Weak in the presence of beauty
There’s an excellent column by Mandy Rhodes in Holyrood Magazine today that says something we realised quite a long time ago.
It’s simply this: Nicola Sturgeon is a disastrously weak leader.
Sturgeon herself has suggested that she suffers from so-called “impostor syndrome”, a psychological condition which disproportionately affects high-achieving women.
Among the characteristics of impostor syndrome is a pathological fear of criticism and therefore an aversion to risk, because any failure or perceived failure will feed the existing belief that the sufferer isn’t up to their job.
And if Nicola Sturgeon’s reign as leader of the SNP has been characterised by one thing, it’s an aversion to risk and an absolute terror of doing anything unpopular.
Some readers may already dismiss these assertions as ridiculous on the grounds that simply by being leader of the SNP, Sturgeon already gets a vast barrage of criticism. But of course, all that does is reinforce the syndrome. When roughly half of Scotland is constantly attacking you, the only thing that stops you being totally overwhelmed by your self-doubt is the backing of your loyal supporters.
And what that’s meant is that Sturgeon has shied away from every difficult decision she’s faced since becoming First Minister in 2015. Every time one comes up, her instinctive reaction is to kick it into the long grass and hope it goes away.
So the Named Persons scheme was delayed and delayed and delayed until it basically (and ironically) died of neglect.
Rightly-controversial gender reforms have been repeatedly pushed back and put out to a series of fake “consultations”, with Sturgeon refusing to publicly take any sort of stance or even state her own opinion on the matter, even though it’s been staggeringly obvious which side she’s on for a long time.
And when COVID-19 was almost eradicated in Scotland last summer, Sturgeon bottled the decision to close Scotland’s borders (despite public support for the idea) or maintain lockdown until the job was finished. The resulting resurgence of the virus has claimed thousands of lives.
But in fairness, Sturgeon has been consistent. In 2015, days before the UK general election, she insisted that it was “not about independence”.
In her speech to the SNP conference ahead of the 2016 Holyrood election, she played independence down again, saying nothing stronger than that she wouldn’t “rule out” another referendum “over the next few years”.
In the lead-up to the Brexit vote, she said that wasn’t about independence either.
At the 2017 UK general election she repeated, word for word, her 2015 line that the election was “not about independence or about another referendum”. (This was widely reported at the time although weirdly we can’t actually find an original source for the 2017 version of the quote.)
She assured voters that the 2019 European elections weren’t about independence.
And yet just months later at the 2019 UK general election, despite having denied that any previous vote was about independence, her manifesto said that an SNP win would simply “endorse” an existing “clear mandate” for a new referendum.
The 2017 manifesto had also stated that a majority of SNP seats would merely be underlining an existing mandate:
So a pattern has emerged: every time there’s a vote, Sturgeon says it isn’t about independence, then afterwards she says it’s a mandate for a new referendum, and then the UK government says no and she does nothing about it until the next election, which she also says isn’t about independence, and off we all go again.
(A succession of Westminster governments has successfully managed to sustain that “democratically unsustainable” refusal to grant a new referendum for almost five years, despite the mandate being clearly established in the 2016 manifesto.)
Countless opportunities to act have been squandered because Sturgeon lacks the courage to risk her own popularity and status.
No attempt was made in five years to establish the legal right to hold a referendum – something which the SNP recently announced as their great masterplan for after the NEXT election. No attempt was made to leverage the SNP’s unprecedented position of power at Westminster between 2017 and 2019, by trading a new indyref for support for a Brexit deal which would have been far better than the one the UK actually got.
Chance after chance went begging, and every time Sturgeon refused to take the shot because she was paralysed by fear of losing and/or bad headlines.
But we’ve been over all that stuff before, and those specific cases are just symptoms of the real problem – Sturgeon’s weakness as a leader.
The transgender row currently tearing the party in two literally as we speak (NEC members are at this very moment being asked to agree to a definition of “transphobia” that most of them still haven’t even seen) should have been dealt firmly with years ago – a position should have been taken, stated and then defended.
Complaints from both sides about abuse should have been dealt with rather than ignored and allowed to fester to a point where, ridiculously, the party is being savaged from within both as misogynist and transphobic. But a weak leader too afraid to face down either side allowed a policy debate to turn into a vicious civil war.
And the other out-of-control bin fire currently raging in the SNP has the same root. It was weakness, impostor syndrome and paranoia that led Sturgeon to see Alex Salmond as a threat even after he lost his Westminster seat and was happily making a living as a TV and radio broadcaster and successful Fringe performer.
It was the attempt to definitively destroy Salmond’s reputation and thereby remove any perceived threat to her leadership authority that spiralled out of control into a highly damaging judicial review then into a criminal trial, which has backfired spectacularly and may well bring about Sturgeon’s ejection from Bute House.
(The deliberate absence of any credible replacement as First Minister, most obviously revealed in the determined effort to keep Joanna Cherry out of Holyrood, is another illustration of weakness and paranoia, and a huge failure of leadership in itself. A strong leader prepares a successor, as Salmond did with Sturgeon herself. A weak one is so afraid of challenge that anyone strong is isolated and excluded.)
But it was only the last straw in a catalogue of examples of a deep-seated weakness of character. Sturgeon’s administration will be remembered only for failures and fudges. Scottish welfare and tax agencies delayed for years. Failure to save Prestwick or BiFab or sort out the CalMac ferries. Failure to bring about land reform or fix the Council Tax. Catastrophes in care homes and over exams. Worsening stats in almost all domestic fields. The still-not-open children’s hospital. The absolute shambles of the Growth Commission, which took the case for independence backwards and alienated large sections of support on the left. The stitch-up of Mark McDonald. And of course the shameful, disgraceful, corrupt obstruction of the Salmond inquiry.
And on the positive ledger? Um, the baby box. That’s about it. We honestly struggle to think of any other real notable achievements of the 2016-2021 SNP administration. The mitigation of the bedroom tax was won under Alex Salmond in February 2014. By all means remind us of any we’ve forgotten in the comments.
(Election victories? The 2015 one was really Alex Salmond’s legacy. Sturgeon lost a Holyrood majority in 2016, lost control of the only two SNP majority councils in 2017, lost 21 MPs later the same year and only won half of them back in 2019, despite the Unionist parties being in tatters in both Scotland and the UK. The only clear-cut triumph was the 2019 Euro election, whose MEPs served for just six months.)
All of it came from a lack of willingness to take tough decisions and risk damage to her Selfie Queen/National Mammy image and the adoration of her young woke activist base – most strikingly displayed in her abject begging for their forgiveness this week over the trans issue, when hundreds of women quitting the party over misogynist abuse hadn’t attracted so much as a passing word of regret.
(See also the botched, one-sided handling of the party’s brief “anti-Semitism” crisis.)
Everything Nicola Sturgeon does is governed (whether consciously or unconsciously) by obsession with her approval ratings, and those are ultimately worthless – Richard Nixon was massively popular before the Watergate scandal brought him down. The brutal truth is that she has impostor syndrome because she actually is an impostor.
The incredible resilience of the Yes movement since its defeat in 2014, with no support and often outright open hostility from the SNP, has been a glorious and beautiful sight. But Nicola Sturgeon has been a weak leader when that movement needed a strong one, because she’s a weak person. That weakness may yet prove her downfall, and if it does it won’t be a day too soon.
One wonders if she gets her way with the transphobia definition and with it, a possible attempt to remove Joanna Cherry as a future leader, if killing the SNP will also be added to her ledger of failure. Cherry commands a lot of respect amongst many SNP voters who would follow her to a new party.
I was inspired by Yes activists in 2014 and still am.
Joining the SNP in early 2015, I thought that YES enthusiastic approach would carry through.
No it dwindled on the above type of syndrome so well described.
All bloggers are now recognising the absolute need for change of leadership in SNP for it to go back to being the party it was until Alec Salmond resigned as leader.
I will work with YES Movement only now, in the hope change can happen.
No leaks coming out of the NEC Stu or are you just holding back.
Decision taken will determine my and many others I know ongoing memberships of the SNP
Another accurate article.
1 wee point to add to to the Positive ledger: The change in Organ & Tissue donation is now opt-out, rather than opt-in.
Not sure when that legislation was passed but it is kicking in now.
Baby boxes, well not really. The Finnish baby box is just an inducement to new parents to get them to sign them up to parenting classes and to make contact with child services.
When people from the Scottish Government went to Finland to find out about this scheme the Finns kept saying they were completely missing the point, but The Scots were only interested in what was in the box!
Bravo Stu! Another belter.
1. Baby boxes
2. Period products
I think that’s it. She’ll probably insist the latter are made available to these self-IDing weirdos that’ll never be able to use them as well.
Even more reason for Nicola Sturgeon to go.
Alex Salmond has many faults; one of those faults, thankfully, is not impostor syndrome.
Nicola Sturgeon has had his name removed from the history of the SNP movement which, at the moment, says much more about her than it does about him.
They say he will never return and that the well has been poisoned. I wouldn’t be so sure about that.
In spite of her and her crony’s best efforts the will for independence remains what needs to be decided is how to harness it. Are we all wasting time waiting for the inevitable long drawn out cling to power that will happen or god forbid the cover up of all cover ups that means she remains
The disappointment of time that has been wasted and as it looks the missed opportunity that will come from the fall out pre election this time must be put aside and everyone gets behind an alternative to this bunch of crooks as in my opinion its start again from scratch time
I reread David Torrance’s bio of her over the last two nights and have come to a couple of conclusions aboot her, including yours, Stu, that she’s a shit leader, amongst other things. I will be writing aboot my thoughts tonight. Sick of this emotionally stunted teenage-brained clown and everything she sneeringly stands for.
“It’s simply this: Nicola Sturgeon is a disastrously weak leader.”
Another manifestation of this is to have no viable back-up in the event that – heaven forfend – she is forced to resign or fall ill.
A strong back-up is a threat, and – as you correctly point out – she cannot deal with a perceived challenger.
When she goes, the SNP will be a hollowed-out shell; a pit where all the daft factions can fight it out.
Maybe the time ‘is’ ripe for a new indy party…
Remember the old “Dont make waves” joke?
Sadly its us thats left up to our bottom lips in shit
The comfort of being in “control” is all that matters to so many now… maybe its a Scottish thing as we have seen it with Scottish Labour in charge… especially back in the Glasgow Council days
To be fair the lost majority in 2016 was in fact a success because significantly increased support for the SNP moved them off the sweet spot they serendipitously found in 2011 (and which the designers of the system did NOT spot) and the proportionality measures of D’Hont which caused big divisors on the List really bit them.
Some of us saw it coming and argued hard for a vote for the Greens to compensate. We succeeded sufficiently despite ScotGoesPop arguing unmathematically against it. He is stil in denial over this issue. Thinks voters can get the SNP over the line on the List if they just try extra hard.
When voting ISP (because the Greens are too woke and not enough people will vote for them) can elect Yes people to Holyrood with much fewer votes. A mere 20% of SNP voters lending us their votes could put 2 ISP MSPs into Holyrood from each region.
Not much more please we can only afford to pay for 2 candidates in each region.
They say momentum is everything in politics. Boris Johnson’s popularity has risen in recent weeks and is now ahead of Kier Starmer. This is due only to the success of the Covid vaccination program.
Sturgeon’s continued popularity and the reason the press give her an easy time is because the public perception is that she has handled the pandemic better than Boris Johnson has.
If the Scottish roll-out continues to stall and to lag behind the English/Welsh/NI roll-outs, then that will change very quickly.
Soon, he may well be the least popular leader in the UK, instead of the most popular. ‘Impostor syndrom’ will be a problem in the Murrell household then all-right.
Not just failure to establish the legal right to an indyref, not just failure to use mandates. The Sturgeonites have refused to rouse the people of Scotland and refused to do what was needed to keep people in the right frame of mind to want to battle the colonial injustice. They have instead spread apathy.
Whether Sturgeon has been a wilful agent of Westminster or just a mental cripple who became an unwitting one makes little difference. The end result is the same.
I think this is unfair to describe our FM as weak. First of all Who exactly is a strong leader these days – in any party in any country?
As to all the policy failures: Name an unpopular policy that was railroaded through the system and imposed despite all protestations?
There is more banging on the table in Holyrood these last 20 years, they may well have doled out some baubles in the form of free prescriptions free tools, free education.
