WHEESHT, WOMAN!

So... yesterday the press was alive and crawling with criticism of Alex Salmond's "behave, woman" comment directed at a Tory minister during his speech in the Commons. 

This despite the fact that it is a perfectly normal thing to say in certain parts of Scotland, and could equally have been  "behave, man", had Anna Sourface not been female.

Now, it's fair to say that Eck probably should restrict himself to speaking the Queen's English when he's in the English parliament, because Scottish expressions are likely to be misunderstood by the main stream London media. However much we are a part of this union, they don't speak our languages and they don't understand the way we say things. We should rememebr too that they a gie easy offendit!

We, however, do understand theirs, and these comments could be interpreted as anti Scottish, even if they were said in jest. 

They are not offensive to me because, honestly, even if I put a great deal of effort into it, I simply couldnt find a tiny part of me that gives a stuff about what some stuck up Tory woman from South Cambridgeshire thinks of us.  Still it's hardly the way to show respect for fellow countrymen, which is presumably what she considers us to be.

I look forward to the press making as much of that as they did with Alex.

I wonder too if, given today's announcement, following the post mortem, that Charles Kennedy's untimely and sad death was caused by haemorrhaging which in turn was brought about by long term over-consumption of alcohol, that those people who took to Twitter to blame the SNP for 'killing him', would like to issue apologies, or at least retract their tweets, and consider looking for careers outside of criminal pathology at which they are clearly not very good.

CHARLES KENNEDY 1959-2015

I was genuinely shocked and saddened this morning when I read on Twitter that Charles Kennedy had died. Mr Kennedy had been in politics since ever I can remember. He was 23 when he was elected and 55 when he died. I simply can't remember politics without him.

I was never a Liberal, although I liked a lot of what they stood for in the days before Clegg, and I certainly voted Liberal on several occasions when Charlie was leader. 

He seemed to stand for decency in a world (politics) where there is precious little of that about.

My particular memory of Kennedy was that he showed himself to be a strong and decisive leader when Blair (and whoever was the Tory leader that week) were salivating over the prospect of going to war in Iraq at the behest of, and with the hope of attracting the approval of, DubYa. It's maybe easy to say that it wasn;t that hard to disagree with the tissue of lies that Blair came up with, but the pressure from Blair and his entourage for a united front from the UK political parties must have been very strong.

Kennedy did the honest and decent thing. Invited to see the evidence, as a Privy Counsellor, ie not for political purposes, he refused to agree to Blair's cry for war, having found the pretexts to be flimsy in the extreme.

His refusal to agree to this, despite having seen the "evidence" that the Secret Services had amassed, sewed the seeds of doubt in the minds of other people who had not been in the privileged position to view the "evidence". (Alex Salmond also refused to vote for the war, but as he was not a PC he hadn't seen the privileged information, thus his opinions didn't carry the same weight as Kennedy's.)

What was disappointing about Kennedy, I thought, was that at a time when it seemed that the Tories and Blair had merged into one party, and the Liberals with 60+ members could have provided some opposition, they didn't.

It might have been due to his illness (for that's what alcoholism is) about which none of us knew. 

After he resignation the Liberals were never the same again. Neither Campbell nor Clegg were a patch on Charlie. Both lacked charisma and his air of honesty and decency. Despite Cleggmania in the run up to the 2010 election, he couldn't manage the numbers Kennedy had overseen as leader.

Tributes have come from across the political spectrum today for a man who seems to have been genuinely popular with all manner of politicians.

In Scotland Willie Rennie paid a tribute to his friend and colleague, saying he was "devastated". They had been together only a short time ago to discuss his political future. Presumably this would have involved him in working for the YES campaign to keep the UK in Europe, a subject close to his heart and an area in which he would have excelled because of his passion for Europe..

Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond paid him glowing tributes too, even if Alex Massie of the Spectator, managed to distort what Salmond said for his own miserable political ends.

Stuart Campbell has already covered the sickening Twitter abuse of the SNP, accused by some of being responsible for Kennedy's death, by taking the seat he was contesting, so there is no point in my mentioning, except to say I never cease to be amazed at how low some people will sink.

