A thread for people who admire and like Nicola Sturgeon

[upstar]

Just what it says really. I think she's done a great job. She has made mistakes and owned them. She has taken advice and is willing to change policy where necessary. I think she's done pretty well and our virus figures are improving daily. So a thread for some positive things!

*Yep.

Not sure why that is of relevance.

I have an opinion on Donald Trump too.*

I was just trying to gauge if it was scottish opinion thats all.

I can’t stand her. All the lying that Scotland can finance being an independent country. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so deeply, deeply worrying. Economic basket case. Wake up independence voters, get yourself some form of economic education and think of your future before it is too late!

Ah fond memories of my time spent studying Economics at Strathy. Building my career in investment banking, becoming a director after passing my CISI exams. 😀😀

In my opinion she has done a great job at being clear and concise. I'm happy with restrictions being lifted more slowly and I really don't get the negativity towards her. I can't even watch Boris and co now as it just riles me, they clearly don't care about the outcomes of their decisions and are so careless in their messages.

Aye, so you did

@Coastercat wake up non independence supporters to how little the Scottish people mean to the UK government

This being an anonymous internet forum and all, obviously everyone is absolutely truthful, that's what I was just saying to my great aunt Queen Elizabeth last time I was down for afternoon tea, I was in the area picking up another honour from Oxford to celebrate my triple first degree, Masters, and Phd.

We all know how trustworthy investment bankers are.

I’m a Chartered Tax Advisor. Was at a meeting with other CTAs at which Revenue Scotland gave a presentation. They were laughed off the stage. I almost felt sorry for them, it was so embarrassing. “You state that you intend to raise revenue by clamping down on tax avoidance. Name one thing that you plan to do that HMRC are not currently doing?”. Silence. Like everything the SNP does, once you look beyond the catchphrases (‘curriculum for excellence’ and ‘blended learning’ to start with) it’s all just clueless bullshit.

That’s why we don’t appreciate Nicola Sturgeon.

Was offered a VP role to stay but left and changed my career prior to starting a family, three years ago. Good decision re work / life balance. 👍

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

I’ve had a few glasses of wine tonight so I may be a bit maudlin but I’m so fucking disillusioned with living in the UK now and being British. I was fiercely against independence but then along came the Brexit debacle which again I was fiercely against but to no avail. I know in my head that an independent Scotland is economically impossible and In my heart I don’t want separation but politically I feel so disconnected from Westminster and this Tory government like none since Thatcher (and I was just a teenager then). So I’m certainly no SNP supporter but I feel NS Has been fairly straight with the population throughout. She has made mistakes for sure but then that was inevitable in the circumstances and hindsight is a great thing etc. I’m sure the Care Home situation ways heavily on her conscience too, as it should, however, she has come across at the briefings as being acutely conscious of the gravity of each death unlike the politicians at Westminster.

@upstar

Just what it says really. I think she's done a great job. She has made mistakes and owned them. She has taken advice and is willing to change policy where necessary. I think she's done pretty well and our virus figures are improving daily. So a thread for some positive things!

Is this meant to be a wind up?

Exactly motherstongue. She was in tears in Parliament talking about the care home deaths. She actually cares about the people she was elected to represent and has worked her butt off over the last three months.
Boris and Co care only about looking after their friends ( Cummings, Desmond) and do not have an ounce of empathy between them.

@MumofHunter maybe she was in tears because she realises the massively poor judgment of her own devolved health sector in recklessly discharging 1325 hospital patients into care homes... any other leader would have been mauled for it. NS has a uniquely privileged position in Scotland in that the tiny media cohort is mostly made up of staunch SNP supporters who know their jobs depend on a continued and convivial relationship with the the Holyrood press office so they never dare to challenge her, while the English press simply aren’t interested enough to call her out.

She’s Teflon coated for sure.

