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SNP - the madness continues


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Vaccine passport system comes into play today. Be interesting if anyone has an early experience of this good or bad. 

 

I think it is just a case of the SG again wanting to show it is doing things differently from Westminster, even though it may further harm the economy in certain sectors.

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"Thatcher to blame for dirty Glasgow streets, says council boss"

 

Wow! Just wow!

Linking Thatcher's economic policies in the 1980s to the current SNP Administration's inability to collect rubbish and clear/clean the streets in 2021 is surely a bit of a stretch, even for those who have drunk the nationalist Kool Aid, (and even for those who regard Thatcher and her legacy with little affection.)

 

What next? 

Answers on a postcard to The City Chambers, Glasgow G1

 

Thatcher to blame for dirty Glasgow streets, says council boss

Marc Horne

Tuesday October 26 2021, 12.01am, The Times

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/thatcher-to-blame-for-dirty-glasgow-streets-says-council-boss-r5twlnn8j

 

Susan Aitken, the head of the SNP-led administration, was questioned on preparations for Cop26

 

 

Susan Aitken insisted the city was still struggling to deal with damage done in the 1980s

 

The leader of Glasgow council has been branded “delusional” after she blamed Margaret Thatcher for the dirty condition of the city’s streets.

Susan Aitken, the head of the SNP-led administration, was grilled on preparations for Cop26, the UN climate change conference that will be held in Glasgow from Sunday, by MPs on Westminster’s Scottish affairs committee yesterday.

She clashed with Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, who asked her: “You have been widely ridiculed across the UK for saying that Glasgow only needs a ‘spruce-up’ and is not actually filthy. Do you regret any of your previous comments?”

 

Aitken stood by her remarks and insisted the city was still struggling to deal with damage done in the 1980s.

 

“I do not, in any way, shy away from the challenges that we face as a city, historic challenges that have been around for many, many years,” she said.

“Much of them a legacy of our post-industrial past when the Thatcher government walked away and abandoned Glasgow and left in neglect communities right across this city.”

 

Last night Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist, appeared to side with the city’s 1,500 refuse workers who plan to strike over pay from November 1. She wrote on Twitter that she supported the unions and would join next Friday’s climate strike march. “Climate justice also means social justice and that we leave no one behind,” she tweeted. “So we invite everyone, especially the workers striking in Glasgow, to join us.”

Earlier Aitken insisted she was not embarrassed by the city’s condition and insisted it was “entirely gratuitous” to suggest it was strewn with rubbish.

She said Glasgow was ready to host the conference “with caveats”, adding: “I would say the caveats are mainly technical, some of them have already been resolved or are being ticked off. None of them were massive, none of them were enough to cause panic.”

Ross asked if the technical issues were that the “bins are overflowing, there’s rats in the streets and some of your employees have been taken to hospital while collecting that rubbish?”

Aitken initially denied that was the case before admitting there had been incidents where rubbish collectors had been treated after “very minor contact with a rat”. She said: “It’s something that’s happening right across the UK. All cities have rats.

“I’m confident that the visitors coming to Glasgow will see — as they always see — an incredibly vibrant, diverse and welcoming urban space.

 

Aitken also told the committee that 12,000 additional hours have been worked to clean Glasgow before Cop26, with 150 new rubbish bins deployed across the city.

Dr Sandesh Gulhane, a Scottish Conservative MSP for Glasgow, insisted that her comments about the legacy of Thatcherism were “completely delusional”.

He said: “We’ve heard a lot of far-fetched excuses from Susan Aitken over the past few months, but the idea that Margaret Thatcher is to blame for the current state of Glasgow’s streets absolutely takes the biscuit,” he said.

“She must now stop the excuses and urgently produce some solutions — not only for Cop26 in a week’s time, but for the people of Glasgow who live here all year round.”

 

Colin Edgar, Glasgow council’s head of communications, defended the city’s record.

“An impression has grown that the city is uniquely dirty compared with other cities and uniquely dirty when compared with this city in earlier moments in time,” he said. “Neither of those things is true.

