlBsp
…Aside from headline voting intention polls, another important factor in deciding elections is net satisfaction ratings in politicians.
Data from Ipsos Mori shows how, since 1977, net satisfaction in the leader of the opposition has served as a predictor of how the party then performed in the general election.
As Tony Blair and Cameron – the only two successful leaders of the opposition in the dataset – approached a general election, they had positive net satisfaction ratings, at +22 and +3 respectively. Starmer is a long way off this level.
Starmer’s latest net satisfaction rating was -31 points in April. This is significantly lower than Cameron’s rating at the same point in his tenure as opposition leader, when his rating was +8.
Leader ratings are important mid term because VI numbers are unreliable. The trend in leader ratings tell you the way the wind may blow when voters engage. For example, 2011 VI said big Labour win, even a majority, but leadership had Salmond much better than Grey.
Right now, polling methods and political circumstances could not be more favourable for Starmer’s Labour, both here and in the rUK. Yet they’re tanking even with the wind in their sails.
IPSOS find that, compared to 2014, the decade long trend is Labour are seen as less trusted to keep promises, understand the UK’s problems less, have a worse team of leaders, and are less fit to govern. How did 2015 go for Labour again?
My money is on Labour doing worse in the English locals on 2nd May than they did last year (35%), and on a low turnout, which should have benefitted them.
At this point, Starmer will panic, paint his face with the St. George’s cross, claim he always supported uber hard Brexit, start attacking the disabled etc as scroungers, while personally sinking migrant boats in the channel with a bazooka. He will make Thatcher look centre-left.
He is ruthless in his pursuit of the keys to No. 10, so much so he will ignore the disaster this will be if only achieved by a mass boycott of voters due to a hatred of his party and the other cheeks of the same British establishment erse. His telegraph column plus polls should have Scottish Labour sh*tting bricks at what is to come.
The 90 minute patriots will love that PPB 😂
…Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant Land.
It’s a fine poem. Blake wrote the passage about Dark Satanic mills after seeing the working conditions at Albion Mill next to Blackfriars Bridge.
I agree, the music is likewise stirring. Would make a good anthem for an independent England, which is what it seems Starmer desires.
Judging by his recent Photo-ops and clearly Pro-English Statements , Starmer will easily grab the English Nationalist votes come the GE.
He is not so much waving the St George’s Flag as actually laying copyright to it !
There is no way he thinks he can win back Scotland, and is clearly not even trying. If anything, he’s doing the opposite. Labour went very proud British union jackery under Miliband, but this is different; Starmer is going proud English St. George’s crossery. That, for me, is saying something potentially very important.
But then polls do show Labour losing very badly in Scotland. Even with their gains from Tory switchers post-mini budget, they current have the backing of 19.9% of the total Scottish electorate (just over 30% of all those saying they are certain to vote).
That’s slightly up on 2017’s most recent best result for them (18.0%) where they won 7 seats on a lower turnout. It’s still dire, and would be a heavy loss. Nothing near what would be needed for Scotland to have ‘come home to Labour’ in any meaningful sense. Unsurprising with half of Scots dead to the union now. These are never coming home, and their numbers edge up a little more every day.
Labour could even lose those Tory switchers as election day approaches, as commonly occurs. Would be good if these moved to Reform. This might be happening a bit given Reform are registering a few points here.
Patrick Harvie tells the Greens, if you end this Bute house agreement I go with it, Lorna Slater is yet to comment publicly on the proceedings but I have an inkling she’s of the same mind
It appears Patrick isn’t for giving in to the alphabetty minority wing of the party
Happy St. George’s day decent folks of England!*
Arise now and be a nation again. Time to dispense with the pathetic cowards that lead you who are too scared of England standing on its own two feet.
The EU will let you back in too. As England yes, as arrogant pompous backward looking post-imperial Britain, no chance.
https://archive.ph/3nc7x
St George’s Day: Welsh MP says England should have own political institutions
KEIR Starmer and Rishi Sunak have been urged to stop “blurring the lines between Englishness and Britishness”.
In a St George’s Day plea, Plaid Cymru MP Liz Saville-Roberts has called for both political leaders to commit to giving England its own political institutions as she urged Sunak and Starmer to “recognise that you only speak for England”.
It comes after Starmer wrote in the Telegraph that Labour was “the true party of English patriotism” but actually used the word “Britain” or “British” more times than the word “English”.
Saville-Roberts also highlighted the Labour leader used the word “country” 10 times without clarifying whether he was speaking about England or the UK.
