“Mitchell ( author of book on NS) is puzzled about how Sturgeon acquired the reputation of being a formidable debater: ‘…abuse is not debate and a posture of in-yer-face loathing does not make a person “formidable”, merely unpleasant.’”
“While I take my responsibility very seriously, I cannot single handedly protect the country from this virus," Nicola Sturgeon said yesterday. The hubris and self obsession is incredible.
“Despite being a middle-class university graduate, and the daughter of a teacher, she has become famous for performing a grim parody of working-class Scottishness.” -
@TwisterFilm
Black from a similar background to me. I don’t speak like that.
Euan McColm: “Let’s not forget that Matheson didn’t consider that the right thing to do was to pay the bill himself until details of his expenses were made public. Does real integrity require to be activated by public humiliation?”
Been blocked at some point today by
@NicolaSturgeon
the head of Scottish government and Glasgow MSP, most of whose public announcements are made on her personal Twitter account. Never been rude about her, albeit I did express doubt about the pile of pristine condition books.
“Watching First Minister’s Questions one has to wonder if there is anything the Scottish Government takes responsibility for without the ritual transfer of blame to someone else.” - Brian Wilson
“As a friend with a long background in public service messaged me on Wednesday: ‘She drained every semblance of humour and camaraderie from public and political life. Scotland should be rejoicing to see the back of her.’” - Brian Wilson.
How true.
A day with family and friends. Tomorrow instead of the purple bin for council kerbside collection I’m meant to carry this to various retailers? Really ?
@lornaslater
@Circ_Scotland
@ScottishEPA
? Crackers.
“NICOLA Sturgeon received no written briefings from her chief advisers on coronavirus during the first months of the global pandemic, the Scottish Government has admitted.”
As many said at the time, the TV broadcasts were mainly about promoting Sturgeon.
“Contemptuous of opposition and media scrutiny, the SNP high command enjoyed something too close to absolute power. Which other governing party in the democratic world would have allowed itself to be run by a husband-and-wife team?”
“Opposition politicians were,routinely, treated with contempt. Any legitimate criticism of Scottish government..was dismissed..as an example of ‘talking Scotland down’.Any slight was defended with a boorish – and complacent – reminder of..election results”
@Gedk
@PinkNews
The use of the term ‘phobia’ to refute opinions,discussion and indeed science won’t work. I am always respectful to people and what they want to be called. But I cant be made can’t be forced to deny objective reality. Only biological women can have periods. We all know that.
We’re never told by “Westminster” that Scotland is part of a “voluntary union”. That’s a term made up recently. No Scots constitutional law department teaches this. Britain is a unitary state. The component parts dissolved into the new state 300+ years ago.
We're continually told by Westminster that Scotland is part of a voluntary union, yet they deny us a choice over our own future.
So we will contest the next General Election on a simple proposition:
Vote
@theSNP
for Scotland to become an independent country.
#WhyNotScotland
?
“Nicola Sturgeon has revealed she did not know who the Secretary of State for Scotland was when she first met him.”
Even if this were true (which I very much doubt) the small mindedness revealed in making this statement, for a cheap laugh, is revelatory.
Sturgeon “told journalists: ‘We don't want people travelling across the border, going to pubs and potentially bringing the virus back.’
....there are currently 28.1 Covid cases for every 100,000 people in England, versus 40.7 in Scotland.”
Gruesome again.
Sturgeon knows there is a relevant legal issue concerning the Scottish Parliament potentially acting outside its powers and trying to bind UK ministers. Hence the court. The rule of law applies to devolved Holyrood. To call a court challenge “repugnant” is preposterous hyperbole.
@ScotGovFM
@HumzaYousaf
@PalMissionUK
@hzomlot
You have no foreign affairs remit but appear to be spending an inordinate amount of time on Gaza. You have said nothing about Syria, Turkey, Yemen, Pakistan, China or Afghanistan. Just the conflict following genocidal Jew-hating Hamas attacking Israel. Pretty obvious.
Sauchiehall Street has been an unmitigated disaster for years now. In almost any other country in the world the Art School would be rebuilt, the McLellan Galleries would house city art, etc. What’s devolution for? Today Yousaf meeting Jordan ambassador.
