Friday 12 February 2010

A FEW RANDOM THOUGHTS ON THE ELECTION...


As we draw near to the next General Election the gap between the Tories and the incumbents is dangerously close. There are those, me amongst them, who think that Cameron is light and most of the shadow cabinet even lighter. In particular I have the impression that if you didn’t nail him down, Osborne would float away.

So we seem to be faced with the choice of the current bunch of tired, idealess, failed, tainted, third raters, or a bunch of untried, tainted, lightweights. Hard choice.

Over the next few months we are going to suffer the most horrific onslaught of politicking from all of them. They will tell us lies, they will jerk our emotions. They will do what they said they would never do by using their families, and in one case already upon us, their family tragedies, to try to show what good men they are.

It will be sickening. Much of it of course will go over people’s heads. Remember that under our
system of government around ¾ of the seats in the London parliament are completely safe. They never change hands. After a while even people like me, interested in politics, will turn off. Some of it will be too sickening to watch or to listen to.

In Scotland both the Tories and Labour have told us that it is a two horse race. Either Brown of Cameron will be the next Prime Minister. The SNP, and for that matter, the Liberals are insignificant; they don’t matter.

Not true. They matter very very much. Although our political system is flawed badly (remember Blair had a HUGE majority with around 35% of the vote), it still does matter who you vote for.

I understand that the Civil Service chiefs and Buckingham Palace big wigs have been undergoing training as to how to deal with the prospect of a hung parliament. It looks, at this point very possible that that may be the outcome.

If things really are that close, then votes for the Liberals or the SNP are anything but wasted. Whilst it would be impossible (I think at least) for the SNP to form any kind of coalition with either party, the Liberals certainly could. This could make a massive difference to the way that the country is governed. But it is equally important that Scotland has a real voice in the London parliament. We must show them that we intend to be heard, and that the half hearted devolution settlement, or indeed most of what was proposed by Calman will not do. We can’t do that if we do not have a sizable SNP party in their parliament.

Over the last year the London Parliament has been disgraced by over half of its elected members stealing from us on a lax expenses system. (The unelected part has done its fair share of fiddling too, but there is nothing we can do about them.) There will be a strong temptation not to bother voting, because “they are all the same”.

But we must remember that, even if we all stay at home and the politicians’ families are the only ones to vote for them, we will get the politician with the biggest family as our representative...


25 comments:

  1. The Gorgon could have asked Moron not to ask about his kids but didn't so it's obviously totally stage managed to get a reaction ( checkout his missus watching for the camera angle before she had a weep aswell ).He looked even more terrifying with his teary red eye and dry glass eye fighting for the viewers attention. I couldn't get off to sleep last night thinking about it.
    I'd say there's no point in voting at the general election. All the parties support the same things. The EU, mass immigration, agw global warming scam, carbon credits,political correctness, extra Islamic funding/ support, Quangos, £400 a month food allowances ( whether parliament is sitting or not - how do they get their food to cost exactly £400 every month ? Weird. Miraculous even ).
    I might go and vote UKIP I suppose. Or one of the other mad single issue parties. Definitely not one of the establishment parties though. Totally wasted vote that is.

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  2. They've barely started and I'm sick of them already. I wont be voting for any of the big 3 (England) though I'll probably vote UKIP as I believe you're right and people should get out and vote, just vote for anyone but Lib/Lab/Con.

    You know it makes sense and it's the only real message these corrupt troughers will understand.

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  3. Anon:

    I've not seen it and I couldn't bear to watch it, knowing what was coming....

    If we don't vote ... we'll get the rotten gits anyway. It only takes one vote to get someone in.

    As for the 400 quid.... easy answer... they cheat.

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  4. QM: I agree it is essential to vote.

    There are people who have died for the right to do what some of us can't be bothered getting off our butts to do.

    If people feel they can't vote for the main parties there is always an independent or some mad candidate (beside the Labour bloke).

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  5. I shall vote i always vote never miss an election...Happy day when i vote Labour as i always do just look for the Labour logo and X dont ask who dont ask why...Just X marks the spot

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  6. That's good Niko. If Iain Gray reads this blog (he can read, right?) then I'm sure he'll be smiling now and saying "Good old Niko. Where would I be without his unquestioning support? I love him dearly. Must remember to send his that fiver."

    As long as you're voting Niko.... that's the main thing. Even if you do vote for that dog's breakfast that is Labour.

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  7. aw tris, did ah catch a wee whiff o' raw emotion there? A faint but distinct air d'ennui? you an' I both ken jist how vital oor votin' is. Oor mithers an' granmithers didnae die jist fer us tae sit in oan pollin' night, mibbe knittin', or writin' tae th' laddies up th' front, did thae?

