Do the SNP no longer have a strategy for gaining independence?
For years no widespread poster campaign has been mounted to show the comparison of Scotland with similar European countries. In fact the only recent effort along those lines was the publication of a series of white papers, which seem to have been seen by no-one outside the political bubble.
READ MORE: 'What is our vision?': Inside the quiet anger brewing within the SNP
It would appear the SNP are becoming complacent and happy with the status quo. I confidently expect that next year's SNP campaign will be based on the same stupid call for 'Both votes SNP', despite more than a million list votes adding only two extra SNP members last time.
How about the slogan being 'country before party', and list voters being encouraged to vote for other independence-supporting candidates on the list? This will ensure an independence-supporting Holyrood and thwart Reform and their ilk.
James Duncan
Edinburgh
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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
GRAHAM GRANT: With ideas so barmy even Lord Sugar would sack her, next year Scots voters will have their own chance to tell Kate Forbes and the SNP...'YOU'RE FIRED!'
Kate Forbes showed off her renowned business acumen last week when she said businesses could avoid hefty rates by setting up in cupboards. It's a barmy idea which would see her kicked off The Apprentice – irascible Lord Sugar wouldn't put up with her weapons-grade nonsense. For bar and restaurant owners desperate for respite from a punitive rates regime, Ms Forbes's less than sage counsel was particularly galling. Operating from the confines of a cupboard is a non-starter for them, but then they've long been little more than an afterthought for the SNP. Some of them had fallen for the Deputy First Minister's act as someone who understood the needs of entrepreneurs and business owners. She was seen as the acceptable face of insular, Left-wing nationalism, as she seemed to realise that thriving firms lead to a stronger economy. After the SNP joined forces with the anti-capitalist Greens in a pact which ended in disaster, Ms Forbes was viewed as a breath of fresh air, at least by those who thought growth was a good idea. The scales fell from the eyes of those who had been hoping in vain that she would re-build bridges with Covid-battered businesses, many of them still clinging to survival, after her cupboard advice. For those who missed it, Ms Forbes was taking part in a Holyrood debate when she was asked whether the rates burden prevented companies from expanding. Ms Forbes, who is also Economy Secretary, if you can believe it, said the 'rates system often does not take into account the fact that some of the most profitable businesses are the smaller ones'. She said: 'A start-up can be launched from a cupboard, where there are no rates, while a large and perhaps less profitable business has to pay them.' Ms Forbes did concede that the rates system is 'based on an older version of the economy, in which the size of properties was linked to profitability, and that is just not the case in our new, tech-driven environment'. She might have vowed to reform the system, of course, but then it's easier just to tell people to move into cupboards, even if it does raise questions about her relationship with reality, and whether she has one. An incredulous Murdo Fraser, the Tory economy spokesman, said Ms Forbes 'might as well have claimed Narnia is at the back of the cupboard', while Glasgow-based businessman Donald MacLeod accused her of 'mind-boggling stupidity'. That's an understatement, given that Scotland is the only part of Britain not cutting business rates for shops this year. The SNP government Budget unveiled in December means retailers in Scotland are receiving less support than those in other parts of Britain. Shops will pay £9.1million more than those south of the Border, while offices will pay an additional £6.4million and hotels face an extra £2.5million bill. In its 2021 manifesto, the SNP promised to ensure that 'the largest businesses pay the same combined poundage in Scotland as in England'. Many firms are also struggling with the UK Government's hike in National Insurance employers' contributions, which began in April. For some, Ms Forbes's bizarre statement triggered flashbacks to the dark days of the Covid era when Nicola Sturgeon said the bottom of classroom doors could be sawn off to boost ventilation. Back in 2019, Ms Sturgeon had claimed Scotland remained 'imprisoned' in the UK and Boris Johnson was effectively locking the country 'in a cupboard' by refusing another referendum on breaking up Britain. Cupboards loom large in Nationalist ideology, but Ms Forbes is just as much of a true believer in independence as John Swinney and his colleagues, and everything she says about the economy must be seen through that prism. We shouldn't forget that she once described former SNP Commons group leader Ian Blackford as a pensions 'expert' after he pumped out a stream of blatant disinformation about the UK Government's supposed liability for bankrolling Scottish pensions in the event of independence. What does that say about Ms Forbes's judgment, or lack of it? She was happy enough to stand by as these distortions and untruths circulated on social media – so why should we trust anything she says now? As we reported last week, Ms Forbes also questioned why we seem to be fixated with income tax rates in Scotland. Following a keynote speech at economic think-tank Adam Smith House, she said: 'In Scotland there seems to be an obsession with income tax as though it's the only tax businesses and individuals have to grapple with.' That supposed 'obsession' shouldn't be hard to figure out, given that her party has ramped up income tax to the highest level in the UK, helping to drive away hard-working professionals. Scots economist Smith himself wrote that 'every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the state' – anathema to the SNP. Smith also warned that high taxes 'frequently afford smaller revenue to government than what might be drawn from more moderate taxes'. The SNP's tax-grabs are all in the name of what shamed former Finance Secretary Derek Mackay once confusingly called 'progressivity' - but the only thing the economy is progressing towards is an abyss of the SNP's own creation. Mr Mackay is remembered mainly for quitting hours before the Scottish Budget in 2020 after it emerged he had bombarded a teenage boy with inappropriate online messages. But he also admitted he'd never heard of the Laffer Curve, which dictates that revenues can go up if taxes are cut. Luckily, Tory MSP Mr Fraser was on hand to explain the concept. There's little evidence that anyone in the Cabinet has a better grasp of the basics than Mr Mackay, including Ms Forbes. Yet there's no shortage of guidance from the phalanx of spin doctors on the SNP government payroll. The average £100,000 bill for each of its 17 special advisers was slipped out under cover of the Hamilton by-election last Thursday – amounting to nearly £2million in the last financial year. Which one of them helped to craft Ms Forbes's bilge about cupboards, assuming any of them did, is unknown, but they did provide some entertainment – even if it was a blend of black comedy and high farce. The bleak punchline is that we are being led by a combination of the clueless and the incompetent. But at the Scottish election next May we'll have the chance to tell Ms Forbes and her cohorts what Lord Sugar would doubtless say, with some gusto: 'You're fired!'
