Patrick Harvie taking Kate Forbes’ appointment in his customary fully-grown manner…

Two portraits of a fall dlvr.it/T6YVrm by Robin McAlpine

After his acceptance speech about unity, FM John Swinney shakes the hands of opposition parties but ignores ALBA’s Ash Regan, who voted for him in an act of goodwill.

This part of Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation feels rather like where the SNP find themselves now. Conversation, exhaustion and fear rather than action, energy and confidence.

One former FM in the chamber to hear the resignation speech of her successor who will become the second former FM to sit on the backbenches this parliamentary term, and to vote for his successor, who will be the third FM this term, but who used to her former deputy FM.

There is a narrative that figures like Sturgeon and Swinney are 'obsessed' with independence.
BUT they really are not - not in the way Icelandic, Irish, Norwegian etc politicians are.
The 'obsession' is only used to shore-up votes for UK's devolved and union parliaments

Oh dear
It was nice while it lasted

Graeme McCormick pulls out. That’s the chance to test the robustness of John Swinney’s pledges and for SNP membership to hold him account both lost.

Another front page for The Common Weal as our work on ScotWind and my new paper on Profit Extraction get mentioned in this story about ScotGov flogging off even more of our renewable assets to companies based outwith Scotland.

You’d think a leadership contest between old guard John Swinney and activist Graeme McCormick could be an opportunity for the SNP to listen and explore ways forward together while giving the party a platform to speak to the Scottish electorate. John says no.

For context, there are 2.7m homes in Scotland.

‘The Scottish Government keeps boasting about the strength of our renewable sector, while they keep giving it away’ archive.ph/k2ovX

When, like me, you've been an unquestioning Unionist for most of your life and then started to have severe doubts in the post-Brexit years, you begin to see things you didn't see before. It's hard to overstate the (negative) subliminal effect of this imagery. THREAD

The culture of secrecy in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park is arguably even more toxic than the pollution leaking out from the Cononish goldmine - it is certainly responsible for incidents which were both predictable and avoidable parkswatchscotland.co.uk/2024/05/03/the…

A recurrent theme from the UK media - The SNP leaders being hung, crucified, beheaded, hunted. Still - Andrew Neil thinks they're 'brilliant' so that's fine.

Kezia Dugdale is on BBC news attacking the student protests in the US - saying speech that causes 'fear and alarm' should lead to a police response, and saying the protests should 'dissipate'.

Wretched. These people *despise* democracy.

Unionists: Scotland is an economic basket case.
Also Unionists: we’re having that fuckton of oil & gas beneath your vast endless renewable resources.

Listen to this vacuous, waffling boilerplate bollocks. No recognition of 10 years failing to move the dial an inch, no strategy to change or achieve anything, just a minute and a half of empty noise from an empty head.

More cold soup. John Swinney’s approach to Scottish independence is nothing but a continuation of Yousaf and Sturgeon’s dead end strategy.

1./ Here's why I think this article about Kate Forbes is a disgrace. Kenny Farquharson attacks the likely candidate for First Minister because of her Christian faith. He has the cheek to use gay rights to defend his argument but hypocrisy and misogyny are really driving it.
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