Oor Nicola Sturgeon thread.

[Central Belt Caley]

1 hour ago, renton said:

And it's fair to call them on the timetable. I wouldn't count it as a failure though.

But the dual A9? They made the commitment to do it, have kept the budget in place throughout and it'll eventually be there, realised in glorious asphalt for every crased, sleeped deprived long haul artic driver to barrel up and down.

Yeah I agree with you, I feel let down that it won’t be dualled by 2025 even though it was ambitious. As long as the commitment is still there it’s not a failure it’s just a delay. 
 

17 minutes ago, CarrbridgeSaintee said:

Don’t want to come across as heartless but can’t think of a nice way to make the following point.

Are road deaths actually the fault of the road?

Yes, dualling roads to make overtaking etc safer is all fine and well, but personal responsibility is also important.

I feel there’s a culture within driving where people don’t leave enough time for their journeys and often seem on a mission to get from A to B as quickly as possible.  It shouldn’t be like that.

So often people completely ignore stopping distances too, driving for long periods of time far too close to the vehicle in front.

Aquaplaning is something that happens frequently too.

Perhaps education is also a way to bring down the high death rate on the A9?

I’ve travelled up and down the A9 quite a bit as a driver and a passenger. One thing that I’ve noticed that leads to near misses is when a lorry is doing its legal 50mph and you’ve got 5-6 cars all bunched up behind and there’s no gaps for anyone looking to overtake to drop into. (Not exclusive to the A9, but its noticeable as there’s long stretches of single carriageway).
 

A bit of education and people leaving gaps for drivers who want to make progress would be a start. 

[welshbairn]

10 minutes ago, FFCinthearea said:

She was great at winning elections but shite when it came to actually running a country.

Her options were severely limited while Westminster were operating an austerity budget and Scotland had next to no say in monetary policy and borrowing. Some of the small things made a difference, like the extra ~£500 pa unpaid carer's allowance paid for respite holidays for me, and I'm sure the birth box helped out lots of young parents without family support, along with free Uni and prescriptions.

[ScotiaNostra]

21 minutes ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

I think the reaction to Nicola Sturgeon's resignation is perhaps the measure of her time in Scottish, UK and indeed global politics.  The passage of time will provide further clarity as to any lasting achievements.

Which of course feeds into the drive for independence, and I have to admit to some fascination at the expectation of many unionist politicos and journos that it is now stone dead in the water.

If so, then it seems many of us have basically been seduced by a Svengali and Mata Hari in quick order, and the movement has been built on little more than sand.  And according to the right-wing London press we'll be virtually queuing up to return to the suffocating embrace of Labour.  Which tells us just how unthreatening is Sir Keir's Labour Party.

It's a nice line in wishful thinking, I'll give them that.

 

Id kind of think the opposite of her time, I think history will show she was dealt the best hand of any Indy leader and failed to capitalise on it in any way. Brexit, the worst Tory government and a complete shambles of a UK government the worst in history. An energy crisis in a Energy rich country. Everything occurring at once wont happen again for a while. Everything was pointing to us being better independent and at a time with the least to lose in terms of any change and nothing moved forward. 

I think the next leader can be better in terms of getting independence as long as they are even a half decent politican as theres still a window left of that chaos before its passed

Edited February 16, 2023 by ScotiaNostra

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, welshbairn said:

I think you have to be careful how you report it, if you call it individual abuse and wishing harm they take note, if you call it something more general like misogyny they ignore it. The post's been deleted but his account's still active, unlike folk who've done something really bad like posting where Musk's jet is. 

P.S. Just got this after reporting it this morning:

Quote

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February 16, 2023

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VIOLATION FOUND

We locked @Rdbisgod’s account for breaking our abusive behavior rule. We found they broke our abusive behavior rule through different reports we received about their behavior. They can’t Tweet, Retweet, or Like content, and we’ll ask them to remove the reported content if they want to regain full access to their account. Your safety is important to us. If they break our rules again, we’ll respond with a more severe action, like suspension. We appreciate you taking the time to submit a report and helping keep Twitter safe for everyone.

 

[RiG]

1 hour ago, welshbairn said:

I think you have to be careful how you report it, if you call it individual abuse and wishing harm they take note, if you call it something more general like misogyny they ignore it. The post's been deleted but his account's still active, unlike folk who've done something really bad like posting where Musk's jet is. 

To be fair to Musk he has more important things to deal with on Twitter like ensuring his Tweets get the most impressions because he's a thin skinned dork.

