Why is there no opposition in Scotland?

[TheMurk]

Without googling, I could not tell you who the current leaders of the conservatives or labour are in Scotland.

I know it used to be Ruth Davison and Kezia Dugdale.

In WM almost every day the opposition parties strongly state their position on government policies. There is media coverage, debate, it’s discussed around the dinner table.

It seems to me that this isn’t happening in Scotland at the moment. Why?

Are people so scared of challenging the SNP or NS that they are gagged into silence?

I know the media in Scotland are thoroughly in the SNP’s press office pocket. The key journalists are openly pals with the press officers, they know what side their bread is buttered. So the media is broadly supportive, rarely interrogative, of SNP policies and actions.

But the role of the opposition is to call out folly, to pressure for change, to represent really the majority who did not vote for the ruling party. Where are they? Why aren’t they making noise?

Keir Starmer has certainly made his presence felt in WM. Isn’t his counterpart prepared to stick his head above the parapet?

It's now Jackson Carlaw and Richard Leonard.

I'm sure they are both lovely, but both are as wet as July in Scotland. Zero personality.

Ruth Davidson is a sorry loss - whatever your politics. She wasn't afraid to take Nicola on and really hold her to account. She cut through the bullshit and spin and demanded answers.

None of the current crop are doing that and it's a scandal - they can do pretty much whatever they want without challenge.

Plus as well in the current climate the easy reply to anyone criticising the SNP approach to covid is that you don't care, you're a Boris/Trump fan, why wouldn't you want to be SAFE..

Remember we’re saving lives here SockYarn we’ve got one measure and we are going to stick to it! Don’t be unpatriotic! 😂 Telt! We care more than Westminster and we don’t have to acknowledge additional UK spending or be grateful because we in the Scottish govt don’t control it. We can however still complain it’s not enough and blame any unemployment on WM.

I think it's really scary that people think this is going to be eradicated. Until we find a vaccine, this virus is not going to disappear in a puff of smoke. We can get it down to very low levels and trust in a track and trace process to follow up small outbreaks. But making it vanish altogether? Impossible.

But people ARE going to catch it, unless we are prepared to seal the country off in a wee bubble, no-one in, no-one out. Ever.

From the perspective of someone English living in Scotland, there is only 1 pro independence party

Not strictly true as the Scottish Greens are also pro-Independence

They currently have 6 MSPs (hence the current pro-Indy majority in Holyrood).

Interesting that no-one has mentioned Willie Rennie - the longest serving leader of a political party in Scotland. Shows how irrelevant the LibDems are nowadays.

Even though I am an SNP supporter, I don't think it is good for the country to have such ineffective opposition

I am left of centre and used to vote Labour. I may vote Labour again post-independence, if they manage to reds us over their soul. While I think that Keir Starmer is doing a good job for the UK/WM Labour Party, that boat has now sailed as far as I am concerned. The opportunity for a true federal approach (or Devo Max or Full Fiscal Autonomy) died with the Brexit vote (if not before).

We hate the Tories.

We see what they've done, how they hate the poor and disabled, as well as historically what they stand for, and most of us think anything has got to be better than that.

I'm so glad Tories don't get in here, and I'm undecided on Independence.

Most of Scotland wanted to remain in the EU as well.

I don't think much of Richard Leonard, having met him a few times through trade union events (before I drifted away from the labour party thanks to corbynism, momentum and anti semitism)

Jackie Baillie is my local MSP and obviously I know ore about her. As a local MSP she's been a bit hit and miss, but she does have lots of experience and would be a more effective leader than deputy.

I actually liked our SNP MP, personality wise, but would never vote for him because its more than personality that gets my vote. I've met him once, hardly see him and people are getting annoyed.

At least we see more of Jackie. I know who our list conservative MSP is and you see and hear from him quite a bit too. DHs friend is one of our Conservative Councillors and I've probably totally outed myself now.

@seonaseona

We hate the Tories.

We see what they've done, how they hate the poor and disabled, as well as historically what they stand for, and most of us think anything has got to be better than that.

I'm so glad Tories don't get in here, and I'm undecided on Independence.

Most of Scotland wanted to remain in the EU as well.

I'm a Tory voter with multiple disabilities. I don't hate them and I don't think they hate me. That said I'm not too impressed with their rushed approach to easing lock down or the chancellors mini budget. They did quite well in the last Scottish Election, getting to second place and I voted for them then.

It is never a good sign when there is a lack of a strong opposition regardless of political stance.

Governments need to be held to account both by a good opposition and a critical media, neither of which we have in Scotland at the moment leaving many too busy focusing on the glories and either not aware or critical when things are not as good as they should be.

I’m coming from the angle that as someone who doesn’t watch PMQs but is still aware of a relentless, consistent opposition from Labour, I shouldn’t need to watch FMQs to be aware of any opposition to the SNP.

Seems they run unfettered through Scotland with one calamitous policy after another and no one ever stands up and says “hang on a minute”...

Makes it feel even more like a dictatorship.

@TheMurk, my thoughts exactly. Then if you couple that with the fact that if you voice dissent you put yourself in danger (as in physical danger), it does make feel we live in a one party state.
The problem is that say the SNP does lose enough seats at the next election, who's going to govern, a lib-lab-cons coalition?

I saw a lot of tweets from Richard Leonard today - but you get to tweet 6/7 before he hits the main point ‘neither the tories nor the snp are facing up to the scale of the economic crisis’. Not well presented.