After almost 18 months of Sturgeon’s “brilliant” handling of coronavirus in Scotland we’re back where we started, despite her supposed “caution” and almost endless- and very clearly useless- “blunt” and “frank” verbiage on TV. Thank God for the UK and the vaccine.
Professor Vernon Bogdanor reminding us in
@thetimes
today that the SNP is not historically a pro EU party. Even when Sturgeon joined SNP wanted to leave. It “changed” purely for tactical reasons (“independence in Europe”) and would no doubt change again if it thought convenient
“If the SNP are booted out of western islands, it will be a well-deserved comeuppance for the party’s complete disregard for Scotland’s islanders. The ferries fiasco is the scandal that should have brought down the SNP long before we got to police raids”
These long-blocked gulllies are on a short stretch of Kilmarnock Road, Shawlands and side streets Trefoil Avenue and Carment Drive. The Nationalist council leader claims that Victorian drains are to blame for recent flooding. In reality lack of any maintenance is surely to blame.
A brilliant quote from
@Glackinreports
last column: “The SNP has been allowed to get away with expressing meaningless utopian visions of Scotland for too long..the Scottish government has operated more like a marketing business for its leaders than a government for its people..”
Who ever said Sturgeon communicates well? She delivered a school essay, telling us repeatedly that she was going to make an announcement and when she eventually came to this she rushed it and buried her points in a welter of cliches, subclauses and unneeded personalisation.
“Glasgow City Council leader to attend COP28 in Dubai”
Is being a councillor or council leader dealing with local matters too boring? Do people stand for the council to go to events like this? So much practical to do for her city, but she’s unconcerned.
“ (Sturgeon) ....remain(s) a one-trick pony. Scotland’s railways – a shambles. Scotland’s ferries – £100 million or maybe a lot more down the drain. Scotland’s hospitals – a scathing report from the Auditor General. Scotland’s homeless – chaotic failure”
Johnson brought down,ultimately, by knowing about errant behaviour of junior colleague and pretending he didn’t. Is Westminster more transparent and open than Holyrood or is media scrutiny much greater? The head of government here never seems to know anything and that’s accepted.
She literally spent two whole weeks- for which the civil service spent vast amounts of time and money on- hanging around the fringes of a conference which she wasn’t a participant at, all in the hope of photographs with world leaders.
“We're in a global pandemic, it's still causing us serious challenges, I take my duties as First Minister very seriously and my primary duty right now is to lead the country through this pandemic”:
@NicolaSturgeon
#Marr
#SNP21
“surprised to see the First Minister making the case that only Covid could be discussed at these briefings.After all, back in February Sturgeon used her Covid briefing to launch an incredible attack on Alex Salmond”
“SNP ministers have used short-lived Covid funding to pay for a raft of pre-election give-aways, storing up future problems, the UK’s top economic thinktank has warned.”
It means big cuts as soon as these funds ( meant for other purposes) run out.
@scotgov
Why does Nicola Sturgeon issue so much public health advice from her personal account given she has blocked so many Scots from seeing it? Why isn’t the
@ScotGovFM
account used for this?
She calls a press conference, says nothing to the journalists assembled in the street outside her house then has the nerve to say her neighbours are entitled to a bit of privacy!
“Credit where credit is due: he has the honour of being the first SNP First Minister in its entire history not to have been arrested.”
– Penny Mordaunt on Humza Yousaf.
@NicolaSturgeon
@ScotParl
The idea that we could have shut down Scotland for nearly a year now and had anything left standing had we left the UK is just incredible. Similarly to leave the UK now with business battered and so many furloughed with no Scots currency or economic plan simply beggars belief.
“In 2009,staff at Edinburgh airport complained that Salmond had 'behaved inappropriately' towards them.Airport bosses contacted Robertson, who raised the issue with Salmond then seemed to do nothing else about it. Sturgeon was (told) of complaints in 2017”
“The devolved government in Edinburgh is easily the least scrutinised ministry anywhere in the UK, if not further afield. The Scottish parliament lacks the structural robustness of the House of Commons. There is no revising chamber.”
