Political Journalist of the Year @ Scottish Press Awards | 'One of the better bin-raking bollocks-horns' | Political Editor @ScottishSun | Story? DMs are open
Oct 26, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Given its been raised at #FMQs and the UK Covid-19 Inquiry today...
I've been looking at the Scottish Government's use/misuse of WhatsApp for years
A 🧵
2021: Scottish ministers may be deleting controversial text and WhatsApp messages from their phones permanently due to the failure of the Scottish Government to have an adequate back-up system in place.
Ouch. @krishgm labels Humza Yousaf "fantastically unpopular". The health secretary responds by saying his campaign has "momentum"
@krishgm First it was the readiness thermometer, now from Ash Regan it is the time for "Bravehearts, not faint hearts."
Feb 20, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
EXCLUSIVE: Kate Forbes would not have voted for Holyrood's equal marriage bill "as a matter of conscience", she tells @TheScotsman
She will keep the co-op agreement with the Greens but said it would be up to them to 'live with' her economic plans
Story: scotsman.com/news/politics/…
"I would have voted, as a matter of conscience, along the lines of mainstream teaching in most major religions that marriage is between a man and a woman.
"But I would have respected and defended the democratic choice that was made."
May 17, 2022 • 17 tweets • 7 min read
Thread on this report from the SIC which is the latest in its ongoing, five-year long intervention into the Scottish Government's FOI regime.
In places it is absolutely damning, but there is evidence of important improvements. 1/17
Many will remember this intervention was kicked off in 2017 when journalists complained of a two-track system for case handling around FOI requests from the media vs the public
This went against the applicant blind principle within FOI law (Cab Office clearing house: same issue)
May 16, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Nicola Sturgeon, speaking at the Brookings Institution, says that the war in Ukraine has "strengthened my conviction" that Nato membership is the right way to go for indy Scotland
First Minister adds EU and Nato membership will be "cornerstones" of indy Scotland's foreign policy
Nato membership has been part of the SNP's policy since 2012
Their Scottish Green coalition partners are against Nato membership post-independence.
Thread on the SNP's 'campaign launch' today and their spin operation since
Around 4.45pm yesterday, the press got this press release stating clearly the SNP's local election campaign would be launched in Glasgow on Friday
However, there were no details on where or when.
Many journalists asked the SNP whether print journalists were welcome
At around 7.20pm, this was the response
Apr 8, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The SNP's press strategy (including not inviting them to an election campaign launch) boils down to two things
1) An innate distrust of the print press
2) A fundamental belief that independence and SNP support will be won online and on TV and not through legacy media
I'm sure Twitter will tell me why the first is perfectly justified, but it also contributes to the intense preference for secrecy.
But the second explains the real reason. They just don't care about what Scotland's papers write because they don't think it matters.
Mar 3, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Keith Brown has just announced, in exceptionally obfuscatory jargon, that hundreds of prisoners and offenders have had incorrect risk-to-the-public assessments.
This may have seen hundreds of prisoners released without the correct level of understanding of the risk they posed
The Justice Secretary has said that this has been due to an IT error in one of the systems used by the justice system
And, around 150 checks undertaken already have judged the individuals connected were not released too early
May 8, 2021 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
IndyRef2, mandate or not?
Three arguments here, that either a) you need an overall SNP majority, b) you need an overall majority in the popular vote, or c) you need an overall parliamentary majority of pro-independence parties. #SP21
The first one seems to be the unionist argument (although I'm sure any mandate would have been rejected regardless). This is based on the basic FPTP system of winner takes all. That's fine, but we have a PR system in Scotland, so those rules don't apply. #SP21
May 7, 2021 • 9 tweets • 6 min read
If you're following me, it is likely you want to be kept fully up to speed on the Holyrood election results.
The best place to do that is on @TheScotsman's website, here's what is on offer:
A live blog, updated constantly throughout the day: scotsman.com/news/uk-news/s…
For those of a visual mind, we have a constituency map which will tell you in an instant who has won your seat and regional list votes:
1) I think there was a genuine error in publishing in full his ministerial code submission. I felt there were aspects of it I expected to be redacted, it wasn't *that* shocking the Crown got involved
2) The decision to publish, then remove, redact and republish is in my view more damaging to the anonymity of the complainants than anything else this inquiry has done up until now.
