Can Scottish politics be salvaged?

[SickofHolyrood]

I’m coming increasingly to the conclusion that Scottish politics has descended down a rabbit hole and I’m wondering whether it will ever emerge again to govern properly.

We pay eye-watering taxes compared to the rest of the UK and we get £2k more in spending than raised in taxes for every man woman and child, but seem to get very little to show for it.

Schooling started disappearing down the drain about 10 years ago, and withdrawing ourselves from the PISA etc stats just shows what we all know - standards are in complete free fall. My kids seem to have a succession of supply teachers, and yet there are thousands of teachers unable to secure permanent positions.

My kids aren’t deprived enough to have a reasonable chance of getting into a suitable Scottish university course, despite more than meeting the entry requirements. If they were English it would be a formality.

Despite much higher funding the Scottish NHS is only marginally better than the English NHS. CAMHS waiting lists are criminal.

The drugs death stats are horrifying and getting exponentially worse all the time.

The SNP seem to be openly corrupt - stealing £600k from their own supporters, not spending the COVID 19 recovery money on recovery from covid 19, and now not letting the auditor general know what has happened to Scotland reserves.

The SNP seem to be totally economically illiterate, best illustrated by the decision to spend millions of pound propping up a handful of Scottish jobs building ferry’s that are still not finished, leaving island communities to pick up the pieces.

The SNP spending an inordinate amount of time hankering for an independence referendum that polling shows no one wants and they would lose, after promising to respect the result of the 2014 referendum.

And the whole GRC situation makes me think that we are being run by some sort of weird q-anon cult. What part of trans women are not women don’t they understand? What part of women wanting women only spaces don’t then understand? It’s not bigoted to want
to keep safeguarding protections of penises out of female spaces. I just don’t get it.

Yes, the Tories are horrendous. No question about it, but I am 100% confident that the whole corrupt lot of them will be flushed down the loo at the next general election never to see power again for the next 100 years. But I can see the SNP shambles never ending, due to the constant lies of sunlit uplands to the not very clever gullible types who believe their nonsense. Can anyone see any light in the Holyrood tunnel at all?

Across the board in Scottish and UK politics as a whole there is a serious desperate shortage, both of honesty and talent. Twitter trials have a lot to answer for - not many of us would want to withstand that level of abuse.

No I'm not sure Scottish politics, like the trans debate can be saved there is a lack of any middle ground consensus or a politician able to do that and win.

I'm hoping for a UK labour govt but I fear the labour top team still deficient on talent and good ideas.

I had high hopes for the current Scot Labour leader but no more. I feel like the political class is so divorced from the rest that it’s like they’re on another planet. Am beginning to wonder if there is some deep dark secret they are told when they win their position which renders them unable to make sensible decisions.

It’s a bloody mess

Schooling started disappearing down the drain about 10 years ago, and withdrawing ourselves from the PISA etc stats just shows what we all know - standards are in complete free fall. My kids seem to have a succession of supply teachers, and yet there are thousands of teachers unable to secure permanent positions.

My kids aren’t deprived enough to have a reasonable chance of getting into a suitable Scottish university course, despite more than meeting the entry requirements. If they were English it would be a formality.

I would never have believed I would send my kids to private school. But I have, because their school couldn’t get teachers, the building was falling down, and the curriculum was crap anyway. I had to add 10 years to my mortgage to be able to do it, just to pay for 3rd to 6th year for them both.

In doing that I had to recognise that I was making it even less likely that they would be able to get places on decent university courses in Scotland. So, despite the fact that they would LOVE to stay in Scotland, they will almost certainly go to uni in England, and then I suspect they won’t come back.

How bloody ridiculous is that?

And don’t even get me started on Named Person, or all of the gender bollocks.

the way some people talk you'd think no middle class kids in Scotland go to university, which is bollocks
and there are good things about Scottish politics...
PR is arguably a better system the FPTP for elections, and means the Scottish Parliament isn't just the two party argy bargy politics of westminster.
Unlike England we still have a target to abolish child poverty - and we have the Child Payment which helps low income families
With all the talk about menopause politics and HRT yesterday, free prescriptions means women here don't have to pay out a three figure sum each year to get the meds they need to stay well and allow them to live their live.
And while Nicola Sturgeon has her flaws, I don't think she's fiddling her taxes/and is only out to help her rich mates like the Tories in London.
to those people who say 'I could never live in Scotland because of the SNP' do you not believe in democracy - because outside of mumsnet the SNP do seem to be popular!
granted it's not perfect - nothing is - but I'd choose Sturgeon over both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer to run the country

What about it? It isn't SNP policy. Nobody has suggested it ever will be. The whole rumour stems from an interview in which Sturgeon said that the age at which people can do many things could be reviewed. It seems a big step to go from there to claiming the SNP will reduce the drinking age.

I think Scotland (and the rest of the world!) would do better if it steered away from politics focussed on identity and put more effort into actual fundamentals.

The independence movement has be very good to push the identity of Scotland; I suppose just like Sir Walter Scott but for today’s proletariat. However we decide to Identify ourselves it’s only one facet of us. This has resulted in many people defining themselves in only one way; why do middle aged men feel compelled to tell me that they support independence when politics is not even in the conversation, ‘Hello I’m your new neighbour David, so pleased to meet you, I’m a member of the SNP by the way’

I think it’s been a strategy for the current SNP administration to present scotland as a victim of the U.K. an allay themselves with other marginalised groups for whom identity politics is paramount.

its a slippery slope though, and purity spirals are all too easy to fall into and drown. Scotland were very much integral in the British empire and it’s expansion and should not be exempt from the criticism that has ensued.

