THE TABLET THE INTERNATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY FOUNDED IN 1840

DEVOLVED POLITICS

SCOTLAND AFTER STURGEON

S cottish politics are likely to be in turmoil for some while. The great achievement of the Scottish National Party (SNP) was to take over from Labour as the “natural party of government” north of the border. It is generally accepted that this had as much to do with Labour’s failure to govern well over decades, taking Scottish support for granted, as with any particular political genius possessed by the SNP.

Except of course for Nicola Sturgeon, who has announced her resignation. She had a rare capacity to attract affection and respect by the sheer force of personality, making her as dominant a figure in Scottish politics as Margaret Thatcher had once been in the UK. Now Sturgeon has announced her retirement as First Minister, it is for the SNP – and Scotland in general – to decide where it wants to go from here. There is more than one answer, which is where the trouble lies.

Sturgeon shared with Boris Johnson a kind of magnetism that made ordinary voters feel they knew them personally. The SNP and the Tories treasured their electoral appeal, an asset that made tensions between factions within their parties more manageable. After Johnson’s departure, the Conservatives seemed destined to become ungovernable. The challenge for the new SNP leader is how to avoid a similar fate.

The dominant element in the SNP prioritised independence from the rest of the UK, which essentially meant from England. Yet the immediate frontrunner to replace her, Kate Forbes, has backed away from some of her firmer policy positions. For instance, Forbes opposes treating the next UK

general election as a de facto referendum on independence. As a conservative evangelical she differs from Sturgeon on gay marriage and gender recognition reform. She is also on the right wing on economic policy, whereas Sturgeon was one of nature’s social democrats. The question in her case is not so much whether anyone with deep religious convictions can ever lead a culturally diverse political party, but whether such convictions can prevent the growth of the rapport with the party and the electorate that any leader must have to be successful.

For any potential new SNP leader to seek to rally the party together on the basis of anti-English sentiment would be unwise. It is better to build bridges than walls, as Pope Francis once said. There is work to be done on both sides of the border to heal long-standing resentments on one side and longstanding condescension on the other. Westminster governments have persistently handled their relations with Scotland badly, not treating it as an equal partner but as a dependency.

This gave Sturgeon plenty of anti-Westminster ammunition that has broadened into a growing anti-English sentiment within Scottish public opinion. Nevertheless, independence is still some way from becoming the “settled will of the Scottish people”. It must have been the failure to create that necessary consensus in her nine years of national leadership that led Nicola Sturgeon to feel her time was up. It was honest of her to recognise it. Unless her successor proves a more convincing advocate for independence, it might be time for the SNP to admit that this is not where Scotland’s real interests lie.

PERSONAL DIGNITY

PRIVACY MUST BE PROTECTED

T he internet, social media and smartphones have turned everyone who uses them into potential “citizen journalists”. Various gross miscarriages of justice and abuses of police power have been brought to light as a result. But the sad case of Nicola Bulley shows what a mixed blessing this has become. The body of the Lancashire mortgage adviser with a loving family was recovered from the River Wyre three weeks after she disappeared. As well as invasion by journalists, the family and their neighbours have endured harassment and intrusion as strangers turned up uninvited to claim a place in the unfolding drama.

This became a major problem for the police, as it interfered with the searches and launched a torrent of largely ignorant speculation. They were under such pressure that they issued more private information about the missing woman than they ought to have done, releasing material about her mental and physical health that had doubtful relevance to her case. They could have handled it better. It was through Lancashire Police that Bulley’s family then issued a bitter and angry statement, deploring the lack of respect for their privacy shown by, among others, two national TV news networks.

Privacy is the real issue here, and how it is to be protected. Those amateurs may well have felt they were only doing what the professionals do: broadcasting eye-catching images from a

place that was briefly at the centre of the nation’s agonised – or merely prurient – attention. Or doing what they felt the police ought to have done to solve the mystery.

It is commonplace to regard the social media world as the modern Wild West, lawless and raw. Various attempts are in hand to tame it, such as the Online Safety Bill now before the British Parliament. But the privacy issue is a slippery one. Official guidelines contain many phrases such as “unless it is warranted”. Social media outlets such as TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and so on are now answerable to Ofcom, although the protection of privacy on video sharing platforms (VSPs) has not so far been a major issue for the regulator.

The Bulley case should change that, though it may be difficult. It is the sheer volume of online traffic the story generated, and the large number of amateurs descending on one small community, that made the experience so intolerable. The Information Commissioner has called into question the release of facts about Nicola Bulley by Lancashire Police, but intrusive speculation on social media seems to be beyond its remit. Gaps here need to be addressed by professional bodies, by regulators and by Parliament; and a better public understanding of what privacy is would make that easier. It is about the ownership of personal information, but also about intrusion into personal space. Fundamentally, it is about respecting personal dignity. Even in death.