Peter Murrell has resigned with immediate effect

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-65000606

Good. It's all unravelling.

It seems to me that it's ok for SNP supporters to bash other parties but not vice versa.

Why are you celebrating, indy supporters will
not all of a sudden become Tory voters 😂

Ah the old if you're not for the SNP you're a Tory trope. Yawn.

Awa and speak shite!

The point is indy supporters will not all of a sudden turn to unionist parties and vice versa!

They won't no.
But we need openness and honesty in Scottish politics, far too much control has been in the hands of a couple of people.

Their own voters and supporters are seeing it hence the drop in party members.
Nothing has got better in Scotland over the last 15 years, far to much money and energy wasted on independence, and forgetting the day job.

If Scotland ever does gain independence, what will be the point of the SNP? Doesn't that put the people at the top of the party in a similar position to people running a big charity who would all be out of a well-paid high-status job if they achieved their campaign aims?

DH was saying yesterday, people might be more inclined to vote for independence if the SNP could prove they could manage everything else about running a country - health, education, economy etc - and they cannot do that.

This whole 'independence - and sort everything else afterwards' is a no thank you from me.

That’s an argument that’s often put forward but the SNP will very much still exist and people will still vote for them - independence is not the only reason they get the votes, which is why the de facto election approach of Regan and others won’t stand in law.

The de facto referendum election approach has another purpose though - it gets people voting SNP based on independence and stops them thinking how terrible they are at running Scotland and voting for a party and candidates that might do a better job. While they are the only Indy supporting party and the country is relatively evenly split it ensures they stay in power.

I honestly believe that the SNP with have to reinvent themselves in an independent Scotland.

Oh absolutely - it shifts the focus very conveniently. It doesn’t mean the SNP will fall away though if we get independence, which is an argument you often hear - that will take years as their supporters will claim for years that no other party can steer us through the post-Indy years. Only once it becomes apparent that they are cocking that up monumentally as they have done with everything else they turn their hand to will there be a chance for other parties to lead.

Interesting times though - it looks like there will be a challenge to the voting process for the next leader.

People wouldn't vote for the SNP after independence. It's much more likely that the main WM parties would create Scottish arms with different policies and aims. Scotland's demographics mean the priorities would be need to be different from WM parties. And our voting system means we'd be more likely to have coalition governments similar to Scandinavian and Northern European countries. It would be a great opportunity for Scotland and would probably reinvigorate WM politics too.

I disagree - people will still vote for the SNP, certainly in the short to mid term while they ‘steer’ <hollow laugh> us through the post-indy years. As for coalition Govts - we’ve got one of those at the moment and look at what a mess that is. Unless a post-Indy Govt is willing to overhaul the voting system completely (and I haven’t heard anyone shouting about that) then we’ll simply end up with more of the same - a party on a tiny % of votes holding vast amounts of power in Govt.

Completely agree with this, I genuinely think a bit of healthy competition between Scotland and England will help up everyone’s game. Once/if there’s independence I think there will also be a stronger Conservative Party, they will have a different agenda to WM for sure, Scottish conservatism is different, I think it’s more “old school”- can’t see them giving away billions of state money on dodgy contracts for example.

I agree with this. They should have focussed all their time, effort and money into everything but independence (and GRR). And made it an indefinite pledge. That would have been leading in the interest of the whole country, and gained some respect. And perhaps - had they done a good job, which I personally doubt - they might have persuaded no voters based on actual competence. Continuing to waste time on independence campaigns post covid and with the state of public services like the NHS is inexcusable.

You obviously don't speak to many SNP voters...

Hardly. The SNP have the largest single vote - it’s very hard not to speak to their voters in day to day conversation, there’s quite a few of them out there.

I used to think if they had concentrated on running the country rather than independence then it might have swung some voters their way but actually I realise now that focusing on independence was the only thing they could do .
They cant even run a leadership election FFS. Played a blinder earning their large salaries and keeping the party faithfull on side who haven’t a clue what independence means . I love it when they say we will eradicate child poverty . Yea right , even Norway and Singapore 2 of the wealthiest nations in the world still have child poverty and Irelands rate of child poverty is pretty much the same as ours . What planet are these people on ? Speaking about being under the evil boot of Westminster- what - trying telling that to someone from Iran .

Where is the 20th/21st century precedent for a country gaining independence and becoming a functioning democracy where one of the main parties isn’t ‘nationalist’? Look at Brexit - a purge of moderate tories and implemented by the total believers, that seems more likely.

Sturgeon lied about when the first Scottish cases were identified.

How did she "handle" it better? All she did was turn up for the pointless daily self promotion pieces.

Earlier lockdown and closing of schools at some points. Not making idiotic comments about letting it rip through the population.

Did she lie about the cases? I wasn’t aware of that and was working in PHS.

Oh and I haven’t looked recently, but our deaths (both covid and overall excess) were lower per 100,000 than in England.

Schools only closed because England closed theirs or their wasn't enough fit teachers to open them..

She pursued zero covid for far too long which was never going to happen. Boris acknowledged that and realised that the vaccines might never be 100% effective.

"Did she lie about the cases? I wasn’t aware of that and was working in PHS."

😁That's exactly the point ! She did and I think it was BCC documentary that exposed it. The Nike conference.