But the mark of a leader is getting the people to do what they don’t want to do, working harder, for longer, for less.
There is no sign of that anywhere.
An article I thoroughly agree with Mr Wings. I would add that I believe that the problem of self-indulgence/self-centredness without self-analysis/awareness makes for someone unable to take advice. No-one is capable of knowing and understanding all the different areas of governance and the wise leader not only chooses but trusts the word of those wiser and more knowledgeable.
In ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire?’ the wise contestant chooses a ‘phone a friend’ they know to be honest in giving an answer (especially if they don’t know the answer), the less-wise are like Nicola Sturgeon
La Sturge has had but one focus over the past year and it’s been to make sure sundry middle class, middle-aged FBPE types on Twitter keep saying “We love you Nicola! Wish you could stand down here!”
Neverending praise without responsibility, on the basis of what you say about a single issue, not even what you do.
“Period products” is an initiative credited to Monica Lennon.
Her failure to resist BawJaws’ idiotic 5-day Christmas Covid free-for-all was shockingly pathetic.
She had a good reputation for pandemic handling (even if it was only a PR victory compared with Westminster) but lacked confidence to say no to the Christmas madness which, of course, was reversed too late in the day by Johnson and obeyed by Scotland.
Many deaths are attributable to that particular failure of independent mind and policy.
Any sense she has of imposter syndrome is not that at all but simply a moment of sober realisation; she is an imposter.
And not fit to lead a chorus of Happy Birthday never mind a government, political party or, most importantly of all, a national movement.
Couldn’t agree more with this piece.
I think Nicola Sturgeon did genuinely want to achieve independence once upon a time. When she was Deputy Leader she had some power but didn’t need to make the “tough” decisions and during the 2007-2014 administration she and Alex were a great team.
But once she was in the highest elected office in Scotland the imposter syndrome was turned up to 11.
I have just spent the whole bloody morning of a Sunday ruining my eyesight curtailing the libellous comments from people defaming Wings and by implication, Stu Campbell, a morning of the last of my life.
Some are scumbag trolls, others are Scots claiming they support independence yet think their cold, mean-spirited, cockeyed sense of justice, and SNP corruption, are both fit for a new society.
If, after seven arduous, self-sacrificing, intense years devoted to the cause of Scotland’s liberty, I am to be categorised as a ‘Tory plant’, the sods can go eat their excreta tainted brains.
‘Taint’: the inch between genitals and anus.
Here’s the “not about independence or about another referendum” quote in 2017:
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15256258.general-election-about-backing-scottish-parliament-says-alex-salmond/
Great article again Rev. Unfortunately both Twitter and Facebook are awash today with “Nicola apologists.” We’re all going or Tories or mi5 for not falling into line. I cannae be daein wi that kind of subservience. These folk clearly believe she’s the bees knees and independence is within their grasp. Not if Ms Sturgeon has anything to do with it I fear.
May I direct your attention to their latest wheeze? Blocking folk who are for independence, but point out the clear deficiencies within the party. No not just wishy washy, but Dornan, Newlands etc. But hey, the SNP speak for me right? Only, not to me!
She has to go…now!
Obviously she has to go.
The Queensferry bridge is very nice.
@holymacmoses – She takes advice; she just tells them what she wants them to say beck to her.
She gave Leslie Evans a pay rise and a new contract in order to take the heat for the Salmond debacle and that’s what’s happening.
It’s happening right before our eyes and it is transparent enough isn’t it…..
What Craig Murray said in his avadavat shocked us all, but was anyone actually surprised?
Brilliant and bang on. Very well written.
I’ve been saying this for months – even if you remove the Salmond stuff, she’s been a complete failure on multiple fronts.
Dishonesty and dust.
“Another manifestation of this is to have no viable back-up in the event that – heaven forfend – she is forced to resign or fall ill.”
Dammit, I knew I’d forgotten something. Added a paragraph.
The only other positive stuff I can think of is the increase in sure start payments that don’t penalise those already with children from a previous relationship and the £10 child benefit payment due to start soon. I’m struggling to think of anything else that wasn’t enacted under the previous administration.
Regarding the article, I’m tired of the ‘both sides are toxic’ argument. Women are fighting to prevent men from riding roughshod over our rights and are subjected to vile abuse, whilst men are lauded by the State. Twas ever thus.
Papko says:
31 January, 2021 at 12:50 pm
I think this is unfair to describe our FM as weak. First of all Who exactly is a strong leader these days – in any party in any country?
I suspect that the New Zealand leader has a strength of character and I’m sure that neither you nor I know enough about all the other leaders world-wide to make such a judgement. Regardless of other countries, Nicola Sturgeon is unable to take advice and because of that, she always feels threatened if people make suggestion:-). The ‘good’ stuff you mention was carried through from the Salmond administration.
Joseph Heller of Catch22 fame wrote other books – the most under-rated one being ‘Something Happened’. In it there is a line which sums up Ms Sturgeon perfectly and makes clear why she is ill-equipped to be a leader
“I have a feeling that someone nearby is soon going to find out something about me that will mean the end, although I can’t imagine what that something is.”
? Joseph Heller, Something Happened
“Here’s the “not about independence or about another referendum” quote in 2017:”
Nope, that’s the same as the one I screenshotted – someone saying “she said this last week”, but not actually a link to where or when she said it.
Sturgeon’s an imposter all right, and a backstabbing, sleekit liar too boot. Hopefully she’ll be gone before the next election, she’ll be remembered for all the wrong reasons.
Her tenure as FM has been a disaster, good riddance I say.
Stu, piece at 12,56 is in moderation for one auto-misinterpreted word. Can you unlock? Ta. Onward!
“To be fair the lost majority in 2016 was in fact a success because significantly increased support for the SNP”
2011:
Constituency 45%
List 44%
Average 44.5%
2016:
Constituency 46%
List 42%
Average 44%
We used to be a movement with Independence driving us on.
Somewhere along the line the story started to focus more on the leader than on Independence. She was touted as being the saviour who everybody respected home and abroad. Fair enough.
Actions towards Independence though tended to fade into the background. Nothing was produced go confirm to the public how we would cope with Indy, though this was promised in a booklet to be issued to every household.
Its become a bit like the Moonies. We all want the same end product but have major differences in how we get there.
Have faith in the leader many shout, and they create excuses for all the delays because Nicola is popular. They crezte excuses for failures because Nicola is popular. They create excuses for downright dodgy governance because Nicola is popular.
Its become about Nicola not Indepdndence. Its the mistaken belief that Independence is unachievable without Nicola at the helm directing the ship. If that is the case we are in trouble.
She is probably right to say that many women suffer from ‘imposter syndrome’ and worry about being in charge, but not all back off from taking decisions that might make them unpopular. Unfortunately, this is deeply embedded in women’s sense of being ‘second best’ and most women will recognise it and its pernicious hold that it has on our psyches. To some extent, Scots have it, as do all people who feel second-rate, and it is hard to shake off, even for very successful women, but, by late middle age, it does start to wear off. Probably, many men feel the same, and, as they age, they become more confident, too.
Taking disastrous decisions through over-confidence (a male trait) can be just as bad as being unable to take any, although risk-aversion is a female trait more than a male one. Not all women are risk-averse, though, but the FM certainly is. She behaves like a rabbit caught in the headlights whenever a really hard decision has to be made. I’m afraid that the abasement video for trans was a hugely, massively mistaken tactic and only showed her weakness in the face of this pernicious and vicious gang of tyrants.
Partly, I think, she is afraid of alienating the party’s young, and young people, in general, who seem to be so very indoctrinated by this cultish, malignant trans lobby, and pseudo ‘wokism’, in general. They fail to understand that one’s views at twenty are very different from those at forty, and those at forty are different again from those at sixty. The perfect combination is an old head on young shoulders, but alas…
I am starting to feel sorry for the FM because her term is going to end disastrously, but, even now, when that must be obvious even to her, she seems unable to recognize it or acknowledge it, and do the only thing left: take the decision of a lifetime and declare the May election a plebiscitary one and face down the criticism. Split the Unionist ranks. It might not work, but a referendum is a far bigger risk. Offer Alec Salmond a hand, if not in friendship, in reconciliation. He knows, whatever his personal differences, that Scotland must be saved. Go out a shooting star, Nicola, not a damp squib. Please.
Alex Salmond had the means to use law to defend himself; otherwise he would have been gone to jail.
The Duff and Phelps Directors had the means too and they have taken the Scottish Crown Office to the cleaners.
How many other cases have we not heard of? Sturgeon has fingered someone, Swinney has set the legal attack-dogs on them and they have been silenced forever?
I can imagine there are a good few by now.
Papko, free prescriptions are not baubles.
A strong leader is one who is loved and hated in equal measure but respected by their opponents. Margaret Thatcher fits that bill and I think history will judge Alex Salmond similarly.
“and was happily making a living as a TV and radio broadcaster and successful Fringe performer”
But in 2017 he did announce an intention to stand for election again, which could well have been the catalyst for her subsequent actions.
Unopened Baby Boxes go for £15-£30 on Facebook marketplace.
It’s not “some womans syndrome” it’s being a grade A narcistic, psychopath.
Some people who know her just call her plain evil.
I don’t know how melodramatic that is.
Still 2000+ families might well share that viewpoint.
1.15m dozes of vaccine have been delivered. 540,000 Administered. The rest are lying in a fridge-freezer somewhere.
It’s supposed to be Jeane Freeman who’s organizing this? Anyone else….just her?
Completely accurate judgement of her character. A weak person who craves the approval of others and doesn’t have the self-confidence to be bold.
-Indycurious at 12.52-
Well observed.
At least Richard Nixon went to see Mao in China and brought an end to the disastrous Vietnam war, started by the Democrat John Kennedy.
Mrs Murrell should be so lucky.
So we are in the perfect catch 22 situation – we can’t win an Indy vote without her especially with her popularity with the maybes and we can’t get an Indy vote with her….it’s like Scotland at football we always end up fucking it up!
Two things, firstly in my opinion she has no back up leader as that would be a future threat to her leadership. hence the deputy leader is John Swinney.
The second is the thought that if the spring elections were to be cancelled due to the Covid outbreak. Would the registering of parties and candidates standing at a new later date for the elections be allowed? Or are the candidates and parties currently listed for the next Holyrood elections now set in stone regardless of when they actually take place?
Captain Yossarian says:
31 January, 2021 at 1:26 pm
1.15m dozes of vaccine have been delivered. 540,000 Administered. The rest are lying in a fridge-freezer somewhere.
It’s supposed to be Jeane Freeman who’s organizing this? Anyone else….just her?
Good Question Yossarian – Milo might know where they are but I’d rather go to ‘Orr’ to get the proper answer:-)
I would add that someone on here recently pointed out that her move against Alex Salmond was initiated in the week after Ruth Davidson overtook her personal polling rating. Talk about neurotic.
O/T.
I see that shit hole the BBC’s HQ in Glasgow was on fire this morning, with a bit of luck the BritNat propaganda building will remain closed permanently.
https://archive.is/2ESOt
I have always been in awe of Nicola Sturgeon’s approval ratings.
Normally when someone has such high ratings – slick presentation, a well oiled PR arm, and formidable debating skills are present.
But normally there are also some tangibles of good governance, innovation and policy delivery. With Nicola Sturgeon, it’s all style over substance. No delivery.
You are quite right. Her achievements in her 7 years of power and meagre.
I remain dismayed at the lack of press coverage the Murray/MacAskill revations have garnered in the last few days. No front pages, and barely covered on TV news. Is this press supression a depressing sign of whats to come, or have the floodgates just not pinged open yet?
Agree with every word, Stu.
It took me years to see through her and many still worship at her feet.
The reason for that, apart from the appalling opposition and lack of any plausible successor, is her excellent presentation skills.
Just this week, the National, the NS fanzine, published an article over her ‘agonising’ about shutting the border.
I nearly flipped, there should have been no agonising, it was a no brainer.
That begging video was a sight to behold. She craves the love of the spoilt weans. I remember being at a Conference a couple of years back, the youth team were in the front row and they held up Heart cards, we love you Nicola, she was nearly weeping.
As for what she’s achieved, someone else said, Holyrood has turned into a giant social work dept, I agree, middle class folk, deciding the lives of others they consider beneath them.
