The reverence accorded to Kate Forbes by political pundits from outside the SNP coterie never ceases to astonish me. OK, she’s a Christian with socially conservative views which set her apart from the dubious SNP/Green gang which advocates for the form of child abuse and anti-women policies which characterised their rule under Sturgeon and Yousaf. Big deal!
She’s now, almost certainly, the most popular MSP with the rank and file of the SNP, and we would do well to remember what is the foundational priority of that political party – the dissolution of the Union and dismemberment of the United Kingdom.
Let’s look at Kate Forbes in this context for a change, and let’s consider her as the most potent force in Holyrood in the campaign to end the Union, and steer Scotland further towards a uni-party, socialist, failed state sitting on our border.
The risks of such an outcome cannot be readily dismissed, and we delude ourselves by seeing Kate Forbes as being somehow more amenable in the context of this crucial matter. She isn’t, and cannot ever be so. She’s SNP.
You are quite right. She’s a nationalist.
In the British context, that means she’s taken a holiday from reality, to see the England as an overbearing colonial despot. More specifically, she told Scottish pensioners that, after independence, the former colonial power (that’s us) would continue to pay pensions to the newly liberated ain folk, even as they breathe the heady air of freedom.
Much as I dislike the SNP she could be the person to get independence over the line. The scottish left are already so pro-independence they can’t really win any more “Yes” votes in that direction. She is the only one of the National Scotialists that I worry about now.
Quite. All the more reason for a more critical and useful appraisal of her. The peculiarly skewed view that she’s the SNP politician with whom we can do business is utterly bogus. She does what it says on the box.
Maybe the SNP will never be the cause of a majority vote to leave. Whether in government or opposition, the party has too many other responsibilities.
UKIP was key to Brexit but there was no appetite for it to be a presence in Parliament.
Except the people of Scotland don’t want independence anymore now than tbey did at the last referendum. Many who voted yes now would vote no, because the prospect of having an SNP c**k*p in an independent Scotland is not something we could thole.
Stephen Walsh
11 days ago
Humza Yousaf excluded from government the candidates who won 52% of the votes between them in the 2023 SNP leadership election. That didn’t work out too well for him. And it didn’t work out too well for Liz Truss to exclude Rishi Sunak, or for Boris Johnson to exclude Jeremy Hunt, when they won their leadership elections. This type of article sums up why party politics is now held in such low esteem. It’s not as if party political bases are so broad, or the talent pool is so deep, that new leaders can afford not to be magnanimous or to exclude the best candidates for ministerial office just because they come from a different wings of the party. Previous generations of political leaders knew they needed a diversity of opinion in their cabinets, and maintained respect, or at least acquiescence, as a result. But the current crop are smaller in every sense.
I think Jeremy Hunt excluded himself from Boris’s Cabinet – he was offered the post of Defence Secretary which he declined – surprising as he was brought up in a Naval family.
Well he could have made him Chancellor. He could hardly have been more useless than Sajid Javid or more duplicitous than Rishi Sunak. And Sunak would certainly have been more suitable at Education or Health than Gavin Williamson or Matt Hancock.
Too much water under too many bridges. The Tories ain’t too good at looking at themselves, much less the manner in which they should look at the country.
They had such a huge vote in their favour which promised so much. They took this, they banked it, and then forgot what they were voted in for. Worse. They forgot who had voted for them.
Oddly enough, I have a feeling that we’ll be looking at no overall majority after the next GE….and I wouldn’t bet against the Tories having the greater number of seats. No other party is going to support them, apart from NI MPs, and that won’t be sufficient. Let’s see.
Tom K
10 days ago
Deputy captain of the Titanic isn’t much of a coup.
The reverence accorded to Kate Forbes by political pundits from outside the SNP coterie never ceases to astonish me. OK, she’s a Christian with socially conservative views which set her apart from the dubious SNP/Green gang which advocates for the form of child abuse and anti-women policies which characterised their rule under Sturgeon and Yousaf. Big deal!
She’s now, almost certainly, the most popular MSP with the rank and file of the SNP, and we would do well to remember what is the foundational priority of that political party – the dissolution of the Union and dismemberment of the United Kingdom.
Let’s look at Kate Forbes in this context for a change, and let’s consider her as the most potent force in Holyrood in the campaign to end the Union, and steer Scotland further towards a uni-party, socialist, failed state sitting on our border.
The risks of such an outcome cannot be readily dismissed, and we delude ourselves by seeing Kate Forbes as being somehow more amenable in the context of this crucial matter. She isn’t, and cannot ever be so. She’s SNP.
You are quite right. She’s a nationalist.
In the British context, that means she’s taken a holiday from reality, to see the England as an overbearing colonial despot. More specifically, she told Scottish pensioners that, after independence, the former colonial power (that’s us) would continue to pay pensions to the newly liberated ain folk, even as they breathe the heady air of freedom.
Much as I dislike the SNP she could be the person to get independence over the line. The scottish left are already so pro-independence they can’t really win any more “Yes” votes in that direction. She is the only one of the National Scotialists that I worry about now.
Quite. All the more reason for a more critical and useful appraisal of her. The peculiarly skewed view that she’s the SNP politician with whom we can do business is utterly bogus. She does what it says on the box.
Maybe the SNP will never be the cause of a majority vote to leave. Whether in government or opposition, the party has too many other responsibilities.
UKIP was key to Brexit but there was no appetite for it to be a presence in Parliament.
Except the people of Scotland don’t want independence anymore now than tbey did at the last referendum. Many who voted yes now would vote no, because the prospect of having an SNP c**k*p in an independent Scotland is not something we could thole.
Humza Yousaf excluded from government the candidates who won 52% of the votes between them in the 2023 SNP leadership election. That didn’t work out too well for him. And it didn’t work out too well for Liz Truss to exclude Rishi Sunak, or for Boris Johnson to exclude Jeremy Hunt, when they won their leadership elections. This type of article sums up why party politics is now held in such low esteem. It’s not as if party political bases are so broad, or the talent pool is so deep, that new leaders can afford not to be magnanimous or to exclude the best candidates for ministerial office just because they come from a different wings of the party. Previous generations of political leaders knew they needed a diversity of opinion in their cabinets, and maintained respect, or at least acquiescence, as a result. But the current crop are smaller in every sense.
I think Jeremy Hunt excluded himself from Boris’s Cabinet – he was offered the post of Defence Secretary which he declined – surprising as he was brought up in a Naval family.
Well he could have made him Chancellor. He could hardly have been more useless than Sajid Javid or more duplicitous than Rishi Sunak. And Sunak would certainly have been more suitable at Education or Health than Gavin Williamson or Matt Hancock.
Too much water under too many bridges. The Tories ain’t too good at looking at themselves, much less the manner in which they should look at the country.
They had such a huge vote in their favour which promised so much. They took this, they banked it, and then forgot what they were voted in for. Worse. They forgot who had voted for them.
Oddly enough, I have a feeling that we’ll be looking at no overall majority after the next GE….and I wouldn’t bet against the Tories having the greater number of seats. No other party is going to support them, apart from NI MPs, and that won’t be sufficient. Let’s see.
Deputy captain of the Titanic isn’t much of a coup.