Back in 2014 in the immediate aftermath of the independence referendum, I published a piece about the importance of keeping the flame of hope alive. Right now, we need that flame of hope more than ever, the candle is guttering and the storm winds of despair are blowing stronger than ever. In recent weeks the Scottish Government has been buffeted by one crisis after another, and today the opportunistic wolves of the Labour and Conservative parties are circling around a First Minister they believe to be mortally wounded following his decision to pull the plug on the Bute House Agreement and the furious response of the scorned Scottish Greens which places the current administration on a knife edge in terms of its parliamentary majority. It’s difficult to escape the conclusion that yesterday’s decision was a massive misjudgment on the part of Humza Yousaf, who was seeking to appear tough and decisive, but the problem with that is that it merely provokes other people to seek to appear tough and decisive too. It’s rarely wise to piss off people upon whom you depend.
But we are where we are. The next few hours and days are likely to be fraught for the political future of Humza Yousaf, just at a time when what the wider independence movement needs is a period of calm and stability in order to capitalise upon the incompetence and corrupt chaos of a massively unpopular Conservative government and to shine the spotlight on the deceit and lies of a Labour party which has moved so far to the right it now occupies the political space inhabited by the Tories before Brexit drove them mad. Instead attention is focused on the Scottish Government and Humza Yousaf’s struggle to survive politically. I cannot be the only independence supporter who is sighing in exasperation right now. This is absolutely not what we need. Yet again we see that terribly Scottish tendency to score an own goal.
That said, when we take a step back from the immediate drama and the glee of the anti- independence parties and their media allies salivating at the prospect of landing a serious blow on the Scottish Government, the wider and longer term picture is a lot more positive.
We don’t tend to look much at that bigger picture when dealing with politics in Britain. The curse of Westminster is short-termism, and it is rare to consider what happens beyond the next electoral cycle. Right now there is intense focus on the very short term, the political survival of Humza Yousaf and the Scottish Government.
Predictions in politics are a mug’s game, but for what it’s worth I feel its likely that Humza Yousaf and the Scottish Government will survive this crisis, for all the feverish speculation in an anti-independence media that he will be brought down. It is more likely than not that an arrangement will be reached with Alba MSP Ash Regan allowing the First Minister to scrape through the Conservative vote of no confidence which is likely to take place around the middle of next week.
There is even less chance of Labour’s motion of no confidence in the Scottish Government passing as at least one Green MSP, Mark Ruskell, has already signalled that he is unlikely to support it, accusing Anas Sarwar of wasting Parliament’s time by putting forward a motion that he doesn’t want to pass, saying: “It was the poor judgement of Humza in ending the Bute House Agreement that is in question, not the record of the SNP/Green [government].”
Expecting the Greens to support a vote of no confidence in the Scottish Government is asking them to vote no confidence in a government that they had been a part of since the Bute House. If other Green MSPs join with Mark Ruskell, the Labour motion will have been nothing more than an attention seeking waste of time, solely a testament to the arrogance and entitlement of Anas Sarwar for all the excited and feverish anticipation in an anti independence Scottish media which wills the Scottish Government to fail.
But irrespective of what happens in the coming days, the underlying dynamics driving support for independence remain unchanged. Amidst the hysterical media barrage that essential truth remains undiminished.
As part of securing Ash Regan’s vote, the Scottish Government is likely to have to commit to backing her bill to hold a referendum seeking to ask Westminster to devolve to Holyrood the power to hold another independence referendum. Ash Regan sees her referendum bill as a means of circumventing the decision of the UK Supreme Court that the Scottish Parliament lacks the legal competence to pass legislation for a second independence referendum.
Although the UK Supreme Court ruled that Holyrood cannot pass a bill for a second independence referendum without a Section 30 order from the Westminster government, the Alba MSP noted: “However, there is nothing to stop our Parliament proposing a referendum, which we believe would be within competence, and that is to ask the people whether they believe the powers of the Parliament should be extended to include the right to legislate for and negotiate independence.”
The bill would certainly face a legal challenge and the UK Supreme Court may take a different view to Ash Regan, but Scottish Government support would see the bill successfully pass through Holyrood, and if nothing else would recentre focus on independence and the right of the people of Scotland to decide their own future. Far from bringing down Humza Yousaf and the Scottish Government, the Tory and Labour no confidence motions may blow up in their faces and bring independence back into the forefront of the Scottish political agenda rather than neutering it.
All crises pass eventually and the SNP will get through the crises and challenges it currently faces. When it does it will be making a pitch to a Scotland which grows more and more receptive to the idea of independence with every passing year. Support for independence is distinct from support for the SNP and remains undiminished no matter what slings and arrows are thrown at the party. Winning a nation’s independence is a project far greater than the short term attention span of the political media can accommodate. In the wise words of the Scots saying ‘Keep a calm souch’ and retain that sense of perspective that the anti-independence media has long since abandoned. We will have the last laugh, and the flame remains undiminished.
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Obviously recent developments concerning Peter Murrell 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.
Wee Ginger Dug 
My view is that the Green Party pushed Humza Yousaf into a corner when they announced that they would ask their members whether they wanted the Bute House Agreement to continue or not.
That meant a month of uncertainty for the SNP and with no way of knowing how the Greens membership would vote they could not afford to leave such a decision in their hands and had to make the decision for them
That meant the end of the agreement, I can just imagine the alternative headlines right now if the SNP left it up to Green party members and they voted to end it, it’s possible that the fury created by the press of the SNP failure would have resulted in Humza Yousaf resigning even without a vote of no confidence.
Having made that decision he must have known that either the Tories or Labour would put forward motions of no confidence and he must have believed that the risk was worth it. It is now up to the two other Independence supporting parties to decide f they want to bring down this SNP government and face a General election in Scotland in the coming weeks.
I doubt either of them will want to as it will stick with them for years to come, especially Alba who need SNP voters if they are to have a cat in hells chance of having any elected MSP’s. If it was my decision i wouldn’t openly make any deal with ash Regan though I would assure the Greens that I would continue to help push policies they value.
No other deals, if it means a Scottish election in a month or two well we are going to have to face one sooner or later so why not now?
Spot on!
“My view is that the Green Party pushed Humza Yousaf into a corner”
Sorrry. I don’t think the Green Party is capable of pushing a paper tiger off a bus.
Aye!
That was Aye, to Alex above.
And yeah, it would seem Patrick and Lorna are chucking their toys oot…
So I watched the SNP VI drop early 2023 with a mixture of concern and puzzlement. But then I saw Yes keep on steadily rising. The flame was not dying, it was burning a little bit brighter each day.
Then I saw that no party – particularly no unionist party – seemed to be gaining from the SNP, which seemed odd. Prof C. said he saw the same. Then I looked deeper and saw that this was definitely true; not a single SNP had moved to Labour when you focus on real, live, walking around people, not %’s of %s etc. At this point, I started to cheer up, for all was not what it seemed.
So I looked deeper still, and found that past SNP voters were not saying they they planned to stay at home, as happened in 2017, far from it, if anything they were some of the most likely to vote. So it was not like England right now where 2019 Tory are literally saying they may not bother voting, which Starmer must have happen to win.
This meant we have essentially physically impossible polling in Scotland. Polling in which previous voters of all main parties in 2019 say they as are equally as likely to vote, yet turnout projections are way down, and only one party – the SNP – is affected. This does not add up. It is impossible. Well not in real life, in polling, it totally can happen, and is called a ‘sampling artefact‘.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artifact_(error)
The bane of scientists life.
And it’s most strongly affecting in one type of poll, specifically, English polls using panel approaches to poll Scotland, another country. In summary, these pollsters do not travel to Scotland to talk to Scots. No, they hope Scots will come to them and sign up to answer polls for a small reward. Most of the polls are not political, but about products for marketing research, from TVs to burger bars and shampoo. You won’t know until you click that email and start the survey. And a key thing here is that they do not randomly sample, they target groups based on self-declared demographics, location etc. An e.g. Yougov poll is not a random sample of Scots.
The other type of polling is less affected. These are Scottish polls – i.e. where the poll is actually being conducted in Scotland by a company operating here (IPSOS). Even though they saw an SNP VI drop at the beginning of 2023, SNP VI is as good as or better than it was 2017-2019 right now, and total Yes party share is 45%, just 1% down on 2019’s SNP landslide. This is from a fully random sample of the Scots electorate. You don’t come to them, they seek out you.
Unsurprisingly, this only Scottish pollster has the best record of all for Scotland, having been poll us going back to the Major years at least (when I first took an interest). They’ve consistently called it the earliest, and never been wrong. No wonder, they don’t send out mass emails to another country they neither live in nor understand. Nope, from their Edinburgh office – the beating heart of Scotland’s political scene – they phone up fellow Scots and have wee chat. I’ve been polled by them at least once; was only too happy to reply. Must have been 2012 or 13.
IPSOS say the flame dimmed a little, but most likely just because Yes Scots are not adding fuel at the moment like they were. They’re not giving that to the unionists, that’s for sure. They’re staying rather quiet instead. Maybe saving the fuel to throw it all onto the fire at just the right moment, such they have a habit of doing. Like in 2011, 2015/16, 2019 and absolutely in 2021.
Incidentally, while I said that the simple end of the Bute House Agreement would not, in my mind, change anything polling wise, I did not figure in that unionists would respond by trying to take out another SNP FM (or even the government), even if that has already been established as leading to a rise in Yes (post-sturgeon). Not only that, but they are putting talk of early elections into the papers. If you want polls to move, then an early election is exactly how you wake the slumbering independence beast and get it to throw a log or two on the fire.
As I said on the last threat, elections are something unionist should hope never happen in Scotland, not since they turned these into potential irefs. The absolutely last thing that would be good for the union right now would be iref2 in July. Then iref3 in October if needed, then iref4 in 2026 if it still hadn’t passed. Are they out of their minds? Things seemed stable and looking not so terrible for them. What on earth are they thinking by stirring everything up. But hey, please go ahead!
If the SNP make an election a defacto iref, it stops being anything to do with them, and you’ll get Scots out to vote Yes. If they do it, they Greens and Alba will have to follow suit or lose Yes voters. If the unionists want to play hard, then this is the response.
Aye, the flame is stronger than ever, even with it’s occasional flickers.
Sounds good!
🔥🏴
that’s the flame btw, not burning the saltire 😂
I don’t think Humza Yousaf made a mistake ending the Bute House Disagreement. I believe he had no choice. As soon as the Greens announced they would decide at an EGM at some unspecified date in the future whether to terminate the BHA the agreement was dead. Imagine the weeks of gleeful speculation that the media were planning. Better to get it over with now and seize the initiative.
I hope he stands his ground and comes to an arrangement with Ash Regan so that progress can be made on the independence debate. After all, how difficult can it be to commit to protect he rights of women and children? What is the alternative?
Exactly what I was thinking. I reckon Humza saw fit to pre-empt any decisions the Greens might make and I consider it a brave decision even if it is a bit of a knife edge.
Let’s face it: coalitions etc don’t last forever and it’s swings and roundabouts in respect of Green/ SNP member support either pro or con the agreement. I for one supported it but we have a GE coming up and Greens would once again be our rivals as they will stand as many candidates as poss against us.
I’ll be interested to see the response on the doorstep from Greens whom I frequently encounter while canvassing for SNP.
Regan has no power over the SNP because, unlike the former, she has no electorate behind her. If the government fell and it goes to the polls, she’s toast. She desperately needs the SNP to stay in power as that’s the meal ticket she snuck in on.
