Jackson Carlaw

[AgentProvocateur]

Well, that’s a surprise. My guess is he’s been up to something unsavoury or else he’ll come out in support of independence in a few months. (Did Keizia Dugdale ever change direction?)

I am an SNP supporter but I think they need a credible opposition. Carlaw wasn’t and Richard Leonard (who?) also isn’t.

Who do you think should lead Scottish Conservatives/Scottish Labour?

Actually I agree with you - Scotland deserves better opposition. But it's an indictment of the state of the Scottish Conservatives that neither deputy can land a reasonable blow.

@prettybird I actually agree with you. I think the standard of Scotland's politicians is pretty poor, across all parties (although there are a handful of standout characters including Ruth and Nicola).

The problem with Labour and The Tories is they're London based parties. Jackson and the like don't believe in Scotland having any powers so it's hard to see how they could have anything meaningful to contribute. It's similar to Farage being paid £100k a year to spout off in the European Parliament about how s*ite it instead of contributing anything which might make people's lives better. Their purpose is to talk Scotland down in order to make their bosses look good. There's no merit in making progress for the people if Scotland.
The Tories are a party of the elite, for the elite. The SNP are not perfect and need an opposition which actually wants to improve the lives of people in Scotland, not just beat them down so they stay in the union.

@MumofHunter, and we were on a roll too. I have to disagree with just about everything in that last post. I don't think the Scottish Tories as a whole want to abolish Holyrood (there may be a couple, but every party has its bad apples - see SNP). I do think that they want the best for their constituents, at least as much as any other party, even if I might not always agree with their vision of what that looks like. I don't think they want to talk Scotland down any more than I or anyone else critical of the SNP wants to 'talk Scotland down'. And I actually don't think the Scottish Tories are elitist either. They always struck me as pretty centrist actually.

I would like to see them AND labour both putting up real opposition to the SNP, as the effective one party state (and I accept this is because the opposition are crap) is what is really damaging the lives of people in Scotland. I hope in the next election they and labour put forward positive visions for Scotland within the UK, which incidentally is so much more than the current occupant of Downing Street.

Looks as though it will be Ruth Davidson deputising for Douglas Ross until he can rejoin the Scottish Parliament, should he win the leadership contest.

I must say, I wasn't sorry to see JC go. If anything, I didn't know who he was. I knew his name, but didn't know what he looked like, what he stood for or what his voice sounded like.
So, whether he jumped before being pushed matters not as I feel it was the right thing to do (the Tories are notorious for being ruthless with underperforming leaders).
Let's hope the next choice will be a better one.
Jaimie Greene's is the only voice I have heard from the Tory party in the last few months, but I don't know if he is the run.

Out of interest, who is the Labour leader? And the libdems, if they are still there, do they have one these days?

@Y0uCannot We'll need to agree to disagree. I view the Tories as one party and those in Scotland back up their bosses down South with no regard for how people in Scotland may feel.

This article describing Carlaw's inability to speak out and say Cumming's jaunt to see family and have a day out when we were all unable to demonstrates my feelings.
Seems a long time ago in lockdown - was it the Tiger King Era? 😂
www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2020/05/scottish-tories-defence-boris-johnson-has-left-them-looking-craven

I know people say this about the SNP but I view the Tories as a one purpose party as their leaflets are just filled with save the union.. stop Nicola Surgeon with next to no mention of policies.

If, as the article above mentions, the Tories could separate themselves from WM a little I think that would be great for scottish politics. Maybe DG is the man to do this. Maybe not going by last week's photo ops.

And yes you're right, Carlaw didn't want devolution in Scotland but it's unfair of me to say all Tory MSPs are the same.

Part of the problem with the quality of the Opposition in the Scottish Parliament is that the three Unionist parties see Westminster as the "real" Parliament. As a result, their best politicians aspire to be MPs, rather than MSPs.

Ruth Davidson was an honourable exception as far as I am aware

Douglas Ross I believe resigned over the Cummings affair, which does (to me) show that he's not just following Westminster orders. He also seems like a 'normal' person, certainly he went to state school and had a normal job, so hopefully not Rees-Mogg level of out of touch.

I agree that the Scottish Conservatives need to extend their policies beyond 'Stop the SNP' (although personally I think that's very important ), and hope they do that in the coming election.

I don't know... The SNP has no policies, except one and in the last 10 years or so have accomplished pretty much zilch. If they lost power, I cannot think of one single policy of the last few years that would need changing, as they have introduced none. The one exception, if it goes ahead, is on the 'definition of woman', which, if anything, it shows how little appetite there is for serious policy or serious change - it is not like there aren't aspects of our health or education that need fixing...
Their mantra is "Westminster, boooohhhh" and it sits well with their core audience and it seems to be making new converts, so they carry on with it.
The opposition (as Donald Draper would say) are unable to 'change the conversation'.
In Scotland we simply seem uninterested in policies.
I thought that RD too was often monodimensional, but, again, seemed to work and it got her notoriety and a lot of votes, which proves my previous point.

The care home guidance, the ONS rebuke and the misrepresentation of the help from the uk as the Scottish govt ‘only’ receiving £21m should’ve drawn some real heat from opposition parties.

All parties are suffering from decent people not wanting the hounding on twitter etc. that politicians get these days, and the lack of respect.

I’m not a fan of nationalist parties but I do believe NS and RD are decent people who disagree on how to achieve what’s best for Scotland but have the same goal.

