This should be a wake up call for the sheeple

 

 

This should be a wake up call for the sheeple –  When Alex Massie, the arch Tory writer, backs your parties policy, and the editor of Holyrood Magazine start to big up a non-entity like Scottish Labour Unionist branch manager Anus Sarwar you have got to realise you are in trouble and need to wake up pretty soon.

So it was a surprise — even, perhaps, a shock — to hear Kate Forbes declare war on the public sector. The finance secretary would not put it like that, of course, but the spending review she announced last week was the most bracing and perhaps the most courageous document of its type published since Nicola Sturgeon became first minister. (Alex Massie)

There we have it folks, a Tory writer celebrating the delayed arrival of real austerity to Scotland, he doesn’t even hide his Tory colours when he claims “thanks to the Barnett formula, which is indefensible except on purely political grounds, Scotland enjoys a privileged position within the UK: it is a comparatively wealthy part of Britain that also, unusually, enjoys significantly higher than average public spending”. Tell that to the people who will lose their jobs, lose the services they depend on, those who use foodbanks weekly.

Even so, there was something refreshing about hearing an SNP finance secretary suggest that the answer to the question “What do you call gutting the public sector?” is actually this: “A good start”. (Alex Massie)

Now you all know, well those of you who read GSM that I stopped being supportive of Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government a long time ago, I get enough abuse about my views from SNP members off and on but don’t listen to just my assessment of the SNP listen to Mandy Rhodes of the Holyrood Magazine.

The SNP has been in power now for 15 years and as Sturgeon reached her own milestone, assessments were inevitably being made about her legacy. And, despite effusive reports of her obvious political craftsmanship, likeability, and communication skills, on policy delivery – the real purpose of government – none of them was particularly complimentary. (Mandy Rhodes)

Mandy goes on to talk about the same things I have raised on this blog repeatedly and been abused for when she says “However, with a current and growing list of costly transport failures – the ferries’ scandal, the chaos emerging around the newly nationalised railways and the costs relating to the ill-fated and non-sensical purchase of Prestwick airport – there are question marks about the SNP failings in education, justice, the economy, and in health”.

Also, on whether Sturgeon has fulfilled a promise of making Scotland the best place for a child to grow up in, ameliorated the risible life consequences for children taken into the state’s care, reduced drug deaths, or lifted Scots out of poverty, or on investment decisions, or on improving life expectancy, the picture is one of decline, stagnation, and mistakes.

And let’s face it, for a party that wants Scotland to stand on its own two feet, you can’t even count on the SNP to organise a census. Thank goodness our breweries remain in private hands.

And on independence itself, not only has she failed to secure a date for a second referendum, while still asserting that it will happen next year, the support for ‘yes’ is consistently falling backward with a steady trickle from ‘yes’ to ‘no’. (Mandy Rhodes)

A damning indictment indeed of the record of Nicola Sturgeon as First Minister, one that I have blogged about myself and one that I completely agree with in every way. On Sarwar Mandy goes on to say, and while I don’t agree to be honest, many voters might start to think about it

He is a less arrogant man, a more attentive, focused, and collegiate politician who is more concerned about the ambition for his country than his own career. Sarwar has consistently said Labour can’t simply wait for the SNP or the Tories to deserve to lose; his party must deserve to win, and with him looking increasingly more credible as a future first minister, now polling as the most popular leader in Scotland, that is where the real threat to Nicola Sturgeon’s tenure lies. (Mandy Rhodes)

That threat, more importantly, is to independence. The incompetence of Nicola Sturgeon and her Government are doing more damage to the cause than the Tories and Sarwar ever can, we expect failure, nastiness, and bile from the Tories. We expect lies, unionism, on top of more failure from Labour, we should expect a hell of a lot better from Sturgeon and the SNP.

Right now the greatest threat to independence is Nicola Sturgeon, don’t believe me, just have a read and a think about the words of Alex Massie and Mandy Rhodes, if we don’t move soon then unionism will become the winner as apathy drives yes supporters out of the voting booth and into the daily grind of just fighting to survive to live let along fight for a cause that the party supposed to deliver it have failed like no other before them.