What rights of women and children Capella. I have no clue what you are talking about?
It’s one of Ash Regan’s demands for supporting HY in a VoC. :
“Independence for Scotland, protecting the dignity, safety, and rights of women and children, and providing a competent government for our people and businesses across Scotland remain my priorities.
I expect she means single sex spaces and services should remain single sex spaces and services.
Humza Yousaf will have to decide whether he can agree to that, persuade the Greens to back down or accept losing a no confidence vote.
There should be no deal with a sneaky wee Tory thief. She defrauded me of my donations to the SNP by using them to get herself elected, then laughed in my face as she exposed her real centre-right alliances, and is now threatening to side with the English Tories to damage the party I donated to that she stole from. She’s scum.
If we want governments we didn’t vote for – which described her even more than it does Sunak give he was actually elected – we can stay in the UK.
If she had been elected on her on merits like e.g. Margo was, the situation would be totally different.
“After all, how difficult can it be to commit to protect he rights of women and children? What is the alternative?” when that is all you can see of the BHA, that one thing which blinds you to all else they’ve achieved…
Alba can take a running jump. They are the Scottish version of Reform UK.
Ash can take a hike. If an early election is required so be it the SNP will walk it, the majority of people I have spoken to since yesterday all say the same – the greens are a busted flush and the media and the unionists are going overboard, nobody is paying any heed to what they say – independence can’t come soon enough
If I could rank her this time I would, with two fingers. Lying wee Tory. She stole my SNP donations, that much is confirmed.
I don’t think Humza’ s decision to dump the Green’s was a massive miscalculation. I think he was left with no choice. The Scottish Green party, the minor party in the Bute House Agreement led by two people because they can’t even make a decision on one leader was attempting to hold the Snp to ransom. When you have very reasonable Msp’s like Snps Christine Graham on the day before yesterday saying that the Snp should pull out of the agreement before the Greens do the game is up.
I also believe Hunza knew that the Tories and Labour would call a vote of no confidence in him and Scottish Government. At the moment he is playing a game of call my bluff but if it leads to a Scottish Parliament election so be it and heaven help us and the Greens if Labour make major gains in that election. If he did not end the agreement he was at risk of losing support of many Snp MPs and Msps.I do believe that if Nicola had still been FM she would have done the same thing.
Did the Green Party honestly think that the Snp would wait four weeks for the Greens to have a meeting to make up their mind about to whether they wanted to stay in the agreement. Furthermore knowing how naive the Green Party are I think their membership would have voted to pull out of the agreement anyway. Waiting four weeks for Greens to have an EGM seems an extraordinary amount of time to me. However who knows what the rules of that party say
Harvie and Slater are cowards as far as I am concerned who seem to have made little or no attempt to explain to their membership the possibility that the Bute Agreement could be ended by the Snp if the membership insisted on a EGM but tweedle dee and tweedle dum (Harvie and Slater) are pretty clueless. Slater had a face that would have soured milk last night on Ch4 News either that or she about to burst into tears ,(hard to tell which) whilst Harvey waffled on about how aggrieved they felt. If their shenanigans cause an unexpected Scottish Parliament election you can bet the vast majority of Snp supporters will not give the Greens their second vote.
As for Ash Regan I would not give her any concessions. A friend of mine saw Salmond on TV News last night. She said he was smirking so much about the current situation she wanted to punch his face in. Pretty sure if I had seen it that would have been my reaction too. I think ultimately the different votes of no confidence as proposed by duplicitous Ross and Starmer’s poodle Sarwar will blow up in their faces.
If the Snp are to enter into any future coalition I think the membership has to have a vote on that proposal. We should always be wary of wolves in sheeps clothing.
Have to agree Eilidh
“It’s difficult to escape the conclusion that yesterday’s decision was a massive misjudgment on the part of Humza Yousaf“
I find it incredibly easy. I think Yousaf played a blinder, and that’s all I have to say about THAT.
Sorry: “what the wider independence movement needs is a period of calm and stability“
What we need is waking up and some excitement – and some incentive – and we certainly have it now.
The future is Indy.
I am delighted with what has happened – all of it. Now I think there’s hope, not despair.
To be honest, that’s how I’m feeling. I had no issues with the Bute House Agreement. I don’t have issues with it now being ended. It needs both parties happy with it and that was clearly not the case towards the end, so time for it come to a close.
If Yes was bumping along at 45, 46%, going nowhere while Scots were coming home to Labour on large turnouts, it would be a whole different story. But the opposite is the case. I’m interested in the big picture, and that is very, very bad for the UK. The worst it’s ever been. Short term ups and downs in mid term polls for particular parties etc is just noise. I want to know what’s fundamentally changing, as that tells us what’s ultimately going to happen. That’s often very subtle and slow though, hence me plotting 70 year trends rather than just the latest ‘poll of the Scotch’ from our neighbouring country.
Yup, change is on the horizon. Reckon the FM made a positive decision and thought a bit further ahead than the Tory/labour media are having tantrums about.
Headlines, even contrived ones, can tell a story of their own. In no particular order:
“Yousaf ‘absolutely’ not resigning ahead of no confidence vote”
“What happens when you lose a no confidence vote in the Scottish Parliament?”
“Anas Sarwar to lodge vote of no confidence in Scottish Government”
“Rachel Reeves demands MSPs back Labour’s plot to oust Humza Yousaf”
“Humza Yousaf begs Greens to reconsider position ahead of crucial vote”
“SNP leader Humza Yousaf ‘not ruling out early Holyrood election'”
STEEERRRRRIIIKKKE TWO
This information brought to you by optimistic.
BUT MAKE IT A DE FACTO REFERENDUM
The Unionists should be careful what they wish for. We could be voting for Scottish Independence a lot sooner than 2026.
🤞
Exactly. The one thing unionist politicians keep forgetting to factor in is the voting public. They don’t do what parties wish, they do what they wish to do.
Yes is majority in polls, and polls that sampling artefacts seem to be making the unionists look good.
If I was a unionist, the very last thing I’d want is to let Scots near the ballot box. After all, unionists literally overturned the result of the last Scottish election. What kind of unionist idiot calls another one hoping it will work out better for them having just done that?
Madness.
Let us vote. Please do!
Unionists be like:
Then: No, you are not allowed to vote! Not without our permission Jock scum!
…Independence support moves to majority…
Now: Ok, you guys can vote now!
They be crazy.
An English polling experts view on things:
https://archive.ph/I3FTt
“Rishi Sunak – unpopular, uncharismatic, can’t do the vision thing. Keir Starmer – boring, uncharismatic, can’t do the vision thing. Ed Davey – nice bloke, little impact, can’t do the vision thing. Humza Yousaf – nice bloke but has all sorts of political troubles… and can’t do the vision thing.”
Voters were “nothing like as enthusiastic” about Sir Keir’s Labour Party as they had been when Tony Blair’s Labour won power in 1997.
It meant that a hung parliament, where Labour won most Commons seats but not an overall majority could not be ruled out, said Sir John.
I agree with the Prof. I see Labour struggling to get a majority. They just don’t have the real flesh and blood voter support.
Incidentally, people don’t base their votes on whether the press tells them the leader has ‘political troubles’. Not at all, they base it on what the party offers and its record of trying to honestly deliver that, even if it doesn’t work out all the time.
Another headline: “Ross Greer: What was behind Yousaf’s sudden Bute House Agreement U-turn?”
I know this one!!!! Teacher teacher, pick me pick me me:
It’s the Greens
What kind of a plonker doesn’t know what is happening in his own party ?
Jeeez!
Ross , write this out 100 times :
”I must take my head out of my a*se !”
Soz – my reply to yoou below!
😂
Golfnut
The Greens were going to leave the BHA anyway, were they not?
Probably – after a few weeks of shouting the odds at Yousaf, having done the same about Forbes in their successful attempt at influencing the vote for SNP leader. They got their way and now they want to remove him as leader of the SNP? f*** **f
Anyways, job done. If there is a Holyrood election this year I’ll be changing my avatar to a plain independence message, and voting SNP 1 and 2 (constituency and list).
Yousaf needs to be strong. And stay strong.
Humza Yousaf was 100% right to dump the Greens, a government can’t hang around waiting for some two bit party to make its mind up what they’re going to do about co-operating in that government by having several weeks long discussions and talkies with themselves before they decide what they might tell their leaders what to do, that’s not a political party, that’s a bunch of student activists in woolly scarves on bikes failing to turn up on time because they had a puncture
This was Patrick Harvies own doing because he’s not a leader, he’s a mouthpiece for his members who take too long to decide an issue, and he behaved in the way he did because his neck was on the line in his own party, he tried it on and lost and that’s why he turned bitter when his wee blackmail plan failed
Now is not the time to shush, we’ve shushed enough, they want a fight? give them one or let them vote for the Brexit Labour party, how far do we allow them to back us up?
Because make no mistake if there’s to be an election that is Scotland’s choice, vote Brexit Labour in the sure and certain future of direct rule from Westminster versus the SNP in the shape of whoever is the FM, and if I’m Humza Yousaf that’s what I’m campaigning on, not a backward step
Vote Labour get Brexit St George’s England, is that what you want?
No retreat no surrender, time for snarly teeth and big voices and let’s see how they like it for a change, bring it on
Indeed.
Gloves off, let’s do it.
Golfnut
Well said, Dr Jim (as usual!), time to get ourselves in gear and grab our independence.
If the Greens regional votes go back to their 2011 values, even without adjusting the other parties in my spreadsheet, the Greens go back from 8 to 3 MSPs, losing 1 of 2 Lothian – Slater and 1 of 1 West of Scotland Greer, unless Slater jumps the list over Johnstone. SNP would have been up to 65. No BHA.
If on top of that, 2% of that Green vote had gone to the SNP instead, having been “lent” to the Greens in the first place, the Greens would have been down to 2 MSPs – and the SNP up to 66. Greens just 1 seat in Glasgow and 1 in Lothian. On current lists that would be Harvie and Johnstone.
If – and it’s a big if – the Greens rose on the back of Indy Ref, but if their recent antics rebound on them with the electorate (not their membership) they will have thrown away 8 years of progress since 2016, and gone one MSP worse. That will actually be sad.
There is a possible reverse blame where the SNP are blamed. What- for the Greens having threatened to pull out of the BHA and Yousaf having none of it?
The BBC’s James Cook is losing the plot. It looks like he now realise that Humza Yousaf may not yet be a dead duck after all and that it is likely the vote of no confidence motions by the Tories and Labour will both fail.
He is so desperate to stick the knife in that he has abandoned any notion of impartial and unbiased reporting with his latest piece of gobshite penned tonight for the gullible and incapable of thinking for themselves.
This is not journalism, it is pure propaganda with the intention of forcing Humza Yousaf from office, James Cook should be sacked and the complicit BBC taken to task by Ofcom. Yes, I was being ridiculous there as Ofcom and the BBC are both tools of Westminster and obedient servants to the state.
https://archive.ph/ZlWwI
Of course it’s not journalism, it’s but the latest nonsense in an increasingly desperate campaign to damage the SNP by any means possible…
With faith in trad politics at rock bottom in England, it’s not going to be a good look having higher GE turnout in Scotland, let alone for a party which so terrifies the cartel in London…
Factual journalism is an endangered species in Scotland. Even the National is at it with Humza begs their Greens to reconsider …. headline last night. He didn’t say beg he said urge. Maybe the headline writer should learn the meaning of words from an online dictionary before writing them or is how to write clickbait the most important part of journalism training these days.
