Sunday 8 May 2011

RANDOM ELECTION TIME THOUGHTS


Have you noticed that the latest London government catch phrase is “in the national interest”? In recent interviews Nick Clegg said it, Cameron said it, Tess May hardly said anything else, Danny Alexander and Michael Moore said it.... I suppose they are trying to tell their supporters that they don’t like each other at all, but they are biting the bullet and tolerating each other “in the national interest”. And maybe they even think that we, or at least some of us, will believe it... instead of believing that they stay together out of sheer naked ambition and fear of humiliation should they be the shortest-lived government since...well, forever, I should think.






The “No” campaign has been telling us how awful AV would be and how we would be stuck forever with weak and unwanted coalitions, whilst FPTP, would ensure strong firm government with sizable majorities. So, something must have gone wrong. After all the London coalition is about as popular as a cornucopia of slugs at the Chelsea Flower Show (yes that is the collective noun for slugs) and it was elected by.....? Whereas the Scottish government, which has a majority of 10 (sizeable given the number of members) was elected by ....oh remind me... how was it elected again?





I was reminded on Thursday night after seeing Paul Air Miles Martin of what a graceless little man he is. A bad looser, he just couldn’t bring himself to congratulate the SNP on their victory. He kept on in an aggressive tone that Labour would hold them to account for every single promise they made in their manifesto. The irony seems to escape him that that is exactly the job of an opposition party...to hold the government to account. I’m surprised he didn’t think they did that in the last parliament. It was certainly what we paid them for. As a son of a baron (chuckle: even one that the House of Lords didn’t want) the unlovely Paul is entitled to the style “The Honourable” before his name. Well... how about that?





I once met Margaret Curren, and in fairness I thought she was not a bad Minister for Social Justice. She and I travelled to a site in Dundee together for her to meet people my organisation had helped to find work there. She seemed a competent woman, on top of the job and furthermore she was good company. So I was disappointed to see the shrill, angry, inarticulate version of Margaret on the election coverage on STV. You used to be much nicer Margaret.




Talking of the TV election coverage...and I can only really speak for STV’s which I thought was excellent (I can’t bear to watch Dumblebum on the BBC)... why is it that they invite MPs in to talk about what’s going on in OUR parliament? I mean they don’t get MSPs or AMs in to comment when they’re electing the English/UK parliament. And in any case isn’t it a bit of a waste of time? All they say that it is “too early to draw any firm conclusions”, and that so and so, “fought an excellent campaign on the doorstep” and was “an exceptional candidate”. What I did enjoy, though, was Bernard Ponsonby’s knowledgeable comments and those of the professor of politics who analysed the results, and trends.





Nick Clegg and Cameron have agreed that we will hear no more about electoral reform now, the AV referendum having been run and any change well and truly trounced. So, I’d agree, the public made it clear they didn’t want AV, not surprisingly seeing as how many babies it would seemingly kill, but we still haven’t had any say on whether we want proportional representation. Have we?




38 comments:

  1. I didn't hear Mrs Curran Tris as I was listening to the BBC, but some of the folk on my Live Chat kept me up to date about her. Dimbleby was doing BBC England not Scotland. That was a mixture with Sally Magnusson until 6am when Glenn Campbell took over. Both were really in need of medical help as they looked in severe shock. :)

    My one regret is that the parliament has lost Derek Brownlee (have I said that already?). He would have made a good tory leader. Never mind, he's sure to get a better paid job in the land of the number crunchers.

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  2. The coalition’s ridiculous “new speak” should form a branch of gibberish all of its own. Do they all get round a table and work out what preposterous rubbish they are going to be spouting next? There is nothing wrong with catch phrases and buzz words (“Calm down dear!” Springs to mind.) when used (like alcohol) in moderation, but when they crop up in every sentence they become obvious and patronising. With the half-wit in Chief and his motley band you could make whole paragraphs out of nothing else. Ones to look out for are:

