Scottish politics thread

There’s plenty people on here disagreeing without any problems.  I and others have made some points about the intricacies of the current situation because we know a little bit about what we are talking about.

dash knows absolutely nothing of Scottish politics, he’s stating things which are flat out wrong, he’s being flippant when he gets called out on it, and he’s just generally trying to derail the thread because it’s a subject he apparently has strong feelings on but knows nothing about.

Brucewee your waning was because of much more than saying his was ignorant and you know.

No, I don’t.  I wasn’t abusive.  I stated that thinking in a particular way was normally due to not being very bright but in dazh’s case it was being willfully ignorant because if he took any time to learn about the subject at hand he’d realise.  But he refuses to learn anything about the subject at hand.

And I didn’t say he was a friend of the mods.  I said he was a friend of the owners.

Oh great! Kate Forbes might stand. It’s going to be interesting as even she doesn’t think the SNP government is any good

Let’s be honest, she’s not wrong. Since the last leadership election, she’s been pretty much spot on about the dangers of continuity. The SNP’s popularity has cratered. She’s also not wrong about education, the economy, the Scottish NHS, short sighted urban policies affecting rural Scotland and the Bute House agreement. She’s by far the most grown up in the room and the only politician talking about the need to sort out priority issues with public services and the economy, rather than driving distracting and polarising wedge issues. Deeply unpopular with 52% of the 50k SNP members, but extremely popular with the other 48% and with many SNP voters outside of Edinburgh and Glasgow.

I share very different views with her on certain social matters, but last time I checked Scotland was (just) a free country where all faiths had a right to their individual beliefs as long as they weren’t overriding the democratically expressed votes of the electorate.

Although I’m Englishman in Scotland and consequently a probably a unionist (I always believe it’s better to solve issues as one rather than by crating further divisions), I’d much rather her take the SNP to the 2026 election and make Scotland a better and more prosperous place to live over any petty party squabbles and people playing politics while Rome burns. Likewise, I’d rather live in a prosperous independent Scotland than the sh*tshow that is becoming the current one.

Oh FFS!

Oh FFS!

Uppity Scots getting you down?

Oh FFS!

😂

Anyway, I don’t see Swinney interested in a leadership contest.  I think I read somewhere he was only interested if he was unopposed which makes sense.  I don’t think he’s the one to set the course for the future of the party, just to get them through to the Holyrood election.

If Forbes decides she’s running part of me hopes no one I want to see leading the party runs.  It’s going to be a shit show no matter who is in charge so if anyone other than Swinney has to catch that I hope it’s Forbes.

Bruce – best to just abandon the thread.  shame but its for the best

This video with Nick Ferrari and Andrew Neil is the best recruiting drive towards the SNP,

No more mountain biking on Sundays if Kate Forbes becomes 1st minister

@somafunk I wish Lesley Riddoch would stand for Holyrood

Poverty – not just the single child payment but measures to alleviate the bedroom tax, bring PIP assessments back in house etc etc

Well, okay, let’s take poverty as an example. When the SNP came to power in 2007, the rate of relative poverty for people in Scotland was 17% before housing costs and 19% after housing costs. Today, the rate of relative poverty for people in Scotland is 19% before housing costs and 21% after housing costs. It’s gone up! Absolute poverty rates have gone down by 1% in the same period. Is that the great success we are talking about?

https://data.gov.scot/poverty/index.html

It’s not enough to reel off the names of things or aspirations, you have to actually show objectively they were successful with facts and data.

Uppity Scots getting you down?

They ruined Scotland!

Bruce – best to just abandon the thread.

We can live in hope….

sorry PCA – due to the actions of others I will no longer be contributing to this thread.  Blame the trolls.  Its just impossible to have a decent discussion

ha…ha, that’s rich coming from one of the most contrarian argumentative folk on this forum

its quite easy to ignore posts, its not as if we are all stood in the pub together

Its just impossible to have a decent discussion

Why because you try and shut down anyone who disagrees with you and Bruce. And it is disagreement, no one has a monopoly on facts or understanding of the full situation. I’m usually on the opposite side of the argument to Dazh and I’m struggling to see how what he’s posted can be considered trolling and the personal attacks on him extremely unpleasent. In fact I find the denial of the similarities between Brexit and Scottish Independance quite worrying. No they are not the same but there are a lot of parrellels and to deny that is just disingenuous.

