What does the opposition do?
Yes, I mean the political opposition.
Not the opposition in Westminster. That's their business. I mean, the opposition in Holyrood, the Tories, although I notice the Scottish TV news on BBC and STV always lumps them together with Labour and gives them an interview each before bothering to talk to anyone from the Scottish Government. Occasionally, the LibDems get an interview but there will be a whole flight of Elon Musk satellites flying over Scotland before the Greens get a word in.
So what do the opposition do? As far as I can make out, if the current Scottish Government collapses, the Tories will take over, be in a position to discard all the previous government's policies and start to put their own policies in place. The only problem is, as far as I can see, the Tories have no policies. Not one. No views at all on education, health, employment, agriculture, fishing, sport, the police, local government or anything else.
They do have very strong views on independence and take every opportunity to talk about it in Holyrood and in the media, even when nobody else is talking about it. The Tories were talking about independence only last week, when the rest of us were wondering how much longer this 'lockdown' is going to last and how we're going to fix the economy and get the weans back to school and people back to their work.
Now you'd think the Tories, as the party of business, would have a view on how to steady the economy in this crisis. But no. What the Tories were doing was mounting an attack on anything the SNP was doing or planning to do and using pals like Hugh Pennington*(who headed up the anti-independence group Scotland Matters in 2014) and Robert Kilgour (who runs a lot of care homes for the elderly and donates to the Tory party). Labour, the party of the working people which is supposed to look after us little people, has been doing the same and, annoyingly, using the trades unions as one of their weapons against the SNP, along with an indignant GP who turned out to be a relative of a Labour MP.
Neither of these parties is capable of running a bingo night never mind a government. They've only got one tactic and have been using it for a decade now: smear the Scottish Government. And, of course, they can do that on a daily basis because they have the support of the unionist press to do it. Nothing beats a front page headline in the Daily Record or the Scottish S*n.
If you're short of entertainment, try listening to the questions put by journalists from all over the UK at the First Minister's daily press conference: with one or two exceptions, they are low on fact and high on snide insinuation. Listen for a couple of days and then ask yourself why the people on the podiums don't drop dead of boredom. Same questions every day on the same topics: care homes and how the Scottish Government have neglected them and their employees (they haven't - 85% of care homes are operated by private companies and they are responsible for providing health and safety equipment); the shortage of PPE (there isn't one); the shortage of NHS staff (there isn't one).
Of course, there's another weapon the opposition have and we've seen it in action again in recent years: the law.
First, Andy Wightman (Green MSP) was sued for £750,000 for defamation by Scottish landowners after he published a book about - guess what - land ownership in Scotland. A lot of us got riled enough at this to raise the cash for his defence. The landowners lost. They'll be paying the costs.
Then Alex Salmond, one-time First Minister, was prosecuted for sexual assaults on women. He was acquitted of all charges and the crown will have to pay all costs. That's you and me, folks. Shortly after, his advocate was filmed secretly on a train talking about the case. He has been forced to give up some pretty senior legal roles after an unblemished lifetime of legal work.
Now we hear that Craig Murray (retired UK ambassador and pro-independence blogger) is to be prosecuted for contempt of court for blogging during the Salmond case. I haven't seen the exact charges but enough people have been annoyed at this to set up a fundraiser, which I believe now stands at £60,000.
Is there a message here?
I can suggest a few:
The British state is rattled by the rise in support for Scottish independence and will use every weapon available to hold the union together. That doesn't mean the UK is in any way interested in Scotland or its people. Just that it will have a lot to lose when Scotland leaves the union.
Anyone who sticks their head above the parapet on behalf of independence is going to be attacked by unionist politicians, the media or the law. Warning - make sure you're squeaky-clean.
This is not normal politics. It is not normal to disrupt the work of government and distract elected representatives in a time of crisis just to score political points. It is, as I say, a sign of desperation. It would not be right for me to say the opposition deserve all they get but, as we say in Glasgow, hell whack it intae them.
*It's been pointed out to me that Hugh Pennington is a bacteriologist, not a virologist, so do you think all the people demanding he be recalled to help deal with Covid19 could just back off?