    No, ye've goat tae vote. But the prospects o' this election campaign, ah'm dreadin'.

    Mair o' this shite, greetin' Broon an' cuddly Dave? Ah think ah'll go mental wi' fower weeks o' that shite. An' that's why ah'm kindae peripathetic the now, tris dear, ah cannae really be bothered wi them, an' that's no like me.

    Cheerie, ah'm away tae have ma tea.

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  8. Sophia sweetheart! Where have you been? You know I worry about you when you go walkabout.

    You're right. I'm dreading it. Let's be honest; we are in for 4 months of this garbage. We'll all be totally desensitised; what with Brown and his woes, and his wife waiting on cue for the right time to get weepy. I’d say, as my Granny would: ‘It’d bring a tear to a glass eye’, if only it didn’t sound politically incorrect given Brown’s affliction.

    And Cameron won’t spare us with his vision of Britain; a vision some would cross continents to avoid and that others know is all in his pretty little head, which will change every few days as he realises that his last vision lost him points in the polls.

    Unfortunately they have got us to a point where most of them have become figures of fun. We believe absolutely NOTHING that they tell us; and the images that their names conjure up are allegorical. Bath plugs, hanging baskets, moats, toilet seats, helipads, timber framed windows, massive beds for flings with teenage boys, tree surgery, more manure than even the House of Lords can produce, a court of public opinion (I’m Hairy Harbag, you know where to find me) and that wee twat with a banana.

    And yet we HAVE to vote. It’s easy for me. I will vote for the independence of my country. I will probably get my MP, but I won’t get independence on the back of it, but at least I won’t have to vote for any of the little piggies.

    Yes, you’re right. Maybe there was a wee bit of emotion. Not as eloquent as your own in our language, but, none the less emotion. We simply must not let a bunch of third rate conmen destroy the little bit of, admittedly imperfect, democracy that we have got, and that so many others don’t have.

    At least I do have the right to sit here and call Mr Brown a useless waste of space. I wouldn’t risk doing that in Burma about the Generals. You bet I wouldn’t.

    Anyway, it’s nice to see you again... Hope you enjoyed your tea.

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  9. Ah did, thanks.

    See, ah'll no be satisfied, until that blasted auld duster, the Act o' Union is finally consigned tae the bonfire. Fur that's the only wey ah'm ever gaun tae live in a truly modern state, cos it'll huv tae be. Sae long as we let oorsel's be lumbered wi' Westminster rule, we'll be ridden wi' aw' its vermin, the 'hale lot o' them.

    So ah hiv quite an easy time, come pollin' day right enough. Ah dinnae ken whit ah'm worried aboot. An anither thing. Ah'm really really proud o' Alex, and Nicola. Ah think thae baith atand heid an' shooders above the rest o' the bawheids in the big chamber. Thae folk that've been layin' intae her fer that letter, an then him, fer gettin' his sums wrong an' saying he wis 110% ahint her, the eejit. An him a bettin' man tae...

    He wis right tho, tae shout at wee iain grey oan her behalf. Mind she didnae look awfy happy. Ah wid've been clappin' him oan if ah wis her. If that wee iain grey, or auntie bella or ony o' them wid stop gettin' oan at them an jist dae their jobs, they'd get oan a lot faster.

    See ther's me gettin' aw conflated again, ah think ah'm dementing did ah tell ye? See ah'm gaun oan about Big Alec an' it's actually Westminster that' gein' me the boak. It's like the Winter Olympics, ye wished ye cared. But ye dinnae. Jist git oan wi' the Summer yins, wi' the athletics, an' thae gymnasts, an' the swimmin'. When is it again.

    Shite, ah've minded. It's London. Gie me strength.

    Here's hopin' it's well hung. The nixt parliament. Ah wonder if Broon'll try an' cling oan aw weekend efter, like Mr Heath did. He wis always clingin' oan wi' his fingernails, he wis. He tried it oan aw weekend wi' Mr Thorpe, the convicted liberal, an' couldnae get him tae play. He should've offered him money.

    Well here ah'm hopin' we can win in Leith, it's gaun tae go sometime. Like we aw will eventually, it makes sense. Ah've been sayin' it since ah wis wee. An ah know ah'll die in a post-Union Scotland, an' a grateful Scot.

    Ah' the wan gettin aw emotional noo, it's ma nerves. But ah know it's true. Sometimes if ye stand really really still, ye can actually feel the passage o' time, brushin' past yer face. Ye can really feel whit way the winds blawin'.

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  10. Och Sophia, what a load of good common sense you speak.

