We’re not sure why John Swinney made a big show of dragging all his ministers away from their desks to Bute House today in order to tell them nothing had changed. All he’s done is give Kate Forbes the smallest possible sliver of Shona Robison’s job and everything else has stayed the same.
The most striking aspect of it was the visible and audible distress on the faces and in the voices of some of the Royal Navy sailors who’d been on the ships which sent the German battleship to the Atlantic seabed as they told the story of the final battle.
We were going to write a follow-up piece to this last week, until the SNP detonated a hand-grenade in its own trouser pocket. But with the coronation of John Swinney this afternoon after the only challenger sold out for some shiny beads and trinkets, we can get back to some serious news.
The controversial charity LGBT Youth Scotland, which has been involved in a number of serious child sexual abuse scandals, continues to exert considerable influence on Scotland’s education system, thanks to extremely lavish funding from taxpayers – well over a million pounds from hard-pressed councils in the last year alone to address unspecified issues whose urgency is difficult to identify.
After our last piece we sent LGBTYS a letter raising our concerns about their improper interference with primary schools, something we were obliged to do before we could file a formal complaint with Scotland’s charity regulator, the OSCR.
We received an automated reply on 24 April saying “We are currently experiencing staff shortages and it may take up to a week to respond to your email.”
That deadline expired five days ago, and we will now be writing to the OSCR. But in the meantime LGBTYS persists in exceeding its remit, with deeply alarming results.
We’ve already posted a shorter and snappier soundbite from this video on our Twitter, but it’s really worth watching the full version here:
Because the body language is remarkable. For three and a half minutes, Neil Gray is completely unable to look his former colleague – an SNP MSP until a few months ago, a fellow government minister until 2022 – in the eye.
He sits stiff as a board, his teeth gritted, his face like thunder, staring directly ahead at the back wall of the studio as Ash Regan patiently and calmly outlines the extremely modest requirements Alba had set out in return for supporting Humza Yousaf and the SNP government in Parliamentary votes of confidence.
And when host Stephen Jardine asks him what exactly was so unreasonable about them, he can’t help himself, and blurts out that it was really all about preventing Alex Salmond from regaining any sort of influence on Scottish politics and insisting that his “rehabilitation” could not be permitted, even if the result of blocking it was the loss of an SNP First Minister and the potential bringing down of an SNP government.
And at this point a fair-minded person might ask: rehabilitation from what, precisely?
In the dying days of World War 2, as Berlin crumbled to rubble under Russian bombs and rockets, the Nazis played a desperate last card in the shape of the Volkssturm, an ad hoc fighting force primarily comprised of old men, invalided veterans and those not deemed fit for normal military service. (As most of those were already dead.)
They were rounded up and sent off to the front (usually only a few hundred yards away) in their civilian clothes, armed with whatever odds and sods of weaponry could be scrabbled together – most commonly the one-shot Panzerfaust anti-tank grenade, as seen in the pic above – and invariably slaughtered in the streets by the disbelieving battalions of the Red Army, because it didn’t matter to Hitler whether they lived or died.
So there it is. In a massive, humiliating and abrupt reverse, the Scottish Greens have announced that they’ll support the Scottish Government – still led for the foreseeable future by Humza Yousaf – in this week’s confidence motion.
Shockingly enough, the debate about the Greens’ principles, intellectual consistency and integrity was an extremely brief one. Faced with the loss of their relevance and influence, they crumbled like month-old carrot cake and rushed their cards onto the table before the SNP had time to do any thinking.
Any hope Kate Forbes might have had of leading the SNP just evaporated, and so did any hope of grown-up government between now and 2026. The SNP will now spend the next two years as pathetic, grovelling puppets, doing whatever the Greens want as long as the paycheques and pension contributions keep rolling in.
It’s a tragic demise for a party that just a couple of years ago still crushed all before it in Scottish politics. But that’s showbiz, folks.
