As somebody who in the past has had to deal with clients accused of financial impropriety I can say a lot of rozzers do turn up to seize a lot of devices to stop remote wipes.
With it possible to access work product on personal devices it gets more complicated.
You really don’t want to do that in somebody’s living room hence the tent(s).
I'm still not above fish puns with Sturgeon. 'The net closes', 'Fishy goings on' 'NYPD Beluga' etc.
If this leads to some sort of implosion in the SNP all it will effectively mean is that the 45% or so of Scots who want independence will organise themselves in some other way. The only predictable result from such a happening is a large increase in Labour MPs from Scotland.
It depends how resilient that 45% figure is. Opinions do change and the SNP has been the de facto party political wing of the independence movement for some time.
It is wholly possible that a change in the fundamentals could lead to a shift in sentiment on independence. We are not there yet, but…
It's possible at the margins but it would be surprising if a political belief as fundamental as that changed much particularly when so little at Westminster will have changed. A Labour Party offering more devolution perhaps but not much else.
😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆 And if they start looking into perjury by Sturgeon, Liz Lloyd, Leslie Evans and the rest of the alphabetties relating the Alex Salmond accusations, then 😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆 As an independence supporter, It’s high time the SNP’s Augean stables were cleaned out.
To note the Scottish subsample polling average for the 6 pollsters who have conducted Westminster VIs including Scottish results since Yousaf was appointed:
SNP 39, Lab 28, Con 19, LD 5, Green 3, Oth 5
That is little changed from before his appointment. And being subsamples the weight of outliers remains potentially important, but the pattern of outliers is similar.
I suspect it will go a notch down again after this week, but there is surely now a fairly secure SNP base of those who voted based on national identity in 2015 and who would forgive their side things they would be outraged at if done by the other side. So where is the SNP floor? Possibly as high as 35%?
In that way it mirrors the Conservatives in RUK. Monopolising one side of a cultural and identity divide (Brexit in their case) while multiple parties fight it out for the other side. We've seen how the Tory floor is still probably around 30% despite over a decade of at best underwhelming government.
I assume the Tories also have a floor in Scotland too.
The Lib Dems seem to be nowhere. I think this reflects their uncompromising unionism. If you're going to vote for an uncompromising unionist you might as well vote Tory or Labour. A devo-max Lib Dem might peel off a few of those on the right of the SNP.
If this leads to some sort of implosion in the SNP all it will effectively mean is that the 45% or so of Scots who want independence will organise themselves in some other way. The only predictable result from such a happening is a large increase in Labour MPs from Scotland.
It depends how resilient that 45% figure is. Opinions do change and the SNP has been the de facto party political wing of the independence movement for some time.
It is wholly possible that a change in the fundamentals could lead to a shift in sentiment on independence. We are not there yet, but…
It's possible at the margins but it would be surprising if a political belief as fundamental as that changed much particularly when so little at Westminster will have changed. A Labour Party offering more devolution perhaps but not much else.
I don’t doubt that there will be a sizeable proportion of people who still would like Scotland to be an independent country at some point, I am just not sure it has to be a figure so closely approaching 50%. See Quebec by way of example.
The issue won’t go away, the question is whether it falls into the background for some years while priorities change. If people are happy to see their politics not only through the prism of independence but through other day to day issues then the job of the SNP becomes harder and the job of the unionist parties much easier*
* but truth be told unionism is well due a realignment in Scotland. Hard to see how a unionist majority government forms in Holyrood right now - if you’re SLAB you can’t be seen to be doing deals with the Tories for instance.
The Clinton Administration were too complacent. Easy to think you’d be dealing with someone like Yeltsin in perpetuity, but no contingency planning in the case you weren’t. Bush II and Obama, I am afraid, continued the trend even when it became more obvious that Putin was not the man they all hoped he would be.
People should have realised something was up when the Kursk sank. Putin did not act like someone who was supposedly on friendlier terms with the West. It made a nonsense of all the guff about "maybe one day Russia could be in the EU/NATO".
Time to increase your stakes on that outright Labour majority ...
You should go into the streets and hear what people are saying.
A day of reckoning is coming.
Standing in the street generally just leaves me with a lot of car noise and passers by talking about random shit. Oh, and how much they hate the Tories.
Partisan post: looks like this could turn out to be a very good day for the Labour Party, both in Scotland and by extension the UK as a whole.
Not if it means the Tories make gains in Scotland. Makes our job in England and Wales that much harder.
Good morning
Not entirely unexpected news and very much as predicted by our Ayrshire colleague
As far as the political consequences it would seem a considerable win for the union, and labour gaining seats, indeed even possible conservative gains, but swopping SNP seats for labour does not reduce the need for labour to do very well in England and Wales to gain a majority
As I have often said, as have many others, a week is a long time in politics and of course events influence the future in politics as well
Eh? Yes it very much does. It doesn't affect the chances of SKS being PM. But for a majority it's vital.
To note the Scottish subsample polling average for the 6 pollsters who have conducted Westminster VIs including Scottish results since Yousaf was appointed:
SNP 39, Lab 28, Con 19, LD 5, Green 3, Oth 5
That is little changed from before his appointment. And being subsamples the weight of outliers remains potentially important, but the pattern of outliers is similar.
