The Very Meh Humza Yousaf Thread.

[orfc]

Cherry 's my MP and she seems smart enough

Her real crime was almost to defeat brexit. Nicola wanted brexit as a grievance to batter Westminster with and Cherry nearly removed that stick from the SNP armoury

Edited April 1, 2023 by orfc

[Antlion]

11 minutes ago, orfc said:

Cherry 's my MP and she seems smart enough

Her real crime was almost to defeat brexit. Nicola wanted brexit as a grievance to batter Westminster with and Cherry nearly removed that stick from the SNP armoury

Are you suggesting that Brexit is grounds for grievance? Isn’t Brexit Britain a glorious thing, with our English and Welsh neighbours opening up opportunities that we silly Scotch just didn’t realise at the time of the vote?

[orfc]

3 minutes ago, Antlion said:

Are you suggesting that Brexit is grounds for grievance? Isn’t Brexit Britain a glorious thing, with our English and Welsh neighbours opening up opportunities that we silly Scotch just didn’t realise at the time of the vote?

No I think it's a silly idea, unions for the win. Cherry herself thinks the snp were strangely lukewarm in their opposition to brexit, beyond shouting

https://www.thenational.scot/politics/23408747.joanna-cherry-snp-done-leverage-power-brexit/

[Antlion]

1 minute ago, orfc said:

No I think it's a silly idea, unions for the win. Cherry herself thinks the snp were strangely lukewarm in their opposition to brexit, beyond shouting

https://www.thenational.scot/politics/23408747.joanna-cherry-snp-done-leverage-power-brexit/

The SNP should not have exercised the slightest “leverage” over Brexit in any way that enabled Brexit (in any form). It should simply have voted against any and every Brexit-related bill that came before it, whilst reminding UK “unionists” that the people of Scotland rejected anti-EU nationalism. The grievance-loving Briterati should wallow in their hatred of the EU and their insistence on sovereignty - for the UK only - without the SNP enabling them. Incidentally, how do you square “unions for the win” with support for an anti-union state and a demand that the SNP should have helped tear apart a union?

[GTee]

On 31/03/2023 at 19:44, Salt n Vinegar said:

It certainly wouldn't appear to fit the "it's the end" narrative predicted by some. 

Incredible though it may seem, a change in leadership of the SNP has had no effect on my desire for independence. 

No way, you haven't changed your mind because the government of the day is changing. I've said it before, but changing your view on independence based on an individual or a personality is wild.

However, it would seem many folk will continue to vote for the SNP, irrespective of their politicians, as what would appear to be the only route to independence at the moment. That'll be me as well. Oh well.

[GTee]

I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of the rUK public, couldn't give a shiny shite about Scottish politics and couldn't name a single politician- maybe First Minister at a push. Guaranteed the argument against self governance boils down to, too wee, too poor or too stupid. An embarrassment. Most other countries would choose self governance (England 100%) and we argue over a politicians character. Embarrassing.

.

[renton]

Well, no doubt a bit of a rough time for Yousaf. Couple of pretty rough polls probably picking up the fallout from the leadership election.

The new Forbes-Ewing wing threatening to release their own policy papers.

The Tories floating a tactical voting scheme with Labour. Though I imagine if Sunak can close the polls between now and the election that will not happen.

Parliament is in recess now but it looks like Yousaf isn't getting a honeymoon. He needs to get on top of this: he's maybe got 3 months to get on the front foot and push a set of policy positions that can cut through and get him back out in front.

[Dunning1874]

34 minutes ago, renton said:

Well, no doubt a bit of a rough time for Yousaf. Couple of pretty rough polls probably picking up the fallout from the leadership election.

The new Forbes-Ewing wing threatening to release their own policy papers.

The Tories floating a tactical voting scheme with Labour. Though I imagine if Sunak can close the polls between now and the election that will not happen.

Parliament is in recess now but it looks like Yousaf isn't getting a honeymoon. He needs to get on top of this: he's maybe got 3 months to get on the front foot and push a set of policy positions that can cut through and get him back out in front.

Polls probably aren't worth worrying about at this point, they had a mid-term slump in the last parliament as well which disappeared by the time an election came round and a contested leadership election was probably always going to lead to a dip.

A far bigger issue is the prospect of a backbench rebellion, according to the Herald there's supposedly 15 willing to do so. If that's just voting against individual policies they don't like from time to time then that's just what every party of government deals with from backbenchers already. If that's actually forming a solid voting bloc pushing alternative policy positions and voting against everything unless their demands are met then that has the potential to sink Yousaf in months.