++++++++
From the First Minister (at the European Policy Centre, Brussels)

I want to begin today with a few words about Charles Kennedy, former Scottish MP and Liberal Democrat leader.

Charles Kennedy was one of these rare people in politics. He was an incredibly talented, gifted, effective politician - I think one of the most talented politicians of his generation. And yet somehow he also managed to be universally liked across the political spectrum and indeed across wider society. That is no mean feat.

Charles will be remembered for many things. He made an outstanding and extraordinary contribution to, not just Scottish, but UK politics over a 30 year period. But I think he will be chiefly remembered for his principled opposition to the war in Iraq in 2003 and many of the concerns and criticisms he made then were of course subsequently found to be very well founded. And he also then – and perhaps partly because of that – went on to lead his party to its best ever election result in the 2005 general election.

I have some very fond personal memories of Charles. I had the privilege of spending some time with him on a political study visit that we made together to Australia in the mid-1990s. Perhaps my fondest memory from that visit – if perhaps a slightly bizarre memory - was of the two of us skiving off one day to watch Trainspotting in a Melbourne cinema.

I think we were the only two Scots in the audience at that time, so we drew some very strange looks from other people as we were uproariously laughing at lots of jokes that nobody else in the cinema were even beginning to understand. That’s a small, but very special memory that I certainly will always treasure.

The last thing to say about Charles for the moment is this – Charles Kennedy was a proud and passionate advocate of Europe and the UK’s membership of the European Union. His would have been an incredibly powerful voice in the upcoming EU referendum, so for that reason but also for many, many other reasons I think our country today is much poorer for the passing of Charles Kennedy. I am sure I am not the only one here today who wants to send thoughts and condolences to Charles’ family, his friends and to his party colleagues.

RANDOM MONDAY THOUGHTS

I seriously thought better of you Charlie

I never thought better of YOU.

Try it in Scotland and see what happens to you.

Quite believable.

Ask yourself...do I look cute? Will people go awww, when they see him feeding me?
Will it increase his vote chances? If the answer is no, you'd better head for the food bank.

At all costs this person must loose his job.

Gotta make a profit somehow...

He sure learned a lot.

Don;t you love it when a plan comes together?

Uriah Heap and Bob Cratchit next

Expansion of the Big Society?

We are all in it together remember

You should be applying for jobs while you're standing in that queue!

The local what?

You'd think they would know about that by now.

And this is the economy improved?

Hands up who'd like to see IDS doing this?
Two hands for doing it in the snow....

My thanks to Niko for pointing out this article. It paints a picture I know only too well of people hating every minute of their work, terrified of making a mistake or missing a target for fear of having money withheld. Victorian Britain right enough.

RANDOM RAMBLINGS AND PROVOCATIVE PICTURES

At an evening event on Friday May 16th organised and hosted by West Highland College UHI (Fort William) Dave Thompson MSP (Yes) debated with Charles Kennedy MP (No)on whether Scotland should be an independent country. 

Mr. Kennedy represents Ross, Skye and Lochaber at Westminster and Mr Thompson Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch at Holyrood.

Charlie Kennedy

At the event billed as a Referendum Information Evening in Fort William students, staff and members of the public heard a friendly and good natured debate between the two elected representatives. After the opening remarks by Messrs. Thompson and Kennedy there was an opportunity for the audience to ask questions.

Although the MSP and MP agreed upon many things on the night they, of course, diverged on the question of independence.

Dave Thomson

At the end of the evening the college conducted a secret poll of attendees asking how they would vote in the referendum in September. The results were:

• 63 Yes
• 25 No
• 2 undecided

This was a very convincing win for Yes which we hope will be replicated in the real referendum.
**********

The only way to keep Farage out in Scotland, is to vote SNP. The polls show that the Greens won't make it and the Liberals are finished. The last seat could go either to Ukip or the SNP. Let's make sure it is not Ukip.