It comes after Green MP Caroline Lucas told The National that England needs to start considering its future outside of the UK, as she argued the left need to start being less “squeamish” about discussing England in its own right.
—
*F**k you any scum at think Scotland needs your permission to vote.
Only a day ago, the UK Government refused (for the umpteenth time) little Cymru’s request to make St David’s Day / Dydd Gŵyl Dewi (1 March) a Bank Holiday in Cymru.
Apparently our history isn’t good enough to distinguish us from our eastern neighbours, yet it seems Scotland is allowed a national day and the 6 county statelet which is barely 100 years old is allowed two!
Plaid Cymru MS ‘disappointed’ at Westminster’s refusal to grant St David’s Day Bank Holiday (nation.cymru)
Scotland to be saddled with £22 billion over the next 100 years to clean up England’s nuclear waste and spillages
We’re used to it though aren’t we, how about Gordon Brown’s PFI debt Scotland was lumbered with
Tories go into debt to make money and pollute us all to death and Labour do it to pay for some dodgy built buildings that have since fallen down that we have to pay interest on for the rest of our lives, hence the Labour £100.000 school widden ootside lavvy seat
Hospital refurbishment anyone? Kerrching!! send in my brother in law the painter wae the green and magnolia and gae him that brown envelope, I’ll be in Cuba on a fact finding trade mission
O/T As I learn more about the Westminster government’s Rwanda plan the more concerning it becomes. The BBC News website over the past 24 hours published an article entitled: ‘Hope Hostel in Rwanda says it’s ready for first migrants from UK’ Written by Barbara Plett Usher, the BBC’s Africa Correspondent, it includes this section (below): anyone else at least find it odd?
Describing the accommodation where the first forced deportees from the UK will be housed, Ms Usher writes (with my emphasis):
‘There is also a tent with rows of chairs waiting to process THE MIGRANTS’ APPLICATIONS FOR ASYLUM in Rwanda. IF THEY DON’T QUALIFY they’ll still be eligible for residence permits. Or they could try to go to another country, but not back to the UK.’
The migrants’ applications for asylum in Rwanda? So those arriving in the UK by a small boat from France will travel on to Rwanda in order to submit an ‘asylum application’ to the Rwandan authorities?
And having been forced to go to Rwanda, Ms Usher tells us that Rwanda (just like the UK?) may consider that they DO NOT QUALIFY FOR ASYLUM. But they can reside in Rwanda anyway – presumably, and perhaps perpetually, with some kind of inferior status within that country?
The Scottish Parliament should pass a motion saying “Not in our name” to this shameful legislation. It my be reserved but it is still shameful. We don’t consent.
There are a strange set of laws in Rwanda regarding homosexuality, one minute it’s OK the next it’s illegal, If all the asylum seekers claim to be gay how does the UK government prove that they’re not
I don’t know what happened to my spelling there, sorry
London Met police claim there are far right groups travelling from “elsewhere in the UK” attracted to causing disruption to the St George’s day march
I thought St George’s day was supposed to be an England thing not just a London thing, so from where is this “elsewhere” that people are coming from, and why would anyone want to disrupt England’s own national day in their own country?
Are there any groups further right than what’s already there?
The right wing groups weren’t there to disrupt the “march” they were the “march” which consisted of getting boozed up at a pub in Whitehall then having a rammy.
Seems Starmer’s message is getting out! Folk are rallying to the flag!
Starmer is playing with fire, he just doesn’t know it yet.
This was clearly racism on behalf of the met police in response to people being ‘openly English’.
Cans aplenty in evidence, but clearly they objected to being told what to do, just as the “openly jewish” debacle before it, again being recorded from behind by one of the group….
At least on this occasion the Met got their take on it out first, but I imagine the right wing media will make a big thing about it…
This is a guy preparing to lose Scotland and N. Ireland, then probably Wales in short order.
The sands of time cannot be stopped, and they’ve been draining away for the union for 70 years+ now. We are down to the last few grains.
What does he have to say about his compatriots draped in this flag rioting in central London today?
And another thing: If St. George landed in Dover today in a small boat having escaped violence and persecution in Asia Minor, the English authorities would be itching to put him on an aeroplane to Rwanda as an illegal immigrant.
Amirite?
Yerite!
St. George is of course revered in Islam.
He’s not a Nationalist though, that’s the Paddy’s and the Jocks.
Oops my bad, the Irish and the Scots.
And us! 😛
Ooh yes.
Don’t forget the ‘nDwelsh’
For non-Radio for listeners, that’s the people from Englund-nDwales
I take that this was a Party Political Broadcast on behalf of The Refo…The National Fr…he Conserva…sorry … The Labour Party ! Got there in the end !