I was having decent discussions with others – unionist even that I disagree with but folk like PCA or Kennyp who understand the issues.  Dazh was being deliberately offensive and would not let up.  He admitted that.

Hence I’m out.

Bruce – best to just abandon the thread.  shame but its for the best

I will no longer be contributing to this thread.

Hence I’m out

Hmmm

I find the likening of the campaign for independence to brexit quite worrying. I know there are arseholes everywhere but the independence campaign that I witnessed and took part in what was outward looking, internationalist and not anti racist. We believed that we could build a better country and join the rest of the world as equals às ourselves.
That’s just about the opposite of the Brexit campaign. There were brexit supporters in Scotland too most of the ones I met were left wing and thought the EU was a global capitalist pub I had a long chat with a brexiteer from Dover who took a similar view and was very pissed off to be lumped in with Farage,Johnson etc. I feel much the same way when I read posts doing the same thing on here

[Humza] probably had little other option really unless he fancied following the Tory playbook of hang on at all costs for as long as possible.

To be fair, it’s not a terrible idea. If anyone can find a way to squander this opportunity, it’s Labour.

When the SNP came to power in 2007, the rate of relative poverty for people in Scotland was 17% before housing costs and 19% after housing costs. Today, the rate of relative poverty for people in Scotland is 19% before housing costs and 21% after housing costs. It’s gone up!

Is there a yearly breakdown of that ? I mean 2007 to 2024 is quite a big jump and a long time. And its not all been plain sailing for Scotland or the UK in general. We’ve have Brexit, which will have played a part, energy costs which will have played a big part.

At least with a breakdown we can see if there has been a trend, and in which years have had the greatest impact.

In fact the UK as a whole has a high degree of poverty.

Hence I’m out

Does this constitute a legally binding contract ?

Is there a yearly breakdown of that ?

Yeah, it’s in the source linked in the post to which you’re replying. Figures 1 and 2. Let me know if you find any “huge successes” from the SNP since they came to power. TJ was just about to but he got distracted by the trolls 😢

https://data.gov.scot/poverty/index.html

Just a note to say thanks to @Brucewee and @Tjagain for your posts. I have been pretty blunt with both of you on other threads, and dont apologize for that, but your comments on this thread have really helped me as new resident in Scotland understand what is going on with this bonkers shitshow.

huge successes” from the SNP

A number things became free under the SNP. Tuition. NHS prescriptions, Free hospital parking And probably many other things. All of which has no doubt helped free up families income.

.

Of course the SNP isnt perfect, but I dont think any party in Scotland or the rest of the UK, or the world for that matter can lay that claim.

All in all its been a rather shitty couple of decades for everyone. But for some to try to lay the entire blame for that at the feet of the SNP is frankly ridiculous. If theres been a change in the figures or percentages, I would think that the events like covid, the Ukraine/Russo war and subsequent energy crisis along with brexit, are largely to blame. I dont think anyone can deny those have had a serious impact on increasing poverty.

But I suppose given that the people of Scotland have voted them in time and time again, they at least are happy to that degree. And maybe they share the notion of nobody’s perfect, but at least it isn’t the utter shite show thats going on down south.

If anything good is to be said, I would say there is considerably less political corruption here in Scotland.

But I suppose given that the people of Scotland have voted them in time and time again, they at least are happy to that degree

Well, maybe sort of. I’ve voted for them, not on the basis I’m happy with their performance in power. But more on a lack of realistic  alternatives situation. I could not say how common that line of thinking is.

Although I was pretty annoyed at their last local candidate swapping parties as I’d voted for the party, not the candidate.

“Well, maybe sort of. I’ve voted for them, not on the basis I’m happy with their performance in power. But more on a lack of realistic alternatives situation. I could not say how common that line of thinking is.”

Exactly. None of the Parties appeal to me. I would rather have a bland Government plodding along, doing little changes along the way, and changing the obviously really poor decisions that past governments have made. The SNP have done that, though I dont agree with their overall aim of Independence, and I certainly disagree with the way they have acted with Finances in the last few years, Politicians should be better than the general public, and seen to be better, we havent got that now, if anything, as a proportion,Politicians (of all sides) are incredibly devious, sleazy,money grabbing and non trustworthy compared to the general public. It needs total change, but that isnt going to happen, they all have their snouts in the trough.

