It is exactly what women want to hear in the age of #MeToo, yet Sturgeon also made a revealing admission. Denying Salmond’s claim that she offered to intervene on his behalf, she acknowledged that he might have been left with the contrary impression: “I was perhaps trying to let a longstanding friend and colleague down gently, and maybe I did it too gently.” This is absolutely stereotypical feminine behaviour, a woman taking responsibility for a man’s feelings, and it happens frequently in unequal relationships.
Given that it’s Joan Smith writing here we have to ponder whether Dennis MacShane was really that masculinely awful….
’… while it may not be fair to expect a female leader to deal with such claims more adeptly than a man in the same position…’
Wait, what?
Dennis MacShane really is unspeakably awful on pretty much every level. In terms of being specifically masculinely awful (eh?!), Wikipedia offers:
If being masculinely awful is the same as being a rat then the evidence seems pretty solid.
Such an ardent europhile and jailbird must feel a twinge of joy in seeing a fellow enthusiast, Nicolas Sarcozy, banged up for their shared commitment to corruption and venality.
The gender politics of Sturgeon v Salmond can’t be ignored
This is true. Tartan Theresa May is desperate to impose loads of woke shit her voters never wanted, while promising
Brexit means Brexitindependence is Just Around The Corner.Also, it’s unfair and sexist to judge her based on things her government has actually said and done.
Steve,
I have an impression of Scotland that it’s absolutely stuffed with people who want more benefits or more government jobs, and not a huge number of people who are producing any wealth. The last time that Scotland had a majority of Conservative MPs was 1955. For over 60 years, there’s been no appetite for less government.
People on fat salaries working for the state don’t care about woke. They aren’t paying for it.
“ People on fat salaries working for the state don’t care about woke. They aren’t paying for it.”
But they are happy to go with the woke flow if that maintains their pay and position. I have just spent 2 years working at a government agency. The senior management hadn’t any idea what was going on at the grassroots being career generalists uninvolved with technical details, but they were on the ball when it came to “diversity and inclusion”.
This is just politiks as usual. A whiff of blood in water, bit of circling to establish the best point of attack, in this case ministerial code who said what when, then rush in. Not a done deal by far… just as Alex Salmond is harder to down than a bull gnu, Nicola is not easy meat. In this case the proximity of elections and therefore to the people that should matter most, will either be her saviour or downfall.
BoM4 – People on fat salaries working for the state don’t care about woke. They aren’t paying for it.
Sure. I don’t think that explains what’s going on though, or at least, not completely.
About 20% of people employed in Scotland work for the public sector. That’s high, but not incredibly so (UK average is about 17% I think). Most of these people won’t be on fat salaries – quite a lot are nurses, primary school teachers, binmen etc.
Scotland is not inherently more woke than England, in both cases it’s an obsession of the managerialist class, who are a tiny minority of voters but control the key chokepoints in senior pubsec, media, HE, Big Charity, and increasingly the major corporates too.
Steve,
“Scotland is not inherently more woke than England, in both cases it’s an obsession of the managerialist class, who are a tiny minority of voters but control the key chokepoints in senior pubsec, media, HE, Big Charity, and increasingly the major corporates too.”
But most of that is actually state. It doesn’t matter if you’re a PLC, if you depend on your license or livelihood from the state, you become statist. Like ITV are, on the surface, capitalistic, but they have to suck up to politicians to keep their license. Higher Education is statist because of all that student loan money. Big charities are often heavily funded by the government.
Long term one of our bigfest failures is the number of ” state” functions tbat are funded by the state bur done by the charity or private sector, which both hides the size of the state and allows many more saboteurs to exist in the allegedly private sector.