A Scottish political disgrace

After a thoroughly nasty set of campaigns from her opponents, the recall petition for Margaret Ferrier has succeeded, with the two major parties in Scotland (with loads of help from the media) managing to persuade just over 14% of the electorate to sign. Commons rules meant Margaret was not permitted to put her case before the recall was officially announced, but by that time Labour had already been campaigning for about 2 months. Margaret immediately leaves the Commons and will likely be succeeded in a by-election sometime later this year by a numpty from the Labour party, whose only contribution to the Rutherglen and Hamilton constituency will be his smirking appearance at the post-election photoshoot. You can be sure that he was only picked (over 4 real local candidates) because he agreed to do what he was told by his London bosses.

The recall petition was ‘cleverly’ arranged to conclude while Parliament was on holiday, so maximising the disruption as the by-election can’t be arranged until the Commons returns in September. It means that Rutherglen and Hamilton West will be without representation for some months, so constituents, please make sure you have no problems needing support from your MP until after the by-election and even then, hope that the MP has a team who have some clue and can be bothered to make the effort, though, as we’re talking Labour, that’s far from guaranteed.

Certainly, Labour’s contribution to the campaign was a series of leaflets more notable for their lies and smears than for their policy content. For one example, see here.

At least, you can understand what drove Labour to create the opportunity, first by voting in the Commons committee to make sure that a 30 day suspension was agreed, triggering the recall petition and then conducting this nasty campaign, disguising their party self-interest in a cloak of public concern. They desperately wanted this by-election success to demonstrate that Labour are back to being a political force to be reckoned with in Scotland, even though victory, if it happens, is likely to be more to do with the expected disintegration of the SNP vote rather than any increase in Labour support.

But what’s in it for the SNP? When Nicola Sturgeon prompted this witch hunt against arguably the most hard working SNP MP, but one whose support for independence was at odds with the leadership of the current party, the SNP were riding high in the polls, with the worst of the Hate Crimes Bill, the GRRB, DRS, the offshore wind auction and the rest still to come. Could she have anticipated the backlash and the impact on SNP support or, as many have said, could she have planned it?

But now, with SNP support heading for the toilet, Sturgeon’s replacement decided to continue the persecution of Margaret Ferrier, thus really annoying the large number of constituents who previously supported the SNP, but who had no desire to get rid of Margaret. Of course, they had no voice in the recall, but will certainly make their voice heard in the by-election.

Let’s not forget that the SSP, the Scottish Socialist Party, another supposedly independence supporting party, were also campaigning for the recall, even though they had virtually nothing to gain from a by-election. Perhaps they thought they were on safe ground with no actual independence party standing to point out that the SSP, like the SNP and the Greens, are another party who seem only committed to independence when it suits them.

So we are where we are. If Margaret chooses not to stand again, the constituency will lose a hard-working MP with a proud record of backing local issues and local people. Even worse, her replacement will be either be the Labour candidate who lies about being local (unless you think Partick is part of Rutherglen) or the SNP one, said to be the laziest councillor in South Lanarkshire. Some choice!

So the good people of Rutherglen and Hamilton West have a choice to make. We don’t yet know all who’ll be standing, but the two candidates who have so far been put forward by Labour and SNP are certainly not ones I would vote for (and I have a vote).

One last general point. Are the recall rules fit for purpose? Is the tiny 10% of the constituency electorate (OK 14% in this case) really sufficient to end the career of an MP, especially when the combined might of parties attracting virtually 100% of the voting public are campaigning for the recall? Is it fair that those who oppose the recall get no voice? Is it fair that parties supporting the recall get to campaign for weeks before the recall petition is officially launched, when the MP is prohibited by Commons rules from putting her case during that time? Is it fair that parties can spend up to £10,000 each and make use of party members time, limited only by the number of members in each party, when the MP is effectively on their own? I realise you can’t expect fairness from Westminster, but surely this is just too one-sided.


