[themaclad]

Snoots welcome to the growing club of I have no one to vote for, they have not got a clue inside the Westminster bubble

[hibeejim21]

Any news on Sturgeons prosecution following the breaking bad style scenes outside her home a year ago ?

Nah thought not.

[ritchiebaby]

No further news on any prosecution of Nicola Sturgeon, but Peter Murrell has now been charged with embezzlement.

From the BBC website
The husband of former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been charged in connection with the embezzlement of funds from the Scottish National Party.
Peter Murrell, 59, was taken into custody at 09:13 on Thursday and was questioned by Police Scotland detectives.
He was previously arrested as a suspect on 5 April 2023 before being released without charge.
BBC Scotland understands Mr Murrell has resigned his SNP membership.
He was charged at 18:35 after further questioning by officers investigating the funding and finances of the party as part of Operation Branchform.
Mr Murrell has since been released from police custody at Falkirk Police Station and returned to his home near Glasgow shortly after 20:00
He resigned as the SNP's chief executive in March of last year after 22 years in the job.
An SNP spokesperson said: "While this development will come as a shock, the police investigation remains ongoing and it would, therefore, be inappropriate to make any comment."

My view is that things are not looking good for Mr Murrell, but he is still innocent until proven guilty. Humza Yousaf has said that the news came as a shock to many. I'm not sure how he arrived at this point of view, as it didn't come as a shock to me, nor all of my friends and family who I've spoken to. However I did say a year ago that I found myself having a great deal of sympathy for Mr Yousaf, who has been landed with dealing with the aftermath.

The biggest political problem will be that of Scottish Independence, as I feel that it will be very difficult to move forward on that front. I'm now absolutely certain that it won't happen in my lifetime. It could take years, perhaps decades, to repair the damage caused to the Party and therefore the Scottish Government by this affair.

As an aside, I'm not surprised that it's taken so long to reach this stage, as this country (and that's the whole UK) has a long record of not being able to do anything at a reasonable speed - the Edinburgh Trams, the Calmac Ferries, HS2, the Horizon/Post Office Inquiry, the Covid Inquiry, etc, etc.

[hibeejim21]

I find it extraordinary that this is going ahead whilst blatant routine financial corruption and robbery of both public and political funds takes place without any legal interest down south. As ritchie says though murrell is innocent til proven otherwise.

As for Humza its hard not to feel a bit sorry for him. He's been gifted the proverbial shit sandwich and its hard to see any way back for him now unless he backs down to the greens or (irony of ironies) Eck Salmond.

[ritchiebaby]

Humza Yousaf is still First Minister, but only for a matter of a few weeks. He has once again dived in to pre-empt a decision that might go against him - he thinks he is being strong, but to me it is a sign of weakness in that he is not prepared to fight on. He has done very well in certain areas like taking a stand on the war in Gaza and the avoidance of strike action in the NHS.

It doesn't matter whether or not you think he has done well in the job, but circumstances in the SNP have definitely gone against him. He has also been swept along by the promise of "progressive politics", whatever that might mean. I don't know what that means, other than a general ambition to be better and fairer than before. He has applied this ambition to specific policies which have only proved to be divisive.

However the end result is that we will have another "unelected" leader, just exactly the same as the Tories in Westminster and Labour in Wales.

[hibeejim21]

Humza steps down and it seems likely there will be an election. Nice guy but he was never up to top level politics, he has some things to deal with in his private life i hear including a new baby so its probably a good time for him.

[0762]

https://www.thenational.scot/news/242900...n-swinney/

https://www.thenational.scot/news/242882...land-jibe/