Labour’s Frontal Lobotomy wing
“Let us be proud of our national identity, confident on the world stage, and sure of our country’s future.”
Confident in which ‘country’ on the world stage? In the framing of Starmer’s remarks, he must be referring to England. Or is he is stating in effect that the ‘UK’ = ‘England’? That would come as no surprise!
Doesn’t the Westminster government object to the country of Scotland having a presence on the ‘world stage’? Foreign policy and international relations are reserved to the UK parliament and government. More English exceptionalism?
And being proud of one’s national identity: what’s happened to Labour politicians – Ian Murray for instance – who seem to believe that a focus on flags and pride in national identity is linked to ‘nationalism’. And that is condemned as the terrible, divisive, dangerous thing that many supporters of Scotland’s independence engage in, is it not?
We’re told by Labour politicians in Scotland that they are British patriots not British nationalists. The above makes their leader an English nationalist. More Labour hypocrisy?
Once we had ‘one nation’ Toryism now we have the prospect in Starmer’s UK of explicit colonial rule by England over the whole UK. Gordon Brown, the federalist’s silence is deafening.
Make yer ain mind up.
He’s been funoot
When I first saw the clip the guy in question had edited to mislead, I was misled, and was concerned at his apparent treatment, sufficient to want to learn a little more about the incident.
Now I know he’s a lying troublemaker. I don’t see how his behaviour helps the cause of people fighting against antisemitism. He just damages this. You can see that in the reaction of the Jews who were part of the march.
My greater unease was over how quickly certain politicians were supporting the ‘Falter’ narrative in the media before the facts came to be known – Had the ‘Sky’ cameraman not recorded Falter’s (deliberate) confrontation with the Met, and Sky not aired it, would we be any the wiser ?
Manipulative duplicity to give the media two stories to tell instead of one, whip folk up about one thing, then stir them up all over again with the same story different
A perfect example of believing the media at face value as being definitely bad for your mental health
An independent Scotland would never fund and arm genocide – would it?
https://archive.is/BBWKT
Pas devant les domestiques?
Pas du tout 🙂
Meanwhile …
Plaid Cymru calls for ‘unequivocal’ statement from Welsh Government on Gaza (nation.cymru)
Plaid Cymru calls for ‘unequivocal’ statement from Welsh Government on Gaza
24 Apr 2024 3 minute read
Vaughan Gething is being urged to clarify the government’s stance on a ceasefire in Gaza, following his supportive comments in the Senedd, despite abstaining in a debate calling for a halt to fighting last year.
Plaid Cymru says the comments from the newly appointed First Minister represent “a change in policy by the Labour Government”.
A debate calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip was held in the Senedd on November 8 2023.
Ministers in the Welsh Government, including the then Economy Minister Vaughan Gething, abstained and offered backbenchers a free vote.
The motion, which condemned the attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians, and the Israeli government’s “indiscriminate attacks on Gaza”, was carried by 24 votes to 19 with 13 Senedd members abstaining.
[…]
But will he deviate from Labour HQ’s we’re just like the Tories policy?
The National have several good articles on the arms trade today. This one records the proud tradition in Scotland of refusing to provide arms for repressive regimes.
https://archive.is/s4DVw
Another month, another rise in negative ratings for the kid Starver.
It was all going so well for him until Sturgeon resigned ‘under a cloud’ and Yousaf took over.
Within weeks of Yousaf at the helm, Starmer goes into free-fall.
That’s what the polls say right? Here – any MI5 reading? If you did some statecraft here you should be fired you total f’n dumbass idiots!
🙂
But seriously, if you based your entire strategy on the latest polling, then this regular poll says you need to drop all charges against former SNP, and encourage Sturgeon to stand for FM again if you want Scots to vote for Starmer’s Labour.
Which is why you should totally ignore any idiot that looks at the latest polls and offers advice as to how to counter trends that may or may not even be true. Hell, Scots might actually love Kier Starmer and the above is sh*te, but close examination of all the data suggests it is much more likely that not that his unpopularity is growing, particularly as this comes on the back of story after story of abandoned centre-left polices and an ever right-wing English nationalist shift. That and the ‘big picture’ of the past 70+ years of unionist decline in Scotland.
And just imagine I’m even a wee bit right about some quiet SNP; quiet voters of one side or the other being the norm mid-term. Then that picture looks a hell of a lot worse for him. Take say 10% off his well and give it to his badly. IPSOS have him closer to this.