God knows how it will pan out, but the faithful still have their heads in the sand
@holymacmoses – Sir, Milo will consult his cash register and Orr will be vaccinating field-mice in his tent so he can shoot them later-on.
“The Queensferry bridge is very nice.”
Construction started in 2011.
@Alba
“So we are in the perfect catch 22 situation – we can’t win an Indy vote without her especially with her popularity with the maybes and we can’t get an Indy vote with her”
Exactly. And we are due another 5 years of it as well – which suits most folk just fine.
The more you vote for change, the more it all stays the same.
Given that SKY News are now circling their prey, I suspect that they have more on Ms Sturgeon and her SNP than they have let on so far. Could be interesting times ahead, although anyone who has been reading Wings will find their stories old hat, but those not reading Wings will be getting woken up to what is going on. One wonders if COPFs or Police Scotland will be paying SKY News a visit to put the frighteners on them. Incidentally, I see the Scotsman also has put out an article about the Holyrood Inquiry being designed to fail. the SNP firefighters are going to be busy in the weeks ahead.
The Queensferry Crossin also closes whenever the weather gets a bit chilly. Far from a triumph.
If anyone has doubts check out the year graph for ICU beds on tarvellingtabby
https://www.travellingtabby.com/scotland-coronavirus-tracker/
see the wave coming down from about 1st December and then the third wave as she refused to lock down for christmas. It is clear to see that if there had been a christmas lockdown the ICU beds would have been at zero a week ago. OK some people would have flouted the law but even then it should have been at zero by now. Instead we have triple the 7 days average deaths than the new year. This is absolutely terrible leadership! That is a lot of blood on her hands.
Then as Stu says there was the near eradication of the virus in the summer and the abysmally slow first lockdown. She still has herd immunity Leitch as NCD!
It is impossible to look at this in an impartial way
and not see a coward in control. Of course those decisions would have been difficult, that is what a true leader is for. As Craig Murray says we now have a cult of personality and a shit one at that.
She is a coward and has surrounded herself in cowards. A coward will never get us independence, she will always be to obsessed with herself and now she is fighting to stay out of jail even more so. The fighting corona excuse looks like a dark joke.
Once you see that and look backwards as i did you come to the same conclusion as Stuart. The speech last January was the first sign but i have never been interested in the party other than as a means to an end so it wasn’t difficult. The loyalists are going to get a real shock although they will probably find some way to blame everyone else. Wings primarily!
I though Trumpism was only in the tory mind. Did anyone else notice how Sturgeon tried to incite her proud boys?
Yesterday i went for a walk and mulling all this over i tried to think of one policy that the SNP stood for other than GRA and HCB and stopping brexit. I couldn’t think of one. Then i tried to think of one thing that the SNP had accomplished and there were a couple of compromises but i couldn’t come up with one full achievement.
They have kept the NHS in a pretty good shape i give them credit for that. That is no small thing but i can’t come up with anything else.
So got there in the end.
It has become apparent that the SNP is one-dimensional and that single facet has been built around Sturgeon.
Put simple, they (the SNP) cannot govern.
Put another way, she cannot lead.
If you are running a business you need to asemble a team and in that team you NEED dissenting voices. You need grit in the oyster. You need mavericks.
Weak leaders bring in yes-men.
Weak ministers surround themselves with those who are loyal and not those who are competent.
I see nothing in the current administration that inspires me to vote for independence even though self-determination has been my mantra for 50+ years.
The vision?
The coherence?
The plan?
The voice of the Scottish people?
All absent.
The last decade has been a wasted opportunity.
Stu is right.
If the SNP get in under the current administration, the Scotland we love is dead.
And so is the dream.
“The Queensferry Crossin also closes whenever the weather gets a bit chilly. Far from a triumph.”
It’s been closed for a total of about 24 hours in three and a half years.
Sorry!
Got a bit carried away.
Even forgot to shamlessly plug our own campaign: https://www.tns2019.org/new-blog-1/2021/1/31/we-got-it-badly-wrong
2 things strike me reading this. the first is why haven’t I seen this before and the second; the reflex reaction of, “Wings launches personal attack (on Mother Nichola of Govanhill by the ‘Men in Black, station locker’ like cult)! My own answer to the first point is that a certain inferred veneer of Scottish bluntness distracts from the cowardly neediness; traits so blatant in the unctious Prime Minister!
Re TNS2019 last comment.
The only reason the SNP are still in power is becuase of the rank standard of the leadership and foot soldiers of the opposition parties at Holyrood. A better standard of opposition would have meant the SNP would have had to up their game and a good number, if not all, of the lightweights and careerists currently sitting as SNP MSPs would have been removed to try and maintain a SNP government in Holyrood.
@Andybhoy – I don’t think it would work, Andy. Sky News aren’t afraid of Iain Livingston and John Swinney. I detect they will soon see them as figures of fun, as will we all.
As you say, even The Scotsman are joining-in now.
Sturgeon, and her wee personality cult, utterly depress me.
But thanks to the title of the article, I have Alison Moyet in my head. That can only be a good thing.
Another well crafted article Stuart. As you say, a pattern has emerged, and it is the pattern that reveals the truth. Personally I think Nicola Sturgeon suffers from impostor syndrome because she is a fraud and an impostor and is terrified of being exposed. If someone is not an imposter i.e. good at their job and knows what they are doing, then why would they suffer from impostor syndrome?
And has anyone made a rough tally of how much taxpayers’ money the SNP government have squandered through their incompetence (ferries, hospitals, trams inquiry etc. etc.), vindictive prosecutions and the resulting compensation? I don’t think the answer can be anything other than that they are a complete waste of taxpayers’ time and money!
As regards the inquiry, Sturgeon’s defence was always going to be “It wisnae me”! But as Captain Yossarian pointed out, Evans only does what her boss tells her to and her loyalty was bought with a pay increase and a renewed contract. If Sturgeon does try to pin the blame on her however then she may be forced to act in self-defence and Sturgeon’s glass jaw is protruding farther by the day.
@Andybhoy says:
31 January, 2021 at 1:29 pm
“Two things, firstly in my opinion she has no back up leader as that would be a future threat to her leadership. hence the deputy leader is John Swinney.”
Well he’s going to set the heather on fire…
@Skip NC
“Papko, free prescriptions are not baubles.”
So please give me an example of Salmonids strong leadership and one of Margaret Thatcher’s please?
here are mine.
Thatcher had demonic conviction, and took the axe to the dead wood it is true, but she also chopped down plenty healthy trees as well.
She did do this in the face of the most vociferous opposition from -just about everyone.
Yet she never seemed to waver or vacillate.
Salmond bobbed and weaved and got a referendum- which was certainly opposed by many and did elicit strong emotions, yet he pushed through right to the end.
I would argue that Sturgeon played a strong part in the 2014 campaign as did Blair Jenkins.
@ Captain Yossarian
I agree, I don`t think any attempt to intimidate Sky News would work, but given the levels of stupidity exhibited with the Salmond, Hirst and Murray affairs, I wouldn`t put it past them to do it.
However, if they were to do it, I would expect Sky News to go for the nuclear option. Afterall, once something that someone doesn`t want in the public domain is out there, a fine is a small price to pay in the aftermath of the political fallout.
She has been at the helm while support for Independence has increased for 20 consecutive polls being in the lead. No voters are obviously warming to her handling of the pandemic. If that’s weak, I’ll take it.
I would like UDI on the manifesto though.
Grousebeater has also very well covered the SNP and independence leadership gap https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/
to which I added the following comment:
“Scotland remains a modern slave nation, thoroughly colonised to a degree that is both subtle and glaringly obvious”
And which is invariably the rationale for independence of most oppressed ‘peoples’. Thank goodness for Scotland’s real intellectual bloggers, such as yourself, Grouse Beater. (and Rev Stu of course!)
Interesting that you should focus on the matter of leadership, an aspect of organisational behaviour I used to research and teach. As the current SNP leadership cabal crumbles to dust, it is difficult to see a new ‘independence’ leader evolving from that party’s elite. Many still have their favourites – Cherry, Kate somebody – and some even want to stick with a wounded and discredited Sturgeon until May at least.
I have instead tried to think of the leadership qualities needed for the task in hand, which is to deliver independence from our oppressor. This really requires someone who understands what colonial oppression is about, which would tend to exclude then the pampered bourgeoisie elite in the SNP.
And, like most of the great leaders of independence struggles, Gandhi, Mandela and so forth, these are people who have suffered most for the cause at the hands of a devious oppressor. Their commitment to the cause is unquestionable.
Let me say then that my optimal ‘leadership team’ for the independence struggle would be headed by a group of people such as Alex Salmond, Craig Murray and possibly also Tommy Sheridan, supported by whoever they wish to choose to include in their trusted group. (I would hope that Rev Stu would have a leading role too).
Only by having the right leadership team can we be sure that Scotland’s withdrawal from the UK union is being handled by those who know who they are dealing with, and what they are capable of.
Yep, great analysis again from the rev.
My opinion is she is a fucking fruit cake.
A more articulate opinion might say she craves power but is an absolute coward!
I once felt insecure, started to doubt my brilliance, insight and magnetic personality.
Then I realised I was just being silly.
The old Forth Bridge a few years was predicted to
have a further 15 year life span as the cable strands
were deteriorating at a significant rate.
I new bridge was essential to the economy and one that could
remain more often in High Winds.
All bridges with our climate have issues with the weather and the new bridge no different.
Remember none of the Unionists wanted it built so they wanted to damage our
economy to aid them in stopping anything that might be SNP Good.
Westminster built the old bridge that closes in the high winds.
It gets ice problems. The cable system has long term flaws in it.
If there was a design fault in it would you have said our Scot Gov designed or built the bridge
or just commissioned the proven experts with the best tender.
Don’t listen to pathetic Unionist crap like this and the baby boxes.
Over 70 years in Finland the boxes have been proved to save lives,
help the less well off families and give our children a better start in life.
And Unionist Would rather they died than have an SNP done good.
That just sums up their attitude to Scotland.
1 million % agreed with this post.
I’ve probably, along with not just too many, very vociferous in my condemnation of Sturgeons lack of leadership qualities, she is, in my opinion THE ONLY mistake Salmond ever made, he absolutely must be ruing the day he passed the baton to Ms Butterfingers.
How, how, how,could she have fvucked things up so majestically.
Heartbreaking.
‘ Independence has increased for 20 consecutive polls being in the lead. No voters are obviously warming to her handling of the pandemic. If that’s weak, I’ll take it.’
Nothing to do with Fucko the Clown?
I can’t find the original article. Surprise?
@Neil
UDI ?
From the party that
“So the Named Persons scheme was delayed and delayed and delayed until it basically (and ironically) died of neglect.
Rightly-controversial gender reforms have been repeatedly pushed back and put out to a series of fake “consultations”,”
Are we watching the same game? They could not get the Named Persons legislation through, it took 10 years for the Alcohol restriction.
And you think AUOB activists are going to storm the Post Offices and declare UDI?
Bit like a 50 year old Chemistry teacher trying to make Crystal Meth.
‘Don’t you think she looks tired?’
Nicola Sturgeon, eldest of three siblings. First in the family to get to uni. Regarded with some awe by relations because likes to read books. Dreghorn in the 80s presumably not a hotbed of bibliomania. All this gives an exaggerated sense of own intellectual gifts. At the same time a shy, awkward adolescent, feeling unable to come out about her sexual orientation.
Then the liberation of joining CND, then the SNP. Glasgow University and student politics. Away from council house North Ayrshire into a different, more exciting world with prospects. Fierce personal ambition that SNP talent scouts mistake to be zeal for indy. Makes the right noises.
Works way up party hierarchy. Learning to do the dirty on rivals. Devolution. A seat in parliament. A mentor in Salmond. Be the daughter he never had. Keep the resentment hidden and learn from him. Make the right noises to the party faithful. That personal ambition stronger than ever.
Swinney gone as leader. Perhaps undermined? Salmond returns to snatch the prize away. Resentment grows. Keep it hidden. Champanny Inn agreement. Play the loyal deputy for now. Partnership with Murrell.
Salmond secures majority, then indyref. But No vote narrowly wins. Invoke previous agreement. Leader and FM at last! Big time, travel the world. Craft image. Oor Nicola. Adoring fans.
