The news thread

[Hertsscot]

20 minutes ago, Ally Bongo said:

Everyone knows that there is no way the current SNP will put the country before the party and agree to a Unity Candidate

Everyone knows that the new SNP candidate on their own will get hammered and it wont be down to Labour being popular

Seeing this from within the SNP is extremely unattractive

 

Sarah Masson

 

@_sarahmasson

 

It’s by election time, baby

I'm speaking as an SNP member but maybe getting beat won't be the worst thing for the party. If they lose the seat it might be an opportunity to take stock and get their finger out. I'm an optimist! 

[Ally Bongo]

2 minutes ago, Hertsscot said:

I'm speaking as an SNP member but maybe getting beat won't be the worst thing for the party. If they lose the seat it might be an opportunity to take stock and get their finger out. I'm an optimist! 

It's almost certain the SNP will put down any defeat to something other than SNP unpopularity

Already i can see Ferrier Covid backlash headlines - despite her still being extemely popular in the constituency

[phart]

rhetoric aside,

How does the maths work? SNP candidate gets hammered where's the votes coming to mitigate this hammering if they become "unity"

What do these things actually mean?

It seems more like a political ploy to try and get some power through the backdoor since ALBA have no electoral backing atm.

[Ally Bongo]

2 minutes ago, phart said:

rhetoric aside,

How does the maths work? SNP candidate gets hammered where's the votes coming to mitigate this hammering if they become "unity"

What do these things actually mean?

It seems more like a political ploy to try and get some power through the backdoor since ALBA have no electoral backing atm.

Up until 2015 it was one of the safest Labour seats in Scotland with an almost 20,000 majority

The SNP and Margaret Ferrier had a 30% swing and won the seat by 10,000 votes

In 2017, the infamous SNP voter apathy election, Labour won back the seat with an 8% swing & 1000 votes

In 2019 the SNP & Margaret Ferrier took the seat back with a 5% swing and 5000 votes

In effect at each recent election 70-80% of the electorate vote SNP or Labour and as we saw in 2017 it does not take much for Labour to win it back if SNP voters become apathetic 

Add into that tactical Unionist voting and it could go back to another 10-20,000 vote majority to Labour

SNP voter apathy could be averted with a Unity candidate - all moot as it wont happen

[Dave78]

9 minutes ago, phart said:

rhetoric aside,

How does the maths work? SNP candidate gets hammered where's the votes coming to mitigate this hammering if they become "unity"

What do these things actually mean?

It seems more like a political ploy to try and get some power through the backdoor since ALBA have no electoral backing atm.

I'd imagine the calculation is the Yes vote in Rutherglen is probably in the low 50s, but the SNP vote somewhere in the 30s.

If a unity candidate can disassociate itself with the SNP, and tap into the Yes vote, then the seat can remain in nationalist hands.

Of course, Salmond knows this whole idea is a non-starter, but it allows Alba to highlight the weaknesses of the SNP and put themselves over as an alternative for Yes voters (especially the disaffected SNP ones). It's the kind of smart tactics he was famed for.

[aaid]

33 minutes ago, Dave78 said:

I'd imagine the calculation is the Yes vote in Rutherglen is probably in the low 50s, but the SNP vote somewhere in the 30s.

If a unity candidate can disassociate itself with the SNP, and tap into the Yes vote, then the seat can remain in nationalist hands.

Of course, Salmond knows this whole idea is a non-starter, but it allows Alba to highlight the weaknesses of the SNP and put themselves over as an alternative for Yes voters (especially the disaffected SNP ones). It's the kind of smart tactics he was famed for.

Want to try to explain the arithmetic there mate?

[Dave78]

40 minutes ago, aaid said:

Want to try to explain the arithmetic there mate?

Not sure what you mean? According to polling, the Yes vote is running a good bit higher (maybe 10 to 15 percent) than the SNP vote. That's the gap the proposed unity candidate would attempt to shore up.

