The time will surely come for Kate Forbes
by Dr Tom Goodfellow, TCW:
IN March 2023 I wrote an article for TCW on whether Kate Forbes could survive in the snakepit of Scottish SNP politics. I outlined the fact that Scottish culture had been shaped by its Christian reformation in the 17th century and the pivotal role played by John Knox, the minister and reformed Calvinist theologian. He insisted that wherever there was a Kirk there should be a school, and that all children, whether rich or poor, should have at least a basic education. The Calvinist ethos encouraged diligence, study, social responsibility and enterprise, and rewarded even those from very modest backgrounds.
This laid the bedrock for the Scottish Enlightenment which was characterised by the values of improvement, virtue, and practical benefit for the individual and society as a whole. In consequence wee Scotland gave the world some of the greatest philosophers, scientists, doctors, engineers, architects, authors, explorers and many others.
Sadly the last 20 years or so has seen the Scots determined to trash their cultural heritage, and indeed Scotland has secularised faster than almost any other European country. And led by the SNP, educational standards have plummeted. The NHS in Scotland is even worse than in England; deaths from drug abuse are the highest in Europe; and rather than focusing on these issues which are important to the people, the SNP has pushed woke social agendas such as gender recognition which resulted in a convicted rapist being sent to a female prison. The reality is that under Nicola Sturgeon and her successor Scotland has become deeply authoritarian, illiberal, retrogressive and exclusive, unless you sign up unquestioningly to all their dogmas. Having lost an overall majority the SNP teamed up with the Greens, a deeply intolerant party with a whole range of extreme policies.
Following Sturgeon’s downfall and the campaign for the new leader of the party, Kate Forbes came a creditable second to Humza Yousaf, gaining 48 per cent of the votes. She was clearly a very competent and popular candidate. However during the campaign almost the only topic of conversation around her was not her policies or experience, but the fact that she was a Christian and a member of the Presbyterian Free Church of Scotland, and that she held socially conservative views in line with her faith, especially on sexuality. This, it seemed, made her unfit for high office in the land where the Scots had once been known as ‘the people of the book’.
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