I suspect it will go a notch down again after this week, but there is surely now a fairly secure SNP base of those who voted based on national identity in 2015 and who would forgive their side things they would be outraged at if done by the other side. So where is the SNP floor? Possibly as high as 35%?
In that way it mirrors the Conservatives in RUK. Monopolising one side of a cultural and identity divide (Brexit in their case) while multiple parties fight it out for the other side. We've seen how the Tory floor is still probably around 30% despite over a decade of at best underwhelming government.
I assume the Tories also have a floor in Scotland too.
The Lib Dems seem to be nowhere. I think this reflects their uncompromising unionism. If you're going to vote for an uncompromising unionist you might as well vote Tory or Labour. A devo-max Lib Dem might peel off a few of those on the right of the SNP.
This could be the moment when independence support uncouples from SNP support. The only hope for the SNP is if they have a clear out of the “continuity” people, including Yousaf, and then have a new, fair and open, leadership election. In the short term, many independence supporters will vote Labour to help kick the Tories out. Expect crossover soon. If Labour want to keep these voters, however, they will need to offer at least some form of devo max. Otherwise, they will drift back to the SNP or join Alba.
A large part of the switch from Labour vote efficiency under Blair/Brown to Tory was to do with Scotland. Even Corbyn in 2019 got over half a million votes. For one seat. Tories got fewer than 700k for six.
Forbes represents almost half of the SNP membership (and potentially some of the many recently ex-members). I wonder whether as the SNP likely falls apart she simply sits where she is and is left as the leader of the successor party?
Yousless was eager to not just excuse but actively talk up previous disasters like transport and the NHS and the economy as if they were successes.
Even more bonkers is that the SNP membership voted for this tool. Just as the Tories were told in specific detail by Sunak that the Truss plan was madness but they voted Truss anyway, so the SNP did the same.
Ideological spite cannot beat reality. The Tories found that out, had their poll rating demolished and it hasn't recovered.
What happens to the SNP rating and who will benefit?
The Clinton Administration were too complacent. Easy to think you’d be dealing with someone like Yeltsin in perpetuity, but no contingency planning in the case you weren’t. Bush II and Obama, I am afraid, continued the trend even when it became more obvious that Putin was not the man they all hoped he would be.
People should have realised something was up when the Kursk sank. Putin did not act like someone who was supposedly on friendlier terms with the West. It made a nonsense of all the guff about "maybe one day Russia could be in the EU/NATO".
The Ukrainians could not have sustained the weapons they had - they did not have the nuclear weapons industrial base, though they had chunks of the missile industrial base.
Without the warhead design data, trying to retro engineer advanced warheads would have been somewhere between difficult and impossible. More the latter. If the USSR had gone for asymmetric implosions, definitely the latter.
Which means that they would have, in a year or 2 possessed some rather dangerous paperweights.
The Ukrainians *could* have launched a nuclear weapons program to build weapons. Probably they could have done boosted fission flying plate designs fairly simply - the classic 2 point systems. But they had no money at that point. Really, really no money.
The fear from the West and Russia was that given a big pile of broken, but advanced weapons, and no money, the temptation would be to reach out to other states. A trade in nuclear weapons design* and plutonium would beckon.
*While it would probably be impossible rework a complex design by guesswork, simply looking at the design would reveal decades of design work by the USSR. There are advanced design features that are known to exist - but simply seeing the implementation would save years of work in try to implement them. even something as simple as fusion boosting (injecting tritium into the core of the weapon) took years to figure out to the point it actually worked.
Did we do this ? I normally take no interest in football, but..
Mexican referee Fernando Hernandez gets 12-match ban for kneeing player in groin https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65183032 Hernandez gave out six yellow cards and dismissed both managers in an incident-filled match
If this leads to some sort of implosion in the SNP all it will effectively mean is that the 45% or so of Scots who want independence will organise themselves in some other way. The only predictable result from such a happening is a large increase in Labour MPs from Scotland.
Scottish politics since 2014 has been dominated by the fact that the 45% who voted for Independence voted in subsequent elections on the basis that the Constitutional issue was their most important concern.
If a large proportion of that 45% decide that voting on the basis of other criteria is more important, then Scottish politics becomes a lot more fluid and unpredictable. A Labour resurgence is possible, but it is not inevitable.
Quite a lot of churn in that 45%, largely to do with Bre*it. Labour’s McResurgence depends on how successfully SKS can manage his fan dance which consists of flashing no free movement etc to the Red Wall while giving the Jocks a good view of his rampant Returnism (according to PB EUrophobes).
Forbes represents almost half of the SNP membership (and potentially some of the many recently ex-members). I wonder whether as the SNP likely falls apart she simply sits where she is and is left as the leader of the successor party?
Yousless was eager to not just excuse but actively talk up previous disasters like transport and the NHS and the economy as if they were successes.
Even more bonkers is that the SNP membership voted for this tool. Just as the Tories were told in specific detail by Sunak that the Truss plan was madness but they voted Truss anyway, so the SNP did the same.