Actually, the IFS confirmed that the £21 million "extra" of Barnet Consequentials was correct as most of what BJ was promising in his aspiring to be Rooseveltian "New Deal" was in fact existing spend (or rather, underspend) just being shuffled around.

One of the Twitter threads I read said it was Kate Forbes being so quick off the mark that made them re-look at the figures - it just took them longer to come to the same figure

https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/14938

So perhaps the SNP should have pointed out that it was mostly "existing money", so Scotland was not getting "shafted" for the sake of it. They way the massage came across was that everybody was getting a share of the money tree, except Scotland. So a more accurate description would have been that "there is no money tree".

‘In the big picture, this is correct: the Scottish government will get far more than £21m’. From the IFS link.

Are we back at the brexit bus again?

Also it's not 'help from the UK' as in a gift, it's a loan taken out on our behalf which Scottish taxpayers will pay back.

Oh and the SNP have so many policies I'd be here all night listing them... no toll roads, free nhs parking ( apart from 3 Labour pfi hospitals), free higher education, baby box, increased numbers of police officers, the nursing bursery, continuing the substantially lower interest on student loans (for living expenses), all teachers must have a teaching degree and pass a probationary period to be employed as a teacher in Scotland, free prescriptions .
Ok that'll do me... you'd have to be quite ignorant not to know any of these SNP policies.

Or did I miss in Kate Forbes tweet her carefully stating the stamp duty money and the money flowing to Scotland as a nation was specifically excluded from her accounting?

Just heard on the news Ruth Davidson definitely heading for the Lords.

Oh dear. The tolls was THIRTEEN YEARS ago. The hospital parking at the same time, I think. And the baby box, BIG DEAL!!
Shall we talk about councils starved of money (oh, but that was WM's fault, like everything else under the sun, including the weather).
Shall we talk about schools which are a national scandal??
PLEEEAAAZE!!
The SG has been good at introducing red tape, that's for sure...

You know what? They should have bloody policies and do stuff to actually run the country since that is what they are elected and paid to do, instead of wasting time on fucking stupid stuff (named persons, etc) We know that they are all about independence but there is plenty of other stuff they should be delivering.

I'm not actually sure that the student loan interest rates are cheaper but I could be wrong, they were certainly more expensive a few years ago, plus students are limited to what they can borrow and no allowance is made for living out or other students in the household etc and these students have no way of borrowing additional money other than from their parents. You know that if your pre tax household income is more than £34k they can only borrow £4750 a year? Even if their accommodation costs £4k, looking at the maximum available to students on lower incomes, the max they can have is £7750 so assume then that each student on the minimum needs £3k top up. On £34k that's about £26.6k a year after tax and NI and not counting pension contributions. If you have 2 in Uni that's at least £6k you are expected to find as well as maybe supporting younger DC.

Free university places, ok, but there are strict limits put on places so that DC need higher results than english or foreign (non EU) students to get a place. Most loand are never repaid in full anyway so for a lot of folk it's no advantage. Colleges in the meantime have been hammered. Education in general is a string of broken promises. And I think teachers in Scotland have always had to have a degree so not an SNP policy?

Free prescriptions, I understand is that it costs as much to collect the money as it does to give them free, I'd be happy to pay though or at least make a donation.

Consolidation of police forces resulted in tragedies.

Baby boxes for fucks sake. Half the people those are aimed at wouldn't have their baby seen in what's provided as it's not adidas or nike. The other half are a mix of the grateful (but could have been given the money instead) and the middle class who could afford to buy stuff anyway so this just frees up money for gin. And yes, the country was rampant with toll roads

Even NS has come out and said they should be showing what they can do, not telling - doesn't seem to have filtered down to their "supporters".

And then we have the Hate crime bill, the eradication of women's rights, debacles with farming subsidies, named person, the silence on the border protests, alex salmond, the attempt to cover up the guy texting a child, corruption, required obedience etc etc

I know all parties are going to make mistakes and have scandals but it;s the way they are dealt with that makes the difference and the ownership. I'm not saying any of the rest are any better, but they aren't the ones in power and the ones pretending to be better than everyone else.

I'm not saying any of the rest are any better, but they aren't the ones in power and the ones pretending to be better than everyone else.
Amen to that!
One of the reasons I never liked NS is that I have always found her SO sanctimonious and condescending. I am sure I am in a minority with this, but there you are, anyway.

My guess is he’s been up to something unsavoury or else he’ll come out in support of independence in a few months.

That's really unfair - the first bit at least.

My take on it as someone who doesn't vote for either the SNP or Conservatives is that he found it impossible to follow in Ruth Davidson's footsteps. She's a force of nature that woman, whatever you think of her politics. Big personality, media savvy, good on social media platforms, outspoken. Then along comes Jackson Carlaw who is probably a lovely guy but very "wet" and reserved. None of the media savvy which Ruth had - his Twitter feed for example is very sanitised, dull and "corporate".

I think behind the scenes there has been a lot of pressure from the younger, more vocal tories about needing a new leader to represent the 21st century rather than being stuck in the past.

Labour have exactly the same problem with Richard Leonard. Nice bloke, dull as ditchwater. No charisma and poor public speaking skills. He'll be the next for the chop.

@SockYarn, yes it was unfair. I agree. And I also agree that Richard Leonard will be next for the chop. And soon.

Richard who?

It’s a bit sad really, I started following Richard Leonard on twitter after the last thread on the Scottish Labour opposition and his heart is definitely in the right place, he just doesn’t get his point across with any oomph.