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."

We have the lowest population density by some distance of all the U.K. countries, a lower proportion of BAME people (higher risk) and we locked down earlier in the curve, so really it’s no surprise that Scotland has lower infection rates than some other parts of the U.K. (although, as above, large parts of NI, England and even Wales also have low levels).

Not that that’s stopping Nicola Sturgeon from implying that it’s down to her policies though: "However, when you look at the infection levels in Scotland, they are lower than many parts of the UK, which maybe suggests we are not getting it all wrong.“ Not political my arse.

A thread full of the usual 'Scotland is too wee, too poor, too stupid' spouted by people who are advocates of that poster child for economic mismanagement, the utter financial basket-case that is the UK.

Yep, more of the same please!

Oh FFS, no one is doing Scotland down. This is a straw man designed to shut down debate. There is a world of difference between criticising the Scottish government/First Minister and the place they’ve taken Scotland to, and hating your country. This is a huge part of the problem IMO, the inability for anyone to criticise or raise concerns without being branded a traitor or some such nonsense. Everyone on here wants the best for Scotland, they just have strongly opposing views on what that looks like. How about if you disagree with any of the points made you argue against them in a reasoned way?

FFS what thread are you reading? The usual suspects are doing Scotland down yet again, with contempt dropping about every aspect that's mentioned. It's depressing. I'm proud of the way the FM is dealing with this crisis. I'm sick of reading the bile that shows up whenever anyone tries to say that.

Dripping, not dropping.

Personally I can't wait for Scottish independence. 54%in favour so far. Thank God. I simply can not wait to get shot of this "Union"

Nicola Sturgeon is recognised for being an excellent leader, communicator, dignified and caring. She has a sense of humour, including having shared a Janey Godley voiceover video like the one above, and she has patiently and clearly answered all media questions without hiding like Boris or refusing to be interviewed like Boris and Co.

It's no use though trying to point that out here as there's a pile on every singe time from the same posters. Some just cannot bear to let a positive thread about the Scottish First Minister be.

I am not at all happy about the gender reform bill, I am with Joanna Cherry on the rights of women to have single sex spaces. I am a woman, won't be called cis. I am afraid that the SNP will lose votes over this and we will be stuck in the union.

I am not happy with the delay in lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic. I am not happy with a few of the SNPs policies. But Nicola Sturgeon is and has been an inspirational leader with many good qualities and it's sad and annoying that some are so driven by loathing and hate that they can't let a single thread acknowledging that just be.

The vitriol on this has come from pro Indy supporters exasperated with people disagreeing as far as I see. You don’t have to be negative about Scotland to think unions in general are a good thing and nationalism isn’t. I love Scotland - the straw man of it being too poor and too stupid etc has been stated by Indy supporters.

I absolutely love Scotland but can’t stand Sturgeon. 🤷‍♀️

I wasn’t a huge fan before the pandemic, but my opinion of her has gone up considerably lately.

She’s got a very characteristically Scottish way of expressing exasperation in a dry and humorous fashion.

It’s been said several times on this thread that NS is a good communicator. I also said that early on in the pandemic I thought she was doing a good job. Lately she seems more interested in damage control, arse covering and having a pop at Boris Johnson/Westminster any chance she’s given. As above, I love my country, but hate what the SNP and NS have done to it; dragging standards down, erasing women, forbidding any kind of dissent for fear of being branded ‘anti-Scottish’ and most of all promoting this culture where people must ‘choose a side’ and we are unable to find common ground on many issues. We’ve never been more divided and it’s heartbreaking.

@nextslideplease
Your points about people voting in the referendum - for eg the 4 local authorities who voted yes because they thought it would solve their unemployment - show me the research that indicates the voting choices were based on this only. You are also very dismissive of the vote of younger people. They make lack life experience but I have 2 ds who arewell educated, researched the options and decided on their vote. They are the folk who would have longest to live with the decision . Why is their opinion worth less than your own.
And your comments about GPS. There is a GP shortage across the U.K., due to many factors. There are a huge number of GPs retiring early because of ridiculous pension changes made by the U.K. government. There are 76 GPS per 100,000 people in Scotland as compared with to an average of 60 GPS per 100,00 across the rest of the U.K.

Boris is useless as a leader and communicator. He is Dominic Cummings puppet
Nicola is way way better as a communicator and minister

Being a better leader than Boris is not much of an accolade though. My toddler would be a better leader than Boris.

Oh I loathe Boris, I agree hard to think of who wouldn’t have gravitas next to him - Trump? Putin? Maybe that’s why BJ loves Trump, it is all about who you are standing next to.