No idea how to get indyref. Too risky anyway. Enjoy being FM too much. UN some day. Prefer to be surrounded by Yes boss types instead of Yes indy types. Wokeism arrives. What relief! Embrace it and assuage negative feelings for never having come out. Money keeps flowing in. High life for the Murrells. Long way from Dreghorn.
What’s this? Salmond critical about lack of progress on indy.
He might be coming back again. Resentment returns with a vengeance. Sleepless nights. Got to nobble. Conspire. Willing helpers. Out of hand. Oh fuck! Brass neck it. Cover up. Covid queen and best approval ratings. Woohoo, maybe ride this out. Dangle indy carrot in front of faithful again.
Andybhoy
Yep. As I have stated in previous posts, the woeful opposition must take the blame.
There is no ‘opposition’.
Neil says on 31 January, 2021 at 1:52 pm:
“She has been at the helm while support for Independence has increased for 20 consecutive polls being in the lead. No voters are obviously warming to her handling of the pandemic. If that’s weak, I’ll take it. I would like UDI on the manifesto though.”
Utter tripe! Support for indy has risen due far more to Brexit, UKGov COVID handling and their general nastiness towards Scotland. Not to mention the many pro-indy activists still promoting the cause. I know i do and i never mention Sturgeon if i can help it. It’s got relatively very little to do with Sturgeon.
Every one who has read the Craig Murray sworn affidavits should make it a point to send a copy to friends and colleagues who they think may not have read the shocking sworn testimony.
Moreover, the branches and constituency associations the length and breadth of the country should be providing a copy of this to all members so that they can be aware of the statements made. This would allow members to discuss and debate the matter.
Involving members would most certainly signal an openness that appears to have been gravely lacking over the recent past.
Additionally every constituency secretary should be mandated to write to their sitting MSP and or constituency candidates asking them to give their views on the sworn evidence now emerging.
Staying silent should not be an option.
I’ve met a thousand Sturgeons in my time. They tend to work in retail, often in HR. They’re always angry and joyless but you never find out why. It’s quite sad.
Some of them break out of it and end up going to art classes and getting into things like pottery, but that’s rare.
Most become pensioners before their time. I suppose they’re looking for somewhere to hide from the existential responsibility of having to define themselves. A lot of guys do that too, to be honest; we call it golf.
Nobody suffers existential nausea more than an educated peasant.
From another perspective, one of the things I’ve often worried about is the Scots’ willingness to place so much faith in a leadership figure. We need to watch this. It’s tribal. I don’t know if this is because we have, as a nation, been denied the opportunity to have “our own” leader for so long – every leader we have ever had has always been through the prism of approval of the home counties.
Although I suspect that Sturgeon’s apparently vast fawning approval as per the 100s of cringy facebook comments that often (but not always) appear under any utterance SEEMS to indicate that the people think she’s the second coming, when one follows a fair proportion of them back to account of origin it’s clear many of them are phantom profiles. So the approval isn’t quite as universal as it appears.
But, despite that weird and worrying fact (which was my first clue that all was not well in the SNP) there are still a fair number of folk who seem to need “oor Nicola”, and, having placed so much faith into her, are very unwilling to see anything other than their champion.
This may be a problem going forward, because although those that pay attention can see that there is an urgent need to remove her if the cause of independence is to be furthered, there are a lot of folk who still just see “our champion”.
So from a Macchiavellian perspective, if I wanted to demoralize a movement and remind an entire population that they were children who needed adult supervision, the public excoriation of said beloved leader would be a good way to do it. They tried it with Salmond and failed, they’ll do it with Sturgeon.
@Papko 31 January, 2021 at 1:46
“I would argue that Sturgeon played a strong part in the 2014 campaign as did Blair Jenkins.”
Blair Jenkins was one of the main reasons we lost in 2014. He was worse than useless. Squandered all the Yes monies on endless, stupid, ill considered leaflets that convinced nobody. If he had been serious HE would have produced the Wee Blue Book that was so desperately needed. I am still of the opinion he was a unionist place-man.
@Kapelmeister
Bravo. That’s the screenplay nailed!!!
@kapelmeister says:
31 January, 2021 at 2:07 pm
Perfect synopsis for a trilogy. Wonder if Netflix would be interested…
Just imagine if Shakespeare had been alive today, he could have written a Scottish play about a person who is so keen to be the leader that they will stoop to any means to get there. once there they will stoop to any means to stay there. I wonder how he would have finished it. Would the devious backstabber have been undone by the very methods they used to take power in the first place?
@Kapelmeister,
Tom Cruise as Murrell .
Jack Nicholson as Swinney
Will Smith as Pistol Pete Wishart.
ideas?
Regarding the free Tampax, I tried them last week and I still can’t run, swim or go a bike.
Yet it clearly states on the box that I could if I used this product.
Another Sturgeon lie.
-Kapelmeister at 2.07-
This rings true. It would almost make you feel a bit sorry for her, except for all the harm she’s done.
A Person @2:34
Yep.
-Bob Mack-
Iain McKellen as Alex Salmond- because he’s already done an acclaimed King Lear.
Margot Robbie as Rhiannon Spear.
Boris Johnson as Nicola Sturgeon- he doesn’t look anything like her, but the acting will be the same.
Keith fae Leith says:
31 January, 2021 at 12:26 pm
Another accurate article.
“1 wee point to add to to the Positive ledger: The change in Organ & Tissue donation is now opt-out, rather than opt-in.”
Positive? Not if some transwoman decides he wants my uterus transplanted into his male body. Where do I opt out/
“She has been at the helm while support for Independence has increased for 20 consecutive polls being in the lead.”
Yeah, precisely. She was there while it happened. It didn’t happen because of her.
I was there when Aberdeen won the Scottish Cup in 1982. I didn’t get one of the medals, though.
Cross Sticks touches on an issue that seems to be ignored by the current bashing of NS… (dont get me wrong, I want her to leave her post pronto tae) but there were some real disappointments about 2014. Blair Jenkins was one of them – a total waste of space and money! But also I doubt the SNP elite (including AS?) were going for Indy full tilt.
Yes they did the rounds but something was lacking …..
Personally I doubt whether there has ever been a leader of the SNP who desired independence above all else.
As Alf Baird rightly points out – they are very bourgoise!
The independence movement needs a more radical wing than the SNP – I dont necessarily mean more confrontational, but to being a radicalism that inspires!
What I can never forgive the sainted Nicola for is the lack of action on Indy. The Yes movement was gearing up for another go when Mrs May called her stupid election and things went downhill from there . Aye Mail had produced Indy packs with flags , badges , stickers etc which a Yes group could buy for £20 and then sell on to raise funds for the anticipated campaign and we were ready to go then nothing . I believe a lot of the infighting just now is down to idle hands and it would stop if we were back on the campaign trail under a Yes banner. The AUOB marches were great for keeping people focussed on the prize and it is a disgrace that the first minister would not take part. Covid ended the marches and we lost our head of steam. The major obstacle to another Indyref seems to be the SNP which shows how far things have fallen. If the elections in May go ahead I will still have to vote SNP1 to give our new candidate a shot but it looks like ISP2 to try to get rid of some of the Yoon troughers.
Neil: she is certainly popular with many. I don’t think, though, that it is all down to the FM: Brexit is the real game changer. The most selfish of the NO voters of 2014 will never change their minds because Brexit will not have as big an impact on them and they believe they will weather it, so you will not convince them to vote YES. That is the problem with a second indyref: in the end, it will come down to whether naturally ‘conservative’ (small ‘c’) people in the middle can be persuaded that Brexit will remain a threat to them personally, and will continue to overtake independence in those stakes. In the mature democracies (no, don’t laugh) that middle section almost always votes for the status quo when push comes to shove. They have to be shown that the status quo is not an option, and pandering to them, as has been the case since 2014, is not going to do that.
Alf Baird has the other part of the answer. Independence will always be as much about culture and a sense of colonialism as it is about economics. Those who are Scottish in the sense of owning our culture, heritage, history, etc. or of adopting it, will vote YES; those who largely repudiate Scottishness in favour of Britishness will vote NO.
It is a fact of history that weak leaders almost always cause at least as much mayhem and problems as strong leaders, often more. The probably decent, trying-to-do-the-right-thing, shilly-shally-er will usually make a bad situation worse, even when they don’t mean to. I sometimes think this is what Nicol Sturgeon is: not evil, but not good. She always reminds me (not that I knew him personally) of Tsar Nicolas II of All the Russias: desperate to be all things to all men (and all kinds of women, in Nicola’s case, except natal women) and infuriating and alienating everyone along the way.
She can redeem herself somewhat by taking a bold and decisive step in May, otherwise, like, Nicholas, she will end up being despised by all and will discover, as he did, far too late, that people will hate you anyway, even if you are Christ, if you are a leader. Any liking people show is always going to be superficial anyway, because, at the end of the day, they really don’t know you at all.
I also think the £500 bonus (which will be closer to £400 after tax) is a colossally poor allocation of funds. Not that nurses, porters, clinical support etc don’t deserve it. However the fact the money is being paid to consultants, who have openly said they don’t need or want it, and are being given it anyway, is poor policy making. And the ridiculous numbers of management in the bureaucracy, they all get it to.
All whilst there is only a miniscule below sector public wage rise. And no support for private care home workers, council workers, supermarket shelf stackers which have had to put up with some amount of pish. I think it is really disappointing social policy, designed to appease rather than solve any structural problems. And that’s what the SNPs game is, why try and fix Scotland when you can bring y popular support instead.
And before anyone starts, I work for the NHS and I am being paid the bonus. And I still think it is a very small example of poor leadership from Sturgy
Samuel at 2.33pm has made my day.
Just wondering if you are using them as per instructions, though.
Selecting the correct orifice is, apparently, quite important.
That analysis makes a lot of sense and may help explain the role of the aggressive young Wokes she protects, as her very own Brownshirts.
It’s a sign of weakness and insecurity that leads Sturgeon to seek to destroy any threats to her power base. Hence the introduction of new rules to enable her to go after Salmond over historical accusations. And again, now, by trying to invent a new definition of transphobia which will be applied historically so she can eliminate the threat from Joanna Cherry.
The MO is obvious for all to see. It’s amazing she’d try the same thing a second time when it failed so dismally the first time.
@X Sticks,
You make valid points, but I must say Alex did lead from the front. He started that campaign with just around 28% support.
We know the rest of thst story.
It was a risk but one which has undeniably implanted the concept of Independence in the Scottish psyche then and for years to come .
Maybe thats why he took that risk. Who can tell?
Sorry, is this the same person that was lauded as a great world leader along with other women due to their decisive response to COVID. We’re now being told that it’s difficult for women to make decisions due to imposter syndrome. I take it the remedy is to throw more women into jobs they can’t do and hope we make it through.
-Lorna Campbell-
That is a superb comparison- that’s exactly who she’s like! Or the similar Louis XVI of France.And we all know what happened to them- and to those who sucked up to them.
-Livionian-
The £500 pay rise for the NHS really fucked off a number of people I know. Some of us self-employed or small traders are dying off financially here (I have lost a little but am okay, others not so much), yet here every NHS worker gets a bonus. I don’t begrudge folk who’ve been dealing with covid a wee pay rise, but my sister-in-law got one, she does admin in a hospital and has been working mainly from home with no discernible increase in workload, and freely admits it is a disgrace. Apolitical friends and relatives, that I don’t talk about politics to, brought it up in conversation. I wouldn’t be surprised if this backfires.
I’m no lawyer but I believe all it needs is for it to be established that it is a public interest story and for it to be corroborated.
Brian Wilson is referring to stories leaking-out from St Andrews House. Sky News have whistleblowers too.
I imagine that Scotgov employees are aware that, in the aftermath of Watergate, many US gov employees went to jail. If they are not aware, then perhaps someone should tell them. (Is that not what James Wolffe is supposed to do….or is he supposed to do something else).
It will not take long to loosen tongues. I always reckoned it would take until Feb/March to clean her out of Holyrood.
@Livonian,
The consultants could give it to ward funds should they wish.
That would be great. Personally i’d give each a unique award
of some description.
Did Sturgeons’ government help with the increased funding for nursery fees?
If so, this has definitely been a big help for parents.
Beyond this, I’m scratching my head.
I can’t think of a leader of any nation who’s rise to power came with such promise and failed so miserably
‘Doesn’t she look tired?’
When she looks retired, I’ll be happy.
