Peter Murrell has resigned with immediate effect

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

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

Good. It's all unravelling.

Forbes seems to be the candidate best placed for delivering @Merrilydancing ‘s points. Regan seems determined to push us down the Indy path without building consensus or addressing the concerns the No voters expressed and continue to express - her approach appears to be act now, think later. If Yousless does get in then god help Scotland and the Indy movement - neither will progress or benefit, it will be more of the same saltire waving and shouting about it all being the fault of WM.

I am absolutely open to voting yes, but after witnessing the absolute shitshow of Brexit led by a completely incompetent Govt I’m nowhere near ready to vote for another incompetent Govt taking us down a path of disaster that will make Brexit look like a good idea. There are many things to sort out and improve first before the majority of us up here believe independence will deliver a better Scotland in the short, medium and long term - I’m not prepared to wait decades for this supposed Utopia.

I'm not going to apologise for saying separatism is muddle headed and delusional. There's no "2 sides" as far as I'm concerned. It has no merits

With such closed dogmatic thinking why should anyone impartial reading your posts take anything you say seriously?

after witnessing the absolute shitshow of Brexit led by a completely incompetent Govt I’m nowhere near ready to vote for another incompetent Govt taking us down a path of disaster that will make Brexit look like a good idea

I agree that lessons need to be learned from Brexit how not to break up political institutions.

I think there's a problem in politics in general that it attracts people who are out for themselves and don't behave as public servants should.

i don’t see how remaining part of the U.K. is pushing nationalism in the sense which I have described. You’ll have to explain that to me.

I thought most people are all a bit embarrassed about the British Empire days (of which Scotland was very much at the forefront in many respects) and I’ve missed the U.K. equivalent of ‘Wha’s like us’.
Most people and msm are very quick to criticise the U.K. government and labour which I don’t see in Scotland; even SNP in Westminster get an easy ride. Perhaps that’s because of the toxic, wheest for Indy?

Remember, the SNP would have pulled Scotland out of the EU to gain independence and were quite happy to do so. I find this agenda bewildering. Maybe they should have a referendum on the GRR.

the only party in the U.K. with ‘nationalist’ in their name is the SNP.

To be fair, it’s the Scottish National Party, not Nationalist, but I agree with your other points.

I think there's a problem in politics in general that it attracts people who are out for themselves and don't behave as public servants should - absolutely agree. I also think politics has become about identity, rather than focusing on improving lives of people in this country, and the people who go into it often have an agenda based on identity politics more than anything else.

Ref other nations and independence: Thats not an argument for Scotlands independence in 2023 . Of course we could be independent , that’s not the argument but should we? In our present situation with Holyrood housing 3 rd rate regional administrators, an ageing population , worst drug problem in Europe etc etc it would inflict even more misery on the lives it purports to change . Please see comments above re Czech law cases and train drivers 30 years on . Do independence supporters not think that would happen here?
Would love an answer as to why it wouldn’t .

I also think politics has become about identity, rather than focusing on improving lives of people in this country, and the people who go into it often have an agenda based on identity politics more than anything else.

Totally agree. All the parties are like this now and we need to weed the lot of them out of politics.

Holyrood housing 3 rd rate regional administrators, an ageing population , worst drug problem in Europe

There's an argument that Holyrood suffers because talent gets drained to the Westminster machine. If the first election after indyref had been Holyrood rather than Westminster I think we'd have better politicians than now as a lot of the new ones who ran in 2016 were the ones who failed to win contests/get elected in 2015.

The whole world is aging. It's neither an argument for independence nor the union.

The drug death issue is a decades long one as it's the addicts of the 80s/90s Tory rule/pre devolution who are now dying in middle age that are maki g these sky high figures.

There are plenty of academics who link the disenfranchisement of the union to drug use. No one can ever prove that and it's obviously not the main reason in every case but it would make sense that the union is part of the reason why so many people in Scotland got addicted to heroin in the thatcher and Major eras.

Have you seen the photos of the 'deserts with windows' that were built by the tories and left to decay by Labour councils? I can see why people trapped in those ghettos became susceptible to addiction.

Using housing and drug deaths as arguments for the union doesn't make sense. The housing and drug issues predate devolution. They're legacies of WM policies. And yy you could criticise Holyrood for not making better inroads into those issues, but there's zero evidence that WM would make it better. In fact, every evidence suggests they wouldn't as they focus on London centric policies, ignore former industrial heartlands, are running the NHS into the ground and have a major problem with county lines which they seem incapable of policing and which are storing up similar drugs problems for the future.

There's an argument that Holyrood suffers because talent gets drained to the Westminster machine.

Yeah. OK. That's why life expectancy is dropping and is the lowest in the UK, education is failing, and drug deaths are the highest in Europe. Because all the talent's at Westminster. Is there some point where they're going to show that talent?
Scotland has been in charge of its own affairs for going on 25 years. Yet everything is still Thatcher's fault. The SNP is no different from any other party, blaming all their failings on others. 50 years after independence, they'll still be saying their economy's in the crapper because they used to be part of the union.

