Now I'm no fan of Rishi Sunak, the tax raising Chancellor (and now Prime Minister) who has shown next to no interest in embarking on the reforms necessary to raise the UK's economic performance, let alone confront the poor performance of much of the education system, or the national religion - the NHS.
However, he has done a great service to the UK, he has probably helped preserve the Union and he has eviscerate Scotland's most egregiously underperforming leaders in real terms - the odious Nicola Sturgeon, whose brand of hard-left nationalism blamed everything bad in Scotland on the English (and the Government in Westminster) and fuelled historic sectarian hatred of the Scots of the English, even though her and her Scottish National Party (SNP) had unparalleled powers over domestic affairs in the past 15 years.
The SNP has run health, education, police, transport and to a limited extent tax policy over that time, and there are no shortage of scandals. The ferry scandal which saw the Scottish Government let a contract for new ferries to serve island communities, let to a failing local shipbuilder, which couldn't guarantee that it could build them, and which ultimately saw Scottish taxpayers bailing out the company, to build ferries years late, with the ultimate cost being 250% of the original quote. It was criticised by Audit Scotland, essentially nationalist political instincts combined with socialist economic beliefs cost Scottish taxpayers a fortune. It even saw a PR stunt held with fake windows painted on, so Sturgeon could have a photo op.
Under the SNP life expectancy in Scotland peaked in 2014 and stagnated dropping in 2019 and since (albeit Covid may be blamed from 2020). Scotland has the lowest life expectancy of all of the UK countries. Deaths from drug abuse are the higher per capita in the developed world, having risen 88% since Sturgeon became first Minister.
Allister Heath, editor of the Sunday Telegraph writes:
Under the Scottish Nationalist Party’s egregious misrule, Scotland was gradually becoming a failed state, but it was her quasi-religious conversion to the most extreme form of gender ideology that brought her down. Defying public opinion, common sense and reality, Sturgeon wanted 16-year-olds to be able to change the sex on their birth certificate without a medical diagnosis. This meant, among much other madness, that rapists who declared themselves to be women could be housed in female prisons.
This was supposed to be “progress”, but in just a few weeks it had culminated in her extraordinary resignation. Even more remarkably, her ousting was triggered by none other than Rishi Sunak, in his first truly conservative – and cleverest – decision since entering No 10. By vetoing Sturgeon’s gambit, he took what the centrist wimps in his party thought was a major risk: weren’t Conservative prime ministers merely meant to kow-tow to the nationalists, to avoid upsetting them at all cost? Wasn’t it the case that nobody in Scotland wanted to hear from “Tory toffs” in London, and that intervention would backfire and strengthen Sturgeon’s hand? And going so hard on a woke issue – wasn’t that ludicrous, a case of swimming against the supposed tide of history twice over?
The sceptics were wrong. A supposedly “Right-wing” stance (in reality, mainstream majoritarian cultural conservatism) turned out not just to be popular on its own merits but also political dynamite, exploding a fragile Scottish consensus. Support for Sturgeon and Scottish independence slumped. It suddenly became obvious that it is possible to confront nationalists and woke extremists – and win. Opinion is not immutable, or guaranteed to drift ever more Left-wards: a leader can galvanise and radicalise a population’s latent opposition to woke social engineering.
Scotland should have had enough of the SNP, a party that claims that its nationalism is kinder, gentler, more sophisticated "civic" nationalism, but which inflames anti-English hatred, along with abusive conduct against its political opponents, resulting in SNP supporters abusing those in politics who they disagree with:
Holly Moscrop, the 20-year-old chairman of the Young Scottish Conservatives, said she was spat at and grabbed as security staff looked on.
“It was chaos,” she said. “The protesters realised we were Tories and went crazy. They were screaming at us, calling me a Tory whore, calling me Tory filth. It was nasty. Someone grabbed my coat and tugged at it, leaning over the barrier, screaming right in my face.
“There’s always a big push for women to get involved in politics, but incidents like this show why some hesitate. You’re open to a whole other category of abuse. Not every person who wants independence is bad or is going to hurl abuse at people. But people need to look past parties and work together to stop this.”
Nationalism fuels hatred:
... Sandesh Gulhane, a senior Scottish Tory MSP, claimed Ms Sturgeon’s attempts to “inflame her base” by suggesting Scotland was downtrodden had contributed to the angry scenes.
“Nicola Sturgeon says she wants a respectful debate and then comes out and says Westminster are treating us like something on the sole of their shoe,” he said.
“Everything she’s doing is to inflame her base, simply because, let’s be honest, they’re not delivering. So they’re whipping up their base, they’re whipping up anger and hatred. And look, it’s racist. They hate the English. That is the definition of racism. You’re hating a group of people based upon a characteristic.”
Indeed Editor of The Spectator, Fraser Nelson even gets told he's not really Scottish because of his political beliefs. That's simply sinister:
This is why when Helen Clark tweeted approvingly of a Guardian article as follows...
I responded in kind:
Not commenting on Clark at all, but that resulted in this:
Sturgeon's SNP has made Scottish politics more divisive, has fuelled more hatred of not just the English, but also opponents of Scottish independence. The record of Sturgeon's government both in advancing a political sphere that is civilised, and in advancing its policy goals, is absymal. That Sturgeon has been brought down by an irrational and reality-evading extremist policy on trans-gender rights is pathetic, but it is worse that Helen Clark would seek to compare Sturgeon, to Ardern. I'm no fan of Ardern, but her record is not at the depths of failure of Sturgeon.
I have Scottish heritage, it's rather repulsive to simply claim Sturgeon resigned because of how "hard done" by she was by media that, in Scotland, was predominantly sympathetic to her. At what point will leftwing female politicians just accept that one of their own (particular one that fires up the sort of nationalistic and political hatred they don't promote) has screwed up, and deserves to leave power?
UPDATE:
There is the missing money in the SNP accounts under Sturgeon. £600,000 raised in 2017 but when accounts are filed in 2020 there is only just over £96,000 and yet only £57,000 was spent on campaigning. This issue has still not been resolved with accusations of the Police being slow to investigate the money. Note that CEO of the SNP is Peter Murrell, Sturgeon's husband...
who also loaned the party £107,000 which the party didn't declare initially and which Sturgeon denied knowing anything about, until it came to the media's attention.
So pardon me if I think the politician who spews out complete venom towards her political opponents deserves no sympathy.
No comments:
Post a Comment