"Scottish Politics is an absolute Wasteland"

[steeplejack]

For me this analysis from the Conter youtube channel is pretty much on the money. Holyrood has become hollowed out, a corporate lobbyist echo chamber, an entitled chumocracy.

The Greens (Lyin' Lorna Slater at the controls today) attempt to justify this handbrake turn is, well, buttock-clenchingly embarrassing. Reading off a prepared government briefing paper.



Although the politics around the establishment of a National Energy Company may seem arcane they were supported / voted for by the members of two parties involved in the governing co-operation agreement. There's an awful lot of middle class careerist hot air around COP 26 and the climate crisis, and as the volume of that CO2 increases the chances of it dropping in the atmosphere get ever less.

That's before we get to the matter of the SNP & Greens shamefully turning their backs on and voting against the interest of striking railworkers.

It's government by inertia; the SNP seem pretty exhausted but are still in power as, well, there's no one else credible, for now. The Greens increasingly look opportunist and likely to pay a heavy price for their antics in both these policy areas today. The idea that a) there's any interest in social justice from this lot b) there interested in much beyond well-padded self-preservation c) serious climate action will be taken beyond expensive bullet point guff in reports nobody reads d) there will be any momentum towards an independence referendum under this set-up, is for the birds.

For a long time I've voted SNP & Green in lieu of a better alternative. Somehow for me these..betrayals, there's no other word, are the end of the line. I'll never vote for either of them again. I knwe for many on here this will seem maybe a bit ludicrous, but it's just a lightbulb...fuck this, moment.

I've never been a centrist. When I joined these boards I was kind of on the left fringe of social democracy, as I wanted to give parliamentary democracy a chance to work (this was 18 years or so ago). Parliamentary democracy is....a total sham, I have come to realise. A slow leftward drift means a slow scrubbing of political naivete in the coal tar soap of reality.

I suppose that means all energy on extra-parliamentary community work, trade unionism, co-operatives / CICs, and a thoroughgoing contempt for organised rosette wearers from now on. Maybe some dusty pamphlets, as well.

 

[Fedayn]

No doubt a new electrical Ministeral Mondeo for Slater and Harvey.

 

[Ĝasper]

For me this analysis from the Conter youtube channel is pretty much on the money. Holyrood has become hollowed out, a corporate lobbyist echo chamber, an entitled chumocracy.

The Greens (Lyin' Lorna Slater at the controls today) attempt to justify this handbrake turn is, well, buttock-clenchingly embarrassing. Reading off a prepared government briefing paper.



Although the politics around the establishment of a National Energy Company may seem arcane they were supported / voted for by the members of two parties involved in the governing co-operation agreement. There's an awful lot of middle class careerist hot air around COP 26 and the climate crisis, and as the volume of that CO2 increases the chances of it dropping in the atmosphere get ever less.

That's before we get to the matter of the SNP & Greens shamefully turning their backs on and voting against the interest of striking railworkers.

It's government by inertia; the SNP seem pretty exhausted but are still in power as, well, there's no one else credible, for now. The Greens increasingly look opportunist and likely to pay a heavy price for their antics in both these policy areas today. The idea that a) there's any interest in social justice from this lot b) there interested in much beyond well-padded self-preservation c) serious climate action will be taken beyond expensive bullet point guff in reports nobody reads d) there will be any momentum towards an independence referendum under this set-up, is for the birds.

For a long time I've voted SNP & Green in lieu of a better alternative. Somehow for me these..betrayals, there's no other word, are the end of the line. I'll never vote for either of them again. I knwe for many on here this will seem maybe a bit ludicrous, but it's just a lightbulb...fuck this, moment.

I've never been a centrist. When I joined these boards I was kind of on the left fringe of social democracy, as I wanted to give parliamentary democracy a chance to work (this was 18 years or so ago). Parliamentary democracy is....a total sham, I have come to realise. A slow leftward drift means a slow scrubbing of political naivete in the coal tar soap of reality.

I suppose that means all energy on extra-parliamentary community work, trade unionism, co-operatives / CICs, and a thoroughgoing contempt for organised rosette wearers from now on. Maybe some dusty pamphlets, as well.

