SNP MPs have achieved the square root of damn all at Westminster

Indeed, an entire bestiary of terms has emerged in the age of social media to convey disgust and revilement of the Mother of all Parliaments, including the term “Westmonster”. 

It is variously described as anything between the seventh circle of hell and the begetter of all the evils that afflict Bonnie Scotland. 

Collectively, the swollen SNP contingent at Westminster have achieved the square root of damn all for Scotland since they first began overlooking the boards of fayre in its myriad fine-dining establishments. 

It seems they exist merely to maintain their gilded lifestyles. 

SNP: We want to run our own affairs.

Westminster: Splendid! Let’s see how you get on with a gentle wee Opposition Day motion that you can have all to yourselves. Do try not to b***** it up. 

When the story comes to be written about the SNP’s contribution to Westminster, the most eye-catching chapters will feature extra-marital affairs, late-night drinking sessions to plot leadership coups, and outright sexual harassment. 

The SNP’s major specialty appears to have been conducting campaigns pf bullying and harassment against female gender-critical members and enjoining parliamentary staffers to conduct witch-hunts by making false claims of imagined malfeasance. 

Part of the club
ON Wednesday, the SNP’s Westminster fine-dining and wine club were in their element and Scottish voters could finally see what they were all about. 

They have cracked Westminster and are as much part of the fixtures and fittings as the ancient tomes and green leather upholstery that furnish this swat of England’s imperial history. They have embraced all of its esoteric ordinances. 

It seemed to represent the final triumph of the British state over Scottish nationalism. Watching

Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s Westminster leader screaming at Madam Deputy Speaker, you were reminded of a child being told that the ice cream-van has run out of sprinkles for his pokey hat. 

Would that some of these people had shown such passion for the cause of Scottish independence. 
Not that many of them even care sincerely about the broken people of Gaza.

If they did, they’d have approached this debate in a grown-up manner, rather than use the suffering of the innocents as a cheap political stunt, replete with grandiose pomposity and posturing that was principally designed to embarrass Labour. 

This is one sick political party.  

The SNP have become so embedded at Westminster and its arcane ways that when they’re all gone, some part of it will probably have to be named after them. Maybe a rest room or one of the many bars to which they’ve all become so attached with a suitable name.

Collective madness
THE SNP will have known that using the phrase “collective punishment” in their Opposition Day motion would be unacceptable to the Labour Party. 
They’d also have known that the motion would not have been in any way diminished by its omission. 
Its inclusion suggests that they weren’t being entirely serious or sincere in their conduct. 
And let’s speak frankly here: it can’t have escaped some of them that the term “collective punishment” was one first used in the context of Nazi death squads making entire villages pay for any acts of resistance during the Second World War. It carries a special resonance for the Jews who were the principal victims of the Nazis.
And you’ll be waiting a long time before the SNP express any concern for the rising tide of anti-Semitism across the UK and the hostile environment that Scottish and British Jews are facing. 

Hellish Holyrood
THE pantomime at Westminster might indeed have been a bad day for Westminster, but in the days immediately preceding and following it, Holyrood hasn’t shone either. 

It’s just that the UK Parliament has existed for more than 800 years and is one of the oldest continuing legislative assemblies in the world. 

It can absorb chaotic days like last Wednesday. Holyrood hasn’t yet reached its first quarter century, but has already become synonymous with mediocrity and bad faith.

Last week, we saw Ross Greer, Holyrood’s student prince, trying to organise a blockade of his own place of work amid some juvenile and disturbing anti-Israel sloganeering. 

We also saw the SNP MSP Christine Grahame inadvertently highlight her own party’s celebration of falsehood and dishonesty. Ms Grahame was railing against the haphazard and lazy approach to addressing the influx of the XL Bully breed of dogs into Scotland.  

“What is a Bully XL,” she said. “Nobody in this room can actually give a clear, simple definition. That’s key to any legislation. It’s bad law and cannot come into force.”

Christine, your own party can’t even define what a woman is. Perhaps start with that and then we can move on to canine categorisations.