Scotland in ice

This was first posted on Facebook on 6th March 2021, with support from my Ko-Fi network.

“…well, imagine a person standing on a block of ice, planning and planning and planning. Planning ways to get about on the ice, ways to decorate it, ways to divide it up, ways to cope with all the possible knowns and givens of a block of ice. That would be a busy person, provident and industrious and independent and admirable, isn’t that so? Except that when the ice melts, none of that is any use at all.” – Native Tongue, Suzette Haden Elgin

This week, the Tories threw their best shot at Nicola Sturgeon – accusing her before, during, and after her giving evidence of having committed resignworthy offences.

Alex Salmond: Blink

This was first posted on Facebook on 27th February 2021, with support from my Ko-Fi network.

The Scottish Parliament has been in existence since 1999: Nicola Sturgeon is the present First Minister, and there are five previous First Ministers, four living, as Donald Dewar died within the first 12 months. The other four are Henry McLeish (now 72), Labour: Jim Wallace (now 66), LibDem – who was Acting First Minister on two separate occasions: Jack McConnell (now 60), Labour – and Alex Salmond (now 66), SNP. Jim Wallace and Jack McConnell accepted life peerages when they ceased to be MSPs: Henry McLeish did not, and after 2016 declared he’d support an independent Scotland if Westminster enacted Brexit against Scotland’s will.

Prior to 2010, if a First Minister – or any minister in the Scottish Government – had sexually pestered a subordinate, the Scottish Government had no policy of how to deal with this. In 2010, a policy was developed: we know that none of the women Salmond pestered made use of it – and no previous First Minister could have been affected by it.

The Alex Salmond of Despair

This was first posted on Facebook on 24th February 2021, with support from my Ko-Fi network.

TW: sexual harassment at work.

Let me see if I can very briefly bring light to this. In some ways, it seems entirely unimportant – the last-ditch struggle of an ambitious man who sees his political legacy disappearing – and in other ways, it could affect Scottish politics for years to come.

Unnecessary Legislation: the Coronavirus Bill

This was first posted on Facebook on 23rd March 2020, with support from my Ko-Fi network.

Look, imagine an afternoon when you settle down to listen to Parliamentary debate for eight hours (with breaks for tea and food and actually a glass of wine about 8pm because OMG) and it is interrupted by:

The Alex Salmond verdict (at least 8 out of the 13 jurors decided Not Guilty for most of the charges, Not Proven for the attempted rape charge, and a horde of sexist gits all over Scotland rose up to cheer, including, unfortunately, SNP MPs Angus MacNeil and Joanna Cherry).

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics have been postponed by the IOC to 2021.

Boris Johnson announced at 8:30pm that from tomorrow the UK is in lockdown.

And all the while, in the Commons, the Coronavirus Bill is passing at a gallop through the Second Reading debate, the Committee of the Full House debate, and he Third Reading vote. It’s now off to the House of Lords.