Oor Nicola Sturgeon thread.

[Baxter Parp]

 

[Guest]

Philip Rutnam: £340k payout to official after Priti Patel bullying claims

'Serious questions'

On its official website, the government said it "regrets the circumstances surrounding Sir Philip's resignation".

"The government and Sir Philip are now pleased that a settlement has been reached to these proceedings," a spokesperson added.

Mr Thomas-Symonds said Ms Patel still had "very serious questions to answer about her conduct", and Mr Johnson had "shown terrible judgement".

"It can't be right that his adviser on ministerial standards resigned when he found that the home secretary bullied colleagues, while the home secretary herself remained in post," he added.

[paolo2143]

4 hours ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:

Open bet is 31 May 2021. Try to keep up, eh?

 

There’s no other way to put this: what the f**k are you havering about now?

 

So let me get this right: Jim Mitchell, who has been working on and writing about Scottish politics all his professional life, publishes something that goes against the ‘Sturgeon can do no wrong grain’... and he magically transforms into Stuart Campbell?

What did he say that was wrong and why?

I don’t always agree with Mitchell... but you’re literally making my case for me with that response.

I’d ask you about the bizarre and irrelevant Farage ‘comparison’... but what would be the point?

The point about Nigel Farage was, that unlike the small hardcore but very vocal Indy supporters, he never lost focus on what was the most important thing to him which was Brexit.

He put aside his own views on Tory party and own political Glory to ensure the Tories won as he knew this was the only way to get Brexit "done"

He could have ranted & raved about how he felt Boris' Brexit wasn't ideal or that people shouldn't vote for the Tories, but he knew this could lead to a pro remain Parliament and death knell of Brexit, so he put any personal misgivings aside to ensure his lifetime goal happened.

I wish the hardcore Indy voters relentlessly determined to bring down FM before May's elections would realise they may kill of their dream for decades in doing so.

As for saying Jim Mitchell sounded bitter, that is for all to see when he started ranting about being grateful she didn't have access to Military weapons. What relevance did that have.  It sounded like an over the top reaction so yes i would say he sounded like someone with an axe to grind. 

[BFTD]

4 hours ago, paolo2143 said:

The point about Nigel Farage was, that unlike the small hardcore but very vocal Indy supporters, he never lost focus on what was the most important thing to him which was Brexit.

He put aside his own views on Tory party and own political Glory to ensure the Tories won as he knew this was the only way to get Brexit "done"

I dunno. You could just as easily say that he saw the chance that he was going to be seen as the man who stopped Brexit happening, and acted accordingly. Don't go giving him too much credit for acting selflessly; he's always seemed the type who has one eye on the mirror.

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

8 hours ago, WATTOO said:

Philip Rutnam: £340k payout to official after Priti Patel bullying claims

'Serious questions'

On its official website, the government said it "regrets the circumstances surrounding Sir Philip's resignation".

"The government and Sir Philip are now pleased that a settlement has been reached to these proceedings," a spokesperson added.

Mr Thomas-Symonds said Ms Patel still had "very serious questions to answer about her conduct", and Mr Johnson had "shown terrible judgement".

"It can't be right that his adviser on ministerial standards resigned when he found that the home secretary bullied colleagues, while the home secretary herself remained in post," he added.

Barely got a mention in the right-wing press. The Telegraph mentioned it in a small paragraph halfway down the page on their website, The Express didn't mention it at all.

On Tuesday, these 2 papers between them at one stage had 14 anti-SNP articles on their front pages. 

That shows the propaganda that these rags spew out. 

Edited March 5, 2021 by Bob Mahelp

[HTG]

7 minutes ago, Bob Mahelp said:

Barely got a mention in the right-wing press. The Telegraph mentioned it in a small paragraph halfway down the page on their website, The Express didn't mention it at all.

On Tuesday, these 2 papers between them at one stage had 14 anti-SNP articles on their front pages. 

That shows the propaganda that these rags spew out. 