Sorry, dazh, I’m not pissed off at you.  I’m pissed off at the state of reporting of Scotland in the rest of the UK.

Nominations have opened for the next leader of the SNP after the resignation of the First Minister Humza Yousaf.@susannareid100 asks @Kevin_Maguire and @toryboypierce about what this means for Scottish independence. pic.twitter.com/4INXycWajz

— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) April 30, 2024

Just to try to be constructive for a minute, you’ve kept saying that the deal ended because of the fringe issue of GRR which I’ve found irritating.

Again, not having a go but this is completely wrong but I totally understand how people can come to this conclusion if they only got their news from UK sources.

GRR probably unified the Greens and the SNP.  In fact, it unified the entire Scottish Parliament.  All parties (except the Tories) including Labour supported it (Labour only changed their stance when Starmer stepped in).  Even the Tories supported it when Ruth Davidson was in charge.  It did split the SNP itself though so it would be wrong to say it had universal support.

GRR was stopped entirely by the UK government stepping in and using Section 35 for the first time.  It was one of the few shrewd political maneuvers this Tory government has actually managed as GRR doesn’t enjoy the same popular support as it did political support. It succeeded in splitting the loyalties of several parties, not just the SNP.

But in terms of the Greens and the SNP it wasn’t really a wedge issue.  There was little to be done on it once the legal challenges were completed as it was an external factor that stopped it.  I’m sure the Greens weren’t happy about the right wing of the SNP crowing about it but it wasn’t causing issues with the leadership and the Greens, just between the Greens and the Tartan Tories.

What actually caused issues was Yousaf’s surprise populist announcement of a council tax freeze last year.  Puberty blockers and abandoning environmental targets built on that same issue but it was the council tax freeze that really hurt the relationship and set the wheels in motion.  It was a surprise announcement which went against the BHA because there were supposed to be no surprises and it also disproportionally affected the Greens because they are much stronger on the councils than they are in the Parliament.

In addition to all that, there is a civil war going on in the Greens between Harvie, Slater, and Greer and a group of rebels who really really don’t like them.  But the intricacies of the inner politics of the Scottish Greens is too parochial, even for me.

I get why people who get most of their news from UK/English sources would think it was simple situation that came out of nowhere, but it’s really not.

I will try to be more accommodating of your views but it would also be nice if you acknowledged that there is a lot of information and analysis that you miss out of because of the lack of decent coverage of Scotland in England.

Well, okay, let’s take poverty as an example. When the SNP came to power in 2007, the rate of relative poverty for people in Scotland was 17% before housing costs and 19% after housing costs. Today, the rate of relative poverty for people in Scotland is 19% before housing costs and 21% after housing costs. It’s gone up! Absolute poverty rates have gone down by 1% in the same period. Is that the great success we are talking about?

And where are your figures for the UK as a whole, or at least England as that’s how YOU want us to be governed?

Example:

Child poverty rates in Scotland (24%) remain much lower than those in England (31%) and Wales (28%) and are similar (if slightly higher) than in Northern Ireland (22%). This is likely to be due, at least in part, to the Scottish Child Payment. This highlights the effect benefits can have in reducing poverty.

While Scotland doesn’t look any better than the likes of England, when you consider our population is barely a 10th then if we look deeper and compare us to the North, then we’re considerably better.

Between 2019/20 and 2021/22, the average poverty rates in England (22%), Wales (22%) and Scotland (21%) had converged to around the same level, although poverty rates were much lower in Northern Ireland (16%). 

Between 2019/20 and 2021/22, the West Midlands had the highest rate of poverty at 27%, followed by the North East and London (both 25%), Yorkshire and The Humber, the East Midlands and the North West (all 23%).

https://www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2024-the-essential-guide-to-understanding-poverty-in-the-uk#:~:text=Poverty%20rates%20vary%20significantly%20between,in%20Northern%20Ireland%20(16%25).

As I said previously, you want us governed just like England, and that would be like a region of England – so what you’re demanding is that poverty rises right across Scotland.  Stop hiding this, say it out loud!

A number things became free under the SNP. Tuition. NHS prescriptions, Free hospital parking And probably many other things. All of which has no doubt helped free up families income….But for some to try to lay the entire blame for that at the feet of the SNP is frankly ridiculous.

