Scotland

Nicola Sturgeon’s women problem

Nicola Sturgeon’s women problem

It seems that Scotland isn't the only thing failed by the SNP. Britain's greatest grievance-merchants are (rightly) being hauled over the coals today for their treatment of Patrick Grady's male victim, after Ian Blackford told a room of MPs last Tuesday that the disgraced sex pest had their 'absolute full support.' One of those who expressed support for Grady was fellow nat Amy Callaghan who is now, apparently, 'truly sorry' after telling the meeting that the SNP should be 'rallying together around' Grady. And all it took was a leaked recording and a public outcry — truly, the definition of contrition.Don't worry though: it's not just men that the SNP are failing. For the party, which claims to have 'a proud record of fighting for gender equality while in government,' has demonstrated the same tact, care and decency with which they treated Grady's case in their handling of women's health.

Ian Blackford’s bad weekend

Ian Blackford’s bad weekend

It’s time for Westminster to take on the SNP

It’s time for Westminster to take on the SNP

There will not be a legally binding referendum on Scottish independence next year. It’s important to bear this in mind when chewing over Nicola Sturgeon’s latest pronouncement. The SNP leader held a press conference on Tuesday morning to publish a paper on independence in advance of a plebiscite Sturgeon says will be held in 2023. She claims a mandate for such a vote from the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, in which the SNP and Greens ran on pro-referendum manifestos and won a majority of seats between them. This is the same Sturgeon who, asked during that campaign what a voter who backed her for First Minister but didn’t want another referendum should do, replied: ‘They should vote for me on Thursday, safe in the knowledge that getting us through this crisis is my priority.

Nicola Sturgeon’s Potemkin independence bid

Nicola Sturgeon’s Potemkin independence bid

In one sense Nicola Sturgeon’s new independence campaign launched today – which assumes there will be a second referendum within the next 18 months – does not signal anything new. Sturgeon did not unveil any new legislation. Nor did she submit a formal request for the UK government to allow a referendum to take place. The legal and political impediments to having a rerun of the 2014 vote remain. Most people in Scotland do not want a referendum next year. Polling shows there is no majority for secession, while the constitution is way down the list of people’s priorities. There is no incentive for Downing Street to concede even an inch of ground to the SNP-Green administration’s demands for having another go at ‘Scexit’.

Kate Forbes, Tartan Thatcher

Kate Forbes, Tartan Thatcher

The SNP's political gifts know no bounds. Mr S has to take his bonnet off to Kate Forbes – Sturgeon's finance secretary and heir apparent. For no Tory minister could have ever announced the spending cuts which she did yesterday without facing the wrath of the Scottish establishment. Couched in managerial jargon-ese, Forbes' spending review statement promised a 'reset' in the country's public services over the next five years. 'Reset,' of course, is simply a shorthand for 'real term cuts', with the funding axe set to fall on a swathe of different areas including local government, higher education, the courts service and cultural affairs. Despite all this, there is still some cash for the SNP's own vanity projects, with £20 million put aside to plan for another referendum.

Scotland’s census has failed

Scotland’s census has failed

Today is deadline day for Scotland’s census. When threats of £1,000 fines were delayed at the start of this month just 74 per cent had returned their form. It’s now 86 per cent. Better, but far short of the 94 per cent national target. Some 370,000 households are yet to complete it. The target of 85 per cent in all local areas hasn’t been met either. Nicola Sturgeon has admitted the outputs could be unreliable. Academics have also warned the data could be ‘useless’ because of low uptake and extensions to the collection period. The minister responsible - Angus Robertson - jetted off to Brussels this morning.Why the low return rate? One theory is that unionists are ‘boycotting’ it to make the government look bad. Media coverage has inadvertently undermined it too.

The irrational cruelty of the SNP’s nationalism

The irrational cruelty of the SNP’s nationalism

Is this the answer to Scotland’s drug death epidemic?

Is this the answer to Scotland’s drug death epidemic?

Scotland could pioneer a scheme to cut drug deaths by allowing users to consume narcotics under supervision and with medical assistance on hand. The establishment of overdose prevention centres (OPCs) is proposed in a consultation launched yesterday by Labour MSP Paul Sweeney, who believes his Bill will 'implement changes that will save lives'. Sweeney, a former Royal Regiment of Scotland reservist, previously volunteered in an unofficial safe injection van in Glasgow and has told the Scottish parliament that he saw people saved from overdose. These centres would take what volunteers have already done and give it a legal framework. Although these centres are already used in parts of the US and Europe, Scotland would become the first UK jurisdiction to introduce them.

Scotland’s national investment bank is running aground

Scotland’s national investment bank is running aground

Sturgeon’s record in eight graphs

Sturgeon’s record in eight graphs

Today, Nicola Sturgeon becomes the longest serving First Minister in the history of devolution. Surpassing Alex Salmond’s seven years, six months and five days. It’s a long time to be in charge: a full generation by some definitions. Certainly time enough to make your mark on a country with devolved powers unparalleled in the democratic world. But what difference has Sturgeon made in her time in office: 1. Life expectancy for Scots men and women has seen the sharpest fall in 40 years – accelerating in the time Sturgeon’s been in power. Scottish men born today can expect to live 77 years, the lowest of any UK country (it’s 79 in England) and a fall of some 18 weeks on the year before. The same is true for women who can expect to live to 81 – a six week fall.

