Next permanent Scotland manager

[alta-pete]

18 minutes ago, renton said:

It's not about absolute purity of beliefs. It's about choosing someone who will protect the rights of those she serves. The crux of her argument is that while she may disregard the civil rights of gay people, may feel it is wrong for folk to have children outside of marriage, that it's OK because these are already enshrined rights and she isn't going to tamper with them.

Yet as First Minister, she may be called on to protect those rights, there may be calls to enhance those rights or those policies that may be to the advantage of those groups. Is that going to her priority? If the Tories in their likely dying days of government decided to implement cuts that would massively disadvantage single parents, would Forbes use political capital to protect that? Or if they came back after gay rights, now or ten years down the line - would Forbes see that as something she would fight for? She isn't going into bat for the GRR after all. What ever you think of it, it was passed with massive cross party support, but because she personally doesn't like the content of the bill she isn't willing to expend her efforts on protecting the wider devolution settlement.

So she clearly isn't taking the tack that her faith is a private matter, or something more malleable than the strict orthodoxy of the church that she finds comfort in. Her faith informs her, helps shape her view of the world. Well, fine - there is, I gather, a great comfort in the idea that a higher power can guide you. That's not why she's being pilloried. 

She wants to put herself up in the gallery and ask people to vote for her, by extension she is putting up her beliefs - formed in part from her faith. There is no way to shield herself that way. Folk can and will make up their minds, not that they don't like religious people but that they believe that her views - informed by that faith - make her an unreasonable candidate to protect the rights and policies those people want to see kept safe.

It was whipped cross party support outside those well known anti-Establishment figures, the Scottish Conservatives. 

Edited February 22, 2023 by alta-pete
Du’uh

[Mr Waldo]

4 hours ago, Binos said:

So no one who is a wee free can stand for parliament now or be promoted 

That is what some people are suggesting though, is it not ? 
The 'I am tolerant and accepting of everyone...as long as you agree with me' Brigade.
 

[Cheese]

18 minutes ago, alta-pete said:

Just don’t mention the super injunction that anyone might have…

Please don't bring my wife and kids into this.

[Trogdor]

As a society we are becoming less and less tolerant. More fixed in our positions and unwilling to compromise. The whole world is like that at the minute.

It's fucking nuts, I had genuinely hoped our small country could actually conduct a leadership contest with proper discourse. Instead it's turned into yer das/wings screaming about gender reform and the progressives threatening to resign over Kate Forbes. With anyone sensible in the middle looking for a debate on the issues left scratching their heads and left with fucking Humza.

Suffering f**k! How did we get here?

 

[Mr Waldo]

1 hour ago, Frank Quitely said:

She gave them red meat or she gave them it straight, take your pick.  In politics there is such a thing as collective responsibility and I'm pretty sure Kate Forbes is aware that her winning the leadership wouldn't be a mandate for her to legislate hellfire and damnation across the Scottish nation.  

There's a grown-up debate needed here about where Scotland should be headed and that includes a whole raft of boring but very important issues outside of the current feeding frenzy.  If Kate Forbes or anyone else with strong religious convictions were to deliver improvements in education, drug deaths, homelessness and ambulance waiting times then even the nation's youth might be impressed.

I have no absolutely truck with religion but I've equally no time for those who insist on absolute purity of their own beliefs in anyone wishing to run for high public office.  Tolerance works both ways.

 

Spot on.

[vikingTON]

18 minutes ago, renton said:

Yet as First Minister, she may be called on to protect those rights, there may be calls to enhance those rights or those policies that may be to the advantage of those groups. Is that going to her priority? If the Tories in their likely dying days of government decided to implement cuts that would massively disadvantage single parents, would Forbes use political capital to protect that? Or if they came back after gay rights, now or ten years down the line - would Forbes see that as something she would fight for? She isn't going into bat for the GRR after all. What ever you think of it, it was passed with massive cross party support, but because she personally doesn't like the content of the bill she isn't willing to expend her efforts on protecting the wider devolution settlement.

1) No sentient human being should be going into bat for the GRR at this stage - faith or any other moral philosophy is irrelevant to trying to leave that obvious bin fire alone (but here we are, yet again). 

2) Anybody claiming that Forbes, Regan or any candidate is going to chuck single parents' benefits overboard because The Bible Told Them To is completely at it. There's no evidence to actually support that conclusion. 

In the same way that Forbes finally coughed up the truth about her 'values', it's about time that many different groups in Scotland 'fessed up to their real demands of their political leaders. Which short of another mental cult like Corbyn, now consists of half focus-grouped blandness and half cynical virtue-signalling. 