She failed to lead the yes movement to keep active and cover the Indy outwith all this. They should have had lots of structured things to do, 6 months debunking the too weemyth, 6 months debunking the too poor myth. Would have kept moral and motivation way up, would have also increased support for Indy. So, figures.
She failed to ensure, what turned out to be dubious allegations against Alex Salmond were dealt with in a fair and legal manner, failed to adequately check the new legislation and signed off on it, and in doing so, if there was any truth to any one of the allegations, she failed the woman who made them, as the whole process became discredited, their evidence included. Some feminist she’s turne out to be, a failure as a lawyer to be that incompetent.
An empty vessel making nice hopeful noises for the members of the yes movement who are too scared, they cannot see they’ve already lost, but if they fight now it’s their only hope of winning. But no, rather be soothed with images of bozo the clown and dazzled by high poll ratings, than see the danger their country is now in.
Giving £500 to NHS workers is nothing more than identity politics.
And that never works out well.
The Economy lies in tatters and soon to be struggling tax payers are being fleeced for Her publicity stunt.
It’s just weak leadership surrounded by morons as advisors.
Oh, and another example to add to the catalogue of failures is the reverse vending recycling machines. The Scotgov claimed we’d be the first country in the world to make them compulsory not realising that there’s a reason why other countries have never made it compulsory. Because it’s physically impossible to implement. So now reality has dawned and the project’s been quietly kicked in to the long grass.
Most of the time their intentions have been admirable but they’ve been too caught up in romantic ideals and woke ambitions to acknowledge and accept the practical realities.
Looks like the SNP are now a lost cause.
https://twitter.com/SophiaPangloss/status/1355880178627588096
The £500 bonus was just another publicity stunt IMO, and I do not grudge anyone getting a pay rise.
Whoever leads her media strategy, read people saying clapping was an insult, give them more money and that was the hastily put together response.
She is reactive, rather than proactive.
People going on about world leader status re Covid, please, Scotland has the 3rd highest death rate in Europe due to failure to close the borders.
We’re all paying now with never ending lockdowns.
@Bob
The only criticism of Alex I’d make was his choice of Jenkins to run the Yes campaign.
I can see where he was coming from as Jenkins had a great deal of media experience, especially with the BBC.
He *should* have been a great choice, but turned out to be worse than a damp squib. He had the Yes campaign running round in little circles rather than going for the establishment’s jugular.
@David R,
You epitomise the problem. Nicola Sturgeon acted solely on the advice from Medical and Scientific staff. I can assure you of that fact. She is good at presentation of these things but doesn’t create them.
Did she stop al! flights coming in? Did she stop boats from mooring? Did she close the border to England? There are many things happening you may not be aware of.
Martin Keatings posted on a care home in Fife. Shocking reading about this current wave that should never have happened. In the fullness of time you will know just how badly this affair has been handled.
I, and others at Yes Scotland, saw through Sturgeon circa 07/14 but let’s be honest M Rhodes blows with the prevailing wind. Not that long ago she was rather the cheerleader for Sturgeon. Of course her husband failing, it’s that 3 times?, to be selected as an SNP PPC (both WM + Holyrood) may well be a factor.
All I know is she was bloody foul to Michelle Thomson, totally unwarranted I may add.
And who funds the Mag?
Wee Chid says:
31 January, 2021 at 2:38 pm
Keith fae Leith says:
31 January, 2021 at 12:26 pm
Another accurate article.
“1 wee point to add to to the Positive ledger: The change in Organ & Tissue donation is now opt-out, rather than opt-in.”
Positive? Not if some transwoman decides he wants my uterus transplanted into his male body.
Yup. I have regretfully opted out of organ donation because of this reason. Just to further piss every woman off, during the filling in of the form it asks of your “gender” (not sex) is “male, female, trans or other”. This just underlines my decision.
Captain Yossarian said: Did you know the Jeane Freeman has been delivered 1.15m vaccine doses and has only administered 550,000 of them?
Major Major Major said: That’s no surprise; do you know how long it takes that old bat to open a new Sick Kid’s Hospital?
X_Sticks says:
31 January, 2021 at 3:07 pm
@Bob
”The only criticism of Alex I’d make was his choice of Jenkins to run the Yes campaign”
That wasn’t Alex Salmond. Peter Murrell ran the show at Yes Scotland, my criticism of Alex S? He was way too trusting of Murrelll and Sturgeon.
Goodness me Murrell had all the marketing data, recruited the Canadian pollsters, whose data was flawed.
Aye blame at Murrell’s door. He was the one who shut down, within hours of the No vote, the Yes Scotland website, social media and the majority of Yes Scotland email accounts.
@Alison
Happy to stand corrected on that. And that he was Murrell’s choice would fit perfectly with where we find ourselves now.
X_Sticks, yes very, very sadly that is the reality.
Of course the 3rd wheel was bloody SNP lawyer Scott Martin, jeezo, piece of work.
Watch Sturgeon’s Royal swearing in as FM, aye look who is in the cheerleader audience. Aye that.
@Captain Yossarian
I am reliably informed by someone inside the NHS that one Covid vaccine centre had to shut down for a few days last week because they ran out of vaccine. Could be awkward if it is true that there isn`t a shortage of vaccine in Scotland.
What I find most crazy regarding the back and forth of Indy mandates followed by the denial in the run up to an election has been the consistency of her opponents.
In every election from 2014 – Council, Holyrood, Westminster etc every Unionist party has run a single issue campaign on ‘no to Indyref 2’.
Unionist parties lost every single one of those elections and yet the SNP will still not step up to the plate on the referendum issue, despite receiving this ‘help’ from the other parties.
Oh and ‘Xsticks’ I can think of two other major mistakes Salmond made – firstly, validating GERS when the figures worked in his favour. GERS should never have been validated in this fashion.
Secondly – he completely underestimated the role of the media. No point moaning about the BBC after the fact, a more confrontational approach should have been taken.
Jeanne Freeman is not an old bat. She was a very accomplished Senior Manager who worked in the Golden Jubillee Glasgow as Chair.
She is well respected. The only wooman I ever watched who reduced Andrew Neil to putty. it goes to show how a controlling leader can nullify a very,, very, able Minister.
This makes a lot of sense. This administration seems to be far more scared of mainstream criticism than of that of the YES movement. I left when I saw the cosying up to the real estate establishment and the keenly awaited growth commission decision on currency that saw Andrew Wilson pull a skunk out of the hat.
I’ve thought for a while now that the current administration in Holyrood are increasingly becoming a very British institution. Has anyone asked why the property market is still going, why you can still go into showrooms and choose a new home or walk around someone else’s home with your family? Britain is obsessed with pumping up house prices as are scotgov.
A core element of leadership is delegation. Most of these COVID briefings could have been carried out by a very able health minister. The big announcements made by the FM herself would then carry more weight.
@Andybhoy – There’s no shortage of vaccines, mate. There’s a shortage of gumption. Give 500,000 vaccine doses to any other country in Europe just now and they will distribute it within a couple of days.
Just do what they do in the rest of the UK – each Doctor’s surgery/Pharmacy whatever just phones there order into a central hub and refrigerated vans transport it from there. Couldn’t be simpler and it works tremendously well as we are seeing.
Old Jeane has to do things differently…’we’re not in a race’…we are in a feckin race.
Old Jeane’s another old tool who needs to be replaced.
One area that Nicola Sturgeon has helped is more funding for Unpaid Carers.
The Scottish Government now gives me an extra £460 per year and they kindly gave me a £230 Covid bonus to help with the workload due to lockdown.
@kapelmeister Best insightful synopsis ever.
The critisism of Salmond and Jenkins above, of their handling of the Indyref1 Campaign got me thinking of what Sturgeon actually done during the 2012/2014 Campaign.
I was fanatical about that 2014 Campaign, and I honestly can’t remember what her input was.
I remember her being at the first big rally in Edinburgh with Alex Salmond, and a rally at Carlton hill in Edinburgh a year or so later. But apart from that I don’t remember her shouting from the roof tops about Independence.
Did she have this plan of being leader in an endless state of Devolution even while we were fighting for our Independence in 2014?
Help me out here. I must have woken up in a parallel universe.
I did read the article and my take is that Mandy Rhodes is lamenting that the First Minister has been weak because she had not pursued GRA reform with enough vigour.
Then I read the Rev. giving the First Minister an easy time. Yes, go all out on the weak leadership but, “impostor syndrome”, come on that’s no more real than the Nicola’s Book Club. It’s all part of the narrative about how women leaders are different from the white, male, misogynist, bastards that have come before her.
Clearly there’s no sign of impostor syndrome when it comes to parking independence and pursuing here #metoo, woke agenda as the one and only item on her todo list. There’s no sign also in the marshalling of the cabal and ensuring spineless cushion warmers and blowbags are all she has as competition for the leadership.
It’s not like she was plucked out of obscurity and anointed like the Dalai Lama and thrust onto the stage of politics. Her career was actively sought. If impostor syndrome was an issue then, as deputy leader, she could have passed on the opportunity with more ability.
It’s a nice story and the basic point is true but you’re being far too forgiving.
Samuel says:
31 January, 2021 at 3:48 pm
”Did she have this plan of being leader in an endless state of Devolution even while we were fighting for our Independence in 2014?”
I was at Yes Scotland and it is an emphatic Yes from me, we knew, well a fair few of us, in July 2014 that was the Sturrell plan, power before independence.
Achnababan says:
31 January, 2021 at 2:40 pm
Cross Sticks touches on an issue that seems to be ignored by the current bashing of NS… (dont get me wrong, I want her to leave her post pronto tae) but there were some real disappointments about 2014. Blair Jenkins was one of them – a total waste of space and money! But also I doubt the SNP elite (including AS?) were going for Indy full tilt.
Yes they did the rounds but something was lacking …..
That was my feeling, all the energy came from the ‘Yes’ movement.
I felt the SNP were looking for a strongish showing to argue for devomax, and were a little taken aback by the rise in support, and ill prepared to deal with the counterattack.
Well they got the strong showing, but no devomax.
They are are now heading for devominiminis, which does not seem to trouble the current leadership unduly.
It could be argued that the English lost all trace of their culture after 1066 and have never really recovered, in that sense they grasp on to Scotland’s shirttails not only for financial gain, but for replenishing their lost spiritualism, their lost identity, their place in the world.
The manufacturing of the UK or GB is an illusion created to hide that loss, Scotland’s Independence will force them to confront this (hence their melt down) and they fear this truth, as they know that the realty is, their culture pre 1066 was totally destroyed and this truth is not to their liking.
No wonder these Brexiting Beserkers are so desperate, however Scotland will be Independent and these wulvers and trolls will return to their roots (where ever that may be).
In the history of Scotland, it will be recognised that WoS reflected the social and political reality of the times (and has not just been some put down on the Beowulf fairytale of our raging southern neighbours,as some would have us believe) and in simple retelling of the story of Scotland’s ancient and modern history, culture and language
Stay strong wingers, a fiction will always be a fiction but the truth is out there and we are very nearly there.
#ayewitnesses
“I did read the article and my take is that Mandy Rhodes is lamenting that the First Minister has been weak because she had not pursued GRA reform with enough vigour.”
I think that’s an extremely erroneous interpretation.
One of the reasons Stu Campbell is so virulently reviled by a certain element of the Yes movement is likely to be his propensity for giving voice to the thoughts we’re uncomfortable with having in our own heads. Or to be more precise, before we have become comfortable with them.
Hi Bob Mack
Was aware of them just slightly (bloody) annoyed at the fact that we’re supposed to believe that women make better leaders and we need more in politics whilst also accepting the fact that they can’t make decisions due to imposter syndrome.
Why can’t we just accept the fact that the FM is doing what she thinks is important and that is anything that benefits herself and the people that surround and advise her.
I’ve never had much time for the press and news media in Scotland. The fact that they’re happy to sit on this governments poor handling of pretty much everything in the hope of using it against them in the future is worse than when they made crap up.
The number of pro indy supporters that are more than happy to accept it as they don’t want anything to get in the way independence is worrying and is does make me wonder what they’d accept in an indy Scotland to make it look like a success.
As I expect majority on here gave up a lot to campaign during the referendum, the fact that I don’t know if I’d vote for, never mind campaign if there was another referendum due to the @~CK$ in the movement, has, well it just piss@s me off immensely. Thought of what has happened since 2014 makes me wonder if we were lucky to lose (if these misandrist, intersectionality obsessed clowns had been allowed to progress) …….rant over, apologies.
