Pledging to raise defence spending to 2.5% without doing a spending review is meaningless.

And they're only doing it because they know it won't be them doing the full review.

'We all want to do the right thing.' Jamie Greene MSP injecting calm and good sense into a Holyrood exchange on support for LGBTQ+ school pupils. What a loss he is to the Scottish Tory front bench

Please note

Duncan Hothersall You'd almost think Alba were out to cause division, or something.

Duncan Hothersall I think there’s an amount of concern within the SNP about the broad church pro Indy no longer working as it did, and that that could lead to fracture. Almost a bit of trying to hang on to everything.

Duncan Hothersall Only way it happens is if every party (other than the SNP) thinks they have more to win by a Vote of No Confidence.

Now if the SNP swing to a more openly Kate Forbes-esque conservatism then maybe that logic becomes possible, but at the moment it seems close to nil.

Duncan Hothersall I guess people are assuming a VoNC would instantly be carried which is clearly not the case.

Duncan Hothersall Let’s go wider. If every single politician elected as an Alba Party candidate at any level of government somehow had a vote… that would give it a total of zero votes.

Duncan Hothersall an acknowledgement that Sturgeon was unaccountably defying political gravity in a way Yousaf couldn't dream of?

Duncan Hothersall I don't think it will, but the political culture has changed a lot since 2007-11. We had a proportional system and a burgeoning culture to reflect to that, to a proportional system with more polarised attitudes post indy ref.

Something slightly weird about the Bute House Agreement chat. The SNP led a minority government from 2007 to 2011, and again from 2016 to 2021. I'm not sure why people think the government would fall if they once again became a minority administration.

This is a great piece. I was pretty taken aback the first time I looked at national identity in the APS and saw that English identity was declining for the entire period that Englishness was most hyped

Duncan Hothersall Some of the things I’m reading are absolutely shameful! This accusation that everyone who disagrees with you is a paedophile is just rampant now!

Not clear to me what the argument against this is. Either we want being an MSP to be a possibility for everyone, so we need to fully fund all the costs involved, or we want it to be only an option for the independently wealthy, so we will get out-of-touch representatives.

17 spirited responses to the Tories throwing a drinks party during the Rwanda Bill debate.
thepoke.com/2024/04/23/tor…

With Humza Yousaf and Shona Robison MSP spending £210m on a regressive Council Tax freeze Councils are not in a position to make a pay offer anywhere near the trade unions expectations so it would appear strikes are inevitable again this year...