Nicola Sturgeon cracks me up.

[Merename]

Just read an excerpt from her address today. I know not all of you will love her and I don’t think coronavirus has been handled perfectly, but she is an intelligent and likeable example of Scottish people, imo. I love the way she is dignified and avoids politicising everything, yet still is direct enough to comment on how ridiculous Boris can be:

Tom Gordon, from The Herald, points out that, in the prime minister's speech this morning, Boris Johnson emphasised the role of the union, calling it "an incredible partnership" that proved its worth during the pandemic. He asks what the first minister's response is considering she would like Scotland to be independent.

"Boris Johnson and I are very different kinds of people, very different personalities and I would, in a whole range of ways, choose not to emulate him and how he speaks and how he behaves and I'm sure he would choose not to emulate me in many respects," Nicola Sturgeon replies.

"I don't think you'll catch me very often leaping to the floor to do press-ups during a media interview, for example.

"In terms of the wider and future arguments about Scotland's constitutional future, people will make their own minds up on that and draw their own conclusions and part of the process they will go through is watching how the Scottish government conducts itself and how Boris Johnson conducts himself.

"My focus is on tackling this virus and any leader should have that as their central focus."

If Scotland was an independent country SNP would have had the power to close borders temporarily, very soon after the first outbreak like they wanted to but were refused (for three months) by Boris and Co.

You assume the SNP to have the power to ‘close the borders’ when it would actually be whoever was governing Scotland at that time. I love how many YeSNP voters don’t understand that they aren’t the default party to run an independent Scotland.
Don’t confuse NS’s leadership with the desire to lead a debt-burdened independent country. She won’t be sticking around to lead the push for an independence referendum, she’s too canny for that.
I fear ‘better the devil you know’, is the appropriate saying to be applied when she leaves...

I do understand completely that the SNP need not be the party in power in a future independent Scotland as, I'm sure, 99.99 per cent of 'Yesers' do. 🙄

The woman is a machine, she must be exhausted. I like her. She has done a great job in Scotland, I don’t blame her for not wanting the English to visit Scotland yet. Don’t understand the hate for her.

MumofHunter

I can't believe you think so highly of Scotland's educational standards. They are poor and declining further.

I'm embarrassed that a friend from another European country who has just spent a couple of years in Scotland was appalled at the standards of education she found here. Her children attended a well-regarded, high achieving school by Scottish standards.

@MumofHunter unfortunately, I think the figures are the other way round. There seems to be a huge knowledge gap around what independence actually means.

@Kordelia it's not my opinion. It's statistically true- see report by the Office of National Statistics. I may have written world, meant Europe- I have any of 3 children jumping on me st any one time is my excuse! me://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/scotland-the-best-educated-country-in-europe-claims-ons-report-9497645.html

Indeed I did study geography at school, and scored high grades in it too, thus I know that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island is the state internationally recognised by the UN and that this sovereign country is made up of four constituent countries (see the Wikipedia page here for more info). Each constituent country has domain over certain devolved areas of law, but as a sovereign nation the U.K. has no internal borders preventing free movement of its citizens, and to try and impose restrictions on other constituent countries in their entirety (so say England rather than regions such as Leicester that may have been locked down again) is pure politicking.

@MumofHunter, sometimes I feel it is like shooting at the red cross...
That article is dated 6/6/2014(!) and makes reference to people aged 25-64.

Let's look at more recent statistics or more recent international tests that revealed that LESS THAN 50% of secondary school kids can read and write with competence.

Normally, I’m very happy for the English to come here.

I’m sure ‘the English’ are pleased they meet your approval...
...as ‘they’ arrive from international shores on their UK passport, alongside ‘the scottish’ passengers, also arriving from international shores, through the same passport channel.

We have the most skilled workforce in Europe, highest educated population on the world

Actually, the OECD says its Canada, followed by Japan, Israel, Korea, USA. Edinburgh university is no 20 in the world, behind English and USA universities.

And I believe research has shown that the majority of SNP voters are not university educated.

Proud to have such a strong, resilient and consistent leader.