[aaid]

16 minutes ago, Dave78 said:

Not sure what you mean? According to polling, the Yes vote is running a good bit higher (maybe 10 to 15 percent) than the SNP vote. That's the gap the proposed unity candidate would attempt to shore up.

The big problem with this argument is that the bulk of the Yes vote, which is still the SNP, have to get behind some form of unity candidate who presumably isn’t an SNP candidate - because that’s not acceptable to those that are pro-Yes but anti-SNP.

What makes you think a non-SNP candidate would be acceptable to SNP voters?

[Dave78]

9 minutes ago, aaid said:

The big problem with this argument is that the bulk of the Yes vote, which is still the SNP, have to get behind some form of unity candidate who presumably isn’t an SNP candidate - because that’s not acceptable to those that are pro-Yes but anti-SNP.

What makes you think a non-SNP candidate would be acceptable to SNP voters?

I don't know the details of the Unity plan. I doubt they even exist, as i don't think it's a serious policy and simply an Alba tactic...

But if it did happen, i'd assume most of the Unity candidates would be from the SNP

[aaid]

8 minutes ago, Dave78 said:

simply an Alba tactic...

 

Is the right answer

[Squirrelhumper]

Be amazed If the SNP are even remotely close to winning that bye election. 

[Dave78]

1 minute ago, aaid said:

Is the right answer

Like i said, it's the kind of smart tactics Salmond is adept at

[Ally Bongo]

1 hour ago, Squirrelhumper said:

Be amazed If the SNP are even remotely close to winning that bye election. 

The NuSNP think exactly the opposite evidenced by them celebrating Margaret Ferrier being ousted and the by election being called

 

 

[aaid]

Tory candidate is big hitter Councillor Thomas Kerr.  

[vanderark14]

Climate protesters throw paint at the scottish parliament after they hear about Sunak granting oil licenses. Fucking morons

on a side note, did anyone see the video of the just stop oil moron stopping an electric vehicle getting into a petrol station? Made me laugh out loud

[Alibi]

16 hours ago, scotlad said:

Completely stupid, I agree, and I'd like to know what she was thinking (maybe she'll finally make that clear).

By all accounts she was a good MP and a committed campaigner, so she's obviously both a bright person and someone of integrity, so I think it's safe to say what she did was out of character.  The only thing I can think of as mitigation is she was ill, not thinking clearly and panicked, thin though that excuse is.

As an early adopter of Covid, I tend to agree with the not thinking clearly.  With vaccines, covid now generally seems to be a lot less destructive on average, but in the early days when I first had it, I was delirious and had weird hallucinations.  I can see how she might not have been able to think rationally.

The more important point though is that she has been punished repeatedly & still her former colleague are putting the boot in.  It's bad enough being abused by the British state which lets Johnson and co. away with so much, but when it's SNP folk campaigning against her, you have to wonder why.  Probably didn't support self ID.  I see the SNP chief whip at WM is proposing to move the writ for the election rather than the UK govt doing it as per normal practice.  What's that all about, trying to demonstrate to their unionist overlords that they're good little parliamentarians?

Edited August 2, 2023 by Alibi

[aaid]

15 minutes ago, Alibi said:

 I see the SNP chief whip at WM is proposing to move the writ for the election rather than the UK govt doing it as per normal practice.  What's that all about, trying to demonstrate to their unionist overlords that they're good little parliamentarians?

Wrong.  Any MP can move the writ, the protocol is that it’s moved by the Chief Whip of the party to which the former MP belonged. 

[TDYER63]

21 hours ago, scotlad said:

Completely stupid, I agree, and I'd like to know what she was thinking (maybe she'll finally make that clear).

By all accounts she was a good MP and a committed campaigner, so she's obviously both a bright person and someone of integrity, so I think it's safe to say what she did was out of character.  The only thing I can think of as mitigation is she was ill, not thinking clearly and panicked, thin though that excuse is.

It’s entirely possible she wasn’t thinking straight , even extreme tiredness can trigger very poor decision making , and the double standards that you mentioned before are a joke.