I just read it. Desperate stuff littered with every pejorative meme he can grab. It will be so refreshing if his dire predictions are shown to be false. 🤞
Honestly I saw a front page of a BritNat rag (newspaper lol) yesterday with a CGI image of Scotland’s FM looking as if he was sooo distraught and in fact in tears at his impending demise. I just laughed it was so ridiculous and a really badly done fake image.
Great article thanks WGD.
more I hear Ash Regan the more it’s obvious snp missed a trick by not electing her
Aye Right- in a far flung universe that’s right
They did elect her – in 2021. But she was a fraud that stole SNP donations and used them to get another political party an MSP. Luckily, members like myself smelled a Tory rat in the leadership contest. She is a ‘government Scots didn’t vote for’, more so than the English Tories who were actually elected.
Out of interest, do you know why her and Alba supporters say it would be ‘madness for the SNP to trigger an election’? Scottish polling consistently says SNP + Green would win another majority, so why the worry? We could even make it a defacto indyref. There’d still be an election in 2026 anyway, so even if the worst happened and the unionists got a teeny majority, we’d just get two years of calamitous, divided infighting rule between them to warm the electorate up for 2026. Why are Alba opposed to this approach?
Satire.
The Greens wasted £Millions that could have been better spent. On a recycling project when there is already 60% recycling. Increasing all the time.
Renewables are already at the forefront of any policies. Increasing all the time. Making Scotland £Billions. Going down south. Scotland pays higher fuel costs unnecessarily. Independence would sort that.
The Greens never think things through. 32,000 airbnbs in Scotland. 16,000 in Edinburgh. 1 million+ pop. More are needed. A sledgehammer to crush a nut. More red tape and regulation. Scotland makes £Billions from tourism.
The Greens opposed roads and bridges building. Wasting £Millions and putting up costs. The Trams subsidised and over cost.
It was the unionists who pushed for the Edinburgh tram scheme.
Amusingly, Alba supporters on the National think Yousaf going for a Scottish general election would be madness. Anyone know why? 🙂
Incidentally, the rule of thumb is that if you trigger an election when you are low in the polls, you’ll make gains, possibly huge gains. Tories were on 21% when Johnson said he wanted to get Brexit done, and aimed to get a mandate from the people for this. If you are riding high by contrast, you’ll lose ground, like Theresa May.
Which is why unionists absolutely don’t want a snap Scottish election. Yousaf could go into it saying ‘lets get independence done’ for example. After all, indy is what Scots want.
But why are Alba so opposed to this?
Ha ha – Alistair Carmichel doesn’t want Ash Regan’s Referendum Bill to see the light of day. That’s practically an endorsement.
Humza Yousaf warned against Ash Regan’s indyref2 bill
I think a referendum is needed on whether their should be a referendum on seeking the powers for Holyrood to hold a referedum.
That’s the key condition of my support for Yousaf! 🙂
We don’t need permission and will never be given it anyway. We just have to hold an election and make it a defacto iref. By closing off the standalone indyref route, England has put the date of the referendum in our own hands.
Ash Regan is opposed to a fresh Holyrood election. She doesn’t want Scots to be allowed to vote for some odd reason. 😉
Best to ignore what “proven liar” Carmichael says. It could be a lie…
This is one I made earlier … A little dated in places, but you get the idea:
56. (of 60.)
Carmichael’s the Butcher’s
Carmichael’s was a large butcher’s shop, located at the far end of Orkney Street. It was very well known in town, but few people had actually seen the owner, known locally as ‘Big Al,’ if you’ll excuse the pun, ‘in the flesh.’
One day, a young lady, who was up on her holiday in the area from down south came into the butcher’s shop. Her name was Tori Graff and she was looking for something to cook to go alongside her leek bake. She was holding a dinner party that very night and she wanted to impress her friends.
“How about some mince?” suggested the friendly shop assistant. “I find that leaks and mince complement each other very nicely. At Carmichael’s we also serve the best tripe.”
Tori Graff was so impressed by the good-looking mince under the counter that she bought some there and then and took it home to cook.
But alas and woe! Having cooked it in the appropriate manner, (the leek bake however was not done so well and some would later whisper it was only half-baked), Tori Graff and her guests began to feel decidedly unwell. Could there be something the matter with Carmichael’s mince?
The nearest Trading Standards Office was in the nearby town of Essennpee, and one of its officers was quickly called in. He promptly paid a visit to Carmichael’s butcher’s shop. The same assistant who had served Tori Graff the previous day was behind the counter – but he did not satisfy the man from Trading Standards: he wanted to see the Manager, ‘Big Al’ Carmichael himself.
After a long wait, ‘Big Al’ Carmichael shambled into the shop from the back. His nickname was well-earned: he was quite a large man, not out of place as a doorman at a nightclub, perhaps. Carmichael was wearing his standard butcher’s apron and straw hat. He stared indignantly at the man from Essennpee Trading Standards.
“What’s this all about, then?” he asked gruffly.
“We suspect that there is some issue with your mince,” replied the Trading Standards Officer grimly.
“Poppycock!” exclaimed Carmichael. “I only sell the best quality mince in my shop. My meat is the best in town – you ask Mrs Cameron in Number 10. How dare you slander me like this!”
“Be that as it may,” rejoined the Trading Standards Officer evenly. “I will still need to take a sample of your mince to study it in the lab. A rather virulent strain of Libus Demus Smearus is currently doing the rounds and I’d like to do my duty to ensure – as you claim – that your meat products are not affected.”
‘Big Al’ Carmichael harrumphed and swore blind that his mince was not contaminated. However, he could not very easily stop the Trading Standards Officer from Essennpee from upholding the law, so with a shrug of his shoulders, a deep groan and a defiant statement that he would be vindicated, ‘Big Al’ Carmichael shambled back to his office.
*****
Essennpee Trading Standards were meticulous in their analysis of ‘Big Al’ Carmichael’s mince. All this cost a lot of money and a lot of time and effort was also expended, but when one considers that the safety and well-being of the town and possible breaches of the Food Act that were involved, Trading Standards did a thoroughly professional job.
The results from the laboratory eventually came through. As Essennpee Trading Standards had initially thought, there was a strong strain of the bacteria Libus Demus Smearus in ‘Big Al’ Carmichael’s mince.
Upon hearing the result, the Trading Standards Officer acted promptly, and immediately returned to Carmichael’s butcher’s shop.
Again, there was a lengthy delay before the man himself appeared, clad as usual in his butcher’s apron and straw hat.
“I have to inform you that you have been found selling food which is unfit for human consumption,” announced the Trading Standards Officer from Essennpee gravely. “To whit, your mince has been proven to contain a most unpleasant strain of Libus Demus Smearus,” he went on. “This has been demonstrated to be the cause of the ill-effects in everyone who has swallowed your mince.”
‘Big Al’ Carmichael was silent for a little while.
Then he blurted out,
“It wasnae me! It was my shop assistant … It was Mundell! He made me do it!”
“Be that as it may,” replied the Trading Standards Officer. “This is a strict liability offence under the Food Act.” He paused for his words to sink in. “I will be obliged to make a report that Carmichael’s the Butcher’s should be closed forthwith and that you will never sell any meat product ever again in the future.”
“B-b-b-b-ut you can’t do that!” stuttered ‘Big Al’ Carmichael. “Think of my livelihood. My good name here on Orkney Street.” He paused. “I am NOT going to submit to your blackmailing innuendo, sir!” ‘Big Al’ was shouting.
“We shall see what Mr Justice Scott and Mrs Justice Shetland have to say when we take you to court, Mr Carmichael,” replied the Essennpee Trading Standards Officer with a smile as he walked out of the shop, into the sunshine.
Will ‘Big Al’ Carmichael now face the chop?
Watch this space …
________
Kate Forbes on the current mess says all the parties are responsible so get a grip.
Kate Forbes: All MSPs share guilt for this national embarrassment
Great article by her, perhaps Fergus Ewing can now also get behind Yousaf for the next week or so with the Coalition gone. Criticism is good, it’s necessary, it’s positive. But there are times when solidarity is needed; this is one.
What Scotland needs is back to basics.
And woe betide any party that puts Scotland second to nauseating fetid political miasma.
Back to, basics. That was John Major’s slogan. It didn’t do him any good.
aye it did, that’s when Neil Kinnock got pumped in 92.
Major used the slogan as a sort moral crusade (the same guy who was having an affair with Edwina Currie), an appeal to the wretched Mary Whitehouses and their kind.
Interesting article but it worries me when any politician starts talking about values. It sounds far too Tory for me. If Humza loses the VOC I think he should just call an election.If he has to stand down. I wonder who the next mug is, who will be up for the poison chalice. Maybe Kate. However I would not vote for Kate if she were to stand, mostly because of her economic ideas. Don’t think she would be popular with the centre left of the Snp which may even form the majority of the membership. Of course the media would never shut up about her views on religion or same sex marriage
in light of recent events maybe the Snp should have got better at lying by pretending the 75% emissions target was still doable. They also could have overturned the pausing of puberty blockers by clinicians. Governments in other countries have interfered in medical treatment. One was a well known party in Germany. Oh wait that the Nazi party. Probably not a good idea to emulate them. If only the Snp had tried to govern the country and stayed pals with the Green Party. Wait I am sure the Greens would have found something else to try to bully the Snp about.
Personally I don’t think the Snp should ever again get into a formal coalition with any party. It seems that Salmond is laying down the law about what the Snp needs to do to secure Ash Regan’s vote. Salmond can take a very long off a very short plank as far as I am concerned. I see the usual suspects are still blaming Nicola Sturgeon for all of this. They will be doing that until a giant asteroid hits the Earth and wipes out the Human Race.Sigh!!
The media have never made an issue out of Humza Yousaf being a Moslem and Islam being opposed to same sex marriage.
Your religious belief, or lack of it, is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010. So I wouldn’t worry about that.
Sorry Capella I don’t agree. The media frequently mention that Humza is a Muslim far more than they mentioned Nicola is an atheist. Some have inferred that his support for Gaza is mostly because he is a Muslim. As for Kate, during Snp leadership campaign they also made a big deal about her comments about her religious views and those on whether she would have supported same sex marriage. It is my firm believe that is what cost her the last Snp leadership election.There was a heck of media focus on those comments and the same thing will happen again It does not matter what protected characteristics there are. I do believe that the vast majority of the human race are bigoted in one or another. In the past few days I have also seen at least one comment on The National saying there is no way they would vote for “The Wee Free”. I was shocked by comments I heard during the leadership campaign about her being a “Wee Free” as if that was all that defined her.There have bern many comments on Facebook and on The Times Radio YouTube feed recently against Humza purely because he is a Muslim and media attitudes just encourage that sort of stuff I should add there is a fair amount of comments against Scottish people there too.
It was a sign of Ms Forbes political naivety that she gave the media and others the chance to raise the religion issue. The media of course mis-reported what she had said either by omission or commission. I actually thought her full answers on these issues, same sex marriage etc, were thoughtful and not ones of blind religious dogma.
However when it came to her policies/position on things such as the economy etc then her policies/positions on issues such as the economy and Green issues were, for me, much more problematic and raised serious questions as to whether she was a leader. These questions have remained and indeed her behaviour since has suggested that she is not leadership material.