    “let me be clear”, before a whole pile of unclear garbage.
    “Hard pressed” that’s you lot.
    “British families” as if there is nobody else in the country but families who think they are British.
    “respect” usually with “agenda”, that’s for people in Scotland so that even though we did not vote for them we don’t feel left out despite obvious disrespect like telling US senators how crap our elected government is and £10 Billion tax raids on our off-shore sector, without any consultation, to give “hard pressed” English motorists 1p off their fuel that lasted for less than a week!
    “up and down the land” that is to emphasise how united the UK is, despite Scotland voting overwhelmingly for the Nationalists and an independence agenda. So much so in fact that several supposedly impossible things happened that day like getting a resounding majority in a parliament designed by Labour to make sure the SNP would always be in opposition and winning all ten seats from the North East region and still getting an MSP from the list. Labour never did that when they won all 10 Glasgow seats in 1999 and 2003 (of course now they only have 4 out of the 9....shame!).
    “new politics” we have not heard this one for a while, after it became very obvious that new and old politics were pretty much the same. What with stuffing the House of Lords till they all can’t fit in and all the moaning about MPs new expenses system which was so necessary before the election, but not so after it. Speaker Bercow insisting that lesser MPs clear a path for his august presence and generally acting a lot like Mick Martin.
    “big society” not heard this for a wee while either. This is the half-wit’s legacy that he is worrying about before he has actually done anything. But it got some really bad press after the Lord in charge said he could not volunteer enough time to actually run it and get other people to volunteer. The head of the biggest voluntary agency in the UK said it was rubbish and finally Francis Maude had a Sarah Palin moment on TV when he could not think of anything at all that he did on a voluntary basis.
    There are probably more that have slipped my mind at the moment. You tend to switch off when a coalition politician opens their mouth. Stark contrast to Alex Salmond and the SNP where you move to the edge of your seat and take note!

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  3. Munguin, you forgot the main buzzword of 2008-10 and it's variants - "change", "real change", and "change you can believe in". Stolen from Obama, the three London leaders utilised it to mean something entirely different from what my understanding of the word was. "Change" apparently means "keep things the same".

    Tris - STV's coverage certainly was excellent, and it'll be my port of call for political programming from now on. It was excellent to see Ponsonby joining in with the genuine surprise of the results, rather than following the BBC Scotland tact of trying to find a way to put a dampener on things by discussing how likely it would be that a referendum would really see the light of day before we even knew what the majority was going to be - a response that many unionists have deployed in the immediate aftermath, as I intend to highlight in a blog later today. However, the STV coverage wasn't nearly long enough, and I was dismayed at having to switch to the BBC and Jackie Bird's stupid face at 6am. Then throughout the day, I had to rely on the BBC for later results. What was on STV instead? Daytime rubbish like This Morning and Loose Women. Seriously, can't we have ONE day without those programmes when there's such an important event unfolding?

    It highlighted for me just how much we need the mooted Scottish Network.

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  4. Tris

    Last week I wrote here that a Jackie Baillie and Richard Baker combination would be a "Dream Team" for the SNP.

    This was sent "tongue in cheek" but that was then, it could not happen, could it?

    P.S. Almost caught up on my beauty sleep.

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  5. I see that the cat is well and truly among the pigeons. With that silly old fool of an ex-Scottish Secretary Baron Forsyth of somewhere and fluffy Mundell, signalling that they think the English Executive should wrong foot Scotland by holding their own referendum, thus controlling the agenda and swindling us out of our right. However our leaden Scottish secretary Michael Moore has agreed that it’s up to Alex and Scotland to set the agenda. More coalition cracks?

    Even better English Labour have decided apparently that the best man to lead the new “no “ campaign is none other than Gordon Brown:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1384730/Could-Brown-save-Scotland-UK--Miliband-urges-Gordon-stop-old-enemy-Salmond-breaking-Union.html

    Seeing as the ex-north British Prime Minister always shied away from any debate with Alex in the past. I don’t see how he will be able to avoid one now. And I can’t see his Nokia smashing style of debate doing him any good. They must be crazy!

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  6. Interesting post on The Scotland on Sunday article about the demise of Labour

    I have taken the liberty of copying it below.

    I think it would be a masterstroke, if it were carried out.

    Any other opinions fellow Old Etonians wot?
    John Kenyon,
    08/05/2011 00:12:10
    I wouldn't just worry about getting a coherent strategy for Scotland, if I were Labour right now. Because unless they get lucky and Salmond and Cameron between them miss the golden opportunities staring them in the face, this could be the moment when Labour, thanks directly to its self-interested and highly partial devolution scheme, gets put permanently on the back foot north and south of the Border.

    Consider this. Say Salmond knows he can't yet win outright independence in a referendum and instead goes for "devo-max", involving virtual self-government across the board but retaining a British parliament for defence and a few other common interests. Say Cameron accepts: it solves his little West Lothian problem that worries growing numbers of English voters if he grants Salmond his wish and in return Scottish MPs are removed from all England-only business in London. The Lib Dems, long believers in devolution across the UK, may well also endorse such a carve-up.

