‘What am I going to do with my life?’ Mhairi Black on quitting the ‘depressing’ Commons at 29 – with no regrets
by Superbuddhapunk
‘What am I going to do with my life?’ Mhairi Black on quitting the ‘depressing’ Commons at 29 – with no regrets
by Superbuddhapunk
5 comments
I can honestly say I never took to her, yeah she could spout out a monologue full of soundbites, but there was never any substance or solutions offered.
The media were always touting her as the “princess who was promised” but it just never materialised.
She was a good speaker, good at highlighting some issues in parliament but at the same time lacked discipline on social media.
The one thing she was great at and talked about here was highlighting how completely outdated Westminster is with its rediculous rules around voting and speakers rights as well as the rampant classism. She’s not even working class but because she has a strong Scottish accent it’s apparently acceptable to judge her intelligence based on that? Can you imagine the outcry if an Asian MP from Bradford was relentlessly mocked and told nobody could understand them?
I don’t like how superior her tone is. Maybe this is just an issue of the SNP in Westminster. She achieved nothing, her attendance rates were appallingly low, and then she leaves with a tone of how she’s just too good for the place.
I’m not a massive fan of her, but I appreciate that she isn’t going down the Dennis Skinner route. I think she’s emblematic of what I see as the biggest split in the SNP in recent history. In Holyrood they’re pretty much perpetually in government, whereas in Westminster they have effectively consigned themselves to never be in government – so if you want to be in the opposition and do a lot of oppositiony things (say a lot of public speaking) you go down to Westminster, and if you want to be in government and work on more governmental things like legislation you go up to Holyrood.
But to make an effective set of parliamentarians, you really need to be actively involved in both these different areas, and the way I see it is the SNP has reached the point where they’re not getting enough parliamentarians that are doing all these different things, because effectively they’re funnelled into different groups from the outset. There are a few small groups – think the 1999 and 2003 intake of SNP MSPs, or the occasional MSP that’s been an MP or vice versa – but they’re aging out rather rapidly now.
Wish her well in the future. That video where it looked like she was doing a lil key bump was a great scene from parliament