FFS she repeats what Boris says 3 weeks later, just to say she's different, and after saying she doesn't want to politicise things, that's exactly what she's doing, except she's saying its big bad westminster who is doing it. She's laying traps with this border / quarantine debate, trying to goad Westminster into an independence debate.

She's a one issue leader - independence - even without using that word, that's the angle she constantly comes back to. Lets forget the blended learning, lets forget the care homes, lets forget the hospital scandal - we need to quarantine the English! Lets hate the English. Nothing to do with wanting independence oh no.

Asking for more money / powers to help Scotland's recovery - bullshit. If the SNP had managed their existing budget properly, there wouldn't be such an issue, but they are angling this to blame big bad westminster for the SNPs failure to allocate funds where they should have. I work in the public sector. So much government money thrown at things that fail. Too many staff getting paid to sit and shop online (we have a whole department that do this and of course they said in the survey they wanted to keep working from home long term, well duh of course they do).

Loathe and detest the woman

Same here

*she's running the country into the ground"

Yep, losing a lot of voters, fast.

Then my eyes were opened to what we as women are facing in Scotland

Its women who will suffer due to both gender legislation and lockdown approach.

I’d never vote for nationalist parties because they’re divisive and to my mind should’ve remained an unappealing feature of the late 19th and 20th centuries

As someone who is part German, I would never vote for a nationalist party (SNP) or an anti semitic party (labour although Starmer's sacking of RLB makes me hopeful)

Tell me, what other country has another controlling its borders?

Pretty much every country in Europe? Hence Brexit (which I didn't vote for btw)

Our numbers are very low

Not in Dumfrieshire where my friend is a paramedic dealing with this shit for the past 4 months and is furious at the dishonesty about figures and the glossing over by the S Govt

Scotland is to the UK what California or Texas is to the USA. Some national and state laws, and education delivery also varies from state to state. They have state borders and national borders. You wouldn't call them nations. Scotland stopped being an independent nation in 1707 - joined due to bankruptcy funnily enough. Attempts to become independent again failed at Culloden, and failed in 2014.

The SNP have made a mess of everything they’ve touched for the last ten years. Sturgeon asked to be judged on education- well that’s a big fat fail for starters. Scotland has been plummeting down the international schooling league tables to the point that the SNP took us out of all but one of them, to try and hide the embarrassing truth. Scottish schools are not only now worse than England, they’re worse than Estonia, among a lengthy list of others.
The NHS - look at the scandal of deaths at the much trumpeted new Glasgow hospital due to failures of even basic infection control and ventilation. Or the new Edinburgh kids hospital, unable to open due to a horrific catalogue of similar failures and shoddy unsupervised construction.
Look at the hundreds of consultant and GP vacancies unfilled all over Scotland- because the SNP put up income tax on them to £2,000 a year higher than their colleagues in England. Look at the failure to hit waiting targets even before covid, and the fact that every health trust in Scotland is in debt.
Look at the SNP’s handling of the economy. Scotland has a worse deficit than Greece and higher unemployment than England. Without the bailout money from Westminster things would be desperate- but the SNP couldn’t even distribute the money fairly, until shamed by the threat of legal action from businesses, who were faced with bankruptcy after the SNP only offered £25K per company instead of per retail outlet.

Their own economic advisors have stated Scotland would face severe austerity for at least ten years if independent - but the selfish sods don’t care about the suffering that would inflict on ordinary Scots, as long as the politicians get their snouts in the trough.
They make me sick - I have to change channel if that smirking little shit Sturgeon appears on the news.
And I hope she never succeeds in tearing apart the UK and reducing Scotland to a tinpot foreign state.

What Babdoc said.

The ONS report is from 2014, and refers to people who would have left secondary school no later than 2007. Which funnily enough was when the SNP came to power.

The woman is a machine, she must be exhausted.

Or alternatively, a power-hungry control freak who refuses to let anyone else share the limelight of her daily SNP party political broadcast?

I'm not sure about refusing to share - I think there's just a dearth of talent. In the other parties too, to be honest

I read an interview with Blair at the weekend - he said none of his kids wanted to stand as MPs because of the abuse on social media/twitter etc. The 24/7 media barrage takes a certain sort of person to deal with that.

