Next permanent Scotland manager

[sophia]

7 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Nobody South of Pitlochry cares about the undualled A9, and Kate Forbes hasn't said a word about how she'd speed it up.

Oh yes she has.

She conceded that the procurement strategy is flawed and there is a need for a swift review which could include authorising multi contracting.

As for nobody being interested in certain areas of personal areas of passion, I hesitate to break it to some that there are whole cohorts of society that hold different priorities to those that may be vocal in minority forums.

[welshbairn]

1 minute ago, sophia said:

Oh yes she has.

She conceded that the procurement strategy is flawed and there is a need for a swift review which could include authorising multi contracting.

As for nobody being interested in certain areas of personal areas of passion, I hesitate to break it to some that there are whole cohorts of society that hold different priorities to those that may be vocal in minority forums.

How would she fund multi contracting, or eliminating child poverty for that matter? She's talked a lot about ambitions but not a lot about how to achieve them, other than expanding the tax base, eventually, somehow. 

[DrewDon]

Good work, Kate!

[sophia]

3 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

How would she fund multi contracting, or eliminating child poverty for that matter? She's talked a lot about ambitions but not a lot about how to achieve them, other than expanding the tax base, eventually, somehow. 

You misunderstand. Multi contracting doesn't mean do all the road at once, it means letting separate smaller contracts for each phase. This comes with interfacing risks that the contracts will be clear on. It's potentially cheaper if managed correctly. 

If you listen carefully she's talking about growing the economy so if you want to know more on that, listen to her expand upon it over the next wee while.

At least she has ambition and a vision.

[welshbairn]

4 minutes ago, sophia said:

You misunderstand. Multi contracting doesn't mean do all the road at once, it means letting separate smaller contracts for each phase. This comes with interfacing risks that the contracts will be clear on. It's potentially cheaper if managed correctly. 

If you listen carefully she's talking about growing the economy so if you want to know more on that, listen to her expand upon it over the next wee while.

At least she has ambition and a vision.

Growing the economy would be nice, as would expanding the tax base, as I'm sure everyone would agree. It's just that I haven't heard a word about how she'd go about it. Maybe a hint about reducing higher tax rates, but that's about it.

[ScotiaNostra]

Must admit after watching that I have lost interest in politics. I will give whoever wins a fair chance but I wont be following it anymore  for a while. 

[Dunning1874]

You can use the "failings of our party in government" angle in a leadership election to portray yourself as the outsider ready to shake things up if you've come into it from the backbenches or at a push a minor cabinet role. You can't do so having held the second most powerful post in that government for three years, you just make yourself look daft.

Seeing little basis for Forbes being any more competent than Yousaf on the evidence of the campaign so far.

Edited March 8, 2023 by Dunning1874

[Highland Capital]

I wonder how likely it is that when she loses the leadership election, Ash Regan will resign from the party. 

[Rugster]

5 minutes ago, Highland Capital said:

I wonder how likely it is that when she loses the leadership election, Ash Regan will resign from the party. 

She'll defect to Alba

[renton]

1 minute ago, Rugster said:

She'll defect to Alba

I thought she already had.

[renton]

9 hours ago, welshbairn said:

Growing the economy would be nice, as would expanding the tax base, as I'm sure everyone would agree. It's just that I haven't heard a word about how she'd go about it. Maybe a hint about reducing higher tax rates, but that's about it.

Aye, she's hinting towards the usual trickle down economics.

There was a paper out the other day, Ed Balls was one of the co-authors. It was looking at "regional" inequalities in the UK. One interesting point is that in the devolution era, Scotland has shot past most of the rest of the UK and is only behind London and the South East in terms of economic output. More interesting was the conclusions that they found the biggest drivers were lack of access to STEM graduates, difficulty in growing R+D clusters and mobility within those regions.

So, Scotland with it's universities and a fairly vibrant tech sector, life science se tor and even a growing Space sector in addition to renewables actually has a decent base to start from. Want to grow it more? More capitalization for the SNIB, more government support for organisations bridging Universities to industry, get even more STEM grads, build transport infrastructure and more houses, quicker. Support and empower local government more to make choices that will benefit their areas.

[welshbairn]

 

32 minutes ago, Rugster said:

She'll defect to Alba

[TheScarf]

If a Ross County fan gets the FM gig we're done for IMO.

[Trogdor]

Can we end the campaign now? This is so uninspiring. 

[SandyCromarty]

13 hours ago, The_Kincardine said:

In terms of mouthing vacuous platitudes with skill and aplomb - which is what Nationalism responds best to  - that was a cakewalk for Humza.

Forbes - who is very cack-handed in this sort of setting - at least tried to say something of substance and was right that Scotland  - independent or not - has to try and grow a moribund economy.

Thanks Sweaty for the insight from afar.

[welshbairn]

This is where the Inverness Courier is holding their readers' hustings on March 17th. Bunch up at the back please!

[DC92]

I can see why Forbes held a theoretical appeal. A relatively fresh face with new ideas who might be able to build on existing support and reach new voters (Sturgeon even cited the need to broaden appeal as one of her reasons for stepping down). This idea is far preferable to a lower quality, less popular derivative of the current leadership churning out diminishing returns. 

Unfortunately for her she seems to have based her campaign in the alternate reality occupied by her Unionist commentator pals who've spent the best part of a decade writing weekly opinion pieces about how the SNP were finished, rather than the actual reality in which they've won every election by a huge margin and even increased their share of the vote in the last couple. It might make sense to trash your government's record like that when you're polling 23% and you aren't the finance minister, it doesn't when you're polling 43% and you are.

That's without getting to the gay marriage stuff and the clown running through a minefield impression that was the first week of her campaign. She's really gone out of her way to royally f**k the natural advantage she likely had here.  

[SandyCromarty]

12 hours ago, welshbairn said:

Kate Forbes hasn't said a word about how she'd speed up the dualling of the A9, same as eliminating child poverty.

A few years back I wrote to the Transport Minister outlining my concern over the obvious lack of work on dualling the A9, some weeks later I got an extensive letter from one of the aides explaining the delays and a total assurance that the dualling would absolutely be completed by 2025, and here we are in 2023.

My problem with Kate Forbes is her lack of association with young voters who view her beliefs as belonging in another age and not theirs, I know that the party views the young vote as absolutely essential to our future and the last thing the young need to hear is that gay marriage and sex outside marriage is wrong, the world we live in now and one which is now acceptable in all walks of life is what the young know and live with.

Kate Forbes religious beliefs are not in step with modern life, the annoying thing is that she is highly intelligent and without those beliefs she would walk the job.

And tbh I do not see any of the three candidates as a suitable successor to Nicola.

And maybe Nicola knew this would be the case.

Angus why did you pull out? all of the family would have voted for him.

[Rod1877]

Did Kate Forbes really "trash the SNP's record in government"?  Or did she just suggest that Humza Yousaf's personal record in his cabinet roles, as distinct from the record of the government as a whole, has been less than stellar?  I'm not sure that it's how I'd have gone about it, but it doesn't seem too out of place in that particular form of debate when candidates are trying to demonstrate that they're more suited to the job than others.  It's not as if any of it hasn't been said before and it seems to me that she gave him a perfect opportunity to defend his record.  The fact that he was unable to do so with any kind of conviction was more telling.

[betting competition]

Hopefully Kate Forbes performance last night has put a lot of people off voting for her.

Edited March 8, 2023 by betting competition