We really get the shan leadership that we deserve, and nothing confirms that quite like the 'I'm like Sturgeon - only worse!' candidate stroling to victory as it stands. 

Edited February 22, 2023 by vikingTON

[alta-pete]

8 minutes ago, Bodie said:

Please don't bring my wife and kids into this.

Aye but we all know about you. 

[DC92]

15 minutes ago, renton said:

It's not about absolute purity of beliefs. It's about choosing someone who will protect the rights of those she serves. The crux of her argument is that while she may disregard the civil rights of gay people, may feel it is wrong for folk to have children outside of marriage, that it's OK because these are already enshrined rights and she isn't going to tamper with them.

Yet as First Minister, she may be called on to protect those rights, there may be calls to enhance those rights or those policies that may be to the advantage of those groups. Is that going to her priority? If the Tories in their likely dying days of government decided to implement cuts that would massively disadvantage single parents, would Forbes use political capital to protect that? Or if they came back after gay rights, now or ten years down the line - would Forbes see that as something she would fight for? She isn't going into bat for the GRR after all. What ever you think of it, it was passed with massive cross party support, but because she personally doesn't like the content of the bill she isn't willing to expend her efforts on protecting the wider devolution settlement.

So she clearly isn't taking the tack that her faith is a private matter, or something more malleable than the strict orthodoxy of the church that she finds comfort in. Her faith informs her, helps shape her view of the world. Well, fine - there is, I gather, a great comfort in the idea that a higher power can guide you. That's not why she's being pilloried. 

She wants to put herself up in the gallery and ask people to vote for her, by extension she is putting up her beliefs - formed in part from her faith. There is no way to shield herself that way. Folk can and will make up their minds, not that they don't like religious people but that they believe that her views - informed by that faith - make her an unreasonable candidate to protect the rights and policies those people want to see kept safe.

This, but in response to the OP I'd add that it's perfectly reasonable to think the above disqualifies Forbes while also despairing at the lack of "grown-up debate"/genuine choice in this contest.

[Highland Capital]

Won’t somebody pleeeeease think of the party?!

 

[Antlion]

24 minutes ago, Trogdor said:

As a society we are becoming less and less tolerant. More fixed in our positions and unwilling to compromise. The whole world is like that at the minute.

It's fucking nuts, I had genuinely hoped our small country could actually conduct a leadership contest with proper discourse. Instead it's turned into yer das/wings screaming about gender reform and the progressives threatening to resign over Kate Forbes. With anyone sensible in the middle looking for a debate on the issues left scratching their heads and left with fucking Humza.

Suffering f**k! How did we get here?

 

We got here thanks to the media and certain parties (here and abroad) inflaming the so-called “culture wars”. Say six-eight years ago, the GRR with its cross-party support would probably have passed without much comment. But now there are minorities to be demonised - the right-wing has moved further right and in the UK has lost the economic argument. It’s thus dove into social issues and staked out its ground there. “We’ve lost on economics and finance - but look how much we hate the trannies, woke liberals, and immigrants on boats with flat-screen mobile phones editing Roald Dahl!”

Edited February 22, 2023 by Antlion

[Trogdor]

3 minutes ago, Highland Capital said:

Won’t somebody pleeeeease think of the party?!

 

Never took Hunter for a lovejoy.

[Binos]

30 minutes ago, Trogdor said:

As a society we are becoming less and less tolerant. More fixed in our positions and unwilling to compromise. The whole world is like that at the minute.

It's fucking nuts, I had genuinely hoped our small country could actually conduct a leadership contest with proper discourse. Instead it's turned into yer das/wings screaming about gender reform and the progressives threatening to resign over Kate Forbes. With anyone sensible in the middle looking for a debate on the issues left scratching their heads and left with fucking Humza.

Suffering f**k! How did we get here?

 

The majority of people in the rest of the world are still just prioritising trying to get enough money to eat 

Edited February 22, 2023 by Binos

[Dunning1874]

1 hour ago, CarrbridgeSaintee said:

At no point has she denied people marriage or disagreed with their marriages.  She doesn't make the rules.

She quite literally said that she would have voted to deny people the right to marry had she been in parliament at the time the bill was being voted on because she disagrees with them being able to do so, while standing for a post which would give her a great influence in making rules. That she wouldn't actually bring forward a bill on the matter now doesn't mean the people whose rights she'd have liked to deny are going to shrug their shoulders, ignore it and gleefully vote for her.

Other religious parliamentarians, including one who is a member of the same church and same party, are not under attack for holding religious views, because somehow they've managed to reconcile sincerely holding a religious belief with not believing same sex couples should have fewer rights than heterosexual couples.