@Lorna Campbell
“ She is probably right to say that many women suffer from ‘imposter syndrome’ and worry about being in charge, but not all back off from taking decisions that might make them unpopular. Unfortunately, this is deeply embedded in women’s sense of being ‘second best’ and most women will recognise it and its pernicious hold that it has on our psyches. To some extent, Scots have it, as do all people who feel second-rate, and it is hard to shake off, even for very successful women, but, by late middle age, it does start to wear off. Probably, many men feel the same, and, as they age, they become more confident, too.”
Yes this is common I think amongst both male and female. I remember feeling it after a promotion (to doing something I only dreamt of as a youngster) and it is very much a case of ‘fake it till you make it’.
Imposter syndrome is not something you’ll find amongst the Eton and Harrow elite. They have it bread into them that they are the best, the chosen ones. As we have seen through history, the consequences of this can be dire whether in the trenches or governing a population through a pandemic.
The best bit of advice I ever got was that “you have to back yourself”. If you don’t, you fail. Indecision can be fatal.
Up against the British empire, we have to back ourselves.
I wonder if we have dodged a bullet. Could this administration really take us through independence negotiations with rUK? Look at Andrew Wilson’s ‘solidarity payment’ plan – paying London in London’s currency – a currency we don’t even issues because he doesn’t think we need a central bank. That is disastrous and has austerity written all over it.
I have been an SNP member for 22 years, since just before my daughter was born. Today will be my last. I’m done, scunnered with the parasites in Charlotte Sq. My kids are now adults and they have their independence and EU passports to go where they now please.
My partner and I had a pow wow last night, we are going to leave. I’m broken hearted but I am not staying in Brexit Britain and an indy Scotland is as realistic as Brigadoon now. 4 SNP voters, no more. My daughter anecdotally says all her Uni pals are disillusioned and turning away too. Sturgeon has delivered. Delivered for Westminster and the Tories.
Rev.
I re-read it twice and the last 9 paragraphs are all saying the government has not done enough for trans people, whatever form they come in.
I’m than happy to be wrong – it’s all part of the discussion here. There are plenty more who are better informed than I. I agree the first part, which frames the article, is all about a failure to act but it’s the second part that give the impression I voiced above.
I do realise that the woke and trans agendas are not the same although there’s quite a bit of overlap. The coverage here is primarily anti-woke and so geniune trans people get tarred with the same brush whether they deserve it or not.
If anyone has a good interpretation then I’m all ears.
Bob Mack
Aye. I leafleted for Kristen Oswald. May God strike me down, naive trusting fool that I was.
Great article as ever Rev. Big thanks.
Hello Wings aka Rev Stuart Campbell
Can you pinpoint when you first became uncomfortable with Sturgeon as leader?
For me, it was when so many seats were lost in the 2017 election.
A few points inspired by some recent comments:
Sturgeon’s contribution to IndyRef1?
She was essentially the leader of the campaign until Salmond entered the fray properly in 2014.
She did the debates up to that point, she did the White Paper and oversaw the setting up of Yes Scotland. Her input was at best ineffectual and, at worst (closer to the truth in my view), an absolute disaster from which the grassroots movement performed a miracle in almost salvaging.
I can’t be bothered going back to check but my recollection is that there was no meaningful movement in the polls until Salmond got back in the driver’s seat.
A brief history of Yes Scotland:
Yes Scotland was set up as a company rather than a voluntary movement with a constitution so that it could be shut down immediately after the Referendum. It was Angus Robertson who was behind the Blair Jenkins appointment.
What was recognised was that, win or lose, a going concern was always going to pose a clear and present danger to the hegemony of the SNP amongst Yes supporters. It was always going to be killed on the 19th of September.
I doubt they foresaw the surge in membership after defeat but I know for sure they were not going to risk a rival organisation being able to usurp their self-entitled assumption of power in an Independent Scotland.
Where do you think those 100,000 new members would have gone had Yes Scotland been set up as a voluntary political movement that persisted after the Referendum? How different things may have looked today.
SNP don`t have a majority at holyrood,
this leaves them needing the Green Party,
led by Pat Harvie who is a disciple of Trans Activist Ideology,
what will Pat be demanding to pass legislation,
how much pressure is Pat putting on Nicola to accept the demands of the Trans Activist Lobby,
how much pressure are the Trans Activists putting on Pat to put pressure on Nicola,
`politics is all about compromise`
we seen/saw the power the DUP had at westminster when Tory needed them for majority,
Scot Gov budget came out just about same time as Nicola`s mad Trans Activist rant on twitter,
coincidence?
we def need another indy party that is not in thrall to the Trans Activists or Woke ideologies.
@carjamtic
The inability of the english to separate their identity from british creates a psychological trauma within them; it is they who lack an authentic cultural identity, not the Scots.
Tolkien regarded the Norman invasion as “the end”, when it all went to shit, and what he tried to do – create an english national mythology for the “anglo saxons”, was a response to this; except he rips off – nordic, teutonic and celtic mythology all over the place (he had enormous “celt envy” – the elves are the celts, the “first born”) and the project was largely a failure. LOTR and the Hobbit are almost side issues, little episodes in some grander vision.
When “british” meant empire, then british just meant “super english”, but now that it means “multiculturalism”, the poor dears don’t know what to do; some adopt a variant of fascism (which is a european thing!), while others get into – druidism. They are all pretty much fucked-in-the-head and I couldn’t really care less about their lack of national identity, all that bothers me is their determination to deny me mine.
If JRR thought the norman invasion was bad, then the reformation and the “glorious revolution” (the real start of this shitshow) – would seem like hell on earth (which it turned out to be, for much of the globe). In LOTR the “big bad” lived up a tower, pyramidal, with two spikes and lidless eye at the top; JRR knew the score.
There is much talk among anglos of a post-brexit “anglosphere”, a kind of neo-empire of free trade among the “white nations” – it is delusional and insane. Mad people cannot be dealt with – you need to leave, fast.
OT over on Craig Murray’s Twitter account, the NS supporters are digging up old and proven false allegations against Craig, (that they threw at him when he blew the whistle of extraordinary rendition) in order to discredit him. Bastards.
One bright thought re this is that if they’re going down the discrediting route, it’s because the D Notice route has not been deployed.
Slowly, slowly poison the well and wound, don’t kill… keep NS as FM with a minority or discredited Gov, and reward her with. UN job after cop26 in November.
The Dissident says:
31 January, 2021 at 4:17 pm
A few points inspired by some recent comments:
This is an interesting post and I’ll need to think about all the points. BUT they are attractive:-)
Can I ask, is this an analysis you’ve had for years, months or weeks?
Pretty good summary. When you see it all collated, as here, it adds up to a damning indictment, at a time when the SNP has had a monopoly of power in Scotland, and thus the means to demonstrate what an independent Scotland would be capable of, and where it would make real difference.
Instead we have, ironically like Boris, a performative leader. One who thinks that constant performances in front of the camera, promising this, that and the other is her job. Actually implementing policy, steering it through and dealing with the setbacks – the difficult stuff – is left unattended, while statistics and noble statements are substituted for any real action.
It is pitiful, and her inner coterie have been instrumental in shoring her up while attacking anybody, even in their own party, who might legitimately ask questions and make suggestions. Add that concentration of power to the utter passive mediocrity of many SNP MSP’s, who don’t want to rock their very comfortably upholstered boat, and you have the perfect recipe for a one party autocracy which brooks no criticism, listens to no alternative voices, and purges anybody foolish enough to express actual practical ways forward. When you look at the opportunities squandered for progress it is very disheartening.
Her time is up. Time to listen to the far more interesting and various views of people who have real ideas to offer, and not posturing in the media.
This is a very interesting article which gives a lot of food for thought. There is no doubt that depending on the perspective you are looking at this from, you see different things. I have the feeling that males might be more forgiving than me towards this woman.
From the perspective of an unforgiving and grumpy middle age woman who has worked for several very strong female bosses and others rather weak, I have a different interpretation of Nicola Sturgeon “impostor syndrome” to the one eloquently and fairly expressed above by the Rev.
The main difference between strong and a weak female bosses I have experienced is that the strong bosses would not hesitate when making decisions and would accept nobody else telling them what to do. The weak ones, however, would faff and faff, procrastinate and procrastinate until building up the courage to run to their own supervisors, ex supervisors or simply colleagues on their same position, so they could ask them what to do.
I also had the opportunity to work for extremely weak, overpromoted female bosses who effectively had their “advisor” on speed dial, so their “advisor” was effectively doing their job. These superweak bosses, when they had been told what to do by others, would interpret it as their own, would become absolutely ruthless at implementing it, would become completely close minded and deaf to any suggestions that things could have been done better and would not hesitate to block you out if you dared challenge it one bit or make them feel an ounce of their own incompetence. They had “their” instructions and that was that.
Sturgeon has often come across to me as the latter: a weak boss with a somebody else’s instructions and a mission. None of what she has said in the last 5 years has ever given me the impression of being her own material. I have always had the odd feeling that she was simply acting as the mouthpiece of somebody else.
This feeling intensified when she delivered her speech on 31st January 2020. I remember at that point asking myself if it might have been Cummings who wrote the speech. The same feeling came back when she delivered her recent infamous “ad hoc” trans speech. There is something insincere about both speeches.
My conclusion is that if his woman feels like a fraud, is quite possibly because that is what she is.
She has been pretending to be what she is not for at least 6 years. She has been pretending to be a leader. She is not. She is acting as weak manager implementing somebody else’s agenda.
She is pretending to be this wonderful democratic FM seeking Scotland’s independence while everything she has done in the last 6 years has been to quash democracy, to delay independence, to revert Scotland’s autonomy, to crush our rights and to hand over Scotland’s powers and assets back to Westminster.
All the pomp and ceremony about her “success” in tackling covid is just smoke and mirrors too. All the work is being done by health professionals, scientists, managers, contact tracers etc, yet, she relishes in taking the credit for others’ work while she very quickly throws others under the bus for highlighting her own shortcomings, just like those very weak bosses I worked for. That is not what somebody who fears criticism does. That is what a narcissist with a huge ego and poor self awareness does.
Instead of implementing a strategy specifically designed for Scotland, she chose to follow loosely Westminster’s flawed strategy for COVID with some minimal differences to keep the pretence of autonomy. She has locked us down in our homes but then she lets people from all over the place to come in constantly, allowing multiple strains of the virus to re-enter time and time again.
Instead of acknowledging the flaws of “her” strategy and responding to criticism with an apology and by changing it, just like those weak bosses I had, she drags her heels down even deeper and attacks the messenger to shut them up: for example by calling yes supporters asking for the borders to be closed, racist.
I am afraid I do not believe this woman is suffering from any syndrome other than narcissism and lack of awareness of her own incompetence. Her claims that she may suffer such syndrome come across to me as yet another of her multiple excuses designed to escape scrutiny.
The article above says Sturgeon might fear criticism. I think this is right. But I do not think she fears criticism because of some pathology. I think her fear of criticism is purely political because she knows it is deserved and she cannot counteract it with anything credible other than getting a new set of instructions from her “advisor”.
There are plenty of things she does that point in the opposite direction of fearing criticism. For example, backing a tiny minority of males as she is doing just now in the face of fierce opposition from females and the other males, is not acting like you are fearing criticism. It is deliberately inviting criticism.
Extending Evans contract for 2 years instead of sacking her is not acting like you fear criticism. It is acting in defiance of any criticism.
Destroying the credibility of the SNP and its democratic structures so she can stop her opponents (or rather the opponents of the British state) and she can parachute her own puppet, is not a sign of fearing criticism. It is not giving a sht about criticism.
Allowing over 500,000 pounds of ring fenced money to simple “weave” through the accounts while you are leader, is not fearing criticism, is thinking you are above criticism.
Throwing the police dogs behind Ms Ferrier, but then turning a blind eye to Prince Charles and Camilla, or William and Kate and just paying lip service to Bojo’s unnecessary visit is not acting like you fear criticism. Is dismissing criticism.
Having your Deputy and the Lord Advocate as gatekeepers to stop compromising evidence against your government and the executive of your party reaching the public and presenting both entities as totally corrupt, is not fearing criticism, is simply thinking you are above the law when it comes to removing an obstacle to the implementation of the instructions you were given.