    Let’s show them by getting as many SNP guys in as possible.

    I don't think there's anything worng with emotion... and that last bit was rather profound I thought.

    Don't leave it so long between visits. I miss you.

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  11. I’m very worried that Cameron is going to lose the election rather than that Gordon Brown will win it. It is incredible that with the country in the worst mess for a generation and Government that has run out of steam and talent to such an extent it pivots on clapped out discredited, has-beens from the House of Lords, and run by a PM slightly less popular than Atilla the Hun (and that is just in the Labour Party) with all the personality and charisma of a dead one eyed camel, that the Tories are not streets ahead. We should not be having all this talk of a hung parliament Cameron should be a shoe in not an also ran.

    The worst thing that could happen is that Gorgon Brown is re-elected.

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  12. Sorry I should say elected not re-elected becasue as we all know Gorgon has never won a General Election.

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  13. The interview with Piers Morgan (a friend of the family) looks quite nauseating. I personally find Mr Morgan to be a sickening self publicist of the worst order almost as bad as Katie Price and her rent a fruitcake approach. The need to bring up the premature death of a child that happened nine years ago just before a General Election is one of the worst bits of political sophistry I have ever heard of. I note that Mr Morgan (no OBE yet but doubtless it will be coming) refers to Mrs Brown as the First Lady, I wonder what HM the Q thinks about that, I would have thought that she would be a better contender for that title (so it might just be an MBE after all).

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  14. Munguin You ever been a Plonker ?

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  15. Mr Mxymotosis propably yes! It happens to us all: evidence yourself, who votes Labour like Pavlov's dog slavers when it hears a bell.

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  16. Never mind Mxyo you may be in line for an MBE as well, what an honour for you!

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  17. A great chance for you to slaver over the First Lady (Mrs Gorgon I mean not the Queen)

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  18. Munguin: As I said, I've not seen the interview (I would have been sick), and I didn't know that they were friends... but he called Sarah Brown ...the First Lady?

    How nauseating.

    But, as Brown clearly cares more deeply about his position, and is so position proud that he hired a private jet from America to take him to a G8 meeting in Japan, so that he would be "up there" with the American President, I can imagine that it would please him.

    It reminds me of the story I read about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, who had been exiled to France after his abdication. He was His Royal Highness the Duke of Windsor, but the King refused to grant her the Letters Patent to be HRH and as a Duchess was entitled only to the style “Her Grace”. However, within his household, the Duke demanded that his staff call her HRH and to bow or curtsey to her as if she had been royal, and their friends did so as well. It pleased them, because power and titles and position were important to them. The fact that it was a fairy tale and not reality, didn’t really matter.

    So First Lady Brown (snigger, snigger)... how does that feel....?

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  19. Tris: several nauseating things and people all came together in a vomit inducing sick fest. Watching the Gorgon squeeze a tear out of his glass eye I could feel it all bubbling up. He better watch out, does he not know that an excess of squeezing can bring on painful haemorrhoids. Then cut to the First Lady also looking teary. And Morgan Pier’s tongue hanging out like a roller blind so desperate to do a bit of Brown nosing and really earn that gong from the British Empire. Mr Myxomotosis in the audience waiting for a bell to ring as a signal for wild rapturous applause that goes on for a little bit longer than everybody else.

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  20. Thank you Munguin. Have you considered a career as a television critic? :-)

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  21. Munguin

    Unfortunately off out tonight but shall sky+ Dear Gordon....


    few more points up in the opinion polls for Labour
    you no what women are like when they see tears

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  22. Oh Niko....

    So, you agree, he did it to get some of his core vote women to feel sorry for him and his "First Lady".

    I think it's disingenuous to suppose that all women are capable of being swayed by such disgraceful behaviour. I'm sure that intelligent people of either sex find this distasteful.

    I hope the other party leaders eschew this kind of Presidential style interview with a “friendly” or “lite” interviewer. It might appeal to the less educated, but it won’t work for most.

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  23. Niko/Myxomotosis: what a great night in store for you, never mind all that porn, you can whizz on the Dear Leader and bring yourself to a climax of joy when he pops one out of his glass ball.

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  24. Tris

    I might of agreed with you 'IF' My wife and daughter hadn't both said they would never! ever !watch (Jordan) Katie price again...........only to find out they both subsequently(shamefacedly) admitted to watching her show...


    Cameron will doing something similar just wait and see.

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  25. Hum Niko...

    I grant you, it is difficult to fathom the working of such minds.

    I hope they aren't taking make-up tips from her btw. I noticed some pictures of her and she surely does look at least 10 if not 15 years older than her supposed age. Nasty .....

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