Scotland should just self-identify as an independent country, one SNP member proposed. How fitting! STEPHEN DAISLEY watches the First Minister hustings By Stephen Daisley For The Daily Mail Published: 01:11 GMT, 2 March 2023 | Updated: 01:38 GMT, 2 March 2023 e-mail 9 View comments It WAS the hustings we weren’t meant to see. The media were originally banned from last night’s leadership debate.
The SNP said it had to provide ‘safe spaces’ to party activists. Very progressive. Pity about women in prison.
They promptly U-turned – they’re the SNP, after all – and livestreamed the proceedings. So we got to see the trio of contenders lined up in front of a lurid yellow and black backdrop in what resembled the set of a particularly low-budget 1970s game show. You know, the sort hosted by a pompous egomaniac with an inexplicably high opinion of himself.
On a totally unrelated matter, the debate was compered by Mike Russell. I think I would’ve preferred the ban. The event got teed up with opening statements from the candidates.
Humza Yousaf went first, sans jacket and sporting a fetching tartan tie. He clutched notes in one hand and with the other he did that karate chop routine Tony Blair used to do to… emphasise… every… word. Suddenly, the martial arts gestures were dropped in favour of a pair of fists, darting from side to side, with one or the other occasionally whooshing upwards.
Why he had gone from kung-fu fighting to attempting the slosh we may never know. (L-R) Scottish National Party President Mike Russell, Kate Forbes, Ash Regan and Humza Yousaf STEPHEN DAISLEY: It WAS the hustings we weren’t meant to see. The media were originally banned from last night’s leadership debate I was rapt by these moves when he said something that snapped me back to the speech: ‘She will be immortalised in our history books.
’ Flora MacDonald? Mary Somerville? No, Nicola Sturgeon. I suppose immortality would give her a good run at finally closing the attainment gap. Yousaf pledged to be the ‘First Activist’ as well as the First Minister and promised he would be ‘looking in the whites of the eyes of people and convincing them why we need independence’.
All of a sudden, I’d like to have social distancing back again. Read more: Fury as SNP plans to hold leadership hustings behind closed doors after a string of gaffes by candidates Kate Forbes has been dogged by controversy over her religious opposition to gay marriage and extra-marital sex
co. uk/v8/sg/debate/none/article/other/mpu_factbox. html?id=mpu_factbox_1 - -> Advertisement The opening 20 seconds of Kate Forbes’s speech was muted by an audio issue.
Whether that was Peter Murrell jabbing a button while stroking a cat villainously, I couldn’t say. Forbes complained decisions about Scotland were made ‘a hundred miles away’. I always suspected the Geordies were secretly ruling over us.
Ash Regan pandered to the home crowd, mentioning the days when she worked in the local sweet shop owned by her granny. She told them the party had to ‘restore the trust of the Scottish people in our ability to govern competently’. A lot of people want to hear that message but none of them were in this room.
On independence, she said: ‘It’s time for Scotland to take control of its own destiny. ’ Why do they always talk like extras from Braveheart? Then we turned to audience questions. A hand shot up.
‘What will the candidates do to counter the misinformation, lies and antipathy aimed at our party on a daily basis by journalists in Scotland?’ Yep, definitely an SNP event. Part of the answer, Yousaf replied, was to ‘get into the living rooms, quite literally’. I’m starting to worry about him.
Am I going to be taking the bins out and find him waiting with a leaflet on currency options for an independent Scotland? On the GRR Bill, Yousaf said the Section 35 order had to be challenged in court, Forbes insisted Holyrood could fix it in-house and Regan flatly stated a legal challenge would fail and waste public money. Is she going for a record? Fewest votes ever won in a leadership contest? They nattered a bit about the bravest decision they’d made in politics – agreeing to these hustings had to be up there – and tolerating religious people in public life. One member proposed simply asserting independence on the basis of the Claim of Right.
Apparently, Scotland should just self-identify as an independent country. Seems fitting for the SNP these days. Bringing matters to a close, Russell pronounced the debate to have shown ‘the depth of our party’.
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