Keir Starmer is well able to critic the stimulus in WM, Leonard instead waffles on about economic planning on a sectoral basis - sounding like Corbyn command and control and no comment offered on Kate Forbes’ misrepresentation of the stimulus or any meaty opposition to SNP policy.

Leonard has a point about the SNP not seeming to worry about unemployment, but he’s packed no punch there.

I think the reason you are aware of WM opposition without watching PMQs, is because the media is all over that. In Scotland they are not. Are the media here very pro SNP? I’d be interested to know more on that.

But like others have said, Jackson Carlow is always crowing sanctimoniously about some shite and getting easily shot down by NS. Richard Leonard seems kind and respectful, not into antagonistic personality politics, but I agree that he is ineffectual. Labour in Scotland has been awful for so many years. God that guy Jim whatsisface from East Ren, he was embarrassing.

YouBonnieBanks Genuinely interested to know what Tory policies caused you to vote for them?

PrettyBird same here - I'd be open to voting Labour in an independent Scotland if I felt they were the best party.

The Scandinavian countries have a set up where people from all walks of life can have a say in what the government are passing and initiatives themselves. I know SNP were trying to put this in place here and I think it would work well in an independent Scotland.

It’s also lack of media time - let’s squeeze a few articles about Scotland in, so it’s 2 mins on what the govt has been up to. Lack of a clear opposition front runner doesn’t help lazy media companies either - they have to pick from 3 opposition parties all doing about the same here depending on which metric you look at.

I do think the media play a huge part in this, they are far too fawning and need to have a far more critical stance. This has been clearly evident during the daily COVID-19 briefings.

The Scottish govt does too many consultations imho - I’ve been asked to fill in endless education and mh surveys for kids the last month or two, and no idea what if anything they’re doing with the data.

Consultation without action is merely window dressing. I’d like to know in ‘Scandinavian countries’ if there is published response to the data saying what changes resulted from this inclusive debate.

Anyone remember all the consultation about the self ID stuff? Made not a whit of difference to what was passed.

Don’t even get me started on Kate Forbes.

I voted Tory because they were the strongest opposition to the SNP at the time and because they were the strongest on maintaining the union and preventing a second referendum. I don't want a neverendum. The labour party were weak and dithering on the union issue. They still are. Only because they want votes not because they actually have a position either way.

I liked Ruth and still do. I liked Theresa May also. I was sick of the Brexit delays and just wanted it done and over with, whereas other parties couldn't agree on what they wanted and just would have kept us in limbo. I voted against Brexit but ended up just wanting it done. I am opposed to CfE and the Tories were too. They were also going to help the WASPI women. Faslane and jobs where a lot of my friends and family work (Trident) and there's a lot more but I dont want to write an essay.

What attracts YOU to the SNP other than their one policy party status (independence)?

All the solid strong labour politicians in Scotland and UK have gone.

I think it's a combination of the general low quality of politicians in Scotland (with one or two exceptions), there being two main opposition parties which takes away focus, and a compliant media that generally doesn't ask probing questions. The Kate Forbes tweet about the Scottish government only getting £21M when actually Scotland is getting >£4.5B was disgustingly misleading and pure politics, and Jackson Carlaw/the media should have been all over that, but instead its gone essentially unchallenged. And because of that, there are huge numbers of people will take it at face value and as evidence of Westminster shafting Scotland rather than supporting Scottish people and businesses with the various UK-wide schemes (which she well knows). There are numerous other examples of questionable decisions and poor management over the last few months alone that the SNP/Scottish government have basically gotten away with without too much scrutiny. As others have said, the lack of proper scrutiny is a very unhealthy state to be in, and I think explains why so many poor policies/laws are put in place.

I find myself politically homeless and for a few years have been voting for the 'least worst' option because I don't particularly like any party. I'm naturally pretty centrist and used to vote Lib Dem (before they disappeared down the sanctimonious identity politics rabbit hole), and would never vote for Corbyn. Recently this has meant voting Tory because they are the strongest voice against Scottish independence, they are the only party who seems to understand what a woman actually is now, and they were offering to draw a line under Brexit rather than the years of wrangling that the other parties were offering. I don't like Boris Johnson and don't think he comes across well, but the Tories are only temporary (these things always work in cycles) whereas Independence is forever. I am thoroughly sick of constitutional bollocks, and just want to move past it all and start rebuilding society (and that includes the Brexit and Independence debates).

There are plenty of criticisms you can reasonably make of the SNP but I don’t think “it’s their fault there’s no decent opposition” is one of them. They’re not taking hits out on journalists to make Scottish Labour look a bit useless, Scottish Labour have done that all by themselves.

(did not vote SNP for either vote at previous Holyrood election and really don’t want any of the parties to have a majority in a system not set up for one fwiw.)

@GoldenOmber, absolutely. But I would go further. SNP politicians to me are just as useless and invisible as the rest. I was barely aware NS existed before she became FM. All you could see was AS.
Do I know any other SNP politician? JS, but that certainly is NOT a plus point for the SNP. I cannot think of any other except the Cherry (sp?) woman (or should I say "person"?), but just because I've read (s)he is a possible contender to succeed NS, but I don't know what s/he looks like or what difference it would make. I am going out on a limb but I would guess that she would persue the independence agenda more forcefully (assuming that were possible).

@GoldenOmber totally agree - you can’t lay the quality of the opposition at the SNP’s door. I agree too that the SNP have some poor representatives too - Swinney, Forbes and some others, being carried by NS atm.

Ian Blackford is just awful imo and Mhairi Black is just gobby, look at me, look at me (oh and really scruffy too)