I find that hilarious…in a really sad sort of way. Yeah, sure I’m a creeper - but at least I’m not a rapist!
His next sentence:
And creepering is OK; everybody does it. No law against that amiright?
Salmond’s strong support for Trump’s Scottish golf-resort project now makes a bit more sense. Birds of a feather….
This remains a national embarrassment.
Fans of car crash interviews will enjoy this short segment, where Ash Regan is asked to explain the precise mechanism by which her “not a de-facto referendum” de-facto referendum will work:
Major fans of car crash interviews will enjoy this longer interview where she makes many of the same mistakes but bigger and harder, including saying things like if you don’t want independence you shouldn’t vote SNP which while kind of obviously true flies in the face of recent electioneering where room has been made for people who like the policies to feel they can vote for the party without committing to independence, suggests that the coalition with the Greens isn’t working and falls into the trap mentioned above of admitting that the SNP have kind of fucked a few things up.
She also hints that the GRR has been a big distraction from what really matters which prioritising of e.g. the economy over people’s rights might have merited more attention if hadn’t been for Humza Yousaf steaming in two-footed into the exact issue that Sturgeon stumbled badly over just before she resigned: whether the double rapist whose first mention of trans identity came after being charged is a man or a woman.
Sturgeon on several occasions refused to answer this question, stating only that she thought the individual was a rapist. This obvious evasion impressed nobody because it was clear that Sturgeon felt herself to be on the horns of a dilemma: to wit, that if she followed the principle of self-ID that underpinned the GRR and said teh rapist was a woman then she would look like a total naif, a chump, a patsy and if she said that this was obviously a man who was playing the system then she would be abandoning the principle of self-ID by saying there are at least some circumstances in which people’s declaration of their own gender identity is not sufficient and third parties will be right to decide that they are lying.
Humza has decided to take on the latter horn of this dilemma and given an interview saying that this person is “at it”, is not a genuine transwoman and is clearly playing the system:
While this has the benefit of being obviously true, it does open something of a can of worms given that the progressive wing of SNP have recently put a lot of political credibility on the principle of self-ID, at the cost of both general popularity and internal party harmony, and this intervention will only add to the friction. Especially as Humza is generally supportive of the bill and the underlying priinciples, and has said (unlike the other candidates) that he will fight the UK government’s veto.
(Important point worth noting here: the GRR as passed does contain provision for the police to prevent a gender recognition certificate being issued to people convicted of sexual offences on the grounds of risk to others but this is not quite the same as preventing it because of a belief that the applicant is lying).
Quoted for truth, and basically my position. Do I think Isla Bryson is lying? I don’t know, but the point is that it doesn’t really matter, as I understand it women prisoners are protected regardless. She could be genuinely stating a long-held belief and still be a danger to other women. This also has the benefit of being true, and I don’t understand why more people (including SNP leadership candidates) haven’t adopted it. It is the obvious way to support trans rights and women’s rights.
For a view of some of the problems the SNP is facing from Independence supporters, you can’t do much better than this interview with Darren McGarvey, aka Loki, Scottish rapper, author and documentary maker. McGarvey grew up in fairly deprived circumstances, which he hints at in the interview and has become a very effective anti-poverty advocate. During the 2014 Referendum campaign he was vehemently pro-Yes; his views have modified somewhat over the last 8 years, as he explains.
On a personal level, Nicola Sturgeon, at least in terms of how she comes across, was definitely someone that I liked. In terms of demeanour, and coming from a working-class background which I thought was always obvious, I was on board with her as a figure. At the same time, I started to develop a bit of scepticism about the independence campaign, particularly the Arts side of it. Even pre-referendum, there were tensions and issues there. But I was still of the “wheesht for indy” sort of mindset. I’ll outline what I think afterwards when independence is won, I thought.
Disillusion with the SNP as a vehicle for left-wing ideas:
The Yes movement that I remember, and that I felt part of, was constantly focused on big economic issues. The emphasis was put on the negative social, cultural and political outputs of an unbalanced economy. We all had different ideas about how radical things could be. But the central thing was this: there was a space to imagine another Scotland. Now, if you look at the SNP leadership debate, it feels like there are no economic issues being debated.
Whoever comes to lead the SNP, there’s going to need to be a moment where they decide that either they going to try and mobilise more working-class people by making some kind of offer that’s going to incentivise them and get involved, or they are going to go for a middle-of-the-road neoliberal agenda that simply means that are unwilling to confront difficult questions.
Are they going to talk about the Ponzi scheme that is the housing market? About the ethical nightmare of the private education system, and how it guarantees that a very slender minority of the population is going to be overrepresented in all of the most influential jobs? The reason the SNP, or any other government for that matter, feels they cannot pose these kinds of questions is that years and years of entrenched privilege and advantage have framed the discussion of these matters as being an attack on those people’s aspirations, leading to political retribution… For instance, on one hand, there is talk about reducing educational attainment gaps, while at the same time the preservation of an economic structure which produces them in the first place.
