Thursday 11 August 2016

DEAR MRS MAY...

...CAN I PLEASE HAVE A JOB?

I'm not going to be getting into the rights and wrongs of an English railway company's policy in transferring responsibility for the opening and closing of doors on their trains, becasue frankly I don't know enough about how they operate to make an informed decision on safety, or on the likelihood of the guards being paid off, or having their hourly rate reduced, because of lower levels of responsibility.

But I really never thought to see a Labour man encourage the Tories to crush the unions, unless of course he thought that in highlighting the problem he could perhaps encourage some votes for Mr Corbyn to transfer to the right winger Owen Whatsit.

I wonder what McTernan does for a living these days. 

I know he was employed by Jim Murphy in the run up to, and the duration of, his extremely brief period as leader of the Scottish branch office. What happened when Murphy was, shall we say, less than successful in that role, is unclear, but McTernan seemed to be persona non grata at the court of Kez. And who could wonder at that...she didn't have 40 seats to lose. (Although even without McTernan's help she managed to lose 13!)

He now writes a column for the mad twins at the Daily Telegraph, but we suspect that that would hardly keep body and soul together. Private Eye reported that the remuneration for his ex-colleague, "Bomber" Tom Harris, doing exactly the same job, was as little as £20,000. 

He is also an "associate" of this organisation!

But who knows. Maybe McTeacake has desires to return to the front line. And why not the Tory Party? After all he can be credited with a few massive coups for them already as Scottish Labour will testify.

And... While describing himself as a "socialist", McTernan has expressed an extensive range of views inimical to traditional Labour ideology, such as advocating privatisation of the NHS and London Underground, calling for the widespread closure of libraries, opposing the Living Wage, demanding a third invasion of Iraq and opposing renationalisation of railways, despite those positions being contrary to official party policy). In 2015 the left-wing Labour MSP Neil Findlay accused McTernan of being willing to "say anything in the media for money"

And his Wikipedia page (above) shows that his soul is already theirs!

18 comments:

  1. As little as £20,000 you say. Heck it's a damn sight more the Munguin pays with the cheques that never come. Wonder if the Torygraph would like my stuff? Err probably not!

    McTernan and his ilk - the reason BLiS is dying.

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    1. Look, Munguin sends the cheques. Can he help it if your newly privatised post fails to deliver to anywhere north of Watford?

      If you can write right wing crud, I'm sure the Telegraph would welcome it (but i've heard that the twins pay in vampire blood or Sark sea shells!)

      Don't say we didn't warn you.

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  2. Well,as we know from the story the Torygraph published about Nicola Sturgeon's encounter with the French consul,they will print any old rubbish that comes their way provided it fits with their political agenda.
    A person with no credibility writing incredulous stories for a paper with no credibility is the stuff of New Labour.
    The Beano and Dandy had more veracity.

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    1. D C Thomson probably pay even less that the weirdo twins!!!

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  3. He may describe himself as a socialist, but he fits no description of a socialist; that I am aware of.

    He seems to travel the world, destroying "Labour" movements and their chances of governance; though they appear to be managing fine without his " guidance " at present.

    Dean will be a fan, I'd have thought.

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    1. Any Tory must love him. Ruth owes some of her success to the way he messed up Scottish Branch Office

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  4. He's the epitome of New Labour, which is another name for Conservative. Remember that he battled hard in Australia to undermine Julia Gillard's campaign ensureing the election of the dreadful Howard, then popped in on Scotland to try and ensure the success of right-winger James Murphy. He has three great virtues: 1. consistency; 2. comic value; 3. prim lips.

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    1. Oh, I wish you hadn't mentioned that last one. I'd really rather not think of his lips. Still you are bang on. Midas in reverse.

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  5. I suspect that he is trying his best to be the Resident Idiot on your blog?

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    1. Well, he certainly appears rather frequently, making a pitch for the title.

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  6. I hear from the grapevine, well the gutter where the Tories frequent actually, that the only free job available for him at the moment is as an assistant to the junior bag carrier to the P.M. In other words he'd be a junior to the junior who is none other than Scruffy Fluffy!

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    1. Well, it has to pay better than the mad twins, don?t you think.

      Nice to see you here again after all this time Arbroath. We missed you!

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    2. Sorry for the self enforced disappearance act, something just happened at the time and I felt I had to get away from all things political, so to speak, otherwise I'd explode and that would not have been a pretty sight!

      I hear the junior to junior bag carrier pay rate is around Minimum wage (London rate not Scotland rate!)

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    3. Munguin forbids you to explode. No ifs, no buts!

      If it's Westminster rate then he will probably be able to retire in a few years to a nice place in the sun, where he can mingle with the Duke of Westminster's Trust Fund, y'know, the one that saved him all those millions in death duties, staunch Englishman and close friend of the Queen that he is.

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  7. Does anyone remember Muriel Gray's 90s documentary series on modern art? It's probably unfashionable to say it round these parts, but it was really rather excellent. She poked at the pomposity of modern art by presenting fake art as the real thing and using actors to pretend to be hilariously pretentious artists. It was only just slightly more ridiculous than the real thing so each episode was completely believable. She revealed the whole thing as a spoof in the last episode. After the reveal, the whole thing was obviously a fiction but until then it wasn't. It was very well done. I'm still waiting for John Mcternan's reveal. You know, it will be some kind of situationist statement on modern politics. It's almost as though he's dropping hints already, upping his parody each time in plain sight. That's my theory, anyway.


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    1. Well, it's not as daft as it sounds (not that I'm suggesting any of your theories are ever daft... far be it! Well... not TOO daft.)

      Anyway, this could be McTeaurn doing some sort of elaborate experiment for his sociology D.Phil, or Infill, or something.

      He wants to see how far he can take the public. It would explain why he's prepared to work for the peanuts Tingha and Tucker pay.

      Muriel used to be Ok, till she went aff the rails with hatred for the SNP

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    2. I remember that series and it was brilliant. Muriel Gray is probably ok; I think she feels a need to be a lone voice howling against the majority. So back in the 80s/90s, she was in favour (to some degree at least) of independence. Now that most people are, she makes her presence felt by espousing the greatness of the UK union. It keeps her in the public eye and, as in the case of McTernan Predicts, that's how you get your money.

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    3. Certainly in McT's case, you wonder how he makes much out of being wrong all the time.

      Can't quite suss Gray. She could have been one of the leading lights in YES and she was pretty strongly independence in the past. Maybe she just got crabbier in her old age?

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