A Nat in Denial: angry wee Nat Nicola Sturgeon hits out at ‘in denial’ claims after losing 21 SNP MPs at General Election, Sturgeon’s takes to twitter to lambaste the ‘Yoon Media’, guess we are back to a deeply damaged and wounded Nicola being the ‘horrible cow’ of old, Sturgeon squandered Salmond’s voter legacy built in 2012, the worst electoral reverse for an SNP leader since 1979

Dear All

Many commentators have said that Alex Salmond had become a parody of himself, in the past as First Minister; he seemed to be able to do no wrong. After losing in 2014, Salmond ended up as a bit of a crank who couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Out of the limelight as First Minister, the direction of travel was downwards. First, shipped off to Westminster to give unpopular Nicola Sturgeon a clear run of being out of his shadow, the clock was ticking towards defeat.

When Alex Salmond and a host of others lost their seats, the look on the faces of the SNP at the Glasgow count was priceless, in two short years, historic victory had turned very sour. Glasgow was thought to be secure, but the reality on the night turned out to be different. One seat was to fall and two others were less than 100 votes away from collapse. The majority of the work however was done by the SNP in their inept management of the government and the campaigns.

It seemed the idea was that a ‘message’ wasn’t needed just say SNP to the punters and they will come out and vote. As Professor John Curtice, the election guru said, and I agree, independence isn’t enough for SNP voters.

People are sick to death of referendums, and as the polling shows, they are sick to death of Nicola Sturgeon. To see Nicola Sturgeon walk into the Glasgow count, put on the fake smile for the cameras was equally priceless, especially since I had helped crack Glasgow to get Paul Sweeney into public office. Although he and others doubted the task, it was the biggest SNP swing in the last election, I thought different. I knew the area since I was ‘Campaign Rooms Manager’ (promoted) for the SNP in 2009, David Kerr’s by-election. David was a good candidate but in the wrong seat, totally, that campaign was well run but the work needed by the CLP in the area was really poor over years.

Nicola Sturgeon has squandered the goodwill that Alex Salmond managed to build up with his ‘jolly fat man’ routine, 2015 wasn’t Sturgeon’s victory, it was all done on the back of Salmond and 2012 onwards. Since the independence referendum, Nicola Sturgeon has run an inept government. A government which has failed to address issues, failing to lead, and constantly making bad decisions, everything Sturgeon touches turns to disaster, I have said this before in the past, still true now!

Nicola Sturgeon was portrayed in a comedy as a ‘horrible cow’, so how did the writers probably in London tap into what the women of Govan and Govanhill think? It is easy to explain, the mask that Nicola Sturgeon puts up slips on a regular basis, the eyes don’t lie. There is an angry wee Nat sitting in the office of First Minister who is full of grievance and bile.

It is amusing to see Nicola Sturgeon reacting angrily to claims she is “in denial” about the impact of the general election result. The reality is that her plans for a second independence referendum have been severely damaged. Brexit will come and go in due course, Sturgeon wouldn’t get a seat at the Brexit talks and there will not be a second independence referendum in this Westminster Parliament. This Parliament is thought by some to be going the distance, the full five years.

To show how rattled Sturgeon is the latest series of breakfast time Tweets are a hoot, she has a bunker mentality, lashing out and being in denial, she failed to discuss how Brexit affects the independence bid with the Scottish Cabinet on Tuesday. Her take is that she would “not be dictated to by demands for quick headlines”. This is from a woman who jumps from one short term vision to another like stepping stones in a river. The press paint Sturgeon as some kind of superwoman, the fact is the image is just a façade like the SNP crafted ‘caring’ image.

Sturgeon lost a third of her MPs amid a Unionist backlash against a second referendum which really angered people, enough is enough, and she kicked the hornet’s nest, obviously there would be a reaction. Nicola Sturgeon said she got into politics because of Thatcher, how ironic is it that by her own stupidity that she was partly responsible for the return of Conservatives in Scotland, 13 MPs in fact.

The opposition have been quick off the mark to claim Sturgeon is in denial and failing to face reality about the voters' verdict on her core policy. And with the effectively snubbed her cabinet in favour of talking to a tiny cabal of closer advisers shows the ‘big tent’ SNP is very much smaller than some people think. The cabal is said to have included deputy First Minister John Swinney, Brexit minister Michael Russell, and special adviser Ewan Crawford, not exactly a gathering of mensa.

It seems that finance and constitution secretary Derek Mackay, who helped run the SNP’s election campaign wasn’t invited to the top-level discussions on the constitution. Derek Mackay is a clown, so I suspect that there were no plans for entertainment being laid on. The SNP leadership is a clique, I wrote about this many years ago, and if you are a member then you can easily see this if you are in the party. The clique lives in their own little bubble, and they don’t listen which explains the lack of depth in SNP thinking.

Shortly after 8am on Wednesday, Ms Sturgeon took to Twitter to attack the media, that would be the ‘Yoon Media’, One thing ‘daft arse’ should have learned in politics is that you don’t attack the messenger, but there she is making a fool of herself.

She wrote:

“Most of media speculation about #ScotRef is nonsense. I'll set out way forward in due course after talking to people across @theSNP.

“I'll take decisions in best interests, not just of @theSNP, but of Scotland...and not be dictated to by demands for quick headlines!

“In meantime, @scotgov will focus on trying to influence Brexit talks - a Tory led hard Brexit is simply not acceptable post #GE2017.”

Influence the Brexit talks?

Has Sturgeon bought a loudhailer, is she going to stand outside and hope they hear her through an open window?

The SNP lost 21 of the 56 seats it won in 2015, its vote collapsed from 50 to 37 per cent, the worst electoral reverse for an SNP leader since 1979.

How did the success of 2015 turn so quickly for Nicola Sturgeon?

Failure to deliver!

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University