Nicola Sturgeon to resign as First Minister of Scotland, Humza Yousaf elected as new First Minister.

[birchesgreen]

Well it got the guy in the papers, he can now recount how he fought against woke to fellow pub bores for ever more.

 

[duncanp]

It absolutely is the silly response.
If you aren't pregnant, either because you are male and so can't get pregnant, or are female and aren't pregnant, then the answer to the question of "are you pregnant" is "no". Absolutely zero need to make a mountain out of that molehill.

But there is also no need for the Blood Transfusion Service to refuse his donation when they can quite clearly see that he is a (biological) man and therefore it is physically impossible for him to become pregnant.

 

[McRhu]

<Self deleted my post. I stand by what I said, but have no wish to cause unnecessary offence or derail the thread.>

 

[Broucek]

How does one delete a message?!!!!!

 

[Falcon1200]

Can’t agree that the question, addressed to a man was in any way sensible.

I agree that it is a silly question, which I have to answer each time I give blood (on the form sent to me in advance); But it is not worth making a fuss about, and so depriving the Transfusion Service of much-needed blood.

 

[Bletchleyite]

How does one delete a message?!!!!!

Report it to the mods using the report link and they will delete it. Optionally, if you want it removed quicker, edit it down to "delete please" or something then report it.

 

[Cowley]

Report it to the mods using the report link and they will delete it. Optionally, if you want it removed quicker, edit it down to "delete please" or something then report it.

Yep that would do it.

Right. The NHS Scotland stuff really doesn’t belong in this thread, so let’s leave it at that (unless you really want to start a new thread on it).

Back on topic please.

 

[brad465]

SNP Treasurer now been arrested:

Police arrest SNP treasurer in finance probe

Colin Beattie has been taken into custody by officers investigating the party's finances and funding.

www.bbc.co.uk

SNP treasurer Colin Beattie has been arrested by police investigating the party's finances.
Mr Beattie, 71, has been taken into custody and is being questioned by Police Scotland detectives.
A spokesman for the force said the arrest was made in connection with the ongoing investigation into the funding and finances of the SNP.
He said a report will be sent to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.
Mr Beattie is the MSP for the Midlothian North and Musselburgh constituency. He served as the SNP's treasurer for 16 years before being defeated in an internal election by Douglas Chapman in 2020, but returned to the role when Mr Chapman resigned a year later.
It comes two weeks after Peter Murrell, the SNP's former chief executive who is married to Nicola Sturgeon, was also arrested by officers who searched his home in Glasgow and the party's headquarters in Edinburgh.
Mr Murrell was later released without charge.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

 

[Butts]

Time for a "Where did it all go wrong for the SNP" thread to join their contemporary parties ones ?

Absolute power corrupts goes the old adage which certainly seems to being borne out as the SNP enters the realms of hari kari

 

[brad465]

Time for a "Where did it all go wrong for the SNP" thread to join their contemporary parties ones ?

Absolute power corrupts goes the old adage which certainly seems to being borne out as the SNP enters the realms of hari kari

There was a thread about "when" it will all go wrong, however this thread superseded it when Sturgeon resigned.

 

[tbtc]

It feels inevitable- if you create a cult of leadership where nobody is allowed to criticise the Dear Leader, you maintain strong internal discipline so that people daren’t dissent, you brand anyone not entirely on board with your project as a “Tory” or claim that they must somehow “hate Scotland” or are “taking Scotland down” etc then you’ll have a formidable party in the short term but once the bubble bursts then the bunker mentality stops working

We saw that 48% of SNP members were against the status-quo candidate. I think that, if the third of the membership who left recently had remained then we’d have seen a majority want change (although some will have left due to personal finances/ death, i feel that most people leaving will have lost faith in the brand of Sturgeonism that the independence campaign had turned into)

I remember the days when the SNP were happy to disagree with each other, they campaigned on independence only, remember the 1990s “Vote For Us And We’ll Resign” adverts (where they said that they’d secure independence and then step aside so Scots could vote for whichever party they wanted in an independent Scotland.., so you didn’t have to agree with Salmond etc on everything, the SNP were just a means to an end)? So you could have the likes of Cherry and Yousef under the same umbrella, because the SNP represented a diverse range of people who all agreed that Scotland shots be independent even if they agreed on little else.

I know Blair wasn’t perfect but even in the zeal of “on message” MPs ruled by Campbell/ Mandelson, Labour tolerated Back bench dissent from the likes of Corbyn - but the SNP wouldn’t tolerate voices not fully signed up to their agenda

In hindsight They seemed to squander the momentum of getting 45% in the 2014 referendum by focusing on “traitors” Rather than “converts”, maybe hoping that enthusiastic teenagers would outnumber disillusioned older voters who’d lost the faith (which is why a lot of SNP priorities seem to be focused on things that matters to teenagers, reducing the age of things like voting, gender reform, recycling)?

