This should be political sacrilege to both Labour and the Tories.
South of the border, they are bitter enemies.
But in Scotland, they both consider the Scottish National Party to be the greater enemy – so party leaders have been calling on their followers to vote tactically in order to get rid of the SNP:
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The man tipped as the natural successor to Nicola Sturgeon as leader of the Scottish National Party has succeeded Nicola Sturgeon as leader of the Scottish National Party.
He is Hamza Yousuf. He beat Kate Forbes, who suffered adverse publicity over her religious views, and distant third-placing Ash Regan.
Mr Yousuf is a Muslim, meaning the UK now has, as Shehab Khan stated on ITV News, “British Asians as prime minister, Scottish first minister and mayor of London. Representatives from three different parties. This would have been inconceivable a generation ago.”
This Writer has hardly followed the leadership campaign as I found it extremely dull in comparison with everything else that has been going on.
However, I did consider the occasion worth marking with an attempt at satire (referring to his rival, Ms Forbes):
Private Eye, eat your heart out!
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Nicola Sturgeon: she’s making way for somebody fresh.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is resigning after eight years in the role, saying she knew instinctively, “in my head and in my heart” that it is time to step down.
But is there a more calculating aspect to this decision, that has her bowing out when her party, the SNP, is about to hold a special conference on how it should move on the issue of Scottish independence, in light of the UK government’s refusal to engage with plans for a referendum?
Is she hoping that a new, dynamic and charismatic leader will rise to grip the hearts and minds of Scottish people, finding a way to break the deadlock with the Westminster government that she has not seen, due to fatigue?
Let’s not forget that this is the longest-serving leader of the Scottish Parliament, having been in-post for eight years, and an MSP since Holyrood was set up in 1999. If Ms Sturgeon says she is tired, This Writer can sympathise very easily!
One thing I don’t expect to happen is any rethink of the Union and Scotland’s place in it, as some commentators have been suggesting.
The SNP is committed to taking Scotland out of the UK, so any such discussion is redundant to the thinking of its members.
And if anybody in the Westminster parties are inclined to celebrate her departure, This Writer would suggest that they don’t do so too soon.
They don’t know what they’ll be getting next!
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And it gets worse for the Tories, because in her SNP conference speech, Sturgeon set her sights on Suella Braverman’s “dream” of deporting refugees to Rwanda.
Here’s what she said, with comments from supporters:
As a former Asylum Seeker, what @NicolaSturgeon just said about Asylum Seekers and her dream, makes me feel more Scottish than ever, makes me proud to even live here, makes me confident to say In Scotland Refugees are welcome truly not just rhetorically . pic.twitter.com/YsSD538qiZ
Nicola Sturgeon quotes Suella Braverman who said it was her “dream” to see an asylum flight take off for Rwanda.
She adds: “*My* dream is that we live in a world where those fleeing violence and oppression are shown compassion and treated like human beings, not shown the door.”
This Writer has no doubt that, after reading this article, Sturgeon will have many more supporters – and Braverman will have many more detractors.
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I can do this article almost entirely via tweets. Read:
Tory cheerleaders thought jumping on Sturgeon’s comment would get them some sympathy. It did the opposite. Their “outrage” simply forced us to ask the question “is it right to detest this government?” Turns out, for most, it was an easy YES.
There was no outrage, I even remember a senior tory Mp and a c list celebrity finding it funny that he was assaulted. No one cared. So miss me with this fake outrage.#DetestTories
Nadhim Zahawi led the charge against Sturgeon’s words. The Tory minister who last week had to apologise for the mess caused by Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, said: “I think that language is really dangerous.” As dangerous as crashing the Pound and massively increasing the cost of borrowing?
The public have picked up on the nonsense in this response – and they’re not letting it pass:
Nicola Sturgeon was wrong for saying she “detests the Tories”.
What she was meant to say is she “detests the fucking Tory bastards”.
Since when was the word 'detest' too hardcore for Tories?
When you support the politics of making the rich richer, the poor poorer, support the destruction of our services, corruption and hardship for ordinary folks, then consider being detested as getting off lightly.
— Damien Willey, Detester of Tories. (@KernowDamo) October 9, 2022
It’s not just acceptable but actually quite reasonable to detest people who are trying to trash the economy, the society we live in and the planet at the same time as destroying businesses, making people homeless and killing people through austerity and indifference to Covid.
Detesting the Tories is not a sign of nastiness, as they are claiming. It’s the sentiment of a caring human being who cannot stand Tories loathing most people in this country.
The verdict is clear: there cannot be one rule for Tories and another rule for everybody else.
If Nadhim Zahawi doesn’t want people to say they detest the Tories for what they have done to the UK then, firstly, his party should not have caused the harm that it has and, secondly, his prime minister should not have insulted the First Minister of Scotland.
But one supposes that is too much for his tiny Tory mind to comprehend.
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Mark Harper: a Tory ‘divide and rule’ boy who thinks that facts about cabinet MPs are “a nationalist view”.
SNP MP Stephen Flynn laid out the facts about members of Liz Truss’s cabinet on the BBC’s Politics Live – to indignation from Tory Mark Harper.
After one fact after another, about one Tory after another, was laid out, Harper responded with “that is a nationalist view”.
Is it?
Or is it more likely that Harper is in denial, treats Scotland with contempt, and has demonstrated the reason increasing number of Scottish people want independence from a UK government that they didn’t elect and don’t want?
Here’s a clip:
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Sunak and Truss: they’ll be attacking the Scottish government at a hustings event in Perth.
It’s all a bit predictable, isn’t it? Still, if it works, there’s no reason they wouldn’t carry on with it.
I refer, of course, to the Tory tactic of “divide and rule” – currently on full display in that party’s leadership election campaign.
Both Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have ventured into Scotland, where they said the ruling SNP should be challenged on its record, and affirmed their opposition to another independence referendum.
The SNP has retaliated by pointing out (correctly) that neither candidate is offering a solution to the current cost-of-living crisis – and suggesting that both will boost support for Scottish independence.
Sunak has announced a plan to roll back devolution to ensure “every single” government department operated UK-wide, despite key policy areas such as education and health having been in the control of Holyrood since 1999.
That’s unconstitutional, of course.
He also called for regular reports from Scotland on the delivery of key services, so these can be compared across the UK. That seems to be another attempt to establish lines of criticism that could be used to accuse the Scottish administration of failure (probably on false bases).
Truss just went straight for the jugular, saying she would make changes to the Scotland Act to give MSPs the same full parliamentary privilege as MPs at Westminster, so they would have legal immunity from prosecution over statements made in Holyrood, instead of the narrower set of protections against defamation claims and some court actions they have now.
If that seems like a bonus for MSPs, think again: Truss wants it in order to “allow for more robust questioning for ministers” and “increase the powers of the Scottish parliament to hold the Scottish government to account”. It’s all about attacking the SNP administration.
“I’ll make sure that my government does everything to ensure elected representatives hold the devolved administration to account for its failure to deliver the quality public services, particularly health and education, that Scottish people deserve.”
The SNP’s Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, reminded voters that throughout the cost of living crisis, while other nations’ governments have acted to support the most vulnerable people, the UK’s Tory government has “sat on its hands”. He said:
“Whoever wins this leadership contest, Scotland loses.”
That’s true – but it’s not the argument for independence that he insists it is, because it applies across the United Kingdom. We all lose as long as any Tories remain in office at all. That’s something we should all remember as this leader election draws to its close.
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Nicola Sturgeon: she’s going all-out for Scottish independence – and who can blame her, when Boris Johnson has made such a mess of the United Kingdom?
It seems the Scottish National Party is planning to race Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein to be the first to gain independence from Boris Johnson’s UK.
The new majority party in NI has a plan to secede from the Union within the next five years, but the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon has proposed October 19, 2023 as the date for a referendum on Scottish independence.
Her party has published a Referendum Bill, to be debated by the Scottish Parliament – but this will not happen until the UK’s Supreme Court has ruled on whether the Scottish government has the power to hold a vote without UK government approval.
She has requested this approval, writing to Boris Johnson to request formal consent for the vote to be held. He has said the UK government will consider it, but its position that “now is not the time” for another referendum has not changed.
Sturgeon’s aim is to avoid legal challenges to her Referendum Bill when it comes to be debated in the Scottish Parliament; Supreme Court backing will make that possible.
So the plan is that – in the belief that Johnson’s government will refuse to back her request – it will still receive validation that it is lawful and constitutional from the Supreme Court and the Referendum Bill will be passed by the Scottish Parliament.
There is a back-up plan, which is for the SNP to fight the next UK-wide general election on a single issue: “should Scotland be an independent country?”
It is only eight years since the last referendum on Scottish independence, so one can understand why the UK government in Westminster is reluctant to tolerate another one.
In 2014, around 45 per cent of voters supported independence, with 55 per cent against. Current polling shows little change, with 48 per cent in favour and 52 per cent against.
This makes a new referendum a big gamble for the SNP. It may annoy voters into believing that the party is too focused on a single aim, to the detriment of a nation – the UK – that is trying to pick itself back up after the double-blow of Brexit and Covid-19.
Alternatively, the same phenomena may be the reasons for people to support the plan – as the current version of Brexit was Johnson’s brainchild and has been a disaster, while his policies on dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic have been similarly ham-handed, resulting in many thousands more deaths than should have happened.
In any event, the Supreme Court may simply rule against the referendum, forcing Sturgeon’s party into its fall-back plan – but what if Johnson calls a general election early in order to wrong-foot her?
Meanwhile, across the Irish Sea, Sinn Fein’s leaders have a plan to get Northern Ireland out of the union at some point over the next five years – if they can get Unionist parties to stop throwing their toys out of the pram over their election loss and allow the Assembly at Stormont to sit again.
They will be watching what happens in Scotland very carefully, no doubt.
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Nicola Sturgeon: she reckons schools must stay open, even though Covid-19 infections in Scotland have rocketed since the new term started.
This is what will happen in England – and on a much larger scale.
Scottish schools have reopened after their summer break – and Covid-19 infection rates have surged to their highest-ever level.
It is the predictable result of Boris Johnson’s ‘Freedom Day’ – the relaxation of all legal restrictions on gathering and distancing, which Scotland copied a few weeks ago.
Infections have been rising since the August 2 low of 799 and stood yeterday at 5,021 – Scotland’s highest-ever total.
Stunningly, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is refusing to face the facts and go back into lockdown. She’s reluctant even to go back through the stages of social distancing.
Speaking yesterday, the First Minister said: “I don’t want to go back to anything like a full lockdown.
If we, all of us, take the basic precautions right now that we know can slow the virus, then I hope no re-imposition of restrictions will be necessary.
How many people would have to die before she changes her mind?*
And she is determined to keep schools open, even though it is clear to anybody with a brain that they are the principal point from which Covid-19 is being transmitted to the population.
Her government has stressed that keeping schools open would be a number one priority regardless of what happens, with deputy FM John Swinney saying closures should be avoided “at all costs”.
Do those costs include preventable deaths? From what Swinney said, it seems they do.
How sad. We might have expected more intelligence from the Scottish government.
Perhaps Boris Johnson has just proved that stupidity is as easily-transmissible as the virus.
*Personally, This Writer thinks Sturgeon – and any other leader whose decisions cause preventable deaths (Boris Johnson) – should be made to visit personally the families of anybody who dies as a result of her decisions to apologise and offer restitution for the wrong she will have intentionally inflicted on them. At least that would keep her out of mischief for a (long) while.
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