#the snp

[pretzelogic1]

At least nicola sturgeon is having a good day.

[oh-glasgow]

I’m no fan of the SNP, but they know what they’re doing on health

As a senior manager in the Scottish NHS I can see the government recognises the huge pressures that we’re under. But – though I’m not a nationalist – the Scottish National Party deserve an above-average score for their management of health and care.

In Scotland, we have no purchaser-provider split or competition between health providers. Regional health boards run both primary and secondary care, and we view ourselves as one service and work together, which is a more collaborative model than England. That’s particularly helpful at the moment, as in April 2016 we merged health and social care and created integrated joint boards (IJBs) at local authority level to manage combined budgets. With unified strategic management across health and social care, we have a fighting chance of being able to build sensible plans for the next crucial steps.

Quite bravely, the SNP also has a realistic medicine agenda (pdf), which is about having an honest conversation with the public about tackling over-medicalisation of care – trying to ensure that all the treatments we deliver have real benefits for patients. That agenda provides an opening into difficult conversations about our ability to meet competing expectations on waiting times, quality, safety and budgets.

The SNP recognises the huge pressures we’re under, and the need to reduce demand for acute services. If the opposition brings up a patient’s case in first minister’s questions, the heat can turn up quite quickly and it all gets a bit political on this particular tightrope. I have to say that they do attempt to be supportive, particularly when the media try to whip up a non-story. I was glad to be in Scotland after the recent NHS cyber-attack, when the UK home secretary’s language was about who was to blame, while the Scottish government was more supportive in tone.

Demand for health services is going to outstrip supply for a generation – unless there is a significant change in taxation, we will always be climbing a very steep hill. On balance, I do think the policies the Scottish government are pursuing are the right ones to minimise the steepness of that hill.

I’m no fan of the SNP, but they’ve been really positive and encouraging in relation to protection for EU nationals. However, in the end, our ability to recruit will depend on the final settlement with the EU – and that’s in the hands of the UK government. So, it looks like I’ll be walking that tightrope for a long time yet. Its far end is anchored to the SNP’s health policies; but they’re built on a leap of faith. If they don’t work out, I won’t be choosing between the lions, the crocs and the knifeman – I’ll be facing them all at once.

A positive article about the work the SNP are doing about the NHS in Scotland? Coming from someone that actually works there and not biased drivel from a unionist politician?!

[themistressofdolls]

I'm all for harm reduction but what choices are left in Scotland? Greens sure but they are never going to make any huge gains with first past the post and their anti nuclear policies irk me a bit.

Really I just want to see the SNP wiped out in Scotland, I don't care anymore, they should get demolished at the polls for embracing years of anti trans shit and now homophobia.

Scottish labour won't be better but like all the choices here are terrible and all I have left is to see those who made faustian bargains to appease transphobes the last decade to reap what they sowed.

[pinksixty]

Scottish Leader to Apologies Over Historic Gay Offences

Scottish Leader to Apologies Over Historic Gay Offences

The First Minister of Scotland will apologise on behalf of the Scottish Government for the historic Criminalisation of homosexuality and those the historic laws affected, the apology coincides with the publication of new legislation to provide an automatic pardon to all those affected.

The legislation was promised by Ms Sturgeon when she presented her programme for government in September.

It…

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[irnbraw]

Funny that the SNP thinks the DUP is sooooo utterly evil - now..!

Where was that attitude just 3 years ago?

In fact, as the SNP must know - there are records of the SNP hypocrisy beyond the interview noted above.  As this DUP MP notes when calling out certain other parties:

The truth is that the SNP is a party stuffed full of liars and lies.  They will say anything to anyone on any subject - lie, after lie, after lie - to destroy British civic society. 

They are here exposed as liars and hypocrites - once again!

[pog-mo-bhlog]

Alyn Smith is a dilf

[irnbraw]

Live by Algebra - Die by Algebra!

