Sturgeon to resign as FM

[jeremyp]

Best one I saw today


https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/snp-planning-to-honour-nicola-sturgeon-with-statue-in-scottish-parliament-4087364

I would suggest not letting an AI generate the actual statue on that showing. Also, I think it would be better to wait a few years before honouring Sturgeon in this way.

[Aruntraveller]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-65187823

Hmmm!

[Nearly Sane]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-65187823

Hmmm!

Hmmm indeed. The arrest of Murrell has been being speculated on for a few weeks but it actually happening is still a shock.

[ProfessorDavey]

Seems to be becoming standard practice that when you leave a position in office that either your party, parliament or the police will take action against you or your family. So we have:

Trump - arrested and criminal chanrges
Murrell - arrested
Johnson - facing parliamentary sanctions that could result in being booted out of parliament (plus also fined of course, but that was while in office)
Corbyn - kicked out of the party, not allowed to stand
Salmond - arrested and charged

Now perhaps this is all fine and due process, but I have to say I find this trend a little worrying. It used to be tin pot dictatorships or barely democracies where an ousted leader would be arrested almost as a matter of course. In the west we used the respect their time in office and elevate them to elder statesperson level.

The question is whether this reflects a shift in the nature of our leaders or a shift in the nature of our politics.

[Gordon]

The Guardian live blog has a pic showing that police have erected a large tent outside their house - hard to imagine they'd do that just to keep the press at bay.

Since, as NS says, rumours of an arrest had been mentioned I wonder to what extent that forecast explains her fairly rapid resignation: had she still been FM she'd have had to go anyway.   

[Aruntraveller]

The question is whether this reflects a shift in the nature of our leaders or a shift in the nature of our politics.

Surely it is not an either/or situation?

[ProfessorDavey]

Surely it is not an either/or situation?

You are right - it might be both, but I feel there is a shift - we are seeing stuff routinely now that would have been unthinkable even just a few years ago.

I'm not sure whether part of this is a developing narrative that you don't just need to take over from your predecessor, their reputation needs to be completely destroyed.

[jeremyp]

The Guardian live blog has a pic showing that police have erected a large tent outside their house - hard to imagine they'd do that just to keep the press at bay.

Since, as NS says, rumours of an arrest had been mentioned I wonder to what extent that forecast explains her fairly rapid resignation: had she still been FM she'd have had to go anyway.

I don't think she would necessarily have to go (as long as she is not implicated), but it would have become an extremely difficult job to run the country while her husband and former CEO of her political party is on trial for fraud. I think her sudden resignation is linked to this.

[jeremyp]

Seems to be becoming standard practice that when you leave a position in office that either your party, parliament or the police will take action against you or your family. So we have:

Trump - arrested and criminal chanrges
Murrell - arrested
Johnson - facing parliamentary sanctions that could result in being booted out of parliament (plus also fined of course, but that was while in office)
Corbyn - kicked out of the party, not allowed to stand
Salmond - arrested and charged

Now perhaps this is all fine and due process, but I have to say I find this trend a little worrying. It used to be tin pot dictatorships or barely democracies where an ousted leader would be arrested almost as a matter of course. In the west we used the respect their time in office and elevate them to elder statesperson level.

The question is whether this reflects a shift in the nature of our leaders or a shift in the nature of our politics.

I'm not quite sure what you are trying to imply here. Is it that politicians are becoming more corrupt or that people are going after politicians after they leave office as a sort of vengeance?

Maybe it's just a random cluster. Politicians have been in trouble before many many times.

[ProfessorDavey]

I'm not quite sure what you are trying to imply here. Is it that politicians are becoming more corrupt or that people are going after politicians after they leave office as a sort of vengeance?

I'm not sure, but something feels to have changed. Remember I'm not talking about random politicians, but leaders of political parties and in some cases Presidents, PMs and FMs.

Maybe it's just a random cluster. Politicians have been in trouble before many many times.

See above - this isn't just common or garden politicians but leaders of political parties and in some cases Presidents, PMs and FMs. This doesn't feel like a random cluster, which would imply that there had been similar examples in the past, and now we are just seeing a (perhaps temporary) increase in their number. This feels like a step change - when in the past has any ex-President, ex-PM, ex-FM or ex-Leader of the opposition been arrested, faced criminal charges or been subject to processes that may well throw them out of parliament or the political party they used to lead. I just don't think this was happening until recently.

