The future of the union
I'm not sure where I'm going with this, so bear with me...
Wednesday will bring us First Minister's questions in Holyrood - again - and I'm going to make a prediction about the 9th of July session. Jackson Carlaw (Con) will ask 3 questions. Then Richard Leonard (Lab), followed by Willie Rennie (Lib Dem) and Alison Johnstone (Green).
These will be questions we've heard before and all will be read from a script (ironically, the very thing some politicians suggested Nicola Sturgeon was doing and took grave exception to). The Con and Lab questions will be negative. The Lib Dem and Green questions may be more constructive, though I have to say (as a Green) Alison Johnstone's questions can be pretty rambling. The questions will all be to do with the Covid-19 outbreak. Maybe about travel arrangements in and out of Scotland during the pandemic. Maybe about care homes. Maybe about the economy.
Not one question will reveal what any of these parties think we could do to rescue Scotland from the current crisis.
It's not as if the people I've named don't have information about what's happening. Three of them are unionists and thus have access to information from Westminster. If they're not getting that information, they may want to ask head office WTF is going on.
The questions will be entirely focussed on holding the Scottish Government to account for what's happening. That government being a Scottish party and having no access to press briefings, position papers or directives from Dominic Cummings.
So here's what I want to ask all of these people: What's the point of your questions?
Monday to Friday Nicola Sturgeon turns up with her Chief Medical Officer and her Health Secretary and they all answer questions about the pandemic put to them by the press. Maybe they're telling me a pack of lies, but there's no way I'm going to find that out from opposition politicians' questions or from the ranks of Scottish journalists that turn up daily.
The journalists, I have to say, come out of of these encounters very badly and have done for 15 weeks. If there was ever any mystique about - let alone respect for - Scottish journalists, it's long gone. They seem to have lost the knack of thinking on their feet. So if the person who puts a question before them asks the question they wanted to ask, they are totally stumped. And although they must know by now that the First Minister will not consider questions that ask about about 'rows' with Westminster or anyone else, they go on asking them. The result is, since she's a canny operator, a cakewalk for Nicola Sturgeon. Every day.
And here is my final question: Why would anybody vote for these people?
That's the crucial question. If Scotland is to have good government, it will need a good opposition. I don't see one here. I can't imagine voting Tory - and the smirking wee Andrew Bowie put the tin lid on it for me last week. Is there a Labour opposition apart from Monica Lennon? It's time we knew.
Wednesday will bring us First Minister's questions in Holyrood - again - and I'm going to make a prediction about the 9th of July session. Jackson Carlaw (Con) will ask 3 questions. Then Richard Leonard (Lab), followed by Willie Rennie (Lib Dem) and Alison Johnstone (Green).
These will be questions we've heard before and all will be read from a script (ironically, the very thing some politicians suggested Nicola Sturgeon was doing and took grave exception to). The Con and Lab questions will be negative. The Lib Dem and Green questions may be more constructive, though I have to say (as a Green) Alison Johnstone's questions can be pretty rambling. The questions will all be to do with the Covid-19 outbreak. Maybe about travel arrangements in and out of Scotland during the pandemic. Maybe about care homes. Maybe about the economy.
Not one question will reveal what any of these parties think we could do to rescue Scotland from the current crisis.
It's not as if the people I've named don't have information about what's happening. Three of them are unionists and thus have access to information from Westminster. If they're not getting that information, they may want to ask head office WTF is going on.
The questions will be entirely focussed on holding the Scottish Government to account for what's happening. That government being a Scottish party and having no access to press briefings, position papers or directives from Dominic Cummings.
So here's what I want to ask all of these people: What's the point of your questions?
Monday to Friday Nicola Sturgeon turns up with her Chief Medical Officer and her Health Secretary and they all answer questions about the pandemic put to them by the press. Maybe they're telling me a pack of lies, but there's no way I'm going to find that out from opposition politicians' questions or from the ranks of Scottish journalists that turn up daily.
The journalists, I have to say, come out of of these encounters very badly and have done for 15 weeks. If there was ever any mystique about - let alone respect for - Scottish journalists, it's long gone. They seem to have lost the knack of thinking on their feet. So if the person who puts a question before them asks the question they wanted to ask, they are totally stumped. And although they must know by now that the First Minister will not consider questions that ask about about 'rows' with Westminster or anyone else, they go on asking them. The result is, since she's a canny operator, a cakewalk for Nicola Sturgeon. Every day.
And here is my final question: Why would anybody vote for these people?
That's the crucial question. If Scotland is to have good government, it will need a good opposition. I don't see one here. I can't imagine voting Tory - and the smirking wee Andrew Bowie put the tin lid on it for me last week. Is there a Labour opposition apart from Monica Lennon? It's time we knew.
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