I am grateful to the hon. Lady, a fellow lawyer. I do not want to turn this into a lawyers' conference, however, lest anyone should suspect that we have vested interests. More seriously, this is about the tone of the debate and about the relationship between the Executive and the judiciary, which forms the foundation of our democracy.
I noted in this week's Sunday Herald that some of the First Minister's own Ministers and MSPs apparently refer to him in private as the ““Dear Leader””. References to any similarity with North Korea might seem comical, but this display fits in better with a paranoid one-party state than with a modern, progressive, advanced 21st-century democracy. I certainly do not believe that everyone who supports the SNP or wishes for independence follows that creed—Jim Sillars is a good example of someone who believes in independence but also believes in listening to other people's arguments—but it certainly has a home within the SNP ““cybernat”” sphere.
Scotland Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Ann McKechin
(Labour)
in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 21 June 2011.
It occurred during Debate on bills on Scotland Bill.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
530 c287-8 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Subjects
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Timestamp
2023-12-15 16:56:15 +0000
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