Starmer looks and sounds like an actor playing a lawyer in Crown Court, that old English lunchtime pass the time show where all the out of work actors got a chance to be in something m’lud?
TBF, he still looks more up to date than the bloke who… what’s the word…? Interviewed? Questioned? Harangued? NS at the Covid
InquisitionInquiry (Scottish Section).He sounded like an actor in a very bad – and there were some very bad! – 1950s B film, playing a Charles Laughton-type character (but without the talent). I kept expecting him to throw back on non-existent black gown, stick his thumbs in his waistcoat armpits, and say “And I put it to The Accused that she was not, in fact, catching up on paperwork having been put on hold whilst trying to get hold of somebody – anybody – in WM, listening to a tinny cover of Party Like It’s 1999…”
Unfortunately (for him) NS must never have indulged in those sort of Sunday matinee sessions. She didn’t immediately drop to her knees in a quivering heap, willing to confess to anything and everything just to make him stop his shrewd, incisive, righteous (allegedly!) cross examination.
The interesting thing about that graph for me is that Scotland has never rated Starmer in positive territory since there have always been more who think he is doing badly than well.
They are of course right and always have been, well done the Scots for seeing right through him and the reality of Starmer being a Tory in ill fitting socialist clothing.
He was slightly positive for the first 3-4 months of being leader, then went negative to never be in positive territory again. Almost got there, but then Sturgeon’s resignation saw him tank.
His trust ratings a very similar thing, i.e. as soon as Sturgeon resigned and took Yousaf over, Scots rapidly stopped trusting Starmer. They were largely evenly split on him trust-wise towards the end of 2022. But the moment Sturgeon stepped down, they smelled a rat in Starmer!
Yes has risen into majority since Sturgeon took over too.
Clearly her stepping down was a mistake for the union. They should hope all charges relating to Branchform are dropped and she retakes the SNP helm.
Here we go. Not bad at all for English Starmer mid 2021 to late 2022, with Scots becoming increasingly less distrustful of him. But then oh no, Sturgeon goes at the beginning of 2023, and it’s all downhill from there for the kid Starver!
Sarwar tanked at the same time. Branchform has been very damaging for Labour in Scotland. That is what polls say at face value. 🙂
So, Humza has ended the Bute House Agreement.
Have to see what happens next. Be interesting to see if Patrick Harvie does resign his leadership…
The Greens (assuming they remain below ~35%) can only ever be in power if they form part of a coalition. It’s how proportional representation works. Compromise and consensus.
It’s common in European PR democracies for coalitions to make months to form. Also for these to break and reform.
The British / English press don’t get this at all. They are fixated by their own first past the post (FPTP) system and see everything through that lens. Scottish parties should avoid doing the same.
Remember, your most important vote is not your constituency, it’s your PR list vote. That is where you vote for the party you want in government. It decides how many seats each party will get proportionally, taking into account seats already won by constituency votes. The latter are for the party/person you want as your local MSP.
I do hope that Yousaf understands SNP voters are not ‘giving their second vote to the Greens’ as that’s a myth. A few may be, but that’s it. Nope, it’s the opposite way around; Green voters are voting SNP tactically under FPTP, both in Holyrood constituencies, and, importantly, in UK general elections. They do this for the same reasons voters of minor parties UK wide vote tactically in the same circumstances, to not ‘waste their vote’, paraphrasing the electoral reform society.
Those Green voters will not e.g. come home to SNP on the list as they are Greens. This means the the end of the Bute House agreement won’t obviously electorally benefit either party if that’s what they are hoping for. Greens will keep voting green, while SNP will vote SNP. They are sufficiently distinct stance-wise that they have their own bases.
Greens probably have the most to lose as some SNP may well have been ‘giving them their second vote’. Not many, but enough maybe to lose them a point or so possibly. But the SNP remain by far the most Green of anyone else on offer, and likewise back indy, so you’d expect them still to get tactical Green votes under FPTP.
Well some good news today as Humza Yousaf is about to “Take Back Control”. I wonder if SNP poll ratings will rise now?
I don’t see how this would be the case. Polling has never showed any Bute House agreement effects that I could see. Many Scots may not have even thought about the coalition much at all. After all, the media has gone out of its way to pretend it’s just the SNP in government.
The SNP have not lost any support to the Greens nor anyone else, so there’s nothing for them to win back here. They need their own voters to engage and turnout when it comes to elections. There are no switchers they need to win back.
SNP will keep backing SNP, Green will keep backing Green, ergo no obvious effects. The Bute House agreement is a very minor factor; much bigger forces are at play.