Aye  but there's no comparison really. Sturgeon didn't record a meeting apparently whilst Patel was only found guilty of bullying in the workplace. One hasn't yet been found guilty of breaking the ministerial code and "must resign" on the basis she might have. The other has been found guilty, caused a £340k payout, caused the investigating officer to resign and the PM to ignore all findings but definitely shouldn't resign. 

Tories. Fucking weasel c***s. Especially Scottish ones. 

[BFTD]

Priti Patel must be a spook or something. It literally doesn't seem to matter what she does, her bosses in government just have to along with it.

You don't get that kind of power just by impressing the party with your sociopathy.

[SandyCromarty]

10 hours ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:

Yesterday, she was ‘doing Scotland proud’ and ‘Scotland was proud of her’ (I was going to let it go, but Gigi did ask).

I’m not miserable at all, but I have to confess I do feel a bit sick.

Still, there’s no doubt whatsoever that Nicola Sturgeon is a more able politician than a deranged Tory who sneaked in off the list; so we’ll be fine...

I'm in favour of PR and list MSP's as it represents the votes cast in an election for a party, unlike first past the post where a candidate is elected to a constituency by having  the most votes cast.

Douglas Ross only made MSP in the 2016 Election as a list member.

As much as I dislike the tories they have gained the most by PR as follows in the 2016 Election.

                                                 MSP's                                   List                                  Total

SNP                                          59                                            4                                      63

Con                                            7                                            24                                     31

Lab                                             3                                            21                                    24

Greens                                      0                                              6                                       6

Lib/Dem                                   4                                              1                                       5

I predict that Labour will heavily increase their total in the forthcoming elections partly due to the Asian community and the Greens will also see  an increase from the young voters. 

[Dunning1874]

20 hours ago, strichener said:

Even if you accept that she forgot about the initial meeting, she hasn't denied that this was where the meeting of the 2nd was arranged.  Therefore why was there no official record on the meeting of the 2nd taken?  It was quite clearly government business and therefore in accordance with the ministerial code, it should have been officially recorded.  Is this meeting on the monthly list of engagements, if not why not?

 

If only she answered this about half a dozen times on Wednesday. You might not like or believe the explanation, but she's given one.

12 hours ago, NotThePars said:

Yea, nah, sorry on balance I think Greer is a positive to the parliament. He's a roaster but he winds up the right people and broadly has good politics.

Yeah, if the biggest fault you can find in someone is being sanctimonious and smug in broadly having policies you agree with then that's good going.

[John Lambies Doos]

Renewed my SNP membership this morning, the blatant double standards in the media and the driven campaign to bring down the UKs finest politician cemented my decision.
Roll on May!

[SandyCromarty]

11 hours ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:

And you remain confident that a Sturgeon-led SNP that did the square root of zero through the Brexit crisis to advance towards independence, now hostage to what has still to come out in the Salmond affair, has any prospect of bringing that about?

If so, I admire your confidence.

I’ve asked this before (and got no answer): what happens next if the SNP get a majority (with the Greens) in May?

Not the case at all, Nicola during the ongoing Brexit fiasco travelled to Brussels and had talks with Michel Barnier, during that an illumination was projected onto the EU Brussels HQ of Scotland loves Europe.

The SNP presently maintains direct contact with EU states and so on.

The SNP has set up Innovation and Investment Hubs  in Brussels, Paris and Dublin.

So yes the SNP are very quietly associating with the EU, don't forget the SNP have established a Central Bank as required by the EU application for membership process.

BUT, this is all in the background as the Pandemic takes priority.

[SANTAN]

Are you really a new member of something if you've rejoined? Asking for some people who button up at the back. 

[BFTD]

8 minutes ago, Pato said:

Not really convinced it's anything as skulduggerous as that. You see from the whatsapp messages that pop up from time to time that they all use daft nicknames for each other, so Sajid Javid was 'The Saj', Priti Patel is 'The Pritster' which betrays the seriousness with which the tories take anything other than corruption. Priti Patel is the daughter of Ugandan Asians who were kicked out of Uganda by Idi Amin so she has internalised two lessons from that experience: being extremely unpleasant gets you ahead in this world, and black people are the enemy. The perfect distillation of the conservative mind and the absolute worst person possible to be in the job she's in. I think other tories probably get a kick out of hearing what latest antics she's been up to and don't care one jot about whether it upsets a replaceable civil servant (and on this latter point, are they wrong?).