    The result? The SNP become the natural party of government in Scotland and continue the work for eventual independence. The Tories remove 41 Labour MPs from Westminster and make it very much harder for Labour ever again to make laws in England.

    What's not to like... unless you're Labour.

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  7. SR: I watched a tiny bit of BBC, but as I might have mentioned before Dumble-Bee gets me so angry, with his condescending attitude, I just couldn't bare it. I can imagine how Magnusson and Campbell must have looked and sounded by the end of our night. I think there will have been big meetings in the brand spanking new headquarters of BBC Scotland to decided how they are going to deal with the obvious popularity of the SNP. It will be interesting to see what comes out of that. More sneery or less sneery?

    I was a bit surprised that Brownlee lost his seat, but you're right, he won't be "signing on" for long. RBS looks as if, despite the massive money WE pay their top execs, they could do with someone who can turn round their financial situation.

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  8. Brilliant Munguin...

    You've analysed the bulk of the buzz very succinctly.

    ... and very amusingly too!

    I was rolling around laughing at that. I wonder they don't see what fools they make of themselves. No, on reflection I don't really wonder at all.

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  9. Doug: I went on laughing with your post.... it’s kinda Orwellian this rubbish they speak. With the various different brands of “change” actually all boiling down to “status quo” before lunch!

    But you make a really serious point about us having some sort of proper tv network of our own. BBC Scotland is, of course, BBC England with a little tartan drapery, but anyone with any talent very soon disappears to London and we are left with Jackie Bird!

    STV is, it seems, a lot better, and Mr Ponsonby, whom I was told was a Labour man, seems to be able to hide his personal political leanings in doing his job professionally. Like you, all political coverage for me will now be on STV. But I too was dismayed when, at 6 the whole thing stopped and we got this Morning tv rubbish. OK, there were no commercial breaks from about 2 am, and I understand that the company needs to make money, but ...just one day without daytime drivel, surely wouldn’t have been too much to ask.

    I lay down and tried to sleep with the ‘Today’ programme, for once at least giving Scotland a more than fair share of the airwaves with James Naughtie in Glasgow!

    Put up a link to your piece here, Doug....I'd like to read it, as I guess most of the MR readers would.

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  10. Well Dubs, they have very little in the way of talent left. Not that they had much to begin with as they send all their best to London where they think the big important decisions are made... and where there’s a chance they will be seen in the same room as the Queen or the Presidents of America or China.

    But that is THEIR interpretation of important. We think health and law and order, education and transport are important.

    Joanne Lamont, we tend to forget, is deputy leader and must be in with a chance. But yes, Jackie Baillie must be a potential leader, even if, as I read, she ruled herself out. We need good firm opposition; every government does. OK having a fruit cake like Iain Gray was good until we were established, but it’s not healthy not to have opposition. Annabel puts up fair and firm opposition, but her position has changed now that we have a majority government.

    I hope we’ll go on consulting. I think that that was one of the things that endeared the SNP to the public; the fact that it wasn’t all confrontation. Alex has given credit to both the Tories (eg police and business rates, both brilliant plans which resonated with the public) and the Liberals (eg the drugs policy). So more of that would work nicely for me.

    Oh dear, I’m laughing uncontrollably again.... Richard ‘knife crime costs England £2.5 million a year, and Scotland £500 million’ Baker. He he he he he he he he. Stop it.

    I’m glad you’re back to your beautiful self. I mean this IS the beautiful people’s blog... just look at wee Munguin.... (Actually I think I kinda slept normally last night too!)

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  11. Ah Munguin. I see they have resorted to teh word "enemy" in the unionist press...already.

    It seems to me that they are giving themselves palpitations about something that is quite far down the to do list.

    Gordon Brown to spearhead the “No” campaign.... hmmmm. On current record he’ll go off on a book signing tour of America half way though.

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  12. I saw Curran and Lamont as well and both reminded me of the worst kind of shrill, shrewish harpies that the Labour party churns out. I can’t remember who it was that described these people as like bagpipes with emphysema. All they could find to worry about was all their cronies in the Labour party and to the devil with Scotland. Thank God they were being dropped at last! I now see that Glasgow Provan is Labour’s safest seat in Scotland where Mr Martin Jr has a majority of just over 2,000. I guess I will now have to say that you could stick a yellow and black rosette on a cabbage in the North East and get it elected lol!