[Shipa]

1 hour ago, ScotiaNostra said:

Id kind of think the opposite of her time, I think history will show she was dealt the best hand of any Indy leader and failed to capitalise on it in any way. Brexit, the worst Tory government and a complete shambles of a UK government the worst in history. An energy crisis in a Energy rich country. Everything occurring at once wont happen again for a while. Everything was pointing to us being better independent and at a time with the least to lose in terms of any change and nothing moved forward. 

I think the next leader can be better in terms of getting independence as long as they are even a half decent politican as theres still a window left of that chaos before its passed

I think there's a bit of a flip-side to this, in that while these things can point to us being better - or at least no worse - off with independance, they play equally into the hands of the 'Now is not the time/get on with the day job' types.

[Scary Bear]

27 minutes ago, Shipa said:

I think there's a bit of a flip-side to this, in that while these things can point to us being better - or at least no worse - off with independance, they play equally into the hands of the 'Now is not the time/get on with the day job' types.

Is it easier to make the case for independence when the country is an absolute shambles or when it’s doing reasonably well?

I’m not sure, but the last few years with the Tories must have been like shooting fish in a barrel and yet there hasn’t been much in the way of in-roads towards independence. 

I suspect that people don’t trust the SNP to run an independent Scotland any more than they trust the Tories at Westminster.

[Pocketman]

2 hours ago, ScotiaNostra said:

Id kind of think the opposite of her time, I think history will show she was dealt the best hand of any Indy leader and failed to capitalise on it in any way. Brexit, the worst Tory government and a complete shambles of a UK government the worst in history. An energy crisis in a Energy rich country. Everything occurring at once wont happen again for a while. Everything was pointing to us being better independent and at a time with the least to lose in terms of any change and nothing moved forward. 

I think the next leader can be better in terms of getting independence as long as they are even a half decent politican as theres still a window left of that chaos before its passed

I think we see in Scotland circa 45% v much in favour of indy and 45% v much against, regardless of what is thrown at them.

NS has failed to convince the floating 10% but given the shitshow of the last 5 years or so, something tells me that the floating 10% are not going to change their opinion on the basis of stronger economic argument or a firm currency proposal. They will change their position based on the weather, the color of shoes they are wearing or whether they see their favourite trifle on a reduced item shelf. And then flip back to the opposite position the following day. 

[DeeTillEhDeh]

7 hours ago, Richey Edwards said:

I got the same message.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

4 hours ago, Scary Bear said:

 

My gas and leccy bills are mental

Ian Murray found.

[renton]

23 minutes ago, KingRocketman II said:

I think we see in Scotland circa 45% v much in favour of indy and 45% v much against, regardless of what is thrown at them.

NS has failed to convince the floating 10% but given the shitshow of the last 5 years or so, something tells me that the floating 10% are not going to change their opinion on the basis of stronger economic argument or a firm currency proposal. They will change their position based on the weather, the color of shoes they are wearing or whether they see their favourite trifle on a reduced item shelf. And then flip back to the opposite position the following day. 

Kind of. The periods in the last 8 years that have produced Yes votes have tended to coincide with utter UK shit shows. The Brexit vote, the Covid winter of 2020, the aftermath of Liz Truss. 

These folk are running away from the prospect of a failing UK rather than towards the concept of an Indy Scotland. 

It's not an easy conundrum to resolve. Hell, you might get lucky and have a referendum the week after the next WM f**k up. By now Brexit has been normalised by "The Great British Public" who's most heroic attribute tends to be the amount of shit they will take and not do a fucking thing about it. It's taken for granted in all but the most egregious cases that our UK political class are venal and corrupt to a high degree of efficiency.

The actual island could sink into the sea and most folk would only be slightly tetchy about it. If the UK is a failing state, its less to do with the stupid, amoral and corrupt class we let run the show and far more reflective on the misery and cynicism of the electorate that can't  actually dare to believe they might deserve better.

Edited February 16, 2023 by renton

[Cheese]

The British state is now in near permacrisis anyway. Something else will be along shortly that will see support for independence rise again. It's not as if these rolling crisis' such as Brexit etc are even resolved properly anyway.

As much as some would like, the departure of Sturgeon or a Labour government aren't silver bullets that signal the end of the desire for self determination. The toothpaste isn't going back in the tube lads.

[ScotiaNostra]

1 hour ago, KingRocketman II said:

I think we see in Scotland circa 45% v much in favour of indy and 45% v much against, regardless of what is thrown at them.