As noted elsewhere in this blog - the SNP is currently ‘sharing a platform’ with the UK Government (i.e. the Conservative Party government!) to promote staying in the EU.  Now some may think that a party merely coming down on the same side of a broad issue as another party is hardly the same thing as agreeing, or ‘getting into bed’ with that other party.  Really, well that argument will not fare well if it comes from the SNatsis.

The single most salient fact that the SNP uses to account for the decline of Labour in Scotland is that Labour shared a platform with the Conservatives in the referendum on separation. This is where the term of abuse “Red Tory” comes in.  For such was the betrayal, say the SNP, of the people of Scotland by Labour in siding with the Tories (and, incidentally, the majority of Scots) that Labour’s end was assured.  The logic seems to have been based on the application of an algebraic formula known as The Transitive Property of Equality.

Under this algebra term if the first and second things are equal and the third and second are also equal then - mathematically - the first and third are equal too.  So, in the SNP world, the Tories = the Union, Labour = the Union this Labour = the Tories.

So you see, its not ME that makes the argument that the SNP = the Conservatives, its the SNP who make that argument by agreeing to be on the same side as the Tories.  I merely follow the SNP’s own logic.

Moreover, the transitive property can also unmask another SNP myth; not only are the SNP and the Conservatives in common cause, the SNP and UKIP (the UK Independence Party) are too.... Yes, there I said it - SNP=UKIP.  How so - well lets look at current events in Wales.

Following the recent elections for the Welsh Assembly Labour remained the largest party but the SNP’s fellow ‘progressive alliance’ travelers - PC the Party of Wales (Plaid Cmyru) - took some votes from Labour and ended up as one of several parties that, if acting together, could deny Labour the chance to form the administration. 

Meanwhile in Wales - Let the horse trading begin

This has led to the interesting spectacle of PC joining with, among others, UKIP Wales in a voting pact (or just a happy coincidence re their votes, as PC now say) to deny Labour the leadership office and give it to PC instead.  Of course now the SNP’s progressive friends in PC are in ‘frantic denial mode’ - or lying, depending on who you read.

Whatever the truth of the political wrangling now visible in Wales - its clear that PC’s leader got the backing of Conservative & UKIP votes in her bid to lead the Welsh Assembly.  So lets now apply the SNP’s logic, and its use of the transitive property (see steps above), to these dealings.   That gives us the strange, strange result we see here: in effect the SNP and UKIP ARE THE SAME.

Of course I don’t for a moment believe they are the same party, or that they share the same ideal.  That would be far too insulting to UKIP.  After all its the SNP that has the catalogued and verifiable Nazi & pro-Nazi past, not UKIP.

No, this point merely serves to illustrate that the toxic nature of political debate in Scotland - ushered in by the SNP - is deeply unproductive and unnecessarily hostile.  Labour are no more ‘Red Tories’ because they want to preserve the Union of Scotland with the rest of the UK, than Plaid Cymru are the Welsh UKIP, just because it wants UKIP votes.

It is taking too, too long since the creation of this new version of a Scottish parliament, for certain parties to accept that each of the views of Scots - as represented by their elected MSPs - should be respected.  Shouting down those you disagree with is a Nazi or Communist tactic, not a democratic one.

While every entity must be accountable to the voters for its actions - drowning out any reasoned discussion of that accountability with repeated chants of “four legs good, two legs bad” - or in the SNP’s case ‘Red Tories’, ‘Tory Scum’ or ‘Traitors‘ should be unacceptable.  Chanting, name calling and demonizing should be set aside as childish behaviour, not adult actions. The fact that they are not says more about the illiberal and undemocratic core of the SNP than it does about anything or anyone else.

If it were not sinking to the SNP level, (and an insult to UKIP - a party for which I have more respect than I do the SNP) then I’d love to see how the SNatsis would react to a taste of their own medicine as opposition parties in the Scottish Parliament chanted - “SNP, UK-IP, SNP, UK-IP, SNP, UK-IP”.  I wonder if they’d be ok with that?

[oh-glasgow]

Good use of the word “bollocks”, Nicola.

Perhaps Labour should have tried to stand for something, and actually offered to be a genuine alternative to the Tories then they wouldn’t have had this problem. Idiots.