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  13. Interesting article Your Grace.

    What’s not to like, I suppose, is:
    that 1/3 of the population in the north of England, who are labour through and through, might think that constant London Tory government would be too much to take and would want to split from England;

    Cornwall, in that case would definitely want to split;

    Wales would leave too;

    Much though I love the SNP, I wouldn’t want them to have no opposition;

    I wouldn’t want foreign affairs dealt with by London’s Tory government. Its interests would rarely, if ever, be the same as ours. And they would be wasting our tax money fighting idiotic wars with people that 2 months before they had been flogging arms to.

    Nope... Total independence is the only thing that would work. But I’ll accept Devo-max as a stepping stone any day. It’s easier to lose the union from that position than from the current one.

    I suspect though Your Lordship is worried about his entitlements on the red benches and his £300 worth of Bollie a day?

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  14. Munguin:

    Can I just pick you up on your disrespectful way of addressing the son of a Baron? Martin Junior is in fact The Hon. Martin Junior...and don't you forget your place.

    That man went on about poor people, as did Lamont, in a city that has been represented by Labour since there was Labour, and in constituencies which, by comparison with the rest of the country, have just got poorer and poorer.

    And his father accepted a seat in the House of Lords, having "represented" these people in Westminster for 30 years. A proud record for the Noble Hypocrite...erm I mean ...Lord.

    BTW I just heard that every seat that Milband and Balls visited.... turned SNP. So hopefully they will come up and do their best to tell us that the idea of independence is ridiculous. That way we could start looking for possible embassy buildings now!

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  15. Tris I'm terribly sorry. What a great honour it is to have the names of these august personages mentioned on here. I’m curtseying as I type this!

    I hope we have a very long campaign for the referendum indeed, in light of that intelligence, so that Ed Milliband and his sidekick Ed Balls can visit every constituency in Scotland to tell us how awful it would be for the Labour Party if we got rid of them forever. Why, how selfish of us without their 41 MPs from Scotland Ed might never get to be Prime Minister of the English Executive and Ed Balls might never get to play with all that lovely Scottish oil money as English Finance Minister at the London Treasury, that would never do!

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  16. It is ma burday and I raise a glass of red (Champers soon, again!) when the guests arrive, to you all here. You lads and lassies hoem in Scotland brought a tear or two to ma een.

    Well done!

    I am in my kilt as French women is soooooo easy with a kilt half on.

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  17. Already much talk about the referendum going on. And with the doublespeak politicians doing much of the talking, it's hard to know what's real and what's not. The Unionists want the SNP to hold the referendum RIGHT NOW thay say. This would of course prevent any extended period during which an educational campaign could be mounted, and during which the people of Scotland could engage in rational thought and careful deliberation.

    Then there is the charge (which I read in one of the papers) that Salmond has been told that the referendum can't legally be mounted by the Scottish Parliament at all. That such a referendum could only legally be initiated by Westminster. On the other hand, Cameron seemed to assume that there WILL be a Scottish referendum, and said that he will oppose it politically. He didn't seem to suggest a legal constitutional challenge. But maybe that would be a fall-back position?

    Surely the SNP needs lots of time to fashion the form that the referendum would take. Just how much detail would it entail? A simple declaration of intent? With the enormous issues of the form of governance under a Scottish constitution, and the disentangling of the various legal, political, and economic matters affecting Scotland and the former UK, to be settled later, during a transition period?

    Of the major nations of the earth that broke away from the yoke of Britain and the tyranny of the British Crown (an American view here...LOL), many have remained within the Commonwealth and retained the Monarch as Head of State. This seems bizarre and anachronistic beyond belief as regards countries like Canada and Australia.

    On the other hand, however annoying it must be for modern Canadians to have the Queen show up from time to time and claim to be "Queen of Canada", the Canadians are for all practical purposes independent and self-governing.

    Anyway, it would seem that there are people in Britain who unaccountability have a real emotional attachment for the Monarchy. So, I would think that an independent Scotland would be much easier to sell to these people if it presupposed the possible continuance of the Monarch as Head of State, and Scottish membership in the Commonwealth. Is the SNP position on independence wedded to a republican form of government and an elected Head of State? Infinitely preferable of course, but maybe harder to sell politically?

    Sorry for the length. Just some random thoughts that occurred as I've seen comments on STV and in the press. Exciting times for Scotland! But enormous issues lie ahead as you've noted.

