You just don’t get it, do you Nicola?
A taxpayer-funded ‘city break’ to promote Brand Sturgeon and Fringe gigs galore, as Scots wade through piles of rubbish...
THE allure of the international stage has always attracted Nicola Sturgeon. But whether it is lapping up applause from crowds at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe or grandstanding in Copenhagen, it’s clear that the First Minister has her priorities all wrong.
In a week which saw Scots forced to confront ugly scenes of waste overflowing from bins, Ms Sturgeon was in the Danish capital, one of the cleanest cities in world.
You might think she would return home ready to roll up her sleeves and tackle the crisis. But not a bit of it. Instead, tomorrow she will be at the Edinburgh Book Festival with Brian Cox, no doubt going over her favourite topic – independence.
Ms Sturgeon says: ‘Promoting Scotland overseas has never been more important than now.’ But while she was abroad, anyone looking in on Scotland – looking in at Edinburgh and Glasgow – must wonder ‘What has gone wrong?’
Because in spite of the thousands of tourists flooding into our capital for the August festivals, Ms Sturgeon and the SNP have let the city become an embarrassment as the ongoing bin strikes have turned Edinburgh into a rubbish heap.
YEARS of SNP underfunding of our local services have led to the mess that councils are now trying to clear up – but Nicola Sturgeon and her Ministers appear to have washed their hands of the dispute. Bin bags are piling high, rubbish is strewn everywhere you look – and visitors who have travelled to our country from around the world are having to navigate through heaps of trash, all across the city.
All this has been far worse for residents, most of whom can’t jet off and escape the filthy capital as Ms Sturgeon did last week, and many whose livelihoods depend on tourism and visitors to the city.
So what is the best way to promote Scotland overseas? Is it photos of the First Minister opening yet another expensive, unwanted foreign office in Copenhagen? Or is it to fix our public services so people who come here can see how wonderful Scotland really is?
It seems SNP Ministers are only interested in ‘promoting Scotland overseas’, when that involves taxpayer-funded mini-breaks rather than any actual work.
And the bin strikes are not the first SNP failure that has left Scotland red-faced this summer.
The ScotRail shambles earlier in the year came as a hammer blow to our tourism industry and town centres, with hundreds of thousands of spectators going to the 150th Open in St Andrews last month affected by the chaos. And the ongoing SNP ferry fiasco has seen sailings cancelled and disrupted throughout the peak summer season.
It’s infuriating to watch Scotland’s opportunities being squandered by SNP incompetence. With more strikes kicking off nationwide, towns up and down Scotland will soon be as filthy as Edinburgh.
If Ms Sturgeon really cared about Scotland’s reputation abroad, she would have focused on getting a grip on this situation. But for the SNP, ‘promoting Scotland’ does not mean promoting our country – it means promoting Ms Sturgeon, the SNP and its unwanted push for a second independence referendum.
That is the real reason Ms Sturgeon is happy to see Edinburgh’s summer festivals tarnished by this humiliating state of affairs, as long as her handful of public appearances and interviews at the Festival go on as planned.
And that is why, with thousands of people from around the world pouring into a filthy Edinburgh, she thought it more important to jet off to Copenhagen for a photo-op.
Because for the First Minister, nothing is more important than promoting ‘brand Sturgeon’ and a second unwanted referendum – even the wellbeing of Scotland’s people, our international reputation and the billions of pounds it is worth to our economy each year.
In a few months, the tourism season will have died down, but the public will still be living with the SNP’s incompetence. People are sick and tired of SNP Ministers jetting off for taxpayer-funded selfpromotion every time a crisis unfolds here – and they are sick and tired of the Nationalists’ constant pressure to break apart the UK both at home and abroad.
Nicola Sturgeon should take heed of the backlash to her Copenhagen trip, start listening to the priorities of the Scottish public and get back to the day job.
Infuriating to watch Scotland’s opportunities being squandered