Scotland

Wednesday

John Ferry

Does Kate Forbes support austerity?

Watching Kate Forbes this week struggle to reconcile her social conservatism with her ambition to be First Minister of Scotland has been excruciating. But it has also deflected attention away from another important aspect of her politics: her economic conservatism. As well as sitting on the right on issues such as gay marriage, Forbes also gives every indication of being a fiscal conservative who is comfortable with austerity. Exhibit one is her role sitting on the SNP's 2018 Sustainable Growth Commission. The Commission's report was pitched as a realistic roadmap to independence. Unlike the land-of-milk-and-honey narrative that was sold to Scots in 2014, this group would face economic reality square in the face.

Brendan O’Neill

Kate Forbes isn’t homophobic for opposing same-sex marriage

Let me get this right. In Scotland’s political class it is de rigueur to believe that someone with a penis can literally be a woman but it is the height of bigotry to think marriage should be for heterosexuals only? It is good and ‘progressive’ to say that men, even rapists, should be put in women’s prisons if they claim to be women, but it is a cancel-worthy speechcrime to say marriage should be between men and women only? Scotland, you are so lost. We need to talk about the persecution of Kate Forbes. It is revealing so much about our febrile and unforgiving political climate. For me the big takeaway is just how disorientated so-called progressive politics has become.

Lucy Dunn

What do SNP members think of Kate Forbes’s views?

Kate Forbes's religious views have sparked a backlash among her SNP colleagues. The party leadership contender's announcement that she would not have supported gay marriage ‘as a matter of conscience’, led to four of her MSP colleagues distancing themselves from Forbes. And there could be more departures yet: earlier today, Forbes also let slip that she is personally opposed to childbearing out of wedlock. She said: ‘[Having children outside of marriage] is something that I would seek to avoid for me personally, but it doesn’t fuss me, the choices that other people make. In terms of my faith, it says that sex is for marriage and that would be the approach that I would practice.

Tuesday

Lucy Hunter Blackburn

Nicola Sturgeon’s gender policy failure

Nicola Sturgeon refused to discuss her record after eight years in office when she stepped down last week. There will be ‘plenty of time’ to reflect on that later, she replied soothingly. In the days since, the First Minister's silence has continued. But not everyone can afford to take a break from the consequences of Sturgeon's time in office. Four male murderers are being held in women’s prisons in Scotland today. This became possible under a policy introduced months before she rose to the role of First Minister and championed thereafter. This same policy made it possible last month for a rapist, Isla Bryson, to be briefly incarcerated in a female prison too.

Alex Massie

Kate Forbes’s gay marriage blunder

Mistakenly, I assumed that politicians supporting Kate Forbes’ campaign to succeed Nicola Sturgeon as leader of the SNP understood she has certain views which diverge from modern orthodoxy. I assumed her pro-life credentials on the question of abortion could be accompanied by an acceptance that, whatever her personal views, the law – and debate – on abortion was settled.  If this was all, I thought, priced-in, I also assumed that Forbes would have a better answer to questions she must surely have anticipated. For reasons that are currently hard to understand, Forbes is engaging in a live experiment to see if you can become leader of a political party without doing any politics.  Yesterday, Forbes confirmed something which was hardly a secret.

Steerpike

Kate Forbes’s nightmare 24 hours

It seems that Kate Forbes' stance on same-sex marriage hasn't gone down too well with some of her more socially liberal backers. Within 24 hours of announcing her candidacy, the Finance Secretary's campaign has actually gone backwards, managing to lose four MSPs following an interview in which she said that she would not have supported gay marriage as a ‘matter of conscience.’  That was enough for some of her SNP colleagues at Holyrood. One by one they trooped out on Twitter to deliver their lines of condemnation: Richard Lochhead MSP – 'I welcomed my colleague Kate Forbes’ decision to join the SNP leadership contest given her talents & felt it would give us a real contest: new ideas and a new approach that we desperately need.

Monday

Steerpike

Yousaf fires back at Forbes over gay marriage

It's less than 24 hours since the SNP leadership election became a three horse race but already there seems to be a disproportionate focus on LGBT issues. Ash Regan was out of the blocks first, saying she would dump Nicola Sturgeon's Gender Recognition Reform Bill if she replaced her as First Minister. Then this afternoon Kate Forbes, a staunch member of the Free Church, threw her weight behind Regan's stance and added that she would not have supported same-sex marriage had she been an MSP at the time it was debated in the Scottish parliament. And now tonight Humza Yousaf has hit back at Forbes with a barely-concealed jibe at his rival on LBC's Andrew Marr Show saying: I’m a supporter of equal marriage. Let me get to the crux of the issue that you’re asking me. I’m a Muslim.