 

“Glasgow is not the dirtiest city in the world or in the UK or even in Scotland, nor is Glasgow dirtier than it ever has been in the past.

“Very few world leaders are going to come here and think: ‘Good Lord, this place is filthier than the place I left’.”

 

 

 

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The Leaderette speaks!

Of course, it's posturing, virtue signalling, and, in a manner typical of SNPers, everywhere, neglects to tell us how it is to be done.

 

(The Times, itself, takes her to task in a Leader, which I post below. )

 

One might think that she is flashing her credentials for a sinecure on an international green gravy train. 

 

Cop26: Nicola Sturgeon calls for an end to oil and gas exploration

Kieran Andrews, Scottish Political Editor

Tuesday October 26 2021, 12.00am, The Times

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cop26-nicola-sturgeon-calls-for-an-end-to-oil-and-gas-exploration-njj9pdjmm

 

Nicola Sturgeon has called for an end to oil and gas exploration in a speech that marked her most significant shift away from fossil fuels.

The SNP previously built its economic case for independence on Scotland’s ability to monetise the North Sea industry.

Yesterday the first minister signalled a change of position before the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow. However, she again failed to oppose drilling at the Cambo oilfield, off Shetland, despite the rhetoric and pressure from environmental campaigners.

Sturgeon told students and invited guests at the University of Strathclyde that it was “tempting” for political leaders to argue for the exploitation of oil and gas “until the last possible moment” as an easy way to maintain energy supplies.

“That would be wrong,” she said. “That approach would lead only to a vicious cycle of inaction and missed opportunity.

 

“The more we tell ourselves we will always have oil and gas as a safety net, the less motivated we are to speed up the development of the alternatives, to train people for new jobs in emerging technologies, and to deliver the just transition we need.

 

“It’s an approach that cannot be justified in the face of the climate emergency — but it can’t be justified economically either.”

The North Sea oil and gas fields are a depleting resource, says Deirdre Michie of Oil and Gas UK

 

Sturgeon promised a “just transition” that would ensure the 71,500 people employed in the sector were not left out of work, but she faced criticism from the industry.

A source called the first minister’s intervention “unhelpful empty statements on the eve of Cop, which just show a lack of understanding of how this industry is changing”.

Deirdre Michie, the chief executive of Oil and Gas UK, said that leaders needed to “learn from the political mistakes of the past” that had seen communities devastated by deindustrialisation.

“No one in this industry wants to deliver more than what is actually needed,” she said. “It would be helpful to hear more politicians acknowledge the reality that prematurely stopping production here wouldn’t make a jot of difference to demand.

“The cliff-edge transition proposed by a minority would see all of Scotland’s oil and gas needs met by imports from other countries with no benefit to jobs, taxes paid or environmental accountability.”

 

The latter point is a reference to the Scottish Greens, who are part of Sturgeon’s government. Michie said the North Sea was “a depleting resource which today only meets half of the country’s oil and gas needs” and that the sector was reducing its emissions under the North Sea Transition Deal which aims to create 40,000 UK jobs.

Scotland, which has set a legal target to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2045, five years before the date set for the UK as a whole, has missed its last three annual targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Sturgeon said she would publish a catch-up plan this week but she insisted there was much to be proud of despite the country having fallen short of the milestones.

She also said that she would be a constructive partner to the UK government during Cop26 and praised Boris Johnson, the prime minister, for being “determined to step up in the days ahead and show real commitment and leadership” to achieving tangible outcomes from the summit.

What is Cop26 and why is the climate change conference so important?

Sam Chetan-Welsh, a political campaigner for Greenpeace UK, hailed Sturgeon for her stance on oil and gas but said it was only “warm words” until she publicly committed to an end to all new oil and gas projects.

“The eyes of the world are on Glasgow. The first minister must commit to no new oil and gas infrastructure, including Cambo, and put up the money for a just transition for the northeast,” Chetan-Welsh added.

 

Fabrice Leveque, climate and energy lead at WWF Scotland, also welcomed the sentiment of the first minister’s speech but said more detail was needed.

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9 minutes ago, compo said:

Aitken should be hanged from a lamppost with a length of good stout knicker elastic. 