Absolutely bizarre. Her government’s cuts to council budgets over the last 9 years are the cause of this. Astonishing she wasn’t told to get lost. Another example (Greens good at this too) of Nationalist politicians “campaigning” against cuts they voted for and implemented.
“For decades, the SNP has camped on the moral high ground, denouncing other parties as corrupt and self-serving. The facade of superiority is now shattered.”
“A great many Scots..bought into the idea that the nationalists truly represented a new kind of politics. As..Nicola Sturgeon endures the indignity of arrest and the status of suspect..nationalists don’t look quite the paragons they’d have voters believe”.
“No advanced economy with mass consumer debt and mass mortgage markets has broken away from its national currency base before. Scots, and their debts, would be guinea pigs in an extraordinary economic experiment.”
@JohnFerry18
Yousaf is “a privately educated man who at 38 has never had to do a job interview. He has been handed every single job he has had, and failed upwards each time, all the way to First Minister, cruising by on the honed charmed a private education provides.”
“Nicola Sturgeon has set up a company to handle the income from her earnings outside politics after signing a lucrative deal for her memoirs.”
Pretty difficult to think of a reason for this other than tax avoidance, of which she was once so critical.
On the last Glasgow suburban train from Central Station. 10.45pm is the last train. Is it the dream of Sturgeon’s Nationalists to go back to the Presbyterian 1950s? It looks like it.
SNP has “28 chauffeur driven cars, costing over £1m to get them to and from their work, this SNP/Green Government is cutting 1000 rail services a day, offering no replacement bus services and forcing people to work hours just to pay for a taxi home.”
“Glasgow City Council has 14 staff earning over £150k a year – more than any other UK local authority”
What a fantastic job they’re doing....oh wait...
“Senior SNP figures know the Yousaf project has failed, and that it cannot be reconstructed – it lacks both the political nous and the raw materials. “He just doesn’t have it, whatever it is,” one parliamentarian told me.”
@theSNP
Er, Nicola Sturgeon the proclaimer of a
#ClimateEmergency
travels from Glasgow to Edinburgh every single day day by chauffeur driven limo whilst telling us to
#StayHome
. Bit inconsistent, surely?
“What briefing did Mr Yousaf seek or have access to before engaging in this encounter? What messages did he convey to Mr Erdogan about the Hamas relationship and the President’s comments? What notes were taken and to whom have they been made available?”
@C4Ciaran
@NicolaSturgeon
In the three years between the announcement of a publicly owned energy company and the arrival of covid nothing was done. Nothing. Sturgeon just re-writing history as usual. This was never happening.
“Scotland’s broadcasters need to change their mindset and play their part in holding authority to account. The problem is not that its political coverage is consciously biased, just lazy and acquiescent to the powers that be” Brian Wilson
This sheds some further light on El-Nakla’s trip to Istanbul to speak at a conference called by the wife of the despotic Turkish head of state and Humza Yousaf’s meeting with Erdogan. What on Earth is going on?
“There is an almost endless list of reasons that the SNP has lost support in Scotland…But even if (Keith) Brown (SNP deputy leader) is correct and Tory supporters voted tactically, so what? We are all entitled to vote however we wish for whatever reason.”
NEW: BBC Scotland understands Glasgow City Council is considering bringing in private contractors amid the bin collection and street cleaning strike.
It’s believed the local authority thinks the GMB week-long walkout during COP26 is unlawful.
More to follow…
I knew some people in my working life who never went on holiday, considering themselves indispensable. They also tended not to be “fully paid up members of the human race” to use Alan Watkins’ expression. Boastful self-martyrdom isn’t to be admired.
“Scotland has the highest rate of excess deaths in Britain,with coronavirus and lockdowns compounding the nation’s record of ill-health linked to poverty, disease and addiction.”
All we heard was what a great job Sturgeon was doing. But she wasn’t. At all.
“SNP source: “During their meeting, Alex discussed with Nicola an allegation made against Patrick Grady. It did not seem to come as a surprise to her..(SNP)..was undoubtedly aware of these claims for some time so why investigation launched years later?””
