Not for the first time, a certain section of society in Scotland and elsewhere is today engaged in the furious insistence that words don’t mean what they actually mean.
The words above are not ambiguous. They call for the “elimination” of “all laws limiting [the] legal capacity of adolescents […] to consent to sex”. The only laws which limit the legal capacity of adolescents – people aged from 10 to 19, according to both the World Health Organisation and the United Nations – to consent to sex are age of consent laws. The clue is somewhat in the name.
If organisations don’t want those laws abolished so that 10-year-olds can have sex, then they shouldn’t sign their names to statements saying that they do.
At the weekend we all beheld the bizarre sight of two supposed investigative Scottish politics journalists sneering and trying to play down what appeared to be a genuinely major story about a live police inquiry into a possible £600,000 criminal fraud involving the party of government in Scotland.
Both of them work for the same rival outlet, so the most generous interpretation that could reasonably be put on their curious behaviour is that they were simply trying to focus attention instead on that outlet’s own big Sunday splash – also ostensibly a story of political fraud, albeit on a much smaller scale.
So let’s just clear that one up now to help them out.
It’s already getting hard to keep up with the string of well-kent faces and veteran indy campaigners leaving the SNP to join Alex Salmond’s new Alba Party.
Any time you’re not sure whether something that happens in Scottish politics is good or bad for the cause of independence, here’s a top tip for you: see how the enemies of independence feel about it.
“Running scared” would seem to be a fair, if understated, summary.
Hey folks, remember the happy days when indyref 2 was going to be in “the first half” of the next Parliament? Well, here comes the totally surprising and unexpected news.
This was Ian Blackford on Sky News yesterday, quietly confirming that at best we can expect it in the SECOND half of the Parliament, ie 2024 at the earliest. (And that’s with all the usual waffly evasiveness about how it could be achieved.)
It’s a curious thing to say before either of the inquiries has delivered its report. The only people who are asserting that Sturgeon has been somehow cleared of involvement in a conspiracy are the SNP, and even their own voters are split down the middle on it.
But let’s just check on how big the SNP are winning right now.
When Nicola Sturgeon is finally held to account for the charred, twisted and shattered ruins that she’s made of Scottish political and civic society in her desperate attempts to save her own neck, the complete discrediting of ostensible support organisations for victims of rape will be near the very top of the charge sheet.
But before we talk about that you really need to read this.
Because if you live in Scotland you can only rationally be one of two things at this moment in history: (a) terrified, or (b) an idiot.
