Nicola Sturgeon shouts “shame on you” to Tory MSP who mentioned last week’s demo

This is an interesting article. Most of what it says is accurate, as far as I can ascertain:

thecritic.co.uk/issues/march-2021/sealed-with-a-glasgow-kiss/

It isn't healthy. It isn't democratic, it isn't working. Some of the affiliations between the courts, media, civil service and government are highly questionable to put it mildly.

I'm not especially pro or anti independence, but this party is in big trouble. Which means Scotland is in big trouble.

Sturgeon needs to face up to the problems and get it all out in the open, but unfortunately she seems only to be trying to consolidate power, at all costs.

in this day and age she does stand out as a progressive leader.

That's courtesy of extremely expensive spin doctors. This has allowed her to look progressive, competent and effective without any evidence for that.

Before I alighted upon the politics of sex, gender and gender identity, I was much more interested in the state of school education in Scotland.

I used to dismiss criticism of the SNP's education policies as unionists griping against the independence party. Despite knowing from my children's schooling that there were indeed issues, serious issues, with the new curriculum, I put that down to teething problems. I explained away our falling results in international comparisons as transitional, hoping that once they ironed out the issues, it would be fine.

It wasn't. It won't be. Because as with other issues, the SNP leadership is not willing to listen. Our results in international education comparisons became so abysmal, the Scottish Government decided to withdraw from them. Yes, that's right - instead of addressing the issues, they were just going to pretend they don't exist.

Funding for schools comes from Local Authorities. They've had their funding cut in real terms for more than a decade. (That's not how they Scottish Government spins it, but that's the reality.) My council has been told to "find inefficiencies" to the tune of several million pounds. That pain has to be carried by all public services funded by the council. So my already underfunded kids' school was told to cut over 300 grand from their budget. The school week is now shorter, breaks are shorter, kids are no longer able to take 8 Nat5s (formerly Standard Grades, the Scottish equivalent to GCSEs), all to save money.

Enter the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Following sustained, evidence-based criticism of the "Curriculum for Excellence", the recent OECD review into secondary education in Scotland was widened to include all schools. The report was drafted by the end of 2020 and scheduled to be released in February. It is customary to release the draft, then governments respond and those responses are incorporated into a final report.

The Scottish Government held it back until after the election.

The report was damning. The conclusions are no surprise to those of us who were concerned when the new curriculum was first introduced because those same flaws I thought were teething problems were there by design.

In my view, no leader of government who seriously fucks up the school education of their nation's children can ever be thought of as progressive.

I can't work out what she's trying to shame Murdo for either

Probably just the horror of someone challenging her.

@kimikosnightmare agreed - Harvie is odious.

Women Won't Wheest is trending.

If Sturgeon thinks this is going away anytime soon, she's mistaken.

The very people who shout fascist or bigot in order to prevent others from voicing opinions are the bigots. They are authoritarian and not respectful of any views other than their own. Intolerant of others

The only people affected by phrases like "you're a right winger" are lefties.

Absolutely. And as you say, it doesn't work anymore.

I know I'm not a fascist. Anyone who calls me a fascist is talking such utter piffle it's not even worth engaging.

I am confused by Sturgeon's comment, here. I've watched the clip several times and can't work out what she's calling 'shame on you' for.

The comment (hard to make out) seems to come midway through Murdo Fraser saying 'a proposal so contentious that just last week we saw one of the [shame on you] largest demonstrations' - what is she responding to?

Any pro Sturgeon people care to comment? What is it that Sturgeon is calling Fraser shameful for? For talking about the GRR at all? For mentioning that it's contentious?

She really is a disgrace. Feminist indeed. Only for women who agree with her. She is not feminist, nor a democrat. But we knew that seeing how Joanna Cherry was treated.

The next frightening step is NS would have MPs arrested for hate crime for speaking up for women. Patrick Harvie quite clearly wanted to be able to so.

What on earth does Nicola Sturgeon mean by saying 'shame on you' to Murdo Fraser in that clip?! 🤯

He correctly highlighted how divisive the proposals around GRA reform have been. That the strength of feeling and level of concerns are so strong that hundreds of women made an effort to turn up outside parliament during a Thursday afternoon. Most protests are nowhere near that size. The fact that so many women were there means there's a lot more who weren't able to make it.