I’m a fan of Jess Phillips but the abuse she gets IRL and on twitter and in the post Jo Cox world - no wonder there is a dearth of talent in politics.

Sorry there's just too much BS in these posts for me to respond to but oh you've made me laugh tonight, with Culloden being a particular highlight! Hate to break it to you but Culloden wasn't a fight for independence. Shocking I know!
'Research has shown that most SNP voters are not educated to university level. '
Well this one has two 2.1 degrees and a diploma from the Chartered Institute of Securities and Investments but OBVIOUSLY as I support Scotland being an independent country, I must have a TEENY TINY brain. Off to swot up on the daily mail. Queue the cybernat/ troll/ typical SNPer comments in 3, 2, 1...

• I really hope , as I said before, there isn't a need for people to quarantine when moving between Scotland and any other country in the U.K.

I have an HND, Cert HE, CIPD diploma, 4 degrees, LLB, MSc and about to do a PHD.

None of these subjects were in dolly mixture areas. Got a first or distinction for all and they are all Scotland relevant, so I guess I win?

Subjects included Scottish HIstory, Scottish Studies, Scottish Politics, Scots Law, , teaching (scotland) - although I don't teach.

So yeah, I think I know a considerable bit more than you do about this "country". Oh and I worked for the Scottish Government and have met NS a zillion times and AS.

The Jacobite cause was mainly volunteers opposed to the 1707 union of Scotland and England, seduced to join by the prospect of independence, so for someone with your alleged qualifications, you don't know as much of this "country" as you claim.

Oh dear I went away and it’s gone a bit sad here, sorry folks, I didn’t mean to raise people’s blood pressure on either side. I don’t think I can bear to wade in on the independence debate at this hour of the evening, let’s just celebrate strong and funny women in powerful positions, and if you don’t like Nicola you can pick another one.

In all honesty NS strikes me as many things, but "funny" is not one. I have always thought she was quite dour, but especially sanctimonious.

Read the OP, skipped to the end. Fuck me, I wish we had Ms Sturgeon. Or Ms Merkel. Or Ms Ahern.

Adults.

Ah how wonderful is Jacinda. Love her wee selfie videos, such a human. Not as funny as Nicky tho!

Nice to see the FM being called a
smirking little shit by babdoc above there.

Nice to see women being supported by other women.

I guess the future is in the hands of the young now. Like my ds and his many pals, who all graduated from RG uni this week with 2.1 degrees in politics, sciences and economics.. And all support an independent Scotland.

Time will tell.

Nice to see women being supported by other women.

I wouldn't support someone who believes in things I don't just because she is a woman (or do we have to call her her a cis woman nowadays?). Just as I wouldn't not support something I believed in just because it was fronted by a man.

I don't like her, I don't like her politics, she has some skills and some positive attributes but, for me, those are outweighed by faults, poor judgments and general sleekitness. It's the echo chamber that her and her supporters live in that I think will (hopefully) be the downfall. They are not interested in hearing what others say or doing anything other than what they feel will further their independence cause. However we are paying them to run the country and they are failing on just about every front.

The problem is that other than on here, they get very little challenge as the state of politics at the moment is shocking. Tey get the rub of the green in the media and the only posts you ever see are from supporters. I've said before that the only people who's politics I know amongst my friends are those who support the SNP as they seem to feel the need to ram it down peoples throats. I'm hoping that the silent majority are gathering in numbers and I don't think you can rely on the young. I only know one young adult in my circle that is supporting SNP. I know that many others support other parties.

Merename, thank you for starting this thread. I love that, as time has gone on, our First Minister is finding it harder and harder not to roll her eyes at the MSM journos who goad her at every opportunity. I can't quite believe the viciousness and anger of some people here and the hypocrisy and rewriting of history.
I can only surmise people are scared that once Scotland becomes an independent, successful, socially just, outward looking nation, it will shine a light on the shambolic WM government they hold so dear and, of course, anger that we don't just toe the line.
Nicola Sturgeon is working so hard and doing a great job and I don't doubt she will lead us to independence in the near future.
Politics and economics degree here, from Edinburgh Uni, SNP member, ex Labour party member and former believer in the union.