I don’t believe she is naive. I would say she is honest and that’s fine with me.
Regarding her views on the economy, she is far more in tune with the general electorate than the other leadership candidates. In other words, a vote winner.
See poll results from IPSOS at the time.
Forbes leads as the public’s preferred next First Minister, but Yousaf and Forbes are neck and neck among SNP voters
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/forbes-leads-as-publics-preferred-next-first-minister-yousaf-forbes-neck-and-neck-among-snp-voters
Her economic policies are to the right and, from what I heard when she spoke on the subject, very much Tory in colour. She was/is very much in the ‘grow the economy’ mould of the Tories and now Labour. It is growth that would result in tricklle down economics and growth that is not possible on a planet that is disintegrating.
Her position is not one that the people of Scotland would endorse.
This is a link to a detailed analysis of her position on the economy and on welfare
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/kate-forbes-economic-agenda-dangerous-snp-leadership-race-scotland-conservative/
Thx for the link. I will read with interest. I see it is written by Adam Ramsay, a member of the Green Party who clearly dislikes people he calls “social conservatives”. He mainly critiques the Growth Commission which Nicola Sturgeon set up. But, as I said, I will read it more fully.
The Growth Commission makes up a small part of the analysis as you will find out when you read it fully. It does provide perhaps some background as to where her ideas/position came from. The bulk of it, however, is about what she said immediately before and especially during the campaign and much of it I remember noting at the time and was horrified by it.
OK – it reads to me like a hit piece from a political opponent written during the leadership campaign when Adam, as a member of the Scottish Greens, was clearly determined to write off Kate Forbes a “right wing” “Tory” a “social conservative” etc.
Very low on factual detail but high on innuendo
Yet tonight on every news report when her name was mentioned by reporters the words ‘social conservative’ were attached to it – a euphemism for right wing.
What was said in the article was pretty much as I remember she was saying in the campaign. She would have, and still would, roll back much of the social policies that help so many.
She has also shown in the past year that she is prepared to further her ambitions by pursuing an us and them policy in terms of setting rural vs urban by claiming without basis that rural are being ignored by the SNP/SG when that is not the case.
OK, if you say so, but I didn’t notice the media making an issue of HY being Muslim. I did notice they thought his stance on Gaza was because his wife is Palestinian and her parents were in Gaza visiting relatives. But I don’t recall them saying it was because he is Muslim.
Westminster must strike while the SNP is at its weakest and put an end to devolution
Humza Yousaf will be gone by Wednesday
Both of these statements are a mile from the truth but that’s the propaganda being pumped out by Britain’s media to con people into believing this word crisis that they keep bandying around along with unelected FM, Muslim, views on Palestine, I even heard the word *thug* in reference to Humza Yousaf this very morning being pumped out of the Talk TV gang
All this propaganda is emanating from the UK of great England where all they want to do is distract from their own abject failures in every single are of governance and lump all their hatred and bias onto Scotland, we’ve even seen the disgraced ex SNP Jim Sillars being rolled out on the side of the union stating he wants independence for Scotland but still part of the UK as a union of countries as this was always his long term plan
Humza isn’t Nicola Sturgeon, nobody else could be but I’d support a parrot shitting on a stick as First Minister before I’ll remove my support for the SNP and Scotland
The situation in Scotland and in the British isles is simple, there only is the SNP as far as politics goes in Scotland, there is no Alba or Green Party in Scotland, these in the eyes of England are piddling wee non entities that mean nothing to them except to reach for the fly swatter, nothing else matters because they’re either too small to be of consequence or they really don’t support independence anyway
Does anybody really think they’ve heard an English government minister or even member of their parliament mention Greens or Alba in a sentence of any significance, even Alister Jack their secretary of state wouldn’t know one if he fell over them
Aye but eh but whit aboot this or that? forget it nobody counts in Scottish politics but the SNP, weaken them and Scotland’s had it
Remember the only reason there was ever devolution in Northern Ireland was the hope and embarrassment to England of preventing so many people killing each other and the republicans winning, if it wasn’t for that sole reason devolution would never have happened
Great England’s UK gives not a shit about any of us, but they do like our wealth and land and enjoy owning that very much
It would be madness for unionist to push for an election. Total madness.
This is driven by long term demographic changes dating back 2-3 generations, namely the decline of Britishness as a primary or secondary national identity in Scotland. Since the post-war baby boomers, British identity has been in continuous decline, with a really sharp drop in those reaching adulthood in the age of devolution. They are 75% Yes!
To undo this would take decades, undoing Brexit, rebuilding the post-war consensus, even then it would likely fail as the purpose of union was empire and that’s gone. There’s just no reason for it.
Maybe a bump in the road could see Yes parties not quite get a majority in a snap election, but then you could have Yes supporters amongst unionist parties who back iref2 for example, and the UK three could never form a working coalition, nor would wish to due to how electorally damaging that would be. Even then an election this year where this happened would just buy them until October, which could be a defacto iref. Then Holyrood 2026 is less than 2 years away; 2 years of calamitous, divided, Lab-Con-Lib ‘coalition’ which would see Labour haemorrhaging voters to Yes…
Any party which seeks to disrupt the fair operation of a Scottish government that proportionally represents what Scots wanted will suffer at the ballot box. Look at the demise of the DUP if you want an example. Eventually they gave in, accepting their new Irish republican FM and that the mutli-decadal rising tide for reunification could not be stopped. Better to go with it.
Incidentally, 56% is quite possibly what polls would show for the indyref question of the electorate was engaged with normal turnouts projected as a result. This would be without any ‘on the day bounce’ as Yes got in 2014.
56% Yes, is after all, what our only, but reliable Scottish pollster IPSOS had late December 2022 before the big turnout projection drop early 2023. It’s still saying 53-54% yes, and with Yes voters harder to reach but unionists easy to.
Unionists should be really, really, really careful what they wish for. Those data points are real election results. Most of the time the main pollsters, notably the English panel pollsters trying to poll Scotland, are well off. At least 95% of the time these did not show the election outcome over the course of a parliament term, with some huge clangers like early 2011’s stunning Labour landslide which they all agreed on apart from Scottish IPSOS.
If you ask me, I’d based my predictions on 22+ years worth of Scottish election results, UK election results dating back to the 60’s… 2 devo refs plus an iref, census data on identity etc, not some cheap and nasty English mid term English panel polling. Comes of being Dr SS in data measurement and analysis in a particular science.
The future is not bright for the union in Scotland, N. Ireland and even Wales these days. Time is the enemy of it. Best not speed that up if you are Sarwar et al.!
Sorted it for you, ” The future is not bright for the union in Scotland, N. Ireland, WALES AND EVEN ENGLAND these days. Time is the enemy of it. Best not speed that up if you are Sarwar et al.! “
I do realise your focus is rightly Scotland, but to ignore the rupture in England which may assist our goal of independence is I believe myopic – The majority of England’s voters still have a democratic conscience, it’s their political parties who don’t, and their media is increasingly distrusted for good reason.
Empire as you often refer to it is gone, all that’s left is Ian Drunken-Smith expounding on ” the natural order of things ” with a plummy voice, falsified CV and a huge black book, after all, that is all which is required to achieve democracy, threats from within the cabale – Although to be fair, few are quite so disconnected from everyone else’s reality as IDS.
England’s electorate have finally woken up to having been ‘conned’ over everything – There has long been majority support for Scotland to hold a second referendum, ignored – The Brexit con has worn off, the majority want it reversed, ignored – Then Gaza went mental and the majority want it stopped, ignored, and the media talk as if the populace aren’t totally pissed off at being misrepresented.
‘England’ is increasingly realising why Scots want the hell out of this fakery, why we distrust the BBC, and why the DM and Sun etc are only bought by budgie enthusiasts…
The UK’s democratic ‘institutions’ still believe they can turn the tide with flags and bunting… They’re so very, very wrong…..
Spot on.
But hey! the King’s getting back to work next week. Get out the bunting!😂
He’s had to. Otherwise he’d have been sanctioned.
Aye, right.
If we take a straightforward projection, the next Scottish election could see a 70% turnout, i.e. start to hit the highs it used to in UK elections.
Historical data point to all this extra turnout voting mainly SNP + other Yes parties.
Unionists should really keep quiet about any talk of an election. Are they out of their minds? Seriously?
Call the blackmailers bluff, let’s see if Scottish voters like the idea that Alba and the Greens want to let the British Labour party back into government in Scotland again
Call an election and see what the voters think of that
Neither Tories nor Labour want an election for Holyrood at this time so close to a Westminster GE. If Labour did not show the gains they keep claiming to have made in Scotland that might queer their pitch in the Westminster GE. The Tories are likely to lose significantly in the upcoming Local Elections in England so wont want what is likely to be a complete failure in Scotland before the Westminster GE. Given the time it would take to hold the Holyrood election it might also queer their pitch if they decided to hold a snap GE for Westminster.
They possibly thought the FM would resign if faced with two votes of Confidence. He didn’t and won’t so now they are stuck. As are Alba and the Greens.
I know!!! great innit ,*crisis*? wot crisis? it could be for them though
The headlines should read “Humza says put up or shut up”
As per my post below, there’s no getting out of the English local elections for Labour. While they’ll take some Tory seats, the question is what their share equates to nationally. Last year it was just 35%, and back then Starmer / Labour were considerably less unpopular than they are now.
If Labour come in lower than that figure on even a reasonable turnout, start thinking they they might not even manage a majority in the UKGE, for which they already need a desperately low turnout to achieve according to English polling.
Big bump in the union road coming for Labour on the 2nd May. Last year, they underperformed expectations in the English locals by 9%. National polls said 44%, they got 35%. Ed Miliband did better and was more popular than Starmer at the same stage.
Ok, still seeing no change in SNP polling fortunes as a result of PM’s arrest.
No reason their would be of course. It’s not like he’s their leader and is insisting on staying in the post or similar.
Even if that were the case it might not impact VI. I mean look at Trump! He’s doing well in the polls while juggling multiple court cases. Not that I’d want the SNP to be led by someone like that and to be vote for by Trump types!
Alex Salmond will instruct Ash Regan to vote with the Tories after calling a hurried meeting of his party Alba tomorrow reports STV news at 6pm
No fool like an old fool who advertises his strategy before he does it, or just another loud Salmond moment in his efforts to bring down the SNP
He’ll make England give him his peerage yet, except they didn’t last time did they, and they’ll shaft him again
You’d think after 3-4 years on 2% support and zero elected reps, Alba might think about holding some sort of strategy meeting.
From the National:
“SNP left wing express concern over ‘appeasement of right wing‘”
Mmm, let me see now:
“SNP right wing express concern over ‘appeasement of left wing'”
LEARN TO GET ON YOU MORONS
Its the rainbow wing spitting feathers because they might not get their conversion therapy ban. They should just go and join the Greens, in the wilderness. “Rewilding” its called.
It is the right wing conservative folks that can’t stop thinking about what’s between the legs of strangers that are spitting feathers on the opposite side. 🙂
I agree Capella – I was just trying to be even-handed!