Thing is, the public have a really shit view of politicians generally . The  SNP are hoping to encourage people to vote for independence by saying they are not the same as the rest and will be more accountable . Its hard to use the ‘ aye but they did it too but nothing is happening to them ‘ line if you are trying to show you are different. 

 

 

[Ally Bongo]

48 minutes ago, TDYER63 said:

It’s entirely possible she wasn’t thinking straight , even extreme tiredness can trigger very poor decision making , and the double standards that you mentioned before are a joke.

Thing is, the public have a really shit view of politicians generally . The  SNP are hoping to encourage people to vote for independence by saying they are not the same as the rest and will be more accountable . Its hard to use the ‘ aye but they did it too but nothing is happening to them ‘ line if you are trying to show you are different. 

 

 

Unlike many other MPs she is also a workaholic

[TDYER63]

52 minutes ago, Ally Bongo said:

Unlike many other MPs she is also a workaholic

You will know her more than most folk on here . Everyone makes mistakes , unfortunately she made hers at the worst possible time and when the public were at their least forgiving . Understandably , given the circumstances at the time. 

A lot of Alex Salmonds statement is true , Labours shit stirring has been of the highest order. But would the SNP , or Alba for that matter, have done anything different had the boot been on the other foot ? It’s politics and its ruthless,  particularly in Scotland with the independence element added into the mix. 

I personally would not want to see someone who has done a lot of good lose their livelihood  over one mistake, big as it was. Whilst I think she has been incredibly stupid its also too easy to preach. None of us know the time we might do something out of character. On the other hand, hard working people in other sectors lose their job if the one mistake is big enough. 

[Ally Bongo]

2 hours ago, TDYER63 said:

You will know her more than most folk on here . Everyone makes mistakes , unfortunately she made hers at the worst possible time and when the public were at their least forgiving . Understandably , given the circumstances at the time. 

A lot of Alex Salmonds statement is true , Labours shit stirring has been of the highest order. But would the SNP , or Alba for that matter, have done anything different had the boot been on the other foot ? It’s politics and its ruthless,  particularly in Scotland with the independence element added into the mix. 

I personally would not want to see someone who has done a lot of good lose their livelihood  over one mistake, big as it was. Whilst I think she has been incredibly stupid its also too easy to preach. None of us know the time we might do something out of character. On the other hand, hard working people in other sectors lose their job if the one mistake is big enough. 

https://scotgoespop.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-cost-of-self-righteousness-publics.html

As expected, the recall petition against Margaret Ferrier has hit its target and triggered a by-election.  What I didn't expect, though, was how relatively close it came to failing. Only 14.7% of the registered electorate signed the petition, which means that the drive to persuade people to sign may have made the decisive difference in reaching the 10% threshold - and of course that was a drive the SNP were active participants in, even though they knew any by-election was highly likely to see the Rutherglen seat move from the pro-independence camp to the unionist camp.  As I pointed out recently, there were only two officially registered campaigning organisations in favour of the petition succeeding - one was Labour, and the other was the SNP.  It's the absolute epitome of self-defeating behaviour.  And make no mistake, this isn't necessarily just about one seat - landmark by-election results often produce snowball effects in the subsequent general election.  We could look back on what the SNP have done to Ferrier as a crucial milestone on the way to the loss of the pro-indy majority at Westminster.

I have no time whatever for the notion that the SNP's actions were made inevitable by the gravity of Ferrier's trangressions.  In February and March 2020, the Scottish Government, including Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf, ignored the pleadings of the World Health Organisation and deliberately allowed Covid to move freely through the population.  They even sent Jason Leitch out on a Grand Complacency Tour of the TV and radio studios to hubristically imply that the WHO were wrong and that "what the science is telling us" is that people should keep going to large events, such as Stereophonics concerts, held in confined indoor spaces.  The only thing that put a stop to that unforgiveable folly was the realisation that the NHS would literally collapse if the "libertarianism for pathogens" approach was maintained.