Ideological spite cannot beat reality. The Tories found that out, had their poll rating demolished and it hasn't recovered.
What happens to the SNP rating and who will benefit?
It is possibly better for the independence movement in the medium term for the SNP to split (and not into offshoots like Alba created as a result of personal animus).
If you have pro-independence parties of the centre left and centre right, for instance, it becomes less monolithic and has the ability to widen support.
Twitter is a bit rubbish now - this should be picked up under "trending" but it's still all about the football from last night.
Dismal display by my team last night. I hope you all got on my tip of Leicester for relegation at 4/1. Should be odds on and now just short of 2/1.
And Forest very firmly back in the mire after getting up to 12th I think. With a shite goal difference...
Goal difference is often a pretty good predictor of where a team will ultimately end up.
Budget is even stronger, although you have to adjust for the couple of sides run by those who are owned by sports gamblers with a couple of hundred traders and phd level analysts already working for them on football.
This sort of rebuke from the UK Statistics Authority is sadly a routine feature of British politics. I do wish politicians were held to higher standards by the voters.
I didn't realise they'd given him a knighthood. He used to have the flat above me on Old Compton Street. He was a very likable guy with a nice cynical grin. I always thought he was a lefty..
Our Chinese managing agent who fancied himself as a whizz on the stock market always greeted me with"'Hi Woger. How Business'?' before giving me some obscure tip on the stock exchange He nearly expired when I told him the bloke in the flat upstairs was a journalist for the Financial Times!
Did we do this ? I normally take no interest in football, but..
Mexican referee Fernando Hernandez gets 12-match ban for kneeing player in groin https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65183032 Hernandez gave out six yellow cards and dismissed both managers in an incident-filled match
If this leads to some sort of implosion in the SNP all it will effectively mean is that the 45% or so of Scots who want independence will organise themselves in some other way. The only predictable result from such a happening is a large increase in Labour MPs from Scotland.
Scottish politics since 2014 has been dominated by the fact that the 45% who voted for Independence voted in subsequent elections on the basis that the Constitutional issue was their most important concern.
If a large proportion of that 45% decide that voting on the basis of other criteria is more important, then Scottish politics becomes a lot more fluid and unpredictable. A Labour resurgence is possible, but it is not inevitable.
Quite a lot of churn in that 45%, largely to do with Bre*it. Labour’s McResurgence depends on how successfully SKS can manage his fan dance which consists of flashing no free movement etc to the Red Wall while giving the Jocks a good view of his rampant Returnism (according to PB EUrophobes).
Good to see the "once a politician has power they never give it up unless they absolutely have to" rule no longer has this one weird exception and the order of the world is restored.
Forbes represents almost half of the SNP membership (and potentially some of the many recently ex-members). I wonder whether as the SNP likely falls apart she simply sits where she is and is left as the leader of the successor party?
Yousless was eager to not just excuse but actively talk up previous disasters like transport and the NHS and the economy as if they were successes.
Even more bonkers is that the SNP membership voted for this tool. Just as the Tories were told in specific detail by Sunak that the Truss plan was madness but they voted Truss anyway, so the SNP did the same.
Ideological spite cannot beat reality. The Tories found that out, had their poll rating demolished and it hasn't recovered.
What happens to the SNP rating and who will benefit?
It is possibly better for the independence movement in the medium term for the SNP to split (and not into offshoots like Alba created as a result of personal animus).
If you have pro-independence parties of the centre left and centre right, for instance, it becomes less monolithic and has the ability to widen support.
It would work for the Holyrood elections - proportionality is a thing. But for Westminster? Bad.
I do agree though. The SNP is not and never has been a "left wing" party as suggested. It is a nationalist movement and that encompasses left and right. The left element has been in control since Salmond was ousted, and the membership having purged of the rightist / Salmondite group chose to back continuity lunacy.
I posted about Forbes leading a "successor party". It may be called the SNP - just as Rangers FC is still called Rangers FC. But it a successor to the previous club. With an increasingly heavy polis presence at HQ you do have to wonder how terminal this could be for the current party.
Just checked my local Facebook group and the comments about various SNP figures are eye-watering. Good luck to DavidL and his colleagues - going to be very tricky to navigate.
If this leads to some sort of implosion in the SNP all it will effectively mean is that the 45% or so of Scots who want independence will organise themselves in some other way. The only predictable result from such a happening is a large increase in Labour MPs from Scotland.
Scottish politics since 2014 has been dominated by the fact that the 45% who voted for Independence voted in subsequent elections on the basis that the Constitutional issue was their most important concern.
If a large proportion of that 45% decide that voting on the basis of other criteria is more important, then Scottish politics becomes a lot more fluid and unpredictable. A Labour resurgence is possible, but it is not inevitable.
Quite a lot of churn in that 45%, largely to do with Bre*it. Labour’s McResurgence depends on how successfully SKS can manage his fan dance which consists of flashing no free movement etc to the Red Wall while giving the Jocks a good view of his rampant Returnism (according to PB EUrophobes).
There's a lot of different factors at play, which is why I suggested that the Scottish Greens might benefit at the next Holyrood election (in the previous thread). The voters aren't going to simply return to Labour by default. Even a Lib Dem resurgence is not entirely out of the question.
