Ian Blackford rules out replacing Kate Forbes in key seat
However, the former SNP Westminster leader has not closed the door on a future comeback, stating he believes he can still 'serve my party and my country'.
Blackford, 64, had been approached by local SNP activists and senior party figures to seek the nomination for the Skye, Lochaber & Badenoch constituency, a move that would have returned him to an area he previously represented at Westminster.
In a statement, he confirmed that after 'careful consideration' he had decided against putting his name forward for the 2026 election.
• Kate Forbes exit leaves question: who can replace John Swinney?
The announcement brings an end to speculation that began last week when Forbes, 34, revealed she would not be seeking re-election. The deputy first minister cited a desire to have more children as her reason for stepping down, telling constituents in a video message that it was 'time for something new for me, and somebody new for you'.
Blackford's decision to step away from the contest will open the field to other candidates. The Highlands constituency, which Forbes won with a majority of more than 15,000 votes, is considered a stronghold for the party. However, the Liberal Democrats are expected to mount a strong challenge.
• All eyes on John Swinney as Kate Forbes's departure leaves big questions
Blackford, a former investment banker and fund manager, left the House of Commons before last July's general election, where the new seat of Inverness, Skye & West Ross-shire was subsequently won by the Liberal Democrats' Angus MacDonald. Blackford had held the area since 2015, when he the former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy.
Despite his decision not to stand for Holyrood, Blackford's statement left the door ajar for a return to politics. 'I do believe that I am still of an age that I can serve my party and my country,' he said. He added that he viewed the 'journey to independence as being very much unfinished business' and that he wanted to contribute to the debate on the 'economics of independence'.
He concluded: 'Working with others, I do want to participate in that debate on our future and perhaps, in the time ahead, there may be future opportunities to return to frontline politics.'
A close confidant of the former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, Blackford was unseated as Westminster leader by Stephen Flynn in late 2022. He has been pursuing business interests since leaving parliament.
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Daily Mail
7 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
TOM UTLEY: I was once fiercely proud of being a Londoner born and bred. But as Sturgeon seeks greener pastures and after nine years of the Khan Terror, Mrs U and I are thinking the unthinkable...
Blow me down, who would have thought it? Nicola Sturgeon, the nationalist former First Minister of Scotland, who has spent her entire political life fighting for Scottish independence and slagging off evil England, now says she's thinking of leaving her native land. And where does she plan to move to? Unbelievably, her destination of choice appears to be... evil England! More specifically, she hints strongly this week that the ideal place she would like to escape to, at least for a 'wee while', is my own native London – capital of the kingdom she has tirelessly campaigned to leave. 'This may shock many people to hear,' she says, 'but I love London... So, yeah, maybe a bit of time down there. Who knows?' But will she really find the capital as pleasant a place to live as she seems to imagine? Or will she find that in moving from her own party's Scotland to mayor Sir Sadiq Khan 's Labour London, she'll just be swapping one nightmare terror for another? I'll come back to that question in a moment. But first, I'll let Ms Sturgeon explain why she's tempted to move. In an interview to promote her self-justifying, self-pitying new memoir, she tells the BBC: 'I belong to Scotland, it's my home. But I think being physically out of Scotland for a period might just help to reset my perspective and, to be more selfish about it, just remove me a little bit from that goldfish bowl scrutiny that I still live under in Scotland. 'I don't mean that as a complaint, it's just the reality that Scotland's quite a small country, it's quite a small body politic . . . Suffocating is maybe putting it too strongly, but I sometimes feel I can't breathe freely in Scotland.' Of course, Ms Sturgeon will hardly be the first Scot to head south in the hope of breathing more freely. Indeed, my own Scottish mother-in-law made that same move more than six decades ago, taking her five Ayrshire-born daughters with her, including the future Mrs U, who was then only five years old. Like Ms Sturgeon, she had recently separated from her husband – and like her, too, no doubt, she wanted to escape from her tight-knit, gossipy local community, where all her neighbours and relations knew or wanted to know everything that was going on in her life. Mind you, I suspect that the number of Scots who yearn to move south has grown ever greater since Ms Sturgeon's SNP came to power in 2007, and set about turning the country into an oppressive socialist stronghold, in thrall to mad, woke ideas. Thanks largely to England's generosity, we learned this week, every year Scotland now receives nearly £2,700 a head more in public funding than the UK average – an extraordinary £21,192 per person, compared with £18,523 in the kingdom as a whole. Yet in spite of this, Ms Sturgeon's party has managed to wreck Scotland's public services, including an education system that was once the envy of the rest of the UK. In 2006, for example, the nation achieved by far the UK's best results in maths, as measured by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's rankings. By 2022, it had plunged to second worst, a long way behind England and ahead only of Wales. Meanwhile, the number of NHS patients who have to wait more than two years for treatment north of the border is almost 100 times higher than in England, while Scotland still holds the unenviable record of having the highest number of drug deaths in Europe. Indeed, Ms Sturgeon and her party appear to have tested to destruction the theory that the way to solve social problems is to hurl ever greater quantities of other people's money at them. Then there was the debacle over the former First Minister's