Scotland

Simpson said: “This is not a cosy club, this is a Parliament, this is not a second-rate chamber to be used as a part-time hobby, this is a serious Parliament, and members should be fully focused on their work here.

Along with the ban on double-jobbing, the Bill also makes provisions that will allow foreign nationals with limited leave to remain to run for office while barring sex offenders from holding office, along with those who have been convicted of a crime which includes hostility towards politicians or electoral staff.

Sounds a bit like a cosy club if you can just bar people at will, regardless of whether the public wishes someone to be their MSP or not.

This is the kind of law that sounds reasonable until you hear cases of people being put on the sex offenders register for having a piss near a playground at 3am on their way home from the pub. Or in the future, if we have a hostile parliament to the people and there's a backlash, anyone who stood up could potentially be barred based on their activism.

Scotland is a pretty well run and reasonable country when it comes to laws and courts but that doesn't mean there isn't and won't be abuses of the law now or in the future and laws like this can be abused to ensure only the "right people" get to decide our laws.

I also notice the article focuses heavily on Stephen Flynn with no mention of Douglas Ross at all, wtf?