Forbes represents almost half of the SNP membership (and potentially some of the many recently ex-members). I wonder whether as the SNP likely falls apart she simply sits where she is and is left as the leader of the successor party?
Yousless was eager to not just excuse but actively talk up previous disasters like transport and the NHS and the economy as if they were successes.
Even more bonkers is that the SNP membership voted for this tool. Just as the Tories were told in specific detail by Sunak that the Truss plan was madness but they voted Truss anyway, so the SNP did the same.
Ideological spite cannot beat reality. The Tories found that out, had their poll rating demolished and it hasn't recovered.
What happens to the SNP rating and who will benefit?
It is possibly better for the independence movement in the medium term for the SNP to split (and not into offshoots like Alba created as a result of personal animus).
If you have pro-independence parties of the centre left and centre right, for instance, it becomes less monolithic and has the ability to widen support.
Agreed. Ultimately, if indy is ever going to happen (I gravely doubt it) it has to go beyond the Grievance Indy proposed by the SNP, and become something positive embraced by all sides. So two serious indy parties, the Forbes-ites and the Yousaf-ites, would contest elections simultaneously, and combine JUST for the indy cause at a referendum
It would be a long hard road, but the present road has just run out, so they don't really have options
Politics wise, if the SNP polls rating tumble, it means more Labour gains and blunts any Tory "SNP in Labour's pocket" attack if polls tighten GB-wide and a hung parliament were likely.
That's a perceptive point. A few seats here and there for the Tories wont make up for their ability to scare English voters with SNP leverage.
I guess this explains why they had a rushed leadership contest.
But that in itself is calamitously scandalous, as it suggests Sturgeon knew this was coming. A knock on the door from the fuzz. Is that even legal, that she should have foreknowledge?
To note the Scottish subsample polling average for the 6 pollsters who have conducted Westminster VIs including Scottish results since Yousaf was appointed:
SNP 39, Lab 28, Con 19, LD 5, Green 3, Oth 5
That is little changed from before his appointment. And being subsamples the weight of outliers remains potentially important, but the pattern of outliers is similar.
I suspect it will go a notch down again after this week, but there is surely now a fairly secure SNP base of those who voted based on national identity in 2015 and who would forgive their side things they would be outraged at if done by the other side. So where is the SNP floor? Possibly as high as 35%?
In that way it mirrors the Conservatives in RUK. Monopolising one side of a cultural and identity divide (Brexit in their case) while multiple parties fight it out for the other side. We've seen how the Tory floor is still probably around 30% despite over a decade of at best underwhelming government.
I assume the Tories also have a floor in Scotland too.
The Lib Dems seem to be nowhere. I think this reflects their uncompromising unionism. If you're going to vote for an uncompromising unionist you might as well vote Tory or Labour. A devo-max Lib Dem might peel off a few of those on the right of the SNP.
This could be the moment when independence support uncouples from SNP support. The only hope for the SNP is if they have a clear out of the “continuity” people, including Yousaf, and then have a new, fair and open, leadership election. In the short term, many independence supporters will vote Labour to help kick the Tories out. Expect crossover soon. If Labour want to keep these voters, however, they will need to offer at least some form of devo max. Otherwise, they will drift back to the SNP or join Alba.
If someone wants to support a pro-independence party but wants to switch from the SNP, there are 2 main choices at present: the Scottish Green Party and Alba. Both might be problematic for a floating voter. The Greens have hardline positions on a number of issues that may be out of touch with the average voter’s views. Alba is led by the very problematic Alex Salmond.
Might this change? Could we see some third significant pro-independence party rise up? Could Alba move beyond Salmond? Will the Greens moderate any positions to reach out to floating voters?
Forbes represents almost half of the SNP membership (and potentially some of the many recently ex-members). I wonder whether as the SNP likely falls apart she simply sits where she is and is left as the leader of the successor party?
Yousless was eager to not just excuse but actively talk up previous disasters like transport and the NHS and the economy as if they were successes.
Even more bonkers is that the SNP membership voted for this tool. Just as the Tories were told in specific detail by Sunak that the Truss plan was madness but they voted Truss anyway, so the SNP did the same.
Ideological spite cannot beat reality. The Tories found that out, had their poll rating demolished and it hasn't recovered.
What happens to the SNP rating and who will benefit?
It is possibly better for the independence movement in the medium term for the SNP to split (and not into offshoots like Alba created as a result of personal animus).
If you have pro-independence parties of the centre left and centre right, for instance, it becomes less monolithic and has the ability to widen support.
Leaving aside all the emotional anti-English stuff, the rational case for Scotland being a separate state rests on the case that: 1. There are fundamental advantages in terms of the economy and security of being separate from the UK 2. Scotland would also be better governed if completely separate from the UK.
The case for 2 appealed particularly to those former Labour supporters who saw secession as a means of ridding themselves permanently of the dominance of Conservative governments in the wake of 2010, at least until Starmer got Labour's act together. But that case also depended the ability to assume that government by what would inevitably be the SNP would be better than anything they could generally expect in a devolved UK. Yet the further the SNP goes down the path towards both incompetance (ferries etc), unpopular positions (trans) and what might now turn out to be serious corruption, it is harder still to make a case for secession.