Stephen Daisley

Humza Yousaf looks like Nicola Sturgeon 2.0

Humza Yousaf, the frontrunner to succeed Nicola Sturgeon, formally entered the race this morning. The venue was humble: Clydebank Town Hall. The town once took pride of place in the British shipbuilding industry, but was hit hard by the closure of the yards. Although it has benefited from regeneration in recent decades, deprivation remains a stubborn feature of life there. Clydebank was also home to the Singer sewing machine factory, where Yousaf’s grandfather worked when he brought his family to the UK from Pakistan in the 1960s.  The venue may have been humble but the staging was slick.

Steerpike

Is Robertson quitting with a pop at Forbes?

At the beginning of the SNP leadership race, the two favoured candidates to succeed Nicola Sturgeon were Kate Forbes and Angus Robertson. Today the former has declared while the latter has declined to stand. But has Robertson decided to forego the race with a not-so subtle pop at his rival? Mr S couldn’t help but notice that in his letter declining to stand, Robertson wrote that: As the father of two very young children the time is not right for me and my family to take on such a huge commitment. I look forward to working with the next SNP leader and First Minister to deliver progressive policies and economic success for Scotland, and help secure Scottish independence within the European Union. In essence, he is not standing because he cares too much about his family.

James Heale

Kate Forbes announces bid for SNP leader

After much speculation, Kate Forbes has today become the third candidate to officially enter the race to replace Nicola Sturgeon. The Finance Secretary is currently on maternity leave until the beginning of April but has just released a slick video, setting out her stall to be First Minister. There's no mention of any specific policy but there's plenty of familiar buzzwords for the party faithful: talk of 'self-definition', 'unleashing' Scotland's potential and comparisons to wealthy Scandinavian countries. As for her own credentials, Forbes cites her record running the finance ministry and says she is 'bold, brave and energised, fresh-faced and ready for new challenges'.

James Heale

Angus Robertson rules himself out of race to replace Sturgeon

This morning Angus Robertson has announced he will not be standing in the SNP leadership contest. He was the bookies’ favourite to replace Nicola Sturgeon as the most experienced contender in the field. He spent ten years as the party’s leader at Westminster, prior to becoming Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution in 2021. But in a a statement Robertson says that: As the father of two very young children the time is not right for me and my family to take on such a huge commitment. I look forward to working with the next SNP leader and First Minister to deliver progressive policies and economic success for Scotland, and help secure Scottish independence within the European Union. Robertson's decision will come as a boost to Kate Forbes, the other front-runner.

Sunday

Stephen Daisley

Why the Tories fear Kate Forbes

Whenever a governing party changes leader midway through a parliament, it’s interesting to note what the main opposition makes of the contest. Specifically, which candidate they would be more comfortable to see win — and which they dread the most.  So, as the SNP begins choosing Nicola Sturgeon’s replacement as party leader and first minister, I’ve been asking Scottish Tories what they think so far. Whomever the Scottish Nationalists pick will be staring down Douglas Ross every week at First Minister’s Questions, while the Scottish Tory leader will have to update his strategy and rhetoric for a post-Sturgeon era.  So far there are two declared candidates.

Stuart Waiton

Scottish schools have become places of indoctrination

Nicola Sturgeon may be on her way out – but after 16 years of SNP rule, Scottish schools are still places of indoctrination. This may sound like a hyperbolic thing to say, but that’s the only conclusion you can draw when you look at what Scottish educators and the Scottish government are saying themselves.   Take the General Teaching Council for Scotland’s Standard for Headship, which sets out the professional framework for what a headteacher, teachers and schools should be all about.    You would expect such a document to be all about imparting knowledge and aspiring to teach every child as much as possible.