 

[Broucek]

It feels inevitable- if you create a cult of leadership where nobody is allowed to criticise the Dear Leader, you maintain strong internal discipline so that people daren’t dissent, you brand anyone not entirely on board with your project as a “Tory” or claim that they must somehow “hate Scotland” or are “taking Scotland down” etc then you’ll have a formidable party in the short term but once the bubble bursts then the bunker mentality stops working

We saw that 48% of SNP members were against the status-quo candidate. I think that, if the third of the membership who left recently had remained then we’d have seen a majority want change (although some will have left due to personal finances/ death, i feel that most people leaving will have lost faith in the brand of Sturgeonism that the independence campaign had turned into)

I remember the days when the SNP were happy to disagree with each other, they campaigned on independence only, remember the 1990s “Vote For Us And We’ll Resign” adverts (where they said that they’d secure independence and then step aside so Scots could vote for whichever party they wanted in an independent Scotland.., so you didn’t have to agree with Salmond etc on everything, the SNP were just a means to an end)? So you could have the likes of Cherry and Yousef under the same umbrella, because the SNP represented a diverse range of people who all agreed that Scotland shots be independent even if they agreed on little else.

I know Blair wasn’t perfect but even in the zeal of “on message” MPs ruled by Campbell/ Mandelson, Labour tolerated Back bench dissent from the likes of Corbyn - but the SNP wouldn’t tolerate voices not fully signed up to their agenda

In hindsight They seemed to squander the momentum of getting 45% in the 2014 referendum by focusing on “traitors” Rather than “converts”, maybe hoping that enthusiastic teenagers would outnumber disillusioned older voters who’d lost the faith (which is why a lot of SNP priorities seem to be focused on things that matters to teenagers, reducing the age of things like voting, gender reform, recycling)?

It's one of the worlds great ironies that the politically committed repeatedly don't understand the need to appeal to those who are not tribal and/or ideologically committed. The Labour party seems to be particularly vulnerable to this (Ed Milli, Corbyn) but the same was true with the Conservatives and Truss...

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

It's one of the worlds great ironies that the politically committed repeatedly don't understand the need to appeal to those who are not tribal and/or ideologically committed. The Labour party seems to be particularly vulnerable to this (Ed Milli, Corbyn) but the same was true with the Conservatives and Truss...

At least in our democracy they get found out in the end.

 

[birchesgreen]

SNP fear the next arrest will be... Nicola herself.

Blimey

 

[duncanp]

SNP fear the next arrest will be... Nicola herself.

Blimey

Wouldn't that be a pity?

 

[birchesgreen]

Quite extraordinary fall from grace for sure.

 

[Falcon1200]

SNP fear the next arrest will be... Nicola herself.

Blimey

Yes indeed! The SNP situation has got so bad that I almost (almost) find myself feeling sorry for ex-Saint Nicola. But the SNP and their supporters, eg the National newspaper, delight in highlighting every single sleaze-related issue, real or perceived, with the Tories and Labour, now they are being hoist by their own petard (or claymore perhaps).

 

[brad465]

Quite extraordinary fall from grace for sure.

It would be a fall from grace to rival Sam Bankman-Fried.

 

[Wynd]

Interesting to note the National is getting heat, when every other publication and media outlet in Scotland is overtly Unionist.

I know people are accepting of the fact that UK media is slanted, but that slant becomes a veritable cliff face in Scotland if you view it objectively.

The finances situation is a saga, but lets see where it settles up. Its telling that the two people arrested so far have been released without charge.

Even if NS is arrested, do we believe she would be charged if the treasurer and CEO of the party have not been? That appears not to pass the first test, but I suppose we are going to find out.

 

[SargeNpton]

Interesting to note the National is getting heat, when every other publication and media outlet in Scotland is overtly Unionist.

I know people are accepting of the fact that UK media is slanted, but that slant becomes a veritable cliff face in Scotland if you view it objectively.

The finances situation is a saga, but lets see where it settles up. Its telling that the two people arrested so far have been released without charge.

Even if NS is arrested, do we believe she would be charged if the treasurer and CEO of the party have not been? That appears not to pass the first test, but I suppose we are going to find out.

I believe that both have been released pending further enquiries.

 

[Noddy]

Interesting to note the National is getting heat, when every other publication and media outlet in Scotland is overtly Unionist.