So, as you say, in the long term it might be better for the pro-independence movement if there were a serious challenge to the dominance of the SNP, because the case for secession would not then depend so heavily on the SNP being able to get its act together in the future.
I guess this explains why they had a rushed leadership contest.
But that in itself is calamitously scandalous, as it suggests Sturgeon knew this was coming. A knock on the door from the fuzz. Is that even legal, that she should have foreknowledge?
Not necessarily. A person being investigated can often tell when they have reached the place where they have no road left.
"the situation has developed not necessarily to the SNP's advantage" - is the traditional phrasing, I think
Hahahaha
He says, "we are starting a review into governance and transparency, WITH SOME EXTERNAL INPUT"
That's a great way of describing police putting up tents outside your ex-leader's house, and police flooding the street outside your party HQ. Just a spot of "external input"
"With regards to the forensic pathologists digging up the bodies buried in my backyard, I view this as welcome external input into my own transparency review of our gardening procedures"
The woman Rupert Murdoch just broke off his engagement with has an assault record, at least one more husband than was previously reported, and former stepkids who claim they were cut off from their father when she married him... https://mobile.twitter.com/BernsteinJacob/status/1643450821948895233
Is there a website somebody can recommend which provides access to the more scurrilous, sub judice stories?
Judy Murray is wrapped up in all of this, I just know she is.
The Judy Murray rumours (which I shall not detail, @TSE!) have been serious and prominent on Twitter for several years. Just like the rumours that Murrell was a bad 'un, and would eventually get nicked....
Politics wise, if the SNP polls rating tumble, it means more Labour gains and blunts any Tory "SNP in Labour's pocket" attack if polls tighten GB-wide and a hung parliament were likely.
That's a perceptive point. A few seats here and there for the Tories wont make up for their ability to scare English voters with SNP leverage.
Even a few seats more for the Tories might not happen should the SNP vote share erode. On yesterday's R&W poll, with Labour only 5% behind the SNP and with the Conservatives on 19%, the Tory notional seat count was unchanged at 6.
She’s off to work for Prince Williams Earthshot lot, so the post politics gravy train commences, along with elevation to the sainthood.
I wonder how todays events will affect Sturgeons post politics career as, surely, something good would be beckoning.
Earthshot hasn't published accounts as an independent entity yet, but was previously part of the Cambridge's charitable foundation. According to those accounts the remuneration for trustees in 2020 and 2021 was £nil, and trustee expenses in 2021 was a total of £78 (2020: £nil), so I'm guessing the gravy train has left from a different station, if it has departed yet.
Politics wise, if the SNP polls rating tumble, it means more Labour gains and blunts any Tory "SNP in Labour's pocket" attack if polls tighten GB-wide and a hung parliament were likely.
That's a perceptive point. A few seats here and there for the Tories wont make up for their ability to scare English voters with SNP leverage.
Even a few seats more for the Tories might not happen should the SNP vote share erode. On yesterday's R&W poll, with Labour only 5% behind the SNP and with the Conservatives on 19%, the Tory notional seat count was unchanged at 6.
Electoral efficiency is a double edged sword sometimes.
In the interests of Not Getting Banned, it would be helpful if the mods - @TSE, OGH, @rcs1000 could give us some guidance as to what we are allowed to say, and what is disallowed, in the ongoing "external input" into the SNP's transparency review
Seriously. Don't want to get the site into trouble. Or get banned. It's too interesting
Forbes represents almost half of the SNP membership (and potentially some of the many recently ex-members). I wonder whether as the SNP likely falls apart she simply sits where she is and is left as the leader of the successor party?
Yousless was eager to not just excuse but actively talk up previous disasters like transport and the NHS and the economy as if they were successes.
Even more bonkers is that the SNP membership voted for this tool. Just as the Tories were told in specific detail by Sunak that the Truss plan was madness but they voted Truss anyway, so the SNP did the same.
Ideological spite cannot beat reality. The Tories found that out, had their poll rating demolished and it hasn't recovered.
What happens to the SNP rating and who will benefit?
It is possibly better for the independence movement in the medium term for the SNP to split (and not into offshoots like Alba created as a result of personal animus).
If you have pro-independence parties of the centre left and centre right, for instance, it becomes less monolithic and has the ability to widen support.
It would work for the Holyrood elections - proportionality is a thing. But for Westminster? Bad.
I do agree though. The SNP is not and never has been a "left wing" party as suggested. It is a nationalist movement and that encompasses left and right. The left element has been in control since Salmond was ousted, and the membership having purged of the rightist / Salmondite group chose to back continuity lunacy.
I posted about Forbes leading a "successor party". It may be called the SNP - just as Rangers FC is still called Rangers FC. But it a successor to the previous club. With an increasingly heavy polis presence at HQ you do have to wonder how terminal this could be for the current party.
Isn’t it correct to say that the left element has been in control since Salmond took over? The SNP as a social democratic party was Salmond’s vision, inherited by Sturgeon.
