The Sandie Peggie-NHS Fife trans row shows SNP's adoration of public sector can be misplaced

Scottish Sun

4 days ago

LAST week Sandie Peggie was cleared of gross misconduct allegations.
The nurse had endured an 18-month probe after complaining about sharing a women's changing room with a trans doctor.
But she is still locked in an employment tribunal battle with the health board, which suspended her for challenging the decision to allow Dr Beth Upton into the female changing area.
Dr Upton then made a bullying allegation against her.
Today, political commentator Chris Deerin says state workers have long been put on a pedestal by the SNP.
And, writing for The Scottish Sun, he says the medical debacle has allowed Scots to see the inner workings of the public sector – and it doesn't make for pretty viewing.
IF there's one opinion that could be said to have defined the recent history of devolution, it's 'public sector good, private sector bad'.
In the eyes of our politicians, state workers seem to be able to do no wrong. They are given inflation-busting pay rises and benefit from the kind of pensions and job security that make the rest of us drool.
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Sandie Peggie departs the tribunal
Credit: Getty
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Dr Beth Upton
Credit: Alamy
The SNP, in particular, has made itself a friend of the public sphere. It knows that to keep up support for independence, it has to keep these people on side.
And so it has done everything it can to avoid falling out with doctors, nurses, teachers, police officers, firefighters and council employees — even where the service provided has been well below par.
Not a week goes by without praise being lauded on those working in the NHS or in the classroom.
These people, we are led to believe, are special — they are different from the rest of us, driven by some special moral purpose that elevates them to a higher level of appreciation.
NATS health secretary Neil Gray today failed to back nurse Sandie Peggie amid a row over single-sex space
We've all had cause to be grateful to a GP or to our kid's teacher.
There are some truly outstanding individuals in the public sector, with a deeply felt vocation to do good for others.
But they're not all like that, are they? We've also all experienced a doctor who treats you with barely concealed contempt and can't get you out of the surgery fast enough.
We've watched our children struggle under teachers who clearly should have been fired long ago and who are out of the door every evening as soon as school is finished.
And many of us who have worked in the private sector will have experience of brilliant people who are driven not just by what's in it for them, but for how they can help their colleagues and how their organisation can benefit society.
Over my career, largely spent in the profit-producing part of the economy, I've had bosses and colleagues of all sorts — some of them genuinely inspiring and brilliant at what they do, with deep consciences.
They go the extra mile, just as much as a stand-out performer in the state sector.
Others have been driven solely by personal ambition, while some have been absolute turkeys (they didn't last). Such is the warp and weft of humanity.
For the most part, though, people are motivated by a complex mix of things, whichever sector of the jobs market they're in.
Folk want to get on and to feel valued. They like to feel that what they do is worthwhile. They want to provide for their families and enjoy a reasonable standard of living. All of that, and more.
But if you work in the private sector under the SNP and listen to the Greens, and at times in the past even the Labour Party, you might have felt like a second-class citizen — as if what you do is somehow less worthy of respect.
At times, it felt like Nicola Sturgeon had no time at all for business and was only comfortable in the company of leftie social-justice warriors like her.
It's the private sector that drives economic growth, that relentlessly innovates, that finds solutions and is responsible for a huge share of the tax revenue that funds our public services. If our country is to thrive, we need that sector to be supported, to be encouraged, to be allowed to thrive.
And yet it is treated with suspicion by too many in our political class.
'Wealth creation' is regarded as a dirty phrase. Entrepreneurs are viewed as being a bit dodgy unless they can prove otherwise.
Holyrood has too often viewed the private sector as a necessary evil rather than a national asset. It's madness.
Is the public sector such a paragon? Just look at what is unfolding in the industrial tribunal that nurse Sandie Peggie has launched against NHS Fife.
Peggie objected to having to undress in the same changing room as a transgender-identifying doctor, Beth Upton. The nurse was suspended and an investigation launched. Last week the health board's investigation was dropped, leaving Peggie in the clear.
The tribunal continues, even though it's now hard to understand what NHS Fife's defence is, given its own inquiry has ended with no sanction.
The health board is blankly carrying on — and having already spent more than £200,000 of our money, it will spend much more before this is over.
It's hardly the first time we've seen the inner workings of the public sector and winced. It won't be the last. In the end the state and its employees have no special virtue beyond whether the service provided benefits Scotland.
That's true of all of us, wherever we work, and it's past time this was understood.