crazy plan for gender self-recognition, which would have allowed male rapists to serve their time in women's prisons. Add Ms Sturgeon's little local difficulties with her husband and the police, and perhaps it's no wonder that she wants to make herself scarce for a while, away from the scene of all the destruction and chaos her party has wrought. But back to that question: will she really find London any better? If you'd asked me that a few years ago, I would have had no hesitation in saying it was the best place to live on the planet. I was fiercely proud of being one of the few London residents I know who was born and brought up in the capital, while most of my neighbours and colleagues were drawn to it by its job opportunities, innumerable amenities and other attractions. In the words of the wartime song, I used to 'get a funny feeling inside of me/ Just walking up and down/ Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner/ That I love London town.' But I can't say the same any longer. After nine years under Sir Sadiq Khan, in cahoots with my disastrous Labour council, shoplifters and fare dodgers abound, the streets reek of cannabis and deliveries left on my neighbours' doorsteps are stolen within minutes. Yet there's never a copper to be seen, except for those flashing past in their cars, with sirens blaring (perhaps to arrest someone suspected of tweeting something disobliging about Hamas). At the same time, driving and parking in London have become all but impossible for the rest of us, as Khan and his party's councillors carry on their war against motorists, with their Ultra Low Emission Zones, cycle lanes, Controlled Parking Zones, Low Traffic Neighbourhoods – hated by all except eco-zealots. Then there are the endless road closures for minority religious festivals, celebrations of LGBTQ+ Pride, and the like. Since Tony Blair threw open our borders, it has also becoming increasingly rare to hear an English voice on the bus or the Tube, in a city where already 60 per cent of live births are to mothers born outside the UK. Meanwhile, many London schools have become battlegrounds, where teachers face a daily struggle simply to keep their pupils from each other's throats. No, the fact is that the London where I live today has become almost unrecognisable as the city I used to love. Sadly, two of our four London-born sons have already moved to the West Country, driven away from their birthplace by the hope of a better life and the impossibility of finding an affordable home in the capital. A third speaks of moving to Liverpool, and I don't suppose the fourth will remain in London for much longer. Now, for the first time in all these decades, my wife and I are seriously tempted to follow their example. The only question that remains is where, in this benighted kingdom, is the best place for an ageing couple to settle, most untouched by the blight of woke socialism? One thing's for sure. After Ms Sturgeon's long stint in power, not even the beauties of the scenery will tempt us to move to the land of Mrs U's birth.
The Herald Scotland
38 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
JK Rowling was wrong to label Sturgeon a 'destroyer of women's rights'
Depressingly, it echoed the trans activists' habit of framing this debate as a zero-sum game, where one side's victory entails the other's destruction, when a more constructive tone was plainly required. Sturgeon was already being personally targeted over self-ID by other politicians, but Rowling's actions ratcheted up the pressure to another level. Whether it marked the moment 'rational debate' became 'impossible', as Sturgeon claims, is more contestable, but it almost certainly made the debate more toxic. Then again, I thought exactly the same about Nicola Sturgeon's own comments, when she linked concerns around self-ID to transphobia in an apparent attempt to discredit critics. Read more In one interview I saw at the height of the controversy, she was asked about women's worries around gender reforms. She claimed that of course the Scottish Government took women's concerns seriously, but then insisted fiercely and pointedly that there was a great deal of transphobia in the debate. Stressing transphobia when asked about women's concerns became the standard Scottish government response, not just from Sturgeon but from other ministers like Patrick Harvie. It seemed like an unambiguous attempt to smear their opponents. As someone who had often agreed with Sturgeon, I was taken aback. There are transphobes in the debate, as we can see more clearly now than ever – and misogynists on the other side too – but the repeated emphasis ministers put on this point did an injustice to the majority whose views were motivated by concern for women's rights. Like Rowling's T-shirt, it just further poisoned the climate. Did Nicola Sturgeon really take women's concerns seriously? She had by then already made clear her lack of sympathy with those objections, saying they were 'not valid' and insisting rather patronisingly that campaigners should focus on the 'real threat' to women – 'abusive and predatory men' – instead of trans people. She studiously ignored what deep down she must have known: that it was precisely those 'abusive and predatory men' that women's campaigners were most concerned about. The Scottish Government was backing a gender ideology that was much contested but relentlessly enforced by an activist community online and in person. Women had been hounded out of their jobs simply for dissenting from the orthodoxy. Those who disagreed that a trans woman and a woman were one and the same, or questioned someone's gender identity, were and still are framed as bigots and liable to find themselves and their employers the target of public campaigns of humiliation. In that climate, it would take a brave person to challenge someone's claim to be female in a women's only space. How, with a government that appeared to back gender ideology wholesale, could women's only spaces possibly be policed to keep out bad actors? Sturgeon seemed oblivious to these concerns. SNP MSPs even voted against an amendment by one of their own colleagues which would have halted the granting of a gender recognition certificate to rapists. Liberalism is not about placing the rights of one discriminated against group above that of another; it's about balancing interests fairly. This felt like the politics of the far left. Ultimately