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John Swinney has axed the post of Minister for Independence
“John Swinney has axed the post of Minister for Independence “
Hardly surprising, as a new referendum will be at least 10 years away, and he knows it, and has just admitted it. Apparently we are in for a lot of spending cuts, as inflation has eaten away the money pot.
No magic money tree.
"The SNP faced a similar dilemma last year, when John Swinney warned a lack of extra cash for pay rises, through the Barnett formula used to determine devolved budgets, would mean “deep cuts to public services”."
Typical Torygraph neglecting to mention in it's headline that the pay rises were for junior doctors and teachers
Great...so we've got the same cabinet (plus Forbes, minus Yousef) that was failing on ferries, climate change targets, school standards, crime, health etc.
I actually quite like Swinney, strikes me as a decent and well-meaning man.
But we really need a general and Scottish parliament election to shake things up. Tories and SNP have been in power too long.
But we really need a general and Scottish parliament election to shake things up. Tories and SNP have been in power too long.
who do you think would make up the Scottish cabinet if there was an election in June?
Hardly surprising, as a new referendum will be at least 10 years away, and he knows it, and has just admitted it.
But he also said that independence could be delivered in 5 years...? Is he shoving it on the back burner or not? Or does he mean "if there were a yes vote today, we could Get Indy Done by 2029"?
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/scotland-could-be-independent-in-five-years-swinney-claims
But he also said that independence could be delivered in 5 years…? Is he shoving it on the back burner or not? Or does he mean “if there were a yes vote today, we could Get Indy Done by 2029”?
He is obliged to say it as that's what an SNP leader is supposed to say.
He knows there's not a chance it'll happen (as we all do), but as he'll only be leader till Kate takes over in a year or two he can say what he likes and it doesn't matter.
Or does he mean “if there were a yes vote today, we could Get Indy Done by 2029”?
I thought that was what he was getting at. However, I don't think he has a plan for the first step, or for how to move the pro-indy vote firmly past the 45% or so where it has more-or-less stabilised.
If Nicola couldn't move the indy vote past 45% with Brexit and Boris and her own daily TV spot for months during Covid I would be amazed if it goes up with a UK Labour govt. Especially with Branchform continuing it's glacial progress popping up every so often with reminders of the Murrell years.
The problem with Nicola Sturgeon is that she kept repeating the now is not the time line. I think that had the effect of discouraging many indy supporters (based on mine and friends reactions). An actual indy campaign might move that dial a bit. I don't know. It's certain that there are many indy folk outwith the SNP fold these days, based on their previous couple of leaders.
Some folk think that having Labour in at Westminster will make indy seem less urgent/attractive. That might depend on what sort of Labour government we end up with though. The more SKS paints himself as Tory-lite, the less attractive he might be to the floating voters (but then we're overlapping with the SKS! thread 😂)
I don't think i've seen a serious push for any indy vote in the last few years, yes some push after Brexit as it was an opportunity, but that's past now, and there is a lot of unknowns just now, the economy, instability in the EU, conflicts around the world, failures in Scotland, SNP issues and so on, it's not a good time to be pushing for an Indy vote, 5 years isn't long enough either i think, i think there'll be some big decisions taken by the UK and EU in the next 5 years due to Russia.
There's not much chance of an indy referendum in 5 years and the govt does need to focus on the basics but now is not the time to for pressure groups or individuals to stop talking about independence either. There is no guarantee that the UK will be in a better situation in five years or ten. Look how many torie arrivistes have joined the Labour party under Starmer it bears a certain similarity to UKip's slow domination of the Conservative party. With the world being volatile at the moment and showing no signs of getting less so, you would be daft to rule anything out.
Rishi Sunak has listed Scottish Nationalists as a threat to the UK , that must be the best news the independence movement has had for a long while . It certainly won't help the Scottish Tories
But nationalists are a threat to the UK. They want to break it up
I think that's the very point @gordimhor was making. Many Indy supporters will be encouraged by Sunaks speech.
TBH we don't want to "tear the UK apart" we just want to govern ourselves, that involves leaving the UK it's a necessary step that's all.
However we must be pretty scary if he's likening us to Russia.
Going back up the thread a bit, what's the point of dualling the A9? It's rarely particularly busy and car use will have to drop dramatically over the next 20 years to prevent climate change so why waste money on it when we're apparently struggling so much with health and education? You could invest a fraction of the money in sending goods by rail to Inverness which would dramatically reduce the number of lorries on the A9.
what’s the point of dualling the A9?
The number of deaths per year on what is a fairly lightly trafficked road.