& as I keep banging on: it is reflective of today's conservatives. Theresa May was a horrible person of course, but she at least had some inkling that protocol has value and should be followed, hence emptying Patel for doing foreign policy on the fly in Jerusalem. Boris Johnson is an incurious lazy oaf who just wants the izzat and the money who only kicked out Dominic Cummings because he was rude to his burd, lord knows it wasn't because of any effect on polls.

I'd no idea about the Ugandan background; there were a lot of Ugandan families relocated to the area I was born in, and it's unpleasant to think that someone would've picked up inspiration from Amin. I can see her consuming the souls of her enemies too, thinking about it.

Have your kids reached the age for Pocoyo, or is this just a personal guilty pleasure?  

[SANTAN]

6 minutes ago, SandyCromarty said:

Not the case at all, Nicola during the ongoing Brexit fiasco travelled to Brussels and had talks with Michel Barnier, during that an illumination was projected onto the EU Brussels HQ of Scotland loves Europe.

The SNP presently maintains direct contact with EU states and so on.

The SNP has set up Innovation and Investment Hubs  in Brussels, Paris and Dublin.

So yes the SNP are very quietly associating with the EU, don't forget the SNP have established a Central Bank as required by the EU application for membership process.

BUT, this is all in the background as the Pandemic takes priority.

Remind me how this fruitloop decision was received. I'd be surprised if she was stupid enough to organise that part herself. 

[SANTAN]

4 minutes ago, Pato said:

Ehhh I can see your point but the alternative is setting a date as day 0 and only evaluating fluctuations in membership against this, which I think risks missing the significance of the recent uptick in membership.

I'm not too fussed on the detail of when parties should announce such things, they can manipulate figures all they want as I'm sure other parties do, I'm just amazed that anyone would believe 5000 new people that hadn't previously held membership decided to join on that specific day rather than posters like JLD rejoining. I'm sure they're aware of how many are rejoins rather than new but still it gets them social media interactions and their supporters run off and spread the news so politically speaking it's a smart move. 

I don't see much significance in this number tbh, I'm sure there was always a large portion of people waiting til Nicola had spoken before deciding if they believed her or not. 

[John Lambies Doos]

Are you really a new member of something if you've rejoined? Asking for some people who button up at the back. 

No, just a continued member, but when you log in it recognises me as a renewal, therefore it distinguishes me from a new member... therefore won't be part of the 10k and climbing members over last couple of days...

[John Lambies Doos]

Will you do any door chapping?

Not sure, I have done before..Ill await and see..also restrictions etc...

[SANTAN]

Just now, John Lambies Doos said:

15 minutes ago, Stormzy said:

Are you really a new member of something if you've rejoined? Asking for some people who button up at the back. 

No, just a continued member, but when you log in it recognises me as a renewal, therefore it distinguishes me from a new member... therefore won't be part of the 10k and climbing members over last couple of days...

I failed to see this distinction made anywhere tbf  

You guys borrowed the Seville calculator by any chance? 

[BFTD]

8 minutes ago, Pato said:

Both. It is Art.

It was Timmy Time in our house. We've still got the DVDs.

He's a teenager now, and occasionally I'll ask him if he fancies putting one of them on: "NO! Well..oh yeah, I did like that...but...no. Yeah, no."

*wanders off clearly thinking about watching Timmy Time*

[SANTAN]

Just now, Pato said:

Either way it is significant. If they're mostly re-joins then that is a counter to the argument being made that wastage in party subs was evidence of malaise within the pro-independence movement, disillusionment with the SNP. If they're mostly first timers then that's the political animation of a previously passive bit of the population. Either way it's noteworthy.

Depends who's taking the notes. 

As I've said regarding polls and the likes I don't pay much attention to them, same with party membership differences, same with likes and RTs on Twitter. 

Fair enough if that's what you want to discuss and analyse but it doesn't do much for me and I think it's a waste of time when we're so far away from actually having a referendum.