NS has failed to convince the floating 10% but given the shitshow of the last 5 years or so, something tells me that the floating 10% are not going to change their opinion on the basis of stronger economic argument or a firm currency proposal. They will change their position based on the weather, the color of shoes they are wearing or whether they see their favourite trifle on a reduced item shelf. And then flip back to the opposite position the following day. 

Until a SNP leader actually makes an effort we wont know whos right

[SandyCromarty]

4 hours ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

I think the reaction to Nicola Sturgeon's resignation is perhaps the measure of her time in Scottish, UK and indeed global politics.  The passage of time will provide further clarity as to any lasting achievements.

Which of course feeds into the drive for independence, and I have to admit to some fascination at the expectation of many unionist politicos and journos that it is now stone dead in the water.

If so, then it seems many of us have basically been seduced by a Svengali and Mata Hari in quick order, and the movement has been built on little more than sand.  And according to the right-wing London press we'll be virtually queuing up to return to the suffocating embrace of Labour.  Which tells us just how unthreatening is Sir Keir's Labour Party.

It's a nice line in wishful thinking, I'll give them that.

 

At westminster level Scottish Independence is obviously regarded as a threat to the union on many levels so it is a given that the media, which is 99% tory owned, will spew out anti SNP/Independence propaganda, they have been doing so for years now, even small town local papers owned by english companies are involved

One area, from a westminster aspect, which has given the greatest concern for them is where the SNP have emphatically stated that an Independent Scotland will want the Nuclear base removed from Faslane, a document I read, produced by the MOD, stated that any relocation of the nuclear facility would come at enormous cost and anticipated public outcry as a new site in england would have to be sourced, one proposal they put forward was to offer the Independent Scottish State an annual fee to maintain the status quo, but the anticipation was that the proposal would be rejected given that Scotland's west coast would be first strike.

So this nuclear facility and the financial and relocation outcry it would generate is seen as the main reason to stop Independence at all costs.

[SandyCromarty]

5 hours ago, Scary Bear said:

I see that Nicola Sturgeon thinks her legacy is that Scotland is fairer today than it was in 2015. Even she couldn’t come up with any biggies in terms of legacy, so she went for that vague legacy, which is difficult to prove or disprove.

For me her legacy is a time of unbridled electoral success but total inability to do anything of note with that success.

Scotland has become a country that specialises in producing policy documents which are poorly thought through and only superficially discussed with those who will need to put those policies into action. 

Scotland has become a country where public services don’t work anymore. Now, that’s been a gradual decline since the Tories took over in 2010, speeded up by Covid and Brexit, but sadly for her, the bit where the public sector really stopped working happened during her shift.

Sadly, I don’t see any appreciable talent behind Sturgeon. Her cabinet are likely a large part of the reason that Sturgeon has struggled.

 

Strong opinionated women a problem for you?

[Central Belt Caley]

2 hours ago, Scary Bear said:

Is it easier to make the case for independence when the country is an absolute shambles or when it’s doing reasonably well?

I’m not sure, but the last few years with the Tories must have been like shooting fish in a barrel and yet there hasn’t been much in the way of in-roads towards independence. 

I suspect that people don’t trust the SNP to run an independent Scotland any more than they trust the Tories at Westminster.

At least if we were independent and the SNP were the government and they made an arse of it we could vote them out.
Whereas with the status quo, every single person in Scotland could vote Labour but if England voted for the Tories we’d get the Tories. 

[alta-pete]

34 minutes ago, Central Belt Caley said:

At least if we were independent and the SNP were the government and they made an arse of it we could vote them out.
Whereas with the status quo, every single person in Scotland could vote Labour but if England voted for the Tories we’d get the Tories. 

 

[Ned Nederlander]

9 hours ago, Central Belt Caley said:

The silver lining of her standing down is that the dreadful patter of “Nippy Sweety”, “Wee Jimmy Krankie” and “Nicoliar” will hopefully be forgotten about on this forum + social media 

I remember thinking much the same when she took over from Salmond.

 

[DrewDon]

Almost mustering a laugh at how pathetically desperate this is as a line of attack. 

[Gordon EF]

15 hours ago, KingRocketman II said:

So if I have understood correctly, you consider that Sturgeon saw an unprecedented world wide pandemic as her opportunity to act upon a life long held grudge she held against amateur football. Yes, quite the sane interpretation of it all 

It's either that of she got thrown into a shitshow that nobody was prepared for and got some things right, some things wrong, and made some subjective decisions some people didn't agree with. But nah, that's mental, probably some conspiracy theory or something.