The A9 is a weird inbetween design at present - it sort of needs to go one way or another - more like a motorway with separated carriageways, proper slip roads etc, or more like an A Road with roundabouts at intersections so that traffic is traveling slower at the places where accidents are more likely. At present it has neither of those features - it would be cheaper and easier and just as safe to do the latter but thats not particularly sexy and would feel like a backwards step
I*'m not generally in favour of road building but dualling the A9 is long overdue
Going back up the thread a bit, what’s the point of dualling the A9? It’s rarely particularly busy and car use will have to drop dramatically over the next 20 years to prevent climate change so why waste money on it when we’re apparently struggling so much with health and education? You could invest a fraction of the money in sending goods by rail to Inverness which would dramatically reduce the number of lorries on the A9.
Because its consistently an accident and fatality blackspot. Many voters feel its important either because they want to make the journey 10 minutes quicker or wish to remain alive. The option exists for alternative parties to present the argument that "there's no point, we're all doomed and should spend the money on health to make the misery more bearable" but I don't think any of the big parties are arguing against it?
Goods vehicles make up a chunk of the traffic, but even if you removed them all you wouldn't solve the A9 problem. The bulk of the traffic is cars. You are kidding yourself if you believe car use will drop in the next 20 years - certainly not on routes like the A9.
They 100% should increase the goods by rail, not just to inverness but everywhere they can. However moving goods by rail is not as slick as it appears. The goods need loaded onto wagons (or into containers that get loaded onto wagons) and its not usually possible to do that at "the factory" to they are handled twice. Then they need those wagons to be conglomerated into a train. The whole reason a train is more eco is because one engine moves many wagons. So you need a dozen or more wagons all ready to leave at the same time. It needs access to the rail network and there aren't that many trains between Perth and Inverness so that bit is easy enough. But of course you've loaded the train in the central belt and that train needs to get to the quiet bit of the network, which is congested with passenger traffic. A lot of freight moves at odd times because of this. That might mean a signaller in Aviemore is going to be working extra hours to deal with two freight trains so they can move freely elsewhere on the network. Then the train arrives in Inverness and has to be unloaded. The good are inevitably not going to inverness so need reloaded on road vehicles for the final journey, so get handled again and take longer. Tesco in Aviemore might go to Bathgate to Inverness - having passed the store within 200m and then be unloaded and driven back south. Tesco in Ullapool can probably get its delivery quicker driving from Bathgate than loading, train, unloading and driving from Inverness. Many deliveries will not be a single point-to-point like that either - they will be going round multiple shops/pubs/restaurants or homes/businesses/farms drop shipping as they go. Then we have refrigerated loads, livestock, etc which are possible but even more time sensitive. Trains DO make sense to got from a port to a central hub, or between massive facilities; they could make sense for other uses but changing the way trains would work requires investment too. Since many goods are also not starting/stopping in the central belt it doesn't make sense unless you have logistics set up for some trains, or parts of trains to continue to london, birmingham, hull etc.
Why is the assumption that the solution to "health and education" is just to throw money at the problem?
Economically there will be an advantage to shaving X mins off the inverness-glasgow/edinburgh time too. Its important that Scotland doesn't just become about the central belt. Economically building infrastructure is good for the short term (jobs) and the long term (interconnections drive economies). Economic growth brings more £ to spend of hospitals and schools / teachers and nurses if that is what matters to you.
Inverness railway station is currently closed due to gas leaking from a waggon.
FWIW, Stobart run a daily Tesco train to Inverness. It passes by my house. Unfortunately it doesn't stop, so I can't get my messages 😉
On the point about independence seekers - i.e. those looking to redress Scotland's democratic deficit - being as big a threat as Russia, China and Iran I was both appalled and cheered to see it.
Appalled by the clumsiness of lumping a legitimate, democratic movement in with international pariah states, and cheered at the recognition the movement is far from dead and way more than Nicola Sturgeon.
I really hope it ruined Dross's day.
Nicola Sturgeon now claiming that it was trans rights abuse, not her impending arrest, that caused her to quit. I wonder if this means she's feeling more confident about her own legal prospects and thinks she can realign history as a prelude to a comeback? Her successors haven't exactly energised the movement.
https://www.politico.eu/article/scotland-nicola-sturgeon-trans-rights-abuse-pushe-quit-leader-snp/
1 The SNP is not the independence movement.
2 She was wise not to mention operation branchform
3 My opinion Stranraer will win the SPFL before Nicola Sturgeon leads the SNP again.
More like abuse by trans activists not them getting abused.
Worker wins her tribunal after being sacked by Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre for agreeing it was OK for some rape survivors to prefer being counselled by a woman. The tribunal describing the investigation before the sacking as
"“[It] is unfortunately a classic of its kind, somewhat reminiscent of the work of Franz Kafka."
And latest poll has SNP 10pts behind heading for 11 seats.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24333290.labour-hail-bombshell-poll-putting-10-points-ahead-snp/
The SNP is not the independence movement.