A Green speaker at a recent meeting basically said that the government have too much on their plate already, and that there is only a finite amount of change that can be made in any one parliamentary term. That they do not oppose a national energy company in principle, but that the civil servants are simply too busy doing other things right now so it must wait. He said Labour are just being difficult, asking why the Greens aren't sticking to their manifesto. He acknowledged that they aren't sticking to their full manifesto, but says they will definetely stick to their full cooperation deal. I found it pretty convincing but its a bitter reformist pill to swallow.

 

[steeplejack]

Good grief, it took you a fortnight to come and spin on the Scottish government's behalf?

 

[Ĝasper]

Good grief, it took you a fortnight to come and spin on the Scottish government's behalf?

Lol, your post was top of the Scottish section of the forum when I visited it for the first time in years. I am not claiming that the new government are great. I think it's too early to tell. I also think there are a lot of useful idiots serving the Labour Party. Which staunchly unionist and still Blairite. Despite one or two honourable mentions like Mercedes who you quote, although she is still a fairly staunch unionist.

 

[Ĝasper]

Deleted

 

[steeplejack]

Just watched the video. I agree most with his call for more extra parliamentary politics / protest / civil disobedience. But he is lying through his teeth when he advocates this. A wannabe Tommy Sheridan. A celebrity leftist who won't get involved (and will actively obstruct) unless he and his 4 or 5 mates are running it, centre stage. This is the politics of politics though. Tbf he does speak some sense.

"he does speak some sense" after a few sentences of character assassination. A bit like someone saying the Scottish Greens "speak sense" after a shouty paragraph denouncing Ross Greer as a Lowland League Malcolm Tucker.

I'm not much interested in your attempts to deflect from the core message of the video (basically, the devolved Scottish government is a bloated chumocracy increasingly contemptuous of the party memberships that their mandate is based on) via whataboutery and personal innuendo. Your attempts to pass off ditching a key policy with "the civil service are too busy" tells us all we need to know about the way you do politics. Straight back to the new Labour playbook of the late 90s / early 2000s when manifesto commitments were later dismissed / ditched as "an aspiration rather than a pledge". Shape-shifting and duplicitous.

I'm more interested in what comes next, after this Scottish government has mutated / been replaced with something else. And it deserves to be replaced, as these betrayals show. The 2014 echo of but but but she's a Unionist isn't really going to wash in 2021, either.

If independence isn't going to produce any better government than this shower then one has to ask what's the point? Writing as a lifeliong pro-independence voter before you attempt to claim I'm Malcom Rifkind, or something.

 

[danny la rouge]

If independence isn't going to produce any better government than this shower then one has to ask what's the point?

Indeed.

 

[Ĝasper]

"he does speak some sense" after a few sentences of character assassination. A bit like someone saying the Scottish Greens "speak sense" after a shouty paragraph denouncing Ross Greer as a Lowland League Malcolm Tucker.

I'm not much interested in your attempts to deflect from the core message of the video (basically, the devolved Scottish government is a bloated chumocracy increasingly contemptuous of the party memberships that their mandate is based on) via whataboutery and personal innuendo. Your attempts to pass off ditching a key policy with "the civil service are too busy" tells us all we need to know about the way you do politics. Straight back to the new Labour playbook of the late 90s / early 2000s when manifesto commitments were later dismissed / ditched as "an aspiration rather than a pledge". Shape-shifting and duplicitous.

I'm more interested in what comes next, after this Scottish government has mutated / been replaced with something else. And it deserves to be replaced, as these betrayals show. The 2014 echo of but but but she's a Unionist isn't really going to wash in 2021, either.

If independence isn't going to produce any better government than this shower then one has to ask what's the point? Writing as a lifeliong pro-independence voter before you attempt to claim I'm Malcom Rifkind, or something.

"Your attempts to pass off ditching a key policy with "the civil service are too busy" tells us all we need to know about the way you do politics."

Tbf I was relaying a message i received from a Green cllr when I questioned him on the same issues you are complaining about. Don't shoot the messenger.

The video has 2 parts. First he presents the problem. Then he presents the beginning of a response/solution. All I was doing was pointing out his hypocrisy. How do you personally think that "what comes next" is to be achieved? By the same means suggested in the video? If so, give me a break for pointing out the hypocrisy.

 

[steeplejack]

"Your attempts to pass off ditching a key policy with "the civil service are too busy" tells us all we need to know about the way you do politics."

Tbf I was relaying a message i received from a Green cllr when I questioned him on the same issues you are complaining about. Don't shoot the messenger.

