If you lose your head, it’s all over. Not quite what one Scot (who was at the time an Egyptian-born Spaniard), said to another (though that one was American), but it might as well have been. Wise words to an immortal; wiser still to a politician – and ones that Scottish nationalists would do well to reflect on.
Comments
There’s a reasonable argument to be made that the sacking of Cherry is that point, and we might be hearing a lot more this week as the Salmond enquiry unfolds.
In the circumstances, if they can get away with that nobody is going to bother about Sturgeon and Cherry arguing about whether those with balls can call themselves women or not.
This is going to be about independence. Not faction, not policy, not personality. Which in itself is a weak hand that the SNP have shown no sign of honesty on, but given how hated Boris Johnson and his party are becoming north of the border looks likely to be enough (especially bearing in mind those who are ambivalent about independence can vote for the SNP safe in the knowledge there isn’t an immediate pathway to leave the UK but an SNP landslide heaps the pressure on Johnson).
It’s disturbing to reflect how pleased I was when the SNP ousted Labour. I thought that was a healthy result for democracy, removing the Mafia-like stranglehold of Labour north of the border, would lead to improved governance and might presage a similar result for Wales.
How tragically mistaken I was.
Cummings probably would have done, given his lack of respect for parliamentary democracy and lack of political sense. Not sure whether Johnson’s new team are quite so aggressive.
But the pretext might come in handy if they start making noises about Sindyref that he doesn’t relish.
Who has the power to abolish or force reform on such an organisation, if the Scottish government won’t?
Maybe there’s a Scottish QC with a grievance, who might want to peruse this?
But I don’t know.
And Stokes, you idiot. Why did you throw it away like that?
There is of course the more general issue of politics in the quangocracy, which New Labour pushed hard, the SNP appear to have replaced one with another over time, and a certain government advisor was determined to replace in England.
And yes, Stokes was an idiot for that. Could have been a century there.
Bullying and belligerence are the stock in trade of the SNP's troops, to mask and deflect from their lack of answers and ability across the range of government - as we will no doubt see on this thread. Many tempted by independence will still have grave concerns that those who would take them there have no answers to the questions that lost them the vote in 2014 - on jobs, on the economy, on the currency, on the role of Scotland in an EU any would be hard-pressed to hold out as a beacon of hope.
The only thing that independence answers is "not this". But foor those that would wish them well in their split from the UK, the alternative on the evidence to date looks like it could be a change to the very tawdry.
A sorry state of affairs.
Nevertheless, I do expect them to win a clear majority in May at Holyrood. The Conservatives are too unpopular - and may go backwards in fishing communities - and Labour too listless (and leaderless) to make a dent. The best I could see is more SNP votes switching to the Greens, but they are also pro-independence.
Final thought: in the 2010GE Labour did well in Scotland because there was a Scottish PM and Scottish Chancellor in contention for the UK.
As always, identity is critical. Voters will forgive (or ignore) an awful lot else.
Labour seemed invincible at the time, and we wanted chunks knocked off them and to know they were beatable.
Mistake.
Thanks for the piece, David.
A couple of nice quotes:
Labour and the Lib Dems should trad very carefully
err. yep.
I prefer Yogi: It ain't over until..., since if I mention fat ladies someone will be perpetually offended.
or perhaps Pooh:
Before beginning a Hunt, it is wise to ask someone what you are looking for before you begin looking for it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/technology/russia-covid-vaccine-disinformation.html
I've been struggling to keep up with the Cherry story so this helps.
The latter suggests a learning point from the pandemic - but also suggests the almost-as-good-as-promised inquiry/review will be a long time in coming, since changes to NHS management and direction would be an obvious output from a retrospective on covid.
What a season Joe Root is having.
That’s as optimistic as my hopes for a date with Margot Robbie.
What a shot, what an innings, what a riposte to all his critics.
Which have, of course, never included me, how dare you say such a thing and rake up all those old posts which were actually written by my tomcat.