You are beginning to sound like a St Mirren director.

Of course, we know you are joking.......

Don't we?

 

NB: knicker elastic, nowadays, is not as strong as it was in your palmy days. So unless you still have a drawerful from Gall's.....

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"Hollow Promises

While Nicola Sturgeon should be commended for committing the country to ending North Sea exploration, she has not examined the practicalities"

 

Practicalities, eh? Never a strong point for the SNP. 

 

I'm beginning think that she is looking to bugger off, for a lucrative international statesperson role, leaving all these boring problems behind. 

 

LEADING ARTICLE

Hollow Promises

While Nicola Sturgeon should be commended for committing the country to ending North Sea exploration, she has not examined the practicalities

Tuesday October 26 2021, 12.01am, The Times

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hollow-promises-66r9mmn9p

 

From the leader of a party that once claimed ownership of “Scotland’s oil” it sounds like a defining statement. Nicola Sturgeon says it is wrong to continue exploring and drilling for fossil fuels, thus turning the country’s back on what was once seen as its major source of wealth. Placing herself, on the eve of the Cop26 conference, as a clear protagonist for renewable energy, is commendable. Her statement, however, begs a number of questions.

The first and most obvious is a timetable. Without specific commitments it is hard to know how radical she intends to be. On the one hand, as a supporter of the North Sea transition deal under which oil and gas continue to have a critical role in maintaining energy security and employment through the transition to net-zero carbon, she may be endorsing the status quo. On the other hand her rhetoric suggests something more urgent. Seeing oil and gas as a permanent safety net is a brake on progress that cannot be justified economically, she told students at Strathclyde University,

In other words the timetable must be speeded up. However, any precipitate action in reining back on exploration in the North Sea inevitably places jobs at risk. Deirdre Michie, chief executive of Oil and Gas UK, estimates that the industry supports an estimated 71,000 jobs including indirect and induced roles across Scotland. Sacrificing them to political imperatives would be destructive. There has to be a carefully calibrated transition, with some of the slack at least taken up by new opportunities in renewable energy. Yet here, Scotland’s record is unimpressive. The bold promises once made that renewables would more than compensate for the loss of jobs in oil and gas have turned out to be hollow. Most of the manufacturing now takes place abroad.

At least as serious as the issue of jobs is energy supply. The proliferation of wind farms in Scotland, offshore and onshore, means that power from renewables now provides a major share of our energy needs. Close on 70 per cent of our electricity comes from wind power and on good days Scotland is in a position to export energy as well as fulfilling its own requirements. Not all days are good, however, and this year has proved a disappointing one in terms of wind. When the blades are not turning we have to fall back on nuclear and fossil fuels. The SNP government has set its face against nuclear power and there are no plans to replace the Torness nuclear plant in East Lothian when it is decommissioned in 2030. How to fill that gap has yet to be explained. In the meantime, if the North Sea tap is to be turned off, Scotland will be in the invidious position of importing oil from countries like Russia, whose commitment to fighting climate change is less than impressive, and whose attitude to the West is hostile.

Any decision to grant exploration licences will be in the hands of the UK government, not Scotland’s, and the looming issue facing Boris Johnson is whether to give the go-ahead to the opening up of the Cambo oilfield 75 miles to the west of Shetland, with more than 800 million barrels of oil waiting to be extracted. Last August Ms Sturgeon wrote to Mr Johnson requesting the UK government “reassess licences already issued, but where field development has not yet commenced”. That, she added, would include Cambo.

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Herself will be gone with the wind by this time next year. If not with the wind, with some other entity.

 

My informant is reliable. My informant’s informant is reliable. Here’s where it could crumble. He got it from a middle + ranking SNP guy who got it from top level party. 
 

Will she jump or will she be pushed or even pushed to jump?

 

Who comes next? Genuine lack of talent in the public face of the SNP. Swinney as caretaker? The Cabinet Secretary for Bawbees? (her name escapes me at the moment) Not Yousaf, surely. Pompous windbaggery seems to be an essential quality, so that’s Robertson but he won’t appeal to the SNP demographic. Ony wee Glesca buddies oot there?

