Sam Taylor

@staylorish • 11,637 subscribers

Runs @These_Islands. “cannot stand the awesome reality of Scotland’s energy wealth” - Alex Salmond. Tweeting in a personal capacity.

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Sam Taylor

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Hannah Mary Goodlad has portentous but vacuous speechifying down to a tee.

1/🚨Well, this is awkward. Very awkward. If Scotland had voted yes in 2014, the SNP’s triple lock commitment applied only for the first term of an independent parliament. Nicola Sturgeon was unambiguous about this in the Scottish Parliament (clip is from 26th November 2013).

“The leech that grows fat feeding on Scottish resources.” Yes, of course he is talking about Westminster. Jack Middleton displaying his usual combination of stupidity and malice.

Ross Greer is asked if he considers Zionism to be racism, and his answer is unambiguous: “yes”

“I’m sorry, there are absolutely no fiscal requirements for joining the EU. What you are talking about is the Exchange Rate Mechanism.” Jaw-dropping ignorance from Màiri McAllan.

“I was exonerated. If there had been a shred of evidence that I had been complicit in this, or had known about what he was doing, then I wouldn’t have been cleared.” Sturgeon must know that a decision not to charge can be made despite plenty of “shreds” of evidence.

Geissler: “Did you write that document back in 2013 looking at cutting pensions?” Swinney: “Well obviously I contributed to cabinet papers in the Scottish Government. Of course I’ve done that.” He then tries to wriggle out of this confession by denying it was an actual plan.

Collette Stevenson’s now notorious question is not just an amusing gaffe. At last week’s Transport Committee she asked a question which hinted at her confusion. She has participated in hours of these meetings without understanding much, if anything, of what was going on.

Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald: “Liverpool is the 33rd Irish county, so we may lay claim to that in a startling innovation.” A joke, of course. But quite a revealing one.

1/ Sturgeon’s claim that the “motor vehicles” item on the balance sheet could have been “the rental of motor vehicles” got a lot of attention yesterday. Initially, I was prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt here. Even though “rental” would usually imply a short term…

1/ Hannah Mary Goodlad makes a blatantly false claim about the relative performance of Scotland’s economy in parliament today. The truth: between Q1 2016 and Q1 2026, real GDP growth in Scotland was 6.8% vs real GDP growth of 13.7% for the UK over the same period.

Oops. James Mitchell responds (see quoted tweet) to Ross Greer’s suggestion in parliament that the Scottish Green amendment is closest to his proposals.

Oh dear. In March 2021, Lorna Slater was asked: “If you are elected as a list MSP, will you hold regular publicly advertised surgeries around the region?” “Absolutely!” she said. And once elected, how many surgeries did Slater then hold, over the five-year parliament? ZERO ⬇️

Ed Miliband has his faults, but the idea that he is scheming away at Westminster to maximise the profits of huge energy companies, by denying consumers cheap energy, is utterly bonkers. A deranged conspiracy theory.

The Scottish Greens’ ill-advised attempt to imply James Mitchell’s support comes back to bite them as Jackie Baillie sums up for Scottish Labour.

John Swinney says that on day one of a new SNP government, he will request a Section 30 order transferring powers over energy to the Scottish Parliament. If this was a serious idea, you’d expect the civil service to have done some preparatory work. So… have they? Of course not.

“It’s not GB Energy. It’s Scotland’s energy.” It’s not like other nationalisms. It’s civic nationalism.

Scotland’s energy wealth is being “siphoned off” by Westminster, says John Swinney. Populist bullshit of the highest order. #bbcdn

Stationary wind turbines which (when they do spin) produce electricity at a cost of £163/MWh (double the current wholesale price). A perfect encapsulation of the utter vacuity of SNP rhetoric on energy. Imagine if these costs could not be defrayed across all GB bill payers…

Màiri McAllan seems to believe that an independent Scotland would end global conflicts by “proposing peace”. If only someone had thought of this before. Actually, they have. It was Jeremy Corbyn.

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Astonishing. The SNP’s Collette Stevenson has been an MSP since 2021, and had already sat through two hours of this morning’s Transport Committee meeting, when she asked a jaw-dropping question: “I take it Transport Scotland is a registered charity?”

Alan Cumming on how women have ruined feminism for him.

PISA tests fail to measure the advances in “artistic expression” delivered by the Scottish education system, says Màiri McAllan.

Some kind of vetting failure has allowed a remarkably sensible young man to join the SNP. The conference is unimpressed.

John Swinney completely flummoxed under tough questioning from kathryn samson on the SNP’s time-limited commitment to the triple lock made during the 2014 referendum campaign. He was clearly not expecting to be challenged on this, and has no answer.

Hannah Mary Goodlad comes out fighting.

John Swinney simply cannot respond when asked by Lucy Dunn about the SNP’s time-limited commitment to the triple lock made during the 2014 referendum campaign. He ignores the question and just witlessly recites his prepared remarks.

Oh dear. John Swinney confirms that pensioners in an independent Scotland would have their state pension paid in a brand new Scottish currency, which everyone knows would devalue against sterling. Great question from Claire Baker.

Kate Campbell thinks she knows better than the experts when it comes to explaining Scotland’s “success” in closing the PISA score attainment gap. She is, of course, very wrong. The gap has closed largely because pupils from wealthier families now do far worse than they used to.

Stephen Flynn tries to turn his lack of preparation for this morning’s Transport Committee meeting into a bit of a joke. Willie Rennie is decidedly unimpressed.

Hannah Mary Goodlad has posted another video, about her “unapologetic, brave politics”. Complete with “inspirational” background music. She really is quite full of herself.

Màiri McAllan doubles down on her “I’m not listening to a Tory” line on this morning’s #BBCSundayShow

Can the SNP’s Kate Campbell explain who would pay for all the grid investment necessary in Scotland if energy was to be devolved? No, of course she can’t. Embarrassing stuff.

Three cheers for that audience member. And deft moderation by Stephen Jardine. “So wait a minute… we pay the supermarkets to lower their prices… is that what you’re suggesting?” An unusually entertaining and illuminating 90 seconds from last week’s #bbcdn

John Swinney castigates opposition MSPs for their “sense of entitlement” in asking him questions in parliament.

When martin geissler asked John Swinney yesterday about Jack Middleton blaming the SNP government for slow consenting of renewables projects, Swinney found it impossible to believe that Middleton would have said such a thing. Well he did, and here it is.

Nobody who can count thought the triple lock would survive to 2050. The difference between a more gentle gradient of increases and a counterfactual (that was never going to happen) is not money pensioners will in any meaningful sense “lose”. John Swinney is nothing but a conman.

Graeme McCormick makes his first contribution to this year’s SNP conference. And he is not happy. I’m sure we’ll be hearing more from Graeme…

John Swinney again pretends that because extraordinary Covid spending tapered off, creating negative consequentials a few years ago, he can no longer have confidence in the Barnett formula. Just a fundamentally dishonest and unserious argument. Lucy Dunn asking the questions.

Stephen Flynn’s performance before the Transport Committee today was extraordinary, and not just because of that one clip that’s doing the rounds. Is it really appropriate to sit there with a permanent smirk on your face, trying to turn every question into a joke? Watch this ⬇️.