😂
Wings left right and centre that don’t exist except for in the minds of some, and those some are few but mouth off the loudest
Once again the National newspaper cannot resist becoming as trashy as the Herald or any of the rest of the British media, we’ll be having the Catholic and Protestant wings next, we’re already down the rabbit hole of Kate Forbes being too wee free a proddy and the Catholics couldn’t put up with her but suspicions over Humza’s Muslim faith we’re allayed when he vowed he could keep his faith out of the job but Kate couldn’t be trusted to do the same
The media and their helpers just love the rows they create then report them as *concerns* and the Scottish public who are so used to betrayal from every corner fall for it, well the media hopes they do
Nothing like a good infight so let’s create one suggests the media
Nobody in the SNP ever cared a damn about religion faith or beliefs until the SNP became the governing party, all for one and one for all, because all we cared about was Scottish independence for rich and poor alike, but now the gutter press and media in their efforts to break us down suggest we have wings
What a load of guff and malarkey , Salmond and his unionist pals collude to bring down Scotland but let’s keep the focus off him because he’s useful to the British cause
Probably the best article Mark Smith ever writ for the Herald:
https://archive.is/s6QxN
There’s some very interesting reactions to all this from the more thoughtful both above and below the line, and it goes across the Indy divide which is hopefully good news.
Alex Salmond has demanded that the SNP stand aside in some Holyrood seats so as Alba can get a free go at them. He says he the price of Ash Regan’s support in the vote of no confidence will be an electoral pact between the SNP and Alba.
https://archive.ph/vswic
That would be the end of the SNP.
Next thing you know, Salmond will be proposing himself as Leader of said ‘coalition’ to the sound of his cheerleaders in Bath in the background.
There was a time when I admired the man – Salmond – not the Bath vigilante. That was then. This is now.
I’m going to guess her vote won’t be needed, as some will abstain.
Anyone like to take part in a caption competition? Just a little light relief out of the on-going media circus surrounding Humza Yousaf. No prizes, obvs.
01HSTMY86DVEJV946NW18136JS-scaled-e1714235377412.jpg (1000×666) (nation.cymru)
First suggestion: “Look over there, Keir. That’s the charity shop where I bought this suit.”
“Take the first right, do a U Turn, round and round the roundabout, and the next right gets you back to Engerland.”
“Is that your servant, what’s his name, Anas, trying to work out how to use your pedalo?”
’Look, you really have trod in the cac…’
We all know over how many years individuals in the Labour Party in Scotland have sought to tarnish the reputation of the SNP by claiming – disingenuously (and wrongly according to PM Callaghan’s memoires) – that in Westminster its vote with the Tories brought down a Labour government and enabled Thatcher to gain power. This still gets trotted out decades later.
If Alba and the Greens do vote with the Unionist parties in Holyrood – finding common cause with Douglas Ross’ Tories that a majority of voters in Scotland have rejected at the ballot box time after time after time and with the democracy-denying (‘no indy ref ever again’) Labour – in the upcoming confidence votes and this does bring down the present SNP Scottish Government, their actions may become as ‘memorable’ and reviled. But unlike Labour’s peddling of the falsehood that led to Thatcher, the voting by Alba and the Scottish Greens with the London-led Unionist parties will be a well-documented, self-evident alliance in support of a Unionist objective. The stakes here concern not just the fate of a political party!
Still time for reflection and common sense to prevail?
Alba and the Greens voting down an SNP led government with a majority of Yes MSPs in favour of some calamitous unionist majority via a snap election would be a monumentally stupid thing for these to do. Your analogy is apt except it’s highly unlikely that the unionists could win a majority based on the 22 year Holyrood election result trend. If they managed a dead cat bounce of a seat or so, it would be just until 2026. Yes parties need 45% of the vote on the PR list for a majority. When Yes is at min 51%, this is readily achievable.
And if you force an election, it must be to put the unionists into majority, as that is the only other possible outcome to what we have right now. That or an SNP majority again. I can’t imagine the Greens or Alba want the latter, so if they vote down the SNP, it must be for the former. That’s a death wish at the ballot box.
There is no evidence whatsoever of the Greens a shoe in for more seats based on polling, and Alba are still very much the 2%. If the Greens / Alba helped the unionists take out the Yes majority and yet another relatively popular SNP leader (polls show the public favour Yousaf over all the other options consistently) they’d be destroyed in any election. Alba would become the 1% and the Greens would start falling below the 5% regional threshold. They only got 8% last time, with much of this coming from one region (Glasgow). They’re just 6-7% mostly. They really are pishin intae the wind right now so to speak.
All parties need to stop thinking about themselves, and think about the country. The only one that can be seen to be doing that right now is the SNP. This cannot be stopped, and to be seen to be dragging it out by giving the unionists opportunities for another short lived dead cat bounce will not help little Yes parties trying to grow themselves into notable forces ready for an independent Scotland…
Labour too should maybe take a leaf out of the DUP’s book and accept the inevitable if they want to survive the coming indy storm in any form.
Since up to 40% of their members back indy, maybe they should break with the English nationalists and become neutral on indy like Alliance are in the North of Ireland. Let their MSPs be open on indy and not voting secretly for it like quite a lot likely did.
Salmond can’t win power on his own, Harvie can’t win power on his own, DRoss can’t win power at all, only the SNP and if current polling is anywhere near close Labour only *might* be able to win power on their own
So who benefits from all this blackmail? well not Scotland for a start, so who is the biggest winner of this convoluted set of contrived circumstances if these allies manage to pull down Humza Yousaf and the Scottish government?
It’s not really Labour because they think they have a chance of winning on their own, but of course it’s detrimental to the SNP and all the opposition parties like the sound of that, especially Labour
So we have to drill more into the beneficiaries of any chaos caused by the plotters and planners of this multi angled attack on the SNP and ask ourselves what result any of this would achieve and for whom
There’s only one party big enough and certain enough to win a Scottish election on their own if no insane damage is done to them and it’s the SNP, so who’s got the nerve to move from party to party putting together a coalition of chaos to bring down the SNP, or to run it from the position of leader of that coalition
Winnie Ewing used to call him *slippery*
I reckon the SNP will already know what they’re going to do, and it won’t be any of that because this is almost a carbon copy of how Salmond wove himself into the fabric of the SNP the first time, at that time he used Labour people to do it, and some of them are still around today and deployed often times by the media to criticise the SNP
Humza Yousaf has no Tory or Labour friends, neither did Nicola Sturgeon, both of these politicians are hated by the opposition the most, I think there’s a very good reason for that
Both these SNP politicians believe you should never co-operate with England on anything unless you have to, simply because they and anybody who does, cannot be trusted not to shaft you
Am I a conspiracy theorist? damn right I am, because I’m old enough to have seen it all before
Stick to the principles put them to the people and come out fighting for them
Labour could only work with the libs. Working with the Tories is a no no. It’s what allowed the SNP to form a minority in 2007.
When Labour did work with the Tories in Better Together, it ruined them. They’ve never recovered. Even now they are only a couple of Tory tactical % further forward on 2017 in terms of real voters.
This hamstrings the unionists and makes it impossible for them to form a stable coalition, even if they could pull of a majority of MSPs one last time before 2026 in a snap election. 22+ years of results says in a couple of years that will become impossible if it’s not already, as it has for the unionists in Northern Ireland.
The SNP can work with anyone as long as their voters are OK with the policies that produces. The libs are an obvious option for informal deals. They are actually a Scottish party too. Labour working with the Tories would lose them their yes voters to the SNP and greens. Some unionist lefties to the libs. Under PR the latter can’t waste their votes doing this either.
Labour and Tory parties work with each other on a constant basis, just not in public, they vote for each others candidates when they deem it necessary to either save a candidate from failure or hope to win a seat from the SNP at elections, Jackie Baillie herself owes the Tories for her seat in Holyrood
How do you think they arrive at the exact same line of attack questions every week at First Ministers Labour Tory publicity time?
They have their secret meeting with the BBC so they will be able to claim they don’t know the questions that will be asked, but they may go on then the BBC proceed to describe almost in detail the exact questions about to be asked
What appears or is presented in public between these parties is a show, nothing more, they are in Scotland for all intents and purposes the same party with one mission
One more thing about this policies nonsense
Not a single normal voter in Scotland pays any attention to policies and or what they contain, (it’s only internet geeks that pay any attention to this stuff) they wait for the end result before they moan, and before that they only care about one other thing, for or against independence and cast their vote accordingly
If their mate tells them that guy or that woman is slimy then they don’t vote for them, ordinary folk are really that simple, if they’re told they don’t like something, then they don’t like it
The public are not rocket scientists, they don’t care, they just want an end result, not the blathering on that bores them to death during Britain’s got Talent and Love Island
Oh I know they work together, but they can only do that because they are not in power.
If they were in power, they could not secretly coordinate in this way, which is basically just to attack the SNP day in and day out. They’d have to actually come up with some policies and get these passed if they wanted to have any faint hope of staying in that position for a few years.
The fact that Sarwar is pushing a different VoC to that of Ross, shows the split. Ultimately, in the British world where they reside, while they punt the same policies, they are deadly rivals for the power and the rich trappings of that.
And it’s because they inhabit a different world to Scots, a British world, they cannot seem to see the end of the union barrelling towards them. Likewise that attempting to take out yet another SNP FM rather than governing for the good of the people while offering an attractive alternative, is only going to hasten indy. The cost of living crisis, the economy, the NHS, education, the disaster of Brexit, nukes on the Clyde this is not a f’ing game. Yet the unionists are treating it like that. And the Greens are just an embarrassment along with them right now. Alba remain nobodies.
Sorry but the fact Labour and Tories are pushing different VONCs – Lab no conf in Gov, Tories no conf in FM – to my mind is further evidence of them working together. By each proposing a different VONC they cover all the bases. A pincer movement if you like.
My suspicion is that Starmer ordered Sarwar to put forward Labours own motion of no confidence so that they were not seen to be voting with the Tories again in supporting a Tory led motion.
Now they do not need to support the Tory motion but if they do then they can safely say they will be looking for the Tories to support their motion.
We could even have the ludicrous situation where Labour abstain on the Tory motion and the Tories abstain on the Labour motion.
What then for Ash Regan and her soundbite of Alex Salmond being the most powerful politician in Holyrood?
Apparently Labour will be supporting their blue brothers and voting for the Tory motion against Humza Yousaf.
So says Dame Baillie once again to the BBC.
IMO, Ross put forward a VoC in the FM because this cannot trigger an election if it passed. Yousaf doesn’t even need to step down. The absolutely last thing in the world the Tories want right now are elections. They are due to be wiped out according to pollsters. While PR would take the edge off this in Scotland, Ross would still be looking at losing half his MSPs on a good day for him.
Sarwar by contrast is a gormless idiot who cannot take his eyes off headline VI numbers. It doesn’t matter if his activists can’t find any of these additional voters he’s supposed to have won over, but instead are having doors slammed in their faces by former labour lefties now planning to vote for indy, mixed in with some tactical Tories. Nor does it matter that his and his boss’s ratings are tanking, nope, those VI numbers are all he sees in the same way May could not see past them.
So he’s thinking an election would be good if it happened. Ergo has gone for the VoC in the government, which could trigger an election. Ross will be bricking it in case this actually passes. He’s in a corner over it as if he backs it, he could trigger his own party’s wipeout. It would absolutely not be in the interests of the Tories for the SNP government to fall and fresh elections to be held. Just as Sunak has been holding on as long as possible, so Ross will want to as well. If he votes down the SNP, it’s turkeys voting for Christmas. Only way he’ll support that is if he’s 100% sure it won’t pass because the SNP have got someone to take their side. They just need one MSP for this. Doesn’t have to be Ash. Could be anyone who realises it will make them look good and help them get re-elected next time. Take a moral stand point to end the games and get back to government.