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Anger as 'neutral' mandarin fawns over Sturgeon ahead of £300,000 memoirs
Scotland's top civil servant has been accused of 'fawning over' Nicola Sturgeon after wishing her success with her £300,000 memoirs. Permanent Secretary Joe Griffin cheered on the former First Minister after clearing the 464-page book, titled 'Frankly', for publication. In a letter telling her no changes were required for national security reasons, he gushed: 'I wish you well with publication of the memoirs'. The Scottish Conservatives criticised the remark given Ms Sturgeon's controversies in office and civil service neutrality. Deputy party leader Rachael Hamilton said: 'Scots will wonder why someone duty bound to be neutral was fawning over Nicola Sturgeon in this way. 'There have been repeated concerns that permanent secretaries have ended up being close to their SNP bosses. 'Joe Griffin should have thought twice about using this sort of language especially when the former First Minister's divisive legacy is still being keenly felt.' Other material released by the SNP Government yesterday shows Ms Sturgeon demanded tight security to ensure there were no leaks from her book, for which she is receiving a reported advance of £300,000. The memoirs of former ministers are governed by the 50-year-old Radcliffe Rules. Politicians are free to write about their own work but must not reveal anything which could breach national security, harm the UK's international relations, or damage 'the confidential relationships between ministers or of ministers with their officials'. Ms Sturgeon, who left Bute House in March 2023 after more than eight years as First Minister, announced she was writing her memoirs in August the same year. In December 2024, the Scottish Government's most senior official wrote to her about vetting the contents. Then permanent secretary John-Paul Marks asked the Glasgow MSP to 'share the draft manuscript with my office, if possible three months ahead of publication'. In February, Ms Sturgeon told the Government she expected an 'advanced draft' in late March and demanded to know how officials would guard the contents. 'I'd be grateful for an indication of what the circulation will be with SG [Scottish Government] - I assume very limited - and what steps will be taken to ensure confidentiality,' she wrote. Mr Marks told her 'a small senior group' including the Director of Propriety and Ethics would undertake the review and provide advice. He said: 'In terms of ensuring the manuscript is held and reviewed in a secure manner, we would request that you provide my office with four hard copies. 'These will be securely held and reviewed by a named list of senior officials only. We will not hold the document in electronic format.' Publishers Pan MacMillan sent the four copies to Mr Marks by secure delivery on March 26. Two weeks later, Mr Griffin took over as Permanent Secretary and on April 24, told Ms Sturgeon, based on the advice from the review group, no changes were required. He added: 'At all times strong security arrangements have been observed with only a small number of designated senior officials having recorded access.' He concluded: 'Thank you for engaging with the process proactively, and I wish you well with publications of the memoirs. Best Wishes, Joe Griffin.' A Government spokesman said: 'The Permanent Secretary signed off his letter in a manner that was polite and appropriate.'
The National
2 hours ago
- The National
It's not enough for SNP to occasionally say ‘independence'
Moving from local to national, there was a call for a constitutional convention from Councillor Murray in The National on Saturday. On the same day in the same paper, Gordon Macintyre-Kemp (Believe in Scotland) called for a new national conversation through a citizens convention. Independence Forum Scotland's Summer Convention on Scotland's Future will take place in Perth this Saturday. It will be their second this year. The grassroots took root, sheltered immediately after 2014, and the movement well continued. And thank (supply your own deity or whatever) for that. It's still the same message from across that movement: independence. It's sad, then, that political parties such as the SNP haven't moved on in tandem with us. The independence message has been diluted, and looking at the most recent rejection last week, it's more a case that the message was missing, again. John Swinney is quoted after the latest failure as saying: 'I thought the SNP was best placed to see off Reform because of the scale of collapse in the Labour vote.' Is it too much to believe (as I have done til now) that the SNP would see off Reform and the other pro-Unionist parties not by asking for a vote just to keep someone else out, but with their laid-out vision for independence? It is their raison d'etre after all. Not heart before head, but by taking the abstract notion of independence and translating that into the positive. It's not enough for the SNP to occasionally say 'independence' like some now tired mantra. Or expect me to click my heels and wish, Dorothy-like. Where is the plan, the strategy, the tactics? Where, when are we reminded of the changes to date that have had a positive impact? The likes of additional child payments, free bus passes, achieved through our government, our parliament, albeit hamstrung via the clever trap that is devolution. Where, when is the current highway robbery situation explained, as energy flows out of Scotland only to be returned at an increased cost to households? Westminster seems to have imposed a tariff on Scotland, having robbed us first! I think even Trump would be impressed with that one! There's no room to say that as this was a local election, indy shouldn't feature. These are all 'local' issues across the 'nation'; indy should always feature. Then to all politicians who say they believe in independence: you need to be connected with the grassroots movement, you have to heed what we say, see what we're doing, realise the strength, the numbers. You need to be prepared to tell folks if it's change you want, then change you'll get with independence, and here's how, here's the plan. The clock is ticking down to 2026. Selma Rahman Edinburgh WHY oh why can't we have simple literature telling the general public that with INDEPENDENCE we will be THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS and THIS better off and rid of THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS and THIS from Westminster that is making us worse off? Ken McCartney Hawick