**********

Munguin's mates, Shona Robison and Humza Yousaf
in Dundee last night

Are you trying to stir up trouble Mr Kelly?
Would this suit your ends? What exactly are your ends?
Do you know any Scottish people?

That's the Tories for you.. soiling their "strides"...
Jeez, who's called trousers "strides" in the last 80 years?

500+ in Galashiels last night for Nicola

Dear old Nick got involved, which was a bit of a mistake
Especially as he was promising to guarantee stuff.
Why don't you get out a pledge board, Nick, you know
like you did with the student fees...?

Well, it's a long afternoon with no one to talk to.

Much more... infact every fibre of his being
(except a debate with the First Minister)
Do jellyfish have "fibre"?

Hmm, you work for the BBC?

Hilarious. Imagine the daft bat doesn't know how to spell where she comes from...
Try again Karen and choose a place you know. West Kensington maybe?

So grassroots you could feed it to George Osborne's horses.

Where were the Labour MPs fighting against this?
Respecting the traditions of Westminster?
Why can they shout over every other speech and not that one?

Exactly. 

This is important. It REALLY isn't about England. It's about SCOTLAND.

ARE MORE CRACKS APPEARINGIN THE ILL-FITTING COALITION?

The Observer has reported that civil servants have been told to stop working on the next edition of the FCO Annual Report on Human Rights, which details incidents of torture and oppression, use of the death penalty and illegal arms trading.

The report is supposedly also a guide to MPs and businesses over which countries it is ethical to trade with, which may or may not have an effect on whether we trade with them or not.

Well, some things have to go, you might say, and why not this? After all, the idea of ethical foreign policy was only something Robin Cook dreamt about for a few weeks before the FCO pointed out what life was like in the real world.

Businesses exist to make money not pass moral judgments, and, in any case, no one much cares what Britain thinks about anything, unless America thinks it too. The CIA’s report is important; this is a “fur coat” exercise.

Last year’s report highlighted atrocities in countries like Russia, China, Gaza and Saudi Arabia among the usual suspects of Zimbabwe, Sudan, Burma, DRC, and Sri Lanka. And what did we do about that?

Of course Milipede the elder, the comic one with the banana, acting opposition spokesman on Foreign Affairs, was trying to insist that Britain leads the world in Human Rights... Sheeesh. You really do wonder sometimes if these people ever even visit Britain, much less spend any time here. Don’t you? I mean, have we banned Chinese goods? Is there no further arms trading with Saudi? Have we stopped speaking to the US because of Guantanamo? Thought not.

Of course it is well known that Cameron didn’t want to slash the 25-40%, that was ordered for elsewhere, from the budget for Embassies. Firstly that would reduce the standing of Britain on the party circuit. People would talk about one over the canapés. “I say, did you see Britain has closed its embassies in Baku and Ulan Bator? Must be in a bad way.”

And of course, a lot of these Ambassadors, who live like kings at our expense, went to Eton or Oxford with David. So that was never going to happen. One doesn’t do that kind of thing to people one was at school with. It’s just not on.

No, instead, in return for the big house, the Rolls Royce, the fat salary and great pension, along with as many servants as you can shake a stick at, ambassadors have been told that they must concentrate on trade. It is feared that ministers are now "blindly" pursuing commercial interests in countries where atrocities are taking place. (As if they didn’t before!!)

So why am I interested in it? Well, it seems that Ming Campbell, one of the Liberal’s ex-leaders, and therefore a man with considerable influence in the party, has said that downgrading the importance of Human Rights would be met with "fierce resistance".

I wonder what that means.

No Dean, this is not Tory bashing. It's Britain bashing. Labour didn't do anything either!

I appreciate that it must be difficult to discipline ministers across two parties, especially when policies ride roughshod across what one of the parties stands for: in this case the Liberals (but in other cases it will be Tories). There are people who embrace the discipline, like Huhne and Clegg, Osborne and Cameron.

The trouble is that on both sides it’s pretty influential people: Ming and Charlie, David Davies and Norman Tebbit who are against. And they matter.

Pics are Ming and Norman...