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files/statistics/drug-related-deaths/21/drug-related-deaths-21-report.pdf

The average age of drug death in 2021 was 44, so born in 1977. So from the age of 3 to 20 they lived under Tory rule and devolution didn't happen until they were 22.

There is strong evidence that childhood trauma and poverty contribute to later drug use.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-open/article/poverty-in-adolescence-and-later-drug-use-disorders-understanding-the-mediation-and-interaction-effects-of-other-psychiatric-disorders/8522FB4CBD952B94F85A6161E47670EE

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3051362/

So yes I am going to argue that the drug deaths we see in Scotland now do stem from the mismanagement of Scotland from Westminster by the tories.

Lots of social and economic problems take decades to filter through.

Eg Covid will result in earlier deaths in the population for decades to come.

That's the responsibility of the government now, not the ones to come.

The Scottish Government are also to blame for the drug deaths. Nicola Sturgeon admitted “ taking her eye off the ball “. 2021. The fatalities of that year were double the number when she became First Minister in 2014 . She actually allowed a a drug rehabilitation centre in her own constituency to close . The drugs death task force published a report… circa July 2022 … condemning the “ woefully inadequate funding “ from the Scottish Government. At one point fewer than 50 % of drug addicts were able to access treatment. There was a severe shortage of rehab beds. Don’t think we can pin this all on UK government. Also at one point , residential drug rehabilitation places were being used at Castle Craig by Dutch heroin users because Scottish government would not pay for Scottish addicts to use them.

I agree - you cannot pin this one on WM unfortunately. The SG’s rhetoric is to shift the blame but there are serious shortcomings in devolved services which have led to a rise in drug related fatalities.

Is it not strange that, if this was WM fault, Scottish rates of drug deaths are so considerably worse than Englands?

Brain drain to Westminster? Emma Harper - possibly the least intelligent person ever to be elected a politician - is an SNP MSP. The brain drain to Westminster isn’t that big!

There are no astute nationalist MSPs because independence would be such an economic catastrophe that no one who’d given it much thought could ever condone it. And yes this probably is derogatory, and no there is no ‘other point of view’, because wanting to devastating a country’s economy just to feel a bit more ‘Scottishy’ is so incredibly selfish.

That's a good summary.

I don't understand this obsession with "being a nation".

It’s very reminiscent of the argument put forward by the Brexiteers - and look where that’s got us.

The Emma Harper point makes my point not yours.

Holyrood has been left with less competent politicians because the most able secured WM seats in 2015.

Emma Harper demonstrates my point.

The misuse of drugs act is reserved. Almost all tax and social security are reserved. (Do I need to spell out poverty/drugs?)

I agree that Scotland should spend more on rehab but more rehab isn't some panacea for the drug death stats.

There's been no acknowledgment at all from any unionist here that it's the middle aged addicts who are dying. The ones who became addicted to drugs pre-devolution or under the Labour Scottish Executive of 99-07.

It will take decades to undo that harm.

Exactly - The only thing that matters is sovereignty and we must have that right now and after we get it everything will be fine because we're Scottish and Scottish people are the best people and can achieve anything because they're Scottish...

Holyrood has been left with less competent politicians because the most able secured WM seats in 2015.

There are 45 MPs. That's the sum of the SNPs competency? 45 people? Surely it would take many more than that to run a country?

Fewer than 45 are competent, far from it.

The older group of drug users face ageing much sooner than the general population and their lifestyle has obviously had a very negative cumulative impact on their general health. This group is bound to grow in size as their health deteriorates and they have multiple health issues. Within the older group there is a difference in experience of drug use and the ability to achieve recovery. Social isolation and stigma are factors that older drug users may experience more frequently than the younger drug users and this raises barriers to acccessing help. All very complex….

Holyrood has been left with less competent politicians because the most able secured WM seats in 2015.

Whilst I'm pleased you recognise the incompetency of SNP MSPs , as others have said- it's quite an admission that the entire separatist movement can only muster up 45 competent MPs.

(Although frankly describing them as "competent" is being kind)

I don't think you understand me.

A lot of new people- new to politics even new to the SNP, often those with successful careers elsewhere, ran and won seats in 2015, the first election after the 2014 vote.

That just left those who failed to be elected in 2015 to run for the Scottish parliamentary election in 2016.

So the Scottish Parliament got the also rans.

Some good talent lies stagnant in WM.

The SNP needs to change its policy to allow those MPs who want to, to run for Holyrood. I think we'd have a better functioning Scottish Government if that happened.

” Some good talent lies stagnant at WM “

Aye like “ Hapless “ Deirdre Brock and the delightful Mhairi Black .

Suggestion from a caller on Radio Scotland this morning that Holyrood is scrapped , money is given to local councils and is overseen by Scottish Office .