[jeremyp]

when in the past has any ex-President, ex-PM, ex-FM or ex-Leader of the opposition been arrested, faced criminal charges or been subject to processes that may well throw them out of parliament or the political party they used to lead. I just don't think this was happening until recently.

Nixon. Berlusconi. Ulysses S Grant was once arrested (for speeding).

[Nearly Sane]

Despite being now able to buy a fairly large island with the dividends from my investments in popcorn manufacturers in the US and UK,  I'm  fearful of what's going to happen in Scotland. There's 3 years for a govt to go which could just be engulfed in scandal for most of that time. Before this morning's announcement there was already talk this week of an increasing numbers of back bench SNP MSPs being 'in revolt' - after all 52 - 48 elections always seem to work out so well.

The Labour Party should be well placed to take advantage here - though again only this week Starmer stated he had effectively sacked previous Labour leader in Scotland, Richard Leonard, and Leonard made a wee video about how the only true Keir in Labour was Hardie.

There has been suggestion, and it was made a couple of weeks back that action against Murrell had been delayed till after the leadership election. Already Murdo Fraser of the Tories in Scotland has been suggesting that action taken a couple of weeks ago then Forbes would have been elected.


I'm getting bored of living in interesting times, even though the investments do so well.

[ProfessorDavey]

Nixon.

Weird one that as in some respects it is entirely the opposite of the current situation.

Nixon resigned due to scandal (like many politicians do) but he wasn't arrested and did not face criminal charges - indeed he was specifically pardoned by his successor so that he couldn't face charged. So rather than try to destroy his predecessor, Ford actually acted to protect him.

[ProfessorDavey]

Berlusconi

Sure but Italy is another world.

[jeremyp]

Despite being now able to buy a fairly large island with the dividends from my investments in popcorn manufacturers in the US and UK,  I'm  fearful of what's going to happen in Scotland. There's 3 years for a govt to go which could just be engulfed in scandal for most of that time. Before this morning's announcement there was already talk this week of an increasing numbers of back bench SNP MSPs being 'in revolt' - after all 52 - 48 elections always seem to work out so well.

The Labour Party should be well placed to take advantage here - though again only this week Starmer stated he had effectively sacked previous Labour leader in Scotland, Richard Leonard, and Leonard made a wee video about how the only true Keir in Labour was Hardie.

There has been suggestion, and it was made a couple of weeks back that action against Murrell had been delayed till after the leadership election. Already Murdo Fraser of the Tories in Scotland has been suggesting that action taken a couple of weeks ago then Forbes would have been elected.


I'm getting bored of living in interesting times, even though the investments do so well.

The SNP needs a really strong leader because it is a fairly loose coalition of people who only really share one policy in common i.e. Scottish independence. Were I a supporter of the SNP, I would certainly be fearful for the future of the party but I'm not fearful for the future of Scotland. Is it likely that the SNP will be pursuing policies in the next three years that would be destructive of Scotland? I don't see it.

NB I was confident that the SNP would implode after Salmond stepped down. Nicola Sturgeon turned out to be a far better politician than I expected. Maybe I'm wrong again.

[jeremyp]

Sure but Italy is another world.

Ah, OK. A literal "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

[ProfessorDavey]

Ulysses S Grant was once arrested (for speeding).

So you go back 150 years for an example which is equivalent to the FPNs that both our current and previous PMs have received.

[ProfessorDavey]

Ah, OK. A literal "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

No - the Scots have had two rounds of it - Sturgeon throwing Salmond under the bus and looking like Yousaf happy to throw Sturgeon under the bus.

[jeremyp]

Weird one that as in some respects it is entirely the opposite of the current situation.

Nixon resigned due to scandal (like many politicians do) but he wasn't arrested and did not face criminal charges - indeed he was specifically pardoned by his successor so that he couldn't face charged. So rather than try to destroy his predecessor, Ford actually acted to protect him.

Of the people you listed, none were destroyed by their successors except possibly Corbyn.

Edit: And maybe Salmond.

[Nearly Sane]

No - the Scots have had two rounds of it - Sturgeon throwing Salmond under the bus and looking like Yousaf happy to throw Sturgeon under the bus.