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SALVO
The progress of Salvo has been the most encouraging development since 2022. It is doing sterling work educating Scots about the Claim of Right and spelling out what it means that the Scottish people are sovereign, not any Parliament. Salvo has joined with Liberation.scot to develop campaigns the results of which will be available soon.

LIBERATION.SCOT
We are seeking to build up liberation.scot to at least 100,000 signatures as part of our plan to win recognition at the UN as an official liberation movement. We intend to internationalise our battle for independence and through the setting up of the Scottish National Council we will develop our arguments to win progress in the international courts. Please help by signing up at liberation.scot. The membership of liberation.scot is also where the first members of Scottish National Congress will be balloted for selection.


Margaret Ferrier – Labour’s medical lies

A few weeks ago, I published a post commenting on a leaflet issued by the Labour party pretending to be a personal letter from Richard Watson, part time local GP and full time Labour activist. The leaflet set out Labour’s campaign strategy if a by-election should occur in Rutherglen and Hamilton West constituency. Their campaign would be solely based on smears, lies and exaggerations about Margaret Ferrier, the sitting MP, with no indication of any policy or planned activity to benefit the residents of the constituency because, as Labour is an English party, policy is made in London and is rarely designed to benefit anyone in Scotland. In fact, Labour policy is now indistinguishable from that of the Tories, so they definitely would want to hide it from Scots voters. Do you think it’s a good idea to elect a man whose party is based in another country?

In the post, I commented on the exaggeration (some would call it lies) in the leaflet of the current stage of the pandemic and, specifically, how many people were affected at the time of Margaret’s travel to London. Remember, at the time, there were no restrictions on travel to work and as Westminster rules prevented MPs participating in debates remotely, if Margaret wanted to take part in the debate, she had no choice but travel to London.

In the leaflet, Watson claimed that at the time of Margaret’s journey to London on parliamentary business, on 28th September 2020, Scottish hospitals were full and the virus was spreading faster in Scotland than anywhere else in the UK, a bold claim considering the much greater incidence of the disease in England.

Do the statistics justify the claims?

Were Scottish hospitals full? Based on Scottish Government figures, the number of patients in hospital with suspected or confirmed Covid were as follows. I have compared the 28th September figures with those on 21st January to show how close to full the September figures were.

DateNumber in HospitalNumber in ICUNew admissions
28th September, 20201231226
21st January, 20212,053156179
Scottish hospitals were not full on 28th September. The Labour statement is a lie.

Was the disease spreading faster in Scotland than in any other part of the UK. Based on NHS England, here are the comparative figures for England on 28th September, 2020. For context, the English population in 2020 was 10.3 times that of Scotland, so, if the virus was spreading at a faster rate in Scotland, you would expect the English figures to be less than 10.3 times the Scottish figures.

DateNumber in hospitalNumber in ICUNew admissions
28th September, 20201,955245308
15.920.411.8
The second row shows how much greater than Scotland the English figures are. In all comparisons, the English figures exceed the population multiplier. The disease was not spreading faster in Scotland than in other parts of the UK. The Labour statement is a lie.

For those who think that this is petty point-scoring, that the actual numbers don’t really matter, just consider. Labour didn’t have to make these statements. But they did. So, if Labour are prepared to lie about the Covid situation at the time of Margaret’s journey to London to get their own way, what else would they be prepared to lie about.

Of course, the Labour Party have a bit of a history of lying to us Scots. Remember Labour canvassers in the run-up to the independence referendum telling pensioners that a Yes vote would mean they would lose their pension? Labour thought it was an acceptable campaign tactic to terrify vulnerable Scots pensioners so they could get their own way. Not much has changed.

Do you really think it’s a good idea to elect a man whose party believes that lying is a reasonable campaign tactic?

As the quote at the top says, once you’ve been shown to have told a lie, everything else must be suspect. Labour’s whole argument against Margaret Ferrier is riddled with lies. Can we believe anything they are telling us?