IMO, as with every election, to have any real poll movements where we start to see things converging on final outcomes, we need an election date announced / campaigns to begin as usual.
I know you read The National article with polling figures since the Bute House (dis)agreement because you commented btl. True that polling for the SNP remained steady at first but then appears to have plunged after the GRR bill was blocked and so on. I hope their figures will now improve.
How SNP and Green ratings changed since deal signed – see the chart
https://archive.is/teb6x
The polling shows exactly as I said. No SNP movement to any other party and no e.g. GRR effect. This is the reality. 2022 and 2023 polls are not comparable as you they are polling different people. You can’t keep asking Jim what he supports then ask John, and say ‘oh look, Jim’s changed his VI’. That’s what’s been happening.
Labour and the Libs voted for the GRR and hate crime bills, so if the SNP were to lose voters over these, it would not be to these two, and that’s exactly what happened; no net swing. The Tories opposed the bill and gained No SNP either. Greens not gained any SNP either. That is what all polls say. Even Curtice says this; Lab gained from Tory post-mini budget and have been stuck since, with no gain from the SNP.
Starmer now opposes GRR, yet he tanked following the bill. How do you explain that I might ask? The two Yes parties both pushed GRR forwards, while the two main unionist parties then turned against it and blocked it. In response, Yes has risen to majority. Pray explain? Surely that suggest Scots back GRR? Or maybe the two are totally unrelated?
You need to stop looking at mid-term VI numbers and focus on real live people, not %’s. %’s don’t win you elections, people do. Polls show that unionists have less real flesh and blood walking around voters than 2019, in line with 70 year trends. You cannot compare a % from 2022 with now as turnouts have changed. It is statistical nonsense to do so never mind the change in voter pools.
The SNP are down because a large section of SNP voters are quiet / hard to reach. All the pollsters agree on this and show it in their weighted vs unweighted numbers. I don’t know what these will do as they are just not answering the panel pollsters.
When pollster do reach them on their mobiles, which is a bit easier, they say they’ll do as they did in 2019/21, hence IPSOS have never found a combined Yes party share of less than 45% for the coming UKGE, i.e. statistically identical to 2021.
If people really believe there’s e.g. been a GRR effect, they need to explain to me why IPSOS are wrong when they’re the best pollster in Scotland historically. And actually in Scotland; the rest operate from London. If people can’t do this, they need to stop making arguments to this effect.
And a pollster isn’t wrong because they get a different answer. It’s not even more probable that they are wrong if they get something different to everyone else. Such suggestions would be statistical nonsense. A pollster is only wrong if they are actually wrong for a methodical reason. IPSOS have a record of calling it well before anyone else does and often is a lone voice in the Scottish wilderness, shouting south to its English competitors to tell them it sees things differently.
Anyhow glad you now back sex self-id as reliable. That is what polling is based on. It is weighted to male / female demographics based entirely on self-identified sex. 😉
Anyone can look at the graph in the article I linked to. It shows the SNP on c 63% up until the GRR bill was blocked then falling steadily to 43% by end December 2023. That’s a 20 point drop.
And no I oppose SelfID and I think the Hate Crime Bill is an appalling piece of legislation and I hope that the end of the Bute House Disagreement means that the ghastly Conversion Therapy Ban will now be ditched.
63 seats, not %. 63% Lol. There has been no 20 point (%) drop lol. For IPSOS, Yes parties are down 1% on pre-GRR levels. You either don’t understand or are trying to mislead.
There was no statistic change in polling post-GRR. That only occurred when Sturgeon stepped down. May I ask why, as Champion of GRR, this didn’t cause SNP support to rise? I was told by anti-GRR folks that Sturgeon needed to go as she was hurting SNP support. She went, and things appeared to get worse. Starmer turns on GRR and his ratings in Scotland collapse. Yes parties back GRR and Yes rises. This is what you are saying polls show with your logic after all.
Now sensibly…
You need to prove there has actually been a drop in SNP support. Polling does not do this. It’s inconclusive. You need to explain how it is valid to compare 2023/4 with 2022 and before when polls show the base has changed.
Once you have that, you need to explain how you know the drop was caused by the GRR bill. Where is your evidence for this? Correlation is not causation.
Why was Yes not impacted even though it was Yes parties that mostly supported the bill? The way to get GRR passes is by indy and people want indy so by your logic they must back GRR.
I noted that the averaging in that article is statistically flawed as it assumes that panel based polling is better than telephone, so gives massive over-weighting to the former, even though the two methods give different answers. Nobody should be giving credence to such statistical ineptness.
