Webchat with Kirsty Blackman, SNP Deputy Westminster Leader, on Wednesday 4 December at 1pm

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

We’re pleased to announce a webchat with Kirsty Blackman, SNP Deputy Leader at Westminster, and SNP General Election candidate for Aberdeen North. Kirsty will be joining us on Wednesday 4 December at 1pm.

Kirsty was first elected as a city councillor in 2007 when she was 21. She served 8 years there and has been the SNP MP for Aberdeen North since 2015.

As well as being the Deputy Leader of the SNP at Westminster, Kirsty leads for her group on the economy.

She has two children aged 6 and 8. She’s a Mumsnet user (you may remember her thread about the lost bunny of Westminster), a supporter of Woolly Hugs and says that she met some of her best friends through a Mumsnet crochet and knitting group.

Please do join us on Wednesday at 1pm, but if you can’t make it on the day, leave your question for Kirsty on this thread in advance.

As always, please remember our webchat guidelines - one question per user, follow-ups only if there’s time and most questions have been answered, and please keep it civil. Also if one topic is overwhelmingly dominating a discussion with a guest, mods might request that people don't continue to post what's effectively the same question or point. (We will be taking action on this, including suspending the accounts of MNers who continue to repeat a point after we've posted to ask people to stop, so please take note.) Rest assured we will ALWAYS let the guest know that it's an area of concern to multiple users and will encourage them to engage with those questions.

Many thanks
MNHQ

[GeordieTerf]

Hi Kirsty. Thanks for coming on.

Many businesses/ organizations are making their toilets, changing rooms and so forth mixed-sex. Do you believe that single-sex spaces should be preserved? If not, why not?

[kaldefotter]

Hi Kirsty, thanks for doing this.

We have seen SNP women like the phenomenal Joanna Cherry and Joan McAlpine be on the receiving end of horrific misogynistic abuse.

I am alarmed at the amount of misogynistic abuse coming from men who have ties to, or influence in, the SNP.

Can you give us any reassurances about what the SNP is doing to tackle misogyny within the party?

[GCAcademic]

Is it appropriate for SNP MPs to sneer at women and refer to them as "C*ts" (as Mhairi Black did) because they want to preserve single-sex spaces?

*She used the term "Jeremy Hunt", but it was clear what she meant (and she also abused another MP in the process

[IfIShouldFallFromGraceWithGod]

Hi Kirsty
Do you recognise that woman is a biological reality and not a feeling?
What are you doing to protect women's rights when there is a conflict between the rights of trans people and women. I believe both can be supported but only if it is accepted that women and trans women are not the same

[TresDesolee]

Hello

I just admit i’m in England not Scotland and I accept the SNP’s main aim is Scottish independence. So from your point of view I guess I understand why you pushed for this election. But the result, surely, will be to condemn the UK to a rock-hard Brexit and a five-year Thatcherite government.

What was the SNP thinking? Why did you push for an election the Tories would obviously win? The last parliament may have been chaotic, but it was stopping a no-deal Brexit and working towards a referendum.

I’m not a conspiracy theorist but honestly, I have to ask whether hard Brexit and a Tory government wouldn’t be a brilliant result for the SNP. Was that why you supported an election?

[BruceWayn]

Hi Kirsty. Where do you think the Labour Party went wrong in Scotland? And do you think they'll ever recover there?

[StuntNun]

Hi Kirsty. Do you think Westminster needs to be more family friendly for MPs with young families like yourself? If so, how might that be done without compromising the role?

[SmallDropOfTabasco]

Hello. Thanks for doing this
Would there be anything positive about Scottish independence for people in Wales, Northern Ireland and England?

[HangryHagrid]

Hi Kirsty. What hard evidence do you have that the majority of Scots want the distraction of another divisive Independence referendum in 2020?

[reginafelangee]

Will the SNP ever respect the will of the Scottish people in our 'once in a lifetime referendum'?

How much money did you waste on the failed named person scheme?

Why is the Scottish health service failing after all these years of SNP rule?

[AmazingDreamcoat]

Hi. Can you explain how a vote for the SNP at this election is a mandate for Indyref2 when many people are voting tactically to keep the Tories out?

[PiggyPlumPie]

Why can't the SNP recognise that I voted no in the Indy ref for reasons other than remaining in the EU? I am sick of being told by NS why I voted the way I did.

[MeetTheNewAccountSameAsTheOld]

Given the sudden disappearance of anything approaching serious GRA reform in the Scottish Parliament (including the mysterious draft bill promised for now that's never appeared) and a complete lack of any support for trans people in the SNP Westminster manifesto—

—why should any trans person, their friends, supportive families, and cis allies ever consider the SNP as being anything but Tories-in-Independence-clothing, let alone vote for you?

[LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD]

Are we allowed to ask questions?

[nononever]

Hello Kirsty from your neck of the woods . In an interview with LBC in October where in a discussion about a second independence referendum where you in part stated "we're moving towards a situation where the majority of Scots are supporting independence" and on being asked to evidence that, said

"There was a poll recently that said well over half of Scottish people would like another independence referendum".

What poll was that, when was it held and who by? It seems to have passed us by in this household.

Thank you

[WaxOnFeckOff]

When Nicola Sturgeon came to power she asked to be judged on her record in education. Okay we've judged. So given the failings of what has been stated was a key priority, why is she not taking responsibility and resigning?

[DeeZastris]

Does Sturgeon bang on about independence so much because it stops everyone taking about the dreadful state of education and the SNHS?

[thatwouldbeanecumenicalmatter]

Thanks Rowan, will this actually be a 'webchat' this time round? ( Penny Mordaunt please take note)

[ScreamingBeans]

Do you believe that women have penises and if so, what is a woman?

[Jonas14]

I feel forced to vote for a party I don’t believe in because all the SNP talk about is indyref and any other party don’t stand a chance in my constituency. Why shouldn’t my children enjoy the benefits of being British and the opportunities that I have had? The majority of us don’t want Brexit, but most of us don’t want indyref either.

[WaxOnFeckOff]

Can you explain the cognitive dissonance employed to justify wanting to leave a union that is devolving power to your country to join one that is taking more power at a further distance?

[WaxOnFeckOff]

When an NHS consultant leaves and you have no replacement, why are all the patients (some of them children) removed from the list to start the process to be referred all over again instead of staying on the list until someone new is appointed? Is this just a way of achieving targets? If you are no longer on the list then you cant miss the target to be treated. never mind the waste of resource employed to get added back onto the list again a year later.