You say that but The Scottish Sun (hardly small fry) has backed the SNP in every election since 2011, apart from 2019 (when it refused to back the SNP on the basis it would get Corbyn into power), and were neutral in the 2014 referendum. Various other publications (eg the Daily Record and Sunday Mail) also didn’t endorse either side in 2014, and the Sunday Herald endorsed voting Yes.

 

[takno]

Interesting to note the National is getting heat, when every other publication and media outlet in Scotland is overtly Unionist.

I know people are accepting of the fact that UK media is slanted, but that slant becomes a veritable cliff face in Scotland if you view it objectively.

The finances situation is a saga, but lets see where it settles up. Its telling that the two people arrested so far have been released without charge.

Even if NS is arrested, do we believe she would be charged if the treasurer and CEO of the party have not been? That appears not to pass the first test, but I suppose we are going to find out.

This only works if you view "objective" as being a 50-50 split on the question of union, and angrily demand that all unionist positions are exactly the same. The other media tends (although not exactly stridently in a lot of cases) towards a unionist viewpoint, having arrived there via a variety of positions on how the country should be run. The National is the only of the Scottish newspapers which was explicitly set up as a propaganda rag to flag-wave for Independence and the SNP, and since they haven't at any point shown the faintest inclination to do any actual journalism, so it's not wholly surprising that they tend to come in for a bit of criticism.

 

[Wynd]

This only works if you view "objective" as being a 50-50 split on the question of union, and angrily demand that all unionist positions are exactly the same. The other media tends (although not exactly stridently in a lot of cases) towards a unionist viewpoint, having arrived there via a variety of positions on how the country should be run. The National is the only of the Scottish newspapers which was explicitly set up as a propaganda rag to flag-wave for Independence and the SNP, and since they haven't at any point shown the faintest inclination to do any actual journalism, so it's not wholly surprising that they tend to come in for a bit of criticism.

Highlights quite well how causes that one may not support are propaganda but ones that are supported are legitimate with high standards of journalistic integrity. Much of the Unionist media in Scotland is of course, questionable, as recently demonstrated. When the SNP started its recent turmoil, most of the Scottish media got very excited, suggesting this would put independence back.

This represents a fundamental misunderstanding at best, and manipulation at worst, of the political facts. Polling released this week confirms this. The Herald this morning had the following.

This has shown more sophistication amongst the Yes vote than was presumed to exist. It means that voters can fall out of love with the SNP, whether that be for public service performance, for controversial public policy, or indeed for the current police investigation, but that they do not need to simultaneously fall out of love with independence. https://www.heraldscotland.com/poli...dependence-supporters-need-think-unthinkable/

The other notable point:

On the basis that this is an unlikely outcome, it is possible that the only vehicle into which this pro-growth voter will jump is a new one; a separate, pro-growth party of independence.

Now that we have established evidence that independence support is decoupled from SNP fortunes, we can conclude something many have long suspected.

Scotlands politics may be stuck on the constitution, but the resolution to this now rests on the shoulders of a small fraction of the Scottish population. We are in what I would call a kingmaker situation, where undue influence on the outcome is determined by perhaps as little as 5-6% of the Scottish public.

Many of us know them. They are, educated, middle and upper middle class, wealthy, connected but most importantly, they are critical thinkers who are unconvinced by the flagrant rhetoric on both sides, making them pragmatic. Often, they are centrists or very lightly centre right in their politics.

It was revealing that what the Torys in Scotland feared most was Kate Forbes, a Cambridge graduate, with a demonstrable numeric competence.

What would need to happen next to create a new Scottish state is clear. Whether it happens or not, is less clear.

 

[AlterEgo]

Sturgeon has been arrested in relation to the financial “mismanagement” scandal in the SNP.

Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been arrested in connection with the ongoing investigation into the funding and finances of the SNP.

Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon arrested in SNP finance inquiry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-65871857

 

[brad465]

Here's the breaking news report:

Nicola Sturgeon: Former first minister arrested in SNP finances inquiry

Police Scotland said a 52-year-old woman was arrested in Glasgow on Sunday.

www.bbc.co.uk

Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been arrested in connection with the ongoing investigation into the funding and finances of the SNP.
Police confirmed a 52-year-old woman was taken into custody on Sunday and is being questioned by detectives.

 

[Scotrail12]

Couldn't have happened to a nicer woman!

 

[InkyScrolls]

SNP: The gift that keeps giving.

 

[brad465]

"This is a slow news week."
Dorries: "Hold my beer."
Johnson: "No, hold by beer."
Sturgeon: "No, hold my beer."

 

[AlterEgo]

It must be of considerable comfort for Sturgeon that she resigned for entirely unrelated reasons (!).

 

[duncanp]

Such a shame isn't it.

I must go out and buy a lottery ticket whilst I'm still feeling lucky.