It's not the entirety of the independence movement, true, but it is the vanguard of that movement. I find the independence question stifling in Scottish politics. But in any case Sturgeon's successors haven't exactly energised the SNP itself, either. It might be a good idea not to discuss your husband and you being arrested...but if that's the case don't do interviews about why you quit and what was going on at the time. Only time will tell whether saying you stepped down because of abuse over trans issues is credible.
Galloway, Cameron, Salmond, Berlusconi and Trump all made political comebacks after people said they were finished. Why not Sturgeon - especially if she isn't charged with any offences?
Predictions for Scottish seats in the election.
Labour 38
SNP 8
Tories 6
LibDems 5
^ ****ing hope not, Labour are ****ing utterly detestable
Where are those predictions from?
I can see my constituency going to Labour, it was close last time round with the SNP.
I looked at two separate polls for my constituency with radically different predictions. I do not think enough granular work has been done to make any serious predictions. I would be very suprised if that was the outcome
Arse - well that's me bolloxed. I thought I'd have worked out where my vote should sit by the time the GE was called.
Struggling with SNP right now
Whilst a natural Green in many ways, some of their policies don't sit well with me.
Labour's independence stance is totally off putting.
Pretty much my entire adult life I've lived in safe tory seats where my vote made sod all difference - now I don't and I don't feel the love for any particular party. Damn it.
I wouldn't. People have short memories and the SNP fluffed the best opportunity for decolonisation in living memory by collecting 'mandates' and doing nothing with them. You know how the council elections in England and Wales earlier this year saw the tories trounced and the number of spoiled ballots at an all time high? Expect more of that. This is going to be an interesting but incredibly dirty election.
Im a bit like that convert. Labour have made it clear they do not care in the slightest for scotland and are not going to do stuff UK wide the SNP government have done ( end to the 2 child benefit rules and fairer rentals) and no increase in spending means no change in Scotland, SNP my local MP is a liar and carpetbagger. Labour candidate not much better last time around. they are the only two with a chance in my constituency
Lib Dems remain beyond the pale for Carmichael the liar and the coalition, Greens have a slim chance but like you very disappointed in their perfomance at holyrood. Tories are of course out
I doubt I will vote
Don't think the SNP will lose that many, tories will always have their voters up in Scotland, it's just Labour and SNP tend to battle each other for the same votes, hence why labour were decimated at the same time as the SNP grew in power, but a fair share will move their votes to greens or something else, so can't see labour gaining loads from the SNP, although to be fair they can't really do anything but gain some seats after recent times!
I expect 10 - 20 snp losses
On the other election thread SNP are stated at 18 seats from a electoral calculus which tends to be more accurate. A lot of it will depend on how well "two cheeks of the same arse" sticks Remember in the Rutherglen by election the labour candidate had to repudiate several key london labour policies to negate this. They will not get away with that in a GE
As I've already said in this thread, I'm unlikely to vote - for the first time IIRC. I've been an SNP voter all my life but that's been with a view towards independence. Sturgeon squandered the best opportunity and the party hasn't fixed itself since then. I might encourage one of the smaller Indy parties if they're standing in my constituency.
I reckon that lots of unhappy ex-SNP voters will hold their nose and put a tick against SNP come polling day so I take news of a 10% Labour lead with a pinch of salt.
Labour’s independence stance is totally off putting.
Even the SNP have tacitly admitted that independence is dead in the water.
Agree, I don't think snp losses will be as bad as has been predicted. I'm in lib/snp marginal, its lib by 200, I suspect it'll remain lib but I think the snp vote could be boosted by the chances of taking it. Tories and labour are nowhere
I have no bloody idea who the Labour candidate is. IIRC she may or may not be a councillor? About as faceless as the usual Lib candidate (when they field one) but at least not chasing cockle pickers and being a generally nasty shit like the last Green candidate was.
SLab don't really deserve a vote IMO, they've done little to redeem themselves or show they are capable of working in government. Then again look what SNP were fielding when they became the third party.
Don't bring me problems, bring me solutions.
I do feel that the swing to labour in Scotland will be less than in England ( and I don't know about wales) due to the poor behaviour of Scottish labour and the lack of anything to attract the Scots voter to labour.
Its odd because Starmer made it clear he wanted to do well in Scotland but has no policies to attract votes in Scotland
Labour may have a difficult horse to ride, some of their vote has recently been of the orange and unionist variety. Others say approximately one fifth of those who say they will vote Labour in a Westminster election support independence it's going to be difficult to appeal to both
Labour may have a difficult horse to ride, some of their vote has recently been of the orange and unionist variety.
That's starmers core vote in Scotland,
Sure but nothing for Scots voters? surely they can think of something? doesn't have to be constitutional but could be. Instead Starmer actively repudiates stuff that plays well up here like free prescriptions and university, like ending the 2 child benefit cap - and thats not to say actively refusing any movement on the EU or constitutional reform.