Maybe things will look better for the Tories in 2 years after a period of disastrous rule by the deeply unpopular new English conservatives who failed to win any sort of popular mandate but still made No. 10. That’s what Ross is hoping. He knows he’s likely out of a Westminster job come October. Best keep this one.
“Could be anyone who realises it will make them look good and help them get re-elected next time. Take a moral stand point to end the games and get back to government.”
Or even the Greens – at least one of whom has said it’s HY they have no confidence in, not ScotGov. (Which is possibly just as well, since they were part of it till Thursday…)
Oh, people realise that we don’t actually need a pro-indy majority government to achieve indy right?
The unionists have made it thus by taking a standalone binary Y/N referendum out of the hands of Holyrood. By doing so, a Yes party majority government was no longer needed in principle for Scots to vote in an independence referendum.
Now, the only way to vote Yes is by defacto referendum via election. However, there’s no need for the parties standing on this ticket to actually be in government, obviously.
So a snap election which delivered a final dead cat bounce slim and super unstable unionist majority would not stop the UKGE this year, nor Holyrood 2026, nor any subsequent elections, being defacto indrefs.
And all thanks to unionist leaders. They just are not very bright.
One amusing prospect would be a slim, 1 MSP unionist majority in a snap SGE followed by a defacto Yes vote in a UKGE. Then the unionists would need to start negotiating independence. 🙂 That or face the same fate as those who tried to overturn the Brexit vote in England, being wiped out in a much bigger Yes to indy vote in 2026.
I tell you, there is no way out of the very deep hole the UK is in. They can cut off the head of the SNP as many times as they like; it will just keep growing new heads.
There’s no practical nor realistic way to stop the continued mult-decadal / multi-generational decline of Britishness in Scotland. English nationalism certainly isn’t going to help; quite the opposite!
Aye, forcing an election when polls say you are way out in front can spectacularly backfire; ask Theresa May.
To do so when you are deeply unpopular and behind in the polls like Labour are, is nothing short of suicidal.
https://archive.ph/wRaY3
Labour’s bid for early Scottish election ‘could backfire’
FORCING the dissolution of the Scottish Parliament could be a vote-loser, a political expert has warned.
A motion of no confidence in the Scottish Government has been lodged by Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar – but Professor Murray Leith said a Holyrood election at this time might not go down well with voters.
“They might think there are more important issues right now,” said Leith, professor of political science at the University of the West of Scotland.
“Party politics is one thing but you don’t want to upset the electorate as a whole and any party that brings down the Scottish Parliament or seeks to bring it down might not resonate with Scottish voters at the moment.
“An election could be called any time south of the Border between now and January and I wonder how the people of Scotland would respond to one here.”
On May 3rd, I suspect Starmer & Sarwar will suddenly be less keen on snap elections.
35% was what they got last year. That’s not going to put you in No. 10.
Green MSP Mark Ruskell indicates he will not vote against Humza Yousaf, my guess is he’s not alone
I thought he might be more rational than the leaders. Didn’t he used to be SNP?
I was wondering about this. The Greens are supposed to be all about democracy, morals, principled stands. In that sense, I cannot see how Harvie & Slater could whip (aka threaten) their MSPs into doing something that is not remotely in the interests of voters, and potentially very damaging for the Greens.
I get that they are sore about the Bute House Agreement, but they were the ones who began the split. They did this the moment they said they were going to ask party members about ending it with an answer at some point in the future. That’s not stable governance, and pretty insulting to their coalition partners. Maybe Yousaf could have let them down more gently, but then if both could have handled things better, then it’s no good pointing fingers.
You do realise 90% of Scots switched on Dolby BBC the moment this farce began weeks ago and don’t give a shit over the political machinations of Holyrood, they’ve already made up their minds.
The Tories already knew they were toast, Labour are being buried alive by their own party leader, and the only thing they can come up with in Scotland is “if we’re getting thumped, we’re taking you with us…” – Folks are sick and tired of Westminster political games and corruption and it’s protective media, north and south – It is British politics which is in crisis as the public are sick of it, and there is no riding it out this time despite the “Greens” diversion in Scotland..
Voters want stuff done, and the stuff they asked for. They don’t take kindly at all to political parties playing self-interested games to try and get one over on their opponents, particularly in times of crisis when stable government is needed.
Sarwar is showing Scots he is completely unfit to govern; something they’ve already been steadily deciding for themselves as his ratings tank, and in polls that couldn’t be more favourable for Labour due to mid term artefacts.
If Labour had a huge lead over the SNP, with Yes tanking, then that might show the public had had enough of the whole indy thing and were itching for an election. But they show the total opposite. The most recent Scottish poll shows total Yes party share for the UKGE the same as 2019, another Green + SNP majority, and an overwhelming majority for independence. It would be madness for unionists to gamble on a election.
Exactly, tell us when it’s done and make it good, that’s all they want to know
But the media won’t let them, then you think, it’s the bloody media’s fault again for making mountains out of molehills and startling people for no reason that’s ever going to affect them
“Alba party put on election footing” reads the newspapers
More exaggeration from the air sucking every five minutes statement making party leader Alex Salmond
And the time I took to write that is about how long it would take to put a party of hardly anybody on their however many feet, but I’m sure his public announcement was soooo much longer and filled with fake gravitas
Still on 2%. It’s why Salmond is asking the SNP for some of it’s MSPs again.
England preparing to send vans over the border to round up new Scots for deportation to concentration camps. Keep an eye out for these scum.
https://archive.ph/uWAtm
Home Office to detain asylum seekers this week amid Rwanda preparation
ASYLUM seekers are set to be detained on Monday in a surprise Home Office operation in preparation for deportation to Rwanda, reports suggest.
The Guardian has reported that officials plan to hold refugees who turn up for routine meetings at immigration service offices and will also pick up people nationwide in a two-week exercise.
They are to be immediately transferred to detention centres, which have already been prepared for the operation, and held to be put on later flights to Rwanda. Others identified for these flights are already being held.
Police in Scotland have subsequently been put on alert because of the high risks of street protests and attempts by pro-refugee campaigners to stop detentions.
There’s something wrong with people’s brains that keep announcing their surprises a day before they spring their surprise
The fact that all 3 unionist parties desperately want Yousaf to resign, pretty much confirms he is definitely the man for the FM job.
They greatly fear him like they did Sturgeon, or at least much more so than who they figure his alternatives are. That much is clear.
Seems I backed the right horse in the leadership contest.
For clarity, I strongly support Sunak / Ross for Tory leaders, Starmer / Sarwar for Labour, and whoever leads the Lib Dems right now for that.
Wouldn’t it be just delicious, if the SNP said to Ash Salmond “don’t start any long letters demanding anything addressed to the FM” yae huvny got time ti mail it.
And as for you starwars we’re no gone’ny vote in yur VoC in the government.
See yae’s efter the election
I wonder just for the record how many times since the SNP have been in government have the opposition threatened and or submitted VOC ? I seem to remember quite a few, usually in health secretaries, recently John Swinney, but there must be quite a few, and if that’s the case shouldn’t that be looked into as misusing the time of the parliament? Of course that might require the co-operation of the presiding officer and she’s as useful as the invisible ingredient of a space helmet joke
You have to laugh at the media and their mutts still trying to blame Humza Yousaf for Patrick Harvie’s pre resignation letter explaining how he’d be asking some other people and his mum and her chums if they all still wanted to stay in the government job and play politics and would Humza wait some indeterminate time until they all made their minds up before telling him what to do
If any of the public are swallowing this guff then they’re stupider than I thought
I never thought I would say this but Martin Geissler demolished Keir Starmer over his stance on an independence referendum.
That interview was from Nov 2022, the full interview is still on Youtube.
I’ve never seen it before and the edited version is pretty effective. Going the rounds on twiter X now.
For anyone interested, here’s the complete interview.
” I just don’t accept that !” says Starmer when asked does he support democracy .
What he said and still says is, England rules end of
Sarwar also said “Elect a Labour government and there will never be a second referendum on independence”
They see themselves as our owners
They can get lost.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24284345.humza-yousaf-to-resign-snp-leader-first-minister/
So who if anyone has been talking to The Times then?
It does indeed look, this morning, as if it is all over for hapless Humza. It is not just the Times.
According to both Today and Good Morning Scotland the FM is, “considering resigning. “
As it wasn’t from Yousaf, I thought it was a Tory/media stitch up – Now that James Cook is pushing ” Yousaf considers quitting as Scotland’s first minister ” on both the Scotland and UK pages, it essentially confirms it is indeed a media contrivance – There’s a world of difference between ‘consider’ and ‘will’, it’ll be way down his priority list…
Hope it’s well down his list. It seems ‘greatest hits’ commercial radio is the ‘more modern’ version of the bbc, shouting out its propaganda at the shouty news flash just now.
Media contrivance.
Wonder if the previous ex ex fm is aiding and abetting in the media contrivance for his own glory…
It’ll be well down.. He’s seen this game a hundred times before, the media seeing how far they can push and what if anything breaks.
Salmond is an opportunist for sure but I doubt he’s involved, it’s got a Tory media stench to it…
Probably nobody – looks like a media pile on. I hope he stands up to them.
Hope so.
If there is an election. The Tories and Greens will lose big time. Labour will be struggling. Alba will be out. Increased support for the SNP and Independence.
Liars always get found out.
The very last thing Humza should do is resign because what the SNP would be saying is we give in to all of the opposition parties in Holyrood and who would they like as next FM, and when they decide not to like the next choice they’ll do this all over again, so it’s a dumb move, and there’s just no point in bandying names of candidates around that might or might not be acceptable to Alex Salmond or even Patrick Harvie because everybody immediately can become unacceptable overnight
This was always the flaw in minority government with the system of proportional representation where a large amount of unelected opposition can have the power to vote out the elected members in such circumstances as we now find ourselves
Labour Tory Green and Alba are now taking advantage of this
I really do hope the SNP as a whole get together and throw down the gauntlet in a back us or sack us election stance
Tories really don’t want that, Alba certainly would be terrified of it, even Labour who think they have a chance at doing better in an election don’t want that chance right now in case they don’t do better and England sees it and decides Starmer isn’t a good bet after all, I’m not counting the Liberal Democrats at all in this because those people are just Tories or Labour at any given moment depending on which way the wind blows, basically any party as long as it’s English rule
The SNP cannot and must not say to its own members and voters that our choice of FM must be vetted by any opposition that doesn’t fancy that choice anytime they like
If minority government now means this threat will always hang over us, call an election now and show us the whites of the eyes of the opposition to that
Humza must not quit, allowing Dippy Dross to claim a ‘victory’, this is such a contrived attack by the media that will finally put us back in a box – if we allow it.
We need to let our FM know we are with him, and force the opposition to come out into the open with their Engerland Rules ok, attitude.
Would be a pity if Yousaf stands down. But he cannot do deals with Alba, so if needs must, he takes one for Scotland and the SNP.
Expect a high probability of a backlash from Scots voters against the unionist parties, Alba and the Greens should this happen. After all, even the very worst for the SNP English poll of the Scotch coming out of London shows Scots want him as FM above all leaders.
As for his replacement… Loads of good potential options; after all, the SNP is where all of Scotland’s political talent is. The unionists have none by contrast. I’d definitely vote against Forbes if she stood again. I ranked her second last time, but this time I would go out of my way to try and stop her should she stand. It would not look good at all for her if she tries to keep forcing herself on members. They would suspect she had a hand in Yousaf’s downfall, and members don’t like that type of Tory behaviour. I do hope reports here are wrong and she’s not considering that. If so, my relatively good opinion of her would remain intact.