BEAT THE CENSORS
Many Facebook sites are increasingly censoring bloggers like myself who can be critical of the actions of the SNP and the Scottish Government. They are attempting to prevent bloggers from getting their message out, so we have to depend on readers sharing the blog posts. If you liked this post or others I have written, please share this and take out a free subscription by clicking the follow button on the home page or on the posts. You will then be notified by email of any new posts on the blog. Thank you.


SALVO
The progress of Salvo has been the most encouraging development since 2022. It is doing sterling work educating Scots about the Claim of Right and spelling out what it means that the Scottish people are sovereign, not any Parliament. Salvo has joined with Liberation.scot to develop campaigns the results of which will be available soon.

LIBERATION.SCOT
We are seeking to build up liberation.scot to at least 100,000 signatures as part of our plan to win recognition at the UN as an official liberation movement. We intend to internationalise our battle for independence and through the setting up of the Scottish National Council we will develop our arguments to win progress in the international courts. Please help by signing up at liberation.scot. The membership of liberation.scot is also where the first members of Scottish National Congress will be balloted for selection.


Margaret Ferrier – The final countdown

So finally, we have the answer to what happens to SNP members when Nicola Sturgeon takes the huff.

Margaret Ferrier was much too keen on independence to have a place in Sturgeon’s SNP and, on top of that, she was getting too much publicity for all the hard work she put into campaigning. How dare she take some of the attention away from the glorious leader.

In Sturgeon’s SNP, you’re either ‘in’ or ‘out’, and Margaret wasn’t one of the ‘in’ crowd. So, when the chance arose to get rid of her, Sturgeon grabbed it with both hands.

“Off with her head”, said the yellow Queen, and all the obedient courtiers followed her lead. A nod and a wink to the media led not only to a deluge of column inches and TV and radio minutes, but also to a crowd of reporters (definitely not journalists) surrounding her home for days on end, making normal family life impossible. Imagine the stress that would be creating.

Losing the whip and suspension from the party followed, all arranged to make sure there was no let up on the stream of bad publicity, painting Margaret as pretty much the most evil person in Scotland, all this for trying to do your job and support your colleagues.

Sure, Margaret made a mistake. She should have waited until she got the result of the test, but she was under pressure to stick to arrangements she had made, particularly the debate she was leading in Westminster, where remote attendance was not permitted at that time.

While all other parties would have supported their member in such circumstances, the SNP were leading the charge to get rid of her. The difference between Margaret’s treatment by the party and that of other SNP elected members who made mistakes was huge.

Think of Patrick Grady, who made unwanted sexual advances to a junior member of staff. From the very top of the party, every effort was made to minimise the incident and support Grady, but not his victim. See The National’s view of it here. By the way, his punishment from Westminster was a two day suspension, though two years earlier, a Tory MP had been suspended for six weeks for a similar sexual offence.

Think of Jordan Linden, former leader of North Lanarkshire Council, also accused of sexual impropriety (SNP have a thing about sex, don’t they). Again a cover up and again more support for the alleged perpetrator than for the victim and those who reported it. A police investigation is on-going. See the Daily Record’s view here.

Calls for Margaret’s resignation followed. Do the ‘right’ thing, they all said. Just resign. Don’t make us have to get you suspended from Westminster and launch a recall petition. Just make it easy for us to replace you. Among the many calling for her resignation were members of her own constituency party. How could the local MSP and the local councillors be so quick to jump on the hate Margaret Ferrier bandwagon when they all owe their positions to the support they got from Margaret. They are the lowest of the low.

By this time, the Labour party had joined in the witch hunt. Sensing the opportunity to double the number of Scottish MPs (yes, they’ve only got one, Ian Murray, the only Labour party member in Scotland who owns his own Union Jack suit), they joined the SNP in campaigning as if the by-election had already been called.

Both parties conducted pretty nasty campaigns, focussing entirely on spreading abuse and lies about Margaret Ferrier, though Labour wins the prize for the nastiest leaflet.

