SNP leadership campaign

[RoyalCorgi]

I thought it would be fun for the leadership campaign to have its own thread.

According to Wikipedia, the timetable for the election is:

"Nominations opened on 16 February, and will close on 24 February. Those nominated will then be put forward as options in a ballot of party members, which will open on 13 March, and close at noon on 27 March, with the result announced on the same day by the SNP's national secretary, Lorna Finn."

So quite a short campaign. I don't completely understand how the voting works - it's not first past the post, but a "type of single transferable vote", according to Wiki, which is clear as mud.

Kate Forbes seems to have lost some key supporters by saying she was opposed to same-sex marriage, which perhaps means some of them will transfer to Ash Regan. The only other candidate is our old chum Humza Yousaf, author of one of the most deranged and authoritarian pieces of legislation, the Hate Crime and Public OrderAct, to pass through a UK legislative body in the past 100 years.

Those of you in Scotland, how do you see this playing out?

I do think no matter what, its the end of the SNP as a political force for a while.

sadly not. They remain the biggest party in Holyrood and Scottish labour and conservatives are not strong either.

Is Scotland ‘socially progressive’? Outside small segments of life in Edinburgh/Glasgow, I suspect it is actually pretty conservative.

All three contenders are just different shades of bonkers

Yes and only 2 of them (probably) know what a woman is.

It’s what happens in any authoritarian government / organisation - decent, intelligent, principled people get frozen out

I think Labour will become more electable again (even though I think Scottish Labour is as crap / dangerous as SNP).

I probably should have selected my words better though. I don't think they will be as strong as they are now. There will be fewer sNP MPs in Westminster (please no more Blackford / Black) and when it is Holyrood election times I think there will be fewer SNP MSPs.

Enough fewer that there will have to be a proper coalition again- not the crap we have now with them giving so much power to the Greens.

I'm uncomfortable about her statement about children being born outside marriage is wrong or whatever the exact words were.

I know she went on to say (back pedal?) that all births should be celebrated but there's a whiff of "illegitimate" children and being "wrong". Was she asked that or did she volunteer it?

Not getting at you but "socially progressive" is such a stupid phrase. The UK is a liberal democracy. It's up there with the best of the world as a liberal democracy. The UK is a "socially progressive country". It's not perfect and of course bigotry, prejudice etc still happens.

Banging on about being "socially progressive" is all part of the SNP's desperate policy of Scottish exceptionalism. We have to be different from England. There's no racism, or homophobia or bigotry in Scotland, blah, blah blah.

I suppose it is relative. The UK right (conservatives) sit firmly to the left of the American left (democrats)

Alex Neil on Humza and skipping the gay marriage vote:

order-order.com/quote/former-snp-minister-humza-yousaf-isnt-beng-honest/

Yup

Oh, lookit.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cace071a-b5f0-11ed-a1e6-75eebc433c21?shareToken=72d8e3818d3c73fe5ecfa71d2ad8d95c

How did Regan not notice this before? For her benefit , I'll repost the figures.

Lorna Slater was appointed as a junior minister in the Scottish Government as Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity.

1,727 people voted for Lorna Slater.
She was last out of 5 in the constituency vote.

Patrick Harvey is Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants' Rights.

3,251 people voted for Patrick Harvey.
He was 4th out of 5 in the constituency vote

And now look at the greens. Slater and the DRS. Honest to god that woman ruining Scottish business’s and for for Harvey 😖😖

”What I can’t do is change law, which has been the law for many years, which allows Isla Bryson to self-identify as a woman if they wish.”

Yousaf doesn’t even understand the law. A man remains legally a man unless he has a GRC at which point he is legally a women for most circumstance but can still be excluded from single sex spaces where it is proportionate to protect the safety, privacy or dignity of biological women. He has just supported a law that allows someone he calls “dangerous individual, a deceptive individual, I don’t think they are a true trans woman, I think they are trying to play the system for personal advantage.” to get a GRC by simple signing a form. Yet his party stated that no man would ever do this only a few months ago.

Looks like the fraud case is catching up with them:

www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23347953.former-snp-treasurer-interviewed-police-party-fraud-probe/

1,727 people voted for Lorna Slater.

That many?

Some people are still under the illusion that greens mean protecting the environment.

I'm uncomfortable about her statement about children being born outside marriage is wrong or whatever the exact words were.

She even said she didn't believe in sex before marriage, which surely puts her out of step with the electorate, the vast majority of whom these days will have had sex before marriage. I don't know how much this will put people off her. It seems such a strangely old-fashioned view for a young person.

It's a pretty standard view for a Free Presbyterian, as far as I know. And while some of it seems archaic, remote rural communities are a very different world than urban metropolitan type of lifestyle, culture, history and society context. So worth bearing in mind the constituency she represents and is part of.

Also a pretty standard view for various other religions.

Did anyone see lorna slater being interviewed on the Sunday show today when Martin geissler asked her about the bottle recycling scheme not going ahead in its current form she looked furious before insisting that it is going ahead. Then when asked about working with forbes or regain as FM as they want to scrap the GRR and other green policy's she 1st answered a different question and then when the question was asked again she basically doubled down by insisting that the grr must go forward as it was agreed. Asked a 3rd time she claimed that she would expect any new FM would be fully committed to the policy aswell

Link to the program she's on from around 21 minutes
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001jrqr/the-sunday-show-series-3-26022023

I'm a bit baffled how this bottle deposit scheme is 'so important for net zero'. I thought we already recycled almost all of our glass?

If she's in line with what would be usual for someone from her religious background to believe, that's a statement about the parents, rather than children. That is to say, people should not be canoodling out of wedlock. Babies don't have any moral culpability for the actions of their parents.

I am not so sure - I think minority governments can sometimes do very well. Not from a party perspective, but from the perspective of the electorate. Because they really do have to convince others and compromise.

Possibly he's mistaken the good of the party for the good of the people?

And maybe especially in a system that isn't bicameral.