Anyway, as I said before, cutting off the SNP’s head cannot stop independence as they’ll just grow a new one. Salmond resigned then the establishment went after him to make sure he was killed stone dead. Then they went after Sturgeon and forced her from office. Now they’re gunning for Yousaf. Yet all the time support for indy has kept on steadily rising while the SNP + other Yes parties keep winning elections. The unionists will never learn that the only way to stop independence is to make Scots find the UK attractive and, above all, feel British. It’s way too late for the latter though; they’ve been battering that out of us since the early 60’s.
The key election in terms of Yes parties getting a majority is not this year, but 2026. If it’s not a defacto iref, Scots voters cannot affect meaningful change in a UKGE. Likewise the mandate for iref2 cannot be undone. It holds to 2026. Don’t get me wrong though; this UKGE is likely to play a major role in delivering independence. What we need is for it to give us an English nationalist Labour government Scots didn’t vote for. That is the missing ingredient for independence, i.e. that Scots see they can never get a UK government they want / voted for, and have Labour denying them iref2, slashing Holyrood’s budget, round up migrants for deportation etc. Then we head to independence in 2026.
Incidentally, on the turnout drop which took down the apparent SNP share… I’m not sure despondency is the right term. I might suggest it’s more ‘unable to affect meaningful change’. That is when voters disengage from pollsters and also the ballot box (see 2017 which was all about England’s Brexit). They don’t change what they believe in or their VI, but withdraw from the political sphere until such time as they feel they can vote for what they want again. I don’t think it was Sturgeon stepping down that caused such a large number of regular SNP/Yes voters to disengage, but the double blow of the UKSC case then her going. The UKSC case basically said they’d gone down a dead end for now, then this was followed by another blow rather than a change in direction. That caused SNP voters to go into slumber until such time as they were awakened again.
Both of these appeared to be blows for the Yes movement, but we know in fact they were the opposite on a fundamental level, as Yes has kept on steadily rising, and climbed into majority by November 2023 at the very latest. Depends which polling you think more reliable; rock solid record Scottish fully random sampling (IPSOS), or cheap and nasty panel polling conducted by another country on us Scots; an unfriendly country too. Equal weighing for these says we’ve been majority Yes since the GRR bill was passed in late December 2022. But it wasn’t that IMO, no it was the UKSC case that ultimately broke the union. Now Starmer is going to break Labour at the border for us.
Funny when you think England’s Brexit removed British people’s right of freedom of movement in the EU, that England has now given that right to its own so called illegal immigrants to go to the Republic of Ireland
So far England has spent more than £500 million of our taxes and given away £millions to Rwanda but they act outraged at Ireland when that country argues that England’s policy of deliberately looking the other way from *escaping immigrants* is shoving England’s problem onto that country for no money whatsoever
Sunak says “our Rwanda deterrent is definitely working”
Typical England, if they’re not invading and stealing from other countries they’re off loading their problems onto them
Dear SNP MSPs,
If you’re reading the comments on the blog, it’s better for us all if you stand up to the bullies and Humza stays put.
We all deserve better than being held to ransom.
Janey Godley encapsulates and reduces the whole thing to what it is in a tiny video, hilarious
https://fb.watch/rL5-5IN0Vu/?
😂
If you can’t see the Facebook post:
press conference at 12
Would someone close to Humza speak to the Times? Would someone close to Starmer tell them he said he “*!*%¥$€% hates treehuggers” or does the Times tell lies?
Humza will have spoken to people over the weekend and as far as I can see he plays with a straight bat. If he thinks there is a danger to the party he may step aside. However, if he sees off the VoNC I can’t see the Labour motion going anywhere. Thereafter it will be a straight forward minority government taking each issue on a case by case basis. That worked surprisingly well for 2007 and 2016.
If, having spoken to Alba and the Greens ( the others are irrelevant they would for Satan over the SNP) Humza does step aside then the VoNC falls by the wayside and the SNP enter a leadership election. I think the Labour motion would likely fail as the Greens would have no need to go further and Labour have little to offer on the environment. What follows on from a leadership election is anyone’s guess. Forbes may or may not wish to move at this point and I have no idea who else might be tempted to throw their hat in the ring. At the moment this looks the less likely option but politics is weird.
It looks like he has decided to go, if he does then I think it is a mistake. He should at the very least have forced the Greens and Labour to vote with the Tories and force him out. I guess the idea of going for an early election didn’t hold much appeal for at least some MSP’s.
We will find out for sure at 12, I hope I’m wrong.
I hope he doesn’t resign but reports of press conference at 12 worries me!
Utter madness to do exactly what the plotters want him to do, because they’ll do it again with increased demands each time they do
None of this is about Humza Yousaf, it’s about destruction of the SNP and surely to God they must see that
I sincerely hope that the Times newspaper has been lying and spreading propaganda on information received from the head plotter, and we all know who that is, he’s been plotting it for years and has now taken his opportunity
If Humza resigns the membership will never forgive him or the SNP, the whole thing’s suicidal utter madness, and I just cannot believe the SNP are prepared to hand England the keys to Holyrood by allowing Salmond to cut their throats for his English peerage
It was supposed to end in 2014 but Nicola Sturgeon revived it, that wasn’t in England’s plan, she wasn’t supposed to do that, and now here we are back with the guy who was bribed to kill it the first time
A black day for Scotland if any of this media shit is true
The media tells us now that we’d all be happy with John Swinney, members and parties alike
Well isn’t that damn nice of them to have run around the whole of Scotland asking us that, except they didn’t did they, they asked nobody anywhere, they certainly never asked me if I’m a happy bunny
Trial by media, guilty by media, new FM selection by media, government by media
One doesn’t wonder how the media plotter in chief finds the time
Will be very damaging for the union if he is forced to step down. The unionists would be taking out another pro-independence FM in a Scotland that in majority supports independence.
That’s not going to make Scots warm to the union and come home to Labour etc. Quite the opposite. Sturgeon stepping down under a media barrage didn’t do it. This wouldn’t either.
It says to Scots that the only way to have the government they elect with the FM they want is by independence. Otherwise, the unionists parties will join with media in taking these down, damaging the country even more in times of crisis.
It would be very different if the SNP were deeply unpopular, making deals with extremist nut job parties to hold onto office like Netanyahu or similar, but the opposite applies. Even the worst English polls of the Scotch show the SNP would win any fresh Holyrood election comfortably, while actual Scottish polls show the SNP + Greens winning another majority even with current over-representation of unionists in samples.
Aye, the only way for us to even have the Holyrood governments we voted for is independence.
BTW, if Sturgeon stands for FM again, I’ll vote for her. The door to this is now opening. Unlikely, but it would be so funny if that happened.
yes that would be hilarious if Sturgeon became leader again.
unionists plan would have backfired bigtime.
or if Humza resigns and snp dont put up a replacement and unionists plan fails as an election is required after 30 days.
Imwould be quite happy with a holyrood election.
even in the off chance unionists form a coalition government, it would be a poisoned chalice that would see them defeated in 2 years time.
And labour would have to try to govern, they would fail massively likely seeing corruption we saw when they last had a majority.
might be what the independence movement needs to focus minds, rather than thenPeoples judean front/peoples front of judea fragmentation we currently see.
And, annoyed as I was at first by the crowing little toerag doing it, further thought tells me that informing the Scottish public that they got rid of Salmond, they got rid of Sturgeon, now they’re getting rid of Humza Yousaf isn’t, perhaps, a very bright move…
Like you, I doubt it’ll happen, but I’d love to see Nicola back (even just as ‘The Temp’!)
Or, failing that, how about Andy Wightman?
He’s Independent. Also imagine the Greens reaction, having thrown him out cos they didn’t agree with him…
Wightman has less chance of being FM than me
Oh, I know. Should’ve stuck an emoji in there.
But just imagine their faces. They’d be literally (probably) green! 😀
i suppose it is the down side of PR. European coalitions fall out, reform, change leaders all the time. I don’t think I would be in a hurry to see another coalition though.
i hope Humza does stay, he has done a decent job in trying times. I say that as someone who voted for Kate. If he does step down then I have no issue with John acting as caretaker until we complete a new leadership election but I would expect that to go ahead immediately.
Oh well. Humza Yousaf has resigned and made a brave farewell speech but took no questions. I’m disappointed that he didn’t feel able to stay and face down the bullies who will now feel emboldened. Perhaps he feels there is too much personal trouble ahead.
It will backfire for those who conspired with the public….. Big time…
I wish he’d stayed, but not being willing to “trade my values and principles or do deals with whomever simply for retaining power” is a good line to go out on…
In that statement Humza informed the electorate of Scotland that The Greens and Alba cannot be trusted and every SNP member noticed it and know knows what to do about it the first chance we get
Tory Green Labour Alba Lib Dem, you could’nae slide a keycard between them
The only party with values and principles is the SNP. I see that again today.
They shall continue to have my vote.
I have voted Green at council level before. Won’t be making that mistake again, at least as long as we are in the union.
Oof.
BBC just reported Alex Salmond as “gleeful”
Salmond will be laughing on the other side of his face after the GE when Alba’s two stuffed dummies of MPs get booted out. Sad that Humza has gone but he put party before himself unlike many other politicians. He has proved that the Snp will not be bullied into taking a deal with Alba or their glove puppet Regan . As for the Greens that bunch of wine bar revolutionaries can **** off as far as I am concerned. I suppose the alternative was if the VOC was lost for Humza to call a Hollyrood election. However I don’t know if the Snp has the money to fight two elections just now in light of issues over the past three years and that thing we are not allowed to talk about. Ok who is up next for the poison chalice of being FM/Snp Leader
How disappointed all the Unionists and their media are going to be when the SNP support goes up! We will have the last laugh I’m sure.
sad to see him go but that was a very good speech, might not want to fall out with anybody but put the boot in with his comment on trading values and principles – overall reckon this will bolster the independence movement as more and more people realise what is going on and as for Dross’s crowing, that will come back to bite him in an election.
Not sure who will take up the reigns but don’t think any of the old guard will do much for the voters despite being a safe pair of hands. Nicola shouldn’t come back given her personal life, media are already having a field day she doesn’t deserve any more shit heaped on her.
It should now be obvious to Scots that they goal of unionists is to stop Scotland having any sort of functional government. They know is most likely they will never hold power again, so they will just try to make it totally dysfunctional, to take down any leader / minister they can no matter the costs to the country.
If Scots want a return to a Holyrood of fair respect for democracy, it can only be by independence.
The other lesson is that if you want independence, don’t vote Green. Can’t be trusted to put the country first.
A very bad day for the union. Yes will rise in response. The British media and parties cannot keep attacking Scottish democracy in this way, first stopping us from voting, now taking out our elected leaders.
Today it is beyond doubt that Scotland needs independence. Unionists are no longer going to even allow our elected governments to function. It’s all about taking these down to stop Holyrood from functioning, not serving the electorate.
What are they thinking, that Scots will be like ‘Well, I totally hated Labour and that right wing Nationalist Starmer, but now they’ve taken out the leader of the SNP, I’m for Labour and the Union!’. It’s nuts. You cannot make your own party attractive to the voters of another by taking out their leader. You make them despise your party and wish revenge on it, that’s what you do.