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  18. Tris.

    I gave up on the BBC, they just went on about AV AV AV. As you say STV were excellent. My brother had his laptop and was tuned into the STV live twitter updates and we were getting results even before they were declared on the TV.

    I was on my Facebook page following the status updates from SNP HQ. They were really superb on the night and again were well ahead of the delegations. Bernard Pon of STV put in a good shift and he was generally amazed at the results coming in.

    I could not believe my eyes when Lamont came within 800 votes of losing her Pollock seat! Pollock lol it's been bed rock Labour even before the big bang. Even though she held onto her seat, afterwards she was very calm but shell shocked and none of her usual negativity came out. I hope she is the next leader of Labour, Salmond needs a nasty cretin to wind him up at PMQ's.

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  19. Also totally agree with Subrosa. Derek Brownlee will be a big loss to parliament. He was honest and ambitious and worked hard when the budgets came up. Far more than I can say for Andy Mr Chips Kerr.

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  20. Deux pas, Milord, me semblent une très bonne idée. Et oui, bon anniversaire à toi et bonne chance avec les femmes françaises prêtes à se donner pour un diner en ville!

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  21. I've also been thinking about our US neighbors to the north who have just had an election that also produced a surprise majority government. Prime Minister Stephen Harper led the Tories to a majority victory which reshaped the political landscape of Canada. The first Tory majority since 1988, with the long dominant Liberals in opposition.

    It was of course sad to see the Prime Minister forced to go to the Queen's Governor-General to inform him of the intention to form a government. So very British and monarchical!

    If only the Treaty of Paris of 1783 could have been negotiated to compel His Majesty to cede ALL of the British North American territories to the new American Republic, and not just the lands west to the Mississippi, the Canadian people would no longer be toiling under the British yoke. They could be toiling under the American yoke instead. ;-)

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  22. Tris, I think Bernard Ponsonby was actually a Liberal councillor or candidate at one stage in his life.
    Regarding Bernard and the STV coverage, does anyone have a clip of the moment when La Curran went ballistic and accused the media of pro-SNP bias?
    If not a clip, at least the time it occured so I can watch it on STVPlayer. Thanks.

    Bill Pickford.

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  23. Well Danny, in as much as I understand it, the Scottish parliament does have the right to do call the referendum.

    It’s been suggested that London will call it first, obviously choosing questions like:

    Do you want to split up the UK and cause destitution and pestilence to fall across Scotland so that in a few years’ time you will all be crawling around eating earth and wearing old tartan rags while Alex Salmond disappears off to live in Sean Connery’s mansion in California, or do you want to stay in the bosom of mother Britain where we will look after you and give you extra money and care for you and make sure you have everything you need?

    Clearly nothing is ever clear in the British constitution because it is not written and therefore made up as they go along. A good example of this was when the Duke of Windsor abandoned his job for a twice divorced American. He was given the style HRH and she was only Her Grace. Absolute nonsense of course because a woman takes her husband’s title and his style and position. But they said at the time that a divorcee couldn’t be a member of the royal family (ha ha) lest, making a habit of it (as she had), she divorced David and went on to marry someone else. You can’t, they said, take the style HRH away from someone so she might marry some sleazy foreigner and carry her membership of the Engish roayl family with her.

    Which was fine, until they did just that with Diana and Fergie, with no costitutional problem at all, as soon as they divorced their particular Windsors.

    So perhaps we won’t be allowed to hold a referendum. No point in asking Cameron. He knows nothing and usually speaks before he thinks. He’s only the prime minister because of his connections. He’s not really very bright.

    As you say there are a million things to decide. One of my criticisms of the recent referendum was that it only gave a very limited choice. Perhaps the stark choice between independence and dependence is too great for some people. And it may be that if we ARE allowed to hold a referendum, we should include the third choice of almost independence, but maintaining a tie to the UK.

    Salmond is a friend of the royal family and the SNP as such has no republican agenda. Some people within it (Rosanna Cunningham for example) are avowed republicans, others are staunch royalists. As I say Alex is friendly with the royals.

    I don’t think that independence would mean removing the royals. Queen Elizabeth II of England is also Elizabeth I, Queen of Scots. I suppose that means Charlie would be something of Scots as well...huh!

    There are many things that would need t be sorted. But it’s been done before (Republic of Ireland) so it’s not beyond the wit of man to have it done.