Collectively they created the tragedy we see unfolding before us.
There are moves to change that, but formidable practical difficulties in the way.
And even if there weren’t, I suspect the government would prefer a spring election to another autumn or winter one.
"a Unionist government negotiated a nationalist solution."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/05/solution-irish-border-problem/
Into that already-charged atmosphere, the party has not only embraced the political grenade of full trans rights advocacy but did so via dodgy procedural dealing
Reform of the GRA was an item in the SNP manifesto. I fail to understand what was dodgy about this?
I don`t follow cricket - can someone explain why England aren`t declaring at 450? Won`t they run out of time for the win?
https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1357960033372426240
https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1357967791291252737
Let's hope he's upgraded his car since the last time he was in the public eye.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBilGkxGFF8
It doesn’t work as well as it used to, now they play for a fixed 90 overs a day, instead of until sunset.
Didn't we used to have matters of conscience. It's not as if the traditional side is saying that women should stay at home and work and men must be mechanics!! There is plenty of concern from for example battered wives concerned that a violent husband would have claimed to be a woman to track them down.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/england-tour-of-india-2016-17-1030195/india-vs-england-5th-test-1034817/full-scorecard
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/feb/05/fox-news-lou-dobbs-tonight-canceled
https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1357889582059188225
https://twitter.com/alexburnsNYT/status/1357871231400296448
Sell it as a brexit measure (but it catches Scotland as well)
Determination of whether it is a constitutional matter left to the government (acting quasi-judicially) with a right of appeal to Supreme Court
Provision that it can only be set aside by a specific resolution in Parliament voted on by both houses
I suspect no one really gets upset except the SNP and may be a few EU obsessives.
My sympathies here lie with Sturgeon. She inherited a difficult problem, and she largely did what I think I would have done in the same circumstances.
If you want a sexual harassment case that led to the resignation of a First Minister, see Carwyn Jones.
As always, Welsh Labour provide a text-book case in how NOT to handle it.
The list of people who don’t fit into "XX is female, XY is male" is long & the anti-trans campaigners are quite happy to throw all of them under the proverbial bus in order to get what they want.
Secondly, I agree entirely that if this could be a "matter of conscience" that was purely personal then, like religious differences, we could all agree to get along. But the goals of "gender critical feminism" is in direct conflict with those of trans people (GC feminists tend to not care about transmen, seeing them mostly as confused lesbians. They reserve their ire for trans women) - GC feminists regard the entry of trans women into female spaces as something to be resisted at all costs.
This is what has poisoned the discourse - you have a committed, campaigning group who’s goals are in direct conflict with the desire of trans people to be able to live their lives as their desired gender. I don’t think there is a solution possible, except one side or the other "winning".
For David's analysis and prediction to come true Sturgeon has to go. If she remains in charge of the SNP I really struggle to see the SNP not getting a majority (much though I would want to). Those that play close attention and are, in fairness, instinctively hostile look at what has been going on with really strange calls by Crown Office, by retrospective rule changes to catch Salmond, by Civil Servants behaving in a truly extraordinary fashion and conclude that there is something rotten in the State of Bute House, something deeply unhealthy and undemocratic, but it is delusional to think that this is having the sort of impact on Scottish opinion that it should have.
The only people capable of binging Sturgeon down are those in the SNP. I wish them luck.
"It is quite striking how at the first whiff of gunpowder the policy of the last 30 years of localised commissioning and increased independence of providers vapourised. Since March the NHS has had a top down system more centralised than ever in its history. Decision making descends from Whitehall, and while some of these decisions may well have been mistaken or reckless, others have been more successful. Even Mr Corbyn must have raised a quizzical eyebrow at the requisitioning of the Private Hospitals, and effective abolition of private medical practice in the UK for the first time in history.