This is my job, i.e. devising methods to accurately sample complex systems, analysing sampled data to assess reliability and what it says. I’m a Dr of this if that helps readers when considering my perspective. The person who made that graph/ wrote the article clearly lacks relevant qualifications / skills.
I am tiring of such people doing this in the national. If I want to read nonsense about Scottish polling, I can read British papers.
Now moving on…
Apos – it is a 20 point drop in seats and not percentages, my mistake. However, it is based on a drop in polls starting with the GRR block.
Regarding percentages, the SNP were on approx 50% and are now on c 32% as are Labour. So that is also a drop. You don’t have to be a statistician to recognise that 32 is smaller than 50 and 43 is smaller than 63.
As noted the parties supporting GRR saw a rise in support projected seats during the GRR debate to final bill passing. This is shown in the graph you linked to below.
The ‘apparent’ drop comes after, which would indicate it was unrelated. Supporting this lack of a relationship is that Scottish Labour’s vote went up after they voted for GRR. Meanwhile, the Tories who opposed GRR, have never recovered to pre-GRR levels, with their blocking of the bill having no discernible impact on their fortunes.
So there is just no evidence of any GRR link to any SNP drop that may have occurred but may not have happened at all. As noted, the only Scottish pollster (IPSOS Scotland, Edinburgh) in the pack says no drop has occurred.
Which do you believe, Scottish pollster that’s been around for decades, or London based English pollsters who’ve never even been to Scotland, and many of which have only been around a few years? I tend towards IPSOS Scotland based on it’s gold standard record.
Incidentally, your graph shows SNP + Green + Lab seat numbers increasing as the media storm reached fever pitch while the bill was debated then passed. The Tories, who were openly opposed, saw a hit by contrast. Here you go:
The suggests Scots were rallying behind pro-GRR parties.
The Greens flatlined. They started with 10 and ended with 10. The SNP plummeted. They started with 63 and ended with 43. The Tories dropped a little from 30 to 22 an Labour rose from 20 to 42.
This does not show mass voter backing for the GRR. I doubt many Scottish voters were even aware of the legislation until the infamous Isla Bryson affair which more likely explains the drop in SNP support.
I don’t think most people care at all about the GRR issue. More the cost of living and energy, and the Greens were seen as a head in the clouds ruiner of the economy and cost of living. And quite unfit for government.
I’d hope to see the SNP vote recover quite quickly now Yousaf has shown he has the courage to do what’s needed – run a minority government.
On the other hand and maybe I shouldn’t say this, but the Tories with their VONC and the Greens if they vote against, will not be popular. And it’s a chance for Sarwar to get one up on Ross.
Interesting times.
For I mean not aggainst – for the VONC. Not a good look! Petulance in a politician is a nono.
There will be a couple of Cabinet post vacancies now. I do hope he uses this opportunity to bring Kate Forbes and Ivan McKee back into the cabinet.
Not sure he would take the risk of offering Kate Forbes another Cabinet post for her to knock it back again. Possibly he could offer Ivan McKee something. Even I could see the Green minority party in the agreement was attempting to wag the Snp dog. It was naive of the Greens to think the Snp would wait weeks for them to have an EGM to decide whether they still wanted to stay in the agreement.
Agreed, for the most part.
I’m not entirely sure that I think the Greens were necessarily trying to wag the dog. I think that their naivety extends beyond expecting the SNP to wait weeks for their decision.
It shows their lack of either knowledge, or possibly experience, of being in government. Especially in a PR situation which, as SS says, requires compromise and consensus. It seems to me that one of the luxuries of being in opposition is that you can “demand” actions and have expectations that perhaps aren’t immediately achievable. Even I know that once you’re having to deal with everything, that’s what you have to deal with. Everything.
I’m somewhat disappointed because I’d hoped each party would complement the other. The Greens keeping the end goal to the forefront and the SNP tempering the more extreme (not all) Greens’ desire to do it NOW. Shut the oil off NOW. Use renewables NOW. No new roads I heard some say. More public transport. Good idea, but you can’t insist on, eg more rail travel, until you enhanced the railway structure.
As for more backbone, Ms Slater. I’d be more impressed if she’d ever shown some standing up to various politicians’ antics in her role a Presiding Officer. Incidentally, do we get a new one now, or does she get to keep that role?
Agree with a lot of what you say but Lorna Slater is not the Presiding Officer of the parliament. That’s Alison Johnstone who was elected as a Green Msp but is meant to be neutral as Presiding Officer. In my opinion she is a useless Presiding Officer.