Well, yes, some things became free at the point of use, but they were paid for out of taxes (which reduces families’ income) and/or at the expense of other things. “Free” parking at hospitals is a terrible use of land and other resources, for example: the money spent on providing parking outside the hospital building should have been spent on better healthcare provision inside the building.

But in any case, the claim was that the SNP had achieved great successes around things like poverty. When the facts are actually examined, that record fades a bit or is just a claim that’s not backed up by data. In some cases the opposite turns out to be true – like, poverty has got worse in Scotland.

That’s important because there’s a bit of a meme circulating that “well, there’s a bit of corruption and taxes are higher and the SNP are dysfunctional, but it’s okay on balance because they’re delivering these great public services in Scotland”. And they’re just not!

Who is trying to lay the blame for the whole last 20 years at the feet of the SNP?

And where are your figures for the UK as a whole, or at least England as that’s how YOU want us to be governed?…As I said previously, you want us governed just like England, and that would be like a region of England – so what you’re demanding is that poverty rises right across Scotland.  Stop hiding this, say it out loud!

As you have noted from the data I posted above, the difference in poverty between England and Scotland is 1% – immaterial. I mentioned the modest reduction in one measure of child poverty rate earlier in the thread as a small success for the SNP. Government policy in England has been a miserable failure. Anyone that claims there have been “huge successes” in poverty reduction in England is delusional. I can think of no UK government social policy that should be replicated anywhere, at any time. It has been an unmitigated shitshow on domestic policy outside the devolved governments. The SNP being better than the worst UK government of the last century is not a big claim. Scottish residents are entitled to good governance – not just “yeah well we are better than England”. It’s not a competition with England: it’s a competition to improve the lives of Scottish residents. You can be critical of the SNP’s track record in power and still be in favour of devolution and independence. Inventing weird sarcastic claims about what other people believe doesn’t move conversation forward – critique ideas not people. Hope this helps.

Which is why I noted the regions, but you ignored that.

I can think of no UK government social policy that should be replicated anywhere, at any time

Good, but accept that the outcome of your actions is that Scotland will be treated like just another UK region, this will be reality.

Unintended consequences, and we did point them out to you.

Project Fear no doubt you’ll shout, Project Reality we’ll reply in a few years – except you’ll not be here, just like all the Leavers who’ve disappeared.

Same with drug death discussion. The SNP’s ideas are probably the basis for the way forward, but it’s been badly implemented, under resourced, and doesn’t really tackle well the change in the habits of drug users who aren’t (in the main) dying becasue of addiction to an opioid, but of casual and unsafe multi-drug use that includes opioids. It’s worthy of criticism becasue it’s failed on its own terms, but that doesn’t mean that people that point that out support the drug policy of the rest of the UK, as by any measure it’s also a shit-show.

we should be able to have a discussion about Scotland that doesn’t either resort to folks complaining that non scots residents can’t comment becasue they ‘don’t understand’ or simply saying “yeah well, it’s not any better in England” or “But Tories”.

Same with drug death discussion. The SNP’s ideas are probably the basis for the way forward, but it’s been badly implemented, under resourced,

Exactly the same with their inclusion policy in education. An absolute nightmare for teachers.

Wait until you see the damage that their Redress Scheme is doing to people who worked in the care sector in the 80’s & 90’s, absolute scandal.

Just to try to be constructive for a minute, you’ve kept saying that the deal ended because of the fringe issue of GRR which I’ve found irritating.

Then you’ve misunderstood my point completely. I started this by saying that this was a good example of how coalition politics doesn’t work. Whether it was council tax or the GRR which caused the collapse of the govt is largely irrelevant (I would still contest that the GRR was a major factor though, and even if not then council tax isn’t exactly an issue whicy should collapse a govt), the bigger issue is that the electoral system has by design produced an inherently unstable government which can be held to ransom by MSPs in both the SNP and Greens who are pursuing personal agendas and factional fueds.

There’s a large groundswell of opinion that PR would solve a lot of our problems in the UK. I reckon Scotland and its incompetent govt and politicians has nicely demonstrated why that would be a very bad idea.

PS. There’s really no need to apologise or be pissed off. This is an internet forum, a bit of light destraction from the daily grind. Why some people take offence at what is posted on here by me or anyone else is a genuine mystery to me. 🤷‍♂️

Good, but accept that the outcome of your actions is that Scotland will be treated like just another UK region, this will be reality.