SNP U-turn on power-sharing deals

SNP U-turn on power-sharing deals

Shock, horror! Another principled SNP stance has crumbled at first contact with the prospect of power. For much of the past three weeks the nationalists in Scotland have been screaming blue murder about opposition groups negotiating pacts on local authorities where the SNP are the largest party, to lock them out of office. Such deals between the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour should, perhaps, be unsurprising given that Nicola Sturgeon’s followers are still committed to the break-up of the UK. But that hasn’t stopped the First Minister’s lackeys from crying foul play every time a new deal has been announced. Take South Lanarkshire where the SNP won 27 of the council’s 64 seats but failed to win a majority, despite being the largest party.

Is the SNP now pro-nuke?

Is the SNP now pro-nuke?

At the rate he’s going, the SNP’s hawkish spokesperson on defence, the MP Stewart McDonald, will soon be talking about an independent Scotland having a weekly armed forces day where citizens don camouflage and wargame defending the nation. McDonald is tasked with making the SNP sound sensible when it comes to defence and western collective security. His latest manoeuvre appears to be to turn his party’s long-standing anti-nuclear weapons position on its head. This would move the SNP on from merely pretending it wants to be a part of Nato to credibly backing an independent Scotland’s membership of the alliance. When asked in an interview with the BBC if an independent Scotland would ban any nuclear weapons including, for example, a visiting US nuclear-armed submarine, McDonald would only say that an independent Scotland would not ‘permanently host nuclear weapons from other states.

David Cameron bags a new job

David Cameron bags a new job

Poor David Cameron has had a tough few years since leaving No. 10. Few of his post-premiership ventures seem to be doing well. First there was the collapse of Greensill capital; then his enforced resignation from Afiniti after the firm's founder was accused of sexual assault. There's also the flatlining performance of his flagship legacy project, the National Citizen Service, and the underwhelming sales of his memoirs. So Mr S was intrigued to see that 'David Cameron' trending on Twitter in Scotland's third biggest city. Clicking through, a headline in Aberdonian organ Press and Journal flashed up: 'Local ‘champion’ David Cameron named new Lord Provost of Aberdeen.' Was the granite city the scene of an unlikely political comeback? For although a staunch unionist, Cameron has few roots to this corner of north-east Scotland.

Yet more SNP bullying hypocrisy

Yet more SNP bullying hypocrisy

Oh dear. It seems that the sainted Sturgeon has slipped up again. Much as Jesus was betrayed by his disciple, so too has the Blessed Nicola been let down by one of her own. In this case, it's Fergus Ewing – scion of the First Family of Scottish nationalism. The former rural economy secretary stands accused of bullying civil servants: allegations which Sturgeon government's has now been forced to investigate. That probe is believed to have concluded but (quelle surprise) the First Minister is refusing to disclose the outcome of the inquiry, citing 'data protection laws' as the reason why she is unable to discuss the case. What a convenient excuse for Sturgeon. It is, however, not a terribly plausible one. Cast your minds back 18 months to September 2020 when the Home Secretary Priti Patel was accused of bullying civil servants in Westminster.

The problem with Nicola Sturgeon’s latest independence drive

The problem with Nicola Sturgeon’s latest independence drive

Sadiq and Nicola’s American sojourns

Sadiq and Nicola’s American sojourns

The SNP’s latest ferries farrago

The SNP’s latest ferries farrago

Hurrah! A Scottish Government press release announces, with no small modicum of pride, that it has at last located the mysterious missing documents in the ferries saga. Audit Scotland, the public body which runs the rule over Holyrood’s spending of taxpayers’ money, recently conceded defeat over this matter. It had spent considerable time and effort trying get to the bottom of the SNP’s 2015 decision to buy two ferries from a shipyard owned by a Scottish Government economic advisor — against the advice of its own ferry agency. Seven years on, the initial cost of £97m has ballooned to £250m and neither of the ferries has been completed. The outstanding questions were: who took the decision to award the contracts — and why? Ministers quickly pointed the finger of blame at former transport minister Derek Mackay, even though they were unable to find the relevant documents to prove it.

The SNP whips’ office scandal

The SNP whips’ office scandal

It was Enoch Powell who remarked that 'the House of Commons without whips is like a city without sewers.' And it seems that the piping has sprung a leak, given the amount of excrement that's been flying around Westminster in recent months. In January it was the Tory whips and their chief Mark Spencer, who faced allegations of intimidation and Islamophobia from disgruntled wards. And now it's the turn of the SNP, those custodians of probity and standards in public life. For Patrick Grady – the party's former chief enforcer at Westminster – is one of two nationalist MPs facing claims of sexual harassment. An SNP staffer says the Glasgow North MP put his fingers down the back of his collar and touched his hair in London’s Water Poet bar in 2016 when he was 19.

The Scottish Tories have been given a drubbing

The Scottish Tories have been given a drubbing

The Scottish Tories have suffered a meltdown in the local elections. The party, which came second in 2017, looks set to poll far behind Scottish Labour, marking an ignominious return to third place. Labour’s Scottish leader Anas Sarwar has seemingly made Unionist politics competitive once again. So, what happened? Boris happened. Specifically, partygate. The public’s fury was always going to burn the Scottish Tories but there was a moment when it looked like the party would insulate itself. Back in December, Scottish leader Douglas Ross drew a clear line, saying the Prime Minister should resign if he misled parliament. When it emerged in January that Boris had attended a party himself, Ross stood firm: the PM had to go.

What happened to the SNP’s dodgy dossier?