I think she's great and she's done a good job for us. The care home deaths and the Nike conference excepted. But otherwise great. I thought everyone on mn hated her, the sneery posts ripping her apart on here would make you think she'd thrown us all to the dogs, like Johnson is doing down south.

I used to be a NS supporter but I've gone off her through this. I don't see anything that great about her handling of the virus. Care homes, testing, schools..I would say it has all gone quite badly. By virtue of the virus taking a bit of time to spread north, lockdown came a bit earlier in Scotland's epidemic I suppose. She has been a bit more draconian with the lockdown rules than in England... but not in any way that would have a meaningful impact on the spread of the virus, yet certainly in ways more detrimental to our quality of life in the meantime. And it does look a bit like point scoring in that regard. I feel less pro independence now and I was hugely pro independence before.

Agree @xtinak the very careful spin would have you believe Scotland is doing “better” than other countries of a similar size when in fact that’s far from the case. Our rates are broadly the same as elsewhere and in fact our care home death rate was a scandal that anywhere else would have caused a far greater media reaction. I would wager large swathes of the general public have not really absorbed the scale of those deaths through the cursory reporting of it.

We’ve taken just as long to wade through it but now at the other end we’re having greater and unnecessary damage done to the economy, our livelihoods, and mental health by prolonging the exit strategy.

In terms of the measures she’s not doing anything differently from England or any other country for that matter, she’s just juggling about with the timetable to make it appear like they are SNP ideas.

In fact she’s been plagued by scandal and has failed to deliver anything close to excellence from the health and care sectors, and has been criticised for ludicrous future plans such as “blended learning”. Vital initiatives such as the 1140 free hours of EY provision have been quietly dropped.

It’s as shambolic as every other government to use Nicolas own word to describe it.

But the advantage they have up here is clever spin from the School of Alex Salmond and a tiny media cohort mostly in the SNP camp.

TheMurk the care homes strategy was the same across the four countries of the U.K. Don't recall seeing any leaders being 'mauled for it'.

@Coastercat

I can’t stand her. All the lying that Scotland can finance being an independent country. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so deeply, deeply worrying. Economic basket case. Wake up independence voters, get yourself some form of economic education and think of your future before it is too late!

Only a complete fool would think Britain itself isn't doing its very best to become a basket case.

Scotland should get out while it still can.

I'm not an SNP/independence supporter - far from it but I was very impressed by the way she was handling this situation and being fairly open and honest. She'd won my vote...that was until she and her deputy threw us teachers under the bus.

@MumofHunter health is devolved in Scotland, so just like all these little token diktats she’s been issuing randomly to appear to be in charge, she had the power to control that move, stop it and change the strategy, but didn’t.

That these human tragedies, like so many others in Scotland, are simply glossed over by the stern tone of the FM who, let me be clear, knows how to change the subject better than anyone, is quite the scandal. How can you pretend otherwise?

She didn't gloss over it. She ordered a full inquiry, apologised several times, said it should never have happened , had to ask the presiding officer to give her a minute as she was in tears in Parliament when talking about the poor souls and their families.

@MumofHunter oh well if she apologised several times that’s okay then!

I wonder if she’s moved to tears by the plight of the people in her own constituency who face deprivation, poverty, early death and rats running the streets. Worse than a third world country.

I took the tears in the Scottish Parliament over the care homes mistakes to be guilt tbh, given the context and her saying something to the effect of no one felt worse than her. As much as I don’t like her, her politics or her tactics, I don’t think she’s an unfeeling monster. A bit too focussed on achieving independence at any cost and to hell with the consequences, but not a psychopath. There is little doubt that discharging thousands of elderly people into care homes without testing, isolating them, or providing adequate PPE to carers has led to thousands of unnecessary deaths. I can believe that at the time it probably seemed like the right thing to do to release capacity in hospitals, because at the time the risk of the NHS being overwhelmed looked enormous, so I can actually understand why both the Scottish and U.K. governments made this mistake (although the actual execution of the policy could have been a lot better). But I can also understand why she might be feeling responsible.