As Ewing said himself you don't necessarily need a majority to govern, but how Yousaf handles this is going to set the tone for his leadership.

[Granny Danger]

1 hour ago, Dunning1874 said:

Polls probably aren't worth worrying about at this point, they had a mid-term slump in the last parliament as well which disappeared by the time an election came round and a contested leadership election was probably always going to lead to a dip.

A far bigger issue is the prospect of a backbench rebellion, according to the Herald there's supposedly 15 willing to do so. If that's just voting against individual policies they don't like from time to time then that's just what every party of government deals with from backbenchers already. If that's actually forming a solid voting bloc pushing alternative policy positions and voting against everything unless their demands are met then that has the potential to sink Yousaf in months.

As Ewing said himself you don't necessarily need a majority to govern, but how Yousaf handles this is going to set the tone for his leadership.

If elected members are organising against agreed party policy then kick them out.  Forbes and Ewing may still get elected under an ‘independent’ banner, most won’t.  The ones that do will quickly become an irrelevance.

 

[O'Kelly Isley III]

1 hour ago, Dunning1874 said:

Polls probably aren't worth worrying about at this point, they had a mid-term slump in the last parliament as well which disappeared by the time an election came round and a contested leadership election was probably always going to lead to a dip.

A far bigger issue is the prospect of a backbench rebellion, according to the Herald there's supposedly 15 willing to do so. If that's just voting against individual policies they don't like from time to time then that's just what every party of government deals with from backbenchers already. If that's actually forming a solid voting bloc pushing alternative policy positions and voting against everything unless their demands are met then that has the potential to sink Yousaf in months.

As Ewing said himself you don't necessarily need a majority to govern, but how Yousaf handles this is going to set the tone for his leadership.

Fergus Ewing has always struck me as a guy who owes everything in his political life purely to his surname, because there's very little else in evidence.

[coprolite]

Annoying the right people 

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/humza-yousaf-is-the-scottish-jeremy-corbyn/

 

[Guest]

15 hours ago, The_Kincardine said:

Every time a Nat criticises a Nat the default, on here, is to find or manufacture a slur.  In this case, "He went to boarding school".  As if this matters one single jot and invalidates his criticisms.

This is the thicket of posters who're sticking up for the privately educated Humza based on, I guess, that Hutchie was a day school.  Even if it was shite at rugby in the mid-late 70s.

The divisions within Natterism run long and deep, now we've got the lid off.  Here's a wee snapshot from the estimable Jo Cherry:

The tragedy for Scotland is that these cretins, charlatans and chancers are using the votes of the well-meaning yet empty-headed Natterati to turn Scotland into a sandbox for whatever ill-advised ideas they come up with next.

Ewing is the son of Winnie, leader of the original "Tartan Tories", so called because they voted with Thatcher to bring down a Labour government. That background of his is relevant.

Then with the school choices; upper class Scots sending their son to a rural Lothians boarding school is very different to Kenyan-Indian and Pakistani immigrants sending their son to the local Glasgow private school. In Pakistan and among the Indian community in Kenya, private schools are seen as the only viable option because both those nations have such little public spending on education, their state schools are extremely deprived of resources. It's not uncommon to still write on slates in Pakistani state schools. Yousaf's parents were immigrants who only had knowledge of what they'd experienced in their lives until that point. Yousaf, having grown up here, will instead know the value and primacy of state education.

That you've not worked out my politics yet is because you're a myopic ignoramus. I don't hide my bias. I'm leftist and therefore look to support whatever best furthers that end in each given context.

Here's your "politics" dissected, you must have missed it when i first posted it.:

On 28/03/2023 at 06:04, FreedomFarter said:

It goes a bit deeper than that. He's a We are the People guy, meaning God's own people. You'll notice he rarely makes any sort of political argument and that's because this is solely about identity to him, anglo (by that I mean British) ethnic identity. He reframes the history of "his" people as one of constant persecution. The anglos, filled with the zeal of a new religious movement, didn't bludgeon their way westwards colonising, settling and genociding, first in Ireland then onto the Americas. No, they were the victims in all those endeavours. Siege of Derry, they'll have you know. Supremacists of all stripes use such historical revisionism to maintain an ever bubbling sense of grievance and self-righteousness. That allows them to constantly be on the attack, for why would they as the victims, as the good guys, ever need to introspect? 

