Consultancy Expertise

A point of view, certainly: "The “political wing” of Hamas should no longer be designated a terror group in the UK, the co-leader of the Scottish Greens has said." Top scooping by @DSanderson_85 thetimes.com/uk/scotland/art…

It must have been a different John Swinney who said in February 2025 that blocking Jackdaw was “the only sustainable judgment you can arrive at in considering these questions".

Zamard Zahid, Glasgow anti-racism campaigner and alleged school teacher, posted a video with her daughter saying we need “violent revolution” against imperialism and colonialism. “I’m very pro-revolution, we need not just revolution but we need violent revolution… you can’t get anywhere against imperialism and colonialism without violence, we need to get organised.” She doesn’t correct her daughter. This is open talk of organised violence. If a teacher or parent from the other side said the same thing, they’d be arrested before the video finished uploading. Why is this different? These are enemies of democracy and our whole way of life and in my view they are inciting violence.

She's now removed this video from her TikTok account. If this was any if us, our door would have been kicked in by now.

Reminder: whatever he might claim today, this is what John Swinney said in February 2025. He welcomed the court’s decision to block Jackdaw, calling it “the only sustainable judgment you can arrive at in considering these questions”.

😳 @JohnSwinney telling the Easdale brothers to “watch their language” rather neatly illustrates the very attitude they're complaining about. He's the @ScotGovFM of Scotland, not the nation's headmaster. His job is to answer criticism, not to expel people who express it in terms he finds disagreeable. I've experienced this culture myself. Challenge a policy, question a funding decision or expose an uncomfortable truth, and suddenly the conversation becomes about your tone, your language or your attitude. Anything, it seems, except the substance of what you've actually said. It's a remarkably convenient way of avoiding difficult questions while making the person asking them the problem. Democracy is not simply the right to vote every few years. It also requires the freedom to challenge those in power without fearing that your livelihood, funding, reputation or opportunities will suffer as a consequence. And that is where my criticism of the SNP goes considerably further than its apparent dislike of dissent. My concern, informed by my own experience, is that criticism can carry identifiable institutional consequences, while compliance and political conformity can bring equally identifiable advantages. That is a far more serious allegation than a government being thin-skinned, and it deserves proper scrutiny. The Easdales have the resources and public profile to challenge the government openly. Many smaller organisations, particularly those dependent on public funding, do not enjoy that luxury. For them, the perceived price of speaking out can be enough to ensure silence. A government doesn't have to ban criticism to discourage it. It merely has to create an environment in which people believe there is a price to pay for speaking their minds. So perhaps, rather than lecturing his critics about their manners, the First Minister might reflect on why people feel compelled to use such strong language in the first place. Democracy isn't a classroom, Mr Swinney. The electorate aren't your pupils, and disagreement isn't a disciplinary offence.