Shall we have a Scotsnet general election thread?

[JennyLake]

This WILL be interesting. Even if it doesn’t rid us of the SNP from Holyrood, it will provide a good barometer of public opinion on the recent exploits of the SNP.

Farewell Blackman and Black!

I will vote Tory before I vote SNP.
At least they appreciate the female vote.

We’re also middle income higher rate tax payers just tipping into higher rate. Still happy my tax money helps with the initiatives referenced. You might not be happy with that but doesn’t mean SNP have done nothing with the money.

I’m very clear it’s taxpayer funded, I say that at the end of sentence. It’s still free.

I did say not everything they have done has been great and that there would be plenty of people along to point that out, but it’s wrong to suggest they haven’t done anything that benefits anyone.

I agree. I’d like to get back to a style of politics where we get better debate that improves policy, would’ve stopped some of the worst excesses all round on parties with too much power. I’ve never voted SNP but of course they’ve had some good policies.

they absolutely needed to respond to more scrutiny on education and health there are clearly issues and regardless of who holds the crown it’s in all our interests that these two key things improve, and quickly.

I do wish we had a Green Party which was centrist in its outlook that I could vote for. The current Green Party are insane.

No, because there is absolutely no mechanism for this, and no relevance.

What people "think" is neither here nor there. SG is a fixed 5 year term. Even incumbent parties can't just "call" an election whenever they feel like it.

Still a staggering level of ignorance about how politics in Scotland actually functions.

So no scenario possible whereby the SNP suffer such catastrophic loss at Westminster resulting in another VONC in the Scottish Government? Granted the Greens will be their saviour again…but stranger things have happened.

No reasonable scenario, no.

For a start, this is an election to a wholly separate parliament, so can not realistically be considered to be a judgement of the incumbent SG. If you hold that line, then Douglas Ross and the Scots Tories would surely have to resign their seats en masse given the unprecedented kicking their Westminster counterparts look likely to be on the end of.

Any attempt to use the outcome of a Westminster election to prompt yet another, performative VONC so soon after the previous would likely be given short shrift in any case. Who do you suppose would bring the motion? Tory? well not likely given their aforementioned predicament. Labour? Possible, but then they'd be reliant on Tory, LD, and Green support to get it off the ground, and given that we have literally just been through this, I doubt there would be much appetite for indulging it yet again.

Even if it happens, and the SG loses, that still does not prompt an election, so what would be the purpose precisely?

Despite Holyroods own standards committee recommending sanctions against Michael Matheson ovwr the £11k iPad bill, swinney wont support them. Poor wee Michael is a friend who made mistakes.

The rest of us see him more as a grifting chancer. And a liar.

Strange way to go about a "grift", given that the only net financial beneficiary was the ISP.

Matheson lied, and should face consequences, but there is nothing about this episode whatsoever that suggests he did anything at all intended to benefit him financially. He was even open and honest with SG IT that he had no idea how the bill came about and asked them to look into it.

“Open and honest…had no idea …”

aye RIGHT 🤣🤣🤣

Why on earth would he request IT to investigate the bill if he already knew precisely how it came about?

He asked his children, and at that point in time they were still denying having used the laptop, hence his bafflement. The lies came later.

Again, I'm baffled by this insistence that he set out to defraud or otherwise benefit himself by running up a massive bill. I'd love to see the logic behind this laid out.

Is it such a stretch, given that he’s proves himself to be a liar that the conversation was

“ok kids watch the footy but do it on dad’s work iPad so we don’t have to pay”

Then he got found out and the lies started…learned from the best, Sturgeon/Murrell et al

I think it's pretty obvious he was in the habit of permitting the children to access the work laptop while in Scotland, which is an issue in itself, then got caught with his pants down when they did so in Morocco on a redundant SIM.

The idea that it was a deliberate choice to watch on a work laptop to "avoid paying" doesn't stand up, since even if protocol had been followed and the SIM replaced as instructed, there would still have been a significant cost incurred, and there would have been no way to hide that from IT.

His kids did something they were in the habit of doing normally, only they did it outside the UK, either with his consent while he was oblivious to the obvious consequences, or without his consent. He then played innocent, his reasons for this are debateable, and lied after the truth of the matter was known to him.

Ultimately he paid the money from his own pocket, but he should still face sanction for the inappropriate and lax use of SP IT, and then lying about not understanding how the situation came about even after he did, in fact, know exactly how it came about, even if, as he maintains, he did so to prevent his children being dragged into it. I still can not see how this amounts to a "grift". He's been extremely foolish, naive at best, exposed as a liar, and should face consequences.

Has anybody looked how many Alba candidates there might be? I’m wondering about them sitting the snp vote

Ok…as neither of us were party to what actually went on we have to go on probability …mine is different from yours

Salmond has been making noises about 20-24 candidates.

TBH, I think Alba shot themselves in the foot when their MSP voted with Unionists to attempt to bring down a Nationalist government. Not really what you'd expect from a party purporting to be pro-Indi. They might pick up a few votes from the "Indi NOW" obsessives dismayed at the lack of progress, but I can't see them polling more than the 2-3% they generally register.

Their other problem is they are utterly skint, have few members they can tap up for funding, and are regarded as nothing more than a lunatic fringe irrelevance by the media, so I think they'll have enormous problems gaining any bandwidth to get whatever their message is across.

Re Alba - at least they have endorsed the Cass Review and accept scientific fact/biological reality so in my view are less "lunatic fringe" than the Greens !

Happened before, WM don’t give a shite.

I dont know how anyone can look at the SNP and think oh yes that’s the party for me. Must be “independence at all costs” types.

This election has come at a bad time for them and I couldn’t be happier.

There's been a huge decrease in child poverty in Scotland whereas the opposite is true in England.

I really hope The Tories lose.Can Starmer come in and cancel the contracts Rishi have his father in law?

Cannot believe some people are still swallowing the line that the kids watched the footie and Natheson was blissfully unaware.

Meanwhile…so what does Matheson have on them?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c999r0r0g72o

I think addressing child poverty is a positive move, but the SNP fail to look at the consequences of their actions. You cannot just chuck money around all over the place without thinking. There are 450 teachers facing redundancy in Glasgow due to lack of funds. Do you not think some of the money thrown around ought to be kept back to ensure the basics are met. That councils are given enough money to provide basic educational services?

Agree @yellowridinghood
It's a well recognised fact that the best PERMANENT way out of poverty is a good education, leading to quality jobs paying a decent wage.
A tenner a week or whatever is a sticking plaster. Far better to invest in children's futures by doing something about education in Scotland now

You can’t argue that the money isn’t helping but absolutely, any Scot gov need to do much more on education and health because we’re building a long term crisis there and that’ll be the poverty story of the future.

https://cpag.org.uk/news/official-child-poverty-statistics-nearly-quarter-scotlands-children-still-poverty