Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

A figure the hypothetical successors of Anas Sarwar, Alex Cole-Hamilton and Douglas Ross could only aspire to in the absence of a vacancy, I’m sure.

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

Looks legit.

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

:D

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

Nobody can make Sturgeon carry on if she doesn't want to. I wonder if a political party could legitimately continue without a leader? Even if it could, I doubt that the voters would have any confidence in them and they'd not achieve any power.

Do we think that the issue of independence will fade away now that Sturgeon is going?

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

A party’s leadership structure is defined by its constitution. You don’t have to have ‘a’ leader; you can have a committee or whatever you want. The Scottish Greens have co-leaders, Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater.

However the Scotland Act requires there to be a First Minister. When the incumbent resigns, the parliament must choose a new one within 28 days (via a ballot of all MSPs - this is done by the parliament, not by the largest party or governing coalition). The king then formally appoints the winner.

If no candidate is presented to the king after 28 days, the parliament’s presiding officer is obliged to call a general election.

Sturgeon will not actually resign until the SNP has chosen a new leader. That person will then be presented to parliament as a candidate and will most likely be the only candidate. A vote must still take place and the candidate must secure a simple majority of MSP votes to be selected.

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

Thanks for explaining :)

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

It looks now like Sturgeon didn’t fancy spending the weekend explaining how a self-identifying trans woman gets charged with sexually assaulting an 11 year old and this wouldn’t be an issue for him/her going to a female prison on remand.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla...tland-64678419

By coincidence the Scottish Prison Service updated their policy on 9th February.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...r-birth-gender

The very same day Andrew Miller/Amy George appeared in court, having been charged the day before.

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

Anyone doubting Sturgeon's political skills only needs to look at the lunacy of the people fighting to succeed her. Amazing drop off in quality and all the more impressive she managed a party so divided and insane.

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

Anyone lauding Sturgeon’s political skills should be looking at the state of the NHS, schools, our over-centralised and unresponsive police service, a nationalised shipyard that can’t finish ships and a nationalised rail service that struggles to run a railway.

Sturgeon’s sole political skill is presentation. She talks a good game, which is why you lot down south all think she aced her covid response when all she was really doing was copying whatever HMG did and adding a bell or a whistle to it to make out she had somehow considered it more deeply or carefully.

Everything she has said and done since 2014 has been about maintaining a very broad political coalition of rank amateurs who would be lucky to get a seat on an English county council. So yes, to that extent I agree with you, now she’s checked out, the wheels are well and truly coming off the SNP clown car. And not before time.

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

So given the wheels are coming off it will be interesting how their vote stands up in a future general election given Sturgeon is not there anymore.

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

The SNP clown car attempts another circuit of the ring even as bits keep falling off. In this case, the 30,000 bits they seem to have lost since the end of 2021 (or indeed the 20,000 bits they lost in the 18 months prior to that).

From a peak of more than 120,000 members in 2019 the party executive has now been forced to admit it’s down to 72,000. Only a month ago they flatly denied a report in the nationalist movement’s in-house comic, The National, that they had lost 30,000 members in a year. Presumably on the basis that it actually took them 15 months rather than 12.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-64976104

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

They also have a Police enquiry over their finances hanging over them too.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/polit...e-finance-row/

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

And two ferries that are 3x over budget, 5 years late, as of this week delayed a further 6 months requiring a further £6 million in contingency funding. Bill to the taxpayer thus far, getting very close to £300m. Yes, that’s right, THREE HUNDRED MILLION POUNDS.

Oh, and the executives in charge of the yard (which is state owned after the SNP government bought it to try to prevent a PR disaster) have been awarding themselves bonuses, worth £87k over the last 3 years.

‘Nicola Sturgeon is a formidable operator’ will one day be judged in the same light as ‘Russia has a formidable army’. Both have been feared and admired, both turn out to be good for nothing but wanton destruction.

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

Sturgeon is a formidable operator in that she's a fantastic sales person but there's not a well-oiled administration behind her so she's effectively undermining the independence case.

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

Could have bought more than 20 capable 2nd hand vessels for that kind of money.

Very poor stewardship of taxpayers money.

https://commercial.apolloduck.com/li...ort=0&limit=10

Even the MOD have seen the light, buying used vessels to convert to an MROSS for the RFA.

It was first mooted the MROSS vessels would be new builds, but there are very capable existing hulls out there that can be converted, saving millions.

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news...ves-in-the-uk/