And over the last year to eighteen months, of course, all mitigations against Covid have been completely dropped, even though the virus is still ubiquitous and is still causing considerable amounts of death and severe illness.  Literally the only thing that seems to matter to the government is that the numbers are no longer high enough to overwhelm the NHS - they simply don't care about the human toll along the way.

In a nutshell, then, Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf must by definition be responsible for many, many times more Covid deaths than Margaret Ferrier was (and of course there's no way of knowing whether Ferrier was responsible for any deaths or infections at all).  To portray Ferrier as a monster, as the SNP leadership shamelessly did, and themselves as saints, is just rank hypocrisy.  And I would stress that I've been making similar points about the Scottish Government's catastrophic early handling of Covid since 2020, when I was still a member of the SNP myself.

There's also the question of what we can glean about the characters of SNP politicians who turned on Ferrier so instantly and savagely.  This is a woman they used to praise to the skies as the SNP's hardest-working campaigner, especially in local council by-elections. If they can decide literally overnight that she's irredeemably evil and untouchable, who is actually safe from being betrayed by them?

If the coming by-election is not going to be reported as a straightforward tale of Labour triumph and Yes disaster, it may well be that it can't be allowed to be a straightforward Labour v SNP battle.  As has been well-rehearsed, I think in normal circumstances Alba need to be incredibly cautious about splitting the Yes vote in first-past-the-post elections - but in this particular case, with the SNP seemingly almost guaranteed to lose, a good showing for a big name Alba candidate could be the only thing with any chance of preventing Labour from using the by-election to generate unalloyed momentum for themselves.  And a big name Alba candidate can only really mean Alex Salmond.

 

[Ally Bongo]

And then there is this - no wonder the SNP went after Ferrier

 

[scotlad]

On 8/1/2023 at 11:20 PM, Squirrelhumper said:

Be amazed If the SNP are even remotely close to winning that bye election. 

It's a long shot but I still think they've a chance.  The SNP candidate is a local councillor who lives and is raising a family in the area, whereas Labour are fielding a candidate who, not to put too fine a point on it, is a speccy Starmerite wee nyaff who has already tried, unsuccessfully, to get elected in Glasgow, at least twice, and whose selection as candidate caused a stooshie amongst the local Labour party.

Labour pick activist who quit party to be by-election candidate | HeraldScotland

I still think Labour will win, but it might not be the foregone conclusion some people expect.

12 hours ago, Alibi said:

As an early adopter of Covid, I tend to agree with the not thinking clearly.  With vaccines, covid now generally seems to be a lot less destructive on average, but in the early days when I first had it, I was delirious and had weird hallucinations.  I can see how she might not have been able to think rationally.

The more important point though is that she has been punished repeatedly & still her former colleague are putting the boot in.  It's bad enough being abused by the British state which lets Johnson and co. away with so much, but when it's SNP folk campaigning against her, you have to wonder why.  Probably didn't support self ID.  I see the SNP chief whip at WM is proposing to move the writ for the election rather than the UK govt doing it as per normal practice.  What's that all about, trying to demonstrate to their unionist overlords that they're good little parliamentarians?

Aye, I get the impression she wasn't part of the "cool crowd"; just a long-standing, committed activist - most probably going back to the days when the SNP were not a safe bet to win seats - who went on to become a politician.  What a way to thank her for all her hard work.

[scotlad]

2 hours ago, Ally Bongo said:

And then there is this - no wonder the SNP went after Ferrier

 

The sad thing is, it's a distinct possibility that none of the people named on that document will be elected politicians in 18 months time.

[aaid]

6 hours ago, scotlad said:

Aye, I get the impression she wasn't part of the "cool crowd"; just a long-standing, committed activist - most probably going back to the days when the SNP were not a safe bet to win seats - who went on to become a politician.  What a way to thank her for all her hard work.

She was apparently a big friend of Nicola Sturgeon.  At least that was how it was reported at the time and how BBC Scotland want to frame it judging by the number of photos and film they use of the pair together.  Sorry but you can’t have it both ways.