    I certainly wouldn’t trust anything that the UK came up with. Blair (I think it was) tried to have the maritime border redrawn in the most ridiculous way giving England all the oil. Cameron promised not to get involved in the AV referendum and then did, and what’s more wrote utterly reprehensible articles for his pet papers, saying that we were sleepwalking into a disaster... one he had chosen as an option. God only knows what lies he would tell to keep Scotland and its oil. And, of course, he doesn’t want to do down in history as the PM who lost Scotland.

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  24. We almost never see or hear of Lamont, Allan. She just seems to sit and nod at everything that Gray says, which makes her a muppet in my book. The idea of her as a leader is plain silly.

    I agree about Mr Brownlee. From what I can gather, he played a constructive role at budget time... unlike certain others.

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  25. Danny, under Thatcher and Blair and Brown it seems that WE were under the yoke of America.

    Cameron started off creeping but seems slightly less inclined to it now. Perhaps it has been made clear by the White House that creeping doesn't work with Mr Obama.

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  26. Tris

    I just fail to see why the SNP should work with either Labour or the Lib Dems. At a time when their votes could have made a difference to the people of Scotland, they just opposed for no other reason than the SNP proposed it. Now that their votes are much reduced they suddenly want to co-operate. They should be told to take a hike.

    From my talking to voters, one of the big points people made was, how can anyone vote against anything that tries to make a start with Scotlands alcohol problem. Voting down minimum pricing highlighted to many people just how hollow and shallow the opposition parties were.

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  27. Bill,

    Hi and welcome to the Republic.

    I looked through Youtube and as befits her lack of impotance mrs Curren isn't much featured. There's certainly nothing up to date.

    I know the moment you mean though. "The Tory Sun" was supporting us... said Maggie, forgetting that until about 14 months ago it was the "Labour Sun".

    The Sun backs winners; it doesn't make them. It decided to back the SNP when it saw the writing on the wall.

    For a guess I'd say somewhere just before, or just after 2. I think she was the second Labour person who was on. But that's a wild guess!

    Cynical Highlander is awesome when it comes to finding clips.... Are you there CH?

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  28. Oh yeah Bill, she also seemed to forget that they had the Record, the Scotsman and the BBC on their side...

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  29. I take your point Dubs... but I think that what the public liked about the SNP (well one of the things) was that it was forced by its minority government status to be concilliatory and co-operative.

    I reckon that that's what people want... but it has to be genuine 2 way co operation.

    Let's see if it works, is what I would suggest.

    Far too much stuff goes through the English parliament simply by weight of whipped numbers. I'd hate to see us make the same messes that they make.

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  30. On the subject of the TV coverage, STV was the only Live TV streaming on the internet to North America that I found. And it was really good, as Tris noted. But as Doug said, it went off the air at 6:00 AM BST. That was only Midnight here in the American midwest, and I would certainly have enjoyed a few more hours of SNP political trouncings...LOL. And when STV went off, I didn't even have the BBC option. :-(

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  31. I'm here but no I'm not FREE!

    Only 45mins I doubt the Curran episode is there unless someone has downloaded the complete program.

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  32. When something good from the BBC shows up on YouTube, you have to be fast, since they will always have it pulled pretty quickly.

    Just for a silly little thing like copyright infringement....LOL.

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  33. I am goosed.

    7 bottles of Champers and 2 of still amongst 6 adults and 3 of the wummin.

    4pm until 10:30 at the table.


    Bugger!

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  34. 3 of them wummin

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  35. Off to Portugal tomorrow and a a tasting fir my private wine cellar.

    Nest stop Singapore for a liver transplant.

    It is a hard life but some anointed one has to do it.

    Anyone want to by my franchise?

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  36. LOL Danny... It's our damned stuff anyway. We paid for it! I don't know why the BBC has to be tight with it.

    I must admit I'd have been gutted if coverage had gone off at mindight... and I'm sorry Danny, my internet was down so i couldn't even keep you up to date.

    Trust me, you wouldn't want BBC. They are possitively MAD about this. They will doubtless do everything in their power to prevent our government being a success...

    But they had better watch out. We may get control of broadcasting... and then the fan will hit the .... nope, I got that wrong!"!! You know what I mean.

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  37. Erm... are you selling your title? Isn't the Prime Minister the only one who can do that?

    Does your liver go with it?

    Anyway, get sobered up and get back here. We need all good men to fight for our future.

    I mean, with respect, your grace!! :)

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