But none of this would work without a suspension from the Commons. Following an investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, the Standards Committee recommended a 30 day suspension, which had to be approved by Parliament before becoming effective. In the last 50 years, only three MPs have been suspended for 30 days or more, Ian Paisley Jnr. (DUP) for failing to declare family holidays paid by the Sri Lancan Government, Keith Vaz (Lab) for offering to buy cocaine for sex workers and the aforementioned Rob Roberts (Tory) for breaching Parliaments sexual misconduct policy. No other MP has been suspended for breaching Covid rules, even though many have admitted to doing so.

Yesterday, 6th June, a vote in parliament resulted in approval of the committee’s recommendation. Both Labour and SNP members voted in favour, with Alba MPs being the only Scottish MPs to vote against. A recall petition is therefore triggered, with a by-election if 10% of the constituency electorate vote for it.

The action of the Labour MPs is understandable as they see this as the opportunity to revive their flagging fortunes in Scotland. Party advantage always trumps common decency.

But what’s the excuse for the 14 SNP MPs who voted in favour. There’s unlikely to be any party advantage as the SNP are unlikely to win the by-election. So why? Did they think they were doing the ‘right’ thing? (don’t make me laugh), or was this a case of Nicola Sturgeon’s spite being carried forward despite the change of leader? Does Sturgeon still wield that much influence that they were too afraid to go against her wishes? Or was this another case of acting despite the likely party disadvantage. Not the first time this has happened, of course. I am reminded of the party refusing to support Neale Hanvey (another strong independence supporter) in the 2019 election despite the opportunity to remove the then shadow Scottish Secretary of State (Neale won anyway as an independent without party support).

Here are the 14 SNP MPs who put Nicola Sturgeon’s spite above common decency, failing to support an ex-colleague, despite several of them probably in part owing their position to Margaret Ferrier’s campaigning efforts.

Image courtesy of @Gillian_Emm

We’ll all remember these names next year when the UK general election comes along and we’ll be pleased to offer them as much support as they offered Margaret Ferrier, a thoroughly decent and hard-working MP who in no way deserves what she is going through.


BEAT THE CENSORS
Many Facebook sites are increasingly censoring bloggers like myself who can be critical of the actions of the SNP and the Scottish Government. They are attempting to prevent bloggers from getting their message out, so we have to depend on readers sharing the blog posts. If you liked this post or others I have written, please share this and take out a free subscription by clicking the follow button on the home page or on the posts. You will then be notified by email of any new posts on the blog. Thank you.


SALVO
The progress of Salvo has been the most encouraging development since 2022. It is doing sterling work educating Scots about the Claim of Right and spelling out what it means that the Scottish people are sovereign, not any Parliament. Salvo has joined with Liberation.scot to develop campaigns the results of which will be available soon.

LIBERATION.SCOT
We are seeking to build up liberation.scot to at least 100,000 signatures as part of our plan to win recognition at the UN as an official liberation movement. We intend to internationalise our battle for independence and through the setting up of the Scottish National Council we will develop our arguments to win progress in the international courts. Please help by signing up at liberation.scot. The membership of liberation.scot is also where the first members of Scottish National Congress will be balloted for selection.


The rotten corpse of the Labour Party in Scotland speaks from the grave

Last weekend brought what must be one of the worst examples of political canvassing in Scotland as the Labour party continued running an election campaign when no election has been called. Labour’s attempts to generate excitement for an election which may never happen has been going on for weeks now, with them spending vast amounts of time, effort and money on a campaign that doesn’t yet exist and may yet never exist if the Tories in Westminster get their own way.

If Labour want to spend their money on non-existing elections, that’s up to them, as long as they stick to the bounds of decency and propriety. However, on this occasion, they definitely crossed the line.

Labour sent out an election communication to constituents in Rutherglen and Hamilton West pretending to be a personal letter from a local doctor using a handwriting font, presumably to try to fool people into believing it was a genuine personal letter. The imprint at the end of page one of the leaflet (let’s call it for what it actually is), which political parties are obliged to add to election material, gives away the source and the reason for it being sent out.

Note that so-called Scottish Labour couldn’t even bring themselves to support a Scottish printing business. The leaflet was printed in Wales. The imprint is only on the first page of the leaflet, hoping, no doubt, that people won’t notice it.