Oh, what a dope I am. Of course she is!…
Thanks.
I suppose that’s why Ms S didn’t stand up to various antics. It wasn’t her job. Doh!
It’s a shame in one way but It’s all pretty simple I think, the Greens have been sucking the air out of political events in Scotland for too long and making it all about themselves and the alphabet wing of their party, the media was making hay on a daily basis all about the Greens, you just can’t have this sort of thing eating up space and time about a party that couldn’t form a post office queue on their own without arguing about which minority group should be first in line
Government is a bit bigger that protesting about who’s allowed to have what sized holes in their ears and goes first on the free purple bus
The Greens members have always been prone to elevate and magnify student politics to the same level as world economics and global events, and it has now run away from their own leaders causing this latest development that need not have happened if they had had control of their own party
This is Patrick Harvie’s own fault, but will he accept the blame and resign like he said he would if his party had pushed him to finish the agreement?
You’ve been getting quite vocal recently. Who knows – it could be your critical postings helped Yousaf to this – very good – decision?
Yep as soon as he called that EGM re Greens staying part of Bute House agreement the agreement was toast . it was not tenable for Snp to wait weeks for Green Party to decide what it wanted to do. Time the Scottish Green party leadership grew up and Harvie should resign.
FMQs will be interesting today!
Good news at last, and maybe there’s more to Yousaf than meets the eye.
Maybe independence will be front and centre again now, rather than spending hundreds of millions we don’t have on reshaping a minute piece of the ambivalent cirrus as Scotland’s “a world leader” 😦
It would be nice if we were independent by the time Yousaf is life, the universe and all that. Where’s my towel?
For those that don’t have a TV licence.
Thx Alex – I was searching for a livestream of Humza Yousaf’s presser as the BBC unaccountably didn’t make it available for non-licence holders.
I thought he handled that very well. Confident and unfazed by the flak which will inevitably be incoming. Good performance.
Sadly, the video stopped just as he was about to answer the question about vacant cabinet posts. But we will find out soon enough.
I also thought he handled it well, you could see by the questioning where this is going next from the biased media’s point of view. We are going to get a barrage of “lame-duck” FM, weak leadership and that Yousaf and the SNP on their way out.
All bollocks of course but this has always been their way and it looks certain to continue.
FMQs : We’ve now entered the bitterness part of the argument where Patrick Harvie through his own fault of not being in control of his own party has just threatened Humza Yousaf with withdrawing his voting support on anything and resorted to childish sarcasm by invoking the name of Alex Salmond as some sort of ally of the SNP, and that statement could not be further from the truth, a stupidity and sign of a bitter angry man who’s own position is on the line with his own party
The media and the Greens are publicly pushing the line that this is all about climate change, again more nonsense from both of them, this is about the Cass report on puberty blockers and the Alphabet wing of the Green party in denying medical advice because they know better than clinicians
I should qualify that I don’t believe all Greens are all terrible folk, some of them are effective good MSPs, this whole debacle is Patrick Harvie’s own fault, nobody else
If you want to be the leader of a political party you must be in charge of decisions made, not wait around until the party tells you they’ll decide on every issue then inform you of what they’ve decided for you to say and do sometime in the future
Today was the difference between Humza Yousaf who made a decision and Partick Harvie who was told by his party to wait until his members had had a meeting and a vote and another conversation then another vote
Ivan McKee was interviewed on World at One and handled the questions really well. Patrick Harvie was interviewed first and accused Humza Yousaf of caving in to the right wing in the SNP and abandoning “progressive” policies. Ivan replied that Patrick Harvie calls everyone who disagrees with him “right wing” and that the SNP is a left of centre party, certainly left of the Labour party.
It’s hard to keep up with everything this morning. Had to watch FMQs on rewind. Douglas Ross is calling a vote of no confidence next week. Will be interesting.
The vote of no confidence is the right move to garner media interest if you’re an opportunist like DRoss, and like night follows day meaningless but had to be expected
BTW I thought Humza Yousaf handled FMQs very well too and really drove home the failures of the Tory Government and Labour government in waiting.
He is definitely rising in my estimation. This episode could be a watershed in ditching unworkable policies and focusing on issues which make independence possible and even inevitable.
Your occasional remind that polling is not a measure of public opinion.
They are a crude, cheap and cheerful attempt to measure public opinion, which most of the time are totally wrong. Between 2017 and 2019 for example, polls accurately predicted the 2019 GE outcome in Scotland within MoE at best 2% of the time. 98% of the time they were off by a considerable margin. Similar numbers always apply.
