Nicola sturgeon

This is a time for generosity and kindness; a moment for the cutting of slack and the making of allowances. These are, as most people now accept, unprecedented times. A great disruption to ordinary life that eclipses the two other great shocks to the system experienced this century. 9/11 and the great crash of 2008 were, in their different ways, man-made calamities. This is a beast of a different order altogether. And that, I think, should prompt a reappraisal of our political leaders. To say they are making it up as they go is not a criticism but, rather, obvious reality. What else can be expected in these circumstances?

Nicola Sturgeon has told Andrew Marr: ‘I do intend to lead my party into the next Scottish Parliament election and hopefully win that and stay as First Minister.’ What’s this all about, then? Didn’t she just record a stonking General Election victory north of the border? Yes, she did. Isn’t polling support for the SNP at levels that would impress even Kim Jong-un? Not quite, but not far off. The SNP leader finds herself in an unusual position. Electorally, she is her party’s most successful leader – winning three Westminster elections in a row and a third term in office at Holyrood. But Scottish Nationalists didn’t become Scottish Nationalists to win Westminster elections; they yearn to break free from the clutches of colonial tyranny.

The SNP’s ability to defy political gravity — a poll conducted last month put them on 51 per cent in Holyrood voting intentions — is easier to understand when you consider the alternatives. Jackson Carlaw, unveiled on Friday as Ruth Davidson’s successor at the helm of the Scottish Tories, is a pleasant chap with a certain flair but unlikely to bring the House of Sturgeon to its knees. Scottish Labour is led by Richard Leonard, a man so anonymous there are members of the witness protection programme with better name recognition. Scots go to the polls next May for the Scottish Parliament election and the choice is between the least effective government of the devolution era and an opposition most voters aren’t aware exists.

Yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon unveiled a proposal to devolve certain aspects of our post-Brexit immigration policy to Scotland. Well, you might say, she would say that, wouldn’t she? But Sturgeon’s argument has some merit, for Scotland has a demographic problem that is not shared by the rest of the United Kingdom. A few thousand Scotland-only visas issued each year has the potential, assuming they proved sufficiently attractive, to address that. This is not just an SNP ploy, either. There is a widespread acceptance in Scotland that the country needs to be able to do more to attract more immigrants. On current trends, immigration is likely to be essential for the population growth Scotland is likely to need.

There was a fairytale quality to Nicola Sturgeon’s speech to the SNP conference this afternoon. On the one hand, she demanded a second referendum on independence next year; on the other, almost no-one in Scottish politics really believes there will be a referendum next year. In tandem with this rallying call for national liberation – an emancipation made ever more urgent by the looming Brexit fiasco – there ran another line of argument: conference delegates, like the wider nationalist movement, must be careful and canny and patient. Which is another way of saying that, whatever the headlines suggest, it’s probably not happening. At least not yet.

There’s an episode of Father Ted in which the simple but endearing Father Dougal gets stuck on a milk float booby-trapped with a bomb. The finest clerical minds in Craggy Island convene to devise a solution and as they discount each increasingly far-fetched fix, the well-meaning Father Beeching pipes up: ‘Is there anything to be said for another Mass?’. Nicola Sturgeon evidently studied at the Beeching Seminary for Crisis Management. Every time there’s an SNP conference looming, her advisors agonise over how to string along the Yes faithful a little longer, until the boss sighs: ‘Is there anything to be said for another Indyref 2 statement?

Nicola Sturgeon is a reader and, to judge by the statement she has just made to the Scottish parliament on the implications of Brexit for Scotland’s future, the book she’s been reading lately is ‘The Gentle Art of Letting People Down Gently’. The people being, in this instance, the SNP members preparing to attend the party’s conference in Edinburgh this weekend. Of course many headlines will focus on her suggestion that Scotland should, given the wreckage of Brexit and the manner in which Scotland still faces being withdrawn from the EU against its will, enjoy a new referendum on independence before the next Holyrood elections in 2021. That is a possibility that must always remain on the table. And it might happen yet.

It’s been a busy old week in Scottish politics. The SNP government is suffering a public backlash over plans to allow councils to levy a tax on workplace car parks. There has been a fatal infection outbreak at another hospital. MSPs are angry that the nationalists have installed one of their own as chair of the parliamentary inquiry into the government’s handling of the Alex Salmond affair. Best of all, the Scottish Government’s headquarters opened its first gender-neutral toilets.  Nicola Sturgeon, though, has missed it all. The First Minister is on a trade mission ‘promoting Scotland in North America’, according to the Scottish government. Scots have been settling Canada and the United States since the mid-17th century.

Forgive me if I seem out of sorts but my country has been through a lot this past week. We have been subjected to 'provocation' and our imperial masters in Westminster intend to 'exert a kind of colonial authority' over us. Our parliament has been 'slighted' and we are bearing the 'impact of such condescension on the psyche'. The UK Government has sought to 'lessen the ability of the people of Scotland to govern their own affairs' and in doing so its 'contempt for Scotland was laid bare'.  The amen corner of the Scottish commentariat is once again standing up and bravely telling it like Nicola Sturgeon says it is. The SNP leader has decreed Scotland the victim of a 'power grab' and Westminster the destroyer of the devolution settlement.

Keir Starmer - Tory Remainers should vote with us The week ahead promises a showdown in the House of Commons as the government's EU Withdrawal Bill will face several key votes which could decisively impact the future of Brexit. The votes come after the bill was substantially amended by the House of Lords back in April, with peers notably seeking to keep the UK in the EU's customs union and to give Parliament a 'meaningful say' on the final Brexit deal. Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer joined Andrew Marr to discuss Labour's approach to the bill, with Marr highlighting that Labour was not seizing the opportunity to keep the UK in either the single market or the European Economic Area: https://youtu.be/E2nTJR66vSw AM: You've let the Prime Minister off the hook really, haven't you?

The stramash between Theresa May’s government in London and Nicola Sturgeon’s ministry in Edinburgh over the need for the devolved parliaments to consent to the UK government’s EU withdrawal bill is, as the wags say, the world’s most boring constitutional crisis. So much so, indeed, that many voters in Scotland – to say nothing of elsewhere in the realm – remain splendidly indifferent to it.  The Scottish parliament yesterday refused to give its consent to the withdrawal bill. Legally, this changes little. Politically, it has the potential to change many things. Nicola Sturgeon, with the support of Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens, says she is “protecting devolution” and standing up for the Scottish parliament.

I don’t know where people get the idea the SNP is intolerant of criticism. Scotland’s most open-minded party has released a new video that appears to be an attack on one of its critics dressed up as a party political broadcast. The video depicts a group of thirtysomethings gathered for a house party. They are Scottish but improbably so, smiling excessively and expressing enthusiasm for life. A couple of latecomers are warned that ‘Davey’ is in the kitchen ‘bangin’ on about politics again’ and soon we are introduced to a cartoonish party bore. Stuffy, bespectacled Davey is the wrong side of 40 but sports a hipster-trad three-piece and Brooklyn-worthy beard in the hope of passing himself off as a millennial.

There will be no chance of the United Kingdom making a success of Brexit if Scotland votes to break up the kingdom. And although the immediate danger of that happening appears to have passed — the Scottish National Party lost ground in the general election and Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t speak anywhere near as much about independence nowadays — this could change if Brexit is mishandled. When Britain leaves the EU then Scotland leaves too — those are the rules, and Spain, which is not too keen on the idea of secession, will insist upon them. So Brexit in itself will make Scottish independence an even bigger risk.