How long will this centralised system continue? Or will services be restored to local organisational control, with all the risks of fragmentation"
From:https://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/05/17/28-weeks-later-the-coronavirus-aftermath-for-the-nhs-and-its-political-implications/
I have no particular axe to grind about NHS reforms, or at least since I left the Labour Party in the early noughties because of Milburn reforms and Iraq. Reforms come and go, and I always politely listen to the latest garbage from wet behind the ears management consultants. I have seen it all before, and let it wash over. A year or two later a new reform always scraps the one that preceeded it, and along come a fresh cohort of fresh faced MBAs who know nothing of health.
I got some things wrong in that header, particularly underestimating the second and third waves. This only makes the waiting lists longer though.
Those 40 hospitals need building now, but more importantly we need a plan for training. It isn't only schoolkids who have missed a year, we have trainee surgeons that haven’t operated for a year, and junior cardiologists who can manage CPAP but not unstable angina. There is a lot of burnout, and will be a lot of early retirements. Building a hospital will be easier than staffing it.
How about if the next Labour government passed legislation saying all previous plebiscites are revoked unless they got over >75% of the electorate's support.
It will be an avalanche once the dam breaks.
It's been building through peaks and troughs since the 1960s.
Lowering the age of consent for gay people from 21 to 18/16 would lead to serried ranks of gay men standing outside schools which is similar to the fears that men pretending to be women would be visiting women's changings room.
There are other examples.
I follow Tony Connelly for objective analysis.
There really are no-one as mean as the British upper middle-classes, the Remain constituency par excellence .
Let the bastards pay a reasonable wage, & I am sure they will be able to find child-care.
But it's not a good idea anyway. All referendums need their own legislation so that could just amend the Referendums (25-Year Restriction) Act to make an exception or override, rather in the same way that the FTPA was ignored to enable the 2019GE.
And a very good morning to one and all.
Batting first gives you something like a 3/1 advantage. Bat long enough, and you secure the draw, and give the pitch time to wear enough to make batting much harder in the next innings. It’s the reliable way to win.
There will be a winning side and a losing side in any referendum (which will have to happen in due course). There will be exhilaration among the winners and disappointment among the losers. Scottish independence may happen, or it may not. That is democracy.
But, if Scottish independence happens, why is it a "tragedy" ? It is the right of any people to chose their own future.
Do you even understand what a "tragedy" is ?
This was a remarkably irony blind comment from one of his Trump supporting state critics...
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/05/ben-sasse-2024-466424
“ The man is one of the most condescending, arrogant, narcissistic individuals I’ve ever had the unfortunate circumstance to deal with, to meet,” said Desautels, whose county party is holding an emergency meeting on Saturday to consider a resolution to censure Sasse. “He does not represent Republican values, as far as I’m concerned.”...
In the case of transrights regarding self-identification they do potentially come into conflict with women's rights in refuges, sports and changing rooms, and their identity as women with unique experiences down to their sex and biology as a result. I'd say it's less of an issue the other way (women > men) where there are fewer of them and the social issues less pronounced, but don't forget the young man (ex woman) who recently took Tavistock to court, and won, on the issue gender treatment for minors.
I don't think rights issues can be explained away by referencing back to past equality battles and dismissing any criticism as bigoted; in fact, I'd say that's disingenuous and makes it less likely to build a more accepting and tolerant society.
‘It’s a lot more slightly away from his ears.’
It's all too murky that I doubt enough people will remain interested enough for any conclusion to really cut through though.
I do find it bizarre that having been so very disciplined, eerily so, the SNP have had public spats over trans issues.
Brexit creates the opportunity for a level playing field in migration. An Australia, Lithuanian, French and Tanzanian person should all be in the same position, replacing the system whereby 400,000,000 people having absolute rights made life difficult/impossible for the rest who went to the back of the queue.
This is good.
Implementation may of course be rubbish - after all this is the old Home Office.
Because of Brexit it can be changed and your vote and voice counts.
Don't confuse the questions. Many Remainers don't seem to understand the matter, and are full of whataboutery over individual issues which the UK has control over. dealing with it is called politics. Ask a Belgian who he should vote for to get the vaccine programme sorted.