The local doctor, Dr. Richard Watson, the alleged creator of the leaflet, is a Labour party member, one of the few remaining Labour party members in the constituency, but at no time in the leaflet is he identified as such. (Am I the only one who has difficulty in referring him as Dr, Watson, bringing back memories of the much nicer Dr, Watson in the Sherlock Holmes stories.) As an aside, he was recently in the press for getting punched by one of his patients. While no one will condone violence against a doctor, or anyone else, his reputation is such that some may be surprised that it’s only happened once.

The leaflet reveals that the Labour party’s master plan for regaining the seat is to trash the reputation of the incumbent MP, Margaret Ferrier. They are helped in this by Commons regulations which prohibit Margaret from challenging Labour’s nasty slurs, but allow Labour free hand in making them. Slurs are all Labour have as they don’t have any Scottish policies, policy making being reserved to London, and, in any case, London’s policies are virtually indistinguishable from the Tories and wouldn’t go down well with many Scottish voters. So best not to tell anybody.

Is this leaflet, piling more stress on Margaret Ferrier, the action of a doctor, whose Hippocratic oath requires him to do no harm, or is it the action of an uncaring politician who will do or say anything, no matter what harm it does, as long as his candidate benefits. Is there not a conflict here that needs to be investigated? I wonder what the General Medical Council’s view would be?

Let’s look at the leaflet in more detail.

We’ll ignore the first part of the first page, which is just Watson telling us all how good he was during the pandemic and how he thinks he never made a mistake (would it be churlish to say he’s just not admitting to any mistakes?), because he apparently believes that making a mistake, no matter what else you’ve done, means the end of everything. We know Margaret made a mistake. I won’t go through the background to it as I’ve already covered it here for anyone who hasn’t read it, but should it be the end of everything, especially as she’s already been punished, much more severely than any other MP who broke the rules.

I’ll just make a couple of comments.

Average daily new cases and admissions to hospital because of Covid at the last week of September, 2020, when the incident took place, were low at 538 and 35 respectively, compared with (eg.) 2,352 cases and 201 admissions the following January (from Scottish Government statistics). As a GP, Watson would know that, so his statement is at least an exaggeration.

The leaflet was sent out last Thursday, before the planned Commons vote the next day. The statement that Margaret was suspended for 30 days is therefore incorrect (the vote wasn’t held because of lack of MPs), just wishful thinking on Labour’s part.

The second page is just party political nonsense. Labour’s replacement “lives here and cares about our community”, so what so does Margaret.

“While Margaret was breaking rules”, really, when we are talking about one incident. He was “trying to support his students in impossible situations”. “Impossible”, does that mean he didn’t succeed?

However, there is one sentence in the leaflet that I agree with. “We deserve to have a functioning MP.”, because that’s what we have now. Margaret is a well-liked, hard-working MP who helped many of her constituents during the pandemic, a fact to which many would attest. She has not “failed to represent the people of Rutherglen and Hamilton West “, but there’s every likelihood that replacing her with a Labour party stooge would do just that. People stopped voting for Labour because they realised they were useless, all promises and no delivery, and this nasty leaflet is unlikely to change many minds.

Labour are calling for a “fresh voice”. Remember what the Labour party brought to Scotland when they were in charge in Westminster. They brought PFI, a funding scheme for building projects which forced local councils to pay vastly more for schools, hospitals and other public buildings than they were worth and is arguably the main reason for the funding pressures councils are in today, because they are still paying for Labour mistakes as they will be for the next 20 to 25 years. Remember also when Labour returned £1.5Bn to Westminster, because they really couldn’t think of anything to spend the money on. Still, it got Jack McConnell a peerage, so it was money well (not) spent.

So, let’s look at the person Labour are proposing to replace the hard-working incumbent, Margaret Ferrier. Even local Labour activists didn’t want him. He was imposed by the party in preference to four other local possible candidates and many activists have said they won’t support him. An admittedly left-wing view of his anointment can be seen here.

