John Swinney will unveil his second programme for government in Holyrood today – the first minister of Scotland’s equivalent of the King’s Speech. He will promise measures to cut hospital waiting lists, address climate change, eliminate child poverty and, above all, promote economic growth. But what is more interesting than what is in today’s programme is what has been left out of it. John Swinney has been quietly burying his predecessors’ progressive policies. He would never use the word, but the First Minister is waving farewell to woke.
He has already made it clear he will not resurrect Nicola Sturgeon’s disastrous Gender Recognition Bill. This is the legislation, passed overwhelmingly by the Scottish Parliament in December 2022, which would have allowed 16-year-olds to change their legal sex by making a simple declaration.
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