Nicola Sturgeon - attempts to politicise Covid
Clipped from : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/07/07/nicola-sturgeon-not-expected-much-everyone-else-condemn-bigoted/
Keir Starmer is held accountable for his colleagues' controversial statements, but the SNP leader seems to be allowed to duck responsibility
It hardly needs restating that Twitter has been a bane and a boon for politicians, mostly the former. Yesterday Keir Starmer came under pressure to do more than apply a slap on the wrist to frontbencher Steve Reed after the latter was accused of perpetrating an anti-Semitic trope in a Tweet criticising property developer Richard Desmond.
This was barely a week after the Labour leader sacked his former leadership rival, Rebecca Long-Bailey, for tweeting a celebrity interview containing an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory and then refusing to delete it when asked by Starmer’s office. Reed has managed to keep his job because he deleted his own post, but that has only enraged critics on the Left and Right.
The lesson is that political leaders are now held accountable for their fellow MPs’ and their followers’ public expressions. This is unsustainable and more than a bit silly: busy politicians have enough on their plate without being expected to provide a constant narrative as to their opinions on everyone else’s views.
But what’s sauce for the goose, etc. If Starmer must be held accountable for Steve Reed’s actions, then Nicola Sturgeon must be held to the same standard. This notion is itself a peculiar one in Scotland: Scotland’s first minister is regarded by much of the country’s media and all of its cultural and academic landscape as incapable of sin, much like the Pope.
To express the idea that she should be regarded as a mere career politician, like any other party leader, is to invite the fiercest of criticism and condemnation. When you travel north of Carlisle, you don’t just cross a border, you go through the looking glass.
Last weekend saw two pretty average, unremarkable (for Scotland) incidents of political hypocrisy that, while they had no impact at all on Sturgeon or her devolved administration, would have had ruinous consequences for any Westminster-based politician. One was a tweet by Devi Sridhar, a professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh. As an academic based in Scotland, she is therefore, naturally, a strong supporter of the SNP and of Scottish independence.
This tweet by @devisridhar is horrific, ‘anti-Scottish, pro-UK people (unionists)’ - talk about lighting a fuse!!! Who on earth does she think she is? pic.twitter.com/N9omsYPURs
— Chris Strickland (@CD_Strickland) July 4, 2020
On Saturday, Sridhar told her Twitter followers that the perception that Scotland has handled the covid crisis well, “seems to anger anti-Scottish, pro-UK people (‘unionists’)”. It hardly need explaining how stupid and offensive such a sentiment is, given that a majority of Scots voted against independence the last time we were asked in 2014. Perhaps Ms Sridhar, who is an American citizen, considers those in her own country who oppose the secession of Texas as “anti-Texas” unionists?
The more serious point is that a professional academic saw no harm in expressing such views, which immediately raises the question of whether they reflect the views of the senior SNP politicians with whom she associates. It’s a commonly expressed insult by the so-called cybernats who dominate online Scottish political discourse in Scotland; they assume as an article of faith (and Scottish nationalism more resembles a faith than a political ideology) that the only things that motivate to support for the Union are self-interest, immorality and stupidity.
Obviously such sentiments can now be safely expressed, without criticism by your peers or superiors, by professors at distinguished universities.
Just a matter of miles from #EastLothian. @NicolaSturgeon & @EastLothianSNP must publicly condemn this or their silence will be seen as condoning it.
Either way, a direct result of Sturgeon's reckless talk around borders.
So what is it @KennyMacAskill @cllrstu @PaulMcLennan7? https://t.co/wvptNRpvZh
— Craig Hoy (@CraigWHoy1) July 5, 2020
On the same day, some idiots chose to demonstrate at the border between England and Scotland, warning north-bound motorists to stay out lest they spread coronavirus. It may be assumed from such antics that the virus is entirely absent from Scotland and that no self-respecting infection would dare reside anywhere as progressive and tolerant as Scotland. This deliberately plays into a widely-held and erroneous view that Scotland has, thanks to Sturgeon, fought a much more effective battle against it, when in fact the results of the marginally different regime here has produced mixed results at best.
None of that matters. What matters is that having set nationalist hearts a-flutter by raising the possibility that the hated English might at last be barred from entering Scotland, some of her devoted followers set up their little trestle table at Gretna and started making offensive comments and gestures to motorists for having English accents.
One of the protesters posted an edited version of the border sign which read: “F*** off we’re shut”. Regarding this as not remotely offensive, the SNP’s Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, then retweeted this, adding: “Perhaps not the language I would use but for some folk perhaps it needs to be blunt before they get it!”
Perhaps not the language I would use but for some folk perhaps it needs to be blunt before they get it! https://t.co/Z9gOw29Mg1
— Ian Blackford (@Ianblackford_MP) May 17, 2020
By “some folk” we must assume he means the English. And by criticising only the language, Blackford was endorsing the “we’re shut” message.
But this is Scotland, remember, and so the avalanche of demands that a party leader condemn the inflammatory utterances of advisers and fellow parliamentarians are neither made nor heeded.
We are left to conclude that such anti-English and anti-Unionist bigotry, while not explicitly endorsed by the SNP leadership, certainly doesn’t present any cause for concern. Which in itself, so long as you’re not the kind of person who will give up your time of a weekend to stand around in the rain shouting at cars, should be a cause for concern.
Comments
Post a Comment