Somebody who fears criticism and is insecure would not allow UK civil servants to help themselves to millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to effect the most disgusting and repugnant political conspiracy in Scotland’s history with the aim of sending an innocent man, who happens to have been your mentor, to end his days in jail . That is what an unscrupulous, ungrateful, jealous, hypocrite, who is reminded of their own mediocrity when that mentor is around, who does not have an ounce of integrity, who has the uttermost contempt for the justice system and who has been given far too much power to what they can sensibly handle, does.
Somebody who fears criticism would no simply ignore the comments from Mr Salmond’s lawyers regarding the unlawfulness of the complaints procedure like this person did. They would faff and faff and desperately seek advice from others about what to do until certain it would not reflect badly on them. It seems this lady chose to stand on the gas pedal and crash the car instead. That is very much either wanting criticism or defying criticism.
I do no longer believe as genuine a single word that emanates from this woman’s mouth. Half of the time I don’t even believe they are her own words either. Every thing she has told us has been either deception, vacuous waffle, a blatant lie or feels that somebody else wrote it.
This new “syndrome” she claims to “suffer” is, in my view, a sign of exhaustion of having to constantly portray herself as a character opposite to what she is. This “syndrome” might just be her own narcissistic self fighting to come up to the surface and relish unhinged the power she has on her hands.
If this woman feels like a fraud perhaps is because she might just be a fraud who still keeps fresh ink over her forehead from the British state’s stamp.
It has just been announced that UK administered over 600,000 vaccines yesterday….how many will we have done here in Scotland….it is usually less than 30,000.
This is going to be an increasingly uncomfortable subject for Freeman/Sturgeon this coming week.
This farting around only means that Scotland will lag the rest of the UK incoming out of lockdown and it won’t be for weeks, it could be for a month or two.
Again, Cassandra here reporting from the future.
These same words appeared here in one of my comments three years ago.
Three years wasted, that should you have listened to me, would have seen us independent, in the EU, with thousands of lives saved from COVID and a resilient economy.
But no, listen to the snake oil sellers, cosy feet Pension Pete, the Twitler Youth wokeratti, the “we are all equal” cretins that deny that there are biological and physiological differences that matter, where the point is *equal opportunities and fair outcomes* instead.
Some fall for these lies because they lure their ego into a cretinous confirmation bias.
Sturgeon wants to be the first female head of a government to bring a country to independence.
She wants to see her name in history books, and is ready to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of us with inaction and letting the course of time switch the balance of opinion, all for her selfish pipe dream.
Her wish will be granted: she will be mentioned in a small chapter on history books.
Alas the tone of the chapter will expose an unmitigated, miserable failure by an ineffective nobody that led a country into the gnashers of the BritNazi Establishment.
Snatch defeat from the jaws of success.
Her failure will set back women from positions of power for decades to come.
What is it with Dan Hodges is he being genuine here? Or is he trying to get the readership in Scotland to start reading the Mail on Sunday? Fat chance of the latter I hope.
“A LEADING columnist in a Tory-supporting newspaper has called for Boris Johnson to agree to a second independence referendum, arguing Scotland can’t be forced to stay in the Union.
Dan Hodges said the Prime Minister was acting like a “colonial potentate” and argued the strategy he was pursuing – simply saying no to a new plebiscite – was failing and boosting support for independence.”
https://www.thenational.scot/news/19052655.boris-johnson-told-tory-paper-agree-independence-referendum/
Not read any comments yet but I’ll tell you what you nailed it in this one. Bang on the money IMHO.
Quoting from the Mandy Rhodes article…
“She said that on some days, “silence was not an option”.
“No doubt others will accuse me of being woke. I don’t care,” she said. “Sometimes, particularly as a leader, it’s vital to speak up for what is right, and against injustice.”
wow… “it’s vital to speak up for what is right, and against injustice.”
Says the woman who tried to send an innocent man to jail to protect her position as ‘leader’ (or non-leader).
The sheer stinking hypocrisy and brass neck makes me want to spew. NS would not know what is ‘right’ even if it slapped her in the face.
She is a very dangerous individual in her own way. Quite capable of doing things to advance or protect herself that ordinary people would blanch at. I would not be surprised if she was also a psychopath or at least a sociopath. Who else could do what she did to Alex Salmond and sleep at night. Hell mend her.
I have a mate who went from a No voter in 2014 to, today, being very much in the Yes camp.
I have been trying to tell him for weeks, what a disaster Sturgeon is, and how bad she is for the Indy cause. He will not hear a word against her.
I sent him the Craig Murray affidavit piece, also this piece – his response to both: “Fake News.”
He is convinced if the SNP dump Sturgeon, it will be disaster for independence. He may not be the only SNP supporter with this view.
She needs to be got rid of as a matter of urgency, to give the movement time to recover from any short-term friction this would cause.
I have heard that the COP26 might be postponed to 2022, but still, I’m wary of Russell’s could be’s, might be’s, should be’s antics.
Not to mention that Sturgeon on indy is full of it.
“A SECOND independence referendum could be held by Christmas, Michael Russell has suggested.
The Constitution Secretary said staging the vote six months after Holyrood passes a referendum bill, which is expected in June, would be “best practice”.”
https://www.thenational.scot/news/19052536.scottish-independence-referendum-held-christmas-michael-russell-signals/
@Holymacmoses
My views on Sturgeon’s contribution were formed in 2012 I would say. Nothing I’ve seen or heard since suggests I should reconsider.
I was furiously questioning the set up of Yes Scotland from the outset. It was clear it was simply going to be an instrument of SNP HQ rather than a grassroots driven organisation. It was only after the Referendum I realised why 100% control of it was so important.
That decision probably cost the Yes campaign 18 months of momentum, as grassroots movements like the National Collective and RIC had to generate their own impetus from scratch. Unforgivable.
@carjamtic that is a very interesting observation re English spirituality and JRRs response to attempt explain it.
He also despaired post WW1/WW2 when English became the universal language mainly due to the yanks. He felt that further diluted the English sense of themselves.
His pre war ideas of mythology were built around other cultures, as @confused said.
His post WW1 experiences sent him down a new track with LotR, based on his involvement in that war.
I have long sensed a lack of self esteem in the English psyche, hence their appropriation of other countries successes and the need to mention London every 5 mins plus the our country is bigger than yours, map
During a Regional Council election campaign in the early 90’s, NS leafleted the left-hand-side of a street, on my behalf. Over coffee in my kitchen, I asked where B, the other leafleter was? To which she replied: oh, he’s still on the right — just like his big brother, A. Was it a little political joke, or something slightly more telling? Who knows? I brushed-it-off as being the former, so declining the bait, either way.
Captain Yossarian says:
31 January, 2021 at 4:30 pm
It has just been announced that UK administered over 600,000 vaccines yesterday….how many will we have done here in Scotland….it is usually less than 30,000.
22,899 first doses
156 second doses
Average performance 23,176
thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/politics/scottish-politics/1877716/covid-vaccine-tracker/#howmany
@Josef
The side of the street you are leafletting very much depends on which end of it you are looking from.
This story may be even more telling than you realise 😉
Mike Russel is a liar. He know there will be a court challenge between passing the bill and royal assent. And have they ditch the 11 point plan so quickly what about the s30 request? If it was granted in means it needs to go through both Houses of Parliament so no chance of passing the indyref bill by June. He knows this yet he lies.
The SNP have fluffed it. They will be punished at the election in May, and the Yes movement will have until the next general election to find a new standard-bearer. Or we really will have had it for at least a generation.
This feels a lot like one of those football matches where you hit the post, their keeper has a blinder, you camp in the opposition’s half for 89 minutes and on any other day would be 3-0 up.
And then they break away in the last minute and you lose to a textbook sucker punch.
But to the point – Sturgeon is well out of her depth and never had the mistake reals for this.
And you are spot on – the farce that has ensued is symptomatic of that.
There has also been a failure to develop a port infrastructure fit for an independent country. It would also be very handy due to Brexit.
@holymacmoses – while we in Scotland are vexing over trans rights, those in Israel and England are on a war-footing and are sorting this out.
English airports will be open this summer and they will be welcomed everywhere. We’ll still be farting around vaccinating 20,000-30,000 a day. ‘It’s not a race’ – that’s all the SNP MSP’s can say.
Hancock will be laughing at us soon.
David R says:
31 January, 2021 at 3:56 pm
Hi Bob Mack
“Was aware of them just slightly (bloody) annoyed at the fact that we’re supposed to believe that women make better leaders……”
Indeed – don’t know where that idea came from: We just need to name them to know that women have been just about the worst ‘leaders’ possible:
Indira Ghandi, Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Theresa May, Saint Aung San Suu Kyi and Saint Nicola.
We were saved the disastrous President Hilary Clinton by the election of the mad Orange One – but who would doubt that the war-mad Clinton, who oversaw the destruction of Syria and Libya would have had us all at war these last four years? : And who made the abominable ‘joke’ statement regarding the knife-sodomy and murder of Gadaffy by ‘freedom-fighters’ (actually US mercenaries):
“we came, we saw, he died. ha ha,ha”
This is the same Clinton apparently idolised by Saint Nicola.
Mrs Murrell should arrange to have a week in bed with Covid.
Salaam, O Mother of the Nation.
Truly, You suffer with your people.
(Cue for the strains of Dont Cry for Me Argentina.)
One word you’ll never see used to describe NS is “inspirational” and yet that’s exactly the quality most needed at this point in our history. Alex Salmond & Tommy Sheridan are perhaps the last in the line of Scottish politicians who truly merit that description (and look what happened to them).
Republicofscotland @ 4:36 pm
“A SECOND independence referendum could be held by Christmas, Michael Russell has suggested.
Well it’s all in the language and what’s left out. I COULD be bedding Jennifer Lopez by that time. Highly unlikely, but if we were both kidnapped by aliens around then and put into an intergalactic breeding program…
I think the alphabet women should be in jail along with anyone else involved in the conspiracy, but if we are to get independence in my lifetime we might need to suck this lemon for the moment.
I would quite like to see it kicked beyond the elections and focus on getting a good result.
Reality is the population are buying the “Nicola has done much better than Boris” and now is the time. It may be the only time!
I think Nicola will push for Indyref2 but from a position of the people clearly want one not that she is forcing one.
“I would quite like to see it kicked beyond the elections and focus on getting a good result”
But what is “getting a good result”?
In the current circumstances getting an SNP majority is not going to progress anything. It does not matter if is Sturgeon or is Robertson who is in control of the SNP. It is simply going to give them an opportunity to kick the can down the road and brush under the carpet yet another mandate, just like Sturgeon has done for the last 5 years.
I think we need to start thinking seriously in deciding what exactly is what we consider a good result, why and then planning how to get it. At this moment in time, it does not seem that a simple SNP majority is any better than having a unionist party in control of Holyrood.
Anyone pass the SNP Office at Gentle’s Entry lately?
Interesting poster on the front door!
Another on the plus side for SNP is Social Care for Over 60s – the so-called “Frank’s Law”.
Otherwise a great analysis. There’s nothing more undermining to a worker than a cowardly manager.
Catherine @ 5:08
“There has also been a failure to develop a port infrastructure fit for an independent country. It would also be very handy due to Brexit.”
Yes, someone warned about this several years ago but the SNP elite chose to ignore it, and they still ignore it:
http://reidfoundation.org/2016/01/sort-out-our-ports/
One of the first things any country aspiring to become independent needs to ensure is that it has unhindered access to international trade, and is definitely not dependent on ports in a hostile and unpredictable neighbouring state. The SNP have proved themselves useless on this aspect, which is a key responsibility of nationhood.
I always believed that sturgeon was the wrong person for the job of leader. Here’s why.Ever since she became deputy,watching her on debate programmes she lacks fight aggression and courage ,she would always allow our cause to be rubbished and their lies go unchallenged.
Not once have I seen her calling out their lies as soon as they left they left their mouths,not once did I see her tell her openents or hosts for that matter to shut up when they talked over her. Not once have I seen her calling out the lying fucking msm on air for their bias bullshit and down right lies.That also is the only criticism I will make of Alex salmond,he too could have been more aggressive on calling and forthright in calling them out and also being talked over.
If he happens to read this,and IF he does come back when he absolutely destroyed fucking Nick Robinson is what we need more of.especially right now.