We don’t really have very much to add to our analysis of yesterday. Sunday’s papers and politics shows have just confirmed our view of where things stand.
But for those whose heads are spinning, let’s see if we can make it simpler.
Mark Beggan on The more you change nothing: “The Woke is on the run. Fantasies abandoned, cover ups by the dozen, can’t explain won’t explain. legal gagging, block,…” Apr 10, 17:08
Sven on The more you change nothing: “John McGregor. If the case goes to trial, John. A plea in bar of trial would result in very little…” Apr 10, 16:23
John McGregor on The more you change nothing: “The alleged Embezzler should throw the “got off scot free” Fraudster under a bus at the court case” Apr 10, 15:41
Young Lochinvar on The more you change nothing: “Look on the bright side; at least Guigliano is missing from the list. Clouds and silver linings an’ that..” Apr 10, 15:33
Lorn on The more you change nothing: “Anyone who is still a member and/or votes for them needs a brain transplant. No independence. Just faux penises and…” Apr 10, 14:49
JockMcT on The more you change nothing: “And we are supposed to vote for this pile, I don’t think so…” Apr 10, 14:39
Young Lochinvar on The more you change nothing: “Shower of coprolites.. At least one positive though; Guigliano is missing from the list!” Apr 10, 14:14
Is perjury not a crime on The more you change nothing: “You are sockaphobic and the Hate Monster will seek you out” Apr 10, 13:52
Vivian O’Blivion on The more you change nothing: “The wans who ken where the bodies are buried. The question isn’t why certain individuals were retained, but why they…” Apr 10, 13:46
Mark Beggan on The more you change nothing: “Coprophagia in a barrel. Waiting for the ‘anointed one’.” Apr 10, 13:26
duncanio on The more you change nothing: “Now that Branchform has completed, with only the male lavender charged, they presumably feel it is safe to continue with…” Apr 10, 13:20
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The more you change nothing: “I wouldn’t trust them to change their socks.” Apr 10, 13:07
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The more you change nothing: “True story: Leo Miklasz’s band is called WHITE.” Apr 10, 13:06
Maxxmacc on The more you change nothing: “As with the recent election of Mhairi Hunter, it all points to the same conclusion, that NS is still firmly…” Apr 10, 13:00
Alison on The more you change nothing: “A toxic blend of the downright nasty & the serially incompetent. What can go wrong?” Apr 10, 12:55
Rogueslr on The more you change nothing: “They all seem very, what was the word Humza used? White?” Apr 10, 12:48
McDuff on Empty hands and empty heads: “Yeah its as you say rev, words, words, meaningless words, all empty, no passion, no direction, no initiatives, nothing. I…” Apr 10, 12:32
Dunx on Empty hands and empty heads: “The 2024 figure for The National was about 2.5K per day. Down 14 per cent on 2023.” Apr 10, 12:18
Aidan on Empty hands and empty heads: “ABC reports the average circulation of an edition of The National was c.3,500 in 2022. Of which less than 700…” Apr 10, 12:09
diabloandco on Empty hands and empty heads: “It would be interesting to know the financial state of both the Herald and the National – even more interesting…” Apr 10, 11:38
Lorn on Empty hands and empty heads: “How many young people read newspapers? The only people who appear to read it now are either ‘trans’ apologists or…” Apr 10, 10:48
Lorn on Empty hands and empty heads: “They will need to have at least one candidate from one of the other independence parties in each constituency, otherwise…” Apr 10, 10:38
PacMan on Empty hands and empty heads: “To use an Americanism, this ‘Real Rebellion’ talked about by Adam is as much cringe as the Democrats ‘Choose a…” Apr 10, 10:14
Young Lochinvar on Empty hands and empty heads: “Used to be an ok paper. Greg Moodie, grown ups writing articles, heck even a bit of a laugh from…” Apr 10, 01:42
Peter McAvoy on Empty hands and empty heads: “When will these people realise that they wrecked politics and society when they allowed the trans lobby to hijack and…” Apr 10, 01:36