Then here's the funny bit. It's that very mentality that has led to the Scottish independence movement. That very ethnic British nationalism was so pronounced in the UK that it superseded class interests to an unstable extent. Generations of working class Brits were reared on a notion of anglo exceptionalism. They were taught that what was good for the glory of Britain was good for them too. Class interests were shelved to make way for Thatchernomics in all its anglo protestant individualist glory. But material conditions matter and when they deteriorate so much, folk start to notice. There's a reason why Glasgow and Dundee but not Edinburgh or Aberdeen voted for independence in 2014 (more poverty in the former two). There's a reason why SNP, formerly an irrelevance, suddenly started getting votes once Labour shifted its economic policies rightwards. Folk didn't just wake up one morning in the mid 2000s and think "you know what? I suddenly feel Scottish". The Scottish independence movement is one rooted in material conditions and countless studies have shown that. It was British nationalism bulldozing over class consciousness in the UK that created it.

[sophia]

1 hour ago, Granny Danger said:

If elected members are organising against agreed party policy then kick them out.  Forbes and Ewing may still get elected under an ‘independent’ banner, most won’t.  The ones that do will quickly become an irrelevance.

 

That's an characteristically extreme take on the matter.

If there's a block of SNP msps that simply want to make progress, progress such as the agreed dualling of the A9 which has very likely been delayed on the back of a underhand deal with Patrick Hardie, then their influence should be heard and heard louder than a tiny group of greens.

[Leith Green]

8 minutes ago, sophia said:

very likely been delayed on the back of a underhand deal with Patrick Hardie

"very likely"

 

[Trogdor]

The worry here is that the party has always been Independence first and foremost and policy secondary. With most recognising that when Scotland becomes independent the party will split.

For some reason there are those who claim to be independence supporters keen to split the electoral coalition and party that has been so successful.

Unfortunately, its both the progressive wing of the party and those on the centre right. The progressives who want to push social policy more and more to the left. Those on the centre right who've had enough of the Greens and think we need to focus on growing the economy.

Can both these co-exist? Salmond and Sturgeon did a good job of keeping a lid on things. Salmond through allowing free votes and Sturgeon with cast iron control of the party machine.

Over to you Humza, its the time for consensus building and allowing policy discussion through the membership and at Conference. Something that had been stiffled under Murrell.

[parsforlife]

I think there's that with so many more voices involved, in the independence movement that consensus is harder to achieve,   that's a double edged sword.    It means a consistent message is difficult,  but the more voices arguing for independence means that the idea is more likely to penetrate into a broad spectrum of the electorate. 

The SNP economically are being pulled in two directions,  The alba fraction were pissed off enough to go on their own and with the greens in the run up to 2014 placing independence further up their message(even if not deliberately) and being part of government for a while there is a pull to the left.   

I find it also interesting to note we work between FTTP and PR systems,   One system allows for a wider spectrum of parties with the other is much more favourable to building consensus before hand and everyone backing one of the parties most likely to win.

[Trogdor]

17 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

I find it also interesting to note we work between FTTP and PR systems,   One system allows for a wider spectrum of parties with the other is much more favourable to building consensus before hand and everyone backing one of the parties most likely to win.

^100%

In the constituency it simply has to be SNP.

In the list you can vote for whatever your poison, be it Green, Alba or SNP again.

That's what any sensible independence voter should be doing. Anything else risks allowing the Unionist parties in. 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Trogdor said:

For some reason there are those who claim to be independence supporters keen to split the electoral coalition and party that has been so successful.

You just celebrated an article published in Daily Mail by one of your MSPs slagging off your party's leadership. You agree with every anti-independence poster in this thread that SNP must be moved further right. 

Your perception of who is hammering at the coalition is off.

[welshbairn]

Centrist left progressive policies have hit their ceiling I think, 45-50% for independence ever since 2014. Maybe there's room for a non-fruitloop (Alba) centre right independence party to co-exist with the SNP, at least for Holyrood elections, it would split the vote for Westminster but who cares? Electoral arithmetic is not my strong point, but in a truly proportional system it shouldn't matter if indy minded parties had their votes counted separately.  

[carpetmonster]

6 hours ago, coprolite said:

Annoying the right people 

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/humza-yousaf-is-the-scottish-jeremy-corbyn/

 

He's gotten up Rod Liddle's nose as well, although it'd could've just been the family pics released have led Rod to judge that Humza's kids are not wids. 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/its-not-racist-to-be-sceptical-about-humza-yousaf-im-just-a-little-biased-against-useless-people-jqbt56x0h