Mark Irvine - Blogger, Campaigner, Organiser

  Canned Heat jumped into my head the other day - the bluesy American group  had a number of hits including 'Going Up The Country': "I'm going to some place "Where I've never been before"

“ “What I want to know,” says an exasperated SNP backbencher, “is how we’ve ended up with a leader being held to ransom by f***ing cranks.” ..announcement by..Greens that there is to be an emergency meeting next month..has provoked an already unhappy SNP” https://t.co/S45kgjeOiC — David Forrester (@dj_forrester) April 24, 2024 SNP backbenchers are getting mighty fed up with their party leaders.    

So I'm still waiting to hear from my constituency MSP, the SNP's Kaukab Stewart, in response to my letter about the new Hate Crime Act (see post below).  Now we pay MSPs a decent salary of £72,000 and they can access a further £157,000 a year to employ office staff who support them in their constituency/parliamentary work. So it seems reasonable to expect MSPs to respond quickly to queries and representations from local constituents, o r am I missing something? Scotland's Hate Crime Act ( April 16, 2024 ) I have sent the following letter to my Glasgow constituency MSP - the SNP's Kaukab Stewart. And also to the 7 other Glasgow 'list' MSPs - Anas Sarwar, Pauline McNeil, Pam Duncan-Glancy, Paul Sweeney, Annie Wells, Sandesh Gulhane and Patrick Harvie Dear Kaukab Stewart Scotland's Hate Crime Act I understand the Scottish Parliament will debate a motion on Wednesday to repeal the Hate Crime Act and  would urge you to support this motion for the following reason

I hope this is the start of a reverse ferret by a number of foolish irresponsible politicians on #CassReport . We’ve just had a labour MP apologising in House of Commons for misrepresenting Dr Cass’s methodology. Very welcome https://t.co/YjCRjfDfyb — Joanna Cherry KC (@joannaccherry) April 22, 2024 One minute the Greens Ross Greer is banging about his unswerving support trans rights and self-ID. Yet the next, this jumped up little twerp insists he was just passing on a tweet from a trans activist who called the Cass Review a "transphobic, conservative document".

Sisters - all the time we were campaigning against Self ID in Scotland; the medical and social transitioning of our children across UK and for the right to free speech, we weren’t battling Nicola Sturgeon, NHS et al, but doing Putin’s bidding. Who knew? (What a plonker)… https://t.co/57lP4Oy0o3 — Susan Dalgety (@DalgetySusan) April 22, 2024 Some plonker name of Peter Jukes cast aspersions about the motives of gender critical feminists in Scotland - accusing them of doing the bidding of a certain Vladimir Putin. But even the dogs on the street know this to be a whole load of mansplaining baloney.

justice is devolved. the scottish government has similar plans. that the first minister will, effectively, complain the uk government hasn’t ignored devolution and gone ahead and legislated for scotland on a devolved issue shows he has nothing but grievance. https://t.co/SzgR44hHdS — euan mccolm (@euanmccolm) April 23, 2024 Why should UK ministers do the heavy lifting for SNP ministers on such a clearly devolved 'justice' issue -  Scotland's legal system is very different to the rest of the UK, as everyone knows. Scotland's senior law officer, a member of Humza Yousaf's cabinet, insists that Scotland should clear up its own mess when it comes to wrongly convicted sub-postmasters and the Horizon/Post Office scandal.