Politics wise, if the SNP polls rating tumble, it means more Labour gains and blunts any Tory "SNP in Labour's pocket" attack if polls tighten GB-wide and a hung parliament were likely.
That's a perceptive point. A few seats here and there for the Tories wont make up for their ability to scare English voters with SNP leverage.
Even a few seats more for the Tories might not happen should the SNP vote share erode. On yesterday's R&W poll, with Labour only 5% behind the SNP and with the Conservatives on 19%, the Tory notional seat count was unchanged at 6.
Six too many!
I suppose the odds of NOM should lengthen, based on fewer seats for "Others" than anticipated as of yesterday.
Partisan post: looks like this could turn out to be a very good day for the Labour Party, both in Scotland and by extension the UK as a whole.
Not if it means the Tories make gains in Scotland. Makes our job in England and Wales that much harder.
That's a fair point. I'm sure labour would love wins in scotland from the SNP, but if the Tories make gains, then that's worse for them..
True, but there's a lot more upside for Labour than the Conservatives if the SNP are in trouble.
I don't think we will win a majority. Therefore "not Tory" seat numbers is what I am concerned about, rather than Labour.
Labour or SNP? Not fussed if it means the Tories lose seats.
There was a Scotland seat forecast posted yesterday that had Con +1. There aren't many (if any?) Con-Lab marginals in Scotland so if your desire is minimising Con seats you should want the SNP to do well.
In the interests of Not Getting Banned, it would be helpful if the mods - @TSE, OGH, @rcs1000 could give us some guidance as to what we are allowed to say, and what is disallowed, in the ongoing "external input" into the SNP's transparency review
Seriously. Don't want to get the site into trouble. Or get banned. It's too interesting
I'd guess that if you stick to police statements, reports from the mainstream press, and speculation regarding future political developments (as opposed to judicial developments) then you'd be on safe ground - but that would cut out all the fruitier speculation on twiiter/Guido/wherever that you are itching to share.
In the interests of Not Getting Banned, it would be helpful if the mods - @TSE, OGH, @rcs1000 could give us some guidance as to what we are allowed to say, and what is disallowed, in the ongoing "external input" into the SNP's transparency review
Seriously. Don't want to get the site into trouble. Or get banned. It's too interesting
Particularly since the Scottish legal system has a very hardcore view of what can and cannot be published while proceedings are ongoing. See Craig Murray etc...
In the interests of Not Getting Banned, it would be helpful if the mods - @TSE, OGH, @rcs1000 could give us some guidance as to what we are allowed to say, and what is disallowed, in the ongoing "external input" into the SNP's transparency review
Seriously. Don't want to get the site into trouble. Or get banned. It's too interesting
I'd guess that if you stick to police statements, reports from the mainstream press, and speculation regarding future political developments (as opposed to judicial developments) then you'd be on safe ground - but that would cut out all the fruitier speculation on twiiter/Guido/wherever that you are itching to share.
So you are saying that discussing the Ecuadorian Rumour is right out?
In the interests of Not Getting Banned, it would be helpful if the mods - @TSE, OGH, @rcs1000 could give us some guidance as to what we are allowed to say, and what is disallowed, in the ongoing "external input" into the SNP's transparency review
Seriously. Don't want to get the site into trouble. Or get banned. It's too interesting
I'd guess that if you stick to police statements, reports from the mainstream press, and speculation regarding future political developments (as opposed to judicial developments) then you'd be on safe ground - but that would cut out all the fruitier speculation on twiiter/Guido/wherever that you are itching to share.
So you are saying that discussing the Ecuadorian Rumour is right out?
Yes. You would do better to share your favoured recipe for Cullen Skink.
In the interests of Not Getting Banned, it would be helpful if the mods - @TSE, OGH, @rcs1000 could give us some guidance as to what we are allowed to say, and what is disallowed, in the ongoing "external input" into the SNP's transparency review
Seriously. Don't want to get the site into trouble. Or get banned. It's too interesting
I'd guess that if you stick to police statements, reports from the mainstream press, and speculation regarding future political developments (as opposed to judicial developments) then you'd be on safe ground - but that would cut out all the fruitier speculation on twiiter/Guido/wherever that you are itching to share.
So you are saying that discussing the Ecuadorian Rumour is right out?
Yes. You would do better to share your favoured recipe for Cullen Skink.
On which related subject, there are few pleasures more gratifying that eating good food cooked for you by one of your children. Almost worth being in my 40s for.
I believe one of my ancestors resided in Uddingston at some stage. Seeing the incredibly banal housing development, I think I’ll give it a miss when I finally organise a genealogical tour of Scotland.
If this leads to some sort of implosion in the SNP all it will effectively mean is that the 45% or so of Scots who want independence will organise themselves in some other way. The only predictable result from such a happening is a large increase in Labour MPs from Scotland.
Scottish politics since 2014 has been dominated by the fact that the 45% who voted for Independence voted in subsequent elections on the basis that the Constitutional issue was their most important concern.
If a large proportion of that 45% decide that voting on the basis of other criteria is more important, then Scottish politics becomes a lot more fluid and unpredictable. A Labour resurgence is possible, but it is not inevitable.