Iain Macwhirter

The SNP-Green coalition is unlikely to last the week

Scottish nationalists are shell-shocked after their leader did a bunk on Wednesday. And with good reason. Nicola Sturgeon left the SNP leaderless, directionless, failing on almost every policy front – from the NHS to bottle recycling – and with a legislative time bomb in the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which is due to go off just as their new leader is installed at the end of March. It will probably destroy the Scottish coalition well before then. Indeed, the 18-month-old union with the Scottish Greens, another of Sturgeon’s personal initiatives, is unlikely to last the week.  Attempts by pro-GRR Bill loyalists to keep the finance secretary, Kate Forbes, out of the leadership race by demonising her as a bigot on social media, have failed.

James Heale

Humza Yousaf and Ash Regan launch SNP leadership bids

The first two candidates have declared in the race to succeed Nicola Sturgeon: Ash Regan and Humza Yousaf. The pair announced their intent in a front-page story for the Sunday Mail titled ‘Battle of the Bill: FM hopefuls go head-to-head on gender reform’. That focus reflects Regan’s major claim to fame as the only minister to resign over Sturgeon’s trans reforms back in October. In so doing, she became the first minister within the SNP to resign over government policy in 15 years. That is a testament to how united the party has been on most policy planks and suggests that the Gender Recognition Reform Bill will probably be one of the few public points of contention in this contest.

Saturday

Michael Simmons

Kate Forbes takes the lead in SNP poll

Kate Forbes has taken an early lead in the race to replace Nicola Sturgeon. The Finance Secretary, who’s currently on maternity leave, has emerged in first place in a poll of Scottish voters. The poll for the Scotsman asked 1,004 people who they’d like to see leading the SNP and settling into Bute House. Forbes leads among SNP voters with 18 per cent. Among all voters she’s also the most popular with 14 per cent of the vote. Angus Robertson – who remains the bookies' favourite – was second in the poll with 14 per cent of SNP voters and 9 per cent of the public backing him. John Swinney, the deputy first minister and Sturgeon’s right-hand man, came in third but has already ruled himself out.

John Ferry

Nicola Sturgeon’s disastrous economic legacy

When Nicola Sturgeon looks back on her economic legacy, what will she feel most proud of: the big industrial plants on Scotland's coast churning out wind turbines for export, the near monthly launch of newly built ships on the Clyde, or the thriving green venture capital community sprouting up in Edinburgh? An inability to deal with economic reality is the final entry in the ledger of Sturgeon’s economic legacy That kind of fond reminiscing won't happen of course because none of these things exist. The fiasco of the Sturgeon administration trying to organise the building of new ferries on the Clyde while supposedly saving Scottish commercial shipbuilding is well documented. The two ferries at the centre of the farce are now five years late and at least £150 million over budget.

Julie Burchill

Why I’m glad to see the back of Nicola Sturgeon

I see Scotland as the brain of the UK, with Wales as the soul and Northern Ireland as the heart. Though I like being English – our lovely language is second to none – we’re probably not the most sensible nation on earth, so I’d call us the sense of humour. Because of this, I’ve always thought that if I was a Scot, I’d probably be a separatist. It annoyed me intensely when during the referendum the likes of David Bowie (by then resident in the USA for many years) stuck his oar in, getting his mate Kate Moss to accept a Brit award for him and pass on the message ‘Scotland, stay with us!

Friday

Iain Macwhirter

Without Sturgeon, is the SNP still the party of independence?

Dazed and confused by their leader’s sudden departure, Scottish nationalists are now deeply worried that Nicola Sturgeon has taken the independence dream with her. She hasn’t of course. Independence is a long game and there remain many true believers. However the chances of transforming the Scottish National party’s immense electoral success into a referendum on independence in the near term seem remote.    Some in the movement are wondering if the referendum route is still viable since it has been driven into a legal cul de sac by Nicola Sturgeon’s discredited idea of turning the next general election into a 'de facto' referendum on independence. That ploy is now surely dead.

Michael Simmons

Scotland will have a new leader on 27 March

So now we know: Scotland will get its new leader on 27 March. The rules that will determine how Sturgeon’s successor – and Scotland’s sixth First Minister – will be chosen, were thrashed out by the party’s National Executive Committee on Thursday night. Nominations are now open and will close a week today. The ballot will then open to members on 13 March followed by a fortnight of voting. The election will take just over five weeks – half the length of the SNP’s last contested election when Alex Salmond returned to power in 2004. Candidates will need to win the backing of 100 members from at least 20 branches in order to make it onto the ballot.