by Rab Bruce’s Spider

Mastodon: @RabBrucesSpider1@Mastodon.Scot

Twitter: @RabBrucesSpider

I have absolute sympathy with anyone who suffers from being bullied. Workplace bullying simply should not happen, although it does with dreadful frequency. So I fully understand why Dr Lisa Cameron has decided to quit the SNP Westminster group if she has been bullied. It is always better to remove yourself from any toxic culture.

What is most bizarre about her defection, though, is that she has switched to join the Tories. I’d have thought she has been at Westminster long enough to know that empathy and understanding of others is not exactly high on the list of Tory attributes. The move seems especially bizarre since she claims it will help her speak out for the disabled and vulnerable. Again, has she not noticed that the Tories make a particular point of picking on the disabled and vulnerable in society?

She has claimed that she still supports Scottish independence, yet has moved to an Ultra Unionist Party because she thinks that the SNP need to focus more on helping people cope with immediate problems. This is a typical Tory line because they know most people want everyday issues attended to by their Government, but it misses the fundamental point that becoming a normal, self-governing country would put us in a much better position to be able to tackle those important issues like the cost of living.

I am not here to defend the SNP. Indeed, I believe they have shown a distinct lack of leadership over the past few years, and there is little sign of that changing in the immediate future, but I do find Dr Cameron’s decision baffling to say the least. But perhaps her decision has something to do with the fact that her local Party were refusing to back her as their candidate in the next General Election. If that came on top of a sustained period of bullying, her decision may have been designed to cause the maximum damage to the SNP.

Whatever her motivation, the UK media has adopted its usual stance, loudly proclaiming the end of the SNP and the cause of Scottish independence. In fact, the BBC managed to find a few voters who supported Dr Cameron’s decision, confirming that the SNP were indeed very bad. Oddly, this did not tally with the same research undertaken by The National which actually provided a more balanced and impartial view than the BBC. Quelle surprise!

More worryingly, nobody in the media appears to be asking questions about the bullying. If there is a culture like that in the SNP Westminster group, it really must be stopped. The SNP leadership should step in without delay and get to the root of the problem. The fact that they seem content to do nothing does not reflect well on them. But, oddly, the media are not pursuing this as an attack line. It seems such an obvious target that I’d have thought they would have jumped on it with the aim of revealing who the bullies are. So far, though, we’ve heard nothing about that. I am probably being too cynical, but perhaps there is more to this story than we have been told so far.