So it turned out there was very little new information in this story.
But the tiny bit there was raises an extremely disproportionate number of issues.
7 April 2023: “Your priorities will be my priorities.”
1 April 2023: “Here are our priorities.”
Now for the surprise!
So let’s just recap where we are with this.
Because it really doesn’t look very good.
Readers with any modest working knowledge of Scottish politics in recent years would naturally assume at first sight that the illiterate, corrupt, self-serving, gravy-hoovering drama student with whom the SNP hilariously replaced experienced KC Joanna Cherry as shadow justice secretary simply couldn’t spell “final straight”, a term meaning the easy last stretch of a horse race where there are no jumps or turns.
(We are, after all, talking here about someone who can’t spell her own name.)
But they might be wrong.
On a day like today, all an honest person can really do with the Scottish National Party is make like Pontius Pilate and wash their hands of it.
Because there ain’t no resurrection from this.
Well, what an odd day that’s been.
Because for a start, if you’re the one person in Scotland who believes the above, please drop us a line. We’d love to have a chat with you.
Until a few weeks ago Calum Steele was the chief of the Scottish Police Federation, so as due-credits go we particularly appreciate this one.
So let’s remind ourselves of a few things.
Presented without comment.
And a bonus one, from two years and one day ago:
So a week and a bit after the deadline, this arrived.
And it’s not quite what you were told before.
In June of last year, I started work at Transport Scotland. It wasn’t the best job I’ve ever had. It was pretty much an entry-level post and it was only a temp gig through an agency, but after spending almost six years out of the workforce following a bout with cancer, two frozen shoulders, and chronic knee and hip pain, it was a huge relief just to be earning my keep again.
Of course, June is Pride Month, and Saltire (the Scottish Government’s intranet) was full of news and blogs about “LGBTI+” issues.
Also on the Saltire front page was a prominent invitation to two training sessions to understand the issues facing these groups: “LGBT+ Awareness 101” and “Trans 101”.
These were both run by the LGBTI+ Network, one of several “affinity networks” for civil servants belonging to different groups. With the GRR Bill on the horizon, and having heard stories about how difficult it had been for gender critical groups to get a hearing from the Government in relation to it, I was very curious to hear what this training involved, and I signed up to attend via Teams.
The first session was “LGBT+ Awareness 101”. This session was fairly inoffensive. The content regarding gay people was about what you would expect, and the T+ stuff was clearly biased, but not terrible.
However, the tone of the event suggested quite strongly that you weren’t meant to disagree with anything that was said. Towards the end, when questions were invited, I typed my question into the chat:
“How does the Scottish Government handle conflicts between TERFs and trans people?”
And there my troubles began.
Scottish politics might be a binfire floating down an overflowing sewer, but it’s nice to know there are at least a few things that are reliable constants, and one of them is that George Foulkes is an idiot.
But while his tweet is wrong, it’s not VERY wrong.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