They have made Scotland leaderless in the middle of an economic and social crisis. Slow clap. As I keep saying, it is unionists destroying the union, and they’ve hammered another nail in the coffin today. They will pat themselves on the back for this, prize idiots that they are.
As for the Greens, I hope they take a serious whipping at the ballot box. There is absolutely no chance I will ever vote for them now. They showed that they are willing to collude with right-wing unionists in an attempt to damage Scotland and the Yes cause. We can also be pretty confident Alba will never win any seats.
As noted, if Forbes stands, I will vote against her.
As I already wrote, it can’t be Kate even whether folk want her or not because the Greens don’t like her
With this madness we just capitulated to whoever the hell wants to manipulate the system any time they choose, and as the SNP spokesman has already said “You can’t deal with Salmond because that’s dealing with the devil” and that particular devil had done the rounds of every TV and media station before most folk went to their beds last night and before they got out of them this morning, along with his buddies Sillars McAskill and uncle Tom Cobley and all
There will now always be an unacceptable SNP FM to what used to be three parties, now it’s five parties plus the British media, we just became an appeasement party by force
This is not co-operation politics, this is M&S blackmail politics
No SNP member should stand for election to the post of FM now, party leader yes, but not FM, do it to them before they do it to us, let the opposition try to elect one of their own and keep voting against them in the process
We must not co-operate with any of what they want, it must stop
I personally don’t think Kate is right for FM. Good as a minister, but not for FM.
I don’t believe she can leave her religion outside the office like Yousaf can. I think it therefore would cloud her judgement too much, like it did over same sex marriage.
As a secularist, I will vote for a leader that I can be sure would never allow policy making to be affected by their religious beliefs (or none). Her constituents are not all wee free, so she shouldn’t be either when at work.
Maybe in time she can show she can do this like Yousaf did, but for now I don’t think she can. She didn’t seem to get that it wasn’t about her when the media pressed her here, which is exactly what they wanted. Yousaf by contrast did not fall into that trap.
The Greens, Alba and unionists will lose support at the next election. GE coming soon. Humza will keep up the fight for Independence. Another leader will come forward. Independence support still increasing.
Oh well, I hope Kate stands. It will be interesting to see what the voters make of a reset SNP free of the Greens and some of the weirder policies they championed.
Sorry to see Humza go though. I thought he did a pretty decent job. His only misstep was jumping the gun on the BHA. I think the Green membership would have done that for him. However, he was right not to bow to Regan. A man of dignified principle. Douglas Ross and Anas Sarwar take note.
All the Alba and Green party members should resign. The Libdems and Labour Party have not got any members. More people to join the SNP.
The unionists will never realise that they are not fighting one party leader, but now over half the population of Scotland. And taking out the one leading from the front just angers the army that was behind them that keeps marching on forwards step by step, relentlessly. A direct hit on 1 out of millions will not stop the advancing hordes.
I will donate to the SNP again today. Yousaf’s actions today showed me my judge of character was spot on again. Really decent, honourable man. Could not be more different to the likes of Starmer, Sarwar, Ross, Cole-Hamilton etc.
Plenty of top notch candidates to step to the front to replace him. I look forward to choosing the best person for the job. Will be hard to pick. Key to me is plans for as defacto iref.
Time to leave is now. The unionists have killed devolution today. Killed it stone dead.
Well said S_S.
Just about to engage with the party again after a brief break.
Well done to Humza standing up for his own beliefs.
Social media is pit of venom. Are all the accounts fake?
Not John Swinney. Someone new.
I know he wouldnt take the job full time.
Swinney is past it and also against him is he has the support of Blackford and Brown.
It needs someone with vision and guts – Forbes for instance.
Such a shame. I was kind of hoping he’d not let the bullies win and put up more of a fight. He seems to have given in awful quick. Disappointing
In Spain Pedro Sanchez has been hounded by the right, they have gone for his wife and the press were hoping he’d resign. However he has decided not to give into the bullies and is staying on.
Will us SNP members be asked to vote again? Will the candidates bend to the English way again and have these awful, awful debates on TV? I hope not.
No SNP should stand for FM
Why not encourage wee Patrick to stand for FM?
Best option now imo: get a stop-gap leader, let them absorb the hit at the WM GE, and then get a proper leader for the 2026 election, by which time Starmer will have long worn out his welcome.
Second-best option: go for a Holyrood election now. Risky given the closeness of the polls, but the SNP do still maintain a slight advantage over Labour, and the notion that they have exploited the situation might erode their support further over the short campaign
and greens would be toast in a holyrood election.
harvie would keep his but good riddance slater!
Maybe. Not sure if Alison Johnstone is standing as a Green. If LS tops the Lothian list she’d probably get in again, no? In any case, if she was to be replaced by a Unionist that’s no cause for celebration
Bearing in mind that so many Snp supporters voted Green last time and an awful lot of them won’t do so again after what ultimately they caused today. The Greens will be lucky if they get more than one Msp after next Hollyrood election
Fully random sampling, active (pollster contacts voters and talks to them) Scottish polling (IPSOS, Edinburgh) has the SNP with a near double digit lead over the Labour with a projected SNP + Green majority again with indy solidly into majority. Sarwar and Starmer’s ratings in freefall too. This polling has never been wrong and called events such as the 2011 & 2015 well before anyone else.
Then we have non-random sampling, passive (voter needs to engage with the pollster’s emails and fill out online questions) English polling of Scotland (all the panel pollsters, mainly operating out of London), which show things much closer, with indy hovering around 50%. This polling has a very chequered record, and has often been totally off, even close to the event (e.g. Panelbase’s 38% SNP in their final 2019 poll).
I can’t say which is closer to the truth for sure, but IPSOS Scotland have a sterling record going back to when I was at university (the 1997 devo referendum). I’d not want a snap election if I was unionist, Green or Alba right now.
IPSOS haven’t polled since January, when they found a 9-pt lead on the constituency vote and a 2-pt lead on the list. Not sure how much stock I’d put in a three-month old poll given the pace of recent events, or if that can even be called “a near double digit lead”
It is unfortunate that they don’t poll that often, but then their method is much more costly, and they actually run a team here in Scotland to poll us; the price of better accuracy. Panel polls are cheap and nasty, so are run far more often – from another country in this case – but you sacrifice accuracy.
Also poll three months old can be far more accurate than a recent one. Being recent does not mean accurate. It depends if movement has occurred over the period concerned. Things appear static in Scotland for around 1 year now except for Labour leadership ratings tanking and Yes steadily rising. Ipsos have had the combined Yes party share for a GE no lower than 45% since the summer of 2023, i.e. unchanged on 2019.
A good example of recent ≠ accurate is that Panelbase got 38% SNP on the 6th December 2019, which is 7% off the final result. By contrast, Ipsos predicted 44% on the 25th of November.
An even more extreme example is IPSOS predicting an SNP win on the 14th Feb 2011. A lone voice in the wilderness. English pollsters were still showing a possible Labour majority in early march, and it took until late march for these to pick up the SNP win in earnest. Ergo, recent polls were wrong, an older one more accurate. You can never know in advance though!
9 points plus say 2-3% tactical Green (4% on the constituency is normal mid-term non-tactical response and highly improbable, certainly now) would be double digits.
I was behind Yousaf, but by letting the Greens decide who is the leader of the SNP, he has showed he has no courage and loses my support completely.
Bye
Yet again…
Patrick Harvie has decided after the even that he’s sorry it all worked out this way but everybody has to understand it was all Humza’s own doing
And here was me thinking I had remembered Patrick Harvie telling us all the BHA was under threat from his own party ending the agreement, but he’d let us all know in a couple of months once they had their meetings what they’d decide to do
Aye Humza definitely brought it on himself by not agreeing to be happily blackmailed by Harvie or that chiseler slippery Salmond
Notice how the media forget to mention all that during their Humza incompetence rants
Oh aye, and total shame on Lesley Riddoch over almost every word she’s uttered on the subject, or should I say just *Riddoch* as she’s so happy to join in with the “Sturgeon” bashing crew, that’ll be the last cup of Nicola coffee she’ll be getting in any of my relatives hooses
Lesley Riddoch seems to have turned to the Common Weal side of the force a bit recently. Common Weal -revolutionaries but nae wine bars for them. The electorate would not be interested in a lot of their ideas. How long do the media types and others continue to blame Nicola Sturgeon for whatever. She has not been leader or FM for over a year. I don’t see me voting for Kate if she stands unless I see something verified as written in her blood stating that her economic policies would be something far more centre left than she indicated previously
Aye but the Greens don’t like her so we cannae dae it even if we waant tae
Lesley Riddoch has gone so haun knittit she’d have us all in grass roofed hooses heated by flappin birds wings and woolly jumpers made of Raffia like they have in Norway, as long as they’re all made from sustainable pigeon droppings that it can be recycled to the sea after being fed through the digestive systems of pregnant Puffins, then all agree nicely that there’s no problem with independence when talking to the mad Orange unionists as long as we’re all reasonable and nice about it they’ll definitely come round and see things pragmatically in the end
Oh look at the lovely pink fluffy sky
There’s folk in Scotland who seem either to have no idea that our country is simmering away just under boiling point ready for the lid to come flying off such is the depth of hatred seething in the underbelly of society in our country, and our independence side is fed up putting up with it
Maybe it’s an Edinburgh thing that they just don’t see it ? but this stuff is in every corner of Scotland burbling away being masked by smiles in the leafy patches of Perthshire to bared teeth snarling in the West, to open contempt in the borders
My own brother has been complained about to the council four times for flying a Saltire in his garden, oh his garden is 9 acres BTW totally separate from any other house and the road to his house belongs to him because he built it
They’ve complained about him having his own water supply, he dug the well for it, his noisy tractor vehicles, his ride on lawnmower, there’s not a neighbour within 600 yards from sight of his house, but the nighbours he does have all fly UK flags in the gardens of their ex Forestry commission houses they bought cheap when they moved house from England
I visit him once a month to scare the bejesus out of them
In reply to Legerwood at 10:25 about Kate Forbes – the thread is too narrow to continue replying above:
Yet tonight on every news report when her name was mentioned by reporters the words ‘social conservative’ were attached to it – a euphemism for right wing.
So now the unionist media are telling the truth and giving us good advice? Of course they will damn any credible leader in an effort to prevent them being elected.
What was said in the article was pretty much as I remember she was saying in the campaign. She would have, and still would, roll back much of the social policies that help so many.
During the campaign she went out of her way to stress that she would NOT roll back legislation already passed. She said she would have voted against the same sex marriage bill, in line with her conscience, IF she had been an MSP at the time. But she wasn’t. She would have lost that vote. That’s democracy and she accepts that. Contrast that with Humza Yousaf who claimed to have missed the vote because he had an urgent meeting with a constituent which he arranged two weeks in advance. Islam also opposes same sex marriage. The Catholic Church oppose same sex marriage. So does the Church of England.
She has also shown in the past year that she is prepared to further her ambitions by pursuing an us and them policy in terms of setting rural vs urban by claiming without basis that rural are being ignored by the SNP/SG when that is not the case.
I don’t know where you live but I’ve lived most of my life in rural Scotland and I can confirm that the population firmly believes that the Central Belt (where the majority of votes reside) is favoured by politicians and rural communities are ignored.
Of course, the Tories foster this opinion. But until the A9 is dualled, the ferry services are secure and there is a just transition from oil and gas and HPMAs are sorted out, that impression will endure. Land reform is also long overdue.
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