I wonder if Sturgeon is slowly losing her mind. Like many other politicians, she thought GRA reform was a piece of cake - an easy and cheap win that would get her into the history books and give her yet another chance to show the middle finger at Westminster. Another feather in the 'Scotland is the bestest and mostest progressive place in all the lands and I made it happen' cap.

She must realise deep down now what a giant fuck up this all is. She has painted herself into a corner by blindly bowing down to the gender zealots.

Violent sexual offenders in women's prisons, medical scandal on children, the obvious stupidity of saying women's rights and single-sex spaces will be protected while enabling any male to change the sex marker on their birth certificate thereby placing them in the legal category of female which has ramifications on policies and provisions.
She's going to be in the history books alright, but not for the reasons she assumed.

The Tories in Westminster deftly dodged a bullet despite being the ones that kicked off all this shite in the first place.
By retaining the medical diagnosis but promising to make the process super easy, free and online, the Tories have made a sly and calculated move on the gender zealots. They can no longer bleat about how aaaaaawful the whole process is. If they want to wail about how all this still isn't good enough, they will have to admit that their real aim is to get rid of the entire medical gatekeeping process (even though in reality the vast majority of GRC applications are accepted and the panel are very accommodating and helpful to applicants). Polls show that most of the public agree there should be some sort of diagnosis underpinning the privilege of being able to change your birth certificate. (Even though falsifying factual information is not a human right, but the gender zealots have been successful in pushing this narrative because when the GRA was established, same-sex marriage wasn't around and the state pension ages between women and men were different.)

Sturgeon was a fool and fell hook, line and sinker for a shiny turd. Under the heat, the coating has come off and the turd is starting to smell....real bad. She didn't leave a way out for herself the way the Tories at Westminster did. And she must know this. I wonder if we will see increasingly bizarre and irrational behaviour from her as this issue takes centre stage. The attention of the general public was previously focused on Brexit and the pandemic. Maybe she will jump into an indy referendum soon, not because she wants one or believes in one, but she might think it will distract the media and the public again and it's easier to push through legislation that most people don't agree with when their attention is elsewhere. As per the Denton's handbook this is a tried and tested method of gender zealots.

The thing with the SNP seems to be that they've (or whoever is paying them) have realised that people will vote for them purely for independence, no matter what they do. So they can do anything and still win votes. Until more people in Scotland actually know what's going on this is going to continue.
What they've done so far has been seen as niche issues, and not affected men TBH, so it's going to keep going until it starts affecting them. It may be too late by then.

Also undermines the significance of appalling events that took place in Europe in 1930s and 1940s in the name of fascism.

Do we all have to stop being happy gay marriage became legal because the Tories brought it in?

I mean, I thought that was a good thing but it was the Tories so..?

I get a bit tired of these lazy cries of "fascist" and "bigot" from people who dont bother to understand the arguments.

It's meaningless, lazy and merely used to silence women. I'd bet most who sling round accusations of fascism have no idea what the word actually means.

So does this apply to the climate emergency too?
So women are expected to forego lobbying parliament, and to avoid speaking to our own MPs. If we do lobby for our interests, we're collaborators with those driving austerity measures.

If we lobbied our Tory MP on environmental issues, we are "fascists", and "collaborators", for consorting with the enemy. What a load of bullshit. Never voted Tory in my life. Doesnt mean I dont believe in protecting womens rights. I get a bit tired of these lazy cries of "fascist" and "bigot" from people who dont bother to understand the arguments.

The Big Lie - how the WEP was always about gender rather than sex www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4058470-the-big-lie-how-the-wep-was-always-about-gender-rather-than-sex

Look at my thread about the hapless Women's Equality Party, where I've posted an anonymous account on Glinner's substack where appears that one prolific male donor with a trans child is holding the whole party to ransom over their self ID position. He's basically paying the wages of leader Mandu Reid and all the admin, and they are dancing to his tune.

I think a pp is correct
Money. Somewhere along the line they have been paid

The SNP are aiming for a dictatorship. Even before they went down the self ID rabbit hole it was clear the authoritarianism was concerning. Dissent has never been allowed, any groups that are consulted are funded by government and the judiciary is too close

The only people affected by phrases like "you're a right winger" arelefties. Conservative voters just say, "yeah, and?

I vote Conservative- even when I still voted Labour for Westminster I've been voting Tory in Holyrood from its inception.

The idea that mainstream UK Conservatives are "fascists" is too idiotic to bother replying to. The Tory party in the UK isn't even as right wing as The Democratic Party in the US.