Stickers, banners & double standards.

We all have our biases, to claim we don't, would be a lie. Claiming ownership of the status quo won't make our bias mainstream or legitimate, it's just another tawdry dishonesty. Our bias is fuelled by our opinions, which are always subjective. Double standards on the other hand?

And the 'vandalism', 'slurs' and inspired 'fear...'

(All nicked from www.wingsoverscotland.com)

Remember when Ian Murray had a similar outburst? Remember our reaction to it. Some fiend stuck Yes stickers on the door of his constituency office. Remember how we mocked?

There are two aspects to this, the first is the subject matter. To put my own bias out there, I have deep misgivings about the regard being paid to women's rights by the SNP. I take the view, that as a chap (by all the usual metrics), it's not my place to tell women what their lot is, it's my place to listen to them, tell me what it is. If they say their protected spaces are at risk - my place in the debate is to accept it, and offer my support if they will have it. It's not my place to foist even that on them.

That's my opinion, but I appreciate (and regularly see) there are others doing the rounds. While I don't agree with them, I won't say they're not allowed to exist, or should be silenced, because it would make me a hypocrite.

Which takes us to the second aspect - the glass-shattering hypocrisy and double standards. Opinion lives on a spectrum, it is by it's very nature subjective. Double standards on the other hand, are a black and white proposition. If you condemn an activity in the morning, then do it yourself in the afternoon (and feign wide-eyed innocence), not only do you engage in the initial dishonesty, you stick a bow on it by engaging in a hypocrisy so obvious, we must assume you are stupid, or think we all are.

Even as I type this, it feels unreasonable. But I think it's because the bar has moved over the past few years. The threshold for offence is so low and ephemeral, anything other than complete acceptance when someone claims it's happening, makes you feel like a Piers Morgan clone.

[insert deliberately unflattering photo here]

Kirsty Blackman and the people who'd agree with and support her, now claim to be the status quo. As an erstwhile fan of Nicola Sturgeon - because she doesn't distance herself from, or at the very least censure people like Blackman - I have to count her in that grouping, which saddens me greatly.

If we can't trust the SNP leadership with something as straightforward as double standards, how can we trust them to deliver a referendum on independence? How can we trust them at all? And how is this any better than having unionists in charge given the similarity in actions?

With the looming threat of the Hate Crime Bill, I have to ask if the SNP (in its current form), can be trusted with it? Do we trust COPFS to exercise legal instruments related to offence, given it's close links with a government so keen on finding it? Because I'll put 50p on the bill's proponents looking for a successful prosecution to justify its existence.

These are all questions I can't help but ponder between now and May.