Not the opposition in Westminster. That's their business. I mean, the opposition in Holyrood, the Tories, although I notice the Scottish TV news on BBC and STV always lumps them together with Labour and gives them an interview each before bothering to talk to anyone from the Scottish Government. Occasionally, the LibDems get an interview but there will be a whole flight of Elon Musk satellites flying over Scotland before the Greens get a word in.
So what do the opposition do? As far as I can make out, if the current Scottish Government collapses, the Tories will take over, be in a position to discard all the previous government's policies and start to put their own policies in place. The only problem is, as far as I can see, the Tories have no policies. Not one. No views at all on education, health, employment, agriculture, fishing, sport, the police, local government or anything else.
They do have very strong views on independence and take every opportunity to talk about it in Holyrood and in the media, even when nobody else is talking about it. The Tories were talking about independence only last week, when the rest of us were wondering how much longer this 'lockdown' is going to last and how we're going to fix the economy and get the weans back to school and people back to their work.
Now you'd think the Tories, as the party of business, would have a view on how to steady the economy in this crisis. But no. What the Tories were doing was mounting an attack on anything the SNP was doing or planning to do and using pals like Hugh Pennington*(who headed up the anti-independence group Scotland Matters in 2014) and Robert Kilgour (who runs a lot of care homes for the elderly and donates to the Tory party). Labour, the party of the working people which is supposed to look after us little people, has been doing the same and, annoyingly, using the trades unions as one of their weapons against the SNP, along with an indignant GP who turned out to be a relative of a Labour MP.
Neither of these parties is capable of running a bingo night never mind a government. They've only got one tactic and have been using it for a decade now: smear the Scottish Government. And, of course, they can do that on a daily basis because they have the support of the unionist press to do it. Nothing beats a front page headline in the Daily Record or the Scottish S*n.
If you're short of entertainment, try listening to the questions put by journalists from all over the UK at the First Minister's daily press conference: with one or two exceptions, they are low on fact and high on snide insinuation. Listen for a couple of days and then ask yourself why the people on the podiums don't drop dead of boredom. Same questions every day on the same topics: care homes and how the Scottish Government have neglected them and their employees (they haven't - 85% of care homes are operated by private companies and they are responsible for providing health and safety equipment); the shortage of PPE (there isn't one); the shortage of NHS staff (there isn't one).
Of course, there's another weapon the opposition have and we've seen it in action again in recent years: the law.
First, Andy Wightman (Green MSP) was sued for £750,000 for defamation by Scottish landowners after he published a book about - guess what - land ownership in Scotland. A lot of us got riled enough at this to raise the cash for his defence. The landowners lost. They'll be paying the costs.
Then Alex Salmond, one-time First Minister, was prosecuted for sexual assaults on women. He was acquitted of all charges and the crown will have to pay all costs. That's you and me, folks. Shortly after, his advocate was filmed secretly on a train talking about the case. He has been forced to give up some pretty senior legal roles after an unblemished lifetime of legal work.
Now we hear that Craig Murray (retired UK ambassador and pro-independence blogger) is to be prosecuted for contempt of court for blogging during the Salmond case. I haven't seen the exact charges but enough people have been annoyed at this to set up a fundraiser, which I believe now stands at £60,000.
Is there a message here?
I can suggest a few:
The British state is rattled by the rise in support for Scottish independence and will use every weapon available to hold the union together. That doesn't mean the UK is in any way interested in Scotland or its people. Just that it will have a lot to lose when Scotland leaves the union.
Anyone who sticks their head above the parapet on behalf of independence is going to be attacked by unionist politicians, the media or the law. Warning - make sure you're squeaky-clean.
This is not normal politics. It is not normal to disrupt the work of government and distract elected representatives in a time of crisis just to score political points. It is, as I say, a sign of desperation. It would not be right for me to say the opposition deserve all they get but, as we say in Glasgow, hell whack it intae them.
*It's been pointed out to me that Hugh Pennington is a bacteriologist, not a virologist, so do you think all the people demanding he be recalled to help deal with Covid19 could just back off?
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