Tuesday 16 February 2016

JIMMY REID ON BLAIR AND BROWN AND THE EU

24 comments:

  1. "I didn't leave the party, the party left me."

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    1. As with so many people. But yeah, it was Jimmy who encapsulated it with these words.

      What a bloke. I'd have loved to met him or heard him speak...

      It stands to reason that if you fought for workers' rights, decent wages and conditions and welcomed the social chapter, and if you were anti war and against nuclear weapons, that, as Labour became more and more right wing, and fell in love with Bush and his nutty neocons, why thee hell would you stay with them and help finance them?

      I think the bulk of SNP members are ex-Labour but now wanting rid of a country that can ask back money paid to a soldier becasue he had the temerity to die before the end of the month, after the bank transfers had been made, but can find extra money so that parliamentary acts for the records can be printed on velum!

      Loonies.

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    2. That story about vellum shows just how out of touch some people are. I know it's a long standing tradition, and there are good arguments against digital storage. However, the option was there to use high quality printer paper which would have been as good as vellum.

      zog

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    3. As usual, anything that THEY might get pleasure from is kept, no matter what it costs (I know it's not a huge sum, but it would pay for a couple of nurses, which god knows they need, and would save two 17 yos being left to give medical advice to scared mums with sick babies.)

      They could sell that crown and some of the Rembrandt and what have yous... Then maybe they could afford to build sheltered housing for people who dont have a Dower House in their grounds, or a North wing that they can turn into a granny mansion.

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    4. I can see why thee still use velum, they have documents of a 1000+ years in age, with little or no degradation.
      Paper, high quality printing or otherwise, is acidic and self destructs over time. And digital technology, though fantastic, is a relatively new storage medium; whose longevity is unknown.

      I would sell everything, the royals have amassed. They only got where they are because some ancestors stole from someone else, and claimed "God" had chosen them to be ruler.
      You would send a person for a psychological examination, these days, and not line up to fight for nor fawn over them.

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    5. Point taken, Jim, but they don't print everything on Velum.

      In any case, why would you need the original Act 200 years on. We have to accept that things degrade. Why even one day the queen will die!!!!

      Interestingly, it is only in England and Wales that the monarch rules by the grace of god. Here is is at the will of the people... well, notionally anyway.

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    6. That Conan has been echoed by so many people since. I am sorry I could not hear him, either my faulty hearing or been televised by the BBC who make a point of recoding everything right beside someone working machinery or as in this case talking louder than the personbeing recorded.

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    7. Most of the readers on here used to be Labour supporters. Some members.

      Labour moved to the right and we stayed where we were.

      We hated wars ion the Middle East; we hated bank worship; we hated what they did to the unemployed after a not bad start with New Deal.

      We loathed their privatisation and their housing bubble.

      They moved away from the old neighbourhood and forgot their roots.

      We didn't change.

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    8. I think most parties start to move way from their traditional support once they have been in power. Was in the Conservatives who once got slaughtered in Canada not so long ago?

      I've never joined or been overly supportive of any party. All parties do have some sensible policies, but unfortunately at times they seem loathe to work with one another for various reasons. Yet if you look at how the committees work, most especially the Public Accounts Committee, they are perfectly capable of working together for the public good. PAC is notorious at ripping apart senior figures.

      I've watched a few of Jimmy Reid's speeches and interviews, and he was a rarity. Always presented his arguments in a calm and dignified manner. I don't think anyone could win an argument with him. He could persuade you that black is white.

      zog

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    9. True.
      It would be better for everyone if parties would work together a lot more of the time, as we know that are capable.

      Not sure why the don't . I can't imagine many of them imagine that we are impressed by their shows of visceral hatred and the continual jockeying for supremacy.

      I know I'm not.

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  2. A great man, very sadly missed. What a contribution he would have made to the Referendum debate.

    He would have wiped the floor with the Red Tories of Darling, Brown and Galloway.

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    1. Agreed. He would have shamed them. I bet he would have remembered the Noble Lord Baron Darling of Seven Homes, when he was a lad marching with a banner with some measure of decency.

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  3. He got the measure of the "Workers party" there. We'll take your money, but break our covenant with you; as long as we get a sniff of power and a snout in the trough.

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    1. That is about it. No wonder it has left so many people.

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  4. A great man and taken before his time .
    A huge loss to our movenent and Scotland

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    1. Imagine him giving a speech at a YES rally.

      A man who has been through it; lived it.

      What must elderly Labour people think about the likes of Brown, Blair and Benn the younger?

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  5. A genuine guy with principles and a conscience, unlike much of the labour lot now. It is almost as if they were infiltrated by right wingers to destablise and destroy labour, if so, they did a good job!

    Regards paper, I use acid free high quality paper, cotton rag, ie no wood pulp, for my wood engravings, (being a printmaker) and it should last a good couple of hundred years if stored well and framed correctly. There will be much higher quality, longer lasting paper and inks out there than I can afford, which would I imagine be as good as vellum. Vellum is surely an unnecessary expensive way to use for modern documents, but more importantly the idea of a government demanding money from a dead soldier is abhorrent.

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    1. Hi Hetty,

      I remember reading in Mandelson's autobiography that they believed that post Thatcher they would never win in the south of England (where a lot of the population lives) if they continued to be Labour.

      They reinvented themselves as New Labour (a bit like New Persil, I guess.

      Thanks for your take on the paper situation. How long would vellum last?

      Yes, I was shocked when I read that about the soldier.

      http://money.aol.co.uk/2011/10/26/armys-433-claw-back-from-dead-soldier/

      I think I would have told them to get stuffed... but perhaps more brutally.

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  6. tris and the nats


    Anybody who slags off the Labour Party is considered a great Man/Woman by the extremist
    nats and the more influential the more worthy of praise for slagging off the Labour Party .
    Jimmy Reid great man conceded his analysis of new labour panjandrums also conceded.
    The fact for many years he reviled the snp and they him seems to be erased from snp history
    also that he was a true socialist and If alive would have caused consternation in the leadership of the snp With his left leaning views being out of favour in the today's snp

    Still when the man and the myth contradict ignore the man praise the myth
    And hate Labour and anyone who supports them.

    The party left Conan hell yeah anyone who loves partying
    Would leave him.....miserable OLD git

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    1. Oh Niko. I wouldn't like to be you when Conan reads that.

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    2. I think you'll find that the SNP are more left of centre, than today's Labour party.
      They're not perfect, but they're a damn site better than the shysters masquerading as caring, compassionate politicos that inhabit (not) Labour.

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    3. That's true Jim. No party is perfect. They all have policies that we wouldn't agree with; they all have their members or officials that you'd cross a continent to avoid, but if you're looking for a sensible left of centre party, SNP seems to have it, even if you don't want independence for your country.

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  7. Interesting,some people believe there are alternative or parallel universes, that Niko can comment from whichever one he inhabits, should be of interest to science.
    O/T
    Was it this blog that had the William Wallace song/ video.

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    1. Some times there's just not much you can say to Niko, Golfie.

      No, it wasn't us, sorry.

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