Really? Which criteria? Scotland met all of them when the UK was a member. It seems highly unlikely that has changed in the past 3 years.

The only area that would be different are the ecconomic criteria as Scotland has previously always been part of the UK. It seems rather unlikely that the economy of an independent Scotland wouldn't meet the requirements. Far smaller countries are members already.

@Spring23 what do you think a UK labour govt will do for Scotland?
in their big paper by Gordon Brown on the future of the future of the UK their main idea was devolution of power over job centres, which is hardly earth shattering....

That's going to depend on the labour manifesto isn't it?

well yes. but given that will be for a Westminster election policies on education/the NHS etc won't apply up here, although I accept of course there could be barnett consequentialism...
but at the moment we're 18 months out from an election campaign and their big idea is to let Holyrood control job centres. i say again, it's hardly earth shattering

Scottish Labour are stuffed until they can somehow divorce themselves from the UK Labour party. In England Labour are moving more and more to the right to try to win over Tory voters and Brexit voters. In Scotland Labour need to move the other way to try to win votes from the SNP but are unable to do so.

At the end of the day neither the Tories nor Labour care one iota about Scotland because they are not going to win many Westminster seats north of the border. Until they need those seats they will keep moving to the right to try to appeal to as many voters in England as possible.

and if people start talking about Alba as a good thing then mumsnet really has gone too far down the rabbit hole
any party with Tommy Sheridan and Alex Salmond in it will not be good for women...

The Indy fans I know are not fans of the SNP - it’s very much a “hold your nose and vote” approach by those over 25. And frankly, the shenanigans regarding the GRR vote before Christmas was utterly bizarre. Utterly shambolic display for something that wasn’t emergency legislation.

although funnily enough no outcry when Parliament sat late this week to debate and vote on the hunting with dog's legislation.
so it's alright to protect foxes, just as long as we don't try to make things easier for trans people....

Agree that Ruth Davidson was a huge loss. Whatever you think of Sturgeon (and I am not a fan, to put it mildly), she is a skilled politican, smart with her words and plays the game extremely well. Just like her predecessor Salmond. Davidson was the only one in recent years who could match her and challenge her, and you could see that Surgeon knew that. Not that she was "scared" of Davidson, but that she respected her skills and knew she wasn't going to get away with anything.

But the others are just wet and useless - Richard Leonard, Alex Cole-HAmilton, Douglas Ross, even the rest of the SNP - John Swinney in charge, anyone? Had high hopes for Anas Sarwar but he's not got the attacking spirit either. Then you have the rest of the MSPs who are just useless, few have had "proper jobs" but have had their entire careers in public policy and "advising" and let's not get started on the Greens. NO talented politicians apart from Sturgeon in Scotland which is criminal.

Tell me then how could we provide a five-year track record of monetary policy and economic stability? At minimum this could not occur until five years after independence and adoption of our own currency though in reality as a newly independent country it would take longer to stabilise the economy before we could start showing a track record of it being stable. And that is a very basic first step before the EU even starts to consider a candidate country.

No, my point was IF Alba had been a sensible party. It isn’t. But there needs to be an alternative to the SNP to split the independence vote so policies and performance are actually debated by Indy supporters.

PR is arguably a better system the FPTP for elections, and means the Scottish Parliament isn't just the two party argy bargy politics of westminster.

PR has given us politicians who are not responsible to constituents and purely loyal to the party and which means they are unlikely to question the leadership. It means individuals are imposed on voters and that they cannot exclude them unless pretty much no one votes for that party. Instead of two-party ‘argy bargy’ we are run by a minority government in coalition with a fringe party made up just of list MPs who have been given power hugely disproportionate to their support from the electorate.

FPTP has flaws but you need to argue harder to convince me this is better.

Tell me then how could we provide a five-year track record of monetary policy and economic stability? At minimum this could not occur until five years after independence and adoption of our own currency

@Shelefttheweb I heard John swinney being specifically quizzed about this last year (think it was on The Nine) and he admitted Scotland would have to have its open established currency before applying for EU membership. He wouldn't be drawn on how many years it would take

Own established currency that should say

Well yes exactly, Barnett for one important thing. Interesting that a uk labour govt can apparently do nothing for Scotland but somehow the problems in health and education here are still Westminster's fault according to the national.

Also this ‘rejoin the EU’ thing on independence falls into the same trap as many arguments over Brexit - when you vote for independence that is all you are voting for. Whether or not Scotland even thinks about applying to join the EU is not what is on the referendum paper. You are not voting for ‘SNP manifesto after independence’. Just independence. Another party might take control of an independent Scotland and take an entirely different path. Besides we would need another referendum showing support for joining the EU in order to apply to do so (another EU criteria).

@Spring23 everything is Westminster's fault, according to the National 🤷‍♀️
it's just a shame that this current shit show of a government don't really help/give a toss about Scotland as a whole

Exactly, the SG have made a terrible job of bringing the public with them.

Now now, they do give a shit about other tax dodging tories - they even lend each other money!