Christine Jardine was on Any Questions on Friday night, answering questions about the Scottish elections, the PM’s flat redecoration
Here are some of her best bits;
.@cajardineMP says that #CashForCurtains matters because we need to know where the money came from. The context is also relevant – lavish decoration when so many are struggling over Covid. #bbcaq
— Caron Lindsay 🔶 (@caronmlindsay) April 30, 2021
.@cajardineMP says she is fed up of the SNP saying we Scots didn’t vote for Tories. Most of us didn’t vote for SNP either. #bbcaq
— Caron Lindsay 🔶 (@caronmlindsay) April 30, 2021
.@cajardineMP highlights @scotlibdems plans for education – pupil equity fund to get rid of attainment gap. She says that students leaving school now have had their whole education blighted by various @theSNP blunders – for example failing to implement Curriculum for Excellence
— Caron Lindsay 🔶 (@caronmlindsay) April 30, 2021
You can listen to the whole programme here.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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8 Comments
Why Christine Jardine instead of William Rennie? I’ve nothing against Christine however AQ on Friday was in Glasgow and he is the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats?
Mr Rennie made a short appearance on the Andrew Marr Show today. Unfortunately, he got rather drowned out by independence. Today’s Observer had a big feature on the same subject, featuring Salmond, Sturgeon, Ross and Sarwar; but no mention of the Lib Dems or the Greens. Again, it boiled down to independence. Whatever the failings the SNP might have in actually governing Scotland, these don’t seem to count in the eyes of the media south of the border.
Really? The party is under attack in Scotland for being the same as the Tories, and for once someone other than the referendum obsessed and phobic (at least in self determination, not Brexit) Willie Rennie and says …. she’s fed up heating the SNP complain that Scotland didn’t vote for the Tories?!?
I guess my comments before that the party in Scotland sole plan is to live off the Tories’ electoral leftovers were closer to the Mark than I could have guessed.
By the way Christine, a majority of Scots might not have voted SNP last time, but 46% did, which with the Greens meant a majority for independence leaning parties … and rather better than the Lib Dems’ err 6%. Never mind, if you keep sympathising with the Tories you might get a few more sympathy votes from them, eh. (Because that worked so well in 2015).
I wish there were an easy answer to that John.
Polling shows that the constitution is a priority at this election for only about 20% of Scots, and that includes those with very strong feelings against Scexit or another referendum. Almost everyone thinks health, the environment, education and jobs are more important, but it seems that journalists both in and outside of Scotland, think that talking about independence is more exciting. I dare say a lot of political pundits (regardless on their view of the eventual outcome) would like the idea of all of the coverage it would get and how many columns they can get paid to write, which is bound to influence their attitudes towards what most people see as an unwelcome distraction from the important stuff.
It plays completely into the hands of the SNP as it allows them to skirt around all of their failings in government, and to make everything about Boris Johnson’s (many) failings. You’d think he were a candidate the amount Sturgeon mentions him!
At least a few interviewers are now challenging Sturgeon on some of the details of what the independence she’s campaigned for all of her life would look like. She’s less keen on those questions. For all of her bluster about giving Scots a choice, she’s not at all keen on informed choice.
As someone who lives in the South – I found this video by Neil Oliver helpful to explain the variety of views from the different parts of Scotland. Although the video is close to an hour long – he gives his explanation within the first 10 – 15 minutes.
@ John Roffey “As someone who lives in the South – I found this video by Neil Oliver helpful”.
As someone who lives in Scotland, John, I think you should know Neil Oliver is a somewhat controversial character in Scotland. I attach a quote from last July in ‘The Scotsman’ newspaper :
” TV presenter Neil Oliver has announced that he will step down as president of the National Trust of Scotland in September – days after the charity was forced to issue a statement over his admiration of disgraced historian Dr David Starkey”.
Another Scottish gem from the Leader of the Scottish Tories today on BBC News :
“Boris Johnson should resign if he is found to have broken government rules over his flat renovations, the Scottish Conservative leader has said. Douglas Ross told the BBC that people expected the highest standards of those in the highest office of the land”.
Interesting to look at Johnson’s unpopularity in the latest ‘Ashcroft poll’ : “More than 2000 Scots found Nicola Sturgeon remains the most popular leader. Respondents were asked to rate how positive or negative they felt towards party chiefs on a scale of extremely negative (-50) to extremely positive (+50).
‘The First Minister scored highest, with an average approval rating of +6. Anas Sarwar (Labour) closest on -5, followed by Willie Rennie (Lib Dem) – 12, Lorna Slater (Green) -13, Douglas Ross (Conservative) -19 and Alex Salmond -34.
Boris Johnson (-23) and Keir Starmer (-8) also scored poorly’.
Thanks for that David – I did watch David Starkey’s defence on YouTube last week – which is a little feeble:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrDOkYGd5d8&t=1049s
Although I am not very keen on ‘Cancel Culture’ as it seems to me that the true elites are very happy when there are many local and personal conflicts that fill the news outlets – as it removes the glare of attention from themselves.
For example, the BBC reported on Friday:
Amazon hopes pandemic habits stick after profits triple
Amazon continued to cash in on our new shop-work-relax-from-home habits in the first three months of this year, reporting a huge rise in sales and a tripling of profits.
Almost every aspect of the Covid-19 pandemic has served to boost the tech giant’s revenues, from video streaming to grocery delivery.
It said it expects the boom to continue over the next few months.
The pandemic could herald “a golden age” for Amazon, one analyst said.
Amazon’s are the latest blow-out results from Big Tech this week. Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Google’s parent firm Alphabet have all reported big sales increases a year after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
…But its core offerings: online shopping with home delivery, media streaming and cloud-based web-services all flourished during a year of upheaval for other businesses.
Revenue rose from $75bn (£54bn) this time last year to $108.5bn for the three months to the end of March. [That’s $10 to $14+ for every man, woman and child on the planet! JR]
Profit was $8.1bn, up from $2.5bn a year ago. [Profit $1+ for every man, woman and child on the planet – and these figures are just for a quarter. JR]
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56937428