15 quotes found
"Independence in the European Union has been core to Nicola Sturgeon's arguments for Scottish independence, not least since the 2016 Brexit vote. But where did she and her government take their European strategies during her eight years in power? It looks like a case of the glass being half full, half empty,"
"Nicola Sturgeon has certainly projected Scotland as a positive, pro-European country and has built may constructive relationships across the EU. Independence in the EU has been her core goal. Yet the challenge both for her successor, and for the Scottish government and SNP, is to make a sustained, substantive, dynamic and energised case for that goal."
"There is a strong, positive case to be made about the political and economic benefits of rejoining the EU as an independent state. And there’s an argument to make that once independent, an accession process could be rapid – perhaps taking four to five years in total, not as fast as Finland, Sweden and Austria, but not far behind. But the Scottish Government has not always put this argument centre stage."
"Now we sat in silence over the prawns and cheese, listening to them arguing. She was telling him The Sunday Times was investigating a tip that he had dodged a driving ban for speeding by pretending she had been at the wheel. He was telling her to keep her mouth shut. The recording finished and she switched off the machine, looking up expectantly."
"As the owner of a little place on the Isle of Wight, I should declare an interest. Some 80 per cent of properties in my seaside village are second homes, making it difficult for local shops to survive the winter."
"In a sign of national disapproval, Mr. Johnson was greeted with boos and jeers at the Platinum Jubilee service on Friday. It's not that a Conservative politician being booed is rare; in fact, it's quite common. It's that such a thing is not supposed to happen to him."
"Reform is also thinking long-term. The party wants to seize this moment of peak Tory unpopularity (few prime ministers have seen approval ratings as low as [[Rishi Sunak|[Rishi] Sunak]] has now) and use it for a realignment of politics. Its real focus is the election after the next one, when it hopes a shake-up of the two-party system could take place. Just as the SDP-Liberal Alliance split the left in the 1980s, Reform may split the right now."
"Some candidates describe themselves as feeling numb over the result. Others are simply angry they were put in this position – made to fight an election they thought was a bad idea. It's not just the 'big names' who have lost their seats, it's the losses in areas that have been Conservative for 100 years, such as Chichester. Then there’s Reform gains in former Tory strongholds such as Great Yarmouth. It means the recriminations are well under way."
"We learnt that the government decided in 2011 that the census's sex question should be answered according to self-identification, even if the respondent had no gender recognition certificate. This advice was hidden on the website and was never subject to democratic scrutiny. That's shocking when you think that for almost 200 years sex was uncomplicated, binary and biological. For most people it still is."
"Policy capture is at the root of this fankle, as with many issues around gender identity. Officials only take advice from LGBT stakeholders. They never consider that women might have something to say about legislation which erases them as a biological sex class. In this case they didn't consult statisticians either."
"The thing that finally turned me to my current position was the government’s decision to expand the definition of transgender identity to include cross-dressers who are not trans identified ... It will seem bizarre to many people that men who enjoy cross-dressing are protected from hate crime, but women are not."
"The [Scottish] government said its proposal will not diminish the rights of women. However, its own draft equality impact assessment evidenced this by citing Bristol University research which . . . suggests that a woman catching sight of a male body in a changing room should be no more distressing than seeing another woman with a mastectomy. Does the government regret citing this research, and do they agree that the comparison is insulting to breast cancer survivors?"
"It is feminists influenced by this second wave who question transgender ideology. They speak the uncomfortable truth that men have a statistically higher propensity towards violence including sexual violence — no matter how they identify — and our laws and public institutions must recognise that brutal truth."
"There were assertions made during that meeting that anyone who identifies as a woman could be a rape counsellor or join a group session. And when survivors asked how a woman may feel if she unknowingly disclosed details of her rape to a male counsellor on the telephone… No adequate answer was provided. It shocked me then as it still does now, that given 100 per cent of rapes in Scotland are committed by men this appeared to not be an issue for the head of Rape Crisis Scotland."
"I have found that men, in all other ways admirable, have insisted upon flattery, upon extreme tact, upon suppression of opinion, in short, upon the sort of extreme and conscious consideration one shows to children or to persons suffering from nervous ailments."