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Susan Aitken. The good people of Glasgow must be so proud. Your votes put this monstrous blob in charge of their city, filled her pockets and put rats on your streets. Votes have consequences, this is yours.

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SNP researcher is suspended from Commons over tweet ‘advocating armed violence’

Sinister photograph of trans woman carrying assault rif le was posted just a day after MP David Amess was stabbed to death

  • The Scottish Mail on Sunday
  • 24 Oct 2021
  • By Gareth Rose SCOTTISH POLITICAL EDITOR
img?regionKey=QoN%2f%2f7WQ7pRuFGIX%2fU6vig%3d%3d INFLAMMATORY: SNP researcher Jonny Kiehlmann, left, and the image at the centre of the latest bitter controversy over trans versus feminist rights

AN SNP official has been suspended from Westminster by the Speaker over a post apparently ‘advocating armed violence’.

The image on social media, of a transgender woman at a protest rally armed with an assault rifle, has horrified MPs.

A member of the public saw the image and Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Speaker of the House of Commons, was contacted, The Scottish Mail on Sunday has learned.

As a result, Sir Lindsay temporarily stripped Jonathan Kiehlmann, an SNP researcher working in Westminster, of his parliamentary pass.

The tweet was also referred to the Metropolitan Police.

It is the latest development in an increasingly toxic civil war within the SNP over changes to the law on gender self-identification, and its impact on women’s rights.

The image was posted just a day after MP Sir David Amess was fatally stabbed at his constituency surgery in Southend on October 15, an attack that has left all MPs fearing for their safety.

Nationalist MP Joanna Cherry has complained of suffering abuse from within the SNP, and being branded ‘transphobic’ and a ‘terf’ – trans-exclusionary radical feminist – for her views on gender self-ID.

Dr Kiehlmann retweeted a post saying Antifa (anti-fascist) demonstrators should attend terf meetings. That post was part of a Twitter thread which included a picture of a trans

woman, at an Antifa event in the US, armed with an assault rifle.

Ms Cherry, who represents Edinburgh South West, attended a conference last week held by the LGB Alliance – accused by opponents of being a terf organisation.

Last night, the SNP was under pressure to take disciplinary action against Dr Kiehlmann.

One senior party source said: ‘That he should advocate armed violence against women, especially on the weekend of an MP’s murder, should lead to his dismissal for gross misconduct.’

Another source said Dr Kiehlmann has been ‘vocally criticising’ Ms Cherry, ‘openly and in public’.

Following the death of Sir David, Ali Harbi Ali, 25, is accused of murder and planning terrorist attacks. He will stand trial next year.

Sir David was the second MP in the past five years to be murdered doing their job, after the stabbing of Jo Cox, near her constituency surgery in Yorkshire, in 2016.

MPs and MSPs have received new safety advice from police in recent days, and Home Secretary Priti Patel is considering what additional security is now required.

Dr Kiehlmann has since deleted his retweet of a post by the American activist Emily Gorcenski, who wrote: ‘Proud to see Antifa showing up at TERF events, a thing I’ve been saying for a long time is necessary.’

She then posted a picture of a trans woman at a rally, holding an assault rifle – which Dr Kiehlmann did not retweet – and the words: ‘What every TERF meeting should see when they look out of the window.’

Scottish Conservative MP John Lamont said Mr Kiehlmann’s post was ‘very concerning’, adding: ‘It’s vital that the SNP investigates this matter fully as soon as possible.’

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: ‘On Monday, October 18, officers from the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command received a referral regarding comments posted on social media by a man believed to be aged in his 20s.

‘Officers carried out inquiries and established that no offences had been committed. All parties have been informed.’

Last night, a lawyer for Dr Kiehlmann said he was not aware of his pass being revoked.

An SNP spokesman said: ‘We are seeking information and are unable to make an accurate assessment at this stage.’

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My wife and I were travelling up and down to Glasgow to visit our son in hospital and the place is a complete dump the people of Glasgow should be ashamed of themselves for living in the place dont forget they are the ones dumping refuse and old furniture on the streets, but Aitken's council are just not up to the task .

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