SlatefordArab wrote:

Beharder wrote:

Margaret Covid Ferrier has announced she will not , I repeat not be resigning.
This is completely taking the piss out of all of us who have stuck diligently to the rules.

Sturgeon claiming that she can't force her to go.  She and her husband are the SNP and could easily turn the screw and force her out.

Because the SNP could do without the bad publicity this will all be swept under the carpet and Sturgeon appears at her lecturn
and says we MUST comply with the restrictions.

Not good enough for me but I'm sure people will continue to vote for this sort of hypocrisy.

 
Sorry mate but that’s an incredible take on this.  You are clearly using your hatred of Sturgeon and the SNP to cloud your judgement here.

Ferrier is using the rules of good old Westminster to keep her 80k a year job.  She’s been removed from the SNP whip and has been asked to resign by Sturgeon.  To say they don’t want bad publicity over this - I think the horse has already bolted on that one.

If Leonard, Ross or anybody else was at the lecturn they’d be telling you exactly the same things re restrictions.

 
Agree with Slateford here, you can't make an MP quit. You can remove them from the party but they remain an independent, unless they affiliate with a different party, until the end of the current parliamentary term. Hence why we got the 'Independent Group' that was a mainly Labour splinter group a few years ago without bi-elections.

Only Ferrier can resign her post as MP.

Last edited by Morphman (11/10/2020 5:10 pm)

Beharder wrote:

None of my post was motivated by hatred of any party but a hatred of hypocrisy.
Ferrier & Calderwood were personal friends of the FM and they wilfully ignored her instructions but I need to start complying. She has lost the moral authority, very few are listening any more.
If Leonard, Ross or even Rennie were taking the same stance i can assure you I would call them out too.
Officially the FM can't force any one to resign but most of the most effective work off the SG is done unofficially

 
I’m really not sure what Stugeon’s friendship with either of them has to do with it.  They are both grown adults who are responsible for their own actions.

In both cases she’s punted the pair of them, unlike the crowd that frequent Downing Street I hasten to add,

If it was Sturgeon who had broken the rules while telling others what to do I would understand your point.

I actually disagree that Sturgeon has done a good job. Merely doing it better than Boris Johnston doesn't mean she has done a good job.

Relying on the "vast majority" to do the right thing is no use. EVERONE has to do the right thing. If you look how Italy handled it, they understood early on that 1) the message had to be a simple one, and 2) the penalty for non compliance had to be punitive. 110, 000 people were fined between €400 and €3000 (jailed if they couldn't pay it) in March alone. As a result, the worst affected country have only 33 cases per 100,000, whereas the U.K. has 145.

For Scotland it is too late to implement such punitive restrictions, because the public wouldn't accept them and furthermore saving what is left of the economy is more important.

It reminds me of those signs outside Scottish hospitals "Smoking is not permitted in NHS grounds". What happens if you do? Nothing. Imagine if you were fined £600.

That is absolutely true, Pat. We all know how high a price our American cousins pay for their right to bear arms. That said, I do think if Nicola (Sturgeon) had sought to enforce the lockdown measures in March with strict liability fines, she would have received near universal support.

The stage managed events with "the ubiquitous" Jason Leitch and the CMO "I wish she would smile more often" Catherine Calderwood, I found vacuous. I felt the sincerity was disengenuous.

That said, her approval ratings are still high