It’s difficult to know just what the actual figures for the No
Campaign’s income are.
Scotland on Sunday says that they have been given £1.6
million, while The Sunday Herald headlines says £1.3 million.
I wouldn’t know whether that is down to the fact that BT can’t
count, or that the standard of Scottish journalism is dismally low.
I think it may be the former, as I read that Mr McDougall is
said to be humbled by the amount of money that his supporters (almost
invariably English Tories) have stumped up. But he goes on to point out that it
is a great deal less than the “almost limitless” amounts that Alex Salmond can
spend.
Now, I’m not aware of Alex Salmond having any say over the amount
of spending that the YES campaign can make available to fight their side of the
argument. No more, I would have thought than Ms Lamont can dictate how much the
No campaign can spend. Neither is
strictly involved in the admin of these things, as Blair probably knows, even
if he doesn’t understand it.
But Bair goes on to quantify this amount that Alex is
spending as being “hundreds of thousands”. Call me old fashioned but when I was at school,
hundreds of thousands was probably a lot less than £1.6 million, or even £1.3
million.
He states that this money (which Alex does, in fact, have
control over) is taxpayers money which Alex has spent to answer the questions
that the unionists and indeed the Electoral commission have demanded the government
spend to explain their arguments. This clearly is totally different spending
for the millions that the UKOK government has spent, authorised by David
Cameron, getting Civil Servants in London to work on a variety of reports (then
delivered in Scotland by his cabinet ministers).
I remember one showing that Scotland wouldn’t be able to
defend itself against Iran, or North Korea, because no one in their right minds
would want to be in a Scottish army, standing guard in a kilt, at Edinburgh
castle and being photographed by tourists. They would, he implied, much prefer
to be standing outside Buckingham Palace, wearing bright red uniforms and 3
foot hats, being photographed by tourists.
Another suggested that we were too stupid to have any kind
of military intelligence units like MI5 or 6, because presumably anyone with
brains in the Ukok was English and went to Oxford. When thought about Blair’s
dodgy dossiers, I was somewhat relieved about that. I mean Scotland wouldn’t
want to go to war illegally spending billions of pounds it didn’t have and
killing hundreds of thousands of totally innocent people on the basis of some
PhD thesis which was 10 years out of date, and full of holes.
Mr McDougal’s assertions though do prove one thing. How
different life is in Scotland from in England. In England it is good to spend
tax payers’ money to support a side in a argument; in Scotland that is bad.
As a by-the-way, I was
interested to see that an ex-MI6 person made a contribution to the funds, along
with Sir (Goodbye Mr) Chips Keswick. Mr Keswick is:
73-years-old.
His full name is Sir John Chippendale Lindley Keswick.
He was educated at Eton College, the same as Cameron - His family business Jardine Matheson even employed Cameron for three months in an administrative post in 1997.
Sir Chips Keswick is the chief executive of investment bank Hambros, and is also a director at the Bank of England as was his father before him.
His hobbies are described as playing Bridge, and country pursuits - Shooting animals.
His full name is Sir John Chippendale Lindley Keswick.
He was educated at Eton College, the same as Cameron - His family business Jardine Matheson even employed Cameron for three months in an administrative post in 1997.
Sir Chips Keswick is the chief executive of investment bank Hambros, and is also a director at the Bank of England as was his father before him.
His hobbies are described as playing Bridge, and country pursuits - Shooting animals.
He is married to Lady Sarah Ramsay, daughter of the 16th Earl of Dalhousie.
He has supported "Business for Sterling", and sat
on the board of corporate donors to the Conservative Party.
Just your average Scot then, interested in preserving the average way of life in Scotland.
******************
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| Pass me a sick bucket... |
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| Mr Hammond take note... |
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| His wrinkly old coupon looks like a baby's bum. Maybe he uses dirty nappy instead of Oil of Ugly? |