If you think polls tell you what support for parties is, you are a fool. They only give you and indication of what support might be, with a list of ifs, buts and get out clauses as long as an pollster’s arm. They only need to be right in their final polls so are happy to sell you guff mid term knowing it’s this.
And parties that change policy due to the latest opinion poll have no principles. They cannot be trusted at the ballot box to do what they say they will. As result, they lose before we even get to the fact they based policy on polls which are not even correct. This is e.g. New Labour.
I’m quite willing to believe that polling companies manipulate public opinion through false polling data. But if that’s the case why do you post comment after comment about polling data? Nobody posts more on here about polls that you.
Why not forget about them till the day before the next election and then see what they say?
I’m not a conspiracy theorist myself. As I state in my posts, polls are mainly just wrong a lot of the time due to methodology and circumstance. They are attempts to measure something with varying degrees of success.
If you want to try and understand public opinion, then they are all you have short of very expensive and time consuming full scale studies like the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey. Accepting them with blind faith makes as little sense as totally ignoring them for this purpose. So look at them in detail, try to work out why they show different answers, what trends may or may not make sense etc. Which is what I do and openly state I can only speculate on what I see.
In my real job, 90% of samples totally wrong / useless is normal, and these measurements costs thousands of £’s a pop. So I go in and find the 10% that do seem to add up, that were made by reliable methods, that don’t show problems with dilution, contamination, sampling error…
Then I analyses these and tell the client what they suggest is happening. As a rule, clients really can struggle to understand how so many of their dutifully measured samples are useless. And this is not even normally the fault of the people doing the sampling. It’s just that e.g. that day condensed water production was high, which diluted the formation water, so the analytical error shot up. The could only know this in retrospect, and as the facility is not normally manned, they can only get samples when it is etc. So you have to work with what you have.
The biggest problem in polling is always been getting a representative sample (plenty of articles on this). When they are way off, this is almost invariably the reason why. So if pollsters are finding big differences using different methods, as they are right now, then you can be almost positive that they are having trouble getting representative samples. This result in lots of patterns that don’t make sense, such as Yes up but SNP down. Labour looking better but Labour leadership tanking etc. Alarm bells go off here.
With polling you can manipulate with leading questions, and you could only release polls which, within variance favoured your narrative (e.g. only publish the ones with 37% SNP and not the 43%’s) but that would not actually break BPC rules. I’ve never suggested any pollster was up to the latter. They do the former all the time as clients pay for it, but it’s not hidden.
Plus those of us who post on the internet are not the only folk to read those posts, so providing constant reminders that polls can and are used for influencing the public does as much good as analysing polling that may turn out to be correct also
I didn’t like the coalition but I’m not against the Greens. In all fairness Harvie and Slater need to stop throwing tantrums for the sake of their own party.
Yousaf as head of the biggest party with 63 MSPs has every right to end the coalition and return to minority government which has worked very well.
It is with regret (but not much), that you two are fired.
Meanwhile of course, Ash Regan has been handed the golden buzzer. With her vote it’s (presumably) 64-64 even if the Greens are silly, and the PO must vote for the status quo.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24278902.ash-regan-sets-demand-supporting-humza-yousaf/
To be honest I’m a fan of minority government.
Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater have blundered badly and the SNP were left with little choice other than to end the agreement now rather than wait around for weeks on end to see if Green members choose to end it for them.
Basically they overplayed their hand thinking that the SNP needed them more than they needed the SNP. At the end of all this it is the Greens who have the most to lose as they no longer have a direct say in government or influence over policy.
Possibly worse is that SNP supporters inclined to give them their list vote in order to boost the number of Independence supporting MSP in Holyrood may now be less inclined to do so.
Personally I would have been happy for the agreement to have continued and potentially I would have considered giving them my list vote dependent on how strong I perceived the SNP support to be for constituency seats.
There’s little chance of me doing that now and none at all if they support the Tory vote of no confidence in Humza Yousaf.
It is a fact that if Humza Yousaf lost a VONC then he must resign as FM though as Skier says there is nothing to stop him from putting himself forward again though im=n my view if he did not get a majority in that vote then it would be untenable for him to remain as FM as all that is required to remove him again is another VONC.
I would give no concessions to Ash Regan or the Greens in that scenario and instead choose to go for a General Election. Then people are going to be forced to make a choice, no one can be certain if the SNP would still be the largest party after that election but they have more chance of that than Ash Regan being re-elected or the Greens winning more list seats. I doubt Douglas Ross will find much comfort there either.