Drug deaths in Scotland: SNP Public Health Minister Joe FitzPatrick loses his job after Scotland recorded its highest ever number of drug deaths, 'Slow Joe' failed to protect 1,264 vulnerable people who died, failed to stop cuts to drug treatment budgets, and failed to fight hard enough for his brief, he was a bad team player, in a bad team, led by a bad team leader in the shape of Nicola Sturgeon

Dear All

As you know, I like to think I have my finger on the pulse of the nation, and what is best for Scotland. When it was revealed how incompetent SNP MSP Joe FitzPatrick was as Scotland Public Health Minister, to some it may have been a revelation. But to me, it was just further confirmation of the theme which I have continuously blogged on for some years, the SNP are incompetent, and the SNP are a party of protest but not of government.

I am sure it amazed people when SNP MSP Joe FitzPatrick stood up in the chamber of Holyrood and sounded like someone who was a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Watching in him woefully speak was cringe worthy at best, and painful at worst of someone who was living out a personal humiliation in front of the nation's TV cameras. When I was watched Fitzpatrick recently, I thought, is he ill, is he on drugs, is he drunk, is he really that stupid? You got through the list of things so you can try and rationalise what you are seeing and hearing from him. Fitzpatrick's recent appearances where frankly bizarre. Having effectively disappeared for most of this year, political commentators like myself began to wonder where he was, but when he resurfacing, it turned out to be a corker for the Scottish public. When ask for the date of Covid vaccine rollout, he went on a mad ramble which caused the Presiding Officer to inject, and tell him to answer the question.

So, was the question hard to answer? Well, let's look at the question and see if it needed a rocket scientist to brought in to answer it.

'When will the Covid vaccine be rolled out in Scotland'.

I think you will agree looking at the question, there is no mystery to what was being asked, so all Fitzpatrick had to do was:

1/ Stand up.

2/ Say, 'the Covid 19 vaccine roll out is scheduled start 8th December'.

3/ Sit down.

When people saw how inept Fitzpatrick was, little did they know this was the tip of the iceberg. In his future interactions with the press, he was asked questions which he should have known as public health minister. When John Mackay on STV asked a simple question of 'how many rehab beds are there in Scotland for drug addicts'? Fitzpatricks answer was hopeless, but he did say he would ask someone to do the work and find out. He didn't know, and worse than that, he quite brazenly stated he would get someone else to do his job for him which should have sent alarms bells ringing. Anyone watching that interview would have to ask why he was so unprepared to answer simple questions about his job. And watching the interview it seemed to me, he had a screen set up off camera which possibly might have contained information for him to refer to as a prompt. It would be unreasonable to expect anyone to know every single aspect of their job with total 100% recall, but Fitzpatrick came across as someone who seemed that he didn't know anything about his job.

Given the seriousness of the role of public health minister, you would think he would have taken on that job with a bit more due diligence on his part. Also in the current climate, you would also think he would be up to speed on everything as a supposed professional. This would be expected, especially in the middle of the biggest pandemic in living memory ever to hit Scotland, and the biggest drug death problem also in living memory.  

I have said repeatedly before the 2014 referendum, and made the point time and time again since, the SNP treat the Scottish Government as a 'part time' job. When elections, Conferences and referendums appear, they abandon their desks. In the two years between 2012 to 2014, nothing of note was done by the SNP Government, everything was put on the backburner for the SNP Ministers to go campaigning. Reluctant working seems to have become ingrained as part of the SNP culture in government, real work was replaced in government with the pushing of personal agendas. Government, was also used a campaigning vehicle for Scottish independence, and in particular pushing the lgbt 'woke' agenda in Scotland as personal projects of Sturgeon. Scottish Government Ministers are supposed to be Ministers of the Crown who act with dignity and integrity, can anyone say what the SNP is doing with the Scottish Government in anyway fits that description?

SNP MSP Joe Fitzpatrick was a joke as the Scottish Public Health Minister.

He was part of the SNP cult, part of the Hosie Dynasty, and part of the main SNP lgbt clique, the most powerful grouping of the four main factions which control the SNP. Fitzpatrick as part of the Hosie Dynasty was in the one of the main power bases of Nationalism in Scotland which helped his rise up through the ranks. If you check out Fitzpatrick's bio on wiki, you can see his rise to fame was via the National Executive of NUS (Scotland) route. He also before his election to the Scottish Parliament, he worked for husband and wife, Dundee SNP parliamentarians Shona Robison MSP and Stewart Hosie MP. He also did a stint as a Dundee Councillor. Other than a spell in the Forestry Commission, it seems that Fitzpatrick was just a political hack. As we know now, Fitzpatrick's biggest failure was that he didn't fight hard enough against the drug treatment cuts while he was a minister. He didn't publicly speak out against the cuts to his budget either which shows you the caliber of the man. Fitzpatrick was a bad team player in a bad team, led by a bad leader in the shape of Nicola Sturgeon.

When he and Nicola Sturgeon were told there would be problems by cutting the drug treatment budget, this fell on deaf ears for both of them.

1,264 people lost their lives in the last year because Joe Fitzpatrick was a bad public health minister, and Nicola Sturgeon is a bad First Minister. Earlier in the week, I tweeted that if Nicola Sturgeon didn't sack him by the end of the week, her intervention would be seen for what it was an SNP PR gimmick. In order to attempt to kill off the story, Sturgeon who want to keep Fitzpatrick felt the heat was too great to ride out the storm. Especially in light of the excessive death toll caused by her and Fitzpatrick's failures, someone had to fall from grace. So today, SNP MSP Joe Fitzpatrick has resigned as Public Health Minister. The question must be, why did it take him so long to resign? The opposition exerted mounting pressure on him over drugs deaths failings, and he was facing a motion of no confidence. As the pace of the storm gathered it was clear that he would lose a vote of no confidence. After being brought in for a chat with Nicola Sturgeon, it transpires that he agreed that 'he should leave government'. Just as Margaret Ferrier was quickly sacrificed by Sturgeon to save her neck, so too was Fitzpatrick to protect 'Saint Nicola of Dreghorn'.