Remember too that Labour want to deny the people of Scotland the ability to decide on their form of government. The Labour party died in Scotland following their alliance with the Tories in the Better Together campaign in the independence referendum which showed clearly that they were just another English party with little or no interest in Scotland. Nothing that’s happened since them has made anyone rethink that view.

Is this the fresh voice the people of Rutherglen and Hamilton West want and need, a bunch of unionist chancers whose only policy to support the people is to try to trash the reputation of a well-liked, hard-working local MP?


BEAT THE CENSORS
Many Facebook sites are increasingly censoring bloggers like myself who can be critical of the actions of the SNP and the Scottish Government. They are attempting to prevent bloggers from getting their message out, so we have to depend on readers sharing the blog posts. If you liked this post or others I have written, please share this and take out a free subscription by clicking the follow button on the home page or on the posts. You will then be notified by email of any new posts on the blog. Thank you.


SALVO
The progress of Salvo has been the most encouraging development since 2022. It is doing sterling work educating Scots about the Claim of Right and spelling out what it means that the Scottish people are sovereign, not any Parliament. Salvo has joined with Liberation.scot to develop campaigns the results of which will be available soon.

LIBERATION.SCOT
We are seeking to build up liberation.scot to at least 100,000 signatures as part of our plan to win recognition at the UN as an official liberation movement. We intend to internationalise our battle for independence and through the setting up of the Scottish National Council we will develop our arguments to win progress in the international courts. Please help by signing up at liberation.scot. The membership of liberation.scot is also where the first members of Scottish National Congress will be balloted for selection.


Margaret Ferrier – an SNP stitch-up

While we will all acknowledge that Margaret was wrong to travel to London while waiting for the results of a test, her travel back was following advice given to her by parliamentary authorities, advice also given to several other MPs, what we also need to acknowledge is the huge difference between the treatment she has received, both from the media and from politicians, and the treatment meted out to others who broke the rules. In particular, the response of her “friends” and colleagues in the SNP must have been particularly difficult for her to bear.

Known not to be a keen supporter of the SNP’s gender reform plans, but a keen independence supporter, she received no help from the party, who took the opportunity to try to rid themselves of someone who wasn’t following the party line.

A party member lauded a few months earlier by Nicola Sturgeon for being the hardest worker in the party, she was suddenly the most evil person in Scotland. Nicola Sturgeon immediately called for her to resign, a call that was echoed by many other members of the party, particularly many in her own constituency. It must have been sickening to have the Rutherglen SNP MSP and several local SNP councillors, all of whom had only been elected to their positions through Margaret’s efforts, turn on her, joined enthusiastically by the convenor of the Rutherglen constituency association, her former campaign manager. Politics may be a dirty business, but surely this was beyond reprehensible.

No help, no sympathy, no duty of care, only ‘get out of here, we don’t want you any more’.

Of course, the moment it hit the news again, we had Humza Yousaf, himself in his position under extremely suspicious circumstances, calling for her to resign, just like his former (current?) boss and vowing to spend money the party doesn’t have to campaign for a recall, despite the increasing likelihood of a Labour victory in any by-election. It seems that it’s more important to get rid of a pro-independence MP from Westminster in case she shows the SNP benchwarmers up. However, as we’ll see, not all Covid rule breakers are bad.

It should be pointed out that Margaret broke no Covid laws. At the time only government guidance existed, not legally enforceable, which is why she wasn’t charged with breaking any Covid laws. There were none. Margaret was charged with reckless endangerment, a charge no other MP, or indeed, no one else has ever faced in relation to the Covid crisis. Here’s an extract from Scottish Government advice at the time.

Extract from Scottish Government advice as at October 2020 (highlighting is mine)

We want people to be safe. We are not advising that people who have already booked holiday accommodation in October need to cancel. More generally, please think about whether you need to travel, especially if you live in or would be travelling to, or through, the central belt. The Scottish Government is asking people within the central belt areas to think carefully about whether they need to travel outside their local health board area and, where that is necessary, to plan to do so safely.

