Scottish government fiasco
Alan Cresswell
Admin, 8th Day Host
in Hell
OK, so I'm not really able to put into words my thoughts on the stupidity of our First Minister (I'm with you there @Louise) the comments on another thread should be on their own thread rather than distract from the serious issue of the stupidity of the UK government wanting to transport asylum seekers to Rwanda. Even if I started the tangent, here are the posts from that tangent.
Is that anything to do with the SNP deciding it can work as a minority government?Alan Cresswell wrote: »The attempt to look well 'ard and appease the lunatic fringes of political parties, but actually coming across as foolish, seems to be contagious.
Alan Cresswell wrote: »You might very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment.Is that anything to do with the SNP deciding it can work as a minority government?Alan Cresswell wrote: »The attempt to look well 'ard and appease the lunatic fringes of political parties, but actually coming across as foolish, seems to be contagious.
Arethosemyfeet wrote: »Is that anything to do with the SNP deciding it can work as a minority government?Alan Cresswell wrote: »The attempt to look well 'ard and appease the lunatic fringes of political parties, but actually coming across as foolish, seems to be contagious.
Seems to be. Trying to appease bigoted wankpuffins like Kate Forbes and Ash Reagan is now first place ahead of action on climate change.
Arethosemyfeet wrote: »Is that anything to do with the SNP deciding it can work as a minority government?Alan Cresswell wrote: »The attempt to look well 'ard and appease the lunatic fringes of political parties, but actually coming across as foolish, seems to be contagious.
Seems to be. Trying to appease bigoted wankpuffins like Kate Forbes and Ash Reagan is now first place ahead of action on climate change.
I'm glad you said that because my ability to find anything to say that wouldn't fall foul of Ship standards was severely compromised. What a mess. He really threw the pin and kept the grenade. I can't see how he survives this.
Arethosemyfeet wrote: »I assume he was banking on the Greens not being willing to back the no confidence motion. It remains to be seen whether the Greens made the right choice.
Comments
Like I say, their maths and general strategic take* is sound IMO.
*Ie you/I/the garden gate don't need to agree with any/all/some of their aims, but it's difficult not to agree with their take on what's going on.
I cannot put into words what I think of this man and what he does and it's just as well I don't because he sues - as he did to Kezia Dugdale for telling the truth about him (ex Scottish Labour leader - she won - but the Ship and I don't have that kind of money)
There are lots of experts who follow Scottish politics. There's no need to go to sites like this. Back in the days when I was stupid enough to read him (and he hadn't fully decloaked) even the so-called analysis often turned out to be wrong.
I don't hold any brief for the FM on this who I think has done something stupid. I'm just saying that I wouldn't go to that site even if I thought it agreed with me.
point taken - but that's me told isn't it?
Back to the strategic and tactical nous of the Scottish National Party.
Dafyd Hell Host
He thanks journalists for coming and says last week he was here to announce the ending of the Bute House agreement, the power-sharing deal with the SNP. He says he still thought that was the right decision, for his party and for the country.
He says he hoped to continue working with the Scottish Greens in a more informal.(sic)
But he under-estimated how much hurt that decision caused, he says.
He says, while a route to winning the no confidence motion was possible, he was not willing to compromise his principles.
In fact it looks like there's a scenario where the SNP elects a leader, the Scottish Parliament decide they don't like them and the process repeats ad infinitum but I presume that can't actually happen??
The first stage involves the SNP selecting a party leader, which follows their own internal processes - a nomination stage where each candidate needs to gain the signatures of at least 100 members (from at least 20 different branches) for them to be a candidate. There'll then be a period of campaigning to secure the majority of votes of SNP members. The actual election within the SNP will use an STV voting system.
When the SNP have a new leader, Yousaf will step down and the newly elected person will become leader of the SNP. At that point, the Parliamentary process kicks in - a date is set for the Parliamentary election, anyone who wants to be First Minister and can get two other MSPs to propose and second that puts their name forward (in practice that will be no more than one MSP from each party, the new SNP leader will be one of those, I expect that the Conservatives will nominate Douglas Ross and Labour Anas Sarwar, I don't expect there to be a Green or LibDem candidate or for Regan to get two MSPs to support her). If there's only one candidate (which won't happen) the vote is simply to approve them - do more MSPs vote for than against? If there's more than one candidate then there's a series of votes with candidate who gets the least number of MSP votes each round eliminated, until one candidate gets more than 50% of the votes.
Theoretically, if no other party puts forward a candidate and the new SNP leader gets the SNP 63 votes and every other MSP votes against them then a government can't be formed and a general election will be triggered. That won't happen because a) I can't imagine Douglas Ross turning down the opportunity to stand for the position of FM, and if he does then Anas Sarwar will be compelled to follow suite, and b) members of parties other than the SNP will either vote for the new leader or abstain, both options will mean the new SNP leader will get a majority. So we've dodged having a Scottish General Election in the same year as a UK GE, and a two year Parliament before we go to the polls again.
What I didn't see coming was that after all the talk by Salmond about the Greens breaking a pro-independence bloc by planning to vote with Unionists in the (subsequently withdrawn) VONC in Yousaf, I just didn't see Regan actually voting with the Unionists against the whole Scottish Government. So much for independence above all else, that's Alba lost a big chunk of a small voter base.
Brian: We mustn't fight each other. Surely we should be united against the common enemy!
Everyone: The Judean People's Front?
It will be good in that it gets the new FM in place very quickly, reducing disruption to Parliamentary business before the summer recess. It's good that it won't be a radical change in direction, so we've still got the minority government the people voted for in 2021 rather than one that will be veering off in radically different directions. So, basically, stability.
Swinney has said he'll lead the SNP through the 2026 election, and I'm going to assume beyond that unless 2026 is a total disaster and the SNP are not in government (then the usual response of the leader resigning and a new leadership contest will follow). Given his previous attempts to step back from front line politics I suppose there's going to be questions of whether he also leads the SNP through 2031 or not, but that's a long time in the future (especially in politics).
Will Mr Swinney seek to repair relations with the Scottish Greens?
O! that we could have such things here in Benighted Brexitannia!
World-Beating English Wastemonster Sleaze™ moving to Wales? I very much hope not - we want to keep our W-BEWS to ourselves, thank you. It's ours, I tell you, and no-one else deserves it as much as we do...
The avuncular Mark Drakeford (who always reminded me of the kindly Headmaster I had at Grammer Skool) will be much missed, perhaps, although he (being human) didn't get everything right...
As far as our present FM is concerned, my feeling is that the actual donation was correctly declared and processed, however there are questions about the righteousness of its source (an accusation which could never of course be made about any other political donations). I think part of the problem is that the Senedd Labour members overwhelmingly preferred his rival, but not the rank-and-file party members.
One can also only hope and pray that Wales, like Scotland, sorts out its problems soon, and that the devolved countries continue to show England how (mostly) grown-up governments can (most of the time) operate.
I can't imagine him getting anywhere near the number of votes as Swinney, but it will force a discussion in the SNP on routes to independence (though, presumably with McCormick presenting the same view as the party rejected at conference last year) and delay the change over of FM.
A safe pair of hands?
Predictably, the Scottish tories (poor little loves - still reeling after their English counterparts' thrashing last week) are unhappy.