Mark Irvine - Blogger, Campaigner, Organiser

So I'm still waiting to hear from my constituency MSP, the SNP's Kaukab Stewart, in response to my letter about the new Hate Crime Act (see post below).  Now we pay MSPs a decent salary of £72,000 and they can access a further £157,000 a year to employ office staff who support them in their constituency/parliamentary work. So it seems reasonable to expect MSPs to respond quickly to queries and representations from local constituents, o r am I missing something? Scotland's Hate Crime Act ( April 16, 2024 ) I have sent the following letter to my Glasgow constituency MSP - the SNP's Kaukab Stewart. And also to the 7 other Glasgow 'list' MSPs - Anas Sarwar, Pauline McNeil, Pam Duncan-Glancy, Paul Sweeney, Annie Wells, Sandesh Gulhane and Patrick Harvie Dear Kaukab Stewart Scotland's Hate Crime Act I understand the Scottish Parliament will debate a motion on Wednesday to repeal the Hate Crime Act and  would urge you to support this motion for the following reason

I hope this is the start of a reverse ferret by a number of foolish irresponsible politicians on #CassReport . We’ve just had a labour MP apologising in House of Commons for misrepresenting Dr Cass’s methodology. Very welcome https://t.co/YjCRjfDfyb — Joanna Cherry KC (@joannaccherry) April 22, 2024 One minute the Greens Ross Greer is banging about his unswerving support trans rights and self-ID. Yet the next, this jumped up little twerp insists he was just passing on a tweet from a trans activist who called the Cass Review a "transphobic, conservative document".

Sisters - all the time we were campaigning against Self ID in Scotland; the medical and social transitioning of our children across UK and for the right to free speech, we weren’t battling Nicola Sturgeon, NHS et al, but doing Putin’s bidding. Who knew? (What a plonker)… https://t.co/57lP4Oy0o3 — Susan Dalgety (@DalgetySusan) April 22, 2024 Some plonker name of Peter Jukes cast aspersions about the motives of gender critical feminists in Scotland - accusing them of doing the bidding of a certain Vladimir Putin. But even the dogs on the street know this to be a whole load of mansplaining baloney.

justice is devolved. the scottish government has similar plans. that the first minister will, effectively, complain the uk government hasn’t ignored devolution and gone ahead and legislated for scotland on a devolved issue shows he has nothing but grievance. https://t.co/SzgR44hHdS — euan mccolm (@euanmccolm) April 23, 2024 Why should UK ministers do the heavy lifting for SNP ministers on such a clearly devolved 'justice' issue -  Scotland's legal system is very different to the rest of the UK, as everyone knows. Scotland's senior law officer, a member of Humza Yousaf's cabinet, insists that Scotland should clear up its own mess when it comes to wrongly convicted sub-postmasters and the Horizon/Post Office scandal.

The UK Government's decision to extend Horizon legislation to every nation in the UK except Scotland is scandalous. The fact the Tories are willing to use Scottish victims of the Royal Mail's Horizon system as a political football is unforgivable. The PM must change course. https://t.co/GUAo8jxBXR — Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) April 23, 2024 He issues an angry written statement on social media attacking the UK government - yet confuses the Post Office with the Royal Mail which is not even involved in the Horizon scandal. How embarrassing!

Nobody ever gets canceled for saying anything too woke. pic.twitter.com/wN1BhZHS5l — Bill Maher (@billmaher) April 23, 2024 Now this made me laugh - Bill Maher poking fun at the inability of the 'woke brigade' to laugh at itself.