Working from home is expected of all those who can. Non-essential offices should remain closed. Public transport use should be minimised as much as possible – such as for education and work – where it cannot be done from home.

At the time MPs were not allowed to take part in commons business remotely. Margaret was scheduled to lead a debate on that Monday, which she could not do from home. One of the reasons for travelling to London was her desire not to let her colleagues down. Ironic, really.

Was her treatment different from that meted out to other political figures? Let’s look at a few examples.

Peter Gibson (Tory MP)

The Darlington MP travelled 250 miles with covid during lockdown, and encouraged constituents to do the same. Speaking to a local newspaper, Mr Gibson said he first came down with a cough on March 18 – before the lockdown, while working in Parliament, and was advised to take the train home. When it was suspected that he had covidhe was advised to travel to and isolate at home, undertaking a 250 mile train journey from London.

He hasn’t been sanctioned and he’s still an MP.

Kit Malthouse (Tory Minister)

POLICING minister Kit Malthouse sparked virus panic in the Home Office after breaching Covid rules, it’s claimed.

Mr Malthouse, 54, took a test on his way to the office but did not wait for the result before going in. It later came back positive. Staff were forced to self-isolate and the Home Office’s HQ in central London had to be deep cleaned and the air vents changed, the Sunday Times reported.

Mr Malthouse has said he did not have symptoms and had taken a “precautionary” fast-acting test which delivers results within 30 minutes. (Why did he do that if he didn’t have symptoms?) Government guidance says workers should remain socially distanced after taking a test until they receive the all-clear.

He hasn’t been sanctioned and he’s still an MP.

Dominic Cummings (Advisor to the PM)

Dominic Cummings trips have been well publicised, first to Durham, 264 miles from his home in London, apparently the only place where he and his wife could get childcare, and then to Barnard Castle, to test his eyesight. You might think an eyechart would be the safer way.

Much embarrassment for the Tory party, but no jail time for Cummings.

King Charles III

As Prince Charles, he and his entourage travelled from his normal residence in England to Balmoral, where, as he had symptoms, he was tested and found to be positive. He and his wife self-isolated, but members of his staff were seen in the village, risking the spread of the disease in an area previously free from infection.

No action was ever taken against any of them.

Ian Blackford (SNP Westminster leader)

Ian Blackford isolated himself after a 600-mile trip to his Skye home while the UK was in lockdown, while calling for Dominic Cummings to resign or be sacked for his trip to Durham. He denied wrongdoing, as MPs were entitled to return home from London to self-isolate.

No action has been taken by either the party or the police.

Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater (Green MSPs)

Scottish Greens co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater were forced to apologise after being pictured in a pub, breaking Covid rules on indoor social gatherings. The two leaders, along with fellow MSP Ross Greer and another man, were seen together in an Edinburgh bar. Edinburgh’s Covid restrictions at the time meant only three households were allowed to be together in indoor hospitality.

The Scottish Greens said its MSPs had made an “honest mistake”.

For the greasy gender Greens, an apology was enough to get them off the hook. The only action taken was for Nicola Sturgeon to reward them with a promotion to her Cabinet, an action repeated by Humza Yousaf. It appears that some Covid rule breakers are acceptable to the SNP leadership.

So why the difference in treatment? Nicola Sturgeon was obviously annoyed because Margaret was strongly in favour of independence, but not a strong believer in the party’s concentration on gender issues and we all know what happens when Sturgeon gets annoyed. No one gets away unscathed with annoying Sturgeon. And, of course, anyone in the party who wants to make progress has to follow Sturgeon’s lead or they’ll likely suffer the same fate. It was the reaction of the SNP leadership that triggered the media frenzy and resulted in the action from the same compliant prosecution authorities and police that had delivered the earlier stitch-up of Alex Salmond.

Ironically, Margaret might be saved by the Tories who don’t want to create a precedent which might affect the decision in the on-going Boris Johnson affair, but we won’t know until the Commons returns from their Easter break.