In what sense is Yousaf throwing Sturgeon under a bus?

[ProfessorDavey]

Of the people you listed, none were destroyed by their successors except possibly Corbyn.

Edit: And maybe Salmond.

Trump supporters would likely beg to differ.

Perhaps destroyed their reputation is too strong in some cases, but there seems to be little attempt by a successor to shore-up or secure the reputation of a predecessor. And while I understand when there is a change in government it is in the interests of the incoming government to look to demolish the reputation of their predecessors (albeit in the UK this has historically not been personal in the manner we seem to be seeing now), but in many of these cases we are dealing with the same party - as far as I can see:

Sunak is perfectly happy for his predecessor to be thrown to the dogs and drummed out of parliament
Starmer seems to have a key objective to purge the party of Corbyn
Sturgeon seemed to have no qualms about initiating proceedings against Salmond
Yousaf - well a bit early to tell, but I suspect he isn't unhappy at all as it allows him to portray himself as the guy who cleans up the mess.

[Nearly Sane]

The SNP needs a really strong leader because it is a fairly loose coalition of people who only really share one policy in common i.e. Scottish independence. Were I a supporter of the SNP, I would certainly be fearful for the future of the party but I'm not fearful for the future of Scotland. Is it likely that the SNP will be pursuing policies in the next three years that would be destructive of Scotland? I don't see it.

NB I was confident that the SNP would implode after Salmond stepped down. Nicola Sturgeon turned out to be a far better politician than I expected. Maybe I'm wrong again.

My issue is if you have a party indulging in internecine strife for 3 years then the day job is forgotten about, some may say it already has. Add to that the ongoing investigations and ramifocations they might have and it's not exactly as if much will get done, though again there will be those that see that as a benefit.

[ProfessorDavey]

In what sense is Yousaf throwing Sturgeon under a bus?

See above - Yousaf needs to distance himself from the developing sh*tshow within the SNP in the manner that Sunak is distancing himself from the Johnson era administration, despite the fact that both were key members of those earlier administrations.

Yousaf cannot, himself, be seen to take the blame and therefore needs to pass the blame squarely onto Murrell, and of course, Sturgeon.

Any moment soon I suspect we'll see Yousaf coming out with the likes of - "blah, blah, blah, cannot comment on ongoing investigation, but we will cooperate fully, important for the law to run its course. My priority will be to fix these problems in the SNP, blah, blah, blah'

[ProfessorDavey]

My issue is if you have a party indulging in internecine strife for 3 years then the day job is forgotten about, some may say it already has. Add to that the ongoing investigations and ramifocations they might have and it's not exactly as if much will get done, though again there will be those that see that as a benefit.

That's true and will be interesting to see how this pans out in the polling.

But I guess for a new SNP leader (would have been the same had it been Forbes) they will have been well aware that there was a shitshow that wasn't going away. The very fact that there was a leadership election was, I guess, testament to that - never really been satisfactorily explained why Sturgeon suddenly announced she was going.

So the best approach for a new leader to manage the issue is not to try to sweep in under the carpet (far too late for that), but to pin the blame as much as possible on the 'old regime', claim that those people are gone now (legitimately as Murrell and Sturgeon aren't in post now) and promise to ensure all legal processes proceed without any interference from the SNP and promise to fix the mess.

[jeremyp]

Trump supporters would likely beg to differ.

I'm unaware that Joe Biden has anything to do with what's happening to Trump at the moment and he doesn't really have a successor in the Republican Party and they don't seem to be enthusiastic about makeing him answer for his crimes, anyway.

Sunak is perfectly happy for his predecessor to be thrown to the dogs and drummed out of parliament
Starmer seems to have a key objective to purge the party of Corbyn
Sturgeon seemed to have no qualms about initiating proceedings against Salmond
Yousaf - well a bit early to tell, but I suspect he isn't unhappy at all as it allows him to portray himself as the guy who cleans up the mess.

But Sunak isn't the one doing it and, of course, Johnson is plainly guilty. In the case of Corbyn, he represented a threat to the future of the Labour Party, at least in terms of electoral success. Not sure about Salmond: perhaps Sturgeon did feel threatened by him. Perhaps she thought he was guilty.

Political leaders often throw their predecessors under the bus and have been doing since forever. Of course, in earlier times that was often posthumously.