Let's chat about how brilliant Nicola Sturgeon is

I disagree Lucca would you want to listen to a voice that sets your teeth on edge? How can it be out of order? It’s our own choice after all.

Off at a tangent here but anyone else think Boris doesn't look too well?

I find this assertion about English people pining for days of Empire mystifying in the extreme, we may be old ( some older than others) but the Empire went a long long time ago.
We would need to be our parents or grandparents to have really either thought about it or wanted it!

Obviously Lemongrove we can have preferences BUT Giving someone’s accent as a reason for not “liking” them or listening to their briefings is in my view really out of order

Tbf we are all allowed our own opinion about accents, we don’t have to agree on what we like or don’t like.
Scottish accents vary just as English ones do, I’m English and don’t like a few accents here, and the same with Scottish accents.I don’t know where in Scotland N Sturgeon is from, but it isn’t the most attractive accent or delivery, in my own view.
I find some accents unattractive and a few hard to follow, such as the Lancashire accent of the Speaker, although it isn’t just his strong accent, again it’s the voice and manner of delivery.

Nice post SuperAli!

This is the first time I have posted on Gransnet!
I'm Scottish and against independence but have respected Nicola Sturgeon's stance throughout this pandemic. She has been direct and clear in her directives and has not shirked unpopular decisions. She has admitted she has made mistakes but these are unprecedented circumstances. We are all learning as we go along.
I'm not an SNP voter but I appreciate the fact that Nicola is trying to keep the Scottish people safe.

As is the assertion up thread that Scotland is like a market stall in comparison to England and that the gran who wrote it could RUN Scotland .And you wonder why some of us want out !!The EMpire is long gone ladies maybe you should realise that England isn't a world power and hasn't been for decades

Yes its particularly unpleasant.

Carping about an accent is on a par with believing that a neighbour who sometimes parks his car outside the wrong house (on a crowded street which is often used for parking by commuters who leave no space for residents' cars) does so because "He came from a scheme and doesn't know about polite parking". This from the same ladies as previously (who don't have a car themselves that needs parking space, but want a space left in case they should get a visitor)

A similar suburb, MawB, with ladies out of the same box as the Morningside ones.

Most Scots I know aren’t too thrilled with her at all. To put it mildly.
Her voice goes through me like nails scraped down a blackboard. And I love Scottish accents as a rule.

Do ALL english people agree with everything Boris says or does? I dont think so.In fact it would be a very strange world if everybody agreed with everything anyone said.I certainly dont agree with everything Nicola says and thats healthy and right
I am a supporter of Independence...bet thats a surprise and as often as I tell folk on here that I hate the Westminster system and not the "English" I still get accused regularly of being anti english.Like Nicola I have English family even an English SIL and GD ,go figure why I'd hate them.

My reason for wanting Independence is simple ,WM is an English parliament always was and will be .As there are @533 English MP's to Scotland 59 ...soon to be cut again by WM there isn't a cats chance in hell of us ever having our views heard or accepted never mind carried out.The language used by WM against us is telling ....its colonial ...we aren't ALLOWED a referendum..should we be GIVEN a referendum ...hardly how any partnership works is it? Surely we'd be better as good neighbours than master and serf ,for thats how we are treated.Note Ian Blackford being told to F OFF back to Skye and the disrespect and derision our ELECTED representative face daily in the HOC.

NS doesn't allow follow up questions from journalists.
I like the questions for Boris from the general public. They more usually ask the sorts of questions that I'd like to hear the answers to rather than the more political questions the journalists tend to ask.

Of course NS answers questions from journalists, it's a press conference. . You can listen to her do it every day. As for the questions from the public, those questions that Johnson takes are pre-recorded so he knows what coming, and then he doesn't answer them anyway.

One thing I will say in BJ’s defence is that he does answer questions from the public and press on his daily briefings. I have not seen NS do this.

Kandinsky

Population of Scotland is?
Population of England is?

It’s like comparing running a market stall to a multi-billion pound company.

I could probably run Scotland.

My thoughts exactly Kandinsky!

I’ll leave running Scotland to you though.

Population of Scotland is?
Population of England is?

It’s like comparing running a market stall to a multi-billion pound company.

I could probably run Scotland.

Well they are entirely out of order Elegran - ladies who reside in Morningside, perhaps?

There are some who would, MawB. I know two maiden ladies in their 80s (at least!) who have criticised Ms Sturgeon because "She is always changing her clothes" presumably because she doesn't look like an unmade bed when she does an update, unlike Boris Johnson, and because she conducts them herself, as they think this means that she is ignoring the experts.

I may have missed this, but I wonder what precisely OP had in mind when she said how “brilliant” NS is.
I am not saying she is NOT although I am not a supporter of independence for Scotland, but as I no longer live there my opinions are entirely personal and my own and I would not dream of inflicting them on my Scottish friends without a lot of detailed study and research.
So how brilliant is she?
I would welcome more opinions from indigenous Scots
But yes, she comes across well, she is a good communicator and she and her advisers seem to have a handle on the epidemic in Scotland. However I have also just heard on TV that Scotland reckons to be about 4 weeks behind most of, certainly the southern part of England so NS has had time to watch, learn and adapt her policies.
Scots have not all agreed with this opinion though and there was a lot of criticism before Christmas of some of her policies. Petty criticisms about her accent, or hair do or the height of her heels are clearly spurious.
Woukd you criticise Jacinta Arden fir her accent? Or indeed President Macron?

Elegran

Why would you find it harder to visit an independent Scotland? The roads will still be there, and the trains and the airports. The country wouldn't be picked up and dropped somewhere in the Pacific.

I read that and thought "I've visited the Pacific but never been to Scotland, right on my doorstep".



I should add Scotland to my bucket list

The comments about Nicola Sturgeon always going on about independence puzzle me a bit. I mean, she heads up a political party whose stated aim is to get independence for Scotland, and the country keeps voting them in large numbers, so I would expect her to talk about it.

I’ve heard her speak live on several occasions. Once at a peripatetic meeting of the Scottish cabinet which took place in my town, once about Syrian refugees, once she was interviewing Bernardine Evaristo (that one was online). Once she was in the same audience as me for a talk about knitting . So it occurs to me that the mainstream media, maybe particularly in England, only have her on when its something to do with elections or independence. Of course this year the pandemic has meant all that has changed and we hear her talk about the virus as well.

I do wish that the PM was more of an an opportunist who had taken advantage of the present situation to make himself look good. I can’t listen to him at all, especially when he is addressing the Nation aka England.
The First Minister has put in a hard shift and given the poor quality of the leaders of the opposition parties in Scotland just now, she would have to be especially dire not to make a good impression.
I once had hopes that Ruth Davidson could restore the Scottish Conservatives to some credibility but then she did an unexplained runner and the current leader is not yet an MSP.
So credit to Sturgeon where it is due.

I love Scotland and visit regularly as my sister lives there.
(but not recently of course). It's a stunningly beautiful country.
I find NS irritating at times. I do think she has presented herself well during the Covid crisis, but when she used to keep on and on and on about Scottish independence she really got up my nose. There should be a referendum again one day, but not for some years yet.