When our cause has never been in greater need of a warrior we got a lieing coward possibly even ("Tractor" - Ed)ous leader.
If you do come back Alex,I and Scotland hopes you do.Then don’t come back as a politician come back as the avenging angel. We need a leader willing to show our enemies,foreign and domestic no quarter,for the Scots will see none.
Mia
But if we do not get more votes and more seats Westmnster will say it is a busted flush.
We also need to retain control of Holyrood.
Any new leader will need this or it will never happen in the next 5-10 years
If we dump Nicola now I fear we will not get control of Holyrood.
An excellent article by both revstu and Mandy.
You know, major opportunity have come and gone repeatedly for NS. Over and over again, she has bottled it, the most recent being NOT standing up against Scotland being removed from the EU, or calling a referendum. She could have really caused the mightiest cosntitutional mess, and really ruined brexit going ahead. Yet we had endless dithering and procrastination. She constantly seeks yet another mandate for action, only to then do nothing when obtaining such a mandate.
It would be absurd, if it were not so sad.
As somebody reightly (in my view) pointed out above, her final chance is in declaring the May election as a vote on independence. Scotland and devolution is in absolute peril by uncontrolled Tory thugs run by England. This could be her moment of redemption. If called, the entire indy movement would get to it with passion. But she won’t, she simply won’t.
Instead she will campaign in the election for a new (another) mandate.
Scotland right now needs leadership, something which Nicola Sturgeon seems singularly unable to do. She focusses on admin tasks, the minutiae of the covid arrangements and planning, and so on. A true leader points the direction, and says ‘that is where we are going, FOLLOW me’.
We want independence for heavens sake. Look at the freaking polls. What on earth is she waiting for? a bus??
Right now, it is utterly predictable that if the SNP win the next election, they will all get comfortable again, and the cycle will begin again.
Samuel @ 3:48
“I remember her being at the first big rally in Edinburgh with Alex Salmond, and a rally at Carlton hill in Edinburgh a year or so later.”
My teenage kids, all painted up, had their photo taken with Nicola up on Calton Hill that day. I saw at least 3 SNP MSP’s there, none of whom could be bothered to lift a saltire, faces tripping them, looking as though they really didnae want to be there; dressed rather businesslike amidst the casua throng, on a Saturday tae? Almost bourgeoisie in a standoffish superior cultural kind of way. Scurrying off early, leaving the masses to it. The best part of the day was Alan Bissett’s memorable ‘Vote Britain’ poem demonstrating our colonial wretchedness:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=alan+bissett+vote+britain+calton+hill&docid=608052303210024785&mid=EEF9FFE7990C9FA88E32EEF9FFE7990C9FA88E32&view=detail&FORM=VIRE
Would it be a huge stretch to hypothesise that the same inability to directly confront a problem was what drove her to conspire to get the criminal justice system to do her dirty work in getting rid of Salmond whilst simultaneously pretending that she was still on good terms with her mentor, but the process was now out of her hands?
“But if we do not get more votes and more seats Westmnster will say it is a busted flush”
They will always have something to say. At some point we are going to have to stop listening to them. I thought that time was 8th May 2015. Sadly the fraud in control of the SNP chose to drop to her knees instead and grab Westminster sovereignty with both hands.
You say “we need to “retain” control of Holryood”. I say: I am not sure that with the present fraud heading the SNP we ever had control of Holyrood since the 14th November 2014.
You say “If we dump Nicola now I fear we will not get control of Holyrood”. I say: Unless we dump Sturgeon, Murrell, Swinney, Yousaf, the genderwoowoos and the conspirators, we will never regain control of Holyrood.
I the BBC 3 part documentary about the 2014 referendum, Sturgeon is interviewed and she stated she hates campaigns, she hates votes because she get so nervous sh taels herself she isn’t going to win.
That is actually what she said.
One of the first signs of her weakness as a leader was her stance on the Gender shit.
A Leader …. would have recognised how important this was to those advocating it and held out it as a carrot to them , in return for supporting and campaigning for Independence.
Indy first then sort the Gender thing out was what all the normal people were saying.
And to tell the Gender nutters that the only way to realise their aims was to ensure a Scottish Parliament with all powers , would have kept everyone on side and supporting her.
Why she couldn’t see that back then is what marks her as dubious.
In a sense it was all true anyway, if her priority was to have a Gendered Utopia her best chance ( and theirs too ) was to plough the Road from Westminster interference and have all the decisions including the media take as Scottish only.
If she’d delivered Indy there’s even a chance she could have slipped through the Gender idiocy while the bulk of the ” people ” had no attention for it.
Or.
Kicked it all to the kerb , if she really didn’t want it and support for it was only to consolidate a base.
Either way none of this easily foreseen mess need have happened had she been a Leader with any acumen beyond retaining facts at figures at interviews.
While it might not be fair and it might not be right … it is – Politics – and she’s ” ment ” to be a Politician.
Instead she did the exact opposite of what was the obvious choice and worked hard for Gender reform while promising Indy …. now it looks like she’ll achieve neither ….
This now makes perfect sense. The union is safe with Sturgeon at the helm. Surely there needs to be a credible plan to replace her?
I haven’t read all of the above, I saw the new posting had arrived, apologies if it’s already been mentioned.
An addition to the list of actions put on hold is the matter of grouse shooting, concerning heather burning and raptor persecution. Details are on the Raptor Persecution blog.
Sturgeon’s Government has run Scotland through New Labour type centrist policies to appease the middle/upper classes. The only 2 policies I would credit her with are the new £10 p/week child benefit & National Investment Bank. She has however delivered fake pledges which never materialised such as a Scottish public energy company & dithering and then shelving plans to devolve a new tourist tax to councils. Also the Scottish Government under Sturgeon has sold off billions in public contracts -ie wind farms- to massive global corporations while Scottish firms have been left with nothing but the crumbs.
L & SOG
And while we’re oan the subject …
Where’s our stock exchange?
Also those reports of a chunk of Scottish Water being sold off and only domestic supplies still in public hands need lookin at ….
The part about her policies or lack there of is one that needs highlighted more..
Aw fur coat and nae knickers when it comes to substance and I found it interesting that Alex Neil and Alex Salmond managed to come out with more decent policies on back of a fag packet recently that Sturgeon has in her whole career..
Whether Nicola Sturgeon experiences “imposter syndrome” now, after 40 years actively fighting for independence, in a completely hostile political environment, is a moot point.
I could be wrong but I’d imagine her skin is tough enough these days.
As with all Leaders, she is as good (or bad) as the people behind her, assuming that is all of those people share her’s and the Party’s best interests.
I totally agree that the SNP’s success in 2015-17 was a legacy of the YES campaign and the immediate Westminster response of English Votes for English Laws, the piss-poor Smith commission and England’s Brexit vote.
It had virtually nothing to do with Salmond and evaporated with the ultra unionist populist challenge presented by Ruth Davidson.
We really must withdraw from the personalities at the top of the SNP – they are not now or ever the ‘independence movement’ and Scotland’s future is not dependent upon them.
Feeding the British propaganda machine in this way spells disaster for any future referendum
Yes it is quite telling this, isn’t it? We all have our own ideological leanings about “what works” but you’d think that if you were the leader of a country hoping to be independent, you’d plan for that independence, so that a) you could hit the ground running, and b) in any referendum campaign you could counter unionist attacks.
So yeah, an energy company, ports, telecoms infrastructure, a unified public transport operator, a central bank, stock exchange, pension mechanism, all the awkward financial institutions that sound boring but protect investments and ensure stability. As far as I can see there is none of that. Wilson’s commission was “keep everything the same and pay Westminster a lump sum (!!!)”
Here’s an example: I read an argument that went that pre-EU, the western ports of Britain boomed because most British trade was outwith Europe. Post-EU, Liverpool, Cardiff, Bristol and obviously Glasgow declined. Brexit, this person argued, offered a chance to revitalise these ports by increasing “global” trade. Now, personally I doubt that is likely but worth exploring right? Sturgeon and her pals won’t have bothered. Better just to say “we will rejoin the EU”, get squeals of approval from the Guardian, the Twitter mob and some random Belgian politician who you can say shows “Europe wants us back”. Who cares about launching an export base on the Clyde when you can get 6k retweets?
Perhaps it’s just as well that NS is never holding a referendum because I can see soft Yes support falling away when put under the spotlight. We all support independence, we have to be realistic about convincing others in our cautious country, and this failure to plan will not do so. Which again, makes you wonder about whether NS’s “impostor syndrome” makes her so scared of being exposed on a debating platform that she makes sure she doesn’t have to go on one.
Oh, once you look at it, this whole mess presents such a horrible picture!
Something I wrote in August 2019 aboot SNP politicians and followers parading of trauma and vulnerability:
“I am not without empathy for mentally ill people, but putting them in prominent positions of political power, when they cannot handle the pressure of the position, seems counter-intuitive.”
https://whorattledyourcage.blogspot.com/2019/08/fuck-american-sickness-part-2.html?zx=d220a29089cb7d6f
It’s well documented that Isreal sees off all and any criticism of their ruthless treatment of Palistinians by calling any who voice it anti-semites.
The GRA policy has adopted this technique lock stock and barrel and has been fully supported and funded and dare I say it ‘trained’ to do so right from the out.
This is not accidental well intentioned misguidedness. This is a very sophisticated red herring designed to spike the guns.
Very much, a real Indy leader would have headed it off at the pass, with an Indy first policy. Very telling.
Captain Yossarian says:
31 January, 2021 at 3:24 pm
Quote:-
“Captain Yossarian said: Did you know the Jeane Freeman has been delivered 1.15m vaccine doses and has only administered 550,000 of them?
Major Major Major said: That’s no surprise; do you know how long it takes that old bat to open a new Sick Kid’s Hospital?”
Oof..
The English vaccinated 600,000 people over the last 24 hours
and are starting on the 40 yr olds.
So where the fuck are ours???
So who made the decision to go after AS.
And who made the decision to allow trans activists to take over the party……??????
I
Alf Baird 6.19pm
Yes,Alf, as you say, the SNP went home early and left us to sort things out on the Hill.
And where is Allan Bisset these days?
It’s the corruption.
Do we have a hope in hell?
Annie 621, ‘do we have a hope in hell’
We’re not in hell, we’re in Scotland, fuck hope, we’ve got thrawn.
.
Good evening Socrates MacSporran,
I take your point well my friend and your NO voting friend who is now YES but a devotee to Sturgeon.
Methinks we need to follow that wise approach in regard to the Sturgeonite McWokeists.
Do not interrupt your foe whilst they are making a mistake.
Have faith Socrates MacSporran, and your friend too…
“Those whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad.”
The thesis of the article at the top of this page narrates exactly that.
La Sturgeon is well on her way. Exit stage left.
Nicola, if you or any of your ilk read this, please don’t let the door skelp your erse on the road out Hen.
She’ll fit in with the UN and NY no problemo..
https://rmx.news/article/article/who-kids-under-4-should-be-taught-about-early-childhood-masturbation
It’s worse than uou think. Nicola Sturgeon has Munchhausens Syndrom by Proxy. And OCD. So has the rest of the Independence movement.
The Clinton Foundations Dev Srihdar is Not a Doctor
Queensferry Bridge is an Alec Salmond initiativenot the Scunner Sturgeon.
I’m just amazed that with everything thats happened/happening. Brexit, covid, foodbanks, austerity, westminster continued bungling and general nastiness and bile towards Scotland, that Scots people have’nt said, do you know what, f*** it, we could’nt be any worse off if we were independent.
Agree.
The noble aim of seeing damaged people as equals, not cripples to be mocked or patronised is good. Recognising that artificial limits should not be placed on their potential, likewise. Recognition that achievement can begin prior to being ‘sorted’, is also realistic.
But there is a modern tendency, to regard as bigoted discrimination, the recognition that both employment (including voluntary work) and Public Life, are not supported psychotherapy.
It is incumbent on electors and promoters NOT to place in power, or maintain there longer than necessary, the psychologically maimed. Individuals who through no fault of their own, lack the mental strength to fulfill their role.
To describe the behaviours as cowardice, or lack of courage, is misguided. As it was in the WWI descriptions of the shell-shocked. They may demonstrate IMMENSE courage, even to face the world each day.
But courage is not strength. And leadership requires strength. And the ability to build, and rely on the strength of a team.