Quite a lot of churn in that 45%, largely to do with Bre*it. Labour’s McResurgence depends on how successfully SKS can manage his fan dance which consists of flashing no free movement etc to the Red Wall while giving the Jocks a good view of his rampant Returnism (according to PB EUrophobes).
There's a lot of different factors at play, which is why I suggested that the Scottish Greens might benefit at the next Holyrood election (in the previous thread). The voters aren't going to simply return to Labour by default. Even a Lib Dem resurgence is not entirely out of the question.
Oh sure, the kaleidoscope is still swirling. It’d be entertaining if the 3 parties that voted most..er..enthusiastically for the GRR bill benefitted most from an SNP implosion.
I believe one of my ancestors resided in Uddingston at some stage. Seeing the incredibly banal housing development, I think I’ll give it a miss when I finally organise a genealogical tour of Scotland.
Apparently Tunnocks have not only closed their cafe, they've also put an end to factory tours, so there really is no reason to go to Uddingston any longer. Well, except for Bothwell Castle, and a couple of yarn shops in the vicinity.
Being a curious soul, I'm wondering why the plod have gone in with the heavies and circus now. I was aware that this was on the cards from posts on here a couple of weeks ago. If I knew that, so did Mr Murrell and co, and if there were to have been wrongdoing, and also documents or data that was relevant to the case, the odds of them still being available for the plod to collect now seem rather poor - so what possible reason is there for the plod to have suddenly swooped on a huge evidence gathering raid now?
In the interests of Not Getting Banned, it would be helpful if the mods - @TSE, OGH, @rcs1000 could give us some guidance as to what we are allowed to say, and what is disallowed, in the ongoing "external input" into the SNP's transparency review
Seriously. Don't want to get the site into trouble. Or get banned. It's too interesting
I'd guess that if you stick to police statements, reports from the mainstream press, and speculation regarding future political developments (as opposed to judicial developments) then you'd be on safe ground - but that would cut out all the fruitier speculation on twiiter/Guido/wherever that you are itching to share.
So you are saying that discussing the Ecuadorian Rumour is right out?
Or the Finnish thing (whatever that was, I can't even remember who it was about now)?
Comments
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/san-francisco/san-francisco-stabbing/3198467/
And if they start looking into perjury by Sturgeon, Liz Lloyd, Leslie Evans and the rest of the alphabetties relating the Alex Salmond accusations, then
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As an independence supporter, It’s high time the SNP’s Augean stables were cleaned out.
A day of reckoning is coming.
In that way it mirrors the Conservatives in RUK. Monopolising one side of a cultural and identity divide (Brexit in their case) while multiple parties fight it out for the other side. We've seen how the Tory floor is still probably around 30% despite over a decade of at best underwhelming government.
I assume the Tories also have a floor in Scotland too.
The Lib Dems seem to be nowhere. I think this reflects their uncompromising unionism. If you're going to vote for an uncompromising unionist you might as well vote Tory or Labour. A devo-max Lib Dem might peel off a few of those on the right of the SNP.
The issue won’t go away, the question is whether it falls into the background for some years while priorities change. If people are happy to see their politics not only through the prism of independence but through other day to day issues then the job of the SNP becomes harder and the job of the unionist parties much easier*
* but truth be told unionism is well due a realignment in Scotland. Hard to see how a unionist majority government forms in Holyrood right now - if you’re SLAB you can’t be seen to be doing deals with the Tories for instance.
The current lot are an utter shower.
Yes it very much does.
It doesn't affect the chances of SKS being PM. But for a majority it's vital.
Because his expertise may become heavily involved in this matter.
Not good enough, Officer !
Oh, to be a 'continuity FM candidate' today.
In the short term, many independence supporters will vote Labour to help kick the Tories out. Expect crossover soon. If Labour want to keep these voters, however, they will need to offer at least some form of devo max. Otherwise, they will drift back to the SNP or join Alba.
The Scottish independence movement is unlikely to go away, but it's going to take quite some time for them to sort themselves out.
The Tories, in turn, should have the whole of the next Parliament to do so. We'll see if they have the sense.
Even Corbyn in 2019 got over half a million votes. For one seat.
Tories got fewer than 700k for six.
But want to look informed but restrained rather than ignorant
Yousless was eager to not just excuse but actively talk up previous disasters like transport and the NHS and the economy as if they were successes.
Even more bonkers is that the SNP membership voted for this tool. Just as the Tories were told in specific detail by Sunak that the Truss plan was madness but they voted Truss anyway, so the SNP did the same.
Ideological spite cannot beat reality. The Tories found that out, had their poll rating demolished and it hasn't recovered.
What happens to the SNP rating and who will benefit?
Without the warhead design data, trying to retro engineer advanced warheads would have been somewhere between difficult and impossible. More the latter. If the USSR had gone for asymmetric implosions, definitely the latter.
Which means that they would have, in a year or 2 possessed some rather dangerous paperweights.
The Ukrainians *could* have launched a nuclear weapons program to build weapons. Probably they could have done boosted fission flying plate designs fairly simply - the classic 2 point systems. But they had no money at that point. Really, really no money.
