Nigel Watson

Specialist in share plans, pensions, tax, remuneration and reward structures. Basically I help individuals and organisations to value one another. Views my own.

[Nigel Watson @RemLawGuru]

@TheSecretAcct @FromValue Did you hold / sell HG Capital?

[Nigel Watson @RemLawGuru]

@John_Stepek Suspect I’m overimagining but my clients seem really brittle at the moment. Money is in short supply and the portends (not helping) seem dreadful.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

.@MrTCHarris nails something here that I cut from my review of Frankly for reasons of space. Whether trying to have the last public word against her dead predecessor, defaming feminist campaigners or taking snide potshots at fellow politicians, Sturgeon comes across as spiteful.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

I see Nicola Sturgeon is once again complaining that I posted a picture of myself wearing a T-shirt with her name on it and the legend 'Destroyer of Women's Rights.' Apparently this didn't 'elevate the debate.'

Is there a clinical term for an individual who has extreme thinness of skin when it comes to their own perceived hurts, coupled with a rhino-hide when it comes to the fear and suffering of others?

I'm thinking in particular of the two women Isla Bryson raped, who had to watch their First Minister squirm and smirk on TV as she tried to avoid admitting he was a man; of the five survivors of male violence who were ready to give evidence to Sturgeon's committee on gender self-ID, but were told to put their concerns in writing while seventeen trans-identified people appeared in person; of the mother of a young girl with a learning disability who campaigned against self-ID because she wanted her daughter to be guaranteed same sex intimate care, should she need it (the mother was presumably one of those female opponents Sturgeon calls 'shrill' and 'hysterical' in her memoir); of the ten-year-old girl sexually assaulted in a public bathroom by a 6'5" paedophile who served his jail sentence in a women's prison because he called himself 'Katie'; of Sandie Peggie, forced to discuss her own menstrual history in public to justify not wanting to undress in view of a 6ft straight cross-dresser in the nurses' changing room; of Marion Millar, dragged into court because she tweeted a picture of suffragette ribbons; of the Scottish rape crisis centres reliant on government funding who were pressured to admit trans-identified males into their services if they wanted funding to continue.

When Sturgeon refers to an 'elevated debate', she means a discussion that takes place within a tiny, smug bubble from which regular women suffering real life consequences of her policies are firmly excluded. These faceless ants are loftily dismissed as bigots, or, to be more precise: 'transphobic, misogynistic, homophobic, maybe racist as well.'

Nicola, you hated the T-shirt picture because you couldn't ignore it, as you'd ignored so many other women trying to make you understand their concerns. Appeals to your empathy, your intelligence and your compassion all failed. Apparently the only way to get through to you is through your vanity.

[Sam Taylor @staylorish]

“The Sturgeon version of feminism is little more than a childish excuse for her own failings: a big patriarchy did it and ran away.”

@sarahditum on Sturgeon’s book. (A brilliant sentence. Far better than any in the book itself.)

[The Ponsonby and Massie Podcast @PonsonbyMassie]

🚨OUT NOW - PT2 Podcast of Bernard Ponsonby and Alex Massie's review of Nicola Sturgeon's new book - "Frankly".
🔊PODCAST - https://t.co/sn4a3a8zNa
📺YOUTUBE - https://t.co/hXWoPrDD1P

@alexmassie
@NicolaSturgeon
@JohnSwinney
@theSNP

[euan mccolm @euanmccolm]

magnificent.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

The Twilight of Nicola Sturgeon
My review of Frankly
https://t.co/2TBwrFEs2b

[Merryn Somerset Webb @MerrynSW]

Read this.

[Nigel Watson @RemLawGuru]

@MerrynSW Time to dust off my copy of Anarchy, State and Utopia by the libertarian Bob Nozick.

[Nigel Watson @RemLawGuru]

@SebastianEPayne @PensionsMonkey @elonmusk It’s all very SNP and Scotland ie similar. For Sturgeon read Starmer. And look how badly that has and is playing out economically for Scotland. The portents are not good.

[Nigel Watson @RemLawGuru]

@AlanJLSmith Agree. Advisory community is flat out at the moment. Very similar to 2008 when taper relief was scrapped.

[Nigel Watson @RemLawGuru]

@Sam_Dumitriu Also, the 10% rate for qualifying Emi option held for 2 years helps encourage people to take a pay cut to join a risky start up that can’t offer large salaries for talent.

[Nigel Watson @RemLawGuru]

@kevverage @snpwatch No one does cognitive dissonance as well as our Nicola.

[Nigel Watson @RemLawGuru]

@IanMurrayMP @AnasSarwar Must be good to finally have company.

[Nigel Watson @RemLawGuru]

@iainmartin1 such a great reaction newsletter today. Gives proper expression to many of my concerns about the digital storm. I think it’s right on the money. Nice one.

[Nigel Watson @RemLawGuru]

@stephenkb Apology not accepted. All good analysis is good analysis, in whatever order.

[Nigel Watson @RemLawGuru]

@stephenkb Ta. Although there might be regional anomalies where the VAT hike produces bigger net numbers. For example, if true, 1 in 4 Edinburgh children attend private school. No one can properly model unintended consequences of normalising interest rates. Could same apply to VAT on fees?

[Nigel Watson @RemLawGuru]

@stephenkb Although presumably there will be some sort of pressure on school numbers if VAT on private school fees happens?