So what if it is? By population Scotland is only 8th when compared to other UK regions – https://www.statista.com/statistics/294729/uk-population-by-region – and 6th in the UK by GDP – https://www.statista.com/statistics/1004135/uk-gdp-by-region – so hardly a surprise that people in other parts of the UK might raise an eyebrow at how much independence supporters bang on about how important Scotland is.

While these discussions of poverty, economics, GRR etc are very interesting, the most profound difference between Scotland and rUK is (in my opinion) the Land Reform (Scotland) Act of 2003. Not only does it make a significant difference to my life (and I’d argue that access to wild places is a lot more important to the whole population than many people realise) it also highlights a fundamental difference in attitude North and South of the border i.e. that what you own is the right to exploit a piece of land for commercial purposes not the right to exclude others from it.

However, despite being fairly clued up on politics up here I’m not actually sure which party (or parties) are responsible for this remarkable piece of legislation, which basically enshrines rule-1 into Scottish law.

we should be able to have a discussion about Scotland that doesn’t either resort to folks complaining that non scots residents can’t comment becasue they ‘don’t understand’ or simply saying “yeah well, it’s not any better in England” or “But Tories”.

The trouble is we’ve got three different conversations going on at once.

One is about the general concept of independence.  It’s part of a bigger conversation about the levels of government needed in an interconnected world.

Then you’ve got a conversations about the Scottish Parliament and just how effective it’s possible for it to be within the UK.  Also, just how badly is the representation skewed because of the independence question?

Then you’ve got the conversation about the inner workings and effectiveness of the relevant political parties and the Scottish government.

It’s not that non-residents shouldn’t be allowed to contribute (I’m not a resident myself although I have as much skin in the game as anyone, if not more*).  It’s just that if you don’t follow the Scottish side of things you aren’t necessarily going to have the best understanding of the second and third points.

*Not going to go into my personal details but my future is entirely dependent on the future direction of Scotland and the decisions I’m going to be forced to make are going to have life changing implications for my entire family.  **** Brexit.

I’m not actually sure which party (or parties) are responsible for this remarkable piece of legislation,

Everyone except the Tories, but actually helped on by the Foot and Mouth outbreak that occurred between the original green paper and the passed bill.

There’s a large groundswell of opinion that PR would solve a lot of our problems in the UK. I reckon Scotland and its incompetent govt and politicians has nicely demonstrated why that would be a very bad idea.

Except because Scotland isn’t a country that has control of all it’s areas it means that the likes of the Labour, LibDem & Tory MSP’s are only there to ‘oppose’ the SNP/Green administration as their #1 priority is to stop independence.  Therefore they see any improvement to Scotland as something that could/may increase the support for independence.

The majority of the world works on PR, just a few democratic countries use FPTP – why do you want Govts elected on a minority of the vote to have to pay no attention whatsoever to the majority that voted for other policies?

PS. There’s really no need to apologise or be pissed off. This is an internet forum, a bit of light destraction from the daily grind. Why some people take offence at what is posted on here by me or anyone else is a genuine mystery to me.

Like I said, I’m not pissed off at or because of you or this forum.  I’m pissed off at the stuff I read in the Guardian and UK press in general.  It’s really not fit for purpose in terms of informing people what is actually going on in Scotland.

But mostly I’m just pissed off at the corner that Brexit is squeezing me and my family into.

I’m also pissed off at the Tory culture war bullshit that is providing a wedge issue within the same family.  Also, **** Alex Salmond.

Sure, my problems are the same facing many in the UK and across Europe and Scotland going independent isn’t going to solve any of my personal issues, but it certainly can’t make it any worse than the current Tory or future Labour governments.

There’s a large groundswell of opinion that PR would solve a lot of our problems in the UK. I reckon Scotland and its incompetent govt and politicians has nicely demonstrated why that would be a very bad idea.

The SNP have been in power since 2007.  For a party that is such a wide church, everything from committed Socialists to full blown free-market neo-liberals, it simply should not have lasted a year.

It’s only now after 17 years that all those cracks are finally starting to cause it to crumble.  And even then I think it’s still too early to say the show is over.  Compromises are going to be made and I suspect things will continue chugging along.

You take one conclusion but I take the opposite.  PR not only provides more stability but more consensus, compromises, and better decisions in general.