Keir Starmer looks distinctly promising so far though.

'Scotland is too wee, too poor, too stupid' as far as I'm aware has only ever been uttered by Nicola Sturgeon - the SNP have managed to spin the phrase so that it sounds as if it was said by an Eton educated Tory minister.

Having said that, I agree that Nicola Sturgeon has certainly performed in a far more competent way than Boris Johnson. She has been calm and factual, has had no issue in saying she doesn't know the answer to a question but will find out (none of Johnson's incompetent blustering).

But, I will never vote for a party prepared to throw women under a bus, and I don't think an independent Scotland would have been in any position to cope financially with the current crisis.

God almighty. Criticising our elected politicians is not contempt, or doing our country down. Not one person has said or implied that Scotland is too wee, stupid or poor.

This is the kind of laughably overblown rhetoric that turned the online indy debate so toxic.

It's an elected government. It's a pandemic. Seriously, you expect intelligent people to just to say 'no complaints here! Whatever they're doing must be right!'.

That's not how democracy, people or the internet work.

We are being told here that our education is dire and laughable, our children are illiterate, our country is 'down the crapper' 'national doom', apparently "it's no surprise' that our rates of infection are less than some other countries (FFS). Sockyarn saying "she persists with her daily death count even though there's precious little to report so she can turn it into a 30 minute televised party political broadcast" - if that isn't vitriolic and toxic, I have no idea what is. I'm sickened at some of this. Seriously, grow up.

Norway has the roughly the same population as Scotland and only 250 COVID deaths. It’s laughable to suggest that Scotland had done well during all of this.
Freeman shouldn’t have shoved untested patients into care homes. That’s on the SNP Government. They’ve handled this badly which has resulted in thousands of extra deaths.

Being a better leader than Boris is not much of an accolade though

Well indeed. Her communication skills are much better than his. She speaks clearly and sets out her arguments logically. She reads from pre-prepared speeches and doesn't deviate from them, and doesn't go off-piste, bluster and bumble.

But it's WHAT she says which is important, not HOW she says it. She is all about division and separatism and it's at the heart of it all. I fundamentally disagree with that.

I also think that as an organisation the SNP is an echo chamber. No dissent. MSPs not allowed to speak out against the party. I was blocked on Twitter by my former MP as I pointed out I didn't recognise him in the flesh as his campaign picture was 25 years out of date. He blocked hundreds of unionist constituents even though his job as MP was to represent ALL of us, not just the faithful.

I just don't believe she's handed this well at all. She has been fortunate in that due to geography and other factors, there weren't the huge numbers of cases as there were in London and other English cities. She has been much slower to open things back up, even though community transmission is ridiculously low. She has fudged the issue on care homes and the whole schools fiasco was ridiculous - and they're now lying through their teeth saying "blended learning" was never the default position and was only ever a contingency. Do they really think we're that daft?

@Nyx, and exactly what is wrong with your list? Let's start with schools, shall we?
BTW, this is EXACTLY what NS says about WM, day in and day out, even during her, dare I say it, daily party political broadcast.

@strictlybakeoff

Where have I mentioned GPs?

I'm pretty sure your DSs would have voted a lot differently with, as I say, life experience. In a few years or 10, when they start earning a bit more, have a family, have a mortgage, a career etc instead of living at home with few responsibilities, they'll start to see that actually the SNP doesn't help either them or Scotland.

Boris and Theresa got a lot of criticism but you rarely, if ever, saw people jumping to their defence and that's not because "everyone hates the Tories" (which the election in 2019 and the last Scottish one showed isn't the case as they got a majority / became second scottish party)

Its because they don't have such a ridiculous and dangerous cult like following like our "dear leader" - there's a very good reason why she has that nickname.

I think there was a similar issue with Labour, Momentum and "oh jeremy corbyn". Its utterly pathetic.

There's talk of divisions within the SNP and getting Nicola out. so she's losing support and people are realising independence is getting tired. The majority of voters dont want it (37% of those eligible to vote!!!)

If the SNP can get a better leader who drops independence in favour of building a better Scotland within the union then, and only then, might I consider voting SNP.

Early on in the pandemic if it was leaked Boris was going to say something positive it seemed she’d have a press conference the day or two beforehand to announce it first. If bad she’d wait until after Boris had gone and her response was after public opinion had had a say. Thought it was astute of her.

I stopped following the news religiously so no idea if this pattern is still there.

Pffft, I bet she's just shit at press-ups.

Joking aside, I have no particular informed opinion of her, having never lived in Scotland, nor so much as visited as an adult.