In what possible way would it not be fine? I don’t understand this ahistorical nonsense. Scots soldiers have worn red uniforms for nearly 400 years. Just because some people today have a wholly false or invented idea of Scotland’s history in their heads doesn’t change reality.
It’s amazing how many people seem to think the “Redcoat” cafe is fine because it has been called that for years. As if that justifies it. The cafe has just had a refurb; the perfect time for a new name. Just rearrange the letters and you get “Art Deco”. It’s not that difficult!
It’s weird. They call each other “Nationalists”. Sturgeon begins her speeches to SNP conference “fellow Nationalists”. They have organisations of “Nationalist Students” and “Nationalist Councillors”. But Johnson is “traducing” SNP using their own term. Toxic nationalism maybe?
“Ministers must have the permanent power to lock down Scottish universities in order to prevent right-wing principals from defying government health guidance, the SNP education secretary has said.”
This is mad.
“Nicola Sturgeon pledged to establish a publicly owned, not-for-profit energy company in a flagship announcement at her party conference in 2017, but the scheme hasn’t got any further than an “independent strategic outline case” completed two years ago.”
Astonished that she’s actually doing this, especially as she did a secular video for Christmas just a week ago. It goes to prove that with the highest drug deaths in Europe, a failing economy and care home disaster all she is about is PR spin.
I thought we’d heard the last of this disastrous figure who achieved none of her stated aims and left Scotland worse off than when she took office. But her ego means a posturing press conference in Holyrood ( by what right?) talking about herself yet again. So utterly tedious.
Breaking.
@NicolaSturgeon
says what is “frustrating” is she can’t tell her side of story over
@theSNP
finances being investigated by
@PoliceScotland
Add she has not been questioned by police. Denies the investigation influenced her decision to stand down
“THE OUTGOING boss of the publicly-owned Scottish National Investment Bank took home almost £500,000 during her 15 months in charge, new figures have revealed.”
Wow! And it isn’t actually a bank. What on earth did we get in return for £500k?
“In today’s Scotland, there is no good news that cannot be turned into a grievance and no amount of money that cannot be used as a weapon against its source. Until, that is, the con is seen through.”
– Brian Wilson | The Scotsman
@NicolaSturgeon
@ScotParl
Holyrood is a creation of statute. Its powers are circumscribed by the legislation. It can’t pass legislation outside its competence. And so the court ruled. That is the basis of every federal or devolved system of government in the world. But then you know that.
It does look very like a coordinated attempt to prevent any discussion of Yousaf’s Gaza aid decision by wildly accusing any critic of racism, Islamophobia and even “xenophobia” in some cases. Politicians should be able to justify their actions rationally. I haven’t seen that.
While the SNP keep raising your taxes, and council taxes, the gravy train continues. He's your MSP Sturgeon going to where? In a Limo, with a PA AND DRIVER paid for by you.
6 months of Sturgeon’s ‘essential’ daily broadcast, reading out statistics and not answering journalists’ questions and we’re almost back to square 1. It would be funny were it not tragic. Surely we’re not going to have to put up with another 6 months of her pointless prolixity?
This morning First Minister
@NicolaSturgeon
led a minute's silence ahead of a special meeting of the
@scotgov
Cabinet, held to pay tribute to Her Majesty The Queen for an extraordinary life of service.
This is unbelievable. The most important court case the Nationalist government ever had. The previous first minister suing them. The head of government and head of the civil service at a vital meeting with their QC. And no record. It’s utterly incredible.
Records of meetings between Nicola Sturgeon, permanent secretary Leslie Evans and the Scottish Government’s legal counsel about the investigation into Alex Salmond cannot be found, John Swinney has confirmed.
“Using the term ‘far right’ to describe a campaign by trade unionists for more frequent bin collections was not only incendiary but sounded slightly unhinged.”
What a state Glasgow is in. This superb early Victorian square should be a showpiece. But it’s a mess. Devolution supposedly was to bring power closer. But it makes no odds that the ruling Nationalist party is in power in Holyrood and Glasgow or that its leader has her seat here.
What if we could build a different future?
With the potential to be wealthier, fairer and happier.
Our ‘New Scotland’ papers set out how an independent Scotland could work.
