SNP BAN PUBLIC FROM LEADERSHIP HUSTINGS
They might be choosing our next First Minister, but the SNP has prohibited public and media from viewing nine leadership hustings to ensure a "safe space". What a circus.
There will be no online live streams of any of the nine SNP leadership hustings taking place in coming days and weeks. No public viewing and journalists from print media kept out. Members of television media will be permitted to take pictures and a short video at the start of each hustings prior to being ejected. Welcome to the SNP leadership election circus.
SNP tell public they aren’t welcome
All of this has been confirmed by the SNP’s National Executive Committee (NEC), on the basis allowing non-party members to eyeball proceedings would be unsafe.
"It is the members who will be voting for the next leader of the party, so the SNP NEC has designed the party hustings as a safe space"
Strangely enough nobody from the SNP has been able to provide any examples or details of the sorts of perils we may face should the ordinary voters be able to view proceedings.
Is there there a danger someone could be hurt should a Daily Record journalist sit in the front row jotting notes? Might good governance be placed in jeopardy if my grocer is able to tune in to listen to the hustings?
I suppose my mental health could be exposed to a precarious situation if I had to listen to hours of Humza Yousaf, Kate Forbes and Ash Regan arguing about which of them views gay people with less contempt or how independence is just around the next corner despite all evidence to the contrary.
The reality is, the only “safe space” our lords and masters in the governing party wish to protect is the bunker keeping their collective reputations; currently being shredded by the internecine squabbling.
Scottish Tory Murdo Fraser points out the - surely obvious - issue that this isn’t just a competition impacting on team-SNP:
“We are talking here not just about the next SNP leader but also Scotland’s next First Minister”
This drive to sanitise and isolate the leadership race from any and all scrutiny from voters, pundits and hacks is risking creating an actual unsafe space. Just how much of a “safe space” is our nation to end up being if it becomes an accepted norm that it is acceptable to restrict media access to debates concerning our next First Minister?
Be under no illusions you as an ordinary voter, myself as a humble pundit and every single journalist in the country should be furious at this news. What the SNP have unwittingly exposed is their sincere contempt for accountability and scrutiny in politics. But more than this, they reveal their defiant explosive distain for every single Scottish taxpayer in the kingdom.
I see Scottish Labour’s Ian Murray has written to the nationalist demanding this embargo on transparency be lifted
“It is completely unacceptable that such an important contest can be conducted in secrecy, with the people of Scotland given no say whatsoever in choosing their next leader,”
It is beggars belief that the hustings to decide who will be our next First Minister has been set out-of-bounds to the public. Incredible that the nationalists think they can get away with telling Joe-blow thou-shalt-not witness the discourse of the dominant governing party of Scotland.
Given the clown-show nature of their ‘leadership’ race thus far perhaps the SNP thinking is that discretion is the better part of valour? Sure, its bad to embargo the public, but its still better than allowing anymore people to discover just how unhinged and detached from reality the three candidates are.
A shallow talent pool
Mr Yousaf is a serial disaster in every government department he’s been in charge of, a classic case of a blunderer failing upward by saying the right things. Pity about the obvious lack of competency. Just have a gander at these six graphs to understand just how much of a disaster Mr Yousaf has been for our health service.
Ms Forbes is a reactionary whose moral compass is to the right of most Scottish Tories. This is a candidate who disapproves of gays like me being able to marry or raise kids in a family unit. She also doesn’t believe abortions or sex outside marriage is ethical. She’s Scotland’s answer to Jacob Rees-Mogg, who I note has gallantly leapt to the defence of our MSP for the 19th Century. Mr Mogg thinks Ms Forbes displays similar qualities to Mary Queen of Scots (no really, he thinks this)
Facing the furore over her reactionary social attitudes, Ms Forbes has helpfully explained “I am not a dictator” Phew! Thank heavens for that. Still, what a bizarre thing for a politician running in an election in a liberal democracy to feel the need to clarify.
Then there is the outsiders-outsider Ash Regan, who thinks repeat unilateral declarations of independence is somehow a sensible way forward. The less said about the fundamentalist nationalist’s preferred candidate the better.
Our right of access
But the elephant in the room is that the Scottish National Party do not get to decide protecting their inadequate candidates from accountability is more important than our right to hear the views, voices and attitudes of who will be ruling over us.
Any reasonable onlooker can already verify what we already know at this point, the SNP are tired, out of ideas and fleeing the public’s gaze. Little wonder, just look at the quality of these strawberry generation politicians - each one of them having only ever worked in politics their whole lives. They may bruise easily if exposed to the scrutiny of ordinary tax payers, but the rest of the nation will be left with more than metaphorical bruises if this charade is permitted to play out behind closed doors.
For a party which enjoys presenting itself as a ‘progressive’, ‘open’ and ‘civic’ nationalism they sure seem to have an unhealthy penchant for the old fashioned politics of the closed-door smoke-filled room.