The fear from the West and Russia was that given a big pile of broken, but advanced weapons, and no money, the temptation would be to reach out to other states. A trade in nuclear weapons design* and plutonium would beckon.
*While it would probably be impossible rework a complex design by guesswork, simply looking at the design would reveal decades of design work by the USSR. There are advanced design features that are known to exist - but simply seeing the implementation would save years of work in try to implement them. even something as simple as fusion boosting (injecting tritium into the core of the weapon) took years to figure out to the point it actually worked.
I normally take no interest in football, but..
Mexican referee Fernando Hernandez gets 12-match ban for kneeing player in groin
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65183032
Hernandez gave out six yellow cards and dismissed both managers in an incident-filled match
Labour or SNP? Not fussed if it means the Tories lose seats.
If you have pro-independence parties of the centre left and centre right, for instance, it becomes less monolithic and has the ability to widen support.
Our Chinese managing agent who fancied himself as a whizz on the stock market always greeted me with"'Hi Woger. How Business'?' before giving me some obscure tip on the stock exchange He nearly expired when I told him the bloke in the flat upstairs was a journalist for the Financial Times!
In those days that was plain Robert Chote.
I do agree though. The SNP is not and never has been a "left wing" party as suggested. It is a nationalist movement and that encompasses left and right. The left element has been in control since Salmond was ousted, and the membership having purged of the rightist / Salmondite group chose to back continuity lunacy.
I posted about Forbes leading a "successor party". It may be called the SNP - just as Rangers FC is still called Rangers FC. But it a successor to the previous club. With an increasingly heavy polis presence at HQ you do have to wonder how terminal this could be for the current party.
EDIT: I thought that Useless getting the job would put everything back in the box....
Shame we didn't have Jarvis Cocker to walk on stage and waft the smell away this time.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-65186368
I may need to lie down.
Jacinda Ardern appointed trustee of Prince William's Earthshot Prize
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65180096.amp
She’s off to work for Prince Williams Earthshot lot, so the post politics gravy train commences, along with elevation to the sainthood.
I wonder how todays events will affect Sturgeons post politics career as, surely, something good would be beckoning.
It would be a long hard road, but the present road has just run out, so they don't really have options
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2023/apr/05/former-snp-chief-executive-peter-murrell-arrested-as-part-of-funding-investigation-live-rishi-sunak-asylum-seekers
After Murrell’s arrest, police now entering SNP headquarters; investigation stepping up"
https://twitter.com/FraserNelson/status/1643548346416525313
Might this change? Could we see some third significant pro-independence party rise up? Could Alba move beyond Salmond? Will the Greens moderate any positions to reach out to floating voters?
1. There are fundamental advantages in terms of the economy and security of being separate from the UK
2. Scotland would also be better governed if completely separate from the UK.
The case for 2 appealed particularly to those former Labour supporters who saw secession as a means of ridding themselves permanently of the dominance of Conservative governments in the wake of 2010, at least until Starmer got Labour's act together. But that case also depended the ability to assume that government by what would inevitably be the SNP would be better than anything they could generally expect in a devolved UK. Yet the further the SNP goes down the path towards both incompetance (ferries etc), unpopular positions (trans) and what might now turn out to be serious corruption, it is harder still to make a case for secession.
So, as you say, in the long term it might be better for the pro-independence movement if there were a serious challenge to the dominance of the SNP, because the case for secession would not then depend so heavily on the SNP being able to get its act together in the future.
Judy Murray is wrapped up in all of this, I just know she is.
He says, "we are starting a review into governance and transparency, WITH SOME EXTERNAL INPUT"
That's a great way of describing police putting up tents outside your ex-leader's house, and police flooding the street outside your party HQ. Just a spot of "external input"
"With regards to the forensic pathologists digging up the bodies buried in my backyard, I view this as welcome external input into my own transparency review of our gardening procedures"
The woman Rupert Murdoch just broke off his engagement with has an assault record, at least one more husband than was previously reported, and former stepkids who claim they were cut off from their father when she married him...
https://mobile.twitter.com/BernsteinJacob/status/1643450821948895233
Anything exciting happen while I’ve been earning a living?
Seriously. Don't want to get the site into trouble. Or get banned. It's too interesting
I suppose the odds of NOM should lengthen, based on fewer seats for "Others" than anticipated as of yesterday.
there might not be anything left to lead
Berlusconi in hospital with heart problem
https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/l-ex-chef-du-gouvernement-italien-silvio-berlusconi-en-soins-intensifs-a-milan-pour-un-probleme-cardiaque-20230405
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chelsea-considering-frank-lampard-as-caretaker-until-end-of-season-nnks7z8sf
Is that the left though?
Also as much as he is increasingly derided as an irrelevance maybe Tony Blair is the philosopher king of modern politics?
She's speaking from an alien perspective to you because she's a woman in leadership who decided to show another way of being.
Thank god for Jacinda.
https://deltapoll.co.uk/polls/voteint230403
QED
Wasn't there a survey which showed that a Scottish accent is the most trusted accent and hence the plethora of them in eg advertising.
This might well dent that Scots image of probity.