The video has 2 parts. First he presents the problem. Then he presents the beginning of a response/solution. All I was doing was pointing out his hypocrisy. How do you personally think that "what comes next" is to be achieved? By the same means suggested in the video? If so, give me a break for pointing out the hypocrisy.

as stated I'm interested in the problem and the solution, not your partisan whataboutery / character assasination.

I hold no particular candle for Conter nor the people involved. But this video is pretty much spot on.

 

[Ĝasper]

as stated I'm interested in the problem and the solution, not your partisan whataboutery / character assasination.

I hold no particular candle for Conter nor the people involved. But this video is pretty much spot on.

Fair enough mate. Might need to change my username to character assassin now.

 

[pogofish]

I've long been of the opinion that Scottish politics won't get the shake-up it badly needs until after independence - Then all the party lines will need to be redrawn.

 

[Sue]

I've long been of the opinion that Scottish politics won't get the shake-up it badly needs until after independence - Then all the party lines will need to be redrawn.

Yep, certainly the only hope Labour have got.

 

[Chilli.s]

It aint just Scottish politics that's a wasteland, it's all a whole uk problem

 

[pogofish]

It aint just Scottish politics that's a wasteland, it's all a whole uk problem

But it is in particular focus in Scotland - Scottish Labour giving-up their historic independence and abandoning their traditional support when they threw-in their lot with New Labour in the 1990s was about the start of the decline.

They need to either win them back or cede the role to parties that reflect the new realities in Scotland - and I just do not see that happening within the current context of the Union.

 

[danny la rouge]

Work or party?

 

[weepiper]

Fuck, state of him. When's that from?

 

[danny la rouge]

Fuck, state of him. When's that from?

Don’t know, it was posted on Twitter out of context, but I thought it was too good to lose.

 

[pogofish]

He is well and truly out of the game in Scottish politics now - This is just intrusive.

 

[8ball]

I'm not a fan of his, but it mostly looks to me like he dropped his phone under the seats.

 

[Dom Traynor]

It's like Ed Miliband eating a bacon sandwich. Out of context.

 

[steeplejack]

More scathing stuff from Conter on the "Greens" enabling a right wing corporate grab of renewable energy supply for way less than could have been charged- let alone what revenue could have been raised via a National Energy Company.

ThE CiViL sErvAnTs wErE JusT ToO bUsY

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

I'm not a fan of his, but it mostly looks to me like he dropped his phone under the seats.

He drinks like Tennents Super or something similarly radge, or at least that was the story on the grapevine when he visited Orkney.

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

He is well and truly out of the game in Scottish politics now - This is just intrusive.

Nah fair game, rapey cunt

 

[8ball]

He drinks like Tennents Super or something similarly radge, or at least that was the story on the grapevine when he visited Orkney.

That is some vicious stuff.

 

[pogofish]

Nah fair game, rapey cunt

Dunno? He's always been good at turning adversity in his favour and a smallish number of people are willing to excuse him everything.

I'd find it more comfortable if he just dropped-off the public/political radar to the point that nobody bothered to give a shit about whatever he was doing or saying.

 

[steeplejack]

Dunno? He's always been good at turning adversity in his favour and a smallish number of people are willing to excuse him everything.

I'd find it more comfortable if he just dropped-off the public/political radar to the point that nobody bothered to give a shit about whatever he was doing or saying.

tbf that's pretty much where 99.8% of the non-political obsessive / twitter addict section of the population is on Salmond.

 

[Ĝasper]

More scathing stuff from Conter on the "Greens" enabling a right wing corporate grab of renewable energy supply for way less than could have been charged- let alone what revenue could have been raised via a National Energy Company.

ThE CiViL sErvAnTs wErE JusT ToO bUsY

Another point of view

Scotland's renewables sell-off - right direction, wrong road! - ecosocialist.scot

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was over the moon when she reacted to the outcome...

www.ecosocialist.scot

 

[geminisnake]

Nah fair game, rapey cunt

yet found NOT guilty and the judge seemed to think the entire thing was fabrication

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

yet found NOT guilty and the judge seemed to think the entire thing was fabrication

And one NOT proven. Shame the standard of evidence needed for a judge to make statements like that aren't quite so high as those needed to even get a rape case to court.

But to save your feelings, can I call him a touchy feely cunt instead?