It's almost as if no one is being criticised for being religious and the crux of the issue is holding a homophobic viewpoint, regardless of the underlying reason for holding it.

[vikingTON]

Just now, Antlion said:

We got here thanks to the media and certain parties (here and abroad) inflaming the so-called “culture wars”. Say six-eight years ago, the GRR with its cross-party would probably have passed without much comment. But now there are minorities to be demonised - the right-wing has moved further right and in the UK has lost the economic argument. It’s thus dove into social issues and staked out its ground there.

I agree that the right has shifted towards culture wars but:

1) It takes two to tango: the liberal left has also shifted into identity politics, and nothing says that more than the rejection out of hand of any less than orthodox view for leadership even within a centrist SNP. Nobody forced opponents of the establishment right to form a circular firing squad over wedge issues that affect a handful of people, but here we are. 

2) If the right-wing has lost the economic argument then explain the nick that is Brexit Britain and the Capital stamping on Labour, pretty much everywhere. I don't share your optimism.

I'd like to see a debate where candidates are disqualified because of their despicable economic and social (real social - not identity) values for a change.  But there's fat chance of that happening at the moment - indeed we barely even know what those are because the usual suspect sucked all the oxygen out of the room again. 

[alta-pete]

3 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

She quite literally said that she would have voted to deny people the right to marry had she been in parliament at the time the bill was being voted on because she disagrees with them being able to do so, while standing for a post which would give her a great influence in making rules. That she wouldn't actually bring forward a bill on the matter now doesn't mean the people whose rights she'd have liked to deny are going to shrug their shoulders, ignore it and gleefully vote for her.

Other religious parliamentarians, including one who is a member of the same church and same party, are not under attack for holding religious views, because somehow they've managed to reconcile sincerely holding a religious belief with not believing same sex couples should have fewer rights than heterosexual couples.

It's almost as if no one is being criticised for being religious and the crux of the issue is holding a homophobic viewpoint, regardless of the underlying reason for holding it.

Tl;dr beyond your first couple of lines but, if you’re correct, what’s the point of putting anything to a vote?  The executive just decide and the seals then clap? 

[Dunning1874]

1 minute ago, alta-pete said:

Tl;dr beyond your first couple of lines but, if you’re correct, what’s the point of putting anything to a vote?  The executive just decide and the seals then clap? 

Are you suggesting that if someone criticises a politician for how they vote, how they intend to vote, an opinion they express generally on any given issue, this constitutes shutting down debate rather than being the whole point of political debate and how democracy functions?

[HoBNob]

I hadn't quite realised what a bin fire the SNP must be until this new leadership process, surely to f**k there's someone better in Holyrood than the three who have put their names forward? Or is this all we're getting? 

 

Just want independence, and I have a bad feeling none of them are going to help make that happen tbh. 

[Benjamin_Nevis]

52 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

Are you suggesting that if someone criticises a politician for how they vote, how they intend to vote, an opinion they express generally on any given issue, this constitutes shutting down debate rather than being the whole point of political debate and how democracy functions?

I think you're taking a concern troll a little too seriously tbh

[Richie]

56 minutes ago, alta-pete said:

Tl;dr beyond your first couple of lines but, if you’re correct, what’s the point of putting anything to a vote?  The executive just decide and the seals then clap? 

This is my thinking at the moment to be honest.

Kate Forbes in entitled to hold views and vote as she sees fit. People are entitled to vehemently disagree with them.

Its far more credible to stick to her principles than vote against them

Shes unable to unilaterally invoke/deny legislation.

Whats the point in a vote on a bill if you're not allowed to vote against it.

The crux of her point is that she holds beliefs, but isnt about to start repealling legislation or people's rights etc.

IMO its a purpose-built shitstorm to undermine the campaign - Its going very well as people are playing the man (woman in this case) and not the ball.

 

[alta-pete]

22 minutes ago, Benjamin_Nevis said:

I think you're taking a concern troll a little too seriously tbh

Ffs - it’s cryingfaceemojiman again. 

The point I was trying to make - and please forgive me if I’m going all Janet and John on you here - is that it is writ large in the SNP sign-up that: 

‘thou shalt not dissent from the party line’. (Ok, maybe that’s a wee bit paraphrasing).

Things should be debated, things should be voted for and against, things should be carried through on a majority. Things cannot be simply turned over without majority support. Although you’ve got to consider the complicating issue of the party machine (incumbent leadership) driving the narrative for the well behaved drones.

But that Forbes decides to act unilaterally from a minority position then that suddenly makes her some kind of ultra weirdo? I don’t buy that. I’ll say again, I don’t agree with all her views but I do admire her apparent integrity and strength of character. 

Edited February 22, 2023 by alta-pete
Soz