it was the controversy around Isla Bryson – who as Adam Graham had been charged with two counts of rape before declaring himself female and being remanded in a women's prison – that decisively destroyed trust in the Scottish Government's reassurances that gender self-ID was wholly benign. So yes, Nicola Sturgeon, like JK Rowling, has poured petrol on the flames. But, credit where it's due, she has also now held up her hands to being part of the problem. She told ITV: 'We'd lost all sense of rationality in this debate. I'm partly responsible for that.' She has also said that she wishes she'd paused the gender recognition act legislation to find consensus. Nicola Sturgeon has reignited the row (Image: PA) In their different ways, Nicola Sturgeon and JK Rowling have both tried to stand up for a vulnerable group, but we have watched them become increasingly radical, probably as a consequence of having to defend themselves constantly against those who monster them. They exist, as we all do, in a truly horrible climate of so-called debate. Rowling was accused without evidence of transphobia from the first moment she dared raise her head above the parapet, and has been on the receiving end of death and rape threats since. These days she seems less measured. She's described the nurse Sandie Peggie, no poster girl for tolerance, as a 'heroine'. She has continued to attack Sturgeon. Sturgeon for her part became more intransigent as opposition to her position on trans rights increased, closing her ears to pleas to moderate her approach. It did not help either women or trans people. Many trans people now feel they are in a worse position than before Sturgeon's attempt at gender recognition reform. Both women have gone too far. Both women bear some responsibility for the bitterness of the debate. But both women could also be part of a reset, if they chose to be. Arguably, Sturgeon is showing a willingness to try. It would take a dramatic change of tone and approach, but God knows, it's needed. Rebecca McQuillan is a journalist specialising in politics and Scottish affairs. She can be found on Bluesky at @ and on X at @BecMcQ
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Newsom: California redistricting push will counter Texas Republicans
California's Democratic governor has unveiled a high-stakes plan to redraw voting lines in America's most populous state, in order to counter similar efforts by Republicans in Newsom called for a special election to be held in November, in which voters would be asked to approve lawmakers redrawing congressional districts before national midterms in billed the move as an emergency measure in response to a Donald Trump-backed plan in Texas, which could see the Republicans pick up five more seats in the finely-balanced is the latest development in a gerrymandering fight that runs the risk of setting off a political arms race for control of the US Congress. The governor - whose term in office ends next year and is rumoured to have presidential ambitions - said it would neutralise an attempt by Trump and other Republicans to "rig the system". "We're working through a very transparent, temporary and public process," Newsom said. "We're putting the maps on the ballot and we're giving the power to the people." He continued: "We have got to recognise the cards that we have been dealt and we have got to meet fire with fire."Newsom's proposal would see California retain its current congressional maps if Texas and other states pulled out of any tit-for-tat move seeks to cancel out projected gains by Republicans in Texas if the state approves a redistricting effort sought by Trump and the state's governor Greg Abbott. Republicans in Texas have so far been blocked from approving new maps, as Democratic lawmakers have physically left the state, denying its legislative body the two-thirds attendance it needs to proceed with a has threatened to arrest the Democrats, who are staying in Illinois, and said he would call continuous special sessions of the state's legislature until the proposal passes. Like other states, California typically redraws congressional districts once a decade when new population data is released by the US Census. California convenes a commission of independent citizens to do proposal in Texas to make changes mid-decade has triggered a nationwide political row, as the changes could give Republicans an easier path to keep control of the US House of Representatives and prevent challenges from Democrats that they'd face under current political maps. If Democrats gain control of the House, it could block much of Trump's legislative - the redrawing of electoral boundaries to favour a political party - has been carried out by both Democrats and Republicans across the US for decades, and is legal as long as it does not amount to racial discrimination, the Supreme Court has has said Texas is "entitled" to redraw maps and called on the FBI to put pressure on the state's Democrats to return home, paving the way for a are expected to return to the state as early as this weekend, saying they feel their cross-country relocation has helped generate more attention on the issue nationally. According to US media, some made the decision to return after seeing California's plans to counter Texas's new in California - which elected 43 Democrats and nine Republicans at the last election - have not published a detailed new map, or indicated exactly how many extra seats they would envision winning under the changes. The newly redrawn political boundaries would be released in a map in the coming days, the governor said. Newsom announced his plan - which he dubbed the Election Rigging Response Act - with a coalition of Democratic leaders. He also called for new federal standards to prevent political meddling in voting boundaries. It is unclear if California's voters will approve Newsom's plan. Earlier this week, a Politico-Citrin Center Possibility Lab survey suggested Californians support retaining its independent districting system. Only 36% of respondents backed returning congressional redistricting authority to state to Fox on Thursday, Trump called Newsom "an incompetent governor".He also said he was considering encouraging Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to redraw districts in the state, so that Republicans could win more seats president said other states had drawn "ridiculous" voting districts that are shaped like "rattlesnakes".