Explore more at:
#ANewScotland
Swearing and speaking in an exaggerated take on a working class Glasgow accent isn’t in itself funny. Scotland 2021, this moronic, humour-free, government approved and promoted “satire” is meant to help us through lockdown. It’s as depressing as the lockdown itself.
@Political_AlanS
@HumzaYousaf
@David_Cameron
Yousaf met with an authoritarian leader ( a fascist really) waging war against the Kurds of his country and the Kurds of northern Syria. Erdogan is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Kurds. By this meeting Yousaf was undermining UK foreign policy. Not acceptable.
“Nicola Sturgeon has appeared on Louise Casey’s Radio 4 “Fixing Britain” series to congratulate herself for being “emotionally invested” in improving children’s care after completely failing to do so in government.”
Incredible, but of course it’s not.
Why does
@POScotParl
allow ministers (especially this one) to ignore specific questions and simply read out unrelated texts? How is this good governance? What is the point?
Utterly incredible: I asked about a ScotGov promise of 28k offshore wind jobs, of which 3k were delivered & what they’re doing about it… Woeful Minister Slater reads a script about an “Offshore Skills Passport”.
“Speaking to the HuffPost UK, Sturgeon said that having "worked with Alex Salmond for 25 years, he’s not got a sexist bone in his body." “
Brilliant stuff.
Because none of it was true. Sturgeon didn’t ever mean a word. Just to get a headline then move on. Her looking good in the eyes of some bumping elbows with Greta. Impossible targets. Never practising what they preached. Public transport going backwards. All very obvious.
“THE Scottish Government has refused to explain the abrupt and mysterious departure of the woman running the country’s £2billion investment bank” ( which of course isn’t actually a bank).
“The common denominator that links DRS with the troubled National Care Service plans, the blocked Gender Recognition Reform Bill, the Ferguson Marine ferries fiasco, and even the state of the NHS is poor governance – bad ideas, poorly implemented”
They’re all out of their depth. Sturgeon does nothing. Robertson boasting in Iceland about a film industry while Scotland’s shuts. Aitken in Glasgow presiding over unending decline. Health Service a disaster under Yousaf. No experience, no ability, no hope.
“conspiracism is a documented phenomenon within Scottish nationalism.57% of pro-independence voters believe Scotland’s public finance figures are ‘made up byWestminster to hide Scotland’s true wealth’.Those figures are..produced by the Scottish government”
He’d be “utterly furious” if Westminster had legislated for the wholly devolved Scottish justice system. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Facile grievance his modus operandi. Perhaps Scottish civil servants could draft legislation instead of fatuous independence papers?
NEW: FM
@HumzaYousaf
“utterly furious” UK Gov hasn’t extended legislation to pardon sub-postmasters to Scotland - accuses ministers of using Horizon victims as “political pawns”.
“Outrageous…unfair…unacceptable”
@LBCNewsScot
What is it that’s meant to have been conflated? She told Marr she knew in April 18 but she later told Holyrood she knew in November 17. But here she denies any conflict. She is insulting everyone’s intelligence.
Nicola Sturgeon’s answer was not even in the realms of the truth. The public deserve an explanation and an apology. By doubling down on this clear-cut lie, she is disgracing the office of the First Minister.
Clear that for a long time Sturgeon’s time not spent on education, health, the economy or drug deaths. She’s not interested. All she’s done as first minister is to devise a strategy to try to cause maximum disruption even though most Scots want neither a referendum nor secession
@TommySheppard
@scotgov
Our death rate is three and a half times higher than the rest of the country which has the same laws. And the Lord Advocate has a discretion on prosecution. Seeking to blame legislation for this ongoing tragedy won’t wash.
“The SNP have been telling us for a decade that we should ignore the costs of erecting a border with England, giving up our share of UK funds, and changing currency. Don’t worry, they said, we have a quarter of Europe’s offshore wind potential..And it is a lie.”
@blairmcdougall
“The flaws of Scotland’s political system may sustain Sturgeon in power but they will not make her any less of a failure. She will go on calling the shots…badly because although she is Scotland’s longest-serving First Minister, she is also its worst.”