On leaving Government, Fitzpatrick said:

“It has been the privilege of my life to serve in the Scottish Government and, during that time, the most heart-breaking and difficult problems I have faced as Public Health Minister is the harms and deaths caused by drug use. I have worked with families who have felt the burden and weight of grief from drug use. I want to thank them for their candour and the amazing efforts they make to try and make our country better and safer for all. As the minister responsible for this area I, ultimately, take my responsibility. It is clear that my presence as a minister will become a distraction, when we should be focused on achieving the change we need to save lives. There is nothing I can express that will ease the loss that so many families have felt due to a death from drugs use. I can only say how sorry I am for their loss, and that hearing the experiences of the families and the recovery communities will never leave me.”

The guy who didn't fight enough hard against the cuts to the drug treatment budget says he is sorry, well sorry just isn't good enough!

1,264 people are dead because Fitzpatrick was unable and ill-equipped mentally to do his job properly. Results speak for themselves! Most of the ordinary public don't see behind the curtain of politics, I have, and I have met Joe Fitzpatrick in person. This was during the SNP campaigning to try and elected David Kerr to Westminster in the 2009 by-election. Hand on heart, Joe Fitzpatrick is a clown. When Labour MSP Neil Findlay stood in parliament and said that Joe Fitzpatrick was a 'nice guy', I was like, 'what the fuck are you on'? So, let me give you my opinion of 'slow joe', during that by-election run by Stewart Hosie, Fitzpatrick turned and without knowing nothing about the area, the campaign or what resources available, started to throw his weight about like he was someone important. It seems that not have a clue about what he was talking isn't a recent occurrence for this guy.

As Fitzpatrick was sacrificed to save Nicola Sturgeon who is ultimately responsible for the1,264 people who lost their lives, he now will be sitting safe and sound on the SNP backbenches. In his place, in comes another Sturgeon 'pal' in the form of Angela Constance. Constance has been appointed as a dedicated minister for drugs policy. To me this smacks of another twist in the continual PR spins and twists to con people that the SNP are working to solve problems. The new SNP twist is, two for the price of one, drugs czar and, new public health minister, who will be nominated on Monday. In a field of uninspiring candidates for new public health minister, the top five would appear to be Jamie Hepburn, Emma Harper, George Adam, Ash Denham and Alasdair Allan. In some ways looking for a suitable candidate for SNP public health minister is like looking through the bucket in a bargain book store.

So, I would have to go with Hepburn as public health minister, the less objectionable option out of the SNP 'bargain bucket' of candidates.

Nicola Sturgeon said:

“I thank Joe for his work as a minister and the service he has given to Government over the last eight years, firstly as Minister for Parliamentary Business and then as Minister for Public Health. While the time has now come to make a change in the public health brief, no one should doubt Joe’s hard work, dedication and sincerity. He will continue to champion the interests of his constituents at Holyrood, and I wish him well in the future.”

No one should doubt 'Joe’s hard work, dedication and sincerity'?

If we start the list at 1,264 families of those that died due to the mismanagement of the public health brief by Fitzpatrick would they support Sturgeon's assessment? I personally doubt it, and the list of dissenters to her view in the general would ensure that figure climbed even higher.  

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said:

"After 13 years of failure, no-one can have any confidence in Nicola Sturgeon's disastrous drugs strategy and the resignation of her public health minister changes nothing. If this was about the shocking number of drug related deaths this year, he would have gone on the day the numbers were released. The families of the 1,264 people who lost their lives in the last year to drugs will take little comfort in his resignation. They are more interested in how we have reached this shameful position after more than 13 years of the SNP being in power, with Nicola Sturgeon in charge of health for much of that. We urged the First Minister to agree to our proposed £20million funding for rehabilitation but got no commitment. All the focus must be on the urgent public health crisis of Scotland's drugs deaths epidemic so we can finally start to reverse the tragic number of lives being lost from drugs ”.

As to the new illusion which we are being asked to swallow, Drugs czar Angela  Constance will now lead the Scottish Government's work on tackling drugs harm. She will report directly to Nicola Sturgeon, which is a novelty because Sturgeon is known for not knowing anything about anything bad ever. Interesting Constance's appointment is only May's Holyrood election. So, are we to believe that Constance will turn around in 5 months what Nicola Sturgeon, Joe Fitzpatrick and the SNP Government failed to do in 13 years?

I see the appointment of 'lightweight'  Constance as a PR 'fix', nothing more.

Finally, just like I highlighted about SNP attempts to fix failed ventures in business, using SNP taskforces, the SNP is using the same defunct model on fixing the Scottish drugs problem. Constance will work with the ultra trendy 'Drug Death Taskforce', which should be renamed the Drug Rehabilitation Taskforce, because the whole point of it is saving lives, and improving quality of life. This lively 'Death' group will allegedly be taking actions necessary to reduce Scotland’s drug deaths and better support those living with addiction. The opposition should demand a debate on what those new measures will be, and when they will be introduced. There should also be a specific cross party over watch committee to review the work done by Angela Constance, and its progression. And there should never again be cuts to drug treatment services by the SNP, and parliament should ensure this when budget votes happen. Joe Fitzpatrick is 'sorry', not sorry enough that he had to be brought in first to see Sturgeon before we saw the back of him. Yet again, you have to question the judgment of Nicola Sturgeon, she picked this deadbeat as a minister, and she cut the drug treatment budget.

Yours sincerely

George Laird                                                                                                                        The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University