On the SNP’s poor talk/walk ratio:
They’ve been in that almost unique position in politics in the western world in terms of having a level of political success by being able to be something of a two-headed monster. So down in Westminster, they play the role of the intrepid radical speaking truth to power and then up here it’s managerial centrism, and they just drive you absolutely insane.
So you’ve got that group of people who are very invested in Scottish institutions. They will be the ones that will be saying, “I know you’ve just been waiting two days to get an emergency surgery, but did you know Scotland still has the best healthcare system in the UK?” Then there are people who are politically engaged, but just don’t have that same passion for independence anymore and have begun to see through the SNP over the years. They keep hearing about people in the community dying from issues related to drugs or the host of problems at every level of government. I think they are waiting for somebody to come in and reinvigorate them. But increasingly, I think you’re going to see people being drawn back to Labour because I think for a lot of people deep down, that’s their original orientation politically, and to be drawn towards the SNP was actually a divergence from what they really are.
I think the latter bit is the key point. The SNP has done a good job under Sturgeon of presenting itself as anti-Tory, and Labour as just Red Tories, but that’s only presentation. Actual policies and outcomes don’t reflect that story. And with Forbes offering largely centre-right economics and Yousaf being continuity-Sturgeon and Regan being a bit wild*, a lot of the younger more left-wing supporters may well be asking themselves why the hell they bother.
*e.g. in an interview today she said Scotland could have its own currency in a matter of months(!) and recently referred to the Irish and US routes to independence as being potential models for Scotland (!!!)
Also in fun news:
The SNP announced that in the interests of giving members a safe space, there would be no media at the candidate hustings. It’s only about whose running the country, why would you want the media there. Safe space as used here seems to be code for “we know we’re going to embarrass ourselves, we just don’t want anyone else to see”.
Secondly, while all this is going on, the Scottish Government is in the middle of trying to launch a Deposit Return Scheme for cans and bottles. It is a shambles in various ways, but the most fun one is an all time great administrative screw-up. Devolution of course contained the possibility that regulations and business costs might vary from one side of the border to another. The Internal Markets Act sets out how to deal with this. Given that administering a deposit return scheme will affect how e.g. brewers do business in Carlisle or Carstairs it comes under the scope of the act. That’s fine - there’s a process for getting everything aligned. This process tarts with notification being given to the UK government of the need for an exemptoin from the Act.
The Scottish Government have been planning this scheme for years. Have they sent in this notification? They have not. Did registration for the scheme start yesterday? Yes it did. Could it all be about to go tits up? Have at least 2 of the candidates said they’d delay or amend the scheme, thus calling into question their colleagues’ abilities? My word yes.
A decades-long terror campaign and/or a multi-year civil war? Is she for real? Surely this should utterly disqualify her from contention among most sane voters?
Less a case of her actually meaning what she said and more a case of her not understanding or thinking about what she said. She was trying to argue that independence needn’t be through referendum which, sure, but… not like that.
Sure, but when your best defence is “I didn’t think…”, not a great look is it? (That’s rhetorical - I realise from this thread that you most likely aren’t a big fan of hers).
This is the quote from a live interview - you can see the wheels grinding:
Yeah, these modern referendums are useless - let’s go back to the good old days of a long and bloody conflict! Also, disingenuous to say the least to compare Scotland’s status with that of (say) imperial colonies in Africa and the Caribbean. I know, this ex-horse has been thoroughly flogged by now - I’ll stop.
But it is as bad as you say it is and it’s all illustrative of a big point. As the guy whose tweet I shared has said, Regan was a Minister of the Scottish Government and appointed as such by Sturgeon. And look at her failing to walk and chew gum at the same time.
Likewise, I’ve just seen that out of c.4500 drinks producers, only 665 or 1 in 7-ish have signed up for the DRS scheme by the deadline. The SG spin is that those who have signed up represent 95% of sales but the hotly denied criticism of the scheme was always that it would hurt small producers. And lo and feckin’ behold, here we are.
The big point being: the SNP have been playing politics on easy mode, they have not learned by being tested and, to switch metaphors, are about to have their “when the tide goes out you see who’s been swimming naked” moment.
There is also the rather large issue of what happens with the desired EU membership post-potential-independence.
Anything short of a fully legal, nationally and internationally valid path to independence means that Spain (at least) will be strongly against Scotland joining the EU.
Oh, we haven’t even got to that bit yet. But the members’ current view seems largely to be:
“It’ll be fine.”
First poll of members (i.e. the electorate) is out:
Although support for Don’t Know has collapsed considerably, the campaign still hangs on to a slender lead, with Yousaf doing almost well enough get a plurality, Forbes doing surprisingly or not so surprisingly well considering her start and Regan hanging on to her natural consituency (zoomers).
Well, the pro-Brexit people said that, and see how well things have worked out there!
That’s a surprise, I would have thought he’d be more popular due to name recognition. Wasn’t he a third baseman?
If he’s not Scottish, he’s crap!