By Rab Bruce’s Spider

We can moan all we like about the SNP being held to higher standards than other parties, but that is the reality, and SNP politicians really should know this by now. Margaret Ferrier’s inexcusable actions in travelling on public transport after testing positive for Covid have given the Nat-bashers all the ammunition they need, and you can be sure the BBC will take full advantage of it.

Yes, there is hypocrisy here, with politicians from other parties having done equally inexcusable things and got away with it, but again that is the nature of UK politics, and we are never going to change that. What all pro-Indy campaigners need to realise is that they cannot afford to give the media the excuses they are looking for.

What has been quite pleasing is that much of the comment criticising Margaret Ferrier has come from the Yes side of the constitutional debate, although that will cut no ice with the media, whose view of Yes is confined to us being vile CyberNats.

But let’s state this quite clearly. Wrong is wrong, no matter which political party you belong to or support. Equally, if you only call out wrongdoing when it is done by your political opponents, that is wrong as well.

Margaret Ferrier must resign. To do otherwise would give the media and the Tories a huge stick with which to beat the SNP, and they will certainly exploit this. She has damaged the pro-Indy cause, and however much she apologises, it won’t be good enough. To complain that Unionist politicians have done similar things in the past is to miss the point. They are held to lower standards than the Yes movement, and we should take pride in that. That’s because it is not only the media which demands higher standards from the pro-Indy side as a result of their bias, it is because we demand higher standards of ourselves. We look at the cesspit of corruption and greed that is UK